Events Search
Boobs of the Dead: A Walking Dead Burlesque
Through 1/25: Fri 9 PMTheater & Performance
When I told my wife (and yes, I told my wife) that I was going to see a zombie-themed strip show called Boobs of the Dead, she made a face and laid out a picture for me of gray, rotting dugs without so much as a hint of perk. Well, that's not how it turned out. This parody of the Walking Dead franchise features eight remarkably healthy-looking infectees. In fact, as a lab-coated scientist points out, the zombifying process actually makes them sexier, magically clothing them in bustiers and fishnet stockings. Even a bearded old codger gets transformed. Gorilla Tango burlesques are always smart and playful, but this edition shows a developing sophistication. The dancers are more confident, Erica Reid's choreography is more resourceful (starting with an awfully sexy reverse strip and culminating in a full-out production number), and, um, standout performances are getting more common. Paly Flames, in particular, does some honest-to-god show-stealing here. —Tony Adler $35
Greetings from the Holy City
Through 1/25:Galleries
New photographs by Jason Reblando, documenting the contemporary residents who call North Lawndale home.
Nuances of Landscape
Through 1/25:Galleries
Chicago painters Mary Porterfield and Nina Weiss present new work . Reception Thu 12/6, 5-8 PM.
1600 E. Golf Rd.
Suburbs Northwest
847-635-2633Tapman: Origin
Through 1/25: Fri 7:30 PMTheater & Performance
Tapman Productions' debut musical has humor, charm, and lots of fabulous tap dancing. But, as directed and choreographed by Tristan Bruns, it comes up seriously short on storytelling. A sketchy script full of throwaway lines buries the plot points. All I know for sure is that superhero (or maybe bad guy) Tapman alternately clashes and bonds with his mighty frenemy, the MADD Tapper—and that Tapman's girlfriend should be crucial but isn't. Music director Kyle Greer supplies some expert songs and piano playing, while, as Tapman, Bruns reveals a decent voice and a knack for sand-dancing. Guest artists from the Cartier Collective and M.A.D.D. Rhythms troupes flesh out the show, if not the narrative, and Zada Cheeks's MADD Tapper joins Bruns in a truly super superhero battle. —Laura Molzahn $15
Sera Cahoone, Ryan Jeffrey
Sat., Jan. 26, 7 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
Sera Cahoone named her recent third solo album, Deer Creek Canyon (Sub Pop), after a park near where she grew up in Colorado; in the mid-90s she moved to Seattle, where she still lives, and played drums in Carissa’s Wierd, Band of Horses, and other groups. Almost every song on Deer Creek Canyon expresses a longing for home, familiarity, and companionship, whether she’s literally yearning for a place (on the title track) or struggling with the pull of romantic nostalgia (on “Rumpshaker” she sings, “But now that I’m here I don’t know why I came at all”). As with her previous records, Cahoone’s sometimes wispy, sometimes twangy folk-rock flirts dangerously with ethereal fluff a la Sarah McLachlan, but she saves her songs with the directness of her writing and the leanness of the arrangements. —Peter Margasak Ryan Jeffrey opens.
$10
Casket Lottery, Maps for Travelers, Sweet Cobra, Jar'd Loose
Sat., Jan. 26, 9 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
If you’re a forlorn thirtysomething susceptible to nostalgia and still partial to early-aughts emocore—the kind that’s heavy on thick, twangy bass and doleful, out-of-key vocals with syllables drawn out like thiiiiiiiiisss!—the past five years have been pretty kind. Midwestern staples such as Small Brown Bike, Braid, and the Get Up Kids have re-formed and released new material, and just last year Kansas City’s Casket Lottery (who broke up in 2006) did the same, reintroducing their relatively proggy brand of emo with last fall’s Real Fear (No Sleep)—piano and second guitar now included. Having evolved into their present shape from that of a metalcore pillar a la Coalesce (who also exist again), Casket Lottery have a knack for playing potent, intricate guitar licks and getting as tough as the raspy vocal harmonies of Nathan Ellis and Stacy Hilt allow. Their 2000 release Moving Mountains stands toe-to-toe with anything from that era, and despite 2013’s expanded lineup and the visible gray hair on the heads of the band’s front men, the mature and thoughtful Real Fear can match the spirit of the best material in Casket Lottery’s catalog—aches and pains and all. —Kevin Warwick Maps for Travelers, Sweet Cobra, and Jar’d Loose open.
$10
Chicago Afrobeat Project, Nick & the Ovorols
Sat., Jan. 26, 9:30 p.m.International
Chicago Afrobeat Project—arguably the midwest’s best practitioners of the funky style pioneered more than four decades ago by Nigerian national hero Fela Kuti—adapt Afrobeat to a wide range of music on their new album, Nyash Up! (CAbP Music), including songs by local free-jazz combo the Vandermark 5, Brazilian pop thrush Ceu, and Led Zeppelin. In nearly every case the material has been so heavily remade that the only trace of the original is the occasional lyric or indelible lick—the bass line in Fugazi’s “Waiting Room,” for instance, or the vocals of guest singer Ugochi on Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues.” CABP definitely have Fela’s sound down pat—they even fuse his “Just Like That” with Radiohead’s “I Might Be Wrong” on the opening track—but their take on it sometimes feels self-conscious and bland. And it doesn’t help that local rapper S. Squair Blaq adds some verses to the Gaye cover that back down from Fela’s radical politics to rather timidly demand an end to the war on the middle class—it sounds depressingly like an uninspired Obama stump speech. —Peter Margasak Nick & the Ovorols open.
$10
Inaugural Story Night
1/26Theater & Performance
Seasoned performance artist David Boyle leads a night of original storytelling with the help of four other actors. $15
Winter Block Party for Hip Hop Arts
Sat., Jan. 26, 12 p.m.Miscellaneous
This city has a long, pretty romantic history with hip-hop. Celebrate the genre's past and future in Chicago at the fifth annual Winter Block Party for Hip Hop Arts, a day of dance battles, poetry slams, and a screening of Benji, the heart-wrenching documentary about Simeon basketball star Ben Wilson's 1984 murder. And there's music, naturally. In the evening, an 18-and-up show features eight-piece hip-hop band Sidewalk Chalk, emcee Psalm One, and rappers ADD-2 and Saba.
free from noon til 6 PM, $15 beginning at 7 PM
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