{"id":193608,"date":"2025-09-02T08:05:26","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T08:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/193608\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T08:05:26","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T08:05:26","slug":"new-album-digs-up-rare-60s-chicago-garage-rock-from-arlington-heights-the-cellar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/193608\/","title":{"rendered":"New album digs up rare \u201960s Chicago garage rock from Arlington Heights\u2019 The Cellar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/a>
\n Cheap Kiss Records label and shop co-owner Pete Kuehl, from left, author Sean Hoffman and musician Bill St. John look over the soon-to-be-released album they produced about the legendary Arlington Heights teen music club The Cellar.
\n John Starks\/jstarks@dailyherald.com<\/p>\n

As they crisscrossed the country in the late 1960s, the likes of The Who, Cream, The Yardbirds and Buffalo Springfield famously made stops at the legendary Arlington Heights teen music club, The Cellar.<\/p>\n

But on an average weekend there, you were more likely to see and hear local bands who otherwise would be playing in their parents\u2019 garages.<\/p>\n

Many of those groups never made it big; some only put out a couple hundred 45s, used mostly as business cards to get gigs.<\/p>\n

\u201cOurs lasted maybe a year and a half \u2019til somebody left and went to college. A lot of people got drafted,\u201d said Bill St. John, who played bass guitar with The High Numbers. \u201cMost of the garage bands like ours \u2014 you cut a record because it was cool to say you cut a record. But nobody was going to get it played on the radio or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now bands like The High Numbers \u2014 who took their name from The Who, who gave that earlier title up \u2014 are getting credit for their place in local music history on a new album that pays homage to the old Northwest suburban teen hangout.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Blast From The Cellar! Lost Gems From The \u201960s Garage Rock Explosion\u201d is a collection of 16 deep tracks from 11 of the bands who performed there.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n A compilation of 1960s Chicago garage bands who performed at The Cellar in Arlington Heights is being released Sept. 5, by Villa Park-based Cheap Kiss Records.
\n Courtesy of Pete Kuehl\n <\/p>\n

St. John \u2014 now 75, an Elgin resident and retired after a career as CEO of a nonprofit \u2014 co<\/strong>produced the record with Arlington Heights resident Sean Hoffman.<\/p>\n

Hoffman scoured album stacks, the internet \u2014 and even the basement of The Cellar\u2019s owner\/promoter Paul Sampson \u2014 to find old vinyl, acetates, reel-to-reel tapes and cassettes containing rare songs.<\/p>\n

The author of a paperback history on The Cellar set to be published next year by Chicago-based HoZac Books, Hoffman enlisted fellow Arlington Heights resident Pete Kuehl for help with the compilation. Pressed on 180 gram red vinyl, the album is the sixth from Kuehl and business partner Christopher Grey\u2019s independent Cheap Kiss Records<\/a> label.<\/p>\n

They arranged to have the old tracks digitized by Grammy-nominated producer Liam Davis, who fixed varying bass, treble and vocal levels and remastered the sound quality to make the songs album ready.<\/p>\n

Cheap Kiss\u2019 used records shop \u2014 inside the Cornerstone Used Books store at 22 S. Villa Ave. in Villa Park \u2014 is where the album will be officially released Sept. 5. Preorders are being taken at cheapkissrecords.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a>
\n Cheap Kiss Records\u2019 Pete Kuehl, left, presents the first copies of \u201cA Blast From The Cellar!\u201d to album producers Sean Hoffman and Bill St. John. It will be for sale starting Sept. 5 at Kuehl\u2019s Villa Park record shop.
\n John Starks\/jstarks@dailyherald.com<\/p>\n

An album release show is also scheduled for Oct. 15, at Hey Nonny \u2014 the live music venue of this era in downtown Arlington Heights \u2014 where singer-songwriter Phil Angotti and band will perform selections from the album. They\u2019ll be joined on stage by members of at least five of the original bands. Standing room only tickets remain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a celebration of the club and the album,\u201d Kuehl said.<\/p>\n

