Joe Camarillo, an intuitive and potent drummer who played with dozens of Chicago bands for more than 30 years, died Sunday following a stroke. He was 52. In 1993 he met John San Juan, a musician and kindred soul who was just starting to perform under the name Hushdrops. Camarillo joined the group that same year, a development San Juan likens to “when the Beatles got Ringo—everything was a lot better, instantly....
Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.
High One of the best bands to work their way out of the Australian underground, Royal Headache, will be releasing a new LP in August, their first since their 2011 self-titled debut. The band have been relatively quiet over the past couple of years, and some interviews with Royal Headache members even hinted that they’d broken up. But yesterday the band unleashed “High,” the title track from their upcoming record, and it’s today’s 12 O’Clock Track....
Choreographer Mark Morris doesn’t see cultural boundaries when he’s creating art. In a social landscape where appropriation is a hot-button issue, he refuses to block himself off from other cultures. “That’s not how the art works, and certainly not how I work as a choreographer,” says Morris. “I’m going from the text, the music, the rhythms. I make it afresh based on a certain amount of knowledge and experience.” Morris starts with the music, and strives to fully understand the histories and traditions behind whatever piece he’s interpreting....
A note from the editors about comics serials
After almost two intense months of sheltering in place, it seems like the country’s slowly getting back to normal—at least when it comes to political power plays. But I would say that both acts come straight from the Book of Rahm—chapter one, verse one—where our former mayor advises to never allow a good crisis to go to waste. Actually, I’m the only person who calls it that—just my way of tipping my hat to Mr....
Christopher Hirsheimer Rick Bayless’s mole de olla Rick Bayless has published nine cookbooks since 1987’s Authentic Mexican. I’ve cooked out of all of them, and I’ve not once come across a bunk recipe. So naturally I’m going to include his latest, More Mexican Everyday (Norton), with the others in our ongoing roundup of local cookbooks. A follow-up to 2005’s Mexican Everyday, it adheres to the same MO, offering simple recipes with (mostly) easy-to-find ingredients....
The sand I know best rings Lake Michigan and gives me a place to put my beach chair on a summer afternoon. The sand in Teatro Línea de Sombra’s Amarillo is life, death, and oblivion. Filling the stage over the course of the Mexican troupe’s powerful 70-minute piece, it signifies the Chihuahuan Desert, the border territory through which thousands of undocumented immigrants trek each year hoping to reach the United States....
Kevin Hart (left) in The Wedding Ringer This past fall, when Jonathan Rosenbaum introduced the James Cagney comedy Blonde Crazy (1931) at the Siskel Center, he argued that that Cagney’s screen persona in the ’30s was never plausible but always relatable. One can’t readily imagine Cagney’s character in Crazy existing in the real world. He’s a walking contradiction—a wisecracking con man with a mean streak who’s as kind to his friends as he is ruthless with the rich folks he swindles....
A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn. Jay is curious what’s in the rotation of . . . Anderson .Paak, “Winners Circle” If you ever visit Chicago, this is the song that you want to play while driving down Lake Shore Drive. It feels sort of like something that Musiq Soulchild would’ve released during his prime. “Winners Circle” is definitely a timeless track that my future kids will be required to know....
When Joe Ricketts suddenly shut down the DNAinfo and Gothamist network of local news sites on November 2, two reporters I know lost their jobs. Ted Cox, who covered City Hall for DNAinfo, had contributed sports essays to the Reader for years; his gifts were no secret to me or longtime readers. But Alisa Hauser didn’t work in editorial for this paper; she was a display ad sales representative. When she joined DNAinfo at its inception, covering Bucktown and Wicker Park, her talent and energy as a reporter were a revelation....
If all had gone well, we’d be heading into the last days of Karen Lewis’s first term as mayor and, fingers crossed, the start of her second. I’ve got a bad case of the might-have-beens as I watch Rahm continue to throw cash at the well-to-do (think Lincoln Yards) while trying to eradicate his reputation as Mayor 1 Percent who, you know, throws cash at the well-to-do. The final vote on Lincoln Yards will come in the lame duck session in April....
Before I first press play on an “aging punks still at it” record, I try to prepare myself for the worst. Whether the band in question have retained only one original member in a completely retooled lineup (like present-day Gang of Four), or replaced their figurehead (like the Misfits did in the 90s), or awkwardly embraced current musical trends (remember Iggy Pop’s 2003 collaboration with Sum 41?), or pivoted to whatever the fuck “Black Flag” were doing on 2013’s aptly titled What The ....
Meanwhile, we obsess over the iPhone 7 or breathlessly argue about which wealthy oligarch will ascend to the American throne. (It’s worth noting that neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton have plans to curb the power of the Frightful Five if elected president. Clinton’s economic plan reads like a love letter to big tech.) But maybe the presidency is becoming the equivalent of Britain’s monarchy: a largely symbolic institution beholden to the real decision makers running the country from their shiny, well-scrubbed office parks in Silicon Valley....
More than 30 years into this gig, I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice adapted for the stage. The Regency-era author’s enduring popularity isn’t a mystery: Austen’s novels championed women in an era when women’s options for generating income faced draconian limitations. Unless they were titled, women of Great Britain’s early 1800s couldn’t even inherit property legally. Austen’s work makes the potentially devastating consequences of codified misogyny crystal clear: the line between being unmarried or without means and the hellscape of the workhouse was, as it remains now in so many places, brutally porous....
My name is KT, and I’m an alcoholic. As I write this lil article, I am officially 107 days sober after an arduous, sweaty—and, admittedly, sometimes fun—struggle with booze. As I write this, I am also keenly aware of how the stay-at-home order would have been my dream scenario 108 days ago. Isolation? TV binges? Wine delivery? I’d be dead. And, for that, I am genuinely grateful for sobriety, as trying as it can be....
Julia Thiel Creme de cacao isn’t just dated—it’s all but defunct as a serious cocktail ingredient. Usually found on the bottom shelf, stuck between other sickly sweet liqueurs, it ranks right up there with Sour Apple Pucker and Boone’s Farm in the hierarchy of respectable booze. I’m pretty sure I had it in college, where it featured in classics like the Peppermint Patty (creme de cacao with peppermint schnapps or creme de menthe)....
A few weeks ago, on one of the first chilly nights, I sat in the grass wearing a mask and watched my first live comedy show in over six months. It was like a light was reignited in my body and in my face—real laughs from real people! It was clear the audience around me felt it too; even if not all the jokes landed, there was barely a silent moment in the crowd, which spanned from a spacious Logan Square backyard to the boulevard....
Kris Esfandiari is no stranger to side projects. Since cofounding doom-metal band King Woman in 2009, she’s released solo material under the names Miserable, Kris, Dalmatian, and Nghtcrwler. Her latest project, Sugar High, is a collaboration with Berlin-based songwriter and producer Darcy Baylis, whose credits include recordings by Wicca Phase Springs Eternal and Camp Cope singer-guitarist Georgia Maq. The two met and forged a creative connection over Instagram, and in summer 2018 they spent a week together recording in Esfandiari’s Los Angeles practice space....
First the good news, captured in a headline on a recent article in Crain’s—Chicago’s not stupid anymore. OK, let’s break it down. Robert Dunn, a big-time developer from Madison, Wisconsin, has a vision. Clearly, he doesn’t want to build that platform with his own money because—what the hell, man, just because he comes from Wisconsin doesn’t mean he’s dumb enough to fully pay for his own projects. In any event, from here on out the talking point will be transit center for the South Loop, not platform for Wisconsin developer....
