Chicago Crowd Surfer provides a glimpse into the Chicago music scene with all sorts of content. Featuring interviews, premieres, show experiences, and album reviews from Chicago artists and acts touring through our deep scene and storied city.

Added This Week: NONE OF YOUR CONCERN premiere their new remix of Daymaker’s “MPC", check out our exclusive interview with the masked duo while you take in the new track. And we’re finally back in the album review game with ten reviews of some of our favorite (and not so favorite) records of the past month and a half. We’ve got more where these came from so stay tuned….

Get a Load of: Calexico and Iron & Wine hit Thalia Hall last week and Aaron and Tina were there to take it all in. We primered a new video from Chicago born and bred singer/songwriter Jared Rabin, and our resident metal head Mick sat down with Chicago Death Metal heavy hitters Inner Decay for an interview ahead of their killer shows coming in this Spring!

Keep Seeing Live Music!

Coming soon . . . More album reviews we missed from local and touring artists, plus shows we hit this past week. Just what you’ve come to expect from trusty CCS!

Track Premiere

Album Reviews

Video Premiere

The Americana glow of Jared Rabin’s new video is a warm reminder that winter only has a few months left. The title track off Rabin’s new record No Direction is a country tinged roller full of golden harmonies and a singalong chorus that just won’t go away once it’s got it’s hooks in your ears. Directed by Kyle Dunleavy from Rhapsody Productions this eye catching video is getting an exclusive premiere here, and you can find “No Direction” on all streaming services now! We caught up with Rabin for a few comments ahead of the March 27th release of the full record.

CHECK OUT THE INTERVIEW ALONG WITH THE VIDEO

Dan Apodaca
Schubas Talent Buyer

“January in Chicago is typically slower for touring bands, so we can bring cool shows in to help people survive the brutal cold and forget about slush for a few nights.”

—> READ THE INTERVIEW <—

⬐ SHOWS ⬎

Calexico and Iron & Wine / 📷 : Tina Mead

Honestly, I find myself at these Wednesday night shows and I know I’m the lucky one. A packed Thalia Hall and a showcase of supreme musical talent is the way to go after a long day of work. But there’s more to this past Wednesday night than a post-work wind-down. It’s much deeper than that

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Lille West and NNAMDI / 📷 : Tina Mead

Tomorrow Never Knows (TNK) proves Chicago can roll with winter. Over five days in mid-January, the annual club fest spreads across the North Side, with Schubas, Lincoln Hall, Sleeping Village, The Hideout, and Metro all participating in the festivities. We caught a few shows a night, in order to highlight the excellent local artists the fest was featuring and the incredible talent the fest brought in for the 15th iteration of the winter classic.

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Hospital Bracelet / 📷 : Tina Mead

Last Wednesday night, the Beat Kitchen brimmed with musicians and music lovers. Who would come out and party with live music on a Wednesday night, though? The evening would tell...

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Meat Wave / 📷 : Tina Mead

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The Brokedowns Fans / 📷 : Tina Mead

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Absolutely Not Fans / 📷 : Aaron Pylinski

Ian’s Party is the largest local festival in Chicago hands down. A slam bam, take no prisoners, speed freak’s dream of epic proportions. Seventy bands, almost all from our insanely diverse scene, descend on Chop Shop and the Subterranean for three days of music and $4 Half Acre tall boys in what is the most outrageous start to any year, but now in it’s thirteenth year Ian’s Party has grown into a colossus of marathon proportions. Members of our crew flocked to North and Milwaukee last weekend to take in what can only be described as a heroic endeavor of musical madness. Three days, 70 bands, an untold amount of Half Acre, and so much to say about it all…

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Shame / 📷 : Tina Mead

I got to ring in the New Year with my musical spirit guide, Tina Mead, at the Empty Bottle. The flavors of the evening were Chicago natives Ethers, Madison, Wisconsin mainstays, Disq, and Brits from across the pond, Shame. The crowd was a mixture of young, old, and everything in between. As I scanned the rabble of concert-goers, I could tell something special was afoot this evening... 

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Sleep / 📷 : Mark Morrissey

As of writing this article, marijuana is now legal for recreational use in Illinois. There are very few bands that could ring in this occasion quite as fittingly as doom metal legends, Sleep. Without venturing into the bottomless swamp of discussing  metal subgenres, from which the only escape is death, Sleep is one of the founders of the modern sludge/stoner/doom metal movement.

