Veilside’s sophomore effort, This Time . . ., mixes Godsmack riffs with Sevendust grooves. It’s six-songs of modern rock with huge power chords, multi-layered vocal harmonies, and well-thought out guitar leads. Otherwise radio-friendly with a melodic, hard-rock edge, an odd cover of Kansas’ “Dust In The Wind” – with dual lead guitars swapped for the original’s violin arrangement – adds a galloping, Southern-rock flavor. Veilside possesses a true rockstar mentality and This Time is solidly hard-driving with attitude and spirit. (veilsideband.com)
– Kelley Simms

Just because Abstract Giants is billed as a hip-hop act doesn’t mean all its beats are based on DJ samples, loops, or programming. In fact, its self-titled long player is a full-band affair (think The Roots) that makes ample use of bass and drums, but also more unconventional instruments in the genre, like violins, banjos, and even a pedal steel, allowing these eight versatile players to stand out from the overly auto-tuned pack. (abstractgiants.com)
– Andy Argyrakis

The Assembly’s eight-track The Future Has Been Sold is worth getting together for. The veteran alt-rock band’s latest effort is slightly more pop-centric than past efforts without sacrificing the Cure/Psychedelic Furs pedigree. The guitar-driven songs are tight, an average of 3:30 in length, with just enough synth highlights, as on the catchy “Matters” and the bouncy rhythm of “Who Do You Need Now,” the latter made complete with chorus-like backing vocals. (theassemblyband.net)
– Jason Scales

Think of the last time – I mean the only time – you heard “I Gave My Love A Cherry.” Well, with this there is no guitar for Belushi to smash, because Andrew Calhoun sings it a cappella on his 19-track Grapevine. The solo artist has lovingly recorded his devotion to folk standards. His slightly gravelly crooning and acoustic-guitar picking are a warm throwback to days of yore: he sings the original four verses of “O Susanna” and ably tells the tales of “John Henry” and “Fifteen Years On The Erie Canal” in authentic busker fashion. (waterbug.com)
– Jason Scales

The title You’ll Not Take Us Alive is no idle boast. The Fisticuffs‘ 14 tracks bristle with high-energy punk delivered and traditional Irish folk instrumentation. These South Siders unabashedly embody the fighting Irish spirit, in tight instrumentation and lyrical content, proving they can hold their own against genre stalwarts like Dropkick Murphys. Whether it’s railing against discrimination, as on “Paddys Need Not Apply,” or telling an inspirational tale, as on “Young Ned Of The Hill,” it’s always rollicking and full of Celtic pride. (thefisticuffs.com)
– Jason Scales

Singer/songwriter Jennifer Hall revels in genre hopping, and there definitely is a lot to take in on her new full-length, In This. “Green And Blue” and “Oceans” are bona fide torch songs while “When We Were Good” offers a soulful rock approach that recalls Amy Winehouse and Duffy. Luckily, Hall possesses the pipes to pull this off, even when she’s raising the roof on the big production of “Like I Lie To You.” (jenniferhall.bandcamp.com)
– Terrence Flamm

Singer/guitarist Jeremy Keen’s engaging vocals can convey complex emotions as well as soar on Lock & Key, the latest effort from Jeremy Keen & The False Starts. The more energetic songs work best, particularly “Barnburner,” a prime example of Midwestern rock in the tradition of The BoDeans and Fire Town. “Brother” is the best of the slower tracks, thanks to Keen’s authentic portrayal of hard times and guest musician Bryan Meier’s pedal-steel guitar. (www. jeremykeen.com)
– Terrence Flamm

While Tsikago may not be a universally appealing flavor, it’s a true taste of world music. On the 15-song platter, Lamajamal provides original Balkan- and Middle Eastern-influenced melodies along with updated renditions of traditional tunes. Tracks such as “Oud Taxim” and “Jasmin Tea” aren’t overly distinctive, but all feature instruments like the santour and tambur in addition to familiar Western beats. In the end, it’s an accomplished but not terribly interesting or innovative effort. (lamajamal.com)
– Jeff Berkwits

Mission Man, a.k.a. Gary Milholland, conveys positive vibes through quick rhymes and jazz-influenced beats on his latest CD, liberty island. The better tracks, like “Starting Over” and “Living To The Rhythm,” paint a compelling picture of struggling to get by, but their message is diminished by Mission Man’s use of the same laid-back delivery throughout his music. He’ll need to light a fire under his vocals and vary his approach if he wants to succeed. (missionman.net)
– Terrence Flamm

Falling somewhere between folk and blues revival, Overman’s The Future Is Gonna Be Great practically has “WXRT” written all over it, so it’s no wonder the Plainfield-dwelling players have already earned airtime on “Local Anesthetic.” With equal shades of The Decemberists as The Black Keys, the four-piece band are poised to breakout of the burbs and become a key player in the future of carefully crafted indie rock. (overman.info)
– Andy Argyrakis

Punch Cabbie pound their way through the five-song Human Intrusion with macho/aggro vocals, calculated breakdowns, big hooks, crushing drums, and melodic leads and riffs. “Sin Eater” opens with down-tuned, fuzzy, guitar distortion and a big low-end rumble from punchy, thunderous drums. The band’s hardcore roots are displayed on “Bite Back,” including shouted gang vocals, while metalcore elements are present on “Big Oaks.” Punch Cabbie’s screamo/metalcore/post-hardcore cycle gets repetitive, but it’s dangerous with a dirty street sound. I can only imagine the pit rages at their shows. (facebook.com/punchcabbieband)
– Kelley Simms

Psychedelic/blues/rock trio Rosetta West play fuzzy and distorted riffs with heavy basslines on Racoon. It’s a short disc at 33 minutes for 12 tracks, and its recording technique gives it a ’60s-’70s vibe. Similarities to Grand Funk Railroad, The Guess Who (“I Don’t Care”), Simon & Garfunkel (“River Of Days”), BLS Zakk Wylde-ish vocals, and Robin Trower-ish songs “Bridge Of Sighs” and “Jack And Jill” (“The Temple”) are present here. The distinctive, hippy-like crooning of Joe Demagore gives Rosetta West its unique character. His raspy vocals are the perfect complement to the old-school space-rock jams. (myspace.com/rosettawest)
– Kelley Simms

Just when the first few moments of The Escapist lead one to expect a full CD of string-enhanced acoustic/trad folk guitar music, the Jason Seed Stringtet takes a serious and not surprising classical turn, seeing as its members hail from various local symphonies. Clearly, all are proficient players and guitarist/ringleader Jason Seed’s mostly original compositions successfully navigate the shoreline where classical laps teasingly into rock/folk/jazz. In this impressive sampling of the Stringtet’s breadth and scope, one is reminded of fellow traveler string quartet Ethel, yet thankfully Seed’s group is far less obsessed with classical music’s avant garde/experimental edges. (jasonseedmusic.com)
– David C. Eldredge

Symphonic-metal band Shield Of Wings play a mix of black metal and classical arrangements interwoven with metal elements on their self-produced, self-released EP, Solarium. The six songs consist of melody-based, keyboard-driven pieces that complement Grace Meridan’s elegant, operatic vocals and James Gregor’s aggressive growls. The “Beauty And The Beast” singing technique works without overwhelming or sacrificing the music’s heaviness. Nightwish, Epica, Delain, as well as Dimmu Borgir and Therion influences pop up, mostly because of the orchestral tones. Solarium’s dark, yet insightful lyrics go hand-in-hand with the music, mood, and atmosphere that the band create. (www. myspace.com/shieldofwingsrock)
– Kelley Simms

Terata’s Red Means Go, a three-track collection neatly marketed on a rubber bracelet USB device, is upbeat and peppy party rock. “I Made It All Up” and “You Are” each build to a relationship-gone-wrong chorus punctuated by crashing cymbals and power chords. The vocals, delivered Liz Phair-like, are mixed far too loudly, which is less of a problem with “Someday” due to its ballad style. (teratamusic.com)
– Jason Scales

When he keeps it simple (just him and his acoustic) and stays in the lower end of his vocal range on his seven-cut EP, Carol Streamer Troy Leif Thompson serves up his Americana originals most convincingly. Otherwise, Angels In The Attic’s not really pushing any musical boundaries and Thompson’s originals, while serviceable enough vehicles for him this time out, aren’t anything any other artist will jump to cover. (myspace.com/troyleifthompson)
– David C. Eldredge

Promising MC/producer Tizone may have titled his new album The Interpretation, but the tracks aren’t quite so committed to a single view. After an intro cut and opener where he establishes himself back in the game, Tizone switches course into playa/loverman mode for several tunes, and then weaves in and out of personalities for the remainder. It makes for a schizophrenic listen through the 18 songs, and ultimately bears the energetic, wanna-freak-ya side out. (tizoneonline.com)
– Steve Forstneger

Vapor Eyes has mastered the rapid-fire, hard-hitting rhymes fans expect from rap, but on his ambitious new CD, It’s Moving So Fast It’s Standing Still, he also incorporates elements of jazz, ambient, and gospel music. “Terra Incognita” sounds the alarm on global warming while “New Proof Material” delves into street crime. Space-age keyboards and sound bites add to the sense of intrigue on “Hypermart” and “Int3rlood,” while “Caressed By Sin” is smooth and seductive. (vaporeyesdj.com)
– Terrence Flamm

Chuck Maurer’s What Rebel began as a cover band in a west-suburban basement that eventually felt confident to move into originals. Tracks like “Rise Up” and “Time Is Running Out” force commonplace riffs and chord changes through a cardboard amplifier, which competes in the clasutrophobic mix with click-track vocal performances and A/B (sometimes just A/A) rhyme schemes. Clearly this is an act in its infancy – or maybe it’s several weeks premature. (reverbnation.com/WhatRebel)
– Steve Forstneger

With so many aged pop stars performing the Great American Songbook, it’s easy to dismiss Sometimes I’m Happy as yet another effort to rejuvenate hoary harmonies. Yet newcomer Amy Yassinger does something few old hands have accomplished: delivering genuinely fresh interpretations of classic tunes. “Slow Boat To China” and “Bei Mir Bist Du Schon” are standouts, but almost all of the 11 melodies are delightful. This is one artist who proves that what’s old truly can be new again. (amydoesjazz.com)
– Jeff Berkwits

In mid December, Metallica – drunk on the euphoria building for their 30th-anniversary celebrations, or scampering to mitigate the damage caused by Lulu – made the unusual decision to sell some demos on iTunes.

As the Garage Days releases have shown, the band aren’t afraid to show warts, but the decision to release (which also arrived on CD in January) the Beyond Magnetic EP was a curious one. First, the four leftovers – from 2008’s Death Magnetic – were originally given to fanclub members, which was on par with Metallica’s relationship with its official supporters. Each was then played on separate nights of the San Francisco-rooted anniversary showcase – an event populated entirely by fanclub members.

Delivering them to general music consumers, however, is a change in course. Over the years, Metallica have jealously guarded sketches and outtakes of songs that were eventually intended for release (note their conspicuous absence from the world of expanded reissues and boxsets), a tactic in keeping with their highly manicured and rigid image maintenance from no videos, to the iconic one, to the “Black Album,” explosion, Load-era. You could argue that it all fell apart with the Some Kind Of Monster debacle, and they’d prefer you averted your eyes from their personal failures to their musical ones.

*The announcement of guitarist Tony Iommi’s battle with lymphoma strikes a number of chords – mostly saddening, given the proximity to Ronnie James Dio’s death from stomach cancer. On business terms, it’s a blow to the planned Black Sabbath reunion, which was fought for tooth-and-nail by Sharon Osbourne as she struggles to boost Ozzy’s image post-Heaven And Hell’s success. It also renders Iommi’s own, recently published autobiography, Iron Man (Da Capo), pretty incomplete. Though not quite symbolic of Sabbath’s vengeful outcast, the phrase “iron man” typically denotes someone with superhuman endurance. Struggling to contain several dozen (not always chronological, sometimes repetitive) “chapters,” each about four to five pages long, Iommi’s memoir instead recalls someone who runs distance events by sprinting and stopping every couple-hundred feet. Short on narrative but long on uncanny detail, Iron Man (subtitled: My Journey Through Heaven And Hell With Black Sabbath) will satisfy Sab fans looking for a coffeetable book, but frustrate people seeking a more thoughtful, historical counterpoint to the frenzied I Am Ozzy. Iommi has stories to spare – he’s dealt with abusive parents, disfigurement, marital strife, severe addiction, and, of course, Mr. Osbourne – but his dry, anecdotal approach is better suited to snippets than 416 pages.

*No sooner did we coax Trevor de Brauw into submitting for “Caught In A Mosh”’s collection of best-of-2011 top-fives, do Pelican announce a new EP and tour. The jaunt will mostly canvas Europe, but Ataraxia/Taraxis (Southern Lord, April 10th) breaks a two-year recording gap. The four-song set was also tracked in a quartet of different studios, and they stuck to Chicago-band protocol by doing some of the work with Sanford Parker.

*Supergroups are de rigeur in our incestuous, local circles, and Beak are no exception. Consisting of former Timeout Drawer members Chris Eichenseer and Jason Goldberg as well as Engine Studios co-founder Andy Bosnak and frontman Jon Slusher (who’s also sat in Timeout), the quartet had no trouble deciding where to record their debut. Though Beak demur when being categorized as metal, it’s difficult to fathom lumping Eyrie (Someoddpilot, April 3rd) anywhere else. True, elements of post rock, hardcore, and prog intermingle (and hello Micromoog bass!), but the opening minute of “Angry Mother Of Bones” pushes a pretty fierce interpretation of black metal. They open for Anvil on the 23rd at Reggies.

*On the 28th, Corrosion Of Conformity’s Animosity-era lineup drops a self-titled album via Candlelight. For those of us who met C.O.C. in Pepper Keenan’s Sabbath-drenched ’90s heyday and later learned they were a hardcore punk band when they started, 1985’s Animosity was a girder-solid melding of the two, and its masterful balance has been faithfully replicated on the new album. They hit Double Door on March 7th with Torche, Valient Thorr, and A Storm Of Light.

*As we lead up to the Republican nomination, all this chatter about when life actually begins and the dominos of court cases that led to Roe v Wade got us thinking: when’s Dying Fetus playing again? Not for nearly two months: March 26th at Mojoes. The Marlboro-bred death titans proclaim a “return to roots” for the upcoming Reign Supreme, which Relapse hasn’t yet handed a release date. In a sign of the impending apocalypse, their tour kicks off at the South By Southwest Music Conference in Austin.

Trevor Fisher is taking some time off.

