Print Issue of January 5, 2017 (Volume 46, Number 13)

C H I C A G O ’ S F R E E W E E K LY | K I C K I N G A S S S I N C E 1 9 7 1 | J A N U A R Y 5 , 2 0 1 7

After a lifechanging transition, Will Davis sets out to transform a Chicago theater.

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By NOVID PARSI

POLITICS The economic causes behind the city’s staggering number of homicides 9

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE Ben Burden blends hip-hop, R&B, and pushback against toxic masculinity. 21

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C H I C AG O R E A D E R | JA N UA RY 5, 2 01 7 | VO LU M E 4 6 , N U M B E R 1 3

TO CONTACT ANY READER EMPLOYEE, E-MAIL: (FIRST INITIAL)(LAST NAME) @CHICAGOREADER.COM

EDITOR JAKE MALOOLEY CREATIVE DIRECTOR PAUL JOHN HIGGINS DEPUTY EDITOR, NEWS ROBIN AMER CULTURE EDITOR TAL ROSENBERG DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS FILM EDITOR J.R. JONES MUSIC EDITOR PHILIP MONTORO ASSOCIATE EDITORS KATE SCHMIDT, KEVIN WARWICK, BRIANNA WELLEN SENIOR WRITERS MICHAEL MINER, MIKE SULA SENIOR THEATER CRITIC TONY ADLER STAFF WRITERS LEOR GALIL, DEANNA ISAACS, BEN JORAVSKY, AIMEE LEVITT, PETER MARGASAK, JULIA THIEL SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR RYAN SMITH GRAPHIC DESIGNER SUE KWONG MUSIC LISTINGS COORDINATOR LUCA CIMARUSTI EDITORIAL ASSISTANT CASSIDY RYAN CONTRIBUTING WRITERS NOAH BERLATSKY, DERRICK CLIFTON, MATT DE LA PEÑA, MAYA DUKMASOVA, ANNE FORD, ISA GIALLORENZO, JOHN GREENFIELD, JUSTIN HAYFORD, JACK HELBIG, DAN JAKES, BILL MEYER, J.R. NELSON, MARISSA OBERLANDER, LEAH PICKETT, DMITRY SAMAROV, DAVID WHITEIS, ALBERT WILLIAMS INTERNS ISABEL OCHOA GOLD, JACK LADD ---------------------------------------------------------------VICE PRESIDENT OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT NICKI STANULA VICE PRESIDENT OF NEW MEDIA GUADALUPE CARRANZA SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER EVANGELINE MILLER ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES FABIO CAVALIERI, ARIANA DIAZ, BRIDGET KANE MARKETING AND EVENTS MANAGER BRYAN BURDA DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL JOHN DUNLEVY ADVERTISING COORDINATOR HERMINIA BATTAGLIA CLASSIFIEDS REPRESENTATIVE KRIS DODD ---------------------------------------------------------------DISTRIBUTION CONCERNS distributionissues@chicagoreader.com CHICAGO READER 350 N. ORLEANS, CHICAGO, IL 60654 312-222-6920, CHICAGOREADER.COM

FEATURES

THEATER

After a life-changing transition, Will Davis sets out to transform a Chicago theater American Theater Company’s fresh-faced artistic director credits his gender transition with a creative awakening. Now the 33-year-old looks to turn the venerable North Center playhouse into a place of “wild theatricality.”

BY NOVID PARSI 14

Ben Burden blends hip-hop, R&B, and pushback against toxic masculinity After an injury ended his soccer career, he came to Chicago to find his true self in music.

BY TIFFANY WALDEN 21

IN THIS ISSUE 4 Agenda Chicago Improv Classic, stand-up from Janeane Garofalo, Fact-Checking in the Age of Trumpism, the film Ixcancul, and more recommendations

CITY LIFE

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9 Joravsky | Politics The economic causes of Chicago’s staggering number of homicides 10 Transportation Chicago needs a Vision Zero plan for eliminating gun violence.

12 Identity and Culture Make these political resolutions for the New Year.

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE

CLASSIFIEDS

FOOD & DRINK

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26 Shows of note Punk-rock fest Ian’s Party, Camper Van Beethoven, Steve Earle, Big Thief, and more

ARTS & CULTURE

THE READER (ISSN 1096-6919) IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY SUN-TIMES MEDIA, LLC, 350 N. ORLEANS, CHICAGO, IL 60654. © 2016 SUN-TIMES MEDIA, LLC. PERIODICAL POSTAGE PAID AT CHICAGO, IL. POSTMASTER: SEND CHANGE OF ADDRESS TO CHICAGO READER, 350 N. ORLEANS, CHICAGO, IL 60654.

ON THE COVER: PHOTO BY JEFFREY MARINI. FOR MORE OF HIS WORK, GO TO JEFFREYMARINI.COM.

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE

7 Chicagoans What does an “agnostic atheist” believe?

7 Education Local experts weigh in on Trump’s pick for secretary of education.

17 Theater The final performance of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind had as much vitality as its original run.

18 Visual Art The MCA’s “Riot Grrrls” brings art girls to the forefront.

19 Movies Martin Scorsese’s Silence is cerebral, stoic, and tranquil, but it still shares much in common with his other films.

31 Restaurant review: Fifolet The Cajun-creole restaurant Chicago is missing comes to West Town.

33 Bar review: The Native Gone are Bonny’s sweaty, late-night dance parties.

34 Jobs 34 Apartments & Spaces 35 Marketplace 36 Straight Dope Aside from President Obama, have there been any other American presidents who under the “one-drop rule” would’ve been considered black?

37 Savage Love How to help a 30-year-old virgin find an escort 38 Early Warnings BTS, Lauryn Hill, Rufus Wainwright, and more shows to come 38 Gossip Wolf New trio FACS carries the darkness of Disappears to a new place, and more music news.

JANUARY 5, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 3

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Big Ski Trip: A Cautionary Tale for Teen Youth o NIKKI LOEHR

THEATER

More at chicagoreader.com/ theater Big Ski Trip: A Cautionary Tale for Teen Youth Pop culture references just old enough to have fallen out of public consciousness but not yet classic enough to carry much nostalgic authority (“Hello Moto!”) have become a comedy trope so surefire and beloved among sketch groups I’m astounded no one has yet coined a term for it. That’s the kind of joke executed left and right in this “very special episode”-inspired goof about a group of teenagers who get themselves into trouble by allowing their hormones to dictate their AOL Instant Messenger use over winter vacation. Unfortunately—unlike its more absurd, more musical predecessor, Skiing Is Believing—Big Ski Trip plays out mostly as a bunch of rake-effect gags that land hard. —DAN JAKES Through 1/24: Tue 8 PM, Annoyance Theatre, 851 W. Belmont, 773-697-9693, theannoyance. com, $20, $15 students.

Blue Man Group After 20 years R and god knows how many bald caps and gallons of paint, this Chicago

staple stays true to its mission: “Blue Man Group—enemy of monotony, remedy for boredom, promoter of overjoy and elation.” That experimental, interactive theater can remain both current and family friendly in equal measure speaks to the show’s healthy mix of blink-andyou’ll-miss-it wit and larger-than-life clowning. Audience participation, voluntary and involuntary, is still a key component, whether it’s sharing Twinkies with the trio, donning a poncho in the splash zone, or being shamed as a latecomer, in showstopping fashion. Cultural references and parodies have certainly changed with the times (and devices), but the keys to Blue Man Group remain its hypnotic music and lively energy—if you’re not out of your seat dancing when the 90 minutes are up, you probably don’t have a pulse. —MARISSA OBERLANDER Open run: Thu 8 PM; Fri 7 PM; Sat 2, 5, and 8 PM; Sun 4 and 7 PM, Briar Street

4 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 5, 2017

Theatre, 3133 N. Halsted, 773-348-4000, blueman.com/tickets/chicago, $49-$99.

DANCE

Verge Paige Caldarella’s work R subverting traditional notions of gender, body type, and identity associat-

ed with ballet. Fri 1/6-Sun 1/8: 7 PM, Links Hall at Constellation, 3111 N. Western, 773-281-0824, linkshall.org, $10.

COMEDY

ago, when they co-owned Under the Gun Theater in Lakeview (Mullaney left in May, due, he told me, to incompatible “levels of optimism”). The 2017 Classic starts January 7 at the Second City, and culminates in finals there on February 18. Mullaney is no Bernie Sanders; he believes competition “drives people,” and that’s a good thing. Still, the Classic has checks and balances designed into it—runners-up can survive qualifying rounds, a talented member of a losing team can get picked up by a winning one. In the end, though, Mullaney relies on the genius of the marketplace: “The crowd knows good improv when they see it.” —TONY ADLER Chicago Improv Classic Qualifying rounds Sat 1/7, 1/14, and 1/21, 8:30 and 10 PM, Second City de Maat Theatre, 230 W. North, third floor; semifinals Sat 1/28, 2/4, and 2/11; finals 2/18, 10 PM, Donny’s Skybox Theatre, 230 W. North, fourth floor, 312-337-3992, secondcity.com, $13, $11 students.

Cocktails and Humor Team R Us Comedy hosts this stand-up showcase featuring Amanda Cohen,

Meghana Indurti, Tyler Fowler, and Peter Kim. Sat 1/7, 9 PM, CH Distillery, 564 W. Randolph, 312-707-8780, chdistillery. com, $20.

Don’t Kid Yourself This edition R of the comedy show about childhood focuses on sleepovers. Performers include Erica Nicole Clark, Leslie Dinsmore, and Mom Genes. Wed 1/11, 7:30 PM, Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, 773-709-1401. F

Actual Murderers Comedy colJaneane Garofalo The star of R lective Actual Murderers mix live R Reality Bites and Wet Hot Ameriand pretaped elements for an “absurdist can Summer performs stand-up. Sat 1/7,

exploration into our darker natures.” Sun 1/8, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, 773-281-4444, beatkitchen.com, $5.

8 PM, Thalia Hall, 1227 W. 18th, 312-5263851, thaliahallchicago.com, $35.50.

Bar, 1637 W. North, 773-123-5678, liveatnorthbar.com, $10, $5 in advance.

Hug It Out Sketch group HuggaR ble Riot stages their best material from the past two years in this new revue. 1/4-3/29: Wed 8 PM, Annoyance Theatre, 851 W. Belmont, 773-697-9693, theannoyance.com, $12, $10 in advance.

The Ladies’ Room Cassie Ahiers R hosts a night of comedy including performances by Wanjiku Kairu, Shannon Noll, Molly Ruthenberg, Kimberly Vaughn, Kaitlin Larson, and Stacie James. 1/7-1/28: Sat 8 PM, the Revival, 1160 E. 55th, 866-811-4111, the-revival. com, $10.

VISUAL ARTS Chicago Artists Coalition “Being, Enough,” a group exhibition featuring work by Hatch Project residents Austen Brown, Alex Calhoun, Jon Chambers, Jeremiah Jones, Bobbi Meier, and Marina Miliou-Theocharaki. Opening reception Fri 1/6, 6-9 PM. 1/6-1/26. MonThu 9 AM-5 PM, Fri 9 AM-noon. “Cloud of the Ideal,” paintings by Amanda Joy Calobrisi. Opening reception Fri 1/6, 6-9 PM. 1/6-1/26. Mon-Thu 9 AM-5 PM, Fri 9 AM-noon. 217 N. Carpenter, 312-491-8887, chicagoartistscoalition.org.

Dittmar Gallery “Embracing the Chaos,” Erin Elizabeth explores issues of waste, consumerism, feminism, and social identity through works created with cake. Opening reception Fri 1/6, 4-6 PM. 1/6-2/12. Mon-Sun 10 AM-10 PM. 1999 Campus Dr., Evanston, 847-491-2348, norris.northwestern.edu/recreation/dittmar.

Baby Wants Candy The group R R presents a fully improvised musical at each performance. 1/7-3/25: Sat 9

Catherine Edelman Gallery “A Closer Look at the Ordinary,” work by Beiruti photographer Serge Najjar. Opening reception Fri 1/6, 5-8 PM. 1/6-2/25. TueSat 10 AM-5:30 PM. 300 W. Superior, 312-266-2350, edelmangallery.com.

Nate Bargatze The Tennessee R stand-up performs. 1/5-1/6: Thu 8:30 PM, Fri 8:30 and 10 PM, Zanies,

Filter Space “Reap: Photographs by Kimberly Witham,” Witham’s photographic interpretation of natural history dioramas and still-life paintings. Opening reception Fri 1/6, 6-9 PM. 1/6-2/17.

Mon-Sat 11 AM-5 PM. 1821 W. Hubbard, suite 207, filterfestival.com.

PM, Second City Chicago Beat Lounge, 1616 N. Wells, 312-337-3992, babywantscandy.com, $15.

Good Girl, Bad Year Lainie Lenertz hosts this comedy showcase reflecting on the worst moments of 2016. This month’s lineup features Melody Kamali, Toler Oswald Wolfe, and Kristen Toomey. Thu 1/5, 7 PM, North

1548 N. Wells, 312-337-4027, chicago. zanies.com, $25 plus two-drink minimum.

Chicago Improv Classic Improvisation has become the sriracha of performing arts. People are always finding new places to put it, from moviemaking to corporate-team building. I suppose most of those uses make sense. When you come down to it, improv is just a technique for getting folks to connect to one another as constructively as possible. What process couldn’t use a little of that? But I never understood why anybody would want to build a contest around it. “Yes and . . . ” and “We will crush you” don’t strike me as an easy fit.

So I asked Kevin Mullaney to explain. He runs the Chicago Improv Classic, the latest incarnation of a contest he and Angie McMahon founded four years

LIT

Activism Women & Children R First’s new monthly series showcases local social justice organizations,

including a Q&A with the group and an action plan for attendees. Wed 1/11, 7 PM, Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark, 773-769-9299, womenandchildrenfirst.com.

Drinking Your Whiskey R “Straight”: Gender in The Old-Time Saloon Bill Savage discusses

Janeane Garofalo o BARRY BRECHEISEN

George Ade’s book The Old-Time Saloon: Not Wet, Not Dry, Just History.

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Best bets, recommendations, and notable arts and culture events for the week of January 5

Mon 1/9, 5:30 PM, Comix Revolution, 606 Davis St., Evanston, 847-866-8659, online-revolution.com/evanston.htm.

Fact-Checking in the Age of R Trumpism The A.V. Club’s Laura Browning gives tips on how to quickly

distinguish a fake news story from a real one. Donations benefit the Committee to Protect Journalists. Sat 1/7, 5 PM, Uncharted Books, 2630 N. Milwaukee, unchartedbooks.com.

R

Tim Lapetino The author discusses his book Art of Atari. Thu 1/5, 6 PM, 57th Street Books, 1301 E. 57th, 773-684-1300, semcoop.com.

Peter O’Leary and Steven R Toussaint The poets read from their latest collections, The Sampo and

The Bellfounder, respectively. Tue 1/10, 6 PM, Seminary Co-op Bookstore, 5751 S. Woodlawn, 773-752-4381, semcoop.com.

R

Revise the Psalm release party Curbside Splendor celebrates of the release of a collection inspired by the work of Gwendolyn Brooks.

Editors Quraysh Ali Lansana and Sandra Jackson-Opoku read selections from the book. Sat 1/7, 7-10 PM, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th, 773-702-2787, arts.uchicago.edu/explore/ reva-and-david-logan-center-arts.

