Print Issue of July 5, 2018 (Volume 47, Number 39) by Chicago Reader

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When local school councils go rogue 4

Rescuing house-music history 22

THE BONGO ROOM TURNS

A look back at Wicker Park’s iconic brunch spot By SARAH NARDI 10

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INTERIM EXECUTIVE EDITOR DAVE NEWBART CREATIVE DIRECTOR VINCE CERASANI DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY JAMIE RAMSAY CULTURE EDITOR AIMEE LEVITT FILM EDITOR J.R. JONES MUSIC EDITOR PHILIP MONTORO ASSOCIATE EDITORS STEVE HEISLER, JAMIE LUDWIG, KATE SCHMIDT SENIOR WRITER MIKE SULA SENIOR THEATER CRITIC TONY ADLER STAFF WRITERS MAYA DUKMASOVA, LEOR GALIL, DEANNA ISAACS, BEN JORAVSKY, PETER MARGASAK SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR RYAN SMITH GRAPHIC DESIGNER SUE KWONG MUSIC LISTINGS COORDINATOR LUCA CIMARUSTI FILM LISTINGS COORDINATOR PATRICK FRIEL CONTRIBUTORS NOAH BERLATSKY, ISA GIALLORENZO, JOHN GREENFIELD, ANDREA GRONVALL, JUSTIN HAYFORD, JACK HELBIG, IRENE HSIAO, DAN JAKES, MONICA KENDRICK, BILL MEYER, MICHAEL MINER, J.R. NELSON, MARISSA OBERLANDER, LEAH PICKETT, BEN SACHS, DMITRY SAMAROV, ANDREA THOMPSON, ALBERT WILLIAMS INTERNS MATTHEW HARVEY, DAVID NORTH, KATIE POWERS, TYRA NICOLE TRICHE, ANNA WHITE ---------------------------------------------------------------ADVERTISING DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER BEST SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER EVANGELINE MILLER DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL JOHN DUNLEVY ADVERTISING COORDINATOR HERMINIA BATTAGLIA

FEATURES

IN THIS ISSUE

CITY LIFE

4 Education What happens when local school councils go rogue? 6 Joravsky | Politics Locking up Cubs legend Yosh Kawano once got Supreme Court sanction too. 9 Bureaucracy Notaries are having a nightmarish time of it.

ARTS & CULTURE

FEATURE

An oral history of the Bongo Room at 25

As John Latino and Derrick Robles built their brunch empire, they formed an extraordinary bond with the young creatives who made up their staﬀ. BY SARAH NARDI 10

14 Isaacs Chicago-born AfricanAmerican artist Charles White finally gets his due with an Art Institute retrospective. 16 Theater The Cher Show, Support Group for Men, and eight more new stage shows, reviewed by our critics 18 Movies Elastigirl does all the stretching in Incredibles 2. 19 Movies Lesbian revolutionaries smash sexual taboos to undermine the patriarchy in Bruce LaBruce’s The Misandrists. 19 Movies Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace, the documentary Three Identical Strangers, and five more films, reviewed by our critics

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE

28 Shows of note Janelle Monáe, Odie, the Make-Up, and more of this week’s best

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34 Restaurant Review Sizzling Pot King brings Hunanese dry hot noodles and other specialties to— Greektown?

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THIS WEEK

Still Music rescues decades of house history from a south-side storage locker. BY LEOR GALIL 22

37 Savage Love Can sex actually get better and more frequent after marriage? 38 Early Warnings Diet Cig, Dinosaur Jr., Fleetwod Mac, and other shows to look for in the weeks to come 38 Gossip Wolf Chicago neck breakers Nequient hit the road behind their scorching debut fulllength, Dark Matter Coﬀee expands its annual block party to two days, and more.

JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 3

CITY LIFE Students and parents at King College Prep in May protested a decision by the local school council to hire a new principal. é PATRICIA REYES NABONG

EDUCATION

When LSCs go rogue

Chicago Public Schools governance boards, which have waned since they began 30 years ago, face no repercussions for breaking the rules, some say. BY EMMANUEL CAMARILLO AND HANNAH HAYES

n a spring afternoon inside the cafeteria of South Loop Elementary School, parents filled the small lunch tables for a local school council meeting. Before official business began, Jason Easterly, a longtime member, stood up and abruptly resigned his post. Days before the meeting, outrage over the LSC’s attempt to renew Principal Tara Shelton’s contract had escalated to the point where Easterly’s home address had been posted on Twitter. “I can’t guarantee the safety of my family anymore,” he said. “As such, I am resigning as a member of this LSC.” It was a dramatic moment in the controversy over Shelton’s contract, which the LSC sought to renew in her third year rather than the customary fourth. The situation in Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood was already volatile: The district announced in April that nearby National Teachers Academy would close and be converted into a high school, while younger NTA students would be moved to South Loop Elementary by fall 2019. Some NTA parents contended that the early contract renewal was meant to exclude their voices from the principal selection process. But did the LSC’s actions amount to a violation of law? And if so, whose responsibility is it to police this situation? It’s a murky area for Chicago’s local school councils, a unique form of local governance under which elected volunteer boards choose principals and make budget decisions at many CPS schools. It calls into question whether the structure—which was meant to give local communities more

4 CHICAGO READER - JULY 5, 2018

control over their schools—is accomplishing what it set out to do. When the state passed the Chicago School Reform Act in 1989, creating the LSC system, there was a lot of energy in the community for school reform. Mayor Harold Washington had galvanized Chicagoans into a citywide summit on the issue, and the ﬁrst LSC elections were incredibly popular, with 227,262 Chicagoans voting on 17,256 candidates. The Reform Act had included public and private funding to recruit candidates and train them. According to Pauline Lipman, a professor of education policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago who has followed and written about LSCs since their inception, Chicago’s LSCs collectively represent “the largest elected body of people of color of any elected body in the country.” However, Lipman says that LSCs “never fully reached their full potential because they never had the support they need.

They should get time off work to go to educational conferences, have professional development—they’re making important decisions.” Enthusiasm for LSCs has waned over the years. Although statistics for the most recent election are not yet available, in 2016 only 73,369 people voted, and 395 out of 514 schools didn’t have enough candidates to form a full council. As participation and funding has decreased, it has become harder to stick to the rules, current and former LSC members say. “I’ll be honest, sometimes I didn’t remember what the rules were,” said a former parent representative at a Bridgeport elementary school who asked not to be named. “One time we got in trouble because an [Office of] LSC Relations representative came by our meeting.” The LSC had failed to post the meeting’s agenda on the school’s entryway, and the doors were locked, both violations of the state’s Open Meetings Act, which LSCs are supposed to follow. “So

he came in there and really let us have it,” said the ex-LSC member. “He pretty much declared our meeting invalid.” The official just happened to stop by that meeting. “There’s not as many as there used to be, so they’re not going to as many LSC meetings,” the former LSC member said. In 2014, budget records show that the office had 20 employees, but by 2018 that number had been reduced to 12. A CPS representative can steer a meeting in the right direction, but according to the former Bridgeport LSC member, a former science teacher and now education activist, LSCs usually aren’t penalized for those violations. “I have not heard of any LSCs being punished or reprimanded. I have never heard of that,” she said. Then there’s the matter of whether an LSC has really crossed the line or not. In the case of South Loop Elementary School, though state statutes say that LSCs should work on contract renewals in a principal’s fourth year at the school, nothing in the law prohibits an LSC from renewing it earlier. Since the LSC ultimately withdrew its motion to renew the contract early, however, the question was never resolved. (CPS officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment on how often LSCs have been found to have violated rules or what happens if they do.) That doesn’t stop a school’s community members from speaking up when they think there’s a miscarriage of justice. At the April meeting, one NTA parent told the LSC she “was confused and hurt” when she heard contract talks were already under way. Victoria Dietrich, who attended South Loop Elementary as a child, said, “People should know why the principal evaluation process was accelerated,” adding that “moves like that are going to look suspicious because it’s an election year.” Though the LSC was never reprimanded for the contract renewal, the South Loop/NTA merger remains under scrutiny. A group of NTA parents ﬁled suit this month to stop it, alleging that the school district based its decision on racially discriminatory metrics. Several current and former LSC members point to training as a main issue for LSCs. According to Jill Wohl, founding board member of grassroots education group Raise Your Hand and a former LSC member, funding for training “has almost all but evaporated” in recent years. According to its website, CPS offers

CITY LIFE A King student voices his opinions to local school council chair Kwesi Kuntu. é PATRICIA REYES NABONG

Police were called after the protest got heated. é PATRICIA REYES NABONG

in-person sessions for a couple of the nine LSC trainings required, and all are available online. New LSC members (elected in April) have until December to complete training. Cassandra Chandler, a former LSC parent representative at King College Prep, said CPS needs to be more proactive. “They leave it up to each individual to ﬁgure out how to complete the trainings,” she said. “There’s not a way to enforce that people complete those trainings.” Early this year, King’s LSC voted not to extend its principal’s contract, and parents alleged that it was done without community input. Chandler became disillusioned with her fellow LSC members, calling their actions “underhanded.” So she went to the Office of LSC Relations to check whether they had completed their training. According to Chandler, the official told her “if somebody doesn’t complete all of the training there are really no repercussions for that.” However, another group of parents filed a Freedom of Information request and discovered that half

of the LSC members had not completed all of their training, according to newly elected parent representative Natasha Erskine. The office’s website states that LSC members may be removed by the Chicago Board of Education if they haven’t completed training—but, Wohl said, if the district purged LSC members for not complying with training, “hardly anyone would be left standing.” CPS also did not respond to questions on how many LSC members have completed training or whether there are any consequences for LSC members who fail to complete it. At King, as was the case at South Loop Elementary, the LSC didn’t technically violate any rules; the council posted notice of its meeting to vote on the principal’s contract within the required time limit, although it was during CPS’s winter break. “While it wasn’t an issue of the LSC doing things illegally, many parents felt the LSC could have been more transparent,” said Marcellus Moore, the community representative at the time. In several meetings that followed, the LSC

chair refused to put the principal vote back on the agenda despite student protests and requests from other LSC members to reconsider, and frequently put public comment last, which critics saw as an attempt to quash their voices. Some of the protests got so heated that police were called. The controversy attracted the attention of Guillermo Montes de Oca, the director of CPS’s Office of LSC Relations, who attended a meeting in May. De Oca told the frustrated crowd that it was not within his office’s authority to interfere in LSC business, as nothing it had done was illegal. “We recommended they give it [the decision] to the new council, but they said no thank you,” said de Oca. While conflicts within schools, LSCs, and the communities they represent are not rare, they’re not as common as people might think. “A well-functioning LSC is really boring, and that’s why they don’t make the news,” says Michael Scott, the community representative at Murray Language Academy, a magnet school in Hyde Park. Scott, who was also an LSC chair at William H. Ray Elementary school when he served as a parent representative, says the key to functioning well is broadening community participation. He points to the principal selection process at Ray in 2008 when the longtime principal retired. “We had 21 parents and teachers on that committee, and while the LSC ultimately made the decision, the process was driven by a much larger group.” But when community members don’t believe their concerns are being taken seriously, as was the case at King College Prep, they have minimal recourse apart from showing up at the polls and voting those LSC members out. That’s what happened at King this April. There all but one member was replaced, but it was already too late for supporters of the principal who’d been voted out, since control remains in the hands of the old LSC’s members until their terms expire in July. Caleb Mitchell, a junior at King, spoke passionately to de Oca after one of the meetings in May: “Why can’t you do something? This is so wrong!” “This is democracy,” de Oca explained. “You voted them in and you trusted them with this decision. Then when you don’t like what they do, you vote them out. And that’s what you did.” This report was produced by City Bureau, a Chicago-based civic journalism lab. v

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CITY LIFE

The internment of Japanese Americans was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1944.

POLITICS

NOW ACCEPTING NOMINATIONS

Yosh Kawano, internment camps and Trump’s travel ban Like the ban, locking up the Cubs’ legendary club attendant, who died last week, got the Supreme Court’s sanction.

Impact Chicago celebrates leaders generating

By BEN JORAVSKY

positive change in our community. This summer the Sun-Times is highlighting job creation

in Chicago and the impact these jobs have on individuals, neighborhoods and our city. Help us identify companies making a difference in our community through job creation.

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é NATIONAL ARCHIVES

n one of those quirky fates of timing, Yosh Kawano died the day before the U.S. Supreme Court approved President Trump’s travel ban on people from several Muslim countries. As any longtime Cubs fan can tell you, Kawano, 97, was the ageless clubhouse attendant made famous over the years by Jack Brickhouse, Vince Lloyd, Lou Boudreau, Harry Caray, and other legendary TV and radio broadcasters. How many times did we hear Brickhouse allude to Kawano, followed by a cutaway to the man in his instantly recognizable white ﬂoppy hat, perched on the dugout bench? He ran the clubhouse for more than 60 years, welcoming the likes of everyone from Ernie Banks to Ryne Sandberg to Kerry Wood. What Brickhouse and the other announcers didn’t mention was that Kawano—born in Seattle and raised in Los Angeles—was unceremoniously, unfairly, and most unconstitutionally plucked from his home and interned

in a concentration camp during World War II. It was the same for thousands of other Japanese-Americans. His internment was for no crime other than being of Japanese ancestry—and that’s no crime at all. It was made possible by executive order 9066, signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt— to his everlasting shame. In the months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt deemed that loyal Americans like Kawano were a threat to the safety and security of the United States and should be locked away for the duration of the war. Keep in mind that U.S. was also at war with Italy and Germany. But only Japanese-Americans got locked away in camps. By the time Kawano was sent to the camp, he was 21 years old. He’d already started working for the Cubs as a clubhouse attendant at their spring training facility in California. Obviously, his Cub affiliation couldn’t keep him out of the camps.

CITY LIFE

8TH ANNUAL

A women demonstrates against President Trump’s travel ban after it was upheld by the Supreme Court last week. é MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES

You can find a copy of Kawano’s internment card on the Internet—it documents his name, address, age, and things like whether he’s been to Japan (once) and whether he speaks Japanese (yes) along with the file number the government assigned him. He was dispatched to the Poston Internment Camp—the largest of the ten camps the government created to house the Japanese-Americans—in the desert of southwestern Arizona. Poston was built by Del Webb, a fabulously wealthy developer and war contractor who went on to buy the New York Yankees in 1945. Apparently, some people profited from the internments. Poston was constructed on the Colorado River Indian Reservation against the wishes of the Mohave, Hopi, and Navajo tribes who lived there. The feds built it anyway, even though the tribes were supposed to control development on the reservation. Hardly the first time the U.S. government broke a promise to the original Americans. Among the detainees at Poston was a future congresswoman (Doris Matsui), a future decorated hero of the Vietnam war (Vincent Okamoto), and many other people who went on to distinguish careers in law, letters, and the arts. There was also an unnamed poet who composed a poem that summed up the desolation of life in Poston: We all love life, and our country best, Our misfortune to be here in the west, To keep us penned behind that DAMNED FENCE, Is someone’s notion of NATIONAL DEFENCE! The decision to intern Japanese-Americans was challenged in court by a man named Fred Korematsu. He took his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against him in a 6-3 decision in 1944. “Korematsu has been convicted of an act not commonly a crime,” Justice Robert Jackson wrote in his dissent. “His crime would result, not from anything he did, said, or thought, but only in that he was born of differ-

ent racial stock.” It was Kawano’s connection to the Cubs that won him a release in 1943. Essentially, Cubs owner William Wrigley testified to his good character. In 1944, Kawano was drafted and sent to the Pacific Theater, where he won several combat medals in the war against Japan. Talk about loyalty. Even after being locked up in Poston, Kawano retained a profound loyalty to the ideals of America. Anyway, as I was saying, a day after Kawano died last week, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed Trump’s ban on immigrants from five largely Muslim countries—Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen—in an echo of the Korematsu decision. It was a five-to-four vote—the deciding vote being cast by Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s appointee. He’s on the court by virtue of the fact that Senate Republicans refused to allow President Barack Obama’s appointee, Merrick Garland, a hearing in the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election. It’s a lesson I hope the Democrats never forget when they think they have to be civil and play by the rules against the Republicans, who play to win. The five justices who ruled with Trump— Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, and Gorsuch—argued that the travel ban wasn’t earmarked exclusively for Muslims. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wasn’t buying it. “History will not look kindly on the court’s misguided decision today, nor should it,” she wrote as she ran down all the anti-Muslim quotes Trump has made over the years. In an effort to save face, Roberts wrote that “Korematsu had nothing to do with this case and was gravely wrong the day it was decided.” Man, they’re brazen, those Republicans. They denounce Korematsu while writing a ruling that, on some levels, essentially confirms it. It’s a passive-aggressive act of desecration toward Kawano, Matsui, Okamoto, and all the other detainees at Poston. v

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m @joravben JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 7

Why Haven’t Senior Homeowners Been Told These Facts? Keep reading if you own a home in the U.S. and were born before 1955. It’s a well-known fact that for many senior citizens in the U.S. their home is their single biggest asset, often accounting for more than 50% of their total net worth. Yet, according to new statistics from the mortgage industry, senior homeowners in the U.S. are now sitting on more than 6.1 trillion dollars of unused home equity.1 With people now living longer than ever before and home prices back up again, ignoring this “hidden wealth” may prove to be short sighted. All things considered, it’s not surprising that more than a million homeowners have already used a governmentinsured Home Equity Conversion Mortgage or “HECM” loan to turn their home equity into extra cash for retirement. However, today, there are still millions of eligible homeowners who could beneﬁt from this FHA-insured loan but may simply not be aware of this “retirement secret.” Some homeowners think HECM loans sound “too good to be true.” After all, you get the cash you need out of your home but you have no more monthly mortgage payments.

NO MONTHLY MORTGAGE PAYMENTS?2 EXTRA CASH? It’s a fact: no monthly mortgage payments are required with a government-insured HECM loan;2 however the homeowners are still responsible for paying for the maintenance of their home, property taxes, homeowner’s insurance and, if required, their HOA fees. Another fact many are not aware of is that HECM reverse mortgages ﬁrst took hold when President Reagan

signed the FHA Reverse Mortgage Bill into law 29 years ago in order to help senior citizens remain in their homes. Today, HECM loans are simply an effective way for homeowners 62 and older to get the extra cash they need to enjoy retirement. Although today’s HECM loans have been improved to provide even greater financial protection for homeowners, there are still many misconceptions. For example, a lot of people mistakenly believe the home must be paid off in full in order to qualify for a HECM loan, which is not the case. In fact, one key advantage of a HECM is that the proceeds will first be used to pay off any existing liens on the property, which frees up cash flow, a huge blessing for seniors living on a fixed income. Unfortunately, many senior homeowners who might be better off with HECM loan don’t even bother to get more information because of rumors they’ve heard. That’s a shame because HECM loans are helping many senior homeowners live a better life. In fact, a recent survey by American Advisors Group (AAG), the nation’s number one HECM lender, found that over 90% of their clients are satisfied with their loans. While these special loans are not for everyone, they can be a real lifesaver for senior homeowners. The cash from a HECM loan can be used for any purpose. Many people use the money to save on interest charges by paying off credit cards or other high-interest loans. Other common uses include making home

FACT: In 1988, President Reagan signed an FHA bill that

put HECM loans into law.

improvements, paying off medical bills or helping other family members. Some people simply need the extra cash for everyday expenses while others are now using it as a “safety net” for ﬁnancial emergencies. If you’re a homeowner age 62 or older, you owe it to yourself to learn more so that you can make an informed decision. Homeowners who are interested in learning more can request a free 2018 HECM loan Information Kit and free Educational DVD by calling American Advisors Group toll-free at 1-(800) 840-3558. At no cost or obligation, the professionals at AAG can help you ﬁnd out if you qualify and also answer common questions such as: 1. What’s the government’s role? 2. How much money might I get? 3. Who owns the home after I take out a HECM loan? You may be pleasantly surprised by what you discover when you call AAG for more information today.

