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Satch-a Claus is coming to town
Thanks to Trans-Siberian Orchestra, orchestral guitar rock has joined instrumental acoustic-guitar picking as a default holiday-music setting. (Along with rockabilly, oddly.)
Holly Days
Metro presents its annual “Home For The Holidays” concert series, which begins tonight and runs through the 30th. The idea is to draw separated college kids together over cheap — er, inexpensive — music and help some less-fortunate folks out, as well.
Plus or minus
The plus/minus stat remains unique to hockey, an exploitable but generally accepted measurement of a skater’s defensive worth. It’s an aggregate of the number of times a player is on the ice when his team scores either at even-strength or shorthanded, versus the amount his side concedes while at equal numbers or on the power […]
Usher & Trey Songz live!
Allstate Arena, Rosemont Friday, December 3, 2010 While Usher could’ve very easily ended up in the early-’00s R&B bargain bin, his career found an unexpected resurgence thanks to a pair of hot new projects (Raymond v. Raymond and follow-up EP Versus), plus an arena show that had no trouble selling out the Allstate Arena. But […]
‘Aftermath’ Recreates Vintage Rolling Stones
Satisfaction Guaranteed Aftermath, a dramatic play with live music that runs through January 23rd at Signal Ensemble Theatre on the North Side, takes audience members back to a critical point in the career of The Rolling Stones.
Cover Story: Umphrey’s McGee
The Taming Of The Stew This year won’t be the first time Umphrey’s McGee end a year playing sold-out shows in Chicago. In fact, it will be the fifth consecutive. The venues differ (Vic, Riviera, Auditorium, Aragon) yet each time that Jam Productions announces the on-sale, it’s a surprise. Like, “These guys are headlining the […]
Interview: The Bad Examples
Put The Kids To Bed This article is an accident. It was spawned by a chance encounter with the FitzGerald’s Web site, where the words “The Bad Examples (Record Release)” were spied on the December schedule. IE’s instinct was to sneer, “Hasn’t anyone in Berwyn ever heard of updating a Web site?” and navigate away.
Interview: The 1900s
The Dawn Of A Century Don’t call The 1900s deserters. The band might have wasted a bundle of positive media buzz and eager fans gained from its promising 2007 debut, Cold & Kind, on two years of near-seclusion (the group did grace a handful of Chicago summer festivals and lent its talents to a benefit […]
Interview: Lee DeWyze
Roughing It Long before he won “American Idol,” Lee DeWyze was slugging it out in Chicago with an eponymous band, having released a pair of albums on WuLi Records, drawing some WXRT airplay, and getting cameos on a sports show called “The Chicago Huddle.” Though that path could’ve maybe/possibly/eventually led the 24-year-old singer/songwriter/guitarist to major-label […]
Sweet Home: December 2010
When Mike Raspatello was thinking about what was missing in Chicago’s crowded music-festival calendar, he immediately considered the lack of roots music. “There was nothing offered in the winter months at all,” he adds. “The roots genre was relegated to the summer months.”
Superchunk
As one of elder statesmen of the burgeoning alternative rock explosion in the early ‘90s, North Carolina’s Superchunk’s speedy, punk-rock anthems captured the imagination of indie-cool slackers and collegiate hipsters reckoning with the all-consuming conquest by Nirvana, and grunge in general.
No Age live!
7th St Entry, Minneapolis Tuesday, November 23, 2010 No Age is at that tenuous career juncture where competing contrasts often tear bands apart. No longer scrappy young upstarts, there are certain divergent expectations that can pull in opposing directions.
What’s old is old again
God help us if – as Greg Kot’s recent interview with John Mellencamp indicates – rigid opinions on the right and wrong ways to make music dog us into senior citizenship.
And all the trimmings
Looking to stay fit and trim during this holiday season? What better way to shed those extra calories from your Thanksgiving celebration than moshing it up with hardcore rockers Every Time I Die?
Grinderman live!
Riviera, Chicago Monday, November 22, 2010 The mid-life crisis is usually personified by the sports car, a younger girlfriend, and the divorce that follows said paramour. Unless you’re Nick Cave. The lead singer of The Bad Seeds and The Birthday Party has addressed his growing years by staring them down and assembling a band that […]
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