Music & Nightlife - Chicago Reader

Reader Critics’ Picks: Best bartender; Best band-on-band synergy; Best musical wunderkind who could use a nap; Best jazz musician; Best dancing front man; Best go-go dancers; Best show that made me feel like I bathed in radioactive grime; Best local DJ on Twitter; Best local response to a national music meme; Best musical YouTube sensation; Best Chicago dance-music style to recently go global; Best local reunion show; Best new band that will make you think it’s 1995 again; Best weekly live-music gig; Best bluegrass music series; Best experimental-music resource; Best late-season festival surprise; Best merch; Best reinvention of an old medium; Best local sports icon unconventionally reinterpreted as the face of Midwestern microscenes; Best place to hear work by Wandelweiser Group composers; Best place to hear a band of nine-year-old girls that sounds like the Urinals; Best urinal; Best venue to escape a bad opening band; Best nontraditional music venue; Best beer inspired by a Chicago band; Best karaoke venue that gives you a plate of bacon if you buy two pitchers of beer; Best bar for drinking on pocket change; Best place to lose at pool; Best bar that’s 15 feet wide; Best place to watch people dance to the jukebox