Source: http://reversemortgagedaily.com/2016/06/21/seniors-home-equity-grows-to-6-trillion-reverse-mortgage-opportunity. 2If you qualify and your loan is approved, a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) must pay off any existing mortgage(s). With a HECM loan, no monthly mortgage payment is required. A HECM increases the principal mortgage loan amount and decreases home equity (it is a negative amortization loan). AAG works with other lenders and !nancial institutions that offer HECMs. To process your request for a loan, AAG may forward your contact information to such lenders for your consideration of HECM programs that they offer. When the loan is due and payable, some or all of the equity in the property no longer belongs to borrowers, who may need to sell the home or otherwise repay the loan with interest from other proceeds. AAG charges an origination fee, mortgage insurance premium, closing costs and servicing fees (added to the balance of the loan). The balance of the loan grows over time and AAG charges interest on the balance. Interest is not tax-deductible until the loan is partially or fully repaid. Borrowers are responsible for paying property taxes and homeowner s insurance (which may be substantial). We do not establish an escrow account for disbursements of these payments. A set-aside account can be set up to pay taxes and insurance and may be required in some cases. Borrowers must occupy home as their primary residence and pay for ongoing maintenance; otherwise the loan becomes due and payable. The loan also becomes due and payable when the last borrower, or eligible non-borrowing surviving spouse, dies, sells the home, permanently moves out, defaults on taxes or insurance payments, or does not otherwise comply with the loan terms. American Advisors Group (AAG) is headquartered at 3800 W. Chapman Ave., 3rd & 7th Floors, Orange CA, 92868. (MB_0911141), (Illinois Residential Mortgage Licensee; Illinois Commissioner of Banks can be reached at 100 West Randolph, 9th Floor, Chicago, Illinois 60601, (312) 814-4500). V2017.08.23_OR

These materials are not from HUD or FHA and were not approved by HUD or a government agency.

8 CHICAGO READER - JULY 5, 2018

CITY LIFE

BUREAUCRACY

Note this nightmare

The state is taking months to sign off on applications for notaries—the people who sign off on your official documents. By SANDRA GUY

hink finding a notary is tough when you need one to OK your signature in an emergency? It just might get tougher in Illinois, if one 28-year veteran notary’s experience attempting to renew her commission is any indication. Desiree Grode says the process has gotten to be like Franz Kafka’s The Castle—on the surface, an endlessly frustrating battle against a faceless bureaucracy, and on a deeper level an allegory about an individual’s futile struggle for recognition and acceptance. It also means lost business for notaries— charged with confirming your signature on official documents or ID cards, in part to prevent fraud—stuck in the labyrinth. Grode’s first effort to renew her commission

was rejected May 21 in an e-mail from the National Notary Association, a nonproﬁt that checks notaries’ applications before they’re sent to the appropriate state agency. It read: “[The] notary’s signature does not match seal on Notarial Oath. New application required.” Apparently the woman who’d notarized Grode’s signature on Grode’s renewal application had added a little squiggle to her own signature that the National Notary Association determined “didn’t match” the signature on her own notarial oath. The association advised Grode that, because of the errant squiggle, the Office of the Illinois Secretary of State would reject her application. Surprised to hear this, Grode followed up with a supervisor at the notary association, who thought the rejection was unfounded but

advised her to submit a new renewal application in any case. Grode’s second application—notarized by someone who’s been doing it for 18 years— was rejected on June 6. This time the notary association said this second notary’s stamp had an initial while her name on the secretary of state’s website did not. Yet prior website entries showed that the second notary had consistently used her initial. After she got the second rejection, Grode instructed the notary association supervisor to try submitting her first renewal application to the secretary of state’s office after all. “I have no doubt that I could submit a renewal application ten times notarized by ten different notaries and have the same rejections,” she says. Now Grode has to wait four to six weeks to see whether her application will be accepted by the state. And she’s not alone in having to bide her time—one new notary applicant says it took her ten months to get her application approved, and she told Grode she knew of several others who had found the procedure long and complicated. The man responsible for reviewing applications that pass the notary association is David Weisbaum, director of the index department at the secretary of state’s office. He acknowledges that applications go through lots of hands. But he says the notary association is doing people a favor by making sure their applications are correct so they don’t waste time sending one that’s unacceptable to the state agency. On top of that, Weisbaum said that for three years the secretary of state’s notary data has been hooked up to the Cook County Clerk’s office to speed things up for applicants during the next stage of the process. “When we complete the application, the notary information and/or a notary certificate is sent to the county clerk,” he said. “The county clerk then contacts the notary and tells him or her that he has to submit a registration form with his or her signature and a fee within 30 days. If that doesn’t happen, the county sends out another reminder.” That may still sound like a bureaucratic nightmare, but Weisman says that over the next several years his office is looking to speed things up further: “We’re working on letting people file electronically for the certificate and setting up a kiosk at the clerk’s office.” v

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m @sandraguy JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 9

G I R L Y- S O U N D

( W I T H PA N C A K E S )

An oral history of the Bongo Room as it turns 25 By SARAH NARDI

hat is it with brunch? What’s so special about pancakes and eggs that we’re willing to suffer the indignity of hour-long waits, often with hangovers or small children in tow? Why are we willing to pack cheek to jowl inside a freezing vestibule, bleary-eyed and undercaffeinated when, as my mother likes to say, we could’ve just eaten at home? Brunch is one of those odd cultural phenomena that defy explanation. There’s just something about a steaming mug of coffee, the mercy of a

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Derrick Robles and John Latino é PHOTO BY LISA PREDKO. ASSISTANTS: TOM MICHAS, ABBI CHASE. RETOUCHING: TOM MICHAS.

polished, grown-up brand. In many ways, the evolution of the Bongo Room mirrored the transformation of the neighborhood where it was born. The Wicker Park of today is a world away from the bohemian playground it was in 1993. It’s kind of serendipitous that the 25th anniversary of the Bongo Room’s opening coincides almost directly with the 25th anniversary of Exile in Guyville, Liz Phair’s ﬁrst release, her seminal, girly howl. Phair was a Bongo Room regular back before anyone outside of the neighborhood knew who she was. Guyville was a paean to a certain time in the life of a girl. As someone who was a girl in her 20s once, I can tell you it’s a tender time, electric with possibility and shot through with loneliness and angst, a time when you vacillate between feeling dizzyingly in control and hopelessly lost, often within the space of an hour. One of Guyville’s most famous songs, “Fuck and Run,” isn’t just about sex, it’s about being thwarted at every shortcut on the road to becoming the woman you want to be. When I started compiling this oral history of the Bongo Room, I assumed it would follow a traditional narrative: We were small and then we got big, we had one restaurant and then we had three, we were poor and then we weren’t. You know, the success story, the American dream, all the stuff we’re conditioned to want. But what emerged was a story far more personal and smaller in scope: a love letter not only to the Bongo Room, but to a time in life when your friends are everything and your future is just beginning to take shape. JOHN LATINO and DERRICK ROBLES, the two friends who founded the Bongo Room and still run it today, are endearingly averse to the spotlight. In this era of Instagram food porn and celebrity chefs, they are refreshingly low-key, preferring to steer the focus of our interviews to a group of people who helped them along the way. And that is how this story became about the girls. They’re women now, women who have, in Robles’s words, “forged amazing lives for themselves.” But back then, they were girls who found each other at that tender time in life and made the Bongo Room their home. They are: MEGAN STIELSTRA, author of three collections of essays and an artist in residence at Northwestern University; KRISTIN LEWIS, a public affairs manager at U.S. Cellular whose work centers around charitable giving to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America; GABRIELLE SHELTON, a sculptor and architectural metalworker who runs Shelton Studios in Brooklyn; MANAO DAVIDSON, a Los Angeles-based actor who also founded two brunch restaurants with fellow Bongo Room alum D’Nell Larson; and MARGARET MACKAY, who stepped back from a career in social work to bravely raise three boys. Bloody Mary, the cheerful din of brunching humanity; certain intangible qualities that simply can’t be reproduced at home. Of all the places to wait in line for pancakes, few inspire more nostalgia in Chicago than the Bongo Room. Opened on July 5, 1993, at 1560 N. Damen, the Bongo Room quickly became a Wicker Park mainstay, serving coffee and muffins to the neighborhood’s artists, musicians, and students. As the years passed, the Bongo Room expanded to three locations (the others are in Andersonville and the South Loop), growing from a scruffy little DIY spot under the el tracks to a

JOHN LATINO: When we started Bongo Room, I was 26 and John was 28. I was in culinary school at Kendall and doing my externship at Pump Room, which is where John and I met. We were talking about doing our own thing eventually. When we started at 1560 Damen, where Stan’s Donuts is now, we were working with someone who was already running something in that space. He ended up bailing, so we went to the banker to take over the loan. Just two guys in their 20s, young and stupid, sitting across from this banker in a suit.

We thought he would laugh us out of there, but it turned out he just wanted his money. So we took it over. We didn’t have permits. We didn’t even tell the city we’d changed the name until a month later. None of that could happen now. MEGAN STIELSTRA: I used to go to the first location under the el on Damen. I would eat there every day. Once I was coming back from New York, just having gone through a breakup. I was 20 and felt like my life was exploding. I called the Bongo Room from O’Hare to order a sandwich because I knew it took 20 minutes for this sandwich to be ready and it would take me just that long to get back on the train. I just wanted to pick up my sandwich, go home and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and cry. But when I got there, Derrick took one look at me and said, “Sit down, tell me what you need.” So I just sat there with him and sobbed. Eventually I started coming in with a new boyfriend, and Derrick was always checking in, making sure he was treating me well. I felt like I had the Mafia watching over me. I started working there not long after. GABRIELLE SHELTON: I lived in Wicker Park. I was 18 or 19 years old, studying sculpture at the [School of the] Art Institute. The Bongo Room was under the train on Damen, and we would always go in for a coffee and a muffin before school. It was the first good coffee in the neighborhood, definitely the best thing to happen to the neighborhood. One day I went in and just said, “I want a job.” So they hired me and I was the OG barista. MARGARET MACKAY: I moved to Chicago 20 years ago, to an apartment on Evergreen and Wicker Park. I met Derrick the day I moved in and it was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. My sister Catherine used to live on Honore and we would all go to her apartment to play board games. I had a masters in social work and had just moved from Madison. I couldn’t find a job. Everything in Madison was so neat and orderly, and I was having trouble adjusting in Chicago. Then one night over a board game, Derrick said, “You need a job, I need a food runner, you need to come in on Saturday.” I said I’d never worked in a restaurant, I don’t know what I’m doing. He said, “You’ll be fine.” As it turned out, I was terrible. So I became a hostess. KRISTIN LEWIS: I started when I was 23 as a hostess. I’d been working at Matchbox [a bar in River West where restaurant people drank] and waited on a lot of the Bongo folks. Derrick told me if I was ever looking for extra shifts, I could come hostess on the weekend. I started off weekends and liked the hours and the people, so I moved over full-time. Eventually I schemed my way into some server shifts, then bartending. How long ago was this? 16 years? No! MANAO DAVIDSON: I started working at Bongo Room when I was 24. It was the best job I ever had. Wicker Park was so much fun then. Kind of like New York, but you could afford an apartment with a bedroom. J

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Derrick Robles, Gabrielle Shelton, and John Latino é COURTESY GABRIELLE SHELTON

From top left to bottom right: Sharon Pye, Eloise Danch, Mercedes Vala, D’Nell Larson, John Latino, Susan Dolgin (nee Rooch), Derrick Robles, Beth é COURTESY DERRICK ROBLES

continued from 11 MEGAN STIELSTRA: I was working there in the late 90s while I was still in school at Columbia. Tuition wasn’t the shit show that it is now. I was student teaching all over the city. Working at the Bongo Room meant that I was able to take these jobs that paid no money. It was pancakes that let me pay my rent and pay off my loans. I don’t know if that’s possible these days. GABRIELLE SHELTON: Derrick and John were the hardestworking guys, wearing a thousand hats. They did everything. Cook, serve, clean. I was their first employee, so while I worked there, it was just the three of us. They’re amazing. We’re still friends today. KRISTIN LEWIS: The magic sauce at the Bongo Room was working with your best friends, forming a united front against an onslaught of people demanding brunch. Especially in the winter. The winter could be so traumatizing. Everybody squeezing in to wait out of the cold. Trying to navigate through the masses with trays. We supported each other. We took lots of deep breaths. Especially on Mother’s Day. We had to give each other serious pep talks on Mother’s Day. I loved working the host stand with Derrick. You never knew what was going to come through the door. Most people take the wait in stride, but you would get those who were horrified to find out it was an hour. We had a good cop/bad

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cop routine. I always got to be the good cop. Derrick told me to just keep smiling, no matter what.

things we did, but they always said, “When you’re here, we need you here.”

MARGARET MACKAY: It was me and Derrick at the host stand, and I absolutely loved it. I didn’t come from a world of brunching, so it was a bit of a culture shock. I would show up for work at 8:30—we opened at nine—and there would already be a line down the street. We had 70 seats, and we’d ﬁll up the minute we opened the door. Derrick and John were so seasoned and knew all the tricks. There’s an art to understanding table turns, being able to quote people accurate wait times. We had a clock so we could write down what time people checked in. So when they came up and said they’d been waiting 30 minutes, we could point out that they’d actually only been there for eight. For the most part, people were absolutely lovely. It was very rare to have people who got out of control. But when they did, we had a line: “It’s just brunch.”

KRISTIN LEWIS: Derrick and John were always so supportive of us and all of our artistic endeavors. Whenever we ran away, they would always welcome us back.

JOHN LATINO: When I was in the kitchen, I was on the end of the line, by the egg poaching station. I touched every single plate. From the moment we opened the doors at nine, it was nonstop, turn and burn. It was exhausting. MEGAN STIELSTRA: Derrick and John worked their asses oﬀ. And they expected the same. They supported all of the other

MEGAN STIELSTRA: All of us were always in and out. In 2004, I was going to Prague for a year, and when I sat down to tell John and Derrick, I was crying. I was so scared I’d be ripping their heart out, but really it was my heart that was breaking. They just looked at me calmly and said, “So are you quitting, or are you just going on sabbatical?” When I did come back from Prague, I was so broke. I called them and they told me to show up tomorrow. So I did, jetlagged, and went right back to work. MANAO DAVIDSON: Even after I had other things going on, I still wanted to be there and would work on the weekends. I remember a fellow actor coming in once after I had some success and saying, “What are you still doing here? You’re supposed to stop now.” But I didn’t have any family in Chicago, and the Bongo Room became my family. I didn’t want to leave them. To this day, they’ve all remained my very close friends. Derrick and John were like my big brothers.

MEGAN STIELSTRA: When Myopic was next door to us on Milwaukee, I’d walk out after a shift, packing cash, and go in and spend so much money on books. It had a huge inﬂuence on me as a writer. MARGARET MACKAY: I worked at the Bongo Room for eight or nine years. Even after I got a job in social work, got married, had a child, I would still drive down from Uptown to work on the weekends. The neighborhood is very diﬀerent now. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. I remember that the park was dicey when I lived there, but I kind of liked that. MANAO DAVIDSON: When I was in Wicker Park, the warehouses still had artists in them. I remember going back years later and being like, “Is there really a Marc Jacobs here? I got mugged outside this building!” That’s just the cycle of gentrification, though. A group of people move into a crappy neighborhood and make it great. Then everybody wants to live there. GABRIELLE SHELTON: I went back to Wicker Park last October, and it’s changed quite a bit. When I lived there, I remember there being artists and tons of musicians.

The Original Bongo Room location, under the Damen el stop é COURTESY DERRICK ROBLES

GABRIELLE SHELTON: They took me out, helped me navigate dating, kept me in line. They let me know if I got bratty.

tenders who served us after our shift come in for breakfast after theirs.

KRISTIN LEWIS: We really were like a family. We would have monthly dinners, all the staff, at different restaurants around the city. We also had lots of fun finding bars that were open when our shifts ended at 3:30 in the afternoon.

MANAO DAVIDSON: We saw everybody there. Did I know the musicians? Yeah, I dated all of them. [laughs] Everybody hung out together at Subterranean, Empty Bottle, Rainbo. Everybody knew everybody in Chicago back then.

MANAO DAVIDSON: At four o’clock when the shift was over, Derrick and John always bought the ﬁrst round.

JOHN LATINO: Idful Records was right down the street where the Violet Hour is now. We got all the musicians. Liz Phair came in all the time.

MEGAN STIELSTRA: One of the best things about the Bongo Room was you’re done at 3:30, having a drink by 4, and home in bed by 8:30. We hit Matchbox a lot. John and Derrick came with us. At work, there was a line. There was a clear sense of leadership. But when we stepped out of the restaurant, they were our friends. They were also role models. They were just like us. They had a dream. Looking at Derrick, he was only a little bit older, he’d been in the same position as me just five years before. He’d worked his ass off and was having all this success. And he was so accessible, sitting right there next to me with a martini. JOHN LATINO: We love our staff. Knock on wood, we always have great staff. But nothing will ever be like that core group. We were all in our 20s then and always hung out. But now we’re getting older, and the staff still stays in their 20s. MEGAN STIELSTRA: Wicker Park was so cool then. The Bongo Room was the morning place. We’d see all the bar-

GABRIELLE SHELTON: Idful Records was right down the street and everybody recorded there. All the musicians would always come in for breakfast and lunch. And coffee. Coﬀee all day long. I had a couple regulars who were the best tippers, and one of them ended up becoming really famous. It was Fred Armisen. He was in a band called Trenchmouth at the time, and they were the big rock stars of the neighborhood. Liz Phair would come in a lot. She’d just recorded Exile in Guyville, and Rolling Stone interviewed her at the Bongo Room. I waited on them and they ordered blueberry pancakes. Later, when I read the article, there was a line like “The waitress brought us blueberry pancakes.” And I thought, there it is, my 15 minutes. And it’s blueberry pancakes.1 1 The article was a turning point in the Bongo Room’s history; after that one mention, Latino and Robles say, it really took oﬀ and began to grow beyond a neighborhood place.

MEGAN STIELSTRA: Wicker Park feels like a diﬀerent continent to me now. MARGARET MACKAY: I have three boys, and I live in Evanston now. I run into people all the time up here who used to go to the Bongo Room around the time I worked there. They’ll say things like “My husband and I used to go there all the time!” They’re just like me in that they used to live in the city at a certain time in life, and the Bongo Room is really iconic for them. For me, it was my ﬁrst time in a big city. I was just coming into myself. And I found this place where I was able to form so many relationships. I found my core group of friends. We were inseparable. It was the best years of our lives. KRISTIN LEWIS: We were just girls when we started. I loved that they became my family and continue to be my family. MEGAN STIELSTRA: What was special about the Bongo Room was we pooled everything, shared everything. We kind of had this warrior mentality. Before we even knew each other well, we knew we had to help each other. If one person fell, we all fell. I met many of my greatest friends at the Bongo Room. You know, we’d just sit over pancakes and have these big dreams. And now it’s amazing to see what so many of these women have become. MARGARET MACKAY: It truly was the most amazing time of my life. I don’t think John and Derrick realize how many friendships they brought together with this thing they built out of a carton of eggs and a container of milk. v

m @YesSarahNardi JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 13

ARTS & CULTURE

Gideon (1951)

Trenton Six (1949)

ON CULTURE

Charles White’s magniﬁcent presence The Chicago-born artist ﬁnally gets his due with an Art Institute retrospective.

