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Yelitza Rivera made at least one easy adjustment after she left Maracaibo, Venezuela, almost 20 years ago. It was thejibarito, the mojo-slicked pressed plantain sandwich invented in Humboldt Park by Juan C. Figueroa at the late great Borinquen Restaurant. See, her hometown in northwest Venezuela is the birthplace of the patacón Maracucho, a sandwich of strikingly similar construction, best eaten when the starchy green bananas are still hot and crispy from the fryer, and you’re in the right frame of mind and physical circumstances to negotiate the unstable strata within....

Courtesy of Secretly Canadian Suuns Tonight local postpunks Disappears headline an audio-visual experience at the Garfield Park Conservatory during which the band and the opening acts will be performing along to video projections throughout the different greenhouses of the museum. Today’s 12 O’Clock Track comes from Disappears’ direct support for the night, Montreal’s Suuns. It’s called “2020” and it’s from their second record for Secretly Canadian, Images Du Futur. It’s a woozy, spacey jam, propelled by a droney, bassy throb and a fractured disco beat—its repetitive, psychedelic, down-and-out vibe should be the perfect compliment to a mind-expanding episode in the desert room of the conservatory....

On May 29, 11 DePaul students will present a series of their written and multimedia work as part of 14 East’s third annual live storytelling event. 14 East is an independent online long-form magazine staffed and run by DePaul University students. As is the case with every other event in Chicago for the foreseeable future, this live storytelling event won’t be “live” in the traditional sense of the word; in lieu of a stage and audience, the event will be prerecorded and streamed on the magazine’s Facebook page....

When Charli XCX dropped the single “Blame It on Your Love” on May 15, she posted an Instagram story of herself posing with guest vocalist Lizzo and a sign reading “Bout 2 Save Pop Music.” The British singer’s new full-length, Charli (released last month), suggests that she’s not just trying to save pop—she’s trying to shift the pop paradigm. She hasn’t succeeded yet, but the complicated and occasionally chaotic Charli feels like a stepping stone in that direction—its songs don’t immediately feel ready for the Top 40, but they further her distinctive sound....

On February 20 a scrappy bunch of teachers from the North Lawndale and Urban Prep charter schools took to the streets to announce they were trying to form a union. As you may recall, charter schools are publicly financed, privately run institutions that in most cases are not unionized. They’re also supported by a lot of rich and powerful business titans who are of the decidedly antiunion persuasion. As always, the truth is somewhere in the middle, though leaning precariously close to me....

Chasms, the Los Angeles duo of Jess Labrador and Shannon Madden, is essentially a dream-pop outfit. But while the ethereal voice sighs and meanders breathily toward nirvana—in the tradition of artists such as the Cocteau Twins, Ivy, and Damon & Naomi—the atmospheric instrumentals draw from more disparate influences, notably electronic dance music. Their new record, The Mirage (Felte), opens with “Shadow,” which starts with a sparse, distorted beat that could pass as a dub track—at least until processed guitar noises and Madden’s singing slide in and lift things off that thumping bottom....

Chicago R&B singer Ravyn Lenae dropped her debut EP, heavenly Moon Shoes, in 2015, and six of its eight tracks had beats by eclectic producer Monte Booker—one of her comrades in local hip-hop crew Zero Fatigue, which also includes idiosyncratic rapper-singer Smino. Booker has also provided the instrumental backbone for much of Lenae’s otherworldly work since then, and last year she appeared on Smino’s breakout debut album, Blkswn. Her creative relationships with Smino and Booker have made it difficult for me to imagine her music outside the context of Zero Fatigue....

There is nothing natural about being a grown woman. It’s a constant, mysterious process. Even those of us who profess not to give a shit live in a state of vigilance. Stray hairs must be plucked or waxed or shaved into oblivion. Our boobs must be harnessed. Do our buttocks have a pleasing shape? Is our lipstick the most flattering shade for our skin tone? How many things are we fucking up without even realizing it?...

Gossip Wolf has been anticipating the debut album from Chicago gothic-industrial monsters Hide since first covering them in 2014, and according to the duo’s vocalist, Heather Gabel, they’ve been waiting almost as long: “We recorded Castration Anxiety in two weeks and then waited two years for it to come out,” she says. “But it’s been well worth the wait, since we’ve found the perfect home with Dais Records!” On Friday, March 23, the New York label releases the deliciously brutal LP, and that night the band celebrate at the Empty Bottle with openers Forced Into Femininity and Lilac (both including folks who played with Hide’s beat maker, Seth Sher, in Coughs) and a DJ set from Hogg....

In the permaculture site at El Paseo Community Garden, seven layers of plants grow in a harmonious, planned ecosystem. Wild strawberries flourish at the foot of fruit trees, out of direct sunlight. Comfrey grows near herbs and berries, bringing nitrogen and phosphorus to the soil, acting as a sort of natural fertilizer to neighboring plants. A natural depression in the earth is host to swamp hibiscus, a wetland flower that can make use of the excess water that collects, while at the same time providing nourishment to bees, hummingbirds, beetles, and other pollinators....

