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On Sunday, March 24, singer-songwriter Kaina Castillo spent the day with her parents at her childhood home in Irving Park, working on a music video for the song “Green.” The director, singer-rapper Jean Deaux, wanted to film what Kaina considered a perfect day: spending time with her family and friends and kicking back with drinks and a good meal. In April, the Fader premiered the video for “Green,” which Kaina had chosen as the first single from her debut full-length, Next to the Sun....

For anyone still hoping beyond hope that Donald Trump won’t be POTUS come January, few avenues remain. Axing the Electoral College could have another benefit too: it might help bring disenfranchised or disillusioned voters back into the fold. “The [Electoral College] is a reason I was turned off to politics in the first place,” he says. “The system is set up to be confusing, and it’s not representative of the American people....

A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn. Barkmarket My favorite 90s power trio split in ’97 after three albums (five if you count early nontrio lineups), and each one wrapped its insidious rock hooks in ugly noise, perverse arrangements, and prickly, often blackly funny lyrics—a layer of off-putting avant-garde fuckery that made it seem like they were daring you to love their songs....

Beloved bar and venue Quenchers Saloon closes for good this weekend-its final day is Saturday, June 16. Local bookers Phantom Note and MP Presents give the old place a proper send-off on Friday, June 15, with a five-act show billed as “Pharewell to Quenchers.” The lineup includes local Saves the Day cover band Band From the Back Porch (whose members also play in Space Blood, Laverne, Camo Hat, Santah, and Bev Rage & the Drinks, among others), ace Chicago postpunk duo Tinkerbelles, Rust Ring, Bow & Spear, and Hi Ho....

In the fall of 1971, Faith Wilding was a young MFA student participating in the California Institute of the Arts’ first iteration of its Feminist Art Program. Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, who codirected the unit, hoped to galvanize their students by encouraging them to tackle a major project while working through their own issues as women. Within months the students created Womanhouse, a now-legendary installation that took up an entire mansion in Hollywood....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, November 15, 2017. Lori Lightfoot endorses Chris Kennedy for governor The heated Illinois gubernatorial race is showing no signs of slowing down before the holiday season as Democratic candidate Chris Kennedy released his first TV ad. Lori Lightfoot, the head of the city’s Police Accountability Task Force, also endorsed Kennedy Tuesday. “It’s just not enough to say to people this is what we are against,” she said....

Joe Fresh Goods’s “Glo Up” line dont-be-mad.com/glo-up When gossip outlet TMZ abushed Chief Keef in November 2013, the world got a taste of a brand-new Keefism: “I growed up—I glo-ed up, I mean.” “Glo” has since infiltrated Keef’s persona, and in 2014 he ditched Glory Boyz Entertainment, aka GBE, for a new label called Glo Gang. His turn of phrase has also popped up in the language of hip-hop at large....

Few instrumentalists are as closely aligned with a group and a sound as saxophonists Don Dietrich and Jim Sauter. Since 1979 they’ve worked with guitarist Donald Miller as Borbetomagus, a ferociously loud, overdriven improvisational ensemble that sculpts its blown-out attack with a mix of brutality and refined detail. During the course of nearly four decades the saxophonists hadn’t stepped outside that context aside from recording a single duo album and a trio with Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore....

Bronx rapper Kemba opens his self-released 2016 album, Negus, with a plea: “Don’t call it political / Please don’t deem this lyrical / These are negro spirituals.” Kemba, who’d previously recorded and performed under the name YC the Cynic, understands how easily his patient, contemplative songs can be pigeonholed as “conscious hip-hop,” but anyone who’d expect him to regurgitate east-coast boom-bap and a selection of preapproved lyrical subjects would be missing the full power of his music....

Wicker Park rapper Judy knows that with the right delivery, his subtle groans can be just as compelling as his lyrics. On “Inside Grey,” from his new Ard Bet (Wing Hoe), his words slide out of his mouth with the battered weariness of a twentysomething who’s lost count of the number of late nights he’s misspent on one bender or another, but he counterbalances the song’s dark themes with an intuitive grasp of melody....

