We're big fans of pretty much whatever Damon Albarn touches, even that wacky opera he just composed. While we're waiting for him to finally get to work on the next Gorillaz disc -- or God forbid actually getting Blur back together (hope hope!) -- we'll have to content ourselves with any one-off collaborations he seems fit to send our way. Lately his tune with The Black Ghosts, "Repetition Kills You," has been in high rotation......

Man, maybe we should just rename today "Free Music Monday!" This new Secret Machines track won't be on their new album, Secret Machines, even though it's from those recording sessions. We DJed with this track last week and loved hearing it boom over a massive sound system. The thundering drums and It's a keeper and assuages any worries we had about the replacement of original guitarist Benjamin Curtis with Phil Karnats. MP3: The Secret......

Detroit's The Silent Years have released their new album, The Globe, and have decided one way to drum up interest is to give away their first album online so folks have an idea what the band sounds like. The self-titled debut is a raucous affair, filled with fuzzed-out guitar anthems and plaintive vocals, so if that's your thing, by all means download it. We found ourselves doing a bit of head bobbing and foot tapping......

Between "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above" and the iPod commercial soundtrack "Music Is My Hot Sex" we think it's safe to assume every human being has heard the music of Cansei de Ser Sexy (CSS). On their sophomore effort Donkey, due next week from Sub Pop, the band continues to deliver danceable rock songs guaranteed to keep their fans happy. We've heard some criticism directed CSS's way for not being experimental......

If you pay attention to this sort of thing, you've probably heard that the new Hold Steady record, Stay Positive, sucks. I may have even been the one to tell you that, after one or two spins, but after spending some quality time with it I've changed my tune like Kid Rock with a ProTools rig. The Hold Steady may be "America's best bar band," and leader Craig Finn is the guy you want to......

We've definitely been digging the new Dandy Warhols disc ...Earth To The Dandy Warhols..., long since available for download through the band's site, but which will finally physically hit shelves August 19. To continue to drum up interest amongst the general public, the band has elected to release it's next single for free, and "The Legend of the Last of the Outlaw Truckers AKA The Ballad of Sheriff Shorty" is a chugging, slightly spaghetti......

Cello playing folkie Ben Sollee has penned an open letter/song to Kanye West about his recent outbursts. We would be tempted to think Sollee was angling to use West as a launchpad to media attention if it weren't for the fact that recently Sollee has been gaining a bunch of press based purely on his songs. Also, isn't the genesis of folk music all about carrying out musical discourse, which is why so much of......

In honor of tonight's Bird & Whale Showcase at Sonotheque, including Damon Locks as one of the DJs, we thought it was appropriate to pass this mix along to you. The Zowee! mix is danceable, psychedelic, Latin, '60s hipster, polyrhythmic, an honest to god aural journey to corners both unexpected and unknown, and a true delight. We're hoping the other DJs on the bill -- Miss Frowny, Dan Bitney, and Greg Dalphond -- deliver equally......

We understand your needs. Coming into work after a three-day weekend sucks. Even way up here in the Chicagoist offices, our usually rambunctious and festive staff is a tad subdued. Our bellies are still slightly swollen from overcooked burgers and sweaty cans of beer. DJ Ray Protégé has put together a mixtape to help shake of the post-Independance blues and amp up your Monday morning. Hipster Hop showcases many of the groups of the so-called......

Buffetlibre put together a free '80s cover song project, and has posted the 56 contributions on their site. You can download the whole thing at once or choose song by song a la carte style. The bands tackled range from pencil-sketch Norwegians a-ha to Chicago noisemonsters Big Black. There are some clunkers, but with over 50 songs some bands actually tired to DO something with the source material instead of just dressing it up in......

Japan's Love Psychedelico is fronted by singer Kumi and guitarist Naoki Sato. Their latest self-titled disc is their American debut, but they already have a whole passel of albums that have sold millions overseas. We admit when we first put this one under the stylus we were expecting yet another faceless J-Pop band, but man-oh-man were we wrong. The group sings sunny, late-'60s inspired guitar pop, and its so finely constructed that when Kumi mixes......

How appropriate, the day that Chicago's supreme mash-up duo has a record release party is the same day Gregg Gillis decided to drop the new Girl Talk album, Feed The Animals. For free. (Or pay what you can.) It's largely the same set of tunes he used to whip the crowd into a frenzy at last year's Pitchfork Music Festival, so there are no real surprises, but it is a supremely solid piece of work.......

Chicago-based Quarterstick Records has recently signed The Uglysuit, a band from Oklahoma City. Maybe to return the favor (?) the group recorded a song called "Chicago," and we actually think they sort of caught a nice Midwestern summer vibe in it's name-checking chorus. Anyway, give it a listen and count down the minutes until that little hand hits the five and we can all rush over to Gold Star for some free booze. MP3:......

The Futureheads' live show is a spectacle to behold. The band combines ultra-tight four-part harmonies with whip-snap drumming and razor sharp guitars. Their debut album was the best thing XTC hadn't recorded in two decades. The band seemed poised to have it all. Their sophomore disc came out to middling reviews and to be honest, it just wasn't nearly as good as their first one. The band retreated for a rethink and recently reemerged with......

Jesus Kee-rist, Trent Reznor is on a roll. Mere weeks after the release of the instrumental Nine Inch Nails quadruple album Ghosts I-IV, he's released the newest "pop" album by the band, The Slip. While Ghosts offered a tiered pricing plan, The Slip is available absolutely and completely free. Formats include MP3, FLAC, lossless M4A, and even WAV files. DRM-free. Creative Commons copyright. Super-fast download. And the songs ain't bad at all either! We're impressed.......

