The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events originally planned to celebrate the Year of Chicago Music in 2020. Then the pandemic diminished those festivities to the point that the city declared 2021 the Year of Chicago Music too. The ongoing surge of the Delta variant means the U.S. won’t be rid of the pandemic […]
Tag: Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events
Posted inMusic
How DCASE helped Chicago music survive the pandemic shutdown
When COVID-19 swept the country, music venues were among the first to shutter, throwing tens of thousands of live entertainment professionals out of work and sidelining artists who depend on touring income. The National Independent Venue Association formed in April 2020 and currently represents more than 3,000 performance halls, promoters, and festivals; it’s done much […]
Posted inMusic
Music workers’ jobs disappeared, but their bills didn’t
With federal aid to venues only now arriving, how are tour managers, stagehands, bookers, and their colleagues in the concert business making ends meet?
Posted inMusic
Chicago’s September jazz festivals cope with COVID
The city is replacing the Chicago Jazz Festival with a slimmed-down online event, while the smaller, nimbler Hyde Park Jazz Festival plans to try pop-up in-person shows.
Posted inMusic
Lightfoot hijacks Lollapalooza
Did Chicago musicians booked for Lollapalooza know their sets might look like an endorsement of Mayor Lightfoot?
Posted inMusic
The Chosen Few Picnic & Festival comes to everybody’s backyards
For its 30th anniversary, one of the world’s largest house-music parties has been pushed online by the pandemic—but it might reach even more people that way.
Posted inMusic
Open the Circle teaches footwork because footwork saves lives
Chicago nonprofit Open the Circle works to spread a local Black dance culture that can knit together youth communities.
Posted inMusic
Plugging into Chicago’s forgotten house venues
A tour and oral history of the long-gone spaces that birthed one of the foundational sounds in modern pop
Posted inMusic
The schedule for the 2019 Millennium Park Summer Music Series is here!
Its 11 shows can’t make up for all the series DCASE has killed, but booking Jupiter & Okwess, Chucho Valdes, Car Seat Headrest, Lydia Loveless, and Los Amigos Invisibles helps a lot.
Posted inMusic
Why won’t City Hall fight for Chicago’s homegrown music scene?
The Chicago Independent Venue League shouldn’t have to push back against the Live Nation handouts in the Lincoln Yards development—but City Hall doesn’t protect Chicago’s homegrown music scene.
Posted inMusic
The Cool Kids hit Temperance to celebrate the tenth birthday of their first EP
The Cool Kids hit Temperance to celebrate the tenth birthday of their first EP, an all-star Chicago crew plays Black Sabbath and Abba at the same Halloween show, and more.
Posted inColumns & Opinion
After city accidentally whitewashes landmark mural, artists and activists demand change
Sandra Antongiorgi and Marcus Akinlana’s Es Tiempo de Recordar had been in Hermosa for 26 years.
Posted inMusic
Does Chicago have too many music festivals?
Lollapalooza’s ticket sales have slowed, and Reggae Fest and Chicago Open Air are canceled—are these the growth pangs of a healthy but crowded festival market, or is a crash on the way?
Posted inMusic
The Chicago House Party levels up to ‘music festival’ for 2018
The Chicago House Party levels up to ‘music festival’ for 2018, Andy Ortmann spends government money on subversive noise, and more.