There's a warm front heading in, so hot in fact, that steam looks downright cool. And since we're not all gonna die - not yet - in a towering planetary hot-house inferno, let's go to a show! Chicago's tripped-out, acid-burned, shattered glass-sharded (but bulletproof) trio du jour Dead Rider are blazing off into the sunrise with their tour of the east-by-north-and-south-east next month. Tagging with the Mountain Goats, the (Dead) Riders of the storm will also be headlining solo shows in Chicago, New... (read more)

With five full length albums under their belt, No Age has matured beyond their sweaty basement days, ramshackle rhythms and primitive songwriting. These days they ride high on skillful experimentation in song-writing which produces blistering tunes that defy categorization. Their intensity and vigor has remained constant over all these years, but the final product is more polished than ever.

Snares Like A Haircut leaps out of the gate like vintage No Age: after an initial set of raw pummelers radiating with waves... (read more)

The totally impending Mike Donovan solo trip How to Get Your Record Played In Shops is, like any great work of emancipation, not without its label-branded promotional portent! As we are still six weeks from drop-down date, how's about a second taste? Dig "Spiral Tee Shirt"!

Does anything exemplify the prevailing cultural mood of tech apology more than the plight of the San Francisco cab driver?  Driven to the brink of existence, this nearly forgotten and highly skilled lot of John... (read more)

Trust Alasdair Roberts to hit us with something new that bears the name of one of the oldest kingdoms in pre-Christendom! Ali's immersive exploration of traditional ballads is not rightly new - see 2005's No Earthly Man and 2010's Too Long In This Condition for other masterful entries in this category - but his possession of the ancient songs always comes with a deft, modern twist. This is at least part of what makes What News such refreshingly contemporaneous listening. Collaborating with Concerto Caledonia... (read more)

If the emblem of Wand's Plum was the stark blue cloud - a condensation, a linking between longing molecules, data hungering for more data, a flotilla of vapor between eye and sky - then Wand's new EP reeks of something more forceful, more seductive, more intoxicating, more insidious: this is "Perfume." Here are seven electric hues, shocks of light that flagrantly provoke the dark, a posy's clutch of purple, fuchsia, green and snowy white that curl against a stench of plague.... (read more)

CARRY ON

New dawn again, right? Same old new dawn….same old promise of tomorrow! It’s all we’ve ever lived for way down here in ye ol’ Ivory Bunker. Now you can say what you will about Drag City (you were anyway before we interrupted), but it really HAS always been about something that’s new, from the very beginning and all the way up until now. The goal is to put out a record from someone we admire and trust that will... (read more)

Mike Donovan is LIVE! Here is a mysterious man, cheerful and dark. You don't want to get in too deep but it's too late. It is Donovan's way this time around, and he's flying the freak flag himself. Mike D's roots in Sic Alps and The Peacers advances down the line, with the man himself still jiving down on main street, a footloose man of the world, twisting the dial further and further left. Donovan's forthcoming solo LP, How to Get Your... (read more)

As Ty Segall's Freedom's Goblin proves, freedom should be experienced by everyone, all the time, all over the world. Thus, the Freedom's Goblin tour swerves East as we enter the final days of February! First, Ty and the Freedom Band carry the torch to Seoul, South Korea, for a different type of winter games than have dominated their northerly neighbors all month. And that's just a pit stop, as the following week, the gang lands in Tokyo for a string of Japanese dates to... (read more)

Dean Spunt and Randy Randall continue to dig deep into their seemingly endless bag of tricks with another string of tour dates beginning tonight! More than ten years removed from their debut, No Age continues to reinvent, reflect and progress in vital fashion, as proven on their latest, Snares Like A Haircut! Melding cacophonous noise, dreamlike melodies and blasting tones, No Age are bursting with fresh, roaring sounds at adrenal speed. Not bad for a couple of dads with four full lengths and countless... (read more)

Yes! Chris Gantry's fixin' to give us a whole lotta outlaw love next Thursday, when he brings his acoustic guitar and playful, badass attitude to the friendly confines of The Hideout here in Chicago! It's the first Chicago performance from Chris that we're aware of in our little lifetime, or at least all that can be revealed by our internet machine or Chris' septuagenarian mind! Regardless, this performance is a BIG DEAL as it might be your first and last chance to see this... (read more)