Free Shit

Monday, February 27, 2012

Free short stack at IHOP tomorrow

Posted by Mike Sula on 02.27.12 at 01:05 PM

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For some reason IHOP is declaring tomorrow National Pancake Day, when everybody knows that international Pancake Day (aka Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Paczki Day, etc) was last week.

But the important thing is that mega chain is giving away free short stacks of buttermilk pancakes in exchange for donations to the Children's Miracle Network. I've never been to an IHOP (locate one here) so I can't vouch for their flapjacks. But I can get behind their lysergic 1969 television commercial. Watch it after the jump.

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Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Dance producers wish you a happy V-Day

Posted by Miles Raymer on 02.14.12 at 04:25 PM

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Back in December a bunch of rappers sort of randomly decided to all release mix tapes on Christmas Day, and knowing how things work in rap, I'm guessing that releasing mix tapes on Christmas is going to be a thing now—which should improve the holiday, as long as the rappers involved stay away from actually sounding Christmassy. Today a good number of the dance-music producers in my Twitter timeline have been giving out Valentine's Day treats to their followers in the form of slightly more sexed-up than usual tracks and mixes posted to their SoundClouds. While I don't really need another reminder that my Valentine's plans so far consist of watching TV and smoking weed with a platonic female friend, I do appreciate that the sum total of sexed-up dance-music songs has been increased.

You can check out three of them after the jump.

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Monday, February 6, 2012

More Chi Sounds from Face Melt

Posted by Miles Raymer on 02.06.12 at 05:24 PM

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Ground Lift Media's beat-maker showcase, Face Melt, will reach its lucky 13th installment at Subterranean on February 24. In keeping with their usual MO, the Face Melt crew have released yet another compilation of instrumentals by local producers from the more experimental corners of Chicago hip-hop, who together form a slightly less whimsical and more pragmatic companion to the Low End Theory scene out in medical-marijuana-giddy Los Angeles. Just like last time, downloading the Face Melt comp for free via Bandcamp will get you free admission to the showcase, which will include some of the featured artists. One of them is Void Pedal, who I like quite a bit.

Ground Lift will present another event slightly sooner: Saturday, February 18, is the latest Chicago installment of the annual Dre Day celebration, which with every passing year comes ever closer to federal recognition. Or at least I hope that's the case.

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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Claire Chase premieres a Marcos Balter work inspired by Cy Twombly

Posted by Peter Margasak on 01.26.12 at 04:04 PM

Claire Chase
  • Claire Chase
In March extraordinary flutist Claire Chase, founder and director of International Contemporary Ensemble, will release her second collection of solo performances, Terrestre (New Focus). I was a huge fan of her 2009 debut, Aliento, and the new one looks equally tantalizing, with works by Kaija Saariaho, Franco Donatoni, Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, and Dai Fujikura (who wrote his piece, Glacier, specifically for Chase). Yet the energetic flutist is already on to the next thing, and this Friday evening she'll give a free concert at the Art Institute's Fullerton Hall with a totally different program.

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Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Mitt Romney's Seamus problem

Posted by Sam Worley on 01.10.12 at 04:00 PM

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  • Ordinary Guy
In a 2007 Boston Globe profile, Neil Swidey introduced the world to Seamus, the Romney family dog, by way of an anecdote about Mitt, the Romney family patriarch, strapping the pooch to the top of the car for a 12-hour ride from Boston to Ontario. (In a canine carrier, mind you. Tricked out with a little windshield!) The nominal punch line is that the dog defecated wetly on top of the car while the Romney clan drove it down the highway, but this is one of those rare instances in which shit doesn’t necessarily make the story funnier—which is to say that it’s the sort of anecdote that begins with a grown man strapping a dog to the top of a station wagon. Or, as Gail Collins recently put it in an online chat with David Brooks, “Dog on the roof of the car. Dog on the roof of the car.” Gail Collins is obsessed with this story. She’s cited it, says Swidey, in more than 30 columns.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012

The year in music: Wait, this isn't over yet?

Posted by Miles Raymer on 01.03.12 at 04:30 PM

Chuck Inglish
I sort of figured that by the time I knocked off work on Friday—which, just to remind you, was December 30—I would be done writing about music that came out in 2011. I should have known better. A couple of Chicago beat makers slipped in just before the deadline and dropped a couple cuts that are worth noting.

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It doesn't cost anything to look: Weekdays only, through February 10 at AIC

Posted by Deanna Isaacs on 01.03.12 at 04:03 PM

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  • Fetchcomms/Wikimedia Commons
Just as this so-far tolerable winter turns a tad unpleasant, along comes the Art Institute with a great reason to get indoors: its annual (mandatory) gift of free admission for the local audience. Unfortunately, the AI's generosity doesn't extend to weekends, when most of us could make it.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

The year in music: best free albums

Posted by Miles Raymer on 12.28.11 at 03:10 PM

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Thanks to several converging factors—the elevated profile of the rap mix-tape format, the decreasing cost of digital recording, the Internet—it's become common for musicians to not even bother charging money for their albums. In fact you could probably keep up a pretty solid rotation of new music and not spend a cent, even without touching the untold gigabytes of material illicitly uploaded to Mediafire. After the jump I share some of my favorite free albums of 2011.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Last chance to see a "revolutionary Christmas Carol"

Posted by Tony Adler on 12.27.11 at 05:27 PM

Scrooge with Ignorance and Want
  • Scrooge with Ignorance and Want
As Goodman Theatre's latest A Christmas Carol proves, you don't need to work very hard to make the equation between Charles Dickens's Ebenezer Scrooge and the current crop of one-percenters. Scrooge is already in finance. He lends at usurious rates, makes clucking comments about taxes (though he at least seems to acknowledge their usefulness, if only for keeping the prisons and poor houses in operation), and hoards his personal wealth while overworking and severely underpaying that prototypical 99-percenter, Bob Crachit.

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Thursday, December 22, 2011

The Weeknd drops a third great record in 2011

Posted by Luca Cimarusti on 12.22.11 at 04:00 PM

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I love the Weeknd. And apparently everyone else in the world does too, because it's nearly impossible to find a year-end list without a mention of his first mix tape, House of Balloons. This morning the Weeknd (real name Abel Tesfaye) dropped his third record of the year, Echoes of Silence (downloadable for free from his website). I feel like we've come to terms with the fact that Tesfaye won't top House of Balloons (hands-down my favorite record of 2011, by the way), at least not anytime soon, but that doesn't stop Echoes of Silence from being an incredibly satisfying listen. The record, like most of Tesfaye's work, is dark, moody, and introspective, but opens with an uncharacteristic burst of lighthearted fun: a sick Michael Jackson cover.

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