Chicago Reader: print issue of March 24, 2016 (Volume 45, Number 24)

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 | M A R C H 2 4 , 2 0 1 6

Politics Progressives join forces with the Machine to realign Chicago’s Democratic Party. 8

Theater The fight to make the city’s stages less white, thin, able-bodied, and gender-conforming 11

Time traveling with a Chicago hardcore legend Revisiting old haunts with Martin Sorrondeguy of Los Crudos provides a miniature history of gentrification and activism in the city.

By Leor Galil 20

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THIS WEEK

C H I C AG O R E A D E R | M A R C H 24 , 2 01 6 | VO LU M E 4 5, N U M B E R 24

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EDITOR JAKE MALOOLEY CREATIVE DIRECTOR PAUL JOHN HIGGINS DEPUTY EDITOR, NEWS ROBIN AMER CULTURE EDITOR TAL ROSENBERG DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY DANIELLE SCRUGGS FILM EDITOR J.R. JONES MUSIC EDITOR PHILIP MONTORO ASSOCIATE EDITORS KATE SCHMIDT, KEVIN WARWICK, BRIANNA WELLEN SENIOR WRITERS STEVE BOGIRA, 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, ANNE FORD, ISA GIALLORENZO, JOHN GREENFIELD, JUSTIN HAYFORD, JACK HELBIG, DANIEL KAY HERTZ, DAN JAKES, BILL MEYER, J.R. NELSON, MARISSA OBERLANDER, DMITRY SAMAROV, ZAC THOMPSON, DAVID WHITEIS, ALBERT WILLIAMS INTERNS MANUEL RAMOS, CHRIS RIHA, SOPHIA TU

IN THIS ISSUE

10 4 Agenda Afro-Futurism, Trevor Noah, Patti Smith, the film Tale of Tales, and more recommendations

CITY LIFE

8 Joravsky | Politics The García crowd joins the Madigan bunch to go after corporate Democrats.

10 Transportation Pilsen and Little Village residents want to make sure the Paseo path isn’t a route to gentrification.

16

ARTS & CULTURE

14 Theater A harrowing and heartrending Long Day’s Journey Into Night at Court Theatre 14 Lit Natalie Y. Moore’s The South Side grounds political reporting in personal experience.

15 Small Screen What will become of the Jennings family in FX’s The Americans?

16 Visual Art “Brick by Brick” at the Museum of Science and Industry is kid tested and inner-child approved 17 Movies The French drama Marguerite tells the story of the world’s worst soprano.

33

42

MUSIC

32 Shows of note Rockie Fresh, Thurston Moore Group, Ran Blake, Natalia Lafourcade, Shellac, and more

FOOD & DRINK

33 Review: Oyster Bah Lettuce Entertain You’s New England-style seafood shack in Lincoln Park is a crowd-pleaser.

35 Affinage Gone spelunking in a suburban Chicago cheese cave

CLASSIFIEDS

40 Straight Dope How significant a role do cell phones play in solving and preventing crimes?

41 Savage Love Young, married, religious: How can I get a blow job already?

42 Early Warnings R. Kelly, Young Thug, Boney M, King Khan & the Shrines, and more shows in the weeks to come 42 Gossip Wolf Heavy Times coleader Matt Courtade’s van explodes on the way to LA, and more music news

37 Jobs 37 Apartments & Spaces 39 Marketplace

FEATURES

---------------------------------------------------------------SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER EVANGELINE MILLER ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------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 STEPHANIE BASSOS. FOR MORE OF BASSOS’S WORK GO TO STEPHANIEBASSOS.COM.

MUSIC THEATER

Time traveling with Martin Sorrondeguy of Los Crudos

Theater artists looking to diversify the stage are having a hard-fought moment in Chicago’s playhouses.

Revisiting the legendary hardcore band’s old haunts two decades later provides a miniature history of gentrification and activism in Chicago.

BY ZAC THOMPSON 11

BY LEOR GALIL 20

Uniformity is a tough act to follow

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Afro-Futurism with Marcel “Mr. Greenweedz” Wilks and So Chi Voices " CLAYTON HAUCK

THEATER

More at chicagoreader.com/ theater Afro-Futurism The seven memR bers of Afro-Futurism may perform at Second City, but they don’t deal

in sketch revues. In fact, they’re less a company than a collection of black comics—performing solo stand-up routines, for the most part, punctuated with rap segments fronted by Marcel “Mr. Greenweedz” Wilks. There were a couple misfirings on the night I attended, as when an overly zealous Shantira Jackson tried to make a political point by getting the audience to yell out “No!” when it was clear we wanted to say “Yes!” But the lion’s share of the show—Felonious Munk’s sly banter, Sonia Denis’s dizzy (but not ditsy) persona, Martin Morrow’s tales of being too clean-cut for his own good, and the alarming confessions marking Dave Helem as perhaps the worst high school teacher in the history of education—was truthful and lots of fun. —TONY ADLER Through 4/27: Wed 8 PM, Second City E.T.C., Piper’s Alley, 1608 N. Wells, 312-337-3992, secondcity. com, $14, $10 students.

After All the Terrible Things I Do Like a lot of other recent plays, A. Rey Pamatmat’s 90-minute two-hander walks a line between dramatic storytelling and the social justice message the playwright is aching to get across. Unlike a good many of those other plays, this one usually maintains its balance.

Pamatmat’s old-school devices—a careful doling out of information, a red herring or two—offset the sense that he’s out to lecture us on the subject of homophobic bullying, while improving our chances of taking an interest in the characters despite their occasional schematism. It also helps that Andrew Volkoff’s staging for About Face Theatre offers dynamic performances by Colin Sphar as a young, gay writer with a big secret and Lisa Tejero as an aging bookseller with one of her own. —TONY ADLER Through 4/10: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, 773-975-8150, theaterwit.org, $20-$35.

The Bachelors Playwright Caroline V. McGraw starts with three believable characters—flawed, mismatched roommates in their early 30s. Then she tangles them in a story so full of improbabilities that we soon lose all faith in her.

At one of the lowest points in this Cole Theatre production, we find out that one of the three has been keeping a gagged naked woman in his room (the script is vague about whether or not this is against her will). But after dropping this bombshell, McGraw awkwardly changes the subject, turning to lower-stakes conflicts among the trio. Following the lead of this spotty material, the performances too are spasmodic, though Shane Kenyon is, relatively speaking, likable as the most grown-up of the three. This is a very long 75-minute play. —JACK HELBIG Through 4/10: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM (no show 3/31); also Sat 3/26 and 4/2, 4:30 PM; Mon 4/4, 7:30 PM, Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, 773-404-7336, coletheatre.org, $25.

Butler In this witty, tautly written R play Richard Strand takes a single moment—1861, one month into the Civil

War, when runaway slaves were first categorized as “contraband” and given de facto asylum by the Union Army—and turns it into a fascinating exploration of flawed men flailing in the crucible of history. Under the direction of Stuart Carden, the four-person cast work at the top of their game—Greg Vinkler, in particular, turns in a subtle, nuanced performance as Major General Benjamin Butler, the cranky commanding officer who refuses to return three fugitive slaves to the Confederacy. He’s well matched by Tosin Morohunfola as the wily, desperate runaway Shepard Mallory. —JACK HELBIG Through 4/17: Wed 1 and 7:30 PM, Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 2:30 and 8 PM, Sun 2:30 PM, Northlight Theatre, North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie, Skokie, 847-673-6300, northlight.org, $15-$74.

Christina, the Girl King Given R the divergent contemporary interpretations of 17th-century Swedish queen Christina’s life and reign, one can’t criticize Canadian playwright Michel Marc Bouchard for muddying

her history (she did summon Descartes to her court, for example, but she didn’t supply him cadavers for scientific investigation). Fortunately, Bouchard’s bold, intricate speculation creates spirited collisions between faith and reason, art and science, governance and warmongering, modernity and antiquity, and most centrally, desire and duty. While Bouchard ultimately reduces Christina’s perplexing abdication to a need to live openly as a lesbian, Cor Theatre’s nimble cast, led by laser-focused Toya Turner as Christina, imbue their characters with ample psychological complexity. Director Tosha Fowler turns the script’s many artful incongruities into two-plus hours of buoyant indeterminacy. —JUSTIN HAYFORD Through 4/2: Wed-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, the Frontier, 1106 W. Thorndale, jackalopetheatre. org/thefrontier.html, $25.

ent-day high school girl griping about having to read Austen’s book—the whole thing—for her freshman English class.

But as the teenager begins to read, the story comes to life in her bedroom, with her family and friends—and finally the girl herself—morphing into the enduringly popular tale’s memorable, sometimes eccentric characters. The play-withina-play approach allows the audience to enjoy the timeless aspects of the story through a 21st-century lens. This engaging (though overlong) low-budget production is adapted by Lane Flores and directed by Amanda Lautermilch.

Aja Wiltshire, who plays Austen’s heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, has also designed costumes that cleverly meld period and contemporary styles. —ALBERT WILLIAMS Through 4/10: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Side Project Theatre Company, 1439 W. Jarvis, 773-973-2150, adapttheatre.com, $20-$30, $15 students.

How to Explain the History of R Communism to Mental Patients Rent As a venue for Jonathan It’s 1953, and a young Soviet writer, sumR Larson’s landmark musical, the moned to the cure the mental patients Theo Ubique storefront has its probat Moscow’s Central Hospital by delivering the titular history lesson, offers two thoughts on utopia. First, it’s “when you’re in deep shit, and you want to get out.” Second, it “begins in the mouth and ends in the stars.” These contrasting sentiments encapsulate Romanian playwright Matei Visniec’s theatrical world: vulgar yet poetic, cynical yet aspirational, eidetic yet irresolute. They also sum up the last 22 years of Trap Door shows. No wonder this production, the company’s third Visniec offering performed by mostly Trap Door regulars, fires on all cylinders for 75 engrossing minutes. Director Zoltán Balázs’s angular, stylized staging is hilarious, perplexing, and harrowing—often all at the same time. —JUSTIN HAYFORD Through 4/23: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W. Cortland, 773-384-0494, trapdoortheatre.com, $10-$25.

Lester’s Dreadful Sweaters R Fastidious, punctual Lester (Sam Button-Harrison) constantly makes lists

classifying things—annoying sounds, sticky substances. It’s hard for him to play with others. Things start to change when Cousin Clara comes to town after her cottage has been consumed by a crocodile (there’s a lot of alliteration in this production aimed at younger children). Clara (Elizabeth Levy) is charming, but spends her time knitting sweaters—all for Lester—each more dreadful than the last. Finally he’s forced to tell Clara what he really thinks of her gifts.

Along the way he learns to “embrace the unexpected” and even manages to make a friend. It’s a silly sweet, story, with much of the pleasure coming from adapter/costume designer Aly Renee Amidei’s hilarious, truly dreadful sweaters. —SUZANNE SCANLON 3/19-4/24: Sat-Sun 11 AM and 1 PM, Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N. Glenwood, 773-761-4477, lifelinetheatre.com, $15.

Pride and Prejudice Adapt Theatre Productions’ new version of Jane Austen’s 1813 novel begins with a pres-

lems. Seated in bleachers at one end of a long, narrow stage, right next to the (very sharp) band, I found it hard to hear whenever performers just halfway across the room turned their faces from me. This is that rare instance where miking in a small space would be beneficial. Then there’s the problem of a secondary performance area located behind those bleachers. On the other hand, the intimacy of the place seems appropriate for a show about Reagan-era opt-outs making art and love in a gentrifying, AIDs-devastated lower Manhattan: Overcrowding is part of la vie boheme. The cast is strong, with that just-graduated feel. And the material?

All it took was the first few chords of “Seasons of Love” to make the woman one seat away from me break down crying. —TONY ADLER Through 5/1: Thu 7:30 PM, Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 7 PM, No Exit Cafe, 6970 N. Glenwood, 773-743-3355, theubique.com United Flight 232 Back in 2012, I R saw a review by a certain Tribune critic headlined “Here’s why there aren’t more plays about air disasters.” Well, here’s how to produce a phenomenal play about an air disaster. Vanessa

Trevor Noah " ASH BLAND

Best bets, recommendations, and notable arts and culture events for the week of March 24 For more of the best things to do every day of the week, go to chicagoreader. com/agenda.

LIT Baby’s First Zine Chicago Zine R Fest invites local zinesters including Celia Perez, Dave Roche, and Ben

Patti Smith ! STEVEN SEBRING Stalling adapts and directs Laurence Gonzales’s nonfiction account of the 1989 crash landing of United Airlines Flight 262 that claimed 111 of the 296 lives onboard. A collaborative cast of nine retells, minute by minute, everything that went wrong, and more importantly what went right: a terrified but dedicated crew acting instinctively, and passengers getting each others’ backs.

It’s an exquisitely acted and designed piece (a sound-dampening scrim creates an authentic cabin environment) from top to bottom, and a stunning House Theatre debut for actor Echaka Agba.

Documentary theater doesn’t get much better than this. —DAN JAKES Through 5/1: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 7:30 PM, Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division, 773-769-3832, thehousetheatre.com, $30-$35.

Where Did We Sit on the Bus? Area native Brian Quijada is a first-generation American who’s Latino, multilingual, an artist, and a college grad, all of which sticks with you through this coming-of-age saga, which centers on his upbringing as the son of immigrant parents growing up in upscale, mostly white Highland Park. Mining memories from early childhood to present-day Chicago, Quijada uses this autobiographical oneman show to grapple with life, liberty, and the paradox of the American dream.

In the vein of John Leguizamo’s Ghetto Klown, the 90-minute performance, directed by Chay Yew, is as funny as it is poignant: expertly crafted, deftly poetic, and unabashedly authentic. You’ll laugh, cry, cheer—your only regret will be that you didn’t get to do it longer. —MATT DE LA PEÑA Through 4/10: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Storefront Theater, Gallery 37 Center for the Arts, 66 E. Randolph, 312-7428497, teatrovista.org, $15, $12 seniors and students.

R

DANCE

trance and electronic music. Thu 3/24-Fri 3/25: 7:30 PM, Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theater, 3035 N. Hoyne, 312-742-7785, redancegroup.com, $20.

COMEDY The Five Shades of Cool Issue R EbonyEssenceJet bring back their sketch revue examining identity

and acceptance. Through 4/2: Sat 9 PM, Second City, 1616 N. Wells, 312-337-3992, secondcity.com, $13.

Noel Fielding The comedian and star of The Mighty Boosh brings an evening of psychedelic comedy to Chicago. Fri 3/25-Sat 3/26: 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 1227 W. 18th, 312-526-3851, thaliahallchicago.com, $36-$46.

R

Message for Details For this variety show, the guys behind DIY comedy venue the Shithole bring their brand of curated comedy to a more traditional venue. Tue 3/29, 7 PM, Double Door, 1572 N. Milwaukee, 773-489-3160, doubledoor.com. F

R

and Elaine Hegwood Bowen. Wed 3/30, 7 PM, Gallery Cabaret, 2020 N. Oakley, 773-489-5471, gallerycabaret.com, $5 suggested donation.

Six Points This month the R reading series features Ben Clark (Reasons to Leave the Slaughter) and Kush Thompson (A Church Beneath the Bulldozer). Fri 3/25, 7 PM, Comfort Station, 2579 N. Milwaukee, comfortstationlogansquare.org.

Patti Smith WBEZ’s Tony Sarabia R talks with the legendary singer, poet, and author. Sat 3/26, 4 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music, 4545 N Lincoln, 773-728-6000, oldtownschool.org, $25.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 This unnecessary sequel reunites most of the cast from the 2002 indie sensation and then lazily recycles its narrative, score, themes, catchphrases, and sight gags almost beat for beat. Instead of the traditional Greek father (Michael Constantine) imploring his middle-aged daughter (Nia Vardalos, who also scripted) to find a husband before she gets “too old,” he repeats the line to her 17-yearold daughter (Elena Kampouris), but his ploy doesn’t work. Vardalos and Kampouris appear uncomfortable together, as if they’re trying on their roles as helicopter mom and angsty teen, whereas most of the returning players struggle to dust off their characters’ quirks and stay animated. Andrea Martin’s uncouth Aunt Voula is still a riot, and Vardalos still strikes sparks with hunky John Cor-

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State, 312-462-6300, thechicagotheatre. com, $35-$55.

United We Fall A sketch show R directed by Charna Halpern about navigating the confusing virtual

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world of millennials. 3/30-4/27: Wed 8:30 PM, iO Theater, 1501 N. Kingsbury, ioimprov.com/chicago, $12.

VISUAL ARTS

Carnival of the Animals The R Circa Carnival presents a family-friendly performance of Camille

What Brings Me to This Place R RE|dance group presents executive director Lucy Riner’s new work

Richard Gray Gallery “Present Tense: Sixty Years of Master Drawings,” a retrospective of Alex Katz’s portrait drawings. Through 4/23. Mon-Fri 10-5, Sat by appointment. 875 N. Michigan, suite 3800, 312-642-8877, richardgraygallery.com.

examining personal identity, set to

Miss Spoken A “lady-centric R live-lit show” featuring Alba Machado, Angel Simmons, Carla Jerez,

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Trevor Noah The Daily Show R host performs stand-up. Sat 3/26, 7 and 10 PM, Chicago Theatre, 175 N.

C.C.’s Art Garage “Altered Egos,” artists Zore and Zor Zor Zor present the work they created under their altered identities. Opening reception Sat 3/26 5:30-9 PM. 3/26-5/21. 2727 S. Mary, 312361-0281, elephantroomgallery.com.

Saint-Saëns’s classic ballet. Sat 3/26, 2 PM, Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph, 312-334-7777, harristheaterchicago.org, $12.

Bertin to share their first zines and comics. The night includes drinks, snacks, and a raffle to raise money for Chicago Zine Fest. Sat 3/26, 7 PM, the Chicago Publishers Resource Center, 858 N. Ashland, chicagozinefest.org, $10.

a pair of baby blues that would freeze water, and the father’s emotional flaying of his eldest son, played by Peter Lanzani, is hard to watch. In fact the children—two boys and three girls—seem like captives themselves, roped into their father’s schemes and forced to navigate his volcanic temper. The movie faithfully recounts the four known cases involving the family, which makes for a relatively flat story arc, and Lanzani, the only dramatic counterweight to Francella, is such a nebulous presence that the conflict between them lacks tension. For some obscure reason the Kinks’ “Sunny Afternoon” figures prominently on the soundtrack. Pablo Trapero directed. In Spanish with subtitles. —J.R. JONES 110 min. Landmark’s Century Centre

ALSO FOCUSING ON: My Golden Days

MOVIES

More at chicagoreader.com/ movies NEW REVIEWS The Clan A demonic performance from Guillermo Francella anchors this 2015 Argentine drama about the Puccio clan, a family of seven who were implicated in a series of fatal kidnappings in the 1980s. As the patriarch, Francella has

bett, but the cuckoo magic that made the original film a sleeper hit has been diluted to fit a Hollywood paradigm of soppy, unimaginative nostalgia bait. Kirk Jones directed. —LEAH PICKETT PG-13, 94 min. ArcLight Chicago, Century 12 and CineArts 6, City North 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, Landmark’s Century Centre, River East 21, Webster Place My Golden Days The lazy-minded R will call this a coming-of-age drama, but it’s the exact opposite: the hero (Mathieu Amalric), a French

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AGENDA

Phantom Boy

!B anthropologist living in Tajikistan, looks back on his teenage years with angst and disappointment, as if he’s never really gotten past them. Writer-director Arnaud Desplechin, reviving the Paul Dédalus character from his 1996 success My Sex Life . . . or How I Got Into an Argument, lets the late-80s flashbacks take over the narrative, and they trace a complex romantic journey between the teenage Paul (Quentin Dolmaire) and a classmate (Lou Roy-Lecollinet), whom he manages to take away from a stronger guy (getting his ass kicked in the process) but then alienates as pain over his mother’s death a few years earlier overpowers him. An adventurous and psychologically acute storyteller (A Christmas Tale, Jimmy P), Desplechin presents the high schoolers’ relationships with an adult complexity, from which the grown-up Paul seems to stand back in awe. —J.R. JONES R, 123 min.

No Delusions Director Steven Cergizan began compiling interviews for this Chicago hardcore-punk documentary back in 2010, and his efforts pay off. Immersive and authoritative, this captures the big-picture ideas that have made local hardcore unique since the late 80s. Longtime scene veterans (Jeff Jelen, Aaron Aspinwall), hardcore icons (Martin Sorrondeguy, Ebro Virumbrales), and international rock stars (Tim McIlrath of Rise Against, Andy Hurley of Fall Out Boy) set up Cergizan’s cornucopia of archival footage, and though the dense history can detract from the movie’s momentum, the story’s girth underscores the notion that Chicago hardcore feels as big as the world—and that it’s still alive.

—LEOR GALIL 105 min. Fri 3/25, 10 PM, Gene Siskel Film Center; also Sat 3/26, 3 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont.

Phantom Boy In this moving R 2015 animation by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli (A Cat in Paris), a young cancer patient with the power to leave his body helps a cop whose legs have

been broken bring down a criminal mastermind holding New York City hostage. Able to fly anywhere invisibly, but unable to touch anything, the boy acts as a spy for the cop, who’s been marginalized by the force for his reckless methods, and as a guide to the enterprising journalist also trying to save the city from the gangster. The noirish plotline is smart and engaging, but this French film is most powerful for its treatment of the young hero’s illness; in one scene he uses his supernatural ability to eavesdrop on his family as they discuss him.

In French with subtitles. —ERIC LUTZ 84 min. Screens as part of the European Union Film Festival; for a full schedule visit siskelfilmcenter. org. Thu 3/31, 6:30 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center Tale of Tales The ambitious R Italian director Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah, Reality)

makes his English-language debut, directing an international cast that includes Salma Hayek, Toby Jones, Vincent Cassel, and John C. Reilly.

Yet the material is deeply rooted in Garrone’s native land: drawn from Tale of Tales, a 17th-century fairy tale collection by Neapolitan poet Giambattista Basile, the movie poaches on Guillermo del Toro territory with its alternately comic and gruesome treatment of three supernatural stories. Hayek plays a barren queen who gets pregnant by eating the cooked heart of a sea monster, and Cassel is a randy king whose lovely new queen is really an old hag magically transformed; best of all is Jones as a king who adopts a flea as a pet and raises it into a pale, clammy-looking beast (which he cooingly addresses as “Scootchy”). A scene of a trained bear entertaining the court with its horn-playing and hula-hoop prowess is typical of the movie’s freakish delights.

—J.R. JONES 134 min. Screens as part of the European Union Film Festival; for a full schedule visit siskelfilmcenter.org. Sun 3/27, 3 PM, and Wed 3/30, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center

negotiations between Somali pirates and Danish shipping executives over a stolen vessel—brings his exacting, clinical approach to this tale of Danish military forces in Afghanistan. Like the earlier film, this one is divided between two distinct worlds with different power dynamics: for the first half, Lindholm cuts from a company commander (Pilou Asbaek), stationed in Helmand province and charged with protecting innocent Afghanis from the Taliban, to his wife (Tuva Novotny), worrying about him and struggling to care for their small children. Only in the second half, after the commander is accused of a war crime and returns home to stand trial, do these two worlds merge and their respective realities clash, with sobering results. In Danish with subtiutles. —J.R. JONES R, 115 min.

Screens at Gene Siskel Film Center as part of the European Union Film Festival; for a full schedule visit siskelfilmcenter.org. Fri 3/25, 6 PM, and Sat 2/26, 8 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center

REVIVALS Paris Is Burning Jennie R Livingston’s exuberant and loving 1990 documentary about

“voguing” and the drag balls of Harlem is both a celebration and a canny commentary. Delving into the dance poses and acrobatic moves of black and Latino gay men, she enters this highly ritualized subculture with a genuine sense of curiosity and discovery, and is wise enough to let the participants themselves do most of the explaining. One emerges from this film not only with a new vocabulary and a fresh way of viewing the straight world but with a bracing object lesson in understanding what society “role models” are all about. 78 min. —JONATHAN ROSENBAUM Art critic Solveig Nelson introduces the screening. Thu 3/31, 7 PM. Univ. of Chicago Film Studies Center

River of Grass A canny, R contemporary portrait of shiftlessness, this adept first fea-

ture (1993) by American independent Kelly Reichardt (Wendy and Lucy), set in the Florida Everglades, is about people so bored they jump at the chance to go on the lam—taking off even before they’ve committed a crime. Reichardt has an original sense of how to put together a film sequence and an effective way of guiding her cast of unknowns through an absurdist comedy of errors. —JONATHAN ROSENBAUM 76 min. Fri 3/25, 7 and 9 PM; Sat 3/26, 3, 5, 7, and 9 PM; Sun 3/27, 1, 3, 5, and 7 PM; and Mon– Thu 3/28–3/31, 7 and 9 PM. Facets Cinematheque v

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MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 7

CITY LIFE

! SUN-TIMES MEDIA | SUE KWONG

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

POLITICS

Strange bedfellows The García crowd joins the Madigan bunch to go after corporate Democrats.

