At the end of April, Bandcamp announced that it would waive its revenue share on the first Fridays in May, June, and July to help support the independent labels and artists who use the platform to sell their work. Bandcamp had already done this on March 20, just as COVID-19 cancellations began to disrupt the live-music ecosystem upon which so many artists rely; that day, Bandcamp sales totaled $4.3 million. When “Bandcamp day” returned on Friday, May 1, total sales increased to $7....

Ah the heady, dreamy days of midsummer 2015, when Arun Sampanthavivat was readying Taste of Thai Town in a repurposed Albany Park police station, and all were dreaming of a Thai Eataly, a one-stop repository for the universe of Thai flavors. Alas, ToTT, turned out to be nothing special. Just a large restaurant with an unsurprising menu, mostly full of the familiar standards you can find on practically every block of the city....

Genre-agnostic antifolk singer and former Chicagoan Willis Earl Beal is making a return visit. On Sun 1/25 he plays the Portage Theater, which will also screen his movie debut, 2014’s Memphis (a favorite of Reader critic Drew Hunt). Beal also has a brand-new self-produced album called Noctunes, which has this wolf’s stamp of approval. You can buy one of the 300 CDs of Noctunes at the show for $10 (or e-mail Beal at thewillisbeal@yahoo....

Peter Holderness/Sun-Times Media Danny Solis claims he wasn’t invited to Friday’s debate. Incumbent alderman Danny Solis will not participate in Friday’s UIC-sponsored 25th Ward aldermanic forum, an event that would have marked the first opportunity for voters to see all five candidates from that race in one room. Sigcho said it’s just another example of Solis evading constituents.

Transporteur We’ve written about local trio Bitchin Bajas a few times before, including a 12 O’Clock Track write-up, but I’m going to drop another nooner for this band because their music only seems to be getting better and headier. On “Marimba,” off of the Transporteur EP (out May 4 on Hands in the Dark), percolating synth notes pitter-patter in repetitive, circular patterns while woody flutes flutter on top; at just over nine minutes long, the song is the kind of stoner library music perfect for spacing out or zoning in, depending on your wavelength....

Sandra Bland’s death is shrouded in tragedy and mystery. In July 2015, Bland was driving on a rural Texas road when she was pulled over for failing to use her turn signal. An argument ensued and the 28-year-old was jailed for assault on an officer. Three days later, Bland was found dead in her jail cell of an apparent suicide, triggering a national outcry. Last month her family settled a wrongful death suit for $1....

Chicago’s improvisational music community has launched plenty of transformational figures over the decades. But while iconic individuals such as Sun Ra, Roscoe Mitchell, and Henry Threadgill have all changed the way people around the world approach music, a thriving scene also needs players who keep the fires burning every week in local clubs. Keefe Jackson (tenor and sopranino saxophone), Jim Baker (piano and synthesizer), and Julian Kirshner (drums) have spent most of their careers playing regularly in Chicago....

Q: I met a guy right around the time my boyfriend dumped me. I met him on a dating site, but he was really only interested in my boobs and me giving him head. I really like having him in my life and he’s very attractive, but he won’t do anything with me other than let me give him head while he watches porn. I’m very insecure, so I feel like part of the reason this has been going on for so long is because I’ve never had someone so attractive be into me....

The Reader‘s archive is vast and varied, going back to 1971. Every day in Archive Dive, we’ll dig through and bring up some finds. There was some activity on campus, most notably a voter registration drive that got 4,500 students on the voting rolls and Gay Liberation, which Sunden said was the best-organized activist movement, but he was much more enthusiastic about the price of Coke at the Food Co-op and the activities of the Occult Phenomena Student Research, of which he was the director....

Q: My roommate is a gay man who is into getting fisted. A lot. We were FWBs until he moved into my place, at which point we agreed it would be better for us to not have sex anymore. It’s worked out fine, and he’s been here for a year. Here’s the problem: About two years ago, he got into fisting and he has someone over every night to fist him....

When asked about the census, Babu Patel, manager of the grocery chain Patel Brothers, initially thought we were talking about India’s national anthem. Patel had confused the Hindi term for population count, jansankhya, for the anthem’s title, “Jana Gana Mana.” “Republic Day wala gaana,” he said, guessing that I wanted to discuss the song regularly blasted at parades on India’s Independence Day. For each person who doesn’t fill out the census, community organizations and public service providers lose $1,400 in federal funding from the state....

Nearly 40 artisan-made light displays from Sichuan, China, have been set up on the lakefront this week as part of the “Dragon Lights” festival. Check out some of the displays below:

We’re open! While most of the state and the city has returned to business as usual in some ways, masks are still recommended for many public situations (and required sometimes, including when riding on the CTA). Here are a few activities (on and off­line) to consider over the next few weeks. We encourage you to follow the guidelines that the events and businesses that you choose to patronize have in place....

The Reader‘s archive is vast and varied, going back to 1971. Every day in Archive Dive, we’ll dig through and bring up some finds. Bettelheim spent many years breaking down my identity and self-image, telling me that I was crazy, that I couldn’t be trusted to handle even the simplest things, and that nobody would ever hire me or marry me when I grew up. My belief in myself didn’t come back after I left, got a degree, made a few friends, and found some work....

The Hotelier‘s recent third album, Goodness, has received universally positive reviews, though critics often seem to feel they need to apologize for liking it. Many appear uncomfortable using the word “emo” to describe the band, though that’s clearly the music they play. Pitchfork senior editor Jillian Mapes dodged the question expertly: “At this point, however, it might not even be accurate to call them emo, so let’s just have it out now: The Hotelier is a great rock band, however you classify them....

“I think the most important thing a woman can have—next to talent, of course—is her hairdresser,” once said Joan Crawford, the ultimate diva of old Hollywood. She would have been horrified by the bad wigs on the cast in this midwest premiere of Michael Leeds’s comedic whodunit, directed by John Nasca for Glitterati Productions. She would have been quite proud, though, of the cast of six men, dressed in drag versions of her most famous roles and personifying another Joanism, “I love playing bitches....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Thursday, June 8, 2016. City Colleges chief and Rahm favorite Cheryl Hyman stepping down Cheryl Hyman, City Colleges chancellor, starred in a reelection commercial for Mayor Rahm Emanuel because of the importance of the City Colleges turnaround to his agenda. Hyman is leaving her job a year from now, she announced Tuesday, giving the City Colleges board plenty of time to search for her replacement....

Named after a Mayan term that roughly translates to “place of fear,” Southern California trio Xibalba have been blending strains of metal and hardcore for nearly 14 years. They’ve increasingly leaned into their Latino heritage (they sing in both Spanish and English) and their death-metal influences, while expanding into new moods and song structures; on the 2015 album Tierra y Libertad they deviated from their relatively compact crushers for sprawling closer “El Vacio....

Peter Margasak, Reader staff writer E.T. Mensah & the Tempos, King of Highlife Anthology This four-CD set of the work of Ghanaian highlife pioneer E.T. Mensah compiles 69 tracks from the 50s and 60s with liner notes by producer and scholar John Collins. The seductively slinking grooves bear traces of swing, calypso, and Latin rhythms as well as local dance styles—a hybrid that not only had a profound impact on Fela Kuti but also provided a model for the integration of sounds from the African diaspora (American funk, Cuban son) into the music of their homeland....

Thousands of workers around Chicago have been labeled “essential” to maintaining our health, educational, and economic infrastructures. We want to hear from those essential workers about what they need to keep going. By completing this survey, you agree that your message can be used as part of ongoing coverage of essential workers and that a news organization may contact you about this and related issues. Your message will be treated as confidential....