Ixcancul This exquisite 2015 R drama, the feature debut of Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamante,

takes its name from the active volcano around which the story is set. Vividly photographed by Luis Armando Arteaga, the narrative follows an indigenous woman (María Mercedes Coroy) who lives in a village at the volcano’s base and dreams of running off to the U.S. with her boyfriend. Though her actions bring heartbreaking consequences, Bustamante refuses to judge her or the villagers (her parents included) who hew to traditions like arranged marriage. The film’s message is decidedly feminist—in order for a culture to thrive, women must be allowed to make their own decisions—but Bustamante’s close and compassionate rendering of the community is also poignant for the ways in which he reveals that their customs, many of them beautiful, are slowly dying. In Kaqchikel Mayan with subtitles. —LEAH PICKETT 100 min. Fri 1/6, 6 PM; Sat 1/7, 7:45 PM; Sun 1/8, 5:15 PM; Mon 1/9, 7:45 PM; Tue 1/10, 6 PM; Wed 1/11, 6 PM; and Thu 1/12, 8:15 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center

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Write Club host Ian Belknap o WRITE CLUB CHICAGO

More at chicagoreader.com/movies

Homo Sapiens The impulse that leads tourists to the remains of medieval abbeys or the abandoned cliff dwellings of the Anasazi fuels this wordless art film by Austrian director Nikolaus Geyrhalter (Our Daily Bread). Like some postmodern heir to the 19th-century Romantics (who nurtured emotional and

20th Century Women A fiercely inquisitive performance from Annette Bening buoys this otherwise pedestrian indie drama by writer-director Mike Mills (Thumbsucker, Beginners), who based Bening’s character on his own mother.

The film takes place in Santa Barbara in

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ers have seven minutes to write about two opposing ideas, and the audience picks each round’s winner. Tue 1/10, 7 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, 773-2274433, hideoutchicago.com, $12.

NEW REVIEWS

A Monster Calls Rich in folkloric symbolism, this fantasy from director J.A. Bayona (The Orphanage) starts promisingly but eventually sinks under a wave of pop psychology. A 12-year-old schoolboy (Lewis MacDougall) suffers nightmares about losing his divorced, cancer-ridden mom (Felicity Jones); visits from his father (Toby Kebbell) and grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) do little to assuage his fears, but an ancient yew tree that morphs into a giant humanoid storyteller (Liam Neeson in a motion-capture performance) pres-

takes an unusual if not always successful approach to the documentary form.

Directors John Spinney and Peter Middleton build on their Emmy Awardwinning short for this feature version, staging reenactments, set to the original recordings, with actors playing Hull (Dan Skinner) and his wife, Marilyn (Simone Kirby). The recordings (which Hull later turned into a book) are powerful, but the slight disconnect between the actors and the voices, particularly when they’re lip-syncing, is too distracting to allow full immersion. Hull, who died in 2015, is an auditory presence throughout but appears onscreen for only a few seconds; I wanted to see more of him.

—LEAH PICKETT 90 min. Fri 1/6, 7 and 9 PM; Sat 1/7, 3, 5, 7, and 9 PM; Sun 1/8, 1, 3, 5, and 7 PM; and Mon 1/9–Thu 1/12, 7 and 9 PM. Facets Cinematheque

Movie Theater & Full Bar

Write Club Host Ian Belknap pits R local writers against one another in a composition competition: two play-

MOVIES

genre, made Mifune, a former army aerial photographer who fell into acting by chance, an international sensation. He refined his screen persona—combining an earthy physicality with daring, integrity, humor, and compassion—in subsequent Kurosawa films as well as Hiroshi Inagaki’s “Samurai Trilogy” (1954-’56) and Masaki Kobayashi’s Samurai Rebellion (1967) before venturing to Hollywood to appear on TV and in big-budget theatrical features. Because Mifune made nearly 170 films, writer-director Steven Okazaki omits plenty; for more, read the thoroughly researched The Emperor and the Wolf by his cowriter, Stuart Galbraith IV. In English and subtitled Japanese. —ANDREA GRONVALL 80 min.

Sat 1/7, 3 PM, and Mon 1/9, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center

RSM

Tim Lapetino discusses Art of Atari on Thu 1/5 o DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT

aesthetic responses to bygone civilizations and viewed the natural world as a form of personal communion), Geyrhalter piques the imagination with images of decay: towns, malls, theaters, and hospitals, all deserted, unnamed, and overrun by foliage and wildlife. The opening shots of rippling water reflected on crumbling mosaics are mysteriously exotic; not until later, in wider shots, can one recognize murals of the former Soviet Union. Through another slow reveal, a Japanese ghost town turns out to be Fukushima. In this feature-length memento mori, humanity is evoked by its absence. —ANDREA GRONVALL 94 min. Fri 1/6, 7:45 PM, and Tue 1/10, 8:15 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center

For more of the best things to do every day of the week, go to chicagoreader. com/agenda.

Mifune: The Last Samurai DisR tilling the brilliant career of actor Toshiro Mifune, this concise documenta-

ry focuses largely on his artistic partnership with Akira Kurosawa but includes enough about Japan’s film industry and the star’s charmed life to engross fans and casual viewers alike. Seven Samurai (1954), Kurosawa’s reworking of the long-popular chanbara (sword-fighting)

ents insights the youngster can grasp.

Neeson propels the action with his luxuriant baritone, and the 2D animation sequences by Barcelona-based Headless Productions upend fairy tale conventions in droll and horrific fashion. The influence of Bayona’s mentor Guillermo del Toro can be seen in the intricate production design of Eugenio Caballero (Pan’s Labyrinth), but the tone of the film is more dreary than dark. —ANDREA GRONVALL PG-13, 108 min. Century 12 and CineArts 6 Notes on Blindness English writer and theologian John Hull, who went blind in the early 1980s and kept an audio diary of his experience, is the subject of this thought-provoking film, which

1979, when the eccentric single mother is 55 and her late-arriving son (Lucas Jade Zumann) is 15; fretting over his lack of a male role model, she enlists one of their boarders, a young photographer with cervical cancer (Greta Gerwig), to educate him about women, though a bitter lesson comes in the form of the classmate he adores (Elle Fanning), who climbs through his bedroom window every night looking for friendship but gives her body to any guy but him. Mills digs deep into the era, with the mother struggling to make sense of punk rock; the film has the feel of a memoir, in both its effortless authenticity and its limited significance. With Billy Crudup.

—J.R. JONES R, 118 min. For listings visit chicagoreader.com/movies. v

18 to enter 21 to drink Photo ID required

Friday, January 6 @ 7:00pm Saturday, January 7 @ 6:00pm Sunday, January 8 @ 3:30 & 8:30pm Mon-Thr, January 9-12 @ 7:00pm

Doctor Strange Friday, January 6 @ 9:00pm Sat, January 7 @ 3:30 & 8:30pm Sunday, January 8 @ 6:00pm Mon-Thr, January 9-12 @ 9:00pm

Hacksaw Ridge

JANUARY 5, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 5

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6 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 5, 2017

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CITY LIFE

EDUCATION

Chicagoans

The agnostic atheist Kelly Baron, 27

“I’m excited by all the things I’m going to die not knowing,” Baron says. o DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS

MY MOTHER JOINED Scientology when she was 15 or 16. She was a really innocent young woman who was not part of the 1960s drugs-and-alcohol culture. I think part of her felt alienated because of that, and that attracted her to Scientology; it was a way to feel included.

When she was 29 or 30, she met my dad, who is very, very much a questioner and an atheist. She introduced him to a couple of Scientologists, and they labeled him an SP—a suppressive person, basically an enemy—and they told my mom, “You should not interact with this guy,” and she was like, “OK, peace, see you later,” and she left Scientology.

Since then, Scientologists have come to our house. They call my dad. They’ve called me. I think they’ve sent my mom four pieces

of mail every single day I’ve been alive. I’m surprised environmental agencies don’t get on their ass about how much paper they’re wasting, let alone what they’re doing to people’s psyches.

Anyway, I grew up in a godless household. Once, when I was probably four, my cousin, who’s nine years older, took me in her arms and showed me a picture. She said, “This is a man named Jesus, and he lives way up in the sky. He sees everything we do, and he’s here to protect us, and he loves us no matter what.” I worshipped my cousin, so I was like, “Whoa!”

When my dad came to pick me up, I couldn’t wait to tell him this new thing I learned. His whole face changed. He was like, “OK, who told you that?,” and I pointed at my cousin and said, “She did.” Her

face got beet red, and she said, “I did not say that!” My dad knew she was lying. He just shook his head and said to her, “I don’t want you telling her this stuff.”

If someone asked me now what I believed, I’d say that I believe in allowing yourself to feel bewildered. I like to say that I’m an agnostic atheist, because I believe that humans don’t know shit from shit in the grand scheme of things. This could be a giant alien video game that we’re in right now.

I really, truly believe that there’s a lot of mysterious stuff that goes on in the world that humans don’t know. And I’m excited by that. I’m excited by all the things I’m going to die not knowing. But I also am pretty sure that there isn’t a guy in the sky dictating things.

Rilke is one of my favorite poets, and he wrote these poems to his idea of God, saying, “You are the deep innerness of all things, the last word that can never be spoken.” That’s something I believe in—one giant mystery that sometimes, if you’re present, you just fucking feel.

I have a pretty strong feeling that not a whole lot happens after we die. I got into a conversation about it recently, and this guy was like, “Here’s what I think will happen: I’m going to die and then go to this place and then I will return as this, and I will remember these things about my life, but not these things.” He had a whole plan all mapped out.

And his wife said, “But is that really comforting to you? Sometimes the idea of just lying down one day and closing my eyes is very comforting to me.” I’d never heard anyone say that, but it was genuine.

She was like, “I don’t know that I want to live in an infinite loop as a sentient being.

I’m tired.” —AS TOLD TO ANNE FORD

Public (education) enemy number one

By DEANNA ISAACS

B

etsy DeVos, president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Education, might not be the worst of the megabucks donors and right-wing crusaders in Mr. Trump’s prospective cabinet.

There’s Scott Pruitt, the EPA head who’s sued the EPA. Rick Perry, the energy secretary who wanted to dump the Department of Energy. Andrew Puzder, the labor secretary and fast-food mogul who opposed a $10 minimum wage. And Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state who heads the world’s biggest oil company and is Russia’s decorated BFF. That’s just to mention a few.

But the DeVos appointment, like all the others, is causing alarm. Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis told me DeVos is “a nightmare.” University of Illinois College of Education professor Pauline Lipman, in an interview last week, said she’ll be “a really significant threat.” And American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten issued a statement claiming that Trump has selected “the most ideological, anti-public education nominee” in the Department of Education’s history.

“Betsy DeVos is everything Donald Trump said is wrong in America—an ultra-wealthy heiress who uses her money to game the system and push a special-interest agenda,” Weingarten wrote. By nominating her, “Trump makes it clear that his education policy will focus on privatizing, defunding, and destroying public education in America.”

DeVos, as you’ve no doubt gathered by now, is not a friend of teachers’ unions. Nor of what she calls “government schools”—traditional public neighborhood schools—though she has no personal experience with them. She’s never been a teacher or a school J

¥ Keep up to date on the go at chicagoreader.com/agenda.

SURE THINGS THURSDAY 5

FRIDAY 6

SATURDAY 7

SUNDAY 8

MONDAY 9

TUESDAY 10

WEDNESDAY 11

ò Bowie Ball This year’s ball celebrates what would have been the Starman’s 70th birthday, with performances

by Lucky Stiff, Discord Addams, Queerella, and Kat Sass; music from DJs Heaven Malone and Mae West; glam makeovers; and Bowieoke at midnight. 10 PM-4 AM, Berlin, 954 W. Belmont, bowieball. com, $5.

Th e Inte r v iew Show Mark Bazer hosts WGN radio’s Justin Kaufmann and Too Hot to Handel’s Rodrick Dixon at this viewing party of season two of The Interview Show on WTTW. Ticket sales benefit ProPublica. 6:30 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, hideoutchicago.com, $15.

» Yo u’re Bei ng Ri diculous This version of the storytelling show features performers—including Lily Be, Isaac Gomez, and Julia Weiss—sharing family-friendly tales as part of Steppenwolf Theatre’s LookOut series. 1/71/21: Sat 8 PM, Steppenwolf Theatre, 1700 Theatre, 1700 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650, steppenwolf.org, $20.

Arguments & Grievances This debate series enlists some of the city’s funniest comedians to argue about heated issues such as “Beavis vs. Butthead,” “Luke Cage vs. Nic Cage,” and “football vs. futbol.” 8 PM, North Bar, 1637 W. North, 773-123-5678, liveatnorthbar. com, $5.

& Mo nday D i nner Series Bang Bang Pie hosts a family-style dinner at Hopewell complete with beer pairings and a tour of the brewery. 7 PM, Hopewell Brewing Company, 2760 N. Milwaukee, bangbangpie. com, $50.

ò MCA Live: 2017, a Ref l ection Joshua Abrams and Natural Information Society perform a musical interpretation of the past year followed by a discussion on the Obama administration’s final days with historian Paul Durica. 6 PM, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago, mcachicago.org. F

& Soup & Brea d The community meal project returns to serve delicious food and raise money for Chicago food pantries and other hunger-relief organizations.

Through 3/29: Wed 5:30-8 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, hideoutchicago.com, pay what you can.

JANUARY 5, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 7

CITY LIFE Donald Trump with Betsy DeVos at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on December 9. o ANDREW HARNIK

Deanna Isaacs continued from 7 administrator, and she never attended public school herself. Neither did any of her four children. So what, besides millions of dollars in campaign contributions, is leading her to the federal government’s top education job?

A native of Holland, Michigan, DeVos is industrial royalty—daughter of the founder of Prince Manufacturing, a maker of machines and parts for the auto industry. Descended from Dutch-German immigrants who came to America to escape government interference in the Dutch Reformed Church, Betsy was educated at private Christian schools and graduated from Calvin College.

She married into an even larger Michigan family fortune: her husband, Dick DeVos, is the son of the cofounder of Amway, the international “multilevel marketing” company that sells home and personal-care products, and is built on an ever-expanding sales-force recruitment and training model. He’s a former CEO of Amway and currently the CEO, president, and owner of the NBA’s Orlando Magic.

Betsy and Dick DeVos have supported conservative, antigay, and antiunion causes, including legislation that turned Michigan— home to the United Auto Workers—into a “right to work” state. The Devoses have been major funders of the Republican Party, contributing nearly $3 million to its candidates last year alone. But Betsy’s major focus has been on promoting free-market-based education and vouchers that would divert tax money to private schools, including those with a religious agenda. She backed legislation that led to a huge expansion of charter schools in Michigan and defeated legislation that would’ve regulated those schools. (Not incidentally, Betsy’s brother, Erik Prince, is the founder of Blackwater, the company that

8 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 5, 2017

led the way in privatizing American military operations.) Her current favorite program is a voucher-in-disguise business “tax credit” that was defeated in Michigan (where the state constitution forbids it) but enacted in Florida and elsewhere.

Michigan now has the largest percentage of for-profit charters in America, and some of the most lax regulation, with particularly disastrous results in Detroit. Detroit Free Press editorial page editor Stephen Henderson wrote in that paper last month that “This deeply dysfunctional educational landscape—where failure is rewarded with opportunities for expansion and ‘choice’ means the opposite for tens of thousands of children—is no accident. It was created by an ideological lobby that has zealously championed free-market education reform for decades, with little regard for outcome. And at the center of that lobby is Betsy DeVos.” “She’s the epitome of the billionaire philanthropists who are intervening in public education to dismantle it and turn it into a market,” Lipman told me. “Education in this country is something like a $635 billion industry. When it’s public, there’s no opportunity to make money from it. But if you privatize pieces of it, you create opportunities for investment.

Teachers’ unions are a critical defender of public schools and a major barrier to privatization, so dismantling them is a strategic necessity for those who would like to privatize public schools.”

“What she represents,” Lipman says, “is a merger of a racist neoliberal agenda in education and the agenda of the Christian right. That’s an agenda to dismantle public education.” v

ß @DeannaIsaacs

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Read Ben Joravsky’s columns throughout the week at chicagoreader.com.

CITY LIFE Latekia Sims and hundreds of other demonstrators carried wooden crosses for victims of gun violence during a peace march down the Magnificent Mile on December 31. o ASHLEE REZIN/SUN-TIMES MEDIA

POLITICS

Making matters worse The economic causes of Chicago’s violence

By BEN JORAVSKY

T

he New Year began in much the same horrifying way the old one unfolded—with stories of murder splashed across the pages of our papers.

