Jim DeRogatis provides an obligatory "Chicago's next big bands" list today, and we actually find ourselves agreeing with most of his picks, even if a few are overly obvious. For instance it's not exactly like he's mining the underground when he predicts Kid Sister and the Cool Kids are going to break in 2008. We were pleasantly surprised to see Airiel and Tom Schraeder on his list, though, since those are two acts that we......

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Music The Abbey Pub will be rocking the 18-and-over goodness this evening as Flosstradamus kicks off their third annual "FlosstraPROMus," a fundraiser for the Chicago Indie Radio Project. The featured Djs for the evening are Murderbot and DJ C. Video mixing will be handled by Thunderhorse, while Clayton Hauck of everyoneisfamous.com is providing the photo......

Clayton Hauck, Chicago's everywhere-at-once nightlife photographer, has released the results of a reader's poll he ran to discern which clubs, DJs, promoters, and bands are at the top of The People's list. It's hardly a scientific poll, and Hauck even admits that when it came to the promoter results there was probably more than a little ballot box stuffing, but we find it interesting as it functions as a good peek into the indie-rock......

The clock to '08 is ticking. What are you doing to ring in the new year? If the answer to that question is a desperate, collar-loosening, sweat-inducing "I don't know!" then here are a few last-minute suggestions. Everything listed here will cost you less than $40 and was not sold out at the time of posting. Punch Brothers featuring Chris Thile at the Old Town School of Folk Music: If you thoroughly enjoy the pop/folk......

We hope you enjoyed this morning's dance party, so let's keep it going, o.k.? We have reader E to thank for this one, since it we somehow missed it in our RSS feed last week, but Chicago's Matt Roan provided Discobelle* with a stellar new Mixin’ It Up compilation. For a while all we've had to go on, outside of fighting the crowds of beautiful people packing the room to the rafters at his......

Yup, it's Halloween night. And, assuming you're not completely incapacitated from celebrating this holiday for the last week, you're probably blinded by the flurry of options on how to spend tonight. Allow us to make a few suggestions. We talked to Jesse Thorn a couple days ago about his The Sound Of Young America show. Well tonight is the live 8 p.m. taping at Second City's e.t.c. stage. Thorn will be interviewing engineer and Shellac-man......

There is A LOT going on this weekend, and our overlords are standing over our shoulders screaming "Faster! Faster! the people need to know!" as we feverishly try to summarize it all. So we were pleased when the announcement that admission for the first 200 people at Flosstradamus' Sonotheque show tonight will be on the house. We admit we often skip events at Sonotheque due to high covers and higher drink prices, but tonight's event......

We mentioned The Continental was putting together a little festival to give back to the community it calls home, and now we've got what seems to be a pretty full line-up along with a name for the event. Lots of Chicagoist favorites (a few who have even played showcases Chicagoist has organized in the past) dot the Switchyard Festival bill and it seems to be a pretty solid, locally based line-up. We're looking forward to......

Debonair could have easily outlined all that’s gone wrong with Wicker Park, but instead it neatly reminds us of when clubbing used to be fun. We stopped in last night to check out Felix Da Housecat’s return to Chicago, check in with superstar bartendeder Matt Murray, and get checked by The Prairie Cartel. Breezing past the outlandish line outside Liz Armstong-style, we were greeted by an upstairs crowd going off its collective head to big......