Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I did my share of “absinthe