With much fanfare and long waits for many pleading fans on Facebook and Twitter, Riot Fest announced their 2013 lineup just now. The festival, held for the second year in Humboldt Park, is three days (September 13-15) of both new and old punk and hard rock favorites, with the addition this year of some notable hip-hop acts. The festival has added serious ammo this year with an impressive lineup that rivals many of the other major festivals coming through Chicago this summer. Some personal favorites just at a glance includes Blondie, Violent Femmes, Taking Back Sunday, Against Me!, Bad Brains, Stars, Dessa, Saul Williams, and many more. The festival is also going to be three full days in the park instead of two, and will include the same carnival theme as last year.
Three day passes are now on sale for $69.98, and three-day VIP passes (which include 15 drink tickets, not a bad deal at all) are $175. UPDATE: Early-bird tickets are sold out; passes are now $99.98 and increasing as more tickets are sold -- so get in there soon. You can purchase tickets here.
There was no Bulls theme song playing over the loud speakers when Kurt Vile & the Violators took the stage at Lincoln Hall on Tuesday--but there might as well have been. Vile and his crew emerged from backstage looking very much like a team as they proceeded to stomp through songs from their new album, Wakin' On a Pretty Daze, with fierce discipline, emotion, and an added heft. Hell, even some of band members looked a little bit like Joakim Noah.
The lo-fi, fuzzy Wavves we've known and loved has become a little less rough around the edges these past couple years. While still maintaining the scuzzy aesthetic of their debut self-titled album, Wavves' latest release Afraid of Heights is a lot slicker and less brash. Even after four albums, Wavves' Nathan Williams seems as bratty and angsty as ever.
Afraid of Heights has been commonly hailed as the this generation's answer to Nirvana's Nevermind. Like Kurt Cobain, Nathan Williams seemingly couldn't care less about fame or commercial success. Like Nevermind, Afraid of Heights is dripping with nihilism and hopelessness wrapped up in catchy pop hooks. Unlike Nirvana, rather than conjuring images of dingy clubs, Wavves makes you feel like laying in the sun at the beach, drinking 40s out of a paper bag.
While we're all still in the early planning stages of who to see at Lollapalooza, over the past few days we've been highlighting a handful of bands on the Lolla roster to keep in mind. Lollapalooza is happening August 2nd - 4th in Grant Park, however all tickets besides Platinum passes are currently sold out.
Lo-fi indie pop band Guards originally came across my radar once I discovered the man behind Guards, Richie Follin, is the brother of Cults singer Madeline Follin (Richie himself was once Cults member as well). Cults' self-titled album is one of my favorite releases of 2011, so I immediately sought out Guards' album to check out what Madeline's brother had been up to. Turns out the siblings aren't the only musicians in the family, either - their step-dad Paul Kostabi was a founding member of White Zombie, as well as punk band Youth Gone Mad with which Madeline herself was briefly involved, along with Dee Dee and Joey Ramone. Pretty impressive background.
In February, Guards released their debut LP In Guards We Trust. While the album shares the same lo-fi aesthetic found in Cults' self-titled debut, In Guards We Trust focuses less on vocals and more on fuzzy guitars and eager hooks. The album is sprightly and optimistic, with choruses like "We're up and ready to go!" on the commercial-ready "Ready To Go" that seem almost crafted to sell coffee or insurance or something. Commercial or not, the band is downright fun, and perfectly suited for the Lollapalooza heat.
While we're all still in the early planning stages of who to see at Lollapalooza, over the next few days we'll be highlighting a handful of bands on the Lolla roster to keep in mind. Lollapalooza is happening August 2nd - 4th in Grant Park, however all tickets besides Platinum passes are currently sold out.
Elena Tonra of the London based band Daughter couldn't have seemed more modest and pleased with the sold out crowd at Lincoln Hall, which was perhaps the reason why the band played over an hour and their set included a few songs not listed on the setlist. Though the band performed as a four piece, Tonra stole the show with her rather tormented looking eyes catching the light amidst the smoke during several parts of the evening. And, as the audience filled with adoring girls especially, looked up in awe to her, she saw them as they sang along with the lyrics they felt deeply to Landfill "I wanted you so much but I hate your guts."
Performing under the moniker Father John Misty, folk singer J. Tillman exudes an effortless flamboyance that makes him one of the most captivating stage presences I've ever had the fortune of seeing live. I like to picture him as a romanticized Hunter S. Thompson type of character. I imagine him traveling from city to city, lodging in seedy hotel rooms with different women in each town, drinking copious amounts of whiskey and taking hallucinogens, surrounded by sex and regret.
This is all merely a projection on my part, but it seems to be the persona Tillman is establishing for this particular project. After seeing Father John Misty live, it is difficult to imagine why Tillman would ever be anywhere but front and center on stage, but he actually spent years behind the drum kit for indie acts Fleet Foxes and Saxon Shore. He released the debut Father John Misty album Fear Fun in May of 2012, but he originally caught my eye because of the haunting music video for the track "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings" featuring none other than Aubrey Plaza.
