Free Shit: Bleader, Chicago Reader

Free short stack at IHOP tomorrow

Mike Sula — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:05:44 -0600

For some reason IHOP is declaring tomorrow National Pancake Day, when everybody knows that international Pancake Day (aka Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Paczki Day, etc) was last week.

But the important thing is that mega chain is giving away free short stacks of buttermilk pancakes in exchange for donations to the Children's Miracle Network.…

Dance producers wish you a happy V-Day

Miles Raymer — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:25:00 -0600

Back in December a bunch of rappers sort of randomly decided to all release mix tapes on Christmas Day, and knowing how things work in rap, I'm guessing that releasing mix tapes on Christmas is going to be a thing now—which should improve the holiday, as long as the rappers involved stay away from actually sounding Christmassy. Today a good number of the dance-music producers in my Twitter timeline have been giving out Valentine's Day treats to their followers in the form of slightly more sexed-up than usual tracks and mixes posted to their SoundClouds.…

More Chi Sounds from Face Melt

Miles Raymer — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:24:00 -0600

Ground Lift Media's beat-maker showcase, Face Melt, will reach its lucky 13th installment at Subterranean on February 24. In keeping with their usual MO, the Face Melt crew have released yet another compilation of instrumentals by local producers from the more experimental corners of Chicago hip-hop, who together form a slightly less whimsical and more pragmatic companion to the Low End Theory scene out in medical-marijuana-giddy Los Angeles.…

Claire Chase premieres a Marcos Balter work inspired by Cy Twombly

Peter Margasak — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:04:33 -0600

In March extraordinary flutist Claire Chase, founder and director of International Contemporary Ensemble, will release her second collection of solo performances, Terrestre (New Focus). I was a huge fan of her 2009 debut, Aliento, and the new one looks equally tantalizing, with works by Kaija Saariaho, Franco Donatoni, Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, and Dai Fujikura (who wrote his piece, Glacier, specifically for Chase).…

Mitt Romney's Seamus problem

Sam Worley — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:00:00 -0600

In a 2007 Boston Globe profile, Neil Swidey introduced the world to Seamus, the Romney family dog, by way of an anecdote about Mitt, the Romney family patriarch, strapping the pooch to the top of the car for a 12-hour ride from Boston to Ontario. (In a canine carrier, mind you.…

The year in music: Wait, this isn't over yet?

Miles Raymer — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:30:00 -0600

I sort of figured that by the time I knocked off work on Friday—which, just to remind you, was December 30—I would be done writing about music that came out in 2011. I should have known better.…

It doesn't cost anything to look: Weekdays only, through February 10 at AIC

Deanna Isaacs — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:03:39 -0600

Just as this so-far tolerable winter turns a tad unpleasant, along comes the Art Institute with a great reason to get indoors: its annual (mandatory) gift of free admission for the local audience. Unfortunately, the AI's generosity doesn't extend to weekends, when most of us could make it.…

The year in music: best free albums

Miles Raymer — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:10:00 -0600

Thanks to several converging factors—the elevated profile of the rap mix-tape format, the decreasing cost of digital recording, the Internet—it's become common for musicians to not even bother charging money for their albums. In fact you could probably keep up a pretty solid rotation of new music and not spend a cent, even without touching the untold gigabytes of material illicitly uploaded to Mediafire.…

Last chance to see a "revolutionary Christmas Carol"

Tony Adler — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 17:27:20 -0600

As Goodman Theatre's latest A Christmas Carol proves, you don't need to work very hard to make the equation between Charles Dickens's Ebenezer Scrooge and the current crop of one-percenters. Scrooge is already in finance.…

The Weeknd drops a third great record in 2011

Luca Cimarusti — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:00:00 -0600

I love the Weeknd. And apparently everyone else in the world does too, because it's nearly impossible to find a year-end list without a mention of his first mix tape, House of Balloons.…

Andy Warhol's Empire screens outdoors

Sam Worley — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:30:00 -0600

On Friday night, the Art Institute opens its show “Light Years: Conceptual Art and the Photograph, 1964-1977” with an outdoor screening of Andy Warhol’s eight-hour film Empire. This is no simple movies-in-the-park affair: the museum plans to project Empire from the third floor of the Modern Wing onto 12 upper stories of the Aon Center, starting at 6 PM.…

Upcoming events: intriguing pop-ups, free pizza, and more

Kate Schmidt — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:00:00 -0600

Tomorrow, Thursday, December 8, from 7 to 9 PM, Chief O'Neill's ("The pub you've been practicing for") is hosting a complimentary wine and cheese tasting to introduce its new wine list of close to 100 bottles.

