Old kid on the block

STICKER SHOCK Evie and Raphael OD on angst in a grungy Double Door hallway.

Hair and Makeup: Sharon Casey/Ford; 2nd Photo Assistant: Brian Guido; Raphael: All items from Beatnix; Evie: Top: Lulu's at the Belle Kay; accessories and skirt: Beatnix

When the Lemonheads came to Chicago earlier this year to support the reissue of their 1992 hit record, It’s a Shame About Ray, it seemed a foregone conclusion that the band, fronted by a now-40-year-old Evan Dando, would play the Double Door (1572 N Milwaukee Ave, 773-489-3160). The sight of their name on the marquee bridged the gulf between now and a bygone era of Winona Ryder, bad tribal tattoos and endless moshing.

The time when a rockin’ cover of “Mrs. Robinson” shared the charts with the Red Hot Chili Peppers feels as remote as a Bulls three-peat, but the Double Door stands as a living monument to ’90s alternarock. “It hasn’t changed at all,” says manager Lori Francis, who’s been on staff for 13 of the club’s nearly 15 years. “We don’t have any problems with the ’90s.”

The Double Door opened in 1994, two years after WKQX became Q101, Chicago’s “New Rock Alternative,” and one year after Urge Overkill’s Saturation, the Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream and Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville brought national attention to the Chicago scene. When Joe Camel still peered out from billboards onto Billy Corgan’s luxurious curls, the Double Door hosted everyone from Big Daddy Kane to the Catherine Wheel.

The Double Door’s Clinton-era vintage is obvious in everything from the earthy paintings of voluptuous naked ladies that hang above the main bar to its black-lit, sticker-crowded walls. A large illustration of a beckoning pinup, hung in front of black-velvet curtains, evokes the fairy Vargas girls that flitted across the baby-doll T-shirts of the day. Red lamps illuminate the red-leather couches and shale walls of the basement bar. And although that basement is the only part of the club that’s been remodeled, it is still referred to by its grunge-friendly name, “the Dirtroom.”

These days, the club retains a young crowd drawn by a mix of local bands and national indie acts such as Battles and the Go! Team, but you might rub tattooed shoulders with the old guard. When the Melvins visit later in the summer, be sure to hold up a vodka-soda, squint and be transported to a gentler time when hipsters took Doc Martens away from the skinheads, and flannel softly blanketed the earth.

NEXT>>