A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn. Interventions by Horse Lords Sirens by Kara-Lis Coverdale and LXV Gqom Oh! The Sound of Durban by GQOM OH!
Hey, sorry to hear about your gambling losses. The legislature passed (and the governor signed) something close to that deal last summer. It was loaded up with a jackpot of benefits for entrenched gambling industry owners—a massive expansion that more than doubled the number of gaming positions in the state and lowered taxes on existing casinos, but it guaranteed the city 33.3 percent of adjusted gross revenues. “I think Mayor Lightfoot has caved in to the gambling lobbyists and to their little game of continually lowering their own taxes,” Kindt told me....
Pauline Anna Strom’s new album, Angel Tears in Sunlight, features the first new work in 30 years from the legendary Bay Area electronic music composer. Strom made her album debut with 1982’s Trans-Millenia Consort, a limited-edition vinyl and cassette release she’d recorded in her San Francisco home. Despite its humble beginnings, the album has become highly sought-after by devotees of instrumental, synthesizer-driven space music and the tranquil ambient styles loosely grouped under the banner of “new age....
After Ira Glass’s address at this year’s Third Coast International Audio Festival (which you can read all about here), I saw a window of opportunity to ask him a question. As he exited stage right and began to pack his gear into worn ziplock bags and cloth pouches, I racked my brain for a good question that wouldn’t be met with a canned answer. In a couple of minutes the lights would come on and a line of admirers would surely form, bursting with questions he probably gets all the time....
The Chosen Few Picnic is the Saturday nearest July 4, and its single day provides Chicagoans with a blueprint for the perfect summer: all you need is good music, friends and family, and lots of barbecue. House DJ collective the Chosen Few launched the picnic in 1990 as part of the Hatchett family barbecue behind the Museum of Science and Industry—DJs Andre and Tony Hatchett are original members of the Chosen Few....
Thom Yorke may be best known as front man of legendary British art-rock group Radiohead, but he’s also amassed an impressive discography on his own, putting out several solo releases, a 2013 album with his side group Atoms for Peace, and the score for 2018’s Suspiria remake. His third album under his own name, last year’s Anima, is the best expression of his musical philosophy yet. While Radiohead has long incorporated dance music, Yorke fully commits to electronica in his outside work....
If you want to know one of the reasons why Donald Trump won the election—or, more to the point, why Hillary Clinton lost—check out the thousands of e-mails Mayor Rahm Emanel released this week—kicking and screaming—thanks to a lawsuit filed by the Better Government Association. Reading Rahm’s e-mails reminded me of the stories Mick Dumke and I used to write about the mayor’s first-term appointment book. He’d set aside time to meet with bankers, CEOs, and other money men, but rarely met with labor leaders, activists, or ordinary citizens....
When noisy Brooklyn-based no-wave outfit the Dreebs called it a day in 2014, the last thing I expected to arise from the fallout was really great hip-hop. The Dreebs were the deranged trio of vocalist and electric violinist Adam Markiewicz, drummer Shannon Sigley, and prepared-guitar player Jordan Bernstein, and on their final record, Bait an Orchard (on via Rotted Tooth Recordings, run by former Oozing Wound drummer Kyle Reynolds), they pounded out an alien racket....
Julien Baker’s 2015 debut album, Sprained Ankle, and its 2017 follow-up, Turn Out the Lights, centered the singer-songwriter’s sometimes fragile but always sincere voice as she journeyed through addiction and came to terms with her sexuality and spirituality. Her songs were bold in their lyrical honesty and unadorned presentation: Sprained Ankle featured just Baker and her guitar, and while Turn Out the Lights added guest violin and woodwinds, it still focused on her singing, which wedded her sadness and struggles to guitar-driven melodies....
AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh Asked about segregation in yesterday’s debate on Chicago Tonight, Mayor Emanuel noted that Chicago and Illinois voters have elected a lot of African-Americans. Chicago’s most fundamental problem finally got a scrap of attention in the mayoral campaign last night. Fifty-one minutes into a one-hour debate on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight, moderator Phil Ponce asked the candidates why Chicago is still so segregated. The candidates then discussed the issue for two minutes and thirty-seven seconds....
