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In the past decade, Fireside Bowl has played host to hundreds of bands.This article needs additional citations for verification. “Hopefully someone will turn around and open something better.” “It’s kind of amazing Fireside was open as long as it was,” Johnson said. Other musicians and record label owners agreed and hope that the loss will spark the local music community to create someplace new. Still, Johnson said he knew Fireside wasn’t going to be around for forever. Most of their fans are too young to get into clubs, and they are too. For example, he’s got one all-girl punk band called The Groodies who are only 18 years old. The closing creates some obstacles for bands on his label and other local punk groups trying to build a following of fans, he said. “I don’t think he knows what he had in the Fireside and what the Fireside meant to people,” Johnson said. Mike Johnson, who runs a local punk record label called Failed Experiment Records, said although he’s disappointed that Fireside is becoming a bowling alley, he doesn’t fault Lapinski for deciding to change. “There were people upset, but I gave it 10 years and it’s time to do something different,” Lapinski said. He knows some people will be disappointed that the Fireside rock shows are gone, but he says the kids who went there will find a new place to hang out. “It won’t be all ages anymore,” Lapinski said. The shows will be different too–older and milder than the punk shows of the past. The major focus will be bowling, he said, and music will be offered only when it doesn’t interfere with that. He plans to continue offering live music, but not as frequently as before. Fireside Bowl has been in his family 40 years. “It’s time for me to do some changes,” said Lapinski, who started letting shows play there 10 years ago because the bowling business was getting slow. He was able to pick up some equipment–automatic scoring machines and ball lifts–when another bowling alley closed down. But once it was clear the expansion wasn’t happening, he moved forward with the rehab, he said.
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He wasn’t going to invest money in fixing the place up if it was going to be torn down. In fact, the park expansion plan kept owner Jim Lapinski from going back to bowling earlier. Several years ago, the Chicago Park District expressed an interest in using eminent domain to take over the building to expand nearby Haas Park. The change may have been abrupt for some–there were no big announcements about the switch–but rumors of Fireside’s demise have been swirling for years. Some of the better-known bands that have played there are Jimmy Eat World, the Mekons, Less than Jake, The Ataris, The Promise Ring and Alkaline Trio. “It’s sort of a legendary place–a lot of bands who played there have gone on to be mega-popular.” “It’s definitely too bad,” Carrillo said. Jeff Carrillo, who played at Fireside just two weeks ago with his band Mahjongg, said he first heard about the club in the mid-’90s when he was a student at the University of Missouri and was making friends from the Chicago area. “A stable, all-ages venue putting on independent music is a rare thing–you can count them on one hand,” Thomson said.