On July 4, 1991, The Replacements gave their last performance ever at the Taste of Chicago, of all places. That was twenty years ago today. more ›

If you can write a convincing argument for the Foo Fighters playing a show at your garage in 25 words or less, you and 50 pals might have a chance at hosting the Chicago stop of their "garage tour" on April 19. The word count makes it so anyone who enters practically has to communicate their argument in grunts and emoticons, but we're hoping fans can pull off some creative Foo haikus given the constraints. more ›

Good news, celebrity rubberneckers! Your top source for Grade A, primo high-quality gossip batshit, Charlie Sheen, is coming to town--in a vaguely professional context no less! more ›

Thom Yorke, you might know him from a little band named Radiohead, has announced a few warm-up dates prior to his big solo set at the Coachella Festival in April. He'll be visiting the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago on April 10 and 11. Backing him will be Flea, Mauro Refosco, drummer extraordinaire Joey Waronker and man-about-town Nigel Godrich. Tickets go on sale March 3. more ›

Lots of media outlets will be live-streaming the Michael Jackson memorial, which starts in about 20 minutes, but we're going to pimp our sister site LAist who will be streaming it. Also, be sure to check out the main LAist site for all the latest on the Michael Jackson memorial and news. more ›

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Chicagoist. more ›

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We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Chicagoist. more ›

If you saw a haze hanging over downtown this morning...nevermind, that joke's too easy. The Doggfather kicked off a two-night stand at the House of Blues last night on his current tour promoting his new record, Ego Trippin' (due out March 11th), and left our ears ringing. more ›

After weeks of speculation among dozens of people, last night's edition of Saturday Night Live revealed their choice to play Barack Obama for potentially the next four years -- Chicago's Fred Armisen. While the sketch was a somewhat amusing take on the press infatuation with Obama, if Illinois' favorite son locks up the nomination Armisen needs to work on his impersonation. It makes Will Forte's GWB look Will Farrell-esque in quality. more ›

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Chicagoist. more ›

Michigan Avenue, a new luxury magazine, has set a new launch date: September 17. Dan Uslan, most recently of Where Chicago magazine, was named the publisher today. There's a Where Chicago magazine? Live and learn. [Crain's] more ›

Ah, the Academy Award "Shorts." Largely ignored in favor of the races focusing on acting accomplishments and what movie had the saddest/more politically controversial/historically momentous ending, the Short Subject categories often offer a hodgepodge of achievements actually more worthy of your time than most of the feature length tripe that hits theaters these days. They're also full of fun trivia: did you know Billy Zabka, a.k.a the fantastic villain Johnny Lawrence from one of our favorite films of all time, was actually nominated for an Academy Award in the Live Action Short category in 2004? And have you ever seen Don Hertzfeldt's excellent 2001 nominated animated short, "Rejected"? Wacky stuff. more ›

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Chicagoist. more ›

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Chicagoist. more ›

Live in the 44th Ward? Care a ton about Wrigleyville development? There's a public meeting tonight with Alderman Tom Tunney to talk about the proposed development on Addison. Yes, head to the Stadium Club at Wrigley (swank!) at 6:30 tonight for the airing of grievances. Er, discussion. more ›

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You know that thing you never do? Now it will cost another 25 cents if you start to do it. Yes, the Tribune is increasing its newsstand price to 75 cents for Monday-Saturday editions, but the Sunday edition remains $1.79. The memo sent out from Tony Hunter, the Trib's senior vice president of circulation and operations, said: more ›

Last year, perhaps a little earlier, we gave you a quick run-down of where you could buy yourself a turkey and at what cost. We felt that it would be nice of us to do that again for you ... not to mention the fact that we haven't had time to get a turkey for ourselves. So, without further ado, a decidedly skewed to the north side turkey roundup. Dominick's located at 6009 N Broadway... more ›

We were downtown at work yesterday when a co-worker said "What's with the protest outside? There's someone chanting for justice or something." Knowing from the "Saturday Plans" post that The Lady herself, Paula Deen was appearing, this was a head-scratcher. Who could be so upset at a TV chef? Besides the obvious, of course. more ›

Is it just us, or is this one of those weeks that never stops? Looking ahead at our weekend musical calendar, we're realizing we're not going to get any sleep until we fall into a Thanksgiving dinner-induced coma next week. Oh music, we do it all for you. more ›

Fun Fun Fun Fest 2007 Recap from Super!Alright! on Vimeo. Austinist attended a town hall meeting about proposed noise ordinances that could undermine the city's future as the Live Music Capital of the World, and lamented the possible loss of Texas's only feminist bookstore. Throughout the week, they interviewed a bunch of indie fashion designers and D-I-Y websites—Etsy, Ornamental Things, 31 Corn Lane, and Aorta Designs—for the upcoming Stitch Fashion Show. They also did... more ›

Monica Eng at the Trib must be helping Chicago win its title of "most caffeinated" city; she tried 32 different coffees for a story in today's paper about which coffees taste the best. Coming out on top are cups of coffee from Metropolis, Intelligentsia, Coffee Beanery Ltd., Whole Foods, Cafe Colao, Illy, Peet's Coffee (our personal favorite), and Julius Meinl. She also recommends picking up the banana cream tart at Fox & Obel to... more ›

The Greenbuild Expo started this morning at McCormick Place with a keynote by none other than Al Gore's president, Bill Clinton. Greenbuild 2007 brings 18,000 building professionals together for education sessions, lectures, tours of Chicago's greenest buildings, and a huge number of booths featuring new products and technology. Greenbuild says they chose Chicago because of the city's legacy of great architecture and Mayor Daley's dedication to all things green. (During his reign, the city has... more ›

Yup, it's Halloween night. And, assuming you're not completely incapacitated from celebrating this holiday for the last week, you're probably blinded by the flurry of options on how to spend tonight. Allow us to make a few suggestions. We talked to Jesse Thorn a couple days ago about his The Sound Of Young America show. Well tonight is the live 8 p.m. taping at Second City's e.t.c. stage. Thorn will be interviewing engineer and Shellac-man... more ›

Jesse Thorn, Host of The Sound of Young America more ›

The Chicago Theatre is being sold to Madison Square Garden. At least that's what Chris Jones is saying. According to the article, Madison Square Garden Entertainment has agreed to purchase the downtown landmark and is just waiting for a few formalities — like the City signing off on the sale — before closing the deal. MSGE owns — duh — Madison Square Garden, plus Radio City Music Hall and the Beacon Theater in NY. It's... more ›

We admit we rarely really listen to WXRT anymore — in fact it fell of out regular rotation sometime in the '90s as their demographic skewed older and mellower — but we do still remember it as the "big" station that really tried to be a part of the community. And while WXRT's playlist may no longer excite us, we do still appreciate a number of the artists they continue to trumpet, their devotion to... more ›

Kanye just completely ganked his second performance on Saturday Night Live. He started "freestyling" on "Everything I Am," and boy was it not pretty. Time to start trolling for video. Thoughts? more ›

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market... more ›