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Online menswear giant Bonobos recently put together an ad campaign with a video that features a rotating panoply of men wearing its clothes. The people behind the clip began it with a shot of effortless cool: a close-up of Chicago activist and rapper Ric Wilson (the ad also closes with images of two other key figures in Chicago hip-hop, star-in-the-making MC Kweku Collins and eminent poet and mentor Kevin Coval). Wilson certainly fits the role of leader in his stance against prejudice and violence—he’s worked with racial justice organizations including Black Youth Project 100 and We Charge Genocide (the latter sent him to speak about the torture of people of color at the hands of CPD before the United Nations Committee Against Torture), and he’s also at the forefront of Chicago hip-hop....

A man crawls on all fours across the stage. His eyes remain fixed on the ground directly beneath him. Two women sit astride him looking out, faces neutral as they progress through the space. One moment it’s a show of wanton subjugation-pageant queens swanning on a laboring human float. Another moment the three are a single body, an insect, or maybe a chimera, something fascinatingly wrong. “Shame is an emotion we all experience....

Lee Ranaldo has always had literary predilections. During his years in Sonic Youth he was the guy who’d often unleash quasi-Beat language in carefully spoken rushes, and in recent years his solo projects have made it obvious that he was the source of his previous band’s classic-rock flirtations. Both of those qualities are slathered all over Electric Trim (Mute), his latest album with his working band the Dust—guitarist Alan Licht, bassist Tim Luntzel, and drummer Steve Shelley, his former Sonic Youth cohort....

“Rahm Emanuel wants to spend another $95 million on Chicago Police and we are fed up! We want schools for kids, not cops! We want police accountability, not more resources for the police. A fancy new building will not end racism. We want real safety in our communities. That means investing in programs and services like quality schools, quality health care, jobs for teens, childcare for all, living wages.” Some youth from Mitts’s ward disagree....

Carol Neal laughs at the spectacle in the parking lot of the Hardee’s restaurant that her daughter Denice Hubbs manages in Springfield, Illinois. Springfield’s DIY punk scene has championed a variety of out-of-the-box venues over the past few years. Anchored by a resurgent neighborhood called Southtown, the scene made use of every space it could—recently there have been shows in a city tunnel, in barns, and at half-pipes. “It was pretty much a freak show,” Galecki says, laughing....

This week I previewed a knockout bill on Saturday night at Thalia Hall that’s organized by the folks at International Anthem. As part of the show, powerful quintet Irreversibile Entanglements (with members in NYC, D.C., and Philadelphia) make their Chicago debut, celebrating the physical release of their self-titled album. I’ve previously written about the group’s galvanizing vocalist, inventive poet and sound artist Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother), but alto saxophonist and fellow Philadelphian Keir Neuringer is no less riveting on his own....

Hot Chicago Summer (with apologies to Megan Thee Stallion) continues with plenty to do this weekend and beyond. Stay safe and enjoy!

A lot has happened for country queen Kacey Musgraves since she last played Chicago, in the opening slot on Harry Styles’s 2018 tour. She presented at the Oscars, guest-judged an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and—oh yeah—won the Album of the Year Grammy for her third record, 2018’s Golden Hour. As pop music’s current golden girl, Musgraves is back on the road headlining the “Oh, What a World” tour. And as her star power rises, she seems poised between a before and an after, like that instant between lightning flash and thunderclap....

In December 2016, a fire ripped through Oakland arts space Ghost Ship, killing 36 residents and guests who were attending an underground electronic show. As the tragedy was picked up by mainstream media, misinformation and misrepresentation of DIY artists and venues resulted in a backlash felt across the country. Shortly after the fire, the Denver music community was hit hard when arts hub Rhinoceropolis was shut down without warning, displacing its occupants to face the high rents and gentrification that already threatened the city’s creative scene....

