Alltime Best Bands from Illinois

Chicago bands and Illinois bands in general. As a native Chicagoan who went to school in Champaign, i feel entitled to weigh in on this matter. That said, i'm probably missing the boat on some less prominent Chicago bands of the late nineties and "oughts".

One side note to this list - for the most part, i have a thing where i can tell by a band name if i WON"T like a band, it's about 95% accurate for bands that have albums out, and probably even more for all bands. the two times in my life where i have been most wrong about band names happened when i was still living in Illinois back in 1991. I saw a band whose name i hated but who had some local buzz at the Lounge Ax - they were called the Vulgar Boatmen. As predicted, they totally weren't for me. So, having broken my rule and gone out to see a band with a horrible name, i decided i wasn't going to get burned twice. The next two young bands i blew off, for "lame band name reasons" were called Uncle Tupelo and the Smashing Pumpkins.

doh!