It’s a little ironic that the impetus for Art Design Chicago, the hugely ambitious, yearlong celebration of Chicago’s art-making history—from the fire of 1871 to the turn of the 21st century—came from the west coast, as seen through the eyes of an east-coast critic. Smith wrote that the Los Angeles show had been underwritten by the Getty Center, “to the tune of about $10 million.” The budget for the program is $7....
As thousands of students walk out of classrooms and onto the streets in protest, young people across the country are politically mobilizing. “So many kids are rising up, and they’re demanding change,” said Daviana Soberanis, a junior at Northside College Prep who is a field organizing chair and board member of Vote16 Illinois. “Kids especially want to have their voices heard.” The constitution also requires that voting laws be consistent across the state....
At first I thought it’d be a cheap shot to include Billy Corgan in this issue—don’t we already know he’s one of the most ridiculous figures in Chicago’s music scene? But then I decided that his apparently obsessive desire to remain in the public eye at any cost was just too offensive to ignore. I’ve never liked any of his music, and Steve Albini’s notorious 1994 dismissal of Corgan’s most famous band (in a letter to the Reader) rings truer than ever: “Smashing Pumpkins are REO Speedwagon (stylistically appropriate for the current college party scene, but ultimately insignificant)....
In 2016, Reader critic Peter Margasak praised the “astonishing growth” and “cool, agile sound” of boundary-pushing local jazz trio Twin Talk, aka reedist Dustin Laurenzi, drummer Andrew Green, and bassist-vocalist Katie Ernst. On Friday, February 8, Twin Talk drop their third record, Weaver, via artists’ collective and online platform People, founded in 2018 by members of the National and Bon Iver. Weaver is full of graceful moments, and Gossip Wolf especially likes the loping rhythms and windswept melodies of “The Sky Never Ends,” which features Ernst’s lovely wordless vocals....
The Recording Academy announced the nominees for next year’s Grammys on Tuesday, and Chance the Rapper racked up seven nominations—including Best Rap Album for May’s Coloring Book. It’s hardly unprecedented for Chicago rappers to get a little extra love at Grammy time—Kanye received eight nominations this year—but there is something new about the Coloring Book nod. It’s the first streaming-only release to be nominated, a milestone made possible by an Academy rule change in June that granted such albums eligibility....
When things got dark in 2020, some bands leaned into anxiety, loneliness, and rage, but others embraced silver linings—especially if COVID shutdowns allowed them a more relaxed pace of life that helped them refocus and pursue quieter personal interests that might otherwise get pushed to the back burner. And if there’s a musical equivalent to the pandemic home-baking movement, Causa Sui’s new Szabodelico would qualify. The Danish four-piece have spent the past 15 years blending heavy psych, desert rock, Krautrock, and more, but with Szabodelico they nod to the mix of jazz, pop, and folk developed by the album’s namesake, legendary Hungarian guitarist Gábor Szabó....
UPDATE Friday, March 12, 10:20 AM: this event has been canceled through March 26 or until further notice. Refunds available at point of purchase for tickets through March 26. A year ago, Second City unveiled Algorithm Nation or the Static Quo, a grim affair featuring simulated onstage shootings and torture as well as an extended rant from an unapologetic female Trump supporter. In its place, we now have the 108th main-stage revue, Do You Believe in Madness?...
Founded in 1987 in response to the arrival of the AIDS crisis in Chicago, Season of Concern has provided direct, short-term emergency financial assistance to anyone working in the Chicago-area theater community who has found themselves temporarily unable to work due to injury, illness, or circumstance—including COVID-19. As theaters remain closed during what is otherwise a peak fundraising period for the nonprofit, the organization has had to get creative with their fundraising initiatives, especially at a time where the community they support is facing unprecedented need....
One of the production companies behind The D Train is England’s Ealing Studios, which produced such immortal comedies as Whisky Galore! (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), and The Ladykillers (1955). The company went dormant in the late 1950s but was resurrected about 15 years ago and has been producing movies ever since, albeit to relatively little fanfare on this side of the pond. The D Train harks back to the old Ealing style in its sensitivity to character and lower-middle-class disappointment; in fact, these qualities are so strong that they can overwhelm any sense of narrative development....
This week I published my annual gift guide—an eclectic selection of box sets designed to appeal to the most finicky of listeners. I always have to leave a few worthy gifts out, so I’ve decided to address a few of them in a handful of blog posts—beginning with this one and continuing with a couple more next week. Today I want to mention two stunning 2017 photo books focusing on music....