By BEN JORAVSKY

F

or as long as I can remember, every political thinker from Milton Rakove to Mike Royko divided Chicago politics into two main factions: independents and regulars. Independents being the handful of elected officials who were unafraid to stand up to the boss—usually a powerful mayor—and the regulars being the loyal troops in the boss’s army.

But after this last election, it looks like we’re going to have to rewrite our Rakove and Rokyo, as the Democratic Party’s undergoing a realignment. These days it’s more of a three-way split, as progressive independents join with Machine regulars against corporate Democrats.

If you want to put faces on these factions, think of progressive independent Jesus García and Machine regular Michael Madigan teaming up against corporate Democrat Rahm Emanuel.

Now, look, I realize that some of these alliances are marriages of convenience brought about by a universal revulsion for Governor Rauner, a Republican who’s sort of like a corporate Democrat on steroids. Still, this realignment of Chicago Dems is a big deal—at least for political geeks like me. Before I get to

8 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

some examples from last week’s election, let me set the stage for this shake-up so you’ll see why it matters.

The Machine—as created by the old bosses such as Mayor Richard J. Daley—is rooted in an alliance between Democratic Party and union powerhouses. On Election Day, this bunch was hard to beat, thanks to an army of patronage workers who had to get out the vote if they wanted to keep their jobs.

At times the Machine’s leaders and their minions were ruthless, arrogant, and racist—to put it mildly. As a result, they were opposed by legions of progressive-minded independents, like longtime Hyde Park alderman Leon Despres, who led what fight the city could muster against the old Mayor Daley on everything from open housing to budget reform.

The modern-day equivalents to these independents of the 80s are progressives like state rep Will Guzzardi and aldermen Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, Sue Sadlowski Garza, and David Moore, who push for things like TIF reform in the face of mayoral opposition.

Over the years the Machine lost some of its strength due to antipatronage court rulings that cut back on its Election Day army. And

over the last few years powerful Democrats have been filling this gap by drawing their support—and campaign contributions—through corporate connections.

Think Mayor Rahm, who came to office determined to show corporate donors how much he loved them.

Corporate Democrats tend to be liberal on social issues—like marriage equality—and primordial on economic issues, like collective bargaining rights. Or making good on obligations to retirees. Or fairly divvying up the pie so the 1 percent doesn’t eat it all up. Or . . .

That brings us back to last Tuesday’s primary. Whereas in the past the progressives and the Machine were at odds, in last week’s election, progressives and the Machine joined forces to beat up on corporate Democrats— and even some opponents who weren’t part of the corporate crowd.

Take the most obvious example: house speaker Michael Madigan’s race against rookie candidate Jason Gonzales.

In that race, a multimillionaire former trader named Blair Hull poured in more than $300,000 to back Gonzales, who was running as a progressive.

Even though most progressives—starting with Jesus García—backed Madigan, the big papa of Machine bosses.

In that race, Madigan responded with such time-honored Machine tactics as putting dummy candidates on the ballot to confuse the anti-Madigan voters.

Generally, these tactics stir outrage from progressives. But in this case the progressives seemed to cheer louder with each and every one of Madigan’s heavy-handed tactics.

OK, maybe I was the only one cheering. The point is that Madigan—for all his tyrannical bossiness—is looking pretty good to progressives these days.

Despite all the money that Hull and his ilk poured into the race, Gonzales got only about 27 percent of the vote, which was 10 percentage points better than Michele Piszczor got when she ran against Madigan in 2012 without any money from corporate Dems.

Look on the bright side, Governor. At this rate, you’ll be able to topple Madigan in about 20 years.

A similar coalition of progressives and regulars came together on the northwest side when Guzzardi and Ramirez-Rosa joined forces with party chairman Joe Berrios in a couple of legislative elections. In some ways, this was even more astounding than the García-Madigan alliance, because progres-

sives and Berrios have been fighting for years.

Why, it was just two years ago that Logan Square progressives were practically turning over cars on Milwaukee Avenue in jubilation when Guzzardi ousted Toni Berrios—Papa Joe’s daughter.

Now it’s like I love you, man between these two factions, as Guzzardi and Ramirez-Rosa helped Omar Aquino, a Berrios protege, defeat Angelica Alfaro, a Noble School employee and a darling of the antiunion charter school crowd.

During that campaign, I got many calls from Alfaro backers outraged at “the hypocrisy” of Guzzardi and Ramirez-Rosa aligning with Berrios. These calls were matched by the ones I got from Aquino backers gleefully noting that Alfaro had misspelled “school” in one or her mailings.

Hey, man, no one’s perfect.

OK, it’s understandable that progressives would join with Berrios to help the Chicago Teachers Union—which also supported Aquino—beat a candidate favored by the charter school crowd. But many of these same progressives also signed on with Berrios against one of their own—Harish Patel, who was running against state representative Jaime Andrade, also backed by CTU. Andrade racked up about 60 percent of the vote against Patel, running strong even in progressive Logan Square.

Say this about Patel: he didn’t leave any F-bomb-laced messages on Ramirez-Rosa’s voice mail after he lost the election. Unlike Eddie Acevedo Jr., of the infamous Acevedo clan, who had some choice words for alderman Danny Solis.

In that case, the Acevedos were upset by a variation on the new alliance that helped Theresa Mah defeat Alex Acevedo in the second legislative district in Pilsen and Chinatown.

Actually, in that race it was more like progressives teamed with some Machine types to help beat another Machine clan. So it’s not really the best example of the trend of tag-teaming against corporate Democrats.

But I couldn’t resist another opportunity to quote some of Acevedo’s stirring words: “We lost the election because of your bitch ass, motherfucker.”

And who says poetry is dead?

In short, here’s my advice, Mayor Rahm, which, as always, you’re free not to take.

If you want to salvage your legacy, make like Madigan and Berrios and move left. v

! @joravben

The Burlington Northern Santa Fe right-of-way near 30th and Kedzie ! JOHN GREENFIELD

TRANSPORTATION

Proceed with caution Little Village residents hope the Paseo won’t be a path to displacement.

By JOHN GREENFIELD

L

ast Wednesday, as I Divvied southwest along a disused Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad corridor in Little Village, I caught the delicious aroma of fresh corn tortillas from the nearby El Milagro plant. I rolled past the razor-wiretopped walls of the Cook County Jail, then stopped to check out La Villita Park, a green space on a former brownfield site. The corridor continued southwest past the Semillas de Justicia (“Seeds of Justice”) Community Garden, various industrial businesses, and a few colorful murals, ending near the Paul Simon Job Corps Center.

This street-level right-of-way winds from 26th and Rockwell to 32nd and Central Park.

Since early 2015, the city has been doing community outreach for its plan to turn the stretch of rutted pathways and vacant lots into a 1.3-mile multiuse trail called the Little Village Paseo (“Promenade”), with landscaping, gathering places, and public art.

On Sunday, Mayor Emanuel upped the ante with a surprise announcement that the plan has been expanded to include another 2.7 miles of largely abandoned BNSF right-ofway. The resulting four-mile trail, now simply called the Paseo, will go all the way northeast to 16th and Sangamon in Pilsen, and feature artwork that celebrates Latino culture.

The first trail section, along Sangamon between 21st and 16th, will start out as a simple paved path that will be built this summer as part of a BNSF and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lead-abatement project. There’s no time frame or cost estimate yet for the rest of the trail.

While the 606—the 2.7-mile, $95 million trail that debuted on the northwest side last June—is an elevated, car-free greenway, the south-side facility will be a cheaper, simpler at-grade trail with street crossings. But renderings suggest its aesthetics and amenities will be several notches above a garden-variety bike path.

Neighbors previously voiced apprehension that, like the 606, the Little Village Paseo would lead to higher property values, property taxes, and rents, eventually pricing out longtime locals. The mayor’s announcement that the trail will now reach Pilsen brings that concern to the forefront.

Unlike Little Village, Pilsen has seen rapid gentrification in recent years, including a wave of upscale retail and housing, so the Paseo’s potential to fuel displacement will be an especially pressing issue there. (The median home sale price in Pilsen is $241,000, according to Zillow.

Little Village is cheap by comparison, with a median home sale price of just $129,000.)

I heard concerns over displacement on March 16, when the Chicago Department of Transportation unveiled the results of a feasibility study for the Little Village portion of the Paseo during a community meeting at Kanoon Elementary.

Elva Rodriguez Ochoa, a local who works at the nonprofit Openlands, said she’s excited to have a place to run nearby instead of having to schlep to the lakefront. “But it’s important for our community to be proactive and work with the city to find ways to keep the areas near the trail affordable,” she said.

The Little Village Environmental Justice Organization has also been involved with discussions about the trail. They spearheaded successful campaigns to shut down the nearby Fisk and Crawford coal-fired power plants and transform a pair of brownfields into the park and community garden.

“Folks who fought for these things should be able to stay in the neighborhood and enjoy them,” said organizing and strategy director Kim Wasserman-Nieto, a lifelong Little Village resident, adding that LVEJO has “made it clear to the city that unless they do this project in a holistic manner, we may find ourselves on opposite sides of the issue.”

There doesn’t seem to be clear evidence that the 606 has sped up gentrification in neighboring Humboldt Park and Logan Square. “We’ve been studying the issue, but there has been no analysis I’ve seen that persuasively quantifies the way the trail is affecting nearby property values and rents— although I expect that it is having an effect,” says Geoff Smith, director of DePaul University’s Institute for Housing Studies.

That hasn’t stopped the perception of a real estate feeding frenzy since the greenway opened last June. In January, dozens of residents held an antidisplacement rally after a developer announced plans for luxury town houses a block south of the trail, priced at $929,000 each. (The median home sale price in Logan Square is $258,400, according to Zillow, and $197,400 in Humboldt Park.)

Juan Carlos Linares, director of Humboldt Park’s Latin United Community Housing Association, said that while the 606 has been a wonderful amenity, he has heard concerns about sharply rising property taxes from clients who live near the trail.

Linares praised a $1 million city program announced last month, which offers “forgivable” loans of up to $25,000 for home improvements to low-income property owners near the 606. If the owner still lives there

CITY LIFE

after four years, the money doesn’t have to be paid back.

“Great program, but perhaps we should have thought of that before the trail came up,” Linares said.

He added that the Paseo is an opportunity to use lessons from the 606 by taking a broader approach to trail planning that also addresses housing issues.

The affordability question became more complex Sunday when Emanuel announced the Paseo extension during a groundbreaking ceremony at Paseo Community Garden at 21st and Sangamon.

“We have made it clear to the city that unless they do this project in a holistic manner, we may find ourselves on opposite sides of the issue.”

—Kim Wasserman-Nieto, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

During the event, planning and development commissioner David Reifman told the crowd that the Paseo is part of a Pilsen-Little Village land use planning process launched in 2013. He said the goal is “to preserve the communities’ cultural identity and affordability.”

I told 12th Ward alderman George Cardenas I’d talked with constituents concerned about property tax hikes. “Along the Paseo we may be able to introduce legislation that freezes the tax for several years,” he said. “The idea is not to bring gentrification but to improve the quality of life.”

Reifman was skeptical about the tax-freeze idea. “Those tend to be somewhat difficult to do,” he said. “I think our goal is to continue to try to find opportunities for affordability, for programs that we do that are part of our normal investment in neighborhoods.”

That answer may not be enough to reassure Little Village and Pilsen neighbors that they’ll be able stay in their homes after a beautiful new trail is built nearby. v

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

MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 9

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ARTS & CULTURE When playwright Lucas Hnath’s Hillary and Clinton opens at Victory Gardens Theater in April, it will be with an African-American actress, Cheryl Lynn Bruce, playing Hillary. ! MICHAEL COURIER

THEATER

Uniformity is a tough act to follow Theater artists looking to diversify the stage are having a hard-fought moment in Chicago’s playhouses.

BY ZAC THOMPSON

T

he point of theater, according to Hamlet, is to hold a mirror up to nature. But all too often on Chicago’s stages it seems like the mirror is being held up to the members of a yoga class in Lincoln Park. Strides have been made in recent years ( just look at Broadway’s hip-hop musical Hamilton, in which the Founding Fathers are played by black and Latino actors), but when it comes to casting, particularly of commercial and canonical work, the default setting is still thin, gender-conforming, able-bodied, and lily white. And it’s high time for a change.

That’s the feeling among theater artists seeking to expand representation of racial minorities and body types onstage. Part of their push for diversity has to do with providing more opportunities to performers who are tired of being shut out of roles because they don’t fit a certain mold.

Local actress Harmony France, who says she’s considered “curvy” by musical-theater standards, channeled some of that frustration in January, when she wrote a post on her personal blog detailing some of the harsh things she’s heard during a decade of auditions—stuff like “Lose some weight if you want a career” and “You’re not believable as a love interest.”

She made a call for more inclusive casting and vowed to take back her body from an industry that, she wrote, has conditioned her to hate the way she looks. The post went viral on social media, particularly among people in the theater community.

“That was about me no longer obsessing over what they might want me to look like or what I need to change about myself,” she says now. “I always had on my resumé ‘Willing to change appearance,’ which was my clever way of saying ‘Willing to lose weight for this role.’

But I’ve gotten to the point where what you

see is what you get. I’m a normal-size woman.

There is no reason I should feel like I need to lose some incredible amount of weight to be viable onstage.” With that in mind, France announced earlier this month a new musical-theater venture, Firebrand Theatre (cofounded with fellow actress Danni Smith), dedicated to “employing and empowering women by expanding opportunities on and off the stage.”

She’s not saying we need to throw out restrictions on casting altogether, especially when they’re spelled out in the script. But “if the text does not require using white actors, for instance, maybe try to look outside of that race,” France says. “Just because it’s been done before that way doesn’t mean we need to continue.”

That, in a nutshell, is the philosophy of the Chicago Inclusion Project, a new organization that arranges diverse staged readings of works not usually known for their diversity (Sam

Shepard’s True West recast with Latino actors was a recent effort, produced in collaboration with the Hypocrites) and provides resources to performers as well as a goad to companies like Writers Theatre, TimeLine Theatre, and others seeking to diversify their offerings.

The group’s founder, Emjoy Gavino, said in an e-mail that the project was spawned by a fedup feeling similar to France’s.

Gavino is an Asian-American actress, but she found that she wasn’t often considered for American roles. “I once had a director tell me they would put Asian art onstage or in the set dressing,” she writes, “so they could justify putting me in the play, because they couldn’t explain me being there otherwise.”

When director Ron OJ Parson called her in to audition for Court Theatre’s 2009 production of Wait Until Dark, the 1967 film version of which starred Audrey Hepburn, Gavino assumed she was there to fill some kind of quota. “There was no way they would cast an Asian-American actress in the Hepburn role at an Equity house,” she says, “without it being a version set in Chinatown.” But Parson did cast her, and for Gavino the experience was “eye-opening,” allowing her to see how much she had been limited and how much she was capable of. “It made me want more for myself,” she says.

But there’s more to inclusive-casting efforts than opening up jobs for actors. According to Gavino, the alternative is bad for business and does a disservice to audiences. “From a producing standpoint,” she writes, “you are missing out on audiences who do not see themselves onstage and therefore do not think your organization is relevant. From an artistic standpoint, you are missing out on how universal your story can be.”

Finding ways of making a script relevant and universal can be of special importance with old scripts at risk of going stale with familiarity, as in the case of Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, a romantic comedy and community-theater chestnut that served as inspiration for the musical Hello, Dolly! When director Henry Wishcamper undertook the job of staging a new revival of the play currently at Goodman Theatre, he didn’t want to feel confined by past, all-white interpretations of its turn-of-the-century setting.

“Plays like The Matchmaker get categorized in our minds,” he says, “and that categorization is limiting. There’s something exciting to me about taking something that feels part of our heritage and that lives inside a single idea of what it can be, and showing people that J

MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 11

ARTS & CULTURE continued from 11

it can very much be itself while being more than we had imagined it to be.”

To that end, Wishcamper made his production look as diverse as the crowd you’d see in the Loop on any given workday. The title character, Dolly Levi, is played by a white actress, Kristine Nielsen. But the man she’s trying to net, Horace Vandergelder, is played

by Allen Gilmore, who’s black. People of color fill a high percentage of the supporting roles, transgender performer Sydney Germaine has a big part, and, perhaps most noteworthy of all, Anita Hollander, an actress who lost one of her legs to cancer, appears in three separate roles.

It’s not just some kind of stunt. Wishcamper says it’s a way of putting a modern gloss on the multicultural albeit mostly white world of the play and its all-embracing, share-the-wealth message. “We’re not imposing anything on The Matchmaker,” he says. “We’re using it, like Wilder did originally, to look back in order to illuminate the present.”

Wishcamper argues that the strategy also honors the playwright’s allergy to realism, which he felt could be stultifying when defined too narrowly. In our own day, as Wishcamper points out, certain groups end up getting excised from historical plays in the name of historical accuracy. “Those choices are actually making realism less realistic,” he says. “The families that my children go to school with are defined much differently than how a family is defined on an American stage.”

Another recent example of imaginative casting in a classic work was Oracle Theatre’s take on The Hairy Ape, Eugene O’Neill’s 1922 expressionist drama about an Irish-American laborer who’s treated worse than a caged beast by the ruling class and the police. The director of Oracle’s production, Monty Cole, put black men in all the roles, drawing a potent parallel to current concerns about racial inequality and violence directed at young men of color.

Reading the play in the wake of Eric Garner’s killing by police in 2014, Cole says, “I couldn’t hear anyone but black men. That’s the only way that script made sense to me in this time period.” He cast African-American actors in the upper-crust roles too, he says, because he didn’t want it to be about “what white people do to black people. Instead, this is how we all treat black men. This is how I treat black men, as a black man who comes from an uppermiddle-class family.”

12 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

Michael Patrick Thornton, who is paralyzed in both legs, stars in the Gift Theatre’s current production of Richard III at Steppenwolf’s Garage Theatre. ! CLAIRE DEMOS

“I once had a director tell me they would put Asian art onstage or in the set dressing, so they could justify putting me in the play, because they couldn’t explain me being there otherwise.”

—Asian-American actress and Chicago Inclusion Project founder Emjoy Gavino

The production retained O’Neill’s indictment of class prejudice, while adding a contemporary facet that nevertheless was in keeping with a history of African-American reinterpretations of the playwright’s work.

The results felt at once radical and faithful to the original.

In his day job, Cole is the casting director at Victory Gardens Theater, where he applies his inclusive approach to new works in collaboration with artistic director Chay Yew. “It takes a little bit longer to cast our seasons here,” he notes, “because Chay wants to always challenge who we see in our casts and who we put on our stage and what they look like.”

Cole cites as an inf luence playwright Lucas Hnath’s ideas about “stereoscopic theatricality”—a sense of fruitful dissonance between an audience’s conception of a historical figure or literary character and how that person is presented onstage. It’s especially relevant to Victory Gardens’ next production, Hnath’s own Hillary and Clinton, an alternate-universe account of the 2008 presidential election.

Cole found that an early reading with white actors took audiences out of the world of the play because they were expecting satirical impressions. “Then we cast it in one reading with all Latino actors,” he says, “and it was the first time any of us actually heard the play because you were no longer trying to picture Hillary on the actor’s face.” When Hillary and Clinton opens at Victory Gardens in April, it will be with an African-American actress, Cheryl Lynn Bruce, playing Hillary.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company pulled off something similar last year in its production of David Adjmi’s Marie Antoinette, which featured Alana Arenas, who’s black, in the title role. In addition to supplying that sense of dissonance, Arenas’s race subtly referenced the Austrian-born queen’s outsider status in France.

On the other hand, sometimes the bold move is using an actor who actually has something in common with the character he’s playing. Shakespeare’s Richard III is probably the most famous disabled villain of all time, but before the Gift Theatre’s current production at Steppenwolf’s Garage Theatre, you’d be hard-pressed to find a professional version featuring a disabled actor in the title role.

Michael Patrick Thornton, who plays Richard in the Gift’s show, remembers first encountering the play as an undergrad at the University of Iowa, some time before suffering the spinal stroke that left him paralyzed in both legs. A teacher gave him a copy of Year of the King, British actor Antony Sher’s diary of his time preparing for the role.

“I remember reading it as an 18-year-old,” Thornton says, “and I was just fascinated with his process. He filled up all these notebooks with drawings of spiders. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I want to be that in-depth, too.’”

Nowadays, though, he feels differently about it. “Knowing what I go through on a daily basis to get to work, I look back on that book and I’m like, ‘Who gives a shit? Good for you, you drew some spiders.’”

What Thornton believes he brings to the role, by contrast, is a deeply personal understanding of the loneliness and need that Shakespeare taps into and that Thornton uses as motivation for Richard’s villainy.

“If every door I approach is closed in terms of finding love or acceptance by society,” as Thornton puts it, “then what do you want me to do? I’m not going to sit in my room all day.”

Thornton doesn’t take a hard line on whether only disabled actors should play disabled characters because, after all, theater is about exercising imagination and empathy for the lives of others. Then again, the opportunities are so scarce already. “The representation of artists of color in the mainstream is absolutely abysmal, and that needs to change,” he told me. “Having said that, disabled people would kill to have whatever terribly depressing paucity of numbers that percentage is. That’s how far behind we are.” v

! @zeekaytee

MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 13

ARTS & CULTURE

Mary Beth Fisher and Harris Yulin

THEATER

! MICHAEL BROSILOW

There’s darkness at the end of the tunnel

By ZAC THOMPSON

W

hen British novelist Evelyn Waugh caught the first London production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, he described it as “an intolerable Irish-American play about a family being drunk and rude to one another in half-darkness.” Sounds like your typical Thanksgiving dinner to me.

In any case, what Waugh’s dismissive assessment of the 20th century’s most powerful American drama gets right is that the play is unquestionably an ordeal—and not just because it lasts three and a half hours and the characters can’t stop talking. As few but the Greeks had done before him, O’Neill conveys an almost unbearable sense of family as tragic destiny.

Through the four Tyrones we see how parents, offspring, siblings, and spouses can warp, suffocate, enable, and destroy one another, in spite of love and good intentions.

The family seems as doomed as the house of Atreus, only the curse that hangs over them is the past, and there’s no fixing that. And so a horrible inevitability prevents any chance of hope or escape.

It’s a lot like watching creatures caught in a trap, even if the trap resembles the living

14 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

room of a drab summer home in coastal New England, circa 1912. In David Auburn’s harrowing and heartrending production at Court Theatre, Jack Magaw’s set design is a dead ringer for the place O’Neill had in mind when he finished the play in 1941: Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut, where his own family spent the summers during the playwright’s unhappy youth.

The home is open to the public nowadays.

Last summer, as a matter of fact, I took the tour, following an incongruously cheerful guide as she rattled off her spiel about the building’s history as a habitat for addiction and limitless sadness. O’Neill’s lengthy stage directions paint a surprisingly accurate picture of the first floor, right down to the placement of windows and light fixtures. Magaw follows those specs pretty closely, maybe because his director, Auburn, is a playwright too (best known for Proof, another drama about a troubled family), and therefore inclined to let the author have his way.

O’Neill’s careful verisimilitude when it comes to the setting corresponds to the searing honesty in his depiction of the characters, who bear more than a passing resemblance to the members of his immediate family. In the play’s inscription, he calls it a work of

“old sorrow, written in tears and blood.” The deeply personal nature of the story certainly accounts for the pain that radiates from it, though the domestic drama is transmuted into something shattering and monumental by O’Neill’s feverish and uniquely tragic vision.

The author’s stand-in is Edmund (Michael Doonan), a brooding would-be writer with twin cases of wanderlust and consumption.

He’s loved and hated in equal measure by his older brother, Jamie, an alcoholic played here

by Dan Waller, who gives by far the production’s most visceral performance, particularly in the play’s fourth and final act. Returning from a night of carousing, he sets off on a raw, emotionally violent rant that Waller imbues with a kind of self-loathing fury.

