Illinois Entertainer

Familiar Influences, Different Worlds
A New Breed Of Chicago Punks Challenge The Country

Chicago never had a punk rock scene — at least not one you were supposed to know about. Stubbornly hiding underground, it bred Midwestern know-how with an extreme prejudice toward the mainstream. Purposefully uncommercial even when Nirvana blew up and punk “broke” open in 1991, Chicago bands were castigated if they looked for more dollars and shown the door.

• Read more: Cover Story: Hey Punk!

Hello, My Name Is Dee
Q&A With A Twisted Sister

IE: So A Twisted Christmas, this is it? The final chapter of Twisted Sister?
Dee Snider: Not so fast [laughing]. I was saying it was the final chapter and the last nail in the coffins of our career, but as it turned out it might have actually revived us! Dude, we’ve shipped more units of this CD to all the major chains than anything we’ve done since the ’80s. We’re getting more press coverage, more attention, MySpace is getting tens of thousands of spins, we’re doing “Leno” for the first time, we’re doing halftime at the Jets football game on December 10th; it’s like, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

• Read more: Hello, My Name Is Dee

Solomon Burke
Just Duet

Solomon Burke is a big man. In an interview, he launches into the rhythms of preaching, laughs irrepressibly (and often), and tells stories with skill, every bit the personification of the phrase “living with gusto.” On stage, dressed in sequined pin stripes (impeccably tailored), with kingly robes completing the ensemble, and sitting on an oversized throne, Burke is visually arresting. But looming bigger than everything else is his voice.

• Read more: Solomon Burke interview

Robert Randolph
The Next One

Lap steel guitar prodigy inspiration and advice by listening to classic Eric Clapton, Santana, and Aerosmith albums, but he learned the ropes first-hand from those illustrious artists. In the three short years since the release of his official Warner Bros. debut with The Family Band, the seasoned player has toured non-stop with the aforementioned, scored additional opening slots with Dave Matthews Band and The Black Crowes, plus become pals with producers Daniel Lanois and Rick Rubin.

• Read more: Robert Randolph interview

Jeremy Enigk
World’s Wait

Sitting at Niagara Falls watching the water cascade and wash away, Jeremy Enigk is staring at the tumult of the last 10 years of his life. Since the first breakup of Sunny Day Real Estate — the band who forged the template for emo in the ’90s, for better or worse — Enigk has been practically quartered artistically. Finding God, releasing a solo album, Sunny Day’s rebirth, morphing into The Fire Theft . . . things were bound to get lost along the way.

Appearing: December 13th at Double Door in Chicago.

• Read more: Jeremy Enigk interview

Mario Vazquez
Idol Hands

As the only contender to ever voluntarily withdraw from Fox TV’s hit singing competition “American Idol,” Mario Vazquez became the show’s ultimate rebel last year. After all, this Bronx-born Nuyorican was only stepping away from what many speculated to be a sure victory. But just prior to reaching the show’s coveted Top 12 in Season Four, Vazquez had already garnered enough attention from record labels to persuade him to say goodbye to the competition for good on March 13th, 2005. As it turns out, this may have been the smartest career move this burgeoning vocalist could have made.

• Read more: Mario Vazquez interview

IE’s 2006 Gift Guide

If you have a country music fan on your gift list, there’s no shortage of options this holiday season. The most intriguing is Nashville Rebel (RCA/Legacy), the first ever career-spanning Waylon Jennings anthology. Created with the complete involvement of his wife Jessi Colter and his son Shooter Jennings, the four-disc set includes Jennings’ earliest late-’50s demos to his Outlaw mid-’70s heyday all the way to his final ’90s recordings as part of The Highwaymen.

• Read more: IE’s 2006 Holiday CD Gift Guide

Black Is Back

Way back in September IE received an e-mail hinting at a Dio-era Black Sabbath reunion. Although it hadn’t been confirmed by any of the musicians’ — Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward — managers, the message said a Web zine out of Spain had reported a reunion tour of a group calling themselves Heaven & Hell, the title of the Sabbs’ first Dio-led record.

• Read more: File: December 2006

DVD Zone
The 2006 DVD Gift Guide

It’s that time of year again. ‘Tis the season of decking the halls, being jolly, and Grandma’s ill-fated rendezvous with reindeer. It’s also the time of year eight out of 10 people find themselves asking, “What the hell am I gonna get Uncle Frank or Aunt Gladys?” Fret not, little elves, I got your back.

• Read more: DVD Zone: December 2006

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Just as the style was different before he began, however, McIlrath knows the fame could be fleeting and tastes could change on a dime. “The punk world kids are growing up into now is so much different than the punk world we grew up into. If you wanted to go find a pair of baggy jeans, you had to go to the plus-size section of the Dickies store. Now they’re custom made and it’s the style from five-year-old kids to teenagers were wearing them. At the same time, I always hated those kids that thought I was growing up into the wrong world and saying I don’t know shit, I don’t know anything. ‘You know what? I saw Minor Threat play Chicago, so fuck you.’ ‘I saw Green Day play before they were big, so fuck you.’ There were always those kids. ‘You don’t know.’ I never wanted to be that person. They might be growing up into a different world of punk, but that doesn’t make it any less valid.”

• Read more: Cover Story: Chicago Punk 2

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If Rise Against are a strange fit for this article because they didn’t travel in the same circles as the rest of these guys, Wax On Radio are a square peg musically. The music on their debut, Exposition (Downtown), doesn’t make them out to be punk even in the loosest sense.

But they used to be.

• Read more: Cover Story: Chicago Punk 3

The Torch (Watchdog), the third album by guitarist, singer-songwriter Ronnie Baker Brooks, is a musical gumbo of blues, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, funk, rock, and hip-hop with a touch of folk and rockabilly added to the mix. The son of blues legend Lonnie Brooks, Ronnie was raised on the blues but brings a contemporary sensibility to his music. He is his father’s son blues-wise, but he’s also a child of another era.

• Read more: Soul Man

Forgive us for not fully fleshing out last month’s inaugural Metal Issue. While we’re mighty proud of it, if we really had it together we would have featured Sanford Parker of Volume Studios in that “Studiophile” instead of this month.

• Read more: Full Volume

Last spring we reported public radio station WBEZ-FM (91.5) and its satellites (Chesterton, Indiana’s WBEW-FM (89.5) and Morris’ WBEQ-FM (90.7)) would scrap music programming altogether when they switch to all news and talk in January. Now Chicago Public Radio says it plans to retain a smidgen of music on WBEZ.

• Read more: The Unheard Music?

BOSS
Micro BR Digital Recorder

BOSS‘ new Micro BR Digital Recorder attracted big crowds at the Summer NAMM trade show, and it has finally arrived in stores just in time for Christmas.

• Read more: Who’s The BOSS?