Features
Trivium interview
Trivium Born From Metallica In the young lives that comprise Florida thrash metal band Trivium, there has never been a world without Metallica. Drummer Travis Smith was born in 1982, the year Metallica’s No Life ‘Til Leather demo tape emerged. Lead guitarist Corey Beaulieu was born when Kill ‘Em All surfaced in 1983. Bassist Paolo […]
Wolfmother interview
Wolfmother Hair Of The Dog For once, it was looking like he might escape undetected. Or at least that’s what Andrew Stockdale was thinking as his jet touched down on a San Francisco tarmac not too long ago. Unfortunately, the flight’s captain had other ideas. He’d picked up the Aussie musician on his radar and […]
Cover Story: The Killers
The Killers MÃ s Vegas You have to hand it to Brandon Flowers. The guy certainly knows how to make an entrance. And it’s never exactly what his audience is expecting. Appearing: 10/17 at Congress Theatre (2135 N. Milwaukee) in Chicago.
The Damnwells feature
The Damwells Go Airborne Ask any number of aspiring/up-and-coming rock songwriters who their influences are, and you’re likely to get a response that includes names from the last two decades, or predictable staples like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, or Bob Dylan. These are respectable idols, but the exponential inbreeding of styles has given us […]
Califone interview
Califone The End Is The Beginning At the bottom of a career-threatening funk following the tour behind Califone’s 2004 release, Heron King Blues, Tim Rutili happened across an old mix CD a friend had given him, and found his salvation somewhere in the middle. It came via Psychic TV’s “The Orchids,” released on the band’s […]
The Hold Steady interview
The Hold Steady Ratted Out “I’ve had kids come up and say to me, ‘God, you guys and Drive-By Truckers are the only bands that I ever go see that look like they’re having any fun at all,’” recounts Hold Steady vocalist Craig Finn. We’re discussing his band’s triumphant, early-afternoon appearance at Lollapalooza back in […]
Catfish Haven interview
Catfish Haven Floor To Ceiling To say George Hunter, of Chicago-based trio Catfish Haven, was having a bad day is an understatement. First, he had double booked IE‘s phone interview with some dog-walking he had agreed to do for his bass player’s business. When the time came to do the interview, he was four pooches […]
The Rakes interview
The Rakes If It All Ends Tomorrow The story behind London’s The Rakes is one that has been written countless times before. The group built major U.K. buzz and scored an international record deal after about a year of touring. Upon being imported to America, they lit up the CMJ Festival in New York followed […]
Cover Story: Touch And Go Records At 25
Touch & Go Records Rusk Never Sleeps “We attempted to celebrate 10 and failed. There was a coffee mug, I think that was as far as it got. We tried to do a 10th anniversary compilation and failed so miserably that we’d try to finish it and have a 13th anniversary celebration — ’cause that […]
Massive Attack Interview
Massive Attack Calm, Cool, And Collected Having spearheaded an entire musical genre doesn’t mean too much to Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja. The band’s critical record is virtually unblemished and even in the marginalized realm of electronic music in America, their very name commands respect. Yet 15 years in the trenches — 23 if you […]
Lupe Fiasco Interview
Lupe Fiasco Go Time By the time this story hits the press, Lupe Fiasco will still be awaiting the drop of his debut album, Food & Liquor (Atlantic) — more than half a year after its originally scheduled release date. Following an Internet leak of the album this past spring, among other snafus, it just […]
Mastodon Interview
Mastodon Land Ho Mastodon vocalist/bassist Troy Sanders knows all about the classic struggle between man and animal. The topic made his band a household name, after all, when 2004’s Leviathan (Relapse), a concept album that revolved around Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, won the group acclaim from metalheads and indie hipsters alike.Appearing: September 14th at Metro […]
Nina Gordon Interview
Nina Gordon’s Bleeding Heart “I don’t know if you’ve ever seen artichokes grow, but I haven’t [before] and it’s pretty amazing. It’s like a huge beanstalk, and at the top is an enormous globe that is a big old artichoke, and I’m not quite sure when I’m supposed to chop it and eat it, but […]
The Tripwire
Tripwire.com Free Enterprise Back in the dark ages, before everyone and their brother had a blog pimping the hottest new MP3s of some yet-unheard of U.K. sensation or Stateside underground phenomenon, the Internet wasn’t commonplace for pedestrian music lovers to find new artists. However, it was a forum for industry heavyweights to drop new release […]
Touch And Go Block Party Preview
Hideout Block Party Preview Twenty-five bands in three days? Are the Neo-Futurists involved? Unlike some other gargantuan summer fests, The Hideout (1354 W. Wabansia) and Touch And Go kick things off Friday evening. Then it never stops.
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