Welcome back to your regularly scheduled blogging! If you're around this weekend, check out the three-day Chicago Bluegrass and Blues festival, with shows at the Double Door, the Congress Theatre, and Lincoln Hall.

A bit of a quiet week overall, and yet I still will be finding myself at two, maybe three, shows. I'll be at Dawes on Wednesday and Johnny Flynn on Friday, and thinking about catching the Heavy on Saturday. Busy week. If you see me, say hi!

As usual for the summer, there are a ton of great shows going on which also happen to be free. Trek on down to Millennium Park or Navy Pier to check out some cost-free tunes.

It looks like a quiet week, but I find myself strangely busy. I'll be checking out the Laura Marling show tomorrow night, and Jerome Holloway's show on Friday. I saw him open for Nneka in February and thought he was really good, so I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with a headlining spot. Saturday also has some strong line-ups of local bands, both at Bottom Lounge and at the Beat Kitchen.

There are a lot of great shows this week featuring local bands, and lots of them are free or very cheap. You should check some of them out, give some love and support to the local music scene.