Friday, November 6, 2009
Posted
by Peter Margasak
on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 6:04 PM
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.
Continue reading »
Tags: Starless & Bible Black, Locust Music, Empty Bottle, O.W.L., Stephen Titra, Shape of the Shape, Mountain Bus, Rhythm's Children, Murray Allen, Dawson Prater, Brown Elephant, British folk, folk-rock, Tim Buckley, Dave Friedman, Al Keeler, Alessandro Bosetti, Paul Metzger
Permalink
|
Posted
by Jerome Ludwig
on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 5:29 PM
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.
Continue reading »
Tags: Michael Miner, Chicago Humanities Festival, Jules Feiffer, Chris Ware, Matt Groening, Lynda Barry, Simpsons, Ernie Pook, cartoonists, alternative comics
Permalink
|
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."
Continue reading »
Tags: Site Unseen, Chicago Cultural Center, Julie Laffin, disability, handicap, arts, performance art
Permalink
|
Posted
by Robyn Chang
on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 4:35 PM
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.
Tags: free facials, Macy's, Fresh products, skincare
Permalink
|
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."
Continue reading »
Tags: Ron Artest, hip-hop, slow jams, WTF, videos, domestic abuse, Afghanistan, political music
Permalink
|
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)
Tags: the biz, vinyl, record stores, Encore Records, Wazoo Records, Michigan Daily
Permalink
|
Posted
by Peter Margasak
on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 1:43 PM
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.
Continue reading »
Tags: Matthew Shipp, Umbrella Music Festival, Elastic, DJ Spooky, Anti-Pop Consortium, Spring Heel Jack, David S. Ware, 4D, Thirsty Ear Records, Un Piano, Rogue Art Records
Permalink
|
Posted
by Robyn Chang
on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 1:39 PM
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.
Tags: White Mystery, Hollows, Bird Talk, DJ Emilie Fabulette, free show, Empty Bottle
Permalink
|
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."
Continue reading »
Tags: Chicago Community Trust, Community News Matters, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, John D. and Catherine T.MacArthur Foundation, Columbia College, Chicago Tribune, Gapers Block Media, Loyola University Chicago, Benito Juarez Community Academy, South Suburban Publishing, Chicago Association of Hispanic Journalists, Chicago Youth Voices Network, Community Media Workshop, Jack Doppelt, Medill School of Journalism, Chicago News Cooperative, Chicago Scoop, Better Government Association, Beachwood Reporter, Brad Flora, Windy Citizen, Terry Mazany, Chicago Matters, WTTW, Chicago Public Radio, Chicago Public Library, Chicago Reporter, Vivian Vahlberg
Permalink
|
Posted
by Mike Sula
on Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 12:06 PM
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.
Continue reading »
Tags: Gene's Sausage Shop, Meyer Delicatessan, Eugene Luzcz, Yolanda Luzcz, blogsherpa, Tamalli, Maiz, Big Star, Salam
Permalink
|