Everybody goes to Nick's // Halsted St. hangout celebrates its first decade of wine and song

The basic intentions of a reverent neighborhood bar are not tomeddle in the middle, play its music too low or wear its britches toohigh.

Nick's Tavern is soul deep.

It's been a great 10-year run for Nick's, 1973 N. Halsted(664-7383), and a weeklong celebration kicks off at 3 p.m. Sundaywhen bartending alumni will serve beverages at 1977 prices ($1 for adrink, 75 cents for a draft beer).

Other highlights this week include live appearances by MarkHannon and his seven-piece blues band at 8 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday,and a Wednesday night Polynesian party laced with limbo dancing and lots of hula skirts.Drawings will be held nightly for free private parties at Nick's, andnext Sunday, a week's worth of raffle tickets will be thrown togetherin a drawing for a Rock-ola jukebox featuring the best selectionsfrom Nick's legendary jukebox.

It's difficult to explain your fatherland: I've been part of thewoodwork at Nick's since 1980 and have danced to "The Monkey Time"by Major Lance, stumbled across Caroline Kennedy at the jukebox,rumbled over waitresses Fran and Sue, and watched usually dignifiedfriends like Hughes and O'Brien act like Marvin Gaye and TammiTerrell. Someone - usually Torrez - would stand up on the wobbly legof a bar stool and dangle a green beer bottle as if it were a boommicrophone. Hughes and O'Brien would then close their eyes and croonto memories that rolled off the jukebox like new quarters in awaterfall.

The jukebox always has been the heartbeat of Nick's. With aheavy emphasis on seminal soul and rhythm and blues, the music isloud for people who like dance in their romance. Nick's staff (andlots of customers) have programmed the 100-selection box withdefinitive rock 'n' roll energy, changing a dozen selections a month.There's a library of 200 45s waiting for rotation in the bar'sbasement, but standards include Martha & the Vandellas' "JimmyMack" (on the box from Day One), James Brown's "I Got You (I FeelGood)" and Robert Palmer's "Sneakin' Sally Thru the Alley."

Some of Nick's other greatest hits were played out in recentnights of the round table discussion with owner Nick Novich;bartender Roger "Father Time" Moy; former bartender, advertisingrep Richard Newman, and longtime customer, artist Richard Hull.

The naked spirit of Nick's may best be personified in"Peaches," whose lava-like nude portrait hangs on a wall behind thebar. "A guy walked into the bar at two in the morning in the winterof 1978 when we were wall to wall with people," recalled Novich. "Hehad three sips of beer and tried to start an altercation. Threepeople were escorting him out and he reached into his pocket andpulled out a loaded .45. As the guy behind the bar was calling thepolice, he went down and four shots went into the painting. One hitthe frame down below her, two went just above the body, one justbelow the knee. But Peaches herself never was hit. We always feltlike that was history, so we never patched it up."

Peaches has been a part of Nick's since the bar opened in 1977.

"I'm Yugoslavian and I had a Yugoslavian friend who was helpingme renovate the place," Novich continued. "I wanted to get the rightthing behind the bar and it was driving me crazy because prices werealways exorbitant. My friend's mother had just moved into a studioapartment and she had this painting that was much too large for herstudio. She brought it over from Yugoslavia, where it was apparentlystolen by German soldiers, and when they had to evacuate, they leftthe painting behind. It was just perfect for the bar."

Novich said Peaches has had other names over the past decade."For a long time she was known as `Our Lady of Halsted Street,' " helaughed.

Moy has been behind the bar as long as Peaches.

"I was teaching at the Art Institute and used to go to threedifferent bars - the last bar was where I'd play pool to try and winenough money to buy dinner on the way home," Moy remembered. "The barbefore that stop was Glascott's, where Nick was a bartender at thetime. (Novich, Tim Glascott and Joe Carlucci, the trio that hasreshaped North Halsted Street, are lifelong friends.) A couple yearslater I wandered down this way and saw Nick's and Nick was tendingbar here. We got to talking and found out we had a lot in common -he had been a teacher, I was a teacher - and I was waiting for ateaching job in southern Florida. I asked him if he needed abartender without any experience while I was waiting for this job.Well, I didn't get the job in Florida, but I kept this one for thelast 10 years."

