Columns
Sweet Home: November 2012
Wayne Baker Brooks has always been a rebel. While most blues musicians were weaned on a steady diet of classic blues, he also listened to house music, ’80s rock, and hip-hop. While most scions of blues legends gain musical schooling from the masters themselves, Brooks is self-taught. And while most musicians regularly perform riveting examples […]
Gear: November 2012
Fender Guitars Jaguar 50th Anniversary The Fender Jaguar electric guitar is 50 years old. Wow. Unveiled in 1962, it was the last and arguably, most criticized of the guitar maker’s four signature electric guitars to be introduced, and, as it turned out, the last major “six-stringer” by Leo Fender whose name is still adorned on […]
Studiophile: November 2012
Longtime studio owner/engineer Michael Kolar has upgraded his Chicago-based SOUNDSCAPE STUDIOS with Carl Tatz Design‘s (CTD) acclaimed PhantomFocus System, a monitor tuning protocol that stands above all other possible control room upgrades. “When you can mix from instinct and taste as opposed to compensating for playback anomalies, the sky is the limit,” Kolar contends. “At […]
Hello, My Name Is Matthew
IE: You channel Abbey Road-era John Lennon on the cover of your debut, Big Inner with a crisp, white suit. Matthew E. White: If I don’t wear a suit, with the long hair and beard I look like hippie man or some rocker guy. The album is kind of classy. [The suit] lets people know […]
Around Hear: October 2012
Counterfeit I takes pride in being unconventional on A Glimpse, An Eclipse, right down to using titles like “. . .” and “(r)this.” The band opts for a harder guitar sound than on its first two releases, creating a sonic landscape marked with battlefields, industrial beats, shouted vocals, and abrupt tempo changes. The fast-paced “Smile” […]
Caught In A Mosh: October 2012
It never fails. Friends grow up, record stores shutter, liner notes shrink, columnists retire, and servers get hacked. But one tried-and-true way of discovering underground music will always remain: the cover song. This writer had never heard of Death In June – possibly the darkest folk group – before Nachtmystium covered “Rose Clouds Of Holocaust” […]
Digital Divide: October 2012
The Cabin In The Woods Lionsgate The Avengers Lionsgate If anyone had a better summer at the box office than Joss Whedon, I sure couldn’t tell you who it was. Not only did he direct the highest grossing film of the year, but another one of his projects finally saw the light of day after […]
File: October 2012
TO COMMON, WITH LUV Common urges Chicago’s youth to stop the violence. This comes mere weeks after local rapper Lil Jojo (Joseph Coleman, 18) was gunned down on the streets of Englewood and inflammatory tweets posted on musical rival Chief Keef‘s (Keith Cozart, 17) profile caused police to investigate the rising star in connection to […]
Gear: October 2012
Steve Vai Ocean Way Mic Locker App With Apple’s new iPhone 5 release flooding stores this month, the timing is right for guitarist/composer Steve Vai (in collaboration with acclaimed microphone expert Allen Sides and Metal Sidecar, LLC) to release the Ocean Way Microphone Locker App. The company calls it an “indispensable and vital tool for […]
Media: October 2012
I recently had a driveway moment while listening to Loyola University’s WLUW-FM (87.7). The host was doing an in-depth, hour-long retrospective on Daft Punk – whom I’d never heard. Yet I couldn’t stop listening. The way the show’s host, Steve Damien, used live and pre-recorded interviews with full-length versions of songs to tell the story […]
Studiophile: October 2012
Following the untimely death of legendary Grammy-winning songwriter and studio boffin Joe South, the owner of SONGWERKS RECORDING in Addison, Robert Mackey, took time to reflect on his professional friendship with South (pictured above left, with Mackey) who performed on his band’s (AVM) cover of “Hush,” (made famous by Deep Purple), recorded at Songwerks. “It […]
Sweet Home: October 2012
With the decidedly testosterone-filled focus of contemporary blues, it’s easy to forget that the genre was popularized at the beginning of the last century by a handful of spirited women. Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Ethel Waters, and Ida Cox all helped usher in the era of recorded blues records and Memphis Minnie, with her finely-honed […]
Hello, My Name Is Elliot
IE: How difficult is it to collaborate with your sister [Natalie Bergman] in Wild Belle? Isn’t the point of growing up to escape your relatives? Elliot Bergman: There’s benefits and drawbacks because we’re very close. We’re pulling from all the same reference points. We grew up knowing all the same songs. She grew up stealing […]
50 years of the Rolling Stones in pictures
Veteran music journalist Hanspeter Kuenzler can pinpoint the exact date The Rolling Stones came rushing into his life with the bravado and swagger that still defines the iconic rock band.
Sweet Home: September 2012
There’s no question that the blues serves as the foundation for traditional American music genres, but it’s easy to forget that it doesn’t necessarily have to take a musical form. The blues can flow through words, movements, and sensibilities. It can inform literature, dance, visual art, and theater. The eta Creative Arts Foundation illustrates this […]
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