Gapers Block published from April 22, 2003 to Jan. 1, 2016. The site will remain up in archive form. Please visit Third Coast Review, a new site by several GB alumni. ✶ Thank you for your readership and contributions. ✶
Chicago set a gloomy stage for last night's sold-out Thrice show at the Metro. Just as the night's first opening act O'Brother prepared to take the stage, a nagging drizzle began to douse the bearded and plaid-clad 20-somethings that flocked through Wrigleyville towards the venue's doors. As a whole, the night's entire lineup--O'Brother, Moving Mountains, La Dispute and illustrious headliners Thrice--could be tossed into several genres: melodic hardcore, prog rock, heck, some might even tag this bill as "emo," but I feel like we should just agree on "rock." Last night was a rock show, and this should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen any of these bands before.
Dustin Kensrue of Thrice (Photo by Katie Karpowicz)
Last night was undoubtedly a Thrice show, however it would be an injustice to go without mentioning La Dispute's overwhelming representation in the crowd. Two weeks off the release of their second album Wildlife, this five-piece from the nearby Grand Rapids, Michigan has been developing a following in Chicago at an unbelievable rate over the past several years. Their last Chicago appearance in May was a sold-out headlining show at the Beat Kitchen and a hint that this band will only continue to gain momentum.
Chicago hip hop duo The Cool Kids are filming a new music video and they need your help! If you've got style and a free evening, head on over to the Bridgeport Art Center, 1200 W. 35th St., on Thursday, Nov. 10 as the group performs songs from their new album, When Fish Ride Bicycles, and shoot the video for their latest single, "Rush Hour Traffic." Free food and Mountain Dew Code Red (which apparently still exists) will be provided. RSVP here and plan to get there early as space is limited. Sorry kids, this event is 18+.
Formed in North Carolina a scant six years ago, the now Baltimore-based Future Islands have become critical darlings on the strength of several solid releases on local label Thrill Jockey. On their latest LP, On the Water, the band continues the development of their signature "post-wave" sound, channeling bits and pieces of the best of '80s synthpop without succumbing to the overindulgence that plagued many of the genre's first-wave acts. Richly textured soundscapes develop slowly over loping Peter Hook-esque basslines, while frontman Samuel T. Herring's vocals swing from plaintive to almost menacingly growly. There are plenty of identifiable influences, but the songs are shimmering and immediate. Lyrically, On The Water deals with love and loss, somehow managing to sound deeply personal to Herring while remaining universal enough to be applicable to anyone's tale of heartache. Herring is a riveting stage presence, and their act keeps getting better, no doubt due to their tireless touring over the past few years.
Wednesday, November 2nd at the Viaduct Theatre polymath Hi-NRG-Disco-Booty-Jungle-Rave producer Chrissy Murderbot will be DJing a live soundtrack to a quartet of films running the gamut of a dog's quest through the afterlife in search of an orange, unintentional slapstick employee training videos, scientists, dancers, and rockets. Expect an evening where dream logic reigns supreme.
You'll remember Chicago DJ Chrissy Murderbot as the dude who bombarded you with kazoos and rave whistles as you shuffled into Pitchfork Fest last year. Starting in May of 2009 Chrissy began a yearlong weekly DJing odyssey through dance music micro-genre history. His demonstration of oft forgotten secret booty moving rituals in the realms of new jack swing, ambient jungle, booty bass, Philly soul, Quebecois Disco, and late '70s roller rink boogie are party starting standouts. Chrissy's love of kitsch and encyclopedic knowledge of dance music paired with the touch of bizarre the film selections provide will make for a one of a kind night.
It's all been many years coming for Chicago group JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound. With national acts like The Dap Kings and Black Joe Lewis creating a real market for classic soul with a Millennial twist, the time is certainly right for Brooks and his talented company of musicians to make a big splash with their latest album Want More. Officially out today on Bloodshot Records, Want More is a hip-shaking romp through classic soul covers, homages, and original tunes that keep you, yes, very much, wanting more.
These guys have done a lot over the last few years. Besides garnering thousands of downloads from local fans for their peppy version of Wilco's "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" (a cover that could have bit them in the ass something fierce if they'd failed to win over Wilco's Jeff Tweedy), the group gained attention from a national audience hungry for Wilco tunes. A broader crowd of listeners could now certainly see the influence of Otis Redding and Sam Cooke on the group's sound, which only gained them street cred as a band who certainly wasn't using this popular cover song as a one off.
