On Saturday, October 21, more than a hundred people packed a white-walled warehouse in Hermosa to get sweaty to Filipino dance music. It was the launch party for the newest imprint of Feeltrip Records, Balikbayan Worldwide, which focuses on sounds from the southeast Asian diaspora. To many of the partiers, the event was just an […]

The post Balikbayan Worldwide takes Filipino dance music global appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago arts organization Theatre Y launched in 2006 in Lincoln Square, then moved in February 2023 to 3611 W. Cermak in North Lawndale. “It became really clear,” says artistic director Melissa Lorraine, “as we were starting to open our doors and really trying to communicate that we were here for the community, that music was […]

The post Elastic Arts stretches out appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Jack Sweeney was on tour with Sly Stone, and business was slow. His Chicago-based seven-piece, One Eyed Jacks, had accepted a job as the erratic pop star’s backing band in late 1982. Long past his Woodstock-era prime, Stone had all but abandoned live performance seven years earlier. He was now attempting a comeback via small […]

The post When Sly Stone fronted a Chicagoland bar band appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Since Ella Williams moved to Chicago in March 2020, she’s become one of the most celebrated indie rockers on the local scene. That year, she released her breakout album as Squirrel Flower through stalwart downstate indie label Polyvinyl. Williams’s arrival came just as COVID-19 brought live music—including Squirrel Flower’s spring 2020 tour—to a halt. COVID […]

The post Helping concertgoers breathe easy appeared first on Chicago Reader.

As a DJ and a music director, Teri Bristol powered the upper echelon of Chicago nightclubs for decades. Her tenures at Medusa’s, Crobar, and Shelter were particularly significant, but rather than let success go to her head, Bristol consistently showed the sort of kindness and generosity that made her not just influential but also widely […]

The post The good of the night: remembering DJ Teri Bristol appeared first on Chicago Reader.

On a recent Wednesday night, the Chicago Jazz Soul Collective played one of their frequent gigs at the Jazz Showcase. A few songs in, guest vocalist Yvonne Gage sauntered onstage, smiled, and shifted their dynamic. She sang for a few numbers, filling in for regular vocalist Dee Alexander, and her subtle performances underpinned her polished […]

The post Yvonne Gage is living her best life appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The Hyde Park Jazz Festival is one of the best-programmed events of its kind anywhere, thanks to the resilient and resourceful people, many of them volunteers, who organize and coordinate it. It’s also one of the most frustrating, because there’s so much good stuff to see that schedule clashes are inevitable—especially on Saturday, when 31 […]

The post The Hyde Park Jazz Festival reached new heights in 2023 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In July, I attended a community meeting at the Broadway Armory in Edgewater about the city’s plan to turn the Park District facility into a temporary shelter for asylum seekers. A group of protesters, angry that much of the armory’s programming would be relocated or otherwise disrupted, carried bright yellow signs reading “Don’t Displace Us.” […]

The post The <i>Reader</i>’s guide to World Music Festival Chicago 2023 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In the mid- and late 1980s, Deeon Boyd built a reputation as one of the best DJs in Chicago’s Low End. He lived in Stateway Gardens in Bronzeville, and he’d spin records in the projects. “He liked playing music for people,” says Tranz, a hip-hop producer from the Low End. “He would set up outside […]

The post DJ Deeon brought the Low End to the world appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When I looked over the lineup for this year’s Chicago Jazz Festival, the first thing that leaped out at me was the pair of sets at Pritzker Pavilion on Thursday—saxophonist Chico Freeman celebrating the centennial of his famous father, Von Freeman, followed by bassist Ron Carter leading his group Foursight. Freeman came up in the […]

The post The mightiest double bill at the Chicago Jazz Festival appeared first on Chicago Reader.

