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In August the Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (CDSA) launched the interactive database Find My Landlord. The website features a map of rental properties across the city. The owners, along with their properties, can be found via the search function. All data is available for download. In March, as the coronavirus pandemic thrust millions of Americans into economic uncertainty, CDSA began to focus more efforts around tenant organizing and joined the citywide coalition Chicago Tenants Movement....

Violinist Jennifer Koh, who was born and raised in the Chicago area, is that rare rising classical music star with fluency in both standard repertoire and new music. Her most recent album, Tchaikovsky: Complete Works for Violin and Orchestra (Cedille), follows on the heels of her eclectically curated recordings with bracing readings of work by living composers such as Kaija Saariaho, Anna Clyne, and John Zorn. She’s an artist with an abiding sense of community and has worked diligently to break down the barriers that often separate composers from performers by designing programs and commissioning music with a heightened awareness of those roles....

Toward the end of her rambunctious and profound one-woman show, Ida Cuttler spins back to a recurring theme in the 80-minute production: the power of storytelling to keep women safe. As Cuttler notes, stories kept Scheherazade from being murdered by a rapist king who decreed he’d wed a different woman each night, killing each new bride the morning after the nuptials. Scheherazade is hardly the only woman to use stories to justify her existence and as a means to create boundaries where men believe none exist....

For me, the City Council moment that sums up the spirit of Chicago occurred in the wee hours of December 2, 1987. No, no, you’ve got to give a little something to get a little something. We not only tolerate this condition, we’ve come to like it in a sadomasochistic sort of way. Of course, I assumed the aldermen got something from Daley for their anti-Reilly votes. Sure enough, one alderman told me his ward got a soccer field....

Local multi-instrumentalist and composer Ben Miranda, who died in November, was a beloved jack-of-all-trades. Not only did he play bass for electro-­pop weirdos Detholz!, he was also a Web developer, armchair scientist, motorcycle nut, and pantomime magician with a talent for making people laugh. As a tribute to Miranda’s annual Groundhog Day parties, his pals are throwing a show at the Hideout on Sunday, January 31, that includes a reunited Detholz!...

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. • That videos of the fatal police shooting of Cedrick Chatman may finally be released today? —Steve Bogira

Samantha Muljat Goatsnake Los Angeles stoner-metal band Goatsnake have shared the first single from their upcoming LP Black Age Blues, their first full-length release in 15 years. Formed in 1996 and headed up by guitarist Greg Anderson, one half of ultraheavy experimental drone-doom duo SunnO))), and vocalist Pete Stahl, formerly the vocalist of hardcore band Scream (which featured a very young Dave Grohl on drums), Goatsnake joined the Southwest stoner-rock scene and blasted out groovy, ten-ton slabs of Sabbath worship....

In their hip-hop duo Local Nobodies, Chicago rapper Sulaiman and funk multi-instrumentalist Chris Mathien (who also leads the band Mathien) unlock each other’s debonair charms in song. On their self-released second album, the new See What Happens, they embellish their grooves with sophisticated flair, and Mathien’s smooth, subtle production leaves Sulaiman plenty of room to show off the musicality of his voice. On tracks such as “Levels” and “Marmont,” he stretches his words casually and luxuriously, like he’s relishing the sensation of each vowel on its way out....

Cristalle Bowen, best known as Psalm One, has a creative stamina and drive matched by few Chicago rappers. She began carving out a career as a solo artist in the early 2000s, and it became her main focus after her promising underground crew the Nacrobats broke up in 2003. And aside from a brief stint with Minneapolis hip-hop imprint Rhymesayers in the mid-2000s, she’s largely done it without label support—she’s self-released her records and put together her own tours....

Chicago has its share of bands playing country or alternative country, but Thomas Comerford’s lonesome sound is in a category of its own. Comerford straddles the singer-songwriter era of the 1970s and the dusty, deadpan observations of psychedelic iconoclasts such as Bill Callahan. He’s also an independent filmmaker—he teaches film and art history at the School of the Art Institute—and his lyrics accomplish dazzling feats by combining abstract and literal imagery....

All manner of bikes were represented when about a thousand cyclists convened on Daley Plaza on the evening of September 29 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Chicago’s monthly Critical Mass ride. There were flashy aluminum triathlon cycles, cruisers festooned with Christmas lights, and a “fat bike” with huge tires towing a little girl in a trailer. The Rat Patrol, a punk-rock bike gang known for their custom choppers, was there, including member Yly Coyote, a bearded young man with dreadlocks down to his butt, who was astride a roughly ten-foot-tall bike made of multiple frames welded together....