Also tomorrow evening is a truffle-making class at Katherine Anne Confections, where with the assistance of owner Katherine Duncan, teams of three to five people will undertake the process, from ganache making to rolling.…

Tenor saxophonists Wilkerson and Brown blow into Hamilton Park on Friday

Peter Margasak — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:00:00 -0600

Few albums epitomize the bluesy, hard-charging sound of the Chicago tenor saxophone tradition more thoroughly than Blowing in From Chicago (Blue Note), a classic 1957 session featuring Clifford Jordan and John Gilmore. Both players were products of the legendary Captain Walter Dyett's music program at DuSable High School, and both had indeed blown in from Chicago to record the album at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Hackensack, New Jersey.…

Raw Milk Freedom Ride

Mike Sula — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:28:00 -0600

Haven't heard much lately from the Molecular Collective, the guerrilla art group that was giving away raw milk around the city last summer. But civil disobedience in the name of unpasteurized dairy products is not dead.…

Tonight: Nick Butcher's Free Jazz Bitmaps

Peter Margasak — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:50:55 -0600

Graphic artist Nick Butcher—half of the superb art studio Sonnenzimmer, with girlfriend and former Reader employee Nadine Nakanishi—has spent 2011 working on an album due early next year called Free Jazz Bitmaps Vol. 1 (Hometapes).…

ICElab presents the toy-piano music of Phyllis Chen

Peter Margasak — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:30:00 -0600

I've been a fan of keyboardist Phyllis Chen for a couple of years now. Though she also plays conventional piano, in the work that acquainted me with her she uses toy piano—not as a gimmick, but a serious instrument.…

Someone voluntarily eats bamboo worms at Pops for Champagne

Julia Thiel — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:00:00 -0600

When we interviewed Luke Creagan for his Key Ingredient installment with bamboo worms, he mentioned that he had several cans of worms left from the case he'd ordered, and while he wouldn't be putting his bamboo-worm poutine on the menu at Pops for Champagne, he'd make it on request. And recently, someone actually took him up on it.…

Free Monday-night music: Cave and Ramon Lopez

Peter Margasak — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:30:00 -0600

Last month I wrote at length about Chicago instrumental four-piece Cave, who've made one my favorite rock albums of the year, Neverendless. The group is also responsible for one of my favorite live shows too.…

Free coffee at Bruegger's Oak Park

Mike Sula — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:15:00 -0600

The Oak Park outpost of the Vermont-based bagel chain Bruegger's is offering a free cup of mud on Wednesday before 2 PM. But don't be a churl: while you're there make a donation to Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.…

Sound-art satellites

Peter Margasak — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:45:00 -0500

The Umbrella Music Festival isn't the only option this week for fans of adventurous music. In July I wrote about the inaugural Sound Art Theories Symposium, an academic conference organized by Lou Mallozzi at the School of the Art Institute, and it's finally happening this weekend.…

Pre-Umbrella Music Festival action today

Peter Margasak — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 12:15:00 -0500

This year's Umbrella Music Festival officially gets under way tomorrow evening at the Chicago Cultural Center, with five sets led by European musicians. I wrote about three of them in the current issue of the Reader, and I'll preview six more of the festival's concerts in the paper that comes out on Thursday.…

Fifth House Ensemble mixes social media narratives and classical music

Peter Margasak — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:00:00 -0500

Beginning on Monday, October 24 the superb local classical music group Fifth House Ensemble launches another of its beguiling conceptual, multimedia excursions, which function as subversive means to get people to hear classical music too often ignored outside of high ticket venues. Last summer I caught them do a terrific performance of Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time (1940) amid the astral projections of the Adler Planetarium (which, to be honest, suffered when the visual portion resorted to Ken Burns-style slow motion close-ups of historical sketches rather than twinkling stars).…

Aaron Cohen celebrates his new book about Aretha's "Amazing Grace"

Peter Margasak — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 12:28:36 -0500

This Sunday, October 16, author Aaron Cohen (associate editor of DownBeat and a regular contributor to the Tribune) celebrates the publication of his new book Amazing Grace (Continuum) with an afternoon event at the Chicago Cultural Center. The book is part of Continuum’s popular 33 1/3 series and explores the making of Aretha Franklin’s double platinum 1972 gospel album Amazing Grace—the best-selling gospel record in history.…

Miles Davis lives!

Peter Margasak — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:06:00 -0500

I spent much of the past weekend having my mind blown by the box set Live in Europe 1967 (Columbia/Legacy), a bounty of recordings by the second Miles Davis Quintet (with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams). The set's three CDs and a single DVD chronicle a handful of concerts in the fall of 1967, when the group was arguably at the peak of its powers.…

Shit

Sam Worley — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 12:20:05 -0500

In last week’s Agenda, I made reference to the fact that Johannes Gutenberg, after he published the Bible, endeavored to publish what he called a “purgation-calendar”—a laxative timetable. That gem of a fact was from a recent Vanity Fair article by Michael Lewis, mostly about the German economy but led off by a bizarre and hilarious disquisition on what Lewis sees as a national preoccupation with scatology.…