Illinois Entertainer

Ministry
Jour Gonna Miss Me

On a sultry August 18th, 1995, Chicagoans and pilgrims stuffed the Riviera Theatre for a last chance to catch the Ramones live. Opening act Gren, a grunge-era also-ran, had the word “ignored” redefined for them while all anyone wanted to hear was that iconic “One! Two! Three! Four!” 30 more times. As victory lap/farewell tours went, the Ramones were able to close on a giddy high. Finality never felt so good – so they did it again.

Appearing: May 8th through 11th at House Of Blues in Chicago.

• Read more: Cover Story: Ministry’s Farewell

Counting Crows
Two Days A Week

“As far as I can tell — and I can’t guarantee this — I am real. It has often seemed to me like this was all a part of my imagination. Which is largely the problem. The fact that my life has seemed like a figment of my imagination to me is largely the problem in my life.”

Appearing: August 22nd at First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre in Tinley Park.

• Read more: Counting Crows interview

Panic At The Disco
No Exclamation Reqired

For the particularly ghoulish among you, the British video is still floating around on You Tube, as creepy as it was when it was first filmed in the summer of ‘06. It’s a particularly chilling clip from that year’s Reading Festival, showing ebony-garbed, eyelinered Panic At The Disco frontman Brendon Urie strutting onstage, launching into a droning emocore song alongside guitarist Ryan Ross, and . . . promptly getting beaned with a full beer bottle thrown from a decidedly anti-emo segment of the audience. We’re talking unconscious. Out. Cold. It wasn’t quite the warm U.K. welcome the then-teenage members were expecting. And it could’ve easily killed poor Urie, who was hastily dragged offstage to recover.

Appearing: May 23rd & 24th at Congress Theatre in Chicago.

• Read more: Panic At The Disco interview

Dimmu Borgir
Lords Of Commercial Chaos

For their first band photos in 1993, Dimmu Borgir wore foot-long spikes on their arms and posed with medieval swords and homemade clubs at night in the woods near Oslo, Norway. In the tradition of one-time Mayhem vocalist Dead, who committed suicide two years earlier, they smeared their faces with shock-white greasepaint, bubonic-black eyeliner, and inky, exaggerated frowns.

Appearing: Sunday, May 4th at House Of Blues in Chicago.

• Read more: Dimmu Borgir interview

Hot Chip
Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Foppery

In a reserved, studious manner, Alexis Taylor most resembles Napoleon Dynamite’s Internet-dating lothario Kip, sans moustache. Diminutive and soft-spoken, it’s slightly hard to believe in a mere five hours — seersucker clad — he will muster the exuberance to perform in front of a sold-out, undulating sea of bodies. One on one, Hot Chip’s lyricist exudes a down-to-earth mentality erupting in spontaneous likability that seems to transfer quite well to the stage.

• Read more: Hot Chip interview

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“It was really important to us that we didn’t go out just Bush-bashing. So we started jamming with a bunch of different people who live around us [in Texas]: Burton [C. Bell] from Fear Factory, Wayne [Static] from Static-X. Just had a bunch of people dropping in and out. It wasn’t like we sat down and did an album; this was going on over a period of a couple years. Finally we had enough covers so I said, ‘You know what? We’re a pretty good fuckin’ rock band. I would like for people to remember us like that instead of just Bush Bush Bush Bush Bush Bush — grumbling malcontents. This is a pretty kick-ass rock album.’ So we wanted to go out with a party album instead of fist-shaking. I’m glad we did that.”

• Read more: Ministry continued

home last

One super-conscious model that remains in place is how Jourgensen’s career will play out over the next three years.

• Read more: Ministry end

Perpetually under siege by synthesizers, jealous bandmates, “Guitar Hero,” and its own practitioners, it’s almost as if the guitar can’t exist without more tension than what’s going on between the neck and the bridge. So at IE we figured why not spray some gasoline on the fire and, for our annual Guitar Month, debate who Chicago’s greats have been. “You mean like Terry Kath and Peter Cetera?” Kath = yes. Cetera’s just the man who’ll fight for our honor.

• Read more: Cover Story: The 20 All-Time Greatest Chicago Guitarists

Joe Satriani
Surfing With The Web Surfers

Valentine’s Day was four days ago, but guitar instrumentalist Joe Satriani is just now writing his dearest a love note. He begins reciting it by phone from his small, professional recording studio on the ground floor of his San Francisco home. “Record Store Day,” he reads aloud, “April 19th, 2008.” The virtuoso is breaking out the sweet stuff for the one he credits with selling 10 million of his studio albums through his 22 years as a solo recording artist: the record-store industry, now hobbled by illegal file sharing and an iTunes-designed singles market.

• Read more: Joe Satriani interview

The Black Keys
Brian’s Song

Spikes in Black Keys activity are nearly imperceptible, akin to testing for jumps in a hummingbird’s fluttering heart rate. They are there, however.

Appearing: Saturday April 12th at Riviera Theatre in Chicago.

• Read more: The Black Keys interview

Black Tide
Age Old Question

Alex Nunez definitely remembers his first impression of Zakk Sandler. “He was a dick to everybody,” Nunez recalls.

Appearing: Sunday August 10th at First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre in Tinley Park.

• Read more: Black Tide interview

Putting It Down And Pleking It Up
The Plek Machine Comes To Chicagoland

George MacPhail is accustomed to leaving work at the end of the day with hands that hurt. Actually, he is accustomed to leaving work with hands, fingers, and arms that hurt. MacPhail is one of two guitar technicians at The Music Gallery guitar shop in Highland Park, where he has worked since 1975 and, if you believe what they say about the man nicknamed “The Doctor,” has repaired or adjusted more than 20,000 instruments in those 33 years.

• Read more: The New Guitar Plek-trum

Hayes Carll
No Longer A Mess In Texas

Hayes Carll has just released his third album, Trouble In Mind. His first, Flowers And Liquor, for Compadre Records, was produced by Lisa Morales of Sisters Morales. His second, Little Rock, released independently, was produced by R. S. Field. One of its songs, “Down The Road Tonight,” made Stephen King’s list of 2007’s top tracks. And now with Trouble In Mind, produced by Brad Jones, Carll has co-writing credits with the likes of Ray Wylie Hubbard and guest musicians such as Dan Baird, Will Kimbrough, and Fats Kaplan. Plus it’s on the “label of the iconoclasts,” Lost Highway.

Appearing: Thursday April 24th at Schubas in Chicago.

• Read more: Hayes Carll interview

The 20 All-Time Greatest Chicago Guitarists

20. Son Seals

Shootings, fires, amputations, W.C. Handy Awards: Son Seals seemed something out of an Andrew Vachss novel, which, in fact he also was. Frank Seals also knew a raw solo or two, we’re told.

• Read more: 20 - 11

The 20 All-Time Greatest Chicago Guitarists

10. Tom Morello

Tom Morello endured 18 years in Libertyville and graduated with honors from Harvard in 1986. Neither, though, had much to do with his greatest achievement: Rage Against The Machine (sorry Audioslave, your name fit your confined music). Rage ignited Molotov cocktails of post-”Bring The Noize” rap-metal, burning up the Billboard charts and dreaming of larger targets to torch. “I eagerly await the day the United States government goes down in flames,” Morello told the Chicago Tribune in 1993. Evil Empire remains alt-rock’s most volatile success – down with tradition, up with invention. Morello’s molten guitar techniques evoked turntable scratches and Public Enemy’s noise-effect cacophony. No DJ or PE required.

• Read more: 10. Tom Morello