At 26, Alexis Lombre has been a fixture on the Chicago jazz scene for more than a decade, and lately she’s begun making a mark further afield. She began as a teenage piano wunderkind, and she’s since played in the Great Black Music Ensemble (a project of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) […]

The post Alexis Lombre brings her many-hued sound world to the Chicago Jazz Festival appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Update Wed 8/30: This piece has been updated to reflect the cancellation of Dianne Reeves’s headlining set on Fri 9/1. The 2022 Chicago Jazz Festival was a heartening return to form for an event that hadn’t happened as usual since 2019. The weather held up, the crowds came out, and the programming did a fine […]

The post The Chicago Jazz Festival plays it safe appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The first time she hit me, all 118 pounds of me flew across the ring and onto the hard wet ground. It was just past 3 AM on the third night of my first Gathering of the Juggalos, and I was boxing blindfolded in a makeshift ring with a woman who outweighed me by maybe […]

The post Juggalo family values appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Last weekend, Ariel Zetina kicked off the Pitchfork Music Festival’s Sunday program. Instead of simply spinning a DJ set, Zetina worked with a Chicago-based team to put on a theatrical and “cunt” live performance focused on her 2022 album, Cyclorama.  A week before the festival, I went behind the curtain to get an inside look […]

The post Photos: Ariel Zetina and friends glitter up Pitchfork appeared first on Chicago Reader.

“Free Space: Weather Delay” is a four-word story I didn’t expect to write this past weekend, even though I’d put those words in the center square of a Pitchfork bingo card on my second trip to the festival as the Chicago Reader’s official bingo correspondent. Aside from a flurry of alarm that the dreadful Canadian […]

The post A journey into the unknown at Pitchfork appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Most music outlets have already published their listicles spotlighting the best albums of the first half of the year. As usual, I’m not even thinking about picking my favorites from among every album released anywhere—I’m overwhelmed just by the volume of quality Chicago music that I haven’t gotten to write about yet. This felt like […]

The post Nine great Chicago records to hear now appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Adam Zanolini, executive director of the Elastic Arts Foundation, first heard about Live Music Society last year from friends at Experimental Sound Studio, a like-minded institution in Edgewater. Live Music Society is a nonprofit dedicated to supporting small venues and listening rooms, and ESS wanted to be sure Elastic learned about its new Music in […]

The post Elastic Arts and Hey Nonny receive Music in Action grants appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In just over a week, Ariel Zetina debuts a live performance of her brazen 2022 album, Cyclorama, at the Pitchfork Music Festival. When it dropped, Zetina described the album as “an imagined theatrical production,” and this week that production takes its next step: onto the Green Stage in Union Park early next Sunday afternoon.  Building […]

The post Ariel Zetina brings an inspiring queer community to Pitchfork appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Christopher Riggs doesn’t just play the electric guitar. They deconstruct it. They strip it down to its most fundamental elements. Forget scales, arpeggios, and even standard tunings—keys and harmonies are myths, anyway. Riggs eschews these things entirely, instead dragging their guitar to the brink and inviting us to hear the results. That’s not to suggest […]

The post Christopher Riggs finds an uncommon resonance with their students appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In 1991, rapper and promoter Duro Wicks began hosting a weekly hip-hop open mike at Lizard Lounge in Wicker Park. At that point, there hadn’t yet been many recurring hip-hop parties in Chicago. In 1986, DJ and producer Parker Lee Williams, aka P-Lee Fresh, had launched what’s believed to be the first such event at […]

The post A queer hip-hop history lesson with He Who Walks Three Ways appeared first on Chicago Reader.

On a Sunday evening in early February at Build Coffee in Hyde Park, dozens of folks from across the South Asian diaspora gathered over samosas, chai, and sweets. Immigrants and children of immigrants from a variety of South Asian countries, religions, classes, and castes mingled in the crowd. Many were dressed in kurtis, while others […]

The post ‘This is the kind of stuff I’ve looked for my entire time in America’ appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Women in Blues Tribute to Deitra Farr, Katherine Davis, and Sugar Pie DeSantoSugar Pie DeSanto appears on day three of the Chicago Blues Festival, at a tribute set that also includes Lynne Jordan, Sheryl Youngblood, Joanna Connor, Radka Kasparcova, Sherri Weathersby, Roosevelt Purifoy, Dujuan Austin, and Johnny Iguana. Sat 6/10, 2:30 PM (music starts at […]

The post Sugar Pie DeSanto returns to Chicago for a Blues Festival tribute appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Live blues music is even better outdoors in the summertime. Folks definitely understood that at the old Maxwell Street Market, which became a grassroots hot spot for the blues before World War II. Lots of Chicago fans are old enough to remember the market in the 1970s, ’80s, and early ’90s, when the likes of […]

