Erwin Helfer is my favorite boogie boogie and blues piano player (and a really nice guy, whom I’ve met a couple times). The last time I saw him was at the 2019 Chicago Blues Festival. Quite by accident, I discovered that he’d be playing at The Hideout, a place I’d never been to before.

The Hideout calls itself “a regular guy bar for irregular folks who just don’t fit in, or just don’t want to fit in.” As such, it’s got my name written all over it. After only one visit, I’d say that it’s my new favorite bar, except I didn’t have an old favorite bar, and I really don’t drink very much. That said, the bar’s Shiner S’more Chocolate & Marshmallow Ale on tap also had my name written all over it, and my name isn’t even Shiner.

Helfer’s trio was to include Rick Sherry on the washboard, which was an added enticement. I don’t know Sherry, but, c’mon, it’s the washboard. I heard my first one in New Orleans thirty years ago, played by a guy who also played the log that night. But Sherry, Helfer told us, had the flu, and was replaced by a drummer who atmospherically wielded a couple drum brushes as if he were Picasso.

Despite the lack of a log or washboard, the ambience I was seeking was maintained by The Hideout’s piano, which, in the true spirit of Helfer’s style and repertoire, is a very old-looking upright, without a top, with the hammers thus revealed.

My next trip to The Hideout will be for A Scientist Walks into a Bar : Thermodynamics – The Hottest Science. (Is this place eclectic or what?) The bar’s monthly interviews are promoted as “Chicago’s premier science-comedy talk show”. Are there others?