Steeped Emperor’s Lemon Saison is one of three Moody Tongue beers to start shipping in four-packs this month. The Reader has been on top of Moody Tongue from day one, though when I say “the Reader” I don’t mean Beer and Metal—I mean our food writer Michael Gebert. He’s thoroughly interviewed Jared Rouben, who left his position as head brewer at the Goose Island brewpubs in early 2013 to found this Pilsen operation....

Mrs. Green is a 70-something Roseland grandma living with her weed-dealing nephew who keeps her well supplied with bud. Her children—a military vet with PTSD and a drinking problem, a pastor who has lost his spirit, and a lawyer with cancer—all disapprove of her habit. But that all changes after Christmas dinner when she accidentally spills cannabis oil into the collards and everybody’s problems drift away. Crowder had come across a 2014 study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease that indicated small doses of THC could help promote the removal of the amyloid plaque deposits in the brain associated with the disease....

My mother is a nosy woman, especially about houses. She likes to peer into windows. When she spots a contractor’s sign in someone’s front yard or construction trucks in the driveway, she slows down so she can see what’s going on inside. Sometimes she’ll ring the doorbell and ask to come in. When I was a kid, it embarrassed the hell out of me, especially when she would drag me along to admire somebody’s half-destroyed, half-refinished kitchen....

On Monday, October 28, President Donald Trump visited Chicago. And Chicago was not happy about it. Police estimate a crowd of 3,000 to 4,000 people attended protests that began outside Trump Tower and snaked through the Loop. Photographer Joeff Davis was there to capture images of the day’s events. Trump Protest 10-28-19

If you play any kind of amplified music in Chicago, you’ve probably dealt with enough live sound engineers to know that you’d be lucky if the one working your gig was Patrick M. Kenneally. “Playing in bands, sound guys are often your first introductions to venues—seeing Pat made you feel a little more at home,” says Metro talent buyer and Lasers and Fast and Shit vocalist Joe Carsello. Kenneally, who died at age 43 on Wednesday, June 6, spent the past couple decades doing sound at clubs such as Darkroom, the Empty Bottle, and Lounge Ax....

It would be a little dramatic to proclaim that jazz is back at the Pitchfork Music Festival, since it was at best a minor part of the lineup when it was included at all. This year’s roster features two jazz acts: rising-star LA saxophonist Kamasi Washington and venerable space-jazz collective the Sun Ra Arkestra (if you really want to stretch the genre’s borders, you could also include electric bassist Thunder­cat). That makes 2016 the third time Pitchfork has hosted jazz or improvised music—it’s also the first time since 2007, when Craig Taborn’s Junk Magic, Fred Lonberg-­Holm’s Lightbox Orchestra, the William Parker Quartet, and Ken Vandermark’s Powerhouse Sound performed....

Some of the practices Martin mentions wishing to reexamine dovetail with the BIPOC Demands for White American Theatre from We See You W.A.T., such as eliminating “10 out of 12” tech rehearsals (wherein actors work ten hours in a 12-hour day and designers and technical staff can go as long as 14 hours), and six-day rehearsal weeks. (As the BIPOC Demands describes it, “These are long-standing practices that are seeped in capitalist and white supremacist culture....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Friday, December 1, 2017. “Chuy” Garcia earns Bernie Sanders’s endorsement for congressional race Cook County commissioner and former mayoral candidate Jesus “Chuy” Garcia earned a coveted endorsement for his congressional campaign from Senator Bernie Sanders Thursday. It was a big boost for Garcia, who was an “important surrogate” for Sanders during his 2016 Democratic presidential bid, according to the Sun-Times. Incumbent congressman Luis Gutierrez is stepping down from his congressional seat and has endorsed Garcia as his successor....

Let’s not call this the new normal. There’s nothing normal about every theater, museum, restaurant, and bar in the city shutting down. At Sunday’s coronavirus press conference, President Trump assured the nation that he was absolutely right about Google putting 1,700 engineers to work on a website where, very soon, we can enter our symptoms and find out if we should head to a Walmart parking lot to see if we need to self-quarantine....