Bleader, Chicago Reader

Weekly Top Five: Joseph Lewis and the B movie swamp

Drew Hunt — Sun, 19 May 2013 14:00:00 -0500

Tomorrow night, the University of Chicago's Doc Films will screen the Joseph H. Lewis noir Gun Crazy, one of the major works of classic B cinema and one of the most radical and thoroughly entertaining movies in American film history, period. Prior to a renewed interest in expressionistic style during the 1970s, Lewis was considered a simple B movie director in the United States.…

Reader's Agenda Sun 5/19: An organic beer garden, 60 years of blues, and Andrew Lloyd Webber

Tosten Burks — Sun, 19 May 2013 06:00:00 -0500

Looking for something to do today? Agenda's got you covered:

Delmark Records, America's oldest jazz and blues independent record label, celebrates its 60th anniversary at the Old Town School of Folk Music's Szold Hall with a show headlined by Big Time Sarah and the BTS Express.…

Street View 099: Modern armor

Isa Giallorenzo — Sat, 18 May 2013 12:00:00 -0500

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest style seen in Chicago.
Eunice looks ready to tackle a city covered with tough materials. I never thought so many leather pieces could work so well together, but then here's the one thing I learned in fashion: never say never.…

Reader's Agenda Sat 5/18: Yo-Yo Ma, acclaimed hors d'oeuvres, and rap karaoke

Tosten Burks — Sat, 18 May 2013 06:00:00 -0500

Looking for something to do today? Agenda's got you covered:

Marcus Samuelsson went from being an Ethiopian orphan to the youngest chef ever to receive a three-star restaurant review in The New York Times.…

Marcus Samuelsson's Yes, Chef—reviewed

Aimee Levitt — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:08:00 -0500

It seems inevitable that Marcus Samuelsson's memoir, Yes, Chef, will someday become required reading in cooking schools, if only for its emphasis on the necessity of humility and hard work in the kitchen.

"To get ahead in that culture," Samuelsson writes, "you have to completely give yourself up to the place.…

A soulful country cut from the woman who sang "Harper Valley P.T.A."

Miles Raymer — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:08:12 -0500

Soul Jazz would be one of my favorite reissue labels of all time even if they had stopped putting out records after their first New York Noise compilation of vintage NYC postpunk, which was not-so-secretly as influential on early-aughts underground club culture as any Williamsburg dance-punk band of the time. Recently they put out Acid: Mysterons Invade the Jackin' Zone, a fantastic two-disc survey of Chicago acid house and experimental house.…

Best shows to see: Chrome, Turbonegro, Rafi Malkiel Quintet

Luca Cimarusti — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:26:00 -0500

There are two punk-rock festivals happening in Chicago this weekend: HoZac's Blackout and WHPK's Summer Breeze. While the former encourages heavy drinking significantly more than the latter, they've both stacked up awesome, obscure lineups, and even share an act (Detroit's Tyvek).…

Rare Sun Ra sounds and images from Corbett vs. Dempsey

Peter Margasak — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:00:00 -0500

Corbett vs. Dempsey, the record label, has just released one of the rarest and most historically murky recordings in the massive oeuvre of the great Sun Ra, issuing Continuation on CD for the first time. Last year I wrote about the formalization of the new imprint operated by the John Corbett and Jim Dempsey, the owners of their namesake art gallery, and even then, when I spoke with Corbett about this reissue, the actual date of the recording seemed in doubt.…

An interview with Dan Sallitt, director of The Unspeakable Act

Ben Sachs — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:05:17 -0500

The Unspeakable Act, which screens this week at the Gene Siskel Film Center (and with writer-director Dan Sallitt in attendance tonight and tomorrow afternoon), is an opaque independent drama about family ties. The title refers to incest, although the movie isn't concerned with shock value or sex.…

12 O'Clock Track: Noisy shoegaze on No Joy's "Slug Night"

Luca Cimarusti — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:00:00 -0500

On Mother's Day, I went to Lincoln Hall to catch Canadian noise-rock powerhouse Metz (who have recently built up the bro-iest fanbase ever, apparently) and TV Ghost, a dramatic postpunk act from Indiana. First up on the bill was No Joy, another band from Canada who had been added only the day before.…

Did you read about Eric Holder, the Village Voice, and The Third Coast?

Reader staff — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:18:00 -0500

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, amuse, or inspire us.

Hey, did you read:

• About why more women don't run for office? —Tal Rosenberg

• That on top of everything else, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was under fire this week for continuing to authorize marijuana prosecutions?…

Incest, adultery, and the rest of this week's screenings

J.R. Jones — Fri, 17 May 2013 07:36:26 -0500

In this week's long review Drew Hunt considers The Unspeakable Act, a new indie drama by Dan Sallitt in which a high school senior ponders her intimate feelings for her college-age brother. I review Stories We Tell, a documentary by Sarah Polley (Away From Her, Take This Waltz) about her discovery that her biological father was a Montreal film producer with whom her mother had a brief affair.…

Reader's Agenda Fri 5/17: Manifest, Fight Girl Battle World, and Asian American Showcase

Hannah Lorenz — Fri, 17 May 2013 06:13:15 -0500

Looking for something to do today? Agenda's got you covered:

It's graduation season, and Columbia College is throwing one hell of a party before it sends its students out into the cold, hard world.…

Doing it wrong on guns, Chicago-style

Ben Joravsky — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:59:00 -0500

I was up late the other night, reading "Addicted to Guns", my man Mick Dumke's latest feature on crime and violence in Chicago.

