Gossip Wolf doesn’t know squat about meteorology, but you don’t have to be Tom Skilling to forecast that wherever Windy City Soul Club set up their turntables, there’s gonna be high humidity and a whole lot of butt shaking! For ten years, WCSC have been getting crowds moving with rare northern-soul 45s—and building massive pyramids out of the beer cans that the DJs and their crew inevitably drain during their legendary six-hour tag-team sets. At this point it’s a Chicago rite of passage to have broken up or hooked up at one of WSCS’s New Year’s Eve or Anti-Valentine’s blowouts! At the Empty Bottle on Saturday, November 24, the two remaining founders, Jason Berry and Aret Sakalian, will celebrate by welcoming back original member Nick Soule, who moved to Detroit a few years ago.
Chicago DJ, producer, and songwriter Sunny Woodz has a way of bringing people together: his 2016 mixtape, Sunny Side Up, includes cameos by Saba, Ty Money, Qari, Supa Bwe, Warhol.SS, Chimeka, Dinner With John, and Sunny’s old friend Twista. On Friday, November 23, he drops a follow-up, Sunny Woodz Roll Up!, and celebrates at Cairo Ale House (2009 Franciscan Way, West Chicago) with a bonkers release show—among the 18 guests on the bill are the Boy Illinois, Stunt Taylor, UG Vavy, White Gzus, Big Body Fiji, and Asa 2 Times. Tickets are $15 and the show starts at 9 PM.
Logan Square arts hub Comfort Station threw its annual Beer & Bands fund-raiser in September, but last week the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation made a late donation! Comfort Station executive director Jordan Martins says the foundation’s $50,000 grant will facilitate an exchange program with artists in Salvador, Brazil, thoughout 2019 and 2020, to “develop collaborative work, compare models of arts organizing, and create discourse around Latinx and Black identity in our respective cities.” Congrats! v
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