The brothers’ father, James Tyrone, was once a promising actor and matinee idol who gave up any chance of artistic development when he found popular success in a mediocre swashbuckling role and decided to keep playing it over and over for easy money. His terror of returning to the poverty he’s clawed his way out of has wasted his talent and turned him into a miser. Harris Yulin plays him with the clear, slightly lilting voice of an off-duty ham, but he’s often too withdrawn for us to see the terror driving his stinginess, and he never supplies a ferocity to match his chief sparring partner, Waller’s Jamie.

What unites the three men is their despair over the central action of the play—the daylong slide of the family’s matriarch, Mary, back into the grip of a morphine addiction they thought she had kicked. But concern over Edmund’s health and the power of the drug eventually overtake her, until by the end of the night she’s like a ghost, haunting the others with joyless reminders of the distant past.

Mary Beth Fisher doesn’t strike me as an obvious fit for the role. Her talents for communicating common sense and righteous albeit withering anger seem at odds with a character prone to panic when she’s not high and elaborate, romanticized reminiscence when she is. But it turns out Fisher’s natural, grounded quality helps keep her from drifting too far into either hysteria or glassy-eyed torpor. Her Mary is mercurial and intelligent, with flashes of mordant wit, keen insight, and gut-wrenching sorrow. v R LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT Through 4/10: Wed-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 7:30 PM (except 3/26, 2 PM only), Sun 2 and 7:30 PM (except 4/3, 7:30 PM only; 4/10, 2 PM only), Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis, 773-753-4472, courttheatre.org, $48-$68.

LIT

The view from The South Side

By SAM WORLEY

W

hat’s important about Natalie Y. Moore’s new book is less that it’s about Chicago’s south side, and more that it’s of the south side, deeply and lovingly, in a way journalism about the area rarely is. That’s partly due to Moore’s day job: she’s WBEZ’s south-side bureau reporter. Yet it’s also because The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation isn’t simply a work of journalism, but a combination of reporting with policy analysis and prescription and, most compellingly, memoir. Weaving her own history through discussions of educational and residential segregation, food access, and black politics in Chicago, Moore pays tribute to a place of “loveliness and contradictions and negotiation.” Moore grew up in Chatham; she owned a condo in Bronzeville; she now lives in Hyde Park and works out of an office in Greater Grand Crossing. These details aren’t incidental to the book but necessary for it.

This grounding in personal experience, and in human history, is a vital corrective when the dominant media narrative of the south side is one of violence and despair—from “Chiraq,” the ironic coinage turned Spike Lee film, to Homicide Watch Chicago, a project of the SunTimes to document every murder that takes place in the city. In a particularly polemical chapter called “We Are Not Chiraq,” Moore argues that such a sensationalist focus on African-American deaths (particularly gun-related deaths) hurts more than it helps, further

R THE SOUTH SIDE: A PORTRAIT OF CHICAGO AND AMERICAN SEGREGATION

By Natalie Y. Moore (St. Martin’s Press).

Moore appears in conversation with Rick Perlstein, Thu 5/31, 6 PM, International House, University of Chicago, 1414 E. 59th, 773-753-2270, ihouse. uchicago.edu. F

stigmatizing struggling areas of the city while glossing over root causes like racism and economic inequality. “The voyeuristic exercise of counting deaths is not a good method, for it tells us nothing except that bad shit sometimes happens in ‘bad’ black neighborhoods,” she writes. “Monday morning hand-wringing about Chicago weekend shootings is nothing more than social media masturbation.” She notes the trickle-down effects of that blinkered view: the high school baseball game canceled in 2013 after north-side parents refused to let their children travel south for it. Or the Sunday-morning 5K run in 2014 that attracted more donations than it did runners, who according to the run’s organizer stayed away because it took place in Englewood.

These on-the-ground reports aside, some of the book’s best passages are those in which Moore simply describes where she comes from: the middle-class “black cocoon” of Chatham, recalled here in tender detail. Moore’s father raised vegetables in the family’s backyard and her mother drove a red Camaro—“not fire-engine or candy-apple red; more like the color of smeared red lipstick.” Her grandfather “drank Old Style beer and occasionally played the numbers. He loved Mahalia Jackson. He watched the White Sox and Cubs on television. . . . Every day Granddaddy read the Tribune and often called legendary columnist Mike Royko a racist bastard, even though he kind of looked like Royko and they wore the same glasses.” Some paragraphs about the south side feel like movie montages, images of the area’s prodigious cultural output—“Sam Cooke and Common, Koko Taylor and Chaka Khan”—streaming by alongside glimpses of the everyday experience of, say, driving east on 79th Street from the Dan Ryan to the lake: “men sipping out of bottles on corners, vibrant businesses, bars, funeral homes, foreboding boarded-up structures, liquor stores, churches, Harold’s Chicken Shacks and sounds of house music dancing in the air.”

Three of Moore’s grandparents came north during the Great Migration. Initially confined to the black belt—a narrow strip along South State Street—many of those migrants spread out across the south side following Shelley v. Kraemer, a 1948 Supreme Court decision that ended

the restrictive housing covenants that locked black would-be buyers out of most markets. As black people moved out across the south side, whites ditched it. Though the story of white flight has been told frequently, its details retain the power to shock: Chatham, Moore notes, went from 99 percent white in 1950 to .2 percent white in 1970. As chroniclers from historian Beryl Satter to Atlantic national correspondent Ta-Nehisi Coates have pointed out, myriad institutional restrictions, including redlining and contract selling, impeded the ability of Moore’s grandparents’ generation to build wealth (to say nothing of the routine violence black home buyers faced from white home owners).

Nowadays a different set of factors conspires to keep south-side neighborhoods in a state of disadvantage: White appraisers, Moore argues, undervalue houses in black neighborhoods, holding down home values. Retailers won’t invest in them. The mortgage companies that caused the subprime crisis targeted neighborhoods like Chatham. Here too, a personal touch: In 2008 Moore bought a condo in Bronzeville for $172,000; one Great Recession later it was valued at $55,000. With Rahm Emanuel’s 2013 school closings, Moore’s concerns were compounded: “Foreclosures and short sales had already rocked my block and Bronzeville as a whole. How could a vacant school affect property values?” That story comes in a chapter called “Notes From a Black Gentrifier,” tongue in cheek. The reality, Moore writes, is that “black Chicago neighborhoods don’t gentrify.”

Relying on interviews with scholars and activists, Moore ends most chapters, and the book, with concrete, imaginative recommendations for ways forward for Chicago’s struggling black neighborhoods. The South Side is a powerful political document. But the book also constitutes its own argument, unspoken but unmistakable, for how badly the media needs to represent a diverse array of perspectives and backgrounds—as a matter of accuracy, empathy, and understanding.

Even the best bring their biases. Moore recalls writing a cover story for the Chicago Reporter about the history of the Robert Taylor Homes shortly before their demolition in 2007. She went to the public housing development for an interview with a resident who’d lived there for 40 years. “I walked into that interview thinking that Taylor residents surely wanted to leave,” she writes, but was disabused—to her interview subject this was home. When she left, “I thought about how it would feel if an outsider unsentimentally ordered me and my family out of our home,” Moore writes. “No one wants to be told that where they live is fucked-up.” v

! @Samuel_Worley

ARTS & CULTURE Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings ! JAMES MINCHIN/FX

SMALL SCREEN

From Russia with lies

By DMITRY SAMAROV

T

he FX drama The Americans is a TV show about a couple of Soviet spies posing as American parents in the 1980s, the decade when my own family— newly arrived from the USSR—were doing what we could to become more or less what the protagonists are pretending to be. For me, watching it has always been a conundrum. On one hand, the period detail, actual Russian speech, and intriguing plot twists are entertaining; on the other, the depiction of the Russian characters and the dialogue the screenwriters have written for them are completely off. No matter how accurate their accents are, even the sentence formation is all wrong. My guess is that the scripts are written in English, then translated. The effect is that of a very talented ventriloquist’s dummy: you marvel at the skill, but with the understanding that it’s not really him talking.

My parents and their friends cheered as the Soviet Union imploded. The place we came from was brutal, and The Americans portrays it as such, but its depiction of the USSR is less nuanced than that of the U.S. (It’s not quite Ivan Drago, but it’s a caricature nonetheless.) I wish the show was as good at portraying Russians as the protagonists, Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, are at playing Americans. But perhaps authenticity isn’t really the point.

The most compelling part of The Americans is how the Jennings deal with the charms and temptations of the American culture they’ve dedicated their lives to un-

dermining. In season four (which premiered on March 16), father Philip (Matthew Rhys) covertly attends EST Standard Training—a 70s self-knowledge movement—without telling his wife, Elizabeth (Keri Russell), until he’s forced to because it interferes with one of their spying operations. After a couple decades in a foreign land, even the besttrained patriot could fall prey to the fads and trends of his adopted home. America is seeping into the Jenningses’ consciousness despite their best efforts to curb the intrusion. Their larger problem is coping with the fallout from letting their eldest daughter in on their true identities, but in many other small ways the Jennings are reminded almost daily that their side is losing and their mission is becoming more untenable.

At heart the show isn’t a spy thriller or geopolitical treatise, but a family drama.

The Jennings’ great challenge is to raise and provide for their children in an unusually challenging work environment. Staring at the impending end of their way of life, they’ll soon have to make some difficult choices.

Immigrants, like spies, are forced to fashion a new existence in a foreign land, which is probably why this story continues to resonate with me—even if some of the details ring false, its essence is sound. The lion’s share of The Americans’ audience doesn’t know Russian, but all its viewers have one thing in common: they desperately want to find out what will become of the Jennings family. v R THE AMERICANS Wednesdays at 9 PM on FX.

MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 15

ARTS & CULTURE

Adam Reed Tucker poses with his model of the Golden Gate Bridge; Cinderalla’s Disney World castle. ! J.B. SPECTOR / MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY

VISUAL ART

The Lego wonders of the world

By JOHN WILMES

B

rick by Brick: Find Your Inner Builder” is a new yearlong exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. Its subject? Legos! The show connects the childhood activity of playing with the toy bricks with serious subjects like physics and architecture through replicas of iconic buildings, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, One World Trade Center, the Hoover Dam, Cinderella’s Disney World castle, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater House in southwestern Pennsylvania, the Great Pyramid of Giza, Saint Louis’s Gateway Arch, and the Colosseum, among others. Adam Reed Tucker, one of Lego’s 14 professional builders, led the project, which begins with a quote from Ludwig Mies van der Rohe on a wall: “Architecture

16 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins.”

Scattered between these models are handson, child-friendly activities that challenge visitors’ understanding of physics and the principles of construction. One gives attendees 60 seconds to assemble a structure sound enough to withstand the 30-second simulated earthquake that follows. The makeshift buildings almost always fall apart once the buzzer sounds and the waist-high surface begins its surprisingly powerful vibrations.

The introductory video asks viewers to see the world as a playground, and in “Brick by Brick” that’s taken literally. This becomes increasingly apparent during the latter half of the exhibit, where multiple stations are set

up for kids to construct whatever they please from psychedelically multicolored Lego bins.

Toward the exit is the adult foil: a series of postmodern Lego designs made by cutting-edge architecture firms. Each outfit was given a set of 3,600 mostly white bricks, the basis of a row of impressive, monolithic creations from the likes of Adjaye Associates (London), WHY (Los Angeles, New York), and locals Krueck + Sexton and UIC’s school of architecture, among others. It’s meant to be interactive—there’s a trough full of white Legos running alongside the long mantel to tempt the grown-ups into reconnecting with their inner child.

Of course, science is the purview of the Museum of Science and Industry; “Brick by

Brick” is still weirdly lacking in imagination.

Granted, it’s hard to take issue with an exhibit that more or less effectively achieves its stated goal of framing famous feats of artful engineering through the lens of childhood recreation. Yet for all its championing of the naive, far-reaching ambition of children and architects, the show could use a dose of the absurdity and failure such visionaries are subject to—a big part of what made Legos so much fun in the first place. v “BRICK BY BRICK: FIND YOUR INNER BUILDER” Through Feb 2017, Museum of Science and Industry, 5700 S. Lake Shore, 773-684-1414, msichicago.org. $9 adults, $7 children.

! @johnwilmeswords

ANUNSETTLING,HIGHLY ABSORBINGTRUECRIMEDRAMA.” “

MARGUERITE sss Directed by Xavier Giannoli. R,

ARTS & CULTURE

129 min. Landmark’s Century Centre, 2828 N. Clark, 773-509-4949, landmarktheatres.com, $12.50

– Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times

!!!!

AUDACIOUSLYENTERTAINING.”

“

– Robbie Collin, The Telegraph

a

f i l m

b y

PABLO TRAPERO © 2016 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

MOVIES

This is not a loved song

By J.R. JONES

T

he fine French drama Marguerite fictionalizes the life of American socialite Florence Foster Jenkins, whose vocal performances of classical arias, beginning in private music clubs and culminating in a 1944 recital at Carnegie Hall, have earned her a large and respectful entry in the encyclopedia of bad. “She clucked and squawked, trumpeted and quavered,” reports a 1957 story in Coronet magazine. “She couldn’t carry a tune. Her sense of rhythm was uncertain. In the treacherous upper registers, her voice often vanished into thin air.” Published accounts of Jenkins’s life are relatively short, and all seem to be cut from the same cloth, which has helped turn her story into popular myth. Her dubious career has already inspired five plays, and later this spring Paramount Pictures will release Stephen Frears’s Florence Foster Jenkins, starring Meryl Streep. In a world obsessed with amateur singing competitions that can end in ssss EXCELLENT

sss GOOD

triumph or humiliation, Jenkins is an artist whose time has come.

The central question of any movie about her must be: Was she oblivious to how bad she sounded, or was she in on the joke, cynically taking advantage of her wealth and position to indulge her love of music and buy herself a career? Marguerite opts for oblivion. Writer-director Xavier Giannoli tips his hand immediately by naming his middle-aged protagonist the Baroness Marguerite Dumont—after Margaret Dumont, the grande dame of the Marx Brothers movies, who Groucho claimed never got any of their jokes. Played with touching warmth and vulnerability by Catherine Frot, Marguerite simply can’t countenance the idea that she has no vocal ability, and people are so affected by her sweetness, generosity, and high spirits that they won’t level with her.

Giannoli opens with a shot of a giant eyeball, one of the many operatic stage props in Marguerite’s collection, being rolled out of frame

ss AVERAGE

s POOR

•

by some children at play; despite the mixed metaphor (ears don’t roll), this is a tale about the difficulty of ever apprehending oneself.

Jenkins remains a potent figure in popular culture partly because of the gender overtones to her story. Her father, Charles Foster, a wealthy landowner in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, tolerated her childhood career as a piano prodigy but forbade her from pursuing music professionally after she graduated from high school in 1885. She promptly eloped with a doctor, Frank Jenkins, but after contracting syphilis from him, she ended the relationship and lived in near poverty as a music teacher before her mother set her up in New York City.

After Charles Foster died in 1909, his daughter won the ultimate revenge by using his fortune to launch her new career as a soprano. Around that same time she also struck up a romantic relationship with the British actor St. Clair Bayfield, though she retained her husband’s name—as well as his disease, which she would battle with mercury and arsenic treatments for the rest of her life.

These indelicate details have been scrubbed away in Marguerite, but Giannoli transmutes them into the story of an unloved wife seeking from an audience the validation her husband won’t provide. Georges (André Marcon), a businessman preoccupied with the French J

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ARTS & CULTURE continued from 17

reconstruction after World War I, fakes car trouble to avoid Marguerite’s cacophonous performance at a charity event they’re hosting, which wounds her. When she mentions to him that her friend Francoise is opening her own gallery and writing for a magazine, Georges advises her, “You should have a good sleep and lie in all morning. Then why not go shopping?” A subsequent shot reveals Margaret sitting alone in her study, despondent in a long-beaked opera mask. Later we learn that Georges is secretly sleeping with Francoise, telling her that Marguerite is “no longer a woman. She’s turned into a sort of freak.”

That opinion would surely devastate Marguerite, but there are almost as many perceptions of her as there are characters.

The aforementioned charity gala, staged as a sweeping narrative set piece a la The Leopard or The Godfather, brings together Hazel Klein (Christa Théret), a lovely and gifted young soprano engaged by the baroness to perform as part of the program, and Lucien Beaumont (Sylvain Dieuaide), a vicious young music

18 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

critic who infiltrates the event hoping finally to hear this talked-about noblewoman. Riding home from the event with the monocle-sporting poet and anarchist named Kyril Von Priest (Aubert Fenoy), they debate whether their hostess can hear herself. Lucien argues that no singer can, though Hazel knows from her own experience that good ones listen to themselves. She sees in Marguerite the sort of genuine emotion that powers a great artist, though Lucien considers the baroness a fraud.

His subsequent review is a tongue-in-cheek affair reporting that Marguerite “seemed to be trying to exorcise an inner demon,” her voice betraying “a human truth that rends the heart.”

Kyril’s perspective on Marguerite may be the most pertinent to our own age of ironic T-shirts and movies so bad they’re good.

“She’s utterly mad! Bravo!” he shouts after the baroness butchers Mozart’s “Der Hölle Rache” from The Magic Flute. For Kyril the performance is revelatory, an assault on bourgeois culture. Preying on Marguerite’s ambition, he invites her to take part in a

“WHAT IF THEY PELT ME WITH TOMATOES?” MARGUERITE ASKS HER BUTLER AS SHE’S DRESSING FOR A PERFORMANCE. “SOMEONE SHOULD THROW ARTWORKS AT TOMATOES FOR A CHANGE.”

small concert honoring the war dead in Paris, with dignitaries attending and a motion picture screening. The event turns out to be a dadaist stunt in which various officials and their wives have been invited to a performing space on the pretext of meeting Charlie Chaplin but instead are treated to Marguerite vocally dismantling “La Marseillaise” as silent footage of French soldiers in combat is projected against her white gown. The ensuing scandal gets Marguerite thrown out of her local arts club; in defiance she decides to stage a full-fledged public recital so her artistry can finally be appreciated.

Despite being used so cruelly, Marguerite comes away from Kyril with a new perspective on herself, one more consistent with his view of her as an outsider artist. “What if they pelt me with tomatoes?” she asks her butler as she’s dressing for the performance.

“Someone should throw artworks at tomatoes for a change.” Called on the carpet by the board of her club, Marguerite is berated for dishonoring the national anthem. “A lady of your rank should not engage in stunts with

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petty anarchists, Bolshevists, extremists, avant-gardists, and whatnot,” argues one dowager. “In these troubled times, what can they contribute to society?” Marguerite’s oneword reply—“Freedom?”—barely registers with them, but Georges is struck by it. For her, music has become a means of escape.

Of course Marguerite’s real means of escape is money, which protects the bubble of her delusion and empowers her to construct an exciting self-image. Her private performances transpire at charity events she subsidizes heavily, which enforces her friends’ polite response to her caterwauling. Modeling her giant costume collection, she poses for an endless series of dramatic black-and-white photographs that are placed in gilt frames and lined up on her veranda for guests to admire.

Her butler, Madelbos (Denis Mpunga)—a silent, glowering presence, like Erich von Stroheim in Sunset Boulevard—serves as photographer, indulging madame’s every fantasy; her servants clap obligingly after she reads them Lucien’s ostensibly glowing review. Preparing for her public debut, Marguerite hires the corpulent gay tenor Atos Pezzini (Michel Fau), whose paid staff includes his young boy toy (Théo Cholbi) and a bearded woman who reads tarot cards (Sophia Leboutte). All these leeches indulge Marguerite’s sense of destiny for their own selfish reasons—even Madelbos dreams of the day when her notoriety will make his photographs famous.

The life of Florence Foster Jenkins offers any dramatist a first-rate finale: two days after her Carnegie Hall performance brought gales of laughter from a sold-out house, she suffered a heart attack, and a month later

she died at 76. The shock of exposure killed her—or so goes the myth. In fact Jenkins had performed publicly for years, refusing to acknowledge the insults of newspaper critics or the outbursts of audience members.

But at some point in her career she must have privately confronted the fact that her appeal was other than musical. “On a stage a person will sometimes draw the attention of a whole audience,” remarked her partner, St. Clair Bayfield. “There’s something about her personality that makes everyone look at her with relish. That’s what Mrs. Jenkins had. . . .

People may have laughed at her singing, but the applause was real.” Like any star, Jenkins looked to her audience for redemption.

Marguerite is more sensitive than Jenkins was, and the movie’s suspense is predicated on the worry that she’ll break like a china teacup when she learns the truth. Late in the story, Georges commits Marguerite to a sanitarium, and her psychiatrist, hoping to snap her back into reality, records her singing so that she can listen to herself on a phonograph. Hazel, Lucien, Pezzini, and his staff—all of whom have grown fond of Marguerite—provide a little audience as the doctor seats her before the sound horn and Madelbos sets up his camera to capture the moment of truth. Many people are shocked and discomfited when hearing their own voice played back to them—perhaps because, when we speak, we focus almost entirely on meaning, not sound. The question for Marguerite is whether, in finally hearing what others hear, she will become fully herself, or no one at all. v

! @JR_Jones

An unmistakable masterpiece.”

Stuart Klawans, The Nation

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AI can’t GREAT ONE. stop remembering scene after vivid scene.”

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AN EXHILARATING GIFT.

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Vibrantly alive, it brims over with humor, heartbreak and ravishing romance.”

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MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 19

Time traveling w Martin Sorronde of Los Crudos

20 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

with eguy

Martin Sorrondeguy outside the A.P.O. Building in Pilsen

Revisiting the legendary hardcore band’s old haunts two decades later provides a miniature history of gentrification and activism in Chicago.

By LEOR GALIL Photos by STEPHANIE BASSOS

Y

ou can’t tell the story of Chicago hardcore and punk without talking about Los Crudos.

Initially active from 1991 till ’98 and sporadi-

cally reunited since 2006, the Pilsen four-piece

wielded hardcore’s lunging rhythms, ricochet-

ing guitars, and furious battle cries on behalf of the downtrod-

den and disenfranchised, whether close to home or around the world—they spoke not only to the Latino population in Pilsen

and to the broader punk community but also to the poor, people of color, immigrants, and sexual minorities everywhere.

J

MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 21

Top to bottom: Sorrondeguy outside the defunct boutique Noir, formerly the first home of the Autonomous Zone; the facade of Handlebar, once the A-Zone’s third home; the soon-to-be-demolished Mullen’s on Clark, previously known as Wrigley Side

continued from 21

Magnetic front man Martin Sorrondeguy wrote almost all of Los Crudos’ confrontational lyrics, and he belted them out in a voice pulsing with heart. He excoriated spineless bureaucrats and tyrannical governments here and in Latin America; he denounced racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and even the homogeneity of the hardcore scene; he railed against poverty, gentrification, and dehumanizing immigration policies. (In 1998, after Los Crudos broke up, Sorrondeguy cofounded self-proclaimed queercore band Limp Wrist, who have a new album in the works.)

He sang in Spanish, but not because Spanish speakers were the only people he wanted to reach—onstage he’d often spell out his message in English between songs, and at early shows the band handed out lyric sheets. When Los Crudos released music (on Sorrondeguy’s Lengua Armada label), the packaging included English translations of the words.

Los Crudos’ music has continued to reverberate since their breakup, and their legacy looms so large that even hyperbole doesn’t do it justice. So of course they appear in No Delusions, a long-in-the-works Chicago hardcore documentary by Steven Cergizan, who’s been going to shows in town since the early 2000s.

To celebrate the film’s release, he’ll screen it the night of Friday, March 25, at the Siskel Center and the afternoon of Saturday, March 26, at the Beat Kitchen. After the Beat Kitchen screening, Los Crudos headline back-to-back sold-out shows at 6:30 and 10:30 PM. Last year venerable punk zine Maximum Rocknroll released Doble LP Discografia, which compiles all 66 Los Crudos songs on two LPs. It also includes a mass of stapled newsprint so thickly covered in cheap, fingerstaining ink that it’s less black-and-white and more black-and-gray. Inside the booklet are a couple introductory essays, lyrics in Spanish and English, and dozens of reproduced show flyers. I noticed a couple promoting benefits for the Zapatista National Liberation Army in Boston and Justice for Janitors in D.C., but the ones for Chicago shows piqued my interest— they mention many of the unusual venues where Los Crudos became Los Crudos.

“We didn’t want to follow the rock ’n’ roll template that existed before us,” Sorrondeguy says. “We were trying to create something that was completely independent from the established venues. We thought it was more exciting seeking out places that were basically illegal to do shows at. It was a way of also exploring what the possibilities were. ‘Alright,

22 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

we’re gonna try this—we’re gonna play in a Laundromat.’” Some spaces only lasted long enough to host a few shows. “It was like, ‘Oh, here’s this place that has a name—it’s gonna last as long as it can last, until the fire marshals come and shut it down or the cops shut it down,’” he says. “Nothing was permanent.”

