Lin's Bin

Got a question for XRT's Morning Host, Lin Brehmer? Well, now you can ask him!

Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings at 7:15, with an encore performance at 6:15pm, Lin will be answering e-mails sent to him by XRT listeners, and those who are chosen will receive a Prize Pack from Miller Genuine Draft!

Just e-mail your question to linsbin@wxrt.com, be sure to put "Lin's Bin" in the subject line, and your mailing address and phone number in the body of the e-mail. Then listen to Lin Brehmer in the mornings and you could win! Brought to you by Miller Genuine Draft.

Lin's Bin Archives

3/02/07: Celebrity Shame?
2/26/07: Native Americans?
2/23/07: Behind the Scenes?
2/21/07: Reunion Tours part 2?
2/19/07: Lin Brehmer for President?
2/16/07: Reunion Tours?
2/14/07: Perfume part 2?
2/12/07: Perfume?
2/9/07: Strange part 2?
2/7/07:  Strange?
2/5/07:  Post Bowl?
2/2/07:  Bears?

For more Lin's Bin Podcasts, visit 93XRT.com!

You already know that Lin Brehmer is your best friend in the whole world, but now you can be ours… literally!  And that has its perks!

Just for listing XRT as one of your Top Friends, you will have the chance to win concert tickets, artist CDs, XRT apparel and more! 

Each week we will pick 4 winners who have 93XRT in their Top Friends list, put you up on our Top Friends List and give you an excellent prize.

Add us as one of your Top Friends and check back every week to see if you're one our Best Friends in the Whole World!

By now, if you haven't, you might be missing out.

Over the last few years, 93XRT has been bringing big name artists to perform and be interviewed for some lucky XRT VIP's in the intimate confines of Schubas in Chicago. If you've ever had the opportunity to attend one of these, you know how special they are. If you haven't, get a load of the names that have played there recently:

Dave Matthews, David Gray, Death Cab for Cutie, Snow Patrol, Guster, O.A.R., Lenny Kravitz, John Mayer, Pete Yorn, Cake, Sarah McLachlan, Ben Harper, Liz Phair, Travis, Melissa Etheridge, Garbage, The Wallflowers, Better Than Ezra, Ani DiFranco, Goo Goo Dolls, Keane, Ray LaMontagne, and many more.

Yes...AT SCHUBAS!

You can't buy your way in, you can only win thru XRT, and we record these for broadcast, so keep listening to hear when we'll air these exclusive performances.

Check out 93XRT.com for your chance to win to see these once in a lifetime performances.

It's tough to find a better night out of live music than at Bucktown's Double Door. Aptly named for the fact that there are two doors, a North Avenue entrance and another on Damen. One will get you into the venue while the other will leave you standing outside staring in like a moron before hearing a voice from inside yelling "go to the other door". If you don't know which is which, I won't ruin the fun. No need to go in right away, though. Arrive ahead of time and hit up some of the area's many bars. Some pre-show drinks at the hip Pontiac Café or perhaps try Cans beforehand (because there's nothing finer than drinking out of aluminum, right?).

Now you're ready for some rock and roll, and if you're lucky enough to get in early, then snag one of several tables on the main floor, or a spot at the mile-long bar. I don't condone skipping out on the openers, these guys deserve to be heard - and who knows they could be the next best thing, but we've all been to those shows when its just plain painful. No need to worry when you're at The Double Door, escape downstairs to play some pool or head upstairs and take a comfy seat in the back and watch the action safely from the closed circuit TV's.

Here's a little secret for the women, and sometimes men if no one is looking...but right up front, stage left, there's a private ladies bathroom. This fact seems to be ignored many nights so go ahead, feel cool, and skip that line. There's one guarantee whenever you see a band at Double Door - it's going to be loud, really loud, but a good sounding loud....Double Door loud. Once the show is done and your ears are ringing - its time to grab some food. Tasty post-show grub can be found at Flash Taco across Damen or below that at Underdogs.

Yet another Chicago treasure...The Double Door, a place of many great XRT Shows. And who knows, even the Rolling Stones may stop by.

As the music director of XRT in the 1980's, I discovered a steaming portion of my job involved eating. It's not as bad as it sounds since the eating was accomplished at some of the best restaurants in Chicago. A record company representative would call me and say, "Hey, my VP of marketing is flying into Chicago and wants to meet all the radio people. Can you think of a really nice restaurant we could take him to?"

Here's what makes me kind of special. I could. I could think of a really nice restaurant we could take him to.

Other times some rock artist would tour the country meeting and greeting press and radio, I would find myself at some intimate dinner with an Iggy Pop watching some record company guy demonstrate his talent for folding napkins into parts of the male anatomy. Oh the romance of the record industry.

Once upon a time, 1989, Elvis Costello was promoting his new album Spike by attempting to meet as many radio people as he could. When he came to Chicago, I was invited to dine with him and his future ex-wife Cait O'Riordan, who was once a member of the Pogues.

This was to be a small dinner. Two or three people from Warner Brothers, my wife and yours truly. Cait was a vegetarian, so a suitable gourmet vegetarian restaurant was chosen and we convened at the appointed hour only to discover that there was a problem. A big problem.

