David Nagler Sets Carl Sandburg’s Poems to Music
His new album, Carl Sandburg’s Chicago Poems, pays homage to some of the poet’s work.
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Country twang grows louder in Chicago
At first, Eric Church couldn't explain it. And yet every time the North Carolina-based country artist came to play a show in Chicago in the early days, typically at Joe's...
A Soul Singer’s Rebirth
How to Dress Well’s sunny new album finds a once-gloomy man transformed.
Chance the Rapper, Roots bring an early Lolla feel to Taste
On Wednesday evening at Grant Park, it seemed Lollapalooza had come early. Thousands of teenagers and twentysomethings flooded the north end of the lawn, peacefully, staking out seats an hour...
Betty Haag is a musical link to the bygone era of the Suzuki method
In a sweltering, second-floor suburban ballet studio that doubles as a music rehearsal room, the silence is suddenly broken. Several notes plink out on an upright piano and then, seemingly...
And suddenly, Speedy Ortiz broke — big
For a certain indie-rock band, the thrust of sudden recognition following a hit record can be drastic. Sadie Dupuis, frontwoman for Massachusetts-based Speedy Ortiz, knows this feeling firsthand: when her...
Some artists eschew Internet pressures, release music on their own pace
It's been less than a decade since Chris Keating's band released its debut album. And yet to hear the Yeasayer singer tell it, the Brooklyn-based indie-rock outfit that recently released...
Whitney a fresh beginning for familiar voices from the Smith Westerns
On the first warm day of 2014, Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek left their Logan Square apartment and went for a walk. They didn't stop until they'd nearly reached River...
Justin Bieber, mature and polished, can deliver the goods
This past year has been a Justin Bieber renaissance. After what seemed like a never-ending public my bad for his past adolescent indiscretions — the house-egging and drag racing and...
Chicago’s Closed Sessions opens hip-hop doors
It's a Friday afternoon in February and the six friends — business partners in the hip-hop label Closed Sessions sit in a Humboldt Park house discussing the merits of olive...