A hand-lettered sign on the front of the historic APO building in Pilsen offers free printmaking classes—just call Jose Guerrero. For local residents, Mexican-American artists, and scores of students and teachers across the region, Jose Guerrero was an ever-present force in Pilsen, painting some of the neighborhood’s murals and, for more than three decades, leading well-known mural tours. Si Se Puede—as Jose titled the mural—was rough but dynamic, inscribed with the United Farm Workers’ slogan in red letters....

Joan Fontaine and Burt Lancaster in Kiss the Blood Off My Hands Following a hiatus of nearly two months (as well as a seven-week sojourn at the Gene Siskel Film Center), the Northwest Chicago Film Society swings back into action next Wednesday, projecting the lesser-known film noir Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948) at the Patio Theater at 7:30 PM. The programming organization plans to screen three more feature films (and, in conjunction with Chicago Film Archives, one program of home movies) over the next two months....

Last year the young Norwegian drummer Hans Hulbaekmo stepped into some very large shoes when he took over the drum throne of Paal Nilssen-Love in the fantastic Scandinavian quintet Atomic. He hasn’t tried to emulate his predecessor’s uncontainable energy in his new position, but as he’s proven on this year’s Lucidity (Jazzland) and at the group’s superb performance at Constellation in February, he quickly found his way with a less frenzied approach that involves generating a lot of exciting, propulsive clatter alongside deep, fractured grooves....

When Big Bang’s T.O.P. began his two years of mandatory military service at the start of 2017, it felt like the future of the South Korean pop band might be in question. Big Bang had just celebrated their ten-year anniversary, and multiple members had announced solo releases. Then T.O.P. was arrested for marijuana use (it’s very illegal in South Korea) and overdosed on benzodiazepine. He’s recovering now, but the rest of the band (G-Dragon, Taeyang, Daesung, and Seungri) and their label, YG Entertainment, have been working overtime to make sure fans know Big Bang isn’t dead—shouting out the group on Instagram posts, even announcing a T....

Chicago’s annual World Music Festival seems to have settled into a new identity—more modest in size and ambition than in its early years, but generally reliable and entirely free. (In the past, some shows in conventional venues charged admission.) This may feel like a sort of surrender by the festival’s organizers, but consistency isn’t something to take for granted—and this year’s edition has an awful lot of great artists, some of whom are visiting our city for the first time....

Brian Jackson / Sun-Times Media We know that Mayor Rahm Emanuel isn’t very popular—but is it possible that Chicagoans prefer sitting in traffic to this guy? I got a tip the other day from a secret source—call him Rocky—in Alderman Bob Fioretti’s mayoral campaign. According to the poll, voters were asked for their “impressions of some people and institutions in public life.” And the results showed that about 52 percent had an unfavorable opinion of Mayor Emanuel and roughly 44 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of him....

PixieHammer The machine of love In this week’s paper, Leor Galil has a sweet and funny story about Downwrite, a custom songwriting service cofounded by Bob Nanna of Braid. For a few hundred bucks, Nanna and his colleagues will write and perform an original song about anything you want, even how your beloved appreciates your cats, as loud and fast (or soft and slow) as you want. If music is indeed the food of love, Downwrite will be making many, many people happy this week....

Q: My boyfriend of eight months, K, and I are polyamorous. We started the relationship on that foot, and for a while I was the partner he spent the most time with. There have been ups and downs, but overall our relationship is solid and loving. However, recently we both started dating the same woman, L, and they have been spending more time together than with me due to my work schedule....

Earlier this week, local five-piece the Iceberg cut loose a two-song cassette single, the band’s first official release. Formed as a solo outlet for Absolutely Not singer and guitarist Donnie Moore, the songs he started writing and recording as the Iceberg took a huge step away from the spazz-out garage punk he’s mastered in his main project; instead he’s going for a deliberately paced, splashy pop vibe. Since recording a bunch of demos on his own the band’s grown into a full lineup, which includes Moore’s Absolutely Not bandmate (and sister) Madison Moore on keyboards, Sybris drummer Clayton DeMuth, and Swimsuit Addition bassist Sam Westerling....

While reporting on the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, Chris Hayes was struck by the sight of police teargassing unarmed residents in their own backyards. It was an injustice, yes, but also a quintessentially American one. “I started thinking about what an outrage that was in the most basic ‘Don’t tread on me’ sense,” says the bespectacled 38-year-old, who began his career as a freelance writer for the Reader and whose MSNBC show All In With Chris Hayes is currently one of the few clear-eyed sources of news analysis in the morass of cable television....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Friday, May 5, 2017. Have a great weekend! All 11 of Illinois’s Democratic congressmen voted against the Obamacare repeal; all seven GOP members voted yes All 11 Democratic members of Congress from Illinois voted against the controversial Republican bill to repeal and replace major parts of the Affordable Care Act Thursday, which passed by a vote of 217-213. All seven of the state’s Republican Congressmen voted for it....

