It’s one thing to understand the sound of rock ‘n roll, but it’s another thing to understand the look of rock ‘n roll. Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz manages to capture both. more ›

The Music Box's Summer Music Film Festival kicks off tonight. The Wednesday Midwest premiere of The Swell Season is undoubtedly the highlight of the festival. more ›

Despite the station contributing to the rise of The Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan gave a rather honest appraisal of the demise of Q101 during an interview with Greg Kot last night on Chicago Live!. more ›

The Sound Opinions at the Movies series is one of our favorites right now, happily perched at the very busy intersection of pop music and popular movies and hosted by two genuine fans who clearly love what they're doing. They've gone about as far back into the past as they can to pull their latest title, Jailhouse Rock. The King's star is rather dim these days, and it's good to give him some love, but can't help being disappointed they picked the third-best movie to do it. more ›

LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy sits down to talk with Grek Kot and Jim DeRogatis on this week's Sound Opinions. We got an advance listen to the show and while the interview isn't quite as wide-ranging as Murphy's Fresh Air appearance earlier this year, the Chicago rock critics do manage to pull out some heretofore unheard tasty nuggets in their discussion with Murphy. We're pleased to hear Murphy put to rest the notion that LCD Soundsystem is "retiring" since a misquote from early press for This Is Happening been blown completely out of context to turn into one of our biggest pet peeves of misinterpretation this year. however our favorite factoid that gets dropped has to do with Murphy's confusion of Seinfeld and The Garry Shandling Show and the resulting television sitcom writing career that never quite got off the ground due to a lack of motivation and general twenty-something laziness. more ›

While legendary thrash metal band Slayer was in town a couple weeks back to play a concert at UIC Pavilion, "Sound Opinions" hosts Jim Derogatis and Greg Kot interviewed guitarist Kerry King and drummer Dave Lombardo for the show's 250th episode on public radio, airing this weekend on WBEZ. more ›

Pavement's Stephen Malkmus is often described as arch, almost the embodiment of the postmodern musician, but every time this writer has ever run into him Malkmus has always been unfailingly engaging and polite. So it's refreshing to hear him come across so comfortably and clearly in his interview with Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot on this week's Sound Opinions. He talks with the local music critics after Pavement's appearance at The Pitchfork Music Festival about his old band's entire career; from the earliest days of ex-drummer Gary Young's studio to Makmus apologizing for dropping names while mentioning it was on Thom Yorke's advice that they work with Nigel Godrich on their final album. He also discusses their "golden period" a.k.a. those albums upon which the critical tastes of almost an entire generation was formed saying: more ›

As of this morning there are still a pair of tickets available for next Thursday's Sound Opinions "Eat to the Beat" dinner at Blackbird. Blackbird's Paul Kahan and Mindy Segal of Hot Chocolate will prepare a multi-course dinner from music selected by Sound Opinions hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot. more ›

In honor of Valentine's Day the Sound Opinions crew tackles songs that will help set the romantic mood in this week's upcoming broadcast. Greg Kot's picks are solid if predictable, but Jim DeRogatis throws a couple of excellent curve balls (we'll listen to Los Lobos with new ears after one of his reccos). They also invite a few listeners to weigh in and -- we swear we're not picking on him but -- you'll get to hear Kot's follow-up question to a listener take things from romantically tinged to uncomfortably voyeuristic! more ›

Our friends over at WBEZ got creative and had a little fun. For a recent review from Sound Opinions - the new Fiery Furnaces album - the crew got Arthur Jones of Post-it Note Stories to animate Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis. Check out the WBEZ Blog for more information. It's a pretty entertaining twist for a program we quite enjoy. But animating music critics? It's been done! more ›

Sound Opinions’ co-hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot are presenting A Hard Day's Night at The Music Box tomorrow night. The first, and in our opinion best, Beatles film is required watching for any fan of either music or cinema. It's the kind of film you watch, jaw dropping as you realize just how many movies have ripped off its style, and just how fabulously and caustically witty the Beatles are. It's loopy story will reel you in, um, no pun intended, and we think it's swell there's a chance to see it on the big screen since we've only ever viewed on out telly. more ›

Downtown Owl is the latest book from fellow Midwesterner Chuck Klosterman, a journalist and former writer for Spin magazine. A dark comedy set in a small town in North Dakota, the story focuses on the population of Owl, which consists mostly of hard-working people that hate the government, impregnate teenage girls and lack an understanding of pop culture. more ›

We know that Sound Opinions hosts Jim Derogatis and Greg Kot have some staunch viewpoints on popular music. But how would they fare if they veered out of their comfort zone? Say, at a dinner? more ›

The Smashing Pumpkins finally returned home last night and were predictably panned by both DeRo and Kot (were they sitting together in the balcony one wonders?). One of our readers wrote in to tell us the crowd was the problem though, including folks "playing with picture templates on their camera phones, screaming horribly at the most inappropriate times, and worst of all the whiny girl who sat behind us and spent the entire show talking." Were you there? What was your take? Is Billy Corgan off his rocker or are the fans really to blame? more ›

