Category Chicago music
PHAIR WEATHER FRIEND: Hanging Out In Guyville 25+ Years Later
It’s been a life-altering twenty five-plus years since we were all twenty five (or thereabouts), an age when most of us don’t have much of a clue about how life-altering the next twenty five years are going to be.
SECRET WINDFALLS & DIAMONDS DOWN THE DRAIN: The Vinyl Skyway’s Long Cool Journey
Time always seemed to stand still whenever one of The Vinyl Skyway’s songs would crackle to life on the radio inside my parents’ car on a cold-as-chrome winter’s afternoon. I remember being 14 and hunched toward the gleaming dashboard dial as if receiving a secret transmission. There was always something inviting, if somehow slightly baleful, […]
FLASHING STAR: The Gorgeous Gospel of Kevin Junior’s Chamber Strings
Not nearly enough people got the chance (or took the time) to listen to the music Kevin Junior made during his short lifetime, which ended one year ago today at age 46. But there’s a good chance that most of those who did have never forgotten what they heard. And hear still. Today we’re remembering […]
FROM GRAVEDIGGER TO TROUBADOUR: Life Above Ground With Ike Reilly’s Schemers, Dreamers & Junkie Faithful
Reilly’s songs teem with lowlifes, hustlers, and have-nots, dazed by despair, embittered by regret, and hardened by circumstance. Ever the sly, sardonic observer, Ike takes it all in from his perch in the shadows. His personae, like his music, shifts, bobs and weaves: sage, fool, jester, street-corner prophet, Reilly’s all of these things – sometimes within the same song.
RPM: Jonathan Perry's Life in Analog 