Remembering the comedy theater’s humble beginnings and reflecting on its dramatic end
Tag: Vol. 49 No. 41
Issue of Aug. 6 – 19, 2020
Posted inArts & Culture
ALAS and Of Dice and Men examine the vulnerability of social bonds
Trap Door reimagines its aesthetic for film; Otherworld films a onetime live performance (sans audience).
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Don’t freak out because he wants to paint your toenails
He’s not asking you to be turned into a mummy or used as a urinal.
Posted inMusic
Rapper-producer Montana Macks drops a collection of soulful instrumentals
Montana Macks drops a collection of soulful instrumentals, Quiet Pterodactyl releases an all-star compilation to benefit Chicago music venues, and more.
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Bill Clinton’s enablers
It’s about time Dems stop treating Bill Clinton like he’s a hero.
Posted inMusic
Juice WRLD’s Legends Never Die is a haunting capstone to a life and career cut short
By the time Chicago rapper Juice WRLD died in December at age 21, he’d already made a gigantic impact on hip-hop. His meteoric rise started when he was just a teenager with the 2017 single “Lucid Dreams,” a landmark in the burgeoning “emo rap” genre, which exploded after he rerecorded it for his 2018 debut […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Jasmine Sheth is Chicago’s first dabbawala
Each week her Tasting India delivery service dives deep into a different regional Indian cuisine.
Posted inMusic
Chicago rapper Jovan Landry gives her production skills a well-deserved spotlight on World Vibe
Jovan Landry calls herself “One-Third Emcee” to emphasize her creative pursuits away from the mike—according to an interview she gave to Chicago Crowd Surfer in March 2019, she splits the other two-thirds of her energy between photography and filmmaking. And Landry’s talents don’t end there. She spearheaded a 2019 collaborative album called Synergy, which brought […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Kathleen Rooney’s love letter to pigeons
The historical novel Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey gives the misunderstood creatures their due.
Posted inArts & Culture
Matt Damon Improv goes online with In-Diana
The Chicago comedy group’s new web series is filled with Zoom meeting disasters and personal massager triumphs.
Posted inMusic
Chicago producer and multi-instrumentalist Cutta finds tranquility in a blur of rock subgenres on Physicalism
Paul Gulyas is one of those tireless contributors to Chicago music whose work largely goes unnoticed by the public. If you’ve gone to a show at Beat Kitchen or Subterranean in the past few years, you might’ve seen him behind the soundboard. He’s also a musician and producer, and he’s earned a modicum of fame […]
Posted inMusic
Cold Beaches amp up their gloomy but beachy indie pop on Drifter
Cold Beaches are one of the most aptly named bands I’ve discovered this year: their new album, Drifter, evokes a decidedly beachy but sometimes gloomy world that makes me think of walking along an east-coast oceanfront in the fall. The band started as the solo project of Chicago singer-songwriter and guitarist Sophia Nadia, who grew […]
Posted inMusic
Greenmachine reissue a sludgy, noisy cult favorite
Kendrick Lamar was nine years old when Japanese stoner-metal freaks Greenmachine named their debut album D.A.M.N.
Posted inMusic
Mary Chapin Carpenter finds her folk-pop heart on The Dirt and the Stars
Mary Chapin Carpenter’s twangy, peppy hits bounced up the country charts in the 90s, but their cowboy boots always seemed like they pinched a bit. Twenty-some years later, Carpenter’s records have eased into a more comfortable idiom, scuffing up their coffeehouse folk with a bit of rock. On The Dirt and the Stars (Lambent Light), […]