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Local bluesman Toronzo Cannon is one of Chicago’s finest string-bending storytellerson March 6, 2020 at 9:48 pm

Toronzo Cannon’s 2016 breakout debut album for Alligator is titled The Chicago Way, but it doesn’t include a song of the same name. Since that release, the homegrown bluesman has become so enamored with the phrase that he wrote a song around it in time for his next album, The Preacher, the Politician or the Pimp (2019). “The Chicago Way” is a fast-paced boogie in the John Lee Hooker tradition, but it only hints at the depths of Cannon’s vast repertoire. He’s a highly emotive singer and a fantastic guitarist, but what makes him stand out in the contemporary blues scene is his talent for songwriting. Though he dishes out plenty of hot licks, he never rushes through the story that he’s telling in order to get to the guitar solo. Much of Cannon’s music stays within the realm of blues rock, but he varies his grooves and approaches. He drives the cryptic “First 24” with a slide guitar; the soul feel of “The Silence of My Friends” complements its social commentary about people who look the other way in the face of discrimination or injustice; “Insurance” is a nice little acoustic shuffle, helped along by Billy Branch’s harmonica; and the title track recalls Curtis Mayfield’s 1970s epics. Cannon packs so much substance into every song that it’s not hard to hear why he’s doing so well in the blues-rock scene. v

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Local bluesman Toronzo Cannon is one of Chicago’s finest string-bending storytellerson March 6, 2020 at 9:48 pm Read More »

Workaholic superstar DJ Steve Aoki exudes optimism at every turnon March 6, 2020 at 9:43 pm

Is there any pop star with a career like Steve Aoki’s? How many other sons of business magnates got into hardcore in the 90s, wrote for radical punk zine Heartattack, led a screamo band that released a split with Japanese posthardcore legends Envy, and ran a DIY space that hosted the likes of Jimmy Eat World, Planes Mistaken for Stars, and Atom & His Package? How many launched a punk label in the 2000s that went on to release music by some of indie rock’s finest (the Dim Mak catalog includes Bloc Party and the Gossip) while carving out a niche as one of the most beloved DJs in the Los Angeles nightlife scene? How many crowd surfed on inflatable rafts during DJ sets and threw sheet cakes at eager fans–and still managed to transcend electroclash to become one of the dominant faces of EDM? How many then outlived EDM’s bust to become one of the ten wealthiest DJs in the world, or in 2019 collaborated with the Backstreet Boys and released a dance cover of the Dave Matthews Band? None but Steve Aoki. The arc of his life story so far (he’s 42) makes his September memoir, Blue: The Color of Noise (St. Martin’s Press), an enthralling read, despite his unimaginative prose and odd writing tics. He infuses his book with the same unrelenting optimism that comes through in his every sparkling synth note and quavering bass drop. In his recordings, Aoki massages mainstream electronic music for sensitive pop ears, which often means his presence fades into the background when he teams up with better-known personalities. On that Backstreet Boys collaboration, “Let It Be Me” (which should also appear on Aoki’s forthcoming album, Neon Future IV), he seems as superfluous as DJ Khaled. v

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Workaholic superstar DJ Steve Aoki exudes optimism at every turnon March 6, 2020 at 9:43 pm Read More »

Chicago’s Plague of Carcosa make dense, cosmic-horror doomon March 6, 2020 at 9:28 pm

Carcosa is a mysterious fictional city first named by author Ambrose Bierce in 1886 and later alluded to in Robert W. Chambers’s influential and evocative King in Yellow stories. As the ancient and possibly cursed capital of an alien place that’s impossible to pinpoint on earthly maps, it’s been incorporated into the works of H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, and other writers of weird fiction–the name even appeared in season one of True Detective. This cosmic-horror tradition is a rich vein to mine, and Chicago band Plague of Carcosa cling to it loyally. Currently an instrumental duo of drummer Alexander Adams and guitarist and bassist Eric Zann (a pseudonym from a Lovecraft story), the band debuted in 2016 with The Color Out of Space, two long tracks of harrowingly dense drone-doom plus (because why not?) a gnarly “bonus track” that disembowels “The Rains of Castamere” from Game of Thrones. They followed it up later that year with Ritual I, consisting of one live-recorded track nearly an hour long, and then with two singles, 2017’s “Hastur” and 2018’s “Rats in the Walls.” Plague of Carcosa’s latest release, Ocean Is More Ancient Than the Mountains (Sludgelord), is divided into two long cuts, “The Crawling Chaos” and “Madness at Sea,” that recall the overboiling heaviness of Sunn O))), Khanate, and Chicago’s Bongripper (whose guitarist Dennis Pleckham mastered the two latest Plague outings). It has to be acknowledged that Lovecraft’s racism was a horror in its own right, but thankfully Plague of Carcosa don’t share his views on that front. In October the band were added to an up-and-coming website of “Hatred-Free Music Lists” called FashFree–and they posted to Facebook that they’re pleased to be included. v

