Grade: C - L.A.'s programmed rock machine is back with another release. Call Bender and Rosie over for this party to begin. The incarnation of Ima Robot was in 2003 when Virgin Records believed in the quirky sound of Alex Ebert and Timmy Anderson. The...

Three years ago, The Mars Volta exploded from the ashes of post-hardcore sensations At The Drive-In with "De-Loused in the Comatorium," a dynamic release that followed through on the experimental potential of At The Drive-In. But two years later, the...

Grade: A - It's terrible, what "dance rock" has come to mean. It's come to mean unnecessarily tight pants, popped collars, effeminate gestures and usually some connection to Pete Wentz. But really, dance rock sounds something like The Rapture. The four-piece's...

DeKALB | A barricade of music listeners was visible Monday night, blocking the entrance of the House Cafe, 263 E. Lincoln Highway, before the Mates of State and Starlight Mints' show. John Ugolini of Kickstand Productions stared at the snake of indie...

SAN FRANCISCO | Warner Music Group Corp. has agreed to distribute and license its copyrighted songs and other material through online video trendsetter YouTube Inc., marking another significant step in the entertainment industry's migration to the Internet....

"The Covenant" surrounds the Sons of Ipswich ­— the descendants of the families that founded the Ipswich colony in the 1600s. At the age of 13, the four men were given a taste of the untold power they would achieve on their 18th birthday. Now, Caleb...

"Hollywoodland" and "The Black Dahlia", two films based on two different crimes, both claim to be the greatest unsolved murder in U.S. history. You could argue that neither is the greatest unsolved murder in Los Angeles history, let alone the U.S., but...

ST. CHARLES | The Illinois International Film Festival was held in the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles, Ill. over the weekend, showing 48 films in three days. I saw everything from a six-minute music video that played in reverse to a 90-minute-long documentary...

DeKALB | Singer-songwriter Michael McDermott will come the House Cafe, 263 E. Lincoln Highway, Thursday. The Chicago native recently moved back to the Windy City after spending a year in Los Angeles. Northern Star: Since you woke up this morning, what...

Paris has a quality about it that brings residents to their windows and deserts them there. It beckons you with the sounds, lights and laughter, but what you end up doing is hanging your head limply over the window sill, staring and trying to make sense...

DeKALB | The Vermeer Quartet awaits it's final year of performance. This year will mark the group's 33rd season at NIU. The quartet — first violinist Shmuel Ashkenasi, second violinist Mathias Tacke, violist Richard Young and cellist Marc Johnson —...

The Roots continue to be grounded in politically experimental hip-hop. The Philadelphia sextet of rhyme-spilling, instrument-banging activists has a new label in which to dig their namesake. A combination of minimal-to-major successes allowed The Roots...