When Thax was fourteen, a mystical vision told him that he would become a famous poet. By the time his beard went gray, he had performed thousands of times. Right before the band comes on, he recites a spontaneous poetry portrait to bless the stage. His paternal white beard, round belly, and thick glasses make him appear, perhaps, as a rock&roll holy man; a shaman from the pre-MTV era, when the cause of independent music seemed to reach beyond the individual. In Chicago, he is singular and unmistakable.

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