Chicago Reader

Friday, November 6, 2009

Locust Music Hosts an Eclectic Saturday Showcase

Posted by Peter Margasak on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 6:04 PM

Starless & Bible Black
  • Starless & Bible Black
I haven’t had time to fully digest it, but Shape of the Shape, the new second album by British trio Starless & Bible Black, sure seems like a winner. And since the band is playing Saturday night at the Empty Bottle as part of a showcase presented by local label Locust Music, I don’t think I should wait to post about the band till after I’ve listened to the new album as thoroughly as I think I ought to. I remember liking the group’s self-titled 2006 debut, also on Locust, but it certainly didn’t impress me right out of the gate like Shape of the Shape did. Now I feel stupid for not giving the debut more of my attention when it came out.

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Lynda Barry, Matt Groening, Chris Ware, and Jules Feiffer in a discussion Saturday at Parker

Posted by Jerome Ludwig on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 5:29 PM

Chris Ware Self-Portrait
  • Chris Ware Self-Portrait
Longtime pals Matt Groening and Lynda Barry participated in a Chicago Humanities Festival event at UIC, which CHF marketing and communications associate director Jara Kern says drew the largest single festival turnout ever.

I don't know if the auditorium at Parker can hold that kind of turnout, but tomorrow the two will return for a CHF panel discussion moderated by the Reader's Michael Miner.

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11/9—"Site Unseen" at the Chicago Cultural Center

Posted by Sam Adams on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 5:01 PM

Monday from 6 to 9 PM the Chicago Cultural Center (78 E. Washington, wheelchair accessible entrance on Randolph) will host Site Unseen 2009: (Dis)abling Conditions, featuring "performances, installations, and video works consider[ing] issues around disability . . . created specifically for the rooms and architecture of the Chicago Cultural Center."

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11/9 — Free Facials at Macy's on State

Posted by Robyn Chang on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 4:35 PM

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The Fresh counter at Macy's on State (111 N. State) is offering free 30- to 45-minute facials by "facialist" Ezzat Gousheggir in a private, candle-lit room on Monday from 10 AM to 8 PM. Appointments are required; call 312-781-3699 to reserve a time.

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Flag as: Confusing to My Brain

Posted by Miles Raymer on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 3:38 PM

Before you watch the YouTube video after the jump—and you really do need to watch this video—please make sure to make note of its title: "Afghan Women By Ron Artest edit By Lucky."

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What Are Record Stores For?

Posted by Miles Raymer on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 2:24 PM

The University of Michigan's newspaper, the Michigan Daily, has a good article that uses the microcosm of the Ann Arbor record-store scene to talk about the business of selling music on a macrocosmic level. Most of the piece isn't too encouraging, as you'd expect, but I still got a warm feeling just from thinking about the great Ann Arbor music stores I used to spend so much time in. Wazoo Records was huge for me when I was growing up near the city, and I've probably bought more music from them than from any single other record store. And the meticulously organized and haphazardly shelved (literally) tons of records at Encore are basically a shrine to both the vinyl album and the obsessive hoarding of it. It's one of the single best record stores ever. Here is a perfect description of the store and its joys from the Daily piece:

"There's something about walking into Encore, in a space where the titles are almost falling down because the stacks are so high," [U. of M. assistant professor of musicology Mark] Clague says. "And you get a visceral sense, a physical sense, a psychic sense of the kind of legacy and amount of art that's been created that there is to grasp . . . If you just started at one end and tried to listen your way through the store, you'd die before you made it 10 feet past the front entrance."

If you're enough of a record geek that a four-and-a-half-hour drive seems like a fair trade for some serious crate digging, you owe it to yourself to make a pilgrimage there.

(via the Daily Swarm)

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Matthew Shipp on His Own

Posted by Peter Margasak on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 1:43 PM

Matthew Shipp
  • Matthew Shipp
New York pianist Matthew Shipp, who plays solo tonight at Elastic as part of the Umbrella Music Festival, didn’t release his first solo recording, One (Thirsty Ear), until 2006, 18 years into his career. That record signaled a shift in his music. Though he hadn’t stopped working with his most famous collaborator, titanic tenor saxophonist David S. Ware, he’d been spending an increasing amount of time experimenting with electronic musicians and hip-hop artists (DJ Spooky, Anti-Pop Consortium, Spring Heel Jack)—but One signalled the start of a shift back toward acoustic sounds. One thing that Shipp never altered, though, was the rigor of his compositions and improvisations, regardless of context.

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11/9 — Free White Mystery Show at the Empty Bottle

Posted by Robyn Chang on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 1:39 PM

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White Mystery bring their "gleeful (Billy) Childish-ness and swaggering Monks-y stomp" to the Empty Bottle for a show starting at 9:30 PM Monday. Opening are girl group Hollows (recently featured in the Reader) along with Bird Talk and DJ Emilie Fabulette.

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Is This the Future of Chicago Journalism?

Posted by Michael Miner on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 12:22 PM

The Chicago Community Trust is scattering half a million dollars in seed money to support 12 innovative local journalism projects. It's a new program, Community News Matters, funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation ($250,000) and the John D. and Catherine T.MacArthur Foundation ($100,000) as well as CCT; spokesperson Vivian Vahlberg says satisfying all 86 grant applications would have required $5.7 million. "The amazing thing is there were so few dogs among the proposals," she tells me. "So many good ones, so many interesting ones."

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Gene hangs the sausage, and other openings

Posted by Mike Sula on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 12:06 PM

Eugene Luzcz
  • Eugene Luzcz

I stopped by Lincoln Square's shiny new Gene's Sausage Shop yesterday at a lucky time. Patriarch Eugene Luzcz was hanging the sausage in the front window of the massive double-decker superstore that rose over the footprint of the old Meyer Delicatessen. I've been watching these developments for more than two years now, and I'm relieved that they're finally opening Saturday morning at 9 AM.

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Recent Comments

  • Re: Compare and Contrast

    • @MikeB

      I agree. Good work on that.

      Still sounds like a vocoder to…

    • on November 6, 2009
  • Re: Don't Mess With Big Joe

    • Out of curiosity, Fedup Dem...Hypothetically, If an incumbent were to have filed a petition with…

    • on November 6, 2009
  • Re: Matthew Shipp on His Own

    • Ray N., that's not nitpicking--that's correcting. I was wrong. In addition to Symbol Systems I…

    • on November 6, 2009

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