Los Crudos made a point of playing all over Chicagoland, not just in their neighborhood, which helped their music reach different communities—Latinos, white suburban kids, Fireside Bowl regulars, anarchists, even Pilsen residents who didn’t otherwise listen to punk.

“What was our scene like—it was everything, and so many different kinds of people,” Sorrondeguy says. “We were really into sharing what we were about. We weren’t into this exclusivity thing—this isn’t just for a particular community or type of person. We were like, ‘We’re Los Crudos, and we want to make alliances with people from all different walks of life.’” The band also exposed their audiences to worthy causes by playing fund-raising shows—benefiting a children’s health organization in Chiapas, for instance, or a legal fund for Fred Hampton Jr. “It’s like bringing two different worlds at one meeting point and going, ‘Hey, this is something that’s going on,’” Sorrondeguy says.

Many of the underground venues where Los Crudos played were in Chicago neighborhoods that have gentrified since the 90s—Wicker Park, Logan Square, and Pilsen. Rising rents and redevelopment have often driven out not just DIY venues but also the poor and minority people that Los Crudos considered an important part of their constituency. On the song “Llegan Empujando” (“They Come Pushing”) the band make their feelings clear: “Here come the owners of everything, buying buildings and renting at outrageous prices.”

Sorrondeguy has spent most of the past 15 years living on the west coast, so he hasn’t seen too much of that gentrification up close.

A few months ago, though, he settled back in Chicago, and I asked him if he wanted to revisit some of the places where Los Crudos had played in the 90s and see how they’d changed.

After combing through a couple binders of old flyers, we hit the road with photographer Stephanie Bassos.

The survey we made is by no means a complete picture. We skipped the former home of the Ruiz Belvis Puerto Rican Cultural Center, where Crudos played a benefit for the Mumia Abu-Jamal legal defense with hip-hop group Stony Island and electronic veteran DJ Heather. That building is on the northwest corner of the intersection of Milwaukee,

®

SCREENING OF NO DELUSIONS

Fri 3/25, 10 PM, Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, 312-8462600, siskelfilmcenter. org, free, all ages

SCREENING OF NO DELUSIONS

Sat 3/26, 3 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, 773-2814444, beatkitchen. com, donation suggested, all ages

LOS CRUDOS, MK ULTRA, SPINE, TIGRESS

Sat 3/26, 6:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, sold out, all ages

LOS CRUDOS, MK ULTRA, UDUSIC, RASH

people could see what was going on.

This building looks the same—they just changed the sign. Growing up in Pilsen, this neighborhood always felt like this to me. I don’t sense a tremendous amount of change, ’cause where we lived was so industrial and south-side that this always felt like this to us.

LAKEVIEW

The Fireside Bowl enjoys an unrivaled legacy among Chicago punks. Jim Lapinski, who took over ownership of the Fireside from his father in 1993, told the Reader in ’94 why he opened the bowling alley to all-ages punk shows that year: “Young people just don’t bowl.” Lapinski’s hands-off approach allowed the Fireside to serve as a major epicenter for Chicagoland punk communities until 2004, when a thorough renovation of the lanes cut down the size of the stage and longtime booker Brian Peterson was shown the door.

The Fireside has never completely stopped hosting music, but these days it’s once again a bowling alley first and foremost—the shows are sporadic and hardly the main attraction.

Mullen’s on Clark sits in the middle of a huge planned redevelopment called Addison & Clark, which the Chicago City Council approved in 2010. In February, Amalgamated Properties LLC began foreclosure proceedings for a block of lots stretching from 3515 to 3527 N. Clark. A DNAinfo story in March said demolition would begin within two months.

SORRONDEGUY: Wrigley Side for a while did shows on and off. I remember Crudos played here with Sludgeworth once. Neurosis played here years ago. Neurosis had a particular crusty punk scent—I remember people going, “What is that smell? Oh my God.” They were freaking out. I was laughing ’cause I knew it was the band.

Any place that was willing to allow people to do shows, we were there. So wherever we could have something happen or get the opportunity to see some bands play, we were going to it. This just happened to be one of the spots. It had the sports-bar feel to it, from what I remember. The bar was downstairs, and the upstairs [was] just a small room; it was a good spot to see shows, ’cause the stage was kind of wide and the room was wide. A lot of

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Sat 3/26, 10:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, sold out, 17+

Damen, and North, and it’s currently under construction. And when Sorrondeguy and I flipped through more Los Crudos flyers after our trip, we found the locations of DIY spaces we’d missed before, including one of the six homes of anarchist info shop the Autonomous Zone. For every place we visited, I scraped together a short history with help from the Cook County Recorder of Deeds, newspaper archives, and interviews with current and former lessors. Sorrondeguy also added his own commentary, which we’ve edited for length and clarity.

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SORRONDEGUY: This was the place. We all just started coming here, and Crudos played here a ton of times. There was no stage back then— it was just a space. Then they kind of started building it up. They realized, “OK, we’re filling this place up with hundreds of kids a couple nights a week,” and all of the sudden it revived their business. Then they went more official—got a stage and did the whole bit. It became the primary venue.

I remember I was on the train in San Francisco and it was packed. Some guy stood in front of me and he put his arm up to hold onto the railing—he had a tattoo, and I just go, “Is that the Fireside Bowl in Chicago?” He had this really beautiful tattoo done of the front of the facade, and he’s like, “Yeah, how do you know?” I J

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MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 23

The building at 1801 W. Division, formerly home to No Palace, is now Mac’s Wood Grilled.

continued from 23

was like, “I practically lived there.”

For us, an underground culture, this was our spot. And it changed, just like anything.

I think at some point the real DIY punk bands were like, “We don’t want to play here anymore,” and we started playing other places.

It got harder to get a date, because it was packed up. I think they just didn’t want to waste their time with real DIY punk shit—it seemed that way.

The place was a fucking dump, it really was. There was a point where the ceiling was falling out, it was just a dirty-ass rug—it was a fucking dive, but we loved it. That’s so typical, for punkers to go, “This place sucks, and I love it. It smells and it’s ideal for a punk show.” We were drawn to it also because it was a nontraditional space. This was not a club—it was some carpeted hole-in-the-wall bowling alley on the brink of shutting down.

We thought, “Perfect. This is beautiful. We need to play here.”

2311 W. North Former home of the Autonomous Zone Currently Handlebar According to former Autonomous Zone member Tony Doyle, the A-Zone was “an activist

24 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

resource center—a place for different groups to have meetings, put on events, things like that. Some of the political ideas were antiauthoritarian-slash-anarchist.” The collective operated from 1993 till 2003, and according to a 2015 zine documenting the collective’s history, The A-Zone & a Decade of Anarchy in Chicago, this North Avenue location was its third home, from 1995 till ’97. Vegan-friendly restaurant Handlebar, which has a history of bike activism, moved into the space in 2003.

“In 13 years it changed so much—there was a vacant lot across the street, not condos,” says Handlebar owner Celia Esdale. “There wasn’t really much down here.”

SORRONDEGUY: I didn’t even recognize it. I ate here once with a friend on one of my trips back, and I didn’t even realize this was the A-Zone.

It’s so unrecognizable. It was a cool little info shop. They had tons of literature, maybe one or two computers, and a lot of books and zines.

I remember playing in here—it was a very energetic show.

This is an era where there was all sorts of scenes going on in this area—you go back to Czar Bar, and there’s a whole scene of art-punk stuff that was happening there. We were more on the hardcore thing, but we knew everybody.

It was the beginning of the gentrification. I don’t think you could get away with doing shows in some of these places anymore.

Casa Aztlan in Pilsen has vacated this spot at 1831 S. Racine for a building a few blocks west.

WEST SIDE 1726 W. Division Former home of the Autonomous Zone Currently unoccupied This storefront on Division was the A-Zone’s first home, from October 1993 till summer 1994. “There was a mix of people involved in it, but it’s fair to say there was a lot of white faces,” Doyle says (he got involved after the A-Zone left the Division location). “There was a concern that if you were gonna set up shop in a neighborhood that’s under threat of gentrification, that you’re helping that process.” Rising rents were a factor in the A-Zone’s frequent moves. The boutique Noir opened here in 1998 and closed in early 2015; in fall 2014, developer Steve Lipe paid $2 million for a small lot that includes this property.

SORRONDEGUY: This one is the one that Crudos played at [with] the band from the UK, Dirt.

They’re on the Crass label. Also Hellkrusher.

The A-Zone, like I said earlier, were a superactivist political anarchist group. They were huge about gentrification happening. This is probably the most shocking of the shifts that I’ve witnessed, because this area was really neglected for a long time. I used to teach at a Montessori school down here, and then I worked at a youth agency a few blocks away. It

was just a different world.

I used to come here in the 80s, and it was a very different area. So when the A-Zone opened, I was sort of surprised. “Oh, wow, it’s over here?” I would’ve never put it together until you pointed this spot out.

[The A-Zone people] were kind of around as Crudos was starting. We knew those kids. We’d see them at shows. It just kind of worked—it all came together. Anything that looked differently, smelled differently, was more appealing to us than the sort of the rock ’n’ roll template that was set up before us.

1814 W. Division Former home of Czar Bar Currently unoccupied A 1993 Reader feature described Czar Bar as “the kind of room where punk has always played best—the decor is cheap, the ceiling is low, the beer is cold, and the lights are dim.”

Bought by Chester Grzybek in 1991, this dive augmented Wicker Park’s early-90s mystique as a magnet for cool bands. In 1994 the New York Times listed Czar Bar as one of the neighborhood spots that had made Chicago a hotbed for alternative rock, and queer-focused punk collective Homocore Chicago got its start hosting shows there. Czar Bar closed late in

The A.P.O. Building in Pilsen, where Los Crudos played their “last” show in 1998.

1994, and though county records show Grzybek has passed the property on to his daughter, it remains boarded up.

SORRONDEGUY: I saw the Simple Machines tour here. It was Superchunk, Seaweed . . . I forgot who else was on here. Tsunami? There was this really cool “how to release your own record” zine and stuff. I also saw Nation of Ulysses here. This was where Ian [Svenonius] broke his leg. Homocore Chicago started doing shows here as well—Crudos played one. It was weird, because we generally don’t do bars, and they asked us to play. But we really wanted to support Homocore.

Vaginal Creme Davis played here. There was a bunch of stuff going on at the Czar Bar. I know a lot of postpunk stuff was happening here, the more art-punk stuff. Azita [Youssefi] and that whole crew—the Trenchmouth people—they would do stuff.

1801 W. Division Former home of No Palace Currently Mac’s Wood Grilled According to a 2011 report by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, architect Fritz Lang designed this building, formerly a tied house for Schlitz; raised in 1900, it was granted land-

mark status in 2010. Tom Magee, owner of Mac’s Wood Grilled, secured a trustee’s deed to the building in 1998—a decision he says was a no-brainer. “You could tell back then the city was coming around,” he says. “The turnover in retail has completely changed. Condos are coming in, which isn’t bad—I’m not against any of it. Everybody calls it gentrification, but it’s just the natural progression of the city.”

SORRONDEGUY: I remember a few shows—Rorschach played here, we played here. Probably Scissor Girls played here. This was a hot spot—this little strip of a couple blocks on Division, there was a lot happening. It was this lack of permanence—nobody assumed ever that anything was gonna be around for long.

Whoever was willing to allow something to happen, it was like, “Go there, that’s it, that’s the spot right now.” “OK, they’re closing this one down? We found a spot down the block.”

“OK, cool.”

I don’t know what made it a hot spot. Maybe it was because it was a neighborhood in transition. I mean, what makes Pilsen hot right now?

Division, we saw it coming a long time ago.

Even when I worked down here, you saw these things happening.

The grossest thing is seeing this sportsbar thing. It has zero appeal to me—it’s not cultural. Again, I’m really drawn to what has happened where everything’s gone so J

MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 25

Sorrondeguy in front of the Fireside Bowl’s iconic sign

continued from 25

underground. It’s in these weird basements and houses and stuff—that’s where underground culture needs to survive.

1620 W. Grand Former home of Isabel’s Grand Finale Currently Esperanza Community Services Isabel’s Grand Finale was a DIY space next to the Dummy Room, a short-lived record store run by Vindictives front man Joey Vindictive.

According to Maximum Rocknroll, the store celebrated its opening with an 18-band bill at Isabel’s that cost $1. The Queers recorded a live EP at the venue in 1993, which Vindictive released on his label, V.M.L. Records. Today the address houses the adult program and art studio of Esperanza Community Services, a 47-year-old organization that supports people with developmental disabilities.

SORRONDEGUY: The area definitely has been gentrified, but there wasn’t much around here. We’re seeing the opposite than closer to Wicker Park. Esperanza Community Services, it’s cool that that’s here, versus some fucking sports bar. The Dummy Room was here—Joey Vindictive opened up a record store. They were doing shows here; Born Against played here, Warzone played here, Crudos played here. They did the infamous Isabel’s Grand Finale show, which got shut down early— Screeching Weasel was supposed to play.

Anything that those guys were involved with at that time—those guys meaning Joey Vindictive or even Ben Weasel—was all moving away from the preexisting clubs and scene.

The bigger stuff was taking a more business-y mainstream approach to running spaces, which we definitely were not interested in.

The established older scene was being put under the microscope by people like Ben Weasel, and he was hypercritical of [promoter] Sean Duffy and Last Rites productions. At one point there was a lot of tension between those two worlds. But it was just nice to see that, instead of complaining, people were actually doing something or creating that alternative.

So when this space happened, we were all about it.

At the beginning it definitely felt like, “Oh, wow, this is really awesome, this kind of punkrun business.” For a lot of us it made us feel like it was possible.

26 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

FIND HUNDREDS OF

PILSEN 1900 S. Carpenter Former home of Calles y Sueños Currently Cultura in Pilsen Calles y Sueños Chicago project coordinator Christina Obregón says the activist arts organization was born out of “a need to talk about the real history and current events of what was happening throughout Latin America.”

Original Chicago organizer Jose David sought out a space where he’d be free to showcase art that pushed boundaries, and he landed at the building on 19th and Carpenter in 1995. “There was more of a working-class community, and those were the people that we wanted to target,” Obregón says. “That’s who our audience is; that’s who our public is.” Calles y Sueños moved out of the building in the early 2000s, then returned in 2011—but only for a little more than two years. “The gentrification was too rapidly growing—we noticed a lot of people in our audience that were coming were not the people that we had really wanted to target,” Obregón says.

SORRONDEGUY: This place was probably the most important gallery space, arts space, that we had in the neighborhood. They did exhibits here that were really challenging and pushed a lot of boundaries in terms of gender, sexuality, a lot of stuff. There was a poster exhibit, and it was all these posters related to HIV and AIDS. They did a show here called Cabaret Rojo, where Crudos performed with a drag queen. They did really cool film screenings and poetry readings. They had a speakeasy in the basement. Crudos used to practice in the basement. I lived upstairs—four bedrooms, two bathrooms, for $390 a month. You can’t get that rent anymore.

This was a part of our existence. In the documentary, we hang the banner out of that window. [Editor’s note: The banner read, in Spanish, “The arms and energy of the workers give life to the world. Times of rage, action, and struggle.”] We got in trouble once ’cause we wheat pasted this large poster of [Subcomandante] Marcos from the Zapatistas giving the middle finger.

We were taking action and being vocal about being unhappy with the way the city [government] neglected Pilsen, and then all of the sudden things were changing. My issue was, “OK, gentrification’s gonna happen all over the place, but fuck you for ignoring us for so long.” We didn’t count—we weren’t worthy of

having fixed streets, fixed sidewalks. Neglected schools . . . there was so much neglect in this area. There were places in certain sections that just felt bombed out and ignored. It’s like, “Why? Why is that happening?” And it just felt like a big fuck-you to the city for treating communities like this—and our community—like shit. That’s what Crudos was about; we were the fuck-you from around here.

I think we were successful in the sense that it brought a lot of other young people to go, “Hey, I’m also frustrated, and I’m not alone in this.” Other people are frustrated too. And they’re creating music and art. Even though the community’s changing and the neighborhood’s changing, people need to know that you should be vocal about what’s happening and you should demand what everybody else demands in more affluent neighborhoods.

I feel really connected to this neighborhood.

Every other neighborhood we went to, I was coming from somewhere else to play. This is home, and this is where I feel like we made our greatest impact—this is where it mattered the most. This is where people connected most.

1438 W. 18th St. A.P.O. Building Sorrondeguy’s 1999 documentary short on Latino punk, Beyond the Screams, includes a clip of Los Crudos performing “That’s Right We’re That Spic Band!” at their final show, which was at the A.P.O. Building. Completed in the late 1890s, the five-story building has served the many populations to call Pilsen home in the decades since—according to a 2003 Reader feature, Stuart Dybek grew up in a cold-water flat above its 1438 W. 18th entrance. The A.P.O. Building has provided a home to many Pilsen artists, and currently hosts the gallery Casa de la Cultura Carlos Cortez: Mestizarte.

SORRONDEGUY: We played years ago up on the fifth floor. Our very last show, in ’98—that was the first time that we called it quits—was here. We also did stuff with neighborhood folksingers and different artists. What’s amazing about this space, it’s still the same kind of space that it always was.

This is where it started—not necessarily this space, but the neighborhood. [The final show] could’ve been in any location, but we really loved that a lot of the printmakers and artists—they were people we knew, J

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HONEY & THE 45’S, MURLEY, BETA DOGS MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 27

Los Crudos flyers from the band’s original run in the 1990s ! COURTESY MARTIN SORRONDEGUY

continued from 27

friends of ours, and we’re like, “It has to be in the neighborhood.” We did two sets at the Fireside, and then we did the last show here.

We had to do stuff in the neighborhood.

That was crucial to us. This was always a part of the fabric of what was the band and what punk was for us: coming from this neighborhood, all this kind of coming together, all this creative energy, with all these different artists and musicians and everything. A lot of the people around here, they weren’t punks per se, [but] their ideas and their politics—it all went hand in hand with what Crudos was doing.

When I look back at that video [from the final show], I get a little choked up about it, ’cause it was a very intense moment and very symbolic for us to do that show here. There were people who had been following us since day one, so there was this really intense connectiveness. It’s nice to look back at it just go, “You know, I still feel connected.”

28 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

1831 S. Racine Former home of Casa Aztlan Currently unoccupied Casa Aztlan director Carlos Arango says that decades ago, “There was no organization to serve the Mexican community that was moving into Pilsen.” Founded in 1970, Casa Aztlan tried to fill that void; for decades the community center at 1831 S. Racine provided youth and after-school programs, citizenship classes and INS case assistance, and a home for Pilsen’s broad arts communities. The paintings on the outside of the building speak to the vibrancy of Pilsen’s historical muralist movement, though Casa Aztlan moved elsewhere three years ago. According to a 2013 Sun-Times article, the property fell into foreclosure in summer 2012, and the following year a developer won it at a judicial auction for $293,000. Casa Aztlan is now at the corner of 18th and Blue Island.

SORRONDEGUY: This is where the very first punk show in Pilsen happened. We put that on in the late 80s. Pre-Pegboy played here—the Bhopal Stiffs. And Generation Waste—members became Screeching Weasel later, and Sludgeworth. The Ozzfish Experience, who then also went on to be part of Screeching Weasel. I was the one who put this together, along with a couple artists—one of them had a studio here.

We were given the opportunity a few times to actually play here. One of the directors hated what we were doing and said we would never be able to play here again. This is not a regular venue; it’s a cultural space. They do a lot of youth and after-school stuff, summer programs, all that.

Punk was just so outside of the norm here.

They had the space, and they wanted to do a benefit; we were able to organize this benefit. I brought in the bands and everything, and we raised some funds for the art

program. It brought out kids who I didn’t know liked punk around here, and all of the sudden we made these connections. Initially the gangbangers were a little freaked-out— they were walking by with bats and kind of intimidated. Close to 300 people came out.

When you get hundreds of strangers coming around, people are going, “What the hell is this?”

That people were willing to allow it to happen was a huge deal. It made us realize that there was possibility to do stuff that was crossing the cultural barriers. You have the whole underground punk thing mixing with already existing cultural stuff that was happening. It made us realize that we can do things together here. We could help each other out—do the music stuff, but also raise money for things and support each other. v

! @imLeor

Recommended and notable shows, and critics’ insights for the week of March 24

MUSIC

b ALL AGES F

PICK OF THE WEEK

Rockie Fresh re-emerges with a mixtape that has all the pop panache of a full-blown studio album

Natalia Lafourcade ! COURTESY THE ARTIST

THURSDAY24 Tony Malaby 9 PM, Elastic, 3429 W. Diversey, $10 suggested donation. b

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ROCKIE FRESH

Tue 3/29, 6:30 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, $20, $15 in advance. b

CHICAGO RAPPER DONALD PULLEN, aka Rockie Fresh, inked a deal with Rick Ross’s Maybach Music Group in 2012. The following year Pullen dropped three mixtapes, including a collaborative full-length with Casey Veggies, and appeared on MMG’s collective compilation Self Made Vol. 3. But since then, aside from doing his due diligence via guest verses here and there, Pullen’s kept relatively quiet, which could be a blessing in disguise: Ross’s ironlike grip on hip-hop ain’t what it used to be, and the time has allowed Pullen to gain some distance from the Teflon

Don’s domineering shadow while being able to use MMG’s wealth of resources to his benefit. January’s The Night Went To . . . has all the pop panache of a full-blown studio album, right down to Pullen’s employment of British “nice-guy” hitmaker Ed Sheeran on the sumptuous “Are You With Me?” On that one Pullen raps, “I’m slept on, so right now my name might not ring a bell,” and his confident remark suggests he has the patience and stamina to finesse his music—his wisdom shows on the glossiest cuts.

—LEOR GALIL

Despite the disparate contexts of the two albums New York saxophonist Tony Malaby released in 2014, there’s no mistaking the centrality and muscular personality within each. Somos Agua (Clean Feed) is the latest iteration of his elastic trio Tamarindo, which includes the agile yet powerful rhythm section of bassist William Parker and drummer Nasheet Waits. Both caress and buffet the sax’s dynamic, marbled lines, and Malaby’s grainy tenor sound is as distinctive as any in jazz. Together the group essay tender balladry and volatile fire-breathing (and plenty of territory in between).

Scorpion Eater (also on Clean Feed) was created by a foursome Malaby calls Tubacello, featuring cellist Christopher Hoffman, tuba player Dan Peck, and drummer John Hollenbeck. The leader’s tenor and soprano lines glide over and slalom through the rubbery-twangy, often contrapuntal push-pull produced by his bandmates. It feels a bit like a chamber group set free in a block-party bounce house.

Malaby is in town to launch a new initiative organized by Elastic in which visiting improvisers conduct workshops with young musicians and follow those with performances alongside seasoned local players. Tonight he leads a trio with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and drummer Michael Zerang, followed by a quartet with pianist Paul Giallorenzo, bassist Jason Roebke, and drummer Charles Rumback.

