Irrepressible energy, great swing, a rhythmic sharpness that can make you jump up and dance, a modern style of melodic invention, an unusually high voice for a blues shouter (and a startling growl, too)–these were LaVern Baker’s virtues in the mid-50s. Back then she was among the stars whose rhythm-and-blues shaded into rock-and-roll. Having become […]
Tag: Vol. 21 No. 34
Issue of Jun. 4 – 10, 1992
Posted inNews & Politics
Your Independent Pawnbroker
To the editors: I want to clarify some misleading information contained in the April 24th, 1992, article on Pawnshops. My name is Joe Guzzo and I own the: CASH EXCHANGE PAWNSHOP and the CHICAGO GOLD GALLERY located at 1236 W. Devon Chicago, Illinois. I have been at that location since 1980, and own the building […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Inspired Farce
TURCARET THE FINANCIER Next Theatre Company A little more than a year and a half ago Dexter Bullard attempted to modernize Ibsen’s didactic tragedy An Enemy of the People, and ended up creating a broad, buffoonish show, Infusoria. It was neither serious nor funny, moving nor enlightening; it was only boring and long. In Next […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Cheaper Trick
Life on the Tribute Trail: “I wanted to do something to make money on the side. It’s either this or Rod Stewart.”
Posted inNews & Politics
Wyman’s Pile of Bile
To the editors: I am responding to the article written by Bill Wyman in the May 15 issue of the Reader [“Freddie’s Dead, That’s All They Said”]. You know, it’s a good thing that the majority of the readers know that Bill Wyman is full of shit. If they (the readers) didn’t, they might think […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Wayne’s World
A furry rabbit sits atop a pump organ in a dark living room. The rabbit looks almost real, except it stands completely upright and its head and torso wind around in a circular motion, something on the order of Linda Blair’s head in The Exorcist. “I had to have that,” Wayne Anderson says of the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
What’s This in My Coke?: Poetic Justice
WHAT’S THIS IN MY COKE?: POETIC JUSTICE Live Bait Theater Last fall the Clarence Thomas hearings were the hottest drama going. Expertly stage-managed by the media, they offered deception, high stakes, an attractive woman, confrontations, clowns (in the guise of senators), and sex. It was damn good theater, but now the show is over and […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Dirty Dealing on Maxwell Street
To the editors: The University of Illinois wants to take over the neighborhood on Maxwell Street and the developers are pushing hard on the remaining residents. It’s not just Tyner White [“Wood if He Could,” May 15] and Maxworks. All the buildings along the street are in jeopardy as well as the wood and other […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Solomon Burke
Solomon Burke’s magnificent voice and cathartic stage presence made him a gospel-music phenomenon early on. Billed as “the Wonder Boy Preacher” at the age of nine, he crossed over into secular music in the mid-50s and really hit his stride when he signed with Atlantic Records in late 1960. Among the classic soul singers Burke’s […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Butch the Smoking Cow: Three Solos/Blushing Under the Mushroom
BUTCH THE SMOKING COW: THREE SOLOS Free Street Theater BLUSHING UNDER THE MUSHROOM Neo-Futurists at the Neo-Futurarium What a great time I had last weekend–saw three wildly entertaining and mildly didactic solos performed by Free Street Theater, then saw Blushing Under the Mushroom, a collection of low-key but no less entertaining new monologues performed by […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Twelfth Night/Macbeth
TWELFTH NIGHT and MACBETH English Shakespeare Company International Theatre Festival at the Blackstone Theatre Seeing the English Shakespeare Company’s Twelfth Night is a sharp reminder of just how awful the Goodman Theatre’s production of the same play this season was. Yet the ESC show, running through this weekend as part of the International Theatre Festival […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
Prior to the invention of the flying machine, did people fold paper into the traditional paper airplane shape and let ‘er fly? Or did the airplane inspire the invention of the paper airplane? –Michael Anstead, Montreal, Quebec One of your more piquant questions, ain’t it? Presumably you didn’t have model railroads until you had railroads. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Wisdom Bridge Bound for Skokie?/Break Time for Bob Falls?/Night Comes to the Edge
After putting up what may be the most expensive show in Goodman Theatre history, will artistic director Robert Falls take off on sabbatical? People who ought to know say he will. The theater’s spokeswoman says not.
Posted inArts & Culture
Jazz Idiom Big Band With Don Menza
Don Menza writes arrangements that would make almost any band sound good. And the Jazz Idiom Big Band–directed by one of Chicago’s most adept jazz orchestra leaders, Mayo Tiana–can make almost any arrangement sound good. So you can’t go far wrong with this one. Menza, who will perform with the band in the concert’s second […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
A metaphor any profession would love. Alaistair Gordon in Greenkeeping (May/June): “So far no Gropius of green has emerged from the architectural compost heap.” Where violence is not news. “The summer after my stepson was shot, I taught a class [at Harold Washington College] that ended at 9 p.m.,” writes Robin Herndobler in In These […]