Girl Talk, aka one Greg Gillis, has been wowing audiences from the Empty Bottle to the Pitchfork Music Festival with his wildly popular brand of mash-up wizardry. Just try to hold a stoic cool-kid pose when Gillis brings his one-man jammin' train through town in January, with newly minted prince of the hipster dance party Dan Deacon in tow. Metro, January 26, 7:30 p.m. (all ages) and 11:30 p.m. (18+), $16. On sale Saturday.... more ›

Jazz legend Herbie Hancock has been stretching the boundaries of modern music composition for the past 50+ years, but he’s not content to rest on his past accomplishments. He’s currently touring to support River: The Joni Letters, a collection of vocal and instrumental arrangements either composed or influential on the venerable Joni Mitchell. Guest vocalists on the album include most of the right-now voices in modern jazz-pop, like Corinne Bailey Rae, Leonard Cohen, Norah Jones, Luciana Souza, Tina Turner, and Mitchell herself. It’s an interesting project to tackle for the nearly 70-year-old Chicago native, who made his mark with jazzbos and casual consumers of free form music alike as a member of Miles Davis’ “second great quintet” in the 1960’s, but Hancock has never shied away from pushing the envelop of composed music. more ›

There was a time when a little bit of Kurt Elling went a long way. The insanely talented singer always seemed to balance precariously on the gossamer between genius and schmaltz, but Elling always had a knack for pulling the reins tight just when listeners were ready to cringe. Most of the time. Restraint, or knowing when to utilize it, seemed to be one of Elling's shortcomings in the past. more ›

Oh, Starbucks. It is so easy to hate on you with your taking over the world ways, weird sizing (tall=small) and Norah Jones CDs. So very easy to hate. Which is why we were barely surprised to learn that you hate us too! more ›

Last night Chicagoist took a break from our rock-n-roll lifestyle and turned on the television, mainly to watch Ultimate Fighting ‘cuz we have a slight case of the bloodlust, but came across a channel that we had never seen before on Comcast, Channel 197 (at least at our abode) – The Tube Music Network. more ›

You know what's refreshing about Kanye West? His total lack of humility. Oh sure, if Chicagoist picked up ten Grammy nominations we might say something like "This is really a surprise. Especially for my debut album" or even "Thank you." But that is why we write pithy comments about events in the news and Kanye makes more money than Israel's got Jews (Happy Hanukkah to ya'll). Instead, Kanye described his nominations as "amazing," "nothing to complain about" and "like a perfect score" which indeed it would be if there were only ten noninations given instead of 107. No gospel album nomination though. Thanks for sparing us the controversy, Grammy-ers. more ›