January 2011 hasn’t even reached its halfway point yet, but Chicago is already putting itself on the musical map for the entire year. Next week, highly anticipated efforts from well-regarded local acts Smith Westerns and Disappears are set into the wild, while rapper Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco are repping for the city’s hip-hop scenes with new upcoming efforts. In short, it’s a good time to be a Chicago music fan. As a kick-off, we figured we’d go through our most anticipated local albums for 2011. more ›

In all the hubbub with Clusterfest, we missed out a rather significant piece of local music news: the Ponys signed with Matador Records. more ›

As the group Liars droned on with their less-complicated-than-it-looks brand of noise rock, they repeatedly intoned the words “the weather is fierce.” It was a lyrical aside that would define the weather, if not necessarily the atmosphere, of the second Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park. Though Pitchfork was instrumental in creating last year’s Intonation festival, a split with some of last year’s organizers led to two separate events this summer. So the site... more ›

Approximately 17,000 indie rock fans now have tans thanks to the 2006 Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park. With temps in the 90s all day long and plenty of humidity radiating off the bodies of a sold-out crowd, Day One was a sweat-filled celebration of some of the best indie rock has to offer, including Chicago groups like Hot Machines and Chin Up Chin Up. Many attendees lined up to enter the park as... more ›

Yesterday, we learned that Lollapalooza sold 3,000 tickets without even announcing a single band. Today, not to be outdone, Pitchfork announced six of their thirty-six slated acts for the Pitchfork Media Festival. Here are the six acts that are supposed to get us all excited and ready to buy tickets on Monday. That's right - in three days these one- and two-day passes go on sale. No word yet on exact sale time, but we know the price this year will be $20 for the one-day pass and a mere $30 for the two-day pass. more ›