– Steve Forstneger

Having a lot of buzz surrounding a film doesn’t always mean big box office. For all of the critical acclaim surrounding Drive, the returns didn’t match the hype. Unfortunate – as Drive is one of the best films of 2011.

The plot is B-movie simplicity at its best: a Hollywood stuntman (Ryan Gosling, credited only as “Driver”) moonlights as a getaway driver for anyone who will pay for his services, at least until he’s double-crossed.

After a phenomenal opening sequence that turns the standard chase sequence on its ear – a tense game of cat and mouse is substituted for screeching tires – Drive settles into a clean, minimalist aesthetic. Driver’s relationship with his new neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) is shown not with long conversations, but in sparse, eloquent glances and self-conscious gestures.

As good as Gosling and Mulligan are, the standout of the film is Albert Brooks, superbly cast against type as a former film producer turned wannabe crime boss.

If you get a sense of deja-vu while watching Drive, there’s a good reason. The film has drawn comparisons to everything and everyone from Clint Eastwood’s man-with-no-name to Robert DeNiro’s Travis Bickel.

However, the film owes its greatest debt to the ’80s. From its pastel-colored opening credits on, it draws the most inspiration from William Friedkin’s To Live And Die In L.A., and even more so from Michael Mann efforts such as Thief and Heat, with a little “Miami Vice” tossed in for good measure. There are also explosive bouts of Tarantino-esque violence from time to time.

This is not to say that Drive is simply a copy of what came before – it’s much more. Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn lovingly and brilliantly mixes all the elements to creates his own unique world – a beautifully layered universe where a genre flick can achieve arthouse respect. Not only that, but he can do it with a completely straight face, not with the winking, knowing irony that comes so easily these days when filmmakers want to pay homage.

The Blu-ray suffers from a weak list of special features; four of the five featurettes don’t go into enough detail to make them anything more than a passing curiosity, and only the 25-minute offering with Refn is worth more than a passing glance. Drive deserves a better release than this.

U2: From The Sky Down
IFC

Having reached the pinnacle of being the biggest band in the world after the release of The Joshua Tree, U2 nearly let it all come crashing down under the weight of a mammoth tour, and the resulting big-screen release, Rattle And Hum. To many, its portrayal of the band discovering American roots music and musicians came across as both pretentious and sanctimonious – as if they were saying “Hey look, we just found this really cool guy named B.B. King, and we’re gonna let you all in on the secret. You’re welcome!”

Licking their wounds, the foursome retreated to the warm confines of post-communism Berlin, where they immersed themselves in the club and experimental culture that had previously been inspiration for David Bowie and Iggy Pop.

For the 20th anniversary of Achtung Baby (the film had been included with the high-end edition of last year’s reissue), From The Sky Down takes a look at the band’s time at Berlin’s Hansa Studios, where the album was conceived and delivered. Not only had Hansa midwifed the Bowie and Pop projects, but it also inhabited space mere yards from where the Berlin Wall had fallen just months earlier.

Sure, U2 may have absorbed and recycled German musical styles for this outing, but this time their self-awareness had been previously unseen.

From The Sky Down suffers from having little archival footage of U2 actually recording the album at Hansa, so they make do by going back to the studio and doing the interviews and performances present-day. Despite this, director Davis Guggenheim does a nice job reminding us of what Germany was dealing with at the time, and the inspiration it provided to U2.

Special Features include extra performances of “So Cruel,” “Love Is Blindness,” and “The Fly,” as well as a Q&A with Bono, The Edge, and Guggenheim from the Toronto International Film Festival

– Timothy Hiatt

If the Thirsty Whale could do it, why not? Durty Nellie’s in Palatine has slotted February 26th to reanimate a potential competitor: Haymakers. The Prospect Heights club, shuttered in 1984, will return for one night before rushing home in glass slippers. Coming from as far as California and Florida, members of some of the venue’s stalwart acts (Bitch, Dreamer, Hounds, Madfox, One Arm Bandit, Pezband Allstars, and Tantrum) will suit up once again and rock like it’s the Reagan era. Former IE Editor Guy Arnston co-masterminded the event with Kathy Powers-Hall, wife of former owner Chuck Hall. Far from a hangout for bygone local musicians, Haymakers also hosted Cheap Trick, Survivor, The Bangles, Shoes, The Kind, Sly Stone, Queensryche, and Twisted Sister. Visit the Facebook page for more info.

WWW.SMACKDOWN.COM

The opposition cheered as caustic, conservative attacks sullied the GOP’s own primary debates, but then the glove-dropping contagion afflicted the nominally liberal world of musicians. Veteran local rapper/actor (and White House honoree) Common kicked off, telling WGCI that the “soft” MCs attacked in his new track, “Sweet,” included sensitive singer/rapper Drake. The Canadian answered back by calling Common out on the Rick Ross side “Stay Schemin’” – despite earlier pledging, “Diss me and you’ll never hear a reply for it.” Not missing a beat, Common remixed the same track with his retort, saying Drake can’t get girls, um, excited, because he’s Canada Dry – and then encouraged people to print Canada Dry shirts. The weird thing is it’s reportedly a beef over the affections of tennis star Serena Williams, who could probably kick both their asses. (Fakeshoredrive posted this news about Drake after we went to press.)

– Steve Forstneger

IE: Was the hype for your debut thrilling or scary?
Alaina Moore: It was definitely more scary. Obviously, we appreciated it and were going to take the opportunity, but we didn’t know what we were doing. Our way of handling that was forcing things to stay as small as possible. We ended up saying “no” to lots of things: no producer, no management. We said “no” to support tours because we weren’t sure if we could tour for very long.

IE: So another force was pushing you along?
AM: This time the momentum behind us is more sustained and created by us, and we feel more in control. Anyone who, at some stage in their career, has been considered a buzz band understands it’s like riding a tidal wave. You have no say, it’s just happening. It’s really amazing, but you keep finding yourself with decisions that you don’t want. I remember the first time we got a publicist, they asked us about doing late [TV] shows and they could push for that, and we were like, “No. Not at all.” I shut it down immediately. “I do not want to be on TV – it sounds horrible.”

IE: Are you ready for your tag to be, “Patrick Carney produced their album; they’re the band the Black Keys guy is involved with.”
AM: It’s funny, maybe nihilistic, but I’d be relieved if people thought that than the dismissive stereotype of us as the wedding-couple-sailing band. [Tennis' first album was inspired by a boat trip.]

IE: What inspired Young And Old?
AM: I immersed myself in Todd Rundgren; I wanted to write things on piano. I listened to a lot of Elton John and Rundgren. Patrick [Riley, guitarist/husband] switched to playing baritone guitar instead of wall-of-sound surf guitar, so that brought out a lot of differences in songwriting.

IE: Rundgren’s one of those guys who I get why people enjoy him, but I can’t stand his music.
AM: [Laughs.] When I first started dating Patrick he played me Todd Rundgren and I totally hated it. Three-years later we were at someone’s house and Something/Anything was playing and I was like, what is this? And I ended up delving into his catalog.

IE: In what sense is the Tennis name a metaphor for the dynamic?
AM: Sometimes I see me and Patrick in those classic matches, where the competition is fierce but then they hug afterwards. But I cannot emphasize enough the complete, flippant lark [it was]. If we’d thought about it, we probably wouldn’t have picked it.

Tennis’ Young And Old arrives Valentine’s Day through Fat Possum. They play Lincoln Hall on February 26th. Q&A by Steve Forstneger.

Paul Stanley of Kiss has evidently put down his paintbrush long enough to partner with Washburn Guitars and release the cool-looking (and sounding?) PS21012 Starfire signature guitar.

The PS2012 features a carved, raised center solid mahogany body that recalls the glammy heyday of Kiss with chrome hardware, and has two Seymour-Duncan SM-3 Mini Humbuckers, controlled by two volume knobs, two tone knobs, and a three-way toggle switch. A custom Tone-Pros Tune-O-Matic bridge and Starchild tailpiece machined from solid aluminum completes the body. This U.S.-manufactured guitar is available in both black and white.

Like the body, the neck is also mahogany and has a bound ebony fingerboard with 22 jumbo frets and split block inlays (the top half being pearl, and the bottom being abalone). Hats off to Washburn and Stanley for making more American-made guitars. Homefront craftsmanship certainly costs more: the retail price is $5,332.

Blue Microphones
Spark Digital iPad Mic

Like last year’s NAMM show, this year’s exhibitors showed off lots of iPad applications, and Blue Microphones debuted Spark Digital, the first “studio-grade” iPad mic that offers both iPad and USB connectivity. The combination of Spark Digital’s direct connection to iPad, along with numerous available recording apps such as Garage-Band, provides the first mobile studio setup for Apple’s tablet platform, according to the company as well as USB connectivity, delivering studio-enhanced audio to any computer, laptop or tablet with USB.

Like Blue’s acclaimed analog Spark microphone, the digital version delivers the same detailed and uncolored tone, making it suited for sound sources from vocals to drums to podcasts. Spark Digital also features studio capabilities including zero-latency headphone monitoring, fully adjustable gain control, and mute. $199.99 is the MSRP Details are available at bluemic.com.

Peavey & Antares
AT-200 Self-Tuning Guitar

You can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna . . . wait. We’ve heard plenty of bands having trouble keeping in tune on stage, so Peavey and Antares Audios‘ announcement of the AT-200TM auto-tune guitar is a blessing for those who lack a good roadie.

With the simple push of a button on the Peavey AT-200, guitar players can now create music in “perfect tune and pitch,” according to Peavey.

In their NAMM press announcement, Peavey said theAT-200 utilizes Antares Auto-Tune for Guitar, a DSP technology that works behind the scenes to bring the clarity of perfect pitch to a quality instrument in an unobtrusive manner. No bulky, unattractive hardware weighs down the playing experience: the Peavey AT-200 looks, plays, and sounds just like a conventional guitar.”

Like many Peavey guitars, to us it ain’t the most attractive axe in the shop, with an ’80s hair-metal vibe to its design. (At least it doesn’t look like Cher.) But time will allow the company to bring some btter looking ladies to the ball.

Just as Auto-Tune changed how vocals are recorded (for good and bad), the AT-200 Auto-Tune Guitar should help bands sound better on stage – used judiciously. On paper, players won’t have to stop to retune during live performances. With the AT-200 guitar, perfect pitch is the new standard. The price is not known at press time. For details visit peavey.com.

News & Notes

Two of our favorite local independent guitar stores are showing their wares this month: R&B Guitars in Carepentersville is holding their annual Guitar Show in Alsip on Sunday, February 26th at the Alsip Double Tree, and Tobias Music in Downers Grove has expanded their showroom and put it all on display at an open house and sale with Taylor and Walden Guitarsin March. More details at www.tobiasmusic.com and in the next issue.

Chris Auman and his buddy Tom Ziegler conceived of Reglar Wiglar during a night of drinking in Lincoln Park’s punk-rock haunt Delilah’s in 1993. The first two black-and-white, text-only issues poked fun at alternative music, and featured fake record reviews and fake interviews with fake bands.

At its peak, the $2 zine featured 100 pages of real, well-written reviews, comics, and articles with a circulation of 2,000 and distribution through Desert Moon Periodicals and Tower Records.

But Auman, who plays in Soft Targets and runs RoosterCow Records (and has written for IE), ceased publishing Reglar Wiglar in 2005.

“It was just too expensive,” he says. “Printing was the biggest expense, of course, but postage and shipping was a close second. It was also getting to the point where reviews of bad punk-rock CDs were becoming the bulk of the content, so the fun was being sucked out of it, too. That was my fault, due to my unwritten policy of reviewing every single piece of music I received. It also didn’t help that both of my distributors went under.”

Contributor Mike Dixon set up a blog for the zine in 2005, and four years later Auman restarted it as an online-only endeavor (reglarwiglar.com) that includes archives as well as fresh content such as interviews with Roctober’s Jake Austen, Radar Eyes, Portland comics artist Jesse Reklaw, and plenty of reviews. (Bands may visit the site to learn how to submit their work.)

The growing site gets 2,000 to 3,000 hits per week, and Auman loves the ease of digital publishing. “Kinko’s is out of the equation, as are trips to the post office. I don’t need to pedal around town with bags full of magazines during Chicago’s brutal winters. I can correct typos and edit content to infinity if I need to. I can fact check things more easily, thus making myself look smarter. It’s easier to get readers to find you through blogger tags and links from other sites; even Google searches bring people to the site.”

Later this year, Auman hopes to return to print – with a new zine “based on all the crappy jobs I’ve had in the past 25-plus years, which will be accompanied by comics and sidebar anecdotes.”

TERRESTRIAL TO PODCAST – METALMOUTH RADIO: Before launching his metal podcast, Neil Wonnell had a string of jobs as a producer, board op, and/or DJ at a handful of suburban radio stations, including WJOL, WICB, WLLI, and WCSF. The last straw came when he was working overnights, and gave the only respondent to a call-in contest its tiny jackpot. “[She] was ecstatic that she had won the entire pot of $9.50 and planned to use the money to buy doughnuts for her church,” he says of the elderly winner. “Monday morning, the station manager was less ecstatic and needless to say that ended my career at that station.”

Wonnell launched “Metalmouth Radio” in July 2010, as a heavy-metal talk show. “Not getting too many calls at first, I added music, but the sound quality on that original site was horrid,” he says. So he switched to music and started pre-recording on the city’s far South Side before uploading it to reverbnation.com/neilwonnell. (The show is distributed through Wonnell’s N.E.W. Audio Concepts LLC, and syndicated on Fox FM and Monclair State University’s WMSC-FM.)

Wonnell plays old-school, new-school, thrash, punk, and heavy metal and plenty of unsigned bands. A recent selection ranged from Fueled By Fire’s “Eye Of The Demon” to Killer Of Sheep’s “Lose Control” to Black Flag’s “Black Coffee.” After an energetic diatribe on the hypocrisy (and aroma) of hippies, he put on “Hippie Killer” by Suicidal Tendencies.

He says he’d like to find a co-host and do a full four-hour show on terrestrial or satellite radio, and add a talk edition of “Metalmouth.”

In the meantime, he says the recent signing of South Siders Diamond Plate to Earache Records put Chicago on the metal map. “Bands to watch for are Savagery and Smash Potater.”

Bands can submit music by contacting him via neilwonnell [at] yahoo.com.

