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In a December interview with the music site Elevator, Chicago rapper Adot said he follows his gut when it comes to musical direction rather than adhering to a strict sound. Putting it more succinctly, he said, “My sound is lost.” Adot’s nonexplanation of his musical thumbprint does a good job of hinting at his aesthetic choices. His brand-new self-released EP Midnight contains hazy instrumentals that cloak entire tracks like a fog and sparse, bone-dry percussion that cuts through his cloudlike melodies like a lighthouse beam....

As a performer, comedian Dave Maher is a high-concept mischief-maker. During his recent six-week stint at the Annoyance, he spent one night intentionally shirking his responsibilities, setting up a microphone and announcing that anyone in the audience could get up on stage and say anything; he would do nothing but listen and ask questions. Another night he dressed as the devil and spent most of the show insulting the audience....

This three-man Oakland death-metal powerhouse formed in 2011 and quickly began releasing appetite-whetting demos and singles, but on their debut full-length, 2017’s Blood Offerings, they proved they had the energy for a sustained assault. Though their new second album, Mortal, treads most of the same boards as its predecessor, the band’s fury feels fresh and renewed. Necrot largely built their audience on the concert and festival circuit, where they earned a reputation as a ferocious live act....

7/2/2019: This article has been changed to correctly reflect the events that leaf Flipper to break up. We live in a time where the unhinged, nothing-to-lose noise-rock front man is a punk-rock celebrity. But without Will Shatter and Bruce Loose of Flipper, the world never would’ve experienced the antics of Pissed Jeans’ Matt Korvette, These Arms Are Snakes’ Steve Snere, or Metz’s Alex Edkins. Formed in San Francisco in 1979, Flipper were born of the same west-coast hardcore scene that produced Black Flag and the Circle Jerks, but rather than leaning into rage and aggression like many of their peers, they wrote weird, disturbing, slippery, sludgy noise punk....

In early March, Tim Kinsella and Jenny Pulse, aka eclectic, philosophical pop duo Good Fuck, fled the disastrous initial COVID-19 outbreak in their new home of Italy to return to their old home of Chicago—and since then, they’ve been working overtime hours on their music almost every day and releasing compelling work at a breakneck pace. The postindustrial jams and sophisticated ballads on their recent EPs and singles—Gossip Wolf counts eight from the past few months—ring with political rage and echo with nostalgic sadness, all filtered through the suspended quality of life in the amniotic sac of quarantine....

Last week Riot Fest organizers announced they were moving their annual multiday punk blowout from Humboldt Park to Douglas Park in North Lawndale, and tonight the festival has released a large portion of the lineup. The big names playing Douglas Park in September include 90s hitmakers No Doubt, indie kings Modest Mouse, and unclassifiable heavyweights Faith No More. Exciting, sure, but many of the names that have caught my eye are further down the bill, mixed in among perennial favorites (Gwar, Andrew W....

In the very crowded landscape of Atlanta rap, J.I.D is instantly recognizable. His stage moniker comes from a childhood nickname that was short for “jittery.” That word is also a good description of his flow—he races from word to word with a slightly nasal tone and profanely wiggy enthusiasm. His most recent album, DiCaprio 2 (Dreamville/Interscope/Spillage Village), finds a sweet spot between alternative and mainstream; it’s familiar enough to get radio play (it peaked at 41 on the Billboard 200) and quirky enough to hold critics’ attention, and his hooks are deployed artfully enough to avoid overstaying their welcome....

For years and years, the biggest right-wing windbag in Chicago sports was Mike Ditka, former coach of the Bears, who could be counted on to say anything, no matter how daffy, to promote the Republican cause. Until Urlacher revealed what was in his mind and heart, I’d never seen such contempt for Black people so openly expressed by a Chicago celebrity. And earlier this year, Urlacher visited Trump in the White House....

Warning: This review contains spoilers. Daniel Kaluuya plays a captivating Fred Hampton, and LaKeith Stanfield an anxious Bill O’Neal, with a cast of strong supporting actors—including women who show just how essential they were to the Black Panther Party. And with these knockout performances comes an examination of the need for revolutionaries when pushing for real change. But, Hampton and the other members of the Black Panther Party were also young....

Seattle-based musician, composer, filmmaker, ethnographer, and record collector Robert Millis is fascinated with antique formats, and his obsession has evolved from crate digging to a vein of pure, obscure research that just won him a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He has written two books: 2015’s Indian Talking Machine (Sublime Frequencies) and 2008’s Victrola Favorites (Dust-to-Digital), the latter coauthored with Jeffery Taylor, his collaborator in experimental rock band Climax Golden Twins....

