One of the saddest things about the pending Chicago Teachers Union strike is how the CTU has to try to force Mayor Lori Lightfoot to hire more social workers, librarians, and nurses—and lower class sizes. Before I get to the details, a few words about the 2012 strike. Contrary to what you may have seen or heard, corporate, civic, and editorial Chicago were against that one too, often employing the same language to make their case....
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. Older strips are archived here.
This double bill of recent signees to Chicago’s invaluable Trouble in Mind imprint reflects the label’s knack for locating bands that evoke the heyday of 80s and 90s indie rock and convey a shaggy charm and melodic generosity that’s often missing in today’s underground scene. Chicago’s Ethers features four musicians who’ve been banging around for the last decade in bands such as Heavy Times, Radar Eyes, and Outer Minds, but its forthcoming eponymous debut pushes away from some of the garage-rock flavor one might expect given its members’ pedigrees (though not from its primal drive, thanks to the drumming of Matthew Rolin) for something more tuneful with sounds that recall music from the early 90s....
Even before Noah was born, it was clear his early years would be difficult. An ultrasound when his mother was pregnant showed two holes in his heart and other cardiac abnormalities. He stayed in the hospital after his birth, in November 2013, and had his first heart surgery two weeks later. Recovery from that operation kept him in the hospital until he was three months old. After two months at home, he had to return to the hospital for a second heart surgery....
Chance the Rapper @chancetherapper Runner-Up: Rich Jones
Logan Square Pilates & Core Studio Roots of Integrity Holistic Fitness & Wellness Finalists: Fitness Formula Clubs
Grant James Varjas’s 33 to Nothing begins with a warning: This is a show about a rock band’s real-time rehearsal, and it gets very loud in A Red Orchid’s tight space. The production kicks off with an explosion of sound as the musicians immediately get to work before putting each other through intense emotional labor. Complimentary earplugs are provided on each of the seats. Affectionately described by lead singer Gray (a belligerent, despondent Aaron Holland) as “the gay Fleetwood Mac,” this group is falling apart as personal conflicts and dwindling audience numbers put its future in question....
The first Chicago guidebook I ever read was written by a New Yorker. One of my next discoveries was Isabella Bird’s An Englishwoman in America. Published in 1856, the book covers Bird’s travels around the United States and Canada a few years prior. Looking through the table of contents, I breezed by the chapter subheadings “The hickory stick,” “Hard and soft shells,” and “Nocturnal detention.” My eyelids began to drop and then I glimpsed the windiest one of all: “A Chicago hotel, its inmates and its horrors....
Pundits say they’re sure they know who’s headed for the runoffs, but I’m not so convinced. This city can surprise you with attentiveness, thoughtfulness, and kindness, as much as it is also likely to gut you with blatant displays of self-interest. So half an hour later, I was surprised to find myself at a McDonald’s with an extremely kind Humboldt Park resident, her five kids, hundreds of dollars of cash, and a phone full of texts from people wondering what the hell was going on, financial calamity averted....
Berlin-based pianist Aki Takase has been performing for more than 40 years, and in that time she’s engaged with contemporary composition, spoken word, and even a turntablist—the trio Lok 03 includes her husband, fellow pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, and their son, DJ Illvibe. But no matter where she roams, her playing is fundamentally rooted in jazz. Her 1978 debut album, Aki, featured a piano-bass-drums trio, and on the new Auge she revisits that classic jazz setting for the first time in more than a decade....
I was once at a Nest Egg gig where a friend said to me, “The thing I love about these guys is that they’re punks who just happen to play psychedelic music.” This joyously astute statement gets at something important about psychedelia: though the word often conjures lovey-dovey visions of the pastoral and the perfumed, 1970s movements such as Krautrock and Eurorock took these heady, trance-inducing sounds into much bleaker and more experimental terrain....
Wabash Arts Corridor Runner-Up: Jaime Knight
Zanies Runner-Up: Laugh Factory
Hebru Brantley hebrubrantley.com Runner-Up: Franklin Riley
Bettye LaVette had her first brush with stardom as a sassy teenage soul singer in the early 1960s, but she’s long since transcended genre—she’s now a magnificent vocalist who can make seemingly any song sound as though it were written specifically for her. Bettye LaVette Sat 6/8, 7:45 PM, Jay Pritzker Pavilion Bettye LaVette’s debut single, 1962’s “My Man—He’s a Lovin’ Man” When her next single flopped, LaVette went to New York and audaciously demanded that Atlantic honcho Jerry Wexler release her from her contract....
At this year’s “Black Creativity Juried Art Exhibition,” two works by artist Lexus Giles—titled She’s Healed and She is Me—invite visitors into the gallery that houses much of the exhibition’s sculptures. A 2018 Artnet analysis showed that although the exhibitions focusing on Black artists has jumped to record-breaking numbers in recent years, Black art accounted for less than 3 percent of museums’ acquisitions—in some museums, it was less than 1 percent....
Tornado warning. Ooh, I’m sooo scared. It did not sink in right away that a tornado had just occurred. It wasn’t until the following morning that it was confirmed by the National Weather Service. The destruction was clear: 50-foot trees laid down across the streets; root systems unearthed and buckling the sidewalks; flattened cars; the grey metal pole of the laundromat’s sign on the corner still attached but blown parallel to the ground....
ARTIST: Keven Michael-Onur Kalaycıoğlu-Żłóbnicki SHOW: Chicago Modular Synth Meet at the Empty Bottle on Sat 4/6 MORE INFO: zlobmodular.com
A secondary rainbow is a faint visual echo that appears outside a rainbow when light bends twice while passing through raindrops. Composer, violist, and occasional vocalist Catherine Lamb uses careful calculation and subtle dynamics to evoke correspondingly liminal sonic experiences. Born in Olympia, Washington, and based in Berlin, she’s developed a musical approach that combines elements drawn from her formal studies with composers such as James Tenney and Michael Pisaro at CalArts and Bard with lessons she’s learned through one-on-one engagements with late filmmaker Mani Kaul (also a musician in the Indian classical tradition of dhrupad) and French electronic composer Éliane Radigue....
