County Commissioner Bridget Gainer's proposal would require a County Board vote on any amusement tax exemption that costs the city $150,000 or more. Lollapalooza currently enjoys that exemption to the tune of at least half a million dollars. more ›

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 ›

Mayor Emanuel's office seemed open to the idea of revisiting the tax exemption granted to Lollapalooza's organizer that saves them (or costs the city) $1 million a year in tax revenue. 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 ›

Well, look how the worm has turned: last week Pitchfork announced that the festival would be "partnering" (dubious quotations ours) with Chicago-based advocacy groups like Rape Victim Advocates and Between Friends to raise awareness about violence against women and LGBT people. more ›

When the first round of names for the 2011 Pitchfork Music Festival were announced in March, tucked among more predictable acts like Fleet Foxes, Animal Collective and Destroyer was a band with the thorny-looking acronym OFWGKTA. Long-form the band is known as Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, a rap collective based out of Los Angeles led by a noodle-y looking 20 year-old named Tyler the Creator. Tyler (nèe Okonma) smiles a lot and geeks out about skating and bacon during interviews; onstage, he raps about gruesome decapitations and murdering pregnant women. more ›

Vocalo.org's Jim DeRogatis took a look at the members of Mayor-elect Emanuel's Arts and Culture transition team and banged out one of his trademark impulsive missives faulting the team for having no one on it to voice the concerns of Chicago's small music venues. While he didn't come right out and say this is the death knell for smaller venues and independent promoters, and that we should kneel before our Live Nation overlords, the sentiment was there. more ›

Mayor-elect Emanuel and Dan Sinker, author of the "@MayorEmanuel" twitter feed, finally had their face-to-face yesterday on WLS-AM's afternoon drive show with Roe Conn and Richard Roeper. In the process, Emanuel made good on his promise to donate $5,000 to the charity of Sinker's choice, Young Chicago Authors. Causes matched Emanuel's donation, while Conn and Roeper each contributed $1,000 each. Not a bad day for one of Sinker's favored charities. 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 ›

Tribune arts critic Howard Reich offers a near point-by-point rebuttal of last week's story from WBEZ's Jim DeRogatis regarding the exodus at the Department of Cultural Affairs. DeRo posited the story as a power struggle between the Department of Cultural Affairs and the Mayor's Office of Special Events when, in fact, many of the jobs at the department, including that of respected programmer Mike Orlove, are being transferred to the non-profit Chicago Tourism Fund. 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 ›

Jim DeRogatis is nothing if not consistently tenacious on the issue of Lollapalooza, its promoters, C3 Presents, and how the two directly affect the city of Chicago. In the past, DeRog has blasted the festival he’s dubbed as “Walmart on the Lake” for its 300-mile radius clause, arguing that it inevitably harms the local music scene. Now, the “Sound Opinions” co-host is examining the deal that C3 has with Chicago, arguing that the city isn’t getting as much out of it financially as it could. 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 ›

Readers of this site probably recognize the name "Vanecko." Mayor Daley's nephew Robert Vanecko has made the news for some of his wheelings and dealings over the years. But it's another Daley nephew, Mark Vanecko, who's at the center of a new report from Vocalo's Jim DeRogatis. The new story focuses on Vanecko's connections to Lollapalooza promoters C3 as well as the liquor sales handled by Lollapalooza Festival Services, "a company co-owned by Kevin Killerman, a Wrigleyville bar owner with dozens of complaints for underage drinking on his record, and a friend and legal client of Vanecko." While some may dismiss it as another example of DeRo's anti-Lolla bias, he follows the trail pretty damn convincingly. However, making the average fest-goer care about such shenanigans, especially given this city's tolerance of such a thing, will prove to be a tall order. more ›

Last week, Vocalo's Jim DeRogatis broke the news that state Attorney General Lisa Madigan was investigating anti-trust allegations related to the Lollapalooza radius clause which limits the dates on which a band playing the festival can play within a certain radius (estimated to be as much as 300 miles in some cases) of Chicago. Interesting conversations about the actual limits of the clause broke out in our comments and in other publications. Brent DiCrescenzo had a solid write-up for Time Out that observed other local fests' similar clauses as well as the flexibility given to many bands in the clause. 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 a climate where talented music critics are scrabbling over freelance gigs it was mighty surprising to hear Jim DeRogatis announce yesterday he was leaving his high profile gig at the Sun-Times to teach at Columbia, though he would continue to write about music regularly for the NPR connected Vocalo blog. The news was even more surprising as DeRogatis' star seemed to be rising ever further as one of the last remaining true critical voices grounded in non-ironic sensibility and a pursuit for clarity and honesty. Trust me, I've been writing about music for 20 years and to see someone like DeRogatis continue to unerringly align himself with honest opinion, whether you (or publicists, or bands) like it or not is a really rare thing. more ›

• Robert Feder is reporting that our pal Jim DeRogatis is the latest big local media name to jump ship from a major media outlet and head to a blog (Vocalo). DeRo will also be a full-time instructor at Columbia College. Go, Jim, Go!
• A Rush University Medical Center instructor was charged with keeping explosives in his house, explosives he says were just homemade fireworks for the Fourth of July.
• More pretrial maneuvering in the Blago case.

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 ›

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 ›

Jim DeRogatis has wasted no time getting back on the R. Kelly beat after the R&B star's acquittal yesterday. DeRogatis found himself smack in the middle of Kelly's trial because in 2002 he received and turned over to police a videotape that prosecutors claimed showed Kelly having sex with a 13-year-old girl. more ›

Jim DeRogatis won't have to testify in R. Kelly's trial after all, Judge Gaughan ruled today after DeRo was questioned at a hearing this morning. Kelly's attorneys argued that DeRogatis has a personal agenda against Kelly, and that DeRo's reporter privilege doesn't apply here because no one is asking about interviews or sources. more ›

Sun-Times music critic Jim DeRogatis will have to testify at R. Kelly's trial, Judge Gaughan ruled today. DeRo's lawyer says he's going to appeal. more ›

R. Kelly's defense team wants to call rock critic Jim DeRogatis as a witness. Save DeRo! [Trib] more ›

Jim DeRogatis's sometimes-pugnacious demeanor is the subject of many a poorly-reviewed band's ire, but it does come in handy now and then. DeRo is taking the lead on figuring out what the hell our city officials are thinking in trying to pass the proposed promoter's ordinance, and he recently offered Alderman Gene Schulter the chance to respond to the Chicago music community's collective concerns. By pointing out the obvious holes in the ordinance's basic fabric, he succeeds in exposing the rather shortsighted nature of the city's view on live music. more ›

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 believe have been passing under the radar, and both are primed to grab a larger audience this year. Schraeder in particular has been riding a swelling wave of good press and larger live audiences. more ›