Do This: Bleader, Chicago Reader

Black Cinema House has The Blues—and more—this Friday

Ben Sachs — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:10:39 -0500

On Friday night around 8:15 PM the south side arts organization Black Cinema House will host the first program in a summer-long series called "Movies Under Stars." Copresented by Chicago Film Archives, the outdoor series centers on documentary shorts about jazz and blues musicians, with other rare nonfiction works rounding out the lineup. This week's program consists of: The Blues, a 1973 doc by music historian Samuel Charters depicting southern bluesmen performing at home; Give My Poor Heart Ease (produced by the Center for Southern Folklore in 1975), which focuses on blues from the Mississippi Delta; and American Shoeshine, a 1976 doc in the direct-cinema mode about shoeshiners.…

Reader's Agenda Tue 5/21: Israeli jazz, immigrant stories, and a JC Brooks listening party

Tosten Burks — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:11:21 -0500

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

If there's one group of people who know how to throw a jazz festival it's the . . .…

Reader's Agenda Mon 5/20: Dinosaur improv, Charlie XCX, and architecture

Tosten Burks — Mon, 20 May 2013 06:09:23 -0500

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

Links Hall hosts an improv show that involves Nerf gear, PVC pipe, Wiffle balls, and dinosaurs.…

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.…

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.…

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).…

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.…

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.…

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.…

Reader's Agenda Wed 5/15: Bodies of Work Festival, Deep Sea Diver with Telekinesis, and Music + Movement Showcase,

Hannah Lorenz — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:07:08 -0500

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

The Bodies of Work Festival has a specific message about what disability means "personally, politically, and aesthetically."…

Reader's Agenda Tue 5/14: Holocaust education, sludgy metal, and a postmodern fairy tale

Tosten Burks — Tue, 14 May 2013 06:15:00 -0500

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

The exhibit "Fire in My Heart: The Story of Hannah Senesh" recounts the life of a young poet executed by a Nazi firing squad after the attempted rescue of some of her Jewish friends in Hungary.…

Bodega Pop unearths Cambodian rock gems

Miles Raymer — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:03:46 -0500

Nowhere does New York City's phenomenal melting-pot aspect shine through more than in its plentiful, cat-filled bodegas, where the simple act of ducking in to buy a bottle of water can easily turn into a crash course in a far-off country's pop culture, snack food preferences, and/or religious practices. Astoria resident Gary Sullivan figured out a while ago that New York's bodegas offered a far different perspective on the actual listening habits of people around the globe than what the world music section at the record store had to offer—one that's generally funkier and funner, if more indebted to Western pop styles and therefore less "authentic."…

Best shows to see: Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, the Body, and Deep Sea Diver

Luca Cimarusti — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:52:47 -0500

The week's just beginning, and it's another busy one. The obvious highlight of a stacked list of great shows is Kurt Vile, who's playing Lincoln Hall on Tue 5/14 in support of his excellent new record Wakin on a Pretty Daze.…

Reader's Agenda Mon 5/13: The Yellow Birds, the Harlem Renaissance, and David Misch

Tosten Burks — Mon, 13 May 2013 06:13:54 -0500

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

Kevin Powers was a machine gunner in Iraq at the age of 17.…

Reader's Agenda Sun 5/12: A Mother's Day matinee, a Marxist musical, and Coliseum

Tosten Burks — Sun, 12 May 2013 06:00:00 -0500

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

Shake things up a bit this Mother's Day by going to the Music Box for a matinee showing of the 1981 camp classic Mommie Dearest, with commentary by Dick O'Day and complimentary wire hangers.…

Reader's Agenda Sat 5/11: Chicago Arts Girls Spring Pop-Up Shop, American Beer Classic, and Professor Blastoff

Tosten Burks — Sat, 11 May 2013 06:00:00 -0500

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

Paintings.…

Reader's Agenda Fri 5/10: Eve Ensler, Dock 6 Design and Art 5, and Opera-Matic

Hannah Lorenz — Fri, 10 May 2013 06:15:57 -0500

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

Eve Ensler is best known as the playwright behind The Vagina Monologues.…

See Yasujiro Ozu's final silent film this Saturday

Ben Sachs — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:27:21 -0500

This Saturday at noon, the Music Box will screen Yasujiro Ozu's An Inn in Tokyo (1935) in its monthly silent-cinema series. It's a special movie in a number of ways: not only was it the last silent film made by Ozu—one of the greatest of Japanese filmmakers—it was one of the last Japanese silent films, period.…

Best shows to see: Dumpster Babies, Wolf Eyes, Coppice

Luca Cimarusti — Thu, 09 May 2013 12:37:32 -0500

It's starting to be that time of the year when bands hit the road, and if you wanted to, you could see more than one great show a night. This weekend proves just that, with three days stacked with tons of awesome shows.…

Reader's Agenda Thu 5/9: Kittypalooza, Charles Bradley & the Extraordinaires, and CineYouth Festival

Hannah Lorenz — Thu, 09 May 2013 06:13:08 -0500

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

At Martyrs', the Tree House Humane Society hosts Kittypalooza, a fund-raising event whose proceeds benefit their ongoing efforts "to educate the public proper and responsible animal care."…

Reader's Agenda Wed 5/8: The Art of the Bicycle, "Ago," and Momo

Hannah Lorenz — Wed, 08 May 2013 06:14:17 -0500

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

The Museum of Science and Industry's new exhibit "The Art of the Bicycle" shows off the full range of the bicycle's history, from antique German "walking machines" to the cutting-edge cycles we'll all be riding ten years from now.…

Reader's Agenda Tue 5/7: Ian Svenonius, Keith Koeneman and Neil Steinberg in conversation, and Jared Logan

Drew Hunt — Tue, 07 May 2013 06:14:08 -0500

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

Ian Svenonius, former front man for the Nation of Ulysses and the Make-Up, reads from his new book, Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'n' Roll Group at Quimby's.…

Best shows to see: Patti Smith & Her Band, Black Pus, Momo

Leor Galil — Mon, 06 May 2013 11:03:43 -0500

Summer touring season is ramping up, and while more bands are getting routed through Chicago there are some that can't quite get here for one reason or another. Sweden's Hypocrisy was supposed to play Ultra Lounge tonight, but the group had to cancel its whole tour; according to the metal band's site the members of Hypocrisy recently learned that they would not be able to pick up their travel visas until late June due to an influx of work at the department of Homeland Security.…