Every week before NIU football games, Sweeps will bring you the real matchups that matter, like which team mascot would win in a street fight. NIU will travel to Kalamazoo, Mich., this weekend to face off against Western Michigan University looking to...

Weekender needs your help. For the section’s Halloween edition, running Oct. 28, we hope to send students on a frigid, ghoulish race. We are looking for teams of two to four students to help us with the upcoming cover story. The Jonamac Orchard in Malta...

The terms “lo-fi” and “DIY” aren’t usually associated with dense layers of samples, drum loops, multiple-part harmonies and music so complex that it requires five multi-instrumentalists to play it live when it was recorded by only two. Yet the...

Stan Doty has come a long way since his days studying industrial engineering at the University of Colorado. “In 1977, I got a job as a stagehand working for the Grateful Dead through a friend,” Doty said. “After that, I was hooked. Being behind...

Before you walk into “Team America: World Police,” make sure you’re familiar with Trey Parker and Matt Stone. These are the guys who make “South Park,” a television cartoon that once had an episode featuring Christopher Reeve eating aborted...

Some bands find success and then kind of stop. They have their sound and they’re sticking to it. Cake is one such band. With its fifth album, “Pressure Chief,” the group affirms, once again, its resistance to an overload of change. Full of easy...

Some people will always remember their first high school dance, or the day they met that special someone. For me, it was the day I did my first break-dance move called the “coffee grinder.” For my first time as the Jack of All Trades, I infiltrated...

Scrap Arts Music brings its blend of musical diversity to DeKalb tonight. The group features unique homemade instruments ranging from the Scorpion Drum to the Plankphone. Based out of Vancouver, Canada and led by founder Gregory Kozak, who doubles as...

“You want it. You got it ... for a limited time.” The enigmatic ad first appeared on this very page Sept. 27. It trumpeted “FREE FOOD,” such as a medium cheese pizza from Domino’s or a pepe sandwich from Jimmy John’s. All you had to do was...

“Welcome to the North,” may make you want to go south for the winter. The Music’s first release since its popular self-titled debut loses sight of itself as it grabs too far, too fast, trying to top its predecessor. Pop-ish melodies are littered...

If you want to see some junk in the trunk, there is no need to watch the newest Lil’ Jon video. The junk is closer than you know at Otto’s Niteclub, 118 E. Lincoln Highway, every Thursday night. For the next couple of weeks, Junk in the Trunk, a group...

Lonnie “Yogi - Da Jagaknot” Pollard and Anthony “Antidote” Currie are both seniors here at NIU who consider producing their mix-tape, “The Bright I.D.E.A. Mix-Tape Volume 1,” their greatest achievement thus far. Pollard is majoring in business...