Columns
Victorian Era
Victoria Amplifier Co. Electro King Naperville’s Victoria Amplifier Company‘s new amp, the Electro King, was a labor of love re-creation of the 1950s-era Gibson GA-40. The Eisenhower-era cathode-based 6V6 tubes supply a modest 15 watts of power, which make it suited for small-club and recording environments.
The Legacy Remains
The seed of Testament‘s reunion was planted in 2001, the year Chuck Billy was fighting for his life. Diagnosed with germ cell seminoma, the hulking frontman was undergoing chemotherapy and drowning in medical bills. So friends from the Bay Area and beyond united for the Thrash Of The Titans benefit gig in San Francisco. On […]
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
The Goodyear Pimps deliver a unique hard rock sound on their latest, Quickly Now Gentlemen, With A Lively Step. They are mostly rock with just enough punk to keep it raw, but what makes them stand out are the lyrics, (stream-of-consciousness and literate in a hard-edged way) and the vocal delivery. Unfortunately, there are no […]
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The debut album from Paper Arrows, Look Alive, swoops in and hits the pause button on racing pulses. The trio crafts somber melodies that would make Adam Duritz proud. Joe Goodkin’s vocals even slightly resemble the Counting Crows frontman. While Duritz sings about Maria in every song, the gal Goodkin pines for in these 10 […]
Hello, My Name Is Dick
Hello My Name Is Dick IE: Seeing Electric Six at Double Door was how I spent my very first New Years Eve in Chicago. That’s not a question, obviously, just a fun fact. Dick Valentine: The thing I remember about that show is that we thought it might be our last show ever, since we […]
File: March 2008
Queen Nothing Everyone is entitled to their own opinion . . . unless it isn’t Aretha Franklin‘s opinion, too. So let it be known from here forth that no female singer may ever be lovingly referred to as “the queen” by a star-struck admirer. That’s what Beyoncé did during an intro to Tina Turner’s Grammy […]
DVD Zone: March 2008
DVD Zone Sony’s Revenge Do you like having the newest gadgets? Does the thought of running out and buying the latest technology, no matter the cost, make you a little moist? If so, you might have been one of the few who plunked down some hard-earned coin on a spiffy new HD-DVD player. Guess what? […]
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
Singer/multi-instrumentalist Dominic Harris sounds like he’s aiming for a streetwise Lou Reed on his new CD, Ride, but it often sounds forced. A more natural delivery and sharper lyrics would have made the full-length disc more accessible. There are good things going on here, like the soulful, catchy strings Harris arranged for the pretty love […]
Around Hear Page 3
With his How It Be mixtape, Broadview’s Quesne (pronounced Cain) drops hip-hop inspired by both the crunk of Atlanta and the chopped-and-screwed styling of Houston. Because he mostly borrows beats (from Mike Jones, Ludacris, etc.) and emulates the vibe of those tracks, it’s tough to tell what this west suburban rhymer represents. Although sonically, he […]
Reptoids’ Sweet Sides
Doro Pesch, the iconic German power metal songstress, will hate Reptoids, or at least her publicity team will hate Reptoids. I had Doro penciled in for this column as far back as December (she is playing the Pearl Room in March) but in mid-January I received Reptoids’ three-song Slayed EP, threw it on, listened to […]
In The Pocket
Digidesign Mbox 2 Micro In their aim to imbed a ProTools software chip in the back of every musician’s neck, Digidesign‘s USB flash drive-sized Mbox 2 Micro shows they’re serious about making music tools in increasingly smaller recording packages until they’re the size of dust mites.
TV, The HDTV Switchover, & You
They can’t give us universal health care. They can’t fix the subprime mortgage problem. They can’t even find Osama bin Laden. But at least they can subsidize our TV viewing. The government is spending some $1.5 billion on its digital converter switchover program, which will ensure people with analog TVs can continue to watch over-the-air […]
Clean ‘N’ Sober
Death is described as the great rock career move, but surviving serious drug addiction might be a better choice. Especially when, decades later and clean ‘n’ sober, you get to regale the public with tales of your sordid past in best-selling books. Among a raft of such having-one’s-cake-and-eating-it-too tomes by rockers touting their tales of […]
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