Discography

Hideout Workers' Comp Vol II 2008

Some words just cop up again and again when people start talking about the Hideout. Usually they're embarrassingly earnest - words like "collaboration:", "creativity", and "community". All those words were in heavy rotation when the first Hideout Workers's Comp rolled out in 2003. They're just as true this time around.

In business since 1934, our creaky little tavern on a dusty dead-end street famously welcomes all comers. Musicians, electricians, artists, teachers, writers, bluebloods, and bikers have found their way to Wabansia and Ada streets and discovered an alternate living room inside this tiny balloon-frame house. In the 13 years sunder current ownership, the stage at the Chinook Lounge has played host to everyone from free jazz freaks and country crooners to metalheads and Mavis Staples. In the (unusually concise) words of c-owner Tim Tuten, it truly is "the neighborhood bar for the global village."

So it's probably no shock that the Hideout Worker's Comp Vol. II is more eclectic than ever. The musicians collected here are on the payroll as bartenders, sound engineers, barbacks, cocktail waitresses, and door staff, collectively they're a formidable brigade of talent. As contributors to and curators of this compilation - which was locally mixed, mastered, pressed, printed, and hand-cut... they've produced a truly inclusive reflection of both the bug tent spirit of the bar we love and Chicago's diverse music scene at large.

People joke that no one ever really quits a job at the Hideout and that's ridiculously obvious here. Sure some of the bands have broken up, and some old friends may have wandered away, but others are back in full force, along with some new faces offering fresh surprises. So pull up a stool, listen up and let us pour you a pint.