You could call The Asteroids Galaxy Tour a commercial band since their initial break onto the scene was through an Apple commercial with their tune "Around the Bend," and recently they resurfaced with "The Golden Age" and its prominent placing in an international beer commercial. So you could call the band commercial. Get it? Though the sound the band produces, while slick, isn't exactly commercial. more ›

The nomadic and enigmatic singer-songwriter Cass McCombs has long been one of our favorites here on the Chicagoist staff. It is no wonder really that we are very anxious to take in a live performance by this traveling minstrel this Sunday, January 28 at Lincoln Park's gorgeous eat, drink, musical merry-making rock club, Lincoln Hall. more ›

Italians Do It Better Records played Lincoln Hall this week during the Tomorrow Never Knows Festival. more ›

Instead of a prescription for more cowbell, we get a tour through the Loop featuring upright bass, yodeling, and banging on barbed wire in Dastardly's new video for "Fever." Fair trade to me. more ›

This Saturday, GlitterGuts will celebrate four years of prolific and quality work by throwing the fourth annual Jukefest and Underground Dollar Store at Lincoln Hall. more ›

Local orchestral-pop act Canasta is kicking the year off strong with a local show, a Midwest tour and a new music video. more ›

Home is where the heart is so they say, and being that many of us grew up here in the big city, or have transplanted and now consider it home, we stay on our own turf when the holiday season rolls around. Luckily for us there are a merry myriad of magnificent musical events taking place over the holiday weekend. Take a gander at some of our favorites and spread the holiday cheer accordingly: more ›

It takes just a few songs by The War On Drugs for your brain to fall into "oh, the places you'll go!" mode. The wanderlust spirit of the Philadelphia-based band captures nearly every feeling of open road Americana grandeur, with one catch: everyone who's influenced the band (Petty, Dylan, Springsteen) has shown us that road already. more ›

Though summertime is associated with heady road trips on the open highway, it's right about now that everyone really wants to get away. In August, Philly-based The War On Drugs released their sophomore album Slave Ambient and quickly became our unofficial soundtrack for dreaming of somewhere else. more ›

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is touring the states in support of their latest release, Hysterical, and they’re stopping by Chicago to perform Lincoln Hall tonight and tomorrow. more ›

There's something remarkably big about M83. The '80s-tinged shoegazers, led by Anthony Gonzalez, have for the last ten years captured a certain intergalactic essence, which is no surprise given the fact that the band is named after a galaxy 15 million light-years away. Such is the aesthetic of M83's sound: at once futuristic and nostalgic, alienating and intimate, elated and melancholic, M83's catalog feels like space traveling with a lover, armed with a complicated past and unbridled optimism for the future. Thursday's show at Lincoln Hall sent that feeling into hyperdrive. more ›

Future Islands used to be the soundtrack for a broken but manic heart, perfect for days when unrequited love made you downright rowdy. On the eve of Halloween Sunday night, the band veered away from their danceable, lovelorn tunes to play material that was chilling and delightfully dark. more ›

OK, so there's not an official fan-club style "I love Future Islands" group, but praise for the Baltimore-based group and their recent "On the Water" has been pretty much non-stop since the kickoff of their fall tour. Since their breakthrough early last year with "In Evening Air," Future Islands has climbed out of the "buzz band" category and earned themselves a sterling reputation on the strength of their intense live shows and tightly-crafted post-wave electro fun breakup music. more ›

It's only a matter of time before Bailiff is no longer a hometown secret, so we caught up with them to talk about recording, evolving and what's on tap. more ›

Get your credit cards ready. Here are the best upcoming concerts to go on sale this week. more ›

Sub-Pop label mates, Fruit Bats and Vetiver, played Lincoln Hall Thursday night, churning out their folky brand of back-to-basics songwriting and classic Americana rock ‘n roll to a sea of plaid shirt-wearing twenty-somethings. more ›

If you have yet to hear The Errant Charm by Vetiver, you are missing the perfect soundtrack to Summer 2011. more ›