By DEANNA ISAACS

ometimes it really is, as they say, all in the timing. I happened to walk into the Art Institute’s Charles White retrospective last month just as the show’s curator, Sarah Kelly Oehler, was launching into a tour for a tiny clutch of people that included someone I recognized: Chicago’s low-proﬁle ﬁrst lady (and onetime AIC staffer), Amy Rule. Since one doesn’t always get the overview of a 100-piece exhibit directly from the curator’s mouth, I attached myself (as discreetly as possible) to the periphery of this little group and tagged along. I wanted to hear what Oehler had to say about White’s radically accessible body of work and about his career, which, as she quickly pointed out, was dedicated to

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Our Land (1951)

correcting the record on the African-American experience. White was a talented muralist, painter, printmaker, and teacher, but—as this exhibit demonstrates in works like Harvest Talk and Black Pope and so many more that haven’t been made available for publication here (I’m thinking particularly of the gorgeously textured Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep, the wrenching series of “Wanted Posters,” and the devastating wreckage of Birmingham Totem)—above all else, he was a master at drawing, creating life on paper or whatever was at hand with nothing more than pencil or pen. According to Oehler, he was one of the great draftsmen of the 20th century.

Born in 1918 on the south side of Chicago to a domestic worker from Mississippi and a Pullman porter, this black man named White managed to succeed as a ﬁgurative artist in an art world not only closed to blacks, but dismissive of anything ﬁgurative. His larger-than-life portrayals of African-Americans (both famous and anonymous) radiate substance, presence, and agency. They were deliberate correctives to the rampant misrepresentation of blacks in white-controlled mainstream history and art. The exhibit features a wall map of Chicago locations frequented by White as he grew up here. They include the former main building of the Chicago Public Library (now the Chicago Cultural Center), where, as a youngster, he

was parked by his mother while she worked. He attended Burke Elementary School and Englewood High School (when he questioned the representation of blacks in history texts there, he was told to “sit down and shut up”), and, at the age of 13, won a scholarship to Saturday classes at the Art Institute. By 16 he was exhibiting with the Arts Crafts Guild (whose members were part of the Black Chicago Renaissance), and winning numerous art-contest prizes. After graduating from Englewood in 1937, he attended SAIC on a scholarship, helped launch the South Side Community Art Center, and worked as an easel painter and muralist for the WPA. In 1941, he met and married artist Elizabeth Catlett, and left Chicago

ARTS & CULTURE

Black Pope (Sandwich Board Man) (1973) Harvest Talk (1953)

from Margaret Burroughs and Paul Robeson to Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier. Near the end of Oehler’s tour, White’s son, artist Ian White, strolled into the exhibit. In town for an Art Institute event with his

father’s former Otis student Kerry James Marshall, White posed for a selfie with Rule and told me that the mysterious conch shells floating in the foreground of some of his father’s last works are a reference to the family’s Caribbean ancestry. At the event the next night, Marshall, who’d just seen one of his own paintings go at auction for a record $21 million, did most of the talking. He’d written the preface for the exhibition’s excellent catalog (a hefty $50 hardcover, coedited by Oehler and Adler; unfortunately, there’s no less expensive mini version), and had a lot to say about White’s influence on him. He’d gone to Otis expressly because White was there, he said, and learned from him, among other things, that “to be an artist, you have to know something.” Besides that, Marshall said, “He understood what the image was up against, and went all in for the most magnificent presence he could construct. . . . Nobody makes black figures as powerful as Charles White’s. Nobody.” v

m @DeannaIsaacs

APARTMENT 4:

CHIPSTONE FOUNDATION AND IRIS HÄUSSLER

Sound of Silence (1978)

with her (they divorced in 1947). White, who fell ill with tuberculosis while serving on the home front in World War II, subsequently lived in New York City and California where, from 1965 to ’79, when he died, he taught at Otis Art Institute. (The exhibit, cocurated by Esther Adler of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, will travel to New York and Los Angeles after it leaves Chicago in September.) He married a second time, in 1950, to Frances Barrett, who was white, and, in spite of a McCarthy-era visit to Russia and enough

Communist ties to get a subpoena from the House Un-American Activities Committee, established a career that was successful in both commercial and ﬁne art. His goal was to have as many people as possible see his historically corrective work, and it was widely reproduced on calendars and record album covers and used in films and on television. (One of the odder pieces in the exhibit is a triptych White created for the 1958 Sammy Davis Jr.-Eartha Kitt movie Anna Lucasta). Over the course of his remarkable life, he hung out with everyone

John Michael Kohler home (kitchen), 1964; photograph; 8 x 10 in. Kohler Co. Collection. Photo courtesy of Kohler Co.

A collaborative exhibition exploring the life of an artist who might have been.

JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 15

ARTS & CULTURE Avenue Q é BRETT BEINER

But despite the familiarity of Parr’s brand of magic, his show is entertaining, largely as a result of his ability to engage an enthusiastic audience. He’s a theatrical storyteller and a skilled magician but he also possesses a self-awareness of the absurdity of his profession that gives the show a fresh quality despite its traditional ambience and classic contents. —KATIE POWERS DAVID PARR’S CABINET OF CURIOSITIES Wed 7:30 PM, Chicago Magic Lounge, 5050 N. Clark, 312-366-4500, chicagomagiclounge.com, $35-$45.

Double trouble

Fireﬂy Love fails as both a play and a play-by-play.

THEATER

beginning 7/22, Mercury Theater Chicago, 3745 N. Southport, 773-325-1700, mercurytheaterchicago.com, $35-$65.

R Puppet show

The Cher Show

This clever 2003 Broadway hit by songwriters Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez and playwright Jeff Whitty, now in a breezy, intimate staging by director L. Walter Stearns at Mercury Theater, is the story of Princeton, a 23-year-old college grad with no job, no girlfriend, and no sense of purpose. After moving to Avenue Q, a fictional slum on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Princeton meets plucky but lonely Kate Monster, a kindergarten teaching assistant with dreams of opening a school for monsters like herself—or “people of fur,” in her words. Princeton’s other neighbors include failed stand-up comic Brian and his partner Christmas Eve, a therapist with no clients; former child celebrity Gary Coleman; growly-voiced Internet porn addict Trekkie Monster; and bickering roommates Rod, a closeted gay Republican investment banker, and Nicky (a twist on Sesame Street’s bickering Bert and Ernie). With perky songs, video sequences, and Muppetstyle puppets portraying most of the characters, this Sesame Street spoof illustrates such grown-up life lessons as “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist,” “You Can Be as Loud as the Hell You Want (When You’re Makin’ Love),” and “There’s a Fine, Fine Line” between friendship and romance—as noted in the aching, plaintive ballad of the same title, beautifully sung by Leah Morrow as Kate Monster. Having the cast visibly manipulate the puppets (designed by Russ Walko) is an ingenious device, with the actors representing the characters while the puppets portray everyone’s hopeful, anxious “inner child.” —ALBERT WILLIAMS AVENUE Q Through 9/9: Wed-Fri 8 PM, Sat 5 and 8:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Sun 7:30 PM

Gloria Estefan’s got one. So do the Four Seasons. Carole King’s got a really good one. Even Motown’s got one, and that’s a record company. I guess Cher figured it was her turn for a biographical Broadway musical—though I don’t understand why, since she was never all that interesting or good, and she doesn’t qualify as a phenomenon except insofar as she’s been able to parlay her not-that-goodness into a remarkably durable career. A seemingly endless one too. Go and figure. I remember Cher’s first public incarnation, as half of Sonny & Cher, wearing animal pelts and singing really stupid songs like “I Got You Babe” (sample lyric: “there ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb”)— bad enough to become the symbol of Bill Murray’s hell in Groundhog Day. They were like that trendsetter in A Hard Day’s Night about whom George says, “She a drag—a well-known drag. We turn the sound down on her and say rude things.” Written by Rick Elice, who also gave the Four Seasons their bio-musical, The Cher Show makes a sly subtext of the diva’s triumph over talent. We hear her mother tell her it doesn’t matter whether she can do anything because she’s “special.” Elice devotes a whole production number—the highlight of the show—to the flamboyant Bob Mackie gowns that were the real stars of her weekly TV shows and the probable source of her popularity as a sort of female drag queen. Tellingly, there aren’t enough decent Cher hits to fill out the jukebox score. I mean, if “Bang Bang (He Shot Me Down)” has to serve as a recurring motif, you’re in trouble.

Growing up furry on Avenue Q

16 CHICAGO READER - JULY 5, 2018

The diva triumphs over talent—with some help from Bob Mackie—in a new bio-musical.

The cast is strong—especially Michael Berresse as Mackie and Micaela Diamond as the youngest of the multiple Chers. But when this thing goes to Broadway, the Carole King show, Beautiful, will be playing nearby. See that. —TONY ADLER THE CHER SHOW Through 7/15: Wed 2 and 7:30 PM, Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 and 7:30 PM, Tue 7:30 P, Oriental Theatre, 24 W. Randolph, 312-977-1700, broadwayinchicago.com, $37-$107.

If my boyfriend ran away with a mysterious identical copy of me, whom I may have created by accident because some thrift store in Norway sold me a typewriter with a hex on it that could do such things, I would have several options. I might very well pull a María (Steph Vondell). Specifically, I might hound the bastard and his demon lover across North America, finally giving up only when I realized that the meaning of life—or at least the prospect of way better sex than I had grown accustomed to with that feckless, gullible idiot of an ex—resided in a garret above a squalid jarana shop in the form of that cute Guatemalan luthier I banged on my way out of Mexico. Were I to go the María route, however, heaven forbid I find myself trapped inside this heinous excuse for a play, presented by Something Marvelous, which would obligate me to stoop to such unverisimilar follies as having to say the words “I throw the typewriter” before gingerly handing it offstage. Christ guard my delicate soul from having to narrate fake cunnilingus in real-time, first-person present tense. That’s not a play at all. That’s not even play-by-play, since what “happens” fails to happen as described. That’s just someone who would rather be acting talking to listeners who would rather be watching. That it goes on unabated for 90 minutes is everyone’s misfortune, including Vondell’s, who at least manages to endow her flood of bilingual narratorial verbiage with a certain crispness. —MAX MALLER FIREFLY

Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport, 773-9356875, somethingmarvelous.org, $22.

Magic show

David Parr takes his audience on a tour through a Cabinet of Curiosities. Magician David Parr brings old-school magic to life every week at the Chicago Magic Lounge. But the magic isn’t limited to when Parr takes the stage. Hidden behind a laundromat, the Chicago Magic Lounge immerses visitors in a replica of an early 20th-century magic bar, once a staple of the city. The atmosphere leaves little to the imagination, complete with period-appropriate decor, a cocktail menu, and up-and-coming magicians performing tableside tricks in the hour leading up to Parr’s performance. Over the course of his one-hour show, Parr takes his audience on a choose-your-own-adventure-style journey through his “Cabinet of Curiosities” containing magical objects he’s collected over the course of his career, such as golden goblets, a childhood book, and an old deck of playing cards. He tells the story of each one and performs classic tricks, inviting audience members to assist him along the way. He uses the ﬁnal moments of his show to share a modern trick of his own creation that earned him a spot on Penn and Teller Fool Us and brings his historical exploration to a natural conclusion. Parr’s tricks are simple and the items he uses to perform them are staples: scarves, thread, playing cards.

LOVE Through 7/15: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM,

R Total immersion

Not One Batu ventures deep into Hawaiian drug culture. The word batu in the title of Anna Rose Ii-Epstein’s powerful play is a slang term in Hawaiian drug culture for methamphetamine (it comes from the Tagalog word for “rock” or “stone”). The title also is a nonsexual double entendre—meaning both giving up meth entirely and indulging in two hits of meth (not one, but two)—that connects to the show’s central conﬂict: Honey Girl, a former meth addict trying to keep clean in a subculture where everyone she knows is a user (even her mother) so she can keep custody of her kid, continues to deal meth to supplement her meager income. Ii-Epstein, a former addict turned playwright (and coartistic director of Nothing Without a Company), knows well the world she describes. Her dialogue is peppered heavily with Hawaiian pidgin English and drug slang, and her characters feel ripped from life. This quality is accentuated by the raw, moving performances director Rachel Slavick coaxes from her ensemble, led by Marie Tredway’s subtle but compelling take on Honey Girl.

David Parr’s Cabinet of Curiosities

ARTS & CULTURE

é DAVID LINSELL

unearned sentiment. —JUSTIN HAYFORD THE ROOMMATE Through 8/5: Wed-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat-Sun 3 and

7:30 PM, Tue 7:30 PM, Steppenwolf Theatre, 1560 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650, steppenwolf.org, $25-$93.

R Ghost light

The family in Sagittarius Ponderosa can only truly see one another in dreams.

The piece, staged by Nothing Without a Company at the Berger Park Cultural Center Coach House, begins with nearly an hour of environmental theater, a staged party at which the audience members mingle, willingly or not, with the characters from the play, followed by a more traditional theatrical performance. Environmental theater is this company’s thing. And the party is fun and relaxing—beer is for sale, and there are card games and live music—but, honestly, the power of Ii-Epstein’s ﬁne play wouldn’t be diminished one iota if the party were cut. —JACK HELBIG NOT ONE BATU Through 7/21,

Wed-Sat 7 PM, no performance Wed 7/4, Berger Park Cultural Center Coach House, 6205 N. Sheridan, nothingwithoutacompany.org, $25.

The odd couple

An Iowa housewife and her mismatched Roommate learn to live together and like it. Like a host of contemporary playwrights, New Yorker Jen Silverman hasn’t fully discerned the difference between creating characters and assembling signifiers. In her 2015 play, given an unfailingly agreeable Steppenwolf staging under Phylicia Rashad’s good-natured direction, she erects two strategically differentiated fiftysomething women from theatrical sign posts. Sharon is Domestic Innocence: an Iowa divorcee who doesn’t go out much, thinks most New Yorkers are gay, and uses words like “joshing” with a straight face. Robyn is Exotic Experience: a vegan potter and slam poet from the Bronx who buys vegetables from a co-op and grows her own “medicinal herbs.” When Robyn answers Sharon’s ad for a roommate, the pair do a fair amount of comedic sitting around displaying their inescapable differences. The first third of this 90-minute two-hander feels like an excellent sitcom, with abundant nuance provided by Sandra Marquez (Sharon) and Ora Jones (Robyn), two of Chicago’s most compelling and thoughtful actors, here enlivening material well below their pay grade. But then Silverman starts injecting dark—well, darkish— elements into the mix, mostly flowing from the nefarious past Robyn is trying to escape, and the pair clash as Sharon makes reckless, ever-more-improbable choices (although none so improbable as scenic designer John Iacovelli’s choice to render Sharon’s modest kitchen at approximately 500 square feet). Silverman pushes her characters to what might be a heartrending climax, as one flees and the other collapses. But the play’s schematic nature results in mostly

The family of Archer (Jaq Seifert) still calls him Angela and considers him a daughter rather than a son when he moves back home to help care for his ailing Pops (Brian Parry). Mom (Jacqueline Grandt) is mostly focused on keeping the family’s life as it has always been, ignoring the seismic changes happening right under her nose, while Grandma (Kathleen Ruhl) just wants “Angela” to get married so “she” won’t end up alone. MJ Kaufman’s play—receiving its Chicago premiere at Redtwist Theatre under James Fleming’s direction—is note-perfect in showing how often people talk past each other, speaking only of their own desires and hearing only what they want to hear without ever truly listening. Even when Archer meets a stranger in the woods (Christopher Acevedo) and begins a covert aﬀair, neither lover can see the other for much more than what they need them to be. Pops dies but remains as central in each of the family members’ lives as he ever was. His ghost forces each of them to confront themselves in crucial ways that will allow them to go on. While the central metaphor of trees standing in for people is a bit on the nose, Kristen Martino’s set and Daniel Friedman’s lighting design evoke a liminal space where the future and past as well as the living and the dead can mingle freely. The implication that we must enter a dreamlike twilight time in order to truly see one another is a wise insight, but also achingly sad. —DMITRY SAMAROV SAGITTARIUS PONDEROSA Through 7/29: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Redtwist Theatre, 1044 W. Bryn Mawr, 773-728-7529, redtwist.org, $35-$40.

Male bondage

The members of Support Group for Men don’t get eviscerated, but what does happen isn’t much more edifying. A show called Support Group For Men? Written by a woman? At this particular juncture in the life of the nation? I’d expect a bunch of smug white, cisgendered, y-chromosomed assholes getting their privilege—and sundry other parts—handed to them on a pike, to the roar of the woke masses. That doesn’t happen in Ellen Fairey’s comedy, running now at Goodman Theatre in a clever 90-minute staging by Kimberly Senior. But what does—though a thousand times more generous—isn’t a whole lot more edifying. The support group of the title consists of leader Brian and three demographically diverse men he knows from various parts of his life. Delano is an uptight bourgeois black fellow from Oak Park. Young Latino techie Kevin likes both women and men but loves salsa dancing most of all. Blue-collar white Roger is the Neanderthal of the bunch—albeit an endearing and eminently redeemable one. He may make cracks about Brian’s rosé and distinguish himself as the last guy on earth to call gays “light in the loafers,” but he’s self-aware enough to sense that his kind is disappearing. Brian himself has no qualiﬁcations for leadership except insofar as he’s decorated a baseball bat with puka shells and designated it the “talking stick.” Much

fun is made of the new age-y etiquette of the group. The real consciousness-raising kicks in when the men get a surprise visit from a redheaded stranger. Fairey’s script is far too pat and ingratiating to matter much. It’s also dated, referencing old Chicago news like the gentriﬁcation of Wicker Park. The cast, however, manages to be delightful—especially an impish Keith Kupferer as Roger. Set designer Jack Magaw has made a masterpiece of a north-side apartment. And a vignette involving illicit drugs gives Senior the chance to take everything to another level. At least temporarily. —TONY ADLER SUPPORT GROUP FOR MEN Through

7/29: Wed 7:30 PM, Thu 2 and 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM, Tue 7:30 PM, no performance Tue 7/17, 312-443-3800, goodmantheatre. org, $30-$75.

R Whale tale

Why does a sea mammal evoke more sympathy than a black man?, asks Tilikum. The orca Tilikum was taken from the remote waters of Iceland at the age of two and penned in a cramped pool away from the ocean and even the sun most of his waking hours. Tilikum became a killer by the age of ten, drowning trainer Keltie Byrne in an incident spun as an accident. The 12,000-pound behemoth killed and killed again, including among his victims senior trainer and Sea World poster girl Dawn Brancheau, whom he dragged into the water, dismembered, and partially ate minutes after a Dine With Shamu show at the park. These gruesome deaths and the inhumane conditions of Tilikum’s life sparked a public outcry. There will be no more whales at Sea World. What is the diﬀerence between a whale and a man?, asks Kristiana Rae Colón’s new play Tilikum. Why should a black whale evoke more sympathy than a black man when he’s taken from what he loves and kept in untenable circumstances? Sideshow Theatre’s production, under the direction of Lili-Anne Brown, demands consideration of these questions by rendering Tilikum in the body of a black man, Gregory Geﬀrard, who speaks and dances his story on a set that looks like the shallow end of a drained swimming pool. The prisoner’s trick of knocking against walls to speak becomes drums representing the language of the other captive orcas—as urgent and opaque as each pod’s language might be to another. “When you forget your magic, even your

skin be a wall,” says Tilikum. No more. —IRENE HSIAO TILIKUM Through 7/29: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 2:30 PM, Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln, 773-871-3000, sideshowtheatre.org, $20-$30.

The world’s worst gay white man gets woke A time traveler takes in The View UpStairs and learns important lessons about life and community.

