Gossip Wolf has Loved the delightfully cracked musical mind of Tijuana Hercules bandleader John Vernon Forbes since the 1990s, when he fronted local noise-rock killers Mount Shasta for a sizzling run of albums on Skin Graft Records. And it seems like Skin Graft feels the same way! On Friday, July 10, the label will drop Evening Dressings, a blistering seven-song Tijuana Hercules release full of what Forbes and company call “hillbilly trance....

Adapted from the 2017 play The Pope and written by Anthony McCarten (The Theory of Everything, Darkest Hour, Bohemian Rhapsody), The Two Popes is an imaginative take on a pivotal moment in the modern history of the Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI unexpectedly announced his resignation in 2013—the first pope to do so in nearly 600 years—citing a “lack of strength of mind and body” due to age. The conclave to select his successor occurred a month later, with Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio elected as the new pontiff, taking the name Francis....

Content warning: Graphic descriptions of physical and sexual abuse In February, the state’s auditor general reported that the Illinois DCFS failed in myriad ways to adequately care for LBGTQ+ kids. The report found “a lack of reliable and consistent information regarding LGBTQ youth in the care of the department” and “a lack of monitoring and oversight of private agency compliance” with its policies and procedures related to LGBTQ+ youth. “The number of LGBTQ youth in care provided by the department is only a fraction of the possible population as predicted using available literature,” the report states....

The great improviser Joe McPhee is 76 years old and shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, ever since his career was energized in the mid-90s by a group of players (including Chicago’s Ken Vandermark) who were half his age, McPhee’s been more active that at any other point in his vaunted career. He’s old enough to be the grandfather of the members of the high-energy European trio called Universal Indians, with whom he performs Wednesday at Constellation—but on the pairing’s recent album Skullduggery (Clean Feed) there’s zero generation gap....

Chef Boyardee’s line of prepared pasta is not a standard to which most chefs aspire. That includes Christopher Thompson of Coda di Volpe, who was challenged by Kevin McCormick (Beacon Tavern) to create a dish with Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli in Tomato & Meat Sauce. “It’s kind of the antithesis of my philosophy on Italian cooking,” Thompson says. That philosophy includes “buying amazing ingredients and processing them as minimally as possible, leaving them true to their natural form,” he says....

The bad news: A study released today by WalletHub ranked Illinois the worst in the nation in taxes. The good news? Soon you may be able to pay your sky-high tax bill with Bitcoin. How exactly such a program would be implemented remains a bit of a mystery. Rumi Morales, an advisory member of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, a D.C.-based trade association representing the blockchain industry, says she likes the bill’s spirit but finds the current language lacking....

While the Hawaiian shirts and one-hitters came out for this weekend’s Lollapalooza, the fans at the third annual Fed Up Fest wore their rattiest denim vests and favorite political buttons. To judge by the name of the queercore collective that organizes the festival, you might not expect it to be a celebration of love and support, but its mission statement calls for just that. “We believe that at the center of liberation is radical love for each other and ourselves,” the organizers write on their Facebook page....

When Blair Braverman and I finally managed to get each other on the phone to talk about her new book Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube, she was huddled in a stairway, the quietest place she could find at O’Hare, just a short while before her flight to Anchorage, where she was scheduled to pick up her sled dogs, nine puppies and four adult huskies, and then drive them home to northern Wisconsin....

Sizzy Rocket—the self-proclaimed “royalty of the punks and the letdowns”—is a perpetual motion machine. The LA pop star is a near constant presence on social media, tours frequently, and has released a steady stream of singles and EPs since dropping her debut full-length, Thrills, in 2016. This month, she’s embarking on her first headlining tour to celebrate the release of her second album, Grrrl. The title track is a shimmery neon-drenched love letter to the 80s, complete with massive choruses and a music video loaded with faux VHS effects....

This comic has been created for the Reader to document the year-long, citywide event series Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots. Coordinated by the Newberry Library and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the initiative seeks to address difficult history through community conversations across the city. v

Several times each year since 2013, a network of improvising musicians called the Bridge has facilitated exchanges of players from France and Chicago. Each iteration assembles a core group drawn from both sides of the Atlantic, and they perform a series of concerts, sometimes welcoming additional players and always developing a unique ensemble chemistry and repertoire. The Bridge 2.02 includes guitarist Raymond Boni, bassists Anton Hatwich and Paul Rogers, and alto saxophone and clarinet player Mai Sugimoto....

I’d just finished reading Caste, Isabel Wilkerson’s brilliant new book, when the Republicans convened their national convention and Mayor Rahm raised his head to offer advice for Democrats that no one sought or should follow. She dissuades people from using the “R word”—as our “fixation with smoking out individual racists” is “a losing battle in which we fool ourselves into thinking we are rooting out injustice,” when, in fact, it can help keep “the hierarchy intact....

Wonderful Town, the second Broadway collaboration between Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and to a lesser extent Jerome Robbins, was created during the height of McCarthyism, a menace that must have weighed heavily on the show’s authors. Robbins—who’d choreographed the trio’s first production, On the Town, and doctored important sections of Wonderful Town without credit—landed before the House Un-American Activities Committee a few months after the show opened in early 1953....

It’s just that it’s a little melancholy for me. Mick and I have been cohosting First Tuesdays—our monthly political talk show at the Hideout—for five and a half years. Or since not long after the last big teachers’ strike. The idea for First Tuesdays came from Tim Tuten, co-owner of the Hideout. Back in the old days, Mick and I were colleagues at the Reader, cranking out investigations into things like parking meter contracts, TIF scandals, marijuana arrests, and an assortment of often tedious budget topics....

The crew of around 30 rode in on beach cruisers, steel tourers loaded with panniers, neon-orange BMX bikes, and flashy, well-oiled road machines. The only requirement was two wheels—skateboards also welcome—and a deep desire for justice for Vanessa Guillen and Breonna Taylor. Organized by Bridges // Puentes: Justice Collective of the Southeast, the “slow roll”-style ride echoed July’s protest ride against General Iron’s planned move to the east side. This time, the mission was opposition to violence against women, which organizers noted is often both state-sanctioned and disproportionately targeted at Black and Latina women....

Three women—one an MBA student in her early 30s, one a painter and real estate agent in her 40s, and the eldest a stay-at-home wife and mother in her 50s—hang out in the kitchen and debate relationships while the men linger offstage. So far, so familiar. But the twist in Fouad Teymour’s Twice, Thrice, Frice. . ., now in a world premiere with Silk Road Rising and the International Voices Project, is that the sticking point in the relationship debate is whether polygamy (that is, for men) is something devout Muslim wives should accept....

These days, what nationality would most people associate with refugees? In light of recent events, Syrians are probably the first group to come to mind. Asked for further examples, avid news readers might cite Iraqis and Ukrainians who have fled conflicts, or Palestinians who’ve languished in camps for decades. But what about Somalis? Who has heard of Dadaab, a Kenyan town (unmarked on any official map) populated almost entirely by Somali refugees?...

Q: I’m a straight cis woman in my early 40s and a single mother. I have not dated or hooked up with anyone in years. While I miss dating, the biggest issue right now is that my sex drive is off the charts. While watching porn and masturbating once my child goes to sleep helps, I really want to get well and truly fucked by a guy who knows what he’s doing....

With a war of wars erupting between Mayor Rahm and Bill Daley over who drove Chicago to the brink of bankruptcy, the time’s come to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Or as Rahm recently put it: “People chose their politics over the progress of the city. Did I create this problem? I did not create it. But I was gonna be determined to do something different, which is to fix it....

This infographic was made possible by a grant from the McCormick Foundation administered by Public Narrative.