For those mom and dad readers of Lumino – you will be pumped for the Hannah Montana Chicago news – she is coming back. In fact, Miley Cyrus, who plays HM, has added 14 new dates to her “Best of Both Worlds Tour”, which now includes a January 14 stop at the United Center.

The show was added, I am sure, as a great revenue generator, as the star just played a sold out All State Arena show this past weekend. Why in the world is she all the rave?

The news is perfect for Lumino fans. While you are buying tickets to our second annual Jingle Your Bells music festival at Joe’s on Weed St. on December 21, you can buy your Hannah Montana tickets. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. this Saturday.

My advice for all up and coming bands is to take a page out of the Hannah Montana book and examine true musical success. Don’t get angry, bare with me. If you sell out, create a beat that can connect with children, you will instantly be a multi-million-dollar band. That simple.

Have you ever heard the story of the Wiggles? I don’t even know why I just connected myself to another kid-band, but the Wiggles were made of failed musicians. The story I heard is that they were a bunch of guys who couldn’t make it in the competitive rock world, so, they refocused their music and built a very popular and wealthy business focusing on children’s rock. Smart move, eh?

So, musicians can dream of becoming the new Rolling Stones, but if I had any musical talent, I think I would become the next Hannah Montana.

The band, based in Schaumburg, has built a cult following of high school MySpace junkies, with slightly more than 5,500 friends checking in and posting daily to the band’s site. And even those MySpacers who have shied away from becoming The Skylight’s friend have spent great time listening to the band’s music, especially its top played song, “Haley Girl REMIX.” The song has a catchy beat and for a youngster singer named Kevin, who the band mentions hosts the recording sessions, his voice seems quite mature for a high schooler even with the high pitched tone.

Other songs are quickly gaining momentum on the page, including “Seattledemo” which has built 105,000 plays, slightly behind “Haley Girl’s” 106,000. The band has also include a song from their earlier (even though that couldn’t have been that long ago) days titled “Up Against Me”, which is no where near the quality of the later two songs. The best reason for putting an older tune on the site is that new fans can clearly examine the vocal and sound improvement the band has made from then to now.

Most likely limited by age, the band has only two upcoming shows, both at smaller high school friendly venues – perhaps battles of the bands. But, as age maturity and rock star stardom hits post turning the big 2 1, this band could very well be on its way to taking its indie pop sound to a much larger stage. Lollapalooza anyone?

For more information on The Skylight, visit http://www.myspace.com/theskylightparty MySpace Reviews appear in WannaVIP every Monday. Each review focuses on a Chicago local band’s MySpace page and breaks down the page into sound, style, art, and marketability. To have your band included in this blog, please email Nick.Powills@luminomagazine.com with your band’s MySpace URL.

Reilly is promoting the new flick with a concert series which will include a stop in his hometown of Chicago tomorrow night at the Cubby Bear in Wrigleyville.

According to a press release, the star will tour the country in character as his alter ego Dewey Cox, the mythic Rock N Roll icon whose music influenced a nation. Reilly will perform live as Dewey Cox with his band, The Hard Walkers, the scorching rock ensemble, for the year's most anticipated concert series, the "Cox Across America Tour" Dewey Cox & The Hard Walkers will hit the road for a select seven city run of rare live performances to support the December 21 opening of the comedy, "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. During the "Cox Across America Tour," Dewey Cox & The Hard Walkers will perform classic tracks from "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," the soundtrack album from the film of the same name.

"I have loved Cox from the beginning and I will be at every show worshipping Cox from the foot of the stage,” promised Reilly.

This event sounds like the perfect music event for Chicago. If Reilly bring a performance anywhere near that of his Talladega Nights character, this movie will rock. And with his TN character, I think he already set the state for a fun experience as he painted his perfect picture of Jesus, “I like to think of Jesus like with giant eagles wings, and singin' lead vocals for Lynyrd Skynyrd with like an angel band and I'm in the front row and I'm hammered drunk!”

Should be a great night. Abracadabra homes.

The four songs M&A selected were “Every Place is a House” (133,000 listens); “The Most Trustworthy Tin Cans” (82,000); “The Ongoing Horrible” (99,000); and “Big Bopper Anthems” (54,000) listens. For the four piece selection, I am not only intrigued by the craftiness of these Chicagoans but also sold – as they have put together four tunes that resemble absolutely nothing out there. Creatively, I would assume the band took their influences, put them in a mash up machine, and came together with a sound that the great Brian Wilson would be proud of.

These guys are true artists and seem to be searching themselves musically to ensure they are exemplifying their art through sound, look, and appeal. The photography on the site (inside their MySpace photos) is brilliant. Even the photos showcase an artistic side. Their music is listed as French Pop/Italian Pop/German Pop – and judging by the interesting mix of artistic and unpredictable noise bellowing from the eclectic mix of instruments, that doesn’t sound far off.

The bands fans seem sold as well – yet skeptical that the band even exists anymore, the one criticism I have of the locals. Although they have been on their MySpace page recently, there isn’t much news or buzz on the band on either their MySpace page or their personal Web site. Fans are begging them to play Chicago again – along with Philly and D.C. Perhaps the lack of response or postings by the group is a marketing move guaranteed to award some promising buzz. The fans are craving another concert, but the band seems to be missing. The songs continue to get played and purchased, yet they haven’t posted news recently and even their blog site is a ghost town. If the limited response is a tactic, then bravo.

