CIVL Archives - Chicago Reader

Drummer Makaya McCraven can be seen in the background on a brightly lit stage, leading a seven-piece band; in the foreground is a sea of audience members, their backs to the camera, all lit in purple; in the very far background, the Willis Tower is visible

From the husk of the old Morton Salt factory, a new music venue rises

by Hannah Edgar August 5, 2022August 5, 2022

For as long as Bruce Finkelman can remember, the Morton Salt factory has set his heart racing. It’s not that he gets salt cravings any worse than the next guy. Rather, he remembers that when he was 12 years old, in the car with his parents on the Kennedy, the sight of the umbrella-toting girl […]

Sean Nyary checks identification and vaccination cards at the entrance to the Empty Bottle on August 27, 2021.

Best of Chicago

Best Chicago venues for the COVID averse

by Jamie Ludwig March 2, 2022March 15, 2022

For a few relatively blissful weeks in July 2021, Chicago’s COVID-19 infection rates dropped far enough that it was possible to believe that the worst of the pandemic was over. Then the Delta variant hit. The city didn’t lock down again, but Delta posed a dire threat to public health as well as to the […]

Liam McDonald, aka Opliam, performs at the Old Town School of Folk Music for the Indigenous Peoples’ Day Concert in 2019.

Best of Chicago

Best concert for a cause

by Catalina Maria Johnson March 2, 2022March 15, 2022

On Wednesday, October 13, 2021, the Old Town School of Folk Music’s third annual Indigenous Peoples’ Day Concert shook the rafters of the auditorium with Opliam’s rock-tinged blues, Huguito Gutierrez’s Andean pan flute, and the NuFolk Rebel Alliance’s mishmash of folkloric music, acoustic Americana, and tropical punk. Artist and activist Opliam (aka Liam McDonald, who’s […]

A diagram showing the covers of Leor Galil's five favorite overlooked Chicago releases of 2021

Music

COVID kept on complicating our relationship with music in 2021

by Leor Galil December 22, 2021January 7, 2022

In September, a local collective of house DJs threw a party at Podlasie Club, an Avondale Polish bar with a distinctive L-shaped neon sign out front. The members of the Humboldt Arboreal Society usually spin under a tent in Humboldt Park, but for that one-off with veteran local DJ Rahaan, they’d made an exception—in part […]

Music

The Pine Valley Cosmonauts make Tom Waits’s 1973 debut feel relevant for our times

by Monica Kendrick July 8, 2021August 18, 2021

Led by Jon Langford of the Mekons and the Waco Brothers, Chicago alt-country band the Pine Valley Cosmonauts have covered plenty of ground in their quarter century or so of existence: they’ve made tribute albums for icons such as Bob Wills and Johnny Cash, spearheaded a series of death-themed covers compilations called The Executioner’s Last […]

Music

Chicago comp says we’re still in the same Situation, still caring for one another

by Noah Berlatsky May 18, 2021August 18, 2021

Last July, local arts and music nonprofit Quiet Pterodactyl put together a sprawling compilation called Situation Chicago to support local music venues struggling during the pandemic. Almost a year later, with another few hundred thousand Americans dead and live music as we once knew it still mostly impossible, the organization has put together a sequel—this […]

Music

Chicago music venues lean on grassroots fundraisers as they wait for federal aid

by Kendall Polidori May 17, 2021August 18, 2021

COVID relief grants are taking their time arriving, but the compilation Situation Chicago 2 benefits CIVL’s SAVE Emergency Relief Fund right now.

Music

Hollyy raises moneyy on the gig poster of the week

by Salem Collo-Julin May 5, 2021August 18, 2021

This week’s featured gig poster was created for a CIVL and Skateistan benefit by Chicago designer Emily Burlew (also of the band Late Nite Laundry).

Music

Elastic Arts ramps up its bookings and launches a transatlantic collaboration

by J.R. Nelson and Leor Galil March 9, 2021August 18, 2021

Elastic Arts ramps up its programming, CIVL opens grant applications for its SAVE Emergency Relief Fund, and more.

Music

Music workers’ jobs disappeared, but their bills didn’t

by Micco Caporale February 3, 2021August 18, 2021

With federal aid to venues only now arriving, how are tour managers, stagehands, bookers, and their colleagues in the concert business making ends meet?