As you may have heard, the first track on Tom Waits' new album, Bad as Me, is titled "Chicago." The song features Keith Richards (yes, that Keith Richards) and the hopeful refrain, "Maybe things will be better in Chicago."
It's not the first time Chicago has appeared in one of Waits' songs, nor is it the only connection he has to the city. The city makes an appearance in "Potter's Field" off 1977's Foreign Affairs and "$29.00" from 1978's Blue Valentine. And around that time he began working on a screenplay that may have evolved into Frank's Wild Years, a play written by Waits and his wife and writing partner Kathleen Brennan that made its debut in June of 1986 performed by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company.
Over the last year, numerous publications have reviewed Kvelertak's debut album. There's been a lot of praise, but not a lot of agreement on what to call it. Some metal sites love it and claim it for the genre. Others say, "This isn't really metal." The latter lump it in with hardcore punk, as if that's a bad thing at all. However it shakes out, the Norwegian band's self-titled record is a tour de force of devastating riffs, pummeling rhythms, a hell of a lot of melody (all things considered) and exuberant screaming. Did you ever listen to the Blood Brothers and think they should have been way heavier even at their most psychotic? Do you like Enslaved but wish half their songs were streamlined? Kvelertak is the band that answers those yearnings. Whether it's thrash or black metal or hardcore or garage rock you want, Kvelertak covers it without harping on any of it too much. For a preview of what you might hear, check out the video for "Mjød." (Note: Unless you work for a morgue, that video is probably NSFW.)
Kvelertak headlines the Empty Bottle on Wednesday, the 26th. Skeletonwitch and Zoroaster play, too. GAZA opens at 9:30pm. The show's 21+ and $12. The Empty Bottle's at 1035 N. Western.
Amon Tobin has a great name for a noir detective. In some alternate reality he's a superstar gumshoe who finds lost kids and protects New Orleans' eccentric family secrets. In our reality he's a sleuth of sound. Since his premier under the name Cujo in 1995 he's been known for possessing an uncanny sense of finding the best parts of forgotten records. Amon Tobin has become a post-modernist sound hero. He reclaims discarded pieces of sonic art and revitalizes them. In the past Amon has relied on a traditional DJ approach to present his music. For the ISAM show tonight at the Congress Theater, an army of mixed media artists have been brought into the fold to create an interactive museum-grade installation on par with the bombast of Daft Punk's rave pyramid or Deadmau5's ecstasy Rubik's cube.
A hush settled over Lincoln Hall as the assembled mass of neo-gothic Blade Runner enthusiasts counted backwards through Zola Jesus' intro instrumental. Singer Nika Danilova strode out draped in a white photo-reflective shawl flashback recalling of Jarodowski's Holy Mountain psychedelia come horror dystopia. The audience was held rapt by the singer stare as her cheeked reddened and a smile spread across her face. "Thank you, Chicago" the elven singer whispered before the pressure dropped and her mile wide voice rode across Chicago's north side as she opened up "Hikikomori" the first song of the night.
Zola Jesus laid heavily on the white light urban futurism of the recently released Conatus. The new songs expanded and shone brighter live. Nika's backing band continues to prove itself that last summers Pitchfork Festival performance was not a fluke. Her backing band consisting of producer/keyboardist Alex DeGroot, drummer Nick Johnson, and keyboardists Nick Turco and Shane Verwey bring the sonic tide in to mach Nika's expansive voice. The band projected foam tipped waves of sound to break upon an audience. Gone was the awkward muddy Zola Jesus of last year, replacing them was a collection of reborn star children projecting charisma.
When it comes to bands who name themselves to be a Googling challenge, there are few who make better music under a blander name than the Sounds. The Swedish indie-pop band has built up their fanbase in the US through energetic live shows, famous fans and word-of-mouth. On their albums up through 2009's Crossing the Rubicon, they channeled a Metric-like sound with strong female vocals, earworming guitar hooks and blasting synths. However, on their latest album, Something To Die For, the band mix up their formula and dive headfirst into straight electronic and synthpop. It's a little jarring of a departure at first, but it's not entirely a surprise that a band who values a frenzied performance would graduate to a style that accommodates it more. As guitarist Félix Rodríguez (what, that doesn't sound like a Swedish name?) puts it, "Our shows are pure energy." With Something To Die For, the Sounds have created a record that packages the intensity of those shows.