Going along a Hot or Not type of rating scale, broken down based on all of the characteristics of the band’s site – I will give them a 8.7 on my scale, meaning pretty damn hot, irresitable and intriguing. I will definitely be back to see where these guys go and see how they transcend their sound across the globe as a Chicago leader.

For more information on Maps and Atlases, visit http://www.myspace.com/mapsandatlases

MySpace Reviews appear in WannaVIP every Monday. Each review focuses on a Chicago local band’s MySpace page and breaks down the page into sound, style, art, and marketability. To have your band included in this blog, please email Nick.Powills@luminomagazine.com with your band’s MySpace URL.

Over the last few months, our staff has been working extremely hard to create a new Web site sure to attract many Chicagoans and music fans to. The new sites will be more functional as well as content rich. We are pulled together a new crew of writers to help innovate the magazine to be stronger and more competitive. The new Lumino will launch with a party – Jingle Your Bells 2.0 – at Joe’s on Weed St., December 21, 2007.

With that said, I am relaunching my blog, as well. Starting today, my blog will take a new approach. I will be writing about everything Chicago music. Every Monday, I will randomly review a MySpace Chicago music page. I will review the songs available as well as the marketability of the site. On Wednesdays, I will write about a national music topic and how it relates to Chicago. On Fridays, I will share with you a personal story – whether that be a backstage experience, or a tale of romance – Fridays are free days.

Also, I will be looking for local bands to submit albums to me for review. Send me your album, and I will either review it as a feature story for Lumino – or for a quick hit in my blog. This blog is going to become innovative. Check back frequently, as I will post as frequent as possible.

Sorry for the delay – but just you wait, well worth it.

If you are acquitted of murder, don’t you think you would do everything right from that point forward? You are given a second chance, so you shouldn’t have any run-ins with the law. From the point you are acquitted to the point you die, stay out of the way of crime.

Not for O.J.

The Juice got into some serious trouble when he allegedly charged into a Vegas hotel room and demanded the accuser give him back something. Allegedly he was armed, too. If you listen to the audio tapes, he sounds a little angry as well. OJ, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?

Here’s how I would have handled the situation, given what I know. For sake of protecting the innocent, we will call me Nick in this situation.

Nick is a former star running back who dominated the NFL before being made into a Hollywood star thanks to a great run in the Naked Gun series. Nick’s life seemed perfect. Beautiful children, a broadcasting career, and even a multi-million-dollar deal with Hertz. Ah, life is good. Then, someone murders Nick’s ex-wife and her friend. And god damnit, tries framing Nick. I guess that’s the trouble with being a celebrity. So Nick jumps in his fancy Bronco (we will say the color was, well, white) and threatens to commit suicide for reasons unknown. All the freakin’ evidence goes against Nick. If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit. Nick is cleared of murder, which he didn’t do, but had he done it he would have wrote it in a book.

Nick is down on his luck. In a civil suit, he loses a battle. He didn’t commit a murder, so why does he own the families so much cash? Nick decides to stay happy and just play golf for a few years. Nick sells some memorabilia from here and there to make the extra dolla.

Then, one day in September of 2007 – years and years later – someone steals Nick’s shiznit. So Nick is angry. And this is where Nick, I mean I, would have done something differently.

Someone stole from me, I’m calling the police. Simple. Done. I am an innocent man, I never did anything wrong, they should have my back. For God’s sake, it’s America.

Idiot. OJ, you are my official dumbass of the week.

Now, for last week’s dumbass, I am going to turn to Tom Brady. Yes, the guy all girls go wild for. Good looking. Super Bowl stud. America’s man.

I’m just going to toss it out there, but if Bill Belichick has been Brady’s coach during the dynasty, and Belichick was just ratted on by a former employee of his for stealing defensive signals, do you think there’s a connection between Brady and his success? If I knew that three rushers would be blitzing from the left, I would run right. If I knew there was a double team defense lined up on my star receiver deep down the field, I would hand the ball to my running back. Hmm, I wonder how much of an edge Brady has had over the years?

I am not saying he isn’t a great player, but give those extra bonus hints to Rex Grossman, and you might have a Tom Brady. Brady was not a first round pick. He was not predicted to be great. Usually greatness can be detected in a draft (ehem, lottery picks). For half a million dollars, Belichick made a great investment (was fined) in creating a Hall of Fame quarterback and a dynasty. That truly is a small price to pay for the ROI the Pats have received.

And if I were a Pats fan, I would be ecstatic that it lasted that long. Heck, if the Bears did that I would defend them till the end. But, I would also be able to say Rex Grossman and Hall of Fame in the same sentence without laughing, hysterically. Just throwing it out there, perhaps Brady is a football optical illusion.

OJ and the Brady/Belichick duo – Nick’s dumbasses of the week.

And it’s good to be a Bear’s fan. In the words of Johnny Drama – VICTORY.

Xo

Nick