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...

Welcome back to another flavorful edition of Playback, homes. This week’s jam session comes from junior photojournalism major John Lykowski. Lykowski, a Glenview native, loves ’80s music and longs for Chicago. If he were to make a mix CD today, these...

From MTV to NIU, Cribs is in the house ... well, apartment. Throughout the semester, Sweeps will frunk out the funkiest fly facilities NIU students inhabit. Close to campus and next to the endlessly exciting birthplace of barbed wire, five upperclassmen...

“Frisbee Tournament at NIU!!!!!!!!” “House Party Tonight” “IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING THE SCHEDULE OF CLASSES” These are but a few of the subject headers you will find at the NIU Community at livejournal.com. LiveJournal is an online...

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. Despite a loss in the mascot battle last week, the real-life Huskies defeated the University of Central Florida...

Tickets go on sale Friday for Howie Day and Nickel Creek, set to play at 7 p.m. on Oct. 29 in the Holmes Student Center’s Duke Ellington Ballroom. The Campus Activities Board is funding the show, which will open with special guest David Bekley. Tickets...

With the presidential election less than a month away, Weekender wanted to find out which celebrities you would like to see not endorse candidates, but take up a campaign of their own. , Former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic with aspirations of joining...

The Pimps will hit downtown DeKalb Friday night. We’re not talking about canes, chalices and velvet suits, but more like guitars, amps, drum sets and a band named The Pimps. The Rockford-based quintet will play a show tomorrow night at Otto’s Niteclub,...