The Sounds headline the Vic on Saturday, the 22nd. The Limousines and Natalia Kills open at 7PM. The show's all ages and $20. The Vic's at 3145 N Sheffield.
Wednesday's Boris show at the Metro isn't sold out yet and if you're still on the fence about buying tickets, you might want to consider the whole bill.
Boris--the Melvins-inspired trio hailing from the far off land of Japan--are bringing highly experimental rockers Tera Melos and bold and brash punk rockers Coliseum out with them for their current American tour, which hits the stage at the Metro on Oct. 19.
While I sung my praises for Tera Melos earlier this year when they played Subterranean, Coliseum is a more recent blip on my radar. The band is gearing up to release an eight-song EP titled Parasites on Nov. 15 and already have three full lengths under their belt. Older fans of Coliseum will have their first shot at hearing the band's new material on Wednesday and newcomers to the Louisville-based three-piece should get ready for an opening set with enough kick-to-the-rear energy to make it feel like a headlining slot.
Lampo, Chicago's nonprofit experimental art series, presents its Fall season beginning this Saturday, October 22. This series of three concerts, held at the Graham Foundation's Madlener House (4 W. Burton Pl., Chicago), are free (with RSVP) and open to the public. This season's series of three concerts, though not as thematically tied as previous seasons, all features solo artists who are equally well known through their collaboration in larger projects.
Slowly but surely, I think Dee Dee is finally figuring out that nobody really cares about the Dum Dum Girls all that much. The black-haired songwriter whose real name is Kristen Gundred has gently eased her band's way into our collective consciousness with a slew of 7"s and EPs over the last three years, acting as a reluctant pioneer for the surge in lady-fronted bands that create glimmering '60s ballads with a hefty dose of elbow grease over the same time span. But while bands like Vivian Girls, Best Coast, and Puro Instinct are all losing favor for their own reasons, everything for the Dum Dum Girls has come to a head now. The quartet sold out the Empty Bottle Friday night, and their new LP, Only In Dreams, has cast away most of the complaints anyone might have had about the complexity of their performance.
Dum Dum Girls' back catalog is an impressive collection of quick, loose hooks and shy, charming vocals; but Only In Dreams is a mostly slow-burning affair between Dee Dee's powerful vocals and instrumentation that seems to shy away from its intimidating presence. Like, where the hell did that come from?
There are some things in life that are worth the wait. Yes, I wish I would have seen Portishead before now and yes I wish they put out albums more frequently, but if that was the case, would I love and respect their work as much as I do? Clearly their craft is a labor of love, each album carefully worked on until they see perfection in their vision, and the same can be said for their live show. Production wise it was near perfect, from the lighting to the quality of the sound (amazing since the Aragon is usually plagued with horrible acoustics) to the spot on perfection of each musician's part all set to a background of a perfect mix of visuals.
Ten years ago, five seasoned Seattle musicians got together to form the group that would soon be known as Minus the Bear. Nine years ago, that band released their debut album Highly Refined Pirates. On Tuesday night Minus the Bear celebrated their ten-year anniversary and performed Pirates from front to back in front of a sold-out crowd at the Metro.
While further releases from Minus the Bear have taken the band's sound in a darker, more isolated direction--their third album was aptly named Planet of Ice--the band's performance of Pirates brought the members back to a poppier era of their career. However, the classic Minus the Bear song structure was still very much present on stage. The songs were intricate and highly technical but still maintained easy listenability and evoked a packed room of bobbing heads.
It's all too easy to fall into the habit of comparing bands to other bands in order to describe their genre or sound. Even the most articulate critics usually reduce a new act to the sum of their influences or peers. Now entering their third decade as a band, Primus is one of the rare groups that defies a ready comparison with anyone, or for that matter, anything else.