In particular, the January 1 Chicago Sun-Times featured a sobering image of photographs of most of the people murdered last year under the headline: “Our city, one year, 780 murders.”

The moving elegy to those who died, by columnist Mary Mitchell, included an observation that hit me hard: “Cranes are everywhere in downtown Chicago, where white workers scurry in hard hats and steel-toed work boots,” Mitchell wrote. “But on the south and west sides, large tracts of land are blighted and commercial properties are boarded up. Here, young black men huddle on corners—rain or shine—day and night. Some of them will live to turn 30. So many others will not.”

I realize the economic gap between haves and have-nots isn’t the only reason for the incomprehensible violence, most of which is concentrated in, as Mitchell notes, several

impoverished, largely black south- and westside communities.

But as a guy who spends his days poring over how city’s leaders spend our money, I’m convinced it sure as hell can’t help to so unfairly and inequitably distribute our resources to favor the rich over the poor.

I think back to the November 18 City Hall press conference, which featured many of Chicago’s most prominent black elected officials.

It was about a week after the senseless murder of Javon Wilson, Congressman Danny Davis’s 15-year-old grandson, who was shot by a teenager in a fight over sneakers.

The officials called for the adoption of a “10/20/30 amendment”—a policy in which 10 percent of city, state, and federal funds would be spent in neighborhoods where at least 20 percent of the population had lived below the poverty line for the past 30 years.

“You would have resources coming directly to communities that are most in need, and the impact would be so great, you’d wonder you weren’t in heaven,” Davis said.

“We must invest in these communities

to eradicate poverty,” added state senator Kwame Raoul, “and in eradicating poverty, we will eradicate violence.”

It makes sense. And yet we continue to pursue policies that lead us in the opposite direction. Those who already got, get more. And those who don’t get the shaft.

Let’s start with the obvious: the tax increment financing program. Usually, just the mention of this $450-million-a-year scam would get me to crack a joke. But I’m not feeling very funny at the moment.

Our greatest source of discretionary economic development money, the TIF funds are largely spent in wealthy neighborhoods even though the program’s intended to eradicate blight in poor neighborhoods.

Last year, for example, Roseland’s TIF generated about $460,000. The LaSalle Central TIF—located in the Loop—took in about $27 million. That means the downtown will always have more “spending money” than the far south side. How’s that for balance?

It’s hard enough for poor neighborhoods to compete with rich ones for development dollars without the government essentially putting its thumb on the scale to benefit the wealthy. But that’s what the TIF program does.

By its very nature, it will always generate the most money for gentrifying neighborhoods. It’s a crime that a program this unfair would be the chief source of development dollars, pitting the poor against the rich.

And yet year after year we allow this inequity to persist.

There’s not much help coming from the state, either. Governor Rauner and his Republican allies in the legislature steadfastly oppose any progressive tax hikes while calling for a property tax freeze. They’re slowly bankrupting government in the name of saving it.

In 2011, Rauner, then a private citizen, tried to use his clout with Mayor Emanuel to block a hotel tax hike that would fund services, according to the mayor’s recently released private e-mails. And yet as governor, Rauner signed on to a massive hotel tax hike to fund the DePaul basketball arena/ Marriott hotel project on a high-rent corner of the South Loop.

So when it comes to funding essential services that might back programs to help the

poor, Rauner’s against it. But he favors jacking up taxes to fund a boondoggle. That’s twisted, my friends.

The Democrats aren’t much better—especially Emanuel, the architect of that DePaul/ Marriott deal, who rules like a closeted trickledown Republican.

In one e-mail, he bragged to a wealthy friend about cutting health benefits for retired city workers—often the economic backbone of poor, high-crime neighborhoods. Cutting their income, like closing schools and clinics, hits communities already under siege the hardest.

No need for me to review all the schools and clinics Rahm has shuttered.

We pursue policies that lead us toward inequality. Those who already got, get more.

And those who don’t get the shaft.

By and large the city’s aldermen go along with the mayor’s policies because they’re hoping he’ll throw a little TIF money their way.

State senate president John Cullerton and house speaker Michael Madigan aren’t much better. They let the mayor do what he wants, so long as he stays out of their business in Springfield. Things pretty much operated the same way with Mayor Daley.

I don’t expect any of this will significantly change in 2017. The mayor’s major development schemes—the Old Post Office, Rezkoville, the industrial area around the former Finkl Steel site—will have virtually no positive impact on our most vulnerable communities.

They might as well be on the moon.

A few years back, I asked a south-side alderman why the city’s civic and political elite tolerate all the shootings in and around his ward. “’Cause they don’t give a shit,” he said.

Considering how they use the tools at their disposal, it’s hard to come to any other conclusion. v

ß @joravben JANUARY 5, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 9

CITY LIFE TRANSPORTATION

Vision Zero for gun violence Chicago’s working on a plan to eliminate traffic deaths. We need one for homicides too.

By JOHN GREENFIELD

O

n Thursday, December 22, 84-yearold Little Village resident Telesfora Escamilla was walking home from getting her hair cut for Christmas when she was fatally struck in a crosswalk at 28th and Drake by a van driver who was making deliveries for Amazon. Witnesses say the driver swerved around a car in front of him and blew a stop sign prior to the crash, and that he dragged the senior for about 30 feet before stopping. Escamilla was the last reported pedestrian fatality of 2016.

That same afternoon, 21-year-old Pullman resident Richard Chambers was standing with another man near 79th and Exchange, according to police. Someone in a white SUV began shooting at the two men, striking Chambers in the head. He was pronounced dead an hour later.

Seven other Chicagoans were also wounded by shootings that day, and there were 23 more homicides in the remaining days of 2016, pushing the total for the year to 779, according to the Tribune. That’s up 60 percent from 2015, and it’s the highest number in our city for two decades.

Meanwhile, according to preliminary data provided by the Chicago Department of Transportation, as of November 30 there had been a total of 98 traffic deaths in the city in 2016, putting us on track for a total of 107 traffic fatalities for the year.

In September the city announced its intent to release a Vision Zero plan, inspired by the international movement to eliminate traffic fatalities. Chicago’s plan will involve a dozen city departments, with the goal of reaching zero crash deaths by 2026.

As much as I want Chicago to eliminate traffic fatalities, more than seven times as many people were killed by homicides as by crashes here last year. So I have to ask: Why is the city creating an interdepartmental strategy to end

10 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 5, 2017

traffic violence, but not doing the same for gun violence? Now more than ever, we need to apply the same kind of holistic approach to our murder crisis.

Here’s what the city has done so far: In September, Mayor Emanuel announced plans to address gun violence during a speech at Malcolm X College. He called for more cooperation between police and city residents, tougher gun legislation, and mentoring and job programs for young people in underserved communities. Emanuel devoted $8 million to development projects in high-crime neighborhoods. He promised to invest $36 million in city funds and private donations to pay for the expansion of mentoring programs. And he repeated his previous pledge to hire 1,000 more police officers.

Arguably, these initiatives are steps in the right direction. But it’s clear that we’re not going make significant progress without addressing other root causes of violence.

That will require more focus on housing, education, health care, child protection, addiction recovery, and mental health as well as employment.

Geography may help explain why city hasn’t committed to the same kind of allhands-on-deck approach to reducing homicides as it has for traffic violence. Most of this year’s homicides were concentrated in lower-income Latino and African-American neighborhoods on the south and west sides, according to data compiled by the Tribune. In contrast, traffic fatalities were spread fairly evenly throughout the city.

This difference likely influences the way these deaths are perceived by the public and addressed by decision makers. Since homicides take place mostly in underserved communities of color, residents of wealthier, whiter areas might view these tragedies as an abstract problem that doesn’t affect them.

Meanwhile, reckless driving is a potential danger no matter where you live or what your race or income is.

But here’s another possible reason why the city has announced a zero-tolerance strategy for crashes but not shootings: we’re probably never going to completely eliminate traffic fatalities, but greatly reducing the number of crash deaths may seem like an attainable goal to many residents and city officials, who may not view homicides the same way.

There are—literally—concrete things we can do to prevent dangerous driving, such implementating “road diets” and installing speed

A map of 2016 Chicago traffic fatalities through November 30 Ô CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

bumps, curb bump-outs, and protected bike lanes. And we can look to other countries— like Sweden, where the Vision Zero movement began—that have dramatically reduced their traffic death rates via street design, mobility education, and laws that prioritize safe streets over convenient driving.

In contrast, it may be difficult for our leaders to take such an optimistic approach to eliminating homicides. Globally, nations like the U.K., Australia, and Germany have greatly reduced shootings through gun control, but the U.S. has a powerful gun lobby to contend with. Even local efforts to restrict gun ownership have proven difficult to uphold; the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chicago’s own handgun ban in 2010.

Peer U.S. cities like New York and L.A. have successfully lowered their homicide numbers in recent years. But Chicago, even more so than other major cities, struggles with a legacy of intense residential segregation that

concentrated poverty and the resulting violence in certain communities while making it easier for those in better-off neighborhoods to ignore these problems.

Saturday’s march on Michigan Avenue, in which activists and family members carried wooden crosses to memorialize the fallen, underscored the fact that many Chicagoans are no longer willing to tolerate the status quo. We urgently need a holistic strategy to dramatically reduce the number of shootings. This has to involve not just police, but all relevant city agencies, from Public Health to Chicago Public Schools..

As with traffic deaths, we’ve got to start viewing homicides as a problem that can be solved, and lay out specific and measurable plans for making that vision a reality. v

John Greenfield edits the transportation news website Streetsblog Chicago. ß @greenfieldjohn

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JANUARY 5, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 11

Read Derrick Clifton’s columns throughout the week at chicagoreader.com.

CITY LIFE

IDENTITY & CULTURE

Resolve this

Some New Year’s resolutions for political engagement

By DERRICK CLIFTON

I

f 2016 was a year when most of us were accused of keeping cozy in our partisan bubbles, then the New Year is as good a time as any to reflect upon how we can reengage in politics. It’s prompted my own reflection too.

In the spirit of the season, here are a few New Year’s resolutions we should all consider adopting in 2017.

1. Attend at least one protest or rally Instead of watching activism play out on social media, or judging it by what you see of it in the media, get out and participate. Organizers and protesters will usually share why they’re so motivated and passionate about their causes, in hopes of bringing other people into the fold. If you support their positions, then attending may help you connect with kindred spirits. But if you’re still unsure of how you feel or have questions, it’s also possible to just be present and listen, without giving a tacit endorsement or derailing the event. Then, take what you’ve learned and reflect on it, or share it with trusted conversation partners.

2. Follow social media accounts across the political spectrum You may not always agree with what’s shared, but it could prove beneficial to understanding how others arrive at different conclusions on the issues, if only to help you articulate your own positions with more nuance and preci-

12 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 5, 2017

Demonstrators rally near Trump Tower in November. o SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES

sion. Perhaps someone else will raise a point that you hadn’t considered addressing, or will introduce you to new frameworks or sources of information. You might even change your mind.

support by openly praising and sharing the work. You can even consider supporting journalists that are unionizing or attempting to get a contract signed. (Hint: the Reader is among that bunch.)

3. Read at least one book a month written by a writer from a marginalized group By and large the publishing world still prioritizes the voices of white men; everyone else has to rally harder to have their voice incorporated, or for their work to be seen as valuable. At the beginning of 2016, various writers vowed to not read books by men. Other writers felt that action missed the point—that the goal could be better achieved by seamlessly including works from underrepresented groups into our reading lists and discussing them as we would any other. Bottom line: seek out voices you wouldn’t otherwise encounter. It’s important to be intentional about that commitment.

5. Diversify your sources of news No, this doesn’t mean reading Breitbart.

(That’s propaganda, not vetted, verified news.)

But there’s a danger in relying too heavily on one or two outlets to make sense of a wide, complex world. Mix up your reads of news briefs from CNN and NBC with longer reads from the New Yorker or the Atlantic. Maybe even throw a few well-reputed and widely cited blogs into the mix, like SCOTUSblog.

4. Financially support the news publications you read most Trump and his surrogates have launched an allout assault on any news outlet that’s dared to report on him in an honest and/or critical way— from the Gray Lady to the likes of Teen Vogue.

Now more than ever, we need to support outlets that speak truth to power and comfort the afflicted. If you’re able, take advantage of the many subscription specials being marketed online. If you can’t spare the funds, show your

6. Take some of those intense Facebook debates offline Of all the lengthy back-and-forths I’ve had in the comments section of status messages and news articles, few of them have changed my thinking or drawn me closer to the people I know. But when I have some of those same conversations over drinks, dinner, or even Skype, it opens up a different avenue for connection. I like sensing people’s body language and discerning the tone in their voice when they’re expressing their viewpoints. Those are the conversations I remember most—and the ones I usually feel better walking away from.

7. Call or write your elected officials before

big votes or after major news breaks Believe it or not, politicians pay attention when their constituents light up their phone lines. When they know you’re paying close attention, they’ll think even more carefully before they act. Trump’s White House appointments prompted scores of people to call their elected officials and ask them to block the nominations; they openly encouraged others to do the same on social media. And this kind of concerted effort should become part of our regular routine, both on the national and local levels. Call the district office first and, if you can’t get through, leave a voice mail or press zero to get to an operator. A Google spreadsheet called “We’re His Problem Now” that recently circulated on Twitter offers a step-bystep guide to calling your congressional rep.

8. Volunteer Organizations that serve the most vulnerable people are potentially facing deep cuts to their bottom lines—especially nonprofits that rely on government funding. While money matters, a helping hand can sometimes do just as much as a donation. Consider volunteering your skills and expertise to nonprofits that would otherwise have to pay for those services. It may not feel like much of a sacrifice, but even a few hours can go a long way to help those who need it most. v

ß @DerrickClifton

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JANUARY 5, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 13

S

After a life-changing transition, Will Davis sets out to transform a Chicago theater American Theater Company’s fresh-faced artistic director credits his gender transition with a creative awakening. Now the 33-year-old looks to turn the venerable North Center playhouse into a place of “wild theatricality.”

By NOVID PARSI | Photos by JEFFREY MARINI

14 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 5, 2017

tage director Will Davis likens his experience growing up as a girl to A Christmas Carol’s Ebenezer standing outside the window, looking in at the living. “I thought that intense isolation was just the human condition, that that’s what it means to be alive,” he says, then adds, laughing: “I didn’t know, I didn’t know! So every day for me now is like, ‘It’s another day! And I’m here! And I am alive!’” In conversation, Davis punctuates painful recollections with a loud, boisterous laugh. He uses the word “joy” often.

In February, American Theater Company (ATC) named the experimental theater artist its new artistic director following the sudden death, in 2015, of its previous artistic director, PJ Paparelli. Beginning previews January 6, Jaclyn Backhaus’s play Men on Boats marks Davis’s directorial debut for the renowned 31-year-old company, where Pulitzer winner Disgraced and Tony winner The Humans premiered. Ben Brantley of the New York Times called Davis’s direction of a 2015 off-offBroadway production of Men on Boats “highly ingenious.” His credit-packed bio suggests the work of a seasoned vet—not a 33-year-old who left grad school less than four years ago.

How did so much happen so quickly? “A lot of it is about joy, honestly,” says Davis, seated inside ATC’s theater, a former warehouse in North Center. He traces that joy to his gender transition.

For Davis, much was in a name. “Words are magic. You say them, and things come true,” he says. “When you name a thing, it is alive.

Before you name it, it isn’t.” Will came alive in 2012. “Naming Will enabled every other decision I’ve made personally and artistically,” he says. “‘Will’ is a verb, and it’s a promise: I was in a place that felt like complete chaos my entire life, but I will get to another place. That was one of the first times I had a sense of liveness—and not being outside the glass.”

As Davis came alive, so did his art. The creative floodgates opened. “Will’s true voice, by virtue of not being able to be expressed, the moment that it was, came out with such a singular beauty and clarity and originality,” says Michael Patrick Thornton, the Gift Theatre’s artistic director, who got to know Davis when he directed a short play, A Healthy Start, for the Gift and subsequently during a new-works festival in Austin, both in 2013. “As a director,

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he came out like a racehorse.”

