It's gonna be a gorgeous weekend, folks, and if you fancy a bit of huffing and puffing with your Labor Day, be sure to register for the Nike + Human Race at Soldier Field Sunday. It's a multi-city event designed to raise cash for a variety of organizations including the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund. Runners all over the world - from Paris to New York to Istanbul - will lace......

Nike is once again turning up the volume on our summer with its Nike + Human multi-city 10K race on August 31st. Twenty-five cities, from Tapei, China to Los Angeles, will host runs and activities with an eye towards charity - participants can raise money for any of the three Nike-chosen causes: The Lance Armstrong Foundation for cancer research, the World Wildlife Fund, and the UN's ninemillion.org program to offer aid to youth refugees. Now,......

We've mentioned OFFICE a bunch, and how much we like their smarty-pants pop, so we're pleased to be giving away two pairs of tickets to see them headline Reggie's Rock Club later tonight. Another Chicagoist fave, Ultra Sonic Edukkators is also playing, and the thought of they're hyper Brit-pop running headfirst into OFFICE's super tight arrangement makes us get all giddy, jumping up and down and clapping our hands. It's also worth noting that our......

We were chatting with a friend about the impending task of compiling "best albums" lists, and the potential of Fall Out Boy's Infinity On High making the cut. Her comment was "I don't really know much about Fall Out Boy, other than that Pete Wentz can be a douche." Our response: "Well, one has to support one's hometown douches." With that, we give you one of our favorite diversions of the year - a couple......

Chicagoist is spent after last night's gossip-tastic evening at Schubas. Probably our favorite teensy venue in Chicago, the 175-capacity music room hosted the Spin/Diesel “after party” for Fall Out Boy’s three shows at the Charter One Pavilion this weekend. We've been to a few of these major-music-media plus hot-hot-clothing-company-type events in our day, so we expected to wait way too long in a hot, packed room only to see a truncated acoustic set. The four-song......

The summer sun has rejuvenated the DDaN column, so we're clocking back with our thoughts on a few of the week's notable concerts. Tonight, if you didn't get invited to see Fall Out Boy, and you're not heading to Liar's Club to listen to (and to buy) the new Queens Of the Stone Age at midnight, might we recommend checking out The Hourly Radio at The Note? If you dig Placebo, and you haven't yet......

Chicagoist has a nice variety of friends who provide myriad viewpoints on myriad subjects, including new music. Our college friends, for instance, hit us up for tickets to the Daughtry show at the Double Door a few weeks back, while our snobby (geeky?) hipster pals were trying hard not to get caught enjoying themselves at Lily Allen in Austin during SXSW. Chicagoist’s good-times party-gal sister likes anything with a “fun beat,” from commercial country to......

We've already shared our thoughts with you about Fall Out Boy's new album. And, wise, prescient sages we are, we were correct in predicting the group's latest effort would be a monster sales-wise. So it's no surprise that the group has had to upgrade to a larger venue when they visit Chicago on June 10 and 11 at the Charter One Pavilion for The Honda Civic Tour. Since they're hometown boys (OK, OK, suburban-based sort-of......

It’s been a harsh week, hasn’t it? First, we had to walk through a blizzard, prove our love on Valentine’s Day and then it got cold again. The rest of the week they piled work on us here at the office, and now we have to decide what tickets to buy for upcoming shows. Life is just hard sometimes. Too bad the John Legend and Corinne Bailey Rae show didn’t go on sale earlier; it......

At some point today, Fall Out Boy will be playing an invite-only show at House Of Blues to celebrate the release of their new album, Infinity on High. Okay, stop your laughing. To folks with asymmetrical haircuts and teenagers whose composition books are dripping with despondently poetic ink, this is a big deal. And, to a certain extent, it’s sort of a big deal for Chicago as well. Sure, the new disc is probably not......

Some days when Chicagoist is busy reading the trades, it’s almost enough to put us to sleep. Thank goodness for that that intravenous caffeine drip. Lately, these stories all have a “Chicago Connection”. From working with Jay-Z and Kanye West on his debut album to garnering three Grammy nominations, Lupe Fiasco has had some dreams come true. He’s decided to take Oprah’s advice and dream even bigger for what comes next. His high hopes include......

Everyone wants to be an alderman. So many that it could break a city record. It takes longer for mail to get delivered to Chicago than it takes for it to get to the suburbs. We're also slower at getting our mail than NY and LA are. Fall Out Boy "switches styles" on new CD; Wentz proclaims new "sucking slightly less" direction. If you don't want to donate to charity then don't, but why......

When Chicagoist thinks of the bands that make define our local music scene, we usually think of The M’s, The Ponys, Healthy White Baby, Lying In States, Detholz!, and Chin Up Chin Up, (and Suffrajett, of course). But when you’re looking at something from close-up, you forget that it often looks different from far away. So if you page through Blender's 5th Anniversary issue this month, you’ll see a much different crowd representing Chicago. Fall......