The post The Blues Festival’s unofficial headliner appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The Smiley Tillmon Band featuring Kate MossTillmon and his band perform on the second day of the Chicago Blues Festival. Fri 6/9, 6:15 PM (music starts at noon), Rosa’s Lounge stage (North Promenade), Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph, free, all ages Anyone under the mistaken impression that blues music is depressing has never seen Chicago guitarist […]

The post Being the best Smiley he can be appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Dave Herrero and friendsPart of the Chicago Blues Festival. Sat 6/10, 12:30 PM (music starts at noon), Rosa’s Lounge stage (North Promenade), Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph, free, all ages My love of music, especially Chicago blues, was strongly influenced by the weekly trips my family took to la pulga, as we called the famous […]

The post Dave Herrero connects new roots to the blues appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Born in Chicago film screeningPart of the Chicago Blues Festival. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with directors John Anderson and Bob Sarles plus Howlin’ Wolf’s daughters, Bettye Kelly and Barbra Marks. Fri 6/9, 1 PM, Claudia Cassidy Theater, Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Randolph, RSVPs are full but do not guarantee entry, […]

The post A Q&A with the directors of blues documentary <i>Born in Chicago</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The two of us were destined to meet. Eric “Shoutin’” Sheridan, who died of heart failure on April 29 at age 72, called himself the King of Blackabilly. And as far as I knew, I was the only other Black musician hanging out on Chicago’s white and Latine-dominated rockabilly scene.  Sheridan had moved here in […]

The post Rest in power to the King of Blackabilly appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Packed into a garage in Garfield Ridge, Manny Herrera and brothers Jesse and Brian Flores practice for an imminent tour of Mexico by their postpunk band French Police. It’s late March, and their first Mexican date is just days away. It’ll be the Mexican American trio’s fourth tour, and their first outside the States. They’re […]

The post Chicago trio French Police play darker and tour bigger appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Sitting under the warm blue lights of his home studio, Chicago producer Thelonious Martin reflects on his musical influences as he studies a set of shelves completely stacked with obscure vinyl. On the shelves’ top right corner rest thick biographies about two of the greatest innovators in their respective genres: jazz pianist Thelonious Monk and […]

The post Producer Thelonious Martin keeps hip-hop’s old wisdom alive appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Thom Yorke’s soundtrack for Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 remake of Suspiria is as stark, haunting, and unpredictable as the film itself. On the track “Has Ended,” reverberant drums and bass meld with a meditative tanpura drone and Yorke’s compressed voice, which drifts into the music layered two or three times over. His words are barely distinguishable, […]

The post Shawnee Dez lives the dream she’s been waiting for appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Tenzin Dekyi is a multihyphenate force in Chicago’s grassroots music industry: she comanages artists, she curates hip-hop and R&B playlists on Spotify, and she writes about rising musicians for outlets such as Complex and Pigeons & Planes. She builds community on Twitter (she posts as @newmusictenzin) and uses the platform of her playlists to create […]

The post In conversation with music manager Tenzin Dekyi appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In the early 90s, Dead Rider guitarist Todd Rittmann moved into a three-bedroom apartment with an attic on the corner of Paulina and Grace in Lakeview. He’d recently left DeKalb, where he’d studied at Northern Illinois University. Rittmann shared his Lakeview apartment with three musicians, including Tom Mioducki and Pat Samson, who’d formed a noisy […]

The post The accidental postrock diner appeared first on Chicago Reader.

This Sunday at the Chicago Theatre, Tink began her sold-out show by dimming the lights, hushing the murmur of a crowd of thousands. Her voice filled the space as she thanked an ex-lover for his deceit and betrayal: “Thanks for showing me I could survive, I could thrive without you,” she sang. “Thanks for nothing.” […]

The post Tink comes home to thank the fans who’ve stood by her from the start appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In 2015, when pianist and composer Shi-An Costello was 28 years old, he learned his Chinese given name. It was written in his maternal grandfather’s hand, on an errant slip of paper tucked between old medical documents: 可 世 安, or “Co Shi-An.” For his entire life, Costello had been going by Andrew, his legal […]

The post Shi-An Costello confronts prejudice with the piano in <i>The Orient</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Record Store Day began 15 years ago as a way to mobilize consumer support for independent brick-and-mortar record stores, which were seen as niche enough to be at risk of extinction from big online retailers. Streaming wasn’t yet the behemoth business it is today—Spotify also launched in 2008, and it wouldn’t reach the U.S. till […]

