By Alex Wood / Photo: John RiordanOn Saturday night prior to Sundays rainy Lollapalooza performance, White Denim played an electric set at Chicago's The Empty Bottle. The official aftershow was the bands first performance at the small venue, the energy from which was felt in the music and the sold-out audience alike.Like most of the...

There was a pure, collective excitement about White Denim at Metro that I haven't felt in a good long time. With so many regular contributors to this site in attendance, I asked a few of them to contribute short thoughts to our "team coverage", while I chime in with my thoughts of my own below....

Fact: there is outstanding music every weekend in Chicago.But sometimes you just have to shake your head, sigh, and realize how lucky we are to have this city as our playground.What's more, the highlights of this weekend's cavalcade of stars feature that are right smack in our wheelhouse. the jambands, supergroups, heavy funk,...

As with last year, I'm not going to try to rank the best shows, songs or albums of the year (though some thoughts on albums are here and here). I want to use my year end list to capture the musical things that had the biggest impact on me -- and also provide an excuse...

Here's a follow up to our Best Of The First Half of 2013 post. Thanks again to @WeirScrewed for contributing the first part of this list (the six albums with the more detailed write-ups).I (Steve - @thebarnpresents) have added some additional selections, and some one-liners of my own, at the end of the post. You...

We welcomed writer / photographer Alex Wood to the fold in 2013 and couldn't be happier with his contributions. Before his association with the site, it had been his yearly tradition to circulate a top albums list amongst his friends. We're excited to publish the 2013 edition here to kick off our 2013 year-in-review coverage.1. DAFT PUNK - RANDOM...

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...

White Denim returned to Chicago's Lincoln Hall for the second time in 2012, attempting to impress as they did in April. This time, they were backed by the corporate sponsored Bonnaroo 365 Tour, with openers Team Spirit and Maps and Atlases along with comedian Sasheer Zamata acting as emcee between sets. As they did in April, they...

Halloween is on a Wednesday this year, and apparently that means six full days of Halloween musical goodness in Chicago. While the bulk of the "costume" shows will take place on the prior weekend and, of course Halloween night itself, there's even a few heavy-hitting shows in the "days between" that serious music fans have...

Im not sure how one can define The Best Live Band in America or if it would even mean anything if you did. However, if intensity, imagination, innovation, and execution could be considered fair measures, White Denim made its case for the title Thursday night at Lincoln Hall.Starting out with the opening trio of...