Evan Thomas Weiss of Into It. Over It. is a linchpin of Chicago’s emo scene, though he spends much of his time seemingly anywhere but here, touring with one project or another—last year he was on and off the road with Pet Symmetry. Weiss kicked off 2015 by hunkering down in a Vermont cabin with IIOI full-band drummer Josh Sparks (a founding member of Slow Mass and Recreational Drugs) to write the group’s third proper album, Standards....
And now for a statement I never thought that I, a grown adult man, would ever put on the record: John Mayer rips. I know, I know, but bear with me here. For the past four years, three of the four surviving founding members of the Grateful Dead—drummer Bill Kreutzmann, drummer and percussionist Mickey Hart, and rhythm guitarist and singer Bob Weir—have been touring the world as Dead & Company and playing from the greatest songbook in American history....
I know there’s never really a good time to say I told you so. So, he knows a thing or two about dealing with epidemics. Ehrman’s larger point is that we’d be in better shape to battle this disease if we hadn’t been dismantling our public health system going back to the Reagan years of the 1980s. And he says we should immediately undo those cuts by hiring more public scientists, nurses, doctors, social workers, and so forth....
A few weeks ago I called upon a well-known and outspoken chef for some expertise I needed for a story. But this chef wanted to talk about something else. The chef had just come from lunch at one of the celebrated new restaurants launched by a certain large and ever-spawning restaurant group, and before that dinner at a sprawling spinoff from another very prominent local group in town. “I hate what they’ve done to this industry!...
The future of hip-hop is here, and it’s poppy as hell. Two of the biggest names in the game these days are rappers who frequently lean into the sweet and sensitive side of the genre: Post Malone and Swae Lee. Post Malone is the tattooed face of hypermelodic sad-boy pop rap, who’s gotten nearly as much attention for his goofy, trashy sense of style as he did for his buttery 2017 breakthrough smash, “Rockstar....
I was honored to appear with Esther Perel at the Orpheum Theater in Vancouver, BC, a few weeks ago to discuss her new book, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity. Questions were submitted on cards before the show—some for me, some for Esther, some for both of us—and we got to as many as we could during the event. Here are some of the questions (mostly for me) that we didn’t get to....
Hearing noises when nobody is around can be disturbing. However, this may be a sign of clairaudience. A clairaudient hears messages from spirit guides, angels, or the dead, receiving assistance from the spirit world. In this post, I’ll explain what it means to possess this ability: how to tell if you have the talent, distinguishing clairaudience from mental illness, associated psychic abilities, and finding advisors. Click here to speak with a clairaudient online....
Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Monday, August 22, 2016. Father Pfleger: 2016 is the most violent year he’s experienced in Chicago Father Michael Pfleger has been crusading against violence in his south-side community for more than 40 years, and he says that the violence in 2016 is the worst he’s ever seen. He’s working with his parishioners from Saint Sabina Catholic Church and community activists to “occupy” blocks and neighborhoods....
Chile has long had a robust garage and psych scene, and one of the season’s most understatedly fun rock albums comes from Santiago. The four veteran musicians of the Versions joined forces in 2004, and their charming third album, the new Calling Lucifer, blends 70s rock and garage with a touch of glammy sleaze that feels more like a wink and a grin than it does an actual endorsement of debauchery (think Flamin’ Groovies vs....
The ambitious 2019 debut of Damon Locks’s Black Monument Ensemble, Where Future Unfolds, was one of the best Chicago albums not just from the past year but from the past decade. Last week, the collective dropped the single “Stay Beautiful,” recorded live at the Garfield Park Conservatory during Red Bull’s 2018 Chicago festival. Scrappers Film Group made a video using intimate performance footage from that show: it opens with a monologue from Locks, in the voice of a vulnerable patient alone in a hospital who finds solace in an anonymous message of hope, and ends with clips of ensemble members at home with friends and family, thriving during the shelter-in-place order....
There’s nothing so discouraging as a dumpling that falls apart. A dumpling is like a nicely wrapped gift, bearing not only its filling, but the pleasures of anticipation, suspense, and ultimate gratification. When a wrapper shreds at the touch of a chopstick, or sticks to the bottom of the steamer until it rips apart, a little piece of my soul dies. Four curries are on offer, from an assertive vegetable jalfrezi to a mild pork vindaloo, and there’s an assortment of small plates and sides, including fries (thick, hand cut, and undercooked) smothered in curry sauce and a complex raita with black mustard seeds and tart green apple slices....