The post The <i>Reader</i>’s guide to Record Store Day 2023 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Musicians such as Woody Guthrie, Victor Jara, and Chuy Negrete have championed the working class in their struggle for dignity, justice, and fair pay by telling their stories in song. In Chicago, Brandon Johnson’s victory in the mayoral election demonstrated the power of the working class (and of young people), and he’s named his transition […]

The post The Chicano futurists of No Sé Discos share cosmic sounds from the working class appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It was a cloudy March day when I walked into Classick Studios to conduct my next interview for this series on Chicago artists impacting their communities. I was greeted by one of the purest forms of hip-hop: a bevy of rappers freestyling together, rhyming to the classic instrumentals of Mike Jones’s “Still Tippin’” and the […]

The post TheGr8Thinkaz elevate as teachers, healers, and artists appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Three years into the pandemic, practically everyone is grappling with some sort of loss. The circumstances are individual, of course, but we’re basically all facing the same questions: How do you grieve without letting grief destroy you? How do you honor the memory of departed people and vanished places while still pushing forward into new […]

The post Depeche Mode celebrate the endurance of life and music at the United Center appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The 2013 film 20 Feet From Stardom tells the stories of background singers who’ve supported stars such as the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Ray Charles, and Donna Summer. The movie, which won the best documentary Oscar the following year, focuses mostly on singers based in Los Angeles and to a lesser degree New York, among them […]

The post The ladies who sing from the back appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Elijah Montez launched his psych-pop project, Daydream Review, after moving to Chicago from Austin in 2018. He put together a band to play his material live, and they planned their first tour for March 2020. We all know what happened next. “It kind of derailed where we were at,” Montez says. “We were playing a […]

The post The great touring gamble appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Now that COVID shutdowns are receding into memory, being a live-music lover in Chicago is once again like being a kid in Candyland. But the concert industry in the city—and in the rest of the country—could be significantly harmed by a proposed rules change from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). If the […]

The post Proposed fee hikes on U.S. visas will hurt independent music and inhibit tours from abroad appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In 1980, Chris Bjorklund frequented a River North bar called Oz, which two years earlier had become one of the first places in Chicago to embrace punk. He visited often enough that he got to know the owner, Dem Hopkins. Bjorklund played in a band called Strike Under, and Hopkins offered to introduce him to […]

The post Chicago punk loses a champion appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Update 10:51 AM, Friday, February 24: This morning, Heather Cherone at WTTW reported that flyers distributed this week to attack 26th Ward candidate Jessica “Jessie” Fuentes are tied to the campaign of Julian “Jumpin” Perez and to the Fraternal Order of Police. The flyers mention several arrests and convictions on Fuentes’s record, all from more than […]

The post Julian ‘Jumpin’ Perez makes the leap into Chicago politics appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Bluesman Jimmy Burns prefers sensitivity over shouting, and since he moved to Chicago from Mississippi in 1955, several sources outside the blues have shaped his fluid guitar tone—including gospel quartets and arena-rock bands. He turns 80 on February 27, and for the occasion he sat for a Reader interview that digs as far back as […]

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Beginning on Tuesday, February 21, the Frequency Festival returns for its seventh iteration in eight years. Its seven concerts consist of a diverse array of performances united by a common thread—the thirst for growth and adventure that drives musicians and composers to transcend the boundaries of any genre. The festival is an outgrowth of the […]

The post The Frequency Festival tunes into music that grows between methods and genres appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Behind a great artist, there’s often a great manager. The average fan likely never thinks about the people who manage their favorite musicians, but they’re the ones typically handling the behind-the-scenes work on the business side of the entertainment industry. Whether they’re booking performances, negotiating contracts, or just acting as voices of reason for the […]

The post Speaking purpose into artists’ lives appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Last week, Classick Studios founder Chris Inumerable signed paperwork to buy the East Humboldt Park building occupied by the recently shuttered Soundscape Studios. Soundscape founder Michael Kolar had announced in late December that he was closing his studio after a 26-year run that’d made it a hub for the local hip-hop scene. Since late summer, […]

The post Classick Studios expands into the Soundscape space appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I met Jalen Kobayashi in 2017 through Young Chicago Authors’ Louder Than a Bomb poetry festival, where for years we were on separate teams, expressing ourselves through spoken word and sometimes even competing against each other. We’ve since become close friends, connecting through our gifts with the pen and our shared passion for Black liberation. […]

The post Talking music and manifestation with JaefKae appeared first on Chicago Reader.