It was less than a year ago that Wayne Self’s UpStairs: The Musical was produced at the Pride Arts Center, so it would be reasonable for audiences to confuse it with Circle Theatre’s current production of Max Vernon’s unrelated 2017 musical The View UpStairs. It’s sort of an Armageddon/Deep Impact situation. But considering how far the two shows deviate from a similar starting point, a more apt analogy might be Gremlins and Gremlins 2. Both musicals dramatize elements of the 1973 UpStairs Lounge ﬁrebombing in New Orleans, which killed 32 people and was, until the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre, the deadliest assault on a gay bar in U.S. history. The twist in The View UpStairs, directed by Derek Van Barham, is a time traveler from 2017 who needs to learn a lesson. In short, on the last night of their lives, a group of perfectly lovely gay people minding their own business must teach the World’s Worst Gay White Man (“I’m a basic bitch . . . just give me a pumpkin spice latte and get it over with!”) the value of community and life beyond accumulating social media followers. All this might be the makings of a broad, self-aware comedy at the Annoyance, but they’re employed here in earnest to curious results. In a 100-minute show, it’s hard to see much beyond the central character and framing device, but there are some touching stories and moments on the periphery, like a mother (Selene Perez) lovingly applying makeup to the face of her drag queen son (Rubén Meléndez Ortiz) to cover his bruises. A brief a cappella prayer showcases the capable ensemble’s vocal chops, even if Vernon’s blandly pop-rock score by and large does not. —DAN JAKES THE VIEW UPSTAIRS Through 7/22: Thu-Fri 8 PM, Sat 2:30 and 8 PM, Sun 2:30 PM, Mon 8 PM, Pride Arts Center, 4139 N. Broadway, circletheatrechicago.org, $30. v

Tilikum é JONATHAN L. GREEN

JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 17

Get showtimes at chicagoreader.com/movies.

ARTS & CULTURE

Incredibles 2

MOVIES

Who’s afraid of the superpowered woman?

Elastigirl does all the stretching in Incredibles 2.

INCREDIBLES 2 ss Directed by Brad Bird. PG, 118 min. For listings visit chicagoreader.com/movies.

By ANDREA THOMPSON This review contains spoilers.

uperhero movies are such a part of our theatergoing experience that it’s easy to forget Pixar’s The Incredibles riffed on the conventions of the genre before it became pervasive. The movie came out in 2004, four years before Iron Man kicked off the Marvel Comics Universe, and unlike other movies revolving around costumed crime fighters, it focused on family dynamics. It’s as much a period ﬁlm as an action ﬁlm. Helen (given voice by Holly Hunter) and Bob Parr (Craig T. Nelson) are superheroes Elastigirl and Mr. Incredible, who fought crime in a golden age resembling the late 1940s or early ’50s but were forced to give

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up their alter egos after civilians began suing superheroes for the property damage they caused and superheroes were declared illegal. Fifteen years later, Helen and Bob have moved to the 60s-era suburbs. Bob works at an insurance job he despises, while Helen has found contentment as a stay-at-home mom to their three children: teenage Violet (Sarah Vowell), who can turn invisible and create force ﬁelds; Dash, who has superspeed; and infant JackJack, whose powers have yet to emerge. The Incredibles featured great action, but director Brad Bird also knew when to keep it to a minimum and focus on the fun characters. In true Pixar fashion, the situations, some of which involved Bob and Helen’s at-times tenous marriage, could be appreciated by chil-

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18 CHICAGO READER - JULY 5, 2018

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dren and adults alike. But a darker side to all this prevented me from embracing The Incredibles as so many others have. The ﬁlm shows the family suffering due to forced equality with the herd. The villain, Syndrome, came to hate superheroes because Mr. Incredible had rejected him as a sidekick. But his hard work and ingenuity are no match for the Parrs’ God-given abilities. With Incredibles 2, Bird adds a new threat: women in power. Elastigirl may be the center of the movie, going out to fight crime while Bob stays home and takes care of the family. The difference is how Helen goes about her work, especially when compared to the villain, Evelyn Deavor (Catherine Keener). Evelyn is the sister of Winston Deavor

(Bob Odenkirk), a free-market enthusiast who comes to the rescue of the family after their battle with the Underminer in the last few minutes of the first movie. In keeping with the first movie’s conservative themes, the police chastise the family for interfering, the media depict them as criminals, and the government condemns their activities. “Politicians don’t understand people who do good just because it’s right,” observes Rick Dicker (Jonathan Banks), one of the only sympathetic government officials. In case the point isn’t clear, a news report states that “people have more trust in monkeys throwing darts than in Congress.” A smooth-talking salesman, Winston wants to change the public perception of super- J

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THE MISANDRISTS ss

Directed by Bruce LaBruce. 91 min. Fri 7/6-Thu 7/12. Facets Cinematheque, 1517 W. Fullerton, 773-281-9075, facets.org, $10.

ARTS & CULTURE The Misandrists

Our bodies, our cell

In Bruce LaBruce’s The Misandrists, lesbian revolutionaries smash sexual taboos to undermine the patriarchy. By BEN SACHS

or some filmmakers—Bernardo Bertolucci, Lina Wertmüller, Dušan Makavejev—sex and politics are inextricably linked. The ways their characters engage with each other sexually mirrors how they engage in the body politic, with individual sexual liberation representing the first step in larger social change. Canadian writer-director Bruce LaBruce (No Skin Off My Ass, The Raspberry Reich) is one such filmmaker. For three decades he’s made movies that combine explicit sex with radical political rhetoric, arguing that opposition to repressive social structures goes hand in hand with breaking sexual taboos. This argument is central to LaBruce’s 2017 feature The Misandrists, screening this week at Facets Cinematheque; in fact several characters state it outright. The film’s didacticism can be heavy-handed, but as usual LaBruce leavens it with humor and eroticism. Set “somewhere in Ger(wo)many” in 1999, The Misandrists follows a collective of radical feminists who call themselves the Female Liberation Army. They desire nothing less than the overthrow of patriarchal society, though LaBruce never reveals how they intend

to achieve this. Instead he focuses on their daily activities in the former boarding school they’ve appropriated for their revolutionary cell. Governed by the forbidding Big Mother (Susanne Sachsße), the group consists of four middle-aged leaders and eight young recruits, the older women training the younger ones in subjects that range from physical fitness to history to astrology. When the women aren’t in class, they pass the time gossiping and having sex—in fact Big Mother encourages free love because it subverts the patriarchal norm of monogamy. The leader also wants the young recruits to start shooting lesbian pornography so she can sell it and use the proﬁts to ﬁnance the group’s revolutionary activities. The academic classes, which stress revolutionary consciousness in all areas of life, may remind you of the training sessions in JeanLuc Godard’s La Chinoise (1967), about a group of young Maoists preparing for revolutionary activity in Paris. Like Godard, LaBruce depicts the lessons as a form of theater enacted by flamboyant instructors; unlike Godard, he infuses the rhetoric with so much humor that you may wonder whether to take any of it seriously. This is especially true when the

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MOVIES

characters discuss pornography. The notion that objectified sex could fuel a revolution is inherently silly, and LaBruce seems to recognize this—the group’s conversations about their porn project are filled with hilarious non sequiturs. Unfortunately this humor dilutes his more serious observations of patriarchal culture and makes the women’s mission to overthrow it seem almost a joke. The Female Liberation Army doesn’t appear to be a particularly strong unit. From the opening scenes onward LaBruce shows how the cell is vulnerable to infighting and infiltration. Two of the young recruits, Hilde and Isolde, find a wounded revolutionary, Volker, in the woods. Volker is on the run from the police for having defaced the Berlin Stock Exchange, and despite Big Mother’s rule against associating with men, Isolde decides it’s her duty to hide him. (“Vandalism is a crime against private property and thus a crime of low consequence,” he says before passing out.) Isolde keeps Volker in the boarding-house basement and tends to him in secret, but she arouses the suspicion of other recruits when she starts slipping away from the group during meals. Later on, some of the women suspect there’s an undercover cop in their ranks, and many of them succumb to paranoia. LaBruce also reveals that Isolde, despite identifying as a woman, has a penis but hasn’t told her comrades. (According to the FLA’s rules, a penis is grounds for expulsion.) These developments keep the plot moving in spite of the frequent rhetorical breaks; one wants to know whether the group will overcome the secrets and suspicions that threaten their unity. However compelling this may be, LaBruce maintains such a campy tone that the narrative turns never assume much emotional weight. That’s too bad, because LaBruce has some serious ideas along with his comic conceits. In the film’s most poignant moment, one recruit recounts the backgrounds of the other major characters, several of whom have been sexually abused by men. The scene serves as a reminder of how genuinely awful patriarchal culture can be and engenders sympathy for anyone who wants to undermine it. v

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m @1bsachs JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 19

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ARTS & CULTURE continued from 18

heroes, and he’s in a good position to do so, having been born with a superpower himself: money. He makes his case to the superheroes in a skyscraper that literally towers over the clouds. He wants to use the technology of his telecommunications company, Devtech, to allow superheroes to take control of their own narrative. Evelyn is a genius who invents much of this technology, but there are indications that she doesn’t share her brother’s fondness for superheroes. Evelyn is also the one who determines that Elastigirl will be a better fit for their PR campaign, because she causes far less property damage than her husband. Helen is reluctant; when she finally accepts the offer, her family isn’t just the main reason, it’s the only reason. Mr. Incredible needs no reassurance or excuses—he loved being a superhero, and his desire to return to the life is the main reason he encourages his wife to go. In contrast, Evelyn’s motives are both more complex and depressingly simple. She harbors no ambitions to take over Devtech or do her brother’s job; she just wants to be appreciated for her hard work and ingenuity. She feels undervalued compared to her brother, who can read people and sell anything to anyone. Evelyn is critical of the rampant consumerism surrounding her. Through her villainous alter ego, the Screen Slaver, she hypnotizes people into doing her bidding through their video screens, all the while condemning their vicarious lives. “You don’t talk, you watch talk shows,” the Screen Slaver’s eerie voice drones. “You don’t play games, you watch game shows.” (Why would

Incredibles 2

20 CHICAGO READER - JULY 5, 2018

Pixar, a company that has made innovation the centerpiece of its brand, portray innovation as so insidious?) Elastigirl’s very abilities reflect the movie’s old-fashioned ideas, her extreme flexibility giving her the power to meet whatever needs arise. When Elastigirl goes after Evelyn at the climax, she does so only after receiving the approval of every other family member; throughout the adventure, she’s ready to drop everything and go back to them at the slightest hint of trouble. Bird also passes up the opportunity to explore the superpowers of young Violet, who spends the movie obsessing over a boy and looking after her brother Jack-Jack. How interesting Incredibles 2 might have been if it had delved into the power of someone who already feels invisible to society to literally vanish from it. Because all this takes place in a mythical 1960s, it’s imbued with a sense of nostalgia— yet nostalgia can blind us to the ugly realities of the past we long to reclaim. Incredibles 2 pines for the hope, the sense of adventure, and, ironically, the innovation that characterized the 60s, while the negative aspects go unacknowledged. When phrases like “make superheroes legal again” are casually thrown around, I wonder if the movie’s nostalgia is less for the period than for a certain mind-set. By making Elastigirl no more than an extension of her family, Incredibles 2 regresses to a time when any power women managed to acquire was carefully controlled so as not to threaten the male order. Such nostalgia is self-defeating. v

m @areelofonesown

Sorry to Bother You

MOVIES

Ant-Man and the Wasp

Unlike Marvel’s Captain America and Black Panther, who pack muscle with gravitas, Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is a lightweight, a former burglar whose antiauthoritarian streak matches his reluctance to grow up. In this sequel to Ant-Man (2015), the hero’s ability to shrink becomes the perfect metaphor for a man-child with a battered ego and poor impulse control. Father-and-daughter rogue scientists (Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly) shanghai the hero as part of their plot to rescue the long-lost superheroine Wasp (Michelle Pfeiffer) from a space-time purgatory called the quantum realm. The screenwriters (Rudd among them) frequently mock their own sci-fi jargon, their snarkiness the strong suit in a movie offering little else than souped-up car chases. Peyton Reed directed; with Michael Peña as Ant-Man’s scene-stealing majordomo. —ANDREA GRONVALL PG-13, 118 min. For listings visit chicagoreader.com/movies.

R Leave No Trace

Debra Granik knows how the other half lives: her powerful debut feature, Down to the Bone (2004), starred Vera Farmiga as a working-class mom fighting coke addiction in upstate New York, and Granik’s sophomore effort, Winter’s Bone (2010), gave Jennifer Lawrence her first big role as an impoverished 17-yearold girl fending for herself and her younger siblings in the Ozarks. Granik steps down the social ladder another rung with this gripping tale of a widowed, traumatized U.S. war veteran (an intensely silent Ben Foster) living in the wilderness around Portland, Oregon, with his 13-year-old daughter (Thomasin McKenzie). After police apprehend them camping in a public park, they’re processed through social services and set up with a more stable work and living arrangement, but the father wants off the grid. “We can still think our own thoughts,” the girl reminds him; the love they share is extremely moving, especially as the daughter grows older and begins to gain perspective on the father’s mental illness. —J.R. JONES PG, 108 min. Century 12 and CineArts 6, Landmark’s Century Centre, River East 21.

Love, Cecil

Dazzling black-and-white images, coaxed along by eloquent diary entries, power this documentary portrait of British photographer and designer Cecil Beaton, who epitomized 1930s sophistication with his work at American Vogue, forged a second career as a documentary photographer during World War II, and later created costumes for such Hollywood splendors as Gigi (1958) and My Fair Lady (1964). Beaton’s fashion photography and movie-star portraits are exquisite, often staged in immense white spaces and with delicate use of expressionist shadow; the war photography brings his gift for capturing a person’s essence to decidedly less glamorous settings. Director Lisa Immordino Vreeland touches on Beaton’s gay love life, his glittering social life, and the scandal that nearly ended his career in 1938, when he snuck anti-Semitic slurs into an illustration for Vogue. But her best accomplishment is having gathered so much of Beaton’s work from various disciplines into one place, so the full force of his aesthetic can be appreciated. —J.R. JONES 99 min. Fri 7/6, 2 and 6 PM; Sat 7/7, 3 PM; Sun 7/8, 5 PM; Mon 7/9, 8 PM; Tue 7/10, 6 PM; Wed, 7/11, 8 PM; and Thu 7/12, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center.

R Sorry to Bother You

César Chávez meets Salvador Dalí with this surreal proletarian comedy, the writing and directing debut of Oakland rapper Boots Riley. The broke-ass hero (Lakeith Stanfield) lands a job at a telemarketing call center and finds instant success by using a whiter-thanwhite phone voice, but he’s pulled leftward by coworkers organizing for better pay and rightward by employers dangling a promotion in front of him. Hanging over all this is a smooth-talking celebrity millionaire (Armie Hammer) promoting modern-day slavery in the form of lifetime employment contracts. Riley’s racial swipes are ham-fisted, but the bitter workplace comedy calls to mind no less than Mike Judge’s cult classic Office Space (1999), and the elaborate sight gags are delectable (in one sequence, the hero drops through the floor of the call center into the rooms of the people he’s phoning). With Tessa Thompson, Steven Yeun, Terry Crews, and Danny Glover. —J.R. JONES R, 102 min. Century 12 and CineArts 6, River East 21.

Between Lake & Randolph

ARTS & CULTURE

MOVIE HOTLINE: 312.846.2800

THE HOUSE OF TOMORROW

LOVE, CECIL July 6 - 12

Fri., 7/6 at 2 & 6 pm; Sat., 7/7 at 3 pm; Sun., 7/8 at 5 pm; Mon., 7/9 at 8 pm; Tue., 7/10 at 6 pm; Wed., 7/11 at 8 pm; Thu., 7/12 at 6 pm

Three Identical Strangers

This fascinating documentary by Tim Wardle traces the lives of identical triplets who were separated at birth by a Jewish adoption agency in 1961 and discovered each other’s existence only when they were 19. The three boisterous young men, who’d been raised in varying degrees of aﬄuence, became a media sensation, doing the talk show circuit and going into business together on a restaurant. Only later did they learn that their mother had been mentally ill and their separation had been part of a hushed-up psychiatric experiment, involving an unknown number of children, to compare the eﬀects of home environment on identity formation. “This is like Nazi shit!” exclaims Robert Shafran, one of the now middle-aged men, as a heady, upbeat tale of brothers joyfully reunited opens out into a disturbing meditation on the nature of selfhood. —J.R. JONES PG-13, 96 min. Visit chicagoreader.com/movies for Jones’s long review, posting Thursday, July 5. Fri 7/6Thu 7/12, 2:15, 4:45, 7:15, and 9:45 PM. Music Box.

July 6 - 12

Fri., 7/6 at 4 & 8 pm; Sat., 7/7 at 5 pm; Sun., 7/8 at 3:15 pm; Mon., 7/9 at 8 pm; Tue., 7/10 at 6 pm; Wed., 7/11 at 6:15 pm; Thu., 7/12 at 8 pm

“Coming-of-age bromances don’t come much more endearing.” — RogerEbert.com

The life of legendary photographer Cecil Beaton

JULY 6 - 12 • LET THE SUNSHINE IN BUY TICKETS NOW

“An elegant and witty rumination on one woman’s quest for romantic ﬁre.” — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

www.siskelﬁlmcenter.org

Uncle Drew

This basketball comedy originated as a series of short videos on the promotional site for Pepsi Max, and the movie was bankrolled in part by PepsiCo, so instead of referring to product placement in the story, one should probably refer to story placement alongside the product. A long-suﬀering coach enters his Harlem street-ball team in the annual Rucker Park Classic tournament, then embarks on a Blues Brothers-style odyssey to reunite a crew of legendary geezers who competed in the contest a half century earlier. These are played by a half-dozen NBA and WNBA greats—Kyrie Irving, Shaquille O’Neal, Chris Webber, Reggie Miller, Nate Robinson, Lisa Leslie—most of them lumbering around in snowy wigs and old-age prosthetics. What laughs there are come mainly from Lil Rel Howery as the short, put-upon coach and Nick Kroll as a rival player constantly winding him up. Charles Stone III directed. —J.R. JONES PG-13, 104 min. For listings visit chicagoreader.com/movies.

