This wolf is pleased to report that local activist Richard “Epic” Wallace, best known as one of the three MCs in BBU, received the Matthew Freeman Social Justice Award from Roosevelt University earlier this month. “Roosevelt gave me a language to utilize so that I could transfer that rage into practical solutions to some of my community’s woes,” Wallace says. Among other things, he’s advocated for temporary laborers (under the auspices of the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative) and founded the Roosevelt student chapter of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network. “In all my years on this earth, I have never been honored for anything academic,” he says. “I graduated high school in prison, so to be awarded at Roosevelt University years later was a humbling experience.” You can help Wallace celebrate by downloading his solo debut, November’s #OPRAH.
The Bug, a punk four-piece from Chicago and northwest Indiana, have released a scorching cassette on Not Normal Tapes. Titled What’s Bugging You?, it features 11 minutes of ripping, chopping bass and tangled hardcore riffs, with former Raw Nerve vocalist Ralph Rivera screaming strangled bloody murder. We’re glad Not Normal printed the words, or else we’d lose Rivera’s heavy-ass lyrics (“My mother never wavered from grudges / And I am my mother’s son”) in the blasting din. The Bug plays at a DIY space on Sun 4/26 with Minneapolis garage punks Solid Attitude and local barbed-wire twee poppers Boots. E-mail Rivera at notnormaltapes@gmail.com for details, and say Gossip Wolf sent you!
Chicago duo Juzer, aka producers Beau Wanzer and Dan Jugel, are dropping the three-song 12-inch Ribtickler, which Wanzer calls “just some midwest techno.” Hotly tipped and highly mysterious label Dog in the Night releases it this week, but because it’s distributed by Rush Hour out of Amsterdam, copies may be slow to trickle into local shops. v
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