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This story was originally published in The Appeal. The first case of COVID-19 among prisoners was confirmed on March 23. A week later, 134 detainees were sick. On March 27, Dart held a press conference touting “single-celling” for almost all prisoners and saying reports of lack of access to soap were “lies.” Meanwhile, the head of the jail’s medical division (which is under the purview of Cook County’s Health and Hospitals System and not the sheriff’s office), Dr....

Helmed by charismatic vocalist and guitarist Ryanne van Dorst, Dool combine pop hooks with heady lyrics and complex songwriting that draws from the underbelly of metal, psych, doom, occult rock, and more. Formed in Rotterdam in 2015 by members of Dutch rock outfits Elle Bandita, the Devil’s Blood, and Gold, the band (whose name translates to “Wandering”) have yet to tour the States, but they made waves in the heavy-music world with their 2017 debut, Here Now, There Then....

On their self-titled debut full-length in 2018, Austin’s Exhalants sounded oddly like a Chicago band. Austin noise-rock has a very specific feel: whether we’re talking about the unhinged no wave of the Butthole Surfers, the loose-limbed pummeling of Cherubs, or the deadpan country-fried twang of Spray Paint, it always feels more slippery and acid-laced than similar music from other noise capitals. But Exhalants, with their aluminum-necked guitars and sturdy rhythms, came out of the gate with the wiry, relentless attack of Tar, the locked-in simplicity of Shellac, and moments of sad introspection a la Slint (surely an honorary Chicago band)....

I consider Happy Death Day to be a lesser Blumhouse production, but the teens and preadolescents at the screening I attended last weekend seemed to love it. I can understand why—for an audience that doesn’t remember Groundhog Day, the premise, which finds a college student reliving the same day over and over (and getting killed at the end of it), might seem inventive. Moreover, the film offers a vision of early adulthood that could seem appealing to kids, presenting college as a time for socializing, dating, and self-discovery....

There’s an elliptical quality to the lyrics on Katie Von Schleicher’s terrific full-length debut, Shitty Songs (Ba Da Bing). She assays various strains of romantic and personal disconnect, using words to underscore frayed connections and muddied communication, but her honeyed, soulful vocals and the rich arrangements that surround them fill out the otherwise moody pictures with dazzling color. Her adventurous production recalls some of the experiments David Bowie conducted with Brian Eno during his Berlin years, but replaces their urban vibe with something more rustic and folksy....

Seventeen months ago, Laura “Lulu” Callier—aka solo electronic musician Gel Set—packed up her things and moved from Chicago to Los Angeles with her steadfast canine companion, Dixie. As Callier rode out that loneliness, she began noticing doppelgängers everywhere she went: on sidewalks, at gas stations, at supermarkets, and at shows, she saw people who looked almost but not exactly like the friends and acquaintances she’d left behind. She calls them “body copies”—and they’re also why she titled the new Gel Set record Body Copy....

Chicago four-piece Dim make the kind of shoegaze that’s allergic to the daylight. The damp and brooding industrial clang of the group’s new 12-inch, Stereo 45 (Rotted Tooth), occasionally lights up subbasements with piercing strobes, but I find it hard to believe that the members of Dim could even make out the outlines of their footwear through so much fuzz. Many bands that have resurrected the style in recent years appear content with transforming the walls of sound associated with the genre into music that echoes its predecessors but drains some of its earlier color; Dim embrace grit and grim....

New York trio Son Lux—singer Ryan Lott, drummer Ian Chang, and guitarist Rafiq Bhatia—move easily between pop, jazz, and contemporary classical, because their dramatic, ambitious songs draw from all three. On the recent Brighter Wounds (City Slang), their craftsmanship is beyond reproach, but jazz and classical make their presence felt only as sources of harmonic complexity—and sometimes the music’s pop impulses would benefit from a shorter leash. If I’d only heard the single “Dream State,” I would’ve written the band off entirely: its wordless vocal hook is perilously similar to the dreaded “millennial whoop,” and in any case it’s so overplayed and cringe-inducing that you might peg Son Lux as opportunists who care more about sync licenses for TV commercials than they do about writing good material....

The arrival of ramps, soon to be followed by asparagus and strawberries, signals the arrival of prime season for Chicago’s farmers’ markets. We’re in the easiest time of year to shop markets, buy local and sustainable stuff, and come away with produce that tastes only a million bazillion times better than the same species flown in from South America or New Zealand. I visit a fair number of them on the north side myself, but when I was asked to do a list of the top ones alongside the Summer Guide issue, I went straight to the source: Rob Gardner, editor of the Local Beet....

