Chicago gig spots

Honestly this list is basically my whole social life, not gonna lie. I'm supposed to be icing my knees on a Saturday and instead I'm standing in some sticky-floored room in Pilsen or Uptown waiting for a band to start forty minutes late. Anyway, these are the rooms I keep going back to, the ones where the sound just feels right and the bartenders know the regulars. If you want to talk murals after, I know a wall two blocks from Thalia Hall, just saying.