*We're totally kidding. Smith Westerns could never write a song that good. more ›

This is one of the best local news apps we've seen. more ›

Our Senior Editor for Arts & Entertainment, that's Tankboy to you and Jim Kopeny to his third grade teacher, will be appearing on The Music Vox on Vocalo.org and 89.5FM tonight. He'll be participating in a local roundtable discussion of the week's music headlines with fellow music nerds experts Richard Giraldi of LoudLoopPress and Jacob Daneman of Pitch Perfect PR. We tried to get the topics out of Jim but he wouldn't spill a single hint other than to say that "there was a good chance of an argument breaking out between the guests on musical selections with an average duration of 45 seconds or less." Whatever that means. more ›

Louisa Chu, Editor of BlackboardEats Chicago, has had a busy month. First, she takes over as Vocalo's new food blogger, then she helps to launch a deal website. Even better, this deal website isn't your average Groupon/Living Social/Whatever knockoff - it's actually good. On BlackboardEats, users can find deals (not a million of them, just a couple per week) at restaurants that have never run deals before. Even better, the watchword of the business is "sustainable" - not "exploitative." more ›

In the nearly four years since the launch of Vocalo, the station has struggled to gain a foothold among Chicago listeners. The combination radio and blog experimental broadcast project relied heavily on user-generated content, though its blog has arguably been the more successful of the two entities, snagging writers like Jim DeRogatis, Steve Dolinsky and formerly Robert Feder. Today, its parent organization Chicago Public Media (formerly Chicago Public Radio) announced that it will be relaunching the young station this spring. more ›

Lupe Fiasco fans might want to tune in to Vocalo this afternoon at 3 p.m. He's the special guest on Vocalo's "Music Vox" program with host Jesse Menendez and guest host, the inimitable Richard Steele. more ›

Of the former Vocalo blogs, Robert Feder's media blog was the centerpiece of them all and the foundation for which the others (Steve Dolinsky, Lee Bey, Achy Obejas, et al) came into orbit. more ›

The guest band on tonight's installment of Vocalo's "Live from Studio 10" program is one you should check out. forgetters is the latest project from Blake Schwarzenbach of Jawbreaker and Jets to Brazil fame. Jawbreaker was a huge influence on a lot of the pop-punk that came in the mid-to-late 90s. From what music forgetters has released, it mines the familiar punk territory, but with a refinement and focus that comes with age. more ›

This morning, Steve Dolinsky posted his list of the top five french fry places in Chicagoland on Vocalo. Dolinsky expanded the list to the suburbs, but may have gone a little too far - out of five, only two are actually in the city. The two lucky Chicago fry joints are Hot Doug's (of course) and Top Notch Beefburger. The other three contestants are in Skokie, Evanston and Forest Park. more ›

This morning, while perusing our Google reader, we almost went into a diabetic coma. We can't decide if we should thank Steve Dolinsky or send him our future medical bills. Despite our moral concerns we decided to inflict the pain upon you. more ›

A piece of news we missed on Friday - Steve Dolinsky reported that Avec will re-open this Thursday or Friday, pending city permit approval. Back in August, the restaurant was closed by a fire connected with the ventilation system. We'll be back at Avec as soon as it re-opens, but with a little less glee than before. more ›

Over on Vocalo, Mission Army K.R. did a series last week asking folks to create "f*ck it lists," the top five things they do not want to ever have to do. Torey Malatia's list was our favorite in the series, primarily because it showed the man has an excellent sense of humor (and he would have to in order to endure Ira Glass endlessly tweaking Malatia with each and every TAL sign off). more ›

• Robert Feder is reporting that our pal Jim DeRogatis is the latest big local media name to jump ship from a major media outlet and head to a blog (Vocalo). DeRo will also be a full-time instructor at Columbia College. Go, Jim, Go!
• A Rush University Medical Center instructor was charged with keeping explosives in his house, explosives he says were just homemade fireworks for the Fourth of July.
• More pretrial maneuvering in the Blago case.

The Thursday before Fat Tuesday is Paczki Day. Bakeries throughout the area will be selling the proverbial shit ton of these stuffed Polish doughnuts. Heather Shouse has a nice list of bakeries that specialize in paczkis (pronounced "PONCH-kee") in Time Out Chicago. The Hound chimed in on Vocalo, asking, "How could you forget Oak Mill Bakery?" more ›

WBEZ's Vocalo blog made a splash late last year when they added former Sun-Times media columnist Robert Feder to their roster in a bid to up their web presence. Now, they're adding three more well-known names of the Chicago media world to their roster: architecture critic Lee Bey, Steve "The Hungry Hound" Dolinsky, and Amy Krouse Rosenthal. The trio start action next Monday. more ›

As was reported a few weeks ago, Robert Feder is now live over at Vocalo and already tackling the goings on in the Chicago media world. His first story? A look at the firing of Fox 32's Mike Barz for alleged misconduct: a hug of a co-worker that she deemed inappropriate. Barz calls the incident “a fabricated story." more ›

Former Sun-Times columnist Robert Feder is jumping over to Vocalo, the writer announced today. Said Feder in a statement: more ›

WBEZ's experimental user-generated Vocalo station has a Twitter feed. And they want to hear from you! Badly! more ›

Is Vocalo bleeding WBEZ dry? That's how it looks from this week's Hot Type. more ›