2007

Lollapalooza brings some big acts to Chicago every year, but does the festival wield a double-edged sword? Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jim DeRogatis takes a look at how performers signing Lollapalooza’s exclusive contracts actually hurts the city’s sheds. Also, buried within this piece is the news that Jam Productions plans to open a new venue in Hoffman Estates next summer.

Let’s check in on some other news and interesting links on the world wide web:

• Arcade Fire owned Chicago this weekend
• Roger Daltrey is not a fan of the upcoming Live Earth concerts
• Good news: Levon’s ready to travel!
• Passion of the Weiss lists the 10 bands he’s most excited to see at Bonnaroo (girls in sun dresses do not count, Jeff)
• Classic Rock bootleg time: Rush – 1978, Journey – 1986, Nirvana – Various, and Tom Petty – 1980
• Stewart Copeland has high hopes for The Police’s reunion tour, which kicks off on Sunday
• Lady Sovereign lost it during her concert at Studio B on Friday night
• Bruce Hornsby takes a new path
• The NY Post looks at reunions that aren’t
• It’s Mule Monday over at Rock Music Daily
• Adrian Belew blogs about recording Paul Simon’s Graceland
• A new podcast of Widespread Panic tunes from the EC crew
• Rochester’s Party in the Park and Buffalo’s Thursdays at the Square are two amazing free concert series that just released their summer lineups
• M. Ward played Chinese Translation on Conan last week with fellow beloved indie heroes Neko Case, MMJ’s Jim James, Kelly Hogan, Mike Coykendall, Than Luu, & Adam Selzer
• Neddy presents the concerts of the week

As is our Monday custom, let’s take a look at some setlists from the weekend, including but not limited to Arcade Fire in Chicago, Steely Dan, Brock Butler, Tool, Damien Rice, Disco Biscuits, The Sea & Cake, ZZ Top and many more…

Good Monday morning, folks. For this week’s stormy soundtrack, we’re revisiting my best mix tape. I ran the first half of this a few weeks ago for the Friday Mix

Now is the summer of our nostalgia, made glorious by these bands of yore. Add another quasi-reunion to the growing list: Eric Clapton joined former Blind Faith mate Steve Winwood

We’ll start off this week’s recap with a smidgen of news: The Chairman of the Boards has signed on to play the High Sierra Music Festival for the first time

In between hitting live shows this weekend, why don’t you make the most of the $100 you spend each month for cable and set your DVR to record these shows…

Wednesday night presented a truly inexplicable double bill, and everyone that asked me where I was headed heard the same sheepish response: “Well, it’s a band most commonly called chk chk chk, but it’s really three exclamation points that can be pronounced with any three repetitive mono-syllabic grunts. Oh, and Holy Fuck is opening.” Okay, but then how do I pronounce chk chk chk?

The name dissection thing’s getting old, but it’s hard to escape your own branding. And when you’ve emblazoned the scarlet !!! on your traveling marquee, you best be prepared to bring the triple-exclamatory noise and/or funk. Luckily for my fellow speed-freak showgoers at the sold-out Bowery Ballroom, this quasi-hometown, eight-piece dance-punk troupe tore up the joint with a lively mix of rabidly energetic tunes from the new Myth Takes album and Louden Up Now.

Read on for more great Danfun photos and the rest of this evening’s review…

We’ve got a double dose of our regular Friday “The Kidzz Are Alright” subset of Pullin’ ‘Tubes. So instead of wasting time with our usual pre-video blather, let’s jump right into the