Plastic Crimewave


Plastic Crimewave, otherwise known as Steve Kraków, is a Chicago-based illustrator and writer, avant-garde musician, music historian and impresario. He is the editor of Drag City-published magazine Galactic Zoo Dossier, eponymous front man for Plastic Crimewave Sound, founder of the Million Tongues Festival, and Vision Celestial Guitarkestra. He writes and illustrates the "Secret History of Chicago Music" comic in the Chicago Reader and co-hosts WGN-AM's Secret History of Chicago Music series. He runs the Drag City imprint label, Galactic Zoo Disk.

Biography

Crimewave was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Des Plaines and Hoffman Estates, Illinois. As a child, Kraków took an interest in comics such as Doctor Strange, Krazy Kat and Winsor McCay's "Little Nemo." Showing artistic promise, he began priming for a comics career in early adolescence.
While enrolled at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Crimewave discovered Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive" and space rock group, Hawkwind, and began drawing and designing concert posters. His comics background and rapidly burgeoning preoccupation with psychedelic culture led to the first issue of Galactic Zoo Dossier magazine. His alias, Plastic Crimewave, pays homage to Canadian psychedelic band, The Plastic Cloud, Daredevil villain Crimewave, and post-Tea Set Pink Floyd incarnation, The Pink Floyd Sound.

Career

Crimewave has been called a modern guru of psychedelic art, music and culture of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as a "freelance mind-wizard". Regarding his artwork and music, British musician and musicologist Julian Cope has called Crimewave, among other things, "a Futuretro freak", while Crimewave himself says he pulls inspiration from the "vibrationally bizarre.".

Writing and illustration

''Galactic Zoo Dossier''

Originating in 1995, Galactic Zoo Dossier is a magazine hand-drawn by Plastic Crimewave, and currently published by independent label Drag City. The magazine, often called a "psychedelic bible" is highly regarded for its extensive coverage of psychedelic arcana and historically champions esoteric, or "cult" musicians, as well as misunderstood mainstream artists of the 1960s and 1970s. Actual cult musicians, Ya Ho Wha 13, have also been featured. Past contributors include Michael Karoli, The Bevis Frond, Devendra Banhart and other notable musicians and writers. The magazine takes its name from the Kingdom Come album.
Some of the musicians Crimewave has interviewed for GZD include Arthur Brown, John Renbourn, Clive Palmer of Incredible String Band, Simeon of Silver Apples, Michael Karoli and Damo Suzuki of Can, Vashti Bunyan, Peter Daltrey of Kaleidoscope, Judy Dyble of Fairport Convention, Martin Carthy, Sixto Rodriguez, Dick Taylor of The Pretty Things, Pip Proud, Dave Lambert of The Strawbs, Simon Finn, Susan Jacks and Craig McCaw of The Poppy Family and Michael Rother of Neu!, Arthur Brown, Edgar Broughton, Judy Dyble, Jesse Hector, Peter Daltrey of Kaleidoscope, etc.

Secret History of Chicago Music

The Secret History of Chicago Music is Crimewave's hand-lettered and illustrated newspaper column that appears in the Chicago Reader. It covers "pivotal Chicago musicians that somehow have not gotten their just dues," and is a semimonthly feature in the newspaper. The column runs in coordination with WGN's Secret History of Chicago Music segment on The Nick Digilio Show, in which Crimewave takes listener phone calls related to the featured musician. On occasion, the featured musicians will call in.
In November 2015, Curbside Splendor published a compendium of more than a decade of Secret History strips called My Kind of Sound. Pitchfork Media's Jessica Hopper described My Kind of Sound as "an education even for us know-it-all music obsessives, and are the only comics that have sent me directly to the record store to dig in the bins for dusty gems."

Other

Crimewave has written or currently writes for Arthur Magazine, Stop Smiling, Roctober, Time Out Chicago, Seattle's The Red Telephone, Big City Rhythm and Blues Magazine and podcasts for Anthology Recordings. He has given lectures at Stop Smiling headquarters.

Music

Plastic Crimewave Sound

Crimewave's band, Plastic Crimewave Sound, was a psychedelic acid punk band based in Chicago. The band consisted of Plastic Crimewave, bassist Mark Lux, drummer Lawrence Peters, Steve's brother Adam on second guitar. They toured with Acid Mothers Temple, Comets on Fire, Oneida, The Ponys, The Gris Gris, Marble Sheep and others, and played at the Terrastock festival and international festivals. The band has been compared to Chrome, Can, Ya Ho Wha 13, Sonic Youth, Hawkwind and has a cult following. After Plastic Crimewave Sound disbanded, Kraków formed a power trio, Plastic Crimewave Syndicate, with Anjru Kieterang and Karissa Talanian, now Jose Bernal.

Million Tongues Festival

Crimewave curates the celebrated Million Tongues Festival in Chicago. The annual music festival includes international folk artists, experimental and underground, often featuring "cult" artists from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Now in its fifth year, the fest has seen performances by Bert Jansch, Peter Walker, Michael Chapman, LSD March, Michael Yonkers, Simon Finn and Terry Reid, among others. Crimewave took the festival name from a line in Clive's Original Band's, "Song of Ages."

Vision Celestial Guitarkestra

Inspired by experimental 1960s music ensemble Scratch Orchestra, free-jazz musician Alan Silva's Celestial Communication Orchestra and Glenn Branca's guitar symphonies, Crimewave has organized many "Guitarkestras," featuring an orchestra of up to 100 seasoned and novice volunteer guitarists. It has been called an "art-freak happening" and "overwhelming sonic assault". Crimewave loosely conducts the performances, typically encouraging the guitar orchestra to play in the key of E. Crimewave says E is "the closest chord to 'Om'".

Galactic Zoo Disk

Crimewave runs the Galactic Zoo Disk imprint label under Drag City, which has reissued or released archival releases by JT IV, The George-Edwards Group, Ryan Trevor, Ed Askew, Sandy Bull, Midnight, Michael Yonkers, Spur, and others. Crimewave also has the roving imprint Galactic Zoo Archive which has co-released LPs by Simply Saucer, Ono, Bil Vermette, and Red Square.

Moonrises, Etc.

Plastic Crimewave played in progressive avant-garde trio Moonrises. Their 1st s/t LP was released by Logan Hardware and their sophomore LP was released on Captcha Records in February 2013.
Past Crimewave duos include Solar Fox, Goldblood, Black Hole and Scum Ra.

Personal collection

Crimewave is a noted collector of vintage pop culture paraphernalia. His apartment has been called a "personal museum", with over 7,000 LPs, 30,000 comics, around 2,000 45s, a 1967 Seeburg jukebox, action figures, advertisements and psychedelic concert posters. He describes the decor as having "a '60s-freakout vibe."

Visual art exhibitions

Albums