Whiner Down
The Road
Megafest Undercard
July brings three giant music festivals to
Chicago for music fans of all persuasions.
Whatever your opinion of hanging out in the heat,
there's no denying the mega-festivals offer an
incredible amount of music in in one place, for a
relatively cheap ticket price. You've heard about
the headliners at Pitchfork, Open Air and
Lollapalooza - but here's our picks for the undercard for all three July megafests.
Pitchfork
City Of The Weak
City Of The Weak - July 16
Twin Peaks - July 15
Chicago's snotty garage rockers have grown up
(finally) and they've channeled their punk rock
Another metal band (with heavy punk ten
07•2016
tendencies with better songwriting and (gasp!)
dencies) fronted by a woman (Stef)? Yep, the
future of heavy rock lies with empowered woman
(sorry Trump).
Lollapalooza
Savages
pop harmonies.
Savages - July 16
Riding a wave of critical acclaim (best show
@Metro and best album Adore Life) and the hype to
back it up, Savages spare and dissonant songs
answer the musical question - what if Joy Division
was fronted by a woman?
The Hotelier - July 17
We'll look back on 2016 as the year when The
Hotelier broke out to revive the Emo scene (again)
for the masses. With 3 flawless albums in their catalog, these guys would be headliners at our backyard festival.
Open Air
Modern Baseball
June's Led Zeppelin vs. Spirit "Stairway To Heaven plagiarism trial was
one of the more bizarre legal events of the year, centering on the opening riff
of the Zep classic and its similarities to Spirit's 1968 song, "Taurus." Though
there are mild similarities between the two songs, the jury ruled in Led
Zeppelin's favor. As Ultimate Classic Rock magazine wrote "there are only so
many notes, chords and chord progressions to go around." And the comparisons between the two songs end, as soon as Robert Plant sings his opening
line.
Showing how copyright law is stuck in the early 20th Century, "jurors
were asked to compare the sheet music for "Taurus" to Led Zeppelin’s song,
and listened to guitar and piano renditions of the tracks by music experts,
but they never got to actually hear both songs, according to the New York
Daily News. “The jury didn’t get to compare apples to apples because they
never got to hear 'Taurus.' There’s no way they could make a ruling in our
favor with what they had to listen to,” Wolfe’s sister Marla Randall told the
Daily News after the jury ruled in favor of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.
Sounds like the guys making the money were the attorneys.
Modern Baseball - July 29
Zappa'd
Yes, another Emo band (we're not afraid to say
Emo!) that should be huge. Like The Hotelier,
Modern Baseball is a leader in their genre along
with Chicago's Into It. Over It.
Chairlift - July 30
Electronic music by definition can be robotic, but
New York's Chairlift - Caroline Polachek and
Patrick Wimberly, mesh blue-eyed soul and EDM
like few have this year.
Louis The Child - July 31
Butcher Babies - July 15
The future of female-powered metal lies with
Butcher Babies. Fronted by the amazing Heidi
Shepherd and Carla Harvey, they bring the hooks
and the looks to a genre that needs it bad.
Profiled in our March issue, Louis The Child are
not only DJ's you can love, but they're hometown
heroes you're cheering for, beacause they're such a
likeable pair. Their killer single "It's Strange" has
been in heavy rotation at IE HQ for months.
Mr. Blotter
Scott Bennett
Led Zeppelin
Longtime Chicago music fans will remember songwriter/vocalist Scott Bennett as one of the great emerging artists coming from the city in the late '80s, along with
his Beatle-esque pop band, The Obvious. Bennett's solo
music dreams took a detour to writing jingles and being
a sideman in L.A. by the '90s, landing a plum gig as the
key board player and collaborator (and Grammy winner)
for both Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys, in 1998.
According to Rolling Stone Bennett's life was turned
upside down (and the life of his alleged victim) when he
was "found guilty of rape by instrumentation and sexual
battery, on April 29th following a weeklong trial in Tulsa,
Oklahoma. Bennett was later "sentenced 5 years in prison
by District Judge J. Dwayne Steidley in accordance with
the
jury’s
recommendation,"
according
to
tulsaworld.com. Bennett’s defense attorney, Shannon
McMurray is asking for a retrial in July.
6 illinoisentertainer.com july 2016
Frank Zappa
Shattering conventions – musical, social, political (we could use his voice
right now in the era of Trump), was the life's work of Frank Zappa, the iconoclastic musical genius, rock legend and intellectual firebrand of the late 20th
century whose work is equally revered by hardcore rockers and serious musical scholars. Zappa, who died in 1993 at the age of 52, is the subject and
spokesman of EAT THAT QUESTION: Frank Zappa in His Own Words,
Thorsten Schütte's documentary which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film
Festival and will open in Chicago July 1st (Locations TBD).
The film is an energetic celebration of Zappa and his extraordinary musical
and political legacy, told entirely through a treasure trove of archival footage
culled from the performer's 30-year career in entertainment. Weaving together rare TV interviews and performances from around the world, the film
explores Frank Zappa's bravura musicianship and eccentric charisma – his
outspoken and outrageous combination of slicing acerbic wit, righteous
indignation, and anti-authoritarian irreverence.