ODDS N SODS: WGN-AM (720)’s new lineup is virtually devoid of women now that Karen Conti and Johnnie Putman are gone. At least they kept “Sports Night” co-host Andrea Darlas and “Sunday Night Special” co-host Marianne Murciano. The latter is one of the few live shows remaining on the weekends, which are now devoted to – yawn – “best-of” reruns . . . We loved the debut of Brooke Hunter and Jill Egan’s new weekly podcast, “The Brooke & Jill Show” (the two first paired up at “The Zone” in 2002). At press time they hadn’t launched a website; listen at chicagoradioandmedia.com or check out their Facebook page . . . They’re following the footsteps of local radio veteran Wendy Snyder, who continues doing her weekly podcast – which she started two-and-a-half years ago – with husband Jimmy “Mac” McInerney. Listen at snyderemarksradio.net . . . Which reminds us: on February 1st, the Chicago Foundation For Women co-sponsors a free screening of Miss Representation, a documentary about gender and discrimination in media. More at cfw.org.

Dot Dot Dot returned to the studio, this time with producer/mixer Tadpole (Plain White T’s, 3 Doors Down, Finger Eleven, Disturbed). Working out of Parka Studios in Berwyn, they say they’ve continued the direction of III, which itself was a marked departure from their early poppier sounds.

“Everyone has an opinion on what you should sound like” says lead singer Adam Blair, “They’re all trying to help, but at some point though we realized we wanted to just make music regardless of trends and or what sells – just trying to make music that represents what we sound like live. To me, it’s all about writing a great song.” The last recordings have found the band on a national commercial campaigns (Party City/Factory Card Outlet) as well as cable-TV standards like “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” while continuing a grueling tour of 150-plus shows per year. Drummer Marty Kane says, “Having worked with Tadpole on our last EP, it seemed when we got back into the studio for these latest sessions, we had a general understanding of how each of us worked, how we communicated, and what was expected in the performances. Tadpole knows what he wants and he’s not afraid to re-take until he captures precisely what he’s going for.”

The Damn Bats, consisting of locals/ former Rabid Bats, Reaganomics, and Bill Ura Dik members plus veteran British drummer Rat Scabies (The Damned), tracked two songs of which one was finished by Scabies at ALASKA STUDIOS in London, England. The demo for “Doomed” was then returned to Chicago so guitars, bass, vocals, and final mixing could be finished.

A year in the making, Richie Rich (a.k.a. Rich Ryan) and the Chi-Town Blues Band recorded From The Streets at Studio Chicago in Chicago with Wes Blaha engineering. Editing was done at Image Pictures in Tomah, Wisconsin with Ryan and owner Peter Malinger at the controls. Mixing and mastering was done at CRC Chicago by Grammy-nominated producer/engineer Chris Steinmetz and his assistant, Yuki Tasaka. To adequately capture modern blues witha traditional edge, Ryan brought some heavy hitters to the sessions: Grammy-winning guitarist Billy Flynn, Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith, plus Grammy-nominated pianist Barrelhouse Chuck, Mark DeVos on bass, and a horn section from the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. Ryan wrote and co-arranged all 12 songs on the CD, sharing three writing credits with Steinmetz.

At BobDog Studios in Oak Park, producer Dave Owsald brought singer/songwriter Arden Baldinger and guitarist extraordinaire Andon Davis in to remix one of Arden’s songs (from the recent Pony CD) for release as a single . . . Oak Park teen singer/songwriter Lena Fjortoft recorded a four-song demo . . . Arie Sorin recorded fiddle tracks to help finish the upcoming posthumous release of Dennis Dermer’s Psychic Change with Bill Kavanagh providing bass . . . Dave Ero brought in drummer Mike Panico, singer Sandy Lee, and keyboardist Dave Mathis to continue work on his upcoming release . . . South-African/American singer/songwriter Rozanne Gewaar recorded additional songs for her newest album . . . Scott Lehman treated home-recorded new songs with added, studio-quality plug-ins . . . Scott Fortman’s The New Normal continued tracking for their debut CD, with owner Kavanagh on bass.

Hey Studiophiler: To get your studio or band listed in “Studiophile,” just e-mail info on who you’re recording or who’s recording you to ed[at]illinoisentertainer.com, subject Studiophile, or fax (773) 751-5051. We reserve the right to edit submissions for space. Deadline for March 2012 is February 15th. We need your news, you need us to print it!

When exploring the formidable list of Chicago’s blues divas, Deitra Farr’s name is always front and center. Versatile and energetic, her smooth and controlled voice tackles a range of genres from soul to gospel but it always remains grounded in the blues. Growing up on the South Side, it was clear that Farr was headed for a life on stage. Her youth was filled with exceptional situations that kept thrusting her into the spotlight.

“When I was 7, I went to see my uncle perform. There was a female lead singer and I told them, ‘When you get tired of her, give me a call,’” Farr recalls of her early start. “Everybody thought I was cute, but when I was 17, the girl quit the band. I was ready. I had my songs, I knew the top-40 hits.” She auditioned for her uncle’s R&B band, Central Power Station, and beat out 11 others for the job. They performed pop hits at local parties, but it was just the first step in her quick ascent up the music business ladder.

By the time she graduated high school, Farr was already set to record her first single. She was studying music at Loop College (now Harold Washington College) with noted music producer James Mack and one of her classmates was looking for a lead singer for his group, Mill Street Depo. Farr snagged the job and recorded a single, “You Won’t Support Me,” with the band on Platinum Records, which was Sylvia Robinson’s (of Sugar Hill Records fame) label. The recording become a Cashbox Top 100 R&B hit in 1976, supplying 18-year-old Farr with a smash record and two professional groups with which she regularly performed. It was all heady stuff for anyone – especially a teen – but she viewed it as simply part of her path. “Because of the way my life has been, I expect the unusual and I do the unusual,” she says. Unusual indeed. When she was growing up in Englewood, her biggest dream was playing the Grand Ballroom on 63rd. She never imagined that she would eventually play in 40 countries. Her next step was obtaining blues-club gigs.

At 22, she was working as a desk clerk at the U Of I and one of her friends dared her to get up and sing with Phil Guy, who was performing at the school. “They didn’t know I could; I got up and sang ‘Steel Away’ and Phil said, ‘You can really sing, you need to play with us.’” Farr played with Guy at the Checkerboard and Theresa’s, meeting Junior Wells and Buddy Guy. “I thought, maybe I can be a blues singer. I liked it. My dad had a big blues collection so it wasn’t foreign to me.” She quickly became absorbed in the scene and was amazed at the wealth of legendary blues people who formed the local scene in the ’80s. She played Kingston Mines, Blue Chicago, and Wise Fools Pub. “I was in awe that I could meet people on blues records,” she says. “These people were my heroes. I met Louis Myers, who was Little Walter’s sideman. People coming on the blues scene now, I feel sorry for them because it’s gone. They can only learn it on records.”

Farr grabbed the opportunity to learn from legendary blues icons and it served her well. She went down to play in Birmingham, Alabama with Howlin’ Wolf drummer Sam Lay in the early ’80s. The band was white except for Farr and Lay, but they played a black club. With Lay in the back on drums and Farr backstage, all the club’s patrons saw were white faces and they walked out. When Farr came out to sing, the club was empty except a lone figure at the bar.

“I went out and decided to do my show and I sang my heart out,” she remembers, “pretending it was a full house. I got off stage and saw somebody sitting at the bar and it’s Eddie Kendricks of The Temptations. This was one of my idols and he was the only one in the audience. The lesson is to do your show because you don’t know who is watching.”

The world is watching Farr now. In the ’90s, she performed as the lead singer of Mississippi Heat, touring and recording two CDs. “They were the brothers I never had,” she says. She left the group to focus on her solo career and produced her first solo outing, The Search Is Over (JSP), in 1997. That album showcased her rich vocals and the smooth blues that has become her trademark. She followed with Let It Go! in 2005, which reflected her soul and gospel influences.

“I’m not strictly blues, I also do soul,” Farr says. “I sing what I feel. I feel blues. I feel soul. That’s the best way I can express myself. I’m not shy about singing jazz. I sing gospel. I’m a music lover. The way I best express me is blues, soul, gospel.” As a songwriter, she stands out as one of the most evocative in contemporary blues. All of her work displays a strong narrative and well-defined emotions.

“I’m inspired by what I hear, what I’m going through, and what I read,” she says of her process. “Sometimes the music gets to me first. I’ll hear chords in my head. I write all of my music in my head. I go through periods where I don’t write anything because I just wasn’t inspired. You can’t force creativity. It’s either there or not there.”

Always multi-faceted in terms of creativity, Farr is currently working on her memoirs, two movies, as well as her monthly “Artist To Artist” column in Living Blues. She kicks off a South American tour this summer, so catch her while you can.

Apparing: 2/2 at Buddy Guy’s Legends (700 S. Wabash) in Chicago.

Harp master Sugar Blue will make beautiful music at his blues wedding on February 16th at Rosa’s, 3420 W. Armitage. The event will start at 9 p.m. with the band playing, including groom Sugar Blue and bride Ilaria.

– Rosalind Cummings-Yeates

The IE staff picks its favorite albums, reissues, live shows, and local bands of 2011.

Curt Baran: Albums
1. Wild Flag Wild Flag (Merge)
2. PJ Harvey Let England Shake (Island)
3. Le Butcherettes Sin Sin Sin (Rodriguez-Lopez)
4. Tune-Yards whokill (4AD)
5. Fleet Foxes Helplessness Blues (Sub Pop)
6. Fucked Up David Comes To Life (Matador)
7. Radiohead The King Of Limbs (TBD)
8. Wilco The Whole Love (dBPM)
9. Wye Oak Civilian (Merge)
10. The Black Keys El Camino (Nonesuch)

Steve Forstneger: Albums
1. Wilco The Whole Love (dBPM)
2. Raphael Saadiq Stone Rollin‘ (Columbia)
3. Seryn This Is Where We Are (Velvet Blue)
4. Elbow Build A Rocket Boys! (Fiction/Polydor)
5. The Tunnel Fathoms Deep (Glorious Alchemical)
6. Meshell Ndegeocello Weather (Naive)
7. Frank Ocean Nostalgia, Ultra (mixtape)
8. Eleanor Friedberger Last Summer (Merge)
9. Drive-By Truckers Go-Go Boots (ATO)
10. KEN Mode Venerable (Profound Lore)

John Vernon: Reissues
1. Material Issue International Pop Overthrow (Hip-O)
2. The Smashing Pumpkins Gish (Virgin)
3. R.E.M. Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011 (Warner Bros.)
4. Peter Tosh Equal Rights (Legacy)
5. Nirvana Nevermind: 20th Anniversary Edition (Geffen)
6. Sugar Minott Hard Time Pressure (VP)
7. The Jesus And Mary Chain Darklands (Edsel UK)
8. The Beach Boys The Smile Sessions (Capitol)
9. The Who Quadrophenia: The Director’s Cut (Geffen)
10. Marvin Gaye What’s Going On (Motown)

Andy Argyrakis: Concerts
1. Paul McCartney – Wrigley Field, August 1
2. U2 – Soldier Field, July 5
3. Lady Gaga – United Center, February 28
4. Bryan Ferry – Civic Opera House, October 12
5. Steely Dan – Ravinia, August 12
6. Alison Krauss & Union Station – Summerfest, September 10
7. Roger Daltrey – The Venue, October 7
8. Weezer – Aragon Ballroom, January 7
9. Robert Plant – Ravinia, June 16
10. Gang Of Four – Metro, February 11

Around Hear staff: Local Bands
California Wives
Jeff Elbel + Ping
Daniel Knox
The Maybenauts
Musikanto
Joseph Messing & The Wisemen
Northpilot
Will Phalen
Tiger Bones
YP

Is that a giant list of songs, or are we just happy to see ya? For all the discussion surrounding the deaths of various recording styles and formats, 2011 was a fantastic year for songs. IE found very little overlap when our writers submitted their votes, which is astounding. If you can find 10 new singles you’re ecstatic about, and none of those would land on a peer’s top 50? You bemoan the lack of consensus – we say, bring on more salad bar!

Too many listeners take a philistine attitude to year-end lists: the Spin and Rolling Stone comment boards overflow with readers disappointed not to see their own delicately chosen tastes reflected back at them. Here’s an idea: treat them as recommendations. Almost all of IE’s top songs can be streamed, YouTube’d, caught on Soundcloud, Spotify, or legally and freely downloaded as MP3s. And if you hate every single one, exult in the knowledge that you’re an individual!

In alphabetical order:

Akron/Family “Island”
The Antlers “I Don’t Want Love”
The Bees “I Really Need Love”
The Belle Brigade “Losers”
Big K.R.I.T. ft. David Banner “Sookie Now”
James Blake “The Wilhelm Scream”
Bon Iver “Holocene”

Jeff Bridges “Falling Short”
Buffalo Tom “Down”
Hayes Carll “KMAG YOYO”
Chairlift “Met Before”
Class Actress “Keep You”
Cornershop “Double Decker Eyelashes”

Danger Mouse & Daniel Lippi ft. Jack White “Two Against One”
Lana Del Rey “Blue Jeans”
Dev “Bass Down Low (Proper Villains)”
Thomas Dolby “Nothing New Under The Sun”
Drake “Marvins Room”
The-Dream “Body Work”

Elbow “Neat Little Rows”
*The Electric ft. Pugz Atomz “Toot Toot”
Foo Fighters “Walk”
Foster The People “Helena Beat”
Fountains Of Wayne “Action Hero”
*Ezra Furman & The Harpoons “I Killed Myself But I Didn’t Die”
Gotye ft. Kimbra “Somebody That I Used To Know”
Cee-Lo Green “You’re So Square”
Grouplove “Colours”
Lisa Hannigan ft. Ray Lamontagne “O Sleep”
Hey Sholay “Dreamboat”
Incubus “Adolescents”
Iron & Wine “Walking Far From Home”
Mason Jennings “Bitter Heart”

Wiz Khalifa “On My Level”
*Kid Sister ft. Riff Raff “Hide & Seek”
Takahiro Kido “Oranges & Lemons”
King Creosote “And The Racket They Made”
Kendrick Lamar “The Spiteful Chant”

LMFAO “One Day”
Low “Try To Sleep”
M83 “Midnight City”
Major Lazer “Original Don”
Mastodon “All The Heavy Lifting”
Nicki Minaj “Super Bass”
Meshell Ndegeocello “Weather”
Nekromantheon “Divinity Of Death”
Notorious B.I.G. “Gimme The Loot (Superginger remix)”
*Russian Circles “Mladek”

