Words / Photo: Alex WoodPokey Lafarge & The South City Three played a boisterous, confident set at Lincoln Hall, packed to the brim with the energy of all their pre-WWII musical idols rolled into one.Swing. Ragtime. Blues. Jazz. Country. Folk.The band owned every single one.Even beneath the entertaining stage personality that Pokey himself...

Reporting by @WeirScrewedCrafting a true "destination" event can be as risky for a promoter as the improvisational turns that performers take on stage. Stakes are higher when the music is delivered by a one time configuration, then ratcheted up another notch when the supergroup draws from a pool best known for both Grateful Dead related...

Photos: Adam McCall PhotographyIt's been almost fifteen years since I first saw Yonder Mountain String Band perform at their first ever Chicago area show, huddled around a single microphone at Abbey Pub for no more than about two dozen people. Billing themselves at the time as "Colorado's Nakedest Bluegrass", this intriguing (yet meaningless) tagline, along...

If you're reading this site, and especially this post, it's likely that you're no casual music fan. It's time consuming, but not so bad being a hard-core -- we can obsess a little, we explore and poke and look for the next great thing... and sometimes we discover gold. Yes, every now and then, this...

Words & Photos by @WeirScrewedFrank Zappa is one of the most polarizing musicians in the history of rock music. It's not uncommon to see, depending on what part of his songbook a critic is familiar with, to find points of view ranging from dismissive to reverential. It's true that tunes like "Valley Girl" or "Bobby Brown"...

It was another fine fall weekend with Widespread Panic in Milwaukee. Indeed, these are great times to be a Panic fan, and these shows really drove that home, so I'm offering a list of reasons why, with the Milwaukee run as my supporting detail. Special thanks to Adam Misewski and The Riverside Theater for use...

Words & Photos: Matt Van GronigenThe crowd was packed tight and it was a challenge to navigate the bodies during of Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers performance at Lincoln Hall. As part of this event, the audience submitted their dreams to be projected on the wall during the performance. Yes, World Peace made the list,...

Photos and additional reporting by Adam McCallThere's something going on in Aurora.Wait... Aurora? Home of Wayne's World? Closer to Joliet than Chicago? Well, actually, yeah.We've been hip to the fine Two Brothers Brewery for a while now. Their brewpub is situated in the old Burlington Northern Roundhouse at the end of the line...

There is nothing quite like a musical institution that spans generations, within the band and the audience. Chicago finally got another chance to experience the foremost purveyors of this experience, The Allman Brothers Band, up-close-and-personal for two nights in August. I was able to catch one of the shows (night two, Wednesday), but eagerly followed...

Words and Photos: Captain Deep-TrackThe City of Chicago was alive with the sounds of music this past weekend as the annual Lollapalooza festivities rolled into town. Tens of thousands of die hard music fans crowded Grant Park on Chicago's beautiful lakeside, as dozens of today's hottest musicians rocked several stages from midday to sunset and...