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BJ the Chicago Kid has what it takes to carry any song alone on 1123
R &B singer Bryan James Sledge, aka BJ the Chicago Kid, has the kind of commanding voice most rappers seek out when they’re looking for a guest artist to make a good song great—and to loosen their...
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Footwork innovator Jlin continues to expand her sound
Indiana-based footwork producer Jlin is laser-focused in her vision and in her dedication to expanding her sound. Her debut album, Dark Energy, arrived in 2015, when footwork was gaining sizable...
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Pigface offers a cornucopia of industrial-flavored madness with two shows...
Pigface was born in 1990 as the supergroup brainchild of Ministry members Martin Atkins, also of Public Image Limited and Killing Joke, and William Rieflin, who has led a miraculously eclectic...
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Chicago trio Town Criers make psychedelic power pop for the ages
The guitar-driven power pop on Town Criers’ recent self-released EP, Town Criers II, feels like it could live comfortably in any era of garage music from the 60s through the 80s; the singing of...
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Brett Naucke goes deep into the void to deliver spacey electronic soundscapes
One of the first times I saw Brett Naucke onstage was in in 2007, when he and his noisy power trio, Druids of Huge, played a Cleveland punk bar. During the first minutes of the set someone dumped an...
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Songwriter Cat Clyde journeys beyond the blues on Hunter’s Trance
Stratford, Ontario, is famous for its long-running annual theater festival, which leans heavily on productions of Shakespeare. Singer-songwriter Cat Clyde has spent most of her life in and around...
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Whitney proves that the kids love the soft stuff
My peers and I spent our formative years seeking out the hardest, heaviest, fastest music we could find. We considered it a rite of passage, a way to rebel against the bloated arena rock and pillowy...
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The First Deep Breath rattles the family skeletons at Victory Gardens
Lee Edward Colston II's play leaves it all on the table—and the floor."Go back to where you started, or as far back as you can, examine all of it, travel your road again and tell the truth about it....
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Always . . . Patsy Cline is a honky-tonk treat with Firebrand
Harmony France and Christina Hall trade off the two roles in this warmhearted story based on real events. Since Firebrand's production of Always . . . Patsy Cline features its stars, Harmony France...
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Eleanor's Very Merry Christmas Wish offers families a sweet holiday outing
A rag doll yearns for a forever friend in this new musical. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer's Dolly isn't the only rag doll hoping for a forever home. In Eleanor's Very Merry Christmas Wish, a new...
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The Simon & Garfunkel Story is more about the songs than the stories
The biography is prosaic, but this touring bio musical captures the dark harmonies of the folk-rock superstars. Even when it's as jubilant as the pots-and-pans percussion backing "Cecilia," the music...
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Camille Norment’s (red flame) brings the heat
The Oslo-based multimedia artist’s installation uses sound to speak volumes about Chicago’s social and political history. Walking into the space of Untitled (red flame) at the Logan Center Exhibitions...
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Cambodia on a bun
Hermosa’s Ethan Lim looks around the globe and asks “will it sandwich?” Ethan Lim's family members were apprehensive about the Cambodian fried chicken sandwich. Among Lim's parents and nine siblings...
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Abjo mixes smooth and fractured beats
I first heard the music of San Diego native Abjo, aka Abraham Joseph, when I stumbled on his 2014 Soulection White Label EP. A nearly perfect hybrid of fractured beat making and laid-back R&B that...
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Omar Apollo brings brown-eyed soul into the 21st century
Omar Apollo, born Omar Velasco, arrived in the spotlight 21st-century style. The singer-songwriter wrote some tunes on his guitar after going through a bad breakup, uploaded them to a few streaming...
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Veteran local drummer isn’t just at the head of his class, he’s a boss with...
I first wrote about Tim Daisy for the Reader 16 years ago. The occasion was a record-release concert by Triage, a trio with saxophonist Dave Rempis and bassist Jason Ajemian.…
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Chicago’s Tombstone Eyes lay down hulking spacey scuzz rock on Land in the Sky
This Chicago four-piece landed hard and heavy in 2018, announcing they were here to stay with a two-song demo of heavy effects-laden, bluesy psychedelic rock with a space-truckin’“brotherhood of the...
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Electronic math-rock masters Battles reinvent themselves as a duo on the...
Founded as a four-piece in New York City in 2002, quirky electronic math-rock band Battles soon established itself as a force in its genre thanks to its multilayered melodies, cavorting grooves, and...
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Korean girl group Dreamcatcher catches on after their alt-metal makeover
Dreamcatcher evolved out of a chipper five-member Korean girl group called Minx that launched in 2014 and soldiered through a couple of unsuccessful years. In 2017 they started again, armed with a new...
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As they head toward 50 years together, East L.A. icons Los Lobos continues to...
Los Lobos have spent their nearly half-century career staying one step ahead of anyone’s expectations. Formed in 1973, the group spent their early days playing Top 40 hits and ranchera on the East LA...
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