And if Father John Misty is merely character for Tillman, the guy sure commits. Each time I've had the pleasure of catching one of his live shows, he's had a bottle of booze next to him on stage, taking swigs throughout the show. He saunters around on stage with the bravado of someone who knows something you don't. There's a distinct charm about him that will draw you in and ensnare you. Maybe it is all just an act, but I'm buying it.
While we're all still in the early planning stages of who to see at Lollapalooza, over the next few days we'll be highlighting a handful of bands on the Lolla roster to keep in mind. Lollapalooza is happening August 2nd - 4th in Grant Park, however all tickets besides Platinum passes are currently sold out.
Despite receiving a good share of acclaim in the U.K. following the release of her debut album Devotion in August of 2012, Jessie Ware's music didn't get a proper U.S. release until just last month. The delay was due to some legal issues following a sample on the track "110%", which was edited for the stateside release. However, the postponed release didn't stop the buzz surrounding her from making its way across the pond, with several U.S.-based blogs and magazines placing the album on their 2012 year-end best albums lists.
Jessie Ware has a throwback style reminiscent of an 80's diva. Just check the video for her track "Running", where she's found with oversized jewelry, bold make-up, and an over-the-top hairstyle while her sultry voice guides her through exaggerated poses. With her elegance and the control she has of her stunning vocals, Ware is often compared to Whitney Houston and Sade. This particular track could have easily been released 25 years ago, but Jessie Ware is not living in the past.
While Ware leans more toward the R & B spectrum, her electronic influences cannot be denied. She started out as a vocalist in studio and on the road with electronic acts such as SBTRKT, Sampha, and Joker before stepping forward into the limelight as her own solo artist. The majority of Devotion is emotional, soulful downtempo tracks, but a few songs are straight up club-ready, like "Imagine It Was Us", a recent addition on the American version of the album.
While we're all still in the early planning stages of who to see at Lollapalooza, over the next few days we'll be highlighting a handful of bands on the Lolla roster to keep in mind. Lollapalooza is happening August 2nd - 4th in Grant Park, however all tickets besides Platinum passes are currently sold out.
Last January on a cocaine-fueled episode of Girls, Lena Dunham's Hannah Horvath snorted a line off a toilet seat in a club before hitting the dance floor and singing along to the perfect club anthem to recklessness. "I crashed my car into the bridge. I don't care!" The song is Icona Pop's 2012 summer jam "I Love It", which has been blowing up since its inclusion in the HBO television series. The song is now seemingly everywhere - just recently making its late-night debut on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, as well as Dancing With The Stars, Vampire Diaries, and Glee.
This Swedish DJ duo comprised of Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo met at a party back in 2009. They immediately decided to make music together and booked their first gig before they had written even a single song. In 2012, after the success of their debut US release Iconic, the pair left Stockholm for New York and LA. They've been hitting the festival circuit this year after finishing up a tour with Passion Pit and Matt & Kim.
Once the Gleeks have gotten a hold of a song, you'd think at this point it would just be over-saturated. But "I Love It" is just too damn catchy. By all means this is a group I'd typically hate, but Iconic is so infectious I just can't help it. These dance-floor ready songs about ex-boyfriends and break-ups are the ultimate guilty pleasures.
While we're all still in the early planning stages of who to see at Lollapalooza, over the next few days we'll be highlighting a handful of bands on the Lolla roster to keep in mind. Lollapalooza is happening August 2nd - 4th in Grant Park, however all tickets besides Platinum passes are currently sold out.
"I have to get up early tomorrow," Bill Callahan said before playing his last song of the evening. He paused, the crowd silent, and then continued: "Not quite as early as you, though."
Callahan seems to live by these kinds of quips. Standing on a modest stage surrounded by onlookers, various types of flora, and underneath a clear glass ceiling dotted with green lights, his set on Monday night was certainly a unique event, no doubt in part to the verdant confines of the Garfield Conservatory's Horticultural Hall. It was a sort of treat just to see live music there in the first place, let alone Callahan's, and you got the feeling that he felt treated to be there, too.
Callahan's blend of wry, subtle humor works wonders against the slow stoicism of his songs and commanding baritone, as if each movement or word exists as a singular gesture in itself. He seems to know he has this effect, and so he moves slowly, purposefully, with the occasional flash of a mischievous grin or joke acting as relief against his deeply evocative songwriting. Callahan has always been deliberate, to be sure, but his songs are relatively welcoming and simple, meandering at their own pace while painting rich portraits of a distinctly American landscape. Covers by late country legend George Jones ("Old Blue") and Percy Mayfield's well-worn standard "Please Send Me Someone To Love" fit snugly between Callahan's own slow, country-tinged ballads like "Drover" and "Too Many Birds," already invoking worlds of their own each time they're played..
