What defined the classic era of Guided by Voices—the stretch from 1990 to ’96 when the lo-fi indie rock kings produced their undisputed best work—was the push and pull between the band’s figurehead, Robert Pollard, and its guitarist and co-front man, Tobin Sprout. The notoriously prolific and scatterbrained Pollard brought countless fractured, loose-limbered ideas to the table, and Sprout injected them with a melodic sense and whimsy inspired by the British Invasion, eventually transforming damaged bedroom recordings into pop majesty....

As we all prepare for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed property tax hike to pay off billions of dollars in pension obligations, I thought I’d take a trip down memory lane to a not-so-distant era when our leaders acted like we didn’t have a care in the world. “Women wearing serious jewelry and stunning gowns were welcomed upon their arrival by ‘Adam and Eve’ greeters draped in leaves and dragging a snake,” the Sun-Times reported about the $1,000-a-ticket fund-raiser for the park....

A heated debate recently erupted on social media about whether reckless driving and reckless biking are morally equivalent. It began, as so many of these wars of words do, with a post on Facebook. Drivers are legally obligated to make sure the coast is clear before making turns. But Ignaczak is correct that, unlike their counterparts in European cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, where the cycling rate is about 17 times higher, Chicago motorists often neglect to check for bikes before making turns or opening doors, which is why “right-hook” and “left-hook” crashes and doorings are common here....

Does self-serve beer mean the end of bartenders? In the past few years, a version of that rhetorical question has popped up in the headlines of articles about this technology-aided barroom trend. The short answer: No, at least not in the near future. Back in 2009, the now-defunct River North sports bar Bull & Bear installed the first self-serve beer taps in the midwest at five of its tables; its sister bar Public House followed two years later with 12 tables featuring built-in taps....

Sick/Tired On Saturday the Empty Bottle is putting on Winter Frozen Dancing, a free afternoon concert featuring Marnie Stern, Diarrhea Planet, and Heavy Times that’s being held outdoors. It’s tough to imagine spending more than a few moments outside considering how miserable the weather’s been this week, but if Diarrhea Planet’s four guitarists can tear it up outdoors, I can certainly brave the cold to see that happen. Hellfyre Club is an eclectic hip-hop collective based in LA, though, as I note in Soundboard, it has some local connections: Open Mike Eagle is from the south side and Milo moved to Chicago in the fall....

Robyn Von Swank Neil Hamburger Whatever the hell Neil Hamburger does, he’s been doing it for more than 20 years. The Tony Clifton-esque alter ego of Australian-born musician Gregg Turkington, Hamburger confounds—I hesitate to use the word entertains—audiences with standup sets that are more accurately described as one-man performance art pieces. With his incessant wailing about his ex-wife and elaborate onstage breakdowns, Hamburger subverts the neurotic funnyman persona of Bill Hicks, Marc Maron, and George Carlin by pushing his material into grim and decidedly bizarre territory....

Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin’s demand for a federal probe into Homan Square, which some critics have likened to a CIA “black site” operated by the Chicago Police Department, may become a test of wills of how much authority Cook County government can assert over the city of Chicago. Boykin took flak from fellow commissioners after a December hearing on alleged civil rights abuses against detainees held at Homan Square, a so-called “off the books” detention facility in North Lawndale....

On Saturday afternoon at 2 PM, Corbett vs. Dempsey hosts a series of readings from and a panel discussion about the recent book Punk Ethnography: Artists & Scholars Listen to Sublime Frequencies (Wesleyan). Sublime Frequencies is an influential record label founded by Alan and Rick Bishop (both of Sun City Girls fame) and their friend Hisham Mayet, and since its launch in 2003 it’s released a fascinating array of previously hard-to-find music from around the globe....

Ruth Roman in Lightning Strikes Twice “It’s possible to look at this film and see nothing but camp, but give it an ounce of respect and you’ll discover a remarkable aesthetic object—an exercise in mise-en-scene of an awesome, glacial beauty.” That’s how Dave Kehr described Josef von Sternberg’s Dishonored (which screens twice this weekend) when he wrote it up for the Reader some decades ago. Nowadays Kehr’s staunch auteurist defense no longer represents a minority critical position, as von Sternberg is hardly the contentious figure he once was....

Louisville, Kentucky, outfit the Other Years carry on a vibrant old-time music tradition that summons the spirit and soul of rural mountain music, but the melodic sophistication and instrumental polish they bring make it sound utterly contemporary despite its appealing rusticity. The duo, composed of fiddler Anna Krippenstapel (who’s been working in Freakwater for the last few years) and guitarist Heather Summers, will release their self-titled debut on No Quarter this October....