When Larry David appeared on Saturday Night Live to impersonate Bernie Sanders, viewers went crazy. But David’s impression of the Democratic presidential candidate pales in comparison to that of LA-based comedian James Adomian. Granted, he’s had more practice—he rolled out his Sanders impression during his multiple sets at Chicago’s Comedy Exposition last summer before #feelthebern fever kicked in, and now Adomian’s reviving it, with fellow comic Anthony Atamanuik playing opposite him as Donald Trump....

Dance For Life, presented by Chicago Dancers United, celebrates its 30th year of bringing Chicago dancers together to raise money for The Dancers’ Fund with a performance on August 26 featuring ten dance companies and a new work by Randy Duncan. Founded in 1991 in response to the AIDS crisis by Keith Elliott, a dancer with Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre, with Todd Kiech, Harriet Ross, Danny Kopelson, and Gail Kalver, Dance for Life and the Dancers’ Fund offer financial aid for dancers with critical health-care needs....

As long as live music is still a thing, concertgoers will argue the merits of the early show versus the late show. Both have their advantages, but depending on your job, a later show means less chance you’ll miss out on a song or two because you’re tied up with work. How does the time of day influence the atmosphere of a show? For that matter, are some types of music better suited for certain hours than others?...

Late last week, Metro and Smart Bar announced they’d added a member to their family: talent buyer Christen Thomas! She plays in Chicago posthardcore band Storm Clouds, but more important, she’d been lead talent buyer at the Empty Bottle since 2012—she tells Gossip Wolf that she left at the end of January. Thomas says that part of what inspired her to go for the new job was the team already in place, which includes senior talent buyers Jason Garden and Joe Carsello, an old friend....

Chicago has a rich tenor sax tradition—Gene Ammons, Johnny Griffin, Von Freeman, Fred Anderson, and so on. With tradition comes prescription; Chicago tenors, to fit the mold, need to be able to summon a broad tone, a bluesy vibe, and a steady stream of improvisational ideas. Local saxophonist Gerrit Hatcher has no trouble living up to those demands. The naked sound of his horn, documented on three solo albums, ranges from ear-drilling high notes to door-blocking low end....

One of the most ghoulish stories I’ve ever heard was a 2015 NPR piece by Daniel Rosinsky-Larsson about the way a New England newspaper’s well-meaning tribute to the area’s oldest people was being received by some of its recipients. Instead of welcoming the award as a nod to their longevity, some of its horrified winners viewed it as an ominous “kiss of death.” Compared to a lot of other societies, America has some work to do when it comes to taking care of its longest-living citizens—let alone honoring them....

“I’m not afraid of dying. What I’m afraid of is losing my mother, of being in prison, of being a failure. I’m afraid of living,” a resident of a halfway house on the West Side tells Alex Kotlowitz in his new book An American Summer. It is but one of the countless heartrending insights the author gleaned from interviews with some 200 crime victims and perpetrators, their loved ones, and observers of violence on the streets of Chicago in the summer of 2013....

Indiana singer-songwriter Omar Apollo excels in the gray spaces between genres and scenes. On a string of singles he’s uploaded to Soundcloud over the past year, he transposes heart-wrenching, swooning guitars from early 60s pop onto mechanic percussion that moves like it’s made for a hip-hop track. Apollo, who sings in both English and Spanish, often coos in a voice so delicate it sounds like his melodies could dissolve in an instant....

Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker was not exactly excited to pick up this week’s Reader and see himself in exaggerated caricature form sitting on top of a lawn jockey. Nope. He characterized the cover illustration by artist Greg Houston as “not the right approach.” .@JBPritzker On @Chicago_Reader cover: “Well I guess I knew they intended to be provocative at the Reader but I think this is not the right approach” @ABC7Chicago pic....

Native representation in television and film has been historically abysmal. When Native characters do pop up, they are typically one-dimensional, and often embody exhausting tropes, like the “drunken Indian” or the picturesque murder victim. But the Peacock sitcom Rutherford Falls offers audiences something entirely different: multidimensional Native characters who defy stereotypes and embody the contradictions that Native people in the U.S. are often faced with in their daily lives. The show was cocreated by Ed Helms, Michael Schur, and Sierra Teller Ornelas....