In the early 1980s, North Carolina’s Corrosion of Conformity built a cult following with their thrashy, no-frills hardcore punk, but they catapulted to mainstream success in the mid-90s when they slowed down into sludgy southern stoner metal—a transition amplified by second guitarist Pepper Keenan taking over vocals. They’ve remained one of the most revered bands in the subgenre ever since, even through two hiatuses and several lineup changes. After nearly a decade away from the group, Keenan reclaimed his old role in a touring capacity in 2015, and in 2018 he rejoined core members Woody Weatherman and Mike Dean in the studio to record their first album together since 2005....

The temptation to time travel during the past year has been strong. What if we could just go “Back to Before,” as the song from Ragtime puts it? The degree to which audiences engage with the performers is up to the nature of the various pieces and to the individual audience members. You can certainly keep your camera off if you’d rather be in your pajamas (as opposed to looking like the cat’s pajamas), but it’s fun to cast your peepers at the other Zoom participants and the period costumes some have donned for the occasion....

Q: I’m in my mid-40s, straight, never married. Ten months ago, my girlfriend of three years dumped me. She got bored with the relationship and is generally not the marrying type. The breakup was amicable. I still love her and miss her. Last week, I wrote her a letter saying that I still love her and want us to get back together. She wrote me a nice letter back saying she doesn’t feel passion for me and we’re never getting back together....

Last Wednesday, as I Divvied southwest along a disused Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad corridor in Little Village, I caught the delicious aroma of fresh corn tortillas from the nearby El Milagro plant. I rolled past the razor-wire-topped walls of the Cook County Jail, then stopped to check out La Villita Park, a green space on a former brownfield site. The corridor continued southwest past the Semillas de Justicia (“Seeds of Justice”) Community Garden, various industrial businesses, and a few colorful murals, ending near the Paul Simon Job Corps Center....

You’re not alone if climate change makes you feel like you’re in a sci-fi dystopia. Chicago public artists Luftwerk, on the other hand, were inspired by a trillion-ton iceberg the size of Maryland that split from Antarctica in 2017, and in response they created the multimedia project Requiem: A White Wanderer. It includes sculptures that resemble shards of ice, as well as a sound installation and a collaborative piece for orchestra and voice, the latter created with composer and former Chicagoan Katherine Young....

Raymond O’Neal doesn’t remember where he was the first time he heard the 1989 Boogie Down Productions single “Why Is That?” But he remembers who played it for him: Michael “Mic” Shane. “If it weren’t for that very moment, I’m pretty sure the trajectory of my life would just be completely different,” says O’Neal. By 1995, O’Neal had become an executive vice president at Vibe magazine publisher Vibe Ventures, a job he owed in part to his collaborations with Shane....

Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is pure art, just as beautiful as it is heartbreaking. Ma Rainey is also the only play in the series set in Chicago. In 1927, Chicago was just eight years removed from the Chicago race riot of 1919, and the Great Migration of Black people moving to northern cities like Chicago had been happening for about a decade. Although the structures of white supremacy in Chicago looked different from those in the south, they were still very much prevalent, and that tension is what the film’s characters walk into when they arrive in the city for a recording session....

Paloma Rocío Castillo Astorga, better known as Paloma Mami, was only 18 when she released her debut single, 2018’s “Not Steady.” Lugubrious and resoundingly confident, the song made clear she wasn’t callow: “I don’t change for no dick,” she declares over a soft-edged dancehall beat whose nocturnal aura sets the tone for a night spent wisely (yet sadly) alone. The Chilean-American artist was signed by Sony Latin on the strength of that one single, and since then she’s gained worldwide popularity....

Privilege in America means not just getting opportunities to succeed but being forgiven for screwing up. Rich white kids with a penchant for partying and brawling (or worse) still end up becoming CEOs and Supreme Court justices, while many studies indicate that black kids who break school rules face far harsher punishment from early on. Where Morisseau’s play feels thinnest, ironically, is when it focuses on Omari and his Latinx classmate and girlfriend, Jasmine (Aurora Real De Asua)....

The dramatic footage from the Norwegian cruise ship stranded in rough waters this past weekend was cool, but you couldn’t sing along to it. For that, you need to head over to Hell in a Handbag’s remount of this 2002 show, the first in the company’s checkered camp history. Created by Handbag founder David Cerda (with help from Scott Lamberty), this homage/spoof of the 1972 Irwin Allen-produced disaster-at-sea film is still mostly shipshape, thanks to a stellar cast....

