Independence Day is over and done—but that doesn’t mean you’re going to sit inside the rest of the week, right? Here’s a look at what’s happening: Wed 7/6: On the first day of Taste of Chicago (Columbus and Jackson), you can get a taste of the Roots at the Petrillo Music Shell (205 E. Randolph). And Chance the Rapper tweeted today that he’ll be joining in on the fun with opening act Donnie Trumpet....
The Reader‘s archive is vast and varied, going back to 1971. Every day in Archive Dive, we’ll dig through and bring up some finds. Veeck, he noted, was, in addition to his ridiculous stunts like sending the midget Eddie Gaedel (who had a correspondingly short strike zone) up to bat and offering free admission to White Sox fans with the last name of Smith as long as they cheered for outfielder Al Smith, responsible for a lot of practical innovations that still exist in major-league ballparks....
Ever since roughly two dozen street artists turned Logan Square’s hulking, beige Discount Megamall into a half-block sized canvas this past Memorial Day weekend, I’ve especially enjoyed my occasional trips to visit it—though until I get there, I’m always a little anxious, because the Megamall has been due for demolition for what feels like months. Every day the building remains standing is a day I’m thankful for the chance to see it resplendent in spray paint....
Amira Jazeera does it all: she writes, records, mixes, sings, even creates her own promos. Once quarantine hit, this self-proclaimed “Arab pop princess” decided to take even more of her career into her own hands and build a home studio in her bedroom—and as her roommate, I got to see the magic happen firsthand. Being in quarantine with a musician who’s actively creating new material can be a noisy nightmare, especially if you don’t care for their style....
For most parents, the phrase “children’s music” triggers terrifying flashbacks to annoying sing-alongs—Raffi’s “Baby Beluga,” for instance, or anything by that purple monstrosity, Barney. Fear not, though: Angela James’s Quiet Night isn’t that kind of children’s music. The singer-songwriter developed the album while caring for her infant daughter and struggling with postpartum depression; its songs started out as melodic fragments she’d hum to try to get the baby to sleep. Jason Stein on bass clarinet, Charles Rumback on vibraphone, and Katherine Young on bassoon complement James’s velvety voice on a series of soothing, melancholy tunes that slide between sorrow and hope, sleep and waking....
Anthony Cheung hates facing a blank sheet of staff paper when he sits down at his desk. “I completely dread having to start each piece,” says the 34-year-old composer. “It really is a feeling of—just, like, ‘I’ve never done this before.’ Somehow the notes get on the page.” Lots of creative people have trouble getting new projects off the ground, but Cheung makes his own problem worse. His roving, curious mind constantly latches onto “ideas of things that happen to catch my ear or catch my attention,” and he fills hundreds of notebook pages a year with such material—every one of these myriad conceptual fragments waits to lead him down its own path to a distinctive composition....
Christy Webber Landscapes
Seth Perlman/AP Bruce Rauner waved goodbye to cronyism—or did he? This huge deficit is the result of years of bad decisions, sleight-of-hand budgeting, and giveaways we couldn’t afford. It is not the result of decreasing tax rates. This is cheeky of the governor, as a few days ago he announced he favors right-to-work zones in Illinois—that is, areas where state employees wouldn’t have to pay union dues if they didn’t want to, even though they were benefiting from union representation....
This story was updated after the August 26 CPS board meeting. These divided votes are rare in a body handpicked by Chicago’s mayor and have broken down along gendered lines. Board president Miguel del Valle, vice president Sendhil Revuluri, Lucino Sotelo, and Dwayne Truss have maintained their support for the SRO program. This despite public protests that included CPS students and recent graduates being assaulted by police and student arrests this week in front of board headquarters, and despite research linking cops in schools to poorer learning outcomes....
America’s Best Outcast Toy, by Larry Todd Cousineau (book and lyrics) and Cindy O’Connor (music), starts off as a send-up of various reality TV shows—America’s Got Talent, Survivor, Dancing with the Stars—and ends up being about a lot more. The premise is that some citizens from the Island of Misfit Toys, made famous by a beloved television special about an ostracized reindeer—including a spotted elephant, a bird that acts like a fish, a cowboy who rides an ostrich, a basic doll with low self-esteem—are competing for the previously mentioned title....
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Chicago drummer Ben Baker Billington has some of the busiest sticks in town. He always has his fingers in a whole icebox of musical pies—he plays in Ono and free-jazz trio Tiger Hatchery, for instance, and used to be in dearly departed Doors-y three-piece Moonrises. Last week his synth project Quicksails dropped a new EP called The Bright via Italian label Gang of Ducks that’s full of bloopy electroacoustic weirdness, as well as remixes by Brett Naucke and Khaki Blazer (aka Pat Modugno of Moth Cock)....
A couple years ago, Chicago art-rock group Woongi dropped an album intended as an unofficial soundtrack for a 1993 kids’ film featuring a magical flying skateboard voiced by Dom DeLuise. You can try to find spots where the synth-focused songs on Rip’s Cuts might fit into the movie, titled The Skateboard Kid, but their cheeky playfulness speaks for itself. Woongi’s new self-released follow-up, Fruits of the Midi, is a touch subtler but still delightfully silly....
Michael Gebert Chef AC Boral before “No Guts, No Glory” “Street food is a pretty common part of life there, at least where my family grew up,” Chef AC Boral said of the Philippines. “You see people just kinda hustling, they have their own individual street food that they’re hustling. Pretty much anything that you could just fry up or grill up, you see it.” Street food, as it happens, was about to be part of the menu at “No Guts, No Glory,” a pop-up dinner held Saturday at Ampersand, the pop-up space inside Kinmont in River North....
Ayinde Barrister is known as the pioneer of Nigerian fuji music, but it’s King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal who has spread the percussion-rich style globally—after working with Barrister as backup singer between 1975 and 1978 he emerged as a bandleader himself. Though the densely percolating form first erupted in the mid-60s, it would be three decades before the music of the Islamic population of the country’s Yoruba people ascended to pop dominance....
W e told a lot of people when we were leaving that we had the trip planned out,” Arthur Swidzinski says now. “That we had trained, that we were in tip-top shape. In reality we had gone on the Internet to Mapquest and printed a 150-page document of turn-by-turn directions to New York City. Everything sort of fell apart from the get-go.” Swidzinski, who at the time worked at a hospital transporting patients to the morgue, adds, “We developed a passion for radio and making short films in high school....
Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago. If timing is everything, then clinical massage therapist Judson Gambill couldn’t have made a better choice. Ready both for celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day and making a political statement, the Scottish descendant sported green highlights in his hair, an Irish tartan kilt, and a “Fuck Trump” tee while partying in Pilsen last weekend....
Alarmist Brewing alarmistbrewing.com When Gary Gulley launched Alarmist Brewing this spring—after four years of preparation, uncountable revisions of his business plan, and several rounds of investors’ meetings—he had only one beer, Pantsless Pale Ale. It was a gutsy choice, not least because pale ales and IPAs are by far the most crowded and competitive subcategories in craft beer. But any brewery would do well to have Pantsless as its flagship: extravagantly juicy and beautifully harmonious, it braids fruity, floral hops with silky caramel malts for an easygoing sipper you never want to stop drinking....
