Riot Fest - Logan Arcade X Psychic Drive. Pinball gets nuts.

Get this: last year Riot Fest, the long-time Chicago Punk Music festy, had the smart-ass idea to partner up with Logan Arcade so they could include an arcade tent to up the party to insane levels. After all, what’s more punk rock than arcade machines next to skaters shredding on quarter pipes while Descendents plays? Not a damn thing. Turns out a music festival is the perfect place for people to take a break from the brutal beat down the sun is handing out to appreciate the dope interactive art that is an arcade machine. I was the man providing that oasis to a see of crusty punkers. And I was hungover as fuck.

So who the hell am I and how did I get here? 

My name is Dave Zuchora and I run a traveling arcade based in Detroit called Psychic Drive. At the start, I mainly collected imported Japanese arcade cabs, but the more I played pinball, the more I fell in love with it. Well me and my GF Megan Haare. She’s the one in these pics. And NO, she’s not just a ride along. She’s an important member of the team – she knows how to drive the truck, move machines, and always remembers to take pictures!  

This year, I was psyched to bring a few games from my own collection for Riot Fest. Me and Megan love working with the Logan Arcade crew. The reason is simple: : they’re driven by the same desire we have to do cool shit, to make the world a little more interesting, weird, and fun. In the end, I think that’s what makes an arcade so special. It doesn’t matter how jaded you are. An arcade will turn you on, it’ll turn you on hard. Here’s the story of how we did it to thousands of people.

It ain’t easy, and it’s plenty sleazy: 

I won’t lie, last year at Riot Fest was brutal – even for someone who travels and works events full time. This is a totally different atmosphere than the gaming and anime convention weekends we normally bring our arcade to. Those places are relatively controlled environments in comparison. No, this was the pinball equivalent of the Vietnam War. The tent itself was surrounded by trees and mud, which made bringing the games in with the truck insane. The floor of the tent was not level at all. We’d just sorta flip shit in reverse and hope for the best.

This year we got level, bro. WAY level.

We walked miles every day - barely surviving on beer and the occasional extremely sus food truck meal. Hard on the wallet, gnarly on the stomach. You make it outta that hellscape, you got the bands to deal with. I almost broke my foot in the mosh pit during The Misfits. You make it through all that you still have load out. We attempted this during a heavy downpour, which was ultimately canceled due to lightning. After it was all over we still all shared a celebratory drink at Logan. 

Robby and Melissa from Logan Arcade are bad asses.

Doing this stuff, you learn to adapt. Something I figured out on this trip is that the smaller box trucks have catalytic converters that are much easier to access. Guess how I found out? 

Baditude.

It’s the morning of the first day and we’re going to load in. I’m thinking, “why is my truck so incredibly loud?” At first, I thought maybe I was just a bit more hungover than I thought, but as we start the drive, people keep staring at the truck. 

Another hot tip: if your catalytic converter gets stolen from your rental truck, Penske will say, “Just keep driving it!”

Shit was loud.

For the next 4 days, the truck sounded like an attack chopper on approach, I put earplugs in after the first morning, but there wasn’t much else we could really do. The show must go on. The punks must get their pinball. Catalytic converter be damned. We’re coming in hot.

Spot the missing piece.

Stern HQ for Foo

Legally this is all we are allowed to show of Stern HQ.

Our setup included a visit to Stern HQ to pick up four brand-new Foo Fighters machines, since the band was headlining on Friday. At the time this was Stern’s newest game. Man, they packed that game full of shit. As someone who doesn’t set up a lot of new machines, it was awesome to share the experience of unboxing and testing all of them! Pretty righteous unit.

This year, the honchos at Riot Fest listened to our feedback: the tent was much more accessible with the truck and the floor was actually as level as you could ask for being in Douglas Park. On Friday, Megan and I saw Jack Danger playing one of the Foo Fighters’ games. We introduced ourselves when he was done playing, and he noted that the lock bar button wasn’t working on one of them. He offered to help fix it. It was pretty sick watching him work on the machine he designed!

This is not Jack Danger.

Chicago’s Hairiest Cover Band: The Biscuits

Zespy gets frisky

The crew at Logan Arcade decided to up the punx this year by doing something they’ve never done before — traveling with their animatronic house band, The Biscuits! You know, those four foot tall animatronic dogs who rock more than they have any right to.They were as popular as the arcade machines. It was like traveling with an actual band. People were singing along and taking selfies with them all weekend. The only thing missing was their crippling coke addiction. Super glad they went to rehab tho. So wild.

Just gonna say it: this bird has a drinking problem

We also hung out with Chad Burd a lot. You probably know him as that loud insult comic who pisses off Stern employees in a lot of his videos. He’s one of the regular characters at Logan. If you’ve never been to Logan, you owe it to yourself to check it out; it’s my favorite arcade of all time. Their secret ingredient is love, but then their other secret ingredient is malort. Not gonna waste time on describing it. Just brush your teeth with a toilet cleaner. That’s the general idea.

Logan chicanery

I can confidently say Logan’s games are more well-maintained than any other location I’ve ever visited. That’s all thanks to the hard work of techs and best buds, Tom and Robby. It’s wild to see the respect they get from the community they built. People treat Logan as an arcade first and a bar second. There’s maybe no better endorsement than this: We closed Logan down five nights in a row. All of Riot Fest, which included the setup the night before, after each fest day, AND the night after teardown. Shit.  

All weekend we were exhausted. We fixed problems, we didn’t fix problems, we got frustrated. Hey sometimes it even got a little hairy. But honestly, seeing these crusty gooner faces light up when they get lost in their fave game DOES make it worth it. You know? Is that cheesy? I don’t fuckin’ care. You know how I’m right? Everyone on the Logan Arcade crew shares that same vision. It’s about curating an experience that transcends, you dig? You know, crafting the perfect environment for these games and those people. If you can do that, the magic takes care of itself. See y’all in the pit next year. Don’t break your foot.