The rise of house music is a large chapter in Chicago’s story, yet Revolution Chicago’s retelling makes the genre an uncompelling sidenote. Despite no support from his father and skepticism from his mother, Mickey “Mixin’” Oliver pursues a career DJing house music, eventually landing a gig at then-failing WBMX. As Mickey rises in prominence and WBMX rises in ratings, audience members are constantly reminded of the current state of house music and its influence on Chicagoans and folks around the world instead of being shown it through the story and action....

Ever since Norwegian singer and art-pop provocateur Jenny Hval released her gripping 2011 debut, Visceral (Rune Grammofon), her most important musical partner has been guitarist Håvard Volden, a staunch experimentalist who’s helped realize her fizzy, ambitious pop. In her live performances she’s usually accompanied by several wig-wearing women, and though Volden joins her too, often wearing his own wig, he tends to stand off to the side behind a mixing desk—Hval is the focal point, and he seems happy with that arrangement....

The title of John Mulaney’s current stand-up tour is “Kid Gorgeous,” which conjures up expectations of an easygoing golden boy. But onstage at the Chicago Theatre last Friday, Mulaney practically ran from one side of the stage to the other, shouting at the audience. He’s pissed, he explained, because his college alma mater (unnamed at the show, but it’s Georgetown University) had the gall to solicit a donation for the alumni fund....

When humanity’s ship goes down due to a global pandemic, vulture capitalism, and corrupt politics, the band picking and singing the final notes will be Chicago’s Judson Claiborne. So this month—when we’re grappling with the messy aftermath of an election while watching COVID-19 cases skyrocket before our eyes—feels like the perfect time for Christopher Salveter, the group’s auteur, to release this collection of finely wrought songs that confront apocalyptic anxiety with beautiful melodies that make sticking around feel like a better option....

Dennis Lee New frontiers in dining are being explored. Celebrity chef Marc Vetri of Philadelphia is the latest chef to write a cranky old man anti-food-journalism-as-it-exists-in-2015 piece, for the Huffington Post, of course. He hits all the usual get-off-my-lawn notes, recalling a lost era when one learned reviewer for the local paper waited a month before reviewing, with invariable respect, the latest hometown-hero restaurant. And now you have these kids with their snark on Twitter and their lists!...

In January 2015, when Northwestern University announced a $101 million donation from Roberta “Bertie” Buffett Elliott—a 1954 graduate of the school and investment guru Warren Buffett’s younger sister—there were a lot of happy folks on campus. For those most closely associated with the institute, the bonanza had turned into a problem. It looked to them like their proudly independent research center was about to be co-opted by the federal government’s military and foreign policy establishment....

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

Looking to reignite your creative spark? If you’ve always wanted to try your hand at acting, learn a new instrument, or make some ceramics with a kiln, you should check out the Chicago Park District’s adult education classes. They’re truly one of the best bargains in the city, as many of the instructors are working musicians, artists, and members of Chicago’s theater community with years of training that they’re eager to pass on to new students....

In the liner notes to his dense but enjoyable new album, Sixteen: Drummers Suite (Pi), percussionist Dan Weiss explains that working with a large ensemble on his previous recording, Fourteen, opened up his thinking. He wanted to do dig in deeper, and that’s exactly what he’s done with his latest project—its title refers to the number of musicians on the recording. Sixteen pays homage to legendary drummers who’ve inspired Weiss, among them Max Roach, Elvin Jones, and Philly Joe Jones, and not just in broad strokes....

“. . . with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.” —Allen Ginsberg, from “Howl” That’s the background. The play itself unfolds in the courtyard of Violet’s mansion, next to Sebastian’s “well-groomed jungle” of a garden. Violet has summoned a psychiatrist, expecting him to OK the lobotomy in exchange for her promise to subsidize his work. Also present are Mrs....

