Results tagged “music”

The whirlwind that is The Grates hails from Australia and threatens to take down everything in its path. Singer Patience Hodgson dominates the proceedings with voice that flips from sweet trill to all encompassing roar into playground chant without missing a beat. Through it all she rides a pleasant melodicism that contrasts brightly with the churning three-chord punk guitars carrying most of the songs forward.

Who says music can't prosper in this economy? Local nerd power-pop-rockers I Fight Dragons just raised a cool $10,000 for their band in under 48 hours. They offered fans a chance to buy a lifetime subscription to the band's music -- including anything and everything they ever release -- for $100, and limited the number of available subscriptions to 100.

If you missed the Eccentric Soul Revue last spring, or if you went and had such a great time pretending you were rolling around 1970's Chicago in a blue soft-top Monte Carlo with bench seats and options air conditioning, fear not! The one-of-a-kind live-action reissue is back! Chicago's very own Numero Group is bringing the amazing show back to the stage tomorrow night at Lincoln Hall.

We never thought we'd be writing this sentence, but The Black Heart Procession's "Rats" sees the brooding, creepily atmospheric band ... getting funky? O.K., maybe funky is too strong a word, but the staccato guitars of the chorus play against the gentle surge of the drums to create a milieu that at least encourages finger-tapping, if not an adventurous toe-tap or three. We keep finding ourselves migrating toward their latest, Six, to slowly allow ourselves to sink and submit to its dark charms. They've always been hard to label -- are they goth, indie, sludge, Leonard Cohen swagga? -- and this album's thirteen songs will do nothing to clarify the band's intent enough to slot them into one niche or another. And frankly, we wouldn't want that.

Where Did All My People Go is an apt title for the full length debut from The Prairie Cartel. The band -- Scott Lucas, Blake Smith, and Mike Willison -- is stocked with some of the survivors from the mid-'90s Chicago music scene that never stopped producing new music. The trio comes from a guitar heavy past but their mutual love of electronic music brought them together to synthesize their own take on motivating the denizens of the dance floor.

Lollapalooza is taking suggestions for next year's line-up. We're not sure if this is just a feel-good community effort or if your suggestions will really matter, but either way it can't hurt to pitch your favorite bands to their booking agent, right? Do us a favor and write-in BLUR as your first pick and feel free to follow it up with any of your own faves.

We can't imagine reminiscing first loves and past friendships without the appearance of the ubiquitous mixtape. While kids these days might opt for a CD, or even a .zip file, our fond memories center around hours spent alone in our room, painstakingly crafting the perfect expression of our teenage emotions onto a double-sided cassette tape. We mailed our mixtapes to pen pals we'd never met, slipped them into the locker of a crush and when we were scorned, our mixtapes became little plastic outlets for misery and rage.

LoftLife magazine was lucky enough to get an invite to Wilco's inner sanctum sanctorum -- their collective Fortress of Solitude if you will -- and has the snaps to prove it. The last time we got a good look at the space it was in black and white so this is a nice update on the digs in which they create their musical magic. Check out the full gallery. (Thanks to Mark for the tip!)

"As simple as/ This sentiment is/ It is the thing/ That I have to give/ So I won't let go."

There were plenty of concert options last week to celebrate Halloween, but none may have been quite as raucous as the Freaky Deaky show held Friday night at Congress Theatre. Featuring Chromeo, Crystal Castles and Boys Noize, the night was filled with sweaty bodies, inebriation, surely some illegal substances and, of course, copious amounts of fancy footwork. There are dance parties and then there are proper dance parties--this had drinking tea with the Queen beat.

We've decided to cease apologizing for Weezer. The band is what it is. If you're looking for Rivers Cuomo to ever attain the heights of Pinkerton or The Blue Album you're always going to be sorely disappointed. And Jesus if the man doesn't make it hard to even enjoy his music when he throws garbage like Weezer Snuggies and duets with Kennny G into the mix.

Didn't get tickets to the sold-out Jesus Lizard shows on Thanksgiving weekend? Fret not! The fierce Chicago foursome has just announced they'll be playing Metro for New Year's Eve this year. Tickets for the 18+ show go on sale this Saturday at noon.

The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir are on the road to recovery after their horrific van crash last month, but they still have mountains of hospital bill to tackle, and much of their gear needs to be replaced. So a number of the band's friends are getting together tomorrow night at Subterranean to play, celebrate life, and raise money for The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir.

In which we take a quick look at a few recent musical releases.

Brooklyn's Pete & J aren't trying to keep up with the trends that fly out of their home borough every other day, and that's mostly because they don't have to. Who needs keytars or Nintendo sounds when you've got pristine pop melodies and the kind of killer harmonies that melt the hearts of folk fans everywhere?