A unique product of Bay Area synergy, it's clear that Primus was the product of a broad palette. Claypool's slappy, tappy bass style adds funk elements which weave with Larry LaLonde's technical guitar playing, which runs the gamut from jam-band noodling to heavy metal crunch, often within the same song. This tour features the return of early Primus drummer Jay Lane, who after a brief stint with the band in the late 1980s, enjoyed a diverse career beating the skins for bands such as Bob Wier's Rat Dog and an early incarnation of recent Grateful Dead alumni super-group Further. Primus continues to inhabit an interesting space as a band with a huge appeal across a broad spectrum.
After a concert, chatter is usually in the neighborhood of "That was really good" as the euphoria settles. After Bryan Ferry's show at the Civic Opera House, the first three people I overheard said some variation of "The sound here is terrible." Muddy sound and key instruments buried in the mix plagued 100 minutes of Ferry and his six-piece band rolling through songs from all eras of his career. For 40 years, he's had a hand in glam-rock, pop and new wave. He's also been a significant influence on many bands who've created an aesthetic brand. (And, my goodness, does he ooze style.) But what looked like a great show last night didn't always sound the part.
Ferry and his 4 backing vocalists came off unclear at times and Jorja Chalmers' saxophone began the night drowned out, especially during "If There Is Something", which Ferry introduced by saying it would "test some of [the audience]." Following that was his version of Bob Dylan's oft-covered "Make You Feel My Love." In his solo career (and even occasionally with Roxy Music), one of Ferry's strengths has been arranging covers and owning them to a point where a listener thinks, "So this really wasn't written specifically for him?" But he seemed flat for much of the relatively tame first act, coasting through tunes that he's had much better command of in the past. However, that first act ended on encouraging notes with Roxy Music's standout "Oh Yeah" (backed by images of a road trip from inside a Mercedes Benz, of course) and an epic take on Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane" that, while without Young's trademark guitar sound all over it, featured dynamic solos from all-star session guitarist Chris Spedding. (Ferry's other guitarist, Oliver Thompson, didn't return for the second act. A very capable Spedding had no trouble picking up the slack.)
Riot Fest returned to Chicago for its seventh year this past weekend, for a full five days of heavy hitting punk rock, some metal, and a bit of power pop. This year Riot Fest brought us sets from X, Danzig, All, Social Distortion, Descendents, and Weezer. I was able to catch the two big shows at the Congress Theater Saturday and Sunday. Riot Fest has gotten a bit of flack for adding "Red Bull" to the title of the festival, with many fans saying it was a sell-out move. However, I was surprised to see that there seemed to be much less advertising as a whole at Riot Fest this year, as I had not gotten bombarded with various booths upon entering the Congress Theater as I have in years past.
Ministry made its start in Chicago in 1981, part of the Wax Trax! constellation of new wave and industrial bands. So it makes sense that FIX, a documentary about the band, would screen here. And in fact it made its debut at the Chicago International Music and Movie Festival back in April. FIX is back, appropriately enough, for a Halloween screening at the Music Box on Oct. 27. Tickets are $10 in advance or at the box office.
Somebody described Colleen Green as Belinda Carlisle fronting the Ramones. Yes, one of her songs is called "I Wanna Be Degraded" and has a very familiar-sounding riff and chorus, but it's just one song. Admittedly, having heard that, Green's voice does remind me of the Go-Go's singer during her heyday. But add a drum machine, toss in fuzzy power-pop riffs and drag it through some sludge to get closer to accurate. Hints of Best Coast pop up, as well, on a few breezy lo-fi covers like the Descendents' "Good Good Things" and the Rentals' "Naive." The overt DIY approach to recording leaves a question as to whether the sound's solely a product of the environment, but Green seems content to stick with the status quo during her shows since it's just her. She's on the road in support of a new EP, Cujo, that was just released last week.
Colleen Green opens at the Empty Bottle on Friday, the 14th. It's a 10PM show. Dum Dum Girls and Crocodiles are co-headlining. The show's 21+ and $14. The Empty Bottle's at 1035 N Western. She'll also be playing a free in-store at Permanent at 6PM on Friday. Permanent Records is at 1914 W Chicago.