You’re not likely to find anyone in the Chicagoist Music Department watching “American Idol.” Maybe if you paid us. (And gave us a big box of Cheez-Its. We love those damn things). But that doesn’t stop us from secretly wishing we had the God/Clive Davis-like powers to determine someone’s career trajectory. So perhaps that’s why we’ve spent way too much time this morning at the Walter E. Smithe website, as voting closes today on its......

A recent article about tagging in the Chicago Journal has us pondering the fine line between street art and graffiti. Thanks to a piece in Time Out Chicago a while back, plenty of folks know about the “Preston” and “Night Moves” tags showing up in the Wicker Park/Bucktown/West Town areas of the city. But a month ago, we started seeing a series of rain clouds, often accompanied by the words “sleep in.” The Chicago Journal......

New City’s annual list of "who rocks Chicago" is out with some minor changes for this year. This roll call appears to be part one of a compendium of Chicago’s finest, with New City calling it “the artist’s edition.” In years past, one list featured performers mingling with more business-minded folks. You can probably predict most of the top 10 as they’re the usual suspects: Kanye, Common, R. Kelly, Billy Corgan, etc. New City parries......

Want to score a pair of tickets to see Conan when he comes to Chicago May 9-12? Better act fast. To request tickets (2 per person allowed), send an email to ConanInChicago@nbcuni.com with your name, address, phone number and email address. If your email is chosen, you’ll have two tickets “reserved” for you. You’ll receive an email confirming that your request has been received and a second email if you’ve been selected. But this does......

In one of the biggest upsets at last night’s Grammys, one of Chicago’s most talented artists was robbed of the top honors for his stellar work in the past year. As unbelievable as it might seem, Eddie Blazonczyk’s Versatones didn’t win the Grammy for Best Polka Album. And Kanye West is gonna have a problem too, ya'll. Unlike last year, we chose not to subject ourselves to the Grammy awards so we’ve been catching up......

From the standpoint of the local talent buyer the month of January sucks. There aren’t many national tours in effect, and most that are do their best to avoid the usually frigid Midwest, folks are still reeling from the holidays are less likely to spend their dough taking in live music. To combat this, the month has unofficially become “Local Talent Month” since local bands are, for once, in high demand and are often offered......

How does a band know when they've made it? Is it the large house? Five cars? Nah, it's when someone yells, "Sell Out!" We have two cases of that syndrome brewing right here in the Windy City. Fall Out Boy have responded to criticism that they watered down their sound in order to get that coveted TRL spot with a big FU. Bassist Pete Wentz puts it eloquently: "I didn't decide that I wanted to......

Nominations for the 48th Annual Grammy Awards were announced today and thank God Kanye West was nominated several times or we would never hear the end of it. As expected, West’s “Gold Digger” picked up nods for Record of the Year and Best Rap Solo Performance while Late Registration was tapped for Album of the Year and Best Rap Album (“Diamonds In Sierra Leone” pulled a songwriting nod for Best Rap Song). Common, another member......

As you travel to far-flung corners of the country for Turkey Tour 2005, a few Chicagoans are returning home to visit for the weekend. We’ve had a bit of fun at The Lovehammers’ expense here and there but they’ve got the last laugh with a sold out show tonight at Metro, an appearance at Q101’s sold-out Twisted show in December and a series of sold-out dates with INXS in the coming year. Start collecting those......

Chicagoist did our duty and tuned into the MTV Video Music Awards last night just in case anything Chicago related occurred. Or in case a giant tidal wave washed over Miami. Either way, it would’ve been cool with us. It had been a number of years since we last had cable and were able to watch this so count us as being rather surprised by just how much the rock and/or roll dominated the proceedings.......

Keep 'em coming! Send your eavesdropped moments to overheard at chicagoist.com. Jock1: You know, normally I don't like hitting girls, but this chick was just asking for it! Jock2: She definitely was! ++ My mom makes Martha Stewart look like a fucking hobo. ++ Teenage cheerleader singing along to a fall out boy song on her cell phone Boy in back of train: You are being SO annoying! Cheerleader: EXCUSE ME?! do you KNOW who......

Please forgive us if we have mixed feelings about Greg Kot’s piece featuring the Redwalls in yesterday’s Tribune Arts and Entertainment section. On Saturday night, Chicagoist was at Schuba’s for the Marah/Nick Hornby show. It was a unique event with Hornby reading unpublished essays about the bands that informed his musical youth (Rory Gallagher, The Clash, The Faces) interspersed with semi-obscure covers of songs by those same bands, courtesy of Marah. In the final essay,......

We hope you'll pardon us if things at Chicagoist are a little lighter than usual this week. We're taking advantage of the Great American Work Slowdown otherwise known as the week between Christmas and New Year's. Since there's no one around to notice us leaving early or walking in late nursing a hangover, we've been trying to catch the odd show here and there. Fall Out Boy's Metro show is sold out but you can......