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RYAN LOWRY Mick Jenkins I gravitate toward songs that convey the feeling that time is being altered somehow, as if the world around you is slowing down, speeding up, or freezing momentarily. King Louie accomplishes this on back-to-back tracks from his new mixtape, Drilluminati 3. On “Where I Come From” Louie raps about neighbors dying in the street; he delivers his lines with a solemn grit that hints at the sense of helplessness that comes with the territory....

On paper, Josh Wilder’s Leftovers sounds like a radical magical realism romp. Directed by Sydney Chatman, the show focuses on a Black family whose streak of bad luck and empty promises is interrupted by an enormous dandelion that breaks through the nearby concrete. Siblings Jalil and Kwamaine reach up to catch the weed’s falling spores; they make wishes on the breezy little seeds. Jalil, the younger brother, asks for a “Cosby Show-happy” family, opening the story’s exploration of Bill Cosby’s career and his impact on Black domesticity....

Michael Gebert Homaro Cantu at Moto Tragic news from the food world: one of the city’s most endlessly intriguing and visionary chefs, Homaro Cantu of Moto, Berrista, and other restaurants, is suspected to have committed suicide yesterday at the site of one of his planned future businesses, a brewery called Crooked Fork, at 4419 W. Montrose. He leaves behind a wife, Katie, and two young daughters. I left to play for a while and came back to the pan that was now black and blue with heat....

Lyricism doesn’t immediately come to mind as Rich Homie Quan’s standout quality. The Atlanta rapper’s breakout hits, including 2015’s “Flex (Ooh, Ooh, Ooh)” and 2013’s “Type of Way,” were heavy on swagger and catchy beats, but with lines like“15,000 dollars on your bitch wanna fuck me / Got her screamin’ like ooohh,” they lacked creative writing. But the 28-year-old made a total about-face with his full-length debut, March’s Rich as in Spirit—his lyrics are the strongest part of the album....

Local television legend Rich Koz doesn’t need an introduction to most of our readers, especially when he is dressed as his character Svengoolie, wearing his classic raccoon-eyed ghoulish face paint and top hat. But many might not realize that he’s been working in Chicago broadcasting since the 70s. Koz is the affable and spooky host of Svengoolie, the long-running Chicago television program that airs classic horror, sci-fi, and B movies intersected with comedy and trivia by Svengoolie, his friends, and an arsenal of rubber chickens....

Broadcast on German TV in the early 70s but never before released in the U.S., Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s five-part miniseries Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day arrives like a gift from the movie gods. Not only is it a major work from the trailblazing German filmmaker—indeed, his most ambitious project prior to Berlin Alexanderplatz in 1980—it also showcases a side of Fassbinder revealed only fleetingly in his films. Generous and humane, the series may be the only Fassbinder work whose characters are, for the most part, well-adjusted and happy....

The Reader has announced a new leadership structure as it navigates the transition to a full nonprofit. Tracy Baim, publisher for the past two years, will now be co-publisher alongside Karen Hawkins, who has been co-editor in chief with Sujay Kumar since 2019. The Reader Institute for Community Journalism (RICJ), the new organization that will soon take over the Reader, has received its nonprofit designation from the IRS. RICJ has begun operations and is soliciting individual donations and foundation grants....

Two years ago the Chicago Tribune Media Group tweaked the chain of command at its monthly magazine, Chicago. Editor Elizabeth Fenner wasn’t getting along with the magazine’s publisher, Richard Gamble, so it was determined that she would report instead to Gerry Kern, editor of the Tribune newspaper. But Kern didn’t make himself seen, one of the magazine’s writers says, and the change barely registered on the staff. Homan’s appointment looks harmful in almost too many ways to count....

In a world of primping Bachelorette contestants and flowery Insta influencers, a badass rocker such as Traci Trouble can feel like a true heroine. Trouble has been a reliable contributor to Chicago punk, pop punk, and rock ’n’ roll for pushing two decades, as a singer and bassist for groups including Hotlips Messiah, Paper Bullets, and the Wanton Looks. She sounds like Joan Jett, minus a few years and packs of cigs, and she cuts a charismatic figure onstage—like the gatekeeper of a better universe where one spin of a Buzzcocks record would replace everyone’s anxiety meds and photo-filter apps with grit, grime, and the truth....

Q: My boyfriend and I met online to explore our kinks. We’d both been in relationships with kink-shaming people who screwed with our heads. Since we weren’t thinking it was more than a hookup, we put all our baggage on the table early and wound up becoming friends. Eventually we realized we had a real connection and started a relationship where we supported our desire to explore. I’ve never been happier....