The listings department is still recovering from last weekend’s Gordon Lightfoot backyard karaoke festival* so without further ado . . . Sat 9/12, 1-6 PM, and Sun 9/13, 1-5 PM: opening weekend for “Field Measure,” an exhibition featuring work of artists Ruth Burke, Zack Ingram, and Libbi Ponce, who all attended the ACRE Residency in Wisconsin. On view through Sun 10/11 at LVL3 Gallery in Wicker Park. Sat 9/12 at 1, 3, and 5 PM and Sun 9/13 at 5 PM: The 96 Hours Festival featuring performance artists, dance, puppeteers, musicians, and more assembled into teams and challenged to create an original work in 96 hours....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Tuesday, November 1, 2016. Man shot in viral Facebook Live post in March was killed over the weekend Brian Fields was shot and killed while sitting in a car in a gas station parking lot in Back of the Yards Friday. The 30-year-old had previously been shot and injured while live-streaming on Facebook in a March 31st post that went viral. [DNAinfo Chicago]

In her acceptance speech Tuesday night, delivered after soundly defeating sitting Cook County state’s attorney Anita Alvarez, Kim Foxx didn’t mention the Laquan McDonald case or any other recent, high-profile criminal justice scandals. Just interviewed Latasha Watkins while her kids, Jadon and Jonathan, played around us. pic.twitter.com/HGSZazEJap — Micah Uetricht (@micahuetricht) March 16, 2016 “My five-year-old came home and asked, ‘Why did they shoot him 16 times?'” Latasha Watkins told me as her two sons, Jadon, five, and Jonathan, three, played with Kim Foxx yard signs near the back of the ballroom....

Traveling can be a disorienting experience. After many hours in transit, you find yourself in a strange city with a landscape and street names you don’t recognize and no friends except the ones you brought with you. But if you’re lucky, your hotel will be full of people to comfort and pamper you and see to your happiness. Among those agents of comfort is the lobby restaurant. We decided to order the most stereotypically midwestern food on the menu....

“The bands are being prerecorded at various sites in the city,” explains Rich. “A longtime partner with SummerDance is the Chicago Park District. In light of that, we’ve used Millennium Park as a backdrop for some of our productions, the rooftop of the field house in Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, and the lawn and the gymnasium at Calumet Park on the far south side. The parks are also available to people, so this has been an important partnership this year to encourage people to responsibly be outside and enjoy the spaces the city has to offer....

Raven Theatre’s Cold Town/Hotline, the Chicago holiday play it commissioned from writer and director Eli Newell, features one extraordinary kid actor—fifth-grader Jonah Kaufman—and the mostly happy ending requisite for family-friendly Christmas-season shows. Ah, yes. The grocery store. But Menendian told me, “That’s not really true. They wanted to celebrate us [at a gala, etc]. And we did not want to be celebrated, given the acrimonious terms under which we left. But it had nothing to do with saying ‘please eliminate our names from the history of Raven....

It’s been five years since Pittsburgh instrumental duo Zombi released Shape Shift. In May, they whetted the appetites of their long-suffering fans with the single “Breakthrough & Conquer,” which features guitar solos from Trans Am’s Philip Manley, and this month multi-instrumentalist Steve Moore and drummer A.E. Paterra have officially slid back onto the scene with a new sixth album, 2020—a 40-minute joy of crunchy riffs and beautifully layered electronics. Zombi’s music tends to fall across a dichotomy between the aesthetic of 70s art-house horror films on one hand and muscular, sci-fi-inflected hard rock and space rock on the other....

Thinkstock Is it unethical to snoop? I don’t think so. The weekly conversation among the Ethicists in the Sunday New York Times Magazine is usually pretty interesting, but the one this past weekend surprised me with its opacity. The upshot is our correspondent has the valuable ring and it’s burning a hole in his pocket. What’s more, he spotted a notice on Craigslist asking for a reward for a missing ring and he’s pretty sure it’s the ring he’s got....

The true mark of a musical icon might be the power to move intergenerational audiences with a signature song, even decades after its original release. Take soul legend Gladys Knight: she often ends her concerts with the 1973 hit “Midnight Train to Georgia,” a tribute to those who follow their dreams and fail. Born in Atlanta, Knight had her first brush with fame in 1952, when at age seven she sang on the TV show Original Amateur Hour (a precursor to the likes of America’s Got Talent)....

Album artwork for Rebel Heart We’re barely a week into 2015, and Madonna may have already embarked on the most tasteless album campaign of 2015. In anticipation of her 13th album, Rebel Heart, tentatively set for release on March 9, the longstanding pop icon posted a series of images to Instagram and Twitter depicting political figures like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. wearing the ropes that bind Madonna’s face on the record’s cover....