Whitney

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The tempestuous life and sad death of pop diva Whitney Houston get an exhaustive documentary treatment from British director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland), who follows the lead of Asif Kapadia’s Amy (about Amy Winehouse) by doing his best to implicate Houston’s family and friends in her downfall. Houston’s personal assistant alleges that, as a child, Whitney was sexually abused by her grown cousin, the singer Dee Dee Warwick, and others accuse her father, John Russell Houston Jr., of embezzling money from her. A superstar at 21, Houston traveled the familiar showbiz path of isolation, addiction, and overdose, surrounded by sycophants but deeply unsure of herself. Macdonald presses his interview subjects for details about her intimate relationships (particularly Robyn Crawford, her childhood friend and loyal assistant, and Bobby Brown, her doomed-to-be-a-punch-line husband) but only hints at the social context of her stardom (at the height of her fame, Reverend Al Sharpton mocked her as “Whitey Houston”). —J.R. JONES R, 120 min. Arclight, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Ford City, Landmark’s Century Centre, River East 21, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings, Showplace ICON. v

ION OF STA IAT TE OC

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JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 21

Still Music rescues decades of house history from a south-side storage locker

Jerome Derradji of Still Music ﬁts a tape from Record Al’s house-music cache to his reel-to-reel machine. é KRIS LORI

Label founder Jerome Derradji is restoring dozens of decaying reel-to-reel tapes and releasing their contents—including unissued tracks and DJ mixes from some of the genre’s early giants. By LEOR GALIL

ast summer, Chicago DJ and producer Jerome Derradji returned to his native France for the first time in a decade. He needed to clear his head after a legal battle with a New York distribution company nearly sank Still Music, the dance label he’d founded in 2004. After spending a few weeks abroad, he felt better personally, but his business was

22 CHICAGO READER - JULY 5, 2018

in the same sad state he’d left it in. It was a lousy time for him to get a phone call from an unfamiliar record dealer offering him a very expensive once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. From the point he’d signed with the distributor, Derradji’s ordeal had lasted for two and a half years. “They promised us a really great pressing and distribution deal, and they completely messed it up—a year later, we had four

records out and none of the re-presses that we needed to do,” he says. “I sued them, and that cost me a ton of money. I had to get my rights back and my catalog back.” Through arbitration Derradji regained the rights to Still Music’s catalog, but a huge amount of damage had already been done. “Almost two years of the label completely gone because of those guys, more than a third of my stock lost

that I’ll never ﬁnd again, that I couldn’t forward to artists or anything,” he laments. “Almost 13 years of work down the garbage.” When the stranger called with his offer last August, Derradji had to face the grim situation his label was in before he could even think about answering. The dealer asked if he wanted to buy a batch of reel-to-reel tapes—mostly 1980s radio mixes by house-music DJs. That de-

The tape boxes sometimes come with surprises inside—in this case, a concert ﬂyer and a channel plot for a mixing board. é KRIS LORI

scription didn’t sell Derradji on the collection. “I remember very well telling him, ‘I’m not really interested in radio mixes. I don’t know what I’d do with it—I’m a record label,’” he says. In response the dealer, who goes by Record Al (his real name is Brehon Charles Allen), sent a photo of the tapes. Derradji noticed that some of the reels were in wide boxes, which seemed to indicate multitrack recordings. Radio mixes aren’t typically recorded that way—plus Derradji knew he’d be better able to rework and restore music on multitrack tapes, not least because the recordings were likely to be of higher quality. The following day, he met Al at a south-side storage facility. “He opens his storage locker, and it was full of tapes, literally right in front—it’s incredible,” he says. Derradji organized the boxes into different piles: radio mixes, multitrack tapes, and label masters (which were also multitrack tapes). “I had, at this point, no intention of buying it,” he says. Between hearing from Record Al and visiting the storage facility, he’d learned a little more about the collection from Kevin Starke, a fellow DJ and producer (and owner of the late KStarke Records). Al had ﬁrst contacted Starke, who’d referred him to Derradji. “I

Still Music has released this 1986 Frankie Knuckles radio mix as part of the four-cassette set JACK to the Lost Reels. é KRIS LORI

thought the guy wanted $10,000 for it—that’s the number I heard that he’d been asking around for a while,” Derradji says. “It looks like he’s been trying to sell that stuff for ten years. I heard famous companies in Europe were ap-

proached but didn’t really realize what it was.” What Record Al turned out to have is an incomparable time capsule of Chicago house from the mid-80s through the mid-90s, preserved on nearly 170 reel-to-reel tapes. It was

enough to make Derradji wish he had $10,000 to spend—but after everything his ﬁght with the distributor had cost him, he just didn’t. The recordings include master tapes by Dance Mania artist Victor Romeo, aka Victor Parris Mitchell, and the popular trio Ten City (specifically a couple tracks from their 1994 Columbia album That Was Then, This Is Now). Some of the music is unreleased, including material by revered house vocalist Kevin Irving, who died in December 2014. Most of the radio mixes had been aired on WBMX or WGCI by iconic house collective the Hot Mix 5 (whose cofounder Ralphi Rosario performs Saturday at the Chosen Few Picnic). Those mixes offer a snapshot of what records the giants of house might’ve played in clubs when the genre was breaking out. “You don’t see things like that anymore, as far as house music goes—that’s like winning the lottery,” says Starke. “Things like that get lost or tossed, or no one thought they might be worth something 20, 30 years in the future.” Derradji struck a deal with Al to buy the reels, arriving at a price per tape. He saw it as “karma” that this treasure fell into his lap just after his label had suffered such an unfair J

JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 23

continued from 23

blow. He won’t say how much the tapes cost him in total, but it was less than $10,000. “It turned out to be really affordable for me,” Derradji says. “I think he was happy to see them gone. He made a little money, and he understood that I was gonna work with it and not just sit on it or try to put it on eBay.” In April, seven months or so after Derradji closed the deal, Still Music released the first batch of recordings from Record Al’s trove, a four-cassette package of radio mixes called JACK to the Lost Reels. (Each tape is titled with a letter in the word “jack.”) The J tape is a Frankie Knuckles mix that was broadcast by WBMX on June 25, 1986, and the first side of the A tape is a shorter Steve “Silk” Hurley radio mix. Earlier this month, Derradji dropped the first vinyl sourced from the reels, a 12-inch of three beat tracks from 1988. The material he got from Al doesn’t include any information about who created them, though, so the record is simply titled The Lost Chicago Beat Traxx (1988). The unissued Kevin Irving tracks will soon see the light of day, and another batch of JACK cassettes is due by the end of August. At this rate, he could keep releasing this music for another decade.

erradji grew up in Poitiers, a university town four hours southwest of Paris. In 1998 he got hooked on the style of dance music sometimes called “French touch” (Daft Punk, Alex Gopher, et cetera), and during a 1999 trip to Zurich he bought his ﬁrst Chicago house record, Roy Davis Jr.’s new 12-inch “Electric Soul” b/w “Someday.” That same year he took a trip to Chicago to visit one of his sisters and wound up meeting his future wife at Smart Bar. He moved here in 2000, and at his wife’s encouragement he looked for work in the music industry. He was hired at Dr. Wax’s Elston warehouse, the ﬁrst in a series of jobs that brought him to Groove Distribution a few years later. “While I was at Groove, one of my jobs in the beginning was to open new stores,” Derradji says. “I started opening all these stores in Detroit. And one in particular was Vibes New and Rare Music—Rick Wilhite’s store.” Wilhite is also a producer and DJ, and in 2004 he invited Derradji to a show featuring his group 3 Chairs (with Moodymann, Theo Parrish, and Marcellus Pittman). “I kinda had this epiphany around that time, that all this music that those dudes in Detroit were making was completely not supported and not really reaching a lot of people, except niche people,” Derradji says. He launched Still Music the same year, intending

24 CHICAGO READER - JULY 5, 2018

Derradji inspects a multitrack tape reel in his Humboldt Park home. For the photo shoot, he made the obviously unpremeditated choice to wear a T-shirt advertising another one of his labels, the excellent boogie, funk, and disco imprint Past Due. é KRIS LORI

to release contemporary Chicago and Detroit house on vinyl. The label’s second catalog entry is the Soul Edge E.P. Part 2 by Wilhite’s project the Godson. A year later Derradji launched the Still Music imprint Stilove4Music to focus on edits and remixes by new artists. Unlike its parent label, Stilove4Music uses blank hub labels on its vinyl—a nod to the culture of bootleg or promotional “white label” records in dance music. Derradji didn’t get into reissues till 2007, when he launched the funk, boogie, and disco imprint Past Due—which partnered with Numero Group co-owner Rob Sevier to release the 2008 compilation The American Boogie Down. “It was really a test for me to see if I could reissue music,” Derradji says. “It worked pretty well. We licensed the compilation to BBE—they did well with it. I reissued it on vinyl recently. It was the key point where I was like, ‘Well, I wanna do the same thing, but with house music.’” It wasn’t quick work, but four years later Still Music released its first archival house recording, 122 BPM: The Birth of House Music, a three-CD or double-LP set compiling music from two of the earliest Chicago house labels, Mitchbal and Chicago Connection. “I have this weird determination to prove that the underdogs were really good,” Derradji says. “I’m not

making a comparison between a really famous guy and an unknown guy—I’ve basically determined that it’s equally good, and I have to present it the same way and try to do my best for it to sound excellent, to look excellent. I have to document it so people can actually read and learn about the talent that is on that record.” Soon Derradji enlisted freelance writer Jacob Arnold (also a Reader contributor) to write liner notes for Still Music releases. “I like the fact that he’s a local person reissuing Chicago music,” Arnold says. “I’m not originally from Chicago—I’m kind of a carpetbagger myself. But we both settled here, and I think that’s important, just to understand the city a little better and to keep up these relationships with the artists.” They first collaborated for the 2013 compilation Kill Yourself Dancing: The Story of Sunset Records Inc. 1985-1989, which had its origins in an Oak Park thriftstore score. “There was a ton of Sunset Records in there, and I bought those at a dollar apiece,” Derradji says. “I had no idea what it was. I was listening to it and I was like, ‘Man, this is so awesome.’ I tracked down [Sunset cofounder] Matt Warren, and we started talking.” Still Music went on to release archival house compilations documenting another Matt

Warren label, AKA Dance Music, as well as early west-suburban label Let’s Dance and the KStarke label. Starke says he’s had other offers to reissue his material, but he’d rather work with Derradji—even though he knows the process will be slow with such a small operation. “As long as no one’s ever done anything to me, I stay loyal to guys,” he says. “Jerome’s proven that to me time and time again. I’m patient.” Starke had another chance to prove his loyalty to Derradji when Record Al contacted him— without that referral, those precious tapes might still be slowly decomposing. Al says he acquired them around 18 years ago, when someone who’d bought a storage locker contacted him after ﬁnding roughly 9,000 records and a bunch of reel-to-reels among its contents. Al bought them all, but he had a tougher time ﬁguring out what to do with the tapes. “I kept them because I didn’t know the value and I didn’t know what they could become,” he says. “The good thing about me—thank you, Jesus Christ—I never needed money. So I never got rid of stuff just to make money.” By his own admission, as a collector Al sometimes used to go past “savvy” all the way to “cutthroat.” “He was untouchable,” Starke says. “Guys would see Al, and they knew Al had money. He could go in there and take J

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JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 25

This Frankie Knuckles radio mix, also from 1986, comes with a track listing. é KRIS LORI

continued from 24

collections away from guys, and they were definitely fearful.” Al says he worked as an inspector for the Chicago Department of Buildings’ Strategic Task Force, and his job took him to so-called troubled properties where there’d been arrests for drugs, gambling, prostitution, and “those type of vices.” If he noticed likelylooking records on the premises, he’d let folks know he was up for making a deal. “Whenever I’m in the field working—in other words, if it looked like something beneficial for me—I would call my timekeeper and I would get off the clock,” he says. Al is a jazz fan first and foremost, but he knows plenty about other styles of music. Starke remembers running into him at the Maxwell Street Market. Starke had picked up a rare house 12-inch, and Al asked to see it. “I’m thinking, ‘Well, he doesn’t know anything about this house-music stuff—let me let him look,’” Starke says. “He sees it and he kept going, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, I can’t believe you found it! Motherfucker!’ He’s causing a scene, and guys—rock guys—are like, ‘What’d you find?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, nothing.’ And he starts yelling at the guy who’s selling the records, ‘I told you to let me look through this stuff!’”

26 CHICAGO READER - JULY 5, 2018

In the collection Derradji bought, smaller tapes like this are likely to be radio mixes. é KRIS LORI

The record in question, a 1989 compilation on Marcus Mixx’s Missing Dog Records, has sold for up to $500 on Discogs. And Starke says Al has calmed down in the years since that encounter. Record Al isn’t just a collector but a dealer—a skill he’s developed in order to find good homes for music he doesn’t want to keep. He’s invited other collectors to his

house for that purpose, among them Starke and soul historian Bob Abrahamian. He had no trouble unloading the records from the storage locker—mostly disco and hip-hop radio promos and white labels—but he’d never sold a reel-to-reel tape before. “They were just in the locker the whole time,” Al says. “I had no market for that, and I didn’t look into a market for that.”

Selling the reels became more urgent for Al after he bought a house in North Carolina in summer 2016. He planned to move there in October 2017, and thus had a deadline. “I wasn’t gonna move all the stuff I didn’t want or have any interest in,” he says. He turned to Starke, who recommended Derradji: “I was like, ‘Well, you should call this guy Jerome, ’cause he definitely has the drive and the love for the music here—he’s basically the main guy I would say doing a lot for all that old-school house, more than anyone else I know in Chicago.’” While Derradji was still at the storage facility on that first day, he walked Al through the labor-intensive process that would be necessary to salvage the music on the tapes—part of his effort to bring down the price. “I said, ‘You can do it or I can do it—I know how to do it, because I’ve done it before, but I know what it takes, and literally what it takes is a lot of money to clear everything, to transfer everything, and to do it proficiently,’” Derradji says. “He asked me for a ton of money, and I said no, and we negotiated and he came down.” Derradji drove home with 105 reels that day. A week later Al called with news that he had found more reels in the locker, and Derradji returned to retrieve another 60 or so. Once he’d brought every tape home, Derradji set about organizing them. He numbered each reel and began building an XL spreadsheet to organize whatever information accompanied each tape—labels, dates, whether the music had been released. That took about three weeks. Because the name “Ed Crosby” appears on most of the reels, Derradji figured that might be the previous owner and set out to find him. That search lasted another few months, ending after he found a Facebook flyer that listed a phone number for Crosby’s gospel radio show on WBGX 1570 AM. Crosby declined to be interviewed for this story, but according to Derradji he was ecstatic to hear that his collection had resurfaced. Decades ago Crosby used to hunt down Kenny “Jammin” Jason of the Hot Mix 5 at club nights to pass along mixes he’d made, and in the late 80s he played with Chicago house group Master C&J—he’d met future bandmates Carl Bias and Jessie Jones while working at Loop Records. He also released solo recordings on his own Get Down Records during this time, and he eventually got more directly involved with the Hot Mix 5. “On Ed’s part, it was like, ‘I can’t believe it, the Lord sent you,’” Derradji says. “I explained to him that I bought everything, and I wanted to work with him and talk about reissuing stuff and writing his legacy and his story.” In early

Many of the tapes Derradji now owns previously belonged to Ed Crosby, who’d been a member of house group Master C&J and released his own music via Get Down Records. é KRIS LORI

November, Derradji met Crosby at WBGX’s headquarters in Harvey, and about a week later Crosby visited Derradji and Arnold to go through the reels. They were immediately convinced that Crosby’s direct contributions to house—not just the tapes of other people’s music he’d amassed—were worthy of preservation. “One of the cool things he did do—he was playing his 909 drum machine with a cappellas over top to create original material for his mixes, which not all of the DJs did,” Arnold says. “I think that’s how his ‘Party Time’ record came about—that was his first record. That’s kind of a classic, in my opinion.” While Derradji was still looking for Crosby, he’d started to listen to the tapes. He borrowed a reel-to-reel player from local dub and reggae DJ King Tony and tried baking the tapes with a food dehydrator. “What the baking does is it puts all the elements of the tape back on the tape. With time, moisture, and temperature, the recording that’s on the tape basically starts sticking to the back of the other side,” he says. “You have to bake it to give it its integrity back, and transfer it once so you can have the most audio out of that tape.” Old tape is fragile, and baking it risks melting the substrate. Even if everything goes right, the process is slow. Derradji says it’s taken him roughly four hours apiece to bake the radio

mixes, and his friend Dan Dietrich at Wall to Wall Recording spends 12 hours on one. After treating maybe 20 reels at home, Derradji threw in the towel: “I was like, ‘It’s too advanced for me.’ I have to hire my friend to do it.” Having this done professionally is expensive, unfortunately. “Once I calculated the cost—baking those tapes and transferring everything—I realized I had to ﬁnd a way to finance that without impacting the current budget of the label,” Derradji says. “I was like, ‘There’s all these radio mixes, let’s do them as cassettes—like the way people were listening to it at the time.’” Derradji had digitized about 20 mixes, and he picked his favorites to release as JACK to the Lost Reels. He was able to reach some of the DJs to ask permission, and none of them insisted on money. “They wanted the mixes to be heard again, so fans could get a direct vision in how they were DJing at the time,” he says. Crosby especially hopes to see as much of this music as possible released, so he’s happy for Derradji to sink the proceeds into more reissues. That’s not to say everyone gave their blessings—some of the DJs have proved hard to find. The C and K tapes prominently feature an artist who went by Devastating Daryl, and Derradji is still trying to ﬁgure out who that is. Technically the DJs aren’t the only people who’d need to give approval for these releases

to be totally above board—their mixes consist largely of tracks by other artists, which in a perfect world would also have to be licensed. But the world of dance music is a messy one, and DJs have a long history of releasing mixes marked with the words “for promotion only”— it’s a way of signaling that they’re not trying to siphon revenue away from the creators of the tracks they spin but simply want to showcase their own turntable artistry. Derradji has stamped that phrase on the JACK tapes too. Baking and transferring the reels for the four JACK cassettes cost $400, according to Derradji. He’s made 100 copies of each, and he’s selling them for $13.99 apiece (or $53.99 for the set). If all goes well, he should clear a few thousand dollars after expenses. The modest scale of the release is also part of his attempt to avoid seeming exploitive, as is his decision not to stream the mixes or sell them digitally. “It will be impossible to license all the music on there properly,” he says. “And also it would be completely cost prohibitive.” Derradji thinks he handles reissues honorably. He typically offers artists half of any profits, and he’s realistic about what that might mean. “I’m very transparent—there’s no fake promises of stardom or huge sales. It’s more about, ‘Hey, why don’t we do it together and see what can happen,’” he says. “If somebody doesn’t want to work, we try

to license stuff from them. We’ll figure out everything together.” Derradji also asks musicians to help with their own liner notes. He wants old photos, biographical details, and anecdotes—even though artists aren’t always eager to share, especially if they think a story doesn’t cast them in the best light. He says transparency helps mitigate that reluctance too. “There’s never a moment where the artist doesn’t know what I’m working on with them and what is happening, or they can’t see the artwork or can’t see the text,” he says. “They always take a pass at editing stuff, they always take a pass at how it looks, so they feel like we’re still doing what we’re doing. I think that’s really important— it’s their vision anyway.” To ensure that money from the release of the unissued Kevin Irving tracks, “Don’t Keep Me Waiting” and “Just for You,” went to Irving’s next of kin, Derradji found Kevin Irving Jr. He also mixed Irving’s songs according to the original studio notes, where were included with the reels. Even Derradji’s remixes of the tracks reﬂect the era of the source material. “I’m trying to make a remix that somebody would have done in the 90s, so it doesn’t sound like you’re releasing a track from ’91 and the remix is, like, minimal Berlin techno,” he says. “I’m trying to be authentic on this one, thinking about, ‘How would have Kevin approached people about doing a remix?’” Derradji is still listening through the reelto-reel tapes and still discovering surprises in them. He’s found a ﬂyer for an Underground World Futureshok show, a typed-out mix tracklist from Frankie Knuckles, an Ed Crosby “Hot Mix 5” business card, soundboardchannel notes from the Chicago Recording Company, and handwritten lyric sheets from Ten City recording sessions, among many other things—enough to spruce up a pretty extensive book of liner notes. The project of restoring these tapes and releasing the music they contain (as well as the ephemera packaged with them) is part and parcel of Still Music’s core mission: documenting the house scene of Derradji’s adoptive hometown. “We need to preserve that heritage. We need to talk about the legacy of each and every one of those guys as much as we can, so that it doesn’t disappear, so it’s not absorbed, put into a book, and whitewashed into something that it’s not,” he says. “We have this fantastic opportunity that’s hugely viable for this music—we can reissue it, document it, make it proper, and give cred to all those guys. And they have a chance to share their genius again.” v

m @imLeor JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 27

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

MUSIC

PICK OF THE WEEK

In our time of great division, Odie makes music for everyone

é COURTESY THE ARTIST

Odie Fri 7/11, 7:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, $12. 17+

THURSDAY5

Janelle Monáe St. Beauty opens. 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State, $99.50. b

After Rolling Stone published its April cover story on shape-shifting pop musician and actor Janelle Mone on the release of her third album, Dirty Computer (Wondaland/Bad Boy/Atlantic), it felt like every traﬃc-hungry news outlet cherry-picked the quotes where she opens up about her sexuali-

