It’s possible we are reaching a limit on how much we can hear about the compounded crises of the past year. An ad for sweatshirts that read “Liquor: the glue holding this 2020 shitshow together” showed up in my feed right in sync with the internal fear that the fast approaching 2021 will be more of the same. My former professor’s advice to writers this year was not to feel obligated to write the current moment, a moment that is marked by so much uncertainty....
Throughout his career reedist Ken Vandermark has often sought out elders as collaborators, working with Peter Brötzmann, Joe McPhee, Fred Anderson, and Robert Barry, among others. Vandermark learned from them on the bandstand and in the tour van, and in return elevated their music among younger listeners. That sort of cross-generational ethos is an important part of jazz’s oral transmission, and now that Vandermark himself is something of an elder statesmen, it’s heartening to see him exchanging knowledge and ideas with new generations of Chicago musicians....
In the mid-2000s, local rapper Serengeti imagined rapping as a character named Kenny Dennis, a 50-something with a thick mustache and an even thicker Chicago accent. Ever since Kenny made his debut on the 2006 single “Dennehy,” he’s become the protagonist of a sprawling universe spread out among a panoply of albums, some credited to Serengeti and others supposedly made by figures in Kenny’s fictitious universe. In 2010, for example, Serengeti dropped There’s a Situation on the Homefront by Kenny’s golden-age group, Tha Grimm Teachaz, who were supposedly all set to release music on Jive during their early-90s heyday, only to have their recordings shelved after they beefed with Shaq at a label showcase....
“Ring out the old year, ring in the new, ring-a-ding-ding,” says Shirley MacLaine’s Fran Kubelik with weary resignation near the end of The Apartment (still my favorite holiday film, not that you asked). Two streaming shows give us similar lenses for viewing the transition from hellscape to (vaguely) hopeful as this year winds down. It takes the “goblins” present in the majestic old church bells to show him what his sweet daughter Meg’s life would be like without him (shades of George Bailey), and how easily even the best people can be driven to desperation when there is absolutely no safety net provided....
The low-budget drama Gemini (which is currently playing at the Arclight and the AMC River East) is a 93-minute wisp of a movie that doesn’t seem to unfold so much as evaporate. Writer-director Aaron Katz (Quiet City, Cold Weather) establishes up some plausible relationships and a fairly grounded sense of place; he also makes a half-hearted attempt at telling a mystery story. But the mood is so languid that it overwhelms anything else—aiming for a tone poem on the emptiness of fame a la Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere or The Bling Ring, Katz just delivers emptiness....
If he were still alive today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be 90. It’s been 51 years since his assassination, and it’s already difficult to imagine that such a person lived, with such power to mobilize people in the struggle for freedom and equality. His life can feel like folklore now, like a saint’s life. In his last speech, the real Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have been to the mountaintop, and I have seen the Promised Land....
Seems like I’ve been burned by menus a lot lately (more on that in this week’s review), so I don’t mean to pick on Rosie’s Sidekick, a counter-service sandwich shop from the family behind Portage Park’s 50-year-old Sicilia Bakery. But in this corner of the galaxy, eggplant Parm refers to battered slices of eggplant rolled in bread crumbs and grated Parmesan, then fried crispy and draped with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese....
Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards walks the walk when it comes to advocacy and political awareness. In 2015 she started the Water Fountain, an organization that raises funds for antipollution and clean water efforts around the world. She’s also the host of C.L.A.W. (Collaborative Legions of Artful Womxn), a radio program that champions the work of female-identified musicians working on the fringes of pop. On her new Tune-Yards album, I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life (4AD), she dives headfirst into evolving ideas about white privilege and eroding privacy....
Love & Mercy In this week’s long review I try to decide who makes the better Brian Wilson—Paul Dano or John Cusack—in the tuneful biopic Love & Mercy. We’ve also got a roundup for the Chicago African Diaspora Film Festival, running Friday through Thursday at Facets Cinematheque.
A new exhibit at the Design Museum of Chicago pushes visitors through the theater’s proverbial fourth wall and onto the scaffolded backstages of some of the cities most storied theaters. “The idea when you walk into the space is that it feels like you’re walking backstage,” says Woodford. “We’ve left exposed studwork, really built out the grid in a way that you can add things to it very quickly, and then as objects from theaters come in we’re displaying them on that grid....
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 smoky 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?...
ARTIST: Sean SampsonSHOW: The Great Fusilli, Jacob’s Cabin, Symposium, and Madame Ruby at Metro on Fri 6/12MORE INFO: seansampson.com
As we kick off summer—nice weather and all!—here are some of our recommendations for your weekend: Sat 5/21: Streetwise hosts the Cool Party, a benefit at the Chop Shop (2033 W. North), featuring live music from Dream Version and Malcolm London, an art display, and more. 8 PM
At 5 PM Saturday, March 21, Governor J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 Executive Order No. 8, aka the Stay at Home order, took effect. Here’s a daily-ish journal of how Reader staff, our friends, family—and our pets—are spending our time. The Alchemist: 25th Anniversary Edition Whose name we’re constantly Googling to make sure we don’t miss a word she says:
During a recent orientation on the Ship of Tolerance at MacArthur Middle School in Prospect Heights, Russian artist Emilia Kabakov posed two questions to the students: What problems did they expect to see in the future, and what could they do to solve them? Taiga, a Chicago transplant who hails from Russia, says she thinks Chicago is an ideal location for the ship because it’s a “community-oriented” city. “You can make things happen here,” Taiga says....
Time to plan the weekend. Here’s some of what we recommend: Through Sat 2/27: As part of Shakespeare 400, the largest celebration of Shakespeare’s life and legacy, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Chicago Shakespeare Theater present Table Top Shakespeare, a number of Shakespeare’s works performed on a single table at the MCA (220 E. Chicago). 7:30 PM
The first time I wrote about Chicago singer-songwriter Scott Free was in 1998, for my old column Spot Check. He’d just released his first album, Getting Off, and was sharing a bill with lesbian punk greats Tribe 8, but even then he was no newbie to the music scene. Free had already been a house-music producer, a drag performer for Michael Hyacinth’s Tuck series at Foxy’s, and a staple booking at Joanna Brown and Mark Freitas’s Homocore shows....
A vacation sounds pretty good right about now, doesn’t it? Or it would in a world without COVID-19, large-scale lockdowns, and an overabundance of existential dread. Seoul-based Korean/Japanese duo Tengger can’t do anything about the pandemic, but their music can provide a bit of a mental escape, or at least uplift the spirit. Inspired by their own experiences traveling, the group create meditative, light-as-silk sound sculptures by interweaving drone, psychedelia, Krautrock, and new age music with occasional field recordings and wordless vocals....
Salem Collo-Julin, listings coordinator Whole salami from Romanian Kosher Sausage Co. 7200 N. Clark ($25-$35) romaniankoshersausage.com/products Maya Dukmasova, staff writer Leor Galil, music writer Avery R. Young’s Neckbone: Visual Verses from Northwestern University Press ($25, nupress.northwestern.edu/content/neckbone) and Tubman LP ($8, fperecs.bandcamp.com/album/tubman) Lauren Michele Jackson’s White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation from Beacon Press ($25.95) beacon.org/White-Negroes-P1521.aspx
