To write about John Prine, whose death from COVID-19 related complications in April 2020 devastated fans around the world, is an inherently intimate act. Prine’s music has always felt like a treasured good, sacred and familial. I felt that as a kid, hearing stories from my dad, who lived near Chicago in the 1970s and […]
Tag: Kentucky
Posted inMusic
Chicago indie-pop upstart Damacy fits the serene vibe of the city’s young rock scene on Sun Spot EP
Multi-instrumentalist Yuto Winston Kanii moved to Chicago a couple years ago, and he’s kept busy with his easygoing solo indie-pop project, Damacy. He grew up in the Louisville area, where he began playing in bands in high school, and by his early 20s he’d achieved a smidgen of local popularity as the front man for […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Kentucky puts the “blue” in the Bluegrass State
Leah Nanako Winkler’s raucous and poignant family drama gets a stellar local premiere with the Gift Theatre.
Posted inMusic
Folk genius Dwain Story died a legend to the few who still knew his music
Dwain Story roomed with Phil Ochs and made a fan of Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, but mental illness denied him a career like theirs.
Posted inMusic
The protest songs that drove the Wobblies a century ago are still lighting fires
Labor firebrand Joe Hill wrote some of the most enduring anthems in the IWW’s Little Red Songbook—and today’s activists carry on his legacy.
Posted inBlogs
You can thank Karen Lewis for the national wave of teacher insurrections
The red-shirt-wearing teacher activists from Kentucky, West Virginia, and Oklahoma obviously learned a thing or two from Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis.
Posted inBlogs
Cook County sues pharmaceutical companies over opioid crisis, and other Chicago news
Also, the mother of police shooting victim Quintonio LeGrier is waiting for answers.
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Amid the horror of Trump and Rauner, there’s some reason for hope
Next year can’t possibly be worse, can it?
Posted inBlogs
Punk Talks works to change the conversation about musicians and mental health
Social worker Sheridan Allen and her organization Punk Talks hold a fund-raising concert in Chicago this month to help connect DIY musicians with mental-health care.
Posted inBlogs
I was there: a ‘Bowling Green Massacre’ memory
On driving by Bowling Green, Kentucky, massacre site.
Posted inBlogs
A Kim Davis civil disobedience comparison—but not the one you think
Kim Davis isn’t the first Kentucky office-holder to say no.
Posted inMusic
CHIRP Radio DJ Joy Merten on Japanese noise from 1984
Current musical obsessions of Ed B. from Black Metal of the Americas and CHIRP Radio DJ Joy Merten
Posted inBlogs
Barbecue heaven is for real and it’s in Kentucky
Kentucky’s Knockum Hill BBQ smokes the mother of all pork chops
Posted inBlogs
An early look at the finally-about-to-open Lagunitas tap room
A photographic tour of a long-awaited addition to Chicago’s craft-beer landscape
Posted inBlogs
In the NCAA title game, smart money is on the sponsors
March Madness becomes Moneyball.