28 CHICAGO READER - JULY 5, 2018

CANADIAN-BORN POP ARTIST Odie embraces his Nigerian heritage, and talks a lot about growing up with the sounds of African gospel and Fela Kuti. His family history pumps blood into the heart of his debut album, April’s Analogue (Unité Recordings/Empire), which transposes Afrobeat rhythms onto mopey pop instrumentals that feel ready made for Top 40 radio. The 21-year-old frequently cites Kid Cudi and Coldplay as his influences; he has a deep understanding of how their milquetoast material can harbor big emotions for large masses of listeners who at a person-to-person level may not share the same interests in emerging artists. At a time when algorithms are programmed to build out playlists that approximate an individual’s taste and many music listeners choose to wall themselves off from experiencing new-to-them music that might challenge their expectations for what sounds can do, Analogue ﬁnds a way to unite a balkanized audience. The plaintive acoustic guitar and his relaxed croon on “Little Lies” are sure to go down smoothly with both people who happily shell out tons of money for Coldplay tickets and those who’d rather pay to block Coldplay songs from ever piercing their digital music libraries. —LEOR GALIL

ty. Monáe’s transparency about being pansexual is well and good, but in the midst of stories that boiled her statements down to one cheap talking point— for example, the Washington Post piece headlined “Janelle Monáe comes out as ‘pansexual’—what does that mean?”—a lot of the nuance of the record was lost in the mix. That’s unfortunate, especially with an album that far transcends any one narrow focus. I found it particularly enlightening to learn that Monáe’s roles in Moonlight and Hidden Figures— both critically acclaimed ﬁlms that examine untold stories about black life in the U.S.—inspired her to open up about her personal life. Monáe knew how to make art that reﬂected humanity long before she

began her acting career (even when she cast herself as a humanlike robot for her debut full-length, 2010’s The ArchAndroid); now, by drawing on pieces of her own narrative, she’s given Dirty Computer a more vivid sense of real-world life. That vibe comes through in the music as well: throughout the record Monáe and a wide cast of contributors— members of her Wondaland Arts Collective, plus Mr. Hudson, Brian Wilson, Zoe Kravitz, Pharrell Williams, Stevie Wonder—blend hip-hop, neosoul, modern funk, tropical pop, and anything else that can make music feel as real as ﬂesh. That’s the case with the minimal-funk bounce of the Grimes-assisted single “Pynk,” on which Monáe makes no bones about

ALL AGES

her sexuality but also doesn’t trap herself within one idea either. —LEOR GALIL

MIchael Rault Evening Attraction and Jungle Green open. 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $10. 21+ On his latest album, It’s a New Day Tonight (Wick), Montreal tunesmith Michael Rault takes a big leap forward, sharpening his pop instincts and shedding the glammy specter of Marc Bolan and T. Rex that haunted its predecessor, Living Daylight. He hasn’t exactly stepped into the present, though; nearly every crisp arrangement and irresistible hook conjures 70s AM pop-rock radio, and the sparkling production by Wayne Gordon, head engineer at New York’s Daptone studio, only sharpens the music’s bite. This time around Rault has forged a set of songs steeped in the sweet melodiousness of Big Star, the Beatles, and Wings, the ﬁzz of onehit wonders Pilot, and occasionally the hot-tub softrock extravagance of 10cc. Bassist Benny Trokan underlines the tunefulness with nimble lines that lope and chug, girding every song with a snappy precision and providing ballast for the strings that gild some of the tracks. Rault is an auteur, laying down gorgeous harmonies with his lead vocals and cutting out any trace of fat—these songs get the job done with little fuss. The album title is taken from a postgame interview with a pro hockey player who said, “It’s a new day tonight, we’ve got to put the past behind us.” As oxymoronic as that sentence may be, it reﬂects a certain vacuity in Rault’s lyrics, which on New Day Tonight feel more like placeholders than expressions of anything we haven’t heard before. But when the music is so catchy and assembled with such elegant craftsmanship, I don’t care. —PETER MARGASAK

Michael Rault é MAT DUNLAP

MUSIC FESTIVALS

This weekend’s flock of fests Dark MAtter BLock PArty Dark Matter’s annual block party expands to two days for the first time to celebrate the local coffee roaster’s 11th anniversary. The huge range of musical acts on the bill includes the Hood Internet, Black Bear Combo, Brain Tentacles, and Dos Santos. Fri 7/6, 4 PM, and Sat 7/7, noon, Dark Matter Coffee Mothership, 738 N. Western, darkmattercoffee.com, all-ages F International FEstival of Life Some of the biggest names in reggae, dancehall, hip-hop, and rasin appear at the 26th edition of this family festival devoted to the African diaspora, among them King Yellowman, Elephant Man, Ace Hood, and Boukman Eksperyans. Fri 7/6 through Sun 7/8, noon, Union Park, 1501 W. Randolph, internationalfestivaloflife.com, $19.50 per day, $58 three-day pass, $10 for seniors, all-ages Irish American Heritage Festival Local and international Irish folk acts such as Gaelic Storm, We Banjo 3, and Jigjam come together at this annual party that also includes food, dancing, and workshops. Fri 7/6, 6 PM; Sat 7/7 and Sun 7/8, noon, Irish American Heritage Center, 4626 N. Knox, irish-american.org, $10 per day, all-ages West Fest This West Town festival reliably brings cutting-edge sounds to the streets, and the 2018 lineup is no exception: it includes the Make-Up (see page 29), Kevin Morby, Joey Purp, Ohmme, and a stage dedicated to Chicago house DJs. Fri 7/6, 5:30 PM; Sat 7/7 and Sun 7/8, noon, Chicago between Damen and Wood, westfestchicago.com, $5 suggested donation, all-ages chosen Few Picnic and Festival The Woodstock of house music returns for its 28th installment with sets from DJs such as Wayne Williams, Alan King, Tony Hatchett, and Jesse Saunders. Sat 7/7, 8 AM, Jackson Park, 6300 S. Lake Shore, chosenfewdjs.com, $40, children under 12 free, all-ages

Janelle Monáe é COURTESY ATLANTIC RECORDS

FRIDAY6 Immersion Forest Management opens. 9 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, $15. 18+ The drastic aesthetic differences between the members of Wire are part of what’s made the music of the British postpunk quartet so rich, but they’ve also made it necessary for each of them to step outside the group to explore anything that doesn’t fit into the gridlike results of their collective songwriting process. Guitarist Colin Newman confirmed his mastery at writing barbed pop songs with solo albums such as 1982’s Not To and 1986’s Commercial Suicide, and starting with the 1981 release of Provisionally Entitled the Singing Fish, he’s also been crafting instrumental music. During the 1990s and once again over the past couple years, his main outlet for this pursuit has been Immersion, his duo with his wife, ex-Minimal Compact bassist Malka Spigel. On Sleepless (Swim~) they start by playing melodic hooks that could easily work as the foundations for conventional songs. But instead of shaping these ingredients into structures, the pair uses them as launching points for pieces that swell with atmospheric analog synthesizer tones and glide on crisp grooves that split the difference between minimal techno and classic Krautrock. Tonight they’ll be joined by drummer Matt Shulz of Holy Fuck, who’ll remain onboard for the rest of their U.S. tour, but just what will happen onstage may be up for grabs: in a concert from late last year that’s up on YouTube, Spigel and Newman stick to keyboards and play an uninterrupted series of themes from their back catalog. —BILL MEYER

The Make-Up See also Saturday. Axis:Sova opens. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, sold out. 21+ Anyone who ever suggested that D.C. punk had a definitive sound likely never listened to Dischord Records’ complete catalog, let alone the Make-Up.

Prior to launching the group in 1995, front man Ian Svenonius, drummer Steve Gamboa, and guitarist and organist James Canty were citizens of the Nation of Ulysses, a hurricane of a postpunk band whose members dressed like they were going to church and spouted cheeky, radical leftist ideology. Even the title of their 1991 debut, 13-Point Program to Destroy America, espoused their desire to eradicate the country. By the time NoU broke up in 1992, their ideas had been lifted by MTV for a television program called Alternative Nation, which meant their music was en vogue (and replicable—hello, the Refused). So when Svenonius, Gamboa, and Canty teamed up with bassist Michelle Mae to form the Make-Up, they rebelled against that co-opting of punk ethos by blending soul with church hymns and French pop—a sound they dubbed gospel yeh-yeh— and building upon the musical and political legacy of their previous band. “We were always castigated for being fashion hounds, so we just wanted to embrace our own inauthenticity,” Svenonius told Washington Post pop critic Chris Richards in 2014. “We were very inauthentic, but we were inﬂuenced by black music and revolutionary politics and other things we were genuinely attracted to.” Sure, the Make-Up were a tightrope act, balancing out-there high-art concepts with rock stripped down to its most straightforward, melodic, and feral elements. And, yes, Svenonius’s subversive lyrics frequently felt as though they required a code-breaker’s manual (good thing he’s since expanded upon many of his theories about rock, socialism, and mass media with a few pocket-size books). But the Make-Up excelled because they took all these complicated pieces and just made something fun, earning a reputation as one of the most exciting acts around for their calland-response live performances. You can feel the energy in their studio recordings too; even in their quietest moments the band seems to teeter on the verge of combustion, and wild-man Svenonius sounds more and more unhinged the closer he gets to a whisper. The Make-Up broke up in 2000, but since 2012 they’ve sporadically regrouped, and in anticipating their ﬁrst reunion show, Svenonius told the Post, “this seems very natural. We can do this.” —LEOR GALIL

SATURDAY7 the Make-Up See Friday. This set is part of West Fest. 8:30 PM (music starts at noon), Chicago and Damen, $5 suggested donation. b Marvin Tate’s Kitchen Sink Abeeku opens. 9 PM, Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, $10. 21+ Poet, singer, and performer Marvin Tate has been a steady presence in Chicago’s artistic fringe for several decades, working with Leroy Bach’s art-funk band Uptighty back in the 90s while also fronting his own multidisciplinary omnibus D-Settlement. But I’d never paid him much more than passing attention until I caught him a few times in Mike Reed’s Flesh & Bone project, in which his presence, sense of rhythm, and language grabbed me by the throat. Tonight he celebrates the release of a new album, Kitchen Songs (Ivy-Rae), which is held together by his magnificent presence as it

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moves casually between R&B, funk, psych-rock, cabaret, and more without ever straightforwardly embracing any of them. Although a bit pitchchallenged and melodically clunky, Tate conveys such authority and packs such a metaphoric wallop into his warped depictions of and philosophical meditations on urban life that focusing on his technical shortcomings misses the point. The ten tracks on the album are powered by a versatile cast of musicians, including drummer Dan Bitney (Tortoise), bassist Matthew Lux, guitarist/banjoist Aaron Shapiro, and others who allow Tate to toggle between quasi-operatic crooning, soulful balladeering, forceful hectoring, and guttural chanting; no matter which direction he takes, the results are riveting. —PETER MARGASAK

SUNDAY8 Bison Bison A trio of Phil Sudderberg, Jason Stein, and Charlie Kirchen opens. 9 PM, Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, $10. 21+

Sometimes I feel bad about my inability to keep up with the new talent that keeps pumping into Chicago’s jazz and improvised music scenes; there’s a steady inﬂux of young players forming new groups or joining others that have already begun J

JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 29

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establishing themselves. There are players from both of these categories in Bison Bison, a quartet that have played a handful of gigs over the last year. They’d been totally off my imperfect radar until recently, when the group’s talented drummer, Matt Carroll—a multistylistic force who plays in the imaginative piano trio Rooms as well as in the rising pop-rock band Ohmme—shared a copy of their self-titled debut album on Flood Music with me. The group also includes bassist Mike Harmon, an agile player who works in mainstream jazz circles as well as holding down the low end for folk-pop singer V.V. Lightbody. I’ve seen the names of guitarist Ishmael Ali and tenor saxophonist Willis McKenna around in recent years, but their contributions to the quartet’s sleek postbop is my ﬁrst encounter with their playing. Those two musicians composed the moody, elastic themes on the record, for which they openly admit drawing inspiration from the generously expansive work of drummer Paul Motian. They possess an impressive rapport, articulating the seductive melodies with a loose interaction that indicates their deep connection, and playing their arrangements with an attractive slackness that allows them plenty of leeway in both their improvisational reach and quicksilver responsiveness. While most of the album’s seven pieces embrace a swing feel, the group doesn’t shy away from a more aggressive stance on tracks such as the rock-fueled “Ampersand,” where McKenna unfurls beautifully tangled lines and Ali injects oﬀ-kilter funk stabs. The rhythm section bends and pushes with an assured, sophisticated touch; though they elevate the music, they never overshadow each other. —PETER MARGASAK

James Hunter Six Jesse Dee opens. City Winery, 1200 W. Randolph, $35-$45. b On James Hunter’s recent Whatever It Takes (Daptone) a brief liner note by pianist Sam Boncon delivers some straight talk that might seem like a dis in most contexts: “There’s nothing new here.” Indeed, not only does the album sound of a piece with his last four, it remains easy to think that the British soul devotee made this collection six decades ago; he elegantly collides influences like Ray Charles, Curtis Mayﬁeld, Sam Cooke, and Freddie King for

a rippling old-school R&B record that crackles with ease and concision. The mono recording fits neatly into the Daptone aesthetic—even if its sources are rooted further in the past than those of label staples such as Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley—and Bosco Mann (aka Gabriel Roth) expertly produced the record with the imprint’s typical clarity and punch. Hunter’s creamy rasp is as effective as ever, and he delivers his sophisticated melodies with a relaxed swagger punctuated by abraded falsetto cries and wordless extrapolations. There’s a touch of Benny Spellman in his slinking “Show Her,” with his deft twin-saxophone section plaintively answering his testifying at every turn. Though the focus remains on Hunter’s singing, his guitar playing demands attention too; the instrumental “Blisters” is an organ-stoked shuffle in which his single-note runs sting and slash with a slightly rude tonal flair that cuts against the grain of today’s rock-sopped blues sound. —PETER MARGASAK

YOB See also Monday. Bell Witch and Bruce Lamont open. 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 2105 S. State, sold out. 17+ The doom metal I enjoy generally does a fine job whipping up feelings of dread, revulsion, despair, and outrage—and like a good horror movie, it allows you to splash around in darkness without suffering the associated trauma. As cathartic as that can be, though, it misses a huge opportunity by rolling credits before anyone has had a chance to return to daily life. Oregon trio Yob are distinctively wonderful because they keep going all the way to that ordinary light at the end of the tunnel—their recent eighth album, Our Raw Heart (Relapse), evokes the renewed vision that settles onto survivors of neardeath experiences, when every leaf on every tree seems freshly miraculous and radiant. In this case the near-death experience is literal: Yob guitarist and front man Mike Scheidt, 47, was diagnosed with acute diverticulitis in late 2016 and underwent a nine-hour emergency surgery early last year after his sigmoid colon ruptured and ﬂooded his abdomen with pus. As he told Rolling Stone this spring, when he began writing Our Raw Heart, “There was no guarantee that I was going to live long enough to record the album.” These songs immerse them-

selves in the body’s painful betrayals, the cruelties humans visit upon one another, the downward tug of the lifeless hand of depression—and in response they reach for a divine love beyond time and physical form. “No matter how lost / You find yourself / The sun rises still,” Scheidt sings on “In Reverie,” buffeted by swinging, concussive thunder. “Whatever you believe / In these red times / There is more / Than errors of sight.” Even the album’s structures mirror this seeking, often meditatively circling a riff or a pitch center and then leaping into a vast, kaleidoscopic chorus. Scheidt says his surgeons played Yob’s music as an “anchor” for him while he was clinging to life on the operating table, and for those of us clinging to our own lives, the band can work the same way. “I’m wearing less black,” Scheidt told the New Yorker last summer. “I’m attracted to color.” —PHILIP MONTORO

MONDAY9 Yob See Sunday. Bell Witch and a special guest to be announced open. 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 2105 S. State, $25, $20 in advance. 17+

TUESDAY10 Brigid Mae Power I.E. Kokoro opens. 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $10. 21+ There’s a steely determination inside “Don’t Shut Me Up (Politely),” a song from Irish singersongwriter Brigid Mae Power’s recent second album, The Two Worlds (Tompkins Square). As J

JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 31

MUSIC

Summer is more fun with Old Town School Music • Dance Art • Theatre Wiggleworms®

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the song thrums on within a single chord, she quietly but ﬁrmly chastises someone intent on controlling her and makes it clear she won’t be silenced. “You’d try to convince me / That I was somebody / Somebody that I’m definitely not,” she intones before asserting her own agency. It’s a message that can be applied broadly these days, as discourse seems to have devolved into who can shout the loudest or manipulate the most ruthlessly. Most of the other songs on the album address relationships and broader life choices in various states of distress, presenting ambiguities and misunderstandings in an open-ended light. The lyrics are masterfully complemented by the way the sparse arrangements (all of the piano, guitars, and drums were played by Power and Oregonian Peter Broderick, who mixed the album) ﬂoat and gently shimmer, infecting ancient folk-derived melodic shapes with a dreamy, meditative incantatory style. My favorite track is the opener, “I’m Grateful,” a ballad of exquisite beauty and tenderness in which Power expresses gratitude for an unnamed but elemental kind of support; the narrator conveys thanks for “Your reassurance / The holding of your hand.” Though the music rarely rises above a conversational volume, Power makes herself heard within that hushed atmosphere. Tonight is her Chicago debut, and this show is one of only two on the tour where she’ll be accompanied by Broderick. —PETER MARGASAK

WEDNESDAY11 Ethers, Love-Birds 9:30 PM, Whistler, 2421 N. Milwaukee. b 21+

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This double bill of recent signees to Chicago’s invaluable Trouble in Mind imprint reflects the label’s knack for locating bands that evoke the hey-

Brigid Mae Power é DECLAN KELLY day of 80s and 90s indie rock and convey a shaggy charm and melodic generosity that’s often missing in today’s underground scene. Chicago’s Ethers features four musicians who’ve been banging around for the last decade in bands such as Heavy Minds, Radar Eyes, and Outer Minds, but its forthcoming self-titled debut pushes away from some of the garage-rock flavor one might expect given its members’ pedigrees (though not from its primal drive, thanks to the drumming of Matthew Rolin) for something more tuneful with sounds that recall music from the early 90s. There’s an appealing rasp to Bo Hansen’s singing, a kind of wearied soulfulness that ﬁghts with the surrounding din, which is

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Immersion é TOBY MASON

32 CHICAGO READER - JULY 5, 2018

Martha Redbone é FABRICE TROMBERT

driven by the kaleidoscopic organ ﬁligree of Mary McKane. She also adds a dusky sweetness to the proceedings with her harmony singing, and handles the lead on the gorgeous “Carry What You Kill.” On their debut album, In the Lover’s Corner, San Francisco’s Love-Birds evoke the sounds of New Zealand’s Flying Nun label—particularly the Verlaines—and collide them with the early work of Scotland’s Teenage Fanclub, whose vocalist and guitarist Norman Blake mastered the record. “Angela” is an irresistible slice of shambling hooks, with guitars that frantically strum into loose pileups while bassist Charlie Ertola and drummer Eli Groshelle pound out rhythms. But the stinging guitar leads from Eli Wald snap things into order with a bite like Teenage Fanclub channeling the squall of J. Mascis. —PETER MARGASAK

Odie See Pick of the Week, page 28. 7:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, $12. 17+ Martha Redbone Roots Project Part of Taste of Chicago. Brandi Carlile headlines. 5:30 PM, Petrillo Music Shell, Grant Park, 205 E. Randolph, $18-$50. b If you were looking for compelling source material for an album of 21st-century Americana, you might not start with poems written in England at the tail end of the 18th century. But the 2012 debut album by Martha Redbone Roots Project, The Garden of Love—Songs of William Blake, sets the words of the English writer, artist, and visionary to arrangements that blend elements of Appalachian folk, gospel, soul, blues, and Native American music. Born in rural Kentucky, Redbone has a family tree that includes African-American, European, Cherokee, and Choctaw ancestors, and she grew up learning about the various musical traditions of her people. Though she’s found success in New York and London, she’s never left her roots behind; in the 2000s she mixed gospel and R&B with Native American influences on three releases, including

