Good Friday Welcome to Prairie Fire.

I'm Sarah Edwards.

So I grew up in the 1980s and that was when arcade games and pinball seem to be at the peak of their popularity.

I loved Pac Man and pinball, of course, and those driving games, there was something about slamming your finger down on that fire button or pulling the pin back on the pinball machine that I just loved.

So I was excited when Prairie Fire producer DJ Roach told me about a guy in McLean, Illinois, who's turned his passion for pinball into a playable arcade Museum.

Sign me up for a trip to Arcadia.

I'm John Yates.

I am the creator and owner of Arcadia, America's playable arcade Museum, and all the other arcade related attractions here in McLean, Illinois.

My first memory of video games was actually at my church, there was a guy at the church that owned a chain of donut stores.

And he also had games and all this donut stores.

And he also donated some games to the church.

And there was this old Pong game, just one of these tabletop generic things where you just the ball bounces back and forth.

incredibly boring, but it was just mesmerizing to me.

My parents did not mind me playing the games at the church because they were free.

And they didn't mind me hanging out at the arcade, but they thought it was a total waste of money.

So they never gave me any money to play games.

When I was a kid, most of my time at the arcade was spent just socializing with my friends and watching other people play games and just longing to play them myself.

I think I had a mild case of Oppositional Defiant Disorder maybe.

And I just the fact that they didn't want me to play them gave me even more of a passion to want to play on.

From a very early age, I learned that I was good at fixing things.

And I I think really what I've learned is anybody can be good at fixing things.

What what differentiates people is willingness to take things apart and try to fix them.

For me ever since I was a little kid, something that's not working or even if it is working, let's take this thing apart and see what how it works.

I am an entrepreneur.

I mean, since I was a little kid, I mean, in third grade, I started my first business selling paper airplanes.

It's a long windy road, but it leads to me getting kind of stuck in this coin operated industry.

I needed a place to store all the vending machines I was acquiring.

And I found this like abandoned garage behind my apartment building in Champaign, found the owner called him and he said, Oh yeah, you can you can rent that garage from me, but you got to clean it out.

It's full of junk.

So I cut the lock off of it opened the door, and it was full of arcade games, like 20 old video games.

Needless to say, I was very thrilled to have that project.

Yeah, and it changed everything because then I realized, oh, man, these are a lot more fun to work on.

And if I can find locations to put them in, I make money without having to stock them you know, with with soda machines, you got to keep buying soda, and going out every week and filling it up with a video game.

You just plug it in somewhere come back a month later, and it's full of money.

It just seemed like madness.

I worked as a programmer for about five years.

And then I got a job at a startup out in San Jose, California.

Then I did my own startup.

And all of these startups failed miserably.

I lost lots of other people's money.

So I came back from California kind of with my tail between my legs.

Not sure what I wanted to do.

So I decided I would renovate one of my buildings.

And I got the building done and I wasn't sure what to do with it.

I was going to put a for rent sign in the window and I thought well, I'll just fill it with games and put a for rent sign in the window and see if anybody nibbles.

So I did that filled it up with all My favorite video games.

And it didn't really do very well at all.

Because I didn't do any marketing, no signage, nothing.

On fact, I just had a handwritten sign that I taped in the window.

But over time, it started to get a little bit of a following.

I think putting it on Facebook was really what turned the corner, there was an easy way for people to tell their friends and to invite people.

And then it started really getting pretty popular, it grew enough that I decided to start expanding it.

And I just kept growing it into other buildings.

And it is what it is today.

I've still not done any marketing other than putting them on Facebook.

Kind of my inspiration behind the splice was I've got three daughters, and I take them on date nights.

And there just wasn't anything to do with them.

I mean, you could go out to eat, and you could go shopping, and there was really no other activity.

And I just thought, well, that's probably something everyone's experiencing, they want to take their kids out and do something.

So I thought, I want to create a family friendly place where dads or moms can bring their kids and bond with them and connect and say, Hey, here's what I did when I was growing up.

Let me show you some of my world.

And I didn't think growing up in the 80s that this was a time I was going to look back on fondly.

But boy, it is.

It was such a simpler time.

And it was we weren't all addicted to our phones.

And we didn't have like constant stimulation coming from every angle and constant pressure and stress on us.

And we could just go and hang out in the arcade for three hours and do nothing but just talk and laugh and tell jokes.

I guess that's kind of one of the reasons I did this.

It's the nostalgia of a simpler time, a time when entertainment was just innocent and family friendly.

You know, you can bring your kids in here and not worry about them leaving disturbed or offended or angry or hurt.

So I really like giving people a place they can come and they they have no choice but to interact with their kids.

Because I know every minute spent interacting in a kind way and in a fun way where they're enjoying their each other's company is going to benefit them and benefit their relationships.

