Chandler West/Sun-Times Media National pundits don’t understand why Chicagoans aren’t falling for Mayor Rahm Emanuel. I’d like to take a moment to show a little love for Maggie Haberman, a senior political reporter for Politico, who’s apparently the first national pundit to make the startling discovery that Chicagoans don’t like Mayor Rahm Emanuel. I’m still wondering how New York Times columnist David Brooks got that baby past the copy desk....
You didn’t tune out at the word “composer,” did you? Assuming I’m going to talk about something that only old people or music-school grad students would like? Maybe it would help if I said that Australian-born, Berlin-based composer Anthony Pateras has collaborated with vocalist Mike Patton of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, that he’s played in what’s basically a piano-based grindcore duo, or that he’s in the States because he did the music for The Man Who Disappeared, a film on Antonin Artaud by Semiotext(e) founder Sylvere Lotringer that premieres in New York next week....
It was that most basic of all human interactions that brought the members of Cook County Social Club together ten years ago: lunch. The improv group’s members—Bill Cochran, Greg Hess, Brendan Jennings, Mark Raterman, and Tim Robinson—took classes at iO together, and they all worked downtown, so would meet for lunch every day. Eventually they realized their absurdist comedic perspectives fit together like cheese between two slices of bread. They’ve since brought CCSC to New York and LA as they’ve pursued their individual careers as actors and writers, but this weekend they’ll return to iO to celebrate the group’s tenth anniversary....
Q My boyfriend of three months, “Marcus,” told me last week that he is a trans man. He has performed oral sex on me and fingered me, but he never let me reciprocate and told me he didn’t want to have penis-in-vagina sex yet because to him that was a large commitment. We go to college in a conservative part of the country, and almost no one here knows. He worried that if I found out, I would expose him to our friends and peers and perhaps even press charges (because we had sex when I did not know he was trans)....
Courtesy of Field Medic’s Bandcamp Field Medic I ride the el routinely enough that I’ve long become accustomed to all its idiosyncrasies and foibles, to the point where some days I can easily block it all out. After some time even those pesky, car-long “Epic Rap Battles of History” ads can be no more irritating or remarkable than bland, off-white wallpaper. Occasionally I’ll think about what the public transit systems must be like in other cities I’ve never been to and wonder what it must be like to wait for the rush hour train in another town, which brings me to today’s 12 O’Clock Track....
It’s mind-boggling to me that Wire released their revolutionary debut, Pink Flag, four decades ago—and that there was a time when each new album from the band felt like it had the potential to change the postpunk landscape. That’s long since ceased to be the case, and sometimes I take for granted that Colin Newman and Graham Lewis (along with current drummer Robert Grey and second guitarist Matt Simms) are still making records—good ones, even....
As saccharine as holiday-themed foo-foo can get, there’s always a dark current beneath the tinsel—consider the tradition of Christmas ghost stories, for example. Chicago murder-metal institution Macabre are at the core of a distinctly local custom that reliably provides an opportunity to harmlessly vent in the mosh pit: Holiday of Horror. This year, the mini fest—which is inspired by the band’s satisfyingly vicious song of the same title—turns 21 and sprawls out over two rooms at Reggie’s....
Q: I’m a queer girl living with a male partner. This weekend, we found ourselves in an after-hours club, made some new friends, and ended up at a house with two other guys and a girl. Things were pretty playful with everyone except for one of the guys. We all wanted him gone, but he wouldn’t take the hint. He bought the booze for the afterparty, so we were a little unsure of the etiquette of asking him to leave....
Pharoah Sanders, Thembi Peter Margasak wrote a sharp, context-rich Soundboard capsule for this Saturday’s Pharoah Sanders and Chicago Underground Duo show at the Promontory. In his capsule Peter mentions an album I didn’t even know existed, Spiral Mercury, a recording of a concert in Lisbon featuring a sextet that includes Sanders and cornetist Rob Mazurek. I’d include a track off of that for today’s 12 O’Clock Track, but I can’t seem to find any clips online....
Diegesis Local art-rock collective Ono, a band that formed in the early 80s and was resurrected from a long dormancy a few years ago, released Albino on Moniker Records in late 2012. The band’s first recordings since 1986, Albino saw Ono picking up where it had left off, creating sprawling, herky-jerky soundscapes crossed with theatrical performance art. Since the band’s initial return in 2008, they’ve become one of the busiest and most visible bands on the local underground circuit, and this weekend they’ll be releasing their second postreunion LP, Diegesis, also on Moniker....