Ryan Smith Michael Anthony (far left), Lucas Nunez (middle left), Leah Wheatley (middle right), and Ted Powers (far right) all managed to survive the first night of Hands-on-a-thon. Steve Dau can’t remember how old he is. It’s Saturday night and—at last—we’ve reached the final hours of Headquarters Beercade’s Hands-on-a-thon, a pinball tournament for extreme masochists. The part where you win the grand prize by outscoring your opponent? That only starts after you’ve kept one hand affixed to the machine while standing on your feet for 72 sleepless hours....

Note to T.S. Eliot: Sorry/not sorry, April isn’t the cruelest month. That would be January, the annual 31-day slog when, in Chicago, both sky and ground are a monolithic gray. If you aren’t among those who use “winter” as a verb (i.e.: “We’re wintering in Cabo”), consider 2019’s roster of festivals the entertainment equivalent of a high-wattage sun lamp. From young playwrights to veteran puppeteers, January stages bloom with diversions. Read on for the particulars....

Q: I don’t listen to your podcast religiously, but as soon as I told my best friend this story, she said, “That’s a question for Dan Savage!” Backstory: I have a monogamous partner who I live with. It’s a heterosexual relationship, but we are both bisexual. That little inkling of homosexuality really drew me to him when we first met. He also told me early on about his previous girlfriend, who looked like a “suicide girl” (tattoos, short skirts, dyed black hair, heavy eye makeup) but had serious issues (they had sex only ten times in three years)....

Keiler Roberts sits in front of her laundry machine, crying. It’s not the first time she’s cried on the floor, and when her daughter finds her, she recognizes an emergency situation. “Oh no, Mommy! 9-1-1!” Xia shouts as she rushes to her mother’s lap, absorbing the tears with her blankie. “Keiler has always nurtured a humble balance between curiosity and aspiration,” says Michelle Grabner, one of Roberts’s former professors at UWM and her current colleague at SAIC....

Courtesy of Sacred Bones Lust for Youth On Saturday, Copenhagen’s Lust for Youth come to the Empty Bottle, bringing their chilly, eerie new-wavy postpunk with them. Created in 2009 as the dark, lo-fi solo project of Hannes Norrvide, Lust for Youth have grown into a full band cranking out high-gloss spooky darkwave. Today’s 12 O’Clock Track is “Armida” off their most recent Sacred Bones LP, International. It’s danceable and airy, its dreamy vocal melodies floating above synth-bass drones and pushy electronic rhythms....

This year, Lyric Opera has broken with its mission of presenting a classic of American musical theater as a sort of postseason cream puff. But never mind that: this spring’s British-born offering, Jesus Christ Superstar, has more in common with the usual opera repertoire than most Broadway musicals: it takes on a culturally resonant epic tale, explores the deepest passions on a grand scale, and is sung straight through. The set consists of a ramp and a pair of two-story, open-box structures, one of which houses a six-piece rhythm section made up of these great Chicago musicians: guitarists Steve Roberts and Kraig McCreary, bassist Chuck Webb, percussionist Bob Rummage, and Jo Ann Daugherty and Peter Benson on keyboards....

Sometimes Marina Rosenfeld is a turntablist who layers the sounds of specially made, heavily used acetates into gritty sonic expanses. Other times she is a conceptual composer. Her performers’ histories, interests, and personalities become material influences on a composition; for example, her desire to work with people of a generation that had grown up having personal relationships with their electronics led to Teenage Lontano, which she devised for the 2008 Whitney Biennale....

Dinkey DaDiva, the Egg Roll Lady, and her sister Pinkey grew up on the west side eating their Auntie Cathy’s egg rolls stuffed with ground beef and cabbage. So when they opened L&B Soul Kitchen in Bellwood in 2012, it made sense to put them on the menu. DaDiva’s original jerk chicken egg roll is a shatteringly crispy bundle of chopped breast meat, carrots, and cabbage bathed in the warm spiced glow of the tropics....

Stardom may well be sweeter the second time around for soul singer Don Bryant. In the early 1960s, the Memphis native was a featured vocalist for bandleader Willie Mitchell, who produced him at Hi Records long before Al Green, Otis Clay, and Syl Johnson found their way to the label. Don Bryant Sat 6/8, 6:30, Jay Pritzker Pavilion Happily, Bryant wasn’t through with singing R&B for good—though for nearly half a century he made no secular recordings at all, instead focusing on gospel music....

Throughout his career, conceptual artist and Northwestern professor Michael Rakowitz has used simple provocations to reveal the complexities of human relationships. Rakowitz is the son of Jewish parents, an American father and an Iraqi-American mother, and grew up in Great Neck, New York, on Long Island. His maternal grandparents fled Iraq in 1946, no longer feeling safe there when British colonial forces withdrew after World War II and political upheaval ensued....