Expansive Canadian rock outfit Yamantaka//Sonic Titan describe their sprawling blend of psych, metal, prog, and punk as “Noh-wave,” a name that’s derived from a classical form of musical theater developed in 14th-century Japan. Naturally, the band’s albums are big, dynamic, and dramatic, with blast beats, hyperdriven guitar solos, and taut vocal melodies that land with might. Last month’s Dirt (Paper Bag) adds to the unfolding story of the world of Pureland that the band began on its 2011 album YT//ST....

Zamrock is an old strain of African popular music that’s increasingly returning to the spotlight. The term references its country of origin, Zambia, as well as a particular funky brand of acid rock. Equally indebted to James Brown and Black Sabbath, the Zamrock sound was birthed in the 70s by the band Musi-O-Tunya, solidified by the fuzzy electric guitar of Paul Ngozi from the group Ngozi Family, and furthered in groups such as the Peace, Amanaz, and W....

Roosevelt University is welcoming a new executive director of its landmark Auditorium Theatre this week—but the face is familiar. The new CEO, hired after a search that had some painful moments, is Rich Regan, the Auditorium’s well-regarded general manager from 1999 to 2006. He’s been hired away from Lyric Opera of Chicago, where he was vice president and general manager of Presentations and Events. And that wasn’t the worst disruption in Roosevelt’s summer....

Bless Brockhampton for spiking pop’s punch bowl. This sprawling group of rappers, producers, singers, video directors, designers, and a webmaster have ambitions to be America’s next great boy band—scratch that, the world’s next great boy band. As leader Kevin Abstract raps on “Boogie,” off December’s Saturation III (Question Everything, Inc. / Empire), Brockhampton are the “best boy band since One Direction.” Who cares if American audiences think boy bands have to be made up of five twiglike young white men who belt out songs that glisten with the well-financed pizzazz of a Michael Bay blockbuster?...

Under artistic director Charles Newell, Court Theatre is all over the place in the best possible way. Where else can you see both a rapturously well-done August Wilson epic and a mesmerizing one-man Iliad in the same season? In the 25 years since Newell took over the 250-seat theater on the University of Chicago campus, Court has become a magnet for the country’s best directors, including the consistently great Ron OJ Parson (if you haven’t seen one of his takes on Wilson you need to fix that), Seret Scott (whose unapologetic For Colored Girls ....

With our couch sometimes not cutting it, social distancing has taught us that true relaxation can take more than just drinking or taking a mental health day. Navigating this comes with pondering new solutions, and many have turned to CBD, with CBD oils becoming a top choice. However, as a popular choice for many, there can be an overwhelming number of CBD oils to try and boil down. That’s why we decided to put together some of our favorites that we consider the best CBD oils to try this year....

Mike Sula Shrimp toast, Hong Huah Can you remember the last time you ate shrimp toast that wouldn’t make an appropriate substitute for a racquetball? What about hot-and-sour soup that didn’t seem like it was harvested from a pneumoniac’s hanky. Nostalgia for that sort of Americanized Chinese food sustains uncountable substandard operations, and it’s rare that you find really notable examples of it. And yet everybody has their regular. Personally, I’m partial to the House of Wah Sun in North Center....

There is no doubt the 2005 musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning novel (which also draws on Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster 1985 movie) has a wonderful score, packed wall-to-wall with powerful, soul-stirring music and clever lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray—all seasoned veterans of the music industry when they began collaborating on this show. The original cast album for the 2015 Broadway revival even won a Grammy....

I’ve seen dozens of great shows at Chicago’s World Music Festival since it launched in 1999. The fest has more to offer than just music, though, and I can explain what I mean by describing a single set: the Mahmoud Ahmed performance I saw at Pritzker Pavilion in 2015. The greatest living link to the golden age of Ethiopian pop from the 1960s and ’70s, Ahmed is a superstar in his homeland, but he’d never before played a Chicago concert whose venue suited his stature—as far as I know, the singer’s only other local gig was in 2010 at the Wild Hare....

His forehead studded with peroxide-blond stubble, the back of his neck cloaked by a shock of matching curls. Gold chains. Gold rings. Tattoos strangling his throat. He collects exotic cats and machine guns, and even at a distance, the size of his personality looms large. This might read like a description of Joe Exotic—it’s actually Roy Boy Cooper, a tattooer from Gary, Indiana, who’s left an indelible mark on the region since the 1970s....

