The Bloody Mary is a near-perfect cocktail, a zesty cure-all that works well at any hour of the day and in any mood or setting; it lubricates, it refreshes, it replenishes. A great Bloody Mary generally requires no fucking around with, but I’ve stumbled upon one modification that, while quite audacious, results in a drink with the potential to surpass the classic’s greatness: Flo’s chile verde Bloody Mary. This Noble Square restaurant replaces the usual tomato juice with green chiles and a touch of raw jalapeño to deliver a take on the Bloody that’s not only visually exciting but crisper and more mellow than the standard....

Bridget Everett is often described as an alt-cabaret singer—and she’s often described as a hot mess. “Alt-cabaret” is almost certainly neutral, but “hot mess” doesn’t seem nice. However, Everett actually is a hot mess when she performs. Her stage presence is erotic and chaotic, her big blond body wrapped in something low-cut and sheer. She’ll spit a drink at an audience, rub her tits in someone’s face, and/or pour wax on her chest, all while singing feel-good numbers like “Pound It or Pass” or “Just the Tip” with a strong and sexy voice....

An e-mail alert for the unlicensed version of Acid Rap If you attended the CHIRP Record Fair this past weekend there’s a chance you came across some of the recent rap and R&B bootleg records I wrote a B Side cover story about a handful of months ago—these are unofficial versions of free mixtapes and albums that either haven’t come out on vinyl or are out of print. I bought my first of these hip-hop bootlegs from local record distributor Groove Distribution at last year’s CHIRP Record Fair (a $20 copy of Frank Ocean’s breakthrough mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra), so I fully expected to find more of them at Groove’s table at this year’s fair....

Summer is still months away, but the interminable promo blitz for Lollapalooza should kick into high gear with a lineup announcement in the next couple weeks. In January Gossip Wolf predicted that the reunited OutKast would play, and that’s looking like a lock. This wolf also expects Lollapalooza to include famous EDM haircut Skrillex, the deathless Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, pop prodigy Lorde, rowdy guitar army Diarrhea Planet, demented Detroit MC Danny Brown, transgender warriors Against Me!...

David Hale doesn’t know whether his poem will kill the culture. Oppman’s goal is to see whether the 2013 Supreme Court case Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., actually ended the 25-year practice of gene patenting—that is, for-profit labs identifying and claiming human genes as intellectual property in order to profit from any medicines or treatment derived from studying those genes. Department of Art and Technology Studies professor Eduardo Kac and grad student Yutaka Makino first opened a bio lab for research, not classes, on the MacLean Center’s fourth floor in 2003....

Gossip Wolf has been hip to Chicago singer-songwriter Izzy Olive for a few years now. It seems like just yesterday that she and her band played their lilting, country-tinged rock under the name Tin Silos, but in fact Olive and company have been performing as Half Gringa since last year—on Friday, August 18, they self-release the first Half Gringa full-length, Gruñona. Throughout the album, Olive explores what it means to grow up midwestern and Latinx, and she’s got the vocal chops to hit this wolf right in the gut....

The members of this Santa Fe trio have channeled a relatively broad array of musical interests into the traditional folk of northern Mexico and the American southwest. Only Noah Martinez—who doubles on the upright bass and its mammoth Mexican six-string cousin the guitarrón—is of Mexican lineage. He grew up in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque on a diet of norteño, ranchera, and the music of the Onda Chicana movement, and has undoubtedly helped familiarize his bandmates with those traditions....

Getty Images Captain Ronald Johnson of the Missouri State Highway Patrol talks with protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, after being put in charge of security there. I haven’t lived in Saint Louis for a long time. When I did—and for many years afterward—Ferguson was a white, blue-collar suburb north of the city. My senior year we beat their football team 33-13. Cleaned their clock. As we usually did. And now Ferguson is national news....

Poor People Are Revolting Yesterday Pittsburgh’s the Gotobeds released their debut album, Poor People Are Revolting, on Austin record label 12XU (prefaced by a full-album stream on NPR late last month). The foursome have drawn plenty of comparisons to Brooklyn hotshots Parquet Courts in their brief history, thanks mostly to their keen ability to write hooky, tight slacker punk with jagged-but-jangly guitar lines and vocals that have been spiced with a couple tablespoons of misanthropy....

Chicago House DJ and producer Sean Haley died late last week at age 49. A DJ since the 90s, Haley blossomed in the 2000s: he copromoted Inner Sound System parties at Sonotheque, and in 2007 formed the house duo Windimoto with Detroit producer Scorpeze (they launched a label with the same name in 2009). Haley had a taste for funk, soul, jazz, and broken beat, which he’d incorporate into his DJ sets....

