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Courtesy of the artist Marin “Tagoi” Sandu (right) Tomorrow the modest, superb label L-M Dupli-cation—the imprint run by Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost of A Hawk and a Hacksaw—will release Tagoi, a spry and soulful blast of Roma music from Bahto Delo Delo, a group led by accordionist Marin “Tagoi” Sandu. Sandu hails from the Romanian village of Clejani and his father was the brilliant violinist Nicolae Neacsu. Those names might ring a bell if you happen to be a fan of Eastern European Roma music, for it was in Clejani that some Belgian record producers organized a slew of dynamic folk musicians who entertained locals at social functions into a working band called Taraf de Haïdouks; Neacsu was one of the group’s most electrifying and skilled members....

Though they were around for only a few years in the early 1980s, Naperville punk band Protagonists did a lot in that brief lifespan, recording a tape with legendary engineer Phil Bonnet, releasing a seven-inch on the label run by fellow suburban warriors Reaction Formation, and rocking venues across the city and suburbs—not bad for high school kids! On Friday, July 24, local reissue label Alona’s Dream will drop 1983-1985, which compiles buzzing, new-wave-inflected jams from both Protagonists releases as well as basement demos and live cuts....

On October 9, comedian Peter Kim left Second City’s E.T.C. revue show A Red Line Runs Through It. During the course of the evening, harmless heckling had turned into vitriolic hate speech directed at both the performers and the audience, and Kim had had enough. In a personal essay published by Chicago magazine he wrote: “Since September 2015, people in the audience have hurled increasingly racist, homophobic, and misogynistic comments at me and my castmates: comments demeaning my Asian ethnicity, using the f-word to degrade my homosexuality, and shouting ‘whores’ at the women....

These days the field of classical music is crowded with prodigies whose careers seem to have been cemented before puberty, so it’s refreshing to discover that one of today’s most acclaimed younger pianists was a late bloomer. French pianist Lucas Debargue began studying music when he was 11, but his studies weren’t rigorous. By the time he was in high school he was more taken with literature than the piano, and it wasn’t until after he earned his bachelor’s degree that he pursued formal music studies....

By now it’s common knowledge that Randy Newman’s sweet, Pixar-accompanying musical style is a facade for lyrics infused with sardonic, acerbic social commentary—much in the same way that Steely Dan’s gleaming jazz-rock is a veneer for profiles of losers, outcasts, and hucksters. In fact, in his use of American tropes for populist purposes that both celebrate and criticize American life, Newman’s work is more like Mark Twain’s than that of virtually any other modern songwriter....

Nobody liked Eris, the Greek goddess of strife. That’s why, when her invitation to Peleus and Thetis’s wedding on Mount Olympus got lost in the mail, she crashed it and threw the Golden Apple of Discord into the mix, a present for the hottest goddess at the party. This led to a contest, judged by Paris, to determine the fairest of them all, resulting in—long story short—Aphrodite bribing the lad with the gift of the mortal Helen, queen of Sparta, which of course was the infamous case of human trafficking that started the Trojan War....

As revealed in 18 hours of his Chicago Stories podcast: RAHM’S FAVORITE PLACES Four Moon Tavern The Gift Theatre Parachute Robinson’s No. 1 Ribs Manny’s Deli Tiny Lounge Theater on the Lake Avec S.K.Y. Billy Sunday Scofflaw The Up Room Riverwalk

On February 14, 2018, Katrina Jabbi and her husband Buba needed a distraction. Buba had a meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the next day. A few months earlier Buba received notice that ICE had bumped his appointment date up by six months, from June 2018 to December 2017. He had to work on the new date, so he contacted the agency to reschedule. They moved his appointment to February 2018....

Brian Jackson/Sun-Times Media Willie Wilson during his hearing at the Board of Elections I was on the phone with a guy obsessively talking politics, when he said . . . “He said Mayor Emanuel didn’t challenge Willie Wilson.” To be double sure, I checked in with Rickey Hendon, the former west-side state senator, who’s the brains behind the Wilson campaign. “It wasn’t just Kasper,” said Hendon. “Rahm had a full team....