Now Davis, a director drawn to physically adventurous new works, wants to turn ATC— known for documentary-style issue plays and, like much Chicago theater, naturalistic dramas—into a place for “wild theatricality,” he says. “I’m very interested in making ATC a Chicago home for formally experimental work. I have no issue with the deft naturalism of much of the work here in Chicago; I just wouldn’t know how to make it.”

What goes for his life goes for his art: “I don’t exist on the gender binary, I’m neither this nor that, I’m something else—and that is of my own design. It’s the same thing for me artistically: I’m just not worried about whether folks can categorize the work.” Indeed, he

“I don’t exist on the gender binary, I’m neither this nor that, I’m something else—and that is of my own design. It’s the same thing for me artistically: I’m just not worried about whether folks can categorize the work.”

finds people’s attempts to read his gender “endearing and wonderful,” says Davis, wearing a dark blazer and jeans and scuffed combat boots. On days when he washes his shortish brown hair, “when my hair is really clean and fluffy,” strangers are more likely to think he’s female. He smiles: “I get so much joy out of that because it feels to me like, Oh, that is how much gender exists, no more and no less— shampoo. And when I think about it that way, I’m like . . . I’m free.”

For all the theatrical freedom Davis hopes to nurture, however, the challenge of leading ATC won’t be solely an artistic one. “ATC has been spending more money than it has and producing bigger than it’s capable of paying for,” Davis says. He intends to rein that in.

“Fiscal responsibility is a new and hugely important value in this building. As an artist, I do not separate business from art making. They make each other possible.”

Even with relatively limited means, Davis plans to make ATC both an exporter and importer of formally inventive new plays. “My hope is he’ll make Chicago a national destination for the development of new works,” Thornton says. “Chicago has a track record of producing new works, but in terms of developing them, we’re not quite on the top of that list yet.” The plays that Davis says interest him are the ones that can exist only in the theater—“they require live space and time”— and that have something in them that seems impossible to stage. “I believe very firmly that the theater does the literal OK,” he says, “but it does other things better.”

To illustrate his point, Davis hops up from a folding chair and grabs a couple of wooden boards. Men on Boats follows ten 19th-century explorers on four boats, “but there are no boats in this play,” he says. “That would flatten the theater’s rough magic.” He holds the boards so they form a V in front of him, instantly conjuring a ship’s bow. He slowly pulls the boards apart, evoking a boat capsizing. Then he drapes his arms over one board, and he’s suddenly a man at sea, afloat on a piece of wreckage.

His creativity encompasses gender representation as well. In Men on Boats, the characters are male; the bodies aren’t. The gender-fluid cast comprises non-cisgendermale actors; some identify as women, others as genderqueer. Though some ATC productions, like Dan Aibel’s new play T., which

opens in May, will have traditional gender casting, Davis will again go nontraditional for William Inge’s midcentury classic Picnic in March. Among its mostly queer cast, two men will play both parts of a straight couple.

“It’s not about trying to gender-fuck something, which is also an admirable goal,” Davis says. “It’s about trying to tease out the core of these characters as I understand them.”

For Davis, Inge, a closeted gay man who committed suicide, wrote characters who ask if it’s OK to be different—and are answered with a tragically incontestable “no.”

Davis takes an equally open approach to the audition process. He asks actors to read for the parts that interest them, regardless whether their gender matches that of the roles. “It’s not about men playing women or women playing men,” he explains. “It’s about the inside of an actor being called toward the inside of a character.”

He attributes much of his interest in the insides of characters, and in the group dynamics of rehearsals, to his father, a psychoanalyst.

“Sitting around a dinner table, having conversations about how people articulate their emotions and how they tick—part of my interest in the theater is related to that,” he says of his upbringing in northern California. (Despite his own fascination with how people tick, Davis’s father would later have a difficult time with Davis’s transition.) And with a singerperformer mother and a godmother who put on adventurous shows like a Pinocchio featuring a papier-mache whale floating down a river, Davis and his younger brother never questioned the importance of the arts.

For Davis as a young child, the arts meant ballet. In middle school, Davis began to feel an inkling that life as a girl wasn’t the life for him.

“I didn’t have any context for what was going on for me, but just an awareness that I wasn’t fitting into the world of black leotards, pink tights, and toe shoes. I felt a lot of shame at not being good enough or delicate enough,” he says. “For someone experiencing a lot of body dysmorphia as a trans person, and compounded on top of that the regular dysmorphia of being in middle school, it was a pretty intense time.”

It was made even more intense at age 13, when Davis’s parents divorced. “It was horrible,” Davis says. “It continues to be tough. My parents haven’t found a way to ever connect again, so the bulk of that trauma sits with J

JANUARY 5, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 15

On days when Davis washes his shortish brown hair, "when my hair is really clean and fluffy," strangers are more likely to think he's female. "I get so much joy out of that because it feels to me like, Oh, that is how much gender exists, no more and no less—shampoo."

Will Davis continued from 13 me and my brother.” Like countless queers before (and after) him, Davis found refuge, during middle school and high school, in theater. “The theater department totally saved me.”

Davis went to DePaul University to study acting, but then took his first class in direction.

“That was a massive game changer for me,” he says. Direction wove together the psychoanalytic and choreographic threads in his life: he could draw on his understanding of both human behavior and human movement. After earning a BFA in theater studies from DePaul in 2005, Davis lived in Chicago for five years—a time when he was “floundering,” he says. Yet his floundering phase included an apprenticeship at Steppenwolf and an assistant-directing stint for ATC—and getting married at age 23.

Davis credits his now ex-husband, whom he still refers to as “my best friend in the whole world,” with helping him through the gender transition that began when Davis attended graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin. “When we got married, we made this vow to be family, and we are still family—it just looks different,” he says.

In 2013, his directing MFA in hand, Davis won a theater fellowship that took him to New York,

16 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 5, 2017

where his career quickly flourished. “When I moved to New York, I decided I was gonna do my fucking job and do it really well and do it with so much punk-rock joy,” he says. It wouldn’t have been quite so punk rock or joyful, Davis readily admits, without money he inherited from his late grandmother. “It was the only way I could afford to be in New York,” he says.

“I got this gift, and I spent it on my career.” In 2014, Davis had top surgery (i.e., a double mastectomy)—which he mentions out of a sense of “gratitude, joy, and responsibility” as the rare trans artist heading an arts organization.

While in New York, Davis played Prince Charming to choreographer Evvie Allison’s Cinderella for the queer ballet company Ballez. “I systematically ignored her for a good six months. She was too pretty,” Davis says.

Last spring, though, soon after Davis accepted ATC’s offer, he and Allison got engaged. Davis feels Allison’s presence in his life has helped his father through his struggles with Davis’s transition. “It’s not been easy,” Davis says, “but had I decided to care more about what other people think, I would’ve stopped getting out of bed five years ago. Other people’s opinions are not worth my life,” he says, then smiles widely and laughs. v

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Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind o JOE MAZZA

CLOSING

THEATER

The lights go down on Too Much Light

By JACK HELBIG

T

he final performance of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind December 30 left me with two black eyes, a scraped knee, and a busted pair of glasses.

A month earlier, Neo-Futurists founder Greg Allen—who left the company four years ago but retained rights to the production— had announced in a press release that he wouldn’t be renewing its license, effectively closing Chicago’s longest-running show, which first opened in December 1988. (The two other versions of Too Much Light, one in New York and one in San Francisco, subsequently announced their intention to reconcept along with the Chicago troupe.) It was the culmination of a growing rift between Allen and the theater he’d helped create.

How nasty this rift had become was clear in Allen’s press release, which took swipes at the diversity of the current Neo-Futurists and their commitment to social justice by stating he was letting the license lapse so he could put together his own “new diverse company”

“comprised entirely of people of color, LBTQ*, artist/activist women and other disenfranchised voices” and reopen Too Much Light with a “specifically socially activist mission” “to combat the tyranny of censorship and oppression.” Soon after Allen’s announcement, Neo-Futurist alums started posting on Facebook and other social media, recounting various run-ins with Allen over the years, whether as a director or a fellow performer.

It wasn’t surprising that the last performance of Too Much Light in its current incarnation would sell out. An hour before showtime the line snaked around the block.

From the beginning TMLMTBGB has attracted a large, devoted audience, most in their 20s and 30s. True to form, the two people at the front of the line were both in their 20s—actor Alyssa Vera Ramos and her brother, Wilfredo.

They’d shown up at 8:30 PM to make sure they got seats for the 11:30 show.

Too Much Light was one of the first productions I reviewed (in 1988, at Stage Left’s old space on Clark Street, now occupied by

Chicago Comics), and since then I’ve popped in every once in a while to see if it retained the vitality, relevance, and radical intelligence of its initial run. It always did. Freshness and self-invention are part of the Neo-Futurists’ DNA: the show is built on the premise of 30 plays in 60 minutes, with new material provided by ensemble each week. Even the running order of the show is randomized, so no one can fall into deadening routine.

It was while I was interviewing prospective audience members that, in an act of perhaps unconscious Neo-Futurist performance, I fell.

I’d just finished talking to two people near the end of the line when I stepped away and tripped. (Transcript of the event: Me: “Thanks for the interview . . . . ahhhhhh!” Whump!) I twisted my foot, skinned my knee, hurt my hand, broke my glasses, scraped my nose, and got a real whopper of a bump on my forehead, but I didn’t miss the show.

The performance itself followed the structure of every Too Much Light iteration—a roll of the die establishes ticket price, and every patron is given a new identity for the night— but as always, it was the material within this structure, and the relationship between the performers and the audience, that made it.

There’s no fourth wall to break in Neo-Futurist shows—something nicely illustrated in one of the evening’s pieces, “All of My Friends Are Here Tonight,” in which one by one people were invited on stage by ensemble members until by the end we all were onstage. The best Neo-Futurist bits are satori-like, providing an aha moment that hits like a punch line. This is why, to this day some people—critics included—confuse what the Neo-Futurists do with Second City-style sketch comedy.

This current ensemble was energetic, engaging, and very much its own entity. But watching these guys interact with the audience, it was impossible to tell how much of the sacred connection was the result of Allen’s brilliant setup for the show—which the troupe no longer has the rights to—and how much was something that will survive its dissolution. The Neo-Futurists have plans to start another late-night show, as yet unnamed, and have started crowdsourcing funds to make up for the loss of their cash cow. Allen has made it clear he has his own plans.

What happens next is one of a myriad unknowns for the New Year. v

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JANUARY 5, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 17

ARTS & CULTURE

VISUAL ART

‘Riot Grrrls’ brings art girls to the front

By BRIANNA WELLEN

M

y youngest sister moved to Chicago two years ago to study painting at Columbia College.

As she develops her aesthetic, she’s been looking to both art history and contemporary pieces for inspiration. She’s only 20 years old, and she’s already discouraged: In her classes, she tells me, the students mostly read about male artists—it’s only in discussions about feminist art that women are mentioned. During her critiques, she says, anything she creates relevant to her feminine identity is scrutinized by her professors in a way that none of her male peers experience. And as she builds a portfolio and learns about careers in the field, she’s constantly worried that she won’t be taken seriously because of her gender.

Even as she pushes through and continues working, she’s stymied by the possibility that there may be no place for her in the present-day art world.

A new exhibit at the MCA supports the notion that my sister’s predicament isn’t an isolated one. “Riot Grrrls,” a collection of work by eight female abstract painters, was curated in direct response to art’s continuing gender gap. According to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, only 28 percent of museums featured solo exhibitions by women during the 2000s, even though 51 percent of all working visual artists are female.

Activist group the Guerrilla Girls’ traveling exhibition reports that less than 5 percent of the material featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Modern section was created by women (they are, however, the subject of 85 percent of the nudes). And according to ArtNews, only one female artist was included in the top 100 art auction sales of 2015. I don’t blame my sister for being worried—looking at those numbers, I would be too.

18 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 5, 2017

Judy Ledgerwood, Sailors See Green, 2013 o NATHAN KEAY/MCA

“It is amazing how quickly, either with acquisitions or exhibitions, you can start falling into an Anglo-European white-male theme, because that’s just what’s out there in the marketplace and being promoted,” says Michael Darling, chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art. “And maybe you can even see that in our collectors and peer museums.” In the six and a half years he’s held the position, Darling’s led an effort to correct the gender imbalance at the museum, especially with large solo shows like last year’s “Run for President”—featuring the work of multidisciplinary artist Kathryn

Andrews—and “The Sympathetic Imagination,” a current exhibit of Diana Thater’s video installations.

For “Riot Grrrls” Darling pulled selections from the MCA’s existing collection (some of the more recent acquisitions are on display for the first time) as a representation of overlooked but important paintings created by women. The exhibit is bold and aggressive throughout, illustrating the frustration of being marginalized. Even the piece that appears the brightest at first glance, Judy Ledgerwood’s Sailors See Green, conveys a feeling of struggle. Silver paint is applied

in zigzagging lines across a colorful pastel background; it reminded me of the pattern on a young girl’s dress. But upon a closer look, the silver paint visibly drips, and the artwork sags. The zigzags no longer feel vibrant, but manic and disorderly.

Ellen Berkenblit’s Love Letter to Violet directly subverts feminine ideals. A rough depiction of the profile of a woman’s face is weighed down by thick strokes of eyelashes, and a small hair barrette restrains a few thin, dark strands amid an outburst of colors and patterns. A more conventional interpretation of femininity is evident in the oldest piece in the collection, Ree Morton’s One of the Beaux Paintings (#4). Created in 1975, Beaux features a delicate bow in the center surrounded by different textures created through paint and canvas manipulated to resemble pleated fabric. “[Morton]’s another person who’s not a household name, and most mainstream collectors, they wouldn’t even put her in an auction catalogue,” Darling says. “It’s one of those type of pieces that we thought was really important that we could put into a context like this, or a museum in general, and try to create more recognition for her.”

Other institutions in Chicago are also recognizing female artists: Jessica Stockholder’s installation Rose’s Inclination is up at the Smart Museum of Art, Diana GuerreroMaciá’s tapestries are on display at Carrie Secrist Gallery, and Joyce Pensato, one of the figures represented in “Riot Grrrls,” has a simultaneous solo show at Corbett vs.

Dempsey, “The Godmother.” But even “Riot Grrrls,” powerful as it is, showcases only ten pieces, tucked away in a corner of the MCA’s fourth floor.

I can see themes my sister wants to explore and some of the methods she’s experimenting with in all the work by women displayed in “Riot Grrrls.” And I’m somewhat reassured— despite what she’s hearing in her art history classes or studio critiques—that there’s room for her in contemporary art. It’s just a space that needs to get a whole lot bigger. v R “RIOT GRRRLS” Through 6/4, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago, 312-280-2660, mcachicago.org, $12, $7 students and seniors, free for kids 12 and under and members of the military, free for Illinois residents on Tuesdays.

ß @BriannaWellen

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SILENCE sss

Directed by Martin Scorsese. R, 161 min. For showtimes, see chicagoreader.com/movies

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Classes Begin the Weeks of

Silence

January 9 & February 13

MOVIES

Apostasy now

By TAL ROSENBERG

C

ritics have compared Silence, Martin Scorsese’s latest drama, to his spiritually inclined The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and Kundun (1997).

But another way of approaching Silence is in relation to Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (2014). A cartoonish black comedy about real-life Wall Street swindler Jordan Belfort, Wolf amplified Scorsese’s filmmaking to the point of self-parody, especially with regard to the movie’s subjects: foulmouthed, macho lowlifes who tease each other, do drugs, treat women like garbage, and commit wanton acts of violence (in this case, financial). In many respects Silence is the complete opposite—a largely meditative historical epic about Portuguese Jesuit priests whose faith is tested as they try to spread Catholicism in 17th-century feudal Japan. But Silence, despite its formal deviations, is very similar to Scorsese’s other works.