In its seedy mid-'70s life before Nick's, the bar was a dark,package liquor store with a tiny tap and a big reputation as anArmitage Avenue shooting gallery (as in heroin). There was amethadone clinic at Willow at Halsted, and the Ultimate Sports Barwas the Club Ole strip joint.

"We were the first ones to dare to have open windows nearArmitage and Halsted," Moy said. "And we had iron bars and gates thatwe finally took down five years ago."

The shake-and-bake character of the neighborhood is what madeNick's so vital in the early days. There was Freddie (a.k.a.Professor Longhair), the real-gone dancer with the pork-pie hat,Viola the Pillar of Fire Lady, the city's only courteous Biblethumper, who would graciously pass out religious literature at Nick'son Friday nights (and sometimes fresh fruit, from which Novich wouldmake delicacies such as plum daquiris), and the memorable comedy teamof Gus and Shook.

"Gus lived upstairs, and he was a reformed alcoholic - actuallya reformed human being," said Moy, as Tyrone Davis's "Turn Back theHands of Time" provided background ambience. "He had given up on thehuman race completely. Everything was negative and could best bedescribed as an equal opportunity racist. His buddy, Forrest Shook,was just the opposite - everything was rosy for him.

"They were about the same age and they'd always come intogether. Shook would talk about (in an optimistic falsetto) `Oooh,that woman I was with last night, ooh-wee!' And Gus would say (in adoomed bass) `Awh, you wouldn't know what to do with her, you idiot.'Gus and Shook would always go back and forth, and I'd be inhysterics. I'm sure they knew they were being funny; it was likethey were rehearsing this for years. They were so opposite, but whenthey were together, the chemistry was exciting."

Even the celebrities who hung out at Nick's were cool. FormerCubs shortstop Ivan DeJesus was a semi-regular, as was reborn ChicagoBull Artis Gilmore. Former New York Doll singer David Johansen stillstops at Nick's when he's in town, as does the Boston Celtics' KevinMcHale. And the heart and soul of the '84 Cubs, Gary "The Sarge"Matthews, said goodbye to Nick's just before he was shipped off tothe Seattle Mariners.

Moy recalled the night Caroline Kennedy came to Nick's. "Shehit on every man in this place, but no one took her up on it becausethere were three guys in dark glasses following her around," he said.

It's safe to say many of those days are part of the past.

Sandwiched between "I came, Izod, I conquered" clone cafes - theHunt Club, Gamekeeper's and Beaumont's, Nick's finds there's no moreroom for rootsy neighborhood individuality - at least on Friday andSaturday night.

That's the price you pay for progress.

"With these big windows, you can keep a good eye on the streetcorner, and it looks like 5,000 of the exact same people - like onecouple keeps walking back and forth all day," Moy said. "It justreflects the complexion of the neighborhood - no pun intended. Itisn't culturally diverse anymore. The tradeoff is that you don'thave the weird things that used to happen in here. I'd much prefernot wondering if I'm man enough to work at Nick's."

Novich said, "I think it's somewhat unfortunate, but nothingremains the same. In this business, there's a regular turnover ofpeople from six months to a year. I know I'd rather have a businessin this area than a lot of other areas in the city of Chicago. Indefense of all the changes, I think this is one of the few areaswhere it's really a genuine Chicago neighborhood. You come down toHalsted Street and you come down to Nick's, and it's still authenticChicago, where other nightlife sections of the city are prettygeneric. I mean, you could be in Atlanta.

"You'll always know Nick's is Chicago."

THE WANDERER: Julian Cope, former lead singer-songwriter andbass player of the Teardrop Explodes ("When I Dream"), brings his newfour-piece band to the Riviera, 4746 N. Racine at 8 p.m. Sunday.The Way Moves will open the show.

Cope's band will play tunes from its debut album, "SaintJulian," which has more of a cutting edge than the Teardrop materialdid. Cope - who collects Dinky toy cars in his spare time - got offone of the better rock 'n' roll quotes of 1987 when he explained hisformerly inconsistent public persona - "Mine's a different kind ofoff-your-treeness. I was a little bit skew-whiff, but never off myhead."

Yeah, that's the ticket.