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If You Tape It They Will Come — Part II
Imagine seeing your favorite band in an intimate, 400-seat venue where the worst seat in the house is 25 feet from the stage. Imagine the show starts and ends on time, and the artists will show the offstage side of their personality. Then imagine the venue is acoustically perfect. Add free parking and it sounds […]
Play Like A Girl
DAISY ROCK GUITARS Rock Candy Series If girl-on-girl rock is your thing, Daisy Rock Guitars, the “girl guitar” company, is expanding their Rock Candy Series with the new and positively feminine Rainbow Sparkle and Power Pink finishes. It’s enough to make Courtney Love sick, but that’s a good thing. The Rock Candy guitars feature a […]
Local CD Reviews
The Brutal Poetry Of Existence, by thrash metal band A.S.A., is a multi-dimensional album that delivers some angry screaming tracks (“Rancor,” “Overwhelmed”) and some with more melodic vocal alterations (“The Perfectionist”). “4571” showcases the band’s potential and diversity, surprisingly ending with a piano solo. The songs have powerful production, but this is a band better […]
Michael Anthony Q&A
Hello, My Name Is Michael IE: You’ve just released the third and fourth entries into your line of Mad Anthony sauces. What started this? Michael Anthony: I like to cook, but, you know, the rappers are all doing clothes, so I can’t. Might as well do the sauce. I’ve always loved hot sauce, and through […]
Lene Lovich Q&A
Hi, My Name Is Lene IE: Your new album, Shadows And Dust, is infused with supernatural themes. Lene Lovich: We deal with the real world everyday. It gets a little tedious [laughs]. I’ve always been interested in unnatural and spooky things. I’m not really so much into horror for the sake of people dying and […]
BUT THE SOCKS ARE SO CHEAP!
Wal-Mart — The High Cost Of Low Prices Bravenew Films Word of advice to small business owners: If you find out a Wal-Mart is coming to your town, start scanning Monster.com to figure out what your next career path is going to be.
Three Generations Of The Blues
The ’60s meet the new millennium with new releases by icons B.B. King, Otis Rush, and the Chicago Blues Reunion.
Studio News
At STUDIOCHICAGO in Chicago, Paris Delane worked on his first solo album, The Learning Tree, which is being co-produced by Gene Wolf . . . Mr. Blotto were in the studio recording their fifth studio album; Chuck Kawal engineered . . . India pop sensation Reggie Benjamin worked with Bob DiFazio on new songs for […]
If You Tape It They Will Come
People spent years waiting for a chance to sit in the “Bozo’s Circus” studio audience. Parents requested tickets to Bozo before their children were even born — and all for the chance to win Archway cookies and a Schwinn bicycle in the Grand Prize Game.
Like A Mouse
MICE TECHNOLOGIES Mobius Media Suite Naperville’s MICE Technologies believe you’re only using half the potential of your computer and software when you’re using only one mouse with music programs like ProTools and Ableton Live. They’ve created their own bi-manual software programs that allows a musician to use two input devices (mice/track pads) independently, recreating tasks […]
Local CD Reviews
Bipolar is the latest LP from American Heritage, a Chicago collective that has weathered various lineup and label changes throughout its history. The band’s Escape Artist Records debut includes both new material and some previously unreleased tracks. American Heritage uses an onslaught of technical guitar work and odd time signatures to craft its math rock […]
Best Of Around Hear
Each January, we dedicate “Around Hear” to those low-profile local artists who are our favorites from the passing year — the results of our staff and freelancers combing clubs and stacks of CDs for more than the booze and adulation we normally receive. This is by no means an attempt to make a definitive guide […]
Let It Shine
What’s a beatnik?” My young friend Emily, a Medill senior, asked me recently. We were discussing Halloween costumes, and I mentioned that back in the late ’50s I loved to dress up as a beatnik on Halloween: tight black clothes, heavy black eyeliner, and long black hair (courtesy of my mother’s long black scarf). Beatniks […]
Hinge Goes West
In 1998 a young Kanye West and the group he was producing/rapping with, The Go Getters, booked time at Hinge Studios and worked with Craig Bauer, the studio’s engineer and owner. Bauer says the sessions were pretty run-of-the-mill — he remembers West and his crew being nice, decent, normal human beings.
Carpetbaggers & Nincompoops
Howard Stern‘s switch to Sirius satellite radio next year will leave his Infinity Broadcasting family of 27 stations high and dry (his last “free” radio show will air here December 16th on WCKG-FM 105.9). In New York and six other markets he’ll be replaced by diminutive former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth. Los Angeles […]
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