Best recording studio in Rantoul: Pieholden Suite Sound!

I think Santah’s new album might be just the right thing to move them out of always having to be classified as a “student” band, and it might give the Common Loon boys a run on that top album spot.

No Headlights?
Would ‘greatest band ever to come out of CU’ be a to broad or bold category? :)
But this is a wonderful wonderul list. Great job guys.

Don’t get us wrong—we love Headlights. But it seems like they’re reaching the point where they’re moving past being a local band…you’re not going to find them playing at Cowboy Monkey on a Thursday night, if you know what I mean

If ‘local band most likely to break out and become the band we can brag to out-of-towners about liking when they were just a local band’ was short enough to be a category, the title-holder would be Headlights.

@Sacred Cow: I guess I’m confused by your comment. You seem to be seeking empirical evidence that a band/restaurant/artist/athlete/something is the “best,” evidence which could be supplied by some sort of longer-form article with a more clearly-defined category definition. I’m sorry our execution didn’t meet with your expectations. Hopefully the (we think) thoughtful, article-length celebrations of the best things in C-U that we try to provide the other 50 or so weeks of the year will be more your speed. Feel free to expand on your ideas if I’ve misunderstood.

Sacred Cow, Trust me when I say that you are giving us WAY too much credit. I think we mostly did this because those of who have lived in other cities with alt/weeklies kind of think they’re fun to read and argue about. As for best whatever genre category, I didn’t come up with that one, but I really do believe that there are hundreds of bands in C-U that fit into the other categories and we were running out of room/time. And yes, we like the two we picked. But I really don’t think most of our readers will consider that or best place to take your favorite person too nebulous. In fact, I think they’re both pretty self-explanatory.
Now if you want to accuse some of us of creating an elaborate scheme to somehow force more people to look at pictures of our daughter, then I think you’ve probably nailed me, er, I mean, us.

Then they should bring it back. I used to love listening to it (I remembering hearing it as recently as last year—am I wrong?)

Dr. DJ Wes, How can I listen to the Wave online? I kept trying to verify Ben’s misinformation last weekend but the link never works. Is it because I’m using a Mac or something?

My gripe is the narrowcast spectrum of the entire music section. There are more people in CU than the usual scenesters ya’ll hang with. Not to be judgmental; you have a right to tout what you want to tout, but if you want to grow SP beyond an “indie” rock fanzine (which is what the music section reads like to a geezer) for the teens to twenties set (and those recalcitrants who refuse to leave their twenties) then you might want to stretch out a little.  A couple cases in point:  Not a word about Robbie Fulks and Bill Kirchen playing here the same night,(and to make it worse, the Detroit Americana band Lac La Belle was playing that night, too, but they got a mention in Splog).  I chose Kirchen at my favorite bar, the Rose Bowl, that place that always seems to disappear when lists of things to do in Urbana get made.  
Kirchen was amazing of course—top echelon guitar talent who demonstrated he can play anything, and knows how to put on the show (the schtick of riffing on every famous guitar player of the past 50 years was joyful, particularly when doing impressions of his high school classmate Iggy Stooge).  What really blew me away was his hard rocking version of “The Times They are a Changing” to close the show (he’d done It Takes a Lot to Laugh… earlier).  It’s not just entertainment, but on point.  The trombone and snare drum New Orleans parade on Milk Cow Blues for the encore was also a delight.  
Earlier, Kathy Harden showed up after finishing her turn as Patsy Cline at the Station Theatre (If covered by SP, I missed it), and Lonesome Larry got her up there to do a couple of numbers, prompting the drummer to exclaim, “Boys, I think our singin’ problems is over,”
Anyway, a delightful evening (Shiner Bock on tap), but it surprised me how few youngsters were there.  Why is this?  You get a chance to see one of the greats at one of the great bars and only schmucks like me are there.  I dunno.  As an aside, me and the kids were somewhere in Arizona a few years ago, before it became a police state, and I noticed that Ray Price was playing nearby. Now if you had a chance to see Hank Williams or Johnny Cash or Patsy Cline before they croaked, wouldn’t you jump at it? Made the kids turn off that Smashing Pumpkins garbage and go sit with the blue haired set.  Sure, there was the usual Danny Boy schmaltz, but when Price did the old 50’s honky tonk stuff, the hair on your neck stood up in the presence of greatness and history. The kids liked it fine, but more, it was good for them, goddamnit.
Back to the gripin’: Paul Thorn and Fred Eaglesmith playing tonight.  Not a peep from SP.  I saw nothing about Dale Watson when he was here. And so it goes.  You don’t have to cover everything.  I’m suggesting that it would be worth your while to do so.
And as for WEFT getting best radio station, well OK.  I like WEFT, even though I never listen to it, as it’s like every other “indie” public station in the country.  WWHP, however, is the best fucking radio station in America. I ain’t lyin’.
PS. Kirchen’s new record, not out yet, but sold at the Rose Bowl, is a gem.  Paul Carrack with Nick Lowe singing backup on an old Haggard tune, Chris O’Connell, Maria Muldaur, and a nice turn by Elvis Costello.  Kirchen is the real deal.  
 
