Chicagoans make the most of our 3 months of decent weather with the art of the Midwestern street festival. Every weekend is packed with these block-closing, funnelcake-and-beer-soaked excuses to drink during the daylight hours, and the recent emergence of indie-centric production companies has resulted in some pretty solid musical lineups to shake your $6 Miller Lite at. I’m particularly excited about Wicker Park Summerfest, with a Pitchfork Music Festival stop for the band behind one of my favorite records of all time rounding out this edition of Calendar Girl.

SLINT – Pitchfork Music Festival

Slint “Nosferatu Man” (MP3)

Slint’s Spiderland may be the definition of “seminal.” For many the 1991 release later defined controversial term ‘post rock,’ or the use of rock instrumentation to make decidedly non-rock music. In today’s Internet age of easily- and widely-disseminated musical ideas, the opportunities to internalize and redefine entire movements are few and far between. Luckily, nostalgia or curiosity (or likely both) have lured many pillars of America’s independent past back onto the country’s stages. It’s fitting that Slint will make its first U.S. appearance of 2007 at the Pitchfork Music Festival here in Chicago, as the city has long been ground zero for the development of post-rock. PMF goers will be treated to Spiderland in its entirety, offering many a second chance to bear witness to one of the last wholly-original movements in underground music. What makes Slint so important is that the gorgeous mystery of its recorded career remains as influential and nonreplicable as it was on release day.

CATIFISH HAVEN – Wicker Park Summerfest

Catfish Haven will rock the House of Blues and then stop by to jam at your backyard BBQ.

As unselfconscious as they come, Chicago’s rough ‘n’ tumble folk-punks channel the aggression and intensity of the post-punk they grew up on through acoustic instrumentation and frontman George Hunter’s soul-driven howl. Self-described as “Otis Redding meets Nirvana,” Catfish Haven is nothing if not unique in a sea of uninspired indie-rock sameness.

MAN MAN - Wicker Park Summerfest

If playing it safe is the way to get by in today’s increasingly oversaturated commercial music industry, Man Man should hang it up right now. The “experimental rock” troupe from Philadelphia falls somewhere between Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart musically and between Buffalo Bill Cody and the Village People aesthetically. Breaks between songs be damned, Man Man keeps its eclectic energy at a constant high, though the performance art live show often blurs the fact that the band writes some decent songs.

MARITIME - Wicker Park Summerfest

Maritime’s pedigree alone would probably allow for a long and critically-accepted career, but these former members of first wave emo heroes The Promise Ring and The Dismemberment Plan haven’t rested on their historically significant pasts. Collaborations with post-punk superproducer J. Robbins have proven to be a successful formula, and this Milwaukee-based trio continues to produce relevant and progressive takes on post-emo melodic pop music.

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