Posts

M. Henry Smack Dab Chicago Finalists: Yolk, Batter & Berries, Over Easy Café, Uncle Mike’s Place

She Speaks in Tongues Kate McCandless samples music as hungrily as Girl Talk, but she doesn’t use a computer. With her band She Speaks in Tongues, the singer and guitarist repurposes well-worn rock and blues classics into new narratives. For the group’s debut, 2014’s Gloria, Guitar, they recorded original arrangements that consist entirely of pieces of other people’s songs recombined in surprising juxtapositions. On album opener “Blue,” Bessie Smith and Etta James vie for space with Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” and Kate Bush shows up too for good measure....

Oozing Wound Yakuza Finalists: Rezn, Flesh Vortex

Elizabeth Franco, 31, moved to Chicago from Mexico City in 2015. She returned to Mexico that same year but moved back to Chicago in 2016 and has been living in Pilsen ever since. She’s now a legal resident and works at Casa Michoacan, an educational nonprofit in Pilsen that promotes cultural activities and works to advance immigrant rights. This interview was conducted in both English and Spanish and translated from Spanish by the interviewer....

“After our first performance, I wasn’t sure they would have us back,” jokes Lucero vocalist Ben Nichols from Riot Fest’s Rise Stage, referring to the band’s 2014 appearance in Humboldt Park. It’s Friday night, and the band have just finished their sound check. To my right is a person who’s clearly come straight from work, muddy boots still on, standing alone and tall. To my left is a leather jacket with tassels that blow in the wind as the temperature drops....

Mike Sula Grits, Baker Miller Bakery & Millhouse Had I made it there in time, Baker Miller Bakery & Millhouse’s grits might have made my list of the tasty things I ate in 2014. Built on a foundation of the shop’s house-ground cornmeal, which is fine and smooth, with just the right amount of grit to remind you you’re not eating baby food, they’re improved by roasted mushrooms that take on a chewy texture and an intensity of flavor that approaches jerky....

Correction: This article has been amended to reflect the correct spelling of Charna Halpern’s name. In March 2015, Arnie Niekamp fell through a magical portal behind the Burger King on Irving Park and Clark and found himself in the enchanting land of Foon. Much like Narnia or Middle Earth, Foon is full of elves, dwarves, monsters, royalty, sorcery, and talking animals. Niekamp posted up in the Vermilion Minotaur, a tavern in the town of Hogsface....

Foursided Chicago Artists Frame Service Finalists: Ilo’s Framing, CMMFraming

Taboo Tabou 843 W. Belmont 773-883-1400 tabootabou.com Runner-Up: Early to Bed3>

Did you know that Trump has a ten-point plan to help African-Americans? Still, the choice of outlet is just downright laughable. Literally. When I mentioned MediaTakeOut during a phone call with a representative of a Chicago-based community group, I elicited a laugh so contagious that we had to pause and marvel at the sheer absurdity of the choice. But for all its sweeping economic populism, the platform does nothing to address the disproportionate killings of often-unarmed black people by police officers, the issue that’s been the biggest rallying cry of the Black Lives Matter movement since its inception....

If any band is set to fill the massive, sleazy New York no-wave void left by Sonic Youth after they imploded in 2011, it’s Pill. On their 2016 debut full-length, Convenience, the four-piece made it clear that when it comes to making arty noise-rock with a heavy dose of Brooklyn cool, they’re a hard crew to top. But with last year’s Aggressive Advertising EP (out of Dull Tools, the label run by Andrew Savage of Parquet Courts), they also proved that they’re capable of producing a masterpiece....

Patsy Desmond Jennifer Herrema and Neil Michael Hagerty Despite its best efforts to be out of step with its era, Royal Trux couldn’t help but define it. After establishing a reputation for chaos and art-damaged, deconstructed rock, the duo did a mid-90s about-face and signed with Virgin for the David Briggs-produced, Stones-y Thank You (1995). Fresh from a split with the major label after the visually repulsive/aurally adventurous Sweet Sixteen (1997), the duo moved to Virginia and settled into a period of prolific experimentation, releasing a loose trilogy with Accelerator, Veterans of Disorder, and Pound for Pound on Drag City between 1998 and 2000....

Given that I’ve lived in this city all these years, you’d figure that I’ve seen it all. Uh-oh, Mayor Rahm in trouble? That stopped me cold. Hardball politics from the health commissioner? That’s got to be a first. From a health commissioner, I’d expect advice that’s a little more, you know, healthy. Like, wear a mask. Or, eat your fruits and vegetables. Chancellor Amiridis said no one from the city contacted him about the report “and I would have immediately dismissed the idea if they asked....

Bit by bit our planet is being sold to ultrawealthy individuals. They drill, they frack, they drain lakes and aquifers to fill their Olympic-size pools—and in Cameron Crowe’s Aloha, one attempts to dispatch a satellite into space with potentially nefarious intent, and with the unwitting help of the U.S. military. The sky belongs to our imaginations, damn it, not to billionaire megalomaniacs. But all it takes is one man amid this crisis of conscience to save the world....

Chicago keyboardist and composer Maxx McGathey loves Halloween. The funk group he’s led since 2011 is called Gramps the Vamp, a name that drummer Stevenson Valentor got from a database of Scooby-Doo villains—it comes from a 1977 episode where the gang investigates a vampire haunting a hotel on Skull Island. The band’s instrumental music is moody, comically brooding, and slightly campy. They call it “doom funk.” “He wants to build a career centered on this holiday,” Valentor says....

Piccolo Sogno 464 N. Halsted 312-421-0077 piccolosognorestaurant.com Runner-Up: Parson’s

West Side Story Moby-Dick Finalists: Ring Cycle, Stitch

Lou Malnati’s Giordano’s Finalists: Calo Ristorante, Pizzeria Uno