Christen Thomas‘s boisterous laugh could charm everyone in the room—and because she worked in the music industry, she was in a lot of crowded rooms. She made too many friends to count, not just in Chicago but around the world. Within a few months of moving here in 2007 from New York City, where she’d worked for Cornerstone Promotions and Vice Records, she landed a gig in media relations at the Empty Bottle. A few years later she transitioned into the role of talent buyer, and in 2016 she took a similar job with the team at Metro. For a decade, Thomas helped shape Chicago’s nightlife, booking top-tier touring acts and local talent at the Bottle and bringing eclectic live music, RuPaul’s Drag Race watch parties, and much more to GMan Tavern.
At Adelphi, Thomas double-majored in English and music—she aspired to become a conductor of Broadway musicals. “There weren’t very many female conductors working on Broadway, and it was her goal to break into that,” Shenoy says. Before she graduated in 2003, Thomas got a taste of that dream career—she apprenticed as a conductor for The Lion King on Broadway. But by then she’d already found another path, while studying abroad in London her junior year. “Her friends she made over there, they went to a lot of live shows—that’s where she got more into punk and rock,” Shenoy says. “That’s when things start to shift more for her, like, ‘OK, well, I know all this stuff about music, and I’ve also got this degree in English. Maybe I can work writing about music.’”
After Thomas settled in Chicago, she briefly worked as a publicist for Pitchfork TV (which launched in April 2008) before being hired by the Empty Bottle. As Wirtz points out, she’d already been part of three outlets that shaped the era’s musical zeitgeist: Vice, Pitchfork, and by extension the Fader. “I don’t think she was defined by those places,” he says. “She contributed to those places, but Christen Thomas was Christen Thomas.”
Thomas also found ways to act on her love for music, and for Chicago’s scene specifically, outside the Bottle. She’d often write band bios and press releases for local musicians—she helped Adam Lukas of Pink Frost through two of the band’s album cycles. He and Thomas became friends, and she became a fixture at Handlebar, where he was working. Every Friday for a decade, Thomas and Rice would convene at Handlebar, usually sitting at the bar; sometimes they’d join Metro talent buyer Joe Carsello and his wife, Casey, who maintained a similar weekly ritual. “It kind of became a weird, like, booking-agent-slash-Friday-night Handlebar thing. It was awesome,” Lukas says. “Just picking out the jams and having fun doing shots.”
But even before she wrote those words, Thomas had been leading by example and inspiring women in Chicago’s arts communities. Johalla Projects founder Anna Cerniglia says that seeing Thomas work in a field dominated by men helped motivate her in her role as a creative programmer. “Christen was first and foremost a really great feminist and advocator for women, through the Bottle, the Metro, through her social media,” she says. “She constantly supported female-driven projects, no matter what.”
Thomas had a knack for energizing her friends in their creative pursuits. “One of the things that was really powerful for me was, when I was working for the Reader and trying to figure out if I was a real photographer or not, Christen was always unquestionably like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re killing it,’” says photographer Alison Green. “That’s really powerful coming from her, because she’s not a bullshitter. She’s extremely kind, but part of that kindness is a truly authentic connection—she’ll love you despite your flaws.”