Should Chicago posthardcore band Slow Mass be asked to point to the physical place they started, that would be Lincoln Park’s Bourgeois Pig Cafe; bassist-vocalist Mercedes Webb met guitarist Josh Parks there when they worked at the coffee joint in 2014, and Parks later got guitarist-vocalist Dave Collis a gig there as well (the band is rounded out by drummer Josh Sparks, who previously played with Parks in furious punk act Former Thieves)....

Back in the days when one couldn’t possibly keep up with all the restaurants that opened every week in Chicago, I used to get cranky about all the cheffy burgers I was supposed to keep tabs on. The tonnage of terrible barbecue I was obligated to eat drove me into a rage I could barely contain. But now that everybody’s putting out pandemic pizza, I’m actually delighted by the proliferation of pie at nimble operations such as Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream (a collaboration between Eat Free Pizza, Kimski, and Pretty Cool Ice Cream); or Oriole chef Noah Sandoval’s Sicilian slices at Pizza Friendly Pizza; or Milly’s Pizza in the Pan, a Burt’s Place tribute operating out of a Logan Square ghost kitchen....

That’s another feature you won’t find at most bars: the draft system allows beer to be stored (and poured) at its optimum serving temperature, so a stout will be served a little warmer than a saison or pale ale. When I was there the selection ranged from classics such as Founders Harvest Ale and Big Sky Moose Drool Brown Ale to the bizarre-sounding Omnipollo Hilma Vanilla Burger & Fries IIPA, described as a “hazy imperial ‘hoppy meal’ IPA....

Michael Gebert Darko Arandjelovic and Xavier Alexander I got a note saying that a relatively new Chicago-based coffee roaster, Metric Coffee in West Town, had won a Good Food Award, an award given in San Francisco to artisan producers in various categories. OK, that’s nice. (Metropolis also won an award for their coffee.) But as I kept reading I discovered that the two guys who own Metric, Darko Arandjelovic (Caffe Streets in West Town) and Xavier Alexander (formerly of Intelligentsia), spent a year restoring a 1960s German coffee roaster to make coffee just the way they wanted it....

By now, the steeliest of us may by inured to Chinese-style hand-pulled noodles, aka lamian. The absorbing figure eight ballet of arms and dough in the production of tensile wheat soup noodles was, a few years back, a star attraction in Chinatown, where chefs did the dance in full view of their fans at places like Hing Kee and Sing’s Noodle House. That’s to say nothing of the central Asian variant, lagman, produced less visibly at places like Jibek Jolu and Lazzat (now Chayhana)....

An interesting thing happened in Lincoln Square recently. And when it comes to restaurants, that’s a sentence one rarely hears about the neighborhood. The Warbler raises concern just by offering these items—an apparent greatest hits of the banal bar food so many mediocre spots on the strip traffic in. But that’s the menu chef Ken Carter and his business partner, David Breo, have adopted for their more casual, inclusive sophomore restaurant....

Firebrand Theatre, which calls itself “the world’s first Equity musical theatre company committed to employing and empowering women on and off the stage,” closes its inaugural season with an incredibly uplifting and of-the-moment musical comedy based on the 1980 film. Penned by Patricia Resnick, with music and lyrics by Dolly Parton, the show had a short run on Broadway in 2009. Firebrand’s production, under artistic director Harmony France’s direction, makes a stunning first impression with its cast’s gender and racial diversity....

Mike Sula Escolar togarashi, Miku Sushi Bad sushi isn’t like bad pizza. When it’s bad there’s no way to justify it—it’s bad for you, bad for fish, bad for the world. Sushi should be a rare treat, reasoned Jiro Ono, lest we eat it out of existence. That opinion is pretty unpopular in these parts judging by the crowds filling two new sushi bars in Lincoln Square, Miku Sushi and Sushi Tokoro....

Arlena Williams’s evenings off work are filled with the sound of trains rumbling past the trailer where she lives with her daughter in the south suburb of Blue Island. The 45-year-old’s home, nestled within a Cook County forest preserve, abuts a transportation yard that services companies carrying, among other things, goods manufactured by workers like her—one of only about 150 female members of Chicago’s Pipefitters Local 597. An estimated $58 billion worth of exports travels out from Chicago annually, lumbering along tracks extending across the country....

Amalea Tshilds is a familiar face to anyone who’s ever enjoyed a meal at Logan Square’s beloved Lula Cafe, but in the past few years she’s also raised her profile as a singer-songwriter. It’s a decided shift from running the neighborhood restaurant she’s co-owned for more than two decades, but her musical pursuits are hardly new. Tshilds has trafficked in warm, homespun Americana for years, singing and strumming around town with Girls of the Golden West and Pollyanna Vox (and before that with Jim Becker’s Paulina Hollers)....