Results tagged “indie”

Glenn Kotche, drummer for Loose Fur and some other little local band named Wilco, plays percussion tonight with local avant-classical sextet eighth blackbird at The Harris Theater. Kotche's solo drumming is truly mind-blowing -- go on, watch one of his performances -- and we're told he will be debuting a brand new piece amongst some other familiar material.

Some of us aren't sure how we ended up in Chicago, but it did call to us, and before we know it, we were unpacking our suitcase and calling it home. This happened to Donovan Beeson, 25 and Kathy Zadronzny, 26, proprietors of 16 Sparrows, a digital source for all things paper. Both ladies found themselves drawn here from warmer climates, Savannah, Georgia and Miami respectively, during the blizzard of 2003 and have never looked back.

You might have seen Antler Girl around. She's been spotted for a couple years now on t-shirts, bags and postcards. What you might not have known is that Antler Girl is only one of the mostly-human, part-animal characters roaming our city by fabric and paper (like Giraffe Girl, pictured).

Ah, late February in Chicago. Cubs tickets go on sale today, there's a forecast for a high temperature above 35 degrees next week, and thousands of indie rock kids around Chicago will soon be shedding their parkas for high-priced hoodies bought from Wicker Park boutiques (tip: ours cost us $12 at Target!) for several worthwhile shows around the Chicago area. Lots of tickets go on sale this weekend. So, despite this crappy weather, there is, in the words of Spoon, "something to look forward to."

We still remember sitting in Danny's back in 1995 when one of the bartenders started this track named "Leave Home" on the bar's cruddy stereo system. Back then, Danny's was basically a punk-rock house party every night, and the aggressive electronic song that suddenly tumbled forth stunned the entire room. We didn't know quite what to make of it, but we realized that someone had finally successfully synthesized a dance track with a rock and/or...

Remember how WLUW, one of our favorite radio stations, is being taken back by Loyola and will no longer be an independent, community radio station? And do you remember that program director Shawn Campbell turned lemons into lemonade by creating the Chciago Indie Radio Project? To jog your memory, CHIRP is working to bring low-power FM stations to Chicago and allow community radio to thrive, without the threat of being taken back by larger owners....

To background, I manage a Chicago band called Tom Schraeder & His Ego, which landed a coveted spot on the 2007 bill. Though our slot was early (12:30 p.m. on Friday), the work for artists doesn’t stop once they’ve loaded up their vans (or in our case, the hearse) and exited the festival grounds. To give our esteemed Chicagoist readers a quick sketch of life deep on the Lollapalooza undercard, I kept a scribbled-note journal...

The Chicago Film Critics Association announced its awards for best films and performances of the year with The Departed picking up three awards for best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay. You can view the full slate of winners here. While we enjoyed The Departed, it felt too much like a mix tape of Scorcsese’s previous films with the themes of corruption and redemption set against urban grit with yet another use of “Gimme...

As we tucked into yesterday’s new batch of comics (Solomon Grundy vs. The JLA!), we were reminded that two local podcasts help us to get our fix of comics, regardless of the day of the week.

We always tend to think other people celebrate holidays like the Griswolds in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – a week-long shopping, eating and bickering extravaganza with extended family. But for many of us, Thanksgiving and Christmas end up being an afternoon or evening of time with the relatives, and that night we’re back in the city twiddling our thumbs.

The Rapture is in town tonight to play a dancetastic set at Metro. They're touring to support their sophomore full-length Pieces of the People We Love. This opening paragraph is boring in all the ways The Rapture is not.

The old saw is that you don’t do theater or film in Chicago to make money—you do it for art’s sake. But to get all philosophical on you: if art is created and there’s no one around to witness it, does it still exist? As Keanu Reeves would say: “Woah.” Lucky for you, Mr. or Ms. Aspiring Indie Filmmaker, there are plenty of opportunities to get your work seen in town. The Chicago Underground Film...

Apparently, size doesn’t matter…when it comes to music and movies. Though Oscar nominations won’t be announced until the end of the month, the Tribune’s Mark Caro is already proclaiming this the biggest year for indie films “since four of the five 1996 best picture nominees were non-studio offerings.” But what is indie anymore? The examples cited by Caro include Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck, and Capote, which are all films that come from...

Chicago can be a cruel habitat for local bands that make it big. Just look at how quickly folks turned on The Smashing Pumpkins, Urge Overkill and Liz Phair as their careers progressed. Okay, Phair deserved the hostile response once she started to seriously suck but that’s beside the point. OK Go jumped to head of the backlash pack with the release of their Major Label debut a few years ago. You couldn’t open a...

Indie kids the world over have been salivating in anticipation of the new Sufjan Stevens album Illinois, the second of fifty albums about the fifty states, that was to be released today. Pitchfork even gave the new album, due to be released today, an astounding 9.2 rating. Mr Stevens himself even appeared on NPR’s Eight Forty-Eight this morning to promote his album…due to be released today. Only it wasn’t released today. Sort of. DC Comics...

Do you feel intimidated walking into Reckless Records? Did you cry soft tears of recognition during the “I Just Called To Say I Love You” scene in High Fidelity? Well sob no more, friend. This month’s Illinois Entertainer features an indie record label fakebook so you’ll never confuse Polyvinyl Records with Black Vinyl Records ever again (there’s a version of it posted online as well). We know there are a few labels around town they missed but perhaps these are the only ones who bothered to fill out the questionnaire. The guide tells you which labels accept unsolicited demos (almost all of them do) and what type of music they feature.

Indie-rock haven Pitchfork is good for something besides their cynical reviews: they also break pertinent music information. And today, they revealed the most pertinent tidbit of them all � the track listing to the Wicker Park soundtrack. (How's that for sarcasm, Pitchforkers?) As dreamy as star Josh Hartnett is, Chicagoist isn't really looking forward to this film, which, as we pointed out a while back, sounded better when it was called Vertigo and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The trailer hasn't given us much more faith: it understandably played to laughs and jeers when Chicagoist saw it with a local audience before Anchorman. We just can't in good faith support any movie that misuses Chicago locations, let alone such Chicago locations.

Indie it-guy Davy Rothbart will be at the Empty Bottle tonight to promote his new book like ever, and tonight he'll be sharing some of his favorite found notes, art, and poetry. Audience members are encouraged to bring their own found pieces, so start scouring a sidewalk near you.