I first heard about Jen B. Larson when she played in Swimsuit Addition, whose scrappy, pulse-quickening punk combined doo-wop vocals and surf-rock scuzz. They released music through local DIY labels—Midwest Action, Tall Pat, Impossible Colors—or just put it out themselves. In short, Swimsuit Addition were exactly the kind of band the Reader‘s music writers like […]

The post Jen B. Larson exalts our punk mothers in the new book <i>Hit Girls</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In August 2009, I moved into a three-bedroom on Clark a few blocks north of Fullerton, with no clue about Lincoln Park’s cultural position in Chicago. I had grad-school classes in Evanston and the Loop, so the neighborhood seemed to make sense—it was more or less in between the two. I felt out of place […]

The post Farewell to Dave’s Records appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It’s been seven years since my group of intrepid friends decided to explore the world of perfumes. “If you take five minutes to research them,” my friend Sam explained, “you’ll find that they’re way more interesting and complex than you ever realized.” He was right, and before long, I bought a handful of perfume samples […]

The post Scent and sound appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Joe Shanahan founded sister venues Metro and Smart Bar in 1982, inspired by the adventurous punk and no wave he’d seen in the late 70s at New York venues such as the Mudd Club and CBGB. Shanahan was in his 20s at the time, but the Wrigleyville building his venues occupied had been built in […]

The post Forty years in review appeared first on Chicago Reader.

As far as the national press cared, Chicago’s 1990s indie-rock scene revolved around Smashing Pumpkins, Liz Phair, and Urge Overkill. I won’t say anything one way or the other about the merit of those artists, but their success had the felicitous side effect of persuading major labels to slosh irresponsible amounts of money around the […]

The post The reinvention of indie music, chapter one appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The final Bandcamp Friday of the year arrives December 2. I’ve made a habit of rounding up music recommendations from recent Reader stories for each Bandcamp Friday, and since this is the 26th one, I hope it’s redundant to explain that for a 24-hour period, Bandcamp passes along its usual share of sales revenue to […]

The post Recommendations for the year’s final Bandcamp Friday appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Sonny had spent years making music for an audience of himself when he began to understand that other people liked it too. The Chicago rapper can pinpoint a few key moments: At a party he went to in 2019, the crowd was dead, and his manager at the time commandeered the sound system to throw […]

The post The accidental TikTok star appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Stony Island Park native Recoechi’s assertive bars carry a positive message.

The post East side flavor appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Pianist, organist, and bassist Richard Gibbs comes from a mighty gospel lineage, and he recently released his first album under his own name, Just for Me (the Sirens), though he’s been performing publicly for nearly five decades. The disc is a tribute to two incredible women who were close to him. One is his mother, […]

The post Pianist Richard Gibbs pays tribute to Inez Andrews and Aretha Franklin appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In the early 90s, Chicago hip-hop first began making waves around the country. Several local acts put out albums on national labels in 1992: Smash Records released Ten Tray’s Realm of Darkness, Loud Records dropped Tung Twista’s Runnin’ Off at da Mouth, and Relativity issued Common Sense’s Can I Borrow a Dollar? That same year, […]

The post Rest in power to Meta Mo of Rubberoom appeared first on Chicago Reader.

If you perk up when you hear the phrase “Bandcamp Friday,” then you probably already know that its 25th iteration arrives November 4. For 24 hours, the digital retailer passes along its usual share of sales revenue to the independent artists and labels whose work has made the platform such a success. (Epic Games purchased […]

The post Halloween is over, but we still have Bandcamp Friday appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Last Wednesday, multidisciplinary artist Mykele Deville went public in a detailed Instagram post about his traumatic experiences at the Hideout, where he worked as programming director from summer 2021 till March 2022. The next day, the Hideout issued an apologetic response. I find the venue’s response inadequate, but I encourage you to read both posts. […]

The post What the Hideout means to me now appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Freddie Old Soul credits music with helping her heal and find God.