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Scorsese is famous for techniques that provide the viewer with a kinetic rush: flashy editing tricks (freeze-frames, montage, frantic zooms, elaborate Steadicam shots), high-contrast lighting, and scores consisting largely of popular music. Silence is far more restrained, with long takes, wide landscape shots, a semblance of natural lighting, and almost no music (ambient, presumably electronic tones intrude occasionally, courtesy of husband-and-wife duo Kathryn and Kim Allen Kluge). But the calm, stark, contemplative aesthetic of Silence is just as aggressive as the mania of his other dramas. If anything, the pace and appearance of Silence intensify its subjects and themes as much as the frenetic, kaleidoscopic style of Goodfellas (1990) conveys the seedy, quick thrills of being a gangster.

Based on Shûsaku Endô’s 1966 novel, Silence follows Portuguese Jesuit priests Ro- J

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JANUARY 5, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 19

Get showtimes at chicagoreader.com/movies.

ARTS & CULTURE Silence

continued from 19 drigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garrpe (Adam Driver) as they journey from Macao, China, to Nagasaki, Japan, to track down their mentor, Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson). The year is 1640, shortly after the Shimabara Rebellion, in which Catholic peasants revolted against the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan’s last feudal military government. Ferreira’s last correspondence arrived seven years earlier—relayed in an arresting flashback sequence with Neeson’s voice-over narration, the letter divulges the priest’s crisis of faith. He watched as fellow Jesuits who refused to apostatize were scalded with water ladled on them from hot springs.

Ferreira is rumored to have denounced the church and assimilated into Japanese society, but Rodrigues refuses to believe that his teacher has betrayed the faith. The two young Jesuits are the final Portuguese priests to be sent to Japan, charged with bringing Ferreira back to Macao.

Rodrigues and Garrpe recruit as their guide Kichijiro (Yôsuke Kubozuka), a lapsed Japanese Catholic whom they find inebriated and despondent at a Macao port bar—his renewal of faith becomes Rodrigues’s chief duty and greatest burden. Kichijiro reveals that he renounced the church even when the rest of

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his family refused to do so, and watched as they were executed. He takes confession, and Rodrigues absolves him of his sins, yet at each opportunity to declare his faith—whether to save others from execution or to protect Rodrigues from being discovered and persecuted by the shogunate—Kichijiro is too fearful and weak to sacrifice himself. In the film’s sole running joke, Kichijiro begs Rodrigues to hear his confession after every betrayal.

As in many Scorsese films, the protagonist turns out to be the most doubtful and dishonest character. Eventually Rodrigues is captured by the Japanese and confronted with the most difficult challenge to his priesthood: either to step publicly on an image of Christ or to watch as others are tortured and killed.

Rodrigues is committed to his beliefs, but even early on, his resolve feels sanctimonious and self-serving. In voice-over monologue he betrays his skepticism of salvation and divine intervention, asking, with a trace of bitterness, “God heard their prayers, but did he hear their screams?” The “silence” of the title isn’t just the absence of God in the face of human suffering but also the failure of men to sacrifice themselves when doing so could alleviate others’ misery. Whether or not Rodrigues capitulates to the shogunate, one already questions whether his refusal to denounce God is an act of faith or of narcissism.

These are bold propositions for a film about spirituality, but they’re hardly alien to Scorsese’s work. As early as Mean Streets (1973) he was grappling with the question of guilt.

In that movie, Charlie (Harvey Keitel) tries

to reconcile his faith with his small-stakes criminal enterprises; he acts out his phony saintliness by reflexively protecting Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), a fellow hoodlum who embraces his violent nature. Their relationship parallels Rodrigues’s flawed attempts to redeem Kichijiro in Silence, but there are echoes of other Scorsese films too, and not just The Last Temptation of Christ or Kundun.

The skewed prophet trying to thrust salvation onto others is a central component of Taxi Driver (1976). Notions of betrayal dominate Goodfellas and The Departed (2006), in which an altar boy grows up to become an undercover cop infiltrating the Irish Mafia.

A significant way in which Silence deviates from Scorsese’s past treatments of religion is in implicitly acknowledging that other faiths might provide greater spiritual fulfillment.

Inoue (Issei Ogata), the shogunate’s lead inquisitor, explains to Rodrigues that Japan is like a swamp—Christianity cannot grow there, and if it could, it would destroy the culture’s traditions. As Silence progresses, Rodrigues encounters Buddhist ideas about man’s relationship to nature, particularly that the nature of human beings is immutable. So is the refusal to reject Christ an affirmation of mankind? Or, as Ferreira instructs Rodrigues, is rejecting Christ in order to save the lives of other people “the most painful act of love that has ever been performed”?

These are difficult questions, and to Scorsese’s credit, none of them is neatly resolved.

The film can be ponderous in its rumination and ambiguity, but few cinematic treatments of Christianity and sanctity have been as generous or as intellectually challenging as Silence. In The Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese playfully and indirectly examines one aspect of his career: the stylistic and thematic trademarks of “a Martin Scorsese picture.” In Silence he dissects another of his preoccupations: the challenge of being a devout, virtuous person. “The hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt,” Rodrigues says at one point. That sounds like something a character in Casino might say before blowing someone’s brains out.

ß @talrosenberg

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Ben Burden on the cover of his debut, the EP Concrete Maze o TRANSMENTAL

Ben Burden blends hip-hop, R&B, and pushback against toxic masculinity After an injury ended his soccer career, he came to Chicago to find his true self in music.

By TIFFANY WALDEN

I

n fall 2014, Ben Burden had reached a crux in his collegiate soccer career at High Point University in North Carolina—as a junior, the starting midfielder knew he’d soon have to choose whether to pursue the sport professionally. A torn meniscus would end up making the decision for him, though, and after his injury the former high school All-American sank into a dark place.

Burden felt betrayed by his coaches, who met with him multiple times, fishing for ways to end his scholarship. He remembers them complaining about his poor grades, but he says he had a 3.5 GPA. “It became clear that it had to do with my injury,” he says. In Decem-

ber 2014, he left behind his best friends and transferred to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he planned to finish his philosophy degree. Frustrated and lonely, questioning his identity as an athlete and as a person, he picked up a pen and returned to his childhood passion—music.

“See, I’m not the man I used to be / I done seen a lot of things / I was once a moral being / This world done made a mess of me.”

Burden didn’t yet know it when he wrote those lines—some of the first lyrics he came up with after leaving High Point—but they’d soon become lyrics to the title track off his forthcoming debut EP, Concrete Maze.

BEN BURDEN, CHELSEA REJECT, THE OTHER ERIC, YOMI, DJ ELLIVEN

Release party for Burden’s Concrete Maze and part of the monthly hip-hop series All Smiles. Thu 1/26, 8 PM, Tonic Room, 2447 N. Halsted, $8, 21+

Burden recorded four songs in North Carolina (and played one more season of college soccer) before dropping out of UNC Greensboro in April 2016 and moving to Chicago that same month. Here he found camaraderie with fellow artists who didn’t know him as a soccer player but only as a talented singer and songwriter—a fellowship that helped him feel secure enough to shed the hypermasculine persona of an athlete and tap into his vulnerabilities in his music.

“I think in coming to Chicago, you’re looking for an identity. I think LA and New York have such an identity already,” Burden says.

“And you can get eaten alive by those places by other things that have nothing to do with music.” Those “other things” include the drugs, parties, and similar sand traps that so many artists have pointed to as distractions from their creativity—Chance the Rapper recently addressed those dangers in the Coloring Book track “Same Drugs.”

Burden was drawn to Chicago in part by the reputation of Classick Studios, the west-side talent magnet where Chance, Eryn Allen Kane, Saba, and many others have recorded. He’d gotten in touch with in-house engineer Bryan “Kawaakari” Schwaller through Jeff Lamonte, a childhood friend in North Carolina whose home studio he’d used to make his first four songs. He visited Classick in March, before his move, laying the groundwork for the sessions where he’d cut the last three of the seven tracks on Concrete Maze.

“Chicago, to me, is just this place where we can create and be free and just be completely open to trying new things,” he says. “That’s what matters most to me—not focusing on ‘I’ve got to meet this producer or get my album to this person.’ What matters most to me is making the best music possible. Chicago allowed me to do that.”

Concrete Maze is a coming-of-age tale, and its musical explorations mirror Burden’s search for acceptance and identity. At its core the EP is a fusion of hip-hop and R&B (Burden sings as well as raps), but it ranges widely within that territory, incorporating hints of blues, jazz, and southern rap, experimenting with unconventional song structures, and moving between aggression and tenderness.

Burden’s struggle has been about more than whether to make music or play soccer. Born Benjamin Robert Harold Burdon to a white father and black mother, the 22-year-old moved at age 12 from his native California to Salisbury, North Carolina, because his family J

JANUARY 5, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 21

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Ben Burden continued from 21 wanted to be closer to relatives. In this new environment, people foregrounded his blackness in a way he’d never experienced before.

He’d already heard the word “nigger” plenty of times, but when it came from his black cousins on family trips to Memphis, it was playful.

Within a week of moving to Salisbury, though, an older white neighbor hurled the slur at Burden for riding a bicycle on his lawn. It was the first time he’d heard it used as a weapon.

“There’s no weight behind that word until you hear it in a negative way,” he says. At the same time, his cousins in Memphis and New Orleans poked fun at him for talking like a white guy— though because of his California roots, they usually said he sounded “like a surfer.”

Burden grew up singing tenor in a statewide chamber choir, but in high school he also made music of his own. “When I moved to the south, it made me appreciate rap,” he says. “I was a huge 8Ball & MJG fan. That’s what the region was playing.” At age 16, he met producer Mark

Sparks, best known for working with R&B A-listers such as Anthony Hamilton and Jodeci (and who’d cofounded the short-lived Soulife Records in 1998). Burden was at a Lamonte family cookout, and the two buddies played some of their own music for the party. Sparks asked to hear more. “He was like, ‘I’m going to give you a couple of beats,’” Burden recalls. “‘If you can write to one tonight, if you can record it in the next few days, send it to me.’ He loved what he heard.”

Sparks became a mentor to the budding musicians. He later invited Burden to an apartment party in North Carolina to meet Jodeci. “I didn’t even really know who they were when I walked in,” Burden says. “They asked me to sing something.” The group wanted Burden to join them on an old-school R&B song—something like Marvin Gaye, he says. “Afterwards, I went to the back room and just started writing.”

When he took up music again in college, though, Burden worried that North Caro- J

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Ben Burden continued from 23

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lina would stifle him—that he wouldn’t find his audience, or that he’d feel pressure to adopt a less adventurous sound than he wanted to.

Sure, Charlotte is a relatively progressive city, but to Burden it seemed like the only hip-hop getting regular radio play there were Atlantainfluenced trap tunes.

“I remember I was listening to Chance the Rapper around 10 Day, and just seeing people hating it,” Burden recalls. From what he could tell, North Carolina didn’t get on the Chance train till he’d become a national celebrity— culminating in seven Grammy nominations this year.

“North Carolina is very late to the party,” he says. “That’s the one thing about moving to Chicago. Chicago is very liberating. In North Carolina, you do anything out of the norm, it can be hated on pretty hard.”

Concrete Maze is definitely out of the norm, right down to its artwork. Burden poses nude, seated in profile with a large blood-red cross cradled across his lap.

The image has some of the effeminacy or androgyny of a Prince album cover. He and some friends built the cross themselves this spring from wood they’d bought at Home Depot, carving a maze design into the entire surface and painting it gold for contrast. The idea for the cover had been in Burden’s mind for a while, but getting naked in front of his friends for the photo shoot turned out to feel a lot different to him than undressing with the team in a locker room. “It added weight to the cover,” he says. “This is me venturing out in front of the whole world.” The photographer turned on Future’s “Stick Talk” to help everyone feel comfortable.

“It just breaks free from all of those restraints, beliefs of who I am as a person, and resets everyone,” Burden says. “That’s the only thing I wanted. It’s not even me trying to say I’m Jesus. That’s the farthest thing from it. It’s really just me bearing the burden of who I am and who I’ve figured out that I am.”

He changed his last name from “Burdon” to “Burden” to further separate his legacy as an athlete from his new identity as a musician.

The seven tracks on Concrete Maze stray far from the staccato trap music that’s trendy today. The four songs recorded before Burden’s move to Chicago are relatively aggressive, and they bear more of Sparks’s R&B influence. On the three from Classick Studios, Burden is subtler, showing confidence in his voice and the direction of his art. Throughout the EP he makes frequent use of plush, layered vocal harmonies. The record was mastered by

“Chicago, to me, is just this place where we can create and be free and just be completely open to trying new things. That’s what matters most to me.”

—Ben Burden

engineer Mike Bozzi, who did the same job for Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly.

Burden credits Schwaller, who mixed all seven songs, for encouraging his alternative approach to hip-hop. “Brian just reassured me that [the music] is really good,” he says.

“I remember when we was working in North Carolina and wondering, ‘Is this even good?’

Because the sound there is so much different.”

Chicago artists regularly earn headlines for their groundbreaking work, and Burden is a transplant and an unknown—but he doesn’t feel intimidated by the difficulty of making a name for himself here. In fact, he finds it encouraging that the music flowing from the city demonstrates so much variety and innovation.

It proves that Chicago doesn’t mean just drill music—something that many outsiders still believe—or even Chance the Rapper’s gospelinfused hip-hop. There are so many more sounds here, Burden points out, mentioning Smino (a fellow transplant, albeit from Saint Louis), Mick Jenkins, and Ravyn Lenae. He hopes his own distinctiveness enriches the melting pot.

“There are incredible artists coming out of here with their own sounds, and I think they’re all finding success—and that’s the thing that’s very unique to the city,” Burden says. “Now, I’m closer to who I knew I always was. Someone that isn’t afraid to take risks and stick to them. Someone who tries to be completely original in anything he does.” v

ß @Waldens_Block

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JANUARY 5, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 25

Recommended and notable shows, and critics’ insights for the week of January 5

MUSIC

b

FESTIVAL

ALL AGES

F

Absolutely Not

Punk blowout Ian’s Party celebrates its ten-year anniversary

o MARISA KM

ONCE AGAIN SPANNING the first weekend in January (Fri 1/6-Sun 1/8), the formidable punkrock-fest staple known as Ian’s Party returns for its ten-year anniversary. What began as little more than an Elgin-based Brokedowns gig honoring their buddy Ian has grown year after year, transforming from a modest, mostly local festival into one much too big for its suburban britches—which helps explain the move into the city a handful of winters ago. This year regulars like the aforementioned BROKEDOWNS (which have played every year), MEAT WAVE, SASS DRAGONS, and ABSOLUTELY NOT will play headliners, while a heap of newcomers fill out a 75-plus-band lineup spread over three Wicker Park venues: 1st Ward, Double Door, and Subterranean. Partygoers on Friday include Minneapolis punks TOYS THAT KILL, gruff postpunks CANADIAN RIFLE, noise rockers FAKE LIMBS, and the debut set from a MELKBELLY/ SOPHAGUS side project called SWAMPERS. Saturday features sets by minimal noise trio NO MEN (see page 28), snarling hardcore outfit RASH, and shoegaze revivalists DIM as well as the return of local grindcore legends HEWHOCORRUPTS (billed this go-round as SHEWHOCORRUPTS). The fest’s final day includes scuzz-rock supergroup LIFESTYLES (see page 28), instrumental prog-rock trio JOB, and loud-as-hell noise-rock group HIGH PRIESTS. And that only scratches the surface of the Party’s huge list of performers; check out the complete lineups in our listings, or visit iansparty.com. —LUCA CIMARUSTI Fri 1/6-Sun 1/8, Subterranean (2011 W. North), Double Door (1551 N. Damen), 1st Ward (2033 W. North), $20 (Friday and Saturday), $15 (Sunday), $40 three-day pass, 17+

THURSDAY5

Micawber Bloodletter, Withering Soul, and Tenebrism open. 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, $10.

