Last Days Of Summer: Chicago's Hideout Block Party

Download: Bloc Party - "Waiting For The 7.18"
Download: Andrew Bird - "Simple X"
Download: The 1900s - "Bring The Good Boys Home"
Download: Blue Ribbon Glee Club - "Waiting Room" (Fugazi Cover by Chicago Based Punk Choir Group)
Download: The Cinematics - "Break" (Scottish Dance-punk band)
Download: The Frames - "Falling Slowly"
Download: The Changes - "Water Of The Gods"
Download: The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir - "Tear Down The Opera House" (Chicago punk-folk band who just signed to Bloodshot Records)
Download: Art Brut - "I Will Survive"
Download: Dan Deacon - "The Crystal Cat"
Download: Head of Femur - "Leader and the Falcon"
Download: Mucca Pazza - "Alarm"
Download: O'Death - "Only Daughter"
Download: Cass McCombs - "Opium Flower"

This past weekend, I attended the 11th Annual Hideout Block Party, which is one of the great late summer/early fall music festivals for the city of Chicago. The host of the event, The Hideout, is one of the great, small bars in the city and a wonderful place to catch bands in an intimate setting. It's a bit out of the way (so it's more than just a clever name), but absolutely worth going there. Every year, The Hideout (whose owner, Tim Tuten, is the emcee at the Pitchfork Music Festival) hosts a block party. The area surrounding The Hideout is huge and industrial, for the most part, so they can have a big outdoor concert despite the fact that the venue itself is tiny, tiny, tiny.

All of the bands are great, the food is delicious, reasonably priced and made by locally-owned business and, most impressively, all of the proceeds go to charity - which included these organizations: Literacy Works, Tuesday's Child and the Thomas Drummond Elementary School . I've made a playlist consisting of all of the bands who played the block party this year. They include some familiar names, both nationally and on the Chicago scene, as well as some groups you may not have heard of. Listen to them all and enjoy!

Here's a list of highlights of the weekend:

-Andrew Bird finally being mixed by someone who gets his sound
-The Frames bringing up two star-struck female fans to accompany singer Glen Hansard on his Once ballad "Falling Slowly."
-The Frames bringing up the Blue Ribbon Glee Club for an absolutely pitch-perfect rendition of "Where Is My Mind?" by The Pixies.
-Dan Deacon's hilariously strange countdown to the beginning of his set.
-Art Brut's Eddie Argos razzing bandmate Jasper Future about his supposed lack of guitar playing prowess
-The 1900s rousing rendition of "Bring The Good Boys Home" to close their set (as well as Cynthia Plaster-Caster's introduction of the band)
-Blue Ribbon Glee Club's cover of "Spider of Mars"
-The short films accompanying Andrew Bird's performance

Those were but some of the excellent highlights of the weekend. But perhaps the best highlight of all was the interview I did with The 1900s. Look for that one in the next couple of weeks. They'll be more MP3s coming later today (I'm typing this at a computer other than my personal one and, naturally, stupid blogger didn't save the work I stayed up til 1 in the morning doing). So, for now, the MP3s posted at the top will have to suffice. But stay tuned (literally) and you'll get more.

It was an awesome weekend overall and I can't wait to see what The Hideout does next year.

(Jonathan Graef)