This year hip-hop, long a dominant cultural force, went pop in terms of both setting trends in contemporary music and leading music sales. Philadelphia rapper Lil Uzi Vert is at the apex. His debut studio album, Luv Is Rage 2 (Atlantic), is the most important release of 2017, which has as much to do with his status as an avatar for the current zeitgeist and industry shifts as it does with the quality of his music....
Local punk rockers Aweful captured my attention this year with a classic punk sound that brings an appropriately seedy (and delightfully creepy) atmosphere to their shows. Buoyed by the reception they got with August’s single “Me Me Me,” which I mentioned in my Aweful concert preview in July, they’ve created a music video for their new song “I Never Knew.” Get Up With the Get Downs, Aweful, Pylons Thu 12/19, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N....
With bars and restaurants closed around the country, the feeling of plopping down in a seat at the bar after a long week of work is one many people are missing while living under COVID-19. A good drink is the foundation of many a Friday night, whether it’s a fun night out or a relaxing night in. But few people think about the hands making the drinks. Culture Shakers, a new short film by Storm Saulter aims to tell the little-known history of BIPOC in the cocktail industry by highlighting the Black and Latinx mixologists in Gentleman Jack’s Culture Shakers program....
If there’s anything I dislike more than Stranger Things, it’s the eagerness with which commercial enterprises and media outlets have flocked to the Netflix show in hopes of monetizing its afterglow. I’m willing to make an exception for Post Animal, a Chicago psych-rock outfit that happens to count Stranger Things actor Joe Keery as a member. If his limited presence in the band (he’s a nontouring guitarist and vocalist) has helped them complete their impressive forthcoming debut, When I Think of You in a Castle (on Polyvinyl—clutch), well, I’m all for it....
Bay Area clarinetist Ben Goldberg thrives in sparse settings, where the sere bite of his melodically fluid lines can stand out in stark contrast to surrounding silence. He’s got a keen sense of time, and some of his strongest efforts have been drummer-free projects, such as his new duo recording with New York cornetist Kirk Knuffke. The music on Uncompahgre (Relative Pitch) is fully improvised; each player adroitly complements the other’s spontaneous melodic fragments and breaks off into sudden counterpoints that force fleeting redirection....
When I first heard acid-folk group Espers in the early 2000s, I was stunned by the singing of Meg Baird. Here was a young woman evoking legendary vocalists from the other side of the pond—first lady of British folk Shirley Collins, the cut-glass tones of founding Fairport Convention singer Judy Dyble, the earthy Anne Briggs, even the nostalgia-delving Mary Hopkin—all while maintaining a unique and impressive sound of her own. Espers called it a day after three sublime albums (though they’ve played a few reunions), and since then Baird has made three stark but lovely solo albums for Drag City that showcase the powerful delicacy of her pipes, most recently 2015’s Don’t Weigh Down the Light....
On their first full-length, 2015’s Holding Hands With Jamie, Dublin-based four-piece Girl Band perfected high-tension minimalist noise rock. The album’s songs are based on terse rhythms and simple, dissonant guitar loops, which lay the foundation for singer Dara Kiely’s convulsive performances—which always sound like he’s trying as hard as possible to fend off a full-on psychotic break. But on Girl Band’s upcoming second album, The Talkies (Rough Trade), the group seem to be doing their equivalent of taking a deep breath and chilling out....
Half of humanity might be awkwardly capturing virtual pets on their phones, but we’ve got a way better game for you to play this week. Take a good, long look at the Where’s Waldo?-style illustration on the cover of this week’s issue—our annual Pitchfork Music Festival preview— by Jason Wyatt Frederick. It’s full of Chicagoans of varying levels of fame and infamy, plus visual puns of Pitchfork acts. The person who correctly identifies the most people and music acts will receive a pair of three-day VIP passes to this weekend’s Pitchfork Music Festival....
What is a conflict?” Levi Holloway asks. Holloway and the students are talking about playwriting, specifically how to build a story, but they’re also talking about the state of the world. It’s the last week of September, and there are examples of the three classical forms of conflict everywhere. The weekend before, NFL players had protested against police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem, much to the displeasure of President Donald Trump....
History hasn’t been this much fun since Hamilton. With its high-energy score, stadium lighting, and angular, bedazzled Tudor costumes that evoke a set of futuristic playing cards, Six, now in its North American premiere at Chicago Shakespeare, is more concert than musical. Writers Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss (who also codirected with Jamie Armitage) kick the standard “marginalized women reclaiming their narrative” plot into overdrive with a crisp, electric book and a score that magically makes clunky plot summary uproariously hilarious....