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Chicago’s Plague of Carcosa make dense, cosmic-horror doomon March 6, 2020 at 9:28 pm Read More »

Blood Orange brings his intimate R&B pop indoorson March 6, 2020 at 9:22 pm

Dev Hynes, who makes pop and R&B as Blood Orange, has a gift for synthesis that’s made him a favorite collaborator of many cross-genre stars in the past decade, including Mac Miller, Solange, and FKA Twigs. The London-born, New York-based auteur has visited Chicago multiple times in recent years, notably appearing at the Pitchfork festival in 2018 and opening for Florence & the Machine at Northerly Island the following summer, but while Hynes and his ensemble sound great in sunlit venues, a theater might suit the intimacy of his music better. Blood Orange unites decades of Black pop styles with airy vocals and lyrics about longing and identity, with both the house-adjacent dance beat of “Baby Florence (Figure)” and the dark, Three 6 Mafia-indebted thump of “Gold Teeth.” If the most recent Blood Orange release, 2019’s Angel’s Pulse (Domino), feels slight compared to its predecessors, it’s by design: Hynes described it as a “mixtape” composed as an epilogue to 2018’s lushly arranged Negro Swan, named one of the best albums of that year by Pitchfork, Spin, Complex, and others. The songs on Angel’s Pulse sometimes stop abruptly or build around a single instrumental loop–they’re closer to sketches, unlike previous fully realized opuses, but the image is still clear and ready to be colored in by the live band. On “Dark & Handsome” Hynes sings over warm keys and snapping drums: “Nothing lasts forever and I told you / Everything you need to know that’s not true.” Even when he’s trying to end a relationship, Hynes can’t hide his yearning for more connection. It’s music for dancing in the dark, in a loved one’s bedroom, or in the timeless space of a century-old theater. v

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Blood Orange brings his intimate R&B pop indoorson March 6, 2020 at 9:22 pm Read More »

Excelle McFly and King Art serve up their best offering yet on “Ice Cold”on March 7, 2020 at 12:54 am

City of Wind

Excelle McFly and King Art serve up their best offering yet on “Ice Cold”

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Excelle McFly and King Art serve up their best offering yet on “Ice Cold”on March 7, 2020 at 12:54 am Read More »

This Week in Sci-Fi and Horror: Candyman [35mm], 70mm Film Fest, Dark Redon March 7, 2020 at 12:14 am

The Chicago Creepout

This Week in Sci-Fi and Horror: Candyman [35mm], 70mm Film Fest, Dark Red

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This Week in Sci-Fi and Horror: Candyman [35mm], 70mm Film Fest, Dark Redon March 7, 2020 at 12:14 am Read More »

Feature Friday: The Rear Camera Mirroron March 6, 2020 at 10:48 pm

Drive, She Said

Feature Friday: The Rear Camera Mirror

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Feature Friday: The Rear Camera Mirroron March 6, 2020 at 10:48 pm Read More »

An Iliad returns in a stunning new settingon March 6, 2020 at 10:40 pm

“Rage–Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,” begins Robert Fagles’s 1990 translation of Homer’s The Iliad. A rage-goddess indeed might be the appropriate muse for our unsettled times; goddess knows quite a few women I know are looking at the electoral options facing them this cycle with anger and sorrow and probably more than a little bit of desire for some kind of divine retribution (though not necessarily of the blood-and-guts variety).

But as Court Theatre’s one-man version of the Homeric epic, An Iliad, mournfully demonstrates, the story told by the Poet (Timothy Edward Kane, returning for the third time to the role with Court) both transcends the Trojan War narrative confines of Homer’s original and the specific calamitous circumstances of our own time. Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s adaptation (based on the Fagles translation), deftly weaves together the ancient tale with anachronistic punch: the everyday soldiers pressed into combat in the war between the Trojans and the Greeks could be, as Kane’s Poet notes, from Ohio or Nebraska.

