Curation By The Beachwood Rock Local Affairs Desk
You shoulda been there.
1. Oozing Wound at the Empty Bottle on Tuesday night.
Posted on May 23, 2014
Local Music Notebook: Albini In Toyland
By Steve Rhodes
“Honestly, the biggest problem with music has always been the encroachment of outside industry into what functions best as a self-sufficient community, and that hasn’t changed,” Steve Albini tells Maureen Herman in a fresh interview this month at Boing Boing.
The difference is that now the record business is only a small influence relative to the corporate influence over live venues, ticket sales, merchandising and sponsorship.
To the extent bands keep their shit together and manage their own affairs, now is a better time than ever to be in a band.
You can record really efficiently, put a video on YouTube, release albums on Bandcamp, sell your merchandise using PayPal, fund bigger projects on Kickstarter, press up your own albums, book your own tours and keep all the money. It’s totally conceivable to run a band as a small business now, and that’s a new and radical development.
Anybody complaining about the new paradigm has simply refused to take advantage of it, and for a street-level musician the change in the industry has been fantastic.
Whenever I see some industry dinosaur pining for the old days of the sharecropper system the big labels operated on I feel about the same way I did watching the Quincy episode about punk rock.
Bitching about how different things are now betrays a profound and malignant kind of stupid.
I highly recommend reading the entire interview.
Posted on May 22, 2014
Empty Bottle Blackout
HoZac Fest Highlights
The HoZac Blackout Fest happened at the Empty Bottle over the weekend. Here are some highlights, thanks to the YouTube uploads of the indispensable seijinlee, whose channel you can subscribe to here.
1. First Base on Friday night.
Posted on May 20, 2014
The Weekend In Chicago Rock
You shoulda been there.
1. Disappears at Thalia Hall on Friday night.
See also: A Sneak Peek Inside Thalia Hall.
Posted on May 19, 2014
The Week In Chicago Rock
You shoulda been there.
1. Sister Speak at Reggies on Tuesday night.
Posted on May 16, 2014
Tweeting Riot Fest’s Truly Awesome Chicago Lineup
The Big Reveal Now An Annual Tradition
Thanks to the person behind @RiotFest, the announcement of the lineup every year has become the music world’s equivalent of the NFL draft – a man-made drama filled with speculation, hype, disappointment and surprise. Here are highlights of the best responses to this year’s announcement, made Tuesday night.
Riot Fest reveals 2014 lineups, and they’re incredible: http://t.co/SU4vHS1i0a
— Consequence of Sound (@coslive) May 14, 2014
Posted on May 14, 2014
Local Music Notebook: Exploding In Sound!
By Steve Rhodes
1. “One of the recent additions to Exploding In Sound’s ever expanding roster is the Chicago punk band Geronimo! who really earn that exclamation point in their name with the new album Cheap Trick,” Miles Bowe writes for Stereogum.
Here’s one track; you can click through for the rest.
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2. Israeli Jazz Fest continues through May 17.
3. What It’s Like To Be Muddy Waters’ Son.
Blues singer Mud Morganfield speaks about his tough upbringing in the Chicago ghetto and stepping out of his father’s shadow.
Posted on May 13, 2014
The Weekend In Chicago Rock
Curation By The Beachwood Rock Local Affairs Desk
You shoulda been there.
1. Electric Citizen at the Subterranean on Sunday night.
Posted on May 12, 2014
The Week In Chicago Rock
Curation By The Beachwood Rock Local Affairs Desk
You shoulda been there.
1. Queens of the Stone Age at the Aragon on Monday night.
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“Queens of the Stone Age singer-guitarist Josh Homme towers over his band, the audience, his music,” Greg Kot writes for the Tribune.
“He’s an imposing figure in no-nonsense black shirt and jeans, with a scarf dangling from his back pocket like a tail or a talisman. He exudes don’t-mess-with-me presence.
“But the voice is softspoken and casual, the voice of a guy who spends a lot of time in wide open spaces with not a lot of company. When he sings, he doesn’t growl or threaten so much as croon, breaking out a falsetto that belies his imposing physical stature.
Posted on May 9, 2014
Eddie Shaw Blows His Way Into Blues Hall Of Fame
Chicago Tenor Saxist One Of The Greats
“Howlin’ Wolf shouted and moaned like a man large enough to whip any demon. But this blues hero also possessed incredible control, and in the 1960s and ’70s he relied on saxophonist Eddie Shaw’s arrangements to support his unmistakable voice,” Aaron Cohen writes for the Tribune.
“If you write something, you have to put it together right,” Shaw said about arranging. “You can make a presentation to a woman and put it in a way that’ll make her say, ‘I don’t want to speak with this guy no more.’ Or you can use the same words, put them in a correct order and she’ll want to hang with you.”
“Shaw has lived fully enough during his 77 years to devise an array of such metaphors, which he revealed over cups of tea at a Mexican diner. This month, he is being recognized for his life’s accomplishments as an inductee in the Memphis-based Blues Hall Of Fame.”
Posted on May 7, 2014