We won’t know the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for many years, not least because they haven’t stopped piling up. Bodily sickness, mental illness, financial loss—everyone seems to have been afflicted differently, and the effects on our medical, political, social, and economic systems compound those individual misfortunes. New variants, vaccine updates, and long COVID are […]
Tag: Hungry Brain
Posted inMusic
Chicago lures jazz trombonist Jeb Bishop back home
On Monday, August 1, jazz trombonist Jeb Bishop will move back to Chicago after a ten-year absence. Bishop and his wife headed to North Carolina in spring 2012 (Carrboro and later Durham) and then in early 2016 to Boston. While living in Boston, Bishop built a new creative community that included at least one old […]
Posted inCity Life
Magic, Bowie, con artists, and more
Yeah, it’s cold, but our hearts are still warm with all the feels for these upcoming events! FRI 1/7 Tickets are still available for tonight’s live podcast taping of Not Another D&D Podcast at the Vic (3145 N. Sheffield). In this campaign after the campaign, three unlikely adventurers try to correct all the wrongs that […]
Posted inMusic
Bitchin Bajas travel the spaceways on their new album
Update on Thu 11/4: Due to a positive COVID-19 test among Fulton Street Collective’s event-planning staff, the Unity Night fundraising event on Sat 11/6 has been tentatively rescheduled for Sat 3/26/2022. Ticket holders for the November date can get refunds or retain their tickets to use in March. They haven’t released a full-length of new […]
Posted inMusic
Quin Kirchner puts a contemporary spin on mid-20th-century jazz
Quin Kirchner blew into Chicago in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina devastated his old hometown of New Orleans. He wasted no time making himself essential as a drummer, and since then he’s played with a wide variety of acts: Afrobeat combo Nomo, tropical pop band Wild Belle, singer-guitarist Ryley Walker, and countless jazz ensembles. In all […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago indie workhorse Liam Kazar reaches for the sublime on his debut solo album
Multi-instrumentalist Liam Kazar has been so crucial to my evolving understanding of Chicago’s bustling, magnanimous music scene that I felt a little heartbroken when he moved to Kansas City in 2019. He’d risen to national fame in the early 2010s as part of the youthful fusion ensemble Kids These Days, whose idealistic collision of jazz, […]
Posted inMusic
Roscoe Mitchell and Mike Reed unearth the sonic alchemy of a live duo set from 2015
I’m a live-music addict, and it sometimes feels completely unreal that I haven’t been to a concert in almost a year. But one of the pandemic’s few silver linings is that some musicians are digging into their archives and issuing old live material that might otherwise have stayed on the shelf. Such is the case […]
Posted inMusic
If enough of us celebrate Independent Venue Week, we might have one next year too
For Independent Venue Week, the Reader has rounded up some favorite stories about Chicago music venues past and present.
Posted inMusic
‘The Fan Club’ uses gig posters to support music venues
This week features an outdoor group exhibition of posters curated by Someoddpilot and Public Works.
Posted inMusic
The improvising trio of Jim Baker, Keefe Jackson, and Julian Kirshner specializes in surprise
Chicago’s improvisational music community has launched plenty of transformational figures over the decades. But while iconic individuals such as Sun Ra, Roscoe Mitchell, and Henry Threadgill have all changed the way people around the world approach music, a thriving scene also needs players who keep the fires burning every week in local clubs. Keefe Jackson […]
Posted inMusic
Want live music back? Wear a mask and call Congress.
Staff from 22 Chicago music venues talk about how far they still are from normal—and what it’ll take to keep them around till we all get there.
Posted inMusic
A room of Ohmme’s own
On Fantasize Your Ghost, Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham make their music a place of trust, discovery, and compassion.
Posted inMusic
Thomas Comerford, filmmaker and singer-songwriter
“To me that’s kind of the magical part, bringing the songs to various people to work on them together.”
Posted inMusic
COVID-19 hits live music hard
You can still support artists and staff by buying merch and donating to fundraisers.
Posted inMusic
Post-everything fusion band Je’raf celebrate their debut album
Post-everything fusion band Je’raf celebrate their debut album, Nicky Flowers resuscitates a Morrissey-tweaking all-synth Smiths cover project, and more.