Throughout the pandemic I’ve noticed an uptick in long-distance musical collaborations, and the new self-titled debut from dyed-in-the-wool indie rockers Central Heat Exchange (Sunroom/Citrus City/Birthday Cake) is among the best. Chicago provides an anchor for the four-piece group, since more of the members live here than anywhere else: brothers Jake and Paul Stolz of local […]
Tag: Vol. 50 No. 24
Issue of August 19, 2021
The Food Issue
In this issue…
DCASE Chicago in Tune
Download the DCASE Chicago in Tune insert PDF
Find a print copy of the Reader.
←Previous issue | Next issue→
Posted inMusic
Turnstile lean into their hardcore roots for their most progressive record yet
Traditionally, when people say hardcore bands have “progressed” it means they’ve begun the slow process of abandoning the genre for something more accessible. Plenty of hardcore bands have started slipping into 90s alt-rock territory, but Baltimore’s Turnstile use their new album, Glow On, to draw out the fact that heavy radio-friendly rock was built on […]
Posted inMusic
Shannon & the Clams contend with love, loss, and peeping toms on Year of the Spider
Shannon & the Clams’ new sixth album, Year of the Spider, is a welcome anomaly in this wretched second pandemic summer. The band completed the record in early 2020, just before COVID-19 brought the country and its music industry to a grinding halt, so it’s unmarred by that particular global catastrophe. Instead the album’s 50s- […]
Posted inMusic
Wilco and Sleater-Kinney team up for an evening at Pritzker Pavilion
Wilco released their latest album, Ode to Joy, in October 2019. Sleater-Kinney released their new record, Path of Wellness, in June. Due to the pandemic, neither record has had the kind of live support you’d normally expect such high-profile indie-rock releases to get. That gives this doubleheader tour all the more potential to be amazing, […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago’s Stuck find the optimism in punk’s vigor for Content That Makes You Feel Good
Chicago postpunk upstarts Stuck can make tension boil over slowly, and you can feel it all over their 2020 debut, Change Is Bad. In April 2021, they convened at Jamdek Studios to knock out a quick-and-dirty recording, intending its release to renew interest in the band as clubs, promoters, and artists prepared to re-emerge thanks […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A Living Female Rock Critic spoke to me
The first time I read Jessica Hopper’s work, I was awestruck. Her essays in the online publication Rookie felt so emotionally honest in contrast to my own close-to-the-chest media consumption. I hadn’t heard the entire Smiths discography at that point (should I have?) or the Sex Pistols but in the interest of seeming cool, effete, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Postcards from a stranger
You may have seen one of Jenny Lam’s blank, prestamped, self-addressed postcards affixed to a light pole or on a bookstore shelf somewhere in the city. The postcards always feature the same prompt: “Tell me one thing you dream of doing before you die. Use this card as your canvas.” Lam, a Chicago-based artist and […]
Posted inMusic
Four years after sharing a bill, Modern English and Ganser team up for another night of dark postpunk
Update on Tue 8/24: This show has been canceled. I was nine years old when I ordered Modern English’s second album, 1982’s After the Snow, from Columbia House. I bought it for “I Melt With You” and discovered that the rest of the songs sounded nothing like that hit single—the record quickly submerged me in […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Game over for your husband’s kinks
Q: Is it ever ok to stop being GGG? I’ve been with my husband for 26 years. Shortly after we got together, my husband disclosed a major kink: MFM threesomes. I was young and a virgin and up for anything then, but we didn’t start hooking up with other men until around year six of our relationship. Over […]
Sponsored
Growing for Good with Green Thumb: National Expungement Works
Emancipating justice-impacted communities that have been exploited by systemic inequities
Posted inMusic
Chicago indie duo Orisun draw power from lo-fi rock on their debut EP
Chicago indie-rock duo Orisun indulge in their lo-fi proclivities without ever giving in to slacker entropy. On their self-released debut EP, May’s This Is Orisun, multi-instrumentalist Kai Black and front person Asha Adisa artfully employ gossamer guitars, sophisticated keys, precisely programmed percussion with dampened drums, and relaxed, alluring vocals to calibrate moods that test the […]
Posted inMusic
Pianist Matthew Shipp provides a reminder of the Jazz Festival afterfest experience
Matthew Shipp has been making music at a relentless pace since the 1980s. On occasion, the Delaware-born, New York-based pianist has copped a David Bowie move and threatened to retire from recording. But now that he’s reached the age of 60, he’s apparently too busy making new records to talk about quitting. So far in […]
Posted inMusic
The Reader’s guide to Chicago in Tune
The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events originally planned to celebrate the Year of Chicago Music in 2020. Then the pandemic diminished those festivities to the point that the city declared 2021 the Year of Chicago Music too. The ongoing surge of the Delta variant means the U.S. won’t be rid of the pandemic […]
Posted inMusic
Show calendar
Chicago in Tune includes every concert in and around Chicago from August 19 till September 19. This calendar presents a relatively manageable selection of those concerts, including most of those mentioned elsewhere in the Reader’s guide to the festival. A more complete list is available via the Do312 calendar. Thursday, August 19 Afro Fusion DJs […]