Trouble in Mind Archives - Chicago Reader

In the foreground on the left, a white man in white shirt, suspenders, and tan trousers faces a Black woman in a 1950s-style blue dress. Behind them on the left we see a Black man, also in shirt, trousers, and suspenders, and a white woman in a brown suit dress, looking at the argument unfolding between the two characters in the foreground.

She sees you, white American theater

by Kerry Reid November 17, 2022August 31, 2023

Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind made its off-Broadway debut in 1955, but it never made the leap to the Great White Way (emphasis most definitely on “White”). The white producers demanded that Childress give her story about racism in the American theater a happier ending depicting racial harmony. (Pause for irony.) Childress refused at first, […]

Music

Facs light a beacon with a new album of dark postpunk

by J.R. Nelson and Leor Galil May 11, 2021August 18, 2021

Facs light a beacon with a new album of dark postpunk, Equity Arts hosts a talk about nurturing community cultural spaces, and more.

Music

Spanish quartet Melenas channel a half-century of pop goodness on Dias Raros

by Bill Meyer May 8, 2020August 18, 2021

Pamplona, Spain, is probably best known for the festival of San Fermín, when thrill seekers run with bulls through the streets—which usually ends much worse for the animals than the humans. The four women in Melenas may not pull as big a crowd as that globally famous event, but on their new second album, Dias […]

Music

The new Facs album, Void Moments, shows the Chicago trio at their apex

by Luca Cimarusti March 27, 2020March 23, 2023

The Facs formula has always been stark minimalism. On their first two albums, the Chicago trio—currently drummer Noah Leger, guitarist-singer Brian Case, and bassist Alianna Kalaba—built every track on tense rhythms, simple bass throbs, barely-there guitar plinking, and direct spoken-word vocals. It was like they were casting moods more than writing songs. The formula worked […]

Music

Chicago postpunks Facs cut their last tether

by Kevin Warwick March 21, 2019August 18, 2021

Chicago postpunks Facs inherited members from Disappears, but for the new Lifelike they’ve found the personnel and the sound to become a self-contained band.

Music

Prewar blues great Georgia White died forgotten in Chicago

by Steve Krakow March 12, 2019August 18, 2021

Singer and pianist Georgia White made dozens of classic records for Decca from 1935 to 1941, then fell off the map in the 1970s.

Music

Trouble in Mind and Paradise of Bachelors team up for a weekend of the finest indie rock at Trouble in Paradise

by Luca Cimarusti September 6, 2018August 18, 2021

Trouble in Paradise, a meeting of the minds between tastemaking Chicago label Trouble in Mind Records and North Carolina’s heady Paradise of Bachelors, takes place over the same weekend as Riot Fest, but this intimate Empty Bottle-based festival offers a musical and philosophical opposite to its sprawling counterpart. There’s no nostalgia, overhyped reunions, or overblown […]