‘You guys would freak out if you drove down Grand Avenue now,” says Tortoise multi-instrumentalist Dan Bitney. These days, this major Chicago thoroughfare is looking pretty bougie. “Expensive flower stores, bakeries, cafes. Back when we were there, it was empty streets, motorcycle gangs.” He shakes his head at his expat bandmates. “It’s a different world, you know?”
At the dawn of the 1990s, Chicago was down on its luck. A long depression and a declining manufacturing sector had left parts of the city a ghost town – not great conditions if you wanted to open an expensive flower store, but a pretty great place to start a band. It was 1991 when bassist Doug McCombs and drummer John Herndon moved into a 40,000 sq ft warehouse space off Grand Avenue. The pair had started Tortoise the year before, initially conceiving the project as a freelance rhythm section in the vein of reggae duo Sly and Robbie. “The idea was we’d play with our friends – like session musicians, except not getting paid,” says McCombs.