I get you. You've been hankering for something new, but you don't even know where to start. Try taking a lookiloo at this weekend's yard sale hosted by local archivist record company Numero Group. Numero deals with deep funk, way-out disco, '60s soul, pop, folk, gospel, jazz, and plenty of WTF. So you're not going to find Bieber and Big Boi here -- but you are going to find plenty of used records, books, posters, and other items for sale. Other labels will also be representing, including Plustapes and Addenda Records. The sale goes down Saturday, Oct. 15, at the Numero Group HQ (2348 S. Marshall Blvd.) from 9am to 3pm.
[This preview comes to us from writer Jason P. Olexa.]
Tomorrow night, Lincoln Hall will be filled to maximum volume by the haunting, swirling, operatic vocals of Zola Jesus in her first Chicago performance since Pitchfork Festival. On that sweltering day last summer Zola Jesus, a blonde former Wisconsin now Los Angeles resident born Nika Roza Danilova, emerged with her pixie frame encased in a metallic dress that visually provoked memories of elaborate French ballet costuming to H.R. Giger's Alien designs. Reflecting the sunlight cast around her Zola Jesus transformed from the musky suffocating rural gothic of her earlier performances and into a sharper synthesized emotional bombast of solid white emotional triumph.
Zola Jesus' latest album Conatus (released Sept. 26th on Sacred Bones) continues this cycle of solar rebirth. Nika's soaring vocals depart from the cold isolationist forest of her previous work and into urban environment. But, this is still Zola Jesus and the picture she paints of urban living is one of giant LEDs, underground dance music played by chamber musicians, and harsh utilitarian concrete monolith architecture with all corners bathed in artificial illumination. This city constructed of her mind has no place to hide and every emotion from the most embarrassing defeat to rocking triumph is exposed to the harsh light of Zola Jesus' judgment. The classical aria come ambient house thump of "In Your Nature" serves as a bed for Nika's influence of French naturalistic writer Emile Zola. References to Emile's scientific opposition of free will are brought into the airy chorus about learning to let go. Like Zola Jesus, Emile Zola was a conflicted human being. He was a cold scientist and an optimistic humanist at the same time. "Seekir" reflects this dogged optimism. Atop its agit pop beat is a brave young songwriter devoted to putting past transgressions behind her and liberating herself from herself. The continually evolving Zola Jesus pushes past the din of her past and into a bright new world of Conatus where she's no longer hiding.
I love October in Chicago: pumpkin ale on tap, no more Cubs games jamming up the Red Line, and classical music returns to stages all over the city. The classical scene in Chicago covers the range of the genre, from the Baroque style of the 1600s to brand new pieces performed on laptops; all of this music can be heard in intimate venues or grand concert halls--and all of it is affordable (and sometimes free). If you love the music like I do, if you've always wanted to attend a performance but needed some direction, or if you just want to know what a harpsichord sounds like, the following is a short list of my recommendations for the month. If you have other suggestions, please add them in the comments.
Florida isn't exactly known for its output of rock music and it's conspicuously absent from a lot of rock'n'roll band itineraries. But that doesn't mean there aren't some bands making their mark in the scene. Miami's Jacuzzi Boys are one of those outliers with a lo-fi power-pop/garage sound that's reminiscent of Wavves, Smith Westerns and Woven Bones (the latter with whom they've split a 7"). Songs with silly lyrics about girls and drugs are highlighted by earworming hooks and melodic choruses. (Just try not having "Cause I found you and you're my crush, crush, crush" in your head for a day after hearing it.) Their latest album, Glazin', is a half-hour of fast-paced jangly riffs recalling high school rock'n'roll bands that were all over the Nuggets followups.
Jacuzzi Boys headline Ultra Lounge on Thursday, the 13th. Local garage rockers Mickey and Hollows, at least one of whom seem to be on every really good bill lately, also play. Thunders opens at 9PM. The show's 21+ and $10. Ultra Lounge is 2169 N Milwaukee.
It'd be understandable for a person to initially raise an eyebrow when someone says, "Hey, I'm going to see a (mostly) instrumental surf rock band from Auburn, Alabama." On the surface, that doesn't sound terribly exciting. However, the fear that it'll be dull should be quelled before the band in question even plays. You see, Man or Astroman performs on a stage that looks like a punk rock astronaut's workspace - a mishmash of neon tubes, spinning lights, hexagonal and triangular screens, a Tesla coil and theremin (that were used within minutes of each other to close out the night), a half-orb covering floor lighting and too many pieces of computer equipment to name. (This is also a band who collected television sets on a tour. If I recall correctly, donating a television over 25" wide got you into a show for free.)
