Glad Rags, Cowboy Neal, Arm Candy
Glad Rags is a music collective from Chicago that blends chamber pop, psychedelic rock, new wave, electronica, and experimental jazz. Cowboy Neal is an energetic six-piece band from Chicago, IL. Bringing frenetic, diverse performances, you’ll hear music inspired by The Talking Heads, Fela Kuti, Frank Zappa, King Crimson, Pom Poko, and black midi. Cowboy Neal has performed at many venues in the city: Bookclub, Beat Kitchen, Subterranean, the Burlington, and more! Come and dance with Cowboy Neal! Arm Candy is an energizing rock group that fuses ethereal, dynamic instrumentals with insistent, anthemic vocals. Like a sugar rush, Arm Candy is something you’ll crave again and again.
Broom, Bitcrush, Brian Seyler
broom is a NYC based ambient-shoegaze outfit. sad guitar and saxophone through a bunch of pedals and loops. chicago debut. Bitcrush is an electronic jazz duo founded by Charlie O’Neill and Leo Buczkowski in 2022. Drawing from a wide variety of influences from the jazz, electronic and avant-garde idiom, Bitcrush has carved a unique space for themselves in the Chicago music scene with their eclectic live performances and 2024 album We Regret to Inform You. also featuring Brian Seyler
May + the Ladies, Basal Jones, Night Beach, Emily Rach Beisel
May Klug is a composer based in Minneapolis, MN. Her project May + The Ladies celebrates high-femme pop spectacle, drawing from her experimental synthesizer practice, past as a frontwoman in queercore bands, and deep love of house, bubblegum bass, and electroclash. Joined by Jared Hemming and Cleo Pupillo, this is May’s heartfelt, desperate, and misguided attempt to make extremely likable music. Basal Jones – I am a rap artist who has a taste for different sounds and cultures. This EP will include everything from a medieval bop to a crash course into the City Girl lifestyle. Night Beach is a 4-piece band playing creative indie songs about love, identity, and a life in common. FFO Elliot Smith, Parquet Courts, & Yo La Tengo. Expect new chords, sweet melodies, and seismic revelations on the nature of reality (DISCLAIMER: revelations not guaranteed) Emily Rach Beisel is known for visceral performances blending extended vocal and instrumental techniques with analogue electronics. Their works is described as “heavy stuff, sounds retrieved from the deeper places… Beisel pokes around in the sonic depths and brings leviathans out to play. (A Jazz Noise)”
Jonah Eggleston Live Album Recording [Early Show]
Jonah Eggleston Live Album Recording Jonah Eggleston is a standup comedian based in Chicago by way of Appalachia. His comedy is a mix of storytelling, anxious confessions, and doom-spiralling over slight inconveniences. He has performed throughout Chicago (The Lincoln Lodge, Zanies) as well as across the country (Comedy on State, DC Improv.) He’s a nice guy once you get to know him. with support from Sam Dicke & Kristi Durkin
Jonah Eggleston Live Album Recording [Late Show]
Jonah Eggleston Live Album Recording Jonah Eggleston is a standup comedian based in Chicago by way of Appalachia. His comedy is a mix of storytelling, anxious confessions, and doom-spiralling over slight inconveniences. He has performed throughout Chicago (The Lincoln Lodge, Zanies) as well as across the country (Comedy on State, DC Improv.) He’s a nice guy once you get to know him. with support from Sam Dicke & Kristi Durkin
Slugscape, AAAYYYAAA, Morbid Circle
From playing in bands to standing solo, slugscape brings a soundscape of industrial hitters and trip hop ballads AAAYYYAAA – MIDWEST INDUSTRIAL Morbid Circle is a dark electronic artist that blends punk, EBM, and darkwave into a unique sound of catchy melodies and powerful vocals. Performances end up being an in your face mosh dance that helps strengthen the connection between artist and audience.
Kilynn Lunsford, The Ineffectuals, The Xpressionists
Kilynn Lunsford is a musician and performance artist blending inspiration taken from experimental film, post-punk and noise music, and most recently superfund sites and resultant mutant flora and fauna, to create memorable listening experiences and unique high-energy live shows.”[She] creates Burroughs Gysin cool cut-up chaos; an exquisite corpse of chords and beats that brings the crumpled body back to life and dares us to believe…” ~ Ian Svenonius Chicago two-piece The Ineffectuals formed over a mutual love of classic industrial, post-punk, and electro records, mulled over in the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic. Founding members Jeremiah Meece and TH Nordberg began by making purely electronic music, eventually augmenting their sound for live performance with vocals and bass guitar. The band released its debut album, First Offering, in 2024. The next year, Meece and Nordberg followed up with The Serious One, jettisoning most of the tongue-in-cheek humor that pervaded their previous work in favor of a survey of the rot at the core of human culture.The Ineffectuals have been honored to share the stage with contemporaries and forebears such as Plack Blague, HIDE, and The Egyptian Lover. The band is currently scheduling a 2026 US tour and recording a series of EPs featuring unreleased music from its live repertoire. The Xpressionists are downtown new wave / post-punk band led by Nu Vision’s Jonathan Valdez.
Onion, Future Bartenderz, Friendly Faces
Onion is a Chicago Indie Band that will make you cry! Future Bartenderz is the low-low-fi solo project of Brian Costello of Orlando, Florida, who once lived in Chicago, Illinois and was active in the garagepunk scene there in bands like Functional Blackouts, Johnny and the Limelites, and Outer Minds. Friendly Faces is a Chicago Folk Punk Band.
Dr. Goldfoot EP Release Show with Joytrip + Friends
Taking cues from Talking Heads and the B-52s, Dr. Goldfoot & The Bikini Machine can’t quite be defined by one genre. Progressive Dad Soul? Sure. Nonsense Rock? But of course! DGBM is anything you want them to be and then some, overlaying freewheeling guitar and groooovy organ on top of a watertight funk base. Delicious! Joytrip is an electric-folk indie band making music in Iowa City and beyond. Michael Schodin (vocals/guitar), Eddie Hochman (guitar/trumpet), Mitchell Wisniewski (bass) and Bennett Shapiro (drums) come together to make welcoming, honest and colorful sounds that explore the experienced concurrence of our time. Influenced by the modern and that which was once described as modern, Joytrip exudes elegance and groove. Overcoming and writing through pandemic era setbacks, Joytrip works hard to be stewards of a sound that holds authenticity and ingenuity dear.
Gerfety, Hearthands, plush
Hearthands is a band from Chicago. The music blends elements of slowcore, shoegaze, dream pop, and 90s indie rock. plush is a Chicago shoegaze/slowcore/indie/whatever band. Gerfety is Chicago 3-piece Shadow Rock.