 

Stuart,
Fair criticism, for sure.
I hope I’m not giving away a big secret, but, as I think you know, everyone who works here is volunteering their time, and unfortunately, most of the people outside of Ben and I are only going to write about things they are interested in. This is fair, I think — I’d be very surprised to learn that Joel assigned you your BBQ piece a few weeks back. We’d love to skew more geriatric, and we’ve been trying to expand a little what the music section covers, but it’s not going to happen overnight. Normally, I cringe when the person on this end says, “if you don’t like it, why don’t you write for us”, but we would love it if you could recommend people you know who might be interested in covering this type of music you list above. I sincerely mean this and am not trying to be snarky. 
-Recalcitrant

Stuart,
 
I would *love* to read more frequent pieces from you, so you should definitely contribute to the void in music coverage geared to the older folks. When I was music editing the O’pus/Cityview I made a concerted effort to broaden its coverage. I do believe we had probably the best and most well-rounded coverage this city has seen in the past decade-plus. No one else was writing about classical music and interviewing nearly every worthwhile touring act that came through town (Mr. Fulks included, although he does play in town with enough frequency that a feature each time is silly), plus giving occasional nods to the local folk, country, blues, and jazz scenes while consistently writing about the local rock scene.
 
That said, I was being paid and working 40+ hours a week with a diverse freelance staff (also being paid a little), so pumping out several pages of music coverage in a given week was probably a tad easier, in some ways, than it is for John and Ben.
 
Anyway, write some music stuff and PLEASE cover the Rose Bowl on occasion—it deserves it.

Jumping in here to back John and Doug.

Stuart, when I volunteered for Smile Politely, I noticed a lack of LGBT topics. I work full-time, so I can’t cover everything, but when possible, I take it on myself to splog LGBT events happening in the city, or even write about them. Joel and Seth fully support me doing this, and you’ve gotta know they’d support you too.

As with John, this isn’t a “if you don’t like us, then volunteer” statement. You’re already one of our writers (a fantastic one, I might add); so just do it!

Well, I hope my gripe didn’t sound too crotchety. I do appreciate what SP is doing, and am amazed at the amount of effort put into it by Joel and the rest of you.  And I certainly understand the difficulties of managing, let alone growing, a volunteer based organization.  I’d like to contribute more, but it’s always one damned thing or another that sucks up all my time.  I imagine it’s the same for most of you.  Following our current political discourse, I fully intend to complain some more about what you are doing, and not do a damn thing about offering solutions.  No, actually, I don’t really have any solutions.  You face the dilemma: to really cover things well, you have to pay people (not a lot, but enough to move it out of volunteerism), but there is no revenue stream.  I don’t know what to do about that, but it’s something we need to start dealing with long-term.  Not just SP, but all media.  
However, my complaint was really a bit broader than about SP per se; it was more about the tendency toward insularity in a culture. John, Doug and Tracy all rightly point to the fact that people write about things they are interested in. No one wants to write about things they are not interested in unless they are getting paid.  You could not pay me enough to cover Billy Corgan, for instance. Still, when you only write about things of interest to you and your cohort, the total product starts to look narrow and provincial. That was the essence of my gripe.
Which leads me a chicken egg problem.  I was speaking from the “geriatric” perspective, but as an example of all those outside the current SP commnity.  Yes, it would be nice to get a much wider group of people to write for SP.  But first, you probably need to get a much wider group of people to even know about SP and actually read it.  But, when reading it, it seems just a narrowcast music mag with a few vegan restaurant reviews (I exaggerate of course), then they are not going to read it enough to want to write for it.  
I have met exactly one person older than 35 who has even heard of SP, and only because of the Olympian Drive stories that circulated to one of the neighborhood listserves.  I do tell lots of people about it, but to little avail, I’m afraid.
Like I said, I don’t have the solutions, but I’d like to see SP grow into a wide-ranging media outlet for CU and environs, because in an environment dominated by the reactionary Gazette/WDWS etc, we certainly need one.
 

Well, Steve! is definitely right about the Beer Garden needing to lose some tables and chairs in the front on certain shows. Good call.

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@Nathan - Let’s get one thing straight. I am the one around here who has no idea what he’s talking about. Ben is insanely knowledgeable about the CU music scene and shouldn’t be poorly judged for this one small error. I admit that our comments on 88.7 might have been slightly inaccurate, but we stand by the WEFT selection either way. 

We will definitely try to carve out more of our time to listen to the Wave on the weekends (if it’s on the air, I guess) and certainly didn’t mean to be too negative. We really are quite happy you’re here and appreciate what you bring to the community. I’m sure the last thing you need is for anyone else to lump you in with 107.1. Too be quite frank, we feel bad about that part right now. But at least we didn’t lump you together with the Chief. Hooray for us?
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@Stuart: Thanks for clarifying. Does that mean we can still play on your lawn? And yes, you make some excellent points about revenue, media, the doomed nature of altruistic efforts, etc. We need more women writers, we need more people of color, we need more people of longer-term life experience, and on and on. Suggestions on how to do that are welcome, even more so than accountability, although the accountability is helpful, and the dialogue is necessary. We are trying, although it’s much easier to stay in your comfort zone when you’re not getting paid. But hey, Seth’s been out there beating the bushes selling the hell out of some ads, and if you squint real hard you can see a future where we might get paid a little.
I think it’s cool that as we become more established (at least in the profane hipster doofus community) more people feel empowered to make more pointed criticisms of our content. Sure, it’s discouraging, but at least people care enough to make thoughtful, sometimes even creative rebukes. And question our core motives, which are dark, to be sure. No one would do something for this long with little or no financial benefit without having horrible intentions.
And yeah, I think there’s a need in the current local media climate, too. That’s why most of us are here.

