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Mod Fuck Explosion: Stuck in the past, ahead of its time
Jon Moritsugu's underground classic reheats the 60s mod craze and strikes an early blow for Asian-American identity. Jon Moritsugu's grungy biker flick Mod Fuck Explosion (1994) must have been the...
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To Catch a Fish re-creates a government operation gone terribly wrong
Brett Neveu's play is not so much about the con, but the effect of the con. As far as shitty tenants go, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has nothing on the men and women of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol,...
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Like Juno, Diablo Cody's Tully is a tale of motherhood and waning youth
Charlize Theron stars as a woman rescued from postpartum depression by a new friend. When fledgling screenwriter Diablo Cody was nominated for an Academy Award in 2008, feature writers across the U.S....
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Korean mom-and-pop Moccozy serves bibimbap and more in their highest form
The Boystown storefront excels at scorched rice, savory pancakes, and pork-and-kimchi stew. Lots of cultures find beauty in burnt rice. In Spain it's socarrat, the crispy layer of bomba that adheres...
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Eddy Clearwater remains one of Chicago’s most energetic and celebratory bluesmen
Eddy Clearwater, also known as “the Chief,” was a pioneer in the fusion of blues and rock ’n’ roll. Born Edward Harrington in Macon, Mississippi, in 1935, he moved to Chicago in 1950.…
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The Sea and Cake weather major shifts to produce another jewel of glistening...
Last week the Sea and Cake released its 11th album, Any Day. The record embodies a simmering cool, which is demonstrated in the elegantly crystalline guitar lattice sketched out by Archer Prewitt and...
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Sonic explorer Ryley Walker nails a sweet spot between precision and...
Ryley Walker closes his new album Deafman Glance (Dead Oceans) with a tune that nails the existential turbulence that ripples through most of his songs: “Whenever I do my best, I will spoil with the...
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Vancouver’s Dálava invigorate Moravian folks songs with contemporary urgency
Few records from 2017 knocked me out like The Book of Transfigurations (Songlines), the second album from husband-and-wife group Dálava. Helmed by singer Julia Ulehla and guitarist Aram Bajakian, the...
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Slow Mass graduate from lifelong students of posthardcore to masters with On...
Should Chicago posthardcore band Slow Mass be asked to point to the physical place they started, that would be Lincoln Park’s Bourgeois Pig Cafe; bassist-vocalist Mercedes Webb met guitarist Josh...
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Nebraska native Charlie Curtis-Beard shows he’s built for Chicago on...
Nebraska native Charlie Curtis-Beard attends Columbia College, where he’s built a budding rap career with a couple ambitious, heartfelt albums that are grounded in Chicago themes but exploratory in...
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As Fever Ray, Karin Dreijer expresses her innermost desires on Plunge
Karin Dreijer has made a career out of music that might not seem commercially appealing. In the Knife, the electronic-pop group she founded with her brother, Olof, and as a solo artist performing and...
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Quintron’s Weather Warlock and Chicago polymath Bruce Lamont come together...
Chicago metal/experimental polymath Bruce Lamont (Yakuza, Bloodiest, Corrections House, Brain Tentacles) has just released his second solo album, Broken Limbs Excite No Pity (War Crime Recordings),...
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Drummer Brian Blade funnels his disparate interests into the Fellowship Band
Brian Blade is among the most meticulously reactive drummers at work today in any genre. He tailors his composerly touch to fit any band he’s involved with.…
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Australian Courtney Barnett utilizes familiar materials to wax profound about...
Australian singer Courtney Barnett crafts a wonderfully lived-in, warm, and hooky melodic world on her second proper album, Tell Me How You Really Feel (Mom + Pop). Her singing has grown from the...
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Mike Donovan sheds the loose structures of the Peacers to get totally wiggy
With his bands Sic Alps and the Peacers, Bay Area oddball Mike Donovan has treated his sprawling, postpsychedelic sensibilities with a modicum of rock-music orthodoxy as his collaborators lend shape...
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The teens at the Albany Park Theater Project have crafted a beautiful Ofrenda
It's a powerful example of theater as activism. A girl walks onto a stage that's bare but for a suitcase in the center. Like any teenager entering a room, she's looking down at the small flat object...
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Italian psychedelic doom trio Ufomammut contemplate the universe on the...
When I saw Italian psychedelic doom trio Ufomammut debut in Chicago on their first-ever U.S. tour in 2015, my only complaint was that the set ended too soon—they’d played for at least an hour, but...
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Chicago native Max Clarke uncoils the darkness in his cheerful melodies on...
Under the name Cut Worms, Max Clarke conjures deeply nostalgic, comforting sounds and bygone eras, evoking the sweet close-harmony singing of the Everly Brothers and the irresistible Merseybeat hooks...
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Sonido Gallo Negro transform mambo, cumbia, and more with retro kitsch and...
On its third album, Mambo Cósmico (Glitterbeat), Mexico City juggernaut Sonido Gallo Negro expands well beyond its cumbia roots and further extends its psychedelic treatment of vintage Latin American...
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Following years on the road opening for his half-sister Amy Schumer, Jason...
It’s been eight years since bass clarinetist Jason Stein dropped Three Kinds of Happiness (Not Two), the best and most agile recording thus far by Locksmith Isidore, his trio with bassist Jason Roebke...
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