Hello My Name is Steve
Coronavirus
( COVID-19 )
Update
For the safety of our community and its people , Impact Fuel Room will be closed and all shows rescheduled and postponed for the time being .
We are grateful for many of our customers who have purchased tickets to these shows , and we will be reaching out with updates as we learn more .
Check www . impactfuelroom . com for updates . Thank you for your patience , stay tuned and stay safe !
Steve Wynn and Linda Pitmon
For many enterprising artists , live-streaming concerts from home during last year ’ s pandemic lockdown became a requisite new skill that demanded mastering ; finding a way to implement several online platforms to your benefit when touring was no longer possible . But for Dream Syndicate bandleader Steve Wynnand his drummer wife Linda Pitmon , it had a cold , clinical downside . “ We did about 30 shows , mainly for Facebook , in 2020 , and we did most of them sitting in our living room with an iPad on a tripod ,” he says . “ Then you finish the last song , turn it off , and your show ’ s over , and you ’ re still sitting on your couch , thinking , ‘ What the hell ? What just happened ?’ Then you look on Facebook and see that 5,000 people just watched that , so you had a connection , but now it ’ s over .”
Wynn and his missus aim to change all that that last month , when they launched their month-
02 • 2021
-long " Impossible Tour ," presenting 13 hourlong virtual shows in 13 separate cities both overseas and Stateside , in simulated versions of some favorite local clubs that The Dream Syndicate has played before . On paper , it looks preposterous : It kicks off in Milan , Italy ’ s hip Germi venue this week , then ricochets through other exotic waystations like the Tiki Bar in Athens , Greece , Pop Torgal in Ourense , Spain , Loppen in Copenhagen , Denmark , and finally grinds to a halt February 28 at the famous Mercury Lounge in their native New York . But through a site called StageIt , it was relatively easy to piece together at The Chimp Factory , the couple ’ s new rehearsal space in Queens , just a few blocks from their old broadcasting HQ , their apartment . The only thing missing will be the sweaty , cramped tour van . IE : Chart your personal pandemic arc , starting last March . STEVE WYNN : Well , throughout it , I ’ ve mainly been keeping in close touch with all my various bandmates ( from The Dream Syndicate , The Baseball Project , Gutterball , Danny and Dusty ) and staying informed that , say , Peter Buckhas been busy , too . But I think about this stuff , and I feel sheepish to complain that I can ’ t tour and stuff because people have much bigger problems , and I know that . But it is a hard thing when you ’ ve spent your entire life doing exactly that . Just from a musician ’ s point of view , you spend your whole life playing music , and there ’ s joy in doing that . A joy in connecting with people in real-time , traveling from place to place , and just the randomness and the adventure of the whole thing . Plus , you ’ re getting better at what you do , night by night — all of that . And I ’ ve been doing this for 40 years now , and I didn ’ t get into it to be famous , I didn ’ t get into it to make a million dollars , and I didn ’ t get into it out of inertia . I got into it because I really enjoy doing this . And I dove into the punk rock right away . I was up the road from San Francisco , going to school in Davis and playing in bands and all that . And I remember at the time , the bane of our movement was metal and disco , although it ’ s amazing to see how much indie
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6 illinoisentertainer . com february 2021