And though this is a story rife with twists dictated by the caprices of ancient gods, the Poet reminds us “Gods never die. They change. They burrow inside us. They become us, they become our impulses.” Are the bloody actions of Achilles and Hector noble or nasty? Are they killing in the name of patriotism or personal vendetta? Hard to tell the difference once the fog of war covers the land.

I saw the 2013 production of this show at Court, where the set felt like an ancient subterranean bathhouse-bomb shelter, with Kane’s vagabond Poet delivering his notes from underground. This time, Court has partnered with their Hyde Park neighbor, the Oriental Institute, and artistic director Charles Newell’s staging takes us through several rooms filled with artifacts–including a fragment of part of The Iliad written down in the first century AD.

Kane’s fever-bright intensity, even in Rachel Anne Healy’s hobo suit, is reflected in the harsh ghost lights–exposed bulbs encased in metal cages on top of beat-up stands, supplemented by spotlights shining up from the floor around the playing areas. (Keith Parham’s lighting creates its own cunning parallel play of shadows to accompany Kane’s corporeal presence.) We begin in front of the massive winged bull sculpture from the throne room of Assyrian King Sargon II. Designed (as are so many artifacts in the Oriental’s collection) as a protective figure, we see it here as both ominous and impotent. It’s massive, impressive–and completely removed from its original purpose, far from its homeland.

That’s Kane’s Poet too, who tells us that he sang this tale differently in Babylon, as if offering a preemptive apology for the direct (though still evocative) vernacular he now uses. Has the constant and never-ending human need for dominance and score settling removed every vestige of high-flown poetry from our chronicles of war? Or is trying to make poetry out of such pain and pointless loss its own form of folly and sacrilege? These questions come up over and over as we watch Kane in action.

The last section of the show takes place in a small room with wooden packing boxes marked FRAGILE (artfully arranged by scenic designer Todd Rosenthal). Kane jumps from box to floor and back again, and delivers the section most people who’ve seen it probably remember best from this show: a litany of all the recorded wars humans have fought from Homer’s time to our own. (The last time I saw this, it ended with Syria. Now it’s Ukraine. Give it a few months and it will be something else.)

And though I’m not sure this was the central intent, those boxes and the statues and artifacts around us–horses, bulls, gods, fertility amulets, pots and vessels used for both everyday life and holy ritual, the mundane and the sacred–remind us that we are in a place built in part on imperial imperatives. We in the west continue to display other people’s stories and works of art in our museums. Do we provide safe harbor? Or are we quietly saying that the best we can do is preserve these vestiges, and the people are, as always, left on their own? You can ask the goddess for an answer, but the rage of the times makes it hard to hear. v






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An Iliad returns in a stunning new settingon March 6, 2020 at 10:40 pm Read More »

Belkis Ayon retrospective, the International Women’s Day Festival, and more to do this weekendon March 6, 2020 at 3:50 pm

This weekend we spring forward, so the days are about to get a whole lot brighter. Celebrate the daylight with something from our list of recommended things to do.


Through 4/11: Artist Tony Tasset’s solo exhibition “The Weight” features new sculptures that look at the innermost human psyche through assemblage and assortment. Tue-Fri 10 AM-6 PM, Sat 11 AM-5 PM, Kavi Gupta, 219 N. Elizabeth, kavigupta.com, free.

Through 5/24: “NKAME: A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayon (1967-1999)” is the first in the U.S. for the late Cuban visual artist. Mon-Fri 10 AM-7 PM, Sat-Sun 10 AM-5 PM, Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, chicago.gov, free.



Fri 3/6: Singer-songwriter and bassist Meshell Ndegeocello talks with poet, actor, and performing artist Staceyann Chin. ASL interpretation will be available. 7 PM, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago, mcachicago.org, walk up tickets only on a first come, first served basis.



3/6-4/26: The story of “Big Edie” and “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale, aunt and cousin, respectively, to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, was first told in an acclaimed 1975 documentary by Albert and David Maysles. Book writer Doug Wright, composer Scott Frankel, and lyricist Michael Korie adapted it for the 2006 musical Grey Gardens, set in 1941 and 1973, which traces their lives from high society to living among garbage and raccoons on the East Hampton estate of the title. Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 7 PM, Theo Ubique Cabaret Theater, 721 Howard, Evanston, theo-u.com, previews 3/6-3/14, $35; regular run 3/15-4/26, $42-$54 ($5 discount for seniors and students). Optional dinner available for $29 (advance reservations required).



