Local label the Sirens has long upheld the tradition of Chicago blues piano, and in the past decade or so it’s begun exploring the neglected world of gospel piano as well. This show features three artists in the Sirens stable, two with new releases. Elsa Harris’s I Thank God is a mostly instrumental collection of well-traveled church standards featuring Harris on piano, Richard Gibbs on organ, and Curtis Fondren on drums....
UPDATE Friday, March 13: this event has been canceled. Refunds available at point of purchase. Cabrini was a hot topic when Byrne took office in 1979, but the neighborhood—bounded by North and Clybourn Avenues to the north, Chicago Avenue on the south, Larrabee on the east, and Halsted on the west—had been branded as the worst-of-the-worst in city living for over a century. Brooks watched Byrne’s adventure unfold on television. “I was too young to really understand the politics of it....
A Chicago-born army vet and illustrator with modest beginnings ventures into the exclusive world of French haute couture and becomes the very first American couturier to achieve success in Paris. That’s the story told by “Making Mainbocher: The First American Couturier,” which opens tomorrow at the Chicago History Museum. The exhibit features 30 of his garments, plus fashion illustrations, photographs, and interactive displays. How did he begin his career? Where did his learn his craft?...
Devin Shaffer spent her formative years searching for a sense of belonging as a performer—whether on a stage or in Chicago’s musical zeitgeist. In 2012 she found that elusive sense of communion seething from the PA at Cafe Mustache during a set by Haley Fohr of Circuit des Yeux. It encouraged Shaffer to think beyond the typical boundaries for women in music, and last month, nearly a decade later, she released her first album under her own name, a meditative montage of voice and found sound titled In My Dreams I’m There (American Dreams)....
I have one more thing to say about Donald Trump and the partisans who come to his rallies to cheer or to silence him. (I posted on the subject last week and Monday.) Then I butted in. “Why,” I asked, “is civil disobedience even on the table?” “Protest is speech. It’s how they are heard. Whining on Facebook won’t get TV news helicopters flying over their houses.” “I disagree with the tactic as well, but if I were running it, I would have shut down ALL roads leading into the rally....
A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn. Salem is curious what’s in the rotation of . . . AMON DUUL II – “Dreams” – Made In Germany — WZRD Playlist Log (@WZRDPlaylist) June 1, 2019 Maryanne Amacher “Sound Characters (from 2021 the Life People)” from The Throne of Drones (comp) — WZRD Playlist Log (@WZRDPlaylist) May 30, 2019 Afro-Latin PartyAfricando featuring Amadou Balake – Betece (Africa/Latin America)...
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images “We’re going to need a bigger envelope.” Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, amuse, or inspire us. • That Illinois regulators have revoked the license of a currency exchange in Little Village, following a ProPublica investigation of Chicago temp agencies and labor brokers? (The investigation revealed a growing number of “temp towns” in the U.S.—African-American and Latino neighborhoods whose workers reported wage theft and high check-cashing fees that brought their pay below minimum wage....
Among the many accomplishments of Herb Alpert—which include cofounding A&M Records, releasing 28 Billboard-charting albums (including five that reached number one), and being the only artist to top the Billboard Hot 100 as an instrumentalist and as a vocalist—the easy-listening legend has nine original sculptures on permanent display at the Field Museum. But that isn’t even the trumpeter’s most important connection to Chicago: for nearly five decades he’s been married to a local native, Grammy-winning vocalist and former Sérgio Mendes & Brasil ’66 member Lani Hall, who’s joining him for tonight’s show at City Winery....
Courtesy of Big Dipper’s Facebook Big Dipper One of the many overlapping storylines in last night’s episode of Fox’s hit hip-hop soap opera Empire revolves around a track called “Drip Drop.” It’s the newest single from aspiring rapper Hakeem, the youngest son of mogul Lucious Lyon. Hakeem is battling his two older brothers to take over his father’s company, and his hope to rise to the top is to become a top-tier MC and establish his own identity....
Omelets alongside tortas and Polish sausages, pink lemonade next to agua fresca de pepino, Valentina hot sauce next to Heinz ketchup. At Park View Diner in Pilsen, owner Martha Solis and her son Nelson Perez have been serving a blend of cultures for more than three decades. Nearly eight months later, the diner’s business had started picking back up, thanks in part to the city of Chicago’s partial reopening that allowed restaurants to seat at 25 percent capacity with social distancing....
