Brian Eno The Drop (Thirsty Ear) Colin Newman Bastard (Swim) By Jim DeRogatis Brian Eno and Colin Newman are two of my favorite singers. Though neither is very good in the classical sense, both have in spades what it takes in the rock ‘n’ roll realm: character, chutzpah, and an endearing uniqueness. But you won’t […]
Tag: Vol. 26 No. 45
Issue of Aug. 14 – 20, 1997
Posted inArts & Culture
Getting Real
Contemporary Realist Art at Streeterville Gallery, through August 25 By Geoffrey Bent Critical focus might lead one to believe that all artists today are conceptualists, scouring the nation’s junkyards for detritus and hoping to initiate yet another revolution in art: the taste for upheaval in contemporary art can make a banana republic seem as stolid […]
Posted inMusic
Spot Check
FISH 8/15, Park West Not to be confused with the homophonous hippie band, the former lead singer of Marillion has made a comeback album brimming with the AOR-friendly high prog that you didn’t think anybody made anymore. Fish’s enhanced CD Sunsets on Empire is the real thing, full of deep and dense ruminations on love […]
Posted inMusic
King Ernest
KING ERNEST Blues and R & B vocalist Ernest Baker began his career in Chicago in the 60s in the rough-and-ready band of blues guitarist Byther Smith, but soon gravitated toward the more sophisticated sounds of soul music. He became a local celebrity, working alongside such established stars as Tyrone Davis and Syl Johnson, but […]
Posted inFilm
My Sex Life…or How I Got Into an Argument
My Sex Life…or How I Got Into an Argument Three hours long, filmed in black and white, Arnaud Desplechin’s highly watchable French comedy-drama (1996) about the sex lives of 30ish Parisian intellectuals and academics has been compared to everything from Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore to Reality Bites. For me, it’s a lot […]
Posted inMusic
Jean-Yves Thibaudet
JEAN-YVES THIBAUDET France hasn’t produced a pianist of stature since Philippe Entremont in the 50s, but thanks to Jean-Yves Thibaudet it may soon have its national pride restored. At 35, the Lyon-born Thibaudet, who prepped with Satie specialist Aldo Ciccolini, has entered the prime of his career and seems eager to brandish his versatility. In […]
Posted inMusic
Rachelle Ferrell
RACHELLE FERRELL The first time I heard vocalist Rachelle Ferrell–in 1991, as a much heralded newcomer in a Montreux Jazz Festival showcase–she scared the hell out of me. It wasn’t just her ridiculous range, said to span six and a half octaves, or even the superpiccolo high notes, which immediately earned her the Minnie Riperton […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Giving the Gift of Music
Rita Sumo puts instruments into hands that have little else to hold.
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago Underground Film Festival
Chicago Underground Film Festival The fourth annual Chicago Underground Film Festival continues Friday through Sunday, August 15 through 17, at the Theatre Building, 1225 W. Belmont. Tickets for all programs are $6, with the exception of two John Waters-related screenings Sunday at 2:30 and 3:45, each of which costs $10. Filmmaker Waters will present a […]
Posted inFilm
Fistful of Shorts
Fistful of Shorts Jim Trainor’s 38-minute animated film The Fetishist manages to be oddly affecting despite its subject. A portrait of Chicago serial killer William Heirens, it uses animation to present Heirens’s strange attractions and behavior: becoming aroused by the sight of an open window, defecating at the scenes of his crimes. Heirens, seen mostly […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Free Enterprise
FREE ENTERPRISE, CollaborAction, at Voltaire. Less a play than an extended comedy sketch, Eric Sanders’s Free Enterprise still manages to pack more satisfying comic drama into its 30 minutes of stage time than most plays fit into two hours. Free Enterprise is at once a witty parody–of Beckett (Waiting for Godot), Pinter (The Dumb Waiter), […]
Posted inMusic
Ken Vandermark-Georg GrŠwe Large Band
KEN VANDERMARK-GEORG GREWE LARGE BAND Last week, Georg GrŠwe and Ken Vandermark chose an especially ambitious curtain-raiser for the debut of their brand-new octet, an episodic GrŠwe composition that stretched to a set-long 45 minutes and alternated short, spiky solo turns–for bassist Kent Kessler and detail-oriented drummer Tim Mulvenna–with duo and trio sections of escalating […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Money Matters
boatrigh.qxd To the Editor: Harold Henderson’s article on money and politics in the July 25 issue of the Reader [“Filthy Lucre”] was an exhaustive and well-written look at the pros and cons of different campaign finance reform proposals. I can’t resist, however, pointing out that his list of sources was somewhat scattered. Does money affect […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Go West, Young Ham
John Mills risks it all to bring Buffalo Bill to the southwest suburbs.