In the first scene from Jaas’s new video, “Why,” the Chicago-based R&B singer kneels in the dark, one arm held over her head by a rope tied around her wrist. As the camera zooms in on her, the shot cuts to Jaas paddling a canoe on bright, quiet waters. The video switches between these two […]
Category: Music Feature
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Chicago underground rap roundup
Amid the wall-to-wall media coverage of Kanye West’s promotional events for Donda in August, you could be forgiven for imagining that the only notable new Chicago hip-hop release had come from a billionaire who hired crews to rebuild his childhood home in the middle of Soldier Field. That’s far from the case, of course, though […]
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The Hyde Park Jazz Festival takes a step back toward normalcy
The 15th Hyde Park Jazz Festival, which took place last Saturday and Sunday, may have been the best ever. That’s a tall statement, given how many great ones there have been—but it’s less about ranking favorites and more about how good it felt to see such a beloved event getting back to its old self. […]
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Dos Santos push Latine music out of its box with City of Mirrors
It’s not easy to forget the prejudice confronted by Chicago’s Latine bands and artists who were trying to build relationships with venues and recording studios in the late 90s and early 2000s. I experienced some of it personally as manager for one of those bands. From 2001 till around 2014, I worked with [.DESCARGA.], and […]
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Spooky season begins with another Bandcamp Friday
Since the pandemic arrived in the U.S. in March 2020, Bandcamp has declared 15 Bandcamp Fridays, so forgive me if I truncate my usual spiel. If you’ve somehow found this post without being aware of Bandcamp Friday, I’ll just say this: for 24 hours, the digital retailer passes along its usual share of revenue to […]
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Edward Vaughn goes from engineering to shredding
To most Chicagoans, “Englewood” and “rock” are hardly synonymous, but guitarist Edward Vaughn reps his hood proudly as he follows his rock-star dreams. And where he’s from isn’t the only thing about him that points away from rock ’n’ roll: he also has a bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering. “I’m from Englewood, so […]
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Jana Rush engineers her own empowerment
Experimental footwork producer Jana Rush recorded her breathtaking new album, Painful Enlightenment, while battling depression, but she’s careful not to romanticize that fact. “At that time, I couldn’t be consistent with anything. I could start something and good luck with finishing it,” Rush explains. “The loss of hope, it’s a strange and empty feeling, and […]
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A guide to Pitchfork for the resonant body
Since 2015, my first year living full-time in Chicago, the Pitchfork Music Festival has been a watershed moment in my summer. In its regular July slot, the fest has created a fulcrum point in the season—it’s a place to unexpectedly bump into forgotten friends and rest in the leafy tranquility of the Blue Stage, where […]
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How live music looks during COVID
Live music is back, though it looks different today than when it went away in March 2020. For 16 months we carried on without the collaborative magic of artist and audience. We’ve watched musicians find creative ways to keep gigging and be safe, whether delivering livestreams from their homes or playing on porches. Our favorite […]
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Bandcamp Friday can help you say goodbye to summer
Bandcamp’s daylong inducement to music-shopping sprees, rebooted yet again last month, returns for its latest iteration on September 3. On the first Friday of the month for the rest of the year, the online music store will pass along its usual cut of sales to independent musicians and labels—a practice it began almost a year […]
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Doom-metal pioneer Eric Wagner has left our plane too soon
Modern digital avenues for music discovery can make it hard to remember what “underground” used to mean. Before the Internet, underground music was hard to find and often hard to even know about—and that amplified its significance for the outcasts who loved it. In the mid-80s, when speed was king in heavy music, a small […]
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Remembering the quiet king of Chicago music promoters
Eddie Thomas was one of Chicago’s greatest music promoters, and he might’ve been the most humble. While his name is linked in more ways than one to Curtis Mayfield’s, throughout the 1960s and 1970s he guided myriad R&B and disco artists through the process of making records and getting them played. When I talked to […]
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Long live Squeak
I met Squeak in Saba’s grandparent’s basement. The walls were plastered with magazine covers, the space stuffed with recording equipment and video games. A memory not easily forgotten—I’ve probably told this story a thousand times, in writing and in person. It was 2016, a year after the first time I interviewed Saba and a couple […]
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The Reader‘s guide to Chicago in Tune
The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events originally planned to celebrate the Year of Chicago Music in 2020. Then the pandemic diminished those festivities to the point that the city declared 2021 the Year of Chicago Music too. The ongoing surge of the Delta variant means the U.S. won’t be rid of the pandemic […]
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Show calendar
Chicago in Tune includes every concert in and around Chicago from August 19 till September 19. This calendar presents a relatively manageable selection of those concerts, including most of those mentioned elsewhere in the Reader’s guide to the festival. A more complete list is available via the Do312 calendar. Thursday, August 19 Afro Fusion DJs […]