News

It's magical, this thing we call summer; in February, streetwalking without draping ourselves in layers of animal skins and furs was merely a dream-like memory from some distant planet where people comfortably stood in tandem with nature, with toned skin and sun-kissed hair kindly coexisting with gentle warmth and light breezes. That meteorological oasis is nowhere to be found in present-day Chicago, but perhaps the spell of Mira Billotte and her White Magic will shroud us with an aural sense of it this Saturday, July... (read more)

Whoa, we always knew we were visually, musically and hilarity oriented all of our long, incredible lives, but wow - Dirty Three video, where have you been all this endlessly boring time?!? It's... well, let's start with words that have already been invented: the song is called "Rising Below," and it's from the album that brought Dirty Three to all the illegitimate children of their original fan base ("bastard rock," we call it), plus whoever of that diseased old fan base is still kicking (literally... (read more)

How does time work anyway? Did you know that 2008 is as much yesterday as yesterday is? 2008, that was when it began – a sweat young thing boiling up out of the mythical swamps of ooze and grooves. Ty Segall was just getting started, his need to rock was ordering itself into existence. Now it’s just four years later, a mereness in terms of evolution, and already, there are singles everywhere, plus a couple comps, a live album and mostly, five swinging, smashing studio... (read more)

Cheeky monk, London's gone Galactic! Indeed, the man behind the mask behind the pen behind our (back) pages of the very own Galactic Zoo Dossier, Plastic Crimewave, has arrived in the United Kingdom and is helplessly allowing his speech to the drift into Queen's finest posh London accent while kipping out beneath the London Dungeons. Crimewave, a.k.a. Jolly Steve Krakow, then carries his quill to the jolly confines of Gosh! Comics on Thursday, July 12, for a wonderful evening filled... (read more)

After another blistering Independence Day here in America, leave it to the good ol' Silver Joos to shout out to our not-quite-as-free-as-we neighbors up north. You remember "Canada?" So do we, and so do David Berman, "Honkin' on" Bob Nastanovich, and little Stevie Malkmus, circa 1991. Remembering their salad days like the middle-aged mensa they claim to be, Early Times is a testament to the longevity of their unstudio sound, a carefully realized primitivity that required careful positioning of the trio in... (read more)

For years, The Lowbrow Reader has made sporadic leaps off the printed page and onto the stage, but never once outside the dolorous (but friendly) confines of old New York city. But this time, fuck New York! Aw, don't be so sensitive, Big Appleites! All we are saying is that this l'il bit o' news really only concerns the heavenly bodies of the greater Chicagoland area! Because see, on Thursday, July 5, the Lowbrow Reader Variety Hour takes a giant leap for mankind into the... (read more)

We hate to interrupt your #Obamacare celebrations, but in case you haven't noticed, Drag City has become a power in the worldwide cassette/awesomeness market. In fact, our latest release revisits one of our biggest records of the year SO FAR, Ty Segall & White Fence's Hair! Upon hearing the finished cassette, we were amazed to discover it's the ideal format for Hair sounds, all along, just like we discovered last year with CAVE's NEVERENDLESS (classically out of print on CS, but the... (read more)

As of the late summer of 2011, Carol Kleyn was back, with her privately pressed 1976 debut on CD for the first time ever and LP for the first time since it was pressed back in '76! And now that it's summer again, 2012-style, Carol Kleyn is back! Yeah man, it's the next frame of the Carol Kleyn reissue reel, Takin' The Time! Eight years after writing her first songs and dropping out of college to pursue her passion as a street musician, Carol... (read more)

Starved for Newsom action? We're here to throw a mini-bone. In fact, if you act fast, you can catch Joanna getting minimal tonight with one of the grand old men of minimalism still mini-kicking it, Philip Glass, at The Warfield Theater in San Francisco! The cause is maxium - The Henry Miller Library in Big Sur needs money! Dramatic improvements to their facilities, as mandated by the feds, are required for The Henry Miller Library to stay open. Like better toilet tissue; we nearly... (read more)