Concert Reviews Jason Isbell Serves Up A Dose of Real America at Chicago's Salt Shed There's a line in the Manchester Orchestra song 'The Silence' that's been on my mind a lot lately. You can go anywhere but you are where you came from Now I'm not normally the type to be walking around with lyrics from
Riot Fest As Summer Moves Forward, The Riot Fest Picture Becomes...Like 2 Bands Clearer The last couple weeks have been an absolute flood of tour and festival announcements. It's not surprising. There are just so many dollars to go around each summer for the average concertgoer (I lie to myself again), and you can't risk another big tour upstaging your
Concert Reviews Porno for Pyros Say Farewell to Chicago at the Salt Shed Porno for Pyros has always been a pretty big deal for a side project. If you mention Perry Farrell to someone that remembers the early to mid 90's pretty well, they're going to know him as the enigmatic lead singer of Jane's Addiction. Ask
Concert Reviews Militarie Gun Brings Hardcore To The Masses at Chicago's Bottom Lounge I'll be the first to admit I wasn't the biggest Militarie Gun fan when they first popped up on my radar. But both the universe and my awful eating habits seemed to have other plans. The first time I heard Militarie Gun was last year at
Single Reviews Oh Hey That Band You Like Put Out A Song This Week As usual, there was an absolute deluge of new songs this week as bands stake their claims to various dates across the calendar for upcoming tours and album announcements. I've put the best of them in one place for you because I am a kind and considerate member
Show Announcements Friday Pilots Club Want You To Be A 'Spectator' At Upcoming Bottom Lounge Album Release Show "Hell yeah, dude more Friday Pilots Club." Seven simple words, but they hold so much weight. And it works in two different and equally exciting ways! The first way is that we have more Friday Pilots Club music than we had yesterday. The band has dropped the new
Interviews INTERVIEW: Twin Temple Satanic doo-wop. Think about it. Odds are, whatever sound just popped in your head when you read that phrase is a spot-on idea of what to expect from pioneering Satanic rock duo Twin Temple. Married couple and practicing Satanists Alexandra and Zachary James make up the group, and their signature
Interviews INTERVIEW: Of Virtue Michigan may resemble a soft mitten in shape, but bands like Of Virtue show that underneath is a balled fist waiting to punch your state in the face. (Just give me that Pulitzer right now.) 25 million streams. Billboard chart appearances. Brutally crushing breakdowns. Everything that Of Virtue does, they
Album Reviews New Albums From IDLES, Laura Jane Grace, Royel Otis, Middle Kids Give You Lots of Weekend Homework I'm not sure if some kind of study was done and it turns out that today is a payday for more Americans than any other Friday this year, but there are an impressive number of QUALITY albums that came out today. Unfortunately, the new Jennifer Lopez album did
Concert Reviews Sarah Jarosz Serves Up Americana Masterclass at Chicago's Thalia Hall Growing up in rural northwest Illinois, I was faced with a crucial decision as I entered my formative years: country or rock? In the mid to late 90's, there weren't many artists trying to straddle the line between the two, so it was a much more
News The Semi-Regular 'Holy Cow, Way Too Many Things Got Announced Yesterday' News Roundup I'm not gonna lie to you, a whole lot of important announcements and songs and what not happened yesterday and it's too much to cover with individual posts, so here's a catch-all to get you up to speed on everything you missed yesterday: Neil
Interviews Exclusive Interview: Enola Gay If the name Enola Gay doesn't sound familiar, you might want to make that checkup with the doctor you've been putting off. I'm not saying they're a household name here in the US (at least not yet, although next month's
Show Announcements Porno For Pyros Kick Off 'Horns, Thorns, en Halos' Farewell Tour Tonight, Runs Through March Ah, the Farewell Tour. Nothing is designed to kick in that specific FOMO part of our lizard brains like taking a musical act away forever. That goes double for bands that have a frontman known for his dynamic live performances. That goes quintuple for bands that are a certified Big
Single Reviews Good Hangs Continue to Empty the Clip in 2024 With New Single 'Shoot Our Way Out' One of my favorite things about Good Hangs is their ability to make everything the most of what it is. Their choruses don't just sound big, they sound massive. The problems they sing about aren't just inconveniences, they're the absolute worst misfortunes to ever
Concert Reviews Living Colour Flex Their Staying Power at Chicago's Bottom Lounge When you're a band that's been mostly defined by a single song, I imagine it's something of a double edged sword. Take Living Colour for example. The New York City quartet (outside of a 5 year break in the late 90's) has
Show Announcements Frank Turner? More Like Frank TOURner This Summer That might be it. That might be the worst joke I've ever made. But there was a purpose! My stupidity has surely captured your morbid curiosity, so while I have your eyeballs I have to tell you the good news that's just broken this morning: Frank
Show Announcements Incubus Announces Summer Tour, Cities With Legal Weed Sales Rejoice TIRED: Touring on your album that came out twenty years ago WIRED: Touring on your album that came out twenty...three years ago Never ones to do things by the book, Incubus has announced a 10-date US tour celebrating the 23 year anniversary of their landmark album Morning View where
Show Announcements Enola Gay's Upcoming March US Dates Absolutely Need To Be On Your Radar There are a few different levels for a writer such as myself to appreciate Enola Gay on. The first of which is that their name, shared with the first aircraft to ever drop an atomic bomb in warfare, makes it incredibly easy for lazy writers like me to reach for
Concert Reviews Meet Me @ the Altar Turn Chicago's House of Blues Into an Inclusive Pop-Punk Haven "I'm a bitch and my band is an industry plant, 'least that's what it says on the internet." That's not just the beginning lyric to Meet Me @ the Altar's hit single "Say It (To My Face)". It&
Single Reviews Cold War Kids Celebrate Tour Kickoff with New Single 'Heaven in Your Hands' It's been almost two decades since Cold War Kids stormed the rock and alternative airwaves with "Hang Me Out to Dry" and kicked off a career of making some of the most insistent and consistently excellent indie rock of the 2000's. The Kids kick
Single Reviews Royel Otis Kills Their Cover of 'Murder on the Dancefloor' It never ceases to amaze me how the songs of the past can sometimes enjoy a second day in the sun (that are sometimes even bigger than the first!) because of their involvement in a piece of pop culture or entertainment. Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill
Concert Reviews Joey Valence & Brae Deliver an Indescribable Performance at Chicago's Subterranean Writing these concert reviews is never an easy thing. Maybe it's just me, but it almost feels like being set up to fail. Here I am, someone that most of you don't know, and I'm supposed to take one of the ultimate "you
Rich Funk Friday Music Dump: 1/26/24 IT'S FINALLY FRIDAY and that means you're gonna need some awesome new tunes to listen to this weekend while you ignore society slowly collapsing all around us. Who better to lead you on that musical journey than a 40-something walking dad joke? LET'S DO
That Same Militarie Gun You Know And Love But With More Happiness I was lucky enough to cover White Reaper when they swung through Chicago last year on their tour supporting Asking for a Ride. Opening up for them was a hardcore band called Militarie Gun. Their performance was a mass of bodies colliding (lead singer Ian Shelton included) with an absolutely
Album Reviews Green Day Do The Pop Punk 'Eras Tour' Thing on 'Saviors' Move over, Taylor. You aren't the only one revisiting your eras these days. Green Day is back with Saviors, their 14th full-length album and their first since 2020's unfortunately named Father of All Motherfuckers. Like I mentioned last week when they dropped 'One Eyed Bastard&
