Results tagged “materialissue”

Friday, April 25:

It was ten years ago today that Jim Ellison, lead singer/songwriter of the great Chicago power pop band Material Issue, committed suicide at the age of 31, ending one of the most influential and heartfelt careers of any Chicago musician. In a previous post, we said “not since the Undertones’ “More Songs About Chocolate and Girls” had a band ever released such a concise sonic mission statement as MI’s International Pop Overthrow album.” Three chords...

Gary "Elvis" Schepers is one of those cogs in Chicago's music scene that works tirelessly and is never noticed. Gary plays the rock tuba with Devil In A Woodpile and also works as the sound guy at many venues and for a veritable who's who of the last 20 years. He worked with The Service before they reincarnated into the New Duncan Imperials, Material Issue and Uncle Tupelo and at Lounge Ax, Empty Bottle, the...

Chicagoist last saw OK Go when the first cries of "next big thing outta Chicago" were heard and were not that impressed. Friday night at the Metro, however, it was possible to see why those cries are being heard again. OK Go are a band that is not afraid to wear their influences on their sleeve and they let those influences show from the 2nd song "No Sign of Life" which was very Pixies-esque...

Liam Davis, Frisbie

Please forgive us if we have mixed feelings about Greg Kot’s piece featuring the Redwalls in yesterday’s Tribune Arts and Entertainment section. On Saturday night, Chicagoist was at Schuba’s for the Marah/Nick Hornby show. It was a unique event with Hornby reading unpublished essays about the bands that informed his musical youth (Rory Gallagher, The Clash, The Faces) interspersed with semi-obscure covers of songs by those same bands, courtesy of Marah. In the final essay,...

Chicagoist enjoys Louis XIV. We think they're the nazz. We don't expect anything out of their blatant T-Rex-isms other than that they exude sexy feelings and recall the fact that rock and/or roll can still be lewd, lascivious and fun. But that's not why we're looking forward to their headlining gig at Metro this Wednesday May 25. Instead it's the local boys on the bill that excite us. Opening the show is the Ladies &...

As the International Pop Overthrow festival hits town for a two-week engagement, we’re reminded of how much we miss Material Issue. Another in a long line of critically acclaimed and enormously influential bands that never had the sales to match, Material Issue were the connective tissue that made it OK for bands like Smashing Pumpkins to wear their Cheap Trick influences on their collective sleeve. Not since The Undertones' “More Songs About Chocolate and Girls”...

Though it’s likely that a new band is formed at least every week here after some kid hears his or her first Ramones or Grandmaster Flash record, there are also too many that succumb to the pressures of being a working band, night in and night out. And so it is with Woolworthy, who play their final show tomorrow night at Double Door after almost ten years of power-pop goodness. Having played their first show...