I met Chris Connelly in the late 90s. He was a regular delivery customer of Thai Lagoon. I brought food to his Humboldt Park apartment every few weeks, it felt like. He was also the friendly guy at Reckless Records—which set him apart for sure. Makes sense that the one guy who doesn’t have to be kind is the one who is.

I wasn’t any kind of expert on industrial music but even I knew that Connelly was already kind of a legend by then. He’d been in Ministry, Revolting Cocks, and Pigface. Plus many more bands I’d never heard of. And yet here he was ringing up my record with a smile on my face.

Chicago has been this way the whole time I’ve been here. It’s full of people with amazing resumes who don’t wear them like a billboard the way it’s done in other cities. Here people keep their heads down and go about their business. It’s a place to get things done, not to be noticed.

Connelly is preternaturally prolific. Even without keeping close tabs, I’ve listened to plenty of his music over the past thirty years. He’s tirelessly searching and rarely content to repeat himself. Also, many of his projects aren’t under his name. It would be a full-time job just to catalog all his work. But I hadn’t seen the man in at least a decade when I got together with K last year and found out that he was her work pal at the record store.

It was definitely one of those small-world moments. If you hang around long enough making art of almost any kind, you’ll eventually run into all the other lifers. There is always an influx of the young and an ever expanding exodus of the discouraged, but the ones who keep at it in spite of everything form an exclusive club. Seeing Chris again was one of those affirming episodes. We barely said a word apart from greeting one another but there was a recognition, a welcoming sighting of a fellow traveler.

K bought tickets for us to see Chris’s David Bowie tribute show in April. I have very mixed feelings about Bowie but this concert was a stunner start to finish. It was not a cheesy waxworks impersonation but a fully-embodied interpretation from a lifelong fan. And somehow, even as he interpreted another’s songs, Connelly’s own rang through as well. I have no idea how he did it.

Chris and his wife Shayna came to the Ornery Cuss book-release at Tangible and I asked him if he’d be up for recording a talk. He agreed and came over my place a few weeks later. I don’t know if I asked the right questions or whether fans of Connelly’s music will be satisfied but it was a lively conversation between two guys still chipping away at the craft.

I had a good time and I think he did as well.

You’re invited.