“A year without music venues, without audiences, without seeing other people play has really made me realize how important that is for me.”
Tag: Sam Wagster
Posted inMusic
Art-pop wizard Sen Morimoto takes over booking at the Hideout
Art-pop wizard Sen Morimoto takes over booking at the Hideout, and self-described “bootgaze” crew the Keener Family return with a second EP.
Posted inMusic
Tim Kinsella’s Friend/Enemy re-emerges after 18 years with koans about America’s nightmare
Immediately after the 2016 presidential election, Tim Kinsella and a coterie of collaborators gathered at Chicago’s Minbal studios to work through their feelings about America’s new nightmare. It took them two days to record an album of solemn, fretful indie rock, and then it took them more than three years to release it. HIH NO/ON […]
Posted inMusic
Mute Duo release a taut, painterly album for pedal steel and drums
Mute Duo release a taut, painterly album for pedal steel and drums, young neo-classic rockers Rookie celebrate their debut, and more.
Posted inMusic
Amalea Tshilds’s new Love on the Ground turns French poetry into harmony-rich Americana
Amalea Tshilds is a familiar face to anyone who’s ever enjoyed a meal at Logan Square’s beloved Lula Cafe, but in the past few years she’s also raised her profile as a singer-songwriter. It’s a decided shift from running the neighborhood restaurant she’s co-owned for more than two decades, but her musical pursuits are hardly […]
Posted inMusic
Psych-pop group Roommate play their first Chicago show in more than two years
Psych-pop group Roommate play their first Chicago show in more than two years, DJ Clent spins at another giant juke, footwork, and ghetto-house blowout, and more.
Posted inFilm
Studies in repressed sexuality: Lon Chaney’s The Unknown and Boris Karloff’s The Old Dark House
Two psychologically loaded horror classics return for Halloween.
Posted inMusic
Steve Mizek’s Argot label celebrates five years of top-shelf electronic music
Steve Mizek’s Argot label celebrates five years of top-shelf electronic music, Cole’s hosts a Halloween cover-band benefit for Mexico and Puerto Rico, and more.
Posted inMusic
RIP Trey Gruber of promising young Chicago band Parent
Trey Gruber of up-and-coming Laurel Canyon-style rockers Parent has died at age 26.
Posted inMusic
Jim Dorling of the Pillowhammer on a kinder, gentler sort of earworm
Current musical obsessions of the Reader’s Peter Margasak, the Pillowhammer’s Jim Dorling, and the Father Costume’s Sam Wagster
Posted inMusic
Six of the month’s best Chicago releases in rock, rap, and dance
Reviews of new music by Flesh Panthers, J Fernandez, Lil Durk, the Singleman Affair, T.B. Arthur, and the Valenteens
Posted inBest of Chicago
Best Rock Band
Onstage they crank up the energy and intensity of the gentle, soulful folk-rock from their album while preserving its gorgeous group harmony singing.