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.

This Week in Great Music: 8/16 - 8/22

So, there's this little festival called Lollapalooza rolling into Grant Park this weekend. Maybe you've heard of it? I'll be there all weekend, Tweeting and taking bad photos bitching about the heat and the crowds, and hoping my phone doesn't run out of battery.

While Freelance Whales' music consists largely of jangly, glockenspiel-filled pop-rock songs, Peter Wolf Crier offers a dark, sometimes frantic, lo-fi counterpoint.

This Week in Great Music: 6/7 - 6/13

In case you took an internet hiatus overnight, here's some "news" for you: Lollapalooza's lineup for the 2010 festival has been released in full, including all the letters and &s and *'s, because god forbid they write out Fuck Buttons on their website.

And so it begins - the slow trickle of bands, big and small, making its way to our fair city after playing a ridiculous amount of shows in a ridiculous amount of venues in Austin. The month is only going to get busier, so hang on, it'll be a wild ride.

Here's a mix of some songs I've been listening to this month. They're not all new songs, but for one reason or another, they've been getting steady rotation around here. Let me know what you think!