With the prevalence of electronic-based, manipulated “rock” music the past couple of years, good rock ‘n’ roll has been harder and harder to find - especially from younger musicians. That may be why Howler, the main project of 19-year-old Minneapolis native Jordan Gatesmith, snapped our ears to attention earlier this year with the precocious debut America Gives Up, a blazing, buzzy homage to the kind of guitar-based, DIY sound that used to give kids something to feel hopeful about. Songs like “Beach Sluts” and “Back of Your Neck” infused the kind of quirky-yet-tough garage sound of Television (and later The Strokes and Elephant 6) with the brash, irreverent, sometimes off-color but always full of heart Midwestern rollick of The Replacements. Considering that Gatesmith was eight years old when Is This It was released, he’s done an admirable job of twisting that sound into something capable of cutting through the clutter of chillwave without alienating the trend watchers. more ›

Listening to Narrow Sparrow's debut EP is a little bit like floating through space in your jammies—part bedroom pop and part dreamy space adventure. more ›

Good news for those of you looking to make additions to your derma-perma art installation; Sailor Jerry Rum has announced they are celebrating their namesake's, Norman "Sailor Jerry" Collins, 101st birthday by giving away tattoos of one of his iconic drawings this Saturday, January 14, at The Chicago Tattooing Company. more ›

Andy Warhol's film Empire will be projected on the side of the Aon Building this Friday night. more ›

The restaurant is throwing open its doors and offering a free Thanksgiving meal to those in need. more ›

I'm still digesting the self-titled debut from Mwahaha, but judging by the fact I've listened to it five or six times bodes well for my opinion of it. Admittedly after the first listen I was ready to delete it from my hard drive, thinking it was just another woozy, semi-psychedelic pop group -- a genre I truly enjoy but am noticing it's also becoming the default for an increasing number of musical groups -- but something stopped me from doing so. OK, full disclosure; I DID delete it, and then added it right back moments later due to the nagging feeling I was making a mistake by writing it off so quickly. This happens. One pitfall (oh man, here come the tears) of writing about music for OH SO VERY LONG is that you have SO MUCH to listen to!* But the upswing is that you're well aware of the pitfall so you develop an internal radar that keeps you from dismissing the good stuff too quickly. Sadly this doesn't stop you from adding not-so-good stuff to year-end lists prematurely but that's a whole 'nother story. more ›

Nnamdi Ogbonnaya is a 21-year-old drummer/songwriter out of Chicago’s South Side. We don’t know much else about the guy, except that he’s involved in a bunch of other acts we’re not familiar with (The Para-medics, Nervous Passenger, Richard Def and the Mos Pryors, Albatross, Pisces at the Animal Fair, and Water House). Oh, and that he recently released a ridiculous album called Rotissabooty. more ›

Chipotle does a bang-up job crafting our barbacoa lunch burritos, so it was no surprise when we learned the sustainable food-focused chain was mixing up an equally appetizing festival for this Saturday in Lincoln Park. more ›

Liturgy brings brings their raging turmoil to The Empty Bottle tonight. These kids may hail from Brooklyn but don't insult them by calling this hipster metal. This is the real motherfuckin' deal and it's beautiful. Their latest album, Aesthethica, is the sort of record you can really get lost within and have a good time. Of course we're assuming you're idea of a good time is standing in the middle of a tidal wave bound in barbed wire. The band doesn't form songs as much as they create ridged instruments meant to knock you off your feet and leave you as disoriented as possible before strapping you back in for a brief moment of stability before taking you out for a second round in a twister. more ›

Stepdad formed in Chicago a few years ago and then moved away but they return to town tonight for a show at Subterranean. You should go see them play. more ›

Little Red hails from Melbourne, Australia and craft the kind of dance rock fellow countrymen Cut Copy have already made familiar to most Americans. They'll be hitting these shores next month to promote their album Midnight Remember but we have a sneak peek for you to enjoy to whet your appetite and get your mouth a' waterin'. more ›

We miss when Deerhoof used to give their music away like it was a ticking bomb. That was back in the day before the San Francisco experimental rockers blew up to their current state of renown. But yesterday was just like old times when they dropped a free, downloadable album, 99% Upset Feeling. more ›

On September 1, Big Jones will be starting up the Big Jones Bourbon Society. If you're a fan of brown spirits, overindulgence and small booklets, this is the ideal society for you. Members get a passport with 40 different whiskeys on it. If you taste them all, you get a big prize. more ›

About 2 million people are expected at North Ave. Beach to watch the show, which is free to the public and the largest show of its kind. more ›

What's neater than watching short films? Watching them in in a state-of-the-art shipping container. more ›

The debate over immigration waxes and wanes with such predictable regularity that you could almost set your watch by it. Now more than ever it's crucial to look past the traffic jam that is the 24-hour news cycle, and a forthcoming program from the Chicago Film Archives will do just that. more ›

STRFKR (also better known as the less-SFW Starfucker) spin out engaging electropop that isn't at all as menacing or sleazy as their name would imply. The group is primarily an outlet for frontman Josh Hodges to work out intelligent boogie and craft songs that gently jumble and tumble across the dancefloor. It's sugary stuff, to be sure, but amidst the gently surging disco is a sense of darkness. This is partially accomplished through Hodges' low-key yet sadly pleasant vocals, but there's also a whole bunch of minor keys getting tossed around. This means Hodges' tunes have much in common with the introspective indie rock his home of Portland is known for producing, but he's certainly skilled at draping them in winning synths and undeniable hooks. more ›