“Hold up let me marinate.” Pause and soak it in—that’s all I’ve been doing for a good half hour with “Is You Wit It,” the new single from local hip-hop duo the Whoevers, and the above lyric says so much about the tune. The line comes in just after the first chorus and after several brushes with a gentle wah guitar—it floats in and out like the tide, and I can’t help but want to sit and let that guitar wash over me....

Last year the Chicago Jazz Festival uprooted itself from Grant Park, its home since its launch in 1979, and moved to a relatively confined but more comfortable space in Millennium Park. Despite some growing pains—sound bleed between stages, a hard-to-find new spot for the Young Jazz Lions Pavilion on the roof of the Harris Theater—the change was welcome. Pritzker Pavilion has far better sight lines and sound quality than the Petrillo Music Shell, and the side stages got upgraded too—in Millennium Park they have much more seating, and they’re located inside weatherproof tents big enough to shelter the crowd as well as the performers....

On Bully’s second full-length record, Losing (released late last year on Sub Pop), vocalist and guitarist Alicia Bognanno doesn’t fuck around. As suggested by its blunt cover art—a stark black-and-white photo of Bognanno sitting cross-legged with her hair shrouding her face—Losing is sincere but exacting, a record balanced between emotive indie-rock moments and rip cords of grungy distortion that make way for sustain-pedal superriffs. In the latter instances, Bully are at their most rock effective, and Bognanno adds further proof with her scratchy yowl....

This spring, just seven years after her life’s work was sold out of storage lockers for $250 and five years after her nearly anonymous death, the Vivian Maier photography phenomenon is in robust bloom. In case all this has somehow escaped you, here’s the short version: Vivian Maier was born in New York in 1926; spent a good chunk of her childhood in France, where her mother’s family lived; and supported herself most of her life as a live-in nanny....

As far as I’m concerned, the high point of this still embryonic gubernatorial campaign happened a few weeks ago, when alderman Ameya Pawar blasted Governor Bruce Rauner as a “racist.” By contrast, Pawar was pretty much an Emanuel loyalist during the mayor’s first term, sticking with Rahm on many issues even as it infuriated community activists. I’m not picking on Pawar—I still may vote for him. And he’s by no means alone....

I was under the benign influence of “Gates of the Lord,” the Art Institute’s exhibit of traditional Krishna paintings by Pushtimarg artists, when Wendy Doniger’s high-profile troubles popped into mind. Last year, that cover, and some of the content of her book, put Doniger at the center of an international literary brouhaha sparked by Dinanath Batra—a former teacher who’d successfully campaigned against other books, as well as sex education in Indian schools—and other Hindu fundamentalists who didn’t find Doniger’s book chaste enough....

Len Kendall The first “season” of Cartegram Smartphones have become an incredibly diverse platform for game designers, but most don’t go beyond the screen. The result? Lots of people looking down at their phones rather than out at the world around them. Local game designer and digital strategist Len Kendall wanted to create a new way for smartphone users to incorporate apps like Instagram into a game that would require people to explore their surroundings and to share their discoveries with friends and fellow players....

Q: I’ve been reading your advice column in the Coast in Halifax for a while, and it seems that most solutions to relationship problems revolve around sex. Everyone wants it or needs it, we should fuck before dinner, or we can spice up our sex life in this certain way to be happy. What about someone who doesn’t want to have sex, ever? I’ve asked other people for advice, and the answer is usually “take one for the team,” have sex to keep them happy....

Drab Majesty makes cool synth-pop for androgynous alien vampires and elaborate, moping androids. Deb Demure (aka Andrew Clinco) refers to his music as “tragic wave,” and it’s clear that he’s inspired by the likes of Bauhaus and the Smiths. In the video for “39 by Design” from 2017’s The Demonstration (Dais), Demure styles himself to look like a goth Andy Warhol while moaning out stentorian vocals about depression and space invasion: “Did they beam you up into the lights in the sky?...

Update 12.06.18: Windy & Carl will no longer be performing at this event due to a family emergency. Matt Jencik has been added to play an opening set. The drifting, beatless songs and subtly abraded electronic textures of Labradford’s 1993 LP Prazision were a shot across the bow of corporate grunge, indie rock, and pretty much everything else going on in music that year. The album, which was the first release from Kranky, also predicted a future in which musicians would be free to draw upon a much wider array of sounds and stylistic templates....