For most of the world, the calendar starts in January. But in Chicago, the New Year apparently began on November 24, when Mayor Emanuel finally released the video showing police officer Jason Van Dyke gunning down Laquan McDonald. That’s because Cook County Board president Toni Preckwinkle—who had been crushing Mayor Rahm in the polls—chickened out and didn’t run. Not knowing what else to do, many Chicagoans went back to sleep....

Even hunched over a turntable in the cramped, overflowing record room of his LA abode, Dam-Funk is elegantly chill. During an hour-plus Boiler Room Collections DJ set he recorded in 2015, the Stones Throw-represented modern-funk musician and producer—less known as Damon Garrett Riddick—takes casual drags off cigs and plays smooth air-drum fills while spinning through a collection of deep-funk cuts and disco-infused early 80s “backwards-skating” jams. Occasionally he’ll ad lib some falsetto vocals over an instrumental or casually impart some liner-note details, but it’s a simple, casual trip during which you can almost feel the warm breeze tousling your hair....

Julia Thiel You can’t see the carbonation, but it’s there Full disclosure: carbonated margaritas are basically the extent of the experiments in this post. There’s one slight variation on the classic margarita, but if you’re waiting for a big reveal at the end, it’s not going to happen. Julia Thiel The ingredients I might try carbonating it a little more next time, but I liked the mild bubbliness of the drink; I think extra carbonation might make it hard to taste the cocktail....

As former Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett stood before a federal judge on the day of her sentencing last week, a grammar school special education teacher named Sarah Chambers began the third week of her school board-imposed suspension. Then, in 2013, Mayor Rahm’s school board appointees unanimously approved a $20 million consulting contract to a couple of scam artists who were kicking back some of the money to B-3, as the mayor so affectionately nicknamed her....

New England psych-pop merchant Doug Tuttle has reached another peak with his gorgeous third solo album, Peace Potato (Trouble in Mind), a collection of summery guitar-borne hooks he crafted by himself in his home studio. And though he plays everything—drums, guitar, woozy Mellotron, and even some horns—it’s the record’s infectious vocal melodies that command the greatest attention. Chiming guitars at times recall the Byrds—like during the sweetly stinging patterns of “Can It Be”—while the solo he drops into “It’s Alright With Me, Ma” is a gem reminiscent of the euphoric beauty of George Harrison....

Nick Offerman: Full Bush Tour On the TV show Parks and Recreation, Nick Offerman’s character Ron Swanson was known for his love of red meat, his carpentry, and his bushy mustache. Swanson was a man’s man, and Offerman shares almost all these burly traits. He returns to the city that launched his career as part of his “Full Bush” tour—shows that offer comedic advice about surviving in the wild and taming body hair, among other topics....

According to Reader Beer and Metal columnist Philip Montoro, “Not remembering shit is a common side effect of FOBAB.” That’s because a lot of the assertive beers poured at the annual Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged Beer have been brewed to withstand the time they’ll spend languishing in repurposed liquor barrels prior to pouring. And the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild doubled FOBAB’s mind-erasing potential when, beginning last year, it expanded the event from one day to two....

J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photos Would you be happy if your daughter or son ended up with—or like—a man like this? Not if you’re a Democrat. But you might find him funny. A few decades ago, Americans were a lot more careless about the company they kept. Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, writing for Bloomberg, recalled the other day that back in 1960, just “5 percent of Republicans and 4 percent of Democrats said they would feel ‘displeased’ if their son or daughter married outside their political party....

On their sturdy second album Into a Myth (Shifting Paradigm), Chicago-Milwaukee trio Hanging Hearts deliriously teeter between mayhem and ecstasy, exploring the collision of the spiritual and the carnal. The new record was produced by Dave King of the Bad Plus, a band that knows a thing or two about bringing pop concision and rock firepower to jazz aesthetics, and indeed, the trio’s original repertoire reflects that sensibility. In place of a bassist, keyboardist Cole DeGenova does some heavy lifting, frequently pushing his electric-piano lines into the red and generating a low end complemented by the booming bottom drummer Devin Drobka produces with his kick drum and toms....

First Demo Fugazi called it a day over a decade a ago, and with no reunion in sight they’ve at least been nice enough to share some unheard material with the world. The legendary D.C. foursome, who in their 17-year run redefined what a punk band could be—musically and ethically—are unleashing their first recordings in late November, a collection of demos produced in 1988 after they had only played ten shows....