Do you know where to find the boys, AND the booze? Do you have an aversion to wire hangers? Do you think most people are under-reacting? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’ll likely dig the debut CD, We Are The Joans, by local outfit The Joans—the only band we’ve ever heard of dedicated to giving Hollywood icon Joan Crawford a rock and roll voice.

             

She covered The Black Keys, The White Stripes, The Kings Of Leon, Alanis Morrisette, and Patsy Cline. She called the industry types at her record label "a bunch of assholes." When her voice cracked she used it as proof she didn't lip sync her act. Through 90 minutes at Rosemont Theatre Kelly Carkson reminded us why we love her; of all the pop divas she truly is the one we could sit down and have a beer with. And sing drunken karaoke with.

In recent years many New Year's Eve bills have sold extremely slowly -- partially due to the economy and partially because there hasn't been much really inspiring --- but this year is shaping up to be different. The Empty Bottle has announced that their shows with Jens Lekman at The Bottle and Girl Talk at The Congress have both sold out. And we're told ticket sales at a number of other venues are also selling briskly. Don't worry though, we hear there are still plenty of tickets available for The Gin Blossoms at The InterContinental out by O'Hare.

The Raveonettes fourth full length album, the recently released In and Out of Control, finds the Danish duo losing their footing and succumbing to the allure of pop rock. It's easily their most hook-heavy and accessible release, but for those of us who've followed Sharin Foo and Sune Rose Wagner for years, it's a release that has us reminiscing the good times of B-movie surf rock and grimy, loud distortion. Joined by The Black Angels at the Metro Sunday night, The Raveonettes proved that a new direction for their recorded material does not equal a disconnect with their earlier work.

The Prairie Carrtel are preparing for the "official" release of their debut full-length (which is already available here) and have released this video, directed by Peng Lei, for their song "No Light Escapes Here." The teaser's a weird mixture of political imagery overlaid by whimsy and the result is analogous to the group's sound; it's catchy and poppy but there's a definite aggression running under the surface.

New-music group Fulcrum Point will play a concert tomorrow night to preview their November 12 show at the Harris Theater. While, yes, it is to a large degree "only" a preview concert, the fact is sometimes watching a trailer is pretty cool.

Billy Corgan put on a puppet show. Yes, you read that right, a puppet show named Gothageddon. It features appearances by -- among others -- a teddy bear ringside announcer, the bald one himself, Robert Smith, Siouxsie Sioux, and, wait for it, James Iha. All characters are voiced by Corgan, often rather hilariously. While we have been greatly disappointed by Corgan's output over the last few years, and with his insistence on squeezing every last penny he can out of the Smashing Pumpkins brand, we have to admit that Gothageddon proves that the dude does still have a sens of humor and for that we're grateful. And amused.

The Disco Biscuits are bringing their show to the Auditorium Theatre at Roosevelt University this Halloween. Tickets are still available, but we have a pair to give away to one luck y Chicagoist reader. Enter for your chance to win after the jump. Contest closes today at 5 p.m. CDT.

CIFF is over but a rich cinematic harvest has only just begun. Feast your eyes:

To say we were unprepared for the scene that awaited us at Tuesday night's Mika show at the Riviera Theatre doesn't even begin to describe our misconceptions about the London-based pop crooner and his fans. We arrived expecting glitz wrapped in gloss and left surprised that theme-park theater had made it out of the shadows of roller-coasters and onto one of Chicago's most revered stages.

The fact that Halloween falls on a weekend means the city has gone into party machine overdrive. One of the stand-out events that's on our calender is the Freaky Deaky night at Congress Theater on October 30 with Chromeo, Crystal Castles, Boys Noize, and a host of the usual local DJs to get you ready for the main acts. And what main acts. Boys Noize's new album Power is a head kick of grunting metallic electro and Crystal Castles' Alice Glass has way more in common with Iggy Pop than Kylie Minogue, so the two acts together should be enough to pummel the dancing crowd into a fine mist of blood and sweat. It's going to be insane.

This trio of concerts includes solos, duets, and a bunch of people playing a concert entitled "Duality."

The opening of Lincoln Hall near to the old Lounge Ax space has brought up a flurry of memories we have of late nights spent watching awesome bands. It seems like we're not the only ones experiencing a renewed sense of sentimentality over the hugely influential venue once run by Julia Adams and Sue Miller (who later married a dude named Jeff Tweedy whose band played Lounge Ax pretty regularly).

Evoking even stronger love vs. loathe reactions than Chicago's music powerhouse, Pitchfork, NYC's Vice Magazine has been slinging irony, controversy and fashion Do's and Don'ts for a decade and a half. Now housing a record label, and frequent supporters of club nights and band gigs nationwide, Vice Magazine celebrates their 15th Anniversary in Chicago with DFA's Shit Robot spinning effect-heavy nu-disco and a live performance from Philly electro rockers, Tigersapien, this Friday night at Sonotheque.

           

Special to Chicagoist from Chris Foresman