Vinny Golia plays postfreedom jazz in Los Angeles, and his recordings appear on a label with a Beverly Hills address: these things alone should tell you plenty about his stubborn iconoclasm and devotion to craft. (After all, the number “90210” doesn’t exactly make you flash on progressive music.) The first time he played Chicago, Golia […]
Tag: Vol. 23 No. 52
Issue of Oct. 6 – 12, 1994
Posted inArts & Culture
Jale
Despite the emergence of bands like Sloan and Jale from Nova Scotia and Eric’s Trip from New Brunswick, it’s probably too early to declare “cod rock” an official movement. But even if their sound isn’t trendy yet, Jale merit your attention. They’re a quartet of women capable of some fine harmonizing, though they’re not denizens […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Just an Ecological Lapse
Dear Ed. This is not a letter to second-guess Harold Henderson’s “thinking” or motives in his almost surprising article concerning what he sees as a bogus environmental crisis [“Envi- ronment: The Manufactured Crisis,” September 16]. An article based on a book written by members of the Heartland Institute, admittedly a “market-oriented think tank,” and on […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Bailiwick Directors Festival ’94
Bailiwick Repertory’s sixth annual Directors Festival showcases the aspirations of generally unknown, mostly young pro, semipro, and student directors whose projects range from established classical and contemporary selections to brand-new material. The fest runs through October 27, Mondays-Thursdays at 7:30 PM, with a different program of three one-acts each night. Tickets are $8 per program. […]
Posted inMusic
Spot Check
OVER THE RHINE 10/7, CUBBY BEAR On its third album, Eve (I.R.S.), this Cincinnati quartet plays a sweeping yet wistful, melodic, full-sounding folk rock heavy on atmospherics. But the dominant presence is vocalist Karin Bergquist, whose elastic singing flutters, swoops, cracks, quavers, and floats over the band like a dry leaf falling from a tree. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Cyrano de Bergerac
CYRANO DE BERGERAC, Bog Theatre. To this day Edmond Rostand’s 1898 Cyrano de Bergerac is a superhero epic to equal any Steven Spielberg spectacle. The title character is a man who can fence with one hundred opponents at once while composing a classic poem, then gallantly kiss the hand of an admiring servant girl afterward. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Border Disruption
Dear Editor, You had to wade through a whole lot of “she did this, no I didn’t” but finally Jeff Huebner got close to the crux of the matter at the end of his article on Wicker Park [August 26]; to wit: gentrification results in the displacement of low-income people because it raises property values […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Blood Brothers
BLOOD BROTHERS, Shubert Theatre. Pop stars are funny creatures. David Cassidy and Petula Clark bring to the touring Broadway musical Blood Brothers not only name recognition but watchability, supported in large part by our memories of them from records and TV. Neither of these 60s icons can act, sing, or dance well enough to get […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282
San Francisco’s Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 are brilliant low-rent assimilators with lopsided pop sensibilities. While grounded in a kind of Beefheartian art rock, over the course of seven albums and EPs they’ve poked around in country, Cajun, jazz, and various (mostly Eastern) ethnic strains, returning home with smidgens of these styles stuck to them […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago International Children’s Film Fest
The 11th Chicago International Children’s Film Festival runs from Friday, October 7 through Sunday, October 16. Apart from the opening-night screening, which is at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, all screenings will be at Facets Multimedia Center, 1517 W. Fullerton. Tickets are $3 for children and Facets members, $5 for adults; discount booklets […]
Posted inNews & Politics
McTower Records
To the Editor: Bill Wyman must be either a masochist or a New Yorker if he thinks Tower Records has a friendly and knowledgeable staff competitive with Rose Records (Hitsville, September 16). He writes that Tower welcomes employees with body piercing. Apparently only customers who resemble the staff get friendly, knowledgeable service. I have no […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
Environmentalists say the loss of the Amazon rain forest would lead to a shortage of oxygen around the world. But Europe was heavily forested until the late Middle Ages and North America until the 19th century. Most of the world was forested a thousand years ago, and now really big forests exist only in parts […]
Posted inMusic
Don’t Believe the Hype
VERUCA SALT LOUNGE AX, SEPTEMBER 29 Veruca Salt are innocent. Veruca Salt are mediocre. Veruca Salt are chattel. Subject of one of the year’s most frenzied major-label bidding wars on the basis of an unbelievable gush of hype and a 2,000-run seven-inch single–the ubiquitous “Seether”–Veruca Salt are a seamless paradigm for marketable “alternative” rock. In […]