Before we get to the specifics of Possibilities Theatre’s earnest, engaging staging of Jonathan Larson’s Rent, we must first get into some generalities about Jonathan Larson’s Tony-winning Rent. It’s been a solid quarter-century since I saw the musical in its initial Broadway run. If you cannot recall 1996, when Rent opened on Broadway, know this: In pre-Y2K, post-Phantom, pre-Hedwig world, the defining trend in musical theater was solidly centered on spectacle, the more over-the-top, the better....

As this cold, wet June wore on and no schedule had been posted for Theater on the Lake’s annual storefront-theater festival, which was supposed to commence June 23, concern grew among longtime fans that it might not be happening. TOTL managing director Angelique Grandone says that the switch from low-cost to no cost was done to make the plays more accessible. It also brings the festival in line with most everything else operating under the umbrella of the Park District’s Night Out in the Parks program....

Over the last decade, there has been an influx in films and novels about teen romance and terminal illnesses, especially cancer. From Josh Boone’s The Fault in Our Stars to Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s Me and Earl and the Dying Girl to Stella Meghie’s Everything Everything, this “boy meets girl with a terminal illness” phenomenon has evolved into something of a genre all to itself, exploring—with different degrees of success and sympathy—falling in love when you are young and dying....

When Andre Williams died of cancer on Sunday, March 17, at age 82, he was well-known in Chicago as an R&B veteran who’d stayed busy and beloved in his later years. From his childhood onward, he’d spent much of his life here, but for a long stretch of the 1970s and ’80s he was somewhere between “whatever happened to” and “missing in action.” Drug addiction had all but ended his career, and for a while in the early 90s he survived by panhandling on the downtown Randolph Street bridge....

If it’s true that wisdom comes from suffering, then Chicago theatergoers must have some of the wisest butts on earth. I’m not talking about devotees of the big commercial theaters in the Loop, where the seats boast such hedonistic excesses as back support and stuffing. I’m talking about those whose idea of an evening out involves finding some tiny, grimy neighborhood storefront (or church basement or bar back room) and wedging themselves into a cramped row to watch a couple hours of tense acting at close range....

There’s been a lot of freakishness forced down our throats by the idiocracy in recent times, but amid it all you may still remember this whopper: Albany Park, for example, and its neighboring north-side enclaves remain (for now) a safe place where the professional taquero can thrive in America. A case study: on a side street off one of the busier thoroughfares in this part of the city, there’s a family who each weekend set up a tent along the sidewalk, sheltering a table and chairs, coolers, cold drinks, a salsa bar, and a gas-powered comal on which the patriarch of the clan griddles piles of hissing carne asada, al pastor, cesina, and chorizo con papas....

When local folk-pop artist Jessica Risker interviewed Chicago singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Emily Jane Powers on her Music Therapy podcast in April 2020, Powers was halfway through recording an album. “I wanted to make a guitar-forward record,” Powers told Risker. “I wanted to let the guitar speak for me.” On the album in question, Isometry (which she self-released this past June), her guitars alternately howl and coo, sometimes snapping like gators fighting over a tantalizing fish....

On the eve of the first day of fall, prolific Chicago soul man Nate Barksdale self-released Summer Was Over Before It Started. The pandemic eliminated so much of what Chicagoans cherish about the city’s warmest months, but Barksdale’s supple blend of neosoul melody and hip-hop percussion, wrapped up in R&B smoothness, captures the wistfulness that I always feel at the end of summer—and that I feel with an extra twinge at the end of a summer I barely got to enjoy....

Few figures in jazz operate with as much refined comportment, melodic grace, and measured spontaneity as Denver cornetist Ron Miles. He’s quietly but forcefully risen in the global jazz scene due to his thoughtfulness, lyric grace, and communal spirit, which have attracted an ever-widening coterie of top-notch collaborators. Late last year he joined guitarist Mary Halvorson and Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier for New American Songbooks Volume 1 (Sound American), where he applied his broad technique in surveying a mix of classic and new standard rep by the likes of Fiona Apple, Gary Peacock, and Duke Ellington....

In a year filled with debates about racism in law enforcement, attacks on women’s reproductive rights, and even fights over equal access to clean water, I’ve grown increasingly weary of election post-mortems that attribute Donald Trump’s victory to so-called “identity politics.” For example, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment remains twice as high for black people as it does for their white counterparts. The disproportionate rate of black unemployment has held true for decades, recession or not....

UPDATE Monday, July 8, 12:45 PM: Both concerts by Ready for the World have been canceled. Refunds available at point of purchase. Ready for the World’s single “Tonight” was all over the radio in 1984, but due to its lyrical content it unfortunately was not allowed at my summer camp: “Did he say ‘wet’?” a counselor shouted as she confiscated the taped-from-WBMX mixes I was blasting on my boom box in the cabin....