Recent Articles
The Brunettes preview
The Brunettes Schubas, Chicago Wednesday, September 26, 2007 Hobbits aren’t the only thing to come out of New Zealand since the start of the new millennium. Enter The Brunettes. This perky, mousy-colored-hair duo made a ruckus on the other side of the globe with two full-length releases, Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks and Mars Loves Venus, […]
Merle Haggard reviewed
Merle Haggard The Bluegrass Sessions (McCoury) Back-to-basics country music has been ubiquitous ever since Rick Rubin convinced Johnny Cash to have a seat. Merle Haggard, who has been releasing albums this year like the format’s going out of style (which it is), is going so far back he has come upon something he has never […]
Federico Aubele reviewed
Federico Aubele Panamericana (Eighteenth Street Lounge) Federico Aubele and Che Guevara seem unlikely bedfellows. Aubele surely had the Argentine revolutionary’s Motorcycle Diaries in mind when he envisioned this album traversing the Americas, but the two trips (Guevara’s actual, Aubele’s figurative) couldn’t be more different. Appearing: November 10th at Schubas in Chicago.
Rush live!
Rush First Midwest Bank Ampitheatre, Tinley Park Saturday, September 8, 2007 Some people call Rush dinosaurs. After all, the three bandmates have been around for more than 30 years churning out the same quality pseudo prog-rock that fans know and love. Judging from the myriad plastic dinosaurs adorning guitarist Alex Lifeson’s amp rig, Rush knows […]
Editors live!
Editors Park West, Chicago Tuesday, September 11, 2007 The sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and English post punk quartet Editors have little in common other than the band’s scheduled performance Tuesday night at Park West. The band weren’t even a twinkle in NME’s eye in 2001 and deal almost exclusively in personal politics.
Hideout Block Party review
Hideout Block Party The Hideout, Chicago September 7 & 8, 2007 After last year’s ridiculously perfect pairing of Touch And Go’s eclectic roster of artists and Chicago’s most delicious “dump” (as Frames frontman Glen Hansard eloquently put it Saturday night), the 2007 edition of the annual Hideout Block Party had big shoes to fill.
VHS Or Beta, Walter Meego live!
VHS Or Beta, Walter Meego Subterranean, Chicago Tuesday, September 4, 2007 There are certain shows where it’s obvious why one act is performing as the opener. There’s an apparent schism between skill level, stage presence, and/or notoriety, to name a few differentiating factors. And then there are shows where two or more acts share a […]
Aesop Rock preview
Aesop Rock Metro, Chicago Thursday, September 13, 2007 A decade in the can, Aesop Rock is still one of the biggest fish in indie rap. Back when he started, the failure to gain at least a modicum of mainstream attention would have signalled failure; nowadays people are ready to hand him a gold watch.
Powersolo
Powersolo Schubas, Chicago Friday, September 14, 2007 Tunes about truckin,’ fuckin’, and NASCAR, mopey C&W, amphetamine-laced rockabilly, and a jewel-case picture of the band hanging off a tractor in the middle of a farm field. Where else could Powersolo call home than Aarhus, Denmark?
17 Hippies preview
17 Hippies World Music Festival, Chicago Sunday, September 16, 2007 Tuesday, September 18, 2007 17 Hippies are sort of liars, or maybe more like embellishers. They aren’t really hippies, first off, and there aren’t really 17 people in the band. Only 13, actually.
Jamie T. Preview
Jamie T. Schubas, Chicago Tuesday, September 18, 2007 Like the characters in Gary Oldman’s gritty 1997 directorial debut, Nil By Mouth, the subjects populating Jamie T.’s (Treays) inaugural full-length, Panic Prevention (Caroline), just want to get fucking wasted.
Okkervil River preview
Okkervil River Logan Square Auditorium, Chicago Tuesday, September 18, 2007 For their fourth LP, Austin’s Okkervil River latch onto the age-old “life is a stage” theme. Unlike Bill Shakespeare, whose poetic constructions were a mirror celebration of life’s complexities, OR frontman Will Sheff takes a decidedly bleaker view and only continues to hold a pen […]
Devendra Banhart preview
Devendra Banhart Portage Theater, Chicago Tuesday, September 18, 2007 Devendra Banhart will probably never change from the 2004 version, as far as the public is concerned. He’ll always be the wild-eyed, freakishly hirsute international hippie who briefly lit a spark under indie rockers’ dormant appreciation for out-there folk music. He won’t be no damned rock […]
Suzy Bogguss reviewed
Suzy Bogguss Sweet Danger (LDR) Hard to believe it has been about 15 years since this downstate product was racking up the gold and platinum records. Appearing: September 16th at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn.
Travis Tritt reviewed!
Travis Tritt The Storm (Category 5) It’d be easy to sit back and say folks have tired of Travis Tritt, especially from a Yankee perspective. His era — that of Garth Brooks and Clint Black — is only survived by a bland-as-all-get-out Alan Jackson, while Tritt’s own appropriation of the Waylon image gets shakier the […]
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