By: Heidi Peters PhotographyCerebral punk. Intellectual aggression. No matter how you describe it, Bob Mould brought it to the Metro on Friday night, mixing up the thoughtful and emotional to the crowd's approval.He and the band powered through thee evening's setlist with a short break only to introduce the band and to say thank...

 Dear Chicago,I realize that Sugar Blue plays around town an awful lot.I realize that it's easy to take that fact for granted.Here's some advice: don't. Sugar just put out an new CD called Voyage and busted out of the clubs he typically plays, and checked in to Fitzgerald's for a...

Widespread Panic's lighting rig has been at a consistent level of awesome for the last several years now. But they just may have stumbled on a new use for it lately.They'd been utilizing three suspended LCD screens to flash some incredible poster images all night (some with trippy animation). Deep in the second set,...

This edition ofNotes From The Jazz Underground was culled from the April 29thbroadcast.The broadcast version fellon Duke Ellington's birthday. But just like everything else NFTJU, host Paul Abella doesn't play it straight. Offeringequal parts Ellington oddities, oddball covers and a straight-up jazz history lesson this week. He offers a bunch of notes from this...

The guitar/drums duo is a format that is finding all sorts of interesting permutations. Chicago has bred a pair of fine practitioners in Ryley Walker and Charles Rumback. Walker'sacoustic, and the sounds that hecoaxes out of it, set these guys apart -- briliant, exploratory, conversationaljams with just two instruments.Here's the duo at Chicago's...

Maybe if we all get together, close our eyes, join hands, and think really hard about it, Causa Sui will realize that there's an audience in the States for their psych-jazz-jam music.Until then, here's a video from an appearance in Copenhagen. The venue is called Jazzhouse and, like their recent record, the band is...

By: Alex WoodId be lying if I said I wasnt skeptical going in to White Denims Thalia Hall show on Saturday.Mylast two White Denim shows, during their 2014 tour, both took place in venues in the 200 and 500 capacity range. This, combined with the band's newlineup,gives reason for a longtime fan to think, or possibly...

Widespread Panic returns to Chicago this weekend to close out their Spring Tour. But they do so under the specter of recent comments alluding to a touring break or potential hiatus. An initial interview givenby JoJo Hermann ("were not going to tour anymore") proved to be so controversial, that his statementhad to be walked back...

Andrew Bird- Are You Serious [4/1]After a series of folk releases and experimental instrumentals, Are You Serious finds Andrew Bird going back to his older sound, but with a flare of accessibility that never existed prior. With a heavy emphasis on a percussion section of drums and bass within the production, the album strikes as...

This edition ofNotes From The Jazz Underground was culled from the April 22nd broadcast, Charles Mingus' birthday.What was planned as astraight tribute set to Minguswas hijacked a few days before by the untimely passing of Prince.That's great news for radio listeners, but for those checking in to our site for the streamable playlist,...