Tell the truth. You read the headline and already you’re seeing goofily dressed guys and gals slugging steins of beer and dancing to accordion atrocities, aren’t you? “Most people write polka off as a joke,” says Carl Finch, the founder of Brave Combo of Denton, Texas, “but when it’s approached from a nonjudgmental position it’s […]
Music
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Showcase
I like American music, and not just the Violent Femmes’ tune, either. This weekend, Taste of Downtown’s American Music Show presents a tiny slice of our vast music scene to entertain the masses. Vinyl Static wants to help you like American music, too — or at least enjoy the out-of-town roots rockers who will be […]
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Testing an illusory world
Lady & Bird is the intriguing, if slight, side project of Keren Ann Zeidel and Bardi Johannsson. Zeidel, an Israel-born Frenchwoman who now shuttles between Paris and New York, has two domestic solo releases under her belt: her English-language debut, Not Going Anywhere (2004), and Nolita, its half-French, half-English follow-up (2005). American critics slobbered mightily over […]
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A hodgepodge of heads-ups
The near future is plumb full of live-music goodies, starting Friday, June 30, with Dreaming in Colour, a longtime local favorite, back onstage with a performance in the Club Room of the Hoogland Center for the Arts (420 S. Sixth St., 217-523-2787) at 9 p.m. The jazz-fusion combo goes beyond that meager description and enters […]
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Matters of the heart
As long as there are girls who are suckers for sad boys, there will be a place in the global economy for the likes of Syd Matters. You won’t hear me complaining. If those girls can be blamed for The O.C. and James “Rhymes With” Blunt, they also deserve the credit for Wuthering Heights and […]
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Goodbye, old friend
GOODBYE, OLD FRIEND: The news was posted, and Vinyl Static heard the line of dominoes fall — furious message-board posts, the rat-a-tat-tat of stunned bloggers, and a collective gasp — as the short and sweet announcement sank in: Sleater-Kinney is calling it quits. If you aren’t familiar with the Olympia, Wash., trio of punk rioters […]
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VINYL STATIC
SINGLES ONLY: Most alternative genres only have a few good years. The success of an insular subgenre can quickly turn free-spirited tunes into novelty tracks for tacky compilations churned out a few years down the road. But in the case of the variety of music often labeled “freak folk” or “the new weird America,” the […]
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No pain, no gain
Listening to Evangelista, Carla Bozulich’s latest album, is like watching someone carve off strips of her own skin, fold them into dainty origami shapes, and present them on a cloisonné tray. The effect is at once horrifying and soothing, visceral and delicate, like Memoirs of a Geisha rewritten by Yukio Mishima. At times, the former singer […]
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Captain Rat and the What?
In 1980, somewhere near the twin towns of Champaign and Urbana, Captain Rat and the Blind Rivets emerged as a musical entity. Between then and now the peculiarly named band has taken its well-crafted, delightfully goofy show from the Rose Bowl to Soldier Field and to countless festivals, nightclubs, homecomings, jamborees, and shindigs in between. […]
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VINYL STATIC
SINGLES ONLY: A chat is long overdue concerning Nelly Furtado’s feverish new single “Promiscuous.” Remember Nelly? She unleashed the ballad “I’m Like a Bird” from the successful album Whoa, Nelly in 2000. It wasn’t a club hit, but plenty of waiting-room occupants bobbed their heads to it on the way to root canals. The Canadian […]
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Bringing out the best
At least half of all marriages end in divorce, and the rate at which bands break up has to be even higher, so what are the odds that a husband-and-wife band could succeed in the long run? Whatever they are, Brett and Rennie Sparks are beating them. The Sparkses have been married for 18 years, […]
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One for Mom
When Gary Bloom received an inheritance after his mother died last August, he knew what he wanted to do with it. “Why buy a TV or a bunch of junk?” asks the big voice of local rockers, the Groove Daddies. “I wanted to do something that would really honor her.” Bloom, an integral part of […]
