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There’s a difference between surf and instrumental rock—not every rock ’n’ roll tune without a vocal is surf. The likes of Duane Eddy, Link Wray, and even Booker T. & the MGs have all been mistaken for surf artists, but none of them have had that “wet” reverb sound favored by west-coast guitarists such as Dick Dale and Dave Myers. However, Man or Astro-Man?—who emerged out of Auburn, Alabama, in the 90s—blur the line that divides those two traditions (and they’ve occasionally used vocals too)....

Q: I don’t want to become one of those people who write to you complaining about how I married someone I wasn’t sexually compatible with ten years ago and now my sex life still sucks. I already know I need to break up with my boyfriend and I was about to do it when he got sick with the flu. This was at the beginning of March. I assumed he’d be sick for a week and then we would have an unpleasant conversation....

It’s five degrees on a Friday evening, even colder with the wind chill, and you’re shivering while in line to ice skate at Millennium Park. After the hour-long wait, you cough up 12 bucks to rent a pair of bladed boots that smell like a clammy YMCA, spend another ten overheated minutes struggling to stuff your feet into them, and then cram your remaining possessions into a tiny rental locker. Everywhere you turn these days, there’s a new slab of ice in Chicago you can pay to skate on....

When a potent new expression of derision comes along, it needs to be applied sparingly. Think of it as like a cutting-edge antibiotic. In a pinch, it’ll zap whatever lower life form needs zapping, but if it’s used repeatedly bad things happen. Bacteria develop resistance; objects of contempt stop reeling and begin to giggle. On to the Washington crowd, Democrats and Republicans alike. “Both sides are the meat puppets of Wall Street,” he wrote....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.

Shortly after Carolinas indie label Tiny Engines launched in 2008, it became a crucial outlet for the burgeoning fourth-wave emo scene, releasing material by bands such as Tigers Jaw, Restorations, and The Hotelier, which began breaking out in the mid-2010s. A few years ago, the label began to aggressively expand beyond the sounds that characterized its early years, and in the process inadvertently highlighted the ways many contemporary punk and indie-rock outfits borrow from emo....

In Union Park on Friday, friends Laurel and Gia showed how to stand out at Pitchfork: matching outfits, liberal amounts of red and lush textures. The monochromatic scarlet look can be rocked by guys, too. 

Courtesy of Artist/Rhona Hoffman Gallery Julia Fish, MMW scalino profile: atrium-cortile, 2007, Gouache and Flasche on Fabriano paper Art savants and collectors should dust off their checkbooks and ready their pens for one of the nation’s longest running and most distinguished art fairs, the 2015 ADAA Art Show. Though nothing beats seeing the artwork in person, Chicagoans can still take a peek at the artworks by tuning in to the online simulated fair at artsy....

Invasion of the Body Snatchers Each Friday, we recommend seven Old Movies to Watch Now, all of which come recommended by one of our critics and can currently be screened online. Read the review, watch the movie, feel accomplished. • Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the McCarthy-era SF classic.

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, March 16, 2016. There’s a new artistic tribute to the labor movement in Pullman If you’ve wandered around Pullman recently, you may have noticed the life-size cutouts of people (and a dog) installed on garages and buildings. It’s the work of artist JB Daniel, who’s adding photos of well-known labor leaders such as United Steelworkers Union boss Alice Peurala, Cesar Chavez, Frederick Douglass, and Eugene V....

When Mayor Lightfoot stormed across the council floor last week to confront Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor, we got a demonstration of a mayor breaking her promise—not that anyone asked for it. The mayor’s council floor showdown with Taylor stems from the case of Anjanette Young, the woman whose west-side home was invaded one night in 2019, by a dozen or so police officers waving a no-knock warrant, as she stepped from the shower....

“What Worldstar Hip Hop was for fight videos, we’re trying to become for police interactions,” says XMO’s creator, Channing Harris. While users can review their interactions with cops and provide information including the officers’ badge numbers, officers’ names won’t be attached to reviews and badge numbers won’t be visible to other users—only to the XMO developers. Efforts to create a “Yelp for cops” in other cities have been made before....

Gossip Wolf wasn’t there when dazzlingly fleet-fingered guitarist and singer Charlie Baran cofounded “punta rock” group Banda Blanca in Honduras in the early 70s, so it’s hard to say if he’s even better today. Baran now lives in Chicago (he used to play in Casolando), and in 2011 his talent inspired Dan Abu-Absi from JT & the Clouds to form a band around him: Radio Free Honduras perform Baran’s tunes and well-chosen covers with a revolving-door cast of younger musicians....