Kuehl, 58, and Hoffman, 57, may still have been in diapers toward the end of The Cellar\u2019s run from 1965 to 1970. But both say they were always fascinated by its history as they grew up in Arlington Heights and heard stories from those who hung out there and the music of those who played there.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad used to go to The Cellar,\u201d Hoffman said. \u201cWhen I was a kid he would talk about it all the time. \u2026 But as I grew up and I became a music fan, it just hit me so hard that all these people had played there: Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend. And then when I started finding the local bands, I was just blown away at how great everything was.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n This Daily Herald photo from 1965 is featured on the back of a new album that pays tribute to the Arlington Heights teen music club The Cellar.
\n Daily Herald File Photo, 1965\n <\/p>\n

On a recent Friday afternoon at More Brewing Company just down the block from the record shop, the music enthusiasts toasted the forthcoming album release with Czech pilsners \u2014 apropos, since the 500 records were pressed at a plant in the Czech Republic \u2014 while they shared music and memories of their favorite local bands. Among them:<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Shadows of Knight, the club\u2019s house band of Prospect High School students led by the dynamic Jimy Sohns, whose belted-out version of \u201cGloria\u201d got major airplay on WLS and WCFL and became a national hit.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Saturday\u2019s Children, who wore suits and emulated The Beatles. \u201cAll The Cellar dwellers I speak to always talk about how they loved The Shadows of Knight, but Saturday\u2019s Children was their favorite,\u201d Hoffman said.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Mauds, led by soulful frontman Jimy Rogers. \u201cEveryone always says that the records don\u2019t capture how great they really were. They were much more of a live act,\u201d Hoffman said.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Same, an all-female band who got to Los Angeles to record two songs, but the producers forbid them from playing their own instruments in favor of studio musicians.<\/p>\n

Previously unreleased numbers from the last three groups are featured on the album, including a track from one of The Same\u2019s rehearsal tapes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was important to have a recording of them actually playing,\u201d Kuehl said. \u201cWe wanted that on there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The album project started with St. John\u2019s list of local bands he remembered seeing at The Cellar (his group played there only once, but he regularly worked at the pop stand and coat check). They decided to focus on lesser-known tunes, while steering clear of songs already on other compilations.<\/p>\n

St. John spent nearly two years tracking down surviving members to ask permission to use their music. Even if the musicians were enthused, sometimes decades-old legalities and copyrights sometimes prevented it, as was the case with The Shadows of Knight.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Hoffman penned the liner notes on the record sleeve, tucked inside a gatefold sleeve that has rare photos of the bands, fans and memorabilia from The Cellar. Some of the photos \u2014 of teens attending The Beau Brummels show in 1965 \u2014 are from the Daily Herald archives.<\/p>\n

Another is from Kuehl\u2019s family friend, Gene Good, who was lead singer of The Raevns.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n Audience members listen to The Raevns lead singer Gene Good during a performance at The Cellar in the 1960s.
\n Courtesy of Pete Kuehl\n <\/p>\n

\u201cI love the expressions on the girls\u2019 faces,\u201d said Kuehl, referring to those watching Good on stage. \u201cSome look goo-goo eyed. Some looked confused.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the Baby Boom in full swing and enrollments spiking at high schools, Chicago suburbia of the 1960s was the setting for a number of music clubs where teens could go.<\/p>\n

But there was just something special about The Cellar, the record producers contend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt had a vibe,\u201d said St. John. \u201cThat\u2019s what you did every Friday and Saturday night. That\u2019s just where you went.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Cellar had the cream of the crop of the bands,\u201d Hoffman added. \u201cThe Cellar did it first, and did it the best.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Cheap Kiss Records label and shop co-owner Pete Kuehl, from left, author Sean Hoffman and musician Bill…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":193609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[11438,1109,171,975,50,67,132,68,33006],"class_list":{"0":"post-193608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-arlington-heights","9":"tag-communities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-villa-park"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115133672947620374","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}