Sissy Mena, a Chicago trio comparable to alt-rock groups like Ride, are releasing their new album Record Machine. Listen to first single "Soon Speeding Gear," and find out more information about their record release show. more ›

For immediately appealing indie-rock equally filled with sonic surprises and familiar melodiousness, it’s hard to do better than Chicago’s Pet Lions. more ›

Reflective, autotuned-tinged Chicago rapper Rockie Fresh will release a new video Monday for "Sofa King Cole," a track which originally appeared on his The Otherside mixtape. Fresh will also release a remix mixtape called, The Otherside Redux on June 29. more ›

Two up-and-coming Chicago bands sharing a bill at the Empty Bottle Monday have released tracks from their upcoming records. Download them here. more ›

Local rockers Mickey dropped an advanced MP3 for their upcoming Hozac records full-length debut, Rock N' Roll Dreamer, and you can listen to it here. more ›

We were under the impression that Mazes was no more. With the Chicago folk-pop band spreading themselves across the U.S. - core member Charles D'Autremont moved to Brooklyn last year, bassist Tom Smith is about to move to San Francisco and the rest of the band will stay in Chicago for now - we figured the fivesome was splitting up for good. But these guys aren’t letting a few thousand miles stop them from making the buoyant, lo-fi melodies that brought them together; they’ll continue to make music under the name Mazes, collaborating long-distance and coming together for shows. We’re excited to see what direction this new setup takes the band, as Smith and D'Autremont inevitably become influenced by their surroundings and give the band’s sound an East Coast / West Coast / Midwest dynamic. more ›

JBTV Host Jerry Bryant more ›

Let's take a look at some of the best live & local music in our fair city this week: more ›

The Sun-Times asks what we hope is a rhetorical question on the cover of today's edition; "How do you punish somebody for being so senseless?" The question was actually asked by Paul Dahlquist, father of one of three musicians brutally murdered* by Jeanette Sliwinski almost 2 1/2 years ago. She attempted to kill herself by slamming her car into a vehicle carrying Michael Dahlquist, John Glick, and Doug Meis while the three were out on a lunch break. more ›

Ah, Monday. Time to reflect on the weekend that was ... and what better way to reminisce than to scour Craigslist Missed Connections? We're trying out a new weekly feature here at Chicagoist called "Monday Missed Connections," where we dig through the postings from all those lonely hearts out there and highlight the most deserving, interesting, funny or fantastic MCs. This week we're going to keep it music-centric, and we've searched for the weekend's concerts,... more ›

Chicagoist is gearing up for this weekend's annual Air & Water Show along the lakefront. In what's becoming an annual tradition around there, staff member Todd McClamroch even got to fly with one of the participants. Chicagoist's decidedly opinionated readership was also appalled that one of their staffers found a popular local brewpub to be a great place to bring a kid. They also think that an unlikely activist for immigration rights should just take... more ›

The big dilemma of the week is just which ironic T-shirt to wear to Pitchfork, but some Chicago bands have their dreams set on attending a different upcoming music festival. The voting for the third round of the Lollapalooza Last Band Standing Contest only lasts two weeks, and the Top 5 vote-getters will compete live at the Double Door on August 1. more ›

This is the year we officially gave up on MOBfest. We've been involved with MOBfest every year since its inception, and even started to get involved this year (anyone who knows us can figure out which bill we had a a hand in), but finally just realized that the whole thing is a rather pointless endeavor. Their mission statement, according to the MOBfest website, is: We are a three-day music business seminar focused on building... more ›

Anyone expecting to get their usual dose of local music videos via JBTV was sorely disappointed, as the show was pre-empted on WJYS Channel 62 for one of the many ministries broadcast on the station (though it did air on its sister station WEDE Channel 34). Then today we saw this on JBTV’s MySpace blog: more ›

When we heard that The Blue Meanies are playing Double Door, and Naked Raygun is playing Subterranean next week, we thought the local music news couldn't get any better. more ›

As we sat down to write this week's Best of the -ists post, a car blaring "21 Questions'" passed by our house. And that started us thinking about how some of the best -ist posts out there have at their hearts questions, some of which are answered, and some of which are left open. Check out the Best of the -ists from this week, and see if you agree. Londonist answers the questions "How much... more ›