So anything I can do to create a space where more that happens, I'm gonna do it check out our website for a list of some of the games you can play at Arcadia and some cool behind the scenes pictures.

So now we're going to take you a bit further north to architect Frank Lloyd Wright's old stomping grounds.

You may have seen some of those beautiful homes in Oak Park.

But have you ever heard of the Coonley Playhouse, it's a privately owned home in Riverside, Illinois.

And it's been completely restored by a young couple who has the weight of history on their shoulders, and a couple of young kids.

Just walking in to a house like this, there's no other option but to feel instantly creative.

And one with nature.

Frank Lloyd Wright was just so before his time, the way he thought about architecture really is art right?

It's supposed to just blend it's supposed to feel a certain way when you're in the park across the street and you look back, you can see the homes as they stack through and you get to this house visually and it's different.

It fits the landscape and the other homes there they're very beautiful homes but it doesn't feel the same.

Bring Brinkley Braid was very particular and very intentional about not just the design of the home and the architecture but also everything that goes into the home down to designing clothing for the women of the home that was intended to be worn whenever they had guests in the house.

So he was very intentional about the look and the feel that he wanted the experience to be for anyone visiting his homes, which also makes it typically difficult to live in a Frank Lloyd Wright home in this home it's it's a little different because there were just little tables and chairs around this room.

And that was really it.

The house was built in 1912 it was created as an offshoot of the main Coonley estate, and was designed to be the school for their daughter.

The program of the school was designed to allow for children regardless of gender to participate in all activities.

So in this area is both the study and the shop.

And within the kitchen, all children were part of the food preparation process existed as a school up until 1919, when it was rehabbed by William Drummond, who was Frank Lloyd Wright's most well known student.

And that's really where it took the home from simply a school to having the ability to be livable by single family.

For a historic home within Riverside, you are not allowed to change the exterior without the permission of the historic society.

So part of that process does include providing proof that the change that you are looking to enact was part of the original design, you know, we wanted to install solar panels on the home, we wanted to do something that would kind of add about a an advanced technology, I believe it was the second Frank Lloyd Wright home to ever do that.

And we had to make sure that those panels weren't seen from the streets.

But in terms of the interior of the home, there's really no rules.

There probably should be, you know, social rules.

And yeah, and in the past, there were there were owners who changed a lot of things.

I mean, Frank Lloyd Wright, referred to interior decorators as inferior desiccators.

And there was definitely a past owner who it was a cool look in the 60s.

I mean, really cool look, but it definitely wasn't original.

So the subsequent owners, Ted and Susan Smith, did go through some very significant efforts.

The trim that you see it has been returned to its original wood coloring.

And if you look on the brick, you can see where there are remnants of the white paint that Susan actually did take a Q tip and pick out whatever she could reach.

The kitchen space hadn't been touched in a long time.

Not since the 60s, there was three quarter inch walnut paneling throughout the whole kitchen in the back area, floor to ceiling when we were pulling it down, sandwiched in between the cabinet was a letter from Ted Michaels, who basically wrote, you're an idiot, why are you doing that nut, you nut?

And then why anyways, God bless you.

But what was underneath was original cabinetry.

So yeah, so we could patch those holes, recreate a feel and look that would have originally been.

One story that I absolutely love was that Rosemary Michaels took down all the windows out of the house, apparently she didn't like the windows.

And an individual came over here with a briefcase full of cash and went to the storage locker and bought all the windows.

They had been noted in multiple publications as the most significant art glass windows that Frank Lloyd Wright ever created.

And I attribute a lot of that to, interestingly enough, Rosemary Michaels because if she hadn't taken them out and sold them, and they didn't go into the MoMA, and the Met if they weren't in so many zenith, the Art Institute of Chicago, if they didn't go into all these museum collections, people wouldn't have seen them and fell in love with them.

So in a way, she did a service to Frank Lloyd Wright and to this house.

The shipper Smith when they moved in here in the 80s, they decided to take on a daunting task of recreating museum replicas to be able to experience what it was originally like.

So the additional area that was created in 1919 Because nothing original was really left back there.

We just got it.

I mean, I was back there with a jackhammer for weeks.

Just just tearing up concrete and all these levels in the pool.

You wanted to take it to a point where it It touched on a look that feels like this part of the home but not in the exact replica.

We have been just getting into the details that seem insignificant for any other home.

Sometimes it stalls you out a little bit, you have to spend some extra time thinking in terms of the restoration process, it's really how little can I do and still make it wonderful, not because it's easier, but to make it right.

We are raising a family in this home.

The hopefully this house provides that creative outlet.

It's more than just developing young people who are going to have jobs.

It's developing the artists within in our kids and also with their friends.

A few months ago, the great author Charles Dickens regaled us with a reading from his book, American notes for general circulation.

