Features / Series: The Set List

After early stints in the British pub rock band Brinsley Schwartz, and then with Dave Edmunds and Rockpile, Nick Lowe has maintained a long career as a solo artist, producer, and songwriter. Married to Johnny Cash’s stepdaughter Carlene for a while, Nick wrote The Beast In Me for Johnny which … Read more

Punk has always set out to be ungovernable, unruly and unapologetic. Kill your idols, destroy society, rip up the rulebook – of course. But that doesn't mean that every act of protest, musical expression or headline-grabbing incident has improved things for the punk scene without discrimination. Quite the opposite, in … Read more

It's the 21st century. The one thing we all seem to lack these days is time. Luckily for us with our busy lives, several bands have taken it upon themselves to record music that barely tickles the half-minute mark. We at SPB have assembled a list of half a dozen … Read more

We've all had them - songs where the lyrics passed you by in a blaze of blissful ignorance, until one day you stopped and suddenly heard, as if for the first time, the surprisingly different words that the singer was singing all along. Here, in no particular order, SPB documents … Read more

Let me do this in my best vintage Dan Aykroyd from SNL voice. Do YOU need more excitement in your life? A little PICK ME UP in these weird times? The "WEIRD AND DIRTY MUSIC" you never knew you needed? Look no further than Wet Cassette’s new compilation album THE … Read more

TV theme songs are their own art form: they aren’t singles and they aren’t cinematic scores. Instead, they have to be memorable while predominantly setting the tone for the upcoming program. There’s a reason few pop songs are successfully regurgitated into the form and there’s another reason why, thirty years … Read more

Whoa-oh is both a pop-punk staple and a songwriting trick that finds its way across many genres. Is it a gimmick to create an easy anthem; a cheap way to fill in syllables; or does it not matter at all because, in the end, the songs that use it have … Read more

Now, we at SPB love the Beatles. But we're not blinded by indie rock credentials to their flaws. In this, the first of a new series of features called The Set List, we run through the 5 (or 6) tracks that make up some of the worst things the Fab … Read more

Pitchfork Music Festival returns to Union Park in Chicago for it's twelfth year (except 2005's "Intonation Music Festival" tag) July 14-16. As usual, it's three full days diverse acts, food, shopping and pre-and-post events. Here's five of the must-see artists at the 2017 installment. 1 LCD Soundsystem This is the … Read more

Multi-day music festival Riot Fest returns to Douglas Park in Chicago for its twelfth year, September 15-17th. The independent music festival specializes in punk, rock, alternative, metal, and hip-hop. Not to mention, there will be carnival rides, sideshow performers, and top-notch food vendors added to the mix of performers. If … Read more