Before I lugged my ass to the Chicago Reader in 1993, I spent quite a few years at Jazz Record Mart, and the other day one of my former JRM coworkers, Steve Dawson of Dolly Varden, posted on Facebook about the famous folks (well, “famous” is a relative term) who shopped at the store on his watch. His list reminded me of of meeting wonderful saxophonist Pat Patrick at JRM—a longtime member of Sun Ra’s Arkestra, he’s now better known as the father of former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick....

Filmed at TWO by Scrappers Film Group One of the most striking images from the January 21 Women’s March on Washington was a photo of a cluster of white women wearing pink pussy hats and taking selfies, while a black woman, Angela Peoples, stands in front of them sucking on a lollipop and holding a sign that reads white women voted for trump. Fifty-three percent of them, in fact, as opposed to the 94 percent of black women who voted for Hillary Clinton....

Chicagoans is a first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford. This week’s Chicagoan is Ana Gil-Garcia, 60, Venezuelan-American and Northeastern Illinois University professor. Chavez was trained in the military, and for me, a person that is trained with such a philosophy only has one way of thinking. Because of him, the Socialist Party came to power and has remained in power. It has become a dictator type of government....

On last October’s Friends (BMG) White Lies have almost all of the ingredients for greatness: the lean and direct rhythms of early U2, the airy synths of 154-era Wire, and the hopeful-albeit-dark melodic sense of New Order. But the one major component missing from this London-based postpunk trio’s formula is the actual punk—these tunes are about as edgy as a Jell-O mold. While the toothless and safe approach on Friends sounds downright menacing compared to White Lies’ earlier output, it clocks in below Interpol on the dark-and-heavy scale....

On Friday, Donald Trump will place his left hand on a Bible, raise his right hand in the air, and, repeating after U.S. Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts, take the oath of the highest office in the land. Seriously, folks, we’re supposed to be the virtuous country that honors the truth. But Trump’s ushered in a golden age of lying—we’ve come a long way from George Washington and his cherry tree....

Chicago garage-pop whiz kids Twin Peaks have been gigging seriously for only a little more than two years, and in that time their career arc has gone pretty much straight up. In July they played to an amped-up early-afternoon crowd at Pitchfork, just weeks after rocking one of the final shows at beloved DIY venue Animal Kingdom. In August they dropped their second album, Wild Onion (Grand Jury), and their biggest headlining date yet is a belated hometown release party this week at Lincoln Hall....

Joe Levy Coming soon to your smartphone. An unlikely team comprised of a former English lit major, a retired neuroradiologist, and an IT consultant is collaborating on a smartphone app to guide people through Chicago’s public-art sphere. “The app is like a pocket guide or a Michelin guide book,” says Joe Flowers, chief technical officer and IT entrepreneur. He, McDevitt, neuroradiologist turned photog Joe Levy, and a handful of other volunteers, have built the app from the ground up....

I sat next to Brian Wells at the Rainbo Club for many years before I knew he was a painter. Wells is quiet and unassuming. When he talks, it’s deliberate: he pauses to think before he speaks. We often sat together and barely exchanged a word. Occasionally I’d overhear him talking about construction or carpentry jobs. But one day he complimented one of my paintings, which was hanging behind the Rainbo’s stage, and mentioned in passing that he was a painter as well....

Will Forte in Nebraska In the Isa Genzken retrospective that opened last weekend at the Museum of Contemporary Art, there’s a series of four stereo advertisements that Genzken enlarged and presented as found-art objects in 1979. The ads come from four different countries, though they’re remarkably similar in their layout. Each presents the equipment against a white backdrop and amid blocks of small type explaining the state-of-the-art technology employed by the new models....

Describing Esoteric Dance Project’s new program, Perspective, company coartistic director Brenna Pierson-Tucker points to a conference she attended a couple years ago: “One of the discussions was about what makes people come to one show versus another,” she says. “A lot of it boiled down to, people are afraid of not understanding [what’s onstage].” So this weekend’s world premieres from Pierson-Tucker, coartistic director Christopher Tucker, and a third from Kelleigh Harman McIntosh, who’s in the company’s choreographer mentoring program, attempt to keep things simple, funny, and relatable....

In the films of French writer-director André Téchiné (My Favorite Season, Wild Reeds), human nature is a source of endless mystery. His characters change their lives in ways that surprise even them and, because his stories typically take place over months or years, often go through multiple changes, ending up as different people. Téchiné’s view of people as inherently volatile extends to his depiction of sexuality; his characters often have sex—and sometimes fall in love—unexpectedly, acting on impulses they can’t explain....