Chicago is growing a reputation for both developing and trumpeting talented bands in the psychedelic vein, so it's fitting that the self-titled debut by Tennessee group The Paperhead should be on local label Trouble In Mind records. The Paperhead members Ryan Jennings, Walker Mimms and Peter Stringer-Hye recorded this album last year when all three were the tender age of 18, but the sounds they captured implies a band with a firm grasp of a genre's history with the intention of using that material to stake out their own future. They channel late-'60s psych-pop perfectly, deliciously bending vocal melodies that begin sweetly, turn awkwardly downward and suddenly rest on a note that should cause discomfort but doesn't because it just ... fits. And, unlike many who might have a less certain grasp of the psychedelic, they keep their songs mostly between the Nuggets-worthy length of two or three minutes, carefully crafting when other might mindlessly expand. more ›

This is just too ridiculous not to share. OH SNAP!!, famous for so-dumb-they're-smart party anthems like "I'm Too Fat To Be Hipster" takes aim at dubstep and fires with this newer track Mickey Fortune sent us earlier today "I Love You Bro." It seems like just the thing to pop in before heading out and enjoying a spot of sunshine before the evening commute. Enjoy? more ›

Parallel Thought were such big fans of the Numero Group's first Eccentric Breaks & Beats mix they decided to try crafting their own funky dreamcoat from the threads of the label's catalog. Pop this in your virtual cassette deck and take a slow ride through the twilight underworld Parallel Thought constructs with some of the slinkiest building blocks known to man. more ›

Cinema Q, a four-week series at the Chicago Cultural Center, highlights some outstanding movies made in Chicago which explore gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered themes. Kicking things off on March 16 is the essential documentary Quearborn & Perversion. In it, filmmaker Ron Pajak chronicles the GLBT history of Chicago, unearthing some priceless stories and surprising facts. Indeed, the documentary's title refers to the nickname given to the neighborhood of Dearborn and Division, where several clandestine gay bars once operated. (Isn't it a bit ironic that Chicago's former gay 'hood is now known as the Viagra Triangle?) Pajak will be present for a post-screening Q & A. more ›

We hope Eleventh Dream Day -- the Chicago quartet of Rick Rizzo, Janet Beveridge Bean, Douglas McCombs and Mark Greenberg -- never move out of their parents' metaphorical basement. The band's forthcoming Riot Now!, their tenth release in an over two decade-long career, features a band seemingly in possession of a flask of the rejuvenating waters from the fountain of youth. Download "Satellite" and check out the goodness for yourself. more ›

You may have known Tiger Bones back when they were named Gay Baby. But chances are you didn’t - as the old moniker suggests, they took themselves lightly and put out very little material. Now, along with the new name, they’ve got a more distinct sound, shifting away from experimental and toward psychedelic surf rock. more ›

On February 9, 1964, The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Yada, yada, yada, they became the biggest rock band the world has ever known. Tonight you have a chance to look behind the patina of myth and rose-colored memories at two of the primal documents of Beatlemania. And it's free. more ›

We mentioned this weekend's Roommate show at Hideout already, but neglected to point out that Chicago's SHAPERS are also on the bill. The make-up of the band is shady (not really, they basically grew out of the now defunct May Or May Not with a decidedly more experimental bent) and their intentions remain a mystery (or not since they seem to really just enjoy playing with perceptions of musical genres as they poke into dark and not so dark corners of exploration). more ›

Think of the best, most thoughtful holiday card you've ever given. Now prepare to feel bad about your feeble effort as we tell you about the card composer Augusta Read Thomas gave flutist Claire Chase in 2008 that contained "Euterpe's Caprice," a two-minute solo work dedicated to Chase. As of posting, we cannot determine whether the card also contained a tedious summary of the achievements and news of Thomas's family that year. Anyhow, you can hear "Euterpe's Caprice" and other works for free at a concert put on by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), one of our favorite new-music groups kinda-sorta based in town (they split their time between here and New York), at the Art Institute this Friday evening. more ›

Way before politicians co-opted the term "Main Street" to mean "Real America," author and former United States Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky lived in a small town where the main street was named Broadway and he captured the highs and lows of living in Long Branch, New Jersey in his 2009 book Thousands of Broadways: Dreams and Nightmares of the American Small Town. more ›

In December Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasulov were sentenced by the Iranian government to six years in prison for the crime of "conspiring against the ruling system." The two Iranian filmmakers have also been banned from film-making for twenty years. Various online petitions and open letters have been circulating in support of their release, including one by fellow Iranian filmmaker Rafi Pitts. more ›

If there is anything we love here at the Chicagoist offices, certainly at the top of our list is anything we can get our grubby little hands on for free. Yes, we admit, we are lucky that we have access to some great stuff, but whenever we get the chance we want to share the love by sending any free schwag our readers' way, we are more then happy to do so. Yesterday, while this Chicagoista finally got the opportunity to clear away the cobwebs atop a pile of press releases while sipping on the non-alcoholic Chicagoist approved egg nog, we came upon a nice little stocking stuffer for you folks at home. Chicago's own folk-americana musician Joe Pug has released his seven-song-EP, Nation of Heat, as a free download in conjunction with WXRT. more ›

We love it when charity and free stuff intersect. Through December 23rd at Wow Bao locations on State/Lake and on Jackson, any customer who donates a child's toy or gift will get a free lunch or dinner, value up to $5.99. The gifts should be new, in their original packaging, and unwrapped - and give something good, people! The presents will be donated to the Children's Memorial Hospital. So, you can get some free food and make a child happy at the same time! How could it be any better? more ›