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The Facts of Life—Satan's School for Girls provides a Halloween showcase
Hell in a Handbag's spoof of Mrs. Garrett and 21 Jump Street is far from a drag. As luck would have it, the most expedient way to describe vanguard camp comic and longtime Hell in a Handbag...
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Remembering forgotten lesbian history
“Lavender Women & Killer Dykes” at Gerber/Hart Library and Archives shines a light on the people, places, and publications that shaped Chicago’s lesbian culture. During the women's liberation...
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Joe Guzzo is sweet on complexity, not so much on sugar
Marz Community Brewing's nonalcoholic drinks are just as wild as its beers. Last week a latch popped on the main mash tun at Marz Community Brewing, sending water, wheat, and oats cascading all over...
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Folk-leaning indie outfit Big Thief close out a banner 2019 with their second...
If Big Thief had only given us May’s U.F.O.F., they already would’ve been one of the most compelling indie bands of 2019. Then in August, the folk-leaning Brooklyn four-piece dropped the feverish,...
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Blacker Face power up the protest on Distinctive Juju
Blacker Face are the kind of band I point to when other people claim there’s a lack of poetry in contemporary punk rock. Equal parts X-Ray Spex and Mr. Bungle, the Chicago group have been working over...
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Book of Wyrms take you places with their retrofuturistic doom
Richmond-based heavy quartet Book of Wyrms released their second full-length, Remythologizer, in August, following up their accurately if unimaginatively titled 2017 LP, Sci-Fi/Fantasy. The new album...
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Esteemed saxophone quartet Rova celebrates more than four decades of music...
Rova, which comprises saxophonists Jon Raskin, Bruce Ackley, Larry Ochs, and Steve Adams (who replaced Andrew Voigt in 1988), is the gold standard against which all other saxophone quartets must be...
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Shintaro Sakamoto finds the realness in cheesy lounge pop
Japanese musicians have a long history of fascination with Western kitsch—perhaps they perceive aggressive artificiality as America’s most authentic form of expression. In the 70s, Haruomi Hosono...
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Sleater-Kinney explore new sonic directions, but their core remains the same...
If you were a young American feminist in the late 90s or early 00s with a penchant for punk and indie rock, there’s a good chance you grew up listening to Sleater-Kinney. Formed by guitarist-vocalists...
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Ghostly International celebrates two decades of putting out eclectic...
This year Michigan-born, New York-raised record label Ghostly International celebrates two decades of releasing cutting-edge electronic sounds. As part of the festivities it’s throwing a party called...
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Rahim AlHaj and Sahba Motallebi create music to heal the wounds of war
During the Iran-Iraq war, Baghdad-born oud master Rahim AlHaj was imprisoned and tortured by Saddam Hussein’s government for his political activism. He fled to Jordan and eventually found refuge in...
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Indie rockers Peaer make wrestling with heavy global issues feel fun on A...
In August, a couple days before Brooklyn indie-rock trio Peaer released their second album, A Healthy Earth (Tiny Engines), the Fader ran an interview with the band where drummer Jeremy Kinney...
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Experimental folk musicians Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore join forces on Ghost...
When I first heard acid-folk group Espers in the early 2000s, I was stunned by the singing of Meg Baird. Here was a young woman evoking legendary vocalists from the other side of the pond—first lady...
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On 94 Camry Music, Chicago rapper Femdot shows he could soon be one of the...
Chicagoan Femi Adigun, aka Femdot, raps like he’s spent his entire waking life studying language and figuring out the best way to use words to suit his craft. He cleanly lays down bars with a...
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Kyle Bruckmann, a linchpin of the Bay Area’s new-music scene, returns to the...
Kyle Bruckmann teaches oboe and performance at four universities (the University of California campuses in Santa Cruz, Davis, and Berkeley plus the University of the Pacific), plays with five...
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Comedy takes center stage at the Chicago Podcast Festival
See those voices in your ears up close and personal.“Literally everyone has a podcast,” says Chicago Podcast Festival producer Elizabeth Amdahl. She’s not far from wrong.…
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Whitney Chitwood has a comedy bun in the oven
Her album, The Bakery Case, comes into the world on October 18. The first time I saw stand-up comedian Whitney Chitwood perform, she was onstage at the Green Mill digging into the case of Masterpiece...
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A closeted gay man finds love and community onstage in A Man of No Importance
Pride Films and Plays provides an emotionally engaging production of this set-in-Dublin musical. Oscar Wilde wrote "most people are other people . . . their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."…
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CIFF puts new voices in the spotlight
First- and second-time directors shine in these six worthwhile films making their local premieres. The films I'm most excited about at this year's Chicago International Film Festival—Federico Veiroj's...
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Bloody Bathory brings an infamous (alleged) serial killer back to life
Barrens Theatre's inventive immersive church staging is just the right amount of creepy. When it comes to infamous female serial killers, Aileen Wuornos has nothing on the 16th century's Elizabeth...
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