—PETER MARGASAK J

MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 29

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03.26 YOUNG FATHERS

AMERICAN GOTHIC PRODUCTIONS

SATURDAY, APRIL 2 8PM

03.26 BACK TO THE GRAVE WITH THE PRIATE TWINS

The Nields

03.27 ARCHGOAT

In Szold Hall

DIRT NAP / PEROXIDE VALKYRJA

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6 7PM

Habib Koité & Vusi Mahlasela Acoustic Africa THURSDAY, APRIL 7 7 & 10PM

Deer Tick “Acoustic” with special guest Ryley Walker

03.31 WE THE KINGS

AJR / SHE IS WE / ELENA COATS & BROTHERS JAMES

04.01 SLAVES

CAPTURE THE CROWN / MYKA, RELOCATE / OUTLINE IN COLOR / CONQUER DIVIDE

04.02 DELTA RAE

CHRIS BATHGATE

SILVER WRAPPER PRESENTS

04.07 TURBOSUIT / ZOOGMA TREES

FRIDAY, APRIL 8 8PM

Chris Hillman & Herb Pedersen SATURDAY, APRIL 9 7 & 10PM

Marshall Crenshaw & The Bottle Rockets SATURDAY, APRIL 9 8PM

SERDAR ILHAN PRESENTS

Erkan Ogur & Ismail Hakki Demircioglu with special guest Michael J. Miles with David Jennings • In Szold Hall

04.08 THE EXPENDABLES

JON WAYNE & THE PAYNE / TUNNEL VISION

04.09 PORCHES / ALEX G YOUR FRIEND

WKQX WELCOMES

04.12 ATLAS GENIUS

SKYLAR GREY / SECRET WEAPONS

04.15 THE WILD FEATHERS THE SHELTERS

SILVER WRAPPER PRESENTS

04.16 RANDOM RAB 04.17 THE SPILL CANVAS DANIEL WADE

04.20 THE WHITE BUFFALO ALICE DRINKS THE KOOL AID

04.23 KVELERTAK

TORCHE / WILD THRONE

SUNDAY, APRIL 10 7PM

April Verch

04.24 THE SUMMER SET In Szold Hall

ACROSS THE STREET IN SZOLD HALL 4545 N LINCOLN AVENUE, CHICAGO IL

3/24 Inside/Out with Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre 3/25 Geoff Muldaur 4/8 Global Dance Party: Bollywood Masala 4/14 Inside/Out with Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre 4/15 Global Dance Party: Dabkeh: Palestinian Folk Dance

WORLD MUSIC WEDNESDAY SERIES FREE WEEKLY CONCERTS, LINCOLN SQUARE

3/30 Uxía & Narf (in Szold Hall) 4/6 Warrior King (In Szold Hall)

OLDTOWNSCHOOL.ORG 30 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

Yak ! COURTESY THE ARTIST

HANDSOME GHOST / CALL ME KARIZMA

05.07 POINT BREAK LIVE! 05.15 ENTER SHIKARI

HANDS LIKE HOUSES / THE WHITE NOISE

05.16 BEACH SLANG

POTTY MOUTH / DYKE DRAMA / TURNSPIT

05.17 BLAQK AUDIO NIGHT RIOTS

05.28 WELSHLY ARMS WILD ADRIATIC

06.18 ANDY BLACK- THE HOMECOMING TOUR 06.24 WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS 07.09 PITY SEX www.bottomlounge.com 1375 w lake st 312.666.6775

continued from 29 Thurston Moore Group Promised Land Sound and Running open. 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $10, $3 with RSVP. Thurston Moore has largely been reviled since he torched his marriage with Kim Gordon five years ago, and his post-Sonic Youth output hasn’t done much to help us forget his misdeeds. But after a variety of solo and band projects that seemed to indicate he’d reached a creative ceiling, his latest record, The Best Day (Matador), wisely for him (and comfortingly for us) allows us to take stock of what he does best. Joined by My Bloody Valentine bassist Debbie Googe, longtime Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, and fellow guitarist James Sedwards, Moore gracefully recombines chiming, keening, and screaming guitar workouts with hazy melodies and chugging midtempo grooves (i.e., the stuff he brought to Sonic Youth for two and a half decades).

He doesn’t address personal issues, and he doesn’t try to break new ground—he does what he does.

None of that changes the fact that the record is enjoyable enough on its own terms, and considering that a Sonic Youth reunion seems rather unlikely . . . ever, this version of Thurston Moore is as close as we’ll probably ever get. —PETER MARGASAK

FRIDAY25 Tony Malaby Large Group See Thursday.

9 PM, Elastic, 3429 W. Diversey, $15 suggested donation. b Tonight Malaby leads a band with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, pianist Paul Giallorenzo, bassist Jason Roebke, drummer Charles Rumback, saxophonist Dave Rempis, cornetist Josh Berman, bass clarinetist Jason Stein, vibist Jason Adasiewicz, and drummer Tim Daisy.

Yak The Funs open. 10 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, $12.

So much white-hot-hyped guitar-driven indie rock flames out before it even has a chance to singe the real-paper pages of canonical music tastemakers who also exist off the Internet grid. This seems to be a result of their hubbub—mostly boring schlock dressed to the nines but in wispy, forgettable guitar musings and a sense of entitlement that bleeds through via the listless, hapless vocals, sounding like they know you know and they don’t want you to know that they care that you know (you follow?).

Thankfully, London-based Yak are much more audacious, in part thanks to their artful psych influence— not in an Acid Mothers Temple kind of way or anything, but more in how they flesh out their sound with, one, crunchy and wailing unpredictable loudness and, two, cycling, chugging bass lines that are often as warm as they are dizzying (“Hungry Heart”). The band’s debut full-length, Alas Salvation (via Octopus Electrical, their own label), very often sounds like it’s about to spin off an icy road— helped by hot-mess moments of coalescing noise as instruments trip over one another (“Use Somebody”). But somehow the pace is steadied enough to stay moving forward, though it’s unnerving the whole way through. Even a slow burn like “Take It” can’t help but eventually fray and tatter until it’s little more than shredded trails of noise. Better for it.

—KEVIN WARWICK

SATURDAY26 Ran Blake 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $20, $15 in advance, 18+ I first heard singular pianist Ran Blake in the late 80s thanks to a reissue of his 1962 debut with singer Jeanne Lee, The Newest Sound Around. On that recording he serves as both accompanist

Where are the rest of the music listings?

Find them at chicagoreader.com/soundboard.

Necks ! CHRIS HOLLY/HOLIMAGE

and provocateur, sculpting the changes but freely experimenting with harmony and tempo—and it remains a masterpiece of dark-hued intimacy. In the decades since, Blake, who turns 81 next month, has maintained a practice of dueting with quirky singers, and most recently he’s developed a strong rapport with Portuguese singer Sara Serpa, a former student of his at the New England Conservatory of Music. On last year’s excellent Kitano Noir (Sunnyside) they navigate a wide variety of jazz, pop, and Portuguese-music standards, where harmonic dissonance and generous rubato spring in spasms.

Another key thread in Blake’s career has been his love of film, particularly classics. Last year local label International Phonograph reissued his striking 1980 album Film Noir, the first of numerous recordings on which the pianist mixes bits of film scores with originals he wrote as responses to certain films: themes from All About Eve or A Streetcar Named Desire, for example, are combined with jazz improvisation and melodic freedom, adding exquisite tension and offering fresh perspectives. Blake’s latest album salutes the work of French filmmaker Claude Chabrol. Released in Europe by Impulse, Chabrol Noir features breathtaking solo work and a number of duets with saxophonist Ricky Ford—the mostly original pieces include some sampled bits of Pierre Jansen’s film soundtracks, and masterfully blend Blake’s broad-minded aesthetic into something cogent and unique. This solo concert marks his first performance in Chicago since 1990. —PETER MARGASAK

Natalia Lafourcade 8 PM, Portage Theater, 4050 N. Milwaukee, $30. b Natalia Lafourcade is a bona fide pop star in her native Mexico—last fall she cleaned up at the Latin Grammys with five awards including Song of the Year for the title track on Hasta la Raíz (Sony Music Latin). She’s a magnificent pop singer and songwriter, and the sweet melodies from her first recording of originals in six years have seductively and swiftly lodged themselves in my brain as much as her terrific 2012 tribute to legendary Mexican balladeer Agustín Lara, on which she transforms decades-old songs into something utterly contemporary. Her Spanish-language lyrics celebrate love with giddy enthusiasm—and the melodies remain infectiously ebullient—but as the album unfolds she becomes more uncertain. On “Mi Lugar Favorito” you sense

the glee from the vibe alone, but her opening couplet erases any doubt about how she’s feeling: “Today I let the sun come in through the window / I lose myself in your gaze at daybreak.” And a couple of songs later she’s suffering rejection: “I was alone on our altar, praying with a song.” Lafourcade employs melodies that wouldn’t seem out of place on a Top 40 radio station, but her best stuff continues to recast the past, transplanting bits of bossa nova, chanson, reggae, and frothy 50s dream pop, all delivered with an effortless, honeyed grace.

Mexico has produced lots of hooky, sophisticated pop in the last couple of decades, but no one has matched the classic elegance of Lafourcade.

—PETER MARGASAK

SUNDAY27

ter seems meant as a Christmas present for those who like an “Angelslaying Christbeheading Black Fucking Metal” theme for the holidays. Aside from a ten-year hiatus in the middle of their rule, Archgoat have been active since 1991, and during that time they’ve been extremely consistent in their themes and nearly as much so in their lineup, with each release acting more as a refinement than a step forward—because if your formula out of the gate is already exactly what you want to do, why change a thing? Lux Satanae was an opportunity to revisit and rework older songs, and Archgoat’s militant, brutal, sexually explicit approach (“Thrice Damned Sodomizer (Stream of Blood)” is one delightful track title) actually benefits from a little spit and polish: the early-90s songs aren’t fundamentally changed but given new horrifying unlife through a better recording and 20 years of honing a filthy grindblast to perfection. —MONICA KENDRICK

Archgoat Valkyrja, Hellfire Deathcult, and Burning Churches open. 7:30 PM, Bottom Lounge, 1375 W. Lake, $15. 17+

Luggage Service Industry open. 8 PM, Rainbo Club, 1150 N. Damen. F

For Finland’s devout evil-cult band Archgoat, 2015 was a busy year bookended by a January full-length (The Apocalyptic Triumphator) and a December split with Satanic Warmaster called Lux Satanae (Thirteen Hymns of Finnish Devil Worship)—the lat-

A couple full disclosures right up front: One, Luggage drummer Luca Cimarusti is the Reader’s music listings coordinator. Two, I was first gripped

by Cimarusti’s frenetic punk outfit Loose Dudes well before I even knew his name (the poster from

their final show, which depicts a clown crying atop a tombstone emblazoned with the word PUNK currently hangs in my bedroom). I’ve been following his path since, and Luggage, his project with guitarist Michael Vallera (of Cleared) and bassist Michael John Grant doesn’t disappoint. On their debut LP, Sun (Automatic Recordings), Luggage paint a cold, barren landscape with just enough reverb to make it feel as though you can see your breath. They’re adept at making the atmosphere feel alternately huge and claustrophobic, creating subtle cracks in the ground with sturdy rhythms and monotone, half-audible vocals that make your chest feel like it’s in a vise and being squeezed tight. Sun is dark and moody, sure, but Luggage find a sense of balance in the overpowering thrum—when the slow-rolling thunder of the title track builds to a crest the band sounds positively uplifting. Tonight’s record-release show is being paired with another on Fri 4/1 at Permanent Records (1914 W. Chicago); that one begins at 6:30 PM and Brian Case opens. —LEOR GALIL

Necks 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $20, $15 in advance. 18+

On last year’s superb Vertigo (Northern Spy) veteran Australian trio the Necks embraced postproduction with greater gusto than ever. There they cut and pasted and overdubbed extended improvisational passages—expanding timbre with a wider variety of instruments—and further distanced their recorded output from what they do live. Pianist Chris Abrahams, bassist Lloyd Swanton, and drummer Tony Buck play single concert-length improvisations that begin with a spontaneous musical kernel played by one member. From there they build stunning journeys, teasing out evolving rhythms, melodies, and counterpoint with dazzling fluidity. Though their performances build upon an elegant, inexorable logic, they’re nonetheless full of surprises—nearly everything you anticipate fails to actually occur.

Vertigo accelerates the process, however, throwing out fresh ideas—sometimes borne from a previous passage, sometimes arriving like a bolt from the blue—with serious rapidity. The end result doesn’t feel impatient, but it does provide a much different sensation from the slow accretion of the live show.

I love them both. This is the trio’s first local appearance since 2010. —PETER MARGASAK J

LEARN THE SONGS YOU LOVE. LOVE THE SONGS YOU LEARN. Sign up for classes at oldtownschool.org

LINCOLN SQUARE • LINCOLN PARK

MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 31

MUSIC continued from 31

MONDAY28

John Davis & the Cicadas Zelienople open.

10 PM, the Owl, 2521 N. Milwaukee. F

Alongside the Mountain Goats and Refrigerator, John Davis was part of a 90s lo-fi scene bound by the Shrimper label. His wispy solo recordings were undeniably rarefied: a typical song might use just a few guitar notes or drum beats to punctuate a halfsung, half-recited verse about a lover’s glance. But then the Folk Implosion, his groove-music lark with Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow, had a fluke winning single with “Natural One,” from the Kids soundtrack. The pressures of being an unintentional one-hit wonder persuaded Davis to walk away from music at the turn of the century (he ultimately got a job as a public school teacher in North Carolina). But in 2013 he released Spare Parts (Shrimper), his first solo record in 16 years. It’s as carefully constructed as Davis’s early stuff was dashed off, so while arrangements are sparse, the space between notes registers as grandly as orchestration on a classic countrypolitan production. Davis stashes a few surprises in those spaces that stop the action like a play within a play—“Blood Feud,” for instance, features a drum

32 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

Ran Blake ! JESUS SANCHEZ

solo that sounds like Milford Graves meeting Ikue Mori. He’s always had the gift of freezing a moment, but now he’s placing those snapshots inside narratives as sweeping as the songs’ arrangements. Davis is currently working on a new, Kickstarter-financed record that promises to be more electric and assertive, with songs about the politics of food production and the prison industry. For his first appearance in Chicago in 17 years he’ll be accompanied by the Cicadas, a band of North Carolinians that includes old Shrimper mate and Mountain Goat Peter Hughes on bass. —BILL MEYER

TUESDAY29 Rockie Fresh See Pick of the Week on page 29. 6:30 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, $20, $15 in advance. b

WEDNESDAY30 Shellac Mono headline. 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 1375 W. Lake, sold out. 17+ Shellac hadn’t dropped a new record in seven years before Dude Incredible (Touch and Go)

was released in 2014, so I don’t feel too bad that it’s taken me a year and a half to write something about it. On the other hand, the trio of Steve Albini, Bob Weston, and Todd Trainer have rarely sounded so great together. The album is as good or better than anything they’ve done previously, revealing concision without surrendering structural ambition, and zeroing in on unexpected themes: “Compliant” is about OCD, and there’s a mini suite of songs about surveyors,

born from the understanding that many of our founding fathers were also land surveyors (Albini describes the theme as a “circumstantial” coincidence). As usual, the lyrics offer barbed observations about curiosities the band may have had at any given point in time, but the marriage of tightly coiled, razor-edged riffs and wrecking-ball beats transcends any temporal markers. It’s a ferociously efficient gut punch that feels good any time.

—PETER MARGASAK v

FOOD & DRINK

OYSTER BAH | $$$ R 1962 N. Halsted 773-248-300 oysterbah.com

NEW REVIEW

Maine event

Lettuce Entertain You’s New England-style seafood shack is a crowd-pleaser.

By AIMEE LEVITT

The lobster roll is filled with generous chunks of meat served on a properly buttered and toasted split roll. ! JAMIE RAMSAY

L

et’s get this part out of the way first: Oyster Bah is a very dumb name for a very good restaurant. It’s akin to Rich Melman’s Boston cousin opening a steak house called Da Beef. The staff at Oyster Bah know it is a dumb name. This is likely why they refer to the restaurant as, simply, Oyster. As in, “Welcome to Oyster. I

hope you enjoy your meal.” Since they do it, I will too.

Oyster is the latest spot in Melman’s vast Lettuce Entertain You empire, which has been opening good restaurants with dumb names since the 70s (Jonathan Livingston Seafood, Lawrence of Oregano) and using the restaurant experience to transport diners to

other times and places since the 80s. Oyster is the LEYE version of a New England seafood shack, smaller and more casual than its corporate sibling, Shaw’s Crab House. During my first dinner there, my dining companion looked around at the wood-paneled walls, the mismatched tables and chairs, and the upside-down bushel-basket light fixtures

and began to reminisce about her first-ever trip to Maine. Her husband had once dated a girl whose family had a summer house there and considered himself an expert on seafood shacks. He would’ve scorned Oyster, she said, and passed it by for some other, more authentic waterfront dive that smelled of salty ocean air instead of garlic butter.

That’s fair enough. But Oyster is not in Maine. It’s on North Halsted Street, and when it comes to finding decent seafood in that part of the world, we agreed, you could do far, far worse.

The centerpiece of Oyster’s menu, of course, is the oysters. You can eat them raw, or you can get them broiled, fried, or char-grilled, which gives them a nice smoky flavor. Whatever the preparation, the oysters are fresh.

Oyster, through LEYE, boasts of a long-standing relationship with the oyster growers of North America, and flies in between eight and 12 varieties every day from both the east and west coasts. At the table, you are given for your inspection a menu of raw oysters that changes daily and attempts to describe the flavor each variety by comparing it to a different food, much like a wine list. (Is oyster snobbery a thing yet?) The language of oysters was new to both my dining companion and me, and so, like non-oenophiles faced with a wine list, we decided to cede the composition of a raw oyster platter to our server. She brought us a mixture of briny Atlantic and cucumbery Pacific bivalves already shucked on a bed of ice, with little dishes of horseradish and cocktail sauce. They tasted fresh and cold, and I made one small step toward self-discovery by realizing that I am more of a Pacific sort of person.

The rest of Oyster’s menu is sort of a Greatest Hits of New England and Other Places New England Whalers Visited, because why would any self-respecting seafood restaurant want to deprive its customers of ceviche or fish tacos? (There’s also a hamburger and chicken for those who refuse to accept that they are, indeed, in a seafood restaurant.) The most expensive thing on it is the $52.95 chilled seafood platter, which contains oysters, clams, shrimp, crab, and tuna poke, but you could be just as happy with the $7.95 plate of smoked trout dip, which comes with brown bread and cornichons—although it tastes more of paprika than of smoke. None of chef Pete Balodimas’s preparations is very daring or original, but everything is well executed.

The clam chowder was unusually polite, with dainty pieces of clam, potato, and bacon, but still creamy and delicious. The Atlan- J

MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 33

FOOD & DRINK continued from 33

tic cod was perfectly cooked, with crispy skin and flaky meat, and it held its texture despite its immersion in a clam broth. If more fish tasted like this, then more people would like fish. (Why is it, anyway, that when you want to describe a particularly bad-tasting fish, you say it tastes fishy?) And the Alaskan red crab meat was so fresh and firm that the drawn butter on the side felt completely superfluous. Or maybe it was the taste of victory; unlike some seafood houses that slit open crab shells in the kitchen, Oyster makes you crack and dig for your dinner.

One of the greatest regrets of my life is that I did not eat a lobster roll until I was 30. My adoration was instant and blinding. It’s hard for me to recognize if I’ve eaten a bad lobster roll—I’m not entirely convinced such a thing exists—but even I could tell that the lobster roll at Oyster is a very fine specimen, filled with generous chunks of meat served on a properly buttered and toasted split roll, unimpeded by herbs or shards of celery.

The true revelation of my time at Oyster, though, was the “stuffie,” a quahog clam

“Stuffie,” a quahog clam chopped up and mixed with bread crumbs, celery, herbs, and chorizo and then baked in its shell ! JAMIE RAMSAY

chopped up and mixed with bread crumbs, celery, herbs, and chorizo and then baked in its shell. The crispy crumbs that stick to the side of the shell, what the French call the gratin, are particularly delicious. I have since learned that stuffies come from Rhode Island. I don’t know why Rhode Islanders don’t brag about them more.

But I suspect that the food wasn’t the only reason I was so happy during both the occasions I dined at Oyster. During one lull

Good Food = Local, Sustainable, Humane and Fair!

between courses, while my dining companion was in the bathroom, I sat back and looked around the dining room. Everyone else was in good spirits too: the families, the groups of friends, the couples on dates. People were talking animatedly. They were laughing. They gleefully plotted their attack on the chilled seafood platter. They ordered second rounds of drinks. They stayed to split a slice of the excellent coconut cake (which also makes a good morning-after breakfast).

Late winter is not normally a festive time in Chicago. Probably not in Maine, either.

But we were all contented because the staff at Oyster—like the staffs at most other LEYE restaurants I’ve visited, going back to the theatrically rude waiters at the fake 50s diner Ed Debevic’s back in the 80s—believes that hospitality is just as important as food. The bussers kept the water glasses full, even after we’d paid the check. When two dishes were slow coming out of the kitchen, our server stopped by our table twice to keep us apprised of their progress, even after we told her it was perfectly fine. When she noticed my dining companion was drinking his cocktail a bit slowly, she asked him if there was another one he might like better. When we got the bill, we noticed that the second cocktail and the two tardy entrees had been removed. I have no proof that they didn’t know that I write about food sometimes, but the odds that I was on a review visit were slim. They just wanted us to be happy, and to come back someday. And we were. And we will. v

! @aimeelevitt

Saturday, March 26, 10 am - 5 pm UIC Forum, Chicago Kids 12 and under free

Chefs At Play

Good Food Marketplace

Demos/Workshops

Chef demos by Rick Bayless, Paul Kahan, Josh Kulp and Christine Cikowski

Meet and buy from over 150 farmers and local food producers at the Good Food Marketplace

Ham Curing Workshop with Rob Levitt of Butcher & Larder Coloring Easter Eggs With Natural Dyes with Farmer’s Henhouse

Organic Valley Good Food Commons Learn to Make, Grow, Raise, Preserve, Compost and Build Community

Buy tickets online now and save! goodfoodfestivals.com 34 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

FOOD & DRINK Standard Market maitre fromager affineur David Rogers in the company’s newest and largest (and mostly yet-to-be-filled) cheese cave ! JULIA THIEL

AFFINAGE

Gone spelunking in a suburban cheese cave

By JULIA THIEL

S

tanding in the middle of Standard Market’s new 1,200-square-foot cheese cave in Countryside, a suburb 20 miles southwest of Chicago, David Rogers looks worried. “You shouldn’t see that,” he says, frowning at the mist hissing from the cooling units on the ceiling. “I don’t know where that moisture is coming from. I’ll have to talk to the refrigeration company.”

Rogers is the market’s maitre fromager affineur, which he says is “a fancy French term for ‘guy who runs a cheese program and ages cheese.’” Controlling humidity and temperature levels is key to the process—as is limiting the bacteria that’s introduced. He’s wearing a lab coat, a hair net, a beard net, and booties over his shoes. When the repairman comes, all his tools will have to be disinfected before he can bring them into the room. Though aging rooms are often referred to as cheese caves, Rogers says, “it’s not a bat-filled stalagmite thing.”

Quite the opposite, in fact: the room was disinfected completely before the first wheels of cheese were brought in last week. This is Standard Market’s third cheese cave; the first

two, located within the company’s Westmont and Naperville retail stores, at about 70 square feet each are minuscule by comparison. The Countryside aging room will hold 20 tons of cheese, increasing production by 700 percent.

There’s a reason for the ramping up of production: last summer, Standard Market’s cave-aged Chandoka cheddar was named runner-up in the Best in Show category at the American Cheese Society Competition, the Academy Awards of cheese, beating out more than 1,500 other entries. (At the time, the market had just four wheels ready to be sold, though more were already being aged.)

Like the other cheeses in the aging program, Chandoka is made by a creamery—in this case, LaClare Farms in Wisconsin—then bought and aged by Standard Market. When Rogers and his team began the program five years ago, he says, they followed the model set by Jasper Hill Farms in Vermont, which buys freshly made cheese from other creameries, ages it, and sells it (though Jasper Hill also makes and ages its own cheese).

Affinage, the art of aging cheese, is a separate concern from the making of the cheese, and is

often done by different people. It’s a more common concept in Europe than in the U.S., though it’s become more popular on the east coast in the last ten years or so. Murray’s Cheese Shop built its now-iconic cheese caves underneath Bleeker Street in 2004, followed by several more New York City cheese stores, Jasper Hill Farms, and, in 2014, the east-coast supermarket chain Wegmans. Much like Standard Market, the stores buy cheese from creameries without the capital, time, or (in some cases) know-how to age their own cheeses.

The practice isn’t without its skeptics— cheese authority Steven Jenkins foremost among them. The author of Cheese Primer told the New York Times in 2011, “This affinage thing is a total crock. All it does is drastically inflate the cost of cheeses that have benefited zero from this faux-alchemical nonsense.”

(Then again, in the same article the Times reported the results of blind-tasting cheeses from three local stores and found that ones from Fairway Market, where Jenkins is the head cheesemonger, were markedly inferior to the ones from two stores with their own aging programs.)

But while affinage seems to be catching on in New York and the surrounding areas, in the midwest it’s practically unheard of. According to Rogers, most creameries age their own cheeses, which is time-consuming and expensive. The sellers he’s talked to at Jasper Hill estimate that 60 percent of the cost of making cheese is in the aging, he says. And he doesn’t know of any other programs in the Chicago area exactly like Standard Market’s (though a place in Wisconsin called Bear Valley does affinage, charging the cheese makers a flat fee for the service rather than buying the cheese from them). Rogers looks for cheeses to buy that will taste noticeably different after being aged: “It doesn’t do any good to take cheese [the dairies] are making and make the exact same cheese; it needs a differentiating factor,” he says.

