In which we take a quick look at a few recent or upcoming musical releases. more ›

Pavement's Stephen Malkmus is often described as arch, almost the embodiment of the postmodern musician, but every time this writer has ever run into him Malkmus has always been unfailingly engaging and polite. So it's refreshing to hear him come across so comfortably and clearly in his interview with Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot on this week's Sound Opinions. He talks with the local music critics after Pavement's appearance at The Pitchfork Music Festival about his old band's entire career; from the earliest days of ex-drummer Gary Young's studio to Makmus apologizing for dropping names while mentioning it was on Thom Yorke's advice that they work with Nigel Godrich on their final album. He also discusses their "golden period" a.k.a. those albums upon which the critical tastes of almost an entire generation was formed saying: more ›

DeRo has the lowdown on a bunch of other confirmed Lollapalooza acts. We already knew Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, and Rage Against The machine would be headlining, but now you can add Racontuers, Kanye West, and Wilco to that list. We'd bitch about the fact that three of the six headliners have already played Lolla, which in its current incarnation is still a neophyte, but fuck it, we love all the headliners so we'll keep our trap shut. more ›

Welcome to the second full work-week of 2008. If yours is going anything like ours, the term "hump day" doesn't even make you crack a smile. Here's (hopefully) some motivation to get you to the weekend: more ›

Day three of the Pitchfork Music Festival got off to a slow start, with a smaller crowd, but we chalk that up to stronger headliners and more folks electing to arrive later in the day. Since one of our other writers was already covering the earlier bands, we elected to begin our coverage with Stephen Malkmus' main stage appearance. Malkmus' set was one of the ones with the most buzz, since it could be argued... more ›

Chicagoist had the foresight to divide the days of the Pitchfork Music Festival amongst ourselves, so as to offer you, the reader, consistent, non-sunburned coverage of as much of the weekend as possible. Without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the breakfast-slot hits and misses from the past two days: SATURDAY Voxtrot surprised with a buoyant set of danceable candy on Saturday afternoon. On record their synth-pop is passable but not extraordinary,... more ›

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 ›

We don't mean to be alarmist, but if you were still dithering over whether to attend the Pitchfork Music Festival this year, you're running out of time. Friday tickets and three-day passes sold out a while ago, and today we received word that the two-day passes are gone too. That leaves you with buying single day entry for Saturday and/or Sunday. more ›

Pitchfork has announced that the super-affordable three-day passes for their festival, along with tickets to Friday night's bill (featuring one band we're really excited to see), are already sold-out. Tickets for Saturday and Sunday are still available. But believe us when we say that with a line-up including (and this is just a teensy sampling) Cat Power, Girl Talk, Oxford Collapse, The New Pornographers, Stephen Malkmus, De La Soul, Klaxons, and The Ponys, we're sure... more ›

It’s been a while since we mentioned the alternative to Lollapalooza. So, we decided that we’d take this opportunity to mix that with some information about one of the performers slated to appear at the Pitchfork Music Festival this summer. Anxiously awaiting the latest news about Stephen Malkmus? The Good: It looks like everyone is so happy with the new songs that have been committed to tape that Matador wants to release it in early... more ›

For anyone who like the animated sequences in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy movie better than the parts with actual people, you’ll want to head to The Gene Siskel Center tomorrow night. Chicagoist was perfectly happy swooning over Zooey Deschanel and Martin Freeman when we saw the film, but we were impressed at how the filmmakers dealt with the long expositional portions of the book that describe information from The Guide itself. The group... more ›