Now, it should also be noted that Man or Astroman's been on and off for the last few years - playing a handful of shows, but never touring much. And it showed in some songs where they sounded raw and even borderline proficient. A few times they stopped to fix gear, get in the right key or make other adjustments. Sometimes they simply weren't on the same page at all. But when they were on and that muscle memory kicked in on songs they've been playing for nearly 20 years, it didn't sound like they'd been off. (They hardly played anything from the last few albums that divided fans, instead digging way back for almost all of their 60-minute set.) The surf/punk/new wave hybrid that they developed, which some other bands tried to gank and never quite got right, has a lot of energy embedded in it. While the band members aren't as spastic as they once were they're still pretty energetic, especially Coco the Electronic Monkey Wizard (not his real name, actually) on bass. He's the one who talks most and seems to be the funniest. Whether it's scoffing at linear time or talking about cryogenic freezing, Coco always stays in character and appears to be having a blast.
In a tribute to Steve Jobs, Coco wheeled out an Imagewriter II to perform the technological marvel "A Simple Text File", even miming drum fills. Also highlighted in the second half was a cover of the Rezillos' "Destination Venus." It's a perfect cover for them, seeing as how it's already fast-paced and space-related. However, of all of the audio clips to skip (and they played just about every clip from every other song), that one just happens to be one of my favorites as a girl asks Venetians about their stay on Earth in some daytime talk show parody. Also, incredulously, they missed an opportunity to use the vocals of new female member, Avona Nova, during the Fay Fife parts of its chorus. But these are small gripes because, even if I've seen them better numerous times, they still bring a tremendous life to their music and rile up a crowd that's at times literally listening to manipulated Star Wars sound effects and some Ventures-like guitars in a punk aesthetic.
It wasn't too much of a surprise that five piece New Zealand band The Naked and the Famous sold out the Cabaret Metro last night. Considering their Lollapalooza performance proved boisterous enough for their pop songs to make an impression on the crowd, it seemed only natural that Chicagoans would remember how much fun they had and return to the Kiwi band's next performance. As the eager crowd waited with anticipation for the band to emerge, a single green balloon rolled about the stage, giving a foreshadowing clue for the party that was about to begin.
Like most hip-hop crews, Minneapolis' Doomtree family is tighter than tight. They perform on each other's records, they're each other's biggest fans, and I imagine they'd back up one another in an alley fight. Dessa may be the lone female on Doomtree's label, but by no means is she the token. The rapper and singer has plenty of cred, and judging by last year's group tour, she may even have the biggest following.
The lady's touring in support of her new album, Castor, the Twin, in which she reimagines and rearranges some of her past material with a live backing trio. At her show on Tuesday, Oct. 11, at Lincoln Hall (2424 N. Lincoln Ave) Dessa will open for for Hindi Zahra. The show begins at 8 p.m.; tickets are $12 presale, $15 at the door.
There are some musicians whose physical look and presence live shocks you based on their studio sound. Jens Lekman is not one of those people. He looks exactly like the soft-spoken indie pop Swede I imagined. This was perfectly lovely for me and the indie crowd who packed the Lincoln Hall on Monday night with a their disproportionate amount of black-rimmed glasses and flannel.
Like all truly great Scandinavian indie-pop-singing storytellers, Jens has maintained a moderately sized and loyal U.S. following despite only releasing one five- track EP since 2007. His fan base has grown large enough to sell out Lincoln Hall on a Monday night with the space even filling up for a not well-known Australian opener, Geoffrey O'Connor.
[This review comes to us from Jason P. Olexa. He can be found on Twitter at @TacoHugsPHD.]
"We are a fucking triumphant band" is the house creed of Chicago post-everything guitar army Pelican. They occupy the borderlands between the foggy mountainous kingdom of post-rock and the Viking strewn hills of the tribal metal warlords. Pelican has launched daring goat riding barbarian raids into both neighboring territories and grown into a thundering bombast of metal sinking into the psychedelic haze of post-rock.