*Scattered Trees “A Conversation About Death On New Years Eve”
Sebastian “Embody”
Seryn “We Will All Be Changed”
The Shoes “Crack My Bones”
*Smith Westerns “Dye The World”
The Smithereens “What Went Wrong”
Sneaky Sound System “Big”
Star Slinger ft. Reggie B. “Dumbin’ (Diplo Remix)”
Stay+ “Young Luv”
Still Corners “Into The Trees”
*Stratus “Jasper’s Theme”
Switchfoot “Afterlife”

*Urge Overkill “Rock&Roll Submarine”
The Vaccines “Wetsuit”
Tom Waits “Hell Broke Luce”
We Were Promised Jetpacks “Sore Thumb”
The Weeknd “Wicked Games”
*Wilco “Whole Love”
Wild Flag “Something Came Over Me”
Wooden Wand & Briarwood “Winter In Kentucky”
Willie Wright “Dressing For The Occasion”
Yelawolf ft. Kid Rock “Let’s Roll”

Young Chris ft. Future “Racks On Racks”
Young Galaxy “The Angels Are Surely Weeping”

* = local

Richard Anthony is much more gifted as a songwriter than he is as a singer throughout Connected Part One, an odd but occasionally endearing synth-pop project where 100-percent of the proceeds go to foster-children’s charities. Clearly he’s a noble guy capable of spinning several socially conscious tales, but a limited a range and hit-or-miss vocal effects suggest he’d be best penning tunes for already established artists. (richardanthonymusic.com)
– Andy Argyrakis

You’re never too young for hip-hop. Chica X, the 11-year-old rapper (real name Xiola Tapia), proves this on five new tracks. She drops simple rhymes over slightly muddy electronic beats and synth, just a few notches in quality above what one might reasonably expect at a family talent show. This is no knock on Chica X: she’s got skills, but sophistication, life experience, and better production value is what she needs most. Keep the name in mind so in a few years you can say you read about her here first. (myspace.com/chicaxrox)
– Jason Scales

While Korn’s new album uses dubstep to give its metal a fresh coat of paint, The Coop aren’t so hands-off when it comes to their proggy, jazzy shades. Internalize ventures from electric blues with drum and bass to Euro club synths and Bonnaroo with uncanny ease, rarely clunking into a mismatch and confidently cutting a path when none appears obvious. That said, tracks like “Space Cakes II” indulge themselves endlessly, usually at momentum’s expense. But it’s generally better to have too many ideas than none. (thecoopmusic.net)
– Steve Forstneger

Eddie Dixon seems to be a kindred spirit of Beck, not necessarily in musical sound but in one-man-band approach to creating music. The multi-instrumentalist ably exhibits his pop music/mad-scientist skills on the nine-song Skirmisher. Although a bit left-of-center in arrangement, the songs have a solid rock backbone made pleasantly quirky with Dixon’s high attention to detail. “Lucky” and “Kidnap Van” showcase this peccadillo with their layers of instrumentation and vocals, which are generally warm if not understated throughout the tracks. (eddiedixon.bandcamp.com)
– Jason Scales

Folksinger/songwriter Mark Dvorak’s fourth release, Time Ain’t Got Nothin’ On Me, features 12 originals, plus three live tracks. Dvorak’s songs about life, time, and age are delicately crafted with a familiar, folksy warmth. His voice conjures the spirit of Buddy Holly while he pours his heart and soul into the music. Various styles are on display here: hints of bluegrass, country & western-tinged songs with banjo and fiddle – good ol’ down-home folk ditties. His reflection on the passing of time is the major theme, though Dvorak shows that you can look back while keeping a watchful, hopeful eye on the future. (markdvorak.com)
– Kelley Simms

Brian Eaton’s Graphic Nature full-length is a one-man rock show. After spending nearly 20 years producing other bands, Eaton stepped out from the desk to write, perform, and record all the instruments and vocals as well as produce, engineer, and mix his debut. Eaton utilizes a vast range of styles with inspiring lyrics about the struggles of the human condition. Graphic Nature displays the tenacity of the Foo Fighters, the diverse proginess of Porcupine Tree, and the sensible pop qualities of The Fray. Eerie Queensrÿche-ish monster tribal drum rhythms, acoustic guitar, and prog synths open “Sobriety,” and a cover of Seal’s “Crazy” is pulled off surprisingly well, ultimately making it his own. Eaton is a multi-talented, multi-instrumentalist with multi-tasking abilities. (brianeaton.com)
– Kelley Simms

When you hit Frank Gondo’s Facebook page, you read that his employer is Gondo, his band. It’s an amusing detail, because were Mr. Gondo not canned from his straight job in this recession, the music could very well be on the backburner. The compression on his recordings inadvertently recalls early Bob Mould, but with cascading drum fills, layered acoustic and electric guitars, and mounting solos, joblessness has led Gondo to explore his inner classic rocker. A thick fuzz on tracks like “Intelligent Design,” however, make him fully modern. (reverbnation.com/gondo)
– Steve Forstneger

Stephen Pearlman, recording under the moniker Haberdashery, could be considered the poor man’s Owl City, though he’s been at it for longer. Pearlman writes and records his own electro/synth pop, and his fifth full-length release Tonight The Angels finds him continuing to channel Erasure as he uses his keyboard to explore themes of love and relationships. While Pearlman does manage to create some sweeping music from his electronics, unfortunately his melodies and choruses aren’t nearly as memorable as his counterparts. (haberdasheryinfo.com)
– Carter Moss

R&B diva Syleena Johnson’s scored a Grammy nomination and collaborations with Kanye West and R. Kelly, but she’s yet to experience superstardom. Chapter V: Underrated (Shanachie) might not possess the magic she needs given multiple routine soul stompers and basic old-school ballads, but a little duet help from famous friends like Faith Evans, Angie Stone, and Tweet should give the local some additional exposure. (myspace.com/syleenajohnson)
– Andy Argyrakis

Last False Hope is one strange mash-up of musical influences and worldviews. On the band’s debut EP, The Shape Of Bluegrass To Come, the music is hardcore/punk-inspired bluegrass, the vocals are straight from the reject bin of death-metal bands, and the lyrics are cynical and unashamedly anti-God (“Giving Up God For Lent,” “Drag Me To Hell,” “Dying And Diseased”). At least the band helps prove an adage – just because we humans can do something, it doesn’t mean we should. (lastfalsehope.tk)
– Carter Moss

With her sweet, soaring croon, Katie Luka exudes a soulful maturity beyond her mere 20 years. Deep, expressive emotion winds through her debut, No Blonde Country. Her languorous interpretation of “God Made Me” allows her to showcase a touching vulnerability while maintaining her strong tone. She makes a slight stumble in her choice to cover The Beatles’ “Let It Be”; her vocal performance is slick and inventive, but she does herself no favors reworking the arrangement and inexplicably including a flashy guitar solo. (katieluka.com)
– Patrick Conlan

Panther Style is in. The band’s 10-track album ¡Emergencia! oozes a cool, hip, urban rock vibe. The four-piece seems inspired by early U2, especially with the snare drum work on “The Instrumental,” or simple verse-chorus-verse structures, like a mid-1990s Sub Pop product, a la The Fastbacks. But the uptempo energy, tight songwriting, and female vocal harmonies are the flash to this style worth emulating. (pantherstylemusic.com)
– Jason Scales

Humor doesn’t get much darker than the morbid tales spun by The Royal Pines on their latest collection of psychedelic/country songs, Come Forth. The energetic “Open Your Face (Drink Alone)” depicts characters who are fun to drink with except for some homicidal tendencies. Frontman Joe Patt’s talky vocals almost evoke Steve Martin, especially on the paranoid punk of “All Wrong,” and the ominous country & western ballad, “The Night Before.” Definitely not for everyone, but often pretty funny. (myspace.com/royalpines)
– Terrence Flamm

Serengeti is the rapper for those who don’t like rap. His bouncy verbal acrobatics hopscotch over the cool grooves and ambient beat puzzles assembled by Advance Base and Yoni Wolf on Family And Friends (Anticon). Geti’s slick syllable surgery slices through the icy, skittering melody and throbbing deep bass in “Ha-Ha.” A glistening melody speckled with shoegazing touches, and M83-style drama is the backdrop for his fast-paced stream-of-conscious rattle in “A.R.P.” This is a more relaxed outing, but his passion and humor still shine through. (anticon.com)
– Patrick Conlan

Sex Unicorn brings all the raw ingredients needed for vintage speed metal to its self-titled EP, including a vocalist who howls and whispers with menace, and a wildly strumming lead guitarist. But the quartet adds a modern edge to its sound on “Riding In Cars With Boys” and serves up an impressively elaborate vocal and keyboards arrangement with “Methlab.” (sexunicorn.com)
– Terrence Flamm

Power trio Simple Simon (a.k.a. The Simons) is back from a 10-year hiatus to deliver its trademark rock ‘n’ roll on Attack. Its nine tracks will leave you out of breath from its crushing drums, shredding axe attack, and brash vocals that bash through repeatedly. This sixth album’s calculated punk vibe mixes with ’70s rock – Thin Lizzy style – for a great combination. It also throws the kitchen sink at you, too: prog-rock influences, stoner rock-isms, layered vocal harmonies, epic-sounding songs, acoustic and lap steel guitar, and some synth bits add to Simple Simon’s diversity. Attack really struts its stuff. Spread the word, “The Simons” are back. (myspace.com/simplesimonchicago)
– Kelley Simms

Armando Perez, operating under the moniker The Single Helix, wields his instrumental wizardry making Odd Czar (Dilligaf) an effervescent blend of trip-hop, crooked folk, and ambient bliss. “190″ is airy and anthemic, reaching for the clouds from the same launching pad as The Postal Service. For some dreamy escapes, follow the advice in “Take A Moment To Yourself” and drift away in the perfectly arranged acoustic guitar, strings, and softly harmonizing vocals, or get lost in the hazy thump-and-bump of “The Fire.” (thesinglehelix.com)
– Patrick Conlan

Fans of Bruce Springsteen-inspired ballads will find a lot to like on Dan Tedesco’s latest effort, Tracks On Fire. The singer/songwriter’s expressive vocals bring an authentic feel to the dramatic piano and guitar arrangements on the title track and songs like “Hold On To Me.” That said, Tedesco might actually be at his best on the more energetic “How Good It Feels” and romantic “Lookin’ For A Girl Like You,” where he adroitly blends melodic pop and country music. (dantedesco.com)
– Terrence Flamm

Promising MC/producer Tizone may have titled his new album The Interpretation, but the tracks aren’t quite so committed to a single view. After an intro cut and opener where he establishes himself back in the game, Tizone switches course into playa/loverman mode for several tunes, and then weaves in and out of personalities for the remainder. It makes for a schizophrenic listen through the 18 songs, and ultimately bears the energetic, wanna-freak-ya side out. (tizoneonline.com)
– Steve Forstneger

Vapor Eyes has mastered the rapid-fire, hard-hitting rhymes fans expect from rap, but on his ambitious new CD, It’s Moving So Fast It’s Standing Still, he also incorporates elements of jazz, ambient, and gospel music. “Terra Incognita” sounds the alarm on global warming while “New Proof Material” delves into street crime. Space-age keyboards and sound bites add to the sense of intrigue on “Hypermart” and “Int3rlood,” while “Caressed By Sin” is smooth and seductive. (vaporeyesdj.com)
– Terrence Flamm

Chuck Maurer’s What Rebel began as a cover band in a west-suburban basement that felt confident to move into originals. Tracks like “Rise Up” and “Time Is Running Out” force derivative riffs and chord changes through a cardboard amplifier, which competes with click-track vocal performances and A/B (sometimes just A/A) rhyme schemes for the single microphone. Clearly this is an act in its infancy – maybe several weeks premature. (reverbnation.com/WhatRebel)
– Steve Forstneger

Like Hulk Hogan, I am a real American. That means, first and foremost, I fight for the rights of every man. It also means I use geographically specific release dates for my year-ending top five. Hence Ghost’s Opus Eponymous inclusion even though everyone who is anyone heard the record in late 2010, given its European release was October of that year. Not being just anyone, though, I didn’t discover the album until its January 2011 North American issuance, which is how I justify its selection. That and the fact it’s some of the catchiest damn Satan worship ever.

As for the rest of my picks? Mastodon did it again with The Hunter. Superchrist is one of the underground’s finest, and Burn Again captures the Chicago group at its best . . . live. Weedeater gets better and better every album, and Acid Witch is as fun as it is heavy. And as heavy as it is stoned.

That said, here’s 2011’s finest heavy albums as chosen by people whose opinions you may or may not respect.

Trevor Fisher, “Caught In A Mosh”
1. Mastodon The Hunter (Reprise)
2. Ghost Opus Eponymous (Metal Blade)
3. Superchrist Burn Again (self-released)
4. Weedeater Jason . . . The Dragon (Southern Lord)
5. Acid Witch Stoned (Hells Headbangers)

ALSO VERY GOOD:
Opeth Heritage (Roadrunner)
Anthrax Worship Music (Megaforce)
High Sprits Another Night (self-released)
American Heritage Sedentary (Translation Loss)
Midnight Satanic Royalty (Hells Headbangers)

Steve Forstneger, Illinois Entertainer
1. KEN Mode Venerable (Profound Lore)
2. American Heritage Sedentary (Translation Loss)
3. Yob Atma (Profound Lore)
4. Wolves In The Throne Room Celestial Lineage (Southern Lord)
5. Mastodon The Hunter (Reprise)

Chris Lotesto, Ion Vein
1. Anthrax Worship Music (Megaforce)
2. Mastodon The Hunter (Reprise)
3. Symphony X Iconoclast (Nuclear Blast)
4. Machine Head Unto The Locust (Roadrunner)
5. Novembers Doom Aphotic (The End)

Jeff Wilson, Wolvhammer
1. The Atlas Moth An Ache For The Distance (Profound Lore)
2. Mournful Congregation Book Of Kings (20 Buck Spin)
3. 40 Watt Sun The Inside Room (Metal Blade)
4. Leviathan True Traitor True Whore (Profound Lore)
5. Loss Despond (Profound Lore)

Neil Wonnell, Neil Wonnell’s Metalmouth
1. Diamond Plate Generation Why? (Earache)
2. Saxon Call To Arms (UDR)
3. Smash Potater Zom-Beez demo (self-released)
4. Evile Five Serpent’s Teeth (Earache)
5. Degradation Juggernaut (self-released)

Brian Elza, Czar
Trap Them Darker Handcraft (Prosthetic)
Disma Towards The Megalith (Profound Lore)
Wolves Like Us Late Love (Prosthetic)
Dark Castle Surrender To All Life Beyond Form (Profound Lore)
Weekend Nachos Worthless (Relapse)

Igz Kincaid, Hessler
1. Skull Fist Head Of The Pack (NoiseArt)
2. Iron Maiden From Fear To Eternity: The Best Of 1990 – 2010 (EMI)
3. U.D.O. Rev-Raptor (AFM)
4. Firewölfe Firewölfe (Rubicon)
5. Anthrax Worship Music (Megaforce)

Rodney Pawlak, Chicago Metal Factory
1. Macabre Grim Scary Tales (Willowtip)
2. Cianide Gods Of Death (Hells Headbangers)
3. Novembers Doom Aphotic (The End)
4. Bloodiest Descent (Relapse)
5. The Atlas Moth An Ache For The Distance (Profound Lore)

Jon Necromancer, Bones
1. Autopsy Macabre Eternal (Peaceville)
2. High Sprits Another Night (self-released)
3. Necros Christos Doom Of The Occult (Red General)
4. Cianide Gods Of Death (Hells Headbangers)
5. Wolvhammer Obsidian Plains (Profound Lore)

Chris Avgerin, Heaving Mass
1. American Heritage Sedentary (Translation Loss)
2. KEN Mode Venerable (Profound Lore)
3. Maveth Breath Of An Abomination (Nuclear Winter)
4. Mastodon The Hunter (Reprise)
5. The Swan King Eyes Like Knives (Seventh Rule)

Trevor de Brauw, Pelican
1. Young Widows In And Out of Youth And Lightness (Temporary Residence)
2. Tombs Path Of Totality (Relapse)
3. KEN Mode Venerable (Profound Lore)
4. Cave In White Silence (Hydra Head)
5. Craft Void (Southern Lord)

So if you believe those wacky Mayans (and really, when have they ever lied to us?), there’s less than a year left on the lease here on the big blue marble. The countdown to oblivion is coming to town, so get dressed.

