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Soho House Chicago boxing gym There are plenty of aging gyms in Chicago—and some new gyms pretending to be old-school—but the 17,000-square-foot workout facility on the second floor of Soho House Chicago feels like a portal back to a time when a damp mustache and a fat lip were signs of a good workout. Here you can jump rope on the sweat-stained slats of a parquet floor and do your best impression of Swiss gymnast Louis Arnold Zutter as you work a leather pommel horse....

There are plenty of shows, films, and concerts happening this week. Here’s some of what we recommend: Mon 7/9: Yob’s new album uses the darkness of doom metal to show us what to cherish, says Reader music editor Philip Montoro: “Our Raw Heart (Relapse), evokes the renewed vision that settles onto survivors of near-death experiences, when every leaf on every tree seems freshly miraculous and radiant.” 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 2105 S....

On a March episode of Roy French’s Chicago rap YouTube series 106 & Clark (a riff on defunct BET show 106 & Park), HeffyRaps talked about focusing on a specific sound on his latest self-released EP, February’s Dead by V-Day. “I’ve been only rapping for a year, so I’ve just been kinda fuckin’ around trying everything,” he said. “I really started getting my shit together for this EP and figuring out what I wanted to do—and I started embracing that vulnerability inside....

Beer has a long history. Recently there was an entire exhibit dedicated to the history of beer at the Field Museum in partnership with the Chicago Brewseum that ran from November 2, 2018 to September 27, 2020. It revolved around the idea that beer transformed Chicago—Conrad Seipp is a big part of that story. In resurrecting the Seipp brand, Mack has an eye towards what beer means for community, history, and the story we tell about the places we’re from....

I know I’m not alone when I say this—but those damn, dirty Republicans have made it almost impossible to properly mourn the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And almost immediately thereafter President Donnie will announce his nominee to fill her vacancy—undoubtedly some far-right, anti-choice, union-busting Federalist Society soldier of fortune, whose assignment will be to undo all the good that RBG managed to accomplish during her long and productive legal career....

For the legions of Chicago bacon-lovers, Baconfest has become one of the city’s most glorious rites of spring, a weekend-long bacchanal of smoked pork belly in all its multifarious forms, limited only by the imaginations of the local chefs who take on the awesome responsibility of producing small plates for the thousands of guests who stream through the UIC Forum. Fourteen chefs have tentatively agreed to be part of the inaugural Dumpling Fest and compete for the coveted Dumpling D’Or, though, given the unpredictability of the restaurant business, Zurer says, the final roster may change....

Thursday afternoons at the 51st Street Green Line el Station you’ll find a colorful scene: A large shuttle bus wrapped in a bright photo collage of fruits, veggies, and beaming faces, parks at the curb of Boxville, a shipping container village of 20 hyper-local small businesses. This is the last of three stops that day for the Fresh Moves Mobile Market, a produce store on wheels originally conceived by urban agriculture nonprofit Growing Power to alleviate food insecurity on the south and west sides....

Fox Rainn Wilson plays a dick on Backstrom. Over the weekend, I finished watching the second season of The Fall, a BBC2 crime drama that was picked up by Netflix. As I wrote when the first season became available back in 2013, the series is unusual for the murder-mystery genre in that the killer’s identity isn’t, nor has it ever been, a mystery. Viewers become reluctant voyeurs as Paul Spector (played by objectively handsome person Jamie Dornan) stalks and kills a series of women (and one unfortunate man) in Northern Ireland....

On March 13, Chicago’s City Council voted 38 to 8, with two abstentions, to approve a contract with mega-construction company AECOM for building an $85 million police and fire training facility in the west side neighborhood of Garfield Park. The vote came at the end of an 18-month campaign, initiated by a coalition ultimately supported by over 100 local grassroots organizations, called #NoCopAcademy. The multiracial and multigenerational coalition brought together organizations that are often siloed in Chicago organizing....

I have a way of digging in my heels. My enthusiasm for anything is usually inversely proportional to the vehemence with which somebody gets bug-eyed and lays his hand on my arm to squeal, “Oh my god—you’ve got to [see/eat/read/try] it! You just have to!” Back when Sohn was still doing brisk business at his storied restaurant, the decade-long pummeling of Oh my god, you’ve never been? was so unrelenting and clamorous that I finally succumbed....