"Sycamore," from 2007's Woke On A Whaleheart, opened the night in a fittingly pastoral tone, with the sunset still visible through the room's transparent walls. There's a distinct Western-ness to Callahan's sound, particularly in the open-ranged and dust-flecked material from Apocalypse, and it became clear as the night moved on that the intimate Hall lent even his older cuts a natural heaviness that only added to their romantic, reflective mood. Longer jogs like "Riding For the Feeling" and "One Fine Morning" seemed to breathe, each word (or the flare-gun "poof" in "Universal Applicant") punctuating a deep silence between chords or words, where even a dropped pin might've spoiled the suspense. The audience of several hundred stood transfixed, watching Callahan, guitarist Matt Kinsey and bassist Brian Beattie wind through each song's tumbleweed passages at seemingly undefined lengths, choosing to move to the next chord only once the tension had reached its height.
It would be hard to picture a more perfect venue to be immersed in Callahan's naturally pastoral songs. Monday night's set marked a relatively rare appearance for the enigmatic troubadour, and the Horticultural Hall offered a unique setting that gave his songs a kind of undiscovered depth. But just as quickly as Callahan appeared he was gone again, a mere hour and a half later, leaving the rest of us calmed by a new, country kind of silence.
Eclectic indie-rock veterans Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker head to Wrigleyville this Friday for a show at The Cubby Bear in support of Camper Van Beethoven's latest album La Costa Perdida.
Ian Svenonius, the man behind the fabled post-hardcore outfit Nation of Ulysses, current member of Chain and the Gang, and writer of Marxist-leaning gazettes will be appearing at Quimby's Bookstore, 1854 W. North Ave., to read from his newly minted treatise on the forming of rock bands, Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'n' Roll Group. Svenonius's latest screed is a "bizarrely erudite" meditation on the hazards and resulting socioeconomic upheaval that occurs with the formation of rock groups (which are really just a natural progression from male street gangs of post-War Western society, he says.) Naturally, it's smart and meticulously crafted, but he gets some help: The book is framed by introductory interviews with dead rockers like Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix, who proffer valuable and surprisingly pedantic advice that Svenonius expounds upon in greater detail in chapters such as "Drugs" and "Sex," and passages that discuss the importance of the Zodiac in choosing band members. Svenonius is no stranger to the firmly tongue-in-cheek interview, and his discussions with rockers from the Great Beyond are essential reading for anyone daring to pursue rock 'n' roll in its current, post-capitalist stage. Part cautionary how-to guide and part philosophical meditation on the current state of rock, Strategies exhumes rock's past to consider its present and help guide its future toward, hopefully, a more astrologically synchronous state.
Ian Svenonius will be appearing at Quimby's Bookstore tonight at 7pm. Admission is free.
DON'T MISS: The official afterparty for tonight's event will be at The Owl, 2521 N. Milwaukee, where Svenonius and fellow rock icon Calvin Johnson will be DJing from 10pm to 4am, and where Svenonius will have a mixtape soundtrack for the book for sale in a numbered edition of 100 tapes with silkscreened covers.
When James Blake stepped onstage Thursday evening, the energy at the Metro immediately changed. A hush fell over the crowd, as if an idol had just appeared to a group of loyal followers, watching, waiting, for the first evidence of their deity to speak. I honestly had no idea what to expect as I wandered over to the venue, but I can admit I was a tad worried that James Blake's effortless, stripped down numbers would have their purity distorted by bass effects and the cheers of adoring fans. Luckily, Blake had crafted his show with a precision so exact that his purest numbers were not washed out by bass-splitting, light show dance parties. Those two categories filtered into musical moments, though starkly different, worked in harmony together throughout the show, which allowed us to see that he has only matured and honed his craft from the onset of his debut album spanning to his most recent release, Overgrown.
There is a definite ominous yet playful sense to Megan James of the Canadian duo Purity Ring. She's clearly spent a great deal of time thinking about certain things like performing with her entire body and how to look as cinematic as possible. Just the very nature of her pounding on a drum is as cinematic as Lykke Li at times (only definitely with more smoke) and the way she can channel a wild look while she dances with a light makes one think she can make mischief if she pleases. Purity Rings, of course, are signs of chastity which also heightens the sense of Megan James coming out in an all white dress looking as if she's a bride who might at the very last moment change her mind.
If a hype man were to inject himself into personal conversations between bands and compare people who stay toward the back to anyone who stood outside the Upper Room during the Last Supper, you might not think they'd be on tour with a young British garage/punk band. (Also, I'm pretty sure the Last Supper wasn't an open invitation.)
Over the last many months, the Palma Violets have emerged from the British music media machine with a hit single, well-received album and much praise for their live shows. Their jangly Brit-obvious garage-rock recalls more Libertines than others, but they aren't just copying a schtick. At Schubas last night, the band glided through 40 minutes that had moments displaying why they were signed to Rough Trade based solely on their show. The catchiness of "Best of Friends" and "Step Up for the Cool Cats" was undeniable and the band's enthusiasm amped up as the crowd naturally came around. The only real drawback was the organ's drop in prominence from where it is on the album. On 180, it plays a crucial role to keep the music loose, but last night it was like it'd been demoted. In fact, by the time Palma Violets closed with "14", both the organist and bassist had abandoned their instruments to join the dozen or so people from the crowd that'd made their way on stage to dance. Still, in a long line of bands coming from the British music factory, these fellows might just be onto something if they can harness what's gotten them this far.
Ian Svenonius, the man behind the fabled post-hardcore outfit 
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