Dan Auerbach is best known as the front man for massive Ohio duo the Black Keys, a band who pull huge swing and tons of energy out of a simple, swampy blues-punk sound. As the band evolved their songs slowly became more dynamic, and their limited sonic palette expanded, but nothing prepared me for what I’d hear on Auerbach’s brand-new project the Arcs. The band, which is a collaboration between Auerbach, Shins member Richard Swift, Dap-Kings drummer Homer Steinweiss, and a handful of others ditch the dirge of Black Keys and trade it in for dreamy, psychedelic pop....

Chicago International Film Festival 212 W. Van Buren Runner-Up Chicago Critics Film Festival

Why is it so hard to find Bob Seger albums online nowadays? Bob Seger was one of the icons of what we now call “classic rock”—and yet, as a young person and habitual streamer, I have barely any idea what he sounds like. NPR goes deep into what’s kept Seger off the ‘net, and how, despite our best efforts, changes in the industry can shape our collective memories of whole musical eras....

Chicago cornetist Josh Berman works at a measured pace. Though he’s ubiquitous on the local scene, having played in countless bands and programmed the Sunday-night jazz and improvised-music series at the Hungry Brain, he’s been extremely judicious about recording with his own projects. As a bandleader, he’s made just three albums. “I spend a lot of time at home working on shapes, ideas,” Berman says. “I like playing a lot, but at the same time I like to develop things at home, think about it, and work it out on the horn—and then kind of bring it out....

Nothing makes an artwork more irresistible than censorship. Pull a painting off the wall because someone finds it intolerably offensive, and everyone else will lust to see it, immediately. But the Internet’s not such a great way to see banned installation art. Sell wasn’t there when a Fishman employee took her work down, stashed it in a plastic bag, and locked it in an adjacent empty space. Sell says I AM Logan Square board chair Geary Yonker told her that Mark Fishman had threatened to close the space if her installation stayed, which would have meant that the group show wouldn’t be seen either....

Tango Sur 3763 N. Southport

Stan’s Donuts Various locations

Beer gardens and street festivals may have long-running and well-established relationships with Chicago this time of year, but summer is also stripping season. Thank Debonair Social Club for helping thaw out this fair city, as its weekly No Tell Motel burlesque adventure continues to heat up Wednesday nights. Expect plenty of feathers, tassels, and nylon stockings in a lair that might not quite be the Admiral but isn’t that far off, either....

The saga of Laquan McDonald—the video, the protests, the mayor’s apology—has stirred fierce and complicated emotions in Chicago. Thursday night’s your last chance to see a documentary that will stir them further. It helps to keep your seat for a minute or two after the movie ends and think about that black mayor and black president, and about the difference between a code of silence that conceals an assassination ordered from on high and one that merely covers up the casual death of a random black teenager who happened to act out in the wrong place at the wrong time before the wrong trigger-happy cop....

Divvy’s future wasn’t looking so bright a year ago, when the city of Chicago acknowledged it had seen a major drop in income from the bike-share system in 2016, after the program expanded farther into the south and west sides. But numbers I recently obtained from the Chicago Department of Transportation via a Freedom of Information Act request paint a much rosier picture, showing that 2017 was the city’s most lucrative year yet for Divvy revenue....

If you survive Lollapalooza this weekend, there’s a whole other dose of 90s nostalgia to take in on Sunday night. Local four-piece Post Child, who deliver a massive blast of throwback alt-rock, play in the basement of the Double Door at 8 PM. Today’s 12 O’Clock Track is their new single, “Brain in Two,” which showcases their knack for radio-ready, 90s slacker-rock perfection. The catchy jam brims with slick guitar leads and bummed-out, hypermelodic hooks; the group tip their hats to hit-machine monsters Weezer....

“The Bird v. the Bear: Art War Chronicles” galerief.com

katiehovland.com Runner-Up Michael Courier

Alamo Shoes 5321 N. Clark Runner-Up Lori’s Shoes

Juelz Santana Valentine’s Day is here and love is in the air. What better way to celebrate than taking your loved one to see some gangsta rap or doom metal? Sounds romantic to me. Sat 2/15: Jason Lescalleet at the Renaissance Society

AP Photos Protesters in Saint Louis call for reforms after police shot and killed Michael Brown and, ten days later, Kajieme Powell. As you may remember, the August 9 death of Michael Brown after he was shot by a police officer in the Saint Louis suburb of Ferguson was followed—ten days of nationally covered civil protests later—by another police shooting in Saint Louis proper. Our understanding of Brown’s death is at best translucent—police saying one thing, witnesses another....

Last fall, shortly after Columbia College instructor Iymen Chehade showed the documentary 5 Broken Cameras in his course on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he was summoned to a meeting with Steven Corey, chair of the Department of Humanities, History, and Social Science. In a phone interview Corey said he and Chehade talked at the meeting about presenting “multiple perspectives” in the course. He denied ever telling Chehade to be “more balanced,” and said he told the student to talk with him, then come back if things weren’t resolved....