The word batu in the title of Hannah Ii-Epstein’s powerful play is a slang term in Hawaiian drug culture for methamphetamine (it comes from the Tagalog word for “rock” or “stone”). The title also is a nonsexual double entendre—meaning both giving up meth entirely and indulging in two hits of meth (not one, but two)—that connects to the show’s central conflict: Honey Girl, a former meth addict trying to keep clean in a subculture where everyone she knows is a user (even her mother) so she can keep custody of her kid, continues to deal meth to supplement her meager income....

OCTOBER THEATER PICKS (Kerry Reid) Henrik Ibsen‘s 1879 three-act drama shook the world when Nora Helmer, a young wife and mother, walked out on her family with the slam of a door. It’s been reimagined by Writers Theatre artistic director Michael Halberstam and Sandra Delgado in this one-act version (originally developed through Definition Theatre), directed by Lavina Jadhwani and starring Cher Álvarez as Nora. Writers Theatre, through December 15, writerstheatre.org...

With all the faith I have in the sophistication of Chicago voters, I’m confident no one will be fooled by the phony-baloney “feud” that has supposedly erupted between Mayor Rahm and Governor Rauner over Father Michael Pfleger’s great Dan Ryan protest. And 2007. And they’re ideological soul mates when it comes to the destruction of the Chicago Teachers Union and the privatization of Chicago Public Schools. Rauner cheered Rahm on, urging him to close more union schools, cut taxes on the rich, and do other diabolical things near and dear to the governor’s gumball-size heart....

I had a chance to see Roberto Fonseca play at the 2015 Fes Festival of World Sacred Music in Morocco, in a duo collaboration with Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara. In his thrilling, visceral performance, the Havana-born musician, composer, and bandleader embodied the multifarious musicality of Cuba’s best jazz pianists. Blessed with access to the island’s customary classical music training, which often begins in elementary school, Fonseca began playing jazz festivals at age 15 and later obtained a master’s in composition from Havana’s prestigious Instituto Superior de Arte....

The Chicago Reader has announced that Karen Hawkins and Sujay Kumar, who have served as interim editors in chief for the past three months, have been appointed as permanent editors in chief of the weekly newspaper. Kerry Reid has also been hired to be the new full-time editor of the paper’s theater and dance coverage. Kerry Reid has been a freelance theater critic and arts journalist for more than 25 years, including 17 years as a regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune and many years with the Reader....

In one of Chicago’s most tumultuous 24-hour periods in recent memory, the city withstood a night of momentous civil unrest followed by a day of unsettlingly violent storms. By coincidence, I spent much of the duration listening to an oddly suitable soundtrack: Immersion, the latest full-length by Denver metal trio Primitive Man. Plenty of bands make music that feels overwhelming, but Primitive Man really earn this album’s title, plunging you so deep in the muck you have to dig yourself out....

Thursday, May 7Bitney / Bach / HatwichUlery / Miller / BoyeBruce Lamont Friday, May 15 (Presented by Strange Victory Touring)Ed Schrader’s Music BeatMaurice Kyle Kaos Saturday, May 23 (Presented by Northern Spy) TBA!

Norway’s Ulver debuted in 1993 as a howling black-metal outfit, but since then front man and composer Kristoffer Rygg has steered his ship into such different waters you can hardly say it’s going a-Viking anymore. (If you want to hear Ulver at their heaviest since their early days, I’d recommend their collaborations with Sunn O))), 2003’s “Cut WoodEd” and 2014’s Terrestrials.) But almost any questions you could have about the life, times, and journey of this band should be answered in Wolves Evolve, the book companion to their new Flowers of Evil (both via House of Mythology), which is a memoir, scrapbook, and manifesto in one....

When I started watching Tiger King—the hit Netflix series—I was like the rest of you, hooting and howling at the show’s weird and wacky characters. Don’t laugh too much at these characters, folks. They’re not really all that different from the people you’ve been voting for. Not much different than you and me. It’s just that Joe seems a little less frightening than Carole. Which is odd, as he’s the one serving a 22-year sentence for hiring a hit man to kill her....