When Patrizia Acerra founded the International Voices Project in 2010, she sought to create a community for Chicago artists and audiences to experience the work of global playwrights. Since the company’s inaugural season, IVP has presented staged readings of contemporary translations at venues across the city, in collaboration with cultural partners and local artists. Certainly, the virtual festival has brought about new possibilities surrounding who might be tuning in. “For the first time our global work can have a global audience,” Acerra says....

In 2016 Gossip Wolf described jazz guitarist Dave Miller as a Chicago expat based in NYC, but even then he seemed to do as much recording and gigging here as he did there. He’s since moved back to Chicago, and his new self-titled album, which comes out Friday, May 22, via Tompkins Square, would make any hometown scene proud! The funk- and soul-inflected grooves on Dave Miller feature standout local players such as Chicago bassist Matt Ulery, Milwaukee drummer Devin Drobka (whose groups include Field Report and Bell Dance Songs), and V....

There were some surprises at the latest Obama Presidential Center (OPC) court hearing last week, none odder than the fact that four years after President Barack and Michelle Obama announced Chicago as the site for what was then known as the Obama Presidential Library, we’re still futzing around with court hearings about where it should sit—dithering over technicalities like whether Jackson Park was ever submerged land while, at the same time, waging a life-and-death battle with a Darwinian pandemic under the surreal national leadership of an unhinged egomaniac....

What better way to celebrate the joys of the holiday season than by listening to a bizarre, hyper death-metal track titled “What the Heck, Richard Speck?” Local trio Macabre—whose mashup of death metal, grindcore, thrash, and serial killer obsession has been dubbed “murder metal”—have been ringing in the holiday season with a showcase of twisted extreme music called the Holiday of Horror for two decades now. And they’ve been crafting their twisted homages to some of the darkest humans on the planet for even longer, starting with their debut release, Shitlist (which includes an early version of their ode to Speck), in 1987....

In the Reader‘s latest installment of In Rotation, Anatomy of Habit bassist Kenny Rasmussen laid out the reasons he finds the music of the Grateful Dead so boring, cutting to the quick in 29 words. “What I found were meandering guitars, dispassionate vocals, instrumental indulgence with little thought to hooks, melody, harmony, or power, and a dampening of the political spirit of the time.” He concludes, “AC/DC and the Ramones have never sounded better....

Since its founding in 2012, Otherworld Theatre has been a haven for theater fans who also love gaming, sci-fi, and fantasy. But over the past two months, a wave of allegations involving Otherworld, the resident company Out on a Whim (creators of the long-running hit Improvised Dungeons & Dragons), and Moonrise, Otherworld’s LARP gaming division, have hit social media outlets. For their part, Otherworld’s board of directors announced October 23 on the company social media feeds that they have hired the New York-based HR firm of Peale Piper to enable them to “conduct a thorough review and bring healing and accountability to the community....

Full disclosure: Mike Lust has recorded a handful of records I’ve played on. I also played in a band with him for a while. But there are probably a few hundred local musicians who could say the same thing. Between his prolific career as a recording engineer, his nearly 20-year tenure as the high-kicking, guitar-shredding front man for local outfit Tight Phantomz, his countless stints as a sideman for all sorts of punk and rock bands, and his reliable presence as a larger-than-life, always-on, out-and-about personality, Lust is ubiquitous not only in Chicago music but in Chicago life....

Y ou might not know it, but you’ve most likely laughed at one of Nell Scovell’s jokes. It’s just that President Obama, Conan O’Brien, and Kermit the Frog were delivering them. The veteran Hollywood comedy writer, producer, and director has worked behind the scenes of iconic television shows such as The Simpsons, The Muppets, and Late Night With David Letterman and was the creator of the cult favorite Sabrina the Teenage Witch....

I held out hope. My denial and disbelief quickly turned to anger that night, and for the foreseeable future, that’s where I’ll stay. It’s also where tens of thousands of protesters across the country, including those here in Chicago, continue to dwell. And moments before Obama’s remarks, Hillary Clinton addressed the country too, wearing purple to symbolize the unification of red and blue (as well as the dignity and purpose of the suffragists)....

A few weekends ago, I was tooling around the south side on a positively beautiful Saturday afternoon: sun, autumn chill, colorful leaves, and . . . hold it, are those gig posters wheat-pasted to that wall? Those of you who like to post walking selfies to Instagram and Facebook should be on notice: for every photo of the exhibit posted to social media with the hashtag #thefanclubchicago (whether you’re in it or not), Someoddpilot and Public Works will donate $1 to CIVL....