Welcome to Flopcorn, where Reader writers and contributors pay tribute to our very favorite bad movies. In this installment, writer Princess McDowell makes the case that Demolition Man is really a black movie. What makes Simon unique, though, is that he’s a black man’s villain, talking shit the entire time he shares the screen with Sly Stone’s John Spartan. When he says, “I’ve been dreaming ‘bout killing you for 40 years,” he could’ve easily been talking to an ex-Spades partner who reneged on his birthday....

Susan Walsh/AP Photos Dennis Hastert, pictured in 2007 Writing about Dennis Hastert, the former Illinois congressman who’s been indicted for lying to the feds about withdrawing large sums of money, allegedly to pay off a man he sexually abused years ago while a Yorkville teacher and wrestling coach, the Sun-Times‘s Carol Marin passed along a question posed by a woman in Arizona to her brother in Chicago: John Kass in the Tribune was more emphatic: “Dennis Hastert,” he declared, “is a Republican boss of the infamous Illinois Combine that has run this politically corrupt state....

Q My husband and I are a straight couple in our early 50s, and we’ve been married for more than 30 years. We were raised to wait for sex till we got married—this was back in the early 80s—and we did. Our wedding night was pretty disappointing, since neither of us knew what we were doing. He got off, but I didn’t. We both assumed that there was something wrong with me, because he didn’t have any problem coming, right?...

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place. Maxwell changed course in 1967, after a disastrous gig at south-side club Peyton Place, near 39th and Indiana. She sang “Misty,” the signature number of pop crooner Johnny Mathis, and her classical training was still audible in her carefully controlled, somewhat fussy performance, just as it is on “One Thin Dime....

Rotting flesh and chemicals aren’t exactly what you might consider “cute,” but that was the reaction of Defibrillator Gallery director Joseph Ravens when he initially heard the term “Bubbly Creek.” This nickname describes the part of the Chicago River on the western border of Bridgeport where gases still occasionally bubble at the riverbed from animal waste dumped more than a century ago. Once Ravens learned where the nickname derived from, he said he was “both disgusted and delighted....

Blue Over You Francis can’t find his wife, Mitzi. She was gone when he came home from work yesterday, didn’t sleep at home last night, and hasn’t called in. So now he’s rooting around in her stuff, searching for clues. Maybe she lit out for Phoenix. Maybe she ran off with Joey, the macho maintenance engineer at the school where she teaches first grade. After a few minutes with Michael Joseph Mitchell’s Francis, though, you might suspect that she just couldn’t take his loopy, manic style anymore—his best-gay-friend asides (“Don’t you just love Angela Lansbury?...

v N inety percent of independent music venues are in danger of closing in the next few months, according to a new survey by the National Independent Venue Association (aka NIVA). We’ve already seen two spaces shutter in Chicago: Crown Liquors closed in April and California Clipper called it a day less than two weeks ago. More closures could irreparably damage Chicago’s music ecosystem. These venues give local “unknowns” their first breaks, and legitimize the artistic endeavors of countless musicians who may never play outside the city....

This year Anuj Girdhar, aka Chicago producer Del Dot, founded electronic label Deep Space Objects. On Saturday, October 15, the label releases its third cassette, Beta Orionis, the second in an ongoing compilation series inspired by constellations. The 15 tracks on Beta Orionis include music from Del Dot, Japanese footwork whiz Foodman, and 90s Chicago ghetto-house producer Jana Rush. At 3 PM on Saturday, Deep Space Objects hosts a release party at Saki with OB, Jon Monteverde, Jeremiah Fisher, Del Dot, and Lily (formerly Ultrademon)....

Susan for President barreled peach brandy from Koval Distillery Lager from Dovetail Brewery Hopewell‘s bright, airy taproom in Logan Square feels more like a cafe than a bar (and even has Ipsento nitro coffee on tap), so it’s probably not a coincidence that my favorite of the company’s beers is called Cold Brew and tastes just like iced coffee. Though it’s not sweet, the beer has zero bitterness and some very appealing milk chocolate undertones, making it one of the smoothest-drinking coffee beers I’ve had....