Sat 3/7: Stand-up Kate O’Connor presents Pee Is Stored in the Balls, a night of comedy and some of the things on the Internet that keep her up at night, complete with her own hot takes. 7 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, hideoutchicago.com, $8.



Sat 3/7: The International Women’s Day Festival is a celebration featuring music from Cathy Richardson’s Goddesses of Rock, Katie Todd, Sandra Antongiorgi, Naomi Ashley, and Cathie Van Wert in both FitzGerald’s main club and SideBar, food by Mulata Kitchen, and a variety of vendors. 8:30 PM, FitzGerald’s, 6615 Roosevelt, fitzgeraldsnightclub.com, $20.

3/7-3/28:
A dozen local sex-working artists showcase their work at
the SWOP-Chicago exhibition, Chicago Sex Workers Art Show 2020. Opening reception Fri 3/7, 6-10 PM. Mon 6-9 PM, Tue-Wed 6-7 PM, Thu-Fri 5-8 PM, Agitator Gallery, 1112 N. Ashland, agitatorgallery.com, free.



3/7-4/12: School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play is Jocelyn Bioh’s comedy about a “queen bee” at an exclusive Ghanaian boarding school in the 1980s whose aspirations to compete for the Miss Universe title are undone by the arrival of a new student was a hit off-Broadway. Lili-Anne Brown, who staged last season’s Lottery Day for the Goodman, returns to the theater for this production. Wed 7:30 PM, Thu and 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM; also Sun 3/8 and 3/22, 7:30 PM; Tue 3/31, 7:30 PM; Sat 3/7, 8 PM only; Thu 3/12 and 3/26, 7:30 PM only, Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, goodmantheatre.org, $20-$70.



click to enlarge
90-Second Newbery Film Festival


Sun 3/8:
It’s the ninth annual 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, the children’s video contest features short films created by kids that tell the stories of Newbery-winning books like Charlotte’s Web, A Wrinkle in Time, and more. 1:45 PM, Harold Washington Library, Pritzker Auditorium, 400 S. State, 90secondnewbery.com, free.

Sun 3/8: Original stories, poetry, spoken word, and narratives are presented by Fehinty African Theatre Ensemble at WORD DEY! A market of vendors will be selling their wares starting at 1:30 PM in the theater lobby. 3 PM, Green Line Performing Arts Center, 329 E. Garfield, arts.uchicago.edu/apl/glpac, $25, $20 in advance.


Sun 3/8: Greg-O and crew members will be playing Lumpen Radio’s new game show, Quiz-O, live! Apply here to be a Quiz-O contestant. 7 PM, Pleasant House Pub, 2119 S. Halsted, lumpenradio.com, free. v






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Belkis Ayon retrospective, the International Women’s Day Festival, and more to do this weekendon March 6, 2020 at 3:50 pm Read More »

Chicago Bears Free Agency 3 key positions to ignoreon March 6, 2020 at 2:00 pm

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Chicago Bears, Anthony Miller

Chicago Bears (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Pace might be tempted to spend on certain positions in free agency.

The Chicago Bears got an early start on their free agency period this year. Already, a couple of moves have been made ahead of the legal tampering period which begins March 16.

General manager Ryan Pace made the right call when he informed wide receiver Taylor Gabriel and cornerback Prince Amukamara they would be released in order to save some cap space. It was a classy move by the Bears brass, allowing those two to get ahead of the game.

Speaking of getting ahead of the game, the Cleveland Browns cut ties with tight end Demetrius Harris, who quickly found a new home in Chicago. The towering veteran comes to Chicago as a guy who will mostly block, but also an enormous target who could be used in the red zone occasionally.

These three transactions are just the beginning of a busy offseason for the Bears, who must add to their roster intelligently. They don’t have a plethora of cap space, but they’ll have enough to fill some holes.

Those holes, of course, include positions like offensive line, cornerback, tight end, safety, edge rusher and quarterback. But, where will Pace choose to address those positions?

The first opportunity comes in just over a week, when free agents may begin negotiating contracts with prospective teams. Contracts will be officially announced March 18.

After just seeing what this year’s rookie class can do at the Scouting Combine, Pace and Nagy have a lot of information to sort through. But, as they get set for free agency, they would be best served skipping over a few positions and waiting until draft time — three in particular, in fact. Let’s delve into those.

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