He wrote the book in 1842, after his whirlwind tour of the US, not sure if you saw that segment on Prairie Fire, but he wasn't exactly kind about the prairie landscape around here.

So we thought we'd give him a second chance.

Without further ado, Charles Dickens thoughts on the Mississippi River.

Chapter 12, Mississippi in good time next morning, we came again inside of the hideous waters of the Mississippi.

But what words should describe the Mississippi, great father rivers, who prays me to heaven as no young children like him?

An enormous ditch, sometimes two or three miles wide, running liquid mud.

nothing pleasant in this aspect.

scuze me, Powell.

But this river of mud, as you call it, powers roughly 92% of this country's total agricultural export, and roughly 78% of the world's total exports in soybeans and feed grams.

Well, no surprise you even know what a percentage is.

Oh, he's a charmer at night.

As I was saying, the trees were stunted in their growth.

The banks were low and flat.

No moving lights and shadows from Swift passing clouds.

No pleasant scents.

No songs of birds were in the air.

Hour after hour.

The changeless glare of the hot anointing sky shone upon the same monotonous objects.

Excuse me.

60% of the birds in North America use the Mississippi River flyway to migrate.

Our whole Midwestern ecosystem depends on it.

Come on, man.

Think about it.

Rude.

There was some relief in this boat, though, for the captain was a blunt, good natured fellow.

But nothing could have made head against the depressing influence of the rest of the passengers that there was a magnetism of dullness in them, which would have beaten down the most facetious companion that the Earth ever knew.

A jest would have been a crime, and the smile would have faded into a grinning horror.

Such deadly leaden people such systematic plodding, weary, insupportable heaviness, such a massive pen immediate indigestion.

In respect of all, it was genial, jovial, Frank, social or hearty I see you're making a lot of new friends here in the Midwest.

I know the locals are getting restless.

I can see that.

Tell you what, why don't you come to our studio around Christmas time and read a little bit of that new book you've been working on?

What are you calling it again?

A Christmas Carol.

I think it's going to be a sort of time travel.

Christmas past Christmas presents and Christmas future.

You're not I think your future might be a little rosier if you did that.

Instead of giving us your thoughts about the Midwest.

Think you might be right now All right, let's do that.

Bla September is Hispanic Heritage Month.

And so we've been very excited on purifier about the idea of featuring Illinois based musicians and bands you may not have heard of.

So combining those ideas Hispanic Heritage Month and bands you've never heard of I we thought we would introduce you to those Tikhonov sloths to harness is a band based here in central Illinois.

And they become very popular.

And we are so glad that they've taken time out of their very busy schedules to join us on Prairie Fire.

Edgar Gutierrez is the leader of the band.

Edgar, tell me a little bit about how those two kind of started.

Yeah, so I mean, we've all been in, in this music for a while.

We all really enjoyed the kind of music as well as Nathaniel music.

And it's mostly based out of Texas.

And that's where the name really came from most economists, and they really called me and they count on to so I just, I thought it just mix well together.

And it's just the passion of the music.

We all really enjoyed it.

And we wanted to come together, just do something and just have fun.

Whose idea whose idea was it first?

I mean, did you guys start calling each other on the phone kind of came together?

Well, the core members, chacha Garcia, the bass player here and myself.

We kind of just already knew ourselves, we were friends for a while, and we just, we thought it'd be good to just join forces and, and make a band.

What kind of gigs Do you normally play around this, so mostly private kings, and yet as more stuff like that weddings continuous, but lately, we've been been called out a lot to the folks and Roots Festival.

And from there, we've gotten a lot of shows more, not private events, but you know, open to the public show.

So it's been a change in pace, but it's, we've we love it.

Good.

And your your goals as a band, do you have any aspirations?

I think at the moment, I think we remain with that same goal from the beginning of just enjoying the music.

But we hope that people enjoy it as well, you know, other than the people, we mainly play for Hispanic Latino, we want everybody to enjoy.

And that's why we've been so grateful to be invited to your show, and to other shows, as well around the area and Central and played at the Rose Bowl in Urbana, which is a really great mainstay for local music.

It's really really has become like our home, our second home, I will say, because, you know, we go in there and everybody recognizes and is that to show off is just to show gratitude.

Because we really enjoy that people that are not our audience are listening to us and looking out for us again at our Facebook.

And we try to keep up to date we do I promise but we really appreciate it with the community and we hope that this and much more can reach you guys and you'll listen to us introduce your band and then just introduce your first song.

Yes, of course.

So over here on Bajo Quinto or guitar, we got Alex barrios and then back here on bass.

I know I mentioned them previously but that's ChaCho Garcia.

And then back here on drums, one of our newest members, we got Junior Gomez and over here on my right on sax we got Pablo Tapia and me myself Edgar Guttierez Sheet