The Chicago Reader's Gossip Wolf column reported the shocking, SHOCKING, news that Pitchfork is moving the rest of their editorial headquarters to Brooklyn, NY, the hipster mecca. more ›

Brooklyn-based new wave band The Drums will be playing their dark, yet catchy, tunes tonight at Subterranean. more ›

Let's face it, this past summer was a hot one. Probably the most sweltering summers one we've had in a long time; so when Chicagoist took to cover The 2010 Pitchfork Music Festival we left most nights crazy dirty and sweaty only to retreat to our air-conditioned bedrooms instead of a late-night, booze-drenched after show. One after show that we particularly regretted missing was one of our favorite artists to come out of the art-rock Brooklyn scene: Bear in Heaven. more ›

It seems as if vintage '80s sounds have been the elephant in the room that no one can really ignore this past year. Syrupy love songs heavily laden with synths. Drum machines sparsely accented with real drums. More of an emphasis on the high end of sound production with beats driving melodies instead of bass have become the norm not only in the indie-world but with popular recording artists like Kanye West as well. With releases from bands like Wild Nothing, John & Jehnand last year's favorite The xx have drawn upon past musical greats like Morrisey, The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen and Depeche Mode. Truly it seems as if their influences deserve a credit in these liner notes just as much as the musicians composing these albums themselves. more ›

Yesterday Chicago Public Library announced "Brooklyn," by Colm Tóibín as its selection for Chicago's citywide book club. The book is set in the 1950s and follows its protagonist Eilis on her emigration from Ireland, where she has family, a sense of being, and a comfortable predetermined life, to her settlement in Brooklyn, where she knows no one. Just as she begins to build a new life on American soil, she's called back to Ireland. She is pressured to stay in Ireland and take up her old life again, and Eilis must decide where her home really lies. more ›

Raleigh, NC's Bowerbirds have had some heavy expectations to live up to since the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle called the folk-pop trio one of his favorite new bands. Since then, they've brought interesting instrumentation, plaintive male-female vocal harmonies, and varying arrangements to cozy music rooms across America and signed to the freak-folk hotbed Dead Oceans label. Chicagoist caught Bowerbirds last August at Schubas, on tour in support of the critically acclaimed, self-released, Hymns For a Dark Horse EP. Chief songwriter Phil Moore weaved fantastical tales over an acoustic guitar and a hi-hat / tambourine contraption, while the supporting cast of Beth Tacular and Marc Paulson shifted easily between a marching band bass drum, violin, and accordion. The result was nothing short of mesmerizing, with Moore's tunes taking on a rambling dimension that would be just as at home in an Eastern European gypsy encampment as they’d be on some rogue, restless pirate ship. more ›

Balthazar de Ley has been putting out consistently great music since starting up Menthol during his college days in downstate Illinois. His songwriting took root in the slab-like guitar college-rock that typified the Champaign-Urbana sound in the early '90s, but later in the decade we discovered his incredibly deft hand when it came to constructing a pop tune. Menthol's final album remains one of our favorite releases of all time, so when we heard de Ley had decided to soldier on with a different band, under the moniker La Scala, we were rather excited to hear the results. more ›

Remember Adorable? If you do you're probably old like us, so let's go for a slightly more culturally relevant (read: Sofia Coppola approved) touchstone and namedrop My Bloody Valentine. Hell, we could check any number of Britpoppers with huge guitar rigs. more ›

MGMT comes to us via Brooklyn but heavily under the influence of electronic psychedelics and British pop. The duo of Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser create a sound that's a thumping, bumping mixture of call and response synths and rumbling bass tones owing much to latter day Flaming Lips and Super Furry Animals. (At times the resemblance between MGMT's debut and Gruff Rhys' forthcoming side-project Neon Neon are striking.) more ›

Brooklyn-by-way-of-Boston quartet Via Audio is no stranger to serendipity. A couple of years back, singer Jessica Martins passed Spoon drummer Jim Eno a disc of demos at one of the iconic indie band's Boston shows, and Eno immediately invited the young foursome to record at his studio in Austin. That's a tale of near epic proportions, but critical praise for the group's soothing, bedroom-meets-radio-ready pop in the vein of the Decemberists or Snow Patrol has piled up ever since. more ›

It's the end of the line in our pre-coverage of the Tomorrow Never Knows festival, which can only mean one thing: you're well-prepared for the weekend rockness. more ›

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryan Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said,... more ›

