Andy Downing

When Robert Marks was a junior in high school he started running with a rough-and-tumble crowd, smoking pot and getting in car accidents at an alarming rate. The frequent fender...

Maps and Atlases is most commonly labeled as an "art rock" band, a designation that doesn't bother frontman Dave Davison in the slightest. He says, "It's not a big secret...

On "Western Automatic Music" (Spade Kitty), the Paper Airplane Pilots frequently crank up the guitars in an attempt to mask the album's broken heart. These are high-volume songs about heartache--pure...

With the title of its debut album, "Thistle, Sparrow and the Tall, Tall Grass" (Yellow Horse Music) and its press photo--a picture of the dirt-caked band members toiling on a...

Josh Caterer, frontman for both Smoking Popes and Duvall, may seem like an unlikely ambassador for classic country, but this past June the singer performed a well-received set of Hank...

In May 2005 drummer Shawn Rios placed a classified ad on a popular Web site in an effort to sell a 1/4-inch reel-to-reel tape recorder given to him by an...

The Headlights, a trio from Champaign, have already spent more than half of the year on tour. When asked about the band's road-warrior mentality, singer/keyboardist Erin Fein, reached amid the...

Cowboy hat tilted back on his head, face glistening with sweat and chomping on a thick cigar, Tail Dragger, born James Yancey Jones, cuts a striking figure onstage--at least when...

When the Bollweevils were approached to play a 2003 benefit show for WLUW-FM 88.7, the college radio station at Loyola University Chicago, there were serious doubts whether the band members...

It might surprise some people that one of the best Halloween parties in the city is thrown by a band made up of former Christian fundamentalists. But the Detholz! Jukebox...