It’s hard to believe John Dwyer has been leading different incarnations of his band Oh Sees (the name has undergone numerous tweaks) for two decades now, churning out top-notch psych-rock that’s giddy, sinister, and hooky by turns but always ferocious. For the group’s latest album, Orc (Castle Face), Dwyer adopts a nasal, whining vocal style that pushes the band’s glam flourishes toward the creepy, his tight wail piercing the fuzzed-out din like a laser beam....

As part of my ongoing effort to introduce you to some of the candidates running for mayor—you’ll thank me for this later, Chicago—I was at Wallace’s Catfish Corner talking politics with Robert Shaw one afternoon last week. “I’m going to tell you something,” Shaw responded. “I don’t think she’s running. I can’t say that Shaw’s conspiracy theories involving Preckwinkle and Emanuel are true, but I must admit that he probably knows more about Chicago politics than any man or woman in this race, including the mayor....

Every summer Wicker Park nonprofit writing and tutoring center 826 Chicago hosts a music-writing workshop centered around the Pitchfork Music Festival called “The Rest Is Noise.” I was lucky enough to serve as one of the volunteers for this year’s workshop, and I got to tag along with a couple groups of thoughtful teenage journalists as they explored the festival, took in some sets, and interviewed musicians. Contributing Reader videographer Chris Buddy joined us and captured the students as they spoke with some of the performers....

Don’t let the name fool you—the Dead South are actually from the far north. Regina, Saskatchewan, to be exact. Over the course of three albums of hardscrabble folk and bluegrass the group have built up a following through the most modern of methods, including viral videos like “Banjo Odyssey,” which follows them as they literally bring on their show on the road, serenading Toronto from the bed of a moving truck....

Lincoln Square’s desperate dearth of quality cocktails will come to an end sometime in the late fall, when the Fifty/50 Group and crack barkeep Benjamin Schiller open the Sixth, a bar adjacent to a second iteration of their Quad Cities-style pizza joint Roots. Schiller promises seven to nine house cocktails at $10-$12 apiece and a deep American whiskey collection with a special focus on bottles from defunct distilleries. “I’ve noticed a sort of ‘Aw shucks—we’re just a shot-and-a-beer joint’ approach in bartending of late,” he says....

A first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford. “I’m on the plane, and there’s a curtain with beds behind it, because they switch out the pilots. So halfway through the flight, the curtain opens, and a bunch of pilots in their underwear come out, and they all shriek to see me. They’re like, ‘We’re so sorry—no one told us you were on the plane.’ And then they were like, ‘Well, since you’ve seen it, we’re just gonna spend the rest of the flight in our underwear....

Bob Rubel Lenny Bruce was arrested at the Gate of Horn nightclub in 1962 for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. This Sunday marks the start of Banned Books Week, an event usually confined to schools and libraries where celebrants curse the philistines who have had the temerity to ban Judy Blume and Harry Potter. This is important and entirely necessary, but what is often forgotten is that books for grown-ups get banned, too....

In a scene from the new biopic Jimi: All Is By My Side, a relatively unknown Jimi Hendrix, talking to someone on a pay phone at the London rock club the Bag O’ Nails, jealously watches his British girlfriend leave with another man and, when she returns, beats her to the floor with the telephone receiver. The scene has ignited a firestorm of controversy: Kathy Etchingham, the woman in question, has called it a complete fabrication, and Charles R....

Aziz Ansari just explained to me why that girl from the Northwestern movie premiere didn’t text me back, and this alone might make his print debut Modern Romance worth a read—besides that it’s funny, thoughtful, and genuinely valuable, a scientific journal disguised as a book of laughs. Modern Romance urges you to think about how you date, and, as a result, the reading experience comes with a lot of self-reflection. It might even prompt some changes in your approach....

Known for his old-school suspense and horror films, director Brad Anderson (The Machinist, Transsiberian) shows an uncommon sympathy toward his characters. No matter how minor or how despicable they might be, Anderson grants each of them some distinctive, humanizing trait; even the serial killer who drives the action of The Call (2013) is presented as a victim of childhood trauma. This evenhanded treatment enables Anderson to shift audience identification fluidly from one character to another, which certainly comes in handy in Stonehearst Asylum....