The post Healing, music, and love appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In 1987, Michael Bishop was invited to join an underground band in Richmond, Virginia, whose trashy, theatrical collision of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror made them subversive standouts in the city’s punk scene. Bishop already had a reputation as a gifted bassist, and he was still in high school when he joined Gwar.  The band’s obscenely […]

The post How punk adopted the Godfather of Gore appeared first on Chicago Reader.

On Saturday, October 22, Wicker Park experimental arts space TriTriangle hosts a tenth-anniversary show featuring Chicago electronicist Rush Falknor, local free-jazz and new-music multi-instrumentalist Kyle Gregory Price, and media and performance artist Ryan Dunn, among others. Dunn lives at TriTriangle with his family and curates its performances, but the future of the space is in […]

The post Wicker Park arts spaces TriTriangle and No Nation face the ax appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The festival abolished the usual gatekeeping to book more than four dozen diverse artists at three venues, all in walking distance of one another.

The post Music Fest threw open the stages on the Logan Square strip appeared first on Chicago Reader.

By all accounts, the debut of Podlasie Club’s namesake party, Podlasie Pleasure Club, was insane. It was a muggy night in July 2021, and organizers were expecting a turnout of maybe 50. Podlasie hadn’t hosted an event in almost a decade, and it was only zoned to accommodate 104. So when the club got so […]

The post Will lightning strike Podlasie Club twice? appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It starts with the hips—that’s the first thing you’ll notice when you watch Divino Niño play live. The Chicago-based five-piece can’t seem to stand still onstage. First their swaggering hips get loose, then their long arms flail, and soon the musicians are completely unbound, the picture of freedom. To watch Divino Niño is to experience […]

The post Divino Niño rebuild their sound for maximum danceability appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Over the past two and a half years, I’ve assembled a lot of lists for Bandcamp Friday. I like sharing music that’s unfamiliar to people, and the occasion of a Bandcamp Friday—a 24-hour period when the platform passes along its usual cut of sales revenue to the artists and labels who made it a success—seems […]

The post Bandcamp Friday meets the World Music Festival appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The Hyde Park Jazz Festival defied the pandemic with ingenious safety accommodations in 2020, presenting 18 brief pop-up concerts in parks, pedways, and sidewalks between 40th and 61st Streets, all announced at the last minute to minimize crowding. Last year the festival strived for a return to normalcy and almost got there, booking a slightly […]

The post The Hyde Park Jazz Festival returns to full flower appeared first on Chicago Reader.

On a cloudy afternoon a couple of Saturdays ago, faint lyrics could be heard echoing down Marshall Boulevard, which exits Douglass Park on the park’s south side. The sound was not coming from any of the bands performing at Riot Fest inside the park, but a small crowd had gathered under the shade of nearby […]

The post A performance for the people appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The term “world music” has never been adequate to the task we’ve set it—even in its most benign reading, it implies a division between the listener and the rest of the world. And if that listener is in the United States, our country’s global hegemony in popular music colors the term’s meaning too.  Americans don’t […]

The post The <i>Reader</i>’s guide to World Music Festival Chicago 2022 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicagoans don’t need an excuse to talk about house music, but when the biggest pop star in the world drops a record indebted to house, you can expect more than just a conversation. Beyoncé’s Renaissance has effectively evangelized for this Chicago-born sound since the album came out in July, not least because she shaped it […]

The post Reading house’s history from its used records appeared first on Chicago Reader.

At VSOP Studios in West Town, Naomi Graham sits on a black couch humming a song she’s working on called “Tainted Subs.” She has on a black hoodie and leggings and cheetah-print Crocs. She wears her hair in a black bob with a silver stripe across the front. She’s recording material for her debut rap […]

The post NaomiG steps into a new world for women in hip-hop appeared first on Chicago Reader.

It’s been four months since we’ve had a Bandcamp Friday. In case you’ve somehow forgotten, Bandcamp introduced them shortly after COVID-19 eliminated stateside touring in March 2020, and they’ve since become something of a tradition, helping countless musicians make ends meet without their usual road money. For the 24 hours of each Bandcamp Friday, the […]

The post Bandcamp Fridays are back again—at least for the rest of 2022 appeared first on Chicago Reader.

