We're gearing up for the stretch-run of Chicago's premier music fests, Pitchfork and Lollapalooza. But there are some pretty great shows still happening unrelated to those fests and lots of tickets going on sale or already available. It's too hot to mull it over any more, so here we go. Eddie Vedder is coming to town sans Jam for a pair of late-August shows at the Auditorium Theatre. New Zealander Liam Finn opens. Tickets are......

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Seriously, there are so many bands worth seeing this weekend, we're making this a music-only edition of Pencil This In. Spoon Britt Daniel and the boys bring his coked-out Bowie croon to The Vic tonight. It's been odd seeing the band go from indie darlings that couldn't even fill Double Door, to modern rock stars......

It's the end of the line in our pre-coverage of the Tomorrow Never Knows festival, which can only mean one thing: you're well-prepared for the weekend rockness. The Walkmen keep throwing it back to the original foundations of rock music: gravel-coated riffs, fuzzy ballads, and lots and lots of sweat on stage. While they have yet to come up with anything as strutting, ballsy, and soul shaking as 2004's Bows and Arrows (and especially first......

The talk of the "indie rock diet" that's been tossed around the blogosphere this week is ripe with irony; any of us who have hung out with a band for even a night know that the stereotypical indie rocker replaces food with alcohol whenever given the chance. And when on tour, anything goes. A friend of ours, who happens to drum in a band coming to Chicago next week, once told us about how the......

Time to get that credit card out of hibernation and spend away, my friends! This week must mark the proper amount of time between on sale dates and concert dates that corresponds to warm weather coming back to Chicago. Kaiser Chiefs will be out in support of their soon-to-be-released album Yours Truly, Angry Mob off which the single “Ruby” we were told sounds like Morrissey fronting Cheap Trick. While this image still has us reeling,......

As the group Liars droned on with their less-complicated-than-it-looks brand of noise rock, they repeatedly intoned the words “the weather is fierce.” It was a lyrical aside that would define the weather, if not necessarily the atmosphere, of the second Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park. Though Pitchfork was instrumental in creating last year’s Intonation festival, a split with some of last year’s organizers led to two separate events this summer. So the site......

Chicagoist is disappointed that The Walkmen & Ambulance Ltd show at Schuba's Saturday is sold out, as well as The Brian Jonestown Massacre event at Darkroom on Sunday, but that never stops anyone from walking by and seeing if there are any scalpers. Following are some events that, as of this writing, are still on sale. Friday evening Crobar kicks off Lollapalooza with a party featuring many, many djs. RSVP at guestlistchicago@crobar.com - no mention......

The lineup for the new (but not necessarily improved) Lollapalooza on July 23rd and 24th in Grant Park was released this morning and well...it’s a mixed bag. We’re really excited about some of the bands on this list and unmoved by others. Many of the bands you’d expect to be in the lineup are: Arcade Fire, Death Cab For Cutie, The Bravery, The Walkmen, World Leader Pretend, Louis XIV, VHS or Beta, etc. Problem......

Chicagoist knows you like being told what to do over the weekend, and we like telling you. If you're into orgiastic life-affirming pop symphonies, check out the robed and copious Polyphonic Spree (quoth Milhouse, "My doctor says I'm not supposed to go on sprees") and lead singer Tim Delaughter's attempts to become Wayne Coyne. The Spree will even have drummer Brian Teasley in tow after being cleared from the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List......

Chicagoist knows it's not original to say this, but man, we can't get enough of The Onion. Though based currently in New York, the paper hails from Wisconsin and it definitely has that indefinable Midwestern sensibility and sense of humor that we know and love. We have all the books (the brilliant Our Dumb Century, Dispatches from the Tenth Circle), a few of the T-shirts ("Your favorite band sucks"), the coffee mug ("Fuck off"),......