Monthly
Whole Lotta Lovin’
On July 20th in front of an adoring crowd of roughly 4,000 fans, blues icon Buddy Guy took to the stage of Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion and received the first annual Great Performer Of Illinois Award. As Chicago Cultural Affairs Commissioner Lois Weisberg presented Guy with the award, the audience exploded into “Buddy! Buddy! Buddy!” […]
The Morning After
For WKQK-FM 101.1 listeners, the morning drive is now an awful lot like the afternoon drive. On August 11th, the former afternoon team of Brian Sherman and Steve Tingle took over the morning slot after Alan Cox and Jim Lynam‘s “The Morning Fix” was given the ax.
Spin Me Round
ION TTUSB Turntable If you plan to purchase a turntable to play records several hours a week, you could find better models in the Technics, Sony, or Stanton lines. But if you’re looking to convert your vinyl to digital, Ion, one of the early pioneers of USB turntables, should be at the top of your […]
Hell Of A Box Set?
Not to say “told you so,” but it’s right there in my July ’07 Black Sabbath The Dio Years CD review: “The Dio Years would make more sense as a box set with remastered versions of each album.” As much as I’d like to think Rhino read my review and realized the error of its […]
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
While there’s no denying the sincerity or songwriting talents of singer Thomas Pace, his fourth self-released album, New American Way, leaves a bit to be desired. Sweet, tuneful tracks such as “60 Seconds Wasted” and “The Damage Is Done” are just a couple of the extremely well-crafted songs here, but overall, the end product is […]
Cover Story: Judas Priest
Judas Priest Nostradamus: Priest’s Prophetic Project Who could have predicted a band who’ve been around since the beginning of time (more precisely, since the inception of heavy metal) would produce such an audaciously ambitious project? Judas Priest’s Nostradamus is a 23-track, double-CD concept album. Unlike the central figures in other such releases like Pink Floyd’s […]
Trouble interview
Trouble Unlucky Number Seven By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work — Genesis 2:2 It’s a story that should be familiar to readers of hard rock and heavy metal news: Eighties legends kick off their big reunion twice […]
Lair Of The Minotaur interview
Lair Of The Minotaur Reign In Blood At 11 p.m. July 5th, while rowdy teenagers shot off their remaining fireworks, Lair Of The Minotaur frontman/guitarist Steve Rathbone sat indoors with family. The violent flashes they sought were to be found in the premiere of his band’s video for “War Metal Battle Master,” the title track […]
Metal Roundtable
The Coast Is Here: Chicago Metal’s Rising Tide When Illinois Entertainer decided to put together a Chicago heavy metal roundtable, we had no illusions it would be easy. Getting five people (four of them important, busy musicians; one of them a lowly, lazy writer) to agree on a time and location to talk about our […]
Roundtable 3
RD: Then they had the music room at Medusa’s where they would pack a bunch of fucking dance-party kids and then junkies and shit upstairs, and then they had the punk room and you’d be so fucked up on nitrous or whatever by the time you got there you wouldn’t even know who you were […]
A Metalsummers’ Night Dream
The Best Of The Fests To tell you the truth, we didn’t pick this month for our second Metal Issue. It picked us. August just happens to host three major heavy metal festivals that will appeal to three different groups of metalheads. Fanatics of more traditional, underground metal will surely find $20 a fair price […]
Hello, My Name Is Scott
Hello, My Name Is Scott Q&A with “Rebel Radio”‘s Scott Davidson IE: You’ve done “Rebel Radio” for 14 years, you book shows, you do a TV Show [“Rebel Access”], you play in five bands, how much of your time on any given day is devoted to heavy metal? Scott Davidson: Probably the whole day except […]
File: August 2008
Metal Issue II In November 2006, we dropped our first true metal issue since the days IE used to pump out its CAMM sister publication (Chicago Area Metal Monthly). We aren’t looking to make it an annual date, but sometimes, like Trevor Fisher says on his festival-preview page, the time picks us.










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