The Red Krayola Lounge Ax, January 13 How does one remain avant-garde for 28 years? The Red Krayola has been a flickering leading light of rock’s cutting edge since releasing its first album in 1967. The Parable of Arable Land’s psychedelic music launched free improvisation, then primarily the currency of new jazz, into rock and […]
Tag: Vol. 24 No. 15
Issue of Jan. 19 – 25, 1995
Posted inArts & Culture
Joffrey Ballet
Billboards has been a big hit for the Joffrey, but I was disappointed, maybe because I like Prince’s music so much: three of the four sections in this evening-length dance, choreographed by four different people, don’t even come close to the subversion in Prince’s lyrics and androgynous style. Most of Billboards is business as usual, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
This Is War
The Battle of Decatur: The labor movement knows that its meaning and credibility are on the line here. Can the revolution be far behind?
Posted inNews & Politics
Stones Sell Out?
To the Editor of the Reader (att Bill Wyman): Yo–Wyman is absolutely correct about the new revised Jones & the Rolling Stones which sucketh mightily as evidenced by DooDoo Lounge [Rock Etc., September 23]. I have E-mailed my opinion thereof to the Keefstone at Stones@delphi.com (as printed in Esquire) and indeed with copy the keefness […]
Posted inArts & Culture
John Primer
Few contemporary bluesmen can fuse influences and stylistic shadings with John Primer’s effortlessness and proficiency. For years he played with ex-Muddy Waters fretman Sammy Lawhorn at Theresa’s on 48th and Indiana; he joined Waters himself for a time and recently served as Magic Slim’s second guitarist. From Lawhorn, Primer absorbed shimmering melodicism, harmonic sophistication, and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Starting Here, Starting Now
Prologue Theatre Productions, at the First Unitarian Church of Chicago. First produced in the 70s at the Barbarann Theatre Restaurant, Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire’s musical revue is every bit as shallow, trivial, and silly as you’d expect from a dinner-theater show created during the “me decade.” There are some vaguely bittersweet love songs. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Stones Sellout
Dear Sirs: In the October 14 Hitsville column, Bill Wyman shows blatant ignorance of the concert touring industry by wondering if the Rolling Stones were “fudging the capacity [of Soldier Field] so they could pat themselves on the back for undeserved sellouts,” and pointing out that some Soldier Field shows prior to the Stones’ performance […]
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Chicago String Ensemble
The tremulous strains of the mandolin, a favorite Mediterranean folk instrument, are familiar to composer Robert Lombardo, who grew up in a Sicilian household. A while back the Roosevelt University professor met up with Dimitris Marinos, the Greek emigre who’s made a name for himself in this country and Europe as a mandolin virtuoso. Impressed […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Story In November a judge in Oakland, California, dismissed the 1992 libel lawsuit More University filed against its former student, Allan Steele, along with Steele’s fraud claim. Steele, disillusioned after allegedly paying more than $200,000 in tuition for a “Ph.D. in Sensuality,” had called the school merely a cult that featured prostitution and drug […]
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Syl Johnson
R & B vocalist Syl Johnson first hit the national charts in 1967, but with his series of singles on the Memphis-based Hi label in the 70s he secured his place in R & B history: on these he augmented his trademark muscular flamboyance with a deeply affecting hard-won tenderness enhanced by the flawless artistry […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Burned About Byrne
To the Editor: I was glad to read Michael Miner’s and his correspondent David Peterson’s characterization of Sun-Times columnist Dennis Byrne as a raving “right-wing lunatic” [Hot Type, January 6] because the increasing dominance of religious right editorial views at the Sun-Times is troubling. Amazingly, Byrne has written that he has “always thought [he] was […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
A decade ago I read all kinds of stories about the dreadful things my PC might be responsible for: brain tumors, breast cancer, miscarriages. Now I hear nothing. Were the stories nuts, or are we? –K, Chicago The stories were maybe a little exaggerated, although this is one area where you can’t make any definite […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Brise-Glace
Jim O’Rourke has recorded several albums of improvised guitar music, and his compositions have been performed by the Kronos Quartet and ROVA Saxophone Quartet, but he doesn’t like to be called a musician. He’s interested in manipulating and sculpting sound, and in doing so he’s as likely to employ static, feedback, or an imperfectly tuned […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Train in Vain
To the Editor, Under News Bites in your Reader Hot Type [December 23] you mentioned the closing of the Milwaukee to Chicago Amtrak run as “irresponsible lunacy.” That just goes to show us how decisions are made in a Democracy. I took a course at Oxford University in England last year, and the professor, an […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
This bread ain’t baked yet. The Evanston-based NEIS News (November-December) quotes former Sierra Club staffer Carolyn Raffensperger, speaking to state department heads implementing a draconian new state law on “low-level” radioactive waste disposal: “I look at the new Illinois law and see two things. First, it’s designed to come up with technical criteria. Second, it’s […]