F ive television screens sit around a living room among houseplants, table lamps, and easy chairs. Each screen shows a family member of Rekia Boyd, the 22-year-old woman who was killed by Chicago police officer Dante Servin in March 2012. As Boyd’s brother talks about his sister-the way she laughed, how she would brighten a room-the others listen and then respond. The installation, called Present Absence, evokes a “listening circle,” a virtual dialogue about the deceased, that gives the viewer a more personal look at the life lost....
In Griffin Theatre artistic director William Massolia’s adaptation of Ryan Smithson’s 2009 memoir, Ghosts of War: The True Story of a 19-Year-Old GI, Ryan (Sam Krey), a high school student with little talent and no ambition, decides to join the U.S. Army after 9/11 when he’s struck by an overwhelming sense of love for his fellow Americans as he stands with his junior-college-bound sweetheart in front of a fence strewn with memorabilia for those who fell with the World Trade Towers....
M. Spencer Green/AP Photos The cuts keep coming. While I was preoccupied with Chuy Garcia’s race against Mayor Rahm, Governor Rauner fired the opening shots in his crusade against the poor and the infirm. I’m not sure if he was making some greater theological statement with the timing, but you never know. Now we just got another $5.999 million to go! There’s Turnaround Illinois, which is what Rauner calls his efforts to save the state by, among other things, cutting aid to people with autism....
Local singer-songwriter Owen Ashworth has kept busy recently working on a new Advance Base album, Nephew in the Wild, which will be his first full-length since 2012’s lovely A Shut-In’s Prayer. Tomorrow night Ashworth will perform at Comfort Station in Logan Square, which will be the last time you’ll be able to catch him in Chicago till August, which is when he’ll release Nephew in the Wild on his label, Orindal....
A couple days ago local R&B group Jody dropped a sultry, incandescent EP called Oasis. It’s the first proper follow-up to the band’s great debut EP, 2013’s Magique, though Jody didn’t stop releasing music in the interim. In fact, two of the best songs on Oasis, the ghostly title track and the silken, slowly rippling “M.I.A. (Move it Along),” have been floating around online for a year. On Oasis those tracks gel together with the five other songs for a seductive whole that ends too soon—by the time the great final track, “Mirage,” comes to a close you’ll probably want to listen to the EP a couple more times....
Beginning in 2014, Chicago rapper-singer Supa Bwe made his name threading together powerful rapping, forcefully melodic singing influenced by third-wave emo, and intensely vulnerable lyrics that address depression with considerable weight. His work inadvertently blazed a trail for every SoundCloud rapper with more face tattoos than original ideas who’s gotten big over the past few years. Supa could easily capitalize on that trend by finessing his early sound into a formula and following that, but he’s more interested in exploring different stylistic ideas....
Bezos got things going in early September, when he announced he’d build a second headquarters, dubbed HQ2, for the Seattle-based behemoth online retailer in the North American location that offered him the best deal. Since then, more than 200 cities or states have responded, lured in part by the promise of some 50,000 relatively high-paying jobs. As it is, Rahm and Rauner have already offered Bezos about $1.32 billion in Economic Development for a Growing Economy (EDGE) tax credits....
Over the past couple years, drummer Chad Taylor has been on fire, contributing to some of my favorite recordings, among them albums by trumpeter Jaimie Branch, bassist Eric Revis, and pianist Mara Rosenbloom. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to jazz. In the late 90s Taylor cofounded the Chicago Underground franchise with cornetist Rob Mazurek, and since he left his hometown in 2001 his activity and versatility have only expanded....
As the campaigns make their final appeals, I’ve been trying to decide which of Mayor Emanuel’s commercials and mailings is the most misleading piece of propaganda of the city election season. The caucus is that band of eight aldermen—including Scott Waguespack (32nd) and John Arena (45th)—who occasionally vote against some of the mayor’s more repellent legislation. But eight aldermen are not enough to block mayoral initiatives, no matter how unsavory they may be....
