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'Music Mile' Comes Alive Thursday For Inaugural All-In On Halsted

By Ted Cox | April 13, 2017 5:36am
 B.L.U.E.S., aliveOne, the Wild Hare and Kingston Mines are all taking part in the All-In Thursday night.
B.L.U.E.S., aliveOne, the Wild Hare and Kingston Mines are all taking part in the All-In Thursday night.
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DNAinfo/Ted Cox

LINCOLN PARK — Musical individualists, unite!

Seven distinctly different music venues along what's been called the "music mile" on Halsted Street between Diversey and Armitage avenues will join together Thursday night for what they're calling the All-In. All will offer free or, at very least, reduced cover charges and drink specials in an effort to get music fans to wander from place to place sampling bands as they go.

"That was just the goal, to kind of introduce different audiences to different music and different fan bases, let them hear each other," said Jess DeBacco, general manager of aliveOne, 2683 N. Halsted St. "There might be, whoa, dramatic differences, but I think it's going to be fun to change it up like that."

 The Tonic Room is part of All-In as well.
The Tonic Room is part of All-In as well.
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DNAinfo/ Josh McGhee

It's DeBacco's pet project, but was quickly embraced by the other bars and nightclubs in the spirit of debunking the idea that it's a dog-eat-dog world where Chicago music is concerned.

"We were just mentioning all the bars on the strip, and I was thinking we should make it more of a destination and working in collaboration instead of competition," DeBacco said. "Because it's such different music, we really aren't in competition. We're all offering eclectic local music."

So let's give everyone equal time right away running south from...

aliveOne, open 5 p.m.-2 a.m., will have Turn N Fire at 8, SAYERS at 9 and Low Spark, its usual Thursday residents, at 10:30, with three Lagunitas beers at $4.

Four Star Lounge, 2666 N. Halsted, open 5-2, will have acoustic sets by Drew Mayberry from 6-10 and disc jockey Nick Castle from 10-2, with $5 craft beers and you-call-it mixed drinks.

The Wild Hare, 2610 N. Halsted, open 6-2, will have DJ G-Sharp at 9 and Love This with Devin Brown at 10, with Caribbean bites and $6 Red Stripes.

Kingston Mines, 2548 N. Halsted, will have the Mike Wheeler Band starting at 7:30 and Mississippi Heat starting at 10:30 on alternating stages, with $17 Bud Light and Miller Lite buckets and $6-$11 specialty Jack Daniels and Woodford cocktails. It will also have a $9 cover, dropped from the usual $12.

B.L.U.E.S., 2519 N. Halsted, open 8-2, will have Jimmy Burns at 9:30, with $2 Jager shots and $4 Jager bombs.

Tonic Room, 2447 N. Halsted, open 5-2, will have SPREAD, Donnie Biggins, Vince Mammoser, DJ Tom Thanks and more, with $5 Lagunitas.

The Store, 2002 N. Halsted, open 4-4, will have Flew the Coop at 7:30 and Nick Caputo and friends at 10:30, with $3.50 Hamms cans and $5 22-ounce Miller Lites.

Only Kingston Mines will have a cover, but a reduced one, as DeBacco said she understood it was paying its big-name bookings from the cover charge.

"I thought it was going to be a very big ask, but everyone has just been awesome," she said. "We're all on the same page. This is the way for all of us to get it done."

Only Kingston Mines and B.L.U.E.S. would seem to be in competition, but they've already found a way to coexist and formed an alliance of sorts with their weekly BLUES Alley Sunday Special, in which if you pay a cover at B.L.U.E.S. you get into Kingston Mines for free.

"The Store, Tonic and us are probably the most similar," DeBacco said. "But they go way different and we go way different." It turns out there's a lot of room under that "eclectic" banner.

DeBacco's original idea was to make it a street fest, but that got nixed because for some reason the Fire Department frowns on having the street closed in either direction from its Halsted station just south of Diversey.

"OK, so let's just make it an indoor fest," DeBacco said, "and it just easily flowed after that."

It also led to the idea of making it a semiannual event, in the spring and summer, before and after the summer street-festival season.

DeBacco claims the "music mile" coinage as well, although it's been picked up by Ald. Michele Smith (43rd) on occasion.

"I love it," she said. "I just think it is what it is. It is kind of a destination. You could just hit up all this music on one street on one mile."

She gave Donnie Biggins credit for the All-In label, however, with a minor addendum.

"We'll change it next time," DeBacco said. "His idea, and I didn't understand at first, is to make it two N's. It'll play in to the indoor."

So expect the All-In to become the All-Inn if it proves successful.

"I'm excited," DeBacco said. "I don't know. We'll see. It might end up being a big dud. But it's the first and we'll see how it goes."