Thirty-six years ago Vashti Bunyan released an album that was haunting and different than all the other folk musicians out there. She has been touted as creating "psych-folk" and then, like many musicians, the singer kind of forgot about her voice amidst lukewarm sales and everything that life throws at us. Now she's back with Lookaftering and is playing a pair of shows with Archer Prewitt. Monday/Tuesday, Lakeshore Theater, 7 p.m., $15 advanced/$20 door, All... 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 ›

We -ists are an eclectic bunch, but there's a couple of things we all love: famous people, social causes, and wacky local facts. Join us as we starf**k, get virtuous, and learn across the -ist network! Austinist starts us off right by filling the famous person quota by interviewing Lewis Black, covers the social cause with a non-profit car sharing company, and gives us more wacky local facts than we can handle with Austin by... more ›

Thax is leaving us, and he needs your help. We received a rather cryptic bulletin from the poet laureate of Chicago rock and/or roll informing us of a series of farewell shows he was planning. Farewell to what, you might ask? Thax had said he was going to “retire” from public readings for a while so we reckoned that might be what he was talking about. But oh no. 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 ›

When Chicagoist thinks of the bands that make define our local music scene, we usually think of The M’s, The Ponys, Healthy White Baby, Lying In States, Detholz!, and Chin Up Chin Up, (and Suffrajett, of course). But when you’re looking at something from close-up, you forget that it often looks different from far away. So if you page through Blender's 5th Anniversary issue this month, you’ll see a much different crowd representing Chicago. more ›

Lollapalooza founder, Perry Farrell more ›

Chicagoist spends a lot of time acting as observer, critic and theorizer on Chicago’s local music scene. But for a few months now, we’ve been thinking about spending less time posting and more time doing. Specifically, we wanted to put on a great live show with local bands that we love. And so in that spirit: Chicagoist presents: Ctrl – Alt – Rock With: The Assembly May Or May Not Alphabet When: Thursday, February 16th... more ›

Last night, some of Chicago’s best-known music writers and editors got together to answer a simple question: how does an unknown band get nice things written about them? The discussion, presented by the Chicago Music Commission was titled “Pitching Your Story: Media and Local Music” with Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot serving as moderator. In attendance were Scott Plagenhoef of Pitchfork Media; Peter Margasak of the Chicago Reader; David Jakubiak, with the Chicago Sun-Times;... more ›

Dave Suh has been a staple of the local music scene for over the last decade. His first band, Emil Muzz, provided the city with future members of Light FM, Rockit Girl and Veruca Salt. Suh himself went on to join simultaneously join Caviar and Woolworthy and, later, The Drama. While he was a vital component of all those bands none allowed him the free control of sitting solo in the driver’s seat. So he... more ›

While many say Intonation Fest was a victory for the local music scene, it can't quite make up for the loss suffered last week with the murder of three local musicians. Michael Dahlquist from Silkworm, John Glick from The Returnables and Doug Meis from The Dials and Exo were killed in a car accident on Thursday afternoon. Police say Jeanette Sliwinski tried to kill herself by intentionally crashing her car into the vehicle occupied by the three men. Prosecutors say she may face the death penalty. A statement released by her lawyer on Saturday said she was sorry and asked for forgiveness. Well, fuck you Jeanette. more ›

MOBfest is dubious at best in its claims of being a major player in the record industry even though it continues to infer that it has helped create album deals for Rachael Yamagata, The Killers and Kill Hannah. It’s pretty obvious that all of those groups had things in the works, though, long before they hit the stage at what is currently Chicago’s only music festival that claims to draw in the big label A&R... more ›

Local musicians who started an online petition, a property owner’s sudden change of heart, and fans of local music who packed a downtown courtroom saved Double Door from an early closing and the club’s operators from a long legal fight. If you read articles in the press or checked out Double Door’s site over the last week, you’d have read that the landlords were engaging in a “war on culture.” With petitions started and clubgoers... more ›

For a while now, Chicagoist has been knocking around the idea of forming a band (Rachelle and The Typos?) and releasing an album. Since we couldn’t even manage to form a summer league softball team, that’s probably not going to happen. So we’ll just contend ourselves with releases from more organized sites like donewaiting.com. more ›