When a freak summer hail storm hit Chicago over a month and a half ago it caused incredibly extensive damage to the Garfield Park Conservatory. The hail was unusually cruel to this building built mostly of glass whose sole purpose is to protect and house botanical treasures for Chicagoans and visitors to take delight in. It seemed to us at the time an unforgivable act of nature attacking itself. more ›

Bacon Takedown returns to Lincoln Hall for a second go-round of overindulgence. more ›

We hated the first album from The Horrors, deeming it juvenile screeching best left in the garage. On their second disc we saw the group making progress but ultimately still felt they were faking it. So that leads us to ask this obvious question after hearing the band's newest album Skying; who are these guys and what have they done with The Horrors? more ›

Norwegian-born singer/songwriter Sondre Lerche has been making music nearly half his life. As he comes up on the tenth year since his debut album, Faces Down, and his two-night engagement in Chicago supporting his latest effort, Sondre Lerche, the talented--and talkative--Lerche took some time to chat with Chicagoist about Norway versus the Midwest, being a lonely writer, and why he waited ten years to release a self-titled album. more ›

The easiest way to describe Hooray To Earth would be to point out that their debut, True Loves, sounds like the album everyone wishes MGMT's Congratulations had been. And you know what? We're going to take the slightly lazy route on this one. Why? Because you've already heard this music before practiced by all the different bands that jumped on the electro indie rock bandwagon in recent years. This isn't really a negative criticism of the band, it's a statement of fact; that bandwagon is pretty big and has proven plenty sturdy enough to support an amazingly large number of variations on the formula. more ›

Lincoln Hall has a good sense of its past history as a second-run movie house as the 3-Penny Theater, which they've paid homage to before. Tomorrow night at 7 they'll be in pure guilty pleasure mode and hosting a free screening of The Goonies. more ›

A popular Logan Square tavern turns five. more ›

Damon & Naomi have steadfastly explored the dreamier edges of music making. Their songs often feel like phantom images burned onto your aural retina, hinting at layers of greater truth conveyed through utter simplicity. We know that sounds high falutin', but if you give any of their songs a spin we think you'll understand what we're talking about immediately. Their arrangements may be sparse but the reach of each song is far deeper than a few simple chords would suggest. Give "Shadow Boxing," off their latest album False Beats And True Hearts, a listen, fall in love and then check them out tonight at Lincoln Hall. more ›

Oberhofer is the brainchild of Brad Oberhofer, a Brooklyn 20-year old with a knack for incredibly catchy pop. It began as an intimate bedroom project and essentially still is, except that now its sound has spread from the bedroom to venues across the nation. more ›

Much of the last decade we spent not only bobbing our heads, but full-on busting a move to much of the music that came across our paths. Dance-rock acts like Adult, The Rapture, Friendly Fires and The Klaxons seemed to multiply faster than anyone could have ever expected, but many of them seemed to have made one respectable album and then collectively faded away into the annals of the '00s. Of course, there are exceptions. Bands like Cut Copy still have a hell of a draw, and by growing as artists, they continue to make music that is both fun to listen to and relevant. more ›

When Schuba's rapidly sold out of tickets for James Blake's May 15 show and moved it to its big brother venue, Lincoln Hall, it was a microcosm of Blake's young-but-exciting career. more ›

We're hanging out near the back of the alphabet as we discuss new albums by two bands, Yuck and Yelle, playing in town over the next few days. One loves noise and the other loves beats but at their base we think they both love pop. Let's give these records a spin and talk about 'em! more ›

If you have never seen the trippy animation classic Fantastic Planet, this week's screening with live accompaniment by Del Rey may be the perfect opportunity. René Laloux's 1973 film, known in its original French as La Planète Sauvage, is a visual delight and a wholly unique experience: think Hieronymus Bosch using Terry Gilliam's Monty Python animation techniques for late-60s science fiction. Though the imagery is unforgettable the film's fatal flaw is revealed whenever a character opens his mouth: the script is frighteningly bad. more ›