Nashville Music Blog

​I'm not sure how many of you have ever been to the "twin cities" of Champaign and Urbana, Illinois. I spent five years there and can tell you it's a fairly sleepy college town with cobblestone streets, cheap rent, lots of house parties and bands to play them. Hum, Poster Children, Mother (name changed later to Menthol) and Hardvark all signed to major labels within months of each other during the feeding frenzy of the mid-'90s, spurred in part by an article in Interview that called C-U "the next Seattle." It didn't really work out that way, of course, though Braid and Wolfie would build national reputations while the Polyvinyl label, started out of a house in nearby Danville, would go on to release albums by of Montreal, Rainer Maria, Aloha and many others. And REO Speedwagon has a street named after them!

Anyway, the 2009 Pygmalion Festival goes down in Champaign-Urbana September 16-19, and boasts a pretty impressive lineup: Iron & Wine, Low, Autolux, Lucero, RJD2, Wavves, Japandroids, My Brightest Diamond, The Hood Internet--and I'm barely scratching the surface here. Nashville's Brooke Waggoner plays Thursday, the 17th at 7 p.m. at Krannert Art Museum. (Bob Nanna, former Braid frontman and current Threadless model, headlines that show.) Check out the full schedule here. It's only about a six hour drive, and if you pony up for some gas money, I'll show you the dorm where I lost my virginity! Who's with me?