This underrated Green Bay death-metal band started in 2007 and quickly released a trio of EPs—each better than its predecessor—before finally dropping their first full-length, Viral, in 2011 and their second, The Gods of Outer Hell, in 2015. They have a fierce full-frontal grind attack, and vocalist Leighton Thompson’s growls feature a viscous, oozing quality that I find enjoyably unnerving—there’s also a hint of a waggish wit at work, both musically and lyrically (note the vertigo-inducing, slightly Arabesque breakdown flourishes on “Bound to the Eternal Flesh”). Their material is very much your standard satanic-Lovecraftian-horror-movie fuel, but I’m forever charmed by their nihilist manifesto “Hellbender,” in which they describe themselves as “hair and inebriation.”

There’s not a weak moment on The Gods of Outer Hell, so I don’t expect the live show to disappoint.

—MONICA KENDRICK

Typical Sisters V.V. Lightbody opens. 9 PM, Cafe Mustache, 2313 N. Milwaukee, $5.

Chicago-bred, Los Angeles-based guitarist Gregory Uhlmann finds common cause with the local rhythm section of bassist Clark Sommers and drum-

26 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 5, 2017

mer Matt Carroll as Typical Sisters, a lithe jazz trio who quietly dropped their impressive eponymous debut album in 2016 on the Ears & Eyes label. Uhlmann’s tone evokes an admixture of Bill Frisell and John Scofield as loping grooves coolly collide lowkey funk with flashes of rustic Americana. The trio came together in 2009, and playing in fits and starts since then, they’ve developed a rapport that parlays a modern jazz ethos as inviting and warm as any improvised music I experienced last year. Sommers and Carroll provide a deceptively simple foundation for Uhlmann, sculpting loose, airy rhythms that are at once crystal clear and marvelously elastic. Geography prevents Typical Sisters from playing live very often, but the holidays have brought them to our doorstep for this early 2017 gig.

—PETER MARGASAK

Jazz Ari Brown Quintet 8 and 10 PM, through Sat 1/7, 8 and 10 PM; Sun 1/8, 4, 8, and 10 PM, Jazz Showcase Dave Rempis, Peter Maunu, and Phil Sudderberg; Bruce Lamont, Adam Tramposh, and Skyler Rowe 9 PM, Elastic b Greg Ward, Junius Paul, and Isaiah Spencer 9:30 PM, California Clipper Experimental Flux Bikes 9 PM, Hideout

Rock, Pop, Etc Blackbear 6:30 PM, also Sun 1/8, 6:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, sold out b Dead Feathers, Calliope, Diagonal 9 PM, Empty Bottle Green Waves 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Non Exotic, Racecar Melody, Comet & the Tree 9 PM, Quenchers Saloon Old Wounds, Exalt, Safe to Say 6 PM, Cobra Lounge b Rosie & the Rivets 9:30 PM, Martyrs’ F Dance DJ SJ, DJ Jena Max 10 PM, Smart Bar F Blues, Gospel, and R&B Buddy Guy, Lazer Lloyd 7:30 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends

Along with Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins created techno music. Some might associate “techno” with shitty nightclubs, health-goth clothing, the Crystal Method, the Internet in the mid1990s, or anything else modified into a cliche by the engines of capitalism, but when engineered by Atkins and company it’s closer to a combination of Sun Ra, Parliament-Funkadelic, and Kraftwerk—or Afrocentric computerized dance music beamed in from outer space. As Model 500, Atkins produces galactic booty-bass tracks that demonstrate how losing yourself in motion and thought are similar pursuits, which explains why ravers and club kids choose to take drugs during DJ sets: because euphoria requires physical and intellectual stimulation, duh! Still, Atkins’s output is equally preoc-

FRIDAY6 Juan Atkins Kimyon and Sevron open. 10 PM, Smart Bar, 3730 N. Clark, $20, $15 in advance.

cupied with space and texture as it is with movement. On last year’s Borderland: Transport (Tresor), a collaboration with dub-techno pioneer Moritz von Oswald, Atkins stretches synth lines out into slow-burning flames, underpinned by head-shaking beats that create an intriguing tension between ambient music and surefire dance-floor material.

—TAL ROSENBERG

Saba Joseph Chilliams, Mfn Melo, and Dinnerwithjohn open. 6:30 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, sold out. A In June rapper-producer and Pivot Gang cofounder Saba rented an Airbnb in Los Angeles along with rapper Noname and producer-singer Phoelix. There he recorded the bulk of October’s Bucket List Project (Saba Pivot LLC) while Noname worked on her debut, Telefone, each effort ultimately exuding a distinct sense of Chicago as translated through the sui generis style of its creator. On Saba’s effervescent, R&B-smooth “Stoney”—particularly during the stretch about listening to his friends’ music while riding in a Buick driven by Pivot Gang producer Squeak—the slippery, springing flow brings to mind the joy of camaraderie and the playful specifics of his corner of Chicago. That’s not to mention that the MC came up with the hook for “Church/Liquor Store” while gazing out the window of the Division bus as it passed through the west side. Saba captures the fine-grain details of his life in Austin, but many of the best moments on Bucket List Project transcend time and place even as they’re making

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John McEuen & Friends present Will the Circle Be Unbroken featuring Michael Miles, Jodee Lewis, and former members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

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Justin Roberts & the Not Ready for Naptime Players Kids' concert SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4 8PM

James Hill & Anne Janelle reference to specific locations. “Westside Bound 3,” which features Saba’s brother Joseph Chilliams, is as perfect a pop song as any from the past year.

Tonight is Saba’s first hometown show in support of the record, and he’s brought Pivot Gang to really make things feel like home. —LEOR GALIL Rock, Pop, Etc Larry Anthony, Vilas, Midwest, James Ghareeb, Rolfe Neigenfind 7:30 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Bionic Cavemen, Lil Tits, Plastic Crimewave Syndicate, Los Black Dogs 9 PM, Empty Bottle Chris Casello Trio 10:30 PM, California Clipper Dehd, Daymaker, Soft Bite 10 PM, Cole’s F Flat Five 8 PM, City Winery, sold out b Mano, XMarsX, Last Fantastic Nasty 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Naked Raygun, Deal’s Gone Bad Sean McKeough Memorial benefit. 7 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+

Paradise Fears, Jesse Sheppard 7:30 PM, Schubas, sold out b Phonographs, Swell Suburbia, Harlan Flo 9 PM, Quenchers Saloon San Andreas Fault 9 PM, Hideout Statutes of Liberty, Handcuffs, Moontower 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Chip Taylor 8 PM, FitzGerald’s Terrible Spaceship, Symbion Project 8 PM, Emporium Arcade Bar F Dance Dangerwayne, Zack Joseph, Richie Olivo, Bouncehau5 10 PM, Primary Nightclub DJ Funk 10 PM, the Mid Ion Ludwig 10 PM, Spy Bar Jantsen, Levitation Jones, Treepoh, Elevated 8:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Blues, Gospel, and R&B Eddy “the Chief” Clearwater 8 PM, SPACE b

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1/18 The Mexican Folkloric Dance Company and The Chicago Mariachi Project

J JANUARY 5, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 27

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Find more music listings at chicagoreader.com/soundboard.

continued from 27

Buddy Guy 9 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials 9 PM, also Sat 1/7, 9 PM, B.L.U.E.S. Nick Moss 9:30 PM, Rosa’s Lounge JW Williams Blues Band, Laretha Weathersby 9 PM, also Sat 1/7, 9 PM, Blue Chicago Jazz John Moulder Group 9 PM, also Sat 1/7, 8 PM, Green Mill Mike Smith Quintet 9:30 PM, also Sat 1/7, 9:30 PM, Andy’s Jazz Club Experimental Bitchin Bajas 8:30 PM, Hungry Brain Classical Ling-Ju Lai Piano. 6 PM, PianoForte Studios b Jana Pavlovska Piano. Noon, PianoForte Studios b F Ian’s Party Absolutely Not, A Giant Dog, Ono, Typesetter, Salvation, Fake Limbs 6 PM, Double Door, 17+ Beat Drun Juel, Bleach Party, North by North, Two Houses 10:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Celine Neon, Paper Mice, Swimsuit Addition, Avantist, Grimms & Blacknight, Coaster, Swampers 7:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Sass Dragons; Toys That Kill; Canadian Rifle; Fuck You, Idiot; Closed Mouths; Annie Saunders; Retirement Club 7 PM, 1st Ward, 17+ The Howl, Lala Lala, Walking Bicycles, Drool, Storm Clouds, More Gorgeous, Big Baby 6 PM, Double Door, 17+

SATURDAY7 Camper Van Beethoven Cracker headline.

9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, sold out.

There’s something a bit absurd about a rock band that has spent twice as much time reunited (1999-present) as it did in its initial incarnation (19831990), but then again Camper Van Beethoven long ago earned a reputation for bringing a wry silliness to everything it touches. The band has dropped a couple of passable records since re-forming— including an unlikely cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk in 2003—but none of them compare to the early output, especially the final two 80s albums, Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart and Key Lime Pie, both of which were given deluxe-reissue treatment by Omnivore a couple of years ago. On those records the group’s technical abilities finally caught up with its audacious conceptual brio, smashing together unexpected styles with the ambition of prog rock but the concision of punk. These days CVB is part of a cottage industry overseen

by David Lowery, who’s also a founder of Cracker and today an impassioned critic of the music biz in the age of the Internet. This current tour will feature sets from both bands, whose new material offers little disguise for a bald nostalgia grab.

—PETER MARGASAK

No Men Part of Ian’s Party (see page 26).

Brokedowns headline; Negative Scanner, Bust!, No Men, Milly Mango, Elephant Gun, and the Please and Thank Yous open. 7 PM, 1st Ward, 2033 W. North, $20 wristband for Saturday shows, $40 weekend pass. 17+

28 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 5, 2017

Postpunk three-piece No Men started in Austin but cemented their acerbic, titanic sound after guitarist-bassist DB and singer-percussionist Pursley relocated to Chicago in late 2015. “We just wanted to make [our music] angrier and faster and more direct,” DB told Radio One Chicago’s Hex after the host asked how the move affected the band.

“The winter helped, me personally, to make me angry,” Pursley said. “Chicago’s got an angry side.”

On their debut full-length, October’s Dear God, Bring the Doom (Gezellig), No Men balance succinct songwriting with a rage that threatens to boil over. Native Chicagoan Eric Hofmeister propels these tracks with economical drumming that teases out the dance-punk elements in DB’s meaty bass lines, while Pursley’s haunting vocals gel with DB’s high-voltage guitars to amplify each song’s shock beyond what No Men’s volume is otherwise capable of achieving. —LEOR GALIL

UdÜsic Blizzard Babies headline; Udüsic, Peachfuzz, and Goody Gel open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $7.

“Just do the right thing now / Try not to act so dumb / Be mature, mature! / Your life is over, face it,” Sarah Ryczek spits out on Udüsic’s “Mature.” The hardcore scene of the 1980s was stereotypically the province of snot-nosed immature skater boys sporting acne and adenoidal sneers. Ryczek, though, is in her 40s, and at this point hardcore has been around long enough that it’s virtually an exercise in nostalgia. But you wouldn’t know that listening to Udüsic’s 2015 self-titled seven-inch on Painkiller. Clocking in at less than ten minutes total, the six songs are adrenaline-fueled shots of head-banging hooks, galloping drum blasts, and anthemic attitude. “I’m a menace, I’m a fucking menace,” Ryczek snarls on the no-frills “Menace.” “Nice Try” is a bit more complicated: it opens with a slow, almost doom-metal pace before moving on up to the familiar breakneck rush (“Come on now, nice try!”). The band don’t sound dated—instead they come out like true believers in the grizzled verities of youthful bile. Condescension, contempt, anger, irritation—these are emotions that the old and young can shriek in your face together. I’d expect adults of all ages to be thrashing enthusiastically throughout Udüsic’s set.

—NOAH BERLATSKY Rock, Pop, Etc Dreadwolf, This Obsession, Headpins, Andrew Palmer 9 PM, Township Faade, Blind Elephant, Corral 9 PM, Quenchers Saloon Face the Fire, Gravesend, Within the Trenches, Welp 7:30 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Ezra Furman 8 PM, SPACE b

Real Friends, Knuckle Puck, Mat Kerekes, Homesafe, Sleep on It, Belmont, Caving 3 PM, Concord Music Hall, sold out b Saltflowers, Jesters, Resurrection Larry, Bongo Straits 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Sleep Walk, Liqs, Glass Eyes 10 PM, Cole’s F Vulgar Boatmen, Obleeks 7 PM, Schubas Hip-Hop Complex Theory, Vex the MC, Freak for Geeks, Walter J. Liveharder with Jed Sed 10:30 PM, Beat Kitchen Felly, Gyyps, Healy, Ra’Shaun, Rittle Work, Drew Martz, Mose Wood 6 PM, Portage Theater b Dance Ferry Corsten, Andrew Renegade 10 PM, Sound-Bar Lauren Flax, Samone, Mindy Sherman 10 PM, Smart Bar Kennedy Jones, Helena Legend 10 PM, the Mid Martin EZ, Brian Boncher, Twitchin Skratch, Blu 9, Kidd Wrek, Alex Petrou, Nevalu 10 PM, Spy Bar RJ Pickens, Dabura, Phil Rizzo, No Sl33p 10 PM, Primary Nightclub Blues, Gospel, and R&B Buddy Guy, Guy King 9:30 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends Mike Wheeler Band 10 PM, Rosa’s Lounge Jazz Corey Wilkes 8 PM, the Promontory b Experimental Mirror of Nature 8:30 PM, Hungry Brain F International Magic Carpet 11:30 PM, California Clipper Radio Free Honduras, New Constellations 9 PM, Hideout Ian’s Party Cell Phones, Lucy Stoole & the Ladies of Fabitat, Oreo Jones, Dim, Bow & Spear, Sophagus 5 PM, Double Door, 17+ Mykelle Deville, Shewhocorrupts, Lovely Little Girls, Lung, So Pretty, Den 7:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Nnamdi’s Sooper-Dooper Secret Side Project, Truman & His Trophy, Hawley, Ego, Sol Patches, Bloodhype 5 PM, Double Door, 17+ Yeesh, Rash, Buildings, Ribbonhead, Boxsledder, Bad Mechanics 7:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+

SUNDAY8 Lifestyles Part of Ian’s Party (see page 26).

Meat Wave headline; Vacation Bible School, Heart Shaped Hate, Lifestyles, JOB, and High Priests open. 5 PM, Double Door, 1551 N. Damen, $15 wristband for Sunday shows, $40 weekend pass. 17+ Enter Lifestyles, some sort of Chicago scuzz-rock supergroup. Together, Lil Tits guitarist Hanna Hazard, Touched by Ghoul bassist Alex Shumard, and

Foul Tip bassist Adam Luksetich—who drums both here and in Circuit Des Yeux’s live lineup—abandon the complexities and dynamics of their other projects for a hearty slab of stripped-down, primal punk rock. As heard on their self-titled debut LP for Maximum Pelt, the brilliance of Lifestyles is rooted in simplicity: channeling the Misfits, Circle Jerks, and L7, they scoff at flashiness and excess, choosing instead to hammer out bare-bones, midtempo, three-chord smashers built out of muddy, blownout guitars and very bad attitudes. In front of it all is Hazard, who sounds like the deranged love child of Kat Bjelland and Jello Biafra and pulls catchy hooks out of the band’s gross, mucky cacophony. Since releasing Lifestyles, the trio have expanded to a four-piece by adding Aaron Preusch on second guitar—and with him they’ve written a whole new pile of material. —LUCA CIMARUSTI Rock, Pop, Etc Mashed Potatoes, Gina Sicilia, Karl Neurauter 9 PM, Quenchers Saloon Folk & Country Wild Earp & the Free-For-Alls 10 PM, California Clipper F Blues, Gospel, and R&B Buddy Guy, Jamiah Rogers 7:30 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends Jazz Matt Piet Trio 9 PM, Hungry Brain Doug Rosenberg & the Neo-Meta 9 PM, Whistler F Classical New Orford String Quartet 7:30 PM, Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Northwestern University b Ian’s Party Melkbelly, Rad Payoff, Lamon Manuel, Dethwarrant, Sincere Engineer, F2L2 5 PM, Double Door, 17+

MONDAY9 Steve Earle See also Tuesday. Colter Wall opens. 8 PM, City Winery, 1200 W. Randolph, $50-$60. A In January at City Winery, veteran roots-rock poet Steve Earle performs an extended string of solo performances where his storytelling illuminates and enlivens his unfussy playing. Earlier this year the singer dropped an impressive collaboration with Shawn Colvin, the product of a 2014 duo tour in which both artists sang tunes, then explained them. It’s only a matter of time before Earle drops a solo record chronicling those kinds of shows, but for now his most recent album is 2015’s Terraplane (New West), an effort that gravitates toward electric blues, albeit a version spiked with twang to provide an effective setting for his hard-luck tales. In addition to Earle’s pair of performances tonight and tomorrow night, he returns to the venue January 24 and 25. —PETER MARGASAK

Godheadsilo Corey J. Brewer and Poison Arrows open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $15.

