Posts

I’ve written quite a bit about New York-based pianist Kris Davis in recent years, taking note of the versatility that enables her to not just blend in naturally in disparate contexts but make them better. She recently released a stunning collection of duets with fellow pianist Craig Taborn called Octopus (Pyroclastic), which blends rhapsodic reveries, driving rhythmic journeys, and harmonic explorations. Last year at the Green Mill, Davis provided simpatico contributions to an equally agile and shape-shifting quartet led by bassist Eric Revis, often binding hurtling tempos and convoluted structures with quiet authority....

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

Update: The award presentation and free screening of Finding Vivian Maier has been moved from the Patio to the Portage Theater, 4050 N. Milwaukee, on Sunday, February 8, at 7:30 PM. It has already shut down the second-largest owner and presenter of her work, Jeffrey Goldstein, a Rogers Park artist and collector. Last month Goldstein announced the sale of the bulk of his Maier collection—17,500 black-and-white negatives—to Toronto’s Stephen Bulger Gallery for an undisclosed sum....

The latest EP by Cut Worms, Alien Sunset (Jagjaguwar), opens with “Don’t Want to Say Goodbye,” which sounds like a lost Merseybeat classic dubbed onto a beat-up old cassette. But it’s more than just a crafty imitation of a naive early-60s Brit rocker in love with the Everly Brothers—its irresistible melody would sound great in any era. Max Clarke began making music as Cut Worms before leaving Chicago for New York in October 2015, and he recorded the six ditties on Alien Sunset with an eight-track tape machine—side A here, side B there....

When you write about music for a living, your personal and professional lives often blur, forcing you to draw some difficult lines when it comes to which projects you cover and how. It’s not just a matter of journalistic ethics; it’s also a practical concern. The gig is to be as objective as possible, and you can’t be completely objective about an album made by, say, a close pal with whom you’ve collaborated on musical and media endeavors, who’s charmed the hell out of your mom, and who’s trusted you to babysit his kid....

Michael Gebert Joseph Heppe of Oak + Char Food media loves stories of prodigies who always knew what they were meant to do—young Rick Bayless grinding masa for his PB&J tortillas, young Grant Achatz spherifying his Froot Loops. But few of us are really like that—we start out pretty clueless, we learn something here or there, we get to be pretty good at it, and we put our experiences and influences together to make something of our own....

Oslo six-piece Okkultokrati cast a net into rock’s grittiest, dankest seas and dredge up an electrifying hybrid sound: they twist influences from heathen black metal and thrash together with hedonistic rock ’n’ roll and furious crust punk. Much of the band’s music seems designed for underground shows, drag races, and various more questionable activities, but in the 12 years since Okkultokrati’s first demo, their songwriting has grown steadily more complex. By 2016’s Raspberry Dawn they’d expanded into their most Technicolor palette to date, incorporating synth-laden postpunk, psychedelic weirdness, and even hints of glam rock....

Midnight are pretty much the nightmare that heartland parents feared during the satanic panic of the 1980s, when metal bands’ imagined lyrical (and moral) transgressions meant they were considered about as family friendly as murderers. Midnight’s music is nihilism with a beat, rudderless and apolitical; they’re as likely to cover 70s midwest punks the Pagans as black-metal innovators Venom. Athenar, the band’s founder and sloganeer, launched the culty Cleveland act in 2003 with a short demo often referred to by the title of its first track, “Funeral Bell....

In 2001, Raws Schlesinger, a metal and punk drummer in Lincoln, Nebraska, embraced his leather-clad dance-music heart and founded Plack Blague—an industrial electronica project intended to unleash the rowdy gay headbanger inside every hard rocker. The project was initially something of a goof, but the audience for loud sexy gay disco proved to be bigger than anticipated. Nearly two decades later, Schlesinger continues to sweat and hump his way through albums and live shows with a never-failing barrage of floor-shaking single entendres....

With ambitious productions that push the boundaries of subject matter, Red Tape Theatre continues to evolve, and its latest, Queen of Sock Pairing by Sophie Weisskoff, directed by Zach Weinberg, is one of the company’s best yet. The story opens with Celia navigating relationships with her boss, Joan, mother of Walden, the boy she cares for, as well as Cai, her older boyfriend. Joan, Cai, and Walden speak for themselves, but a Narrator communicates Celia’s first lines and feelings....

As soon as I read about Bill Daley’s call for a referendum on reducing the city council from 50 to 15 aldermen, I had three questions: Would it pass? Would I vote for it? And what does this have to do with ratgate? In short, the answers are: yes, not sure and…don’t get me started! How else to explain how we bitch and moan about every dumb, rubber-stamping thing the council does, and then turn right around and re-elect the folks who voted for the dumb, rubber-stamping things....

Q: My grandfather was a pillar of the community and beloved by his family. He was also sexually abusive. He died when I was a child. I remember only one incident happening to me—during a cuddle session, he encouraged me to put my mouth on his penis, and then told me to let it be our little secret. I heard rumors as an adult that he molested other kids in the neighborhood....

Shakespeare’s Richard III is the embodiment of a man with a chip on his shoulder, a hunchbacked aristocrat who feels “cheated” of the joys of living by his “deformity.” Fancying himself denied the pleasurable pursuit of love, he declares that he is “therefore . . . determined to prove a villain.” But unlike the average “incel” cowering behind a sock puppet on Reddit, he is also a Plantagenet of the House of York, with more than the average number of weapons and warriors to hand....

Veteran actor John Mahoney has died, it was confirmed late Monday. He was 77. The actor, best-known for his role on the hit TV series Frasier, was also an ensemble member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre. He most recently starred in the theater’s production of The Rembrandt. A spokesperson for Steppenwolf said the theater was canceling Monday’s opening-night performance of You Got Older out of respect for Mahoney’s passing. The theater was encouraging opening-night ticket holders to gather at the theater Monday evening for remembrances and a moment of silence....

Public libraries are the backbone of any great community as they serve as not just a repository for ideas, but also a vibrant space for gathering, reflection, and social services. Free boxes and other initiatives with a DIY spirit build upon these principles, and the popularity of organizations like the Little Free Library system means that you can find a lot of free reading material in public boxes all over Chicago....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.

The Fireman’s Ball As part of the series “Prison Break!: Great Escape Films of the 20th Century,” the University of Chicago’s Doc Films Club is screening One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the famous Jack Nicholson vehicle that’s director Miloš Forman’s most overrated film. In his capsule review, Dave Kehr writes, “This slick and entertaining 1975 film of Ken Kesey’s cult novel will inevitably disappoint admirers of director Miloš Forman’s earlier work ....

Courtesy the artist Okean Elzy, with front man Svyatoslav Vakarchuk second from right I won’t put on airs: I can’t speak or read a word of Ukrainian. And I’d never heard of Okean Elzy (“Elza’s Ocean”) till I got a press release last month alerting me to their show on Sunday at the Riviera Theatre. The subject line of that e-mail referred to this group from Lviv simply as “Top Ukrainian band,” which hardly seized my imagination....

There are two specific places in Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm’s P.Y.G. or the Mis-Edumacaton of Dorian Belle that are likely to change every time this play (which premiered in Washington, D.C., this past April) hits the stage. One is a montage of news reports on unarmed Black people killed by police and other acts of white supremacist terror, such as Charlottesville. The other is a scrolling list of rappers killed in 2018—in the script’s stage directions, Chisholm provides a list, adding “update accordingly” for the latter....