2004’s Skintalk, for which she won an Independent Music Award for best R&B album. She’s also led educational workshops for children on Native American reservations across the country and used her prominent platform to advocate for civil rights, nonviolence, and equitable treatment of indigenous people—her desire to create connection as well as to thread together past and present are part of what inspired her to make Garden of Love. Her honey-toned voice, the intimate production by John McEuen (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), and Blake’s evocative verses about love, nature, compassion, and liberation combine to make the songs feel timeless and universal—and they seem especially poignant in their yearning for freedom and happiness, now that engaging with the wider political world is so draining and disheartening. —JAMIE LUDWIG

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Suicideyear Clara La San and Jeremiah Meece open. 8:30 PM, Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S. Morgan, $15, $12 in advance. 17+ Experimental electronic music has always enjoyed an alliance with gloom; that is, dark clothes, darker beats, and the darkest venues. The more decrepit the warehouse, the better. But Baton Rouge-based James Richard Prudhomme, known as Suicideyear, eschews those types of blues in favor of—if you believe it—a refreshing ray of sunlight. Following a series of mixtapes and two EPs, his first full volume of original solo material, Color the Weather (out July 6 on LuckyMe), is a swirling distillation of zydeco’s fast-paced, tinny percussion with the Xanax-soaked hip-hop of his peers. Album track “Kept Distance” lurches with heady melodies dotted with scattered synths, a millennial nod to the unmistakable washboard folk common in Louisiana. And in keeping with his intellectual, optimistic approach to electronic music, he’s remixed a wide range of artists, from Britney Spears to My Bloody Valentine to Yung Lean (a frequent collaborator). Tonight Suicideyear will perform at the Co-Prosperity Sphere in Bridgeport. Those who make the trip over will be rewarded with electronic music that shimmers like city lights. —MEAGAN FREDETTE v

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FOOD & DRINK

SIZZLING POT KING | $$ R 769 W. Jackson 312-291-9053 sizzling-pot-king.business.site

Wuhan hot-dry noodles é MATT SCHWERIN

All hail Hunanese dry hot pot at Sizzling Pot King

The city’s singular expression of food from China’s southern province reigns in Greektown. By MIKE SULA

’ve often wondered: Who is the king of Hunanese-style dry hot pot in Chicago? Until last March there was no answer to the question. You may have noticed the proliferation of Sichuan-style hot-pot restaurants in Chinatown in recent years. If you’ve visited any of them, you’re acquainted with the singular pleasure of hunkering around a roiling vessel of soup and oil, chile, and myriad spices—probably in a group, maybe one on one—your brains thrumming with the elec-

34 CHICAGO READER - JULY 5, 2018

tric current of Sichuan peppercorns, dunking morsels of ﬂesh and vegetables into the brew, retrieving them with chopsticks, and gobbling them down until endorphins have flooded your brain and you’ve achieved a perfect state of euphoric exhaustion. What we haven’t seen, until now, was a distinctly Hunanese version of that experience. In fact, as a city we’ve been denied the unique pleasures of food from that particular southern Chinese province since Tony Hu’s late, great, and tragically short-lived Lao Hunan

went down with the Mayor of Chinatown. Hunanese is generally regarded as spicier and brighter than Sichuanese food, and in it peppercorn ma la is usually subordinate to chile heat—though you can still catch a buzz. If you ﬁnd Sichuanese hot pot too intense you might consider Sizzling Pot King, the seventh outpost of a rapidly expanding westcoast chain, which opened in Greektown last March, assuming the title of de facto king of Hunanese-style dry hot pot in Chicago. SPK is the brainchild of 32-year-old Shengbo

Chen, a San Diego IT engineer who this week opened his eighth location in Fremont, California. When I asked Chen how many more Sizzling Pot Kings he planned to open, he paused for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s the best Chinese food. Why not more?” Chen was born in Jiangxi, the province next to Hunan, but he attended university in Beijing before earning his PhD at Ohio State. He currently has locations in San Diego, San Francisco, and Sunnyvale, California; Dallas; and Bellevue, Washington, across Lake Washington from Seattle (he’s opening another in the latter city next month). That map says a lot about the dispersal of postgraduate Chinese immigrants across the country—in each of these cities Chen has teamed up with former schoolmates, many of whom are hanging on to their day jobs. He met his Chicago partner—who prefers to remain silent in deference to his engineering gig—in school in Beijing. Chen’s partners may all hail from different parts of China, but all of his chefs are from Hunan. This means that we once again have the opportunity to tackle finely sectioned pickled green beans with ground pork (a personal Lao Hunan favorite) and fat, fleshy green chiles stir-fried with thinly shaved pork. The list of Hunanese offerings isn’t as deep as Lao Hunan’s was, but there’s quite a bit to get into, even extending beyond the borders of the province, like a marvelous platter of “Chef’s Magic Tofu”: large, flat sheets of custardy, lightly fried house-made bean curd stacked and draped with a glossy red sauce that merely hints at sweet-and-sour. Wuhan hot-dry noodles—one of China’s iconic dishes—are rarely seen in these parts, but they’re represented here. Served (at room temp, actually) with finely chopped vegetables—not out of sync with Hunan’s frequently pickly profile—these are served in a light sesame sauce reminiscent of, but applied much more judiciously than, the usually gloopy American-Chinese takeout descendants of this dish. But the chief attraction at SPK is, of course, the hot pot. Maybe you love the communality of hot pot but not the labor involved. A dry hot pot allows you all the freedom while requiring none of the work, amounting to a customizable stir-fry with endlessly variable options. Wisecracking young servers will offer you the breakdown: choose a size, a spice level, and a “flavor.” (Chen says his base “secret” J

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FOOD & DRINK

“Chef’s Magic Tofu” é MATT SCHWERIN

Sauteed pickled green beans with minced pork

sauce contains more than 20 seasonings, though a milder “garlic” choice is offered for the spice averse.) You can order it sweetand-sour or hot and sour, or opt for a seafood version with a whole tilapia to pick apart, but the ma la option, with a liberal yet relatively restrained dose of Sichuan peppercorns, is really the way to go, particularly if you enjoy the sensation in moderate levels. Default ingredients include soft potato wedges that absorb the sauce, as well as broccoli, celery, cauliflower, soybean sprouts, and bright red chiles with cilantro and sesame seeds. Choose additions from an enormous list of vegetable and “griddled” proteins, from catfish to cuttlefish, pork ribs to beef tendon, lobster balls to quail eggs, and tofu to kelp, plus Spam-like slabs of “luncheon meat” and lots more. The resulting hot pots are prepared in the kitchen and arrive as riots of textures and flavors. They’re enormous too. I spent several subsequent days happily nibbling on supertender griddled lamb riblets with eggplant and king oyster mushrooms, and thin, beefy slices of tongue with bony chunks of bullfrog and Napa cabbage, all marinated in the potent sauce and soaked up by ample helpings of rice. SPK’s seemingly sudden appearance in Greektown—around the corner from some of the most touristy restaurants in town and next door to a Philly’s Best cheeseteak joint—seems like an anomaly. One evening a server jokingly asked my party if we’d meant to go there instead. A no-frills interior with a

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SALES & MARKETING

LLC

Consultants for Chicago, IL location to apply analytics to data to describe, predict & improve business performance. Master’s in Statistics/ Mathematics/ Analytics + 3yrs exp. or Bachelor’s in Statistics/ Mathematics/ Analytics + 5yrs exp. req’d. Skills req’d: Exp. w/SQL, Tableau, data extraction, transformation & analysis on large datasets (millions of records), data warehouses, SQL skills to query & manipulate data from large data warehouses/ databases (containing terabytes of data), presenting data analysis to clie nts/executive leadership, using data visualization tools (Tableau), Linux/ Unix platform, managing multiple assignments effectively. Send resume to: C. Studniarz, REF: VR, 555 W Adams, Chicago, IL 60661

SALES & MARKETING

Retail

BINNY’S IS HIRING! Binny’s Beverage Depot is the Midwest’s largest upscale retailer of ﬁne wines, spirits, beers and cigars, and due to our continued growth, we are now looking for dedicated individuals to join our team at our location in the South Loop.

DELIVERY DRIVERS/STORE ASSOCIATES FULLTIME

We are seeking energetic, customer-oriented individuals to perform a variety of store and delivery functions. Qualiﬁed persons must be able to lift 40-50 lbs. and available to work ﬂexible hours including evenings, weekends and holidays. Valid IL driver’s license with a clean driving record is essential.

commanding view of the skyline seems to do it no favors either. Chen tells me that he suspects the lack of parking is part of the reason the Chicago location, selected for its proximity to UIC and the residential towers popular with expats, has so far underperformed relative to the other branches. This is unacceptable. That’s no way to treat the singular representative of Hunanese food in the city, much less the king. Please pay your respects. v

Please apply online at

www.binnys.com/careers

EOE

@MikeSula, msula@chicagoreader.com

JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 35

REAL ESTATE RENTALS

STUDIO $500-$599 CHICAGO, CAL PARK & Blue Island: Studio $625 & up; 1BR $700 & up; 2BR $885 & up. Heat, Appls, Balcony, Carpet, Laundry, Parking. Call 708-388-0170

STUDIO $600-$699 Chicago, Hyde Park Arms Hotel, 5316 S. Harper, elevator bldg, phon e/cable, switchboard, fridge, priv bath, lndry, $165/wk, $350/bi-wk or $650/mo. Call 773-493-3500

STUDIO OTHER EAST CHICAGO - Harborside Apartments accepting applications for SECTION 8 1 & 2 Bedroom Apartments. Apply Wednesdays ONLY from 12pm to 4pm at 3610 Alder St. Applications are to be filled out on site. Adult applicants must provide a current picture ID and SS card.

NEWLY REMODELED UNITS

61st & King Dr. 3 Bd/2Ba, Washer/ Dry Hook-up, Alarm, 61st & Racine - 1Bd/1Ba, 1 year Free Heat. Chicago Heights 4 Bed, 2 Full baths, SFH. Other locations available. Approved credit receive 1 month free rent. For More Info Call 773.412.1153

PRE-SPRING SPECIAL - CHICAGO South Side Beautiful Studios, 1,2,3 & 4 BR’s, Sec 8 ok. Also Homes for rent available. Call Nicole 312-446-1753; W-side locations Tom 630-776-5556; 7739 S HALSTED, Nice apart-

ment - 6 large rooms, Good location/ close to transporation. Call Mr Harding 9am-9pm Mon-Sat. 773-7231775.

LOVELY NEWLY DECORATED rooms available. Far South. $425-$475/mo + security. Apartments also available for rent. Call 773-703-8400 CHICAGO: VICINITY OF 108th & Wabash, Lrg 3BR, newly rehabbed, 1st flr, quiet, clean 2-flat bldg, Sec 8 welcome. $950/$1100. 773-510-9290 NEWLY REMOD 1BR & Studios starting at $580. No sec dep, move in fee or app fee. Free heat/hot water. 1155 W. 83rd St., 773-619-0204

GARY NSA ACCEPTING appliNO SECURITY DEPOSIT cations for SECTION 8 STUDIO Fullteron & Kedzie, Large Studio AND ONE BDRM Apartments. Apnear bus, train & shopping. Free ply Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10am to 2pm ONLY at 1735 W 5th heat, gas & lights. $650 & Up. Call 773-616-1253 or 847-401-4574 Ave. Applications are to be filled out on site. Adult applicants must CLEAN ROOM W/FRIDGE & provide a current picture ID micro, Near Oak Park, Food -4and SS card. Less, Walmart, Walgreens, Buses & Metra, Laundry. $115/wk & up. 773-637-5957 LARGE SUNNY ROOM w/fridge & microwave. Near Oak Park, Green Line & Buses. 24 hr Desk, Parking Lot $101/week & Up. (773)378-8888 CROSSROADS HOTEL SRO SINGLE RMS Private bath, PHONE,

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

û NO SEC DEP û 6829 S. Perry.

1BR. $530/mo HEAT INCL 773-955-5105

Ashland Hotel nice clean rms. 24 hr desk/maid/TV/laundry/air. Low rates daily/weekly/monthly. South Side. Call 773-376-5200

1 BR UNDER $700 7022 S. SHORE DRIVE Impeccably Clean Highrise STUDIOS, 1 & 2 BEDROOMS Facing Lake & Park. Laundry & Security on Premises. Parking & Apts. Are Subject to Availability. TOWNHOUSE APARTMENTS 773-288-1030

ADULT SERVICES

CHICAGO NEAR 80TH & Ingleside. Newly rehab, 1 BR, large LR, new kit, carpeted. $600. no sec, heat included. 708-921-9506 Newly updated, clean furnished rooms in Joliet, near buses & Metra, elevator. Utilities included, $91/wk. $395/mo. 815-722-1212 NICE ROOM w/stove, fridge & bath Near Aldi, Walgreens, Beach, Red Line & Buses. Elevator & Laundry. $133/wk & up. 773-275-4442 BIG ROOM with stove, fridge, bath & nice wood floors. Near Red Line & Buses. Elevator & Laundry, Shopping. $121/wk + up. 773-561-4970 6930 S. SOUTH SHORE DRIVE Studios & 1BR, INCL. Heat, Elec, Cking gas & PARKING, $585-$925, Country Club Apts 773-752-2200

7425 S. COLES - 1 BR $620, 2

BR $735, Includes Free heat & appliances & cooking gas. (708) 424-4216 Kalabich Mgmt

NO SEC DEP

7801 S. Bishop. 2BR. $610/mo. HEAT INCL 773-955-5106

ADULT SERVICES

Forest Park: 1BR new tile, energy efficient windows, lndry facilitities, a/c, incls heat - natural gas, $895/ mo Luis 708-366-5602 lv msg

1 BR $700-$799 CHICAGO 92ND AND M a r quette, Good location, 2BR, first floor, quiet bldg, Nice! Heat included, $750 w/1 mo rent & 1 mo sec. 773-505-1853

CHICAGO SOUTHSIDE 81ST & Clyde 4 rms, 3rd Floor Newly Decorated Stove/Frig, $600/mo + 1 mo sec, 773-268-2796

1 BR $800-$899 LARGE GARDEN APARTMENT. 6802 N. Wolcott. Hardwood floors. Cats OK. $850/month (heat included) Available 8/1. 773-761-4318.

1 BR $900-$1099 LARGE 3 BEDROOM, one bath apartment, 4423 N. Paulina. Hardwood floors. Cats OK. $1790/ month. Heat included. Available

8/1. Parking space available for $75/ month. (773)761-4318.

1 BR $1100 AND OVER CONDO FOR RENT: Rent $1400,Security Deposit: $1400, Move in/out fee: $750. Photos available. Available: July 6th, 2018.

1 BR OTHER FELLOWSHIP MANOR Affordable Housing For The Elderly. Applications are being accepted at Fel-

lowship Manor, 5041 South Princeton Avenue, Chicago IL, 60609 for one bedroom apartments. Applicants must be at least 62 years of age, and must meet screening criteria. Contact the onsite management office by phone at (773) 9245980, or Via postal mail. This institution is an equal opportunity provider.

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MGMT & INV. LTD. SUMMER IS HERE!!! HEAT, HW & CG PLENTY OF PARKING 1BDR FROM $785.00 2BDR FROM $1025.00 3 BDR/2 FULL BATH FROM $1200 **1-(773)-476-6000***

CHICAGO 7600 S E s s e x , SUMMER SPECIAL - 2BR $599, 3BR $699, 4BR $799 w/apprvd credit, no sec dep. Sec 8 Ok! South Side Office: 773-287-9999, West Side Office: 773-287-4500

6748 CRANDON & 7727 COLFAX MOST BEAUTIFUL APARTMENTS! 1 & 2BR, $625 & UP. OFF STREET PARKING. 773-947-8572 / 312-613-4424

water incl. Appls + security 708-205-1454 or 630-570-9572

NO SECURITY DEPOSIT CHICAGO HEIGHTS, Studio, 1, 2 & 3BRs, free heat, gas and parking, close to everything, section 8 welcome. $500 and up. 708-300-5020 NO SECURITY DEPOSIT Chicago, Peterson & Damon, Kedzie & Lawrence, Studio, 1, 2, 3 & 4BR Apts. $550 & Up. Section 8 Welcome. Call 847-401-4574 92ND & ADA, 1 & 2BR, lg & spacious w/ DR, hdwd flrs, sunporch, fireplace, heat & appls incl. Sect 8 ok $850-$975/mo + sec. 773-4156914

ROUND LAKE BEACH, IL

Ground flr, Tenant pays heat. 1month CHICAGO, DELUXE, N e w l y sec & 1 month rent reqd. Decorated 2.5 & 3 BR, by 71st 69 South Wood St. 773-933-1008 & Union. Free heat. $800-

BLUE ISLAND, 2BR Apt, $845/month. Heat & hot

2 BR $900-$1099 CHICAGO, 9305 S. Saginaw, Newly rehabbed, 2BR, carpet, stove & fridge, heat not incl, $950/ mo. Sect 8 welc. Mr. Johnson, 773294-0167

2 BR $1100-$1299 HYDE PARK 2BR $1295 Newly decorated, hdwd flrs, stove & fridge incl, Free Heat & Hot water. Free credit check, no application fee, laundry facilities. 1-773-667-6477 or 1-312-802-7301

SECTION 8 WELCOME. NO SECURITY DEPOSIT. 718 W 81st St, 5BR, 2BA house, appls incl., $1300/mo. 708-288-4510

AVAILABLE NOW! Spacious Rooms for rent. $400/mo. Utilities and bed incl. Seniors Welcome. No Sec Dep. 312-973-2793

newly renov 2BR Apt, $1100/mo, heat incl. For all inquiries please call Mr. Hodges 773-524-8157

SUBURBS, RENT TO OW N! Buy with No closing costs and get help with your credit. Call 708868-2422 or visit www.nhba.com

LYNWOOD, 2BR, 1BA, c-fans, heat, appls, A/C, pkng, cer flrs, new crpt, balc. $1200. Credit check, sec dep, no pets. 773-721-6086

CHICAGO, RENT TO OWN! Buy with no closing costs and get help with your credit. Call 708868-2422 or visit www.nhba.com

NO SECURITY DEPOSIT NO MOVE IN FEE 1, 2, 3 BEDROOM APTS (773) 874-1122 ACACIA SRO HOTEL Men Preferred! Rooms for Rent. Weekly & Monthly Rates. 312-421-4597

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MGMT & INV. LTD. SUMMER IS HERE!!! MONST UNITS INCLUDE.. HEAT & HOT WATER STUDIOS FROM $495.00 1BDR FROM $545.00 2BDR FROM $745.00 3 BDR/2 FULL BATH FROM $1200 **1-(773)-476-6000**

CHICAGO - 2BR, $ 6 0 0 / m o .

