Columns
IE Rewind: Remembering Lin Brehmer: Media – September 2018
WXRT morning man Lin Brehmer is more than just a friendly voice on 93.1 FM every day, he is your “best friend in the whole world,” a moniker he has used now for several years. “But I usually say it in a pathetic ‘why don’t I have any friends at all’ whine,” he points out. […]
Media: January 2022 • Signal Stays Strong at MeTV FM
For the last few years, fans of MeTV FM (87.7FM) in Chicago have been bracing for their favorite station to be shut down by the FCC. Program director Rick O’Dell has good news for them if they haven’t heard it yet. “We reached a critical point last July where the FCC had imposed a […]
Media: December 2021 • Never Forget
At the end of every year, we like to take a moment to acknowledge the media giants in Illinois we lost during the year. This year the list includes television and radio icons, familiar faces and voices, and people behind the scenes. One of the most consequential names you might not know is former […]
Stage Buzz: Livestream Buzz – November 17 – November 22 • Jason Isbell, Anti-Flag AntiFest, Pink Sweat$ at Concord Hall, Robyn Hitchcock, Jason Sudeikis hosts Thundergong!
In honor of the 40th Anniversary of the November 1981 release of their debut album, Movement, New Order has been profiled by BBC6 online in a one-hour special highlighting the best songs from the record, including “Ceremony” and “Dreams Never End,” plus rare tracks, cover songs, bands they influenced, and Movement‘s obvious musical connection […]
Media: October 2021 • Ofman’s Chicago Sports Story
George Ofman has been part of the Chicago media community for more than 40 years now. Here’s an indication of how long he’s been doing this. His first job in the business was in a medium that doesn’t exist anymore. He worked for an outfit called Sportsphone. Imagine it. It was a phone […]
Media: September 2021 • “The Big ’89 to Hollywood”
Kris Erik Stevens’s arrival in Chicago in the late ’60s involved a bit of serendipity. “I was on my way from San Francisco to a gig I had just taken in Pittsburgh, and I stopped in Chicago along the way to see an old buddy of mine, Lyle Dean, who I had worked with […]
Spins: Jeff + Ping • The Threefinger Opera
Jeff Elbel + Ping The Threefinger Opera (Marathon Records) A few years ago, Chicago-area musician Jeff Elbel experienced a crushed nerve ending that denied him the use of two fingers on his left hand. This is bad news for someone who not only fronts his own band, the expansive Jeff Elbel + Ping but sits […]
Hello My Name is… John Doe of X
To calm, cool, and collected X anchor John Doe, it’s all about how you see the world these days. Some artists may have dreaded all that enforced 2020 lockdown time as a curse, but, homebound apart from his bandmates in Austin, he viewed it as a blessing, a creative windfall, even though X had […]
Media: August 2021 • “New Sports Radio Economy”
Jon Zaghloul, the host of the show Sports Talk Chicago (which airs locally on WCKG, AM 1530), was born and raised in Tinley Park, is a graduate of Andrew High School, and currently attends the University of Chicago. You read that correctly. Currently attends. He’s 21 years old. He was born in the 21stcentury “I’m […]
Hello My Name Is…Billy
You’ve got to hand it to storied Cult guitarist Billy Duffy — he doesn’t bury the lede when it comes to late-breaking news stories. Only a minute into a recent phone call to discuss Coloursound — the ephemeral side project he and Alarm vocalist Mike Peters launched, then abandoned with a single album back in […]
Media: July 2021 • “Radio Joan”
Joan Esposito was known to Chicago audiences as a television reporter and anchor after her many years at Channel 5 & 7. Still, when she accepted the job as afternoon host at Progressive Talk WCPT (820 AM), it was not her first job in the medium. “When I first got into broadcasting, I got a […]
Media: June 2021 • “Steve King’s Cult 45”
People in Chicago know Steve King for his four–decade run as a radio DJ and talk show host (WLS, WGN), but before his legendary radio career began, he was doing something else entirely. “I was a full-time musician. That was my career in the early ‘60s. Even when I first got into radio (1966), If […]
Hello My Name is Juliana Hatfield
No man is an island, John Donne once wisely noted. Juliana Hatfield would respectfully like to disagree. At 53, the charming Boston folk-rocker is quite happy just kicking back at her Cambridge home with her beloved 11-year-old chocolate lab, Charlie (who’s actually female, she points out), sans any unwelcome interlopers. And while other […]
File: Peoria’s Way Down Wanderers New Album Announced and Video Single Released
Peoria’s country-roots stalwarts, The Way Down Wanderers (featured cover story in March 2019 IE), just announced their new album More Like Tomorrow drops on September 10. More Like Tomorrow finds the Peoria, Illinois-based quintet refining their music, pushing new boundaries of roots-based music with their blend of folk, rock, bluegrass, and deep harmonies. Their first single […]
CinemaScopes: May 2021
Sequels, Remakes, and Adaptations As we gear up for a more Post-Vax world, many films previously on hold are finally coming out, and May traditionally is the tentpole month for theaters. One theme we see is the tendency to rely on tried and true formulas to draw people out again – especially when so many […]
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