O.K., not really, but he did sort of join the band during their set in Grant Park last week. more ›

Early-bird cheapie 3-day passes for Lollapalooza went on sale this morning and, unsurprisingly, sold-out almost immediately. Since the bill has yet to be announced, folks who got the tickets are putting their faith in the promoters to not screw them over with lame-o acts. We're still reasonably convinced Radiohead will be headlining one of the nights, so in our estimation the $60 would be worth that alone. more ›

We've been hearing about director Kevin McAlester's disturbingly intimate look at Roky Erickson's life for quite some time, anticipating the documentary's arrival in the Midwest. And tonight we don't have to wait any longer. "You're Gonna Miss Me," is a documentary that outlines the story of Erickson, who made his name as lead singer from the 13th Floor Elevators. As the story goes, Roky was arrested in 1969 for carrying one joint. He entered an... more ›

One of the most revealing things Wilco's leader Jeff Tweedy says on this week's Sound Opinions (airing on WBEZ 8 p.m. tonight, 11 a.m. tomorrow, and available as a podcast after that) is his answer to Greg Kot's question of what stood in the way of Wilco being truly collaborative in the past. Tweedy answers, "Well, I probably stood in the way of that a lot of times, to be completely honest." We've been following... more ›

When it rains, it pours. Greg Kot has some line-up information and ticket prices on his blog over at the Tribune for the Pitchfork Music Festival July 13-15, 2007. Tickets don't go on sale until Monday, so if you missed the cheap Lolla tickets like the rest of us, put that money towards this little festival. Cat Power, Clipse, Of Montreal, and Iron and Wine are a few of the bands that Greg lists as... more ›

Greg Kot drops two scoops in today's Tribune. The Pitchfork Music Festival will return to Chicago's Union Park July 14th and 15th. In addition, Girl Talk will be on the bill. As someone on the Sound Opinions message board said: "Finally, a Girl Talk show I can get into." Girl Talk last appeared in Chicago for a much-anticipated, much-talked about New Year's Eve show at Empty Bottle. Last year's Pitchfork Music Festival was a first... more ›

Chicago sure seems conducive to fostering public relationships between critically abrasive duos. We produced one of the most famous teams in movie criticism with Siskel and Ebert, and who can ever forget the headline-shattering team of Marin and Mancow? We think it’s time to add DeRogatis and Kot to that list as well. Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis head up Sound Opinions, what they claim to be the world’s only rock 'n' roll talk show.... more ›

Though our Christmas holiday was lovely enough (thanks for asking), the death of James Brown cast a pall over its early morning hours. He was a conflicted man with his share of personal and legal troubles, but in a genre that too often fails to recognize those who paved the way, James Brown’s influence over hip-hop may still be underrated, despite all his renown. The AP story on Brown’s passing is poorly written and researched,... more ›

We knew it was coming. The sophomore slump. The uninspiring live tour. Who is it this time? It’s the Killers. more ›

We have no beef with The Chicago Tribune’s primary rock critic, Greg Kot. We’ve never accused him of exactly being cutting edge, but we do believe he writes insightful and honest critiques for the most part. Unfortunately, since Matt Lurie left the paper, the Trib had been pretty devoid of anything approaching decent music coverage. They’re consistently behind the trends and most of their freelancers would be better used to compose press releases instead of... more ›

Usually we’re not big proponents of the whole, “hey, look, here’s a cool link!” mentality, but this is an exception to the rule. While everyone was (rightfully) going ga-ga over the whole kick-off to the Clusterfest Season 2006 (and no, we’re not talkin' 'bout MOBfest) Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis snuck a hell of a score past the goalie. more ›

Though Chicago venues for genuinely soulful jazz and blues are dwindling, city denizens could always count on Chicago Public Radio’s WBEZ for their fix of these American art forms. But come 2007, none of the three CPR stations will carry blues, jazz, or any other music programming thanks to a switch to an all-talk format. more ›

If you look at this weekend’s music listings, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s nothing more than a typical winter weekend of local and national acts hitting Chicago’s stages. But the significance of this weekend is far greater than the bills would suggest. For the first time, Chicago’s music venues are working together to ensure their own survival. Last week, we told you about the 2006 Hawk Winter Music Festival. Today, Greg Kot and Jim... more ›

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... more ›

We’re not sure if you noticed, but Greg Kot was a busy guy at the end of last week. On Friday, Kot reported that the Smashing Pumpkins will not be reuniting at Coachella this April. Over the last couple weeks, published reports created a veritable Hokey Pokey of information: you had your Pumpkins in, you had your Pumpkins out. Whether Corgan backed out or was never in it to begin with remains a cause for... more ›