On the bitterly cold night of New Year’s Eve, heat emanated off the parquet dance floor at Man’s Country. Dozens of nearly nude men, most wearing little more than jockstraps or leather harnesses, plus shoes, bounced to a throbbing disco beat. There were chests fuzzy and hairless, firm and flabby. Bearish beards, porno-ready moustaches, and boyishly smooth faces. They drank and chatted, embraced, and kissed while they moved in a steamy mass to the music....
Mark E. Smith, the cantankerous, lacerating wit who was the only constant member of influential British rock band the Fall throughout its more than four decades of activity, died at his home this morning at age 60 following prolonged health problems. In August, the group canceled what would have been its first U.S. tour in a decade. No details about the cause of Smith’s death have been made public, but the group’s manager, Pamela Vander, has confirmed his passing....
There are several trade programs available for adults, but JARC goes beyond basic skills training. Their programs provide not only free job training, but also free financial coaching to assist clients in their financial success. With a career in manufacturing, one can plan financial goals for the future. “We like to say that those who enter our doors here at JARC, either their life fell apart and they lost their job, or they lost their job and their life fell apart,” says Katie Gonzalez, Director of Development, Data & Communications....
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. “We didn’t even have a name at the time,” Lery says. The club promoted the show in the Reader with an ad that simply said “Reggae band playing.” Lery claims they were the first band to ever play at the Cubby Bear, and that hundreds of people showed up....
This might go down in history as the year everything got completely fucked forever, but some people will also fondly recall it as the year when Sonic Boom finally released his glorious second LP, All Things Being Equal—three decades after his solo debut. Peter Kember, the multi-instrumentalist better known as Sonic Boom, made Spectrum way back in the innocent age of 1990, just before the dissolution of his long-running alt-rock outfit Spacemen 3....
The Higher Brothers found inspiration for their group’s name in air conditioners. Or, rather, the supplier of the air conditioners they know best: Haier, the Chinese consumer-electronics company that purchased General Electric’s home appliance unit for $5.6 billion in 2016. Likewise, the Higher Brothers—a four-person hip-hop group that formed in Chengdu, the capital of China’s Sichuan Province—aspire to be as globally dominant and renowned in their field as the company in their (very large) backyard....
Bike to Work Challenge The annual Bike to Work event now spans two weeks, rewarding commuters for putting down the Ventra card or the car keys and picking up a helmet and U-lock. Prizes will be awarded; more information can be found at bikecommuterchallenge.org. Through-Fri 6/29, kick-off rally (date to be rescheduled) Daley Plaza, 50 W. Washington, 312-346-3278, free. Dare2tri Tandem Bike Training Grab a buddy and hop on a bicycle built for two....
Courtesy of Frank Leone Frank Leone Last night 19-year-old rapper Frank Leone released his debut full-length, Enter Wild; it’s free, like most mixtapes today (except Drake’s latest), and it’s got the same lush, immersive quality that makes the best mixtapes resemble studio albums. But Leone calls Enter Wild an album, and the spirit and dynamics fit the definition. Leone produced all of Enter Wild on a laptop, recorded his vocals with a cheap microphone, and sought vocal contributions from artists overseas and in Chicago—local MCs Monster Mike and Saba show up, as does poet and activist Malcolm London....
Getting a handle on the music of avant-pop singer-songwriter Mary Ocher is like volunteering to board a canoe piloted by a blindfolded Sandra Bullock: given who’s driving, you’re going to enjoy the adventure, but nothing can prepare you for the rocks and dips ahead. Born in Russia, raised in Tel Aviv, and based in Berlin since 2007, Ocher displays an impressive range of influence and technique on her early albums, moving between Lotte Lenya-style avant-garde torch songs and Robyn-style electronica....
California duo Best Coast are a long way away from the bite-size stoner love songs and sun-drenched slacker tales of their 2010 debut album, Crazy for You. On their brand-new fourth LP, Always Tomorrow (Concord), singer-songwriter and guitarist Bethany Cosentino and multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno pair beefed-up power chords with clear-eyed observations, a newfound sense of optimism, and an ambitious look toward the future. It’s the band’s most straightforward rock ’n’ roll record to date, but it still has echoes of the SoCal skater vibe and lo-fi pop-punk warmth that defined their breakthrough tunes, such as Crazy for You’s “When I’m With You” and “Boyfriend....
