JOSE SOTO It may be lucky for Jose Soto that the Gypsy Kings’ half-baked version of flamenco is the one most familiar to Americans–it’ll be that much easier for him to blow us away when he makes his U.S. debut this week. The singer and guitarist helped launch a new flamenco movement in his native […]
Tag: Vol. 28 No. 18
Issue of Feb. 4 – 10, 1999
Posted inNews & Politics
Petty Crime
December 23, 1 PM, 2700 block of North Pine Grove. Theft. Woman was walking home from bank. Two men jumped her and took her purse, which contained $650. Woman got call later that day from man, who asked for $200 to return her purse. She offered $100. Man said that wasn’t enough but arranged meeting […]
Posted inMusic
Stolen Thunder
Creation Making Time Biff Bang Pow! (Retroactive) Pretty Things S.F. Sorrow (Snapper Music) By J.R. Jones Rock historian Pete Frame created a cottage industry for himself in the early 80s by drawing fanatically detailed rock ‘n’ roll “family trees,” most of which were collected into a book in 1993. Printed in his neat little hand, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Just Their Luck
When juries rule the way we would have, they’re wise. When they don’t, they’re crazy. Last week one Chicago jury declared 15th Ward alderman Virgil Jones guilty of accepting $7,000 in bribes from a government mole, finding it unlikely that Jones would accept thousands of dollars in legitimate campaign contributions inside a rolled-up newspaper. Another […]
Posted inArts & Culture
In Print: Robert Stepto’s travels through time and place
Robert Stepto and his family used to spend summer vacations in Michigan at their pink-and-white cottage in the all-black resort town of Idlewild. Not that there were many choices for African-American families on holiday. “Today people wouldn’t think twice about taking the kids to Disney World or whatnot,” he says. “I grew up in an […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Savage Love
Hey, Faggot: I feel dirty. Not dirt that can be wiped away with a wet nap, but two-cans-of-Ajax kind of dirty. Alas, no matter how hard I scrub, I can’t get the memory of this man off of me. The urge to grab an S.O.S. pad and scrub my nether regions is almost irresistible. Long […]
Posted inArts & Culture
“Shall We go? Yes, Let’s Go.” Three Plays by Samuel Beckett
“Shall We Go? Yes, Let’s Go.” Three Plays by Samuel Beckett Samuel Beckett cheers me up. There’s something very therapeutic about his dark, relentless, clear-eyed vision. While other playwrights dance around the truth, he revels in the inevitable: we age, our minds go, the good times fade but regrets last a lifetime. And the older […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Playing Against the Clock
He’s invented a word game tto rival Scrabble, but Marshall Kaminsky’s future is far from secure.
Posted inMusic
Phil Woods Quintet
PHIL WOODS QUINTET Alto saxist Phil Woods is as remarkable for the longevity of his band as for the breadth of his talent: since the quintet’s formation in 1973, bassist Steve Gilmore and drummer Bill Goodwin have never left, and only three brass players and four pianists have passed through its rarely revolving door. Blistering […]
Posted inMusic
Spot Check
BLONDES 2/5, HEARTLAND CAFE This trio of light-haired ladies has been harmonizing at Chicago cabarets for years now–some of Sarah Motes’s compositions on the group’s self-released debut, Try, date all the way back to 1989. At times the cheese is overwhelming, but gutsier tunes fall somewhere between the Roches and the Go-Go’s–and I gotta love […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Case of the Half-Backed Hit
Good cookies, bad blood, and a foiled assassination that put a baker behind bars.
Posted inArts & Culture
Magnificent Irreverence: Ladylike Performance Festival 2
Magnificent Irreverence: Ladylike Performance Festival 2 There’s nothing ladylike about Stanya Kahn as she performs Delirium–but then that’s the point of the “Ladylike Performance Festival,” to blow the concept to smithereens. In a stocking cap, dark glasses, and a string bikini made of extrawide rubber bands, Kahn lolls in a tiny galvanized tub of water […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Group Efforts
You Are Not Here at the Neo-Futurarium, through February 27 Full Moon Vaudeville at the Museum of Contemporary Art, January 30 By Carol Burbank Group shows are notoriously difficult. It’s not just a matter of choosing a theme, choreographing breaks and scene changes, and making sure everyone has the same aesthetic. It’s also a matter […]
Posted inArts & Culture
European Union Film Festival
European Union Film Festival The European Union Film Festival runs Friday, February 5, through Sunday, February 21, at the Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson. Admission is $6, $3 for Film Center members. For more information call 312-443-3737. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5 Bandits Katja von Garnier directed this 1997 German feature about four music-making […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Big TV
BIG TV, Free Associates, at the Ivanhoe Theater. As Mark Gagne relates in his director’s notes, Big TV began as “an insider’s view” of Chicago’s improv scene–and elements of the urge to skewer remain, but they’re the weakest moments in this dark cautionary tale. Director Gagne and his nine cast members are out to gore […]