WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

I'd never be so vain as to think that the song is about me (and don't you, don't you), but "Working Day," the opening track on the much-ballyhooed collaboration between twee piano balladeer and sorority heartthrob Ben Folds and English author and devout music lover Nick "High Fidelity" Hornby sure covers any of us who've been dubious about and/or oblivious to the charms of the former in the past. "I'm a loser and a poser"... Everything I write is s---," Folds sings, delivering Hornby's words in a quirky multi-tracked chirp over an annoyingly bubbly synth. "Some guy on the Net/Thinks I suck/And he should know/He's got his own blog."

Well, despite this blogger's predisposed aversion to most things Folds, that is offset by an equally strong and abiding fondness for all things Hornby -- heck, I even appreciated his screenplay for that unbearably creepy 2009 film "An Education" -- and there was no reason why on paper this pairing wouldn't work. Folds certainly has old-school Tin Pan Alley songwriter-for-hire chops, he just has no taste.

…Read Full Entry

• Comments
• Send
• Print
• Share
• Recommend
• Tweet

Here’s our regular look at the best live music happening this weekend.

There’s no denying that Austin’s psychedelic/electronic combo the Octopus Project boasts the coolest theremin (and the coolest theremin player) in rock today, but it would be no more than an intriguing novelty if that bizarre and mysterious instrument was all it had going for it. As amply evidence by its new album “Hexadecagon,” the fourth of its career, the group also has mastered the creation of unique and otherworldly soundscapes all its own.

…Read Full Entry

• Comments
• Send
• Print
• Share
• Recommend
• Tweet

Though longtime fans will debate whether Screeching Weasel is really still Screeching Weasel without John "Jughead" Pierson in the band, no one will deny that the group not only is one of the finest as well as the longest-running punk bands that Chicago has ever produced, but it's been one of the most influential in the U.S. in general throughout the last two decades, inspiring myriad pop-punk groups that have followed in its snotty but tuneful wake.

…Read Full Entry

• Comments
• Send
• Print
• Share
• Recommend
• Tweet

When I first caught the formerly Chicago, now Traverse City, Michigan-based trio Salem at the Biz 3 showcase at South by Southwest last March, I was struck by the fact that I hadn’t seen an electronic group so polarize an audience since Suicide back in the day. The dense, difficult, sludgy, but sexy sound was simultaneously alienating and seductive, with elements of trip-hop, gothic darkwave, classical chorale music, Southern hip-hop, and electronic pop.

…Read Full Entry

• Comments
• Send
• Print
• Share
• Recommend
• Tweet

The group breaks no ground on “Wilderness Heart,” but that’s not what it’s about. These 10 tracks are a loving homage to a dazed and confused era of massive fuzz and feedback, thundering drums, a mood of ponderous, portentious doom and gloom bordering on the near-apocalyptic, and riffs, man, riffs.

…Read Full Entry

• Comments
• Send
• Print
• Share
• Recommend
• Tweet

From the point of view of the musician onstage, there can be no better sight than to look out mid-song and see a throng of people dancing.

On a good night, when the band is in synch and firing on all cylinders, the non-verbal communication between members locked into the same rhythms, anticipating one another’s next moves and simultaneously reacting to and spurring them on, is the most intimate exchange that people can have outside of sex.

When listeners are dancing in response to these sounds, this deep and visceral connection extends into the audience, the feedback loop expands, and the energy swap grows ever more intense.

You play harder, tighter, maybe a bit faster, and certainly with more spirit. You have to: The dancers depend on it.

…Read Full Entry

• Comments
• Send
• Print
• Share
• Recommend
• Tweet

Film School

The punk-rock chaos of Riot Fest continues to dominate the club calendar this weekend, but there's plenty of other energetic happenings as well, starting with long-running indie-rock favorites Film School tonight.

…Read Full Entry

• Comments
• Send
• Print
• Share
• Recommend
• Tweet