Champaign,  Illinois 

"WilliamsSW" (williamssw) 01/11/2019 at 00:01 • Filed to: musiclopnik, Dylan, College

3

22

I spent 5 years of my life there, and this song captures it   pretty accurately.

Fun fact - Bob Dylan is credited as a writer for two * completely* different songs named “ Champaign, Illinois”, but you’ve never heard him perform either one of them.

The melody to this one will sound familiar to Dylan fans, though. 

and 100 more > WilliamsSW 01/11/2019 at 01:01

1

One of my favorite bands is from there. Champaign-Urbana had their own little scene for a hot minute.

Eury - AFRICA TWIN!!!!!!! > WilliamsSW 01/11/2019 at 03:58

2

All I know about Champaign is all the big RC hobby importers/vendors are located there for some reason. I’ve been sending the majority of my disposable income there for decades. 

shop-teacher > WilliamsSW 01/11/2019 at 07:12

1

I love this song. I enjoyed my four years in Champaign, and my seven years total in central Illinois.

shop-teacher > Eury - AFRICA TWIN!!!!!!! 01/11/2019 at 07:13

2

Its a fairly central location in the US. Lots of things get distributed in that area.

WilliamsSW > and 100 more 01/11/2019 at 07:46

1

What band?

WilliamsSW > shop-teacher 01/11/2019 at 07:48

0

Same here. There was a time that I considered staying there permanently, though I’m glad I didn't. 

WilliamsSW > Eury - AFRICA TWIN!!!!!!! 01/11/2019 at 07:48

0

Interesting- I did not know that!

EngineerWithTools > WilliamsSW 01/11/2019 at 09:00

1

Well, now we know who here went to the U of I! (Myself included.) However, being an engineering student trying to get done in 4 ... I lived in Urbana.

WilliamsSW > EngineerWithTools 01/11/2019 at 09:09

0

Ha! Yes - I was an engineering student, too, but only lived in Urbana for 1 semester.

Finished in 4. 5 years, but came back a year later for a stint in grad school. 

EngineerWithTools > WilliamsSW 01/11/2019 at 10:57

1

I did my short stint in engineering grad school online... and I do mean SHORT stint.

There is a certain engineering fantasy about living in Champaign and doing research. Likely is much better in my imagination than it would be in real life.

WilliamsSW > EngineerWithTools 01/11/2019 at 11:08

0

Lol I only did 1 semester of grad school - I realized that a Masters in Engineering wasn’t what I wanted.

Champaign would be okay until you got to be about 25, max, I think. 

EngineerWithTools > WilliamsSW 01/11/2019 at 11:43

1

Good point about peaking in Champaign at 25. That was so. long. ago.

Please don’t tell me you got an MBA instead? (I’m mostly kidding - most engineers I know that go back to school and get an MBA do it to get out of engineering, and engineering usually is grateful that they leave!)

They are rare enough that I think “huh, you want a Masters degree for this ? Really?” when I see a job listing that lists Masters of Engineering as a requirement . As a hiring manager working with stuff that has to be actually built and sold , I’d SO much rather see  hands-on experience in a candidate than an advanced degree.

and 100 more > WilliamsSW 01/11/2019 at 11:59

1

HUM . Mid-90's space rock outfit. They never hit it big, but they developed quite a cult following, and they did recieve some airplay in MTV, y’ know, back when that mattered . The played their last official show on Jan 1st, 2001 (or 010101 for you fellow nerds), but they recently began showing up at festivals again here and there, aaaaaand rumor has it there’s some studio work being done.

Generally accepted consensus is that their album You’d Prefer An Astronaut is the best album, but I really feel like Downward I s Heavenward is by far a   better album.

WilliamsSW > EngineerWithTools 01/11/2019 at 14:18

0

LOL - yes, I did get an MBA, about 8 years later. I bounced around a while after graduation, not really knowing what I wanted to do, but knowing that I *didn’t* want to be an engineer. I’ve been in corporate finance for about 15 years, and it’s a much better fit for me - but the engineering background was still a great layer of groundwork for me.

So true about hands on - I’ve worked at fairly lean companies most of my career, and people who just want to manage and delegate are utterly useless.

shop-teacher > WilliamsSW 01/11/2019 at 15:59

1

Me too.  After U of I, I went to grad school for teaching at ISU.  Then I got my first teaching job in a little town outside of Peoria.  I thought long and hard about staying, and if a couple things had happened differently, it could have happened.  I’d be making about half as much there though.

WilliamsSW > and 100 more 01/11/2019 at 16:38

1

That’s good stuff!  I’m surprised that I haven’t heard of them, although I’m a bit older - I left Champaign for good in August of 1991.

and 100 more > WilliamsSW 01/11/2019 at 16:51

1

Yeah, they’ve been good to me. They played a one-off show here in Austin a few years ago. If i can recall, it was tickets at the door only, in this small ve nue that sat maaaaaaybe 50 people (i think that was the fire code limit) ; they weren’t expecting much, obviously. Literally, about a thousand people showed up and stood in line, I among them. I didn’t get in. In fact, the fire dept came and shut everything down, so as a compromise the band ended up playing in the parking lot behind the venue.

WilliamsSW > and 100 more 01/11/2019 at 16:59

1

Huh - I did a little digging, and they’re linked to the Poster Children, who took off while I was down there.  A friend of mine was good friends with the people in that band.  Small world.

and 100 more > WilliamsSW 01/11/2019 at 17:07

1

Yeah, a lot of bands spun off from and around them. Hum were no means the progenitors of all this talent, they were in the middle of it, but for some reason, there was a small explosion of talent in that particular area all at once.

WilliamsSW > and 100 more 01/11/2019 at 17:45

1

There was a fair amount of talent around Champaign in the late ‘80s, but it seems like the Poster Children were almost the progenitors of that style out of Chambana.

WilliamsSW > shop-teacher 01/11/2019 at 20:10

0

Cost of living would be lower, I suppose, but that doesn’t make up for it completely.

shop-teacher > WilliamsSW 01/12/2019 at 02:31

0

Cost of real estate is generally lower, but everything else costs the same. I got lucky, in that by the time I finished grad school and got a job in 2006, the housing bubble had gotten too big for me to jump on. I rented a cheap apartment and watched the world burn. I bought in 2010, not quite at the bottom, but pretty close to it.