Get your credit cards ready. Here are the best upcoming concerts to go on sale this week. more ›

At first we wondered how a bus-full of rowdy Hideout regulars -- musicians, employees, and employees -- would be greeted by a city like D.C. We pictured streams of lobbyists and grumpy Republicans growling with disdain at a ragtag group dressed up in their finest duds of proms long past. more ›

Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head and Three Floyds' Nick Floyd are two of the more extreme brewmasters working today. So when the two of them decided to collaborate on an experimental ale, the mind boggles at what they could create. more ›

The huge banner containing an image of President-elect Barack Obama and makes it pretty obvious that Hideout's owners and staff were pretty vocal supporters of the dude when he was running for office and are tickled pink that he's about to take the reins. more ›

You wouldn’t necessarily know it by looking at him, but Dean “Deano” Schlabowske is a traditional kind of guy. Well, at least he is when it comes to wine. After 17 years in the wine business, Dean decided to put his experience to good use. His motto? Corporate wine still sucks. No, really, that’s what it says on the sign posted on the window of Cellar Rat Wine Shop, his two-month-old Wicker Park store. And he should know: He spent 15 years working for two of Chicago’s largest wine retailers (no, we’re not gonna name names; you figure it out). more ›

Richard Buckner ain’t your porch-sitting, whiskey-sipping, long-lost-love-ruing folk singer - he’s the sound of an adulthood spent clawing through the shadowy underside of America in search of the indefinable sense of self and place. Buckner’s eighth studio effort, Meadow, was recently released on indie hipmonster Merge Records, and is the latest chapter the ever-evolving tale of disappearing comfort and aggravated desire that makes Buckner a favorite soundtrack to coffee Sunday mornings and late night therapy sessions. This complexity is brought to life by a band that's a veritable who’s-who of fundamental players in independent music: Doug Gillard (Guided By Voices, Cobra Verde); Kevin March (GBV, Those Bastard Souls, Dambuilders); JD Foster, and Steven Goulding (Mekons, Gram Parker, Waco Brothers). more ›

Whew! We made it through all the familial obligations of the holiday season. It’s a dead week at work and that means we need some stuff to do at night. This week offers a lot of possibilities for getting together for a pint or two before we even hit New Year’s Eve. If the Christmas hangover is gone, head over to the Hideout tonight for a Boxing Day Show with Kelly Hogan and Scott Ligon.... more ›

Today Bloodshot Records releases a 2-disc set commemorating existing for 11 years and Chicagoist is for one very excited about it. This isn’t the normal run-of-the-mill retrospective that repackages music previously released by the label. The 42 songs on For A Decade of Sin: 11 Years of Bloodshot Records are new and previously unreleased. Sure, the old, reliable Bloodshot artists are there: Bobby Bare, Jr., Waco Brothers, Old 97s, and Kelly Hogan to name a few, but they’ve also added some of the friends they’ve made along the way, such as My Morning Jacket, Mary Lou Lord and the Handsome Family. more ›