Really, the only question is how the lights are gonna go off. Don’t worry, Hollywood is always at the ready to provide a scenario or two. More often than not, those scenarios include lots of boom and bang and buildings toppling to the ground. The infinitely more frightening plot line involves threats you can’t see.

Director Steven Soderbergh returns to the multiple A-list cast and global-reach terrain (that he’s mined in films like Traffic) for the worldwide pandemic thriller Contagion. Unlike Traffic, however, Contagion never quite hits home, due to the fact that too many characters are shoved into too little movie.

First off, there is the main cast, which features Matt Damon as a workaday Minneapolis guy whose wife (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns from Hong Kong with a nasty case of the coughs. Within days, both she and their son are riding slabs in the morgue, while Damon and their daughter remain strangely immune.

Then there’s Laurence Fishburne and Kate Winslet as doctors for the Center For Disease Control, and Marion Cotillard as a World Health Organization doctor who traces the source of the plague back to Paltrow.

Also along for the ride is Jude Law, as a blogger who doesn’t believe the government’s take on the matter, and ends up doing more harm than good by inciting his readers into panic. There are also appearances by Elliott Gould, Bryan Cranston, John Hawkes, and Demetri Martin to name but a few.

Soderbergh does a fine job establishing a palpable sense of dread. Lingering shots of hands on door handles, drinking glasses left on planes, and everyday handshakes are enough to make you never want to leave the house unless encased in a full hazmat suit. And to hammer the point home, each change of scenery comes complete with a census figure ripe for infection – Tokyo: Population 36.6 million, San Francisco: Population 3.5 million, and so on. To his credit, Soderbergh avoids the disaster-movie histrionics to which most other films of this nature would stoop. It’s a quiet, meditative look at a very realistic scenario.

The problem is that with so many characters, we never stay with any of them long enough to care very much. We never find out why certain people are immune, and some characters are introduced early on, only to reappear much later as major plot points.

The Blu-ray is a bit light on features, with only three segments on viruses and the nature of worldwide infections. The disc also contains an UltraViolet Digital Copy of the film, which allows folks to download and instantly stream the movie via WiFi to compatible computers.

Portlandia: Season One
IFC

Imagine, if you would, a “Saturday Night Live” spinoff for hipsters, and you have “Portlandia.” Running on IFC, the series is the brainchild of “SNL” regular Fred Armisen and indie-music goddess Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney, Wild Flag), who shows that not only is she a force to be reckoned with as a guitarist, she can also be damn funny.

Like any sketch-comedy offering, the results are hit or miss. But “Portlandia”’s take on life among the City Of Roses’ hipper-than-thou denizens hits the mark more often than not.

Plus, there’s a non-stop parade of guests to solidify its indie cred, such as Steve Buscemi, Aubrey Plaza, Gus Van Sant, and Kyle MacLachlan, whose performance as the mayor of Portland is worth the price of admission alone.

The six-episode, Season One set features a speech by Armisen to the graduates of the Oregon Episcopal School, deleted scenes, extended scenes, and commentary on every episode by Armisen, Brownstein, and director Jonathan Krisel.

– Timothy Hiatt

Of the dozens of musical gadgets we preview and review every year, a few stand out as “the best of best.” As we look back at 2011, we present Gear’s best of, uh . . . Gear!

EMG
JH Set Guitar Pickups
•June 2011

Metallica founder and frontman James Hetfield brought out his all-new heavy artillery (is there any other kind?) on the North American leg of the Big 4 tour by debuting his new EMG JH Set pickups.
The JH Set was designed with the sole input of Hetfield, which is a new experience for the company – as they usually share ideas with multiple designers. Hetfield wanted to craft a humbucker pickup that with a “stealth” design “that captures the clarity and punch of a passive pickup and still retains the legendary active tone that molded a generation,” according to EMG.

Korg
iElectribe Gorillaz Edition iPad App
•May 2011

Korg’s new Gorillaz iPad App is unique because it breaks down barriers in music making, by allowing bands to release music in two platforms: traditional CDs and through apps that allow fans to interact with the artist about potential future remixes and mashups. Blur founder Damon Albarn and fellow Gorilla Jamie Hewlett’s new album, The Fall, is notable for being recorded entirely on Albarn’s iPad. Fittingly, Korg and Gorillaz have teamed up to offer the special iElectribe Gorillaz Edition for a limited run of 10,000 units at $9.99 a pop. The program was designed for Gorillaz fans to choose an instrument and quickly build a groove in its 16-step sequencer. And freakout like the cartoons they want to be.

Nady Systems
AxeHead Portable Guitar Amp
•November 2011

Despite a flurry of portable guitar-amp apps aimed at iPhone and Android users, Nady Systems believes its new AxeHead portable amp has a place in your pocket.

The pocket-sized AxeHead plugs directly into your guitar or bass for instant, pro-sounding tone. It’s a practice tool that eliminates the need for a larger-sized amp or effects unit. Players can listen through headphones (not included) and crank it up like Mom and Dad ain’t never coming home.

AxeHead’s built-in amp simulation allows you to tailor your tone from ultra-clean to heavy distortion. With virtually no setup involved, you can sound like you’re onstage at Metro while jamming in your bedroom, office, or dorm. Early adopters have also said it’s also great for warming up discreetly for a gig.

Set up is easy: just plug and play. An 1/8-inch Aux input jack connects to your MP3 player, CD player, or any compatible audio source so you can hear accompanying music while playing.

Roland
GR-55 Guitar Synthesizer
•April 2011

Since its birth in the mid-’70s, the guitar synthesizer has taken the long road to respectability. Brave, early adapters were troubled by technical glitches and Moog-like novelty tones, more aligned to experimental music than mainstream sounds. In the last 10 years, Roland has been the leader in breaking barriers to make the guitar synth a more natural-sounding instrument. The GR-55 delivers exceptional tracking performance, aligning guitar tone, and synth tone while simultaneously powered by two independent synthesizer sound engines loaded with more than 900 of Roland’s onboard sounds, including pianos, organs, strings, vintage and modern synths, percussion, and many more. The GR-55 allows players to combine all three sound engines plus their guitar’s normal input to create any sound from the familiar to novelty tones.

Seagate
Goflex Satellite Portable Wireless Hard Drive
•December 2011

The Goflex Satellite is an idea that’s been years in the making. It’s a pocket-sized hard drive that can connect to any mobile device including cell phones, laptops, desktop computers, and tablets that are wi-fi connectable. Seagate has opened a way to store music and movies and also lets you stream your files when you get the urge. Most importantly to “Gear” readers, users can download music files (e.g., ProTools files) from the home-studio setup. On paper it’s a great idea, but as a first-generation model, Seagate has some gremlins.

Back in 1979, half of Chicago tuned into Wally Philips’ popular WGN-AM (720) morning show. That year, newcomer Steve Dahl released his song parodying the venerable Philips and his loyal listeners, “Oh Wally.”

Thirty-three years later, the Chicago Tribune-owned station hardly resembles your grandparents’ WGN.

The shakeup that put Jonathon Bramdmeier into the morning driver’s seat, simultaneously sent his old producer Bud Wiser packing, and moved Bill Leff to overnights has the station – with Garry Meier doing afternoons – starting to resemble your parents’ WLUP during its early-’90s all-talk heyday.

The shakeup also included the ouster of Greg Jarrett, whose local mispronunciations did not endear him to listeners, and husband-and-wife hosts Steve King and Johnnie Putnam, whose overnight show included live, in-studio jams with visiting bands.

But all is not lost, music-wise.

That same week, vice president and general manager Tom Langmyer quietly ushered in a startling new hire for the staid station: a foreign left-winger with Bad Jibs and no radio experience, who is actually under 30.

The newcomer is Chicago Blackhawks forward Daniel “Car Bomb” Carcillo, who hails from Canada and was born the same year Wally Philips moved to afternoons, in 1986.

Carcillo’s one-hour music show, “The Bomb Shelter,” airs sporadically on the station after weekend home games. (For more, visit wgnradio.com).

Car Bomb’s music obsession dates back to when he was elementary age, and played a cassette of Michael Jackson’s “Black Or White” until he wore it out.

“I had a white boom box by my bed, and shared a room with my younger brother,” he explains. “He got that song stuck in his head as well – whether he liked it or not. I always remember that. I had pretty strict parents. I was about 7. But I always blasted it when I was getting up and going to bed. I liked that track, and the intro of the guy banging on the door, telling him to be quiet.”

Carcillo’s father, Gino — who named his son for the Elton John song — appeared on his first show. They talked about music and the family’s history in Monte Cassino, Italy – which was ravaged by World War II. “I was digging around trying to find out why I have this fascination and love for music,” Carcillo says.

“[My father] went into the history of my great great-grandfather going around when the war was going on. He had a little music box and a monkey and the whole deal, and that’s how he’d make money during the war – he’d go under people’s windows and he’d play music and they’d throw money.”

These days, Carcillo’s taste tilts more towards classic rock than organ grinder or MJ. “I’ll never get sick of it,” he says, and rattled off some favorites ranging from the Allman Brothers to Led Zeppelin. As for new bands, he likes Arcade Fire, My Morning Jacket, and The Black Keys.

Carcillo says he was blown away by WGN’s massive vinyl vault. “It’s kind of overwhelming walking in there. There has to be over 5,000 records. It’s exciting to be able to pick a shelf and sift through it and play the records you find in there – from The Beatles to any motion picture you want from the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s. It goes back a long way.”

He hopes to do an all-Canadian band show, featuring bands like Bachman Turner Overdrive, Rush, The Guess Who, Neil Young and Tragically Hip.

“Every Canadian hockey rink you go to, it’s the Tragically Hip playing,” he says. “They’re an amazing band – I love them a lot. It’d be nice to play them on the radio.”

He’s thrilled to be playing hockey for one of the Original Six teams, and playing music on a heritage station that dates back to 1924. “To have the opportunity to express myself away from the rink is pretty amazing. To have the organization fully behind you is a big honor.”

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: The Vocalo.org radio show “Morning Amp!” was recently picked up by two college radio stations, Loyola’s WLUW-FM (88.7) and Elmhurst College’s WRSE-FM (88.), which probably quintupled the latter’s audience. Not that there’s anything wrong with the show, which is hosted by local comedian Brian Babylon and radio producer Molly Adams. But shouldn’t that prime-time air space be reserved for the kids – whose tuition finances it? . . . Steve Dahl recently added a weekly 60-minute podcast by the recently canned Kevin Matthews, which is included in the monthly podcast price. More at www.dahl.com . . . Numero Group recently released a CD called Eccentric Soul: The Nickel & Penny Labels, featuring 24 songs produced or written by local radio legend Richard Pegue . . . The best thing we’ve seen lately is the return of MTV’s “Beavis And Butthead” – particularly when they lampoon Mike Judge’s other great creation, “King Of The Hill” . . . The best thing we’ve read lately is a lively discussion of weathercaster body language on the Chicagoland Radio And Media Bulletin Board. The consensus? That some local female weathercasters lean backward and arch their backs, accentuating certain assets, while some males lean forward , hiding their paunch. The solution? “Straighten up!” More at chicagoradioandmedia.com.

– Cara Jepsen

It’s been six years since the release of her debut album . . . this side of yesterday, but January marks the return of indie-folk singer/songwriter Martha Berner. Her long-awaited full-length follow-up, Fool’s Fanatsy, also bears the stamp of her new band, The Significant Others. The entire album was recorded at Chicago’s Stranded On A Planet studio with producer and Signifi-cant Others’ guitarist Scott Fritz, and was mastered by four-time Grammy winner Gavin Lurssen (Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Cat Power, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen). While this new material still incorporates the Chicago-based (via Williams Bay, WI) musician’s trademark whiskey-and-honey vocals and thought-provoking subjects that stretch across folk, pop and Americana, Fool’s Fantasy marks Berner’s first true band effort – incorporating elements of Stax soul, insurgent country, and the unbridled passion of late ’60s rock ‘n’ roll. Read the full story in next month’s IE.

At BOBDOG STUDIOS in Oak Park, The Puffins just completed their CD Shades Of Blue . . . Power popmeisters Treeshakers mixed their forthcoming album . . . Dav Ero began tracking his latest project . . . Cedes De La Paz Buck prepped the release of her first EP . . . Scott Fortman’s The New Normal recorded some of its debut record; owner/producer/engineer Bill Kavanagh provided bass tracks on both The New Normal and Cedes Buck’s projects.

South Side swamp-rock band, Convoy, worked on recording their latest project, Blue Collar America, at ROCK LOUNGE in Westmont with producer/engineer Johnny Million. The CD is scheduled for a 2012 spring release.

West suburban-based Champions tracked their fully original new record – due January 20th – at the Gallery of Carpet in Villa Park. Owner Brian Zieske served as engineer/producer, and the studio also handled the mastering.

