Since their inception in the late 200s, Dave Mata and his DJ crew, the six-member Impala Sound Champions, have held on to the dream of building a massive traveling sound system like the ones that provided a vehicle for reggae as it emerged in Jamaica. The dream becomes a reality tonight, when the group debuts its custom-built sound system at the MCA as part of the museum’s new after-hours series, Prime Time....

In its eighth year, this octopus of a dance festival has nabbed choice companies both local and national for three nights of programs featuring an oceanic range of dance forms—ballet, contemporary, modern, jazz, and hip-hop. As usual, all shows are free; also as usual, tickets are long gone, though you can still catch programs at Millennium Park. On Wednesday at the Harris Theater, “Classics and Creations” offers Kyle Abraham‘s Counterpoint. Tender and ebullient, the work was planned as a collaboration with DJ Rashad before the hip-hop producer and footwork impresario overdosed in April....

New York City hip-hop group Ratking put on one of my favorite performances of the year at Lincoln Hall back in March. I’ve had my eye on the band since it linked with XL imprint Hot Charity, which signed Willis Earl Beal after my 2011 B Side feature came out, and I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Ratking bring its gnarly, chest-thumping sound to a handful of intimate venues during the past few years....

Thom Clark Ben Joravsky, Linda Lutton, Lauren FitzPatrick, Sarah Karp, and Mick Dumke talk schools and politics at the Hideout. This week’s First Tuesdays show at the Hideout (sensational, as always) should be required viewing for any man or woman foolish enough—I mean passionate enough—to want to pursue a career in journalism. Not even Karen Lewis packed the place like that. Thank you, one and all. And don’t get any of us started on the folly of FOIA requests....

Last night Common and producer Twilite Tone participated in a Chicago Ideas Week event called “Keeping the Peace: Music, Art and the End of Violence,” which was a discussion about the potential for art to curb gun violence. Earlier that day Twilite Tone debuted a track called “Put the Guns Down,” which features Common and a bevy of fantastic local MCs, some with a sizable national following, others that deserve one, and all of whom have appeared in the Reader: Katie Got Bandz, Saba, Tree, Noname Gypsy, Lil Herb (aka G Herbo), Treated Crew’s Mic Terror and Nick Jr....

Baywatch, now in its second week in theaters, is a pleasant time waster whose greatest failing may be that its indistinguishable from other recent American action comedies. Adapted from a dumb TV show, the film is clearly modeled after Miller and Lord’s 21 Jump Street and its sequel—it uses threadbare source material as a springboard for self-referential humor and lowbrow gags. Baywatch differs from these other, better movies, however, in that it contains a few moments of genuine pathos, a quality that’s been in low supply lately in mainstream comedies....

Is it just me, or do you often walk out of a significantly bankrolled (and thus terribly important) Shakespeare production, one over which a preponderance of critics has raved, and think to yourself, What on earth was all that? Did those actors understand anything they were saying? Who told them to get perpetually worked up over everything? And for God’s sake, why did no one on that stage remind me of anyone I might encounter in real life?...

Mick Jenkins I’m a sucker for Halloween-themed music events (or at least the idea of them), which means I need to start making plans to get to the Portage Theater soon. Starting sunday the Silent Film Society of Chicago hosts its Silent Horror Film Festival there, which will feature organist Jay Warren providing a live score for The Phantom of the Opera, The Hands of Orlac, and The Monster. If you’re looking for more straightforward musical performances there are plenty of great opportunities for that in the coming week....

One of the most wonderful phenomena in the world of improvised music is that players can come together with little more than an introduction and proceed to create work in which they rapidly forge common ground. Few words need to be spoken, as sound transcends all manner of cultural differences. Chilean trumpeter Benjamín Vergara, whom I hadn’t previously heard, visited Chicago a couple of years ago armed with little more than some recommendations from his fellow trumpeter Jacob Wick, a former local....

If you were busy watching flops in the World Cup, or preparing your float for the Pride parade, you might have missed the unofficial start of the 2015 mayoral race last Thursday. The consensus among many elected officials, political operatives, activists, and pollsters is that Mayor Emanuel can be defeated, but no one wants to say so too loudly, for the simple reason that he’s still the safest bet to win in February....

Michael Gebert Jared Rouben at Moody Tongue With breweries opening nearly every week in Chicago, it seems a bit less than news that one of them has installed tanks and is planning to start brewing this week. But on Saturday I went anyway to Moody Tongue Brewing Company in Pilsen, the new brewery launched by former Goose Island brewmaster Jared Rouben, whom I last interviewed about it in August....