LaClare Farms sells a one-month-old version of their Chandoka cheddar (a mix of 70 percent cow and 30 percent goat cheeses) that’s aged in vacuum-sealed blocks; Rogers says it tastes completely different from the cave-aged one, which is bandage wrapped, allowing it to breathe, and aged for six to eight months. The former is “creamy, buttery, a little tangy,” he says. “When we get finished with it, it’s sweeter, got a little more nuttiness to it, a little more salt, it’s a drier texture, a little more crumbly. It tends to be more like fresh grass and hay flavors.”

So far, there are only a few dozen wheels of Chandoka sitting on wooden boards in the new cheese cave, which is dedicated entirely to aging the cheddar. When it’s full, which Rogers estimates will take about eight months, the room will hold approximately 1,200 wheels.

Most are a uniform creamy off-white color that comes from the melted lard they’re dipped in after being wrapped in food-grade muslin. Lard is traditional for coating English bandage-wrapped styles, Rogers says, because it holds in moisture but also allows the cheese to breathe and mold to grow on the outside; you wouldn’t get the same flavor if the cheese were waxed.

A few wheels on the top shelf, which are nearly done aging, are already covered in mold.

Those, Rogers says, are there to introduce specific molds to the room. “The Westmont store is where we started, and the ambient molds that were in that room started the whole process. It’s basically like the Westmont terroir, the natural molds that lived in that area.” J

MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 35

FOOD & DRINK

R CORRIDOR BREWERY & PROVISIONS

! ANTHONY TAHLIER

3446 N. Southport, 773-270-4272, corridorchicago.com

BAR REVIEW

Corridor of power A few wheels of aged Chandoka cheddar on the top shelf of Standard Market’s new cheese cave are introducing specific molds to a room that will eventually store some 1,200 wheels. ! JULIA THIEL

continued from 35

He’s not looking to add the Countryside terroir to the mix, but to replicate, as closely as possible, what Standard Market has been doing in its original cheese cave. “We know what [those molds] do and how they work,” he says. “We’re shooting for the same flavor profile.” But molds and cheeses can be unpredictable, and it will be months before he’ll know the outcome.

At Rogue Creamery in Oregon, Rogers says, it took the cheese makers a year to get things back in balance after they expanded their aging space. “Cheddar is a little easier [than blue cheese], but we are concerned.”

Rogers is familiar with the potential pitfalls of setting up a new space. “When we opened the Naperville store and put the aging room there, we had some growing pains early on,” he says. “We put a couple bloomy-rinded cheeses in there that just died. I felt terrible.”

There were issues with the humidity, air flow, and temperature, according to Rogers, and the rind on the cheese never took off.

Different cheeses need different microflora—the mold, yeasts, and bacteria that “are doing the actual work,” Rogers says. In the Naperville space they’re now aging washed-rind cheeses, which require a completely different set of bacteria—the molds they have in the Westmont cheese cave, for example, wouldn’t work. Two of those cheeses come from Kenny’s Farmhouse, a creamery in Kentucky.

Tomme de Nena is washed in Revolution’s Eugene porter; Rogers describes it as nutty and

36 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

slightly bitter, with a sweet maltiness towards the rind from the beer. Pauline, another cow’s milk cheese, is washed in Penrose Brewing’s Devoir saison along with B. linens, a bacteria often used to ripen washed-rind cheeses (not coincidentally, it also causes foot odor); according to Rogers, it’s softer, more buttery, and funkier than the original. Anabasque, a sheep’s milk cheese from Landmark Creamery in Wisconsin that Rogers likens to a more aged Ossau-Iraty, also gets a B. linens wash.

What Rogers is most excited about, though, is the space that will be freed up for experiments. For example, he’s talking to Zingerman’s Creamery about buying some of their Manchester, a soft double-cream cheese, to try washing it with gin. “Gin has such a unique flavor profile—woodsy, piney notes, floral characteristics—we thought that it would be interesting to see how the aromatics influence the flavor profiles of the cheese,” he says.

(They’d dilute the gin down to about 5 percent ABV first so that the alcohol doesn’t kill off the microflora.) Rogers doesn’t know of any other cheeses being washed with gin, but Époisses de Bourgogne—famous for being so pungent that it’s banned on the subway in France—is washed in pomace brandy. And that’s exactly the type of profile Standard Market is going for with the Manchester, he says. “If all goes well it should stink to high heaven but be superdelicious.” v

! @juliathiel

By JULIA THIEL

J

ust before 2 PM on a Sunday is either the best or worst time to arrive at Corridor Brewery & Provisions—a homey, rustic-looking brewpub on Southport—depending on how your luck is running. There was hardly any wait for a table, but that could’ve been because regulars knew what we didn’t (and the hostess didn’t mention): that the kitchen is closed between 2 and 2:30 PM. Still, if you get seated in time you can order from the brunch menu, then switch to the lunch menu when the kitchen reopens (brunch and lunch are different meals, after all, so this is a totally reasonable approach). We missed the cut-off by three minutes, but our kind waitress took pity on us and convinced the cooks to make two more brunches.

There’s plenty of variety on both menus, as long as you’re not vegetarian (even the salads come with meat or fish). For brunch, several omelettes are joined by a trio of brioche waffles, an egg-topped breakfast pizza, and a traditional ploughman’s breakfast.

Perfectly poached eggs and rich hollandaise top a generous serving of lump blue crab in the crab salad benedict, but it was the ultracrunchy side of smashed and fried potatoes that really stood out. Croque madame brioche waffles, a take on the classic sandwich, feels like a successful experiment from the Will It Waffle? blog. (Upon investigation it turns out that the blog did, in fact, publish a recipe for waffled croque madame, courtesy of Floriole’s Sandra Holl.) In Corridor’s ver-

sion, crisp brioche waffles are topped with Gruyere, mornay sauce (a bechamel made with Gruyere), bits of ham and bacon, and a fried egg.

In the end, we only managed a single item from the lunch menu—a pizza with meltingly tender leeks, goat cheese, and mushrooms, topped with peppery fresh arugula— but it turned out to be an excellent choice.

And, like the other food, it pairs well with the rotating half-dozen farmhouse-style beers. Head brewer Brant Dubovick works in traditional French and Belgian styles, a shift from Corridor’s hop-focused sister brewpub, DryHop. Which isn’t to say he ignores the hoppier side of things; an earthy, piney double IPA called American Love shared menu space with the lone year-round offering: Wizard Fight, a bright, citrusy IPA brewed with lactose, which tones down the bitterness of the hops and gives the beer a slightly creamy quality.

The rest of the beer menu runs the gamut from the light, floral Riots of Color saison to the dark, chocolatey Season of Darkness porter, stopping along the way at Loneliness, Lust, & Laundry, a red ale rich with notes of pine and brown bread, and Tasty Drowsiness, a heavy 9.5 percent ABV imperial farmhouse ale that’s yeasty, funky, and a touch spicy, with a sweetness that stops just short of cloying. I didn’t see a dessert menu, but the beer did us just fine. v

! @juliathiel

SNAPPY’S SHRIMP IS looking

JOBS

SALES & MARKETING

for an experienced part-time food prep & fry cook--30 hrs must be available nights & weekends. Apply in person preferred--1901 W. Irving Park Rd--PLEASE DO NOT CALL for info

RADIO TELESALES. EXPERIENCED pros only. Great commis-

General

sion rates, terrific radio stations to sell for. Receive all your renewals.

Friendly, respectful environment. Be that big fish in small pond. Bonus incentive for right person. 847-6797660.

S P R I N G IN YOUR STEP AND CASH IN YOUR POCKET - Tele-Fundraising.

Felons need not apply per Illinois Attorney General regulations. Start ASAP, Call 312256-5035

food & drink HANDLEBAR, A BUSY neigh-

borhood retaurant serving madefrom-scratch comfort food, is hiring full time LINE COOKS for evening shifts. Applicants must have prior experence working on a fast paced kitchen line. Apply in person at 2311 W North AVE or send an email to info@handle-barchicago. com

EDUCATION THE DEPARTMENT OF Finance

at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), located in a large metropolitan area, is seeking an Assistant Professor to assist the department teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Finance and Business Administration. Other duties include: perform research related to Finance and Business Administration, act as a liaison between the University and business community, and provide service to the department by serving on departmental committees and college committees as assigned. Requirements are a PhD degree or its foreign equivalent in Finance, Business Administration, Accounting or related field of study. Some travel is required. For fullest consideration, please submit a CV, cover letter, and 3 references to the attention of the Search Coordinator via email at tara mc@uic.edu, or via mail at UIC, Dept of Finance, 601 S Morgan Street, Chicago, IL 60607. UIC is AA/ EOE/M/F/Disabled/Veteran.

WE LOVE OUR JOBS THINGS ARE HEATING UP AT THE COOLEST PLACE TO WORK IN CHICAGO

WE’RE HIRING TOUR GUIDES & DRIVERS! Our positions are ideal for actors, comics, writers, musicians, students, and teachers. You will learn about history, architecture, and culture while getting paid. After training, you will meet people from around the world and be the host of their Chicago experience.

ENGINEER: UL LLC (Northbrook,

IL) seeks Senior Project EngineerLean Six Sigma Black Belt w/ Bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering + 2 yrs experience as a Process Engineer handling large continuous improvement projects. Must have each of the following: 1) Lean SixSigma green belt or higher; 2) Must be fluent in Chinese; 3) Must be willing to participate in teleconferences with internal consultants and external clients in China outside normal business hours; 4) Must be willing to work 15% of time on projects over the weekend; and 5) Must be willing to travel 50% of the time (30% to China). Apply at www.ul.com. No calls. EOE.

ARCHITECT: STEWARTNOSKY ARCHI-TECTS, Ltd.

seeks Project Architects for Lisle, IL to plan & design de-tailed drawings for mixed-use, commercial dev, athletic facility & supermarket projects. Master’s in Arch +2yrs exp or Bachelor’s in Arch + 5yrs of exp req’d. Exp must incl mixeduse commercial projects, construction admin, exte-rior façade inspections, coordinat-ing w/ MEP & structural engineers, Chicago building code, IBC, Auto-CAD, Adobe Creative Suite, 3D ren-derings.

Send resume to: snar-ch57@gmail. com, Ref:VM

Aardvark Trading LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of TransMarket Group LLC, seeks Sr. Software Developers for Chicago, IL to create new sw solutions for the automated trading sw platform. Master’s in Comp. Sci./Eng., Informatics, Bioinformatics, or Tech. + 2yrs exp or Bachelor’s in Comp.

Sci./Eng., Informatics, Bioinformatics, of Tech + 5yrs exp req’d.

Exp w/ exchange connectivity, algorithm trading strategies & tools, back testing trading strategies, multithreading, C++, C#, Linux, SQL, Automated Testing req’d.

Apply online: http://www. transmarketgroup.com/career. html

SR. INSTRUCTOR & FIELD EDUCATION LIAISON, Erikson Institute in Chicago, IL. Teach graduate courses in social work & child develop.

Supervise students in field placement.

Req: Ph.D. in Child Development, Social Work, Counseling, or Psychology & MSW from CSWEaccredited prog + 2 yrs post MSW direct practice exp in SW. Details at http://www. e r i k s o n . e d u / about/employment/.

Resume to jobs@erikson.edu.

KCURA LLC SEEKS Software Engineer (Chicago, IL). Responsible for designing/writing/testing/ deploying/supporting new implementations for the tools that drive kCura. Must be willing to occasionally travel throughout the U.S. Apply by submitting resumes to: recruiting@kcura.com and referencing Job ID: 2016-MM-ENG-0091 KCURA, LLC SEEKS Advanced Performance Engineer (Chicago, IL) to drive customer confidence by assuring quality of current/future software products & engineer QA efficiencies in practice, through process & w/ effective tools/techniques.

Apply by submitting resumes to: recruiting@kcura.com and referencing Job ID: 2016-MM-ENG-0090.

Food Service Manager. Monitor compliance w/health regulations.

Estimate cost of puchases. Prepare payroll. 40hrs/wk. DesPlaines, IL. Requ.: Associate in Food Mangt.

Resume: BalkanikA, 1414 E. Oakton, DesPlaines, IL 60018 (Georgi Urdov)

TILE MASON. APPLY tile follow-

ing design specifications. Install acrylic wall surround, tub liner, plumbing fixtures. 40hrs/wk. Addison, IL. Requ.:1-yr exp. Resume: Coronet Construction, Inc., 205 Gerri Ln., Addison, IL 60101 (Greg Urbanek)

Operating Cost Clerk. Follow accounting procedures. Compute financial records.

40hrs/wk.

Burban, IL. Requ.: HS (Business Accounting) Resume: PG Express, 7705 N. England, Burbank, IL 60459 (Pavel Goldir) CHICAGO PREMIER RESTAURANT delivery service now hiring

reliable PT Customer Service Reps.

Apply in person Monday-Saturday, 3:30pm-5:30pm, 2602 S. Wallace, Chicago. 312-733-5019.

LAWYER; F/T; PREPARE and prosecute patent applications; JD and IL Bar license req’d; Mail resume: Ladas & Parry LLP, Attn: Burton Ehrlich, Esq. @ 224 South Michigan Avenue, Suite 1600, Chicago, IL 60604

4400 SOUTH RACINE

FRIDAYS, SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS

MAR 18-APRIL 3 · 10AM-5PM VISIT

CHICAGOTROLLEY.COM T O S E E YO U R F U T U R E

RENTALS

STUDIO $600-$699

FREE HEAT STUDIOS. CLOSE TO Public Transport at Howard/Rogers/ Greenview. Economy Rentals 3 Blocks from Howard CTA Station.

Rent $650. Heat/Water Included.

Move-in Fee $350.

Kathy 312.566.6567 EDGEWATER!

1061 W. Rosemont. Studios starting at $625 to $675, All Utilities included! Elevator building! Close to CTA red line train, restaurants, shopping, blocks to the lakefront, beaches and bike trails, laundry onsite, remodeled, etc. For a showing please contact Jay 773835-1864 Hunter Properties, Inc. 773-477-7070 www.hunterprop.com

STUDIO APARTMENT NEAR

Loyola Park. 1335 W Estes. Hardwood floors,. Cats OK. Heat included.

Laundry in building. $695-$725/ month. Available 5/1. 773-761-4318, w ww.lakefrontmgt.com

STUDIO APARTMENT NEAR

Red Line. 6824 N Wayne. Hardwood floors. Pets OK. Heat included. Laundry in building. $695/ month. Available 5/1.

773-761-4318, www. lakefrontmgt.com

7500 SOUTH SHORE Dr. Brand New Rehabbed Studio & 1BR Apts from $650.

Call 773-374-7777 for details.

STUDIO $700-$899 HIGH RISE STUDIO, Montrose Harbor, doorman, pool, cleaners, store in building. No pets. $850/ mo. Heat included. Available April 1.

708-283-0506

EVENT STYLIST - plan, design

and decorate facility interiors for family and business events. Req’d: 2yrs experience. Resume to Edyta Jagas, Elite Chair Covers, 7533 W. 98th Place, Bridgeview, IL 60455

CAR WASH MANAGER Needed.

Valid drivers license & ability to drive a stick shift a must. Apply in person: 478 N. Milwaukee, Chicago or call 312-633-9274

CAMPAIGN JOBS

STUDIO OTHER CHICAGO, HYDE PARK Arms

Hotel, 5316 S. Harper, maid, phone, cable ready, fridge, private facilities, laundry avail. $160/wk Call 773-4933500

8324 S INGLESIDE 2BR, newly remodled, lndry, hrdwd flrs, cable, Sec 8 welc. $780mo 708-3081509, 773-493-3500 CROSSROADS HOTEL SRO SINGLE RMS Private bath, PHONE,

CABLE & MAIDS. 1 Block to Orange Line 5300 S. Pulaski 773-581-1188

EDGEWATER - NICE Room with

stove, fridge & bath, by Shopping & Transp. Elevator, Lndry. $116/wk. & Up. Call 773-275-4442

MIDWAY AREA/63RD KEDZIE Deluxe Studio 1 & 2 BRs. All

modern oak floors, appliances, Security system, on site maint. clean & quiet, Nr. transp. From $445. 773582-1985 (espanol)

CHICAGO SOUTH - YOU’VE tried the rest, we are the best.

Apartments & Homes for rent, city & suburb. No credit checks.

773-221-7490, 773-221-7493 WINTER SPECIAL $500 To-

ward Rent Beautiful Studios 1, 2, 3 & 4 BR Sect. 8 Welc. Westside Loc, Must qualify. 773-287-4500 www. wjmngmt.com

79TH & WOODLAWN 1BR $650-$700, 2BR $775-$800; 76th & Phillips: 2BR $775-$800. Remodeled, appls avail. FREE HEAT. Sec 8 welc. 312-286-5678 CO-OP APARTMENTS AFFORDABLE LIVING, Chat-

ham, 83rd & Langley. Dep. Req, Pymt Plns Avail. heat incl, no appliances.

Credit chk fee $50. Call 773-723-1374

CHICAGO, BEVERLY / Cal Park / Blue Island Studio $530 & up, 1BR $650 & up, 2BR $875 & up. Heat, Appls, Balcony, Carpet, Laundry, Prkg. 708-388-0170 CHICAGO W

1, 2 & 3BR Apts available.

(Section 8 welc. No dep req’d.) Call 773-501-1345

73RD AND JEFFERY Blvd. Large 1BRs, heated, hardwood flrs, laundry room, appls, near trans. $675 and up. 773-881-3573 REHAB 1 &

2BRs, garden, 1st & 2nd flrs, spac, appl, lndry facility, hdwd flrs, Quiet bldg. Sec 8 ok. $600- $750 773-344-4050

CHICAGO - HYDE PARK 5401 S. Ellis.

1BR. $600/mo Call 773-955-5106 NO SEC DEP 6829 S. Perry.

Studio $460. 1BR. $515.

HEAT INCL 773-955-5106 Nr 71st/Marshfield. 3rms, 1BR, decor, hdwd flrs, heat incl, nr trans & shops. $600. No Sec. Brown Realty Inc. 773-239-9566

Chicago. 82nd & Justine. 1bdrm. near transportation. $675/mo. 1 month rent + 1 month Security.

Heat included. 773-873-1591

142/Lasalle 3/1,ss, app. $1095.

75th Hoyne 4/1.5 lrg yrd$1375.

142 Lowe 4/2 $1400.

773.619.4395 Charlie 818.679.1175

1 BR $700-$799 PLAZA ON THE PARK 608 East 51st Street. Very spacious renovated apartments. 1BR $722 - $801, 2BR $837 - $1,009, 3BR $1,082- $1,199, 4-5BR $1,273 - $1,405. Visit or call (773)548-9300, M-F 9am-5pm or apply online at www.plazaonthepark apts.com Managed by Metroplex, Inc

CHATHAM - 1BR 89TH/ Dauphin. $700-$750. 2BR. 73rd/ Indiana. $775-$875. Spac, laundry rm, sec camera, good trans.

312-341-1950

CALUMET CITY, Huge 1BR, 1BA. Newly rehabbed, appliances included. $700/month.

Section 8 ok. Call 510-7357171

1 BR $800-$899 ROGERS PARK/ EVANSTON!

7665-7703 N. Sheridan Rd. 1 bedrooms starting at $875 to $925, includes heat and cooking gas! Hardwood floors, free WiFi. Vintage courtyard building, by Evanston Northwestern University, long-term private ownership, cats ok, dogs upon approval. For a showing please contact Samir 773-627-4894. Hunter Properties 773-477-7070 www. hunterprop.com

LAKESIDE TOWER, 910 W Lawrence. 1 bedrooms starting at $825-$895 include heat and gas, laundry in building. Great view! Close to CTA Red Line, bus, stores, restaurants, lake, etc. To schedule a showing please contact Celio 773-3961575, Hunter Properties 773-4777070, www.hunterprop.com ONE

BEDROOM

GARDEN

apartment near Warren Park and Metra. 6802 N Wolcott. Hardwood floors. Cats OK. Heat included. Laundry in building. $800/ month. Available 4/1.

773-761-4318, www. lakefrontmgt.com

4350 NORTH ASHLAND. Studio $825. Hardwood floors, ceiling fans, new windows. Cooking gas, heat included. Laundry in building. Close to transportation. Available now. Cat OK. Contact 773-472-8469 or luckym ip22@gmail.com ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT

near Red Line. 6824 N Wayne. Hardwood floors. Pets OK. Heat included.

Laundry in building. $850/ month.

Available 5/1. 773-761-4318, www. lakefrontmgt.com

1 BR $900-$1099 EVANSTON, 1404 CENTRAL,

Apt 107. Near Evanston Hospital and shuttle bus to Northwestern. Beautiful courtyard. Spacious vintage apartment, laundry and storage on premises. Near public transportation and el and super shopping on Central. Heat and appliances included. 31/2/1 bedroom. Available now-6/30.

Renew optional. $1050. For appointment call 312-822-1037 weekdays until 5:30pm, Saturdays until 3pm.

Hyde Park West Apts., 5325 S. Cottage Grove Ave., Renovated spacious apartments in landscaped gated community. Off street parking available. 1BR $1195 - Free heat, 2BR $1400 - Free heat, 4BR Townhome $2200. Visit or call 773-324-0280, M-F: 9am-5pm or apply online- www.hydepark west. com. Managed by Metroplex, Inc

CLEAN ROOM WITH fridge and microwave. Close to Oak Park, Walmart, Buses & Metra. $115/wk & up. 773-637-5957

WE’RE THE BEST AT WHAT WE DO AND WE ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!

-OPEN INTERVIEWS-

REAL ESTATE

BIG ROOM WITH stove, fridge, bath & new floor. N. Side, by transp/ shop. Clean w/elevator. $116/wk + up. 773-561-4970

12.25/HR FOR 90 DAYS THEN

15.00/HR

A P P LY N O W 8 7 2 . 2 0 3 . 9 3 0 3

1 BR UNDER $700 7022 S. SHORE DRIVE Impecca-

bly Clean Highrise STUDIOS, 1 & 2 BEDROOMS Facing Lake & Park.

Laundry & Security on Premises.

Parking & Apts. Are Subject to Availability. TOWNHOUSE APARTMENTS 773-288-1030

SPRINGTIME SAVINGS! 1 BR’s at $675/mo with all utilities 2-5BR $650/mo & up. Section 8 ok. Discount on Move-in Fee & Rental discounts after 6 months of "On Time" payments!

773.412.1153 - Wesley Realty

COLLEGE GIRL BODY RUBS $40 w/AD 24/7

224-223-7787

MARCH 24, 2016 | CHICAGO READER 37

EVANSTON.

1124

CHURCH

Apt 1-2. Available April 20-October 31. $1060. Option to renew November 1, $1125. Near Northwestern.

Downtown Evanston, shops, restaurants, movies, el, Metra. Large kitchens, spacious closets, laundry on premises, hardwood floors. Heat and appliances included. 1 bedroom. For appointment call 312-822-1037 weekdays until 5:30pm, Saturdays until 3pm.

LOYOLA 7000N GND 2BR: new constr. 1400sf, SS appl, oak flrs, CAC, on-site lndy. $1250/ heated 773-743-4141 urbanequiti es.com RAVENSWOOD 1BR: 850SF, great kit, DW, oak flrs, near Brown line, on-site lndy/storage, $975/ heated 773-743-4141 www. urbanequities.com EDGEWATER STUDIO: 2 1/2 rms; full kit, oak flrs, on-site lndry, $795/incls ht, water & cooking gas.

773-743-4141 www.urbanequities. com

W. Edgewater 1BR: Stunning 900sf vintage, great kit, new appl, oak flrs, on-site lndy $935$1050/incl ht. 773-743-4141 www. urbanequities.com HOMEWOOD- SUNNY 900SF

1BR Great Kitc, New Appls, Oak Flrs, A/C, Lndry & Storage, $950/mo Incls heat & prkg. 773.743.4141

1 BR $1100 AND OVER EVANSTON. 818-1/2 FOREST

Ave Apt C-3. Stately building on quiet street, near Sheridan Road. Sedate residential area. Near Main Street, shops, restaurants and transportation. Heat and appliances included.

We will fax floorplans upon request. 1 bedroom. Available now-6/30 option to renew. $1250. For appointment call 312-822-1037 weekdays until 5:30pm, Saturdays until 3pm.

