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Rae Chardonnay DJ Ca$h Era Finalists: DJ Lena Bandz, DJ Dapper

Sunday Dinner Club sundaydinnerclub.com Runner-Up: Claudia

Lula Cafe Runner-Up: Gale Street Inn

ARTIST: Bred RohloffSHOW: Hugo Ball featuring Sevron, Wesley Groves, Theater of Cruelty, and Solar at Smart Bar on Sat 2/21MORE ONLINE: brohloff.me

The gig poster of the week is about a real gig again! At least for now! This week’s poster incorporates an undated photograph from the Rebuild Foundation’s Edward J. Williams Collection, which was donated to the cultural arts organization by Williams, a banker and Chicagoan. The collection contains thousands of objects and artifacts that depict stereotypical images of Black people. Not everybody can make a fantasy gig poster, of course, but it’s simple and free to take action through the website of the National Independent Venue Association—click here to tell your representatives to save our homegrown music ecosystems....

Time to plan the final weekend of January (hooray!). Here’s some of what we recommend: Sat 1/30: Bakers can submit their pies in either the sweet or savory category for a chance to win $100 at Pie Fight 2016 at Emporium Arcade Bar (1366 N. Milwaukee). For those who are more into eating, whole pies and slices are available for purchase. All proceeds benefit 826Chi. 2:30 PM

Last week’s announcement of the city’s “Arts 77” plan was a jaw-dropper. A major chunk of the money for Arts 77 is coming from the capital improvement budgets of the city and the Park District. It’s money intended for long-term infrastructure projects and funded by long-term public debt. Among projects up for grabs right now is a new Neighborhood Access Program that’ll hand out $1 million in grants of $5,000 to $50,000 each to “support the cultural vitality in neighborhoods....

This weekend one Scandinavia’s best jazz combos, Atomic, rolls into town for Friday and Saturday shows at Constellation. I wrote about the quintet’s latest album in my concert preview, but its members all play in many other contexts—and recently bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and pianist Håvard Wiik released strong new records of their own. I’m excited to hear Wiik’s erudite playing with Atomic this weekend, but I hope this trio eventually turns up in Chicago....

Gossip Wolf is still digging through the heap of new Chicago music that came out on May 1, when Bandcamp waived its revenue share on all sales for 24 hours, but so far Berta Bigtoe is right at the top of the favorites list. The band’s cofounders and sole members, Ben Astrachan and Austin Koenigstein, made Berta Bigtoe Publicity Stunt as a lark. They decided to write and record an entire album on May 1, specifically to post on Bandcamp then (though they spent much of that 24-hour period working on it)....

Marie’s Pizza & Liquors mariespizzachicago.com Marie’s Pizza & Liquors—an old-school, family-run charmer in Mayfair that’s conveniently attached to a package store—had us at pizza and liquors. The tavern-style pies they’ve been slinging since 1940 are solid and the pitchers of beer are cold, but visit on a Thursday night to be transported to a bygone era by the house jazz band that sets up in the dining room. (On weekends a strolling trio takes requests tableside....

Local Foods 1427 W. Willow 312-432-6575 localfoods.com Runner-Up: Eataly

Humboldt House Runner-Up: Scout

Back by popular demand: The Back Room Deal features radio personality and longtime Reader political writer Ben Joravsky arguing local Chicago politics with Reader senior writer Maya Dukmasova. With sharp wit and stinging analysis, Joravsky and Dukmasova cut through the smokey haze of the elections to offer you a glimpse of the 2020 Chicago-area Illinois primary races—local and Cook County-level and, of course, U.S. presidential. Will these historic elections be determined in back-room deals, like so many in Chicago’s past?...

Your ability to go along with this 2014 Steve Martin-Edie Brickell musical may hinge on your general willingness to accept the see-through sentiment and plucky hokum that pervades the American musical stage. But given the level of baked-in, overearnest nostalgia, especially in director Ericka Mac’s sparkly-eyed staging for BoHo Theatre, even the most romantic sap might ache for something with a bit more depth. It’s 1945, and young soldier Billy Cane returns from the war to small-town North Carolina only to find his mother has died, a trauma he successfully processes with about 32 measures of “She’s Gone....

Time to plan your week out in the city. Here are some of the events we recommend: Tue 10/24: The Museum of Contemporary Art (220 E. Chicago) continues its celebration of its 50th anniversary with “Heaven and Earth,” an exhibit featuring works by Alexander Calder and Jeff Koons. Calder’s weightless, ethereal sculptures represent heaven, while Koons’s massive, concrete representations stand for earth. 10 AM-8 PM, $12, $7 students and seniors, free kids 12 and under and members of the military, free for Illinois residents on Tuesdays

In 2011, a group of friends who are also heavyweights in free jazz and improvised music—including Paal Nilsen-Love, Mats Gustafsson, and Ken Vandermark—formed Chicago-based cooperative and clearinghouse Catalytic Sound to give fans a way to buy music directly from the artists. Catalytic Sound originally addressed the problem of physical recordings with limited distribution—many of its members’ releases were on tiny overseas labels—but as the cooperative has grown, it’s expanded aggressively into the digital realm....

Courtesy of Secretly Canadian Suuns Tonight local postpunks Disappears headline an audio-visual experience at the Garfield Park Conservatory during which the band and the opening acts will be performing along to video projections throughout the different greenhouses of the museum. Today’s 12 O’Clock Track comes from Disappears’ direct support for the night, Montreal’s Suuns. It’s called “2020” and it’s from their second record for Secretly Canadian, Images Du Futur. It’s a woozy, spacey jam, propelled by a droney, bassy throb and a fractured disco beat—its repetitive, psychedelic, down-and-out vibe should be the perfect compliment to a mind-expanding episode in the desert room of the conservatory....

On May 29, 11 DePaul students will present a series of their written and multimedia work as part of 14 East’s third annual live storytelling event. 14 East is an independent online long-form magazine staffed and run by DePaul University students. As is the case with every other event in Chicago for the foreseeable future, this live storytelling event won’t be “live” in the traditional sense of the word; in lieu of a stage and audience, the event will be prerecorded and streamed on the magazine’s Facebook page....