How parenthood and the 2020 uprisings impacted Tiara Déshané’s approach to music

The post Shifting priorities appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In a less imperfect world, Millennium Park would be hosting the 44th annual Chicago Jazz Festival right about now. As of 2019, the festival had been held in downtown parks for an unbroken string of 41 years. Thanks to COVID-19, though, it was canceled in 2020 and 2021. The first summer of the pandemic, the […]

The post The <i>Reader</i>’s guide to the 2022 Chicago Jazz Festival appeared first on Chicago Reader.

For several years now, the heart of the Chicago Jazz Festival has been in Millennium Park. This year the four days of the fest also include programming at the Cultural Center (from 11 AM till 5:15 PM on Thursday, September 1) and a lunchtime show at the Maxwell Street Market on Sunday, September 4. Around […]

The post The best of the jazz outside the fest appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The Jazz Institute of Chicago’s bookings for this year’s Jazz Festival reaffirm the organization’s commitment to presenting a variety of music by local, national, and international acts. Everything on the bill is worthwhile, but these are the sets at the top of my list. Chicago Jazz FestivalThu 9/1, 11 AM-9 PM, Chicago Cultural Center, 78 […]

The post Seven don’t-miss Jazz Festival sets appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Like any music fest, the Chicago Jazz Festival is basically a Choose Your Own Adventure that you listen to. It’s even more multifarious than most—not only does it take over Millennium Park for four days, it also books events at the Cultural Center and Maxwell Street Market and a series of neighborhood concerts (copresented with […]

The post The <i>Reader</i>’s Jazz Festival jukebox appeared first on Chicago Reader.

“You know, even assholes need some love.” So said Jaimie Branch in a 2019 interview with Aquarium Drunkard. She was explaining “Love Song,” one of the tunes on her 2019 album Fly or Die II: Bird Dogs of Paradise. And without necessarily trying, Branch was also cluing folks in to the kind of connection that […]

The post Jaimie Branch has flown away too soon appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Charles Stepney: Out of the ShadowsRotary Connection 222, a large ensemble led by bassist Junius Paul, will perform music from the catalog of Charles Stepney under the creative direction of the Stepney family and Chicago record label International Anthem. Damon Locks & Black Monument Ensemble open. Thu 8/18, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, 201 E. Randolph, […]

The post Charles Stepney built lasting cathedrals inside Black music appeared first on Chicago Reader.

On a warm and sunny afternoon in June, I meet up with Claudia Ferme in Palmer Square Park for an interview that turns into a picnic. We nibble on pastries I picked up from Lost Larson and sip Topo Chicos, soothed by the peacefulness that new summer warmth inspires in Chicago. As Claude, Ferme makes […]

The post Claude creates dream pop for facing nightmares appeared first on Chicago Reader.

For as long as Bruce Finkelman can remember, the Morton Salt factory has set his heart racing. It’s not that he gets salt cravings any worse than the next guy. Rather, he remembers that when he was 12 years old, in the car with his parents on the Kennedy, the sight of the umbrella-toting girl […]

The post From the husk of the old Morton Salt factory, a new music venue rises appeared first on Chicago Reader.

On the evening of Thursday, June 30, dozens of young Black dancers gathered on the Chicago Riverwalk across from the Merchandise Mart. At 9 PM that night, Art on the Mart, which bills itself as the world’s largest permanent art projection, would debut two new pieces, including Billiken, an homage to the biggest Black parade […]

The post Black Chicago dance culture shines at Art on the Mart appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In 1954, McKinley Morganfield bought his first house, located at 4339 S. Lake Park Avenue in Kenwood. Better known as Muddy Waters, the Father of Chicago Blues shared the south-side house with his wife Geneva, Geneva’s son Charles, his granddaughter Amelia “Cookie” Cooper, and his great-granddaughter Chandra “Peaches” Cooper.  Quite a few people came and […]

The post Living with Muddy appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In the waning moments of the Pitchfork Music Festival in 2019, with Khruangbin’s vibey guitar music wafting over the sun-dappled, sleepy Sunday crowd, I bumped into a stranger who recognized me. The man asked: Didn’t we sit next to each other on a plane back from Toronto just a few weeks ago? Indeed we had, […]

The post What I learned handing out bingo cards at the Pitchfork Music Festival appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Reggaeton is an expression of movement, release, sexuality, storytelling, connection, and fashion. It’s taken over the world of pop music, despite the Puerto Rican government’s many attempts to erase it during the 1990s and 2000s. And Chicago now has a chance to experience this forbidden and infectious sound on an unprecedented scale: brought to you […]

