Recent Articles
Billy Joe Shaver interview
Billy Joe Shaver Last Man Standing It’s a double-edged sword when your producer calls you “the last of his breed,” which is how producer John Carter Cash referred to Billy Joe Shaver. Publicly. In the press release accompanying Shaver’s newest album, Everybody’s Brother.
Flosstradamus interview
Flosstradamus Have Scene, Will Travel Flosstradamus are breaking a lot of rules. Not necessarily in the genre-crossing, style-mashing, critically lauded kind of way — though they’re certainly breaking those. Nor are they breaking them in the scene-restrictions-be-damned kind of way. At least not in this instance, though it’s apparent the boys scoff at such petty […]
High On Fire interview
High On Fire And The Art Of Getting Known It’s the middle of August, and High On Fire drummer Des Kensel and frontman/guitarist Matt Pike have been swooped up from their Oakland homes and flown to Philadelphia. Philly (Upper Darby to be exact) is home to Relapse Records — High On Fire’s label — and […]
José González interview
JosĂ© González Smiling OnThe Inside Having touched down in New York for a one-off performance in advance of his new CD, In Our Nature, Argentinean-by-way-of-Sweden singer-songwriter/acoustic-guitar virtuoso JosĂ© González walks into his American record company’s game room. It presents a completely different image from the one projected during the 2006 U.S. performances in support of […]
Josh Ritter interview
Josh Ritter Quick Change Guest spots on Letterman and Conan, accolades from both horror master Stephen King and The Boss Bruce Springsteen, superstardom in Ireland, and still Josh Ritter helps out his friends in need. It’s that Idaho upbringing. Appearing: October 16th at Park West in Chicago.
Maritime interview!
Maritime Is This Thing On? There’s an Internet outage at Davey von Bohlen’s house, and the downtime could save the 32-year-old Maritime frontman the burden of trudging through the day’s blog roll. He wouldn’t miss much. No new comments on the band’s Myspace page. No new Pitchfork review arguing “the man can’t sing” (like a […]
Hello, My Name Is Kirk
Hello My Name Is Kirk Q&A With Kirk Windstein Of Down IE: Down was in a state of limbo for a while. Was there any question in your mind you guys would make another record? Kirk Windstein: I think when we, if you want to call it, “parted ways” after the last one and went […]
File: October 2007
Riot, Act III The cuddly, spikes-n-leather gathering we lovingly refer to as Riot Fest marks its tertiary performance in November at Congress Theatre. And just when you thought it couldn’t get anymore, um, riotous, here come some classic and righteous additions.
DVD Zone: October 2007
The Graduate: 40th Anniversary Edition MGM https://illinoisentertainer.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/dvd_graduate.jpg With all of the hoopla surrounding the 40th anniversary of all things 1967, it’s about time someone got around to the best film of the year, The Graduate. Tons of ink has been spilled about the summer of love, and now MGM has released a two-disc Special Edition […]
Local CD Reviews
“Around Hear” is a monthly feature where a stable of IE writers review albums sent to us by local musicians. If you are interested in having your CD (must have a minimum of three songs) reviewed and are Illinois-based, mail it and any other media materials to 657 A W. Lake St., Chicago IL, 60661. […]
Around Hear Page 2
Tempering their jittery new wave urgings with a solid pop sensibility tweaked by an ever-so-slight emo turn gives July Fourth‘s five-song Curtain Of Stars a richness that belies the band’s power trio line-up. Solid drumming keeps these guys’ faces from falling into their shoes or getting too sloggy-proggy for their own good, such that the […]
Around Hear Page 3
On Conversations With A Chamelion Pugs Atomz proves he has moved well beyond his days as a punchline-driven rapper. The chipmunk soul beats provided by Colin Response and others may not be innovative, but they surely set the stage for Pugs to paint verbal portraits of life in a complex city (“The Outlaw”) and equally […]
Crack Music
Jason Novak is busy right now. Really busy. It’s 11:30 a.m.-ish on a Thursday morning in September and the Acumen Nation frontman/guitarist/songwriter is tending to his sick daughter, who is home from school with the flu, supervising the painter working on a new addition in his house, trying to finish some Flash web work (Novak […]
An Apple A Day
APPlE. Inc iMac Somewhat lost among the hoopla of the iPhone and the new-generation iPods, Apple Computer “quietly” introduced its newest iMac last month.
Jazz Hands
WNUA-FM (95.5)’s Ramsey Lewis is not the only game in town when it comes to jazz musicians moonlighting as DJs. Sax player Bruce Gibson and bass guitarist Nick Calabrese co-host a show called “Local Jazz Focus” each Tuesday night from 7 to 9 on Triton College’s WRRG-FM (88.9). They’ve had a whole host of musicians […]
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