Here’s Bill McKenzie, explaining the premise behind his Acoustic Aspect Recording Project: “The idea was to make what was essentially a vanity CD and get it out to friends and family and have a few to sell when the DeRocchi/ McKenzie Band play out locally.” The disc, titled This Feels Like Where I Came In, […]
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Vinyl Static
SHOWS-A-GO-GO! Is a party ever really over? The Smoking Popes certainly thought so when they recorded their final guitar-fueled romp, Party’s Over, in 1998, much to the disappointment of their legions of loyal punk minions. But nothing brings a band back together better than nostalgia. When Chicago booking institution Flower Booking turned 15 in 2005, […]
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The stuff that dreams are made of
When I was 5 or 6 years old, I believed that musicals were real. When the time was right, the people around me would burst into song, and we could finally stop worrying about what to say next because we’d all be in thrall to the music, borne aloft by an invisible orchestra. Our everyday […]
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The return of Joe Cooke
I was nearly 16 years old and heading out to the old racetrack at Clearlake and Dirksen with my sister, her boyfriend, and a few friends. Someone, probably Len Trumper, was hosting an outdoor music concert with local groups and maybe a regional headliner. I don’t remember too clearly all of those events from back […]
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Vinyl Static
CD exchange: Neil Young for president. What’s that, you say? Neil Young is Canadian! So Neil Young couldn’t be the leader of our fair democracy, but at least, we can muse, “What would Neil Young do?” With his newest release, Living in War, one can certainly formulate a solid hypothesis. The protest album unleashes Young’s […]
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No reinvention, no imitation
Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs Under the Covers, Vol. 1 (Shout! Factory) When it comes to covers, there are two schools of thought. Adherents of the first try to re-create the original song as closely as possible, which is pointless in theory yet rather lucrative in practice (could a gazillion tribute bands be wrong?). Those […]
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Vinyl Static
Shows-a-Go-Go! Before Law and Order: SVU slapped a badge on Ice-T’s chest, the rapper had Tipper Gore hyperventilating. An original of gang-sta rap and former member of heavy-metal outfit Body Count, Ice-T penned such anti-establishment rhymes as “New Jack Hustler” while attracting the attention of the second lady’s pet censorship project, Parents Music Resource Center. […]
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Funny business in Mason City
“You’d think we’re in the middle of nowhere, but actually we’re in the middle of everywhere,” says Chris Speyrer, proprietor of Mason City Limits, a three-week-old comedy club in downtown Mason City. He’s got a good point. Mason City lies about halfway between Peoria and Springfield on Route 29, a north-south highway, and halfway between […]
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Case of the missing heart
Much has been made of Neko Case’s peerless pipes, and rightly so. Her voice, a resonant contralto, is as loud as a marching band, as bright as church bells, as delicate as peony petals. If it were a color, it would be maroon. It’s even more spectacular than her abundant auburn hair, which cascades down […]
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Vinyl Static
SHOWS-A-GO-GO! The band is big, and the sound is bigger — if only the Abstract Giants could get a break. The eight-member Chicago-based hip-hop band is well known around Chicago’s established scene, but hasn’t gained much buzz outside the Windy City. It’s too bad. The Giants have the originality of the early Roots; their bass […]
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Roll out the barrel
One of the best parts of attending a polka dance is listening to the band. I love going to the old-timers’ (sorry) area at the Illinois State Fair and listening to the bands. They don’t jump around too much or amplify beyond what is necessary, and they are actual studied musicians who are proud of […]
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This dog Van Hunt
Van Hunt is the protégé of American Idol judge Randy Jackson, but try to keep an open mind. (Yeah, I know — it’s hard not to declare a pox on all their houses now that Mandisa is gone, but technically that outrageous miscarriage of justice was the voters’ fault, not the judges’.) On his sophomore […]