Show business is full of interesting and often cruel ironies. Take, for instance, the number of incredibly well-respected actors (Orson Welles, Raul Julia, Philip Seymour Hoffman) who died soon after filming parts in not-so-respectable kids’ movies (the 1986 animated Transformers: The Movie, Street Fighter, and the final installments of the Hunger Games series, respectively), ending critically lauded careers with the equivalent of a sad trombone. The last (and, until now, only) time Tegan and Sara appeared on the chart was back in the fall when their single “Closer” made it all the way to number 90....

The Comrades theater company delivers a very well-acted staging of Kenneth Lin’s crisp political drama. It’s the story of Chinese-American politician Julius Lee (Ben Veatch), a New York state assemblyman whose idealism, intelligence, oratorical skills, and personal biography (practicing Christian, U.S. Marine veteran, family man) suggest he has a bright future on the national stage—until his patron, political consultant Nathan Berkshire (Scott Olson), uncovers a toxic relationship dating back to Julius’s college days....

Mohammed Hamzah Khan knew he was being watched. The 19-year-old college student passed through security at O’Hare with his 17-year-old sister and 16-year-old brother on the afternoon of October 4, 2014. But even then, he expected to be stopped by federal agents who he thought had been spying on him. He was right. But Khan’s siblings told different stories, according to the federal officers: his sister said they intended to stay with a friend, while his brother said they were going to visit their cousins....

Brian K. Vaughan’s accolades are numerous. He was listed in the credits of the blockbuster film Doctor Strange, which is based on a book of his. He created Saga, one of the most popular and talked-about comics out right now. And he boggled viewers with his work on the TV show Lost. But before all of that, he wrote Y: The Last Man, a tasty little comic that grew into a favorite of many comic-book diehards....

For more than 25 years, reedist Chris Speed has been one of the most fascinating and versatile figures in jazz and improvised music, an individualist who puts ensemble first. He’s occasionally claimed top billing on records by bands he’s led—including with the corkscrewing Yeah No, which translated IDM rhythms into hyperactive acoustic grooves—but for the bulk of his career he’s been subsumed in a group identity or playing as a sideman....

Last spring local nonprofits Between Friends and Rape Victim Advocates joined forces to address sexual harassment in the music scene with a campaign called Our Music My Body, which has since tabled at the Pitchfork Music Festival as well as shows at Subterranean and Beat Kitchen—during Riot Fest the latter also hosted an OMMB panel about confronting harassment. Tonight Beat Kitchen celebrates the campaign’s first anniversary with a benefit show featuring an eclectic lineup of locals: indie-rockers Grandkids, rapper Lin Z, neosoul instrumentalist Kopano, and indie-pop duo Water From Your Eyes....

Michael Gebert Ferran Adrià with “the devil” The room was a classroom at Eataly. The attendees were journalists from the blogosphere to the Tribune. But the atmosphere was more like that of a crowd listening to a preacher—and at one point the preacher even pulled out what he said was nothing less than the devil itself: an iSi canister, for making whipped cream. Michael Gebert Coffee caviar Weird science? Not to Adrià: “You understand what a poached egg is?...

Q: I am a 30-year-old straight man and I’ve been with a 28-year-old bisexual woman for a year. Early in our relationship, after much discussion, we established that it would be open. I would have the liberty to see other women and so would she. We just had to be safe and always keep each other informed. The key was that she agreed to see only other women. I was uncomfortable with the idea of her being with another man, and she went along with it....

For years my feelings about Chicago’s $41 million Loop Link bus rapid transit corridor have been like those of a parent whose lovable kid has been getting mediocre grades. I’m proud of what it is: a smart reconfiguration of downtown streets to help move people—not just cars—more efficiently through the city. But I’ve been concerned that it’s not living up to its full potential. But even though the city originally said Loop Link would launch with prepaid boarding, which reduces the “dwell time” at stops, almost three years later it still hasn’t rolled out that feature....

Illinois native Cole Bennett launched the hip-hop blog Lyrical Lemonade in fall 2013, and it’s since become a blossoming entertainment empire that hosts shows (including July’s Hurt Everybody reunion) and operates its own clothing line. Bennett uses the LL logo—a lemonade carton—on every music video he directs, and since he’s become the most sought-after video director of the Soundcloud-rap generation, it’s emblazoned videos for Chicago breakout emo-rap star Juice Wrld (“Lucid Dreams”), Florida motormouth Ski Mask the Slump God (“DoIHaveTheSause?...