Mike Sula Blackened lake perch and salad For all the proliferation of ostensible fish shacks in recent times (across the spectrum, from G.T. Fish and Oyster to Fish Bar to Parson’s) there really hasn’t been anything to address the very practical concerns of day-to-day eaters; that is, some place inexpensive, convenient, and healthful (rather than indulgent). That’s why, on paper, the Brown Bag Seafood Company looks so good. Positioned on Randolph overlooking Millennium Park, and in the shadow of the Aon Center, it has a seemingly captive audience of office drones, condo birds, and tourists who would rather avoid the many pitfalls of Yum Cha at lunchtime....

On the morning of July 22, local singer-songwriter David Safran walked into Careers in Nonprofits in the hope of landing some work unrelated to music. The 31-year-old writes and records jingles for a living, but, he says, “Every few months I have a horrible thought about quitting music altogether.” About a month earlier Safran had written a Newcity cover story on Chicago music clubs’ payment practices with local musicians; Safran laid out his argument about an unfair system and in response he says he got banned from several area clubs and received nasty e-mails, all of which only compounded the feelings he had about leaving music....

The oldest I’ve ever felt was during one night over the summer, when my band played a show with Montreal trio Lonely Parade. I watched the band’s members—who were not even legal drinking age—mop the floor with every other group on the bill. They’re the type of band that can make even the saltiest, most seasoned punks think, “I’ll never top that, should I just hang it up?” On the brand-new The Pits (Buzz), Lonely Parade play razor-sharp, mean postpunk brimming with intricate guitar lines and busy rhythms....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, April 26, 2017. Federal judge in San Francisco blocks Trump’s sanctuary cities funding order A federal judge in San Francisco blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order to stop funding sanctuary cities, including Chicago, that don’t share information on a person’s immigration status with federal agencies. San Francisco and nearby Santa Clara County started the legal action against the executive order, arguing that it violated the Constitution, and won the preliminary injunctions Tuesday....

In Ne-Hi, the local dreamy postpunk four-piece cofronted by singer and guitarist Mikey Wells, everything falls into terse rhythms and complex, rigid arrangements. So it makes sense that on Said Unsaid, the first full-length from Wells’s solo-turned-side-project Flamingo Rodeo, he took a new direction and decided to get loose. With a fleshed-out band lineup that includes his Ne-Hi bandmate Alex Otake on drums, former Rabble Rabble member Matt Ciarleglio on bass, and Empty Bottle production manager Tim Gurnig on guitar, Wells lays out nine tracks of breezy, loose-limbed, easy-listening indie pop....

During wrestling season, when the final school bell rings at Hyde Park Academy, Darren Wright changes out of the clothing he’s worn all day and into sweatpants and sneakers to become Coach Wright, head of the Thunderbirds high school wrestling team. Training takes place in an old classroom repurposed as a gym; its floors are covered with blue mats, its beige walls splotched with paint that likely covers some student graffiti....

Lay aside all previous notions of A Christmas Carol, as the Q Brothers serve up this chestnut with sauce that goes from sappy to sassy in three and a half seconds. You know the story: tightwad Ebenezer Scrooge gets served by three spirits on Christmas Eve, and his scrupulous adherence to the worst principles of capitalism fall like scales from his benighted eyes. Though money is deemed trivial in the schemes of family, friendship, and love, it also comes out a bit of a hero: a fat tip for a frisky fellow, a turkey leg for Tiny Tim....

Mayor Rahm Emanuel already has a list of educational accomplishments that I can refer to as noteworthy, including a teachers’ strike and a book ban. But I have to admit that he’s breaking new ground with his latest plan to finance public education: he’s turning our teachers into loan sharks. If you recall, during the mayoral campaign, challenger Jesus Garcia was royally ripped for not having a plan to deal with our pressing financial obligations....

When voices in South Carolina rose to defend the Battle Flag of Northern Virginia in the name of “heritage,” I wondered what exactly they thought that was. Heritage can be anything and everything from the day before yesterday on back, and what matters can be as simple as whatever it was that was stressed in school. Do they understand? I wondered, using they in the sweeping way appropriate to a stranger passing judgment on a distant place, that a century after the battle flag was the emblem raised by gallant farm boys dying in defense of their homeland’s sins, it reigned as the battle flag of Jim Crow?...