Category: Gossip Wolf

When Gossip Wolf checked in a few years back with Reader contributor, Chic-a-Go-Go cofounder, and Promontory talent buyer Jake Austen, he’d just rebooted his wide-ranging, infectiously enthusiastic, and absurdly thorough music and culture zine, Roctober, originally launched more than 30 years ago. Issue 52 arrived in fall 2020 after a seven-year hiatus, but the wait […]

Chicago indie rockers Elena “Lanie” Buenrostro and Travis Newgren, better known as Soft and Dumb, have spent much of the past year writing and recording their forthcoming sophomore album. A few weeks ago, frustrated by the length of that process, the duo paused work on the LP to record a handful of fast-and-loose songs on […]

Since 2013, local power trio Chicken Happen have been making excellent tunes that share more than a vibe with 90s alternative rock. Gossip Wolf can imagine the band landing a video or three in MTV’s Buzz Bin, alongside Veruca Salt, Jawbox, or maybe Letters to Cleo. Over the past few months, singer, guitarist, and keyboardist […]

In September 2021, Macie Stewart of Finom released her debut solo album, Mouth Full of Glass. She enriched its gentle, intimate songs with opulent strings and horns, but she’s infrequently performed those arrangements live due in part to the difficulty of bringing them to the stage. She assembled a sextet for a pair of release […]

For the past week, Chicago’s indie-rock scene has been mourning the unexpected death of Ryan Deffet, who played guitar and sang in Space Gators and Faux Furrs. Deffet moved here from Dayton, Ohio, and enmeshed himself in the northwest-side underground scene in the 2010s; for years he organized Deff Jam, a DIY festival that presented […]

Gossip Wolf first became acquainted with multi-instrumentalist Joel Styzens via his remarkable hammered dulcimer playing on the Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble album III, which Reader writer Bill Meyer praised in May for its attempts at “musical transcendence.” As you might expect from that record’s shimmering acoustic textures and accessible melodies, Styzens’s own compositions play out across […]

Pianist Pat Leary has played in so many local ensembles it’d be easy to lose count. These days he tickles the ivories in Latin R&B band Partywatcher and indie country outfit Thompson Springs, accompanies jazz singer Livia Gazzolo, and improvises in free-jazz quartet Heuristic with saxophonist and flutist Eric Novak, bassist Jeff Wheaton, and drummer […]