Thursday night the folks at Double Door stumbled upon this old Cheap Trick setlist from the mid-1990s, so we put together a spotify playlist for you to experience this show. more ›

In honor of Record Store Day, pick up an album by a Chicago power pop band. more ›

Cheap Trick is planning to open a museum and concert venue in an old Buick dealership on Motor Row in the South Loop. more ›

Today would have been Mike Royko's 79th birthday and we thought we'd honor it by looking back at the time he pissed off Frank Sinatra. more ›

In a town primarily known for power pop heroes like Cheap Trick and dark rock villains like Billy Corgan, Jon Drake and the Shakes stand out sheerly because no one can really peg them in either or those genres; nor any other for that matter. They have a luminous pop sensibility, but lyrically they can be darker and more angst-y than a 13-year-old looking for black nail polish at a Hot Topic. Either way they're indisputably the largest, most passionate and assiduous band in Chicago with sometimes over 14-accomplished-musicians on stage, singing and playing their myriad of rock and orchestral instruments until they can no longer stand. more ›

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

• The Tribune reports Roman Szabelski, executive director of Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Chicago, has been appointed to take over day-to-day operations of Burr Oak Cemetery in the wake of the horrific discoveries of the past week.
• The Reader's Ben Joravsky checked out the Chicago 2016 neighborhood meeting last night. What did he think? In his words: "I Tried."
• A man from Lombard was sentenced to 18 months in prison for trying to set up a dog fight for his pit bull. The Chicagoist Intern does not approve.

The Boston Phoenix is tackling an ambitious music project: naming each state's best bands with its 50 Bands, 50 States feature. The criteria: for Best Band, it must have been formed in the state; for solo artist, he/she must have been born in the state; and for best new band, they must count as "undiscovered" by the Phoenix. For Illinois, their choices were: more ›

Ten years ago last week Cheap Trick played a four-night stand at Metro to celebrate their 20th anniversary, playing one of their first four records each night in its entirety. Local H, wrapping up a week's worth of shows at Beat Kitchen this week, was just starting to break onto the local and national scene. more ›

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We fell in love with the concept of live band karaoke way back when we saw the original crew, that Chicago's collective would be modeled after, perform at Arlene's Grocery years ago. When we discovered an enterprising young man was taking the idea and planting it in Chicago we had great hopes for it, but we honestly didn't foresee just how popular it would eventually become. Yow! The thing about regular karaoke is that, well,... more ›

Chicago native Jason Kanakis is one of those rare dudes who can honestly call himself a "career musician." He's has toured the world playing with the likes of KT Tunstall, Butch Walker, Rachael Yamagata, Aqualung, and an impressive heap of others. Now based in Los Angeles, Jason has an interesting perspective on how the Chicago music scene shapes up in comparison to the rest of the country, not to mention some pretty weird stories about life on the road. Fresh off a tour with Brett Dennen, Chicagoist caught up with Jason for a quick chat about touring, Chicago's music community, and Singapore's transvestite prostitutes. more ›

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with... more ›

Yawn. That’s our initial response to the free music at the Taste of Chicago this year. We know not every concert should cater to us alone, but should we suffer because of the need to cater to the balding, khaki-wearer’s bland taste in music? Thanks, XRT, for taking this to a new level of disinterest. Who’s having the BBQ? That’s where we’ll be instead of Grant Park. The Taste of Chicago has released the Fourth... more ›

Time to get that credit card out of hibernation and spend away, my friends! This week must mark the proper amount of time between on sale dates and concert dates that corresponds to warm weather coming back to Chicago. Kaiser Chiefs will be out in support of their soon-to-be-released album Yours Truly, Angry Mob off which the single “Ruby” we were told sounds like Morrissey fronting Cheap Trick. While this image still has us reeling,... more ›

Sunday was supposed to be our recovery day from college football, but when a friend called with free tickets to Cheap Trick at Ravinia, we got off the couch and gathered our music festival gear. We jumped on Metra's Ravinia Special and were dropped off right at the festival's entrance - quite the service for a $5 round trip price tag. We set up our lowly space with a couple of blankets and cooler, which was nothing compared to some of those around us who had buffet tables set up complete with warming trays. We were ready to hear Rockford's favorite sons. more ›

One of our guilty pleasures a year or two ago was the pop-rock combo, fronted by then-teenage singer Noelle, Damone. We knew that the songs were all written by guitarist Dave Pino, who seemed twice the age of the mouthpiece, but we didn’t care. Maybe if Weezer had put out a solid album in the last few years we wouldn’t have been so susceptible to Damone’s charms, but there we were, bopping along with their... more ›

We here at Chicagoist sometimes get caught up in the latest, fastest and shiniest things, but every once in a while it's good to remember that there are old standbys that deserve our attention as well. Ravinia Festival released their summer schedule and from the CSO to jazz to blues, country and rock there is most definitely something for everyone. It's always nice to head out of the city with a picnic basket and a blanket to enjoy some entertainment with friends. more ›

Interview, Steve Frisbie more ›

First, a correction: Earlier this month, Chicagoist suggested that some of the bands scheduled to play Taste of Chicago were one or two years away from playing a state fair. In Lynyrd Skynyrd’s case, we were incorrect. Lynyrd Skynyrd will be playing the Illinois State Fair this year. more ›

As the International Pop Overthrow festival hits town for a two-week engagement, we’re reminded of how much we miss Material Issue. Another in a long line of critically acclaimed and enormously influential bands that never had the sales to match, Material Issue were the connective tissue that made it OK for bands like Smashing Pumpkins to wear their Cheap Trick influences on their collective sleeve. Not since The Undertones' “More Songs About Chocolate and Girls”... more ›

, even if our record for an alleged 30-minute meal is just under two hours. It still tasted good. more ›