Party photo crew GlitterGuts take to Patreon to survive the nightlife drought
Plus: Artist and musician Hali Palombo creates otherworldly collages from antique audio cylinders, and R&B singer Queen Mars drops the lead single from her upcoming EP.
By J.R. Nelson @JR1Nelson and Leor Galil @imLeorSign up for our newsletters Subscribe
Since 2008, photo crew GlitterGuts have been key documenters of Chicago's nightlife scene. They've brought their cameras to Zine Fest, Girls Rock! Chicago events, nearly all of Beauty Bar's happenings, and practically every show by turbocharged cabaret collective the Fly Honeys—if a GlitterGuts photographer had a booth set up, you knew you were at a great party. The pandemic's destruction of nightlife has of course hurt GlitterGuts too—for the past 11 months, they've relied on portraits and the occasional outdoor event. Last month, founders Sarah Joyce and Eric Strom launched a Patreon to help sustain the company and perhaps fund more of their nontraditional creative work. Subscribers can receive Strom's detailed, funny Chicago party histories and high-res photos from the GlitterGuts archives. "It gives us a space to experiment with some writing and see where that goes," Joyce says. "Maybe sharing work in progress, or just different projects. Patreon is hopefully a space to do that."
Gossip Wolf has been intrigued by artist and musician Hali Palombo since seeing her haunting installation "Grand Detour" last summer—it mixes sparse field recordings with surveillance-style video of empty midwestern retail and industrial locations. Last week, she released the cassette Cylinder Loops, which creates a wonderfully blurry, dislocated ambience by collaging crackly recordings more than a century old from the University of California at Santa Barbara's Cylinder Audio Archive. It's available digitally and as a limited-edition tape via Bandcamp.
Local singer Queen Mars has been on a tear lately, releasing standout R&B singles with beguiling videos and earworm melodies tinged with alt-pop. Her hot streak includes "B!tch," "Queen of Hearts," and now "Boys Like You," a slow burner about emotionally closeted men who want "a good girl, to fuck it up." It's the first cut from her EP Trust Issues, due Friday, April 9. v
Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.
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