And 24 more picks from what the industry thought us yokels could handle in 2005
Tag: Vol. 35 No. 15
Issue of Jan. 5 – 11, 2006
Soundman Versus Flesh-Eating Bacteria; Kevin Tihista Leaves the Woodshed
His next challenge: a six-figure medical bill
News of the Weird
Lead Story BBC News reported in December on Mark Davis, a 31-year-old bus driver from Pontypool, Wales, who’d been sporting a holiday-themed hairdo: he’d had his hair dyed red and a holly pattern shaved into it; then a miniature fir tree was woven in and a string of lights hung from its branches. “It gives […]
A Million Here, a Million There . . .
The City Council’s cut of the 2006 budget.
Driving Miss Mary
Keeping up a little-known Catholic tradition is getting harder.
Savage Love
Recently my boyfriend and I broke up, one reason being his lack of initiative in calling me. After we broke up, I spoke with several of my girlfriends and found out that they, too, have similar troubles with their boyfriends or guys they are seeing. Some of these women are in serious, long-term, loving relationships. […]
Jon Mueller & Jim Schoenecker, Civil War
Chicagoan Adam Sonderberg started Longbox Recordings in 1993 to release his own work, but over time the label has emerged as an important outlet for electroacoustic improvisers from around the globe, including European artists like Boris Hauf and Francisco Lopez. Longbox keeps a strong focus on the midwest, though, and this performance serves as a […]
Chicago SketchFest
Every January since 2002, local and out-of-town comedy groups have gathered in Chicago–birthplace of the pioneering Compass and Second City companies, and mecca to the world of sketch and improv–to showcase their work at the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival. The first SketchFest featured some 30 ensembles; this year, SketchFest, presented by Lukaba Productions, presents almost […]
Controller.Controller
Controller.Controller’s History EP, released last year, stays mostly on the darkly melodic side of that dancey postpunk that’s sweepin’ the nation. Their forthcoming full-length, X-Amounts (Paper Bag), doesn’t cover much new ground either, but sometimes an album where every song sounds exactly the same transcends monotony and capitalizes on its consistency of mood, and this […]
Immigrant Crackdown
I am submitting a correction for Kari Lydersen’s immigration article [“Sitting on a Parked Motorcycle While Latino,” December 1]. House Resolution 4437 was not “anti-immigrant legislation.” It was anti-illegal immigrant legislation. By failing to recognize the differences between legal immigration and illegal immigration Ms. Lydersen calls into question her own capability to report unbiased, accurate […]
Snips
[snip] All that glitters isn’t green. Fred Pearce writes in New Scientist, “The drive for ‘green energy’ in the developed world is having the perverse effect of encouraging the destruction of tropical rainforests. From the orangutan reserves of Borneo to the Brazilian Amazon, virgin forest is being razed to grow palm oil and soybeans to […]
A Cushicle
Bands with regular engagements are easy to take for granted–until I saw A Cushicle again last month, I’d been telling myself “I’ll just catch them next week” for more than a year. But such engagements are perfect for jazz: the musicians get the time and space to develop a deep rapport. This trio of guitarist […]
Let Them Eat Cake . . . and Oxtail Soup . . . and Veggie Lasagna . . .
Food Service
The Treatment
Friday 6 KRISTIN SHOUT & SMOKING KITTEN Kristin Shout’s a longtime Chicago fixture–she used to book bands at Czar Bar and was part of the team that won the 1991 National Poetry Slam–but she earned her musical chops busking around Europe, picking up the life experiences that give her jazzy country-hybrid songs their cinematic resonance. […]