On Thursday, in the massive William Mason Rehearsal Room named for his predecessor, Lyric Opera general director Anthony Freud announced what is sure to be a memorable upcoming season. In 2019-2020, Lyric will top off its regular offerings with three complete postseason Ring Cycles. The logistics for that are a hugely complicated jigsaw puzzle, Freud said, and are the reason the regular opera season for 2019-2020 has been reduced to seven operas (from eight)....
When young guitar hotshot Harvey Mandel was hanging out in Canned Heat’s dressing room at San Francisco’s Fillmore West in summer 1969, he had no clue he’d stumbled into an appointment with destiny. Guitarist Henry Vestine had quit the band that night, leaving them in the lurch with a show to play—Windy City shredder Mike Bloomfield filled in for the first Heat set, and fellow Chicagoan Mandel stepped in for the second....
New York percussionist and composer Sarah Hennies digs deep into the music she writes, developing minimal sound worlds she inhabits for extended durations. On her new album, Embedded Environments (Blume), she pushes what seem like simple ideas to extremes. “Foragers,” a piece for four percussionists, was recorded in a vacant grain silo in Buffalo, and the structure’s acoustic properties allow the track’s series of murmuring thrums and extended silences to take on a life of their own....
The historic Pullman neighborhood is getting 38 units of affordable housing inside a new $18 million artists’ enclave—some 124 years after Pullman railroad car workers went on strike over the company’s refusal to lower their rents after cutting their pay. Alspaugh volunteers as a community member; the project architect is the Chicago firm of Stantec (formerly VOA). Alspaugh said she’s satisfied that the lofts fit in with the surrounding historic architecture....
Deborah Slabeck Baker uses simple tools to make oblique art. A show of her recent work at Firecat Projects, “6B,” consists of 11 graphite drawings on light brown paper and three embroideries done in black thread on linen. Each piece contains a word or phrase, such as tightrope or union or loop, surrounded by seemingly trivial images, like dancers or statues or a doghouse; each is finished off with an ornamental border reminiscent of raised stage curtains....
Johnny Sampson does not draw superheroes, but he does have an origin. His origin story, self-published in a beautifully designed, humorous, autobiographical mini-comic, tells the tale of how he became a cartoonist—and came to paint the MAD magazine Fold-In. Stunned, the illustrator writes back and the friendly legend keeps his promise. Visiting New York, he meets with MAD‘s art director, Sam Viviano, who assures him that the spry Jaffee is not near retirement, but he is invited to submit cartoons....
Dodes’ka-den (1970), which screens from 35-millimeter this Sunday at 7 PM at Doc Films, might be described as Akira Kurosawa’s most Italian film. The exuberant, if grimy, depiction of lower-class life sometimes recalls Pier Paolo Pasolini, while the episodic structure, broad humor, and sentimentality evoke the films of Federico Fellini. And for some of the exterior shots, Kurosawa and crew members painted their physical surroundings so that they would appear especially colorful, a technique that Michelangelo Antonioni had tried out in Red Desert (1964)....
CreativeMornings creativemornings.com/cities/chi, @Chicago_CM The monthly breakfast-hour lecture series CreativeMornings began in New York City in 2008 and has since sprouted chapters worldwide through which professionals in diverse fields gather before the workday begins, hungry for inspiration and snacks. When I moved from Boston last year, the Chicago outpost offered a quick way to connect with fellow designers and other like-minded locals. Lecturers here have ranged from designer Maria Pinto and sign painter Ches Perry to IDEO Chicago brand-experience expert Sara Frisk and tattooist Stephanie Brown....
Lorena Cupcake at storebrandsoda.com @lorenacupcake Lorena Cupcake, 28, founded Store Brand Soda with the even more pseudonymous Hotdish Ramone in August 2014, inspired by the combo of music calendar and blog at garage-rock clearinghouse Victim of Time. Friendly, playful, and no-bullshit, Cupcake’s posts use a dirt-under-the-fingernails familiarity with Chicago underground rock to convey unpretentious, all-aboard enthusiasm rather than clubhouse exclusivity: “Dem Platinum Boys sound like the kind of old school butt rock that you listen to on a shitty radio in your back yard while drinking Miller Lite in a kiddie pool,” to quote a recent example....
Will Guzzardi and Carlos Ramirez-Rosa willguzzardi.com, @willguzzardi carlosrosa.org, @CDRosa The most liberal-voting neighborhood in Chicago is more than two miles from the lakefront. Logan Square, once home turf for the Mells, Berrioses, and other Democratic powerhouse families, has become the city’s progressive bastion. In contrast, lakefront communities such as Lincoln Park and the Gold Coast—neighborhoods from whence the “lakefront liberal” coinage came—have been trending conservative for years. In 2014, Logan Square voters elected then-27-year-old Will Guzzardi, one of the most progressive state representatives from Chicago....