Sure, it’s a little irregular for a mid-90s drumsand-bass-only noise-rock duo from Olympia (via Fargo) to reunite after 17 years . . . sure it is. But

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Big Thief o ALLISON KATE CHERKIS

MUSIC WEDNESDAY11 Big Thief Sam Evian, Hoops, and Campdogzz open. 9 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, $15. 18+

GodheadSilo did it all the same with little more than a how do ya do. After releasing a trio of LPs between ’94 and ’97, one for Kill Rock Stars and a pair for Sub Pop, drummer Dan Haugh suffered a severe arm injury that essentially forced the band into a hiatus and later an assumed dissolution. He and Mike Kunka returned in 2015 to honor the tenth anniversary of the shuttering of punk and noiserock bastion Ralph’s Corner in Fargo-Moorhead, a club that helped nurture and build up the small but fervent North Dakota scene. Supported at that show by Hammerhead—their Fargo brethren who spent the 90s releasing material via noise-rock pillar Amphetamine Reptile Records—GodheadSilo rolled out damaged and deformed material from 1996’s great Skyward in Triumph, for example. And today that record, with its subtle shoegaze undertones and plagues of distortion, sounds as crackling and all-consuming as it did during the heyday in which it first dropped. This tour is brief and only heading through eight cities, so if you’ve got a warm and cozy spot for the frigid and blown-out noise rock of America’s Great White North, best make it count.

—KEVIN WARWICK Rock, Pop, Etc Joshua Henry 7 and 9:30 PM, Schubas, early show all-ages, late show sold out and 18+ Reel Big Fish, Anti-Flag, Ballyhoo!, Direct Hit! 5:30 PM, House of Blues b Folk & Country Robbie Fulks & Steve Dawson 7 PM, Hideout Blues, Gospel, and R&B A Tribute to Barrelhouse Chuck with Mud

Guitar forever.

Morganfield, Erwin Helfer, Billy Flynn, Bob Stroger, Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith, Oscar Wilson, Nick & Kate Moss, Gerry Hundt, Joe Nosek, Little Frank, and others 7:30 PM, SPACE b Jazz Gene Knific Trio, Jo Ann Daughtry Quartet 9 PM, Elastic b In-Stores Stevenson Valentor & Sam Mosching 7:30 PM, Myopic Books F b

TUESDAY10 Steve Earle See Monday. Colter Wall opens.

8 PM, City Winery, 1200 W. Randolph, $50-$60. A Rock, Pop, Etc Crosstown, Lucille Furs, Max & the Mild Ones 8 PM, Schubas, 18+ Mykele Deville, Avantist 9 PM, Empty Bottle Entombed A.D., Full of Hell, Turbid North, Disinter, Dethbeds 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Forfeit; Winter Classic; Indeed, We Digress; Yetta 8 PM, Burlington Oh Yeahs 9:30 PM, California Clipper Rooms Trio, Sun Speak 9 PM, Hideout Jazz Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society 6 PM, Museum of Contemporary Art F b Fred Lonberg-Holm, Avreeayl Ra, Peter Maunu, and Aaron Zarzutzki 9:30 PM, Whistler F Greg Ward 9 PM, Hungry Brain F

Singer-songwriter Adrianne Lenker has assembled a sturdy, reliable group of musicians to flesh out her humble melodies and dusky delivery as Big Thief. At first blush last year’s Masterpiece (Saddle Creek) sounds as familiar and comforting as a favorite blanket, but Lenker’s voice has a way of creeping up you, infusing a multicolored splendor into the wag-along grooves efficiently if unspectacularly sketched out by guitarist (and longtime collaborator) Buck Meek, bassist Max Oleartchik, and drummer James Krivchenia. Lenker’s a keen observer of familiar relationships hurt by stasis or dysfunction as well as fresh ones spinning out on slicks of enthusiasm and fantasy (“You started to move from fact into fable,” she sings in “Lorraine”), both situations that repeatedly present hurdles to meaningful understandings between the parties involved.

The marriage of music and words increases the power of Masterpiece exponentially—it's one of the most arresting rock albums of 2016.

—PETER MARGASAK Rock, Pop, Etc Byzmuti & Slow Chapel 9 PM, Whistler F Espejos, Strange Passage, Bombats, Sore History 9 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Bill MacKay, Ryley Walker, and Michael Zerang 9:30 PM, California Clipper Perturbator, Fin, Sioum, Strngr 8:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ These Beasts, Barren Heir, Plague of Carcosa 9 PM, Empty Bottle Tortoise, Bayonne, Monobody 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Via Rosa, Elton Aura, Blake Davis, SamOG 8:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Hip-Hop Mack 11, Jayaire Woods, Matt Whise, Bird Bankin Boi, Emcee White, Jus Chase 8 PM, Elbo Room Experimental Jason Stein, Jason Roebke, Aaron Zarzutzki, and Peter Maunu 9 PM, Beat Kitchen F Classical Shuai Sophia Wang Piano. 12:15 PM, Preston Bradley Hall, Chicago Cultural Center F b v

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YUSHO // 2 8 5 3 N K E D Z I E // Y U S H O - C H I C AG O.C O M Yusho came about as an expression of their love for the hustle and bustle found while travelling, in Tokyo’s fish markets. Fresh ingredients from the land and sea are prepared over a hot binchotan—a Japanese grill that burns so hot and that ingredients are given a crispy outer skin and flavors in all their richness sealed inside. Served with the big, bold flavors Chicago is known for—their food comes thoughtfully presented on small plates to share in a warm, colorful, happy room full of art and life.

“Awesome. Their take on street food was great . . .”

30 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 5, 2017

— JOE V. / GOOGLE REVIEW

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FOOD & DRINK

FIFOLET | $$

1942 W. Division 773-384-6886 fifoletcajun.com

NEW REVIEW

Fifolet is the Cajun-creole spot Chicago is missing But the city still deserves better.

By MIKE SULA

W

Fifolet’s namesake gumbo is spot-on. The dark roux imparts the right bitter-coffee notes and a thick body that clings to the shrimp, crawfish, okra, and gator sausage that lurk in its depths. o DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS

hen a generic Irish sports bar falls in this city, does it make a sound? The ubiquity of the tricolor-f lying, f latscreen-blaring, jalapeño-popper-slinging, Gaelic-font-fronting, leprechaun-buggering, all-purpose faux-Irish public house is such that it renders most of them invisible to me. That’s why I’m sure I never even noticed West Town’s Division Ale House prior to hearing that it’d been shuttered by its owner only to rise up, completely reconcepted, as a Cajun-creole concern called Fifolet, bedecked with sparkly Mardi Gras masks and soundtracked by blaring brass bands for those unfamiliar with the most prominent cliches of the Crescent City. Don’t look too close, though—the New Orleans-themed volumes on the lower levels of the dining room bookcase support shelves of leathery-looking law books heavy enough to crack the fragile veneer of authenticity.

Even so, the opening of a Cajun-creole spot in this town is something to notice. The long-running Heaven on Seven notwithstanding, they are few and far between, and the painful absence of a truly legitimate gumbo was only compounded last summer by the death of a truly outstanding one. The late Analogue didn’t need glittery gewgaws to assert its presence when it had NOLA native J

JANUARY 5, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 31

Search the Reader’s online database of thousands of Chicago-area restaurants—and add your own review—at chicagoreader.com/food.

FOOD & DRINK

Mama’s Gumbo; venison medallions, battered-and-fried shallots, cornmeal grits; fried cornish hen o DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS

Fifolet continued from 30

Alfredo Nogueira in the kitchen slinging his “filthy” dirty rice, smoked-mushroom-stuffed mirlitons, and a lavishly fatty fried chicken sandwich.

Well, Nogueira’s back cooking in his hometown, so who can blame us for putting all our hopes in chef Kevin Crouse? He previously cooked in this wheelhouse at the ill-fated Nouveau Tavern and a place called Moe Joe’s in exotic Plainfield, Illinois, and his menu is

32 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 5, 2017

more orthodox than Analogue’s—but how can you complain about two varieties of gumbo, shrimp creole, chicken jambalaya, and barbecued shrimp po’boys?

Well, you can complain, and maybe you will. A guest of mine at Fifolet was so offended by that jambalaya he nearly stormed out of the dining room in reaction to my less-thanaggrieved shrug. That’s the trouble for someone applying the benchmarks of a significant formative memory of a food rooted in a spe-

cific time and place. You can never go back. I didn’t appreciate the attempt to punch up the acidity of this dish with cherry tomatoes, or the lily-gilding yellow pepper coulis zigzagged across the top, but it seemed a pretty standard, if forgettable, version of the dish. Same goes for a deep-fried half Cornish game hen jacketed in a crispy, earthily sweet cornmeal batter and served atop a pile of subtly iron-rich dirty rice. Braised rabbit daube, piled shredded and stewy in a crater of buttery grits, meets the

yardstick for a wintry night’s refueling, while that same creamy ground cornmeal provides the bed for some nicely charred venison medallions enriched with mushrooms and battered-and-fried shallots. The fried green tomatoes—while not natively creole, Cajun, or even southern—are a surprise: brittle shells on fruit with a tartness echoed in the housemade giardiniera.

There are some silly gimmicks and poorly rendered snacky bits, their flaws perhaps partially explained by the furious pace at which nearly everything seems to come out of the kitchen. This tendency is embodied in the boudin balls, the beloved Cajun rice sausage, encased here in puff pastry rather than pig guts. Bland, soggy crawfish-tail fritters seem almost electrified next to a dish of “Sunday dumplings.” That plate of dull, stomachbusting pan-seared gnocchi nestled amid underseasoned brussels sprouts and canned baby corn coblets, all showered with rapidly softening matchstick potatoes, is a sorry offering for the vegetarians in your company.

On the other hand, cast-iron pans of a sweet, custardy corn-bread casserole pair nicely with the comparably candied collard greens, or even the Parmesan-bread-crumb-showered casserole of green beans and mushrooms in a smoked cream sauce.

Given all the inconsistency at Fifolet, it’s almost a wonder that the namesake gumbo is so spot-on. The dark roux imparts the right bitter-coffee notes without tasting rancid or burned. And while it’ll hardly hold a spoon upright, it has a thick body that clings to the shrimp, crawfish, okra, and gator sausage that lurk in its depths. The similarly swampy “Mama’s Gumbo,” for the gluten and shellfish averse, is yet a bit too glutinous due to an overenthusiastic application of filé powder— but thick with duck, chicken, and andouille, it’s no slouch either.

Dessert presents a choice of beignets or a disastrous bananas Foster set aflame in a kind of cookielike miniature pie crust that crumbles at the slightest touch. Meanwhile behind the bar, the thematically appropriate cocktails (Sazerac, Vieux Carré, hurricane) and absinthe flights complete the pro forma simulation of a Cajun-creole habitat that, by nature of its near singularity, doesn’t need to try too hard. In its workmanlike, inoffensive way, Fifolet may scratch an itch, but it also reminds you that Chicago deserves something better. v

ß @MikeSula

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Hundreds of bar suggestions are available at chicagoreader.com/ barguide. Bottoms up!

FOOD & DRINK Ten taps at the Native pour both cheap macro brews and local craft beers, with another 25-odd available by the bottle. o DANIELLE A. SCRUGGS

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The Native has turned the former Bonny’s space into a bar inspired by Wisconsin supper clubs

By JULIA THIEL THE NATIVE

2417 N. Milwaukee 872-206-5526 thenativechicago.com

T

he Native, the new bar in the longdormant space formerly occupied by the late-night dive Bonny’s, has an unexpected draw: a friendly, bouncy puppy named Dolly whose pure delight in everything she encounters is infectious. On a recent evening at the bar, she was particularly taken with watching people play a shuffleboard-style bowling game in the back, occasionally batting at the puck as it sailed by. Her owners, Jared and Carly Savocchi, also own the Native, which they opened late last month as a low-key neighborhood bar. Gone are the sweaty 3 AM dance parties that made Bonny’s notorious. The Native doesn’t have a 4 AM liquor license—nor, for that matter, does it have a dance floor. The atmosphere is of a relaxed spot to stop for a pint or two, not the kind of raucous joint where you go to make decisions you may regret the next day.

The focus here is more on beer than cocktails: the ten taps pour both cheap macrobrews and local craft beers, with another 25-odd

The Hotelier + IAN SWEET + Xenia Rubinos Sam Evian + Mattson 2 + The Black Madonna + Bayonne Psalm One + HOOPS + Mother Evergreen + Acid Dad Chastity + Negative Scanner + In Tall Buildings

available by the bottle. Still, appropriately for a place inspired by Wisconsin supper clubs, there’s a respectable, smooth-drinking brandy old-fashioned. The brief cocktail list seems to be built to comfort rather than challenge the senses. Even the Native Negroni, which substitutes Jeppson’s Malort for the traditional Campari, softens the famously bitter besk with grapefruit liqueur for a remarkably wellbalanced drink. The Loon, made with tequila, lemon, orange liqueur, and egg white, tastes like a cross between a margarita and a pisco sour and goes down just as easy. Though there are only four drinks on the menu, the bartenders can also make a few other basics, including a spicy rye old-fashioned for those who prefer a less sweet drink than the brandy-and-soda version traditional in Wisconsin.

A 50-seat patio will open in the spring, making the Native even more enticing. But for now the warm lighting, friendly service, and free popcorn are plenty appealing. (There’s no kitchen, but there are frozen pizzas that can be baked on request.) And Dolly, romping through the bar with her light-up chew toy, makes the place feel like home. v

Muuy Biien + Overcoats + Flaural + Femdot + Monobody Cloakroom + Campdogzz + Savile + Dream Version Joe Bordenaro + Woongi + Morimoto + CRASHprez HOGG + DJ Rachael Special Performance by: Sons Of The Silent Age performing David Bowie’s Low COMEDY AT THE HIDEOUT Phoebe Robinson + Beth Stelling + Michelle Wolf Helltrap Nightmare Birthday Funeral PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

ß @juliathiel JANUARY 5, 2017 - CHICAGO READER 33

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the pre-civil-rights-era U.S., “one drop of black blood” was often enough to label a person as black. Aside from President Obama, have there been any other American presidents who under the one-drop rule would have been considered black? —RICK WESTERMAN

A : Around the time of the 2008 election,

some may remember, every piddly rumor about a former POTUS’s possible African heritage got a good airing under click-friendly headlines like “Is Barack Obama Really Our First Black President?” I won’t keep you in suspense—most professional historians agree he probably is. Which is a sign of a likely cover-up, according to Dr. Leroy Vaughn, whose writings claim unacknowledged African descent for a number of previous presidents.