On last year’s self-titled full-length debut, London’s Cheatahs paid tribute to the shoegaze greats of the 90s, blending dreamy melodies and hazy tones with layers of bendy guitar chords. The four-piece is prepping the release of their second LP, Mythologies—due out on 10/30 via Wichita Recordings—with a U.S. tour, which stops at Subterranean tomorrow night. The label has let songs from Mythologies trickle out into the open and the latest to be released, this week’s “Su-Pra”, is today’s 12 O’Clock Track....

It’s cold and gross outside and chances are good you’re currently in some sort of semi-vegetative state from all the Thanksgiving food, booze, and downtime with extended family. The long weekend is a perfect chance to luxuriate with some long reads. Here are a few favorites from the Reader archives that—like your grandma’s pumpkin pie—never get old. Speaking of pie, feast your eyes on the “The Real American Pie.” The 2009 James Beard award-winning feature from the late Cliff Doerksen examines the meaty history of the mince pie—a meat-and-booze-filled treat that was once woven into our national fabric....

As heard on the stunning 2013 solo album At Peace (Six Degrees), the playing of Malian kora virtuoso Ballake Sissoko is rooted in traditional Mande modes, but over his career he’s distinguished himself by making efforts to bridge cultural divides through thoughtful collaboration. He’s worked with American bluesman Taj Mahal, Chinese pipa master Liu Fang, Italian contemporary classical pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi, and Moroccan oud player Driss El Maloumi. But no partnership has proven as fruitful as his duo with French cellist Vincent Segal, a musician who’s long shared Sissoko’s knack for cross-cultural exchange....

The Block Beat multimedia series is a collaboration with The TRiiBE that roots Chicago musicians in places and neighborhoods that matter to them. Queen laughs mischievously, flashing her signature dimples. “Damn. I did use to kick y’all niggas out of y’all shit,” she admits. “But that’s just because when I write my songs, I really do it in private.” “I was taught the same thing everybody else was taught in this world—to just be regular,” Queen said....

Cold in July I miss the short reel they used to run before coming attractions at the Cineplex Odeon theaters, which gave the impression you were about to watch a movie in a Greek amphitheater in outer space. Julian Antos projected that reel at a Northwest Chicago Film Society event sometime in the past year. I was happy to see it, though I didn’t think about it again until this past weekend, when I saw Cold in July for a second time at the Landmark Century....

This remarkable—and affordable!—two-night festival, presented by Chicago Moving Company, showcases a dozen young local dance makers exploring the fertile zone between composition and improvisation. A hundred iterations might yield a surprise as small and simple as a new quality in the raising of a hand—but that can be plenty. Some highlights from the two programs, each of which will feature work by six different artists: Jason Torres Hancock’s four performers (Thu 7/24) seem to have a special reverence for gifts from the improv muse; before one rehearsal, when Torres Hancock warned them to close windows against birds, a dancer piped up “Could be a compositional element....

When Reader music editor Philip Montoro sent me an e-mail a couple of weeks back simply titled “A bit of Danish D-beat for free,” I figured my tastes would agree with the Bandcamp link inside. Working with me for six years, Philip has gotten more than a tad accustomed to my likes and dislikes—making an elaborate explanation unnecessary. And Halshug very much fit into the “likes” category. Today’s 12 O’Clock Track, “Skyd Eller Dø,” comes from the threesome’s four-song EP Dödskontrol, which dropped last year on D-Takt & Råpunk Records....

Most major music festivals run fine-tuned hype machines designed to make the build-up to the big event feel like an eternity: the months of teasing out a lineup, the countdown to ticket sales, the slow crawl to announcing the schedule. But this year, due to sustained grassroots opposition in its host neighborhood, Riot Fest’s efforts to stoke fans’ anticipation sometimes felt anxious or even frantic. The 2014 festival had moved into the much larger northern section of Humboldt Park, shutting down access to many of its free outdoor facilities, and according to the city’s estimates it did around $182,000 in damages to the grounds—more than triple the previous year’s tab....

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt met with residents from the lead-tainted West Calumet Housing Complex in East Chicago, Indiana, on Wednesday. The small community has been embroiled in a Flint-like catastrophe after high levels of lead were discovered across the public housing facility. Last summer, residents were notified that they had been exposed to heavy metals for years and would need to find new places to live. Only a few families remain....