Gothamist learned about the craziest urban nightmare come true: A huge python found in the bathroom pipes. It was also a nightmare for some Yankees fans, as manger Joe Torre declined to come back and manage the Bronx Bombers. At least the city's attempt to give some direction to subway riders was interesting, pranksters went shirtless at the Fifth Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch and the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendars came out. And just... more ›

Before we go to the listings, we want to bid farewell to the Tribune's Kevin Pang, who's heading over to the Tempo section. But he leaves the food beat with a profile of Peter Engler, the city's foremost expert on mother-in-law sandwiches, street food and other south side cheap eats. Shaw's Crab House concludes this year's edition of their "Royster with the Oyster" festival with their annual tent party at their Hubbard Street location tonight.... more ›

With the rise of new music media, and the ability to discover a new favorite band from Iceland in the comfort of your own bedroom, those instances of love for an unfamiliar artist at first sight leave more indelible impressions than ever. more ›

Brooklyn-based design blog, Design*Sponge, recently premiered a sleek new look, and today the site rolled out a Chicago Design Guide, the latest in a series of city-focused lists dedicated to help folks find all the best spots for furniture, home accessories and over-priced knickknacks. more ›

This week, Phillyist saw the waters of a landmark fountain run red for a Showtime marketing stunt, the Phils pull ahead, and some serious nostalgia. They also got a chance to review an awesome tribute album, reminded folks to see the King and appreciated their beautiful skyline. Chicagoist knows what it's like to like the Cubs. But naming your kid Wrigley Fields? At least they can breathe a little easier now that Grossman's out... more ›

When we first heard about the GIANT FIX/dance in a pool event created by The Seldoms, we immediately thought of the McCarren Park pool events in Brooklyn, but after delving in a little deeper, we learned that The Seldoms is not some indie-rock band, but is instead a pretty forward-thinking local dance troupe. So basically, they've drained the Hamlin Park Pool and are turning into a surreal field of movement and whimsy, including six dancers... more ›

Marnie Stern may look like a bookstore clerk or a Starbucks barista, but this Brooklyn guitar virtuoso has little else to do with lit or lattes. She's a metalhead through and through, having mastered such thrash-god techniques as finger-tapping, shuddering time-signature shifts, and balls-to-the-wall shredding that would make Eddie Van Halen blush. So what's this obvious shred-head doing on venerable punk rock shock shop Kill Rock Stars Records? She's carefully bridging the gap between the colorful, technical, and often posturing world of metal, and the guttural vocals, minimalist production, and eff you attitude that "punk" has come to inspire. It's a tenuous position, given that punk set out to destroy all the egotistical excess and arrogance of the metal scene, but maybe the old adage is right -- it just takes a woman's touch. more ›

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market... more ›

So it's been a little more than a week since Half Acre Beer Company started placing their lager at various bars and package stores around the city. By "around the city" we mean "Wicker Park and Bucktown, save for a couple locations." There's going to be a lot written in upcoming weeks about Half Acre owner Gabriel Magliaro's decision to have his beer brewed on contract in Wisconsin, and whether the knowledge that the beer... more ›

You’ve got to hand it to the University of Chicago for releasing the findings of a study that calls out the City of Chicago for not nurturing its hometown music scene, right on the heels of the most lucrative 3 days on the city’s annual music calendar. The study examined the economic impact of the music industry on the 50 most populous metro areas of America, pulling together data like number of jobs related to... more ›

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,... more ›

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too – two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the... more ›

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they... more ›

Happy Father's Day! For those of you who have dads, are dads, or know dads, this one's for you, from all of us at the Gothamist network." It was a week of bizarre, embarassing headlines at DCist. The trial of the local administrative law judge who sued his cleaners for $54 million over a pair of missing pants left everyone shaking their heads. Then the capital city was nearly brought to its knees, twice, by... more ›

White Rabbits are doing something right, because the Brooklyn sextet has gone from a band we checked out at SXSW because they are friends with a friend of ours to one of the buzziest bands in the blogosphere. No surprise, really – these kids can bring the good times rocknroll, and an 8.1 album rating from Pitchfork didn’t hurt either. more ›

This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us. Austinist has a chat with the ever-fashionable Golden Girl Rue McClanahan, and managed to catch some local fashionistas making... more ›

Richard Swift is feeling low. "But Chicagoist, he is a singer-songwriter on an indie label." Point taken, but the real story here isn’t Swift’s state of mind or how many pages of palpable insecurities he can fill in one of those black-and-white spotted composition books – it’s the style and grace with which he yanks a real showstopper out of a sound that could easily teeter on the brink of cliché. His 2007 release,... more ›

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay... more ›