Features
Cover Story and Gallery: The Struts
It was a popular, yet perhaps far-fetched concept that was titillating impressionable society a few years back. And it was relatively simple, all told, and loosely based on comic Danny Wallaceâs book Yes Man, which was later satirized to a zanier degree in Jim Carreyâs film version of the same name: If you simply responded […]
Caught In A Mosh: Jeremy Wagner’s “Rabid Heart”
Many know Chicago legacy death-metal band Broken Hopeâs guitarist Jeremy Wagner for his music. But some of you may not know that Wagner is also an accomplished fiction writer who has just released a new horror novel Rabid Heart (Riverdale Avenue Books). The 258-page post-apocalyptic nightmare tells the tale of a worldwide pandemic that infects […]
Hello My Name is Andrew W.K.
Like Alexander the Great centuries before him, mega-metaller Andrew W.K. is probably weeping because he has no more worlds to conquer. Justifiably so. After recording 2001âs I Get Wet â a multi-tracked ELO-meets-Sweet-at-Slayer-junction masterpiece so addictive that we guarantee that there will be days youâll wake up needing to hear it right then, this […]
Cover Story: The Voidz
âA manâs got to know his limitations,â Clint Eastwood once observed as the defiant renegade cop Dirty Harry. Similarly unforgiving Strokes bandleader Julian Casablancas is still gradually discovering his own with his latest splinter combo âinitially dubbed Julian Casablancas + The Voidz, now known simply as The Voidz â and its sleek, sophisticated sophomore […]
Cover Story: Johnny Marr
Johnny Marr just made the best record of his life. And he knows it. Dubbed Call the Comet, itâs the ex-Smith guitaristâs third, following 2013âs The Messenger and 2014âs Playland. And it finds him: Lyrically delving into grim socio-political issues that heâd often avoided; Letting his axe provide the chiming hooks in places instead of […]
Remembering Aretha Franklin 1942-2018
Aretha Franklin, who passed away on August 16th of pancreatic cancer at age 76, embodied her title of âQueen of Soulâ in a wholly spectacular way but that name didnât fully capture all that she was. Aretha wasnât just a gifted singer, and she wasnât just a master of soul singing. She sang every American […]
Cover Story: Børns
Today Garrett Borns might be the foppish baroque-pop trendsetter who records as simply Børns, with three adventurous albums to his credit, including the new Blue Madonna, his second for Interscope. But there was a time not so long ago when the Michigan native was at the mercy of a pack of marauding masked bandits after […]
Cover Story: Lissie
There is a word â and indeed a whole attendant concept â that singer-songwriter Lissie (born Elisabeth Corrin Morris in Rock Island, Illinois; she long ago dropped her surname for performing) had gradually let slip from her memory, over her recent years spent living in sunny Ojai, California. And itâs not something too easy to […]
![Stage Buzz: Hello My Name is… Jonathan Davis [Updated: Photo Gallery at House of Blues Chicago]](http://illinoisentertainer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/IMG_4024-150x150.jpg "Stage Buzz: Hello My Name is… Jonathan Davis [Updated: Photo Gallery at House of Blues Chicago]")
Stage Buzz: Hello My Name is… Jonathan Davis [Updated: Photo Gallery at House of Blues Chicago]
IE’s Curt Baran caught Korn’s Jonanthan Davis at a rare intimate show Sunday at House Of Blues Chicago with New Jersey hardcore stalwarts, Palisades. Sundays will never be the same. Read our Q&A with Davis below. Our Q&A with Jonathan Davis from May 2018 Illinois Entertainer Print & Mobile Editions To any fans […]
Cover Story: Dorothy
In the music industry, never underestimate the sound man. From his back-of-club vantage point, he usually sees â and knows â all. Two years ago, singer Dorothy Martin was playing a small San Francisco nightclub with her namesake outfit Dorothy, to a rabid crowd of mostly teenaged girls, who had copied the quasi-Goth look she […]
![Cover Story: Judas Priest [Updated]](http://illinoisentertainer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/76cc05c4-a9bd-4acd-89fc-bc2b9fcde0f7-150x150.jpg "Cover Story: Judas Priest [Updated]")
Cover Story: Judas Priest [Updated]
After an impressive five-decades long career, British heavy metal pioneers Judas Priest show no signs of slowing down with the release of their explosive 18th full-length studio album Firepower (released March 9 on Epic Records). On 14 blistering tracks, Priest delivers the indisputable, classic heavy metal sound that hearkens back to the bandâs heyday. The […]
Cover Story: The Vaccines
Fans will have to forgive the cheesy film reference, chortles Justin Young. But for a while there recently, the anchor for brainy British folk-punkers The Vaccines actually came to believe that heâd somehow lost his magical inner mojo, just like Austin Powers in Mike Myersâ hilarious espionage spoof The Spy Who Shagged Me. And no […]
Cover Story: Wolf Alice
Itâs what every artist aspires to; one would imagine â a famous director one day finding their life so remarkable and their look so photogenic that it warrants its own documentary. But UK rocker Ellie Rowsell was just surprised that hers happened so fast, last year when her quartet Wolf Alice had only a single […]
Cover Story: William Patrick Corgan
When the Jedi Master speaks, the humble light saber student must sit quietly at his feet and listen. And Smashing Pumpkins anchor Billy Corgan â who has recently re-dubbed himself with the more mature moniker of William Patrick Corgan, under which he just released the skeletal, Rick Rubin-produced solo set Oglilala, one of his best […]
![Cover Story [Updated]: Lucky Boys Confusion](http://illinoisentertainer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Lucky-Boys-4F5A1584-2-150x150.jpg "Cover Story [Updated]: Lucky Boys Confusion")
Cover Story [Updated]: Lucky Boys Confusion
It’s been 20 years since Lucky Boys Confusion first got together in a basement to write songs, playing their first party in the suburbs where they grew up. What happened between then and now is a story about triumph and tragedy, the roads between paved with the love of each other and the love of […]
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