In the blog age of the hyper (and overhyped) search for the Next Big Thing, an artist’s shelf life as a “big deal “in the independent music world is dwindling to little more than one sold out tour and a trackback in year-end review posts. Gone are the days when one band set the bar for a genre and then completely redefined it, all to the great satisfaction of its fans and its critics alike.... more ›

Approximately 17,000 indie rock fans now have tans thanks to the 2006 Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park. With temps in the 90s all day long and plenty of humidity radiating off the bodies of a sold-out crowd, Day One was a sweat-filled celebration of some of the best indie rock has to offer, including Chicago groups like Hot Machines and Chin Up Chin Up. Many attendees lined up to enter the park as... more ›

Though Chicagoist exists only in the zeroes and ones of HTML coding, that doesn’t mean we don’t heart the print world. Few things are better than spending our Sunday morning curled up with the paper or picking up a zine or two when we’re out buying records. (Yes, buying! Not downloading! And records! Not MP3s! Fear our Ludditeness!). more ›