It should be mandatory reading for everyone.…

Before Obama's enemies came down on him he was catching it from his friends

Michael Miner — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:37:08 -0500

President Obama is getting hammered. He's been called out for the sins of the IRS in looking too hard and too exclusively at organizations whose applications for tax-exempt status contained red-flag language such as "tea party" or "patriots."…

Robbie Fulks revisits a scorned gem by Bob Dylan

Peter Margasak — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:04:00 -0500

A few days ago I got an e-mail from Robbie Fulks letting me know about the next installment of his ever-changing, always inventive and entertaining weekly Hideout residency on Mondays, which is now into its fourth year. I had already noted the show and planned to write something about it here, but I was still surprised to read his message, which read, in part, "just wanted to let you know your comment on Street-Legal, way back when I was preparing Slow Train Coming, stuck in my head . . .…

Lyric Opera's Oklahoma!: Where's that sound guy?

Deanna Isaacs — Thu, 16 May 2013 14:31:00 -0500

It ain’t at all a question of the singin'
That was lush
And all the words was up where you could see
But when the talkin' started
Some folks' words just turned to mush
Which wasn't how I thought it oughta be

I'm just a girl who likes to hear
When I'm attendin' a show
I want each word to be nice and clear
If it's a language I know

Lyric Opera said they fixed their sound
Bought speakers big as bulls to get it right
But at Oklahoma what I found
Was that those mikes was puttin' up a fight

Some words came sailin' right to me
Others, I couldn't make out
Wanted to say, could you shout?
What was that line all about?
I just cain't hear!

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Tyvek, Spray Paint, and Dikes of Holland play this year's Summer Breeze

Luca Cimarusti — Thu, 16 May 2013 14:00:00 -0500

Every year the programmers at WHPK, University of Chicago's community radio station, organize the Summer Breeze fest and manage to pack it full of amazing, oddball rock and punk acts. This year's festival is no exception, and it's happening this Sat 5/18 at noon.…

Stream new collaborations starring The-Dream and French Montana

Miles Raymer — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:34:00 -0500

This year has already seen a number of long-awaited releases by high-profile artists, including Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience and Daft Punk's uncharacteristically human, warm Random Access Memories (which technically isn't out yet but is streaming on iTunes, not to mention illegally downloadable, which is about the same thing). But certain hip-hop and R&B fans are keeping their focus locked on two records they've been waiting for seemingly forever, which are finally about to drop.…

New study shows that a woman's reading material reflects her willingness to put out

Aimee Levitt — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:38:41 -0500

Guess what, guys? A single female traveler's choice of airport reading material can indicate whether she's interested in hooking up with you!…

12 O'Clock Track: Roomrunner's burning new grunge tune, "Bait Car"

Leor Galil — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:00:00 -0500

Anytime Baltimore's Roomrunner drops a track, Nirvana's name rears its head; it happens so frequently it might lead you to believe Kurt Cobain rose from the dead to front the sludge-punk outfit. You just might be convinced that's the case listening to the group's new "Bait Car," which is today's 12 O'Clock Track.…

Did you read about David Simon, Dan Brown, and KFC in Gaza?

Reader staff — Thu, 16 May 2013 11:19:00 -0500

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, amuse, or inspire us.

Hey, did you read:

• That the IRS "scandal" is being blown way out of proportion, based on the evidence so far? —Steve Bogira

• The letter, signed by 52 news organizations, protesting the Department of Justice's secret subpoena of Associated Press telephone records?…

The Iceman: A true-crime story in shorthand

Ben Sachs — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:47:52 -0500

When did people start saying "porn" as shorthand for pornography? It sounds like a product of the home video era, when pornographic movies became easier to come by: a flat, workaday term for an increasingly familiar commodity.…

This year's stacked Riot Fest lineup includes Public Enemy, Fall Out Boy, and Motorhead

Leor Galil — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:08:50 -0500

Local punk blowout Riot Fest has steadily grown since it began as a two-day affair at the Congress Theater back in 2005, but it kicked things up a notch last year when it moved into Humboldt Park and transformed into a multistage outdoor carnival, Ferris wheel included. The experiment clearly paid off, as all three days of this year's Riot Fest will take place in Humboldt Park beginning Fri 9/13—last year's festival kicked off at the Congress for one night before moving to the park.…

Reader's Agenda Thu 5/16: Fall Out Boy, Craft Beer Week, and Surviving as a Freelancer

Hannah Lorenz — Thu, 16 May 2013 06:08:16 -0500

Looking for something to do today? Agenda's got you covered:

Fall Out Boy's new album, Save Rock and Roll, "wrangles together all sorts of elements into a cohesive, polished, hook-filled whole, including brostep ('Death Valley'), sample-based rap ('My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark'), and the kind of new-wave folk-pop that’s made the Lumineers a hit ('Young Volcanoes')," writes Leor Galil in Soundboard.…