In April, two major news stories broke that assumed new trends in COVID-19 victims. The first is the “new kind of patient” according to CNN: young, previously healthy, and now sick or even hospitalized with COVID. The number of these patients has been increasing nationwide, especially in Michigan. The second story pertains to young children who have lost parents to COVID. And as the Journal of the American Medical Association – Pediatrics recently explained, these children will need social and psychological support for years to come....
Some relatively upbeat news on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra strike front: After a break—and after a letter earlier this week from the musicians to the CSO Board of Trustees—negotiations between management and the orchestra were set to resume Friday. Among the points made by the musicians in their letter, including issues of “mission and funding drift,” was this: “Let us be clear, this is not just about us. With many of the musicians already vested, our concern is truly about the future of the Orchestra—its ability to retain and attract great talent—a concern shared by Maestro Muti, Daniel Barenboim, and many of the world’s other finest orchestras and leaders....
Update: To help slow the spread of COVID-19, this show has been postponed until further notice. Ticket holders can contact the point of purchase for refund or exchange information. New York-based rock band Habibi can make any show, even one in the last weeks of winter, feel like a humid summer day spent lounging around and eating good food with friends—the good shit. Their music draws from surf rock and chipper 60s girl groups, and though it’s sweet, it never feels saccharine....
One evening early last December, some 20 dinner guests sat at a candlelit table in a converted Logan Square factory loft eating carnitas with red mole infused with NYC Sour Diesel, a strain of cannabis known for its relaxing, euphoric effects. Next came chilaquiles with kale salsa, soubise crema, roasted mushrooms, and smoked habanero cheddar with a smoked guajillo oil infused with a cross strain of AC/DC and Haze. Due to its low THC levels, the last has little psychoactive effect, but thanks to a high concentration of cannabidiol, aka CBD, it’s good for relief from anxiety and chronic pain....
Courtesy of Relapse Records/Edouard Pierre Indian On Friday, February 27, the organizers of the Psycho California weekend posted a message from Chicago doom band Indian, who’d been booked to play the festival: “Indian has come to the point where we can no longer be a band,” it said in part. “We have cancelled the few shows we had coming up, including our appearance at Psycho California.” The news trickled out slowly at first, then blew up all over the metal Internet after a MetalSucks post yesterday....
Alex Wong/Getty Images No word if Bernie Sanders has made it to Woo Woo Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. • This profile of Judy Blume? —Aimee Levitt • About Bob Dylan’s first Letterman appearance‘? —Drew Hunt
Q: I keep running into the same issue with my best friend of five years. (She’s also my maid of honor at my upcoming wedding.) We’re both empaths—most of my friends are—and we’re both in therapy working on how to cope with that. I have severe anxiety that impacts my physical health, so one of the empath-related issues I’m working on is not following through with plans when I need to take time alone....
In July 2012, as Wicker Park Fest wound down, Chicago guitarist Ryley Walker was riding his bike south on Damen below Division when a hit-and-run driver clipped him from behind. He woke up in the hospital. “I cracked my skull, and I’m pretty much deaf in my left ear,” Walker, 25, says with equanimity. “Luckily, I was still on my parents’ health insurance.” As he recuperated at home after a couple days in Illinois Masonic, he made a decision: Though he’d been throwing himself into music since he was a teenager, his ravenous, equal-opportunity ears had made it tough for him to stick to any one sound, instead leading him by turns into punk rock, noise, folk, free jazz, and anything else that caught his interest....
Longtime readers know that Gossip Wolf is a big supporter of power-rock unit High Spirits, fronted by local hesher Chris Black (who also leads Superchrist and Dawnbringer). The band take inspiration from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and Reader critic Luca Cimarusti has described their music as “Halfordesque vocals over sharp, harmonized guitar shredding.” On the new LP Motivator, which German label High Roller Records releases on Friday, September 16, High Spirits stick to the playbook they’ve perfected: massively exuberant, diamond-hard jammers such as “Flying High” and “Reach for the Glory” are beers-in-the-air classics in the making....
