Episode 7: Keith Lipinski

In this episode Gene talks to longtime Simon's Tavern jukebox curator Keith Lipinski. A native of Berwyn, Keith moved to Chicago in 1997 and started working the door at Simon's two years later. Having first been drawn to Simon's by its jukebox, he says he got a musical education from the bar's then head bartender. "When he left," Keith says, "it all the sudden came upon these shoulders to take care of the jukebox." He tells Gene that he felt a little overwhelmed by the job at first, but after a few weeks things "smoothed out" when patrons recognized that he knew what he was doing. In time, that recognition would come from the Chicago Reader's Best of Chicago poll, which has given Simon's best jukebox honors four times. Keith says he was always a big music fan, remembering that "in college times, when friends of mine were going on dates or doing drugs, I was just listening to a lot of great music and hanging out at a lot of great record stores in Chicago, picking up as much music as possible." Going back further, he says MTV raised him, "and that also helped my musical education and pedigree." Keith talks about his approach to stocking Simon's CD jukebox with "a little bit of everything" and how he thinks of it as his third kid. "And I had the juke before I had either of the kids, so they should know the pecking order," he jokes. He now works at the bar only about once a month but is still drawn to the "Simon's room.” “It's hard to describe,” he says, “but it's almost like magic to me, where if you have the perfect song going on at the perfect time, it's really, really good."