Strobe Recording in Chicago tracked California Wives, Vagrant Records, Frank Catalano, Cains and Abels, Whistler Records, and Wally Dogger projects in the studio.

UPTOWN RECORDING in Chicago has upgraded to ProTools 10HD. For most studios, all software updates may come with a learning curve. Fortunately, chief engineer Rob Ruccia has had the pleasure of being a beta tester for both Pro Tools 9 and 10, in fact his name resides in the credits. Six months before Avid (Pro Tools’ parent company) had released the software, Ruccia was helping shape it into the finished product. “Working at Uptown on these new versions with people who know how to use them, gives us the edge over those studios stuck in the older versions,” say the folks at Uptown, “while [needing to] learn the newer ones.” Uptown currently runs the latest Pro Tools HD10 and HD9 software featuring HEAT, which gives bands the ability to add a sonic “big mixing board sound” without the big price.

Gravity Studios in Chicago has added a new member to its engineering and production team. Jameel “The Real Deal” Harris is a veteran of the Chicago recording community with a sterling reputation for top quality mixes as well as being a voice of experience and reason in the midst of a crazy industry. Owner Doug McBride says Harris’ specialty is programmming, producing, and mixing hip-hop.

The Damn Bats, consisting of locals/former Rabid Bats, Reaganomics, and Bill Ura Dik members plus veteran British drummer Rat Scabies (The Damned), tracked two songs of which one was finished by Scabies at ALASKA STUDIOS in London, England. The demo for “Doomed” was then returned to Chicago so guitars, bass, vocals, and final mixing could be finished.

Hey Studiophiler: To get your studio or band listed in “Studiophile,” just e-mail info on who you’re recording or who’s recording you to ed [at] illinoisentertainer.com, subject Studiophile, or fax (773) 751-5051. We reserve the right to edit submissions for space. Deadline for February 2012 issue is January 15th. We need your news, you need us to print it.

Hubert Sumlin was one of the greatest blues guitarists of his generation. Famous for the explosive guitar riffs that he produced as a member of Howlin’ Wolf’s band, Sumlin influenced such rock-guitar gods as Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Keith Richards. His 80-year journey began in the Mississippi Delta and took him across the world to leave his impression on scores of blues fans until his death on December 4th.

A self-taught guitarist with a natural gift for rugged tones that evoked great emotion, Sumlin gravitated toward his instrument as a child growing up in Arkansas and never broke from its orbit. He played with James Cotton at local functions while a teen, and grabbed his first peek at mentor Wolf by climbing on top of a stack of boxes under a juke-joint window. The boxes tumbled and Sumlin ended up falling onto Wolf’s head. It was a telling meeting for two musicians who would help define the Chicago blues sound.

By the early ’50s, Wolf sent for Sumlin to join him in Chicago, where he was recording for Chess Records. Wolf’s sprawling and outsized vocals quickly captured attention, but it was Sumlin’s stinging guitar that sealed the deal on classics like “Smokestack Lightning,” “Backdoor Man,” “Red Rooster,” and “Goin’ Down Slow.” He played with Wolf for 20 years, interrupted only by a brief stint with Muddy Waters and finally by Wolf’s death in 1976. Sumlin left Chicago shortly afterward, eventually settling in New Jersey where he crafted a solo career that included expansive touring and recording. His albums garnered four Grammy nominations, most notably 2005’s masterful About Them Shoes (Tone-Cool), which attracted acolytes such as Richards and Clapton as sidemen. Sumlin was a musician’s musician who earned never-ending respect from his peers. He never gained the fame of Wolf or Waters, but when he passed away from heart failure, the music community immediately poured out accolades. Mick Jagger and Richards rushed to pay for his funeral in Homewood, as a way of giving back to the man who had given so much of his life to spreading the love of the blues.

Big James & The Chicago Playboys expand on the Chicago blues tradition with their free-wheeling recent release, The Big Payback (Blind Pig). If that title calls to mind James Brown’s seminal record, that’s exactly the point. There’s a cover of the seminal tune on the 10-track CD, but the title also alludes to the horn-driven, funky blues that fills the album, which owes a lot to the Godfather Of Soul. Recorded live at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Club in Paris, the exuberance spills out of every note.

Opening with the energetic party anthem, “The Blues Will Never Die,” the tune showcases the band’s upbeat style with brass decorating every beat and personal lyrics like, “Sometimes people look at me with scorn/but I don’t care/I was born to play the horn.” On another original, “Coldest Man I Ever Knew,” the band offers straight-ahead blues and a killer guitar solo at the end. The title cover track isn’t as successful, with a perfunctory reading and an uninspired arrangement. But the irresistible groove is still there, which is the only thing that saves it. Magic Sam seems to inspire the group in terms of soulful covers; “All Your Love” delivers all the verve and grit required of the legend’s classic, and “That’s Why I’m Crying” calls up some pure blues with broken-hearted and anguished vocals by frontman Big James Montgomery and an evocative guitar solo by Mike “Money” Wheeler.

BJCP deliberately mine all the branches of the blues, touching on soul, funk, and rock and it’s nice to hear these connections firmly couched in the blues tradition. The Johnny Taylor hit, “Jody’s Got Your Girl And Gone,” sounds just as infectious as the soul blues original and an interesting cover choice of George Clinton’s “I’ll Stay” simmers with haunting funk rhythms. Montgomery ties it all neatly together with his take on the classic Chicago sound, “Low Down Dirty Blues.” The album closes with the rather gratuitous “Smoke On The Water,” adding a bluesy, horn-driven feel to the rock staple.

For those who believe that the blues has been lost or is weighed down with outmoded traditions and sensibilities, I have three words for you: Joe Louis Walker. Always a stellar performer and musician, his decades of skill and passion have been hammered into one tightly crafted, explosive package that should be called The Truth. Hellfire (Alligator) inaugurates the blues new year with a near-perfect collection of riveting blues. The 11-track CD was recorded in Nashville and there’s a country undercurrent that runs throughout, underscoring the clear but often overlooked connection between country and blues. But this is no gimmicky crossover ploy – everything on the album sounds organic and honest.

The battle between salvation and damnation is the theme of Hellfire and, although it’s a well-worn blues topic, JLW supplies the personal history of the journeyman who has moved between both the secular and the gospel world. From the searing title track that opens the set, it’s clear that Walker is on top of his game. His phrasing is crisp yet powerful, his guitar precise yet transcendent. That’s just the first song.

Most that follow, from the moving “I Won’t Do That” to the rollicking “I’m On To You,” provide the same perfection. “Soldier For Jesus” is more country-tinged gospel than blues and the backing by the legendary Jordanaires just makes the tune sound more of a throwback, but JLW’s conviction is palpable. The honky-tonk groove of “Too Drunk To Drive Drunk” offers a fun riff, and “Black Girls” provides the slyest humor yet: “The blues I’ve been hearing lately/sounds a lot like rock ‘n’ roll/and I wondered what happened to all that soul/you got to have the black girls/to put the soul back in your songs.” If fresh, innovative music like this is what we have to look forward to, it will be a good year, indeed.

– Rosalind Cummings-Yeates

IE: We were intrigued by the local connection to The Office Of Future Plans.
J Robbins: [Laughs.] It’s Jeff Dean’s fault that we’re a band. Dean is hard to say no to. His enthusiasm in this case was relentless. I just thought I was going to do a recording project. Dean kept asking me to play, and I thought, at the time, I’m not going to do solo-acoustic opening for The Bomb. That’s ridiculous. So I got Gordon [Withers] and Brooks [Harlan] together.

IE: Was it music you had locked away?
JR: No, I had a major change in my life with the birth of my son. At 7 months he was diagnosed with spinal atrophy and I really put my music on the shelf. In October 2008, Callum was in the pediatric ICU for six weeks, and [wife] Janet and I were there every day. When I would stay overnight, I would be there ’til 8 in the morning; a sane person would go home and go to bed, but I would be like, “I can’t sleep now.” The sun is up, my head is spinning, and I just needed some place to go and get my head together to not be full of worry and fear. So I would write songs.

IE: Does your reputation as a recording engineer connote a style?
JR: There’s definitely a lot of times that people have worked with me because they were fans of Jawbox. For me, it’s a lot to do with space. I can get fairly picky about drum tuning, but I can also get excited. If someone said to me, “The snare in this song is a telephone book.” Cool. Let’s mic-up the phonebook! There’s times when you hear someone’s record, and you think, “I want my record to sound like that.” That’s what Jawbox did when we made our second Dischord record with Iain Burgess. We were lucky to meet Iain when he did sound for Pegboy when we opened for them at McGregor’s [in Elmhurst] in like 199-who knows when? And we were massive [Naked] Raygun fans, just like, “Imagine if our record could sound like Throb Throb or All Rise!”

IE: The Jawbox reunion on “Jimmy Fallon” seemed random.
JR: We were faced with this reissue of For Your Own Special Sweetheart, so we thought, instead of just putting it out there we hired publicists – one of our favorite people in the music business who we met from our whole Atlantic Records misadventure. We told her we had too much going on [to tour], and felt insecure about bringing our “A” game. So she went behind our backs and called up the music director at “Jimmy Fallon,” who happened to be a big Jawbox fan, and then came back to us and presented it as “Fallon wants you to play.” And she knew the only way to get us to do something was to blindside us with something completely weird like that. “Who wants us to what?”

Office Of Future Plans appear Saturday, December 3rd at Beat Kitchen with The Life And Times. Their self-titled, Dischord debut is out now. Q&A by Steve Forstneger.

Downers Grove-based Rollo Time, brainchild of singer/songwriter Jon Raleigh, carry on a tradition of smart Chicago power-pop blueprinted by bands like Material Issue and Green. Rollo Time occasionally tosses in more interesting elements of harder-rocking, obscure Brit-pop bands like The Boo Radleys and Thurman on Victims Of The Crown, their sophomore effort, recorded at Chicago’s Gravity Studios. As true connoisseurs of this genre, the band sound better when they stay away from Raspberries-style sugary pop overdoses. Harder-edged tracks like “Travel The World,” and “On The Ground” show Rollo Time at their power-pop best. (www.rollotime.com)
– David Gedge

Opening with a tape loop of a letter to “daddy” read by one of his Highlife band members, Jason Ajemian’s Riding The Light Into The Birds Eye quickly freefalls into ensemble playing sounding like an orchestra tuning up. It then vaults into an R&B shuffle that mashes into a soulful call response, whereupon “daddy” makes a return appearance before venturing into four more cuts of freeform improvisation. Your guess is as good as mine as to what to make of it all. (jasonajemian.com)
– David C. Eldredge

The Cash Box Kings play old-time blues with an infectious twang. Its roots – sewn into the band’s Blind Pig release, Holler And Stomp – combine the energy and spirit of the 1940s and ’50s Chicago blues and the ’20s and ’30s Mississippi Delta. The songs include covers of Ray Sharpe, Hank Williams Sr., and Muddy Waters, as well as solid originals that crisscross the blues with country music. Carrying on the tradition of Chicago bluesmen such as the Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Rogers, and Waters, The Cash Box Kings inject their own youthful exuberance into the scene. (cashboxkings.com)
– Kelley Simms

It’s fitting that singer/songwriter Paul Coady thanks the “pals who have hoisted a drink or two at shows” on the jacket of Driftin’ Years. He recorded the 11 straightforward rock songs with the idea of recreating the atmosphere of a live performance in a club. Coady’s at his best channeling The Stones or Bob Seger on the workingman’s lament, “Nothin’ For Free,” and on the opening track, “Show You How.” (paulcoady.com)
– Terrence Flamm

Having lost 100 pounds on Season Five of “The Biggest Loser,” Frankfort native Dan Evans took his re-found self-esteem and long weight-deferred dream of being a country music star to Nashville, hired/worked with some of the best local music heavyweights he could find, and – no surprises here – came away with a slickly produced, signature Nashville MOR country platter Goin’ All Out. While there’s no denying Evans’ musical talent and not inconsiderable writing gifts on the originals included here, there’s not a lot that distinguishes him from others out of the Music City assembly line. (danevansmusic.com)
– David C. Eldredge

Sam Fazio has quite a résumé: after graduating from DePaul’s School Of Music, touring the country, becoming a regular in Vegas, and finally returning to Chicago in 2009 to become a staple at The Drake Hotel (among other locales), Fazio also found time to record his debut. The Songs We Love, as the title implies, collects classic covers done in Fazio’s smooth, jazzinfused, easy-listening style. Some of the classics lose their appeal when Fazio gets his hands on them, but covers like “Time After Time,” “It Had To Be You,” and “Georgia On My Mind” showcase his extensive vocal talents. (samfaziomusic.com)
– Carter Moss

Jackson Bailey’s five-song debut EP, Theories, is a slice of Americana pop with country music flavor. The band’s collection of songs include singer PJ Anderson’s strong crooning, thoughtful lyrics, and a musical depth that goes far beyond the traditional folk/pop/country genre. Drums and production duties were handled by Steven Gillis (ex-Filter), who helps bring out the acoustic-tinged songs’ bouncy and lively flavor. Emotional crossroads are met on “Too Little, Too Late,” and “Throwing Stones” is a life-goes-on reflective piece. (myspace.com/jacksonbaileymusic)
– Kelley Simms

Back when we reviewed Darkness And Light, The JLDJ sprang up and reported that he’d also released three other albums simultaneously. Of Fight Against Pain and Dearfriendsasyouknowallisenergy, the former falls in his wheelhouse of offbeat indie rock and pop chastened by haunting voice processing and chilling industrial overtones, while the latter boasts semi-acoustic folk-pop with heavily miked vocals. The most interesting set, however, is Noise, which might have a self-effacing title but could actually provide a young filmmaker with a consistent score. Much of the elliptical guitar work would be suited for a science documentary, as JLDJ squeezes a lot of intrigue out of a few, simple themes. (nrrecco [at] fastmail.fm)
– Steve Forstneger

To the obvious comparisons to Leon Redbone, Randy Newman, and Nick Cave, permit this scribe to add Tom Lehrer. They’re all brought to mind by the collection of piano-centric originals Daniel Knox’s smooth baritone delivers on Evryman For Himself, in part owing to his dark if not outright curmudgeonly menacing lyrics. Excellent and judiciously arranged side support (with kudos to the two kazoo solos and was it a saw solo, too?) mitigates a certain sameness of Knox’s chording, making the Dixieland-ish vaudevillian mix an ideal absinthe-lounge booking. (danielknox.com)
– David C. Eldredge

