A slaughterhouse employee stands on his patio, looking out toward his suburban swathe of land. In front of him, colors swirl. Large animals appear dancing alongside him. Blood drips. Distorted voices waver in the distance. The man stands motionless, reverent at the specter around him, anticipating a series of magical and tragic events. His silhouette […]

There’s a level of confidence (or is it arrogance?) that comes with naming your band after one of the British Invasion’s staple songs, just ask California power poppers Hellogoodbye or Danish rockers Kashmir. So when Picture Books took on the moniker of arguably The Kinks’ most beloved tune, the band set itself up for a […]

Who says you can’t go home again? For 38-year-old Tommie Sunshine, the Windy City will welcome its prodigal DJ son back this month with open turntables. The now-New York-based beatsmith has built his decades-old reputation on mixing contemporary rock tracks into thumping dance club anthems. Even today, as his puffy beard comes highlighted with a […]

Music long has been a family affair for The Cribs’ Gary Jarman. It might be a tired cliché, but some things become common rhetoric because of their truthfulness. As the 29-year-old bassist/vocalist for the English ensemble, Jarman has built his lad rocking life around the things most important to him: music and his loved ones. […]

Chicago is home to many musical genres. It’s a blues city, with the down-and-out sounds of the Delta traveling up the Mississippi River and landing in the Windy City. It’s an industrial town, with the late-night house music of the ’80s settling into overnight, near violent dance parties. It’s a soul haven, with hip hop […]

It’s been eight years since Pete Yorn released his woefully underrated musicforthemorningafter, a somber, heartfelt collection of New Jersey Turnpike love songs with just a hint of Garden State gruff. But the 35-year-old songwriter’s subsequent two albums (in 2003 and 2006, respectively) found the brooding vocalist reaching too far beyond his crumbling relationships by writing […]

Does it really come as that big of a surprise that King Khan & BBQ had hallucinogenic drugs in their van? Is it all that shocking that the boundary-pushing, garage rock madmen who parade around stage in elaborate and oft-revealing costumes might associate with people who dig the proverbial trip? Those suspicions became fact on […]

Call it what you will — a rejuvenation, a renaissance, a refocusing — but Chicago’s Tight Phantomz has undergone a stylistic awakening since the release of 2005’s Crazy When Wet. Back then, frontman Mike Lust barreled through his ’70s-style glam-rock tunes with a full-on cucumber-in-the-pants swagger. But the departure of his bandmates in 2006 provided […]

It’s not easy being aggressive yet approachable, tough yet whimsical, fun yet no-frills. It’s something that frontwomen Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Shingai Shoniwa of The Noisettes do masterfully, and The Grates’ Patience Hodgson hits all the same notes. As the voice of the Australian threesome, Hodgson’s frantic howl pops up as often […]

What’s in a name anyways? For Wolfmother, it’s Andrew Stockdale. And for the Australian hard-rock ensemble, it’s Stockdale — not his bandmates — that ensures the band’s blazing, arena-ready riffs. In fact, his boastful warble is so intrinsically Wolfmother that when two-thirds of the band quit last November, it wasn’t the least bit odd for […]