Free Daytime Concerts/DJ Sets On Mondays At Noon In Millennium Park

As I acknowledged in an earlier post, Millennium Park has some awesome and diverse independent music coming in on Monday evenings throughout the late spring and summer. Needless to say, the hipster factor was already ratcheted up with the impending lineup. Now it seems someone with some pull (and great taste in music) downtown wanted to surpass their previous benchmark in cool for Monday (and some Saturday) lunchtimes as well.

Calling it Edible Audible Picnic, the first workday of the week at Millennium Park will feature an incredibly diverse assortment of DJ's and bands to entertain as you scarf down your salads and sandwiches. Ranging from hipster darlings The Juan Maclean and High Places, hip-hop artists The Cool Kids, Tropicalia wunderkind El Guincho and Chicago house legend Green Velvet. Just to draw a wide range of consistent talent is well deserving of praise. To daringly roll all of these big names that are usually seen in dark clubs to a downtown Chicago lunchtime crowd is, at very least, gutsy. Millennium Park was always supposed to be an artistic triumph. Having the vision to bring in musicians that push artistic and cultural boundaries only emphasizes the greatness. Kudos, CPD.

All start times are on Monday at noon unless listed otherwise:

June 7 - Solvent
June 14 - The Cool Kids
June 21 - Dosh
June 28 - I Am Robot And Proud
July 3 (Saturday) - Green Velvet aka Cajmere
July 5 - Nice Nice
July 12 - El Guincho
July 19 - High Places
July 24 (Saturday) - Chicago Hip Hop--All Headz on Deck
July 26 - A Grape Dope
August 2 - VHS or BETA DJ Set
August 9 - Javelin
August 16 - The Juan Maclean DJ Set
August 23 - All City Affairs
August 30 - Future Rock
September 4 (Saturday) - Orchard Lounge

The Juan Maclean - Happy House


El Guincho - Antillas

Free Track From The Juan Maclean, DJ Mix Coming April 27...And A Bonus!

It is the weekend. Are you ready to shake a tailfeather? The Juan Maclean are the latest artist to throw their hat into the ring to mix a DJ-Kicks set. If you are a casual electronica fan, the DJ Kicks series is the perfect sampler plate to whet your appetite.

John Maclean and Nancy Whang as The Juan Maclean show a lot of range and influence in their songs while keeping a keen eye on the past. They bounce between genres like euro-disco, dub and straight up house. The free track offered "Feel So Good" is a definite throw-your-sweaty-hands-up house anthem. This is a clean version that clocks in at over ten minutes so all of you laptop DJ's can drop it in your mix, even if it is just for you and your cat.

Bonus: If you email subscribe to The Juan Maclean at their website, they front you another freebie. An outtake from the recording sessions for their 2009 LP The Future Will Come, "Humans Will Bring You Down" is an atmospheric instrumental a-la Boards Of Canada, with airy keyboards and drumbeat clicks to chill you out. Have a fine weekend.

Download the free track here.