There’s a scene that occurs about a half hour into War Room, a low-budget drama that replaced Straight Outta Compton as the number-one movie in America a couple weeks ago and currently sits third on the box-office chart. An old woman—presented as a wise, voice-of-reason type—is meeting with the real estate agent who’s going to help her sell her home. To find out whether she wants to work with this agent, the old woman asks her about her religious life....
Thus far Discwoman’s Volvox has stuck to DJing, with none of the same production releases that fellow collective members Umfang or DJ Haram have used to make their names. Still, she’s built an unmistakable identity via her mixes. She mostly opts for straight-ahead techno that’s seemingly impenetrable up to the point at which it becomes just a bit off-kilter. And every once in a while her Berlin-style barrage opens up into something ever-so-slightly spiritual....
Guilty of Everything It’s always interesting to see what happens to hardcore kids when they grow out of being young and angry. My current musical obsession is one of these cases: Nothing is a postrock-influenced shoegaze-revival project fronted by Dominic Palermo, once known as “Nicky Money,” former front man for the hyperaggressive mid-aughts Philly hardcore band Horror Show. The brand-new Guilty of Everything by Nothing comes out this Tuesday, March 4, on Relapse, and shares absolutely no sonic similarities with Palermo’s hardcore past....
Michigan-born, Atlanta-based singer and songwriter Curtis Harding, 35, has been bouncing around under the radar of the music biz for a number of years, working as a backup singer for CeeLo Green (and even writing some tunes for him), but in 2014 he’s kicked things into high gear. Earlier this year he introduced his Night Sun project, a kind of garage-rock/soul hybrid with Cole Alexander of the Black Lips. And in May he released his debut, Soul Power (Burger), a sprawling collection of original tunes that reflects a broad, nonhierarchical aesthetic—although his voice privileges soul and gospel....
Noise In June, loud-as-hell Japanese everything-metal band Boris will be releasing Noise, their 24th studio album. Over the course of the past 22 years, this heavyweight trio has experimented with—and mastered—numerous forms of metal, ranging from doom to thrash to glam. Today’s 12 O’Clock Track is “Quicksilver,” a seven-minute banger from the forthcoming LP, and it sounds like the band is working with a sort of west-coast melodic hardcore for this one....
Last April, one day after the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria, Tamara Briggs’s aunt and uncle fled their hometown, Jisr al-Shughur, 62 miles northwest. Two days later a bomb took out the building next door, which in turn flattened their house. “They’re in Aleppo now,” Briggs says. Over 26 years Exotic Bakeries & Syrian Cuisine, evolved into a kind of full-service deli—something that doesn’t actually exist in Syria. It’s also been the sole proprietor of Syrian food in Ann Arbor, and one of the very few in the Detroit metropolitan area....
Four years ago, alt-country legends Freakwater crossed streams with postpunk pomo-folk group the Mekons and gave rise to a hybrid beast: the Freakons, a project that’s brought out some of the best in both bands at its rare live performances. Now the group is back, and with a particular purpose. Concurrently with these two sold-out shows, the Freakons are recording an album of traditional songs about an industry that links the English Midlands, the Welsh valleys, and the “dark and bloody ground” of Appalachia: coal mining....
May 22 was the official centennial of the birth of the brilliant bandleader, composer, and keyboardist Sun Ra, but I’m thankful that the entire year is being used to celebrate his memory and particular brand of visionary genius. Chicago, where Herman Poole Blount (a native of Birmingham, Alabama) assembled the earliest versions of his Arkestra in 1953, has gotten in on the act in numerous ways, but some of the most exciting events are happening this week....
Lately a bunch of record collectors have focused on international music from the 78 RPM era, and when they reissue their finds, those collections can lead listeners like me to all sorts of thrilling discoveries. Sometimes the presentation and organization of these reissues are lacking, though—haphazard epiphanies can be great, but so can real context. One of the most consistent sources of intelligent discussion and background in this corner of the music world is Excavated Shellac, a blog run by Jonathan Ward for nearly a decade....
A giant wild turkey greets visitors to the Backroom, a pop-up bar located in the former pool of the Chicago Athletic Association. Long since deceased, the bird spreads its tail feathers from behind glass, looking like it belongs in a museum rather than a bar. Indeed, it does. The Backroom is a collaboration between the Field Museum, Johalla Projects, Land and Sea Dept., and the CAA, presented in conjunction with the Field’s exhibit “Specimens: Unlocking the Secrets of Life,” opening March 10....
