Tankboy resides in the body of Jim Kopeny and lives in Mayfair with Pickle the Kitten and a beagle named Betty (RIP) who may actually be slightly more famous than most of the musicians slogging through the local scene. He's written about music for much longer than most bands you hear on the radio have even existed. He also swears that it wasn't him who did that and has learned that "deny everything" is a basic tenet of existence.
On the occasion of its 20th anniversary a few years ago, I did a long piece on Triple Fast Action’s sophomore album Cattlemen Don’t, making the argument it is a largely undiscovered […]
The buzz on Slow Pulp reached me via friends before their traditional publicity push, and the snippets I heard excited me, but none of that could have prepared me for how excellent […]
Melkbelly, the somewhat genre-less and thrilling Chicago-based band that Miranda Winters sings and plays guitar with, is truly a monster of the local scene (in all the good ways). So when I […]
Chicago Independent Venue League (CIVL) is a coalition of more than 20 Chicago music venues who initially banded together to fight developers threatening the scene with corporate venues, and have redirected their […]
Yesterday Governor Pritzker shared his viewpoint that all summer events should be canceled, though Mayor Lightfoot is less comfortable making that call … yet. My personal history with Lollapalooza goes back to […]
ROOKIE is the latest Chicago act to emerge from our house party / DIY scene as real contenders for the rock and/or roll crown that seems up for grabs lately. I’ve mentioned […]
On his latest album, Kevin Barnes returns of Montreal to its one-man-band roots on UR FUN, yet still manages to create a Technicolor thrill ride making the most of his experience manipulating a […]
Cupcakes formed in the mid-’90s and seemed destined for superstardom. They were signed to DreamWorks near the tail end of the initial label feeding frenzy that swept through Chicago during that period, […]
It is a really good time to be a fan of Chicago music right now. Our scene is always vibrant, but we appear to be in another of those mini-movements (that I […]
Stonefield’s Bent was written primarily while the Australian quartet was touring America last year. It’s the group’s fourth album since 2013, though I’ll forgive you if you’ve never heard of them before. […]
In 2017, White Reaper released an album proclaiming them as “The World’s Best American Band,” which was hilariously tongue in cheek coming from a band that is actually incredibly modest in interviews […]
The New York city scene regained dash of its danger in the early aughts during that era’s resurgence of rawk, but as the spotlight of fame softened those rough edges, the sound […]
