Your 21st Century Digital Boy has had quite a weekend: ham, potato salad, green bean casserole and plenty o’ gleaning and gossip on the boobtube front. In lieu of a…
Rob Smith
1 Min Read
In Bull Durham, Kevin Costner’s character Crash Davis chides Nuke LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) for his laziness and lack of focus on the game of baseball. “You got a gift,” he…
Matchup Monkey
1 Min Read
…Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre.Á‚ So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the…
Ann Logue
2 Min Read
Wednesday was our last night in Iceland and the second-to-the last night of the Reykjavik Blues Festival. It was a great show to end on, too. Willie “Big Eyes” Smith…
Kelly Stitzel
1 Min Read
Pull up a carpet square, kids — it’s story time. Today I’d like to tell you a tale about one of the most frightening nightmares I’ve ever had. It’s a…
Robert Cass
1 Min Read
Near the beginning of The Woman in Red, a 1984 comedy written and directed by and starring Gene Wilder (it’s a remake of a French film whose title translates to “An Elephant Can…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Bob Seger – Train Man from Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man (1968) Martin Sexton – Purple Rain from Solo (2008) Marshall Crenshaw – There She Goes Again from Marshall Crenshaw (1982) Mark…
Jack Feerick
1 Min Read
Rock ‘n’ roll and Gospel music have a long and contentious history, traditionally operating at odds to one another; and while it’s tempting to view that divide as entirely racial,…
Jason Hare
2 Min Read
Hi, everybody! This week’s CHART ATTACK! takes us back a whopping 22 years, and wow, do I feel old, considering I remember hearing just about every single one of these…
Tom Werman
2 Min Read
[Editor’s Note: Earlier this week, a large chunk of this installment was lost in one of the Internet’s many tubes. We’ve since expanded it to its intended length, and are…
Arend Anton
2 Min Read
We have now reached the last of a three part series concerning the three taboos of cinema. Thus far we have discussed the use of profanity and violence, leaving us…
Michael Burke
2 Min Read
Musical genres can be helpful for fans: They allow music to be categorized; grouped with other artists that sound similar. If you like Metallica, you will probably like Slayer. If…
Dw. Dunphy
2 Min Read
Can I get a head count of all the bloggers out there reading this? Ten? Thirty-two? Forty-eight? … All of you? Well then, I suppose all of you will understand…
Jon Cummings
2 Min Read
“Someone sent some big-shot Agent here to take a look at me But he left before I even started Then said that I was talent-free I’m having that kind of…
Ed Murray
1 Min Read
From its inception, the band Cactus was always supposed to be a supergroup. The rhythm section of late-“Ëœ60s psychedelic sludge rockers Vanilla Fudge — namely, bassist Tim Bogert and drummer…
Scott Malchus
1 Min Read
Each spring when Great Strides rolls around and we begin fundraising for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Julie and I do our best to write a letter that grabs people’s attentions…
Ann Logue
2 Min Read
The Reykjavik Blues Festival was started in 2003 by Halldor Bragason, a blues guitarist from Iceland who studied music in the United States. Halldor has performed with many of the…
Tony Redman
1 Min Read
Here’s the soundtrack to one of the most unusual (and dated) Peanuts specials out there. The year is 1983. Charles Schulz, inspired by the movie Flashdance released earlier that year,…
Rob Smith
1 Min Read
Wasn’t aware that Uncle Donnie had a hand in the movie business until I found this missive.Á‚ Of course, the “properties” he’s pushing probably explain why.Á‚ Still, wouldn’t it be…
Ken Shane
2 Min Read
The definition of “cool” is a very amorphous thing. Basically, it depends on who’s doing the defining. One thing that a lot of people agree on these days is that…
Dw. Dunphy
1 Min Read
It’s not that I wanted to hate the new QueensrÁƒ¿che album, American Soldier. I never approach a new record with the desire to dislike it, no matter who it is,…
David Medsker
1 Min Read
Props to Will Harris for bringing this Danish group to my attention. God, I miss bands like this. Let’s not mince words about the kind of music Alphabeat plays because,…
Dave Steed
1 Min Read
Let’s hop right into the music this week and stray all over the map within the borders of the letter J, looking at songs that charted no higher than #41…
Ann Logue
1 Min Read
In Icelandic, it’s a klubbar blueshatidar — a blues club — at least for the week of the Reykjavik Blues Festival. The rest of the year, the Cafe Rosenberg is…
Taylor Long
1 Min Read
Cursive, “From The Hips” (download) [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/ZgJfr-195xk” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] “From the Hips” is one of the tracks that most echoes the band’s earliest sentiments on their excellent new…
Zack Dennis
1 Min Read
In 1998, Terrence McNally’s play “Corpus Christi” was first performed in New York City. It wasn’t hard to predict that portraying Jesus as a promiscuous homosexual living in Corpus Christi,…
Ann Logue
1 Min Read
Al Gore was in Chicago last week, but without his PowerPoint deck. He was part of the Speaker Series, the post-Obama political craze. Gore talked about the role of carbon…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Before singer/songwriter Carly Simon attempted to fully embrace the excess of the ’80s with a misguided stab at New Wave, she released this single in 1982 from the soundtrack of…
Ann Logue
1 Min Read
I’m a Chicagoan on a working vacation in Iceland, writing about the financial crisis for a hedge fund trade magazine and taking in geysers. When I realized that my…
Ted Asregadoo
1 Min Read
DOWNLOAD THE FULL MIX HERE If there’s a not-so-subtle subtext to this mix, it would be singers who have raspy voices.Á‚ And if there was a disclaimer, it would be…