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It’s music festival season again, and of course we’re still in the middle of a pandemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 222.3 million U.S. residents are fully vaccinated against COVID-19—roughly 67 percent of the population. Vaccination is a great safeguard against serious illness or death, but it’s less effective against infection […]

The post The ‘new normal’ hangs over another summer of live music appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago-based percussionist Daniel Villarreal says his debut solo album, Panamá 77, is a soundtrack of his life and an introduction to who he is. “It’s about my upbringing and my experiences as a musician and artist in the city of Panamá and also in the city of Chicago,” he explains. “It’s a blend of all […]

The post Daniel Villarreal guides his far-out grooves with the distant star of tradition appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Police and security are meant to keep concertgoers safe, but what happens when they do more harm than good? In summer 2020, as America reckoned with a sickness in its system of law enforcement, so too did the music community interrogate the role of police and hired security at concerts. Like the municipalities that explored […]

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Between Drake’s sleepy Honestly, Nevermind and Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul,” a lot of people have something to say about house music lately. (And while I can’t say I have thoroughly read every discourse posting, I’ve seen almost no instances of anyone mentioning the fact that several music sites reported rumors of Beyoncé working with house […]

The post Archive dive: On house music appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Beginning with Napster and continuing through Spotify, the nemeses of independent record labels have been legion over the past few decades. The deaths of brick-and-mortar retail chains, including Tower and Borders, have made releasing new music even more of an uphill climb. Yet Pravda Records has weathered it all and continues to thrive. The Chicago […]

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Photos by Dylan Barnedo Since its launch as a one-day festival in 2018, Lyrical Lemonade’s Summer Smash has grown into a three-day extravaganza that can go toe-to-toe with nationally recognized institutions. Pop-rap poster boy Post Malone, whose 2021 headlining set at Lollapalooza put him just below the Foo Fighters on the lineup poster, closed out […]

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This year, the Chicago Blues Festival will again include shows on the west and south sides as well as in Millennium Park. The agendas of these neighborhood shows are more ambitious, though, than just getting a collection of locally rooted musicians onto the same stage. Both are presented in coordination with larger projects intended to […]

The post Bringing the blues back home appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In its nearly 40-year history, the Chicago Blues Festival has frequently saluted the city’s vibrant soul-music legacy with all-star sets underscoring the connection between soul and blues. This year is no exception. On Saturday, June 11, at Pritzker Pavilion, what’s billed as a Chicago Soul Tribute pays homage to three local legends: saxophonist-producer Gene “Daddy […]

The post Soul singer Ruby Andrews makes a career change appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chrissie Dickinson was a multimedia artist and award-winning country and rock ‘n’ roll critic whose work appeared in the Chicago Reader, the Chicago Tribune, Newcity, the Boston Phoenix, the Washington Post, and the Christian Science Monitor. She died on May 19, 2022, from heart failure. She is remembered here by friend and creative partner Cynthia […]

The post Chrissie Dickinson died with too much writing yet to do and too much art yet to create appeared first on Chicago Reader.

In July 2019, Chicago indie-rock trio Horsegirl played the eighth annual Square Roots Festival. At the time, live shows were the only way to hear the group’s taut but disarming dream pop, with its windswept-lakefront sound—and they’d only performed a few of them. They hadn’t released any music, not even to stream, and unsurprisingly they’d […]

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An audiologist's study of over-the-counter hearing aids, a guide to radiator noises, an investigation of ShotSpotter, and much more

The post The Sound Issue appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Ele Matelan didn’t plan on making a career out of sound effects. Like a lot of Chicago theater artists, she moved here after college (at Southern Methodist University) to pursue acting. She also did some stage management for her SMU pals who had formed the House Theatre of Chicago in 2001. But one winter night […]

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When the average person develops vision trouble, they might just pick up a pair of reasonably priced reading glasses at a neighborhood pharmacy. If they require a more customized solution, they could stop by an eyewear retailer to book a professional eye exam and walk away with prescription glasses that same day. But what if […]

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“It’s always quiet around here until it’s not,” said my neighbor from down the street, petting her big dog’s head. Her dog was sitting contentedly in the grass near the lagoon in Sherman Park, near my house in Back of the Yards. It’s often silent there, unless there’s a flock of geese fighting—or unless a […]

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