Live blues music is even better outdoors in the summertime. Folks definitely understood that at the old Maxwell Street Market, which became a grassroots hot spot for the blues before World War II. Lots of Chicago fans are old enough to remember the market in the 1970s, ’80s, and early ’90s, when the likes of […]
Category: Music Feature
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Being the best Smiley he can be
The Smiley Tillmon Band featuring Kate MossTillmon and his band perform on the second day of the Chicago Blues Festival. Fri 6/9, 6:15 PM (music starts at noon), Rosa’s Lounge stage (North Promenade), Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph, free, all ages Anyone under the mistaken impression that blues music is depressing has never seen Chicago guitarist […]
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Dave Herrero connects new roots to the blues
Dave Herrero and friendsPart of the Chicago Blues Festival. Sat 6/10, 12:30 PM (music starts at noon), Rosa’s Lounge stage (North Promenade), Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph, free, all ages My love of music, especially Chicago blues, was strongly influenced by the weekly trips my family took to la pulga, as we called the famous […]
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A Q&A with the directors of blues documentary Born in Chicago
Born in Chicago film screeningPart of the Chicago Blues Festival. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with directors John Anderson and Bob Sarles plus Howlin’ Wolf’s daughters, Bettye Kelly and Barbra Marks. Fri 6/9, 1 PM, Claudia Cassidy Theater, Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Randolph, RSVPs are full but do not guarantee entry, […]
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Rest in power to the King of Blackabilly
The two of us were destined to meet. Eric “Shoutin’” Sheridan, who died of heart failure on April 29 at age 72, called himself the King of Blackabilly. And as far as I knew, I was the only other Black musician hanging out on Chicago’s white and Latine-dominated rockabilly scene. Sheridan had moved here in […]
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Chicago trio French Police play darker and tour bigger
Packed into a garage in Garfield Ridge, Manny Herrera and brothers Jesse and Brian Flores practice for an imminent tour of Mexico by their postpunk band French Police. It’s late March, and their first Mexican date is just days away. It’ll be the Mexican American trio’s fourth tour, and their first outside the States. They’re […]
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Producer Thelonious Martin keeps hip-hop’s old wisdom alive
Sitting under the warm blue lights of his home studio, Chicago producer Thelonious Martin reflects on his musical influences as he studies a set of shelves completely stacked with obscure vinyl. On the shelves’ top right corner rest thick biographies about two of the greatest innovators in their respective genres: jazz pianist Thelonious Monk and […]
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Shawnee Dez lives the dream she’s been waiting for
Thom Yorke’s soundtrack for Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 remake of Suspiria is as stark, haunting, and unpredictable as the film itself. On the track “Has Ended,” reverberant drums and bass meld with a meditative tanpura drone and Yorke’s compressed voice, which drifts into the music layered two or three times over. His words are barely distinguishable, […]
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In conversation with music manager Tenzin Dekyi
Tenzin Dekyi is a multihyphenate force in Chicago’s grassroots music industry: she comanages artists, she curates hip-hop and R&B playlists on Spotify, and she writes about rising musicians for outlets such as Complex and Pigeons & Planes. She builds community on Twitter (she posts as @newmusictenzin) and uses the platform of her playlists to create […]
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The accidental postrock diner
In the early 90s, Dead Rider guitarist Todd Rittmann moved into a three-bedroom apartment with an attic on the corner of Paulina and Grace in Lakeview. He’d recently left DeKalb, where he’d studied at Northern Illinois University. Rittmann shared his Lakeview apartment with three musicians, including Tom Mioducki and Pat Samson, who’d formed a noisy […]
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Tink comes home to thank the fans who’ve stood by her from the start
This Sunday at the Chicago Theatre, Tink began her sold-out show by dimming the lights, hushing the murmur of a crowd of thousands. Her voice filled the space as she thanked an ex-lover for his deceit and betrayal: “Thanks for showing me I could survive, I could thrive without you,” she sang. “Thanks for nothing.” […]
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Shi-An Costello confronts prejudice with the piano in The Orient
In 2015, when pianist and composer Shi-An Costello was 28 years old, he learned his Chinese given name. It was written in his maternal grandfather’s hand, on an errant slip of paper tucked between old medical documents: 可 世 安, or “Co Shi-An.” For his entire life, Costello had been going by Andrew, his legal […]
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The Reader’s guide to Record Store Day 2023
Record Store Day began 15 years ago as a way to mobilize consumer support for independent brick-and-mortar record stores, which were seen as niche enough to be at risk of extinction from big online retailers. Streaming wasn’t yet the behemoth business it is today—Spotify also launched in 2008, and it wouldn’t reach the U.S. till […]
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The Chicano futurists of No Sé Discos share cosmic sounds from the working class
Musicians such as Woody Guthrie, Victor Jara, and Chuy Negrete have championed the working class in their struggle for dignity, justice, and fair pay by telling their stories in song. In Chicago, Brandon Johnson’s victory in the mayoral election demonstrated the power of the working class (and of young people), and he’s named his transition […]
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TheGr8Thinkaz elevate as teachers, healers, and artists
It was a cloudy March day when I walked into Classick Studios to conduct my next interview for this series on Chicago artists impacting their communities. I was greeted by one of the purest forms of hip-hop: a bevy of rappers freestyling together, rhyming to the classic instrumentals of Mike Jones’s “Still Tippin’” and the […]