3/8/08 Schubas Tavern in Chicago This was a fantastic night of music, headed by Seattle’s Grand Archives, a five piece led by Matt Brooke, previously of Band of Horses and Carissa’s Weird. Grand Archives stays truer to form to Carissa’s Weird with more of the darker introspective sense than the overblown rock band I’ve always [...]
I’ve got a problem. You see, about five or six years ago, I discovered the fantastically weird world of the Super Furry Animals, led by Gruff Rhys and I can’t get his songs out of my head. It was spring in the year 2000 and everywhere, things were starting to grow again. I found Mwng [...]
2/16/08 Cabaret Metro in Chicago I hold these truths to be self evident: 1. The Super Furry Animals are one of the top ten bands of all time. 2. The Super Furry Animals put on one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen. 3. Out of all of the bands putting out music in [...]
Feb 1st, 2008 Park West in Chicago Two Men. Eight Turntables. Hundreds of seven inches and musical mayhem. Friday’s night’s sold out Park West show saw the meeting of two great minds: Cut Chemist (aka Lucas MacFadden) and DJ Shadow, otherwise known as Josh Davis. The two have collaborated both with other djs and eachother [...]
12/15/07 Hideout in Chicago I didn’t know what to expect of Allroh, who flew into Chicago from Berlin just to play the afternoon Shellac show in a very rare North American performance on Saturday. She gleamed in white and carried a piercing look in her eyes as heavy as a suitcase. As she played those [...]
12/7/07 Logan Square Auditorium I don’t want to get too personal here but the whole tone of the evening leading up to seeing Balkan Beat Box was replete with the bittersweet. After losing one friend to Seattle, I had to say goodbye to another good friend of mine who is heading west. The way I [...]
I know I know…I haven’t posted in forever have I? Let me tell you about how I’ve felt he last few weeks. Coughing until I was in danger of fracturing ribs, four medications including two different inhalers, bandaging up my rib cage every day and night, soreness, nausea…such is the world of Pertussis AKA Whooping [...]
Cabaret Metro 11/8/07 There are a few times in a year when I see a band and come away from it inspired and changed. The experience is transcendent and visceral and has taken me to another place. Such is the case of last Thursday’s Caribou set and even though I’ve seen well over a hundred [...]
Well, of course I do….I mean, having lived for so long so close to the border, I learned to love the finer cultured things in life (which also means Canada) I even went as a Canadian to a Halloween party…ok, ok you got me. That just meant I put on my Besnard Lakes shirt and [...]
11/1/7 Logan Square Auditorium in Chicago This is the second time I’ve had the opportunity to see Tom Brosseau, the talented singer songwriter who was born and raised in North Dakota and swoons with a tenor to accompany his acoustic guitar finger plucking (and occasional harmonica playing) in a more traditional folk style. Perhaps the [...]