John Kass told a couple of stories about Barack Obama this past week that will change the way you think of him. The president was visiting the General Assembly in Springfield, where he got his start in politics, and Kass knew he must speak. “These are true stories,” Kass wrote. “And now is the time to tell them.” End of story. I get it. In 1969 I happened to spend an hour or two with an elderly Austrian man named Kurt von Schuschnigg....
In January the DKV Trio released The Fire Each Time (Not Two), a six-CD box set documenting a string of gigs that percussionist Hamid Drake, bassist Kent Kessler, and reedist Ken Vandermark played with multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee in four different countries during the last two months of 2017. This set—and previous DKV recordings featuring the likes of Fred Anderson, Joe Morris, and Mats Gustafsson—testify to the trio’s willingness to collaborate with other improvisers, but the essence of the group’s art is the music they make on their own....
Tomorrow night local rock four-piece Torture Love celebrate the arrival of the cassette version of their first long-player, They Came Crawling. Torture Love have been grinding around town for a few years now, hammering out dark, driving, high-energy punk that throbs with negativity and bad vibes. They’re still waiting on the LP version, but on Saturday they play a release party at the Mousetrap with Australian punks Helta Skelta, Minneapolis band Color TV, and two more locals, Canadian Rifle and Rash—it’s a DIY venue, so if you’re looking for the venue’s address here, you’re out of luck....
This week’s gig poster was created for a livestream concert by a famous Chicago-born jazz musician who’s recently returned home. Singer Kurt Elling and his family lived for 12 years in New York City but moved back to Chicago over the summer (as he told the Tribune’s Howard Reich, his family had long thought about taking that step, but the timing worked out this year). Earlier this fall, Elling played a run of livestream dates at the Green Mill, a home away from home for him for many years, and this week he followed it up with a holiday-themed show broadcast live from the club....
Chicago is celebrated as a city of many neighborhoods, but really there are only two: the skyboxes and the bleachers. Joe Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs, watches life roll by from a skybox. Founder of the discount brokerage firm TD Ameritrade, Ricketts divides his time between a 17,000-square-foot mansion in Omaha and a palatial ranch in Little Jackson Hole, Wyoming, using his $2.1 billion fortune to market bison meat, fund political initiatives against federal spending, and hold forth on his blog about the importance of free markets, entrepreneurship, and self-reliance....
On the night of Friday, August 16, eight young men huddled over Apple laptops and samplers set up on circular tables near the DJ booth at Cafe Mustache. They were there for Open Beats, a sort of open-mike night that gives electronic producers the opportunity to play their music for an audience. The event doesn’t start till 9 PM, but the 15-minute performance slots are first come, first served, and these eight producers all wanted a chance....
It’s a Sunday and the theater is packed, an abnormality for any comedy spot in Chicago. Around 40 people situate themselves in chairs and chat with friends, patiently waiting for the mayhem about to ensue. The space used to be an old clothing store but is now home to the new Lincoln Lodge venue, complete with three theaters, two classrooms, and a bar. The show is Sautéed Stand Up: A Cooking Comedy Competition hosted by Nathan Hall and Tad Walters....
Canadian singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman took matters into her own hands and produced the self-titled fourth album by her project the Weather Station (Paradise of Bachelors) herself. A listen to the record proves it was a smart move. There’s a sense of mission and a layer of passion that I didn’t hear on its lovely 2015 predecessor, Loyalty. This time around Lindeman’s voice sounds more cutting, the arrangements are richer and more exciting, and the lyrics hit harder as they trace various strains of romantic disappointment with sharp observational detail....
Welcome to the Reader‘s weekday news briefing. Chuy Garcia: Chris Kennedy was right about Emanuel’s plan to make Chicago whiter Cook County commissioner and congressional candidate Jesus “Chuy” Garcia agrees with gubernatorial candidate Chris Kennedy’s assessment that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is spearheading a “strategic gentrification plan” to force people of color out of Chicago. Garcia, who ran against Emanuel and forced him into a runoff race in 2015, said the mayor has had years to make the changes promised during his first run for mayor in 2011....
Courtesy Chicago Architecture Foundation Airstream perched on top of Chicago Associates Planners & Architects Between the Montrose and Damen stations on the CTA‘s Brown Line, commuters can catch sight of a curious thing: a silver Airstream trailer perched on the roof of a building. It’s been there since 1989, when architect Edward Noonan and his wife, Eve, had the vintage recreation vehicle they’d bought on the cheap hoisted via crane to crown 1807 W....
A young woman arrived late to join two friends at Radio Anago, a new Japanese restaurant in River North. Hugs and kisses were exchanged, then the newcomer delicately bent her knees, and then her waist—and then indelicately planted her butt on the floor. Under the glow from squat $300 brass table lamps, nigiri shine from the spare brushing they’ve been given of nikiri, a cocktail of dashi, sake, mirin, and usually soy that sushi chefs use when they trust you’re not going to dunk their lovely fish and perfectly steamed rice into a puddle of soy sauce muddied by green-tinted horseradish paste....
As if anyone needed another reason to oust Bruce Rauner, consider this: there will never be legalized marijuana in Illinois as long as he’s governor. So the first question is—isn’t it already legal? “We’re in a holding pattern,” says Cassidy. “We’re continuing to work out a draft. But there are a lot of factors at play.” Alas, the legislature is filled with nervous Nellies—they’re afraid to vote for legalization because someone, somewhere, might accuse them of being soft on crime....
Unhelpfully prolific American playwright Steven Dietz never met a promising idea he couldn’t muddle. In this 2013 play, which Promethean Theatre Ensemble is now giving only its second production, he offers up teen buddies Danny (Pat King) and Rich (Michael Vizzi), dawdling about Kimball, Nebraska, in 1949. They’re meant to be swept up in the yearning, freewheeling energy of the nascent Beat Generation, personified in Honey (Hilary Williams), a young woman pausing in Kimball on her way westward in search of her dead mother’s spirit and the Bop....
Lyric Opera has married pitch-perfect casting to go-for-broke direction in its season opener, The Barber of Seville. Thanks to that, and Gioachino Rossini’s brilliant score, this 200-year-old satire, peopled with what could be stock characters in a conventional plot of forbidden but victorious young love, bounces uproariously to life. Sets by Scott Pask employ just enough wrought iron and arches to set the action in old Seville, and on opening night Andrew Davis, whose retirement after next season has just been announced, led a nuanced and jubilant performance by this terrific cast and the Lyric orchestra and chorus of a score that prances from breakneck patter pieces and delicate recitative to Rossini’s famous chest-pounding crescendos....
As small business owners, we knew a lot of devastation was coming, so I assumed it was coming for me too. For the first weeks, I was in a constant state of panic. The process of applying for a PPP [Paycheck Protection Program] loan was nightmarish, and in the first round we didn’t get one. I felt really strongly about hanging on to my staff; that was my major priority because the pandemic wasn’t their fault....
It’s no small feat that Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love has maintained his sprawling, heavily improvised big band—the dubiously named Large Unit—for half a decade in an era where economic realities are at odds with keeping an actively recording and touring group of international players together. But he’s done just that with a largely unchanging cast of first-rate musicians from Scandinavia that’s toured on four continents. While the leader clearly relishes the feverish interplay of a dozen players, his writing for the group has grown more sophisticated and ambitious, with pieces that often develop from riff-oriented frameworks for blowing into more involved vehicles that explore unusual rhythms and the occasional lovely harmony....
