AliveOne celebrates 20 years of serving thirsty Chicago fans.  They've been about the music from day one, and have had a great tradition of hosting live shows and related events since the beginning.  The "all live jukebox" has always been a staple.To mark the occasion, they are throwing a private party on Saturday,...

Photos: Kristine Condon PhotographyRemember the Quentin Tarantino films Kill Bill Vols 1 & 2?A slice of shocking, pulpy, ultraviolent art, the moviesfeatured an incredible instrumental cut on the soundtrack entitled"Battle Without Honor Or Humanity" by a little known band called Tomoyasu Hotei.It is an epic, sweeping instrumental with a hard edge and a bit...

Chicago's North Coast Music Festival has in past years been a bit of a jam purist's puzzle. There has always been a smattering of jam-friendly acts in its lineups, but EDM and flavor-of-the-minute bands tended to cast a long shadow for those looking for improv in Chicago over Labor Day Weekend.The scales seemed to...

By @312mrgThe number and prominence of Phish cover bands is growing by the day. From the Lawn Boys, Seven Below, Helping Phriendly Orchestra, the Phix or Pink Talking Fish, there are bands reproducing the Vermont band's material with a variety of tweaks to the approach.But what I find more intriguing is the concept of...

We love our photographers around here, especially when they are able to capture such photogenic bands.You can just feel the soul and funk drip off of the shots from Rickie Kostiner's camera as she covered a pre-holiday double bill with two of the hottest Chicago bands going right now.Main Squeeze capped a national...

Without one "big" show dominating Halloween in Chicago this year, there's a lot of talent playing in a lot of places. As usual, this city can't seem to keep its Halloween celebration to just one day (even when it falls on a Friday!) -- so we're listing shows in this preview from Wednesday through Saturday....

Photos by Rickie KostinerStreet festivals have always been a Chicago summer rite of passage. We've got four, maybe five months of weather to support them and plenty of places for them to pop up and take on different neighborhood flavors.But it wasn't too long ago that they all pretty much boasted a similar lineup...

I usually reserve these guide to Chicago type posts for multi-day stands of biggest bands that swing through Chicago, but a couple factors led me to create a tidy little one for the big Widespread Panic / Tedeschi Trucks Band gig tomorrow night.1. The Venue. Out-of-towners (or even natives) may not realize that FirstMerit Bank Pavilion...

In the same city, on the same stage, separated by just under two weeks, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic and Lettuce delivered huge sets to enthusiastic Chicago funkateers. As usual, P-Funk created an absolute spectacle (rendered here in video and Adam McCall's superb photography), invoking their decades-in-the-making mythology to evangelize the power of the funk.Lettuce,...

Lots of great links, video and audio from around the web in this edition.The typical "Rock Star" story usually has the tribute band member joining the real band, but the tables were turned as Dean Ween (Mickey Melchiondo) joined The Pod at Tonic Room. Here's a three song video playlist:Chicagoist lists the 8 best...