The latest news from Eckhartz Press, and a chance to peek into some of the great previous offerings from our humble little publishing company.
NEW BOOK RELEASE: The Flip Side
Available for pre-order now!
Birthed by Chicago natives Carl and Larry Rosenbaum, “The Flip Side” grew from an idea into a store and then into a chain. Somewhere along the way, those stores sprouted an entire second identity as Chicago’s premier concert promoter, putting on some of the biggest rock shows Chicago saw in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
In so many ways, Flip Side defined music for hundreds of thousands of Chicagoland music fans.
The Flip Side: Where Chicago Rocked takes you through the lifespans of both the record store chain as well as their concert business. We’ll give you a look ‘behind the counter’ and show you how everything was built, how it all lived and breathed, and we’ll share many of the fun and not-so-fun stories that took place. More than that, we’ll give you a warm look back and a chance to revisit what was a great time in Chicago and an even better time in rock and roll.
As Emerson, Lake & Palmer so famously once said, welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. We’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside…
=Don't forget to mark your calendar for the upcoming book launch party for Eric Litt's Worth a Second Look. He'll be at Sketchbook in Skokie (4901 Main Street, Skokie) on Tuesday night November 12th at 7:30pm. Sketchbook is a great local brewery and tap room with a biergarten, live music, and visiting food trucks.
=Eric sat down this week to do a Q&A about his new book. You can read that here.
=This week in 2021 (November 5), Randy Merkin announced the release of his book Behind the Glass live on the air on ESPN Radio in Chicago.
=Robert Feder also wrote about Randy's book in the Daily Herald (November 8).
=This week in 2022, Chuck Swirsky was making the rounds promoting his book Always a Pleasure. He did two hours on the radio with Steve Rosenbloom on the Score (November 5), and he also appeared on WGN-TV (November 8)
=In addition, this week in 1995 (November 3), the Toronto Raptors played their first game in franchise history. The man behind the play-by-play microphone was Chuck Swirsky. He talked about that story in this podcast.
=And finally, this week is the birthday (November 5) of the late great basketball titan, Bill Walton. Chuck wrote about him in his book as well.
=This week in 2022 (November 4), Rick Kaempfer kicked off the publicity campaign to his coming-of-age spy novel Back in the DDR with an interview on WGN Radio. That interview is here.
=It's not a coincidence that the book came out the same week the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 (November 9). Rick took this first photo of the wall in 1976, the year the book takes place. It appears on the back cover of the book. The second photo was taken just a few weeks after the wall came down. That's Rick and his brother Peter. Lots of stretches like this still existed. It's completely gone now. The third photo is from this summer. Rick is standing outside the East German secret police headquarters (STASI), which has been turned into a museum.
=This week in 2021, Grammar Moses author Jim Baumann was making the rounds promoting his book. He appeared on this podcast with Steve Cochran (November 3), and the Minutia Men Celebrity Interview the next day (November 4). Two days later he was in Elgin, signing and selling copies of Grammar Moses. The pandemic was still raging, and our intrepid author was out there fully masked.
Records Truly Is My Middle Name
=This week in 1882, the Dow Jones was founded. Not many people know this, but early in his career, John Landecker actually went by the name Dow Jones on the air. This is the only known picture of Dow Jones, taken outside the radio station in Michigan.
=This week in 2013, John Landecker appeared on Pete McMurray's show on WGN Radio to talk about the book.
=This week in 2017, John was on the air at WBEZ Radio, and WGN-TV talking about the new Hall of Fame edition of the book. His daughter Amy joined him on the WGN TV set.
=One of the contributors to Records Truly Is My Middle Name, Catherine Johns, is celebrating a birthday this week (November 3). She tells a few very memorable stories about Landecker in the book.
=One of the joys of the book Mob Adjacent is the way it intersects the world of the mafia with the world of Hollywood. One of the big stars of the era who is discussed in the book, Art Carney, was born this week in 1918 (November
4).
=This week in 2018 (November 5), Chet Coppock had the single-biggest-selling day in the life of his book. He spoke at the Polish American Alliance in Westmont, and every single attendee (over 200) bought a copy of the book. Chet was in rare form that day.
=The Eckhartz Press book Righteous Might takes place on the USS Gerald R. Ford. Now, if you happen to go on that ship, you can read Righteous Might in the ship's library. We got a letter this week (November 6) in 2020 from the ship's Captain. What an honor. Congrats to author Keith Conrad!
=This week in 2016, Eckhartz Press author Mark Gelinas was featured on a local television station in Atlanta (WSB-TV). Mark passed away a few years later, but this interview, and the book lives on. Mark's story will always remain an inspiration.
=This week in 2014 (November 4), Rick Kaempfer was out and about promoting his humor book Father Knows Nothing. As a bonus for the readers of the book, he released these bonus audio tracks on our website. Two of the boys featured in the book (Tommy & Johnny) come to life via these timeless audio clips.
=This week in 2018 (November 9), Windy City Reviews came out with a review of the Eckhartz Press book Cameo. Here's what they had to say about the book....
Cameo, by Beth Jacobellis, is an interweaving of the past, its impact on the present, and how our feelings can get in the way of understanding what is pulling us through to the future. The book begins in the present, but we are quickly transported to the cameo’s present life in 1994 and then again through vignettes from 1885, 1976 and 1989. Cameo is a charming story to read. It is not a long book, but this type of love story, with layers of the past all playing out at the same time, draws us into Samantha’s quest and carries us through a briskly-paced read. I enjoyed this book for its clear storytelling and mysterious overtones. I also found it refreshing that the past is not always looking to punish but merely to resolve.
=This week in 2021, during the height of the pandemic, Bob Boone gave a talk about his collection of short stories, City U, via zoom. The virtual author event actually took place in Glencoe, but this was around the time we started figuring out that we are no longer confined by our location.
=This week in 2023, two of the stars from the book Grun Weiss Vor! were inducted into the Illinois Soccer Hall of Fame. Marcus Laxgang was a Herman Award Winner as the best college soccer player in America, and Joe Filian played along the likes of Franz Beckenbauer on the New York Cosmos. Both players got their start at Green White Soccer Club.
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