One of the most enduring legacies of punk rock was the do-it-yourself (DIY) philosophy it instilled in youth across America and around the world.
Whether creating homemade fanzines, pressing their own records, or reimagining living room floors as stages, to do it yourself was to seize control of your destiny… if on the cheap, and but for a passing moment.
If a band could pool their resources to procure a van or a station wagon, they could travel the country playing shows for gas money—no manager, booking agent or label support needed.
These kinds of possibilities fueled a positive youth subculture just about everywhere, including right here in Peoria, Illinois.
Yet aside from a short-lived local showcase at the Madison Theater, sporadic shows at a teenage nightclub formerly known as the Second Chance, and several other fleeting encounters, Peoria’s DIY music scene has never really sustained a proper venue.
As such, its constituents were scrappy and resourceful by necessity.
In our new book, Punks In Peoria: Making a Scene in the American Heartland (out June 15, 2021), we stitch together the stories of multiple generations of Peoria “punks” (a term we employ loosely) and their continuous hunt for places to repurpose as venues for an evening—a revolving hodgepodge of new and unusual spaces for DIY shows.
Here are eleven of them!
Named after a former Peoria Park District director, Owens Recreation Center is best known for its ice skating rink, where native Peorian Matt Savoie trained to become an Olympic champion.
But in the summer of 1985, a group of Peoria teenagers rented a large meeting room adjacent to the skating rink and transformed it into a makeshift punk rock venue.
This is how the legendary Reno, Nevada hardcore band 7Seconds came to play in Peoria—beneath fluorescent lights and a generic drop ceiling, as a hundred or so kids attempted to reimagine the austere setting as the city’s first punk club.
On the south side of Peoria, an HVAC equipment supply company now occupies the warehouse at 2021 SW Washington Street. But in the early nineties, this building was home to Airwaves Skate Park—ground zero for Peoria’s skateboarders and, for nearly a year, a much-loved venue for surprisingly well-attended shows.
In the wake of Nirvana’s phenomenal success, hundreds of Gen X youth in grunge-era attire sprawled across the skate ramps, surrounding the bands as they played. These memories were a foundation that paved the way for an entire generation of Peoria showgoers.
In 1994, a dilapidated bowling alley in Chicago’s Logan Square started hosting bands on a ramshackle stage in the corner. The Fireside Bowl went on to become Chicago’s pre-eminent underground venue for more than a decade, hosting touring bands almost every day of the week.
When Eric Williamson of Chillicothe saw The MIBs, a Peoria ska band, play at the Fireside, a light bulb went off. Seeking to bring that model to central Illinois, Eric—also known as “Suit & Tie Guy” or “Suit”—went to every bowling alley in the area before finding a willing partner in East Peoria’s Midway Lanes. He hosted a handful of shows there in 1996, a few years before the place closed for good.
Suit had a knack for finding unusual and out-of-the-way venues—places that had never before witnessed a show. In 2003 he booked his own one-man modular synthesizer act at the Squeaky Clean Laundromat on University Street near One World.
As far as we know, this was a one-time happening and a very clean show.
In the late nineties and early 2000s, a couple of local churches hosted all-ages shows in their basements. Modeled after a similar venture in Bloomington-Normal, the Vineyard Café (located inside the now-defunct Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church in East Peoria) and The Meeting House (at First Church of the Brethren on Sheridan Road in Peoria) became staples of the scene.
Thanks to promoters Jeremiah Lambert and Jared Grabb, among others, both spaces hosted dozens of touring and local bands alike during their several-year runs.
Peoria Pizza Works on Prospect Road has long been known for hosting live music—the late great Peoria bluesman Luther Allison even recorded a live album in its adjoining lounge in 1979.
Beginning in 1997 or so, a number of local promoters started hosting punk and indie rock shows alongside their more established open mic nights. Aside from a hiatus in the early 2000s, the Pizza Works is unique in Peoria punk lore for spanning multiple “generations” of showgoers.
When the gathering restrictions of COVID 19 are over, no doubt it will host shows again.
In 1987, Doug Love, a student at Illinois Central College, learned that he could secure the gymnasium on the college’s East Peoria campus to host concerts. The space was huge, the rent was cheap, and the college even provided a stage and risers.
When Chicago punk legends Naked Raygun played the ICC gym that August, a news crew from Channel 19 was on hand to document the proceedings in the first of a three-part feature on Peoria’s underground scene. Check out that delightful piece of Peoria history here!
It’s not unusual for record stores to host live bands, but there were many things unique and special about Tiamat Records, which was located in Peoria next to the Jimmy John’s on West Main Street from 1997 to 1999.
Tiamat was a record store by day, but at night, with the record bins pushed to the walls, it was the closest thing to an actual punk club this city ever had. With zero separation between the musicians and the crowd, it offered an energy and intimacy that was unparalleled in Peoria during its short existence.
Peoria’s first “rock ‘n’ roll dances” were held in 1957 at the Itoo Hall, a cultural home for the city’s Lebanese population. As Peoria’s punk scene bubbled to the surface in the 1980s, the lack of legitimate venues incentivized the search for new spaces to put on shows—and the area’s wide range of clubs and halls fit the bill nicely.
From gathering places for war vets (American Legion, VFW, Navy-Marine Club) to ethnic and cultural organizations (the Itoo Hall and now-defunct German American and Italian American halls), these institutions set the stage for some of Peoria’s most memorable shows—from GG Allin’s notorious 1985 Creve Coeur show, to the Jesus Lizard show featured in Rolling Stone ten years later, to the many shows at the East Peoria American Legion hall in the 2000s.
The venues commandeered by Peoria punks tended to be tenuous propositions, so house shows—in basements, garages, living rooms and backyards—often filled the gaps. The first known punk show in Peoria appears to have been a backyard party in May of 1984, where Chips Patroll made their performance debut.
In the mid-nineties, a house full of Bradley students hosted massive parties at 808 University—with DJs spinning dance music in the attic, indie/punk bands playing in the basement, and all four floors catering to a slightly different audience.
Inexpensive and readily available, house shows were (and are) labors of love and perhaps the truest expression of punk rock’s anti-corporate, DIY tenets.
Built to house the annual Heart of Illinois Fair, Exposition Gardens offered a sprawling campus of buildings available for public rental during the off-season.
In the 1960s, it became one of the area’s top concert venues, hosting rock n’ roll legends like the Kinks, the Hollies and the Yardbirds, as well as the fabled 1968 concert by the Who.
In October 1995, the renowned Washington DC band Fugazi came through central Illinois for what amounted to the biggest DIY punk show in Peoria history. Around 900 people were in attendance for a show that was equal parts legendary, brilliant, infamous and frustrating.
On Sunday, September 5, 2021, this parking lot adjacent to Casa de Arte in Peoria’s Warehouse District will be transformed into an outdoor music venue.
A wide range of bands from Peoria’s past and present will be playing throughout the day. Stay tuned for details!
Finally, don’t miss our new book, Punks In Peoria: Making a Scene in the American Heartland, out June 15, 2021 on the University of Illinois Press!
