By halfway through the summer, I’m reliably burned out on music festivals, and lots of them I wouldn’t attend even if I were still in tip-top shape. So you know that a festival is special if I’m willing to tell you to spend one of your dwindling number of precious summer weekends paying to hang […]
Tag: house music
Posted inMusic
Global house luminary Honey Dijon returns to her native Chicago to celebrate the new Black Girl Magic
House music never went out of style, but not everybody knows about its culture, its history, or even its existence—and a legion of those newbies fell for house this year, thanks to new dance-oriented albums from superstars Drake and Beyoncé. The latter recruited figures from across house history for Renaissance, including Chicago native Honey Redmond, […]
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Chicago dance collective Superjane celebrate 25 years of throwing parties and elevating women in dance
In 1997, Heather Robinson (aka DJ Heather), Colette Marino (aka Colette), Darlene Jackson (aka DJ Lady D), and Shannon Ialongo (aka Dayhota) debuted at Funky Buddha Lounge as the DJ collective Superjane. Superjane have since become a supergroup with their own center of gravity, but they’ve also functioned as advocates for other women fighting for […]
Posted inAgenda
People’s Music Fest, Queen! at Ravinia, Podlasie reopening, and more
If you’re a fan of music and Reader staff writer Kelly Garcia’s Riot Fest coverage, this event is for you! From 2-8 PM, the all-ages People’s Music Fest, which calls attention to the impact of festivals on Douglass Park and its neighbors, is happening at Cermak and Marshall. Performers include Bussy Qween Power Trip, Ghost […]
Posted inAgenda
Chicago House Music symposium, cheese workshop, music, and more
It’s day one of the Chicago House Music Festival and Conference, which runs through Sunday 9/18. Today’s the symposium portion of this free four-day event. At the Logan Center for the Arts (915 E. 60th), there will be a slate of panels focused on the history, culture, and business of house music: the House Music […]
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Reading house’s history from its used records
Chicagoans don’t need an excuse to talk about house music, but when the biggest pop star in the world drops a record indebted to house, you can expect more than just a conversation. Beyoncé’s Renaissance has effectively evangelized for this Chicago-born sound since the album came out in July, not least because she shaped it […]
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Reunited dance group Ten City help make the Chicago House Music Festival a don’t-miss event
Ten City’s fifth album, 2021’s Judgement (Ultra), was a long time in the making—and not just because the crucial Chicago house group’s previous album, That Was Then, This Is Now, came out 27 years earlier. The origins of Judgement arguably go even further back than 1986, when Ten City producer Marshall Jefferson issued the foundational […]
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Sofia Kourtesis’s shimmering house music is as thoughtful as it is party ready
There was a time when Sofia Kourtesis was content to simply make party music. On her first two EPs, the Berlin-based Peruvian house producer crafted shimmering tracks that could soundtrack the most humid of summer afternoons. She shifted gears, though, on her 2021 breakthrough, Fresia Magdalena (Technicolour), whose five tracks moved away from pure hedonism […]
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Chalk Howard Street, Reclamation, school supplies, and more
Rogers Park hosts Chalk Howard Street today, the annual chalk art festival where the neighborhood is the canvas. Renowned 2D and 3D chalk artists will share the streets with kids, hobbyists, emerging artists, and admirers to transform the city’s surface east of the Howard el station between Paulina and Ashland. This free festival runs from […]
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FroSkate shoe release, tattoos, music fests
FroSkate, a BIPOC-led skate collective that centers female, trans, queer, and gender nonconforming skaters, is celebrating the release of the FroSkate x Nike SB Dunk. The skate shoe drops this weekend, and FroSkate is offering a few opportunities to share the love: a Saturday takeover of Uprise Skate Shop (noon-7 PM at 1820 N. Milwaukee) […]
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After two years online, historic Chicago house collective the Chosen Few return to Jackson Park for a 30th-anniversary picnic and festival
I can’t imagine summer in Chicago without the Chosen Few Picnic & Festival, and that’s not just because this grassroots house-music gathering is celebrating its 30th annual installment (plus two years online during the pandemic). It’s also because house music—and Chicago—would be very different if it weren’t for the Chosen Few DJ collective. Chicago’s gay […]
Posted inCity Life
House music, Midsummer parties, and Queer Pride
Here’s some events and activities to close out the month of June and start the summer right.
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Archive dive: On house music
Between Drake’s sleepy Honestly, Nevermind and Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul,” a lot of people have something to say about house music lately. (And while I can’t say I have thoroughly read every discourse posting, I’ve seen almost no instances of anyone mentioning the fact that several music sites reported rumors of Beyoncé working with house […]
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Paranoid London reference dance music of the past to fuel our dystopian future
English electronic duo Paranoid London can only be described as the rock ’n’ roll specters of acid house. When they exploded in the underground in 2007, the British dance scene was deep in hauntology, a cultural moment when retro aesthetics in music and fashion were being recycled to imagine alternate time lines. One iteration of […]
Posted inMusic
Jonn Wallen of Oui Ennui made a torrent of genre-hopping albums while battling long COVID
In the past year or so, whenever a friend has asked me to recommend music, I’ve pointed them at Chicago multi-instrumentalist Jonn Wallen, who creates omnidirectional experimental electronic albums under the name Oui Ennui. A self-described hermit, he’d already spent decades making music largely in private and for his own satisfaction when COVID-19 hit. After […]