Reel Legacy in America
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Martica's Tavern
In the 1950s & 1960s, Chicago's famous "Back of the Yards" area was bustling with industry. Many immigrants to America gravitated there in search of work....and Matt Lisak was no exception. By day, he ran one of a variety of his businesses, and by night he played music and frequented one of the many neighborhood taverns.
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Matt often had his young sons load his drum set into a green Volkswagon van and he brought them with to help him set up for his performance. They would wait there through the evening until the gig was over so they could help him pack the drums back up at the end of the night.
Near 47th & Bishop, there was a popular tavern called "Martica's" which catered to immigrants from Poland. One particular evening, Matt was scheduled to perform there and he insisted that Don & Bill go with him to record the performance with a single microphone onto a used mono reel to reel recorder they had.
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In April of 2021, that evening's performance was recovered in it's entirety along with various elements of
media to help tell the story. You will hear the grind of the concertina, the subtle textures of the fiddle in the
background, and most predominantly the lively drum stylings of Matt Lisak along with his signature
multi pitch custom cowbells.
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Club Layout
Matthew "Bill" Lisak helped to record the performance at Martica's that evening and he contributed a variety of photographs to help visualize the look and layout of the club.
This hand drawn image features the inside layout of the tavern. Notice the table under the bandstand where Don & Bill sat with their recorder on this particular evening. The single microphone was laid on the stage nearest Matt on the drums who was positioned stage left. In the center was Walter Jablonski who played concertina, and on the far side against the wall was Henry "Squeeky" Mastenowich on the fiddle.
Basic Look of Martica's
Martica's was a long and narrow space with a high stage at the far end. Along one long wall was the curved bar, and the other wall was lined with four seat tables. The space between the tables and bar served as the dance floor. The front of the tavern was eye catching from both inside and out and was built almost entirely of glass block that glowed at night from the multi colored neon signs inside.
Story of the Performance Recovery
Over the years, as technology moved from mono reel to reel recorders, to the stereo machines, to eight track players, to cassette decks, to CD, and eventually to MP3...the old Lisak mono reels were long forgotten. The pile of tapes we had were known to include a mix of Bill's reels from the 70s along with older reels known to be recorded by Don in the 60s. The only clearly marked reel was of "Dad's Polka Hour!" which was written in Bill's handwriting from his youth.
Several attempts were made to recover this audio over the past 25 years,
but finding a working machine proved to be difficult.
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In the late 1980s, the first recovery attempt was made. In preparation for a compilation, Bill Lisak wrote an account of the evening and prepared a CD cover - which was the current technology of the time. The CD cover was inspired by Matt's front bass drum head. In the 1960s, Matt wanted something funny on his drum set. He had his daughter Rita paint an image for him and she painted a "can-can" girl which Matt thought was perfect. Unfortunately, all known pictures of Matt behind the drums did not include this painting.
In order to evoke the image of Matt's drum set, Bill searched to find the potential source for Rita's image inspiration.
While trying to find a way to communicate this lost image, Bill discovered the work of a Post-impressionist artist from the late 19th century named Henri de Toulouse Lautrec who specialized in these types of themes. Bill included some of Lautrec's images on his CD cover to harken back to the jovial nature of the painting on Matt's bass drum head
and to demonstrate its possible inspiration...
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Bill's Original CD cover design from the late 1980s
Various Lautrec images Bill used for inspiration
A photo was recently discovered by Rita. In the photo, Ron is playing his father's drum set in the "clubhouse" which includes a picture of the original drum head.
In his preparation for sharing this material in the 1980s, Bill also wrote down what he recalled about the evening. He shared with us his original documents which outline what he remembered, along with his handwritten notes and calculations. These records date the Martica's performance to somewhere between 1964-1966.
In April of 2021, a working stereo reel player was located and the recovery process was attempted for the third time. This was not as simple as it may sound, because Don's original machine recorded the tape in a different way than the recovery machine played it. After rewiring some of the recovery system, and after taking a deep breath before hitting the play button...
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The night at Martica's was once again dancing through the speakers to be heard after a long hibernation.
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Enjoy listening to anything you care to and please forward any song titles you may know of the material to replace the general titles.
An evening at Martica's
Martica's Tavern - 47th & Bishop
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Matt Lisak Trio
Drums - Matt Lisak
Concertina - Walter Jablonski
Fiddle - Henry "Squeeky" Mastenowich
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Recorded by Don & Bill Lisak somewhere between 1964-1966
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Please forward any song titles you may know!
Close Lisak family friend Patrick Doody provided the reel-to-reel machine used to recover this cherished audio.
We would like to offer our sincere thanks for his help and friendship!