First and foremost, the OBN IIIs are a spectacle to be experienced live. The Tic Tac Totally band led by front man Orville Bateman Neeley III—a rock ‘n’ roll name if ever there was one—put on a veritable arena show in a dive bar. Bateman provides much of the fireworks, working the crowd like a Dr. Feelgood Vince Neil and sweating out the spirit and glory of rock along the way....
3415 W. Bryn Mawr 773-772-2727 smallbardivision.com Runners-Up Blue Havana The Whistler
It can be lonely at the top—and it almost always is at the top of the monolithic musical instruments known as carillons. On Saturday night in Springfield, Illinois, UIC graduate student Hunter Chase was one of just five people chosen to venture alone to the peak of the 132-foot bell tower in Washington Park to perform at the Rees International Carillon Competition. A disproportionate number of the carillons in the U....
Erik Friedlander’s vibrant tone, vivid pizzicato, and fluid bowing have made the cellist a first-call accompanist for John Zorn, Dave Douglas, Laurie Anderson, and the Mountain Goats. He’s also sustained a varied solo career for more than 21 years. His 2008 release Broken Arm Trio celebrated the music of Oscar Peterson—one of jazz’s first cellists—while Claws & Wings, with pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and electronic musician Ikue Mori, contrasted emotional melodies with ephemeral atmospherics to meditate upon loss and healing....
Chicago doesn’t just have a vibrant, busy music scene—it’s also full of busy music writers. This year some of the city’s best talents were at the top of their game, helping drive big, important conversations and refining their distinctive styles. It’s surely just a coincidence that several of them have also contributed to the Reader. (For the record, Reader staffers were excluded from consideration for this list.) This year Josh Terry started at the RedEye as a music reporter, interviewing bands and keeping commuters up to date with show announcements and track reviews....
The future of U.S. dockless bike-share—aka “DoBi”—isn’t looking so bright right now. DoBi technology lets customers use a smartphone app to locate and check out bikes scattered around the service area. Most companies use cycles that are secured only with a built-in wheel lock—which makes them easy to steal or vandalize. Last month a city official in Washington, D.C., reported that some companies in the District have lost about half of their fleets to theft and vandalism....
Chief Keef is running for mayor of Chicago, and as is the case with his rap songs, he doesn’t appear to follow any rule book but his own. After all, the city wrapped up a mayoral election just months ago, and Keef’s got some outstanding warrants preventing him from entering Chicago anytime soon. Keef made the announcement on Twitter yesterday as part of a response to his ongoing struggle to perform anywhere near Chicago via hologram....
With the scorching weather we’ve had for the past few days (not to mention the weekend forecast), it’s tempting to wish summer would hurry up and leave already. To be honest, I kind of do. But then I start thinking about all that’s going to leave along with the warm weather—peak-season tomatoes, peaches, basil, mint—and trying to figure out if I can live solely on tomatoes for the next couple weeks....
“Psyched to use pizza grease, something I am known to be very fond of,” Henry Prendergast of Analogue e-mailed me—about the last response I expected after the Violet Hour’s John Smillie challenged him to make a drink with the stuff. Not only was he psyched, Prendergast immediately knew the perfect source for his ingredient: Dante’s Pizzeria, whose pepperoni he deems “Chicago’s finest slice.” Rounding out the drink are simply lime juice and, of course, the King of Beers—his inspiration, after all, was pizza and Bud....
Flying Elephant Productions presents the Chicago premiere of Aurin Squire’s award-winning 2014 comedy, about a tight-knit group of friends whose bond is broken when a white boy moves into their black neighborhood in a small Florida town and joins their Michael Jackson fan club. Obie (Christopher Taylor), the protagonist, opens the play with a monologue listing 9/11, the Great Recession, and host of other cultural touchstones America had yet to reach in 1984, the year the play is set....
“Sliver” b/w “Dive” Yesterday would have been Kurt Cobain’s 47th birthday. Does that make you feel old? It would feel odd to not honor him just a little bit, so today’s 12 O’Clock Track is “Dive,” one of my favorite Nirvana jams. Nirvana was far from the best band to come out of the late-80s northwest punk explosion, but they were obviously the most important. This isn’t saying that Cobain wasn’t some sort of songwriting genius either, because he absolutely was....
Richard’s Bar 491 N. Milwaukee Runner-Up Bottom Lounge
Bassist Joshua Abrams’s importance to Chicago’s jazz and improvised music scene over the last few decades is indisputable. He’s laid down the harmonic anchor in loads of disparate ensembles, providing muscle and shape to bands led by reedists Dave Rempis, Ernest Dawkins, and Jason Stein; cornetists Rob Mazurek and Josh Berman; flutist Nicole Mitchell; and drummers Hamid Drake and Mike Reed. That’s not even counting his membership in several combos that skirt clear genre lines, from the back-porch minimalism of Town & Country to the atmospheric art-rock of the Bird Show Band....
As court orders go, a Cook County judge’s recent decision to make Chicago Public Schools officials turn over the so-called “LaRaviere files” don’t rank up there with, say, the U.S. Supreme Court compelling President Nixon to release the White House tapes. Stop laughing. Thus, he entered a circle of hell known as the FOIA maze. For months, Burt got no response, so he hired a lawyer, Daniel Massoglia. And on September 7 he filed a lawsuit in Cook County court, aiming to force CPS to turn over the information....
I recently spoke at Curious Minds Weekend in Toronto at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema. Audience members submitted questions on cards before the show—anonymously—but the moderator, Lisan Jutras of the Globe and Mail, and I were having so much fun talking with each other that we didn’t get to many cards. So I’m going to quickly answer as many of the questions from the audience at Curious Minds as I can this week....
Wu Man There are a bunch of shows happening during the first half of this week. Tonight there’s superloud duo Jucifer at Reggie’s Rock Club, and Oshwa is headlining a free show at the Empty Bottle. Country legend Emmylou Harris plays at the Vic on Tuesday night, and Screaming Females, who are on tour opening for Julie Ruin, make a stop at Permanent Records on Wednesday afternoon for a free in-store show....
Three years ago wildly imaginative producer and MC Residente (aka René Pérez) disbanded Calle 13, the shape-shifting hip-hop and reggaeton project he started with his stepbrother Eduardo José Cabra Martínez (aka Visitante) in 2004 in their native Puerto Rico. That project catapulted the duo to global fame, and it gave Residente the resources to pursue his vision for self-titled 2017 solo debut—a musical investigation of his ethnic roots inspired and fueled by the results of a DNA test....