“You’re a traitor to me.” Everything about Roan @ the Gates, the magnificent show by playwright Christina Telesca Gorman, directed by Lexi Saunders, hangs on the way Nat (Jasmine Bracey) chooses to inflect that line. Nat speaks it to Roan (Brenda Barrie), a dissident NSA whistleblower and Nat’s wife. Much like Edward Snowden, Roan makes a series of revelations about American intelligence so damning that she has to secure emergency asylum in Russia....
Chicago Reader Inaugural Pride Block Party with Marz Community Brewing Presented by Nue Vodka Sunday, June 23, 2019, 1-9 p.m. 3630 South Iron Street, Chicago $10 | all ages; kids under 10 free | wheelchair accessible | Free parking CHICAGO – The Chicago Reader celebrates the city’s rich and diverse 50 years of honoring LGBTQ+ community legacy at its first-ever all-day, all-ages block party in partnership with Marz Community Brewing Sunday, June 23, 1-9 p....
Photo illustration: Chicago Reader; Image: Google Maps The 1100 block of North Ashland, where a 2011 drive-by shooting was followed by a shooting by an off-duty Chicago police officer. For the first time in its history, the Independent Police Review Authority has recommended that a Chicago police officer involved in a shooting be separated from the force. IPRA found that officer Francisco Perez, who was off-duty and working security for a restaurant when he witnessed a drive-by shooting on North Ashland in 2011, was “inattentive to duty” for shooting 16 times at the wrong car....
ARTIST: EC Brown SHOW: Krampusnacht at the Hideout on Thu 12/5, featuring Arriver, Viet Rahm, Andrew L’animal, a Krampus dance contest, an art market, and more MORE INFO: EC Brown/Floor Length and Tux
Manuel Lagos Kassé Mady Diabaté Since the early 70s Kassé Mady Diabaté has been one of Mali’s greatest griots, a hereditary caste of musicians whose purpose has been to share stories, sing praises, record history, and recite poetry, among other oral traditions. Until the last few decades it was viewed as improper for someone not born into a griot caste to sing, although that restriction has long dissolved—but Diabaté is the real deal....
“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness,” writes Vladimir Nabokov in Speak, Memory, where he describes the past as a series of illuminated pictures, through which one’s character “becomes visible when the lamp of art is made to shine through life’s foolscap.” Potent backlit images magnified to eyelash-fine detail before being whisked away, with a sly billow of the curtain that brings the mechanism of the art abruptly into view also describes the magic of Manual Cinema, the homegrown puppet theater company celebrating its tenth anniversary this year....
The Chicago Reader has published a coloring book to raise funds for the paper and the artists who contributed drawings to the effort. The 52-page Reader Coloring Book is available in both PDF download and limited-edition print form. Andy Bellomo Instagram: @andybMix / Website: andybellomo.com Andy Bellomo is a visual artist, public mural artist, stained-glass artist, teacher, and performer living and working in Chicago. She is a dynamic member of the arts and LGBTQ communities and a strong activist and advocate for social change and human rights....
She had just relocated to the city from Washington, D.C. and didn’t know anyone but her family. That made the transition difficult. But she learned about an entrepreneurial training program for artists and attended the information session at Rebuild Foundation. Rebuild, which was founded by artist Theaster Gates, focuses on art, cultural development, and neighborhood transformation. Equipping artists with the tools they need to thrive is key to this mission....
Katatonia were fresh off a hiatus when they dropped their 11th studio album, City Burials, in April, but the pandemic meant they couldn’t stage the triumphant return tour it merited. In May, the nearly 30-year-old Swedish metal outfit appeased their fans and assuaged their own frustration with a livestreamed concert. More than six months later—with the live-music circuit in Europe and the Americas still on hold—they’ve released Dead Air, a beautiful, melancholy, tight, and almost seamless document of that online performance....
Monique Golding, 40, moved to Chicago in 2017 and quickly became enmeshed in the city’s music communities. She’s a member of vocal group Mosaic Soul, which recently self-released the live album Blessed. She also sings as part of the Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble, whose second-full length, Now, is due via International Anthem on April 9. I sang for the first time onstage in my high school for a Christmas performance—this was back in my senior year of high school....