I agree with the radio selection- because hey, go for the one that is most eclectic and fun.  Agreed.  I wasn’t planning on saying a word…
But since you mentioned 107.1 and made not one mention of 88.7 except here in the comments… GO 88.7!  Despite the fact that the djs during Afternoon Delight completely ignored my tweeted request and kept complaining about the Cubs game (it’s been 100 years, get over it) and put down the Sox (go Sox), they are still my all the time favorite station to listen to for best music.  
Love love love them.  Wish I had heard of them during my 4.5 years at U of I, because all I had to listen to was 107.1 then, and man, I got so bored after a while.  
88.7 all the way.  Way to stream online since I saw someone talking about it: http://wpcd.parkland.edu/ , click on the stereo
Otherwise, go to the myspace: http://www.myspace.com/wpcd and click on the stereo.  Same thing.  I have noticed that sometimes it doesn’t work for me in Chrome but then it will from IE.  I cannot vouch for Macs.

Perversely enough, I think the fact that no one is making any money from SP can sometimes lead to better journalism.

As a writer, I can do things now that I couldn’t do if I was under deadline pressure, for instance taking a day or two to have an expert fact check a draft of an article. 

Also, the fact that the whole endevour doesn’t depend on advertising revenue means that writers can write about topics that don’t necessarily have a wide audience.  Which is cool.  If you want to write about something that only you and a few other people are passionate about, SP is the place to do it.

Ouch…..not even a blurb about us?  Hope we can get on the Smile Politely radar soon!  62 shows in our first 9 months, residency at Cowboy Monkey…opened for The Band Of Heathens at Highdive, and opening for Devon Allman’s Honeytribe June 26th at Urbana Blues, Brews, and BBQ….I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’. 
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<a>http://www.sonicbids.com/thesugarprophets</a>

A few final points (for now):
@Joel.  No, you need to stay the hell off my lawn, unless you are mowing it (as a volunteer of course).  I certainly didn’t mean any of my comments as a rebuke of any sort, and hope no one took them that way.  I know what it’s like trying to herd volunteer cats in a non-profit organization that tries for a broad reach.  It’s damn near impossible and incredibly time-consuming. As others have said, and to which I’ll agree, writers here write what they write because they enjoy it.  I was not grousing about lack of pay by any means (just in case anyone took it that way). My problem is not money but time.  If I chose to I could probably write for SP full-time and you would all be wholly sick of me in about a week, but there are other things occupying me.  But time is money, and people need to have it to eat and pay taxes, and as such at some point, there needs to be a way to buy some writer’s time.  I know this is not in the short-term cards, but I wanted to suggest that it probably needs to be a longer-term goal.  These are things covered in the recent interviews with Bob McChesney in SP, which I commend to you.  Just how this can be done is a hell of a problem, but one that needs to be solved if we are going to survive as an informed democracy.  If it’s not we might get some Schweighart character as mayor, or worse.
@Mark.  You raise a good point, although it says more about the lousy practices of mainstream journalism than anything else.  The literature on this subject in voluminous and wholly depressing, which is why it’s always encouraging to see alternative models developing.  But again, the issue is time (money).
@gamera.  Well yah, I run with a pretty soporific crowd. I’m glad to know there is a larger audience for SP out there than I imagined.  But I have never—never—had someone say “oh yeah, SP” when asked what I’m up to and say I occasionally write articles for it.  It’s always, “what’s that?”  I’d like to see that change, and I know the editors are working on it.
@Radio posters.  Whatever happened to WRFU?  Talk about the perils of volunteer media.  Does anyone ever listen to this station?

@everyone for my mistake in my comment in thinking that 88.7 wasn’t mentioned.
 
I apologize for being “that guy” who, not seeing the 88.7 and just zoning in on the 107.1 mention did not notice the allusion to the Parkland radio station :)  Since they got mentioned as much as 107.1, I withdraw all objections.  And apparently need to tune in to WEFT at some point.

No worries, man.  Like I said, you guys are still my favorite radio station, despite your favorite sports team :)  If I had wanted to, I know I could call in.  I was just trying the tweet request system.
 
I listen to you guys all day at work, and it’s helped me keep up a lot more with local music.  I’m glad my boyfriend (an instructor at P-land) told me about the station, as I was unaware of it all my years here in Champaign until last year.

Great article, SP!  What an honor for the Duke of Uke & His Novelty Orchestra!  As a band who is 5 out of 7 female, I really appreciate the acknowledgment that there needs to be more female presence in the music scene.  Way to bring it up!