Since 2019, local jangle-pop six-piece CalicoLoco have been dropping singles whose smart, rigorous songwriting sensibility reminds Gossip Wolf of 80s UK indie-pop masters such as Prefab Sprout and Aztec Camera. Last month, the band released their sharpest single yet, the emo-tinged, radio-ready “The Bad Hair Day”—and it has to be the catchiest jam about fringe […]
Tag: Cary Baker
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Blind Arvella Gray
Editor’s note: This story originally ran in the Reader on January 7, 1972. It’s been transcribed exactly as it appeared then, and has not been updated to correct typos or conform to the Reader’s current house style. A blind man singing on the streets. It almost sounds as if it would be outlawed or long […]
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It beats dancing about architecture
The Chicago Reader debuted October 1, 1971—almost two years before DJ Kool Herc threw the very first hip-hop party in the Bronx in August 1973, nearly three years before the Ramones made their first appearance onstage at CBGB in August 1974, and more than five years before Frankie Knuckles first spun at the Warehouse in […]
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Chicago punk was born queer
How three gay bars—La Mere Vipere, O’Banion’s, and Oz—became the cradle of the city’s punk scene
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Evanston new wavers the Front Lines exemplify the richness of the overlooked midwestern scene
Formed at Northwestern in 1979, the Front Lines played diverse and ambitious tunes—but they split after just a few years, done in by drummer turnover.