adamburkecomedy.com Runner-Up Aaron Foster

In 2014 beloved Nashville garage label Infinity Cat launched a cassette series that has since gone on to release tapes by a fascinating array of underground rock purveyors, including art-rock freaks Guerilla Toss, lo-fi pop whiz Colleen Green, and emo-tinged power poppers Rozwell Kid. Last month the label and series announced it had tapped Chicago act Dehd, the trio cofronted by Ne-Hi’s Jason Balla and Emily Kempf of Heavy Dreams. While on their 2016 self-titled album (Maximum Pelt/Fire Talk) Dehd dole out minimal, droning melodies, the easygoing simplicity of their beguiling material belying an expert sense of atmosphere, their grasp of the world around them is more evident on the Infinity Cat cassette, Fire of Love....

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

This Tony Award-winning touring revival, presented by Broadway in Chicago and based on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, projects intimacy, authenticity and power. That’s no small feat in the sizable Auditorium Theatre, and it’s a testament to a commanding cast and carefully spare staging and music. Adapted for the stage by Marsha Norman, with music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray, the musical tells the story of a group of African-American women in the 1930s south....

Like Elizabeth, and the late, great Bunny, the Microbakery, Kitsune is a wee Regan joint of singularly enjoyable weirdness. Even though the studied and occasionally menacing woodland twee is dialed back, it’s still lurking in the shadows waiting for the right moment to surprise you. A mural depicting the restaurant’s namesake magical fox twines around the restroom walls, while smaller, three-dimensional representations of said canid—a seductive shape-shifter in Japanese folklore—dispense soy sauce at the table....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Friday, April 7, 2017. Have a great weekend! Decision on developer for Michael Reese Hospital site delayed The city has delayed a decision on a development team for the former Michael Reese Hospital site until at least May 5, according to DNAinfo Chicago. A decision on who will transform the site, which was purchased by the city in 2009 for $91 million in hopes of using it for the 2016 Olympics, was expected Thursday....

Strangeways, Here We Come Whether you love Morrissey or hate him, there’s one thing that’s certain: you’re definitely not going to see him tonight. Or ever, maybe, because this is the third time he’s canceled this particular tour. And he’s canceled tons of other tours he’s had planned over the past 20 years, too. But hey, don’t be sad, you’ve still got all those great Smiths records that you can listen to....

Last year my colleague Aimee Levitt elegantly dissected a River North Italian restaurant’s claim that it served the “best spaghetti and meatballs ever.” She wisely cracked that such proclamations “are grandiose and borderline obnoxious, especially considering how much spaghetti and meatballs there is in the world.” Risk of grandiosity aside, let me say that I can’t imagine a more perfect meaty orb than the one at Paul Kahan’s Nico Osteria, the simultaneously rustic and refined restaurant anchoring the Gold Coast’s Thompson Hotel....

Dawn of Midi NPR is streaming the forthcoming Tune-Yards album, Nikki Nack, and even though I’ve only heard a few minutes of it I imagine I’ll have the whole thing on repeat for the rest of the day. If you can get away from this stream and are in the mood to check out some live music, you’ve got some good options. “This New York piano trio got its start in 2007, when drummer Qasim Naqvi, bassist Aakaash Israni, and pianist Amino Belyamani were students at CalArts, jamming in darkened spaces and developing a distinctive strain of group improvisation—limited in its use of melody, harmony, and structural motion but tightly coiled and constantly, incrementally developing,” writes Peter Margasak....

COURTESY OF GROUND CONTROL TOURING Perfect Pussy About a year ago comedian Donovan Strain claimed to have pinpointed the exact date Ice Cube commemorates in his 1993 single “It Was a Good Day”—January 20, 1992. Vulture fact-checked Strain’s hypothesis with Ice Cube, whose ambiguous response left the truth a little unclear, but Strain’s claim paved the way for us to celebrate that track every January 20 all the same. Tonight the folks behind Dre Day—the annual fake holiday celebrating the Compton rap icon—are throwing what’s billed as the first annual Ice Cube “Today Was a ....

Nine performers is a lot of band, and on their recordings Austin country-rock outfit Sweet Spirit can sound a bit clotted and ragged, like nobody’s quite clear where all the members go. Live, though, they throw one hell of a party. Lead singer Sabrina Ellis in particular has a riveting, no-fucks-given charisma that comes across best onstage. With a nasal edge that moves up into an almost shriek, her voice adds a threatening vibe to the band’s feel-good groove and authoritative aggression to lines like “Right hand on my heart / I swear I’ll knock you out....

In the early 80s, Chicago ska group Heavy Manners were an anomaly. Ska wouldn’t completely catch on in the midwest till the genre’s successful third wave in the 90s, but Heavy Manners helped plant those seeds in the decade before. Bassist Jimi Robinson, a reggae regular who frequently served as MC at hot spot Wild Hare, discovered London’s two-tone scene while on a trip to Europe at the start of the 80s....

On August 8 of last year, Trap Them’s Twitter feed announced that the band would be heading back into the studio to begin recording the followup to 2011’s Darker Handcraft. I took the news well. A mix of hardcore, grind, and raw punk, Trap Them fits pretty darn snuggly into my wheelhouse. I’ve checked back regularly for updates—the band doesn’t update their feed with great urgency—and found out today that the album is done and expecting a release early this year on Prosthetic Records....

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

Access to nearby Rosebud Farm Stand, 525 E. 130th, is a particular sore spot. It’s the area’s sole grocery store, but it’s difficult to access by foot. The only way to walk there from the west is via a narrow trail pedestrians have worn on the south side of the five-lane highway. Walking north to Rosebud from Altgeld means taking a rutted dirt lane. —DELORIS LUCAS­ When asked why his agency has never built the 130th Street sidewalk, CDOT spokesman Mike Claffey declined to comment....