The respective hosts of syndicated radio show Sound Opinions, Jim Derogatis and Greg Kot were like two sprinters off the starting line as news of Mayor Daley's decision to not run for a seventh term spread through the city. Both had long been critical of Daley's harsh treatment of independent promoters and music venues. Whether by design or neglect, Daley had earned a reputation as anything but a friend of the arts, as far as those in the music community were concerned.
Kot must have had his lambasting of the outgoing mayor at-the-ready on his hard drive, as his article hit the blogosphere mere minutes after Daley made his announcement.
While noting that the Mayor and city officials had given Lollapalooza the green light, they still seemed hell-bent on allowing a grass-roots music scene to thrive; sanctioning an ordinance that would have required independent promoters to obtain $300,000 in liability insurance and pay fees ranging from $500 to $2,000 even if the venue was fully insured.
Derogatis, while a tad slower out of the gate, wasted no time in taking the mayor to task on his blog, going so far as to provide a Cliff Notes list of the mayor's transgressions just prior to taking to the airwaves via WBEZ's "848".
A podcast of today's broadcast, featuring Derogatis, is now available HERE.