Regular Oatmeal front man Nick Cartwright sings like he’s being dragged from his bed after sleeping in way later than he (and, well, society) deems acceptable, his drawn-out words heavy from the weight of his own malfeasance. His style ain’t for everyone, and neither is the rough-hewn brand of emo his Chicago band plays. But for the faithful emo heads who prefer to pretend the 2000s never happened and like to argue about the state of fourth-wave emo, Regular Oatmeal’s recent Great Shout EP (self-released) offers a charming escape....

The design-friendly cover of Real Estate’s forthcoming Atlas While promoted and praised by everyone from Pitchfork to the New York Times, New Jersey band Real Estate have always appeared to me to be on the receiving end of quite a lot of negative criticism. Maybe because I’m friends with a number of people who are omnivorous listeners, I’ve seen many mentions on social media about the band being part of an increasing output of beige, unmemorable indie rock....

If you’ve avoided social media this week, you may have missed that all the cool kids are using a Web-based app called 2015 Best Nine. It creates a collage-style post that features nine of your top “liked” photos from Instagram in a grid that resembles the opening credits of The Brady Bunch or the Tic-tac-toe layout of Hollywood Squares. A photo posted by Chicago Reader (@chicago_reader) on Sep 26, 2015 at 1:51pm PDT...

At about the same time that Tom Tresser was releasing his annual TIF-take report, I was on the phone with a south-side resident who was telling me about the city’s inability to adequately fund her child’s grammar school. While you may think those funds are going to things like schools, parks, and the county, the TIF money—about $412 million this year—gets diverted into bank accounts largely controlled by the mayor....

Manowar Need to escape from the cold? Well, you’re in luck, because there are plenty of concerts to see in the next few days that’ll help you forget about trudging around in the snow wearing half your clean clothes—at least for an evening. “On its second album, Held in Splendor (Mexican Summer), this lazy-sounding Boston psych-pop trio hangs on to its shaggy charm while sharpening its sound,” writes Peter Margasak....

Chicago Diner 3411 N. Halsted Runner-Up Handlebar

Following a long stretch of British TV work, proletarian director Ken Loach returned to the big screen with this 1979 children’s adventure, adapted from a novel by Leon Garfield and set in 1750 Yorkshire. For a social realist like Loach, the story seems unusually macabre and fantastical: young Bartholomew, apprenticed to a draper, is tending to one of the hanged corpses his boss surreptitiously recovers and sells to the local medical college when suddenly the huge man revives, explaining that he survived the noose by shoving a bent spoon into his windpipe....

For this year’s Reader Key Ingredient Cook-Off, we asked some of Chicago’s top chefs to create a dish to honor a person who influenced their cooking. The exercise stirred many kitchen memories. Dish: Smoked red shrimp with rhubarb and radish

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. Hey, did you read: • That Twitter has shut down 30 sites that store politicians’ deleted Tweets? —J.R. Jones • About the hunger strike launched by protesters of plans to turn Dyett High School into an art and design academy run by Little Black Pearl Arts? —Kate Schmidt • About China’s economic woes? —Drew Hunt • About liberalism’s long history of divorcing racial disparities from economic inequality?...

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago. “Fashion is empowering,” John Williams says. “It allows me to embrace who I am, and I believe it has the ability to do this for others.” It was with that spirit that the accounting student and Ghanaian immigrant founded the fair-trade apparel company Gyetum—which means “to embrace” in the Ghanaian language Akan—to encourage black and African people to accept “who we really are,” says Williams, pictured with his girlfriend Lesan Mattis....

Andrew Bird has a well-deserved reputation for fastidious craftsmanship and quirky songwriting—every sound and syllable in his art-pop ditties feels carefully chosen and freighted with significance. The Evanston native was a young violin prodigy, schooled in the Suzuki method, and once he turned his attention to original songs in the late 90s, his sponge­like brain made almost every style and approach accessible to him. He soon sharpened his focus, and since the mid-aughts he’s enjoyed great success....

Atlanta rap trio Migos have experienced a lifetime of music industry ups and downs in less than half a decade. Rappers Quavo, Offset, and Takeoff first made it through the buzz of their breakthrough 2013 sensation, “Versace,” surviving a Drake remix that felt less like a cosign than a jump on something hot. They held their ground in Atlanta’s fickle, rapidly evolving hip-hop scene—still the apple of the country’s eye—long enough to drop 2015’s Yung Rich Nation through Atlantic, 300, and heavy hometown indie Quality Control....

Simon’s Tavern X5210 N. Clark Runner-Up Cafe Mustache

The paint has barely dried on the joint LP local guitarists Ryley Walker and Bill Mac­Kay put out in August, but on Friday, October 16, Mac­Kay’s folky art-rock quartet Darts & Arrows releases the full-length Altamira on Bandcamp (and as a small-run CD). In 2010, the Reader‘s Peter Margasak wrote that “the group’s abundantly inventive music flows . . . with a delicate rhythmic touch,” and the gentle melodies of the new album’s “Evergreen” call to mind verdant, rolling hills....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Monday, February 13, 2017. Cop who shot Quintonio LeGrier, Bettie Jones won’t be charged in their deaths Chicago police officer Robert Rialmo won’t face criminal charges for the shooting deaths of 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier and 55-year-old Bettie Jones just after Christmas Day 2015. Cook County prosecutors issued a statement saying that “it could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer didn’t believe he or his partner were in ‘imminent danger’ of great bodily harm from LeGrier,” who was holding a baseball bat, according to the Tribune....

Pig’s Nose, her choice of scotch, was right in keeping with the porcine theme. To add the chocolaty notes she sought, Khaund drew on creme de cacao and La Colombe’s Pure Black cold-pressed coffee, which she felt also complements the blood’s metallic taste. The drink’s fruity element came in the form of Combier Roi René Rouge cherry liqueur and—what else?—blood orange juice. To further accentuate the chocolaty coffee flavors, she used the Sicilian amaro Averna in place of sweet vermouth....

We’ve often been told in these heady days of the Internet that we don’t need radio stations, record labels, or, cough cough, music critics, because listeners have easy access to music and no longer require gatekeepers. I’m a music critic and I still rely on such gatekeepers myself—without any sort of filter or direction I’d be wasting an awful lot of time slogging through the torrent of music that’s sitting out there on the web, waiting for discovery....

The first two minutes of today’s 12 O’Clock Track, “What’s Holding You?,” are held together pretty well. The vocals and guitar of Lorena Quintanilla (Lorelle) melt over the rhythms laid down by Alberto Gonzales (the Obsolete). Reverb is not in short supply, but the Mexican duo keeps a handle on it—again, for the first couple of minutes. Following that, a space-age guitar lead lets loose, panning from one speaker to the next and sounding like it’s trying to saw its way out, as the drums, warm bass line, and various other percussion kick on repeat....