Presidential Death Spree Reaches Chicago!
Tag: Vol. 23 No. 48
Issue of Sep. 8 – 14, 1994
Posted inArts & Culture
The Armageddon Radio Hour
THE ARMAGEDDON RADIO HOUR, Level 6, at Body Politic Theatre. During World War II the entertainment industry attempted to quell the fears of an anxious population by pushing an exaggerated cheerfulness. A cursory inspection of popular entertainment today, however, will show this practice to have long since ceased–just try to avoid the news that our […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Little Milton
Little Milton has come under fire in recent years for the increasingly slick direction his music has taken, but his live shows can still embody the essence of contemporary big-city blues revues. His band is versatile and endowed with both sensitivity and punch; he combines sophisticated charm with direct emotional honesty; his voice has deepened […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Restaurant Tours: dining Around the Coyote
As form follows function, restaurants follow artists. Savvy restaurateurs by the dozens set up camp in former artists’ colonies such as Old Town, West Lincoln Park, and River North. Soon the neighborhoods became more famous for their restaurants than their artists, and the artists moved to less expensive pastures. Now the hottest new restaurant area […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Anthony Ranieri
Anthony Ranieri is one of those classical performers and composers who work largely outside academia and the establishment concert circuit. Which is to say he’s not as well known as he ought to be. A graduate of Lake Forest College, he’s spent the last 35 years learning his craft in what some might regard as […]
Posted inMusic
Spot Check
MEXICO 70 9/9, BEAT KITCHEN Slick, seamless, sappy British guitar pop from a band led by former Felt member Mick Bund. On their lush, lilting U.S. debut, The Dust Has Come to Stay (Big Pop), Mexico 70–named for the 1970 World Cup held south of the border, duh–sound a lot like some of Bund’s admitted […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Selling Angels/Inept “Inc.”/Flores Strikes Again
Jeffrey McCourt, one of the lead producers of Angels in America at the Royal George.
Posted inArts & Culture
Roscoe Mitchell
Still best known for his lifetime membership in the Art Ensemble of Chicago, multireedist Roscoe Mitchell has had a fascinating career on his own. Just a few weeks ago at the Bop Shop, his playing fit seamlessly into the riveting piano hard-bop of longtime cohort Jodie Christian, while some of Mitchell’s recent work has found […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Stereolab
Depending on how charitable you want to be, Stereolab’s musical base can be described as either an extended homage to or a direct pilfering of the droning, rubber-band pulse of the German electronic group Neu. I go with the former, because that pulse is just one of the components of the band’s gorgeous, intriguing sound. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Decompressing
Visiting the psych ward at Northwestern Hospital is like a dream. You step up to the big steel bank-vault door and ring the bell. You state your business and they let you in and the hatch thuds shut behind you. I’m here to see Jimmy. When he was in for a routine visit with his […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Sankofa
The exciting thing about Haile Gerima’s lush, wide-screen folkloric feature about black slavery–independently made and distributed–is its poetic conviction, backed up by a great deal of filmmaking savvy. Born in Ethiopia but based in the U.S., Gerima attended UCLA’s film school around the same time as Charles Burnett, Larry Clark, Julie Dash, and Billy Woodbury. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Story In July police in Willoughby, Ohio, arrested Jamie V. Bradshaw, 23, for breaking and entering, confiscating more than 450 items of women’s underwear from his car and home, all stolen, according to police, from the laundry rooms at ten apartment complexes over the past two years. Bradshaw is from nearby Painesville, population 15,000, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Film Feedback
To make his short Film Feedback, Tony Conrad set up a camera, fast-processing apparatus, and projector in close proximity so that a continuous unexposed reel was processed right out of the camera and then fed directly into the projector to be refilmed by the camera. The result is a series of receding rectangles: black inside […]
Posted inMusic
The Price of Ambition
THE UNDERTONES HYPNOTISED POSITIVE TOUCH THE SIN OF PRIDE (RYKODISC) It’s amazing that rock bands that achieve even moderate success can actually make more than two albums, and it’s even more remarkable when the records are good. Internal conflicts ranging from musical to strictly personal have taken their toll on countless bands, and outside forces–namely […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Georgina Martinez
Cross-cultural explorers usually venture across space, whether the city or a continent. But Georgina Martinez is a time traveler who wants to rediscover the ancient dances of her native Mexico. Trained in contemporary dance forms, notably modern, Martinez is grounded, slow moving, attuned to her own rhythms: forget any thoughts you might have about high-heeled […]