And here we are again. I’ve already told you about my 21 favorite new restaurants of 2015. But even the unremarkable spots usually have something memorable on the menu. After a long year of dining out and cooking from chefs’ books, this is what stuck with me—on average, something uniquely delicious nearly every other day. (71) Pizza in a Bag, (72) the Norberto, (73) the Big Jim Reeves, and (74) Chicken ParmaJon at Taco in a Bag (75) JustIce (76) Soppressata at ‘Nduja Artisans (77) Saag paneer, (78) gobi Manchurian, (79) lamb dumplings, (80) mango lassi, and (81) Sichuan tripe at Pub Royale (82) Whitebait, (83) squid bocadillo, (84) wood-grilled prawns, and (85) lardo-roasted oysters at Bom Bolla (RIP?...

Adele Nicholas The second cassingle in the Impossible Colors Club Growing up, Adele Nicholas loved getting tapes in the mail. She’d order them and wait, and eventually they’d come, sometimes packaged with extra stickers, buttons, or patches. “That’s what I loved about getting tapes as a kid,” she says. “You get this thing in the mail, and it might come with something you weren’t expecting. Even if it’s tiny, it feels really special....

The songs of the Marías have a laid-back vibe, but every guitar riff feels like it was precisely placed in an artfully curated sonic atmosphere that calls to mind grainy films from the golden age of Hollywood. The Los Angeles-based project of Josh Conway and María—who goes by her first name only in artistic settings, a la Beyoncé—have been breaking hearts with their dreamy psychedelic soul since 2016. In September, the Marías released their second EP, Superclean, Vol....

He describes a moment in his kitchen several months after the ordeal had ended when his mother was unpacking groceries. He recalls reaching over while her back was turned and pocketing a plastic bag before he realized what he was doing. He was in the kitchen in his childhood home with his mom—the safest place in the world for him—and he was stealing a plastic bag from her in case he was forced at gunpoint to march in the rain and needed a way to keep his underpants dry....

Take a choppy rhythm, sustain it past the point of comfort, and, if you must put something on top, keep it simple. If the Velvet Underground, the Monks, Neu!, and the Fall haven’t already proved the merits of this strategy to you, Gong Gong Gong are ready to give you one more chance to grasp the facts. The Beijing-based duo have further reduced this method to the bare essentials: guitarist Tom Ng strums on each rhythm chord so persistently that you wonder if he thinks he has to pay a toll each time he adds a new one....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, April 19, 2017. Chicago Public Schools still could close for the summer 20 days early Chicago Public Schools is still in danger of being forced to close June 1, 20 days early, unless officials find a way to get more funding soon. Alderman George Cardenas proposed legislation that would use city tax increment financing funds to keep the schools open until the scheduled end of the school year (something the Reader‘s Ben Joravsky has also proposed) but alderman Ed Burke said it had “not been properly drafted to pass a legal test and would have to be reconsidered by the City Council’s Finance Committee,” according to DNAinfo Chicago....

Michael Gebert Leghorn Chicken, the long-awaited chicken sandwich stand from chef Jared Van Camp and the others at Element Collective (Nellcôte, Kinmont, etc), opened at 11 AM at 959 N. Western yesterday, and closed less than two hours later, all 600 of the chicken parts prepared for its sandwiches gone. Under normal circumstances 600 would be a very ambitious number for a sandwich shop on opening day, so I wouldn’t say that I think selling out was exactly part of the plan—but I doubt anybody really minded it either....

Because John Corbett and Jim Dempsey stay busy running one of the most respected art galleries in the U.S., the good works of their Corbett vs. Dempsey record label rarely get the attention they deserve. But their scrappy little operation, which carries on the invaluable work Corbett started in 2000 with the Unheard Music Series imprint of Atavistic Records, provides a wonderful service—particularly in making some of the most electric, exciting, and overlooked sounds in the history of improvised music available to new audiences....

For quite a few years I’ve been going against the grain when it comes to Devendra Banhart. As he’s curbed the quirky excesses that helped enamor press and fans alike—the overwrought falsetto, the nonstop hippie affectations, the self-indulgent lyrics emphasizing rejection of social mores—I’ve appreciated his work more. He hasn’t become normal, exactly, but the handful of records he’s made over the last decade or so have focused more on songcraft and atmosphere than attitude....