Greg Kot

A good night for the home team at the Hideout Inn. Eleventh Dream Day in full roar. Highlights: a cover of Lyres' "Help You Ann," in honor of the late Jeff "Monoman" Conolly, the set-closing "Orange Moon," the haunted drift of "The Raft." Packed house. Tim Tuten as MC. Lounge Ax's Susan ... (1/2)

Currently mixing up the medicine on democracy, the role of the artist and Bob Dylan at U of Chicago's Graham School (exciting classroom photo in comments). The class is sold out, but Graham is re-upping it for the winter quarter. Registration is open now. Details here: tinyurl.com/2nndmtps

Chuck Berry's 100th anniversary -- the guy who cleared a path for rock 'n' roll. The hits flowed in the '50s, but some of his greatest work emerged after a two-year prison term in the early '60s, especially this one (more Chuck stuff in comments.) www.youtube.com/watch?v=P68a...

David Porter, legendary Stax songwriter, on his secret sauce for writing a soul classic: “The people don’t care about how you feel. They care about how you make them feel.” He dishes with the best of them on @soundopinions.bsky.social (link in comments).

At Smashed Plastic Record Pressing to celebrate the release of the inaugural LPs from @aadamjacobs.bsky.social tape archive: Naked Raygun's “This Place Used to Be a Strip Joint” & Eleventh Dream Day's “By the Time They Got to Lounge Ax.” A+ live documents of Chicago's indie music scene: (1/2)

In celebration of @johnprine.bsky.social's 80th, the @soundopinions.bsky.social convo with JP on the occasion of his final studio LP and an in-depth look at his timeless debut album with author @erinosmon.bsky.social, all wrapped up in one show (link in comments). How lucky can one man get?

John Prine would’ve turned 80 later this week, but he slipped away in 2020, and boy, do we need his songs now. If anything, his stature has only expanded during his missing years, and the city he once called home is celebrating him big time in the next few days. A convo with JP linked below.

Melissa Auf Der Maur, an aspiring Montreal artist, took a detour when she met Billy Corgan & Courtney Love. She ended up playing bass in two volatile '90s bands – Hole and Smashing Pumpkins – and lived to write about it in “Even the Good Girls Will Cry.” @soundopinions.bsky.social interview below.

Dolly Parton, RIP. She was a boundary-pushing artist and a compassionate human being who is irreplaceable. I had the opportunity to chat with Dolly several times over the decades, and an excerpt from one of those chats is linked in the comments.

Shoegaze lives! We tip our hat to the originators and the new wave they inspired on this week's @soundopinions.bsky.social. More here: www.facebook.com/share/p/1KrA... Link to the show in comments.

The 2 editions of “The Rolling Stone Record Guide” (1979) were once bibles for a new generation of music fans & music journos. They were edited by Dave Marsh & John Swenson, and Marsh (RIP) in particular was an inspiration – a prolific author & combative critic. When we met... (link in comments)

Glen Hansard gone at 56. Motorcycle crash in Dublin. Shocking stuff. Street busker-turned-Oscar winner. As a songwriter, he had a way of capturing the bittersweet moments of life, and our interviews inevitably circled back to how his approach to songwriting evolved. Link in comments.

This week, we kick off the 1st of 2 shows on @soundopinions.bsky.social celebrating one of our favorite bands ever: the Feelies. We give the classic-album-dissection treatment to the 1980 debut, “Crazy Rhythms,” and in week 2 to the 1986 follow-up, “The Good Earth.” (Link to ep. 1 in comments)

Rolling into the Square Roots Festival in Lincoln Square and what a sight to behold on the north wall of the Old Town School of Folk Music. Jon Langford's tribute to John Prine. Game knows game. (Posted a video in comments with more info.) @johnprine.bsky.social @jonlangford.bsky.social

Sad to learn that Mary Morello has died at age 102. She was a teacher, activist and the mother of Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello, who grew up Libertyville, IL. In 2000, I spent a day with Mary & Tom at her home. I've linked to an excerpt in comments. RIP, Mary, and condolences to Tom.

Spent Juneteenth eve w/ Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble in Millennium Park. A good day for the South Side, for the world, with the words of Barack & Michelle Obama at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center, & then the exhortations – musical & verbal – of El’Zabar, one of the (1/3)

more daring members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). He bridged jazz, blues & neo-classical (with the Chicago string sextet D-Composed) in a set that spanned John Coltrane (David Murray doing Trane justice in his sax solo) and Nona Hendryx soul-mining as (2/3)