Monthly
Caught In A Mosh: November 2010
So Much For Sleep You’re forgiven if you live in Green River, Wyoming, and don’t know the name Chris Black (above, left). If you call yourself a Chicagoan and consider yourself a headbanger, but aren’t, however, familiar with his 15 years in metal, then you’re a failure.
Sweet Home: November 2010
Of Mythical Proportions Famous for his raw, soulful vocals and flashy delivery, Syl Johnson may be noted as a soul-music icon, but he was a blues master long before he took up that mantle. Listening to his crackling tenor slice through his 1975 hit, “Take Me To The River,” it’s easy to forget that the […]
Media: November 2010
BGA Hires John Conroy It’s hard to get work as an investigative journalist in today’s cash-strapped, superficial, blog-driven media environment.
Studiophile: November 2010
Time Of The Season (For Recording) Forgive us while we skip the hypothesizing over what Wilco would sound like without him, is he their George Harrison, and, woe is he, doesn’t the world care enough about John Stirratt?
Gear: November 2010
Apple MacBook Air They refuse to call it a “netbook,” but Apple’s new MacBook Air is a close to a netbook as you can get with a Mac.
Cover Story: John Legend & The Roots
There’s Still A Riot Goin’ On In politics, as in music, timing is everything. In 2000, reborn George W. Bush rode the religious right’s disgust with the Clintons into the White House, just as Barack Obama’s galvanizing ’04 DNC address rekindled idealism when America had grown tired of sucking down fear. In contrast, the roads […]
Jimmy Eat World interview
Searching For A Former Clarity Midway through Jimmy Eat World’s seventh studio effort, Invented (Interscope), the album presents its immediate and undeniable pop apex in “Coffee And Cigarettes.” The song finds the band at its power-pop: finest all huge harmonized hooks and crunching riffs buzzing just under frontman Jim Adkins’ honey-laden, eternally boyish vocals.
Mumford & Sons interview
India ‘N America Sure, there are shiny new electric toys that can make a rock band sound like a million bucks. But for the rustic-minded Marcus Mumford – and his folksy four-piece Mumford & Sons – the older and dustier the musical instrument, the better. “I just bought a hundred-year-old harmonium,” the 23-year-old enthuses. “And […]
Eric Mantel Interview
Coming Unstuck Anyone in town who ever spent a split second in a blues bar or rock club from the 1970s through today has likely run into Chicago-based guitar slinger Eric Mantel.
File: October 2010
Dave Matthews Bang! When you dump a truckload of shit in the Chicago River, you answer to Samir! Clark Street belched a bummed-out “No way!” late last month when the FBI foiled a plot to kill Dave Matthews Band fans after the September 18th Wrigley Field show.
Hello, My Name Is Kevin
Q&A with Kevin Chalfant IE: You’ve been in a ton of bands over the years. Could you give us the official lineage? Kevin Chalfant: Well I started in Illinois in the late 1970s, went to California in the ’80s through mid-’90s and them came back to Illinois. In Illinois, one group was called The […]
Around Hear: October 2010
Local Band Reviews Algernon‘s intentions of blending hippie grooves with kraut rock, art punk, and avant-garde jazz are certainly admirable, but the results throughout the entirely instrumental Ghost Surveillance are scattered at best.
Digital Divide: October 2010
Iron Man 2 Warner Bros. Iron Man may possibly be one of the best comic-book movies ever made, and its critical and financial success meant that the sequel was as inevitable as the sun rising in the east or Lindsay Lohan doing something stupid.
Caught In A Mosh: October 2010
With The Lights Out Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell love black metal. More accurately, Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell are obsessed with black metal. The couple spent significant time at Aquarius Records in San Francisco where friend and co-owner Andee Connors recognized the couple’s bias toward lo-fi music and suggested they check out black metal.
Media: October 2010
Faces For TV: Chicago’s Fabulous Manno Brothers “Growing up, I never thought beyond Q101,” says Kevin Manno, 27, who recently left the WKQX-FM show he co-hosted with older brother Ryan Manno, 29, for the MTV show “The Seven” – a live countdown of the day’s top seven pop-culture stories that debuted September 20th.
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