Cait was a vegetarian, but also a smoker and we had happened on a vegetarian restaurant that felt tobacco was an anathema to the purity of their cuisine. I suppose they had a point. I mean why make the sacrifices necessary to eliminate such unhealthy food choices as steak and pork chops if you're just gonna light up a cigarette anyway.

Smoke if you want to, but hey, nothing goes with tar and nicotine like a porterhouse.

Anyway, everyone was in a tizzy. Elvis Costello was in a tizzy because he was an especially attentive boyfriend. The record company was in a tizzy because Elvis Costello was in a tizzy. Cait was in a tizzy because in a tizzy was where she liked to be.

I should point out that I was not in a tizzy; I was just hungry. And I knew trying to find a table for eight at a restaurant in downtown Chicago on a Saturday night would only leave me much hungrier.

As it turns out, telling a restaurant in 1989 that Elvis Costello would like to come over and enjoy dinner changes some of the rules. When Warner brothers called an extremely popular Italian restaurant in the Melman empire and explained the situation, things worked out.

"Yes, how long a wait would there be for a party of eight?"
"An hour and a half to two hours."
"Oh, that's sad because we're here with Elvis Costello and..."
"Come right over. We will seat you immediately."

I made a note that I should dine with Elvis Costello more often. We sat around a large table and Elvis spoke expansively on a variety of topics including an upcoming boxing match between Mike Tyson and some British pugilist. Elvis was absolutely charming.

His date made that always difficult transition from "in a tizzy" to "peevish" and managed to speak not a single word the entire meal. Her reticence inspired me to ask her direct questions. She would lift her head out of her hands as if stirring from a nap and gaze at me with a combination of vacancy and contempt.

I think Elvis Costello and Diana Krall will be very happy together.

It was 1983, and the Peace Museum here in Chicago was about to present the largest exhibit of its' history... Give Peace A Chance. As you can guess by the title, John Lennon and Yoko Ono were going to be well represented in this exhibit on folk and rock music and the peace movement. So the museum staff contacted this Beatle fan about helping to curate the exhibit. Sounded like a good idea to me, so I came aboard as a volunteer and this would lead to some fantastic encounters with Yoko. That's another story for another day.

Of course I enjoyed working on the John and Yoko items... the guitar from the Bed-In For Peace, the acorns for peace, a lithograph by John of their very public honeymoon in bed... Yoko was very generous. I also lent the museum my certificate for the tree planted in my sister Joni's memory at the John Lennon Peace Forest in Israel. I also solicited photos of XRT listeners loved ones for the Imagine room.

But the more I worked on the exhibit, the more concerned I was that we were focusing on the 1960's when there was so much going on in the early 80's. So we started incorporating artists like Laurie Anderson, The Clash, The Talking Heads, Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder. Then, not long before the opening of the exhibit, this up and coming band from Ireland, U2, released their new album, War. What incredible timing! XRT had been playing U2 since they were putting out singles and I felt this album was so strong it would make them superstars. I'm seldom right when I predict stuff like this but with U2, I was on the mark for a change.

So I thought it would be fantastic to get a manuscript of one of the anti-war songs in Bono's hand and maybe one of the U2/War white flags. A reasonable request, don't you think? Well, not so fast. I started making phone calls with my request and was met with total disinterest. At one point I almost gave up, but hung in there because I knew if we could get something from this band it would show museum visitors that music about peace isn't in the past... it's alive and well in the present. So I kept calling till I reached Ellen Darst, U2's road manager. For once I got a human being who was actually interested! I explained what we wanted and she said she'd check with "the boys" and get back to me. She later called back saying the band wanted to meet with me... they were very interested.

So May of 1983, Marianne Philbin, the Director of the Peace Museum at the time accompanied me to the Hilton Hotel coffee shop to meet with "the boys." They were exhausted because they were touring the Midwest by bus and weren't even staying overnight in Chicago. They were due to play the Aragon later that evening but took the time to hear what we had to say. Marianne brought catalogues of past exhibits including The Unforgettable Fire, an exhibit about the atomic bombings of Japan at the end of World War II and Martin Luther King Jr, Peacemaker. Bono and the lads were so interested in the concept of a museum for peace. We had a wonderful meeting and they promised to deliver. Did they ever!!! They donated their stage backdrop from the tour, one of the white flags Bono used on stage and the manuscript I requested at the very beginning of this process. So we were thrilled that they were so generous. Give Peace A Chance was an enormous success!

But that's not the end of the story. The next year, 1984, U2 released the incredible album The Unforgettable Fire with not one but two songs about Dr. King. They also worked with the Peace Museum about setting up an exhibit in Dublin using pieces from these exhibits.  In interviews they have credited their encounter with the Peace Museum for giving them a sense of focus with their ideals and helping propel them on to activism that continues to this day. Bono even wrote a poem about the Peace Museum. They continue to support the museum's work and recently donated a guitar they used on stage, autographed by all four. They wanted the museum to auction it for a fund raiser and that happened this summer at a benefit at Buddy Guy's Legends.

The more the story gets told, the more it gets messed up. I recently saw a book that said The Unforgettable Fire album was influenced by a trip they made to a museum when they were on tour in Japan. Wrong. I know because I was there. I will never forget that afternoon with U2 at the Hilton Hotel coffee shop.