Video, Chicago Reader

Tony Diaz of Maude's Liquor Bar works with cactus, the Slimer of succulents

Julia Thiel — Thu, 23 May 2013 04:00:00 -0500

Challenged with cactus, Tony Diaz of Maude's Liquor Bar develops a taste for the succulent, slime and all. by Julia Thiel The Chef: Tony Diaz (Maude's Liquor Bar)The Challenger: John Asbaty (Panozzo's Italian Market)The Ingredient: Cactus Prickly pear cactus grows so quickly and is so difficult to get rid of that it's often considered a pest plant.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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 . . .…

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.…

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.…

MC Tree shows his roots on Sunday School II

Leor Galil — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:34:15 -0500

In 1986 Sugar Ray Dinke released one of Chicago's first homegrown hip-hop songs: "Cabrini Green Rap." The tune's hard-hitting house-influenced beat is a nice riff on the sound Run-D.M.C. rode to popularity—the electronic drums, big crunchy guitar samples, and all—though it doesn't quite evoke the grim reality of the housing projects that provided the name and lyrical inspiration for the track.…

Why you won't see rap mixtapes on the charts

Miles Raymer — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:16:00 -0500

The rap mixtape is nearing the end of a decades-long journey from the margins of pop culture to mainstream credibility. Once an illicit-seeming format full of jacked beats and gun-flashing beefs, and distributed through liquor stores and Canal Street shops selling bootleg Chinese Louis Vuitton bags, mixtapes are now a multimillion-dollar business, and one of the most effective ways for a rap artist to launch a legitimate career.…

12 O'Clock Track: Jan Hammer Group's deeply funky "Don't You Know"

Tal Rosenberg — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:00:00 -0500

With all the hubbub surrounding Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, which leaked yesterday to alternately rapturous and nauseated reactions on Twitter, I was going to post Jan Hammer's "Don't You Know" because I thought that it replicates some of RAM's cheesier elements perfectly. But then I realized that the version of "Don't You Know" that I've been hearing this whole time—recommended to me by a friend—is an alternate, from his 1994 album Drive; they didn't even know that there was another rendition.…

Ballast Point beers—including Yellowtail, Big Eye, and Sculpin—arrive in Chicago

Philip Montoro — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:35:00 -0500

Venerable San Diego brewery Ballast Point, founded in 1996, began distributing its beers in Chicago last week. It names many of its beers after ocean fish (black marlin, dorado, sculpin) and generally sticks to a nautical theme even when fish aren't involved (Victory at Sea coffee-vanilla imperial porter, Navigator doppelbock).…

12 O'Clock Track: Mudhoney's ripper about shitty white wine, "Chardonnay"

Kevin Warwick — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:00:00 -0500

Mudhoney is just the best. There are a load of reasons as to why this is—the group's stubborn unwillingness to go the way of much of the first-wave grunge phenomenon and front man Mark Arm's embrace of the curmudgeon lifestyle being among my very favorites.…

This week in Indian cinema: Wadala, Goa, and Gatsby,

Ben Sachs — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:32:20 -0500

This week the River East 21 is showing two new Bollywood releases: Go Goa Gone, a horror-comedy about zombies attacking a rave party, and Shootout at Wadala, an action film inspired by the real-life standoff between Mumbai police and gangster Manya Surve in 1982. I suspect either film will make for a decent double feature with Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (also playing at River East), which feels closer in spirit to a Bollywood spectacle than to F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel.…

And the Key Ingredient Cook-Off winners are . . .

Gwynedd Stuart — Fri, 10 May 2013 15:52:52 -0500

Last Friday night, 26 of Chicago's best chefs and scads of you nice, attractive people (see here) gathered at the Bridgeport Art Center for a little culinary symbiosis in the name of adventure. We called it the Key Ingredient Cook-Off.…

Paul Kahan brings home a Beard and other food news bites

Mike Sula — Fri, 10 May 2013 12:36:02 -0500

• Paul Kahan (tied with David Chang for Outstanding Chef), Stephanie Izard (Best Chef: Great Lakes), and the Aviary (Outstanding Bar Program) all won James Beard Awards on Monday.