A Los Angeles ophthalmologist, Vaughn is the author of the self-published Black People and Their Place in World History (2002), setting him in a line of black researchers who’ve sought to identify prominent, ostensibly white historical figures as having had African ancestry. The most famous of these was Joel Augustus Rogers, a respected journalist whose work nonetheless included the 1965 pamphlet The Five Negro Presidents, which, Henry Louis Gates has written, “would get the ‘Black History Wishful Thinking Prize,’ hands down.” Vaughn, though, cites Rogers as his most important source. Thus far, the roster of presidents alleged to have been secretly black includes Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Harding, Coolidge, and Eisenhower.

It’s an irony, of course, that in order to make the case that black Americans have regularly occupied the White House, Vaughn and his precursors often have to rely on stories of mixed-race parentage that originated as racist smears. Thus Andrew Jackson is determined to have had a black father based on wouldbe damning stories told by his enemies, and Vaughn makes much of a claim about Thomas Jefferson—namely that he was “the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father”—that didn’t pop up till after the Civil War. Contemporary mentions of Abraham Lincoln having “woolly hair” and caricatures of him as “Abraham Africanus the First” are probably better understood as antiabolitionist race-baiting rather than evidence about his actual lineage.

But in the secretly-black-president biz, any rumor of illegitimacy is also considered de facto proof of black parentage. Lincoln’s

mother, Nancy Hanks, may have been born to unmarried parents—ergo, she was mixed race.

Abe’s own paternity has long been disputed, with as many as 16 men IDed as possible papas other than poor Thomas Lincoln, who (depending on who you ask) was either rendered sterile by the mumps, mysteriously castrated, or cursed with testicles “no larger than peas.” From here it’s just one mighty leap to the conclusion that Abe’s ethnic background has been swept under the rug.

Calvin Coolidge must’ve been black, Vaughn asserts, because his mom’s maiden name was Moor. (By this logic, Hugo Black was our first African-American Supreme Court justice.) As for Eisenhower: well, in 2004 a New York Times piece noted that “for decades there have been questions about the possible mixed-race ancestry of Ida Stover,” Ike’s mom, while providing no further context; the idea seems ultimately based on nothing more than Stover’s appearance in her 1885 wedding photograph.

But at least one set of rumors has pretty well been put to rest. A 2015 DNA test of Warren Harding’s relatives found “no detectable genetic signatures of sub-Saharan African heritage.”

For the other such stories, their supporters’ last line of defense is “Well, you can’t prove it’s not true”—an all-too-common rhetorical move in these credulous times. Of course, if you trace anyone’s lineage back far enough, who knows what you’ll find; rewind a couple thousand generations and we’re all African, so under the one-drop rule, there’s no such thing as a white person. Which there really isn’t anyway, just as “black blood” doesn’t exist: science has established that traditional race categories don’t line up well with any underlying genetic distinction. But it’s just about impossible to convince some people there’s no hidden history of black presidents—or at least no easier than convincing other people that our actual black president wasn’t born in Kenya. v Send questions to Cecil via straightdope.com or write him c/o Chicago Reader, 350 N. Orleans, Chicago 60654.

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SAVAGE LOVE

By Dan Savage

How to help a 30-year-old virgin

Where does one find a reliable escort these days? Plus: a cam-girl cover story Q : My brother is a virgin and

turning 30 in a few weeks.

He said he wants to hire an escort just for drinks and conversation for his birthday, but he doesn’t really know how to tell what’s a reliable service or what criteria he should be looking for to tell whether an agency is legit, reliable, etc. I’m very happy he came to me with this because I can tell it’s not something he wants to share with many people— but I don’t have any advice or knowledge to pass on regarding this and I want to respect his privacy by not discussing it with anyone in our social circles. Do you have any advice in regards to what he should be looking for? —MY YOUNGER BROTHER’S ROMANTIC ORDER

A : “Look to social media,”

said Mistress Matisse, a writer, sex worker, and sexworkers-rights activist. “I’m not saying ‘no social media’ equals ‘bad escort.’ There are lots of good escorts who don’t have much of a socialmedia presence. But if you want to get to know a little about who someone is before you meet them, that’s just how you do it now.”

Another rarely discussed, perfectly legal alternative to figuring out if an escort is for real: pay the person to meet up for drinks and conversation, which just so happens to be all your brother wants (or all he’s willing to tell you he wants).

“Obviously, this is not a good option for the budget conscious,” said Matisse. “But if you want to test your chemistry and create some trust on both sides before booking a private date, it’s a solid way to go.

“Note the key word, though: pay her for her time.

(Most ladies have a public social meeting fee that’s

lower than private-time rates.) And remember the basic rules when you do decide to set a private-time date: Don’t ask about sex and don’t talk about money other than to briefly acknowledge that you have seen her rates and agree to pay for her time. Expect to use condoms and to abide by the rules of whoever you’re seeing.”

Q : I’ve been seeing a girl

recently who revealed to me she’s a cam girl. I’m totally OK with it. She makes a great living, it’s important to her, and it turns her on— all great things! But it’s something she likes to keep to herself, and for good reason, obviously. People, however, are obsessed with what other people do for a living. So what’s the best answer for when I’m asked what she does? She’s as unsure of what to say as I am. I’m bringing her to a company event (I work in finance), and both of us are sure everyone is going to ask what she does (cocktail party small talk is the worst!).

What are your thoughts on this subject and other things in a relationship like this?

—MAN BEHIND THE CAM GIRL

A : Say this: “She’s an

independent contractor with a video production company—she makes her own hours and works from home. It’s a great gig. Oh hey, how about them Bears/ Colts/Cubs/Broncos/Braves/ WhatevertheFucks?”

Q : I’m a tall, slender,

attractive, fit, artistic, female 65-year old, taking testosterone, and now without a partner. I’m not sure how to go about engaging in noncommittal quick-sex dates. I don’t know of any escort services for the ladies, but I would

be interested. I’m also interested in exploring the bisexual side of life. Where would you advise I go?

—CURIOUS AND WONDERING

A : I’m going to echo Mistress Matisse and suggest diving into Twitter. Most male sex workers target their ads/ online presence to other males, since men are likelier to buy sex, but many male escorts are bisexual or straight, just gay for pay.

They’ll happily see female clients, as will many female sex workers, you just gotta ask—politely and, again, without talking about sex explicitly. Remember: You’re paying for the escort’s time, CAW. Anything else that happens is just consenting adults doing consentingadult things.

Q : I have a suggestion for GAYMAN, the guy who just got out of an abusive relationship and wanted to know how to reconnect with his sexuality and other gay men. I came out three years ago, and I must say that joining the organization Frontrunners changed my life. It’s an LGBTQ-friendly running group, and I found so much support there as a man coming out late in life. I’ve met so many LGBTQ people, from all backgrounds, with extremely varied interests, and it really opened me up socially. I’m happy to say I’ve made some great friends in the year that I have participated.

—RUNNING WHILE QUEER

A : Thanks for sharing, RWQ.

v

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NEW

Bleeker 1/26, 9 PM, Double Door, on sale Fri 1/6, 10 AM, 17+ Sarah Borges & the Broken Singles 2/2, 8 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn, on sale Fri 1/6, 11 AM BTS 3/29, 8 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont, on sale Fri 1/6, 4 PM California Guitar Trio 3/3, 7 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 1/6, noon Elizabeth Cook 3/18, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 1/5, noon b Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Electric Citizen 2/21, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Crocodiles, AJ Davila 3/2, 9 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 1/6, 10 AM John 5 & the Creatures 4/16, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Girlyboi 1/31, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Go Rounds 2/28, 8 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 1/6, noon, 18+ Tom Hamilton’s American Babies 2/16, 9 PM, Hideout Havok, Exmortus 2/8, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Lauryn Hill 2/6, 8 PM, House of Blues, on sale Fri 1/6, 10 AM, 17+ Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys 3/5, 8 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 1/6, noon Loudness 4/19, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Dave Mason 4/10-11, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 1/5, noon b Naomi Punk, PC Worship 2/16, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Aisha Orazbayeva & Joe Houston 2/5, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+

Split Single, R. Ring 4/22, 7 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 1/6, noon Paul Thorn Band 5/7, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 1/5, noon b Truckfighters 1/24, 7:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Rufus Wainwright 4/6, 8 PM and 4/7, 7:30 and 10 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 1/5, noon b Wet Ink Ensemble 1/29, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ You, Me & Everyone We Know 2/12, 5 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club b

UPDATED Kris Kristofferson 1/16-18, 8 PM; 3/22, 8 PM; and 4/2, 8 PM, City Winery, 1/16-18 sold out, 3/22 and 4/2 added, on sale Thu 1/5, noon b

UPCOMING AFI, Chain Gang of 1974 1/31, 7 PM, Riviera Theatre b After the Burial, Emmure 2/24, 5:30 PM, Bottom Lounge b Against Me! 2/24, 7 PM, Durty Nellie’s, Palatine b Alcest, the Body 1/25, 7:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Amorphis, Swallow the Sun 3/26, 6 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Dan Andriano, Matt Pryor 3/25, 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Richard Ashcroft 3/30, 9 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Marcia Ball 3/7, 8 PM, City Winery b Devendra Banhart 3/6, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Bash & Pop 1/14, 8 PM, Cobra Lounge, 17+ Bell X1 2/25, 7 PM, Lincoln Hall

38 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 5, 2017

Big Boi (DJ set) 2/25, 10 PM, the Mid Black Marble 1/27, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Greg Brown 2/18, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Ceremony, Negative Scanner 1/14, 9 PM, Schubas, part of Tomorrow Never Knows, 18+ Circuit Des Yeux 2/3, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ City of Caterpillar, Planes Mistaken for Stars 1/21, 9 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Clap Your Hands Say Yeah 3/10, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall Cloud Nothings 2/10, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 18+ Albert Cummings 3/12, 7 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Dakhabrakha 3/31, 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b The Damned 4/23, 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Anthony David 2/6, 8 PM, City Winery b Dawes 3/1, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Dead & Co. 6/30-7/1, 7 PM, Wrigley Field Devildriver, Deathangel 2/14, 6 PM, Portage Theater b Neil Diamond 5/28, 8 PM, United Center Electric Guest 3/1, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Entombed A.D., Full of Hell, Turbid North, Disinter, Dethbeds 1/10, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Lee Fields & the Expressions 2/28, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Flaming Lips 4/17, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Ganja White Night 2/25, 11:15 PM, Concord Music Hall, 18+ Laura Jane Grace 2/5, 8 PM, City Winery b High Kings 3/19, 8 PM, City Winery b

b Hippie Sabotage 3/12, 9 PM, House of Blues, 18+ Hippo Campus 4/7, 7:30 PM, Metro b Sierra Hull 3/5, 8 PM, City Winery b Il Volo 3/18, 8 PM, Civic Opera House b Into It. Over It. 1/13, 7 PM, Metro b Juicy J, Belly, Project Pat 3/17, 8 PM, House of Blues, 18+ Khalid 1/12, 6:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club b King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard 4/8, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Kings of Leon, Deerhunter 1/23, 7:30 PM, United Center Kreator, Obituary, Midnight 4/7, 7:30 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Ulrich Krieger 1/26, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Nikki Lane, Brent Cobb 3/11, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Lemon Twigs 1/26, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Lemuria, Mikey Erg 2/7, 8:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Lvl Up 2/25, 8:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Stephen Lynch 2/7-8, 8 PM, City Winery b Mac Sabbath 3/11, 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Mae 3/7, 9 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Magnetic Fields 4/19-20, 8 PM, Thalia Hall b Marduk, Incantation 2/10, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Meat Wave 2/25, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Moon Duo 4/21, 9 PM, Empty Bottle One OK Rock 1/18, 6:30 PM, the Vic b Idan Raichel 3/20-21, 8 PM, City Winery b Railroad Earth 3/25, 8 PM, the Vic, 18+ Rainbow Kitten Surprise 1/25, 7:30 PM, Lincoln Hall b Rival Sons, London Souls 5/14, 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ River Whyless 2/17, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Sam Roberts Band 1/27, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall Maggie Rogers 4/2, 7:30 PM, Lincoln Hall b Uli Jon Roth 3/3, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Run the Jewels 2/17, 8 PM, Aragon Ballroom, 18+ State Champs, Against the Current 4/9, 5 PM, Concord Music Hall b Steve’N’Seagulls 2/6, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen Al Stewart 3/23, 7 PM, City Winery b Sting 3/3, 8 PM, Aragon Ballroom Sevyn Streeter 1/13, 9 PM, the Promontory, 18+ STS9 2/3-4, 8 PM, Aragon Ballroom, 18+ Subdudes 3/8-9, 8 PM, City Winery b

ALL AGES

WOLF BY KEITH HERZIK

EARLY WARNINGS

CHICAGO SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IN THE WEEKS TO COME

F

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Sign up for the newsletter at chicagoreader. com/early

Susto 2/4, 7 PM, Schubas Geoff Tate 2/12, 8 PM, City Winery b Tauk 3/11, 10 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Livingston Taylor 2/10, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b James Taylor & His All-Star Band, Bonnie Raitt 7/17, 7 PM, Wrigley Field b Tedeschi Trucks Band 1/19-21, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Thundercat 2/25, 6:30 PM, Concord Music Hall b Tinariwen, Dengue Fever 4/11, 7 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Title Fight 1/14, 7 PM, Metro, part of Tomorrow Never Knows b Verve Pipe 2/18, 8 PM, City Winery b Frank Vignola & Vinny Raniolo 3/9, 7:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Voodoo Glow Skulls, Pilfers 3/30, 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Ryley Walker 2/1, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Wand, Acid Dad 1/12, 9 PM, Schubas, Part of Tomorrow Never Knows, 18+ Zach Williams 1/26, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Keller Williams & Leo Kottke 3/10, 8 PM, Metro, 18+ Withered, Immortal Bird 2/28, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Chely Wright 1/25, 7:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Xeno & Oaklander 1/28, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Xiu Xiu 3/31, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Zombies 4/13, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+

SOLD OUT Adam Ant 1/31, 8 PM, the Vic, 18+ Alkaline Trio 1/18-20, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Dashboard Confessional 1/28, 7:15 PM, House of Blues b Lukas Graham 1/17, 7 PM, House of Blues b Tove Lo 2/16, 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Mayday Parade 4/22, 7 PM, House of Blues b Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, Atlas Genius 3/24, 7:30 PM, House of Blues, 17+ New Found Glory 4/11-13, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Weekend Nachos 1/13-14, 7 PM, Subterranean b v

GOSSIP WOLF A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene GUITARIST BRIAN CASE of Disappears says the beloved local four-piece went on hiatus this fall—bassist Damon Carruesco wanted to focus on his art and design work (and his solo electronic project, Tüth). Case, drummer Noah Leger, and guitarist Jonathan van Herik will carry on as FACS, which Case describes as “dark music,” but from a “different perspective” than the most recent Disappears albums.

“There are a lot of feelings involved when you put something like this on the back burner, but this is just a different way to push ourselves into the void,” he says.

“It’s exciting to be in an unknown space.”

FACS make their live debut at the Chicago Athletic Association’s Stagg Court on Saturday, January 21, with Magas and headliners Joan of Arc, who celebrate the release of the album He’s Got the Whole This Land Is Your Land in His Hands.

Among the heap of excellent local rap releases that came out in 2016, this wolf is particularly keen on Free the Fall, which Bellwood native Jayaire Woods dropped late last summer. It’s his second mixtape and first since signing to white-hot Atlanta indie label Quality Control (Migos, OG Maco, Lil Yachty), and it’s easy to see why he landed the deal: his emotive flow splits the difference between blustery rapping and melodic singing, and he’s got a masterful grasp of pacing and storytelling. Woods spent a chunk of last year on the road with Lil Yachty, but you can catch him up close and personal at Elbo Room on Wednesday, January 11. Mack 11, Matt Whise, Bird Bankin Boi, Emcee White, and Jus Chase also perform; tickets are $10 and the show starts at 8 PM. One of Gossip Wolf’s favorite new things from the past year is The Sick Muse, a genre-agnostic zine celebrating and documenting Chicago DIY musicians.

Issue number six dropped last month; it includes a guide to local resources— health, self-defense, community organizing—to help you through the next four years. —J.R. NELSON AND LEOR GALIL Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

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