Starting in the early 80s Argentina’s Gustavo Cerati and his band Soda Stereo put rock en espanol on the map, self-consciously remaking the sound and look of bands like U2, the Police, and Simple Minds. The music was forgettable, but polished to a blinding sheen it provided hungry Latin American audiences with some important cultural […]
Tag: Vol. 32 No. 43
Issue of Jul. 24 – 30, 2003
Posted inArts & Culture
Undershorts Film Festival 6
From its casual origins in organizer Trevor Arnholt’s apartment in 1999, the Undershorts festival has become a prominent event on the city’s indie film calendar: last year 2,000 people crowded into the Congress Theater for an evening of films, videos projected on an 80-foot screen, live music, magicians, jugglers, puppetry, performance art, and fashion. This […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Out of This World
Homebody/Kabul Steppenwolf Theatre Angels in America is a tough act to follow. Ten years ago Tony Kushner, then 37, managed to capture all the rage, despair, confusion, desperation, and soul sickness stirred up in the wake of the AIDS pandemic, transform it into thrilling theater, and conquer Broadway with two three-hour installments of political audacity […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Tipping Point/Poetry’s Missing Millions/And Speaking of Poets . . .
While Charlie Trotter’s waitstaff haul in some gargantuan gratuities, they aren’t allowed to take it all home. Now Kurt Sorensen and other former employees are accusing the gastronomic guru of dipping his hand in the tip jar.
Posted inArts & Culture
Anthony & Joseph Paratore
Piano duos just don’t get the sort of respect and celebrity accorded solo players: few composers have thought enough of the format to write great music expressly for it, and four-handed synchrony is often seen as a stunt. (As children, Mozart and his sister performed as a duo for royalty, who delighted in their freakishness.) […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Gone but Not Forgotten
Thank you, Mike Isaacs, for your terrific and well-deserved tribute to longtime WGN broadcaster Vince Lloyd [“The Voice of Summer,” July 11]. By waxing poetic, you perfectly captured the significant effect he had on his listeners and the role he played in our lives. Sadly, Lloyd’s death was reported with much less fanfare than any […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Deep Blue
The sound of the organ trio–Hammond B-3, drums, and either sax or guitar out front–was a staple of Chicago jazz for years after the format emerged in the mid-50s. Sadly, there are exactly three such bands now appearing regularly in the city, and two of them feature the same organist, Chris Foreman. (While Chicago currently […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Phamily/Bad Advice
Phamily and Bad Advice, pH Productions, at Stage Left Theatre. In its latest improv experiment, pH Productions tosses dysfunctional family dynamics into a blender with generous helpings of madcap character work and anything-goes goofiness. Long-form improvisation at its most intelligent, pHamily is sufficiently rule bound to provide structure but democratic enough to accommodate equal input […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Bad Advice
After reading Michael Miner’s piece on the Chicago Tribune’s new advice columnist [Hot Type, July 18], I was still curious about how Amy Dickinson got the job. So I turned to Seth Mnookin’s Newsweek interview with Dickinson (www.msnbc.com/news/936790.asp), which Miner quoted briefly. There I found what I should have expected, I suppose: a decent track […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Eugene and the Song of the Wicked Starling
In 1890 amateur ornithologist and theater aficionado Eugene Schieffelin released 50 pairs of European starlings in New York’s Central Park as part of a crackpot crusade to introduce to America every species of bird mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare. Today the 200 million descendants of those 100 creatures befoul urban landscapes with their […]
Posted inMusic
Brass in the Blood
If you spend much time in the Loop, chances are you’ve heard them: an eight-piece group under the el tracks, playing in a head-turning style that crosses the syncopated pleasures of funky New Orleans brass with the precision and rich harmonies of modern jazz. In a city full of street performers, the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Speed Reader
Racing is about winning, and winning depends on how fast your horse runs. Scott McMannis has made a career out of the painstaking analysis of each horse in every race, and for a modest fee he’ll share some of what he’s learned.
Posted inArts & Culture
John Fraser
An art exhibit that avoids making an obvious statement is typically either very bad–some artists don’t know how to use their materials to say anything–or, as in the case of John Fraser’s 23 sculptures and collages at Roy Boyd, almost unaccountably good. Our natural instinct is to impose our own worldview on everything we see, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
This Old Hall
After four decades and six rental locations, starting with a one-room icehouse, Highland Park’s Suburban Fine Arts Center finally has a home worthy of its aspirations. Two years ago, when the local American Legion Hall was slated to be torn down to make way for a bank, arts center supporters floated a petition asking the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
TRG Music Listings
Rock, Pop, Etc. Concerts ALL THAT SEXY, JAZZY CABARET Tribute to John Kander & Fred Ebb with Editha Rosario, Ed Kross, John Mohrlein, Dawan Bach, Andrew Micheli, Suzanne Petri, Bob Breuler, Brian Russell. Mon 7/28, 8 PM, American Theater Company, 1909 W. Byron. 773-929-1031. ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND, KARL DENSON Tue 7/29 and Wed 7/30, 7:30 […]