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The Arrivals / 📷 : Mick Reed

One of the many poignant ideas touched on during my interview with Dave Merriman of The Arrivals ahead of their set at Reggies on December 28 (which you can read here), was the extent to which the forces of industry will work their way into your brain and poison your identity. Turn you against yourself. To see yourself as a machine that needs to be fixed, rather than a human being, with thoughts, feelings, and needs. Machines only need fuel and maintenance, and when they are no longer useful, they are discarded. Human beings need sustenance, rest, friendship, and community, and human beings are never replaceable

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Sometimes there are albums that leave an indelible connection to their time and place. A record that transcends the ordinary and takes on an enchantment all it’s own. In this special section we are taking a look back at the albums that shaped our times. Join us as we wax nostalgic for the music that inspired, bewildered, and changed the direction of the art form over the last decade.

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Meanwhile in our neck of the urban wilderness, Chicago’s scene flourishes on, as big and bad as ever. The following is a rundown of the records and shows we loved from 2019. Not all of them are from Chicago, but most of the bands featured here toured through our fair metropolis once or twice this year. We at CCS don’t believe in the rank and file systems of the MSM. Instead of numbers and lists, we give you the year as it happened. So here it is dear Surfers, our 2019 Year In Review. 

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2019 closed out a tumultuous decade. The world is at odds over the furthering of the cultural revolution. A cold civil war over values and economic justice fueled by the never ending stream of the information age. A generational battle made all the more noisy by the easily accessible negativity heaped on us all, day in day out, by corporate interests on a quest for the easy buck. So we turn it off, we spurn reaction for meditation, news for art, and unplug our brains from social media and into the groove of music. 

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Jaimie Branch / 📷 : Ricardo Adame

I don't go to a lot of jazz shows and this was my first time seeing all of the musicians that graced the Bottle stage Friday night. It was also my first time working with fellow photographer Ricardo Adame. He had seen most of these musicians play in all sorts of ensembles/combinations. I've been hanging out with Ricardo at shows for most of 2019 and hearing about all of these experimental improvisational crazy amazing performances he goes to. When photographers meet at a show you exchange Instagram handles and check out each others shows/work. I knew I wanted to be Ricardo's friend when I saw his photo of someone swimming in a pool with a cello. He obviously had knowledge of things happening in Chicago I had no clue about. He has been enriching my experience of the Chicago Music scene ever since. So when Kyle recommended I cover this show and knowing that Ricardo was going, I saw a perfect opportunity to pull Ricardo's work into the Chicago Crowd Surfer arena.

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The always decorated Thalia signboard / 📷 : Mick Reed

With the solstice in full transition and the sun slowly coming back to life, it’s a good time for reflection and contemplation of the year behind us. Sometimes this calls for a mug of hot cocoa, a blanket nest perched on the couch, a book of ghost stories and a three hour Enya playlist, and sometimes it calls for being shocked back to your senses by depictions of cruelty and a confrontation with the abuse heaped upon us by those who purportedly care the most. On December 21, 2019, I chose the latter and I don’t regret it. I have the rest the year to get cozy with my partner in my living room. Sometimes it’s better to feel the heat of someone else burning off their gas-lighting to remind you of the validity of your own emotions. It helps keep things in perspective.

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Richard Album / 📷 : Tina Mead

Luck be a lady this past Friday the 13th. She landed me at Big Forever in Humboldt Park, a Chicago DIY space made possible by Richard Album and dedicated to fostering creativity and community. The theme for the night was “heaven” as I walked in during shoegaze aficionado, Brent Penny perfectly working his way through melodic interludes and trading off synths and guitars. 

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Elijah Berlow / 📷 : Tina Mead

Chicago has an incredibly eclectic scene, brimming with bands from every possible spectrum of musical tastes and influences. Quite often a bill comes along that is shaped by this diversification, containing little to tie together the acts beyond respect for each others art and the community ties. The no frills, classic Chicago back room venue of Coles featured such a lineup last Friday with the jazzy protest anthems of Cordoba, followed by the post-punk rattle and verve of Daymaker, and wrapped all up with the personal folk/bluegrass jams of Elijah Berlow. It was a night to remember, on an unusually un-fridged mid-December Chicago evening, as local music fans packed into the cozy rear room to take in three of the cities most engrossing acts.

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NEWS & NOTES

While we were out of town our favorite garage trio AWEFUL released this killer video!

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Check out this week’s Recommended Shows

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See you at the show Chicago!