2 BR UNDER $900 2BR $895 ALL UTILITIES INCLUDED

Newly decorated, carpeted, stove, refrigerator, dining room. Elevator & laundry facilities. FREE credit check, no application fee. 1-773-919-7102 or 312-802-730

Chicago, 9121 S. Cottage Grove, 2BR apt. $1050/mo Newly remod, appls, mini blinds, ceiling fans, pkng Sec 8 OK. Free Heat 312-915-0100

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 94-3739 S. Bishop. 2BR, 5 Rms, 1st & 2nd flr, appls, parking, storage, near shops/ trans. $950 + sec. No pets. 708335-0786

ADULT SERVICES

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

7315 S. MICHIGAN Ave. Large,

2 BR $1500 AND OVER

LARGE BRIGHT LINCOLN Pk

2Bd, 1Bth, In Unit W/D, Roof Deck, Back Porch, HVAC, Fireplace, DW, Hardwood Floors, Available Immediately. $2000-$2900. Call: 773-4725944

2 BR OTHER 2300 S CENTRAL Cicero, IL

60804 2 Bd & 2 Bth Condo Style Apt. Appliances Include: Washer, Dryer, Stove, Fridge & Dishwasher Indoor and Outdoor Parking Available! Call Today : 708-590-6066 x 200 www.pinnacleassetmgmt.com

$840/mo. Section 8 Welc. Mr. Wilson, 773-491-6580

SOUTH CHICAGO AREA, 2959

E 80th Place, newly remodeled. 1st fl 2BR apt, 2nd fl 1BR apt, Sec 8 OK, credit check. 708-743-8118

CHICAGO AVE NR Laramie, 2BR Apt, 1st flr rear, hdwd flrs, freshly decorated, tenant pays all utils. Call 773-378-2866

SECTION 8 WELCOME

Chatham 8819 S. Cottage Grove Ave. 3BR Vouchure w/ appls, garage, wood flrs. 312-804-0209

UNIVERSITY PARK. 2BR Townhouse. Section 8 OK. Call 708-625-7355

3 BR OR MORE UNDER $1200 BEAUTIFUL 3BD APT in the

Austin area. Looking for the right tenants that would make this beautiful place home. 1st mo + sec upon move in. $1050. 708-250-0851

RIVERDALE: Must See 3BR apt, Newly decor. Carpet, nr metra, no pets. $900/mo +sec. Avail Now 708-829-1454 or 708-754-5599 SOUTHSIDE, SFH 4BR, 1BA, nr Train, appls incl. Section 8 OK. $750/mo + utils. $500 gift cert to sect 8 tenants. 973-257-1377 BRONZEVILLE: SECTION 8 WELCOME. No Security Deposit. 4841 S Michigan. 4BR $1300 . Appls incl. 708-288-4510 SECTION 8 WELCOME. No Security Deposit. 7721 S Peoria, 3BR apt, appls incl. $1050/mo. 708-288-4510 SOUTH SHORE AREA, Spacious 7 rooms, 3 bedrooms, heat included. $925/month + 1 months security. Call 773-375-1048

LARGE 3 BEDROOM apartment near Wrigley Field. 3822 N. Fremont. Hardwood Floors. Cats OK. $2175/ month. Available 8/1. Single parking space available for $175/month. Tandem spot available for $250/month. (773) 761-4318

SOUTHSIDE - 1514 W Garfield 55TH & Ashland, Clean Rooms, use of kitchen and bath. Available Now. Call 773-434-4046

3 BR OR MORE $2500 AND OVER

BEAUTIFUL 4BD 3BA duplex

condo with ss appliances, granite countertops, wp tub, in unit w/d, security system, 2 private secured parking spaces. Close to public transportation and Loyola University. $2700/ month internet & utilities included. Contact Rashida Ray at 312-572-9729 or Rent1448WArthur@yahoo.com.

OTHER

SUMMER SPECIAL, SECTION 8 Ok, 3, 4 & 5 BR houses avail. South Side: 773-287-9999, West Side: 773-287-4500.

SECTION 8 WELCOME. Near

53rd & Indiana, lrg 4BR, near schools w/ stove & fridge. Newly decorated. $1200 + sec dep. 773-955-5024

NEW KITCHENS & BATHS. 69th/Dante, 3BR. 77th/Lowe, 1 & 2BR. 71st/Bennett. 2BR. We have others! Sec 8 Welc. 708-503-1366

www.guyspyvoice.com

Ahora en Español/18+

HEALTH & WELLNESS FULL BODY MASSAGE. hotel, house calls welcome $90

special. Russian, Polish, Ukrainain girls. Northbrook and Schaumburg locations. 10% discount for new customers. Please call 773-407-7025

BODY MASSAGE 312-834-2806

MESSAGES

roommates SOUTH SHORE, Senior Discount. Male preferred. Furnished rooms, shared kitchen & bath. $475/mo & up. Utilities included. 773-710-5431

SOUTHSIDE, newly remodeled

room for rent near CTA, $400/mo and up + $100 sec dep. Parking avail. All utils incl. 708-299-7605.

ADULT SERVICES

More Local Numbers: 800-777-8000

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

GENERAL

ADULT SERVICES

1-312-924-2082

MARKETPLACE

GOODS

Located Downtown Chicago In Call / Out Call Available

1 WEEK FREE. 96th & Halsted & other locations. Large Rooms, shared kitchen & bath. $100/week and up. Call 773-673-2045

THE HOTTEST GAY CHATLINE

No security. 773-614-8252

3 BR OR MORE

4010 S KING DR . 1 & 3BR $800+. heat incl. 7906 S JUSTINE.

60 MINUTES FREE TRIAL

36 CHICAGO READER | JULY 5, 2018

CHICAGO 55TH & Halsted, male pref. Room for rent, share furnished apt, free utils, $ 440/mo.

SECTION 8 WELCOME

13356 S Brandon 4/1 W/D incl $1300. 7134 S. Normal. 4/2. $1300 225 W. 108th Pl. 2/1 w/ht. $1000. appls inc. No Dep 312-683-5174

Store Front & 2BR. $800 + utils. 312-576-8847 or 773-899-9529

ADULT SERVICES

3 BR OR MORE $1800-$2499

ADOPTION A Successful Executive & Pre-K Teacher Yearn To Be A Doting Dad & Stay Home Mom. Expenses paid ***1-800-603-1667*** ***Erica and Chris***

BUSINESS OPS $11,000 IN 11 days!

Fast, Easy, Fun www.SimplyFunBusiness.com 1-800-263-2632

ADULT SERVICES

REAL PEOPLE REAL DESIRE REAL FUN.

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

Ahora español Livelinks.com 18+

SAVAGE LOVE

HOT GIRL

By Dan Savage

BODY RUBS

Can sex actually get better after marriage?

$40 w/AD 24/7

Dan receives a boatload of letters in response to last week’s column. Q : In a recent column, you

said you never hear from married couples whose sex life got better and more frequent over the years. Well, now you have. My wife and I were married 24 years ago, and we are currently having more sex and better sex than we did in the ﬁrst years of our marriage. There are many reasons why, including therapy, antidepressants, and weight loss and subsequent surgery—but I would have to say that the big reason is communication. If you had known us 25 years ago, Dan, you would not have given us good odds. We’d been dating only a year and a half when we got engaged, and we’d known each other less than two years. I was a virgin, my wife was not, together we hadn’t gotten much past second base, and neither of us had laid our kink cards on the table. We were (and still are) introverts with poor communication skills and anxiety/depression/mental health issues. I won’t say it’s been fairy-tale perfect—the kind of perfect that makes you barf and roll your eyes— but it’s been pretty damn close. My wife has been incredibly GGG, and I hope I have been, too. So there you go, Dan! Now you know there’s at least one couple out there whose sex life has only gotten better over the years. —BETTER EROTIC TIES TOTALLY ENHANCED RELATIONSHIP

A : Last week, I responded

to IMDONE, a woman who married a man despite the sex being “infrequent and impersonal” during their courtship. To the surprise of no one who has ever given sex advice for a living, the sex didn’t get better after IMDONE and her boyfriend got married.

“Here’s something I’ve never seen in my inbox: a letter from someone explaining how sex with their partner was infrequent, impersonal, uninspired, unimaginative, etc, at ﬁrst but—holy moly—got better after the wedding,” I wrote in my response to IMDONE. I did allow for the possibility that my sample was skewed; people with good sex lives don’t write to tell me everything’s ﬁne. So I invited people whose so-so sex lives improved after the wedding to write in. And did they ever: my inbox is packed with e-mails from couples whose sex lives got better after the wedding.

Q : I was a very experienced

woman (ﬁve years as a swinger and partners numbering in the high double digits) when I ﬁrst met the man who would become my husband. My husband-to-be was a virgin. Sex was barely OK and very infrequent. But we were both in our early 40s and ready to settle down. It helped that we shared some kinks and were both up for what we agreed would be a nice and mostly companionate marriage. So we got married. And, wow, did everything change! Turns out he needed that emotional attachment to feel safe and secure enough to open up and relax and enjoy himself. We’ve been married for years now and the sex is still good. So, yes, sometimes it does get better! —WOMAN IN FUCKING ECSTASY

Q : Am I the ﬁrst or the

hundredth person to write in? Yes, sex for us got better after marriage. I suspect you don’t see it in your inbox very often because this isn’t what most people would consider a problem and we

don’t want to waste your time! All it took for the sex to get better was practice and paying attention to cues and solving problems. I strongly suspect that perseverance and a bit of luck were also major factors. —PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

Q : My sex life improved

after marriage. I am a straight male with a highly stigmatized kink. When I met my wife, our sex life was OK—but I was never fully present, because I would have to concentrate on my fantasies in order to sustain an erection. I eventually retreated into masturbation. My wife knew I was masturbating in the middle of the night instead of having sex with her, and that led to some enormous ﬁghts. So I told her about my kink, fully expecting that it would result in the collapse of my marriage. We didn’t speak about it for a week, and then she calmly asked me if I wanted to do this with her instead of just watching porn about it. —PARTNERSHIP

224-353-1353 Discreet Billing

Meet sexy friends who really get your vibe...

Try FREE: 312-924-2066

please recycle this paper

More Local Numbers: 1-800-811-1633 1-800-811-1633

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IMPROVED SEXUAL SITUATION

A : First, I want to thank BETTER, WIFE, PPP, PISS, and everyone else who wrote in. But while there isn’t data to back up my position— that sex doesn’t generally get better after marriage—I’m going to continue to urge people to establish basic sexual compatibility before marriage rather than hoping a so-so sexual connection—or a nonexistent one—will somehow get better after marriage. But it can be done. v Send letters to mail@ savagelove.net. Download the Savage Lovecast every Tuesday at savagelovecast.com. m @fakedansavage

$2"- # 1,#+!/(!

.,#0 7,1 (. !+1 +&15*+3"-).1 477%2 $76/6''' 0%)' *! &3 '. !/'!+

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EARLY WARNINGS

chicagoreader.com/early

JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 37

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Flint Eastwood é NICOLE SHACKELFORD

NEW

Abandoned by Bears, Boys of Fall 8/24, 7:30 PM, Cobra Lounge, 18+ Beak 10/15, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Dave Bruzza 10/18, 8 PM, Schubas, on sale Fri 7/6, 10 AM, 18+ Clozee 9/29, 10 PM, Bottom Lounge, 18+ Davina & the Vagabonds 9/12, 8 PM, City Winery b Cheick Hamala Diabate 8/17, 8 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Diet Cig 9/21, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Doctor P, Cookie Monsta 9/8, 9 PM, Concord Music Hall, 18+ Dying Fetus, Incantation 9/23, 7 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Flint Eastwood 9/20, 7 PM, Beat Kitchen b Future Generations 10/18, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen Futurebirds 9/1, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen Hatchie 9/16, 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Charlie Hunter Trio 10/4, 8 PM, City Winery b Larry & His Flask 10/19, 8:30 PM, Beat Kitchen Los Pies Negros 9/1, 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Taj Mahal Trio 9/24, 8 PM, City Winery b Melodime 10/27, 9 PM, Martyrs’ Never Should Never 9/21, 8 PM, Subterranean Niki & Gabi 8/7, 7:30 PM, Beat Kitchen, on sale Fri 7/6, 10 AM b Ozuna 10/5, 8 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont, on sale Fri 7/6, 10 bM Persefone 8/30, 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Psyclon Nine, Panic Lift 8/25, 6 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+

Logan Richardson 10/23, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Riot Ten 11/23, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall, 18+ Rozwell Kid 11/15, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Satan, Damien Thorne 10/11, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Darrell Scott 9/6, 8 PM, City Winery b Set It Oﬀ, Chapel 8/30, 7 PM, Subterranean b Conrad Sewell 9/23, 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+ St. Lucia 10/3, 7 PM, Concord Music Hall b St. Paul & the Broken Bones, Mattiel 10/10, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Still Corners 9/23, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Liz Vice 9/18, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+

UPDATED Andy Shauf 11/29-30, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 11/30 sold out, second show added, 18+

UPCOMING Matt Alber 8/15, 8 PM, Schubas Alestorm, Gloryhammer 9/21, 7 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+ Lily Allen 10/31, 7:30 PM, the Vic b Matt Andersen 10/2, 8 PM, City Winery b Apocalypse Hoboken 7/13-15, 7:30 PM, Chop Shop, 18+ Ash 9/19, 8 PM, Schubas, 18+ Nicole Atkins 8/10, 7 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Sebastian Bach 7/13, 7 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+ Basement 8/3, 10 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Rayland Baxter 7/28, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+

38 CHICAGO READER - JULY 5, 2018

Blessthefall, the Word Alive 9/26, 5:30 PM, Bottom Lounge b Blitzen Trapper 9/24-25, 8 PM, Schubas Bongripper 7/13, 8 PM, Metro, 18+ A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Femdot 8/3, 11 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Brand X 12/8, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Cake, Ben Folds 8/22, 6:30 PM, Ravinia Festival, Highland Park Call Me Karizma 8/19, 7 PM, Schubas b Cigarettes After Sex 8/4, 11 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Alex Clare 10/13, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Phil Collins 10/22, 8 PM, United Center Dinosaur Jr. 7/18, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Diplomats 7/28, 9 PM, Portage Theater Django Django 10/5, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Erasure 7/27, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Roky Erickson 11/9, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall Alejandro Escovedo & Joe Ely 8/24, 7 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Exhorder, War Curse 7/14, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Brian Fallon, Craig Finn 10/11, 7:30 PM, Park West, 18+ FIDLAR, Dilly Dally 9/8, 7:30 PM, the Vic b Fleetwood Mac 10/6, 8 PM, United Center Godﬂesh, Harm’s Way 8/24, 8 PM, Metro, 18+ Guided by Voices 8/26, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Sean Hayes 9/30, 7 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Honorary Title 8/16, 7:30 PM, Lincoln Hall b

Imagine Dragons 7/13, 7 PM, Hollywood Casino bmphitheatre, Tinley Park Jethro Tull 9/3, 7:30 PM, Ravinia Festival, Highland Park Mark Kozelek 9/11, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ L.A. Witch, Pussy Foot 8/30, 9 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Lemuria 7/27, 10 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Richard Lloyd Group 8/15, 7 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Jeﬀ Lynne’s ELO 8/15, 8 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont Melvins 7/31, 7:30 PM, Park West b The Men 8/25, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Mourn, Chastity 8/7, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Murder by Death 10/6, 8 PM, Metro, 18+ Nicki Minaj, Future 9/28, 7:30 PM, United Center Oneida, Cave 7/28, 10 PM, Empty Bottle Parquet Courts, Dream Wife 8/2, 11 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ A Place to Bury Strangers 10/19, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Quintron & Miss Pussycast 9/12, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Garnet Rogers & brchie Fisher 9/21, 8 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Ty Segall, William Tyler 11/2, 7:30 PM, Thalia Hall b Alex Skolnick Trio 9/9, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Slaughter Beach, Dog 9/22, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Slaves 8/2, 10 PM, Empty Bottle Sleep 8/1, 7 PM, Riviera Theatre b Sleigh Bells 8/17, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Sparta 8/10, 9 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Swearin’, Empath 10/18, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Tacocat 8/10, 9 PM, Empty Bottle Toots & the Maytals 8/8, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Keith Urban 8/18, 7:30 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park Kurt Vile & the Violators 12/22, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ VNV Nation 12/1, 7:30 PM, Metro, 18+ Butch Walker 9/26, 8 PM, House of Blues, 17+ Wax Idols, Shadow Age 9/9, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Ben Weasel & His Iron String Quartet 8/18, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Whitney, Ne-Hi 8/12, 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park Fb

ALL AGES

WOLF BY KEITH HERZIK

EARLY WARNINGS

CHICAGO SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IN THE WEEKS TO COME

Why? 11/3, 9 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ David Wilcox 9/30, 3 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Yungblud 10/18, 7 PM, Subterranean b Yuridia 8/4, 8 PM, Rosemont Theater, Rosemont Zeal & Ardor, Astronoid 9/29, 9 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Zhu 10/5, 9 PM, bragon Ballroom, 17+ Mike Zito, Bernard Allison, and Vanja Sky 8/10, 10 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson 7/15, 7 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park Zomboy, Ghastly 8/4, 10 PM, the Mid

SOLD OUT Virgil Abloh 8/2, 10 PM, Smart Bar Against Me! 7/28, 10 PM, Subterranean Animal Collective, LonnieHolley 7/27, 7:30 PM, the Vic b Bonnie “Prince” Billy 10/7, 7:30 PM, Fullerton Hall, brt Institute of Chicago Cavetown 12/8, 6:30 PM, Subterranean b Chvrches, Sasha Sloan 8/1, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Clairo 7/17, 7:30 PM, Lincoln Hall b Chelsea Cutler 10/2, 8 PM, Chop Shop, 17+ Dinosaur Jr. 7/19, 7:30 PM, Temperance Beer Company, Evanston Sylvan Esso 7/23-24, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b Franz Ferdinand 8/1, 9 PM, Park West, 18+ Gaslight Anthem 8/11, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b Hozier 9/21, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre b Illenium 8/5, 10 PM, Concord Music Hall, 18+ Jim James, Alynda Segarra 11/9, 7:30 PM, the Vic b Carly Rae Jepsen, Morgxn 8/3, 11 PM, Park West, 18+ Dermot Kennedy 8/2, 11 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Lany, Harry Hudson 8/1, 7 PM, Bottom Lounge b Dua Lipa, Buddy 8/3, 11 PM, the Vic, 18+ Lizzo, Davie 8/4, 11 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Tenacious D 11/13-14, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ The The 9/22, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Greta Van Fleet, Dorothy 8/4, 11 PM, the Vic, 18+ Walk the Moon 8/4, 10 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+ v

GOSSIP WOLF A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene THE ADJECTIVE “nequient” means “not being able”—though it hasn’t seen common usage since the 17th century. The more you know! Chicago hardcore fourpiece Nequient released their debut fulllength, Wolves at the Door, in May, and Gossip Wolf is sure they’re entirely able to kick up a major D-beat shit storm! Knuckleheads fond of getting rowdy to Converge and Disfear will find plenty of grist for the mill on the walloping tracks “Blast Beats and Cocaine” and “Cat’s Cradle,” where Patrick Conahan’s headlong guitar and Jason Kolkey’s tortured vocals race around each other. On Bandcamp you can buy a CD copy via Nefarious Industries or a small-run cassette via Sassbologna Records. Later this month Nequient head to the east coast for a ten-day tour. Gossip Wolf got hooked on local rapper Ash Wednesday in December, when she dropped the video for “Don’t Go Through My Phone.” It shows her running through downtown Chicago in search of her phone, which is played by ShowYouSuck in a flip-phone costume—and it’s also running around looking for her. ShowYouSuck guests on the fun, funny track, which appears on Ash’s second release, last September’s Turn the World to Ash EP. On Sunday, July 8, she headlines the free local-music series at Schubas, 100 Percent Off Bands, with opener Shi La Rosa. This weekend is overflowing with festivals—including the Chosen Few Picnic and West Fest—but that’s no reason to snub Dark Matter Coffee’s annual block party, which this year becomes a two-day bash at Western and Chicago. (Gates are at 4 PM on Friday and at noon on Saturday.) The first day features sets by ace local rapper Malci and psychedelic AfroLatin band Dos Santos, among others, and the second day’s 11 acts include postpunk sparkplugs Ovef Ow and mashup maestros the Hood Internet. The party is free, though organizers will collect donations for suicide-prevention nonprofit Hope for the Day. —J.R. NELSON AND LEOR GALIL Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

JULY 5, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 39

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