by and | Mar 25, 2024 4:35 pm | Comments (0)
La battaglia di Algeri
Music Box Theatre
3/24/24
Chicago may not be the first place that aspiring megastars think to showcase their talents on the silver screen, but don’t let anyone deny Chicago’s rich cinematic history. What is cinema without Scarface, The Blues Brothers, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Home Alone… Chicago? The city is its own star and its own critic, teeming with movie buffs.
by and | Mar 18, 2024 4:56 pm | Comments (0)
Honestly, Same/Ka Baird/Horse Lords
Empty Bottle
4/13/24
Bookended by instrumental bands, second opener Ka Baird at the Empty Bottle was a capella rendered in giallo, running vocals through a monstrosity of processors, samplers and synthesizers. From degraded vocal grunts to the disembodied howls that conjured a Boston Dynamics dog-bot gone feral, Ka Baird’s sound feasted on the oscillating incomprehensible, howling through a mouth full of marrow.
by and | Mar 17, 2024 11:24 am | Comments (0)
Laetitia Sadier
Empty Bottle
3/12/24
Musician Laetitia Sadier’s performance at Chicago’s legendary Empty Bottle was soft-focused and multifaceted, rendering her sonic landscapes in warm, consonant keyboards, bit-crushed samples, softly strummed guitar, radar blips and, perhaps most surprisingly, a few unexpected toots on the trombone.
by and | Feb 28, 2024 5:18 pm | Comments (0)
Rebecca Morris: 2001 – 2022
Museum of Contemporary Art
Chicago, Illinois
Through April 7, 2024
It feels strange to consider that coming out of the 1990s, painting was the pariah of art media. Following a formidable midcentury explosion of abstract expressionism, many of the early 20th century’s more esoteric ideas boiled back to the surface of the art world, resulting in pop art, fluxus, conceptual art, the proliferation of video and performance art. However, by the 1980s, painting was a dinosaur. The few ubiquitous painters of the decade — Basquiat and Haring — started as “street artists,” painting against the gallery, not in it. But it was out of these ashes that new life, like Rebecca Morris’s 21-year retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, arose.
by | Feb 12, 2024 2:50 pm | Comments (0)
Phoebe Judge
Vic Theatre
Chicago
2/10/24
“I’m Phoebe Judge,” said Phoebe Judge, and the entire audience burst into applause.
It was recognition from a room full of enthusiastic listeners to her popular podcast, Criminal, Saturday at Chicago’s Vic Theatre. The show was celebrating its tenth anniversary with its first live tour since 2019.
by and | Feb 7, 2024 3:10 pm | Comments (0)
Entre horizontes: Art and Activism between Chicago and Puerto Rico
Museum of Contemporary Art
Chicago
Through May 5
Entre horizontes: Art and Activism between Chicago and Puerto Rico at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (MCA) features artists with connections, in subject or origin, to both the city and the island in the title and grapples with the diasporic experience and colonial nature of Puerto Rico’s relationship with the US.
by and | Feb 6, 2024 3:02 pm | Comments (0)
FACS
Smashed Plastic
Undisclosed venue
Chicago
Feb. 3, 2024
Smashed Plastic’s logo says it all: the Chicago-born vinyl pressing plant’s insignia features one of the ubiquitous red, six-point stars from the Chicago city flag, trimmed in the banner’s iconic, if aspirational, “river” blue. It is aggressively Chicagoan, and its five-year anniversary bash, held in a secret location near Chicago’s Ukrainian Village on Saturday night, showcased several hometown heroes on and off stage. The night’s festivities provided a snapshot of a particular scene in the city, and gave this couple of relatively recent transplants a better introduction to the well of established local talent and independent brands that help forge community. Chicago makes it known that Chicago loves things made in Chicago, and this evening’s events were about as home grown as it gets.
Continue reading ‘Chicago Brands Mix With Bands As Smashed Plastic Turns 5’
by | Dec 18, 2023 1:14 pm | Comments (0)
Allison Hadley Photo
Hard Country Honky Tonk
The Empty Bottle
1035 N. Western Ave.
Chicago
Dec. 15, 2023
“And I’ve got swinging doors, a jukebox and a bar stool / And my new home has a flashing neon sign / Stop by and see me any time you want to / ‘Cause I’m always here at home till closing time,” crooned Trevor (McSpadden) Hoyle, doing his best Merle Haggard impression, covering “Swinging Doors” for a group of two steppers, boot scooters, and good ol’ folks this past Friday (and every Friday) at Ukrainian Village indie music stalwart venue the Empty Bottle.
It was Friday, just past five, which meant the otherwise much more punk-minded venue transitioned into a honky tonk for its weekly Hard Country Honky Tonk happy hour residency by Chicago’s own Hoyle Brothers.
by | Dec 11, 2023 11:48 am | Comments (0)
Allison Hadley Photo
Callahan.
Bill Callahan
The Constellation
Bricktown, Chicago
Dec. 5, 2023
“What’s up, Chicago?!” Bill Callahan enthusiastically inquired of his audience, denizens of his former hometown. “That’s what comedians say. I’ve been watching a lot of comedians lately.”
It showed. Callahan had yet to settle on his barstool perch and already seemed more at ease than is typically seen at a Bill Callahan concert.
Continue reading ‘Bill Callahan Shows The Man Behind The Guitar’
