Today’s Chicago underground punk and indie scenes are the Big Bang of modern music: both are horribly complicated and no one really believes in them, either.

Actually, it has more of a creationist or intelligent design history with Brendan Kelly and the other members of Slapstick acting as the cornerstone “God” figures and the resulting band lineages reading like one of those “…and Paul begat Uma and Uma begat…” passages that occur so frequently in the Bible.

OK, so starting over, the Chicago punk and indie music scenes are one big biblical allusion with a fantastic soundtrack.

In the beginning there was Brendan Kelly and he said, “Let there be Slapstick,” and it was good. And horns rang out to celebrate the rock.

But they possessed more anger and dissent than one band could express, and so Brendan and the other members of the band split up to spread their windy city angst to all corners of the punk scene.

Brendan and Dan Hanaway called forth Chris McCaughan from the band Tricky Dick and they formed The Broadways. And the political punk rockers rejoiced and formed mosh pits. But the other members did not rest. Rob Kellenberger, Dan Andriano and Matt Stamps formed the band Tuesday and it was good, but mellow. Peter Anna remained a devout ska preacher and joined Less Than Jake for two albums – neither of which were “Losing Streak” – so it wasn’t very good.

And as the tree of life grows, so too does the tree of punk. The Broadways broke up and formed the Lawrence Arms. Rob Kellenberger, one of the most ambitious of the preachers of the punk gospel, basically decided to join every band ever.

With the union of Dan Andriano and Matt Skiba came Alkaline Trio, and they went through drummers like they were cheap hookers. But lo, these men did great things, including Mike Felumlee’s involvement in the Smoking Popes and Duvall.

This could go on forever, becoming increasingly tedious to read and write.

So, let’s wrap it up with a few Bible-time lessons. First, everyone is interconnected, so if you’re into the Chicago scene at all, stop making fun of bands you don’t like – one of the members was probably in, related to or dating a member of your favorite band of all time. Likewise, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or at least be nice – they may have friends in a violent street-core band.

Second, remember your roots. Just because you’ve moved on and started playing in Alkaline Trio, Colossal or Duvall doesn’t mean you won’t end up playing with original Slapstick members in the Falcon.

Really, all I’m trying to say is: I like trees, sometimes history is really complicated and a lot of bands from Chicago make up my musical religion.

Amen.