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Flipper hit the road with David Yow: the original unhinged noise-rock band,...
We live in a time where the unhinged, nothing-to-lose noise-rock front man is a punk-rock celebrity. But without Will Shatter and Bruce Loose of Flipper, the world never would’ve experienced the...
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Guitarist Malina Moye fuses blues, funk, and pop with a heavy dose of...
Malina Moye first picked up the guitar at age nine, and at 12 she became the lead singer of her family’s R&B band, joining her parents and brothers onstage. By the mid-aughts, Moye had gone solo,...
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Local singer-songwriter Thomas Comerford explores the fundamentals on Blood Moon
Singer, songwriter, and filmmaker Thomas Comerford is all about the fundamentals. To teach his cinematography students at the School of the Art Institute about lighting, he has them re-create images...
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Pelican deliver a powerful and emotional new album, Nighttime Stories
Chicago (mostly) instrumental progressive-metal favorites Pelican produced full-lengths on a fairly regular schedule throughout the 00s, but that reliability began to break down when the decade...
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The fifth annual Chicago Mariachi Festival brings passion for mariachi to...
There’s no other music as unapologetically Mexican as mariachi music. Designated an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2011, the genre has succeeded through the centuries and across...
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Harry & the Potters illuminate the fun of fandom
Even the most hard-core Harry Potter fans can suffer from wizard fatigue these days. What started as a seven-book series has exploded into theme parks, spin-off movies, and a flood of ill-advised J.K....
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The 38th FitzGerald’s American Music Festival features longtime favorites and...
Every year since 1981, FitzGerald’s American Music Festival has celebrated the Fourth of July with a great lineup of roots music, and the 38th edition is no exception: it has plenty of highlights on...
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In just its second year, Lyrical Lemonade’s Summer Smash has grown into...
The Summer Smash, presented by Chicago hip-hop blog turned cultural powerhouse Lyrical Lemonade, is already the biggest rap festival in the city—and it’s on track to be one of the biggest in the...
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Chicago experimental indie-pop group the Curls take a flying leap with Bounce...
Bless the weirdos in the Curls. Beginning about six years back, the local experimental indie-pop outfit figured out their sound at DIY spaces, most notably Young Camelot—but their ambitious, expansive...
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It's not about coffee at Café Antigua
A snug snack shop across from the Guatemalan consulate offers a taste of Central America in Jefferson Park. Coffee is one of the reasons that more Guatemalans are caught trying to get into the United...
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We Are Pussy Riot (or) Everything Is P.R. questions the role of spectators in...
There is method to the mess in this Red Tape Theatre production. The YouTube video of Pussy Riot's brief provocation—about 48 seconds—at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior on February 21, 2012,...
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Indonesian and creole are in tune at Bumbu Roux
At Politan Row, Chris Reed of the Rice Table is cooking from his parents’ different traditions. Indonesian and creole food have practically nothing in common—except for Chris Reed. He's the chef...
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The Chosen Few Picnic is the homegrown festival every Chicagoan should attend
If you’ve ever wished that more music festivals were like family picnics, then you need to go to this Jackson Park house-music blowout. In the late 80s, DJs and brothers Tony and Andre Hatchett and...
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On Blood Sisters, Chicago’s Fee Lion brings slasher scares to the dance floor
On her latest self-released EP, April’s Blood Sisters, Chicago synth-pop artist Justina Kairyte, aka Fee Lion, threads together the sinister and the seductive with razor wire. In the spring, she told...
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Eneferens show a sweeter side of atmospheric metal on The Bleakness of Our...
In 2018, Jori Apedaile moved his one-man atmospheric metal project, Eneferens, to Minneapolis from Montana, and he’ll soon be moving back. But for what he lost in isolation and scenic landscapes...
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Bill’s got his groove back
Bill Callahan’s recent album Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest (Drag City) contains the singer-songwriter’s first set of new songs in six years. That’s a long time for a guy who made 15 LPs in the 23 years...
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International downtempo darling Bonobo brings his traveling Outlier festival...
Since 1999, British producer Bonobo (aka Simon Green) has been perfecting a serene downtempo electronic sound with porous borders. His most recent album, 2017’s Migration (Ninja Tune), features...
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Daniel Knox writes torch songs to burn down the house on Chasescene
Chicago singer-songwriter Daniel Knox knows how to write a heartbreaker—which in his case could actually mean a protagonist who digs into a lover’s chest cavity to pinch off an artery. The title track...
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Local power-pop great Julian Leal celebrates the reissue of his 1985 LP
If the 80s had been a perfect decade for music, we wouldn't have the overproduced, radio-friendly power pop of Eddie Money or Bryan Adams still getting pumped over the airwaves—instead, we’d have the...
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Austin's Glassing blend punishing noise rock with sweeping screamo and...
Austin band Glassing have a pretty deep Chicago connection: drummer Jason Camacho spent years here as a major part of our underground harsh-noise and experimental-rock scenes. After arriving from...
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