When a studio declines to screen a film for critics before its opening day, you can bet that the film stinks and the studio knows it. Such is the case with Independence Day: Resurgence—Roland Emmerich’s long-awaited sequel to his 1996 summer blockbuster Independence Day—which 20th Century Fox ushered into theaters last Friday before word of its ineptitude could leak to the paying masses. Resurgence is a poorly written, sloppily edited, and altogether boring regurgitation of the original, devoid of any real tension, surprises, or compelling characters....

It was my good luck twice to benefit from Nicole Hollander’s bad luck—in 1990 when the Sun-Times dropped her comic strip, Sylvia, and in 2010 when the Tribune, having immediately picked it up 20 years earlier, dropped it as well. Sylvia’s audience was small, if passionate, and numbers prevailed over feelings. Even so, the story of her youth is a story of her origins. Wonder Bread is a short book, lavishly illustrated, and the stories it tells are ones that—as they say—bent the twig....

East-coast native Chris Forsyth has been making waves the past few years as a nouveau guitar god. His approach to his craft positions him somewhere between classicists (Jerry Garcia, Richard Thompson) and improvising avant-garde rule breakers (Loren Connors, Robert Quine). This makes it less surprising to find out that Forsyth was tutored by Television’s Richard Lloyd—whose own aesthetic encompasses all those virtuosic guitar styles—while living in New York in the late 90s and early 00s....

German reeds player Peter Brötzmann turned 79 in March, so it would be developmentally appropriate for him to take a look back. But memories are a mixed blessing for a devoted practitioner of improvised music. While they can build up a shared understanding between partners, making it easier for them to come up with something that works in a pinch, they can also dilute or foreclose on the in-the-moment magic between players that makes the music so thrilling....

As Klaus Johann Grobe, Swiss musicians Sevi Landolt (organ, synths, vocals) and Daniel Bachmann (drums, vocals) play groove rock that feels full despite its minimalist arrangements. Because they sing in German and build their songs atop sparse, hypnotically repetitive rhythms, Americans tend to describe Klaus Johann Grobe’s music as Krautrock, but the group begs to differ: “We’ve never been that much into Krautrock to be honest,” Landolt told Pitchfork in 2014....

Even when they trade in quotations, the films of Jean-Luc Godard exude a sense of spontaneity. The Swiss filmmaker has never been able to stay put on an idea or story line for very long; his work always goes off in unexpected directions or sprouts up non sequiturs. A possible explanation for the films’ eccentric forms is that Godard has always embraced chance, coincidence, and arbitrary decisions as a core part of his creative practice....

Leonard C. Goodman is a Chicago criminal defense attorney and co-owner of the newly independent Reader. This time around, Democratic Party insiders appear to be playing the same game. Throughout 2019, corporate Democrats and their media allies disparaged and minimized Bernie’s campaign, asserting that it had little chance of winning the nomination. But these tactics didn’t work. In late December, Sanders was leading in polling in Iowa, New Hampshire, and nationwide, and was close to the lead or within the margin of error in other important primary states like South Carolina, Nevada, California, and Texas....

After Urochromes posted the video for their frazzled ripper “Hair So Big” to YouTube this spring, a commenter promised, “Before I die I will give Gilbert Gottfried a Urochromes record.” I like to think Gottfried came up because Urochromes’ debut performance (captured on the band’s 2016 compilation Anthology) features front man Jackie “Jackieboy” McDermott unloading some harsh screams that sound ripped from the famously obnoxious comic’s throat. Jackieboy launched the two-piece band in western Massachusetts in the mid-00s, and his original concept for the group is basically performance art: he’d wanted to play the part of a Jewish comedian from New York who’d stumbled into the role of singer for a neanderthal hardcore band, and to split Urochromes’ sets evenly between music and stand-up....

Valerie June’s best-known album, 2013’s Dan Auerbach-produced Pushin’ Against a Stone (Sunday Best), is a raw, playful mix of blues and country. Eclectic and ambitious as that effort is, though, it doesn’t capture June’s full range. On the cover of her new fifth album, The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers (Fantasy), June wears a spectacular silver gown, and the music matches the portrait’s dreamy, dazzling sophistication. Produced by Jack Splash (who’s also worked with Alicia Keys and John Legend), the album is dense, lavishly arranged R&B....

Speed isn’t about hastiness—it’s about taking action. The “rules” of sleep apply to different people differently. This year’s William and Greta Flory concert, “We Can Be Heroes,” focused on the careers and artistic output of recently departed rock stars Bowie and Prince. Hosts Rob Lindley and Bethany Thomas guided the audience through a musical journey—featuring flamboyant and powerful performances from JC Brooks, Mark Hood, Evan Tyron Martin, Andrew Mueller, and Malic White—following Bowie and Prince’s differing names, personas, and musical styles....