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The Chicago rockabilly scene has been fairly dormant for the past several years, though touring acts such as Big Sandy and Deke Dickerson still attract huge local audiences. Along with Tammi Savoy, singer Bailey Dee is among the vanguard of those making the scene exciting again. Dee’s musical background is fairly diverse, and though she often plays with progressive-folk band Jonas Friddle & the Majority, her own music is solidly in the roots-rock vein....

Myopic Books Runner-Up: The Book Cellar

Rivers Casino Horseshoe Hammond

Rev Billy’s Chop Shop Chicago Truborn 

ESSO Afrojam Funkbeat essoafrojamfunkbeat.com Runner-Up: Funkadesi

Bing bread at Parachute parachuterestaurant.com I don’t know why this is, but it’s a thing I’ve observed often enough to share: go to a Polish restaurant and you will probably see Koreans eating there. So from the day Beverly Kim and Johnny Clark’s Parachute opened, it’s seemed perfectly natural that the meal should start with the hearty, starchy, meat-and-vegetable-stuffed bing bread, a dish of Chinese origin that looks for all the world like something your Polish babcia would bake....

The “Pray 4 Rose” mural and shrine In early March, shortly after Derrick Rose suffered his umpteenth knee injury, a cartoon likeness of the Bulls point guard appeared beneath the Kennedy Expressway overpass on Fullerton Avenue—the same place where ten years earlier the religious convened in droves to admire a splotch of salt runoff that some thought resembled the Virgin Mary. The Rose image, complete with a crown of thorns and a “Pray 4 Rose” banner, was made by human hands—specifically those of local artists Brendan Carroll (aka “Joking Noah”) and David Beltran (aka “Bae Cutler,” who also produces ecstatic electronic tracks as Starfoxxx)....

Seek vintage 1432 W. Chicago 312-526-3164 seekvintagechicago.com Runner-Up: Shangri-la Vintage

Ever since B.B. King died, there’s been a lot of unnecessary talk about Buddy Guy being the Last Bluesman Standing From the Golden Era. This isn’t strictly true, but among that generation of blues musicians, Guy does seem to have the highest profile. With reason: though he’s now going on 81, his singing and guitar playing are still in top shape, as is his energy level. Once a year, he continues to play a month-long stint at his club, Legends—proving that the man pictured on the sign outside is no myth....

Welcome to the Reader‘s weekday news briefing. Where the gubernatorial candidates stand after fourth quarter fund-raising Democratic gubernatorial front-runner J.B. Pritzker was far ahead of the large pack of candidates for governor in fourth quarter fund-raising after raising $21 million. Even prolific fund-raiser Governor Bruce Rauner only raised $2.9 million, but he still has significantly more money in the bank than Pritzker, with $55.6 million compared to Pritzker’s $7.86 million....

The spiky, new wavy, herky-jerky pop rock of Mente, the new album from Brazilian singer-songwriter Thiago Nassif, may remind you of Talking Heads. But the link between them arises more from shared influence than from direct inspiration: like David Byrne, Nassif is in love with the fractured tropicalia of Tom Zé, a tripped-out Brazilian genius who never met a samba melody he couldn’t turn inside out and perforate with a spork....

Last June, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that the city had selected tech guru Elon Musk’s Jetsons-esque scheme to build and operate the O’Hare Express, an airport transit system employing high-speed electric pods as a faster, cushier alternative to the Blue Line. The inventor says his Boring Company will use proprietary digging technology to tunnel some 18 miles from Block 37 to O’Hare at a fraction of the cost and time of conventional methods....

At a moment when some city dwellers are moving to less populated areas, The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) reads like a love letter to all things urban, an invitation to look a little longer at the design stories that have changed how cities work. The layout of the book, which moves through different categories of the urban environment, from the inconspicuous to larger systems like infrastructure, is also intentional....

2019 marks two anniversaries for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: 60 years since the company was founded in New York, and 50 years of performing annually at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago. This year the company brings three different programs to town featuring a variety of work, including its first two-act ballet. Lazarus, which premiered in December 2018, is inspired by the life of Alvin Ailey and is the third piece created by hip-hop choreographer Rennie Harris for AAADT....

Montrose Dog Beach Runner-Up: Wiggly Field

The Book of Mormon Bank of America Theatre bookofmormonbroadway Runner-Up: Jersey Boys

Cole’s 2338 N. Milwaukee 773-276-5802 coleschicago.blogspot.com Runner-Up: Simon’s Tavern

554 432 Shaw’s Crab House Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab Finalists: The Angry Crab, Fahlstroms Fish Market, Riva Crabhouse

Steppenwolf The Den Finalists: Otherworld, Newport