For musicians on tour, the hometown show is the sweetest, since it’s the one place without fail where they can be surrounded by family and friends. For singer-songwriter Adam Bones, returning to Chicago is more like a homecoming. Bones has set up residency in Los Angeles by way of Northbrook. After working for Direction Tour Marketing and Promotion in Chicago, Bones moved to sunny LA and landed a job at the Knitting Factory Hollywood. “You have to have some swagger in LA,” says Bones. ”Maybe it’s all cliché, but it’s the truth. It’s very LA in LA.”

Growing up in Chicago, Bones played in local bands but never really fit into any particular scene. “I went to the different venues and made some friends, but I never felt like I was in a ‘scene’.” Once settled in LA, he was left without a band. His job working at the Knitting Factory quickly guided him to becoming part of the local music scene. “I learned a lot by getting to know and become familiar with the local bands.” The knowledge lent itself to the recording of his new EP, “Feel for Tomorrow.” “I didn’t have a band at the time I recorded, so I had to find and recruit players. That was a process but it all worked out in the end.” Read the rest of this entry »

He explains his odd style of dress, which includes a helmet that renders him nearly blind on stage, as “fashion to me is just covering up your nutsack.” He describes his live show as “a guitar party, I play my guitar and try to rile them up and stir them up,” and he thinks of his sound “like a giant ball of noise I take it and throw it at people [...] and they throw it back.”

Bob Log III is, as far as one-man-slide-guitar bands go, a singular find. His beginnings are rooted in a band member leaving in the middle of a tour, forcing him to go it alone. It seems to have worked out well, as he brings his raunchy slide guitar rock ‘n’ roll tunes on tour again.

Born in Oak Park, where he remembers accidentally hitting a kid in the head with a Tinkertoy, Log soon moved to Arizona, where he’s lived for most of his life. Now a resident of Melbourne, Australia, Log is traveling again, returning to the States, specifically to Chicago.

So far his tour has afforded him interesting experiences. “Every single day is strange and exciting. For example, last night, I played a bowling alley in Oklahoma City. It was all-ages—I was playing for grandmas and tweens.” Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

The annual weekly summer jazz series “Made in Chicago: World Class Jazz” makes a welcome return to Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion tonight for six weeks of Thursday night concerts through September 2. Spotlighting Chicago’s leading jazz artists across the spectrum of the genre—from Latin and Big Band to experimental, avant-garde and fusion forms—the series, a collaboration between the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the Jazz Institute of Chicago and Millennium Park, will include world-premiere commissions, international collaborations and major artist centennial and anniversary celebrations.

First up is Tortoise, formed in Chicago in 1990 with roots reaching across the city’s jazz, indie-rock and punk scenes and considered pioneers of the post-rock movement. This twentieth-anniversary-year lineup, dubbed Tortoise 2.0, is made up of Dan Bitney on bass, keyboards, drums, percussion and guitar; John Herndon on drums, synthesizer, percussion and electronics; Douglas McCombs on bass, guitar and keyboards; John McEntire on keyboards, drums and percussion; and Jeff Parker on guitar, bass, keyboards, synthesizer and percussion along with special guests for this special appearance that include Ed Wilkerson on reeds; Greg Ward on saxophone; Nicole Mitchell on flute and piccolo; Jim Baker on piano and vintage ARP synthesizer 2600 and Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello and electronics. Read the rest of this entry »

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Perhaps you first noticed Seu Jorge in the breathtakingly vibrant and violent film “City of God,” playing peaceful former Brazilian Army sharpshooter turned avenging favela soldier/gang member Knockout Ned. And if not, then most definitely when Jorge emerged next as the David Bowie-covering guitar player aboard Team Zissou’s Belafonte in “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.” But unknown to most Americans was the fact that Jorge was already an established musician in his native Brazil, where he survived ghetto life, violence, addiction and homelessness before being taken in by a theater he slept outside of as a teen. It was there that Jorge began his musical training, and he’d later begin honing his winning formula of mixing rock and funk with homegrown samba sounds, releasing two successful albums in Brazil before Wes Anderson exposed his talent to the world. Jorge is now touring behind his latest project, Seu Jorge & Almaz, a collaboration with three masterful musicians: percussionist Pupillo and guitarist Lucio Maia of Nação Zumbi, and bass player Antonio Pinto, the award-winning composer from “City of God.” They’ve just released their self-titled album earlier this week, and true to expectations, the band covers both likely (Michael Jackson’s “Rock With Me”) and unlikely (Kraftwerk’s “The Model”?!), as well as originals, too. Overseen by famed Brazilian producer Mario C. (Beastie Boys), the record carries a deep, soulful and psychedelic shimmy that makes good use of Jorge’s deep baritone voice and talent for arrangement. With his natural charisma and reputation for engaging live shows, tonight, we get to see how “knockout” Ned really is… (Duke Shin)

August 3, Logan Square Auditorium, 2539 N. Kedzie, (773)276-1235, 8pm, $25.

Kid Color

RECOMMENDED

The Art Institute of Chicago’s sleek, pristine Modern Wing is hosting the current Sound & Vision exhibit, which aims to explore “the symbiotic relationship between art and music, presenting humorous yet rigorous investigations in which the two do not connect in any synesthetic sense but rather come together via acts of transposition…” To this effect, the Art Institute, in conjunction with Metro/Smart Bar, present Gard(en)Counter, featuring Metro/Smart Bar in-house DJs Nate Manic, Bald E. and Kid Color, who’ll provide the gift of sound spanning 1982 to present day. As for the vision, we’re sure the multimedia exhibits and installations will fit perfectly like “blue, blue, electric blue.” (Duke Shin)

July 30, Pritzker Garden/Griffin Court at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan, (877)307-4242, 9pm-midnight, $8/$10.

