Taken from the autumn/winter 2020 issue of Dazed. You can pre-order a copy of our latest issue here
There is a jet stream of polar air that passes over Lake Michigan and ends in Chicago, creating one of America’s most severe winter climates. Cold’s icy grip chokes away the particles of breath as they enter the lungs. Daylight shudders into a vanishing pocket of hours between morning’s last cigarette and the afternoon’s first malt brew. Car doors freeze themselves into an impenetrable block of metal and ice. You have to run on the spot to stand outside, and break into your truck with a prybar, or take your glove off to hold a lighter and melt a passage for your key, wondering what will give way first, the lock or the skin of your bare hand. In 2015, February in Chicago was the seventh coldest on record, and Jack Donoghue had reached a point of reckoning.