LOGAN SQUARE Boulevard Coach House, 2-story LR with fireplace, loft, bedroom & sitting room, modern kitchen & bath, utilities included. $1500/mo. 773-235-1066 1748 W. WABANSIA 1 bdrm $1150. Water included. Call Daniel 773-875-8085 or Paul J. Quetschke & Co., 773-281-8400 (Mon-Fri. 9-5).

1 BR OTHER CALUMET CITY 158TH & PAXTON SANDRIDGE APTS 1 & 2 BEDROOM UNITS MODELS OPEN M-F, 9AM-5:30PM *** 708-841-5450 ***

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MANAGEMENT & INVESTMENT LTD. THE HAWK HAS...

ARRIVED!!!

MOST INCLUDE HEAT & HOT WTR STUDIOS FROM $510.00 1BDR FROM $575.00 2BDR FROM $745.00 3 BDR/2 FULL BATH FROM $1175 **1-(773)-476-6000** CALL FOR DETAILS

1 BR APARTMENTS for Rent Mt. Vernon Manor 30 N. Waller Ave. Chicago, IL 60644 (Austin Area) Tax Credit Bldg. for Seniors Rents starting at $264 to $693

Apartments come complete with appliances, carpet, central air, blinds and balcony. Laundry facilities on premises. Tenant is responsible for paying their own electric.

For more details Call 773-626-3298 Equal Opportunity Housing

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MANAGEMENT & INVESTMENT LTD. THE HAWK IS HERE! HEAT, HW & CG INCLUDED 1BDR FROM $725.00 2BDR FROM $895.00 3 BDR/2 FULL BATH FROM $1175 **1-(773)-476-6000** CALL FOR DETAILS

WAITING LIST OPEN Drexel Square Senior Apts. 810 E. 51st.

Chicago, IL. 60615 for Qualified Seniors 62+ Beautiful park like setting, Hyde park area, rent based on 30% of monthly income (sec.

8), A/C, heat, lndry., rec. rooms, storage space in apt, cable ready, intercom entrance system, 24 hours front desk customer service.

Applications will be accepted immediately between the hours of 11:00am-3:00pm at the above address. 773-268-2120

SECTION 8 AFFORDABLE Housing Waiting List is now open!!

1, 2, & 3 Bdrms 2443 W. Dugdale Rd Waukegan, IL 60085

APPLY NOW!!! You must apply in person & all adults must be present.

ID, Social Security Card & Birth Certificate REQUIRED Contact: Management Office 847-336-4400

ROUND LAKE BEACH, IL Cedar Villas is accepting applications for subsidized 1BR apts. for seniors 62 years or older and the disabled.

Rent is based on 30% of annual income. For details, call us at 847-546-1899 ∫ ROUND LAKE BEACH, IL Cedar Villas is accepting applications for subsidized 1BR apts. for seniors 62 years or older and the disabled.

Rent is based on 30% of annual income. For details, call us at 847-546-1899 ∫ CHICAGO, 7727 S. Colfax, ground flr Apt., ideal for senior citizens. Secure bldng. Modern 1BR $595. Lrg 2BR, $800. Free cooking & heating gas. Free parking. 312613-4427 SUBURBS, RENT TO O W N !

Buy with No closing costs and get help with your credit.

Call 708-868-2422 or visit w ww.nhba.com CHICAGO, RENT TO OWN! Buy with no closing costs and get help with your credit. Call 708-868-2422 or visit www. nhba.com CHICAGO - BEVERLY, LARGE 2 room Studio & 1BR, Carpet, A/C, laundry, near transportation, $640-$750/mo.

Call 773-233-4939 CHATHAM- 718 E. 81st St. Newly remodeled 1 & 2 BR, 1 BA, Dining room, Living room, hdwd flrs, appliances. & heat included. Call 847-5335463

6901 S. PRAIRIE, 7600 S. Stewart, 7810 S. Escanaba, 7840 S. Yates. Studio - 4BRs, new rehabs, heat & appls incl. Call 773-9830639

Large Sunny Room w/fridge & microwave. Nr. Oak Park, Green Line, bus. 24 hour desk, parking lot. $101/week & Up. 773-3788888 CHICAGO SOUTH SIDE Beauti-

ful Studios, 1,2,3 & 4 BR’s, Sec 8 ok. $500 gift certificate for Sec 8 tenants. 773-287-9999/312-446-3333

RENT TO OWN 2, 3, 4 & 5BR Homes 2 & 3 BR apts also avail, Sec 8 OK. 708-737-2036 or 312-662-3963 3BR, 1.5BA , 10609 S. Praire,smoke free/drug free quiet bldng, 2nd flr, $1100/mo. Available April 1st. 773-873-3134 ACACIA SRO HOTEL Men Preferred! Rooms for Rent. Weekly & Monthly Rates. 312-421-4597

NO MOVE-IN FEE! No Dep! Sec 8 ok. 1, 2 & 3 Bdrms. Elev bldg, laundry, pkg. 6531 S. Lowe.

Call Moni 773-874-0100

68TH & KING Dr - newly remod

4BR, 2BA, $1350. 72nd & St. Lawrence 2BR, $1100. Ten pays utils & 1 mo sec, 773-668-8901

MOVE IN SPECIAL!!!

B4 the N of this MO. & MOVE IN 4 $99.00 (773) 874-1122

Ashland Hotel nice clean rms.

24 hr desk/maid/TV/laundry/air.

Low rates daily/weekly/monthly.

South Side. Call 773-376-5200 ROYALTON HOTEL, Kitchenette $135 & up wk. 1810 W. Jackson 312-226-4678

2 BR UNDER $900 7129 S. WABASH, Spacious 2BR Apt, 2nd floor, LR, DR, tenant pays utilities. $800/mo + sec dep. Section 8 welcome. 773480-6414 MATTESON, IL NEWLY DECORATED, 2 BEDROOM, HEAT INCLUDED, $850 PLUS 1 MONTH SECURITY. 4247 LINDENWOOD DRIVE. AFTER 6PM 708-957-7861 2 KING SIZE BRS, 5 rms, 6122 S. St. Lawrence, new kit, BA, fans, crpt, appls, balc, lndry, $795 + utils. Sec 8/Seniors Welc. 312504-2008

2 BR $900-$1099

2 BR $1300-$1499

CHICAGO SOUTH SHORE, 69t

LINCOLN PARK. 526-1/2 W

h/Chappel, 2 bedroom 1 bath 3rd floor unit, $950 month. quiet building, 1 month security deposit, carpeted, heat/appliances included, laundry on site, near bus/train. no pets, no smoking. 773-547-0307

BUCKTOWN/ WICKER PARK.

Milwaukee/ Ashland/ Division. Lovely, 4 room, all remodeled, hwfl, 2 bedroom. Victorian building. Second floor. Two blocks Blue Line. $995.

773-710-3634.

UPTOWN, TWO BEDROOM

apartment, 2 blocks from lake. 817 W Montrose (at Clarendon), rehabbed vintage, heat/ appliances included, hardwood floors. $1025. Call EJM, 773-935-4425.

SECTION 8 WELCOME Chicago, 2BR, LR, DR, Kitchen. wall to wall carpet, $900/month + security deposit.

Call 773-580-6292

Addison #118. 5 rooms, 2 bedroom.

Available now-April 30, $1465. May 1, $1595. Great apartment with a beautiful coutyard. Laundry on premises, storage lockers. Steps from the lake, transportation, shopping and recreation. Resident engineer. Heat and appliances included. To see call 312822-1037 weekdays 8:30am to 5:30pm, Saturdays 9am to 3pm.

ROGERS PARK. 7535 N. Hoyne.

Must see large 2 bedroom unit $1395 HEAT INCLUDED! Hardwood floors, dishwasher and microwave included.

Close to transportation and shopping. For a showing please contact Fatima 773-732-8436 Hunter Properties, Inc. 773-477-7070 www. hunterprop.com

ENGLEWOOD, 2 LARGE BR

EAST L A K E V I E W / WRIGLEYVILLE Newly renovated, sunny, 2 bedroom apartment in elegant vintage greystone building w/hardwood floors, dishwasher, air-conditioning, backyard patio, washer/dryer on premises. $13 50/month. Call Nat 773-880-2414.

2BR+

ROGERS PK: STUNNING 2BR: 1400sf, new kit, SS appl, FDR, oak flrs, on-site lndy. $1295$1350/heated 773-743-4141 www. urbanequities.com

apt, hdwd floors, sit in kitchen, 851 W 68th St. close to schools/ trans. $600 /mo + $900 security dep. 773-8581965

NR

83RD/JEFFREY,

heated, decor FP, hdwd flrs, lots of storage, formal DR, intercom, newly remod kitchen & bath. $1000. Missy 773-241-9139

GLENWOOD - LARGE 2BR

Condo, H/F High Schl. balc, C/A, appls, heat, water/gas incl. 2 Pkg, lndry. $950 /mo. 708-612-3762

SOUTHSHORE - LARGE 2+ BR Apt, 1 bath., hardwood floors, new appliances. Laundry avail.

Heat included. $900/mo. 708204-2182

2 BR $1100-$1299

113TH & CALUMET : Newly decorated apt, 2BR, hdwd, lr, dr, secure bldg, $900/mo, utils incl., 1 month sec dep/credit chk req’d.

708-250-6005.

CHICAGO, 2BR, 1BA, 7337 S Shore, $1100/mo + 1 mo sec.

New appls, wall-wall crpt, lake view, heat incl. Sect 8 welc, security, exercise rm & grocery store. 773-718-4227

LANSING - 2237 175th St, 2BR, quiet bldg, laundry rm, lr, dr, balcony, section 8 ok, $875/month plus 1 month security 312-965-1279

Electricity included. Call Daniel, 773985-8085 or Paul J. Quetschke & Co. 773-281-8400 (Mon.-Fri 9-5)

CHICAGO 92nd and Marquette, 2BR, 3rd floor, quiet bldg, carpet, heat included, $725, Nice!

1 mo rent, 1 mo sec. 773-505-1853

VICINITY OF 77TH & King Dr 6 Room, 1.5 BA House finished basement, $1250/month 773-407-3143

3232 N LEAVITT, 2 bdrm $1100.

2 BR $1500 AND

OVER

ARCHITECT DESIGNED GREY STON E- Logan Square 2

bdr. study; deluxe bath; vintage oak gas fireplace; stainless appliances; maple cabinets; huge closets; aircond.; garden; garage option $1500/ mo. occupy 4/1 or 4/15 (847)2599352 or cell (224)558-0851.

ROSCOE VILLAGE. AVAILABLE May 1. Refurbished 5 room,

2 bedroom, natural wood, fans/ dishwasher. All utilities included central air/heat+ parking space. No pets /smoking $1525.+security/credit check. 815 273-0161

2 BR OTHER ROUND LAKE BEACH, IL Cedar

CHICAGO 7600 S Essex 2BR $599, 3BR $699, 4BR $799 w/apprvd credit, no sec dep. Sect 8 Ok! 773287-9999 /312-446-3333

Water included.

Quetschke & Co. (Mon.-Fri 9-5)

4153 N. LINCOLN 2 bdrm $1225.

Villas is accepting applications for Subsidized 2 and 3 bedroom apt waiting list. Rent is based on 30% of annual income for qualified applicants. Contact us at 847-546-1899 for details

CHICAGO large 2 or 3BR, Sect 8 ok, great bkyrd. Btwn $850-$1000 Newly renov. 7918 S. Essex. John 312-286-6039/ 312-431-0602

3752 N. SOUTHPORT 2 Bdrm $1100. Water included. Call Daniel, 773-875-8085 or Paul J. Quetschke & Co. 773-281-8400 (Mon.-Fri 9-5)

LARGE 2 BEDROOM Apartments. Wood floors, appliances, laundry, FREE heat/gas. Sec 8 Approved 773-420-8570

Call Paul J. 773-281-8400

ROUND LAKE BEACH, IL Cedar Villas is accepting applications for Subsidized 2 and 3 bedroom apt waiting list. Rent is based on 30% of annual income for qualified applicants. Contact us at 847-546-1899 for details CHICAGO, PRINCETON PARK

HOMES. Spac 2 - 3 BR Townhomes, Inclu: Prvt entry, full bsmt, lndry hook-ups. Ample prkg. Close to trans & schls. Starts at $816/mo. www. ppkhomes.com;773-264-3005

MATTESON 2 & 3 BR AVAIL. 2BR, $990-$1050; 3BR, $1250-$1400.

Move In Special is 1 Month’s Rent & $99 Security Deposit. Section 8 Welcome. Call 708-748-4169 4BR APARTMENTS, appliances included. Tenant pays all utilities.

Section 8 Welcome. 708-7200084

3 BR OR MORE UNDER $1200 SECTION 8 WELCOME. 1537 E. 85th St., Newly renovated 3BR, 1BA, basement, 2.5 car garage, fenced in yard, perfect for children.

Call 773317-4357

10234 S Crandon , s m a l l home, no bsmt, 3BR, 1BA, kit & util rm, totally ren a/c, all appl incl, nice fncd yd, excellent for small children. CHA welcome 773-317-4357 68th/Rockwell. Newly decorated 3BR, LR, DR, kit, bonus rm, heat incl. nr schools & trans. $1100/ mo. $700 1st mo rent. 773-8512232 BLUE ISLAND, 2423 W. 123rd St, 3BR, 1.5BA, freshly decor, modern BA & kitch, A/C, heat incl. $1050/mo+1 mo sec.

Larry, 708-529-3836 DOLTON, NEWLY RENOVATED Home for Rent. 3BR, 1BA, fin bsmt, 2 car gar. $1100/mo + 1.5 mo sec. No pets. 708752-2665 110TH & VERNON: Exceptional, newly renovated 3BR, 3rd floor. $900/mo, no security deposit.

Section 8 Welcome. 708-3354332

67TH/CARPENTER ST. 3BDRM, 1ba. Large backyard, up-

dated kitchen/bath and garage. $950 ($450 move in fee). 773-569-1982

3BED/1BATH FRESH PAINT

nice big house 6540 s Campbell, avail immed 1100+gas,elec+dep req call sam 630-336-6821 only sec 8

3BR APT - 5723 S. Michigan

2nd flr, newly decorated. $950 + sec dep. Tenant pays utils.

773-858-3163

EAST GARFIELD PARK, West Side -Newly Rehab 3BR Apts. $1095 - $1195 / month 773-230-6132 or 773-931-6108 CALUMET CITY, 3BR, 1.5BA, 2 car gar, fully rehab w/gorgeous finishes w/ hdwd flrs. Sec 8 OK. $1125/mo Call 510-735-7171 SOUTHSIDE 8035 S. Marshfield, 3BR, 2nd floor, no Pets, $875/mo. + 1 mo. sec. dep. Tenant pays all utilities. 773-873-4549 61/RHODES New Decor 3BR formal dining room $875 Heat included 773-874-9637 / 773-493-5359

3 BR OR MORE $1200-$1499 CHICAGO: E. ROGERS PARK

6726 N. Bosworth Ave. Beautiful, large 3BR, 2BA, DR, LR, Hrdwd flrs.

Nr trans/shops. Heat, appls, laundry included. $1375. Available now.

847-475-3472

CALUMET CITY- HOUSE- No

Basement 3 Bedrooms 1 1/2 Bath $1300.00 Monthly, Sec 8 OK Call 708 990-6237

COUNTRY CLUB HILLS vic of 183RD/Cicero.

4BR, 1.5BA $1400 & 3BR/2BA. $1450.

Ranch Style, 2 car gar. 708369-5187 DELUXE 4BRS ($1300) & 1BRs ($800). Hardwood flrs and appls incl, close to trans, schools.

Sec 8 Welcome. 773-443-3200 SECTION 8 READY ! 3BR, newly remodeled. Refrigerator, stove & all utils incl., $1200/mo. Off street parking available. 312-217-2386

CHICAGO, 3BR Modern Apt on Peoria St., private back porch, $85 0/mo + 1 mo sec. Heat included.

Off street parking. Call 773-8746303

HARVEY Sec 8 Welcome $0 Security for Section 8. $500 cash back. 3BR, $1300/mo. Fine condition. ADT Alarm. 708-715-0034

3 BEDROOM 65TH & Talman,

PAULINA $1400/MONTH plus utilities plus security deposit. Ready April 5th 708-921-7810

stove, fridge, laundry facilities. $900+ Sec. 773-881-8836

SOUTHSIDE: 6BR 2BA 68TH &

FREE TO LISTEN AND REPLY TO ADS

60 MINUTES FREE TRIAL

THE HOTTEST GAY CHATLINE

1-312-924-2082 More Local Numbers: 800-777-8000

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38 CHICAGO READER | MARCH 24, 2016

REAL PEOPLE REAL DESIRE REAL FUN.

Try FREE: 773-867-1235 More Local Numbers: 1-800-926-6000

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Meet sexy friends who really get your vibe...

Try FREE: 312-924-2066 More Local Numbers: 1-800-811-1633

FIND REAL GAY MEN NEAR YOU

(773) 787-0200 vibeline.com 18+

www.megamates.com 18+

SOUTHSIDE - 12025 S. Perry St 4Br, 2Ba, Section 8 Welcome, Eat-inkit, Option to buy 708-288-7939

3 BR OR MORE $1500-$1799 CHATHAM 7900 BLOCK of Langley. 3BR 1.5BA, renov kit & BA. Appls & heat incl, lndry. Sec 8 Ok. $1500. Mr. Johnson 630-4241403

FOR SALE

SECTION 8 WELCOME. NO SECURITY DEPOSIT. 1701 W 59th, 4BR, 2BA house, appliances included, $1200/mo. 708-288-4510 NEAR 83RD & Yates. 5BR, 2BA, hdwd flrs, fin basement, stove & fridge furn. Heat incl. $1600 + 1 mo sec. Sect 8 ok. 773-978-6134 SECTION 8 WELCOME. No Security Deposit. 314 W 106th Place, 3BR house, appls included $1250/mo. Call 708-288-4510

THE LATEST ON WHAT’S HAPPENING AROUND TOWN READER RECOMMENDS

WEEKLY E-BLAST GET UP TO DATE. SIGN UP NOW.

JUMBO

WI Fully Furnished Home with 2.5 heated car garage, & attic loft studio.

Move in condition .See details at: ww w.wilakearea-home4sale.com Contact Frank at Wi-Home4Sale@aol. com or at 262-834-8400. Price $132,750 obo-this is a FSBO

BANK OWNED ON-SITE REAL ESTATE AUCTION FLOSSMOOR

3 BR OR MORE $1800-$2499 BEAUTIFUL

MANCAVE, VACATION RETREAT, Weekend Get-Away - SE

BRICK

Bungalo. West Pullman, Chicago neighborhood. 5BR, 3BA. $1850/mo.

Sec 8 Welcome. 773-430-9469

3 BR OR MORE $2500 AND OVER Lincolnwood: Single family house bi-level, 6923 N. Avers, 4BR, 3.

5BA, 2-car gar., near schools, $2800mo w/option to buy. 847791-1670 5BR, 3BA HOUSE, fenced yard,

fin bsmt, security camera, sec 8 welcome. $2500/mo Serious Inquries only. Call 773-443-6307

3 BR OR MORE OTHER

NORTH AUSTIN, L u x u r y 5BR brick house for rent w/ option to purch. Huge bckyrd, 1 car gar, new windows, new h/w flrs throughout, marble kitch. flr & counter top, maple cabinets, has 2 full ceramic BAs, w/ finished bsmnt, alarm.

Minimum Credit Must Be 630+.Rent/price neg. 630-709-0078 4519 S LAPORTE: 4BR ranch, 1BA, FR, no bsmt. Move in cond.

2 car garage, CAC, $1500/mo.

Section 8 Welc. 773-206-4486

227 Shea Drive 2BR, 2.5BA, 2492 Sq. Ft. Single Family Home.

Sale Date, Sat 5/7, 12noon Free Color Brochure 1-800-260-5846 auctionservicesintl.com 5% Buyers Premium Josh Orland, Auctioneer WI. 471.006701 ASI-FM. 444000425 PARK FOREST, Owner Financing newly remodeled 3BR Townhouse, hardwood floors, $950/mo Call 708527-2147.

2 FLAT BRICK ON NICE BLOCK

4bds, 2bth $21K OBO CASH COW!!

(312) 465-1552 57XX s. Bishop CALL NOW!

GOLD COAST 2 BEDROOM, 50 E . Bellevue, newly furnished, desirable location. By owner, terms.

Mr. K. 847-784-0035 POSEN SINGLE FAMILY Ranch,

4BR, 2BA, 3.5 car gar, recent remod kitch & bath, hdwd flrs, SS appls. $125,000. 708-351-0258

WE BUY HOUSES CASH Apts & Commercial foreclosures, any area, price or condition. We close fast! 708-506-2997

ALL NEW

Hdwd, granite and Stainless Steel appls 2 & 3BRs, across from school Sec 8 Welc. 312-882-9674

MATTESON, SAUK VILLAGE &

CHICAGOREADER.COM

UNIVERSITY PARK. 4, 3 & 2BR, House/Condo, Section 8 ok.

For information: 708-625-7355

Dolton,

14511 Avalon, fully renov 3BR, 1BA, all appls incl, W/D, fully fin bsmt, fncd in yrd. A/C. CHA insp. Sec 8 ok. 773-317-4357

7342 S. HARVARD, 4BR, stove, fridge, W/D. 5418 S. Aberdeen, 1st floor, 3BR, heat incl. 6224 S. Aberdeen, 3 & 4BR. Call 312-287-5311 CHICAGO HOUSES FOR rent.

Section 8 Ok, w/app credit $500 gift certificate 3, 4 & 5 BR houses avail.

312-446-3333 or 708-752-3812

non-residential SELF-STORAGE CENTERS. T W O locations to serve you. All

units fully heated and humidity controlled with ac available. North: Knox Avenue.

773-685-6868.

South: Pershing Avenue. 773-523-6868.

3743 W. MONTROSE Store 555

Sq Ft. Water included. Call Paul J. Quetschke & Co., 773-281-8400 (Mon-Fri 9-5).

roommates AVAILABLE NOW. ROOMS for

rent. Utilities incl’d. Seniors Welcome. $400/mo. Call 773-431-1251

MARKETPLACE

partner(s) is: MARY BURCH 2006 W GIDDINGS ST 3W, CHICAGO, IL 60625, USA, MARY SIMMONS 1307 E 60TH ST 241, CHICAGO, IL 60647, USA

CLASSICS WANTED Any classic cars in any condition. ’20s, ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s & ’70s. Hotrods & Exotics!

Top Dollar Paid!

Collector.

Call James, 630-201-8122

NOTICE IS HEREBY given, pursuant to “An Act in relation to the use of an Assumed Business Name in the conduct or transaction of Business in the State,” as amended, that a certification was registered by the undersigned with the County Clerk of Cook County. Registration Number: D16145863 on March 10, 2016 Under the Assumed Business Name of SUMMIT INSIGHTS with the business located at: 1628 N PAULINA ST, CHICAGO, IL 60622. The true and real full name(s) and residence address of the owner(s)/partner(s) is: BELINDA BRENNAN, 1628 N

GOODS

MASSAGE TABLES, NEW and

used. Large selection of professional high quality massage equipment at a very low price. Visit us at www. bestmassage.com or call us, 773764-6542.

SERVICES LEGAL SERVICES- Need A

Lawyer? For as low as $19.95 CONSULTATIONS: Credit Repair, Bankruptcy, Divorce, Foreclosure, Evictions, Contract Review, Traffic T ickets/DUI, Expungement, Criminal Defense & more. Call Theresa 312806-0646

FULL BODY MASSAGE. hotel, house calls welcome $90 special.

Russian, Polish, Ukrainian girls.

Northbrook and Schaumburg locations. 10% discount for new customers. Please call 773-407-7025 KOREAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY Ser-vices is offering JAP-

ANESE and CHI-NESE classes beginning the week of March 28th: 10 weeks. $ 90. Native speaker instructor. call 773.583.5501

HEALTH & WELLNESS

PAULINA ST., CHICAGO, IL 60622, USA

NOTICE IS HEREBY given, pursuant to “An Act in relation to the use of an Assumed Business Name in the conduct or transaction of Business in the State,” as amended, that a certification was registered by the undersigned with the County Clerk of Cook County. Registration Number: D16145887 on March 11, 2016 Under the Assumed Business Name of GRAND PAINTING & WALL COVERING with the business located at: 3842 S. EVANS, CHICAGO, IL 60653. The true and real full name(s) and residence address of the owner (s)/partner(s) is: REMINGTON HENDERSON, 3842 S. EVANS, CHICAGO, IL 60653, USA

UKRAINIAN MASSAGE. CALLS in/ out. Chicago and sub-

urbs. Hotels. 1234 S Michigan Avenue. Appointments. 773-616-6969.