A decade ago, I desperately tried to find a way to the UK after I heard that legendary band Mott the Hoople was re-forming for a show at London’s Hammersmith Apollo. Though five original members were touted, four ended up playing, and that reunion—along with 2013 and 2018 UK shows—were met with generally glowing reviews. I missed all those gigs, but pinch me: at last, these glam-rock gods are coming to the U....

I’d never claim to have more than an armchair interest in psychology, but I posit that the chronic pandemic/election/existential-crisis fatigue that Americans are living through in 2020 has resulted in some level of mass anhedonia. So it’s all the more thrilling when you find something that you’re genuinely stoked about. When New Zealand extreme-metal trio Ulcerate dropped Stare Into Death and Be Still (Debemer Morti) in early spring, the world was still coming to grips with the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the album felt so on the nose that after listening to it a couple times I had to mentally file it away as “something to revisit to when it doesn’t feel like the world is collapsing....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Friday, November 11, 2016. Have a great weekend! Ex-GOP Congressman Aaron Schock indicted on 24 counts Former Illinois Republican congressman Aaron Schock has been indicted on 24 counts, including wire fraud. Schock made national headlines in 2015 for his Downton Abbey-themed office and an extravagant lifestyle showcased on Instagram. “This indictment will look bad, but underneath it is just made-up allegations of criminal activity arising from unintentional administrative errors,” his attorney George J....

“I have a very short list of things I don’t eat,” Roger Landes says. “Seaweed is nearly at the top of that list.” As for what to mix with the syrup, Landes says, “we tried a lot of stuff and failed miserably.” Either the flavor of the seaweed was too strong, or it clashed with the spirits he was using. Landes thought gin would be a good pairing. Instead, he stuck with the idea of a savory drink, but turned to bourbon rather than gin....

Tuesday night saxophonist Tim Berne performs with a top-notch quartet called Broken Shadows that’s devoted to the music of three brilliant reedists from Fort Worth, Texas: Ornette Coleman, Dewey Redman, and Julius Hemphill. I previewed the concert, which is the Chicago debut of this new band—which also includes reedist Chris Speed, drummer Dave King, and bassist Reid Anderson—but I didn’t make much of the contrast between Berne’s slinky, blues-streaked playing in this quartet and the tangled, information-packed style he’s pursued elsewhere for years....

With the approval last week of the $12.6 billion budget, Chicago proved that there are zero consequences for defying the mayor. They voted no on Mayor Lightfoot’s budget and they’re still chairing their committees. In contrast, Tunney, Osterman, O’Shea, and Reilly are basically centrist Dems who represent Lakeview, Edgewater, Beverly, and the Gold Coast. Of course, chairing a committee also comes with strings attached. You must be loyal to the mayor, who appoints the chairs....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.

Last week the Chicago Philharmonic Society announced the appointment of a new executive director, Terell M. Johnson. A classically trained musician as well as an administrator, he’ll succeed another musician-turned-administrator, Donna Milanovich, who’s retiring after ten years in that job—and more as a Chi Phil flutist and board member. “We love the Joffrey, we have a wonderful relationship still. We were sad we couldn’t follow them into the Opera House, but we understand that the rules of the Opera House are what they are,” Milanovich says....

Eifman Ballet returns to the Auditorium May 17-19 for the North American premiere of artistic director Boris Eifman’s The Pygmalion Effect. The latest in the choreographer’s spectacular psychological ballets—and his first comedy—reimagines the myth of the sculptor who falls in love with his work of art into a story of a ballroom champion who teaches an awkward young woman to dance. “The story of Pygmalion drew my attention because it shows the process of a character’s evolution....

Michael Gebert Pie-Eyed Pizzerias owner Ian Muellner with the Monster After mentioning (parenthetically) last week the lunchtime pizza buffet at Ricobene’s in Bridgeport, which can have a good dozen different types of pizza out at peak times, I got to wondering about other places that went above and beyond the standard pizza-slice paradigm as it existed almost universally in Chicago even half a dozen years ago; the boring choice of cheese, sausage, or pepperoni, all kept in a plexiglass pizza rewarmer till the cheese turned to Naugahyde....