• Myron Freedman, owner of the venerable Lincolnwood steak house Myron & Phil's, died Thursday night, reports the Skokie Review.…

Joyce, Fitzgerald, and the rest of this week's screenings

J.R. Jones — Fri, 10 May 2013 07:30:31 -0500

In this week's long review Tal Rosenberg makes a case for Olivier Assayas's latest feature, Something in the Air, as a mature revision of his first international success, Cold Water, akin to James Joyce's revision of his aborted first novel, "Stephen Hero," into A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. If that's not literate enough for you, we've also got a short review of The Great Gatsby, Baz Luhrmann's big-screen adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic.…

The beauty of singer Dawn McCarthy in Faun Fables and with Bonnie "Prince" Billy

Peter Margasak — Thu, 09 May 2013 15:51:00 -0500

On Sunday afternoon Bay Area group Faun Fables rolls into town to play a house concert on the northwest side (the previously announced Saturday-night show at SPACE in Evanston is no longer happening). The band is the project of the remarkable singer Dawn McCarthy and her longtime partner Nils Frykdahl (who's probably known best for his lengthy membership in the weirdo art-punk band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum).…

People know the GTW in Chicago, but it's time for everyone else to take notice

Leor Galil — Wed, 08 May 2013 13:57:00 -0500

Local rapper James King (aka the GTW) has been a Bleader fixture since he teamed up with Bengfang to drop the 4814 EP back in September. Lately others have been getting clued in on King including Yours Truly, the popular music site behind the excellent "Songs From Scratch" series that pairs producers and rappers to create a new track; it's responsible for the sultry psych-R&B track by Jeremih and Shlohmo, "Bo Peep (Do U Right)," and a great collaboration from Chance the Rapper and Nosaj Thing called "Paranoia," which Chance released as part of the second song on Acid Rap, "Pusha Man."

Yours Truly hasn't picked King for the series (at least not yet), but yesterday the site premiered his spacey remix of "When I'm Lit" by local rapper-singer Tink.…

Haile Gerima answers for Bush Mama at Logan Center for the Arts

J.R. Jones — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:53:56 -0500

The credits of Bush Mama (1976) list Haile Gerima not as director but as "answerable," a welcome gesture of responsibility from a filmmaker and especially admirable given the film's incendiary nature. Shot in black and white as Gerima's thesis film for UCLA, it follows the slow but steady political radicalization of a young woman in Watts in the bitter ruins of the black power movement.…

Iraqi maqam master Hamid Al-Saadi on a screen near you

Peter Margasak — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:37:00 -0500

In February I blogged about a new partnership between the Old Town School of Folk Music and the Chicago public television station WYCC (Channel 20) on a new international music program called Musicology: Live From the Old Town School of Folk Music. That week Habib Koite and Eric Bibb performed in the first concert to be taped for the series; the results were broadcast on April 19.…

Audrey Niffenegger's trans-species fairy tale

Sam Worley — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:00:00 -0500

Audrey Niffenegger's lovely new Raven Girl is a trans-species fairy tale. by Sam Worley Turnoff though it may be to read something described as a postmodern fairy tale, that really is the handiest label for Audrey Niffenegger's latest, Raven Girl, an illustrated novella about a mixed-species brood. It's a lovely story.…

The Ming Mecca finally unites synth geeks and video game hackers

Miles Raymer — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:50:08 -0500

If you're the type of hands-on engineering geek whose favorite pastimes involve complicated schematics and skilfully wielding a soldering iron, it's likely that you've tried your hand at one of the two most popular engineer-geek hobbies of the past few years: building synthesizers out of Eurorack components and hacking old video game systems. Both have obvious appeal to the type of person who spent his childhood deconstructing household appliances to see how they work, just with a slightly different focus depending on whether your particular set of personal obsessions is geared more toward obscure Japan-only video games or the collected works of Giorgio Moroder.…

Steve Krakow's magical history tour

Andrea Bauer — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:00:00 -0500

Steve Krakow's Humboldt Park apartment is teeming with records, comics, and an animatronic bear or two. by Andrea Bauer "I go crazy around blank walls. It's super unnatural to me," says Steve Krakow, a visual artist who draws comics and caricatures, pens a strip for the Reader called the Secret History of Chicago Music, and spearheads the Galactic Zoo Dossier fanzine.…

Rocko's "Feels Guud" is your Monday jam

Miles Raymer — Mon, 06 May 2013 15:35:29 -0500

When Rocko dropped his Gift of Gab 2 mixtape back in February, it looked like the Atlanta rapper slash music-biz entrepreneur was on the verge of a mainstream breakthrough—a hunch I based largely on the strength of its addictive first single, "U.O.E.N.O.," featuring Future and Rick Ross. Then, as you very likely heard, shit kind of blew up in the face of everyone involved with the song, thanks to two lines in Rick Ross's verse where he seems to boast about drugging and date-raping a woman.…

Founders Doom: An imperial IPA gets even heavier

Philip Montoro — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:00:00 -0500

I almost wish Founders had called its bourbon-barrel imperial IPA "Thrash," as inapt as that name would be—that way it'd be marginally less awkward to use this review to talk about the death of founding Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman, who succumbed to liver failure at age 49 on Thursday. The organ damage that helped kill him was almost certainly related to his bout with necrotizing fasciitis, aka the flesh-eating bacteria, which he said he contracted from (of all things) a spider bite.…