Thalia Hall 1807 S. Allport Runner-Up The Empty Bottle

When Lucki Ecks broke out last year with his debut mixtape, Alternative Trap, his Outsiders Clique crew shared a bit of the spotlight—but that wasn’t enough for Wteve Baker. This Outsider has released only a handful of songs in the past year, but every one of them slays. On the stark “Can’t Go Back,” which came out in March, he occasionally slips into a syrupy patois, reflecting on his drug-induced bad behavior and reminding himself not to fall back into old patterns....

Casket Girls Happy Monday! It’s cold out again, which is kind of a bummer. Suck it up and head out, though, because there are some great shows to catch during the first half of this week. “Casket Girls, whose core members are sisters Phaedra and Elsa Greene and Ryan Graveface (of Dreamend, Black Moth Super Rainbow, and Graveface Records), not only list ‘David Lynch’ as their sole influence on Facebook but also spread an origin story wherein Graveface serendipitously discovered the sisters sitting beneath a tree in a public square in their mutual hometown of Savannah, Georgia, playing Autoharp and singing,” writes Kevin Warwick....

Theo Parrish If you’re still eager to experience Matisyahu for the novelty of his “Hasidic reggae superstar” persona his Saturday night set at Concord Music Hall could be as ideal as any since his breakout. That’s because Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, ends at sundown, and Matisyahu will likely drop some timely and perhaps thoughtful banter into his set. That’s hardly the only notable show on Saturday, or for the rest of the week for that matter....

In last year’s Best of Chicago issue we announced the opening of Avondale record store Bric-a-Brac, and this weekend the shop celebrates its first birthday with an all-day party. Late last June, Nick Mayor and Jen Lemasters opened Bric-a-Brac—part record store, part live-music venue, part collectible shop—at the corner of Diversey and Kedzie, and over the past year business has thrived, with inventory growing and in-store shows and parties happening a couple of times a month....

There’s plenty to do this weekend. Here’s some of what we recommend: 4/28-6/2: “Girl Play” at Johalla Projects (1821 W. Hubbards) features collection of Chicago-based artist Marzena Abrahamik’s photographs that explore intimacy and female friendship. Opening reception Fri 4/28, 7-10 PM. Sat 4/29: The University of Chicago Artist Summit at the Logan Center for the Arts (915 E. 60th) features presentations from artists including: Lola Arias, Jelili Atiku, Tania Bruguera, Sandi Hilal, Carlos Javier Ortiz, and Laurie Jo Reynolds....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Tuesday, March 14, 2017. City Hall forked over $1,300 for large photos of Rahm to put on display Large photos on poster board of Mayor Rahm Emanuel were hanging in the hallways of the Chicagoland Laborers’ District Council Training & Apprentice Fund center when he gave an invite-only speech on infrastructure in February. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Tribune discovered that City Hall spent “$1,364....

Ann Dowd in Craig Zobel’s Compliance Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, amuse, or inspire us. • That the 35 percent U.S. corporate tax rate shrinks to about 12.6 percent after loopholes are applied? —Deanna Isaacs • That single Americans outnumber married ones for the first time in recorded history? —Brianna Wellen

For the past few years singer-songwriter Angel Olsen has been one of my favorite local musicians to catch live—few voices can make me stare with rapt attention quite like hers. It’s been a pleasure seeing her go from being the opening act on a bill that included a ukulele tribute to Neutral Milk Hotel and a couple pals of mine from high school back in 2010 to playing Pitchfork Music Festival last summer....

Counter Intuits The lineup for this year’s HoZac Blackout has been announced, and it includes some huge names from punk rock history, most notably the Dictators and the Boys. The band at the fest that I’m most excited to see, however, is Counter Intuits from Ohio. A duo of Times New Viking guitarist Jared Phillips and Ron House—who’s played in countless lo-fi Ohio bands—Counter Intuits sounds exactly like you’d imagine a collaboration between these two to sound....

Over the back catalog of Axis: Sova—which includes four full-lengths, a handful of singles, and one tape-only release—the local trio unfold a shocking persistence of vision. On their upcoming dispatch, Shampoo You (God? Records), they continue to embrace the freest moments of Brett Sova thrumming guitar discord, and set them within a sturdier rock scaffolding than ever before. While aspects of the spacey, 12-minute title track from 2012’s Weight of Color are still present, more tuneful early gambits, such as the classic-rock-imbued “Raising Hell,” from the same album, now seem like woodshedding for Shampoo You....

I first entered this store because of its large selection of hats. Little did I know I was entering a treasure trove. I mean, even the owner is a treasure. Alphonsus Ntamere is a biochemist who emigrated from Nigeria in 1970 and ended up quitting his job to open Unan 24 years ago; his jokes, wide grin, and words of wisdom are part of what makes this place special. But he has much more to offer than smiles and hats, which are some of the sharpest I’ve ever seen, by the way....

Runner-Up Richard J. Daley

James Dewitt Yancey, better known as producer J Dilla, would have turned 43 yesterday. But Dilla died 11 years ago, on February, 10, 2006, just a few days after he celebrated his birthday and released his magnum opus, Donuts. The boisterous, sample-based album was far from Dilla’s last release, and not a year has gone by without another posthumous Dilla EP or full-length—most consist of unreleased material, but none have escaped Donuts‘ shadow....

Sun-Times Media Hedy Weiss and Chris Jones Chris Jones, Tribune, on Steppenwolf’s Russian Transport: Hedy Weiss, on the Goodman Theatre’s Buzzer:

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. • About the freeing of another convict who’d alleged that a Chicago police detective beat a murder confession out of him? —Steve Bogira • About the Cubs fan who used a smartphone app to make jukeboxes in bars all over Saint Louis play “Go, Cubs, Go” during Tuesday’s game? —Aimee Levitt

Jeff Koons is one of the world’s most sought-after artists. “I’ve made what the Beatles would have made if they had made sculpture,” he once declared brazenly. “Nobody ever said that the Beatles’ music was not on a high level, but it appealed to a mass audience. That is what I want to do.” In 2013 his sculpture Balloon Dog (Orange) sold at auction for $58.4 million, the highest price ever paid for a work of art by a living artist....

Two-thirds of this young Alabama trio is made up of veterans of Hog Mountin, an underrated southern-fried swamp-metal outfit that was once a jewel of the Birmingham scene. But on their debut self-released full-length, last year’s Tunguska, Hexxus seem to be on a different trajectory entirely. Still backbreakingly heavy, they prove themselves capable of employing a lighter touch from time to time, with sweet and slightly proggy interludes offering moments in which to take a deep breath before being slammed back down into the extragravity grind....