Featured Local Artist

Our featured Local Artist for August is Sweetie, a Chicago-based lipstick-punk band with a femme fatale ferocity and a French attitude, thanks to frontwoman Birdy Vee, who blends her francophone background with her fervor for punk and drag. Voted first runner-up for Best Punk Band in the Chicago Reader’s Best

Our Featured Local Artist for June is Selenoplexia, a four-piece from Chicago that formed in 2021. Last October, Vocal Distortion welcomed Selenoplexia on FM89 to discuss their full-length album Exalt and Despair, an outstanding debut that skillfully explores all spectrums of extreme music through otherworldly atmosphere, heartrending lyricism, and pummeling

Our Featured Local Artist for May is Space Age Zeros, a Chicago area power pop/pop punk hybrid that formed in the spring of 2022. Made up on five scene veterans who all have history together in sharing the stage with each other’s bands, the band’s initial mission was to blend

Our Featured Local Artist for this month is Impulsive Hearts, who pick up where recent revivalist acts like Dum Dum Girls and Best Coast have left off, adding just a hint of indelible Midwestern sadness to the neo-girl group garage rock sound. Danielle Sines leads the group with brooding, captivating

Our Featured Local Artist this month is Cheerleader Roadkill, a pop-punk band from the western Chicago suburbs, founded in 2022. Classmates Noel Kovac (guitar, vocals) and Jack Metz (bass), inspired by the sound of 90s pop punk bands like blink-182, Simple Plan, and Sum 41, they began writing songs in

Our Featured Local Artist for February is Sex Dream, a 3-piece from the Chicago suburbs, playing Ramonescore punk with a hint of twee pop. Currently featuring Maria Surfinbird (bass, vocals), Drew (guitar, backing vocals), and Andrew (drums), the band started in fall of 2018 when Maria moved to the US

Our Featured Local Artist for January is Oscar Bait, a four-piece Chicago band that mixes elements of hardcore, pop-punk, and emo into their sound. The band primarily focuses on volleying melancholic melodies toward the listener at the speed of light, with vocalist Jim Coleman Howes delivering seriocomic musings in his

December’s Featured Local Artist is Sunday Cruise! Formed in 2017 by Zoe (guitar/vocals), Cassidy (bass), Levi (drums), and Camden (lead guitar), they first began performing in the summer of 2018 when they entered a “battle of the bands” competition held at Side Street Studios in Elgin. The competition ran all

Our Featured Local Artist for November is Unto the Earth, a four piece metal band from Naperville and Aurora, straddling the lines between stoner, desert, doom, and sludge, with shoegaze and heavy psych influences. Formed in 2019 by guitarist Mike Yoshida and bassist/vocalist/instrumentalist Simeon Papacostas, along with lead guitarist Jed

Our Featured Local Artist for October is The Koop, an experienced and well-traveled working musician, regularly performing as a solo acoustic player throughout the Chicagoland area. So far this year, he’s played over 50 three-hour shows of what he likes to call his “essential acoustic melodies.” From wineries to breweries