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Penance I was ambivalent about David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows when I wrote about it a month ago, but the more I think about this undeniably well-crafted horror film, the less I like it. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have given it so much thought if the movie hadn’t become a critical and commercial hit (it’s about to enter its seventh week at the Music Box). With regards to recent low-budget American horror, I’m more interested in the unpretentious, but thematically rich, features being cranked out by Blumhouse Productions (Oculus, The Purge: Anarchy, The Lazarus Effect, Unfriended) than in the wave of arty, but thematically thin, horror movies epitomized by Follows and Blue Ruin....

Jackalope and Raven Theatres are firing up the wayback machine this spring with a pair of shows set in 1992. If you don’t remember the era of cassette mix tapes, grunge, and Rodney King, prepare for a crash course on back-in-the-day. “This is a period piece. Except it’s not,” says Wardell Julius Clark, director of Dutch Masters, a two-person psychological thriller by Greg Keller now playing at Jackalope. The play’s contemporary elements are unmistakable, even when (especially when) the dialogue turns to politics, notably David Dinkins’s election as the first African-American mayor of New York City....

Something about the cold, steel environs of Streeterville’s Loews Chicago Hotel makes the experience of entering its restaurant, Rural Society, a surprise to the senses. You particularly notice the aromas: campfire, leather, tobacco. And, of course, meat—this is the new Argentinian steak house from Jose Garces, the Chicago-raised chef who left to build an empire in Philadelphia and beyond. Counting a Philly taco truck, Rural Society is the 19th restaurant in his stable, and his second on the home front since Mercat a la Planxa, which opened in 2008....

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP Photos Just give Rahm his casino already, will ya? In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, Mayor Rahm gave Chicago’s public school teachers one of his trademark middle fingers to the face. Let’s break it down . . . And then, out of appreciation, Karen and Rahm would walk hand in hand to Springfield to join house speaker Michael Madigan in the battle against Governor Rauner’s budget-cutting attack on civilization as we know it....

Ever since he waddled into office three years ago, President Trump has been waging war against the environment, and the union of federal employees who are trying to protect it. He has, among other things, opened up federal land to oil and gas drilling, lifted limits on coal mining leases, redefined what water bodies are in order to make it easier for companies to pollute them, and attempted to prevent states like California from setting their own limits on auto emissions....

In April, downstate-Illinois indie label Polyvinyl released the second album from Louisville power-pop act White Reaper, The World’s Best American Band. Regardless of whether or not there will ever be a clear consensus that any group is worthy of such a title (probably not), White Reaper certainly play like they believe they’re the greatest band from these 50 states. Their frictionless melodies, muscular riffs, and triple-horsepower propulsion could pass for the type of heartland 70s rock ‘n’ roll that still pumps blood into otherwise listless Clear Channel “classic rock” stations....

Legalize it, voters across Chicago and suburban Cook County said Tuesday. Shall the State of Illinois legalize the cultivation, manufacture, distribution, testing, and sale of marijuana and marijuana products for recreational use by adults 21 and older subject to state regulation, taxation and local ordinance? Governor Bruce Rauner has come out against legal pot for recreational use, while Democrat J.B. Pritzker supports recreational pot.

Since it opened two years ago, Sleeping Village has become a hub for some of the city’s best (and most affordable) local shows. A fine example is this concert, headlined by Chicago underground stalwarts Mako Sica. They’ve been at it since 2007, with core members Przemysław Drążek (formerly of intense rockers Rope) and Brent Fuscaldo steering the band’s expansive ship. Drummers and collaborators, including legendary percussionist Hamid Drake, have come and gone over their numerous LP releases (via adventurous labels such as La Société Expéditionnaire, Feeding Tube, and Permanent), but Mako Sica have always retained a certain fluid consistency in their sound....

Chicago singer-songwriter Kelso Ashby makes whimsical bedroom pop as New Goo, stacking lo-fi percussion, spectral synths, and featherweight vocals. On their new self-released album, Picture of a Picture, they draw from the magnetic, euphoric throb of house music, which dovetails with the raw underpinnings in their intimate material. “Tension” cycles among several threadbare drum loops that hustle the song’s limber funk bass line through wobbly keyboard notes and electronic froufrou. Ashby relies on a limited palette of synthetic sounds, which lends a comforting familiarity even to their strange, unpredictable rearrangements of blinking keys and cracked percussion....