Dark Meat comes to us from Athens, Georgia, but the first time we heard them we were pretty sure they actually clawed their way out of another dimension to spread their riveting gospel across the land. If we're gonna play the "they sound like" game, we'd have to say Dark Meat resembles The Polyphonic Spree ... if The Spree's dark undercurrent exploded, shredding robes and ears for miles around as it blotted out the......

Minneapolis art-rock maximists (if you can have minimalists, you can totally have maximists) Cloud Cult appear courtesy of both tragedy and the unending hopefulness of finding one’s center. Mastermind Craig Minowa lost his infant son in 2002 and has used his band as an outlet for his tireless quest to figure out how the hell you keep going after such a loss, but this is no mopey singer-songwriter fair. That quest for grounding has lead......

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Apple Rocks? The Counting Crows are doing a free mini-concert at The Apple Store tomorrow. This is either a dream come true, or a complete nightmare, depending on how you view the band. We've always had a soft spot for the band's more rockin' tracks -- hey, don't judge us -- but admit we have......

This one goes out to all the ladies in the LS. If someone has the MP3 to this song PLEASE send it to us. Credz Rachel for bringing this PSA to our attention.......

Raleigh, NC's Bowerbirds have had some heavy expectations to live up to since the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle called the folk-pop trio one of his favorite new bands. Since then, they've brought interesting instrumentation, plaintive male-female vocal harmonies, and varying arrangements to cozy music rooms across America and signed to the freak-folk hotbed Dead Oceans label. Chicagoist caught Bowerbirds last August at Schubas, on tour in support of the critically acclaimed, self-released, Hymns For a......

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Theater Tonight is the premiere for Lincoln Square Theatre's production of Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles." Adapted from Bradbury's seminal 1950 novel, the play tells of the tensions between native aboriginal Martians and new colonists fleeing a troubled Earth as an allegory for Old World colonialism. Bradbury was inspired to write his novel equally by Steinbeck's......

Time to lock and load this week's list of hometown shows, SXSW style. Monday 3/3: Catfish Haven, Brighton, MA, Tall Dark Stranger at the Empty Bottle, 9:00 p.m., FREE! Catfish Haven have the distinction of being the subject of one of our great music debates here on Chicagoist, but offline one constant has always been the loyal following of their frenetic, stomp-along swamp folk throwdowns. Catch one of Chicago's most recognized indie acts for free......

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Music The Riverboat Gamblers fucking slay, there's no debate there. Lead singer Mike Wiebe channels Iggy Pop's figuratively red-headed step-child as he thrashes and throws himself across the stage belting out hook-filled punk rawk anthems. No song breaks the 3-minute mark because there's no point in pushing the riffs any further than they need to......

One could be forgiven for the overwhelming feeling that there are just too many disco-dance rock hybrid bands out there. Because, well, there are, and like any other oversaturated genre the majority of groups copping the dance-rock sound are doing so in truly generic fashion. That's why when singular voices rise above the din created by so much mediocrity, the ears prick in grateful alarm. Such is the case with Austin's Ghostland Observatory as......

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Music The Chamber Strings have a turbulent history, but leader Kevin Junior -- having left many of his demons behind him -- is experiencing a joyous resurgence lately. The band's recorded output falls into the dreamy orch-pop category, but the songs really come alive and gain some grit on stage. Hideout, 1354 W Wabansia, 10......

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Music The Dirtbombs, the longest-running project of Detroit garage rock legend Mick Collins (The Gories) is arguably his best. Their line-up of two drummers, two bassists (one of them playing through a fuzzbox effect) and Collins on guitar plays classic groove-oriented, hip-shaking music. Their 2002 release Ultraglide in Black belongs on our desert island discs......

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Burgers: While we are loathe to actually divulge this information, the Dunlay's location in Logan Square has fucking awesome hamburgers. Almost as good as Kuma's, we swear. So it's no wonder that on Wednesdays the place is jam-packed with folks stuffing their faces with the restaurant's ground beef since today if half-price burger night. If......

It's a Bottle edition of Local Options to reduce, reuse, and recycle this week. Wednesday, 2/20: Speck Mountain and Box of Baby Birds at Empty Bottle (with Arms and Sleepers), 9:00 p.m., $7 Much buzzed-about Chicago dream-pop trio Speck Mountain are joined by Box of Baby Birds to bring ethereal, experimental folk to the Empty Bottle mid-week for a shoegazey, acoustified romp with Boston's Arms and Sleepers. MP3: Speck Mountain - Stockholm Friday, 2/22: Moxie......

Baby, it's cold outside ... but Chicago's brightest musical talent is on display at a cozy venue near you. Here are some solid bets for this week: Wednesday 2/13: Cameron McGill, The Bon Mots, Tenniscourts at Schubas, 9:00 p.m., $8 Cameron McGill has been a staple on the local scene since moving here from Champaign several years ago, and his unselfconsciousness about shifting styles and band lineups ensures that his freak folk pop orchestration is......

Remember Adorable? If you do you're probably old like us, so let's go for a slightly more culturally relevant (read: Sofia Coppola approved) touchstone and namedrop My Bloody Valentine. Hell, we could check any number of Britpoppers with huge guitar rigs. If any of that interests you, or fills you with a sense of fond sentimentality, might we suggest you check out Soft's debut, Gone Faded. The group rips riffs from the Stone roses meets......