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File: December 2011
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.
Gear: December 2011
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.
Media: December 2011
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.
Studiophile: December 2011
STROBE RECORDING in Chicago is hosting Strobe Sessions #43 a live, in-studio performance on December 15th with appearances by Brokeback and Electric Hawk, an instrumental power trio from Chicago, featuring guitarist Michael Burns, bassist Graham Mclachlan, and drummer Noah Leger.
Sweet Home: December 2011
Texas-born Chicago-based vocalist Sharon Lewis has been a fixture on the blues scene since the ’90s, playing with everybody from Dave Specter to Harmonica Hinds. But her Delmark debut, The Real Deal (Delmark), brings together all that experience in one multi-layered package. Backed by her hard-driving band Texas Fire, Lewis manages to craft a well-rounded, […]
Not your problem
Few people these days can boast of a unique kink — that moment when only you know the joke, and can savor it by repeating the words to clueless friends and colleagues. That’s what we get from Stew & The Negro Problem, the Warm, Safe & Sound benefit, Crystal Stilts, and The Knux.
To be Loveless
“I talk so much shit I forget who I’m talking to,” Lydia Loveless spits out in the defiant “Can’t Change Me.” She’s pugnacious all right — through just about every track on her Bloodshot Records bow Indestructible Machine.
Cyber Monday!
Logically, if you’re surreptitiously stealing time from your employer to scout online deals, you’re probably not wasting a minute on a music site. But if you were . . .
Epstein who?
Your pre- and post-turkey billet includes a former Chicago Cubs general manager — not to mention City And Colour, Tinariwen, a Henhouse Prowlers benefit, Atlas Moth, Yukon Blonde, Corey Taylor, and Waters.
The pre-turkey comedown
Thanksgiving eve is annually as wet as Mardi Gras — musically, it’s also drier than a microwaved turkey dinner. This weekend is your last chance before Midwestern winter sucks your music choices away. Witness Hey Rosetta, Yellow Ostrich, Girl In A Coma, Thinker Thought’s 10th anniversary, and XD Records’ first-annual showcase.
Puscifer live!
In spring 2010, serial frontman Maynard James Keenan brought his Puscifer act to The Vic for a three-night stand. The run of shows saw the act deliver a highly theatrical series of concept performances, including one night’s hillbilly-centric event, wherein Keenan played the part of country-fried frontman Billy D.
Patrick Stump live!
By now, much has been said about the funky and soulful direction of former Fall Out Boy frontman Patrick Stump‘s solo career. Though a departure from the power-punk of the artist’s full band catalog, the recently released Soul Punk (Island) full length strongly plays to Stump’s adventurous pop sensibilities– sensibilities the artist had on display […]
Best of both worlds
A critic’s darling and commercial juggernaut. Classic and forward-thinking. A virgin and a whore. We crave these combinations; The Barr Brothers and Garland Jeffreys try to provide them.
Paul Simon live!
Tipping the scales of 70 seems to have lit a spark in Paul Simon, not necessarily enhancing his laid-back personality, but giving him renewed creative vigor. The recent studio set So Beautiful Or So What (Hear Music/Concord Music Group) is among his most magnetic since Graceland (though it favors folk over African arrangements), while his […]
Ray Davies live!
He may not tour very often, but thankfully Ray Davies’ music never goes out of style. Between an endless stream of classics he wrote and sang for The Kinks to the occasional solo chestnut, there’s plenty of material in his arsenal, which translated to no less than two-dozen tunes in front of a healthy crowd […]
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