Sunday was Wire Magazine's yearly Adventures in Modern music at the Empty Bottle. Headliners Pelican took the stage for their first hometown show in more than a year. In the time since we've last seen them guitar wizard Trevor de Brauw has retreated into the mists with his power ambient ensemble Chord, fellow guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec has been crafting the bar at Big Star into a beer spewing monster, and the brothers Herweg have relocated to LA.
Astronautalis is on a roll, and boy, is he riding it. The Minneapolis-based MC/vocalist's performance on Saturday at Schubas brought a packed room, much to his own amazement. He repeated his thanks throughout the night, clearly astounded. "I expected maybe 50 people to show up tonight, to be honest," he said at one point. "And we had more than 100 tickets sold in presale. You guys are incredible."
[This review comes to us from writer Dave O'Connor.]
Waves battered the seawall along Lake Shore Drive in the lead up to Friday night's Joan of Arc show, sending sprays of liquid fireworks ten feet in the air and higher, mother nature's sharpest proclamation yet that indeed summer is over. Meanwhile, an equally emotional riptide and another ending of sorts rolled through the Hideout Friday night.
"I believe in this calendar year, this is our 113th show as a band," said Joan of Arc lead singer, Tim Kinsella no earlier than midnight, three quarters of the way through their headlining set. He followed this observation with a more ominous update one song later: "this will be our last show for a really long time."
Friday's rich and steady hour-plus set could have easily been dubbed "accidental retrospective" as Kinsella pulled out dusty, decades old staples and newer jams alike; among them "Anyone Can Have a Good Time," from Owls, which drew one of the evening's many instantaneous and gutteral applauses.
Throughout the show, Kinsella's signature tumbling guitar scales popped with conviction and whispered an admiring reference to his former outfit with brother Mike Kinsella, American Football, but way more ferocious. The drum lines snapped relentlessly from start to finish, with noteworthy praise on a few complicated time changes nailed down with poise. Victor Villarreal's throbbing rhythmic backup guitar, which at times could have easily been mistaken for an electric organ, soared playfully around Kinsella's more vocal guitar angles. Combined, this sometimes sweet, always schizophrenic force ripped forth from the stage in near perfect unison.
The Hideout's tiny, no frills back room transformed into someone's parent's basement Friday night. Joan of Arc found a perfectly intimate setting for Kinsella to bring longtime loyalists together for what sounded the unit's last hurrah, at least for the foreseeable future. One can only hope it will be just another momentary pause in Joan of Arc's marathon lifespan.
It may not have been the actual Talking Heads on stage last night but it was hard to tell the difference. This Must Be the Band burned down the house (so to speak) Friday night with their recreation of the live concert film (and album) Stop Making Sense at the Vic. The recreation was so on point it was hard to tell the difference between the film and concert. As he mentioned after the show, it was obvious Charlie Otto watched the movie everyday for a month.
The crowd was full of Talking Heads fans young and old, toddlers to grandmothers (yes, I saw a grandmother and a toddler at the show). No matter how old they were, everyone enjoyed themselves dancing and singing at the top of their lungs. Just like the film, the show began slowly with "David Byrne" (aka Charlie Otto) singing "Psycho Killer" with his acoustic guitar and a boombox. The rest of the band was slowly brought in through the remainder of the show and soon the entire house was rocking to "This Must Be The Place."
Once the band finished their recreation of the film they came right back on stage to continue playing until they were "kicked out" of the Vic. Ad-libbing the entire rest of the show by taking requests from the audience couldn't have made a better ending to the night. It was clear the real Talking Heads fans appreciated This Must Be The Band's dedication to bringing to life a band everyone enjoys.
Over the last year, numerous publications have reviewed 
When it comes to bands who name themselves to be a Googling challenge, there are few who make better music under a blander name than 
Somebody described 
I love October in Chicago: pumpkin ale on tap, no more Cubs games jamming up the Red Line, and classical music returns to stages all over the city. The classical scene in Chicago covers the range of the genre, from the Baroque style of the 1600s to brand new pieces performed on laptops; all of this music can be heard in intimate venues or grand concert halls--and all of it is affordable (and sometimes free). If you love the music like I do, if you've always wanted to attend a performance but needed some direction, or if you just want to know what a harpsichord sounds like, the following is a short list of my recommendations for the month. If you have other suggestions, please add them in the comments. 
