For the past decade, local trio Bitchin Bajas have exemplified the virtues of patience and versatility. All three members play synthesizers, Cooper Crain and Daniel Quinlivan play organ, and Rob Frye plays woodwinds and percussion. They create plush, pulsing instrumentals with melodies that evolve at such a leisurely pace that you might not notice the changes as they occur—though you’ll definitely feel like you’ve been taken somewhere by the time the tune ends....

As any memoirist knows, the past can grow sweeter over time, but it can also turn bitter. And so it is with the gratitude former NASA engineer and author Homer H. Hickam Jr. expressed for his agent in the acknowledgments that preface Rocket Boys, his richly recalled account of a mid-20th century boyhood in a West Virginia mining town. But in a civil lawsuit filed in June in Los Angeles, Hickam charges that Freiberg, who died in 2012, breached his “fiduciary duties” to the author by conspiring with the film’s producer, acting on behalf of Universal, to offer the story only to them, when Freiberg was supposed to be shopping it around competitively....

Salonathon says goodbye—for now The long-running live lit series is ending

There are probably a dozen memes circulating right now that chart punk subgenres and the philosophical leanings they supposedly embody, and without even finding one, I’m confident saying that goth rock and postpunk would get tagged as the nihilists of the bunch. But that stereotype downplays the social and political histories of these gloomy genres. From early on they’ve been more inclusive of women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ folks than punk and hardcore, which have tended to be more heteronormative and white male dominated....

I know next to nothing about Silicone Prairie, which for this year’s May Day dropped a couple recklessly nervy songs through underground Kansas City punk label Mutants 4 Nuclear Waste. There’s barely any information on the Bandcamp landing page for their release, simply titled Two Songs, except the cryptic message “Recorded on the Silicone Prairie.” According to international digital music magazine Record Turnover, Mutants 4 Nuclear Waste is run by Ian Teeple, a prolific Kansas City musician who seems to play in just about every emerging weirdo-punk band in his hometown, including Warm Bodies and several using some version of the name “Natural Man” (Natural Man & the Flamin’ Hot Band, the Natural M*n Band, et cetera)....

Whether you want to take your family out on the town or sneak away for a breather, there’s plenty to do during Thanksgiving week. Here’s some of what we recommend: Tue 11/22: This iteration of the Girl Talk, the monthly feminist show hosted by Jen Sabella and Erika Wozniak at the Hideout (1354 W. Wabansia), “focuses on fighting racism, sexism, homophobia and hatred in Trump’s America.” 6:30 PM Wed 11/23: Sibling duo White Mystery headlines a Friendsgiving celebration at Chop Shop (2033 W....

On October 12, 1998, Matthew Shepard died as the result of a brutal beating by two young men he met at a bar in Laramie, Wyoming, where he was a student at the University of Wyoming. All three—the gay victim and his straight killers—were just 21 years old. Shepard’s shocking murder, heavily and controversially covered by the media at the time, led to the passage of federal hate crimes legislation in October 2009 and is a signal event in the history of the struggle for LGBTQ rights in America....

Apart from open defiance, the second-best way to resist Chicagoans’ pointless prohibition of ketchup on a hot dog is with mockery.

I’ve been a fan of reedist Chris Speed for decades, and during that time he’s adapted his melodic warmth and cool intensity for a wide variety of projects—among them his early combo Human Feel (with soon-to-be-famous Seattle running mates Kurt Rosenwinkel, Jim Black, and Andrew D’Angelo), the Eastern European-flavored Pachora, Tim Berne’s serpentine Bloodcount, his own rhythmically bold Yeah No, adventurous chamber-music group the Claudia Quintet, and the wildly slaloming Endangered Blood....

The Back Room Deal features radio personality and longtime Reader political writer Ben Joravsky arguing local Chicago politics with Reader staff writer Maya Dukmasova. With sharp wit and stinging analysis, Joravsky and Dukmasova cut through the smokey haze of the elections to offer you a glimpse of the current Chicago races—ward-level and, of course, mayoral. Will these historic elections be determined in back-room deals, like so many in Chicago’s past? Let Ben and Maya talk you through it....

Q: I’m a cis bi woman, and I mainly have sex with people with penises. I have a really gross problem, sorry. It’s been an issue for as long as I’ve been sexually active—but in the past few years, it seems to have gotten worse. If I am being penetrated vaginally, especially if it’s vigorous (which I prefer), and I orgasm, sometimes I poop accidentally. If I try to clench up to keep this from happening, it doesn’t work and I can’t orgasm....

QA big congrats to Caitlyn Jenner on her big reveal and lovely Vanity Fair cover! But I am having a crisis of conscience. On one hand, I support people’s right to be whoever the heck they want to be. You want to wear women’s clothing and use makeup and style your hair? You look fabulous! You want to carry a pillow around with an anime character on it and get married to it, like a guy in Korea did?...

Folks, I have a confession that I’m a little embarrassed to make . . . I know I should be more outraged because Democratic committeepeople filling legislative vacancies is one of the many outrageous things about Chicago politics that we’re supposed to feel outraged about. OK, well, along with state senator Robert Peters. Who, now that I think about it, was also originally appointed to his seat. That’s pretty outrageous....

Julia Thiel Freda’s Floral Sparkler, from Rogers Park Social In honor of the current exhibit “Vodou: Sacred Powers of Haiti,” the Field Museum recently asked several local bartenders to create cocktails inspired by the spirits of Vodou (the most common spelling of the name of the Haitian religion; it’s also written Vaudou, vodon, Vodun, Voodoo, or Voudou). Known as Lwa (or Loa, or L’wha), the spirits appear to have very specific tastes and preferences....

Who in their right mind would try to book dozens of more or less unknown local rock bands for a multiday festival in a northwest suburb of Chicago in the dead of winter? If you answered “Ian,” then you’ve already realized I’m talking about Ian’s Party—whose first annual installment, in January 2008, took place at the Clearwater Theater in West Dundee (now the RocHaus) and the Gasthaus in Elgin (now defunct)....

ARTIST: Zombie YetiSHOW: Faith No More at Concord Music Hall on Thu 5/7MORE ONLINE: zombieyeti.com

A Christmas Carol: An Evening of Dickensian Delights Rachel Martindale’s 80-minute adaptation of Dickens’s revered novella is stripped to its essentials, as is Fury Theatre’s bare-bones staging, which Martindale directs and stars in. Jettisoning high production values (the set is two changing screens and a plain bench; the lighting effects are “on” and “off”), Martindale focuses almost entirely on Dickens’s florid language and hypnotic imagery. She and her two costars tell the story with candor and simplicity, much as your extroverted friends might at their annual holiday party....

Logging in at a little more than an hour, Writers Theatre’s production of Caryl Churchill’s 2002 two-hander is a brief and thought-provoking meditation on human character and identity. Set in the near future, at a time when the cloning of human beings is medically possible though not yet socially accepted, the play consists of a series of conversations between a father and son, all concerned with the son’s discovery that he is just one of “a number” of clones....

Roasting and selling coffee isn’t the only way Ben Crowell, founder of Glassworks Coffee, can do a number on your nerves. His band Sheet Ghosts specialize in lush, synth-heavy, rock-adjacent soundtracks for imaginary horror films. Last October they gave away an album download with orders of a seasonal blend, and this Friday, October 23, they’re releasing the EP Did It Ever Happen? on File 13 Records (albeit more conventionally, with no coffee)....