Weekly
Wye Oak reviewed
Wye Oak If Children (Merge) Wye Oak’s namesake, a 460-year-old Maryland tree felled by a 2002 hurricane, will posthumously (postarborously?) base many a review for the young band. This won’t be one. But you’ll have to excuse the requisite Yo La Tengo references. Appearing: Saturday, June 14 at Hideout in Chicago.
Bell X1 live!
Bell X1, Brooke Waggoner Empty Bottle, Chicago Wednesday, May 28, 2008 Back home, Ireland’s Bell X1 enjoy the prestige of being labeled a stadium act. On the band’s second American outing in only the last three months, the size of the rooms might be smaller than those normally afforded chart-topping artists — kinda like driving […]
Centro-Matic preview
Centro-Matic Schubas, Chicago Saturday, June 7, 2008 Sunday, June 8, 2008 Centro-Matic’s Will Johnson can’t have just one. Of anything. It’s right there in his halved band name, as if we’d mispronounce it Cen-TROM-a-tic otherwise. Two shows this weekend (but only one club). Alternating headlining slots with The M’s. Supporting a split release (Dual Hawks) […]
Cyndi Lauper preview
Cyndi Lauper Chicago Theatre, Chicago Tuesday, June 10, 2008 Cyndi Lauper’s 1983 girl-power anthem “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” lives on in both clubs and You Tube and has been known to blare from the hallway PA system of Chicago’s own Mother McAuley, the largest Catholic all-girls high school in the country, during its […]
Tim Fite preview
Tim Fite Lakeshore Theater, Chicago Tuesday, June 10, 2008 Tim Fite certainly isn’t the first artist to attack Western culture, though he has kept his hands and conscience relatively clean. Artists from The MC5 to The Clash to Rage Against The Machine have looked silly by espousing rebellion and pointing fingers at the rest of […]
RIP Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley Dies At 79 Bo Diddley, recently ranked third in our list of the 20 Greatest Chicago Guitarists Of All Time, died Monday, June 2nd, at his Florida home.
Lauren Harris preview
Lauren Harris Allstate Arena, Rosemont Wednesday, June 11, 2008 Opening a tour for Iron Maiden ain’t easy. It might not be as stressful as facing 30 minutes of continous (occasionally life-threatening) “SLAYEEEER!” screams, but tough nonetheless. Most Maiden fans, after all, don’t buy their concert tickets with discovering young, opening talent in mind. They want […]
Hail Of Bullets reviewed
Hail Of Bullets . . . Of Frost & War (Metal Blade) We’re more than a little embarrassed to admit if it came down to some sort of life-or-death quiz, we’d probably know more about the Ben Affleck/Josh Hartnett/Kate Beckinsale love triangle in Pearl Harbor than the actual events of Pearl Harbor and World War […]
Edenbridge reviewed
Edenbridge Myearthdream (Napalm) Goofy heavy metal doesn’t bother us. It bugs a lot of headbangers, who somehow fail to see the humor imbedded in the DNA of the genre they worship, but not us. Austria’s Napalm Records understand, though, and in the last eight months have released some awesome, we’ll say “off-kilter” records, including Scottish […]
Stone Temple Pilots live!
Stone Temple Pilots Charter One Pavilion, Chicago Thursday May 22, 2008 Click picture for full gallery Stone Temple Pilots always wanted it both ways. In the halcyon days of Seattle grunge, they yearned for the credibility of torchbearers like Nirvana, Mudhoney, and Soundgarden. Instead, they got blamed for birthing Bush (the band, not the president). […]
M83 preview
M83 Empty Bottle, Chicago Thursday, May 29, 2008 Was there a creepier moment on record in 2005 than the waking nightmare of “Car Chase Terror!”, off M83’s previous effort, Before The Dawn Heals Us (Mute)? Probably not. The song, as voiced by one adolescent girl playing herself and her mother, tells the tale of the […]
Mudhoney preview
Mudhoney Reggie’s, Chicago Friday, May 30, 2008 Revisionism can be a beautiful thing: After Metallica and Megadeth blew their wads in the ’90s, rock critics swore they always loved Slayer. Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley are long dead, Chris Cornell is a laughing stock, and Pearl Jam have joined the David Bowie-curated “best album since […]
Adele preview
Adele Martyrs’, Chicago Saturday, May 31, 2008 It’s a bit jarring when a pasty British teenager opens her mouth and out comes the whopping voice of an old-time soul diva.
Hoots & Hellmouth preview
Hoots & Hellmouth Schubas, Chicago Saturday, May 31, 2008 It should be a rule that if your last name is Hoots and you have a band, you must play down-home, folksy, rootsy, backporch music. Though IE currently sit on the Rules & Regulations committee of our condo association, our power to issue such a decree […]
Everest preview
Everest Abbey Pub, Chicago Monday, June 2, 2008 Count Neil Young as a fan. The legendary Canuck signed Everest, an L.A.-based conglomerate of disparate indie collectives, to his Vapor Records label earlier this year. The quintet sports an impressive résumé with members citing stints in Sebadoh, Earlimart, Folk Implosion, John Vanderslice, and the Watson Twins. […]
Recent Comments