Photo: Renata Baluk

RECOMMENDED

One of the greatest discoveries from the 2009 edition of the Latin Alternative Music Conference in New York, Colombia’s Bomba Estereo expands on the sonic mix presented by fellow Colombians Aterciopelados (the Latin American country—second only to Brazil and Mexico in exporting musical talent—also gave us names like Shakira and Juanes) by blending their native Cumbia with electronic sounds, rap, rock and other genres.

The group sounds better on stage than they do in the studio. Lead vocalist Li Saumet (a petite woman who looks barely out of her teens) has immediate rapport with the audience in spite of the fact that their tunes are sung in Spanish. Bassist/bandleader Simon Mejia has strong chops, and the rest of the group provides a solid backdrop for Saumet’s musical ideas. (Ernest Barteldes)

July 26, Millennium Park’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion, (312)742-5222. 6:30pm. Free.

RECOMMENDED

Last week I received an email from a high-octane PR firm that primarily deals in rock and pop music with the subject line that “Renée Fleming to take on indie rock” at Ravinia. Hmm. Someone was confused, I thought, but then again, Sting showed up at Ravinia last week with the Royal Philharmonic, so anything is possible.

It turns out that yes, America’s reigning superstar operatic soprano has recorded an album called “Dark Hope” (Decca) which “finds her exploring a parallel universe via songs by Arcade Fire, Band of Horses, Leonard Cohen, Death Cab for Cutie, Jefferson Airplane, The Mars Volta, Muse and others; the album debuted on the Billboard Top 200,” as the release explained. But unless Fleming is planning to do any of these as an unlikely encore for her Ravinia appearance, we will have to settle for her doing one of her signature art pieces, Richard Strauss’ “Four Last Songs” with Christoph Eschenbach (spelled Eschenback in the pop release) and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, doing these polished gems from late in Strauss’ life about life, loss and the inevitability of death as no one else can. Can the same be said for her “parallel universe” exploration of pop music? I have yet to hear, but generally speaking, there are good reasons that trained voices stay away from this stuff: neither the material nor the voices benefit. Read the rest of this entry »

Sir Michael Tippett

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British composer Sir Michael Tippett used to be a regular visitor to Chicago back in the days when then-Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Sir Georg Solti would champion and perform his music and even managed to commission a piece from him, a 1991 CSO centennial work called “Byzantium” which the world-premiere forces even recorded.

Lyric Opera music director Sir Andrew Davis picked up the Tippett mantle since arriving here in 2000, spearheading the Chicago premiere of Tippett’s opera “The Midsummer Marriage,” a work ignored during Lyric’s longtime “Toward the 21st Century” initiative and which was given a 2005 premiere so long overdue that its composer, who died in 1998 at the age of 93, was no longer alive to experience it. The difficulties in mounting that production were so immense that Lyric lost its lead tenor and its director, none other than Sir Peter Hall, along the way. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

When Rose’s Pawn Shop sets up to play, the stage looks a little confusing. First come the banjo, the mandolin, the fiddle. Then, someone carries out an electric guitar and an upright bass. Finally, a drum set is plopped right in the middle of an all-out instrument arsenal. To further confuse things, a group of Los Angeles-looking twentysomethings stand in front of the crowd and pick up the disparate tools they need to share their bluegrass/Celtic/punk-rock sound. Mixing Hank Williams-like lamenting with Flogging Molly-esque Celtic punk works quite well for the band, especially with their recent win at Billboard’s Independent Music World Series. Rose’s Pawn Shop relies on four-part vocal harmonies, rockabilly speed and lead singer Paul Givant’s voice to make their unique style sound cohesive. The five-piece band–who first found each other on Craigslist—self-released “The Arsonist” in 2006, and are now touring with their second album, “Dancing on the Gallows.” Expect the show to run on high-speed, feel-good beats, but pay attention to the slowdown, when Givant’s twangy tenderness breaks through. (Dee Fabbricatore)

July 22 at Double Door, 1572 North Milwaukee, 9pm. $10-$20.

RECOMMENDED

Langhorne Slim, a.k.a. Langhorne, Pennsylvania’s Sean Scolnick, started out as an acoustic guitar-pluckin’, harmonica-honking bratty folk singer who used sprightly banjo and accordion to create the musical equivalent of a good old-fashioned barn party. But that sound has been left back in small-town Pennsylvania with Langhorne’s latest record, “Be Set Free,” which jets off in search of the grandeur of slick pop beauty. Produced by The Decemberists’ Chris Funk and packed with the same palate of whimsical instruments from the last Decemberists record, “Be Set Free” retains occasional glimpses of Scolnick’s folk-jamboree days, but mostly seems supercharged by the sheen of Funk’s strings, xylophone and bouncy riffs. Nevertheless, “Be Set Free” never comes across as a  “sellout” record attempting to streamline Slim’s earlier quirks, just a change of pace from a musician learning how to make tight, breezy pop-rock attacks. (Andy Seifert)

July 23, Lincoln Hall, 2424 North Lincoln, (773)525-2501, 10pm. $14.