Soundtracks I spend quite a bit of time at my desk listening to music through plugged-in earbuds. When I’m working, my favorite type of music is the kind that’s intense enough to fuel productivity and hypnotic enough to zone out. For this reason I spend a lot of time at work listening to Miles Davis, Steve Reich, John Coltrane, and plenty of electronic music. Lately I’ve added one of my favorite bands, German rock group Can, to the mix....

Late in this documentary about the Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti, the musician’s longtime manager, Rikki Stein, recalls the time he traveled to the U.S. to meet with every major record label on behalf of his client and was invariably asked, “Which three minutes out of that 28-minute song do you want me to put on the radio?” Kuti’s tunes typically began with a percussionist laying down an irrepressibly funky beat, then the guitarist adding some edgy riff, then the other players joining in one by one until a brass fanfare elevated the music to the next level of drama; over the course of a half hour or more, the song built, peaked, and subsided like the plot of a movie....

Superintendent Garry McCarthy has begun the process to fire Dante Servin, the veteran police detective who fatally shot 22-year-old Rekia Boyd nearly three years ago in North Lawndale and set off months of protests. In September, the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), recommended Servin be fired. McCarthy had 90 days from that ruling to accept or reject the agency’s recommendation. Protesters have packed Police Board meetings for months, even shutting down the August meeting, criticizing McCarthy’s for the protracted process to fire Servin, who has been on the force since 1991....

“Three shots closed Texas Guinan’s show at the Green Mill cafe, Lawrence avenue and Broadway, at 4 o’clock yesterday morning. The internationally known night club hostess was asking the suckers to give the little girl a big hand.” —Chicago Tribune, March 24, 1930 The Mill’s Jazz Age pedigree has no equal in Chicago. Newspaper accounts of the era tell a lively tale of the locals’ proclivities and personalities. Jack “Machine Gun” McGurn, a Capone associate, supposedly owned part of the club during Prohibition, when tunnels under the bar were used to smuggle in booze, and kept a table reserved for his boss (walk into the bar, past the booths on the north wall, and it’s the first one you run into, positioned so you can see both entrances)....

Since this Atlanta blackened-death quartet released its 2010 LP Dualitas half of its lineup has changed. Departing guitarist Dylan Kilgore was replaced by Ethan McCarthy of Primitive Man, and bassist Mike Longoria passed the torch to Colin Marston, who’s played in an impressive list of bands that includes Behold the Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, and Gorguts. So is there still much continuity between last year’s Grief Relic (Seasons of Mist) and Dualitas? Yes....

Nearly a decade ago, totemic German free-jazz reedist Peter Brötzmann told me that he’d recently played with an exciting bassist. Those aren’t words you often hear from Brötzmann—he’d once explained that he wants a bassist to “just be there,” by which he meant occupy a certain place in the music and not do anything too fancy. “Oh, and he plays with Marsalis,” Brötzmann said. “So what.” Eric Revis was indeed (and still is) a member of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, where he’s “been there” (and a lot more) for north of 20 years....

Q I’m a 26-year-old lesbian 18 months out of an eight-year relationship. She was my first girlfriend. I do not want to be in another monogamous relationship. I want to have a couple of sex buddies or, preferably, a couple of friends with benefits. In the last 18 months, I have had three FWB “arrangements” with different girls. The problem is, about two or three months in, each girl developed serious like/love feelings and began talking about a future together and how they want to be with me exclusively....

On the evening of Friday, July 28, while the temperature outside hung in the low 70s, the Portage Theater was an enormous steam bath. When I got there just before ten, a thick layer of haze hovered above the roughly 1,400 fans packed into the hall—in retrospect I’m sure it was mostly weed smoke, but my first thought was that the humidity in the room had literally formed a cloud. I’m just 31, but I looked to be one of the oldest people there—many of the dozen rappers who performed that night have audiences who on average are barely past voting age....

ARTIST: Freek Van Andel SHOW: Fuzz, Walter, and Oozing Wound at Thalia Hall on Fri 11/20 MORE INFO: thehouseofbones.com

AP Photo/Gene Puskar If Jeff Samardzija’s excellent pitching continues, he’ll bring the Cubs better prospects when he’s traded this summer. Only an incurable optimist could find five reasons to be hopeful about the Cubs based on their play the first two weeks this season. But I’m willing to try. Two other starters have also pitched well. Twenty-seven-year-old Travis Wood has a 2.92 ERA. Jason Hammel’s is even better—2.63. Hammel is less important because he’s 31, but, again, the better he does, the better the trade opportunities....

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago 1147 W. Jackson Runner-Up Raks Geek

JOHN STURDY Yawn circa 2010 When Miles Raymer first profiled local indie-pop outfit Yawn in 2010 the four-piece were keen on doing things themselves and releasing music on their own. They’ve since signed with Brooklyn’s Old Flame Records, which has released music by brooding indie darlings Cloud Nothings and lo-fi punks Potty Mouth, among others; today the label drops Yawn’s sophomore album, Love Chills. The band’s broadened their catchy, psychedelic electronic sound, veering towards low-riding dub at the end of “Flytrap” and mixing in wistful folk that reminds me of Midlake on “What’s in the World....

In recent years the fertile imagination and syncretist impulses of Afro-Colombian music—a dynamic sound that emerged during the 70s when local rhythms collided with sounds gleaned from imported African pop—has been receiving its due acclaim. Colombia’s ubiquitous cumbia sound figures heavily in the mix, but the throbbing polyrhythms of West Africa define this raw dance music, where call-and-response chants and shuffling hand percussion, occasionally enhanced by lean guitar figures or sleek horn charts, cast deeply hypnotic spells....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago. Isa Giallorenzo Daniella DeLuna Isa Giallorenzo Hostess Claire Van Eijk never disappoints. I still can’t forgive myself for not having captured her taco bustier last year at Pitchfork, but it was featured in all its glory in the New York Times. Loving her colorful look and Louis Vuitton headscarf. Isa Giallorenzo...

You could say that Alexis Bouteville, owner of Hyde Park Records, discovered Chicago by way of Paris. Alexis had a record store in his native France and was going on frequent buying trips in the United States to keep the store stocked. Chicago always had the best selection of unique vinyl, and it wasn’t long before he fell in love with Hyde Park and the whole South Side area. In 2011, Alexis took over the existing Hyde Park neighborhood record store that had been there since the 1970s – Second Hand Tunes – and renamed it as Hyde Park Records....

Richard A. Chapman/Sun-Times Grant Achatz’s tweet about bringing a baby to Alinea touched a nerve on social media, but the chef points out, “as many of us who have children, me included, realize, you have a very small window in which little ones behave themselves.” Maybe we shouldn’t expect a news story inspired by a tweet to go very far beyond the tweet in terms of informational content. But on the other hand, it’s been said this couple had already paid for their meals, and Alinea doesn’t refund....

2641 W. Fullerton 773-252-3980 joesbarbershopchicago.com Runner-Up Pete’s Barber Shop

Megadeth The festival you’ve all been waiting for kicks off this weekend—Warped Tour! Kidding, kidding, I meant to say the Pitchfork Music Festival (be sure to read our prefest coverage). But if you want to check out the traveling punk minimall head to First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre on Saturday. “The thing about guitarist Matt Pulos and drummer Evan Laffer—ahead-of-the-curve 19-year-olds from Agoura Hills, California, who play together as Dub Thompson—is that they can’t keep their genres in their pants,” writes Kevin Warwick....