ADULT SERVICES FULL BODY EROTIC Massage from fit young man from $60 an half hour incall or $100 a half hour outcall or $100 an hour an hour incall or $150 an hour outcall. Text 630-802-5309 if interested.

MUSIC & ARTS THIRD BY WENDY Wasserstein,

a staged reading. Open Call - Currently seeking 2 men, one late teens / early twenties & the second - 60 to 75; 2 women ages 20 -55. The role of Lau-rie has already been cast. Prepared monologues and cold reading will be heard. No appointment necessary. March 28 & 29, 6 – 9 p.m.

Oakton.e-du; 847.635.1897

legal notices NOTICE IS HEREBY given, pursuant to “An Act in relation to the use of an Assumed Business Name in the conduct or transaction of Business in the State,” as amended, that a certification was registered by the undersigned with the County Clerk of Cook County. Registration Number: D16145829 on March 9, 2016 Under the Assumed Business Name of PERSEPHONE FLORAL ATELIER with the business located at: 2006 W GIDDINGS ST 3W, CHICAGO, IL 60625.

The true and real full name(s) and residence address of the owner (s)/

NOTICE IS HEREBY given, pursuant to “An Act in relation to the use of an Assumed Business Name in the conduct or transaction of Business in the State,” as amended, that a certification was registered by the undersigned with the County Clerk of Cook County. Registration Number: D16145946 on March 18, 2016 Under the Assumed Business Name of JELLIGUN with the business located at: 5207 NORTH ASHLAND AVE #1, CHICAGO, IL 60640. The true and real full name(s) and residence address of the owner (s)/partner(s) is: JESSICA GUNDERSON, 5207 NORTH ASHLAND AVE #1, CHICAGO, IL 60640, USA

NOTICE IS HEREBY given, pursuant to “An Act in relation to the use of an Assumed Business Name in the conduct or transaction of Business in the State,” as amended, that a certification was registered by the undersigned with the County Clerk of Cook County. Registration Number: D16145753 on March 2 , 2016 Under the Assumed Business Name of JUST F’N RELAX with the business located at: 1735 N. PAULINA #415, CHICAGO, IL 60622. The true and real full name(s) and residence address of the owner (s)/partner(s) is: DANA M. HORTICK, 1735 N. PAULINA #415, CHICAGO, IL 60622, USA

MARCH 24, 2016 | CHICAGO READER 39

SPONSORED CONTENT

SLUG SIGNORINO

DRINK SPECIALS

STRAIGHT DOPE

By Cecil Adams Q : After watching a few crime films, I’m

LINCOLN PARK

LINCOLN SQUARE

BERW YN

2683 N Halsted 773-348-9800

4757 N Talman 773-942-6012

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ALIVEONE THU

$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, $4 Lagunitas drafts, $4 Absolut cocktails, “Hoppy Hour” 5pm8pm = 1/2 price IPAs + pale ales

FRI

$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, “Hoppy Hour” 5pm8pm = 1/2 price IPAs + pale ales

MONTI’S

$5 Martinis, Lemon Drop, Cinnamon Apple, Mai Tai, French, Cosmo, On the Rocks, Bourbon Swizzle, Pomegranate Margarita

FITZGERALD’S

WICKER PARK

SOUTH LOOP

PHYLLIS’ MUSICAL INN

REGGIE’S

$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Bombs $4, Malibu Cocktails $4, Jack Daniel’s Cocktails $5, Tanqueray Cocktails $4, Johnny Walker Black $5, Cabo Wabo $5

$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Wine by the Glass $5, Jameson $5, Patron $7, Founders 12oz All Day IPA Cans $3.50

$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Heineken Bottles $4, Bloodies feat.

Absolut Peppar Vodka $5, Original Moonshine $5, Corzo $5, Sailor Jerry’s Rum $4, Deschutes Drafts $4

1800 W Division 773-486-9862

2105 S State 312-949-0120

S AT

$6 Jameson shots $3 PBR bottles

SUN

$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, $4 Temperance brews, $5 Absolut bloody mary’s

$4.75 Bloody Mary and Marias

$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Buckets of Miller & Bud Bottles (Mix & Match) $14, Guinness & Smithwicks Drafts $4, Bloodies feat, Absolut Peppar Vodka $5, Ketal One Cocktails $5

MON

$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, $4 Half Acre brews, FREE POOL, “Hoppy Hour” 5pm8pm = 1/2 price IPAs + pale ales

$1 off all beers including craft

CLOSED

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

All Draft Beers Half Price, Makers Mark Cocktails $5, Crystal Head Vodka Cocktails $4

TUE

$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, $2 and $3 select beers

$2 off all Whiskeys and Bourbons

$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Jim Beam Cocktails $4, Jameson Cocktails $5, Cabo Wabo $5, Malibu Cocktails $4, Corona Bottles $3.50, PBR Tall Boy Cans $2.75

WED

$6 Jameson shots, $3 PBR bottles, 1/2 price aliveOne signature cocktails, $4 Goose Island brews, “Hoppy Hour” 5pm-8pm = 1/2 price IPAs + pale ales

$6 Firestone Walker Opal pints $6 Finch Vanilla Stout 16 oz. cans $7 house wines $8 Few Spirits $10 classic cocktails

Moosehead pints $3.75, Hamms cans $2.50, Special Export Bush Longneck bottles $3, Foster Big cans $5

Stoli/Absolut & Soco Cocktails $4, Long Island Iced Teas $5, Herradura Margaritas $5, Stella/Hoegaarden/ Deschutes Drafts $4, Goose Island 312 Bottles $3.50

OUR READERS LOVE GREAT DEALS! CONTACT YOUR READER REPRESENTATIVE AT 312.222.6920 OR displayads@chicagoreader.com FOR DETAILS ON HOW TO LIST DRINK SPECIALS HERE.

40 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

PHOTO: ALEXEY LYSENKO/ GETTY IMAGES

wondering how many murders/rapes/ kidnappings have been prevented or quickly resolved simply due to the widespread use of cell phones. I’m thinking of the first murder victims in the movie Zodiac, who weren’t able to alert anyone of their situation after spotting the suspicious-looking car whose occupant killed them. At the other end of the spectrum, the daughter kidnapped in Taken was found by her father in a fairly timely manner because she had a cell phone and was able to give him details of her kidnappers. So, how significant a role do cell phones play in crime prevention/ solving in real life? —CARLY, CHICAGO

A : Remember 24, Carly? Highly motivated

federal agent Jack Bauer scurries around Los Angeles sticking knives and screwdrivers into terrorists till they tell him where, exactly, they’ve planted their nuclear bombs, vials of deadly virus, etc? At one point, the dean of West Point beseeched the show’s producers to ease off some on their constant suggestion that torture yields usable intelligence—it seems the troops were getting the wrong idea. All I’m saying: maybe we shouldn’t take our cues on crime fighting from Hollywood.

Here in the real world, though, we see such cases as the Boston Marathon bombing, where abundant cell-phone documentation of the scene helped investigators quickly locate and release images of the suspects; later, when the soon-to-be infamous Tsarnaev brothers fled in a carjacked SUV, police tracked them via signal from the phone, still inside, belonging to the car’s owner. So there are obviously instances in which, yes, cell phones have helped solve crime, and it’s not hard to envision scenarios in which they might deter it.

But can we go so far as to say that more phones in pockets actually means fewer victims? Violent crime in the U.S. has in fact been in a decided decline since the early 1990s— down 51 percent between 1991 and last year, to the general befuddlement of social scientists, who’ve attempted to explain the trend with theories ranging from more incarceration to more abortions. Meanwhile, in 1996 people made 55,000 wireless calls to 911; in 2011 it was 396,000. When you see dots like that, it’s certainly tempting to connect them.

Unfortunately the research thus far is pretty thin, and tends toward the speculative. The two main sources we’ve got are these:

• A 2012 report out of the University of Pennsylva-

nia’s Institute for Law and Economics notes that the beginning of the drop, in the 90s, coincided with the ownership of mobile phones by “more

than a trivial share of the U.S. population.” Spinning this observation into what they called an “intuition,” researchers looked at the relationship between phone ownership by state and reported instances of rape and aggravated sexual assault, crimes “likely to occur among strangers and most plausibly deterred by mobile phones.” Controlling for a few factors, like per capita spending on corrections and police, the authors found . . . results they called “interesting” and suggested that more work was needed. But they were very encouraging about it.

• In 2015, a paper in the Journal of Crime and Jus-

tice described research building on those earlier results. The authors broadened both the scope and the time line of the earlier report, using national-level data from 1984 through 2009.

And they took into account more categories of crime: seeing a significant negative relationship between cell phone prevalence and rates of property crime, they noted that the data suggest “substantively similar deterrent effects of mobile phone ownership rates on crime rates.”

Again, though, identifying association ain’t the same as identifying causation, and these guys too concluded their paper with a call for further research, larger sample size, better information, etc.

So basically criminologists have looked at your question, done a little research, and come up with: Maybe? It’s not hard to see why this is such a complicated case to make. As I mentioned above, theories about why crime is down are basically endless. Still another is the crime-substitution hypothesis: social media and gaming have become so popular among young folks that they’ve simply, um, forgotten to go out and rob people. According to a recent article in MacLean’s, the so-called Generation Z (born since 1995) is “smoking less, graduating more, having fewer pregnancies, and committing fewer robberies, car thefts and murders.” Phones do prevent crime, under this theory, but not because we’re all calling for help—it’s because we’re all posting photos of our lunch. v Send questions to Cecil via straightdope.com or write him c/o Chicago Reader, 350 N. Orleans, Chicago 60654.

SAVAGE LOVE

By Dan Savage

Young, married, religious: How can I get a blow job already?

A cry for help. Plus: a modern Caligula, an oft-rejected foot fetishist, and more Q : I’m a 24-year-old male,

married three years, monogamous. My wife and I are religious and were both virgins when we got married. I’m sexually frustrated with two things.

(1) How can I get her to give me oral sex? (She has never given, and I have never received, oral sex. I regularly give her oral sex.)

She is afraid to try it, saying she’s not ready yet. About every six months, I bring it up and it leads to a fight.

She is a germophobe, but I think she believes fellatio is done only in porn. (I used to look at porn, which nearly ended our then-dating relationship.) (2) I feel like I’m always giving and never receiving any type of affection: massages, kisses, caresses, you name it. It’s like having sex with a sex doll—no reciprocation. How do I broaden our sex life without making her feel like we’re in a porno? —SEXUALLY FRUSTRATED

A : If you don’t already have

children—you don’t mention kids—please don’t have any, SF, at least not with your first wife.

You’re a religious person, SF. But you’re also a sexual person. And if you want a lifelong, sexually exclusive, and sexually fulfilling relationship, then you must prioritize sexual compatibility during your search for the second Mrs. SF. Because your next marriage is likelier to survive for the long haul if you’re partnered with someone who is attracted to you physically and is aroused— roughly speaking—by the same sex acts, positions, and fantasies you are.

In other words: Don’t marry someone and hope she likes sucking your dick.

You tried that, and it didn’t work. Find someone who likes sucking your dick and marry her.

Q : I’m a straight woman

in my early 30s, and I just don’t like receiving oral sex. I love giving blow jobs and can orgasm from PIV sex, but I seem to be one of the few women who don’t enjoy guys going down on me. I’m not uncomfortable with it, but it just doesn’t get me off. I also get wet easily, so it’s not like I need it as foreplay. As I’ve gotten older, and the guys I sleep with have gotten older, it seems like most want to spend a great deal of time down there. I’ve tried being up-front about not liking it in general, but guys either get offended or double down and do it more because they assume I’ve never been with a guy who “could do it right.” Any ideas on how to handle this?

—NEEDS ORAL PREFERENCE EXPLAINER

A : The observation you

make regarding older straight guys—that older straight guys are more enthusiastic about going down on women—is something I’ve heard from other female friends. They couldn’t get guys to go down on them in their 20s, and they can’t get guys in their 30s and 40s to stop going down on them, no matter what. (SF, above, is clearly an outlier.) The obvious solution to your dilemma, NOPE: Only fuck guys in their 20s.

Q : Fan from Sweden here!

Question: My fetish has no name. It is a “worshipping” fetish, for want of a better term, where I am the one being worshipped. Not by

one man, but all men of the earth. The worshipping itself, while sexual, is not bound to my body parts.

It would be great to have this named. —LACK OF

VOCABULARY ENERVATES MY EXPERIENCES

A : A year ago, I would’ve

diagnosed you with “Caligulaphilia,” LOVEME, after the Roman emperor Caligula, who considered himself a living god, and -philia, the go-to suffix meaning “abnormal appetite or liking for.” But these days, I’d say you were suffering from a bad case of “Trumpophilia.”

Q : I’m a 24-year-old female

sexually compatible. DTMFA.

Q : I am a 26-year-old guy

with an overwhelming foot fetish. I think about the male foot every hour of every day. I often find myself pushing boundaries with attractive male friends and acquaintances to satisfy my urges, which has caused me a lot of stress and anxiety.

I’m obsessed with the idea of offering some of my friends and acquaintances foot massages, but I just don’t know how to bring up the subject. While I’ve been lucky on very random occasions, I’ve had some fuckups. I asked a gay friend whether he would

like a foot massage, but he declined, and while he was polite about it in the initial exchange, he has since ignored me. I asked a straight guy, and he considered it but never followed through, and I feel weird about asking him again. I told another straight guy, who was shocked that I would ever ask him such a thing, but he still talks to me and makes light of the incident. Whereas another guy unfriended me on Facebook after I messaged him and told him I liked his feet. What should I do? Is there a proper way to ask to rub someone’s feet? It’s not like I’m asking to suck on people’s toes. —CRAZED ABOUT LADS’ FEET

A : You remind me of those straight guys who send unsolicited dick pics to

women they barely know— they don’t do it because it never works, they do it because it works on rare/ random occasions. But you have to ask yourself if those rare/random instances when an attractive male friend allowed you to perv on his feet—the handful of times you’ve gotten a yes—are worth the sacrificing of all the friendships you’ve lost.

Foot rubs are a form of intimacy—particularly when performed by foot fetishists— and you’ve gotta stop pestering your friends about their hot feet. There are tons of other foot fetishists out there—most male, loads gay, tons online. Go find some fellow foot pervs and swap rubs with them. v Send letters to mail@ savagelove.net. Download the Savage Lovecast every Tuesday at thestranger.com.

who met my 26-year-old boyfriend five months ago through Fetlife. We don’t share the same fetish, but we have other overlapping interests, and he is lovely, smart, and funny. He has a diaper and incontinence fetish. Not my jam, but I’m GGG. The issue: He has the most one-dimensional sexuality I have ever seen.

He can get off only in the missionary position, with a diaper under us, and with incontinence dirty talk, and there’s only so long I can talk about losing control and peeing myself. He’s otherwise an amazing person, but I’m getting frustrated. He claims he’s done standard vanilla before and managed to satisfy his partners. I’ve yet to experience it myself, however, and I’d really like to be able to enjoy some vanilla sex—let alone my kinks!—with him! —PLEASE, I’M SEXUALLY SADDENED

A : Your lovely, smart, funny

boyfriend is a lousy, selfish lay, PISS, and you two aren’t

MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 41

Young Thug ! GARRETT COYTE

NEW Ahleuchatistas 5/21, 9 PM, Hideout Anti-Nowhere League 6/16, 7:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Tamar Aphek 4/12, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Birdy 6/17, 8 PM, Park West, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM b Boney M, Modern Talking, Liz Mitchell, Thomas Anders 8/12, 8 PM, Rosemont Theater, Rosemont, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires 4/27, 10 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM b Brothers Comatose 5/23, 7:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM b Built to Spill 6/17, 9 PM, Thalia Hall, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM, 17+ Ceu 6/24, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 3/24, noon b Chastity Belt 6/19, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Child Bite, New Trust 4/10, 9 PM, Quenchers Saloon Christopher the Conquered 6/16, 9 PM, Hideout Clocks in Motion 5/22, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Dangerkids 4/27, 6 PM, Subterranean b Lincoln Durham 5/13, 7 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 3/25, noon Earthly 4/25, 9 PM, Empty Bottle F Eve 6 6/23, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 3/24, noon b Flag, Off With Their Heads 6/8, 7 PM, Double Door, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM, 17+ Lesley Flanigan, TALsounds 4/27, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+

Flat Five 6/17-18, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM b Foreign Exchange 5/31, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Ben Frost 5/19, 9 PM, Empty Bottle, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM Bebel Gilberto 6/19, 6 and 8:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM b Col. Bruce Hampton 8/20, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Hard Working Americans 5/14, 8 PM, Park West, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM, 18+ King Khan & the Shrines 6/19, 10 PM, Subterranean, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM, 17+ Los Amigos Invisibles 6/9, 8:30 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Metro Boomin 3/31, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Of the Wand and the Moon 4/2, 9 PM, Burlington Maceo Parker 6/22, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM b Jim Peterik 5/4, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 3/24, noon b R. Kelly 5/7, 8 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM Rad Trads 6/26, 7 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM b Tallest Man on Earth 7/15, 8 PM, the Vic, on sale Fri 3/25, 10 AM, 18+ We Banjo 3 8/9, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 3/24, noon b Jimmy Webb, Robin Spielberg 6/12, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 3/24, noon b Jacob Whitesides 6/5, 7:30 PM, Subterranean, on sale Thu 3/24, 11 AM b Wussy 6/24, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Young Thug 5/25, 8 PM, the Vic, on sale Fri 3/25, noon b

42 CHICAGO READER - MARCH 24, 2016

UPDATED Lollapalooza 7/28-31, Grant Park, four-day passes sold out Cullen Omori, Living Hour 6/2, 9 PM, Schubas, postponed from 3/24 and moved from Lincoln Hall, 18+ St Germain 4/10, 8 PM, Park West, moved from the Vic b

UPCOMING Acid Dad 4/21, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Amon Amarth, Entombed A.D. 5/5, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b Autolux 4/9, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Bad Company, Joe Walsh 6/23, 7 PM, FirstMerit Bank Pavilion Martin Barre 9/30, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club Behemoth, Myrkur 4/29, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Black Mountain 5/12, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall Marc Broussard 5/14-15, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Cage the Elephant 6/7, 7 PM, UIC Pavilion Cave Singers 5/26, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Dawn 4/22, 6:30 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club b Dead Meadow 5/17, 8 PM, Double Door Discharge, Eyehategod 5/31, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Dream Theater 4/30, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre b Ex-Cult 6/1, 9 PM, Hideout From Indian Lakes 5/7, 6:30 PM, Beat Kitchen b Freddie Gibbs 4/20, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Stan Kenton Legacy Orchestra 4/17, 6 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn

b The Kills, L.A. Witch 5/23, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Kimock 4/2, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard 5/8, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall King’s X 6/23, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Kinky 4/9, 7:30 PM, Portage Theater Macklemore & Ryan Lewis 6/9, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b Made of Oak 4/7, 9 PM, Schubas Magic Giant 6/24, 9 PM, Schubas, 18+ Magic Man, Griswolds 4/23, 7:30 PM, Metro b Magrudergrind 5/22, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Jesse Malin 3/31, 8 PM, City Winery b Mamiffer 4/2, 8 PM, Co-Prosperity Sphere, 17+ Aimee Mann 5/9, 7:30 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Aoife O’Donovan 4/1, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Erkan Oguy & Ismail H. Demircioglu 4/9, 8 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Old 97s, Heartless Bastards 5/21, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Jeffrey Osborne, Freddie Jackson 5/6, 8 PM, the Venue at Horseshoe Casino, Hammond Ought 7/25, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Pack A.D. 6/13, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Palehound 5/20, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Graham Parker Duo 4/20, 8 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn Graham Parker Duo, Brinsley Schwarz 4/22, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Parquet Courts 4/20, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Juanito Pascual 5/28, 7 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Alice Peacock 6/11, 8 PM, City Winery b Polica 4/16, 8 PM, Thalia Hall b Polyrhythmic 3/31-4/1, 8 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn Iggy Pop 4/6, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre b Possessed by Paul James 4/23, 10:30 PM, Subterranean Prince Rama 4/8, 10 PM, Schubas Pusha T 4/5, 8 PM, the Vic, 18+ Quilt 4/6, 8 PM, Schubas, 18+ Quinn XCII 5/11, 9 PM, Schubas, 18+ Ra Ra Riot 4/8-9, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Sublime With Rome, Dirty Heads 7/17, 6:30 PM, FirstMerit Bank Pavilion Subways 4/22, 9 PM, Schubas Summer Set 4/24, 5 PM, Bottom Lounge b Sunn O))), Big Brave 6/7, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+

ALL AGES

WOLF BY KEITH HERZIK

EARLY WARNINGS

CHICAGO SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IN THE WEEKS TO COME

F

Never miss a show again.

Sign up for the newsletter at chicagoreader. com/early

Twin Peaks 5/13, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall b Keith Urban, Brett Eldredge 10/28, 7:30 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont Matthew Logan Vasquez, Reverend Baron 4/23, 10 PM, SPACE, Evanston b April Verch 4/10, 7 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Verite 5/23, 8 PM, Schubas John Waite & the Axemen 5/5, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Woods, Ultimate Painting 4/23, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall Lizz Wright 4/20, 7:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Zhu 5/8, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+

SOLD OUT Alabama Shakes 7/19, 7:30 PM, Civic Opera House and 7/20, 7:30 PM, Aragon Ballroom b American Authors 5/14, 7:30 PM, Subterranean b At the Drive-In 5/19-20, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b Courtney Barnett 4/28, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Basement, Defeater, Turnstile 4/19, 6 PM, Bottom Lounge b Borns 7/21-22, 7:30 PM, Metro b Gary Clark Jr. 4/1, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ The Cure, Twilight Sad 6/10-11, 7:30 PM, UIC Pavilion b Dawes 4/27, 8 PM, the Vic, 18+ Father John Misty, Tess & Dave 4/14-15, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals 4/16, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre b Joy Formidable 4/6, 8:30 PM, Double Door, 18+ Lukas Graham 4/21, 7:30 PM, Double Door b Pearl Jam 8/20, 7:30 PM; 8/22, 7:30 PM, Wrigley Field Rufus Du Sol 4/9, 9 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Savages 4/7, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Thrice 6/23, 6:30 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Underoath 4/7, 7 PM, Riviera Theatre b The Used 5/17-18, 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Widespread Panic 5/5, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Lucinda Williams 4/1-3, 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b X Ambassadors 4/6, 6 PM, House of Blues b v

GOSSIP WOLF A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene LAST TIME GOSSIP WOLF heard from jazz guitarist Dave Miller, in 2011, he was splitting town for New York City. In an interview with the Reader’s Peter Margasak, Miller mentioned that he planned to continue working with local groups, and his new CD, Old Door Phantoms, due Fri 4/1 on Ears&Eyes Records, features a few familiar Chicago faces, among them keyboardist Ben Boye (also a sideman to Angel Olsen and Bonnie “Prince” Billy) and drummer Quin Kirchner (also of Wild Belle). Recorded with Greg Norman at Electrical Audio, Phantoms is full of hearty jams, including fuzzy Cosmic American psych rave-ups and hard Neil Youngstyle stomps. Hey hey, my my—grunge jazz will never die! Miller plays solo at Ancien Cycles on Fri 3/25 and with a full band at the California Clipper on Mon 4/18.

Chicago postpunk trio World War Tree recently dropped an untitled three-song seven-inch—Gossip Wolf is fond of the gnashing B-side cut “Awake.” The band play a release party Fri 3/25 at the Burlington with headliners the Eternals and openers HuntHuntHuntCamp.

Last week Gossip Wolf shared the news that Heavy Times coleader Matt Courtade was moving to LA, but unfortunately disaster struck before he made it all the way there: on Thursday morning, just a few hours after Courtade left Chicago, the van he was driving exploded. He and his dad made it out of the vehicle just before it was consumed by fire.

Gramps the Vamp remain the only doom-funk band on Gossip Wolf’s radar— which admittedly doesn’t reach much further than Merrillville. On Mon 3/21, Gramps fired up a Kickstarter to help fund their second full-length, The Cave of 10,000 Eyes, which they describe as “the soundtrack to a faux-horror adventure film from 1969.” The band launches the campaign at Subterranean on Thu 3/31 with fellow local funkateers Spocket and HipTrip. —J.R. NELSON AND LEOR GALIL Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

MARCH 24, 2016 - CHICAGO READER 43

CHICAGO,

SINCE 1988.

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