Singer/guitarist Mark Doherty recruited an army of musicians to help record the latest effort from his band, Light Silver Automatic. There’s a variety of approaches on Reelsounds and a few of them result in generic, easy-going rock. But Doherty connects with the edgier “Ghosts” as well as with the quirky fun of “Hello My Fellow Insomniac.” The sparse but engaging “Terrace Drive” shows sometimes you don’t need loads of help to create a good song. (lightsilverautomatic.com)
–Terrence Flamm

Dave Lombardi & The Guilty Souls inject the country-folk idiom on Cherry Wine with twangy, quirky personality. Chunky doses of Americana spliced with some freeform jazzy elements kickstart “Syrupy Night.” The laid-back saunter of “Bad Habit” is spiced with peppery harmonica and Lombard’s delightfully crooked croon, and “Turn Around” is a lilting, pretty pop ballad. Lombardi and his crew pack a lot of detailed sound into these loose arrangements, and there’s a fresh spontaneity to much of the album that provides much of its charm. (myspace.com/davelombardimusic)
– Patrick Conlan

Brightly illuminated with delicate ballads and folk-inspired dream-pop, We Don’t Belong is an achingly gorgeous, accomplished debut album from Sara Masterson. Softly nestled in Luna/Cowboy Junkies territory, “Comes Of Love” rings with waves of chiming guitar and glinting keyboards, echoing the passionate yearning in her angelic voice. “I Write Your Story” floats on gently cresting keyboards sandwiched between glimmering guitars and softly pounding drums. Masterson’s control of those sorts of contrasts makes We Don’t Belong mesmerizing. (saramasterson.com)
– Patrick Conlan

Bobby Midnight & The Big Ordeals energizes its bluesy, classic rock on Knights Of The Octagon with a healthy dollop of NWOBHM, and irreverent joy. “Drop The Guns” has a hard-hitting rhythmic crunch and blazing leads reminiscent of Judas Priest’s heyday. “Stupid Love” hooks with a sugary melody and splashy drumming, and there’s a playful, fun-lovin’ mojo permeating the upbeat party blasters, “Gun- A-Do” and “Split Personality.” (myspace.com/bobbymidnight)
– Patrick Conlan

Born and raised in Chicago, Michael J. Miles is always looking to pioneer territory with his banjo. His fifth release, the instrumental LP Collage, finds him doing just that. Miles employs more instruments than ever, including flugelhorn, vibes, string quartet, and hand percussion. In addition to his seven new original compositions, Miles tackles the works of Dave Brubeck, Little Feat, Robert Johnson, and more. The highlight is “Crossroads,” a beautifully moving cover composed of simple banjo and horn (and one of the few tracks with vocals). (milesmusic.org)
– Carter Moss

Everything from alt-country to folk, jazz, reggae, and Latin flavors pop up across Modern Conversation’s EP About Time, but the foursome paints a bit too broadly. The band is best off in rootsy settings, which is when a plethora of classicsongwriter influences shine through. The band should resist the randomness of incorporating too many other genres. (facebook.com/modernconversation)
– Andy Argyrakis

Bryce Aubrey and Kevin Corcoran are changing the status of their relationship from “high-school buddies” to “bandmates.” Though one lives in New York and the other in Chicago, the two decided to put their collective musical skills together to record under the moniker Oy Vey. The duo’s debut, Botanical Curiosity, is an eclectic electric mix of prog-rock and electropop that has shades of Arcade Fire and Owl City. Memorable tracks like “Astronauta” and “The Verge” prove this pair could evolve to make a real mark on the electronic scene. (oyveyband.com)
– Carter Moss

“Lonesome Sound” cracks the lid on the Paper Arrows‘ latest, In The Morning, with a sunny melody and fluid piano spilling through the shimmering guitars. It’s a positive portend of what follows. Suffused with a laid-back vibe and Joe Goodkin’s vocal style, “Fading Days” instantly recalls The Counting Crows, while “Dry” shuffles along paced by a comfortable, country saunter. Sweeping, piano-driven ballad “Near” brings thoughtful resolution to the album after nine tracks of bubbly, adultoriented pop. (paperarrows.com)
– Patrick Conlan

Although he looks like he’s ready to tear into some serious shredding, and the title implies nothing more than an irreverent plea, Michael Anthony Putignano’s I Need Acoustic is actually wittily ironic; the album is flush with swelling, jangly anthems, emotional ballads of regret and loss, and sparkling, crisp pop tunes – all played on an acoustic guitar. “Kiss Me Before You Go” is a weepy ballad augmented with piano and sweeping melodramatic flourish – imagine the soaring catharsis of Snow Patrol unplugged. (myspace.com/throneofserpents)
– Patrick Conlan

Hard rock/metal band Rhino 39 was formed in 1993 from two former Chicagoland bands: Vicious Circle and Threat. After releasing several demos, their full-length debut is a compilation of their stronger demos. On Quarantine, the band conjure up great melodies, calculated vocal harmonies, and fiery guitar riffs. Similarities to Godsmack and Drowning Pool are noticeable, although not as polished or punctual. Quarantine serves up some raw angst with the right amount of melody to satisfying results. (rhino39.com)
– Kelley Simms

The one-man band known as 610 (comprising a mononymous singer/songwriter named Anthony) is becoming a regular on the coffeehouse circuit and also logged some performance time with Ronald McDonald House Charities. Blending acoustic and electric guitars gives him variety beyond the typical guy with a guitar, though his voice seems more primed for a ’90s grunge band than the role of a pensive troubadour. (610themusic.com)
– Andy Argyrakis

Just as “Mad Men” brings back the ’60s in all its black-and-white, grey-flanneled glory, the mastermind duo Charlie Newman and Jonathon Dexler behind Zootsuitbeatnick conjure the smoky coffeeshops populated by bearded/beret’d/bongoed hipsters of the same era via their mostly brief, sub-twominute spoken-word/free-jazz riffs that draw inspiration from sources as disparate as Beefheart and Rogers & Hammerstein (plus one 18-minute homage to Robert Fripp ) that puts the listener into a revelry similar to that from reading Samuel Beckett. (myspace.com/zootsuitbeatnick)
– David C. Eldredge

Trevor Fisher’s taking the month off, so, in his tradition of picking greatest-hits bits of his column, the IE staff has selected its “Caught In A Mosh” favorites since its 2007 debut. Punctuating the chronology are his top-5 records from each year, which will then be capped by his best-of-’11 next month.

Metallica vs. Megadeth, July 2007
Kill ‘Em All vs. Killing Is My Business . . . And Business Is Good: This pairing is hardly fair to Dave Mustaine. He co-wrote half Kill ‘Em All’s songs, so not only does he lose this battle of debut records, he loses to his own songs.

Beatallica, August 2007
Mosh: Any ideas for another metal/pop act bash up?
James Lennfield: Barry Manowar.
M: You’ve obviously already given this some thought.
JL: Can you imagine Barry Manilow with a big honkin’ sphere and a loin cloth? But Beatallica is Beatallica. It’s not like if the catalogs run dry, then we would move onto something else. Then you’re kind of, it kind of cheapens the original.

Best Of 2007
1. Down Over The Under (ILG)
2. High On Fire Death Is This Communion (Relapse)
3. Skeletonwitch Beyond The Permafrost (Prosthetic)
4. Maylene & The Sons Of Disaster II (Ferret)
5. Superchrist Headbanger (Rock Saviour)

Nachtmystium, February 2008
Mosh: What is Nachtmystium’s current relationship to the black metal scene?
Blake Judd: You mean the scene we came from? The super-underground, über-cult shit? Those people don’t like us anymore. But you know what? Those people, that’s a revolving door of people that are 18 to 22-years old. I was one of those people. I was a fuckin’ super-hardliner; I didn’t listen to anything that wasn’t made on a 4-track. But you evolve and start listening to more [music].

M: Have you outgrown it?
B.J.: Yeah. That kind of music, especially that angle of it, attracts people who are uncomfortable with themselves. I was one of those people: a teenager. The attitude is still there, it’s just all these insecure idiots trying to uphold this “I’m an elitist! Arrr! I’m at my mom’s house!”

Reptoids, March 2008
Turns out Reptoids were a lot more interested in working with [producer Matt] Bayles than Bayles was working with Reptoids.

“I e-mailed them a few times and nobody ever responded to me,” Melissa Koehl says with a hint of embarrassment.

“They’re like, ‘Reptoids? More like Repturds,’ Karen Binor quips. Sanford Parker may not have technically been the first, but Binor and Koehl have no doubts he was the right (“He made it sound so heavy,” Binor emphasizes) choice. Now they’ve found their producer, Reptoids need to find their niche in the local scene.

“We don’t fit in anywhere,” Binor only half-jokingly complains.

Metalocalypse, June 2008
Mosh: You’ll occasionally hear people say “Metalocalypse” is insulting metal fans. But you seem to truly have a love for the genre.
Brendon Small: I don’t buy that at all. I think that’s kind of bullshit. I don’t think they’re really watching the show if that’s what they think. Basically our show is about celebrity-ism. About how the last 10 years it’s been all about celebrities, and we’re showing five people who can hardly function.
M: And they just happen to be a metal band, right?
BS: Yeah. They’re nearly autistic, like most celebrities are. They can’t do things by themselves. The show gets to be about metal.

Best Of 2008
1. Nachtmystium Assassins: Black Meddle Pt. 1 (Century)
2. Grand Magus Iron Will (Rise Above)
3. Testament The Formation Of Damnation (Nuclear Blast)
4. TYR Land (Napalm)
5. Lair Of The Minotaur War Metal Battle Master (Southern Lord)

TYR, March 2009
Mosh: What about lyrics? How do you decide if you’re going to do a song in English or Faroese?
Heri Joensen: That’s an issue for me, that I’m not quite so comfortable with. It’s very difficult for me to write a lyric in Faroese that I’m satisfied with. It’s much easier in English because I’m used to hearing heavy metal in English, and it sounds much more natural to me.

M: I would have thought the opposite, but that makes sense.
H.J.: Yeah, there’s no famous heavy metal band that sings in Faroese so there’s no way for that to sound natural.

Primordial, May 2009
Mosh: I’ve read a few interviews lately with the band, and it doesn’t seem you are too fond of “Pagan metal.”
Alan A. Nemtheanga: Yep. Completely. Ninety-odd percent of it, possibly even more, is rubbish – one small step up in retardation from power metal. Happy, jokey, jolly, frivolous, meaningless dross for gaming nerds. There are some worthy bands of course . . . Moonsorrow, Temnozor, Drudkh, Negura Bunget, Vrani Volosa, Ereb Altor off the top of my head. Most of these new pirate/beer-drinking/ muscle-bound mythical-warrior/troll bands have more to do with Hammerfall than Bathory, for example. Of course, I have many friends who play in these bands, and they respect and find my stance amusing, but Primordial has really nothing to do with this scene despite obviously having some parallels and helping to forge it. If people want escapism, romanticism, and five-minute festival workouts to clash alehorns to, then fair enough, but that boat left me well behind, thankfully.

Master, July 2009
Mosh: What was it like coming up in the early-to-mid-’80s Chicago metal scene?
Paul Speckmann: This was the bomb. I remember auditioning some semi-famous drummer back in the day at his practice room at some old factory and getting to see Blackfoot supporting Def Leppard in seats set up in front of the first row at the Aragon because he worked security there. The guy sucked, and we only tried twice to rehearse with the fool. Anyway, there was a real friendship between the bands during this period. It wasn’t unusual to see the guys from Trouble or Zoetrope in the audience at the shows we played at the Whale and other places around the city. I went to see these bands over and over again in the day. I still laugh when I think about that legend [Zoetrope/Trouble drummer] Barry Stern, the first time meeting him in line at a Motorhead concert. He had the biggest afro I had ever seen, with a small cowboy hat on top of it!

Skeletonwitch, November 2009
Mosh: You hear so many stories about how Glenn Danzig treats opening bands.
Scott Hedrick: I really, really admire the guy. The second day of the tour we’re hanging out in our dressing room getting wasted, partying, carrying on and shit. He finished his set, Danzig comes back into his dressing room, which is right next to ours. We didn’t know this, but he’s like “Who the fuck is in there being ridiculous?” And his security told him it’s Skeletonwitch. So dudes from our band are hanging out in the room, and all the sudden the door gets kicked in and Glenn Danzig is like, “What the fuck is so funny in here?!” It was dead silence for five, 10 seconds or whatever. After the silence, we’re all shitting our pants thinking we’re going home, and he’s like “What’s up? I’m Glenn,” and shakes everybody’s hand and gives us a heavy metal pep talk.

Best Of 2009
1. Mastodon Crack The Skye (Reprise)
2. Harbinger Doom On You (Planet Metal)
3. Slayer World Painted Blood (American)
4. Novembers Doom Into Night’s Requiem Infernal (The End)
5. Funeral Mist Maranatha (Ajna Offensive)

Darkthrone, April 2010
Mosh: I noticed Devastation (from Chicago) is a Top Friend on Darkthrone’s Myspace page. What does that band mean to you?
Fenriz: In 1987, I started tape trading. I got in touch with Nicke Andersson (Entombed, Hellacopters) and many others of course, but the great thing is that he had all these great U.S.A. demos and bands to share, and Devastation just floored me. It was so tight, the snare rolls were so fine, mmmmm-hmm, that band was a-rockin’! I played it to the guys of Darkthrone and Valhall too, of course, and traded it onwards to others . . . and I never stopped liking that tape, throughout the ’90s as well and the ’00s . . . almost 20 years.

Chris Black, November 2010
Mosh: How difficult is juggling three bands and a record label?
CB: I also collect penguin figurines and enjoy long walks on the beach. There are moments when I am overwhelmed, but for the most part it all comes naturally to me. I don’t manage boredom nearly as well.
M: If tomorrow you had to give up all but one . . .
CB: . . . I’d stick to collecting penguin figurines.

Best Of 2010
1. Nachtmystium Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. II (Century)
2. Dawnbringer Nucleus (Profound Lore)
3. The Ocean Heliocentric (Metal Blade)
4. Barn Burner Bangers (Metal Blade)
5. Armour Armour (Hells Headbangers)

As far as the crack staff here at “The Digital Divide” is concerned, there quite simply is no better time to be alive than this time of year. Not because of all the peace-on-Earth/goodwill-toward-men crap, but because of all the special-edition boxsets. Not gonna lie to ya – the thought of all the new mega-packages with their metric tons of extras and occasionally ludicrously overblown packaging makes us as giddy and light-headed as a 13-year-old at a Twilight convention. So let’s throw them all in the pool and dive in.

Screw the save-the-best-for-last bit, let’s put the winner right up front: Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon Immersion Box Set is everything and more that a Floyd fan could want. To start with, you get six discs of material to sift through. Disc One is the original album remastered, while Disc Two contains the album performed live in 1974. Three is an audio-only DVD of several multi-channel mixes, and Four tackles both audio and video material including a 2003 documentary.

Disc Five is admittedly a bit of a cop out, as it includes most of the features on Disc Four, but on Blu-ray. It does feature some extra mixes, so it’s not a complete rehash, but still . . .

Disc Six rounds out the set with demos and live tracks.

On top of all this are the tchochkis included in the box. There is a 40-page book designed by Dark Side cover artist Storm Thorgerson, a Thorgerson art print, five collectors’ cards, replicas of the DSOTM tour ticket and backstage pass, a scarf, some marbles, and more.

The Floyd camp also has released an immersion set of Wish You Were Here (with one for The Wall slated for release in 2012), but seriously, once we put on the DSOTM set and The Wizard Of Oz, we were too relaxed to notice.

As far as movie box sets, lets start with the one with the totally overblown and completely unnecessary packaging that we completely intend to take out a second mortgage to possess, the Scarface: Limited Edition Humidor (Universal). Yeah, you read it right. You not only get a Blu-ray version of the 1983 Al Pacino cult classic as well as a DVD version of the 1932 original, but both discs come in a humidor that, according to the press release, is “Made with untreated Spanish cedar, and it will properly condition and age approximately 100 cigars at optimal humidity levels.” The mortgage is necessary because the list price sets you back $1,000.

If your interests are a little more down to earth, literally, there’s the Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth: Limited Edition. This set comes in a way-cool globe, and contains some art cards as well as new special features and commentary. For those concerned with all things green, get ready to recycle 100 bucks of it.

Staying on the tube, there’s the BBC/Warner Bros. release of Doctor Who: The Complete David Tennant Years. Generally regarded as the Doctor in the illustrious history of the series, The Tennant Years includes all three seasons, and the specials released in 2009 that served as a substitute for his fourth season. The handsome boxset prices out at $199.

If you’re more of a God person, or if you just want to stand still and behold the power of Charlton Heston, there are two sets you might want to find under the tree. The Ten Commandments: Limited Edition (Paramount) is six-discs of Biblical fun, including two Blu-ray discs of Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 version, as well as one Blu-ray of his 1923 silent take. The pair come housed in their own tablets, and thou shalt spend $90 to make it your own.

Then of course there’s the three-disc Ben-Hur: Ultimate Collector’s Edition (Warner Bros.), which includes a 64-page booklet and a reproduction of Heston’s on-set journal. Look to shed $65 bucks for this one.

Finally (’cause it’s all we have space for), there’s the Looney Tunes: Platinum Collection, Vol. 1, Ultimate Collector’s Edition (Warner Bros.) for the kids. With all of the characters on hand (Bugs, Daffy, Porky, et al), the set is a treasure for anyone who grew up with them, but there’s almost an entire disc dedicated to legendary director Chuck Jones that in and of itself would make the whole thing worthwhile. The 50 theatrical shorts that come with it aren’t that bad either.

– Timothy Hiatt

The cover photo on Taylor Swift’s Holiday Collection – lying apparently topless on a futon while clutching a guitar – set a new low for increasingly tossed-off seasonal albums. Seeking to inject some life into winter music, we asked our staff to dig up the best of what’s around.

In no order: “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo” by Trans-Siberian Orchestra; “Little Drummer Boy” by Jars Of Clay or Bob Seger; “Silent Night” by Sinéad O’Connor; “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” by Barenaked Ladies with Sarah McLachlan; “Merry Christmas Baby” by Chuck Berry or Bruce Springsteen; “No Presents For Christmas” by King Diamond; “Black Xmas” by Venom; “Cashing In On Christmas” by Bad News; “Christmas With The Devil” by Spinal Tap; “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love; “Merry Christmas From The Family” by Robert Earl Keen; “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm” by Dean Martin; “Christmas In Hollis” by Run-D.M.C.; “Blue Christmas” by Elvis Presley; “Run Rudolph Run” by Keith Richards; “Re-Gifting For The Holidays” by The Alice Project; “She Feels Like Christmas Day” by The Critics; “Christmas Time” by The dB’s; “This Christmas” by Shoes; and “Christmas Ride” by Fight. Sorry, JBeebs. Some other time?

Invigorated

So how about 2011? If we can carve a list of the top seasonal hits in 50 years, certainly we can widdle down the best overall from the past 12 months. Nopers. When asked to submit their top songs, our writers overlapped zero. While that bodes well for the predictable Spin/Pitchfork flavor of the annual Pazz & Jop poll, it also underscores the musical disunity MP3 players have sown. Even when two plucky AOR-leaning IE scribes could settle on a band (Foo Fighters) they couldn’t agree on a tune (“Walk” vs. “Rope”). Terrence Flamm made some space for local bands on his (“Miss You On Tuesday” – The Handcuffs; “Broken Baby Dollhouse” – Phil Angotti; “Pictures Of A Masquerade” – Bad Examples; “How Dangerous” – Smoking Popes; “Monitor Me” – The Laureates), so we’ll print those before restarting this machine and seeing if we can’t get a little conformity.

Letters Of The Month: D & J

Heading someone off at the pass isn’t common hip-hop lingo, but it’s what Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years Of The Last Great Record Label does. Proclaiming “Our artists speak for themselves (’cause they can’t sing)” repels rockist criticisms of the ultimate rap record label. The nearly 300-page, LP-shaped book attempts to capture what Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons set out to build in the early ’80s. From lucid LL Cool J, Slayer, and Beastie Boys anecdotes to clearly hopeful, promotional myth-making about Young Jeezy and Rick Ross, the book carefully captures the co-optation of an American dream, but one that is distinctly American. Whatever your opinion of hip-hop culture, this is the story of how it happened, and no one comes out unscathed.

Motor Town

“Come On Christmas” aside, Cheap Trick nestle into our December coverage upon the announcement of the band’s plans to “curate” a Chicago-themed music-history museum on the site of an old Buick dealership on Michigan Avenue. Pounded into the old 2245 S. space on the former Record Row/Motor Row district will be a combination “one-of-a-kind eatery, unique musical instrument museum, radio station, and performance space as well as rooftop and outdoor and event space in the future Music Row in Chicago.” As we’ve been chronicling, this South Loop revival has been enlivened since Mayor Emanuel took office, but has gained considerable steam in recent months. Of course, it’ll take more sustained investment than a rock band’s proclamation to revive the area, but the fear put into the band from the disaster at this summer’s Ottawa (Canada) Bluesfest means they’ll be home to work on things.

– Steve Forstneger

If you’re somewhat obsessive about backing up your hard drive on your iPad or laptop, but have a problem constantly reconnecting cables while shuttling between work, home, or the recording studio, Seagate may have an answer with its wireless Goflex Satellite, a wi-fi version of its backup hard drive.

For about double the price of what you would pay of a regular 500GB USB drive, early indications are this hard drive will save you the hassle of corded backups or paying on online service to backup your files.

The Goflex Satellite hard drive is an idea that’s been years in the making. It’s a pocket-sized hard drive that can connect to any mobile device including mobile phones, laptops, desktop computers, and tablets that are wi-fi connectable. It opens a way to store music and movies and also lets you stream your files when you get the urge. Most importantly to “Gear” readers, users can download music files (e.g., ProTools files) from the home studio setup. On paper it’s a great idea, but as a first-generation model, Seagate has some gremlins.

Though firmware and software updates promise eventual solutions, the Goflex prevents adapters from using a simultaneous wi-fi connection while uploading files. In other words, it blocks you from surfing while you wait for other files to download via wi-fi. Laptop users also know that wi-fi connections are relatively slow compared to wired connections. That means large music and movie files can take up to 30 minutes to transfer from the Goflex to your other mobile device.

Despite those drawbacks, our demo model didn’t have any problem streaming a movie with a robust Internet connection. The key to the Goflex is to have a strong connection and a little extra patience. Suggested price is $249; visit www.seagate.com for details.

Martin
Mamas & The Papas D-28 Custom Artist Edition Guitar
This guitar is a peculiar one, a commemorative guitar for a band who are known almost exclusively for vocal prowess – and 75-percent of the members are dead.

Martin’s Mamas & The Papa’s D-28 guitar “pays tribute to the enduring musicianship, songwriting, and vocal harmony of The Mamas & The Papas and is inspired by a vintage Martin D-28 that provided much of the rhythmic underpinning for hits such as ‘Cali-fornia Dreamin” and ‘Monday, Monday,’” according to the folks at Martin. The edition will be limited to no more than 100 special instruments, according to a press release.

The model is finished with a polished gloss lacquer and a vintage-inspired, ’60s-style aging toner. Each guitar features a label signed by C. F. Martin IV and Michelle Phillips, the last surviving member of the band. For info visit www.martinguitars.com.

Alfred
Rolling Stones Songbook
In honor of the Some Girls album reissue for The Rolling Stones (previewed on page 24) Alfred is releasing its “The Rolling Stones: Lyric & Chord Songbook” as a timely reference guide to break down Glimmer Twins songs in lyric/chord format with all of Keith Richard’s key guitar riffs in TAB. (He walks you through before he makes you run.)

Heavy on dissection of their early hits like “19th Nervous Breakdown,” “Brown Sugar,” “Get Off My Cloud,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Paint It Black,” “Ruby Tuesday,” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” this lyric and chord songbook is a friendly reminder of a time when the band was considered a bunch dirty punks during the first British Invasion. And then they got dirtier. MSRP is $19.99. Visit www.alfred.com for details.

– David Gedge

Q101 may have flipped its format in July, but the music rocks on at www.q101.com. The busy website features streaming music, entertainment, and information aimed at alternative-rock fans.

The site is the brainchild of Matt Dubiel and Mike Noonan – the duo behind the short-lived “Save The Loop” movement. They own the syndication company Broadcast Barter Radio Networks, which purchased the Q101 brand and turned it into a virtual “station” designed to go where the listeners go via mobile apps and social media.

“We look forward to giving fans a genuine say in who and what they hear – one that traditional broadcasters only pay lip service to,” says Noonan, a former WLUP jock. He and Dubiel, general manager at Elmhurst’s WJJG-AM (1530), plan to add talent to the audio stream (live.q101.com) next year – which will also see the return of the local music showcase “Local 101.”

“No matter who we choose [as host], we’ll be listening closely to the feedback from fans on the hosts and content and production value of the show,” says Noonan. They also plan to bring back the Jamboree and Twisted concerts as well as new events.

“Radio isn’t dead or outmoded by any stretch, but obviously has been immersed in a metamorphosis since the mid-’90s, and that has been detrimental in terms of homogenizing it, giving listeners less variety and less top-flight and local talent, while also underserving advertisers. Radio is till one of the best ways to reach and motivate people,” says Noonan.

“Having said that, we feel the unique brand affinity for Q101 and being free now to expand it from being a ‘radio’ brand to being a ‘lifestyle entertainment’ vehicle without regard to what corporate minders and consultants say is huge,” he continues. “We can and will communicate directly with fans and listen to their needs and desires and be in a position to meet those needs, without the heavy burden of debt or the quarterly, even daily demands of stockholders to hold us back. We have a tremendous opportunity and don’t and won’t take it lightly. We’re perfectly positioned and suited to take Q101 and make it the tip of the digital spear.”

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!: Whereas Q101.com plays major-label artists such as Lenny Kravitz, Kings Of Leon, Filter, Weezer, and the Beastie Boys on Q101.com, you’re more likely to get Stereolab, Azita, David Lynch, Afrika Bambaataa, and The Del-Byzanteens on North Center-based Chicago Independent Radio Project (CHIRP).

The online station is a truly alternative, non-profit, all-volunteer, listener-supported community project that is still hoping to get its hands on a low-power FM license. In the meantime, you still get to hear real, live music lovers playing their own records. It’s available online or via app at chirpradio.org.

The city’s other alt-stations all have a terrestrial presence – in other words, they broadcast over the airwaves – and all it takes to tune them in is a simple box with a couple of knobs.

CBS-owned WXRT-FM (93.1) is still plugging along, playing new alternative music along with mainstays such as BoDeans, The Pretenders, and Albert Collins. Grouse all you want, but “Chicago’s Finest Rock” makes us the envy of rock fans in other cities.

College stations have been playing new music all along, and now that they’re online you no longer have to be within a two-mile radius to tune them in.

Loyola University’s WLUW-FM (88.7) continues to rock the North Side with new music, despite the massive walkouts when the university regained control of the station a couple of years ago. Plus they play “Democracy Now!” at 9 a.m. each day. Listen at wluw.org.

With 5,000 watts, Northwestern’s venerable WNUR-FM (89.3) is still the area’s biggest college station, blanketing the North Side and northern suburbs. “The Rock Show” airs weekdays from 2 to 9 p.m.; “This Is Hell” airs Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. More at www.wnur.org.

The most underground is Northeastern Illinois University’s WZRD-FM (88.3), which has no format but leans toward sublimely obscure rock. As its mission states, “WZRD’s brand of freeform is commercial free, devoid of ego, eclectic, and radically non-mainstream.” More at www.wzrdchicago.org.

University Of Chicago’s “Pride Of The South Side” WHPK-FM (88.5) states that it “is dedicated to playing music not commonly heard on the mainstream.” The live music show “Pure Hype” airs Fridays at 9 p.m. Rock shows air most weekdays from midnight to noon. More at www.whpk.org.

ODD ‘N’ SOD: We enjoyed the Reader’s 40th-anniversary issue, which featured former editors and writers waxing poetic about the independent weekly’s storied past. But we missed hearing from and about Patrick Arden, managing editor during most of our tenure at the “Backwards R” (full disclosure: my byline appeared regularly in the Reader from 1995 to 2008). Arden was a rarity: a great editor who also advocated for the writer and refined our stories without playing “guess what I’m thinking” or SCREAMING AT US IN ALL CAPS. He was (is) perhaps the most intelligent person I’ve ever met – talking to him was like using Google, only with relevance, context, and history. Plus he loved his job. How well I remember coming to the empty Reader offices early one morning after a cover story about the White Sox was put to bed. I nearly tripped over Arden – who was asleep under a desk, his Sox hat askew. Best. Editor. Ever. And now Senior Reporter at Metro New York who earlier this year won the 2011 political reporting prize from the New York Press Club. Bravo!

– Cara Jepsen