Dead Kennedys Archives - Chicago Reader

Music

Chicago punk was born queer

by Leor Galil June 23, 2020August 18, 2021

How three gay bars—La Mere Vipere, O’Banion’s, and Oz—became the cradle of the city’s punk scene

Music

C.H.E.W. take a bite out of hardcore

by Leor Galil March 29, 2019August 18, 2021

Chicago four-piece C.H.E.W. twist and tear at their favorite genre to give it a strange new shape.

Music

Can Riot Fest turn nostalgia into a renewable resource?

by David Anthony September 11, 2018August 18, 2021

Maybe Riot Fest can book amazing reunions forever—but only by building current bands into tomorrow’s back-from-the-dead headliners.

Blogs

Urgh! A Music War and other punk and postpunk new wave cinema

by Patrick Friel July 10, 2018August 18, 2021

Five films that captured the vibrant, changing pop-music scene of the 1980s.

Music

The Vic screens the Wax Trax! Records documentary before it’s even finished

by J.R. Nelson and Leor Galil March 28, 2017August 18, 2021

The Vic screens the Wax Trax! Records documentary before it’s even finished, Chicago expat Alex Wiley returns to headline a hip-hop party at the Promontory, and more.

Blogs

Sinead O’Connor’s I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got speaks to the fight against Trump from 27 years in the past

by Noah Berlatsky January 19, 2017August 18, 2021

Sinead O’Connor’s 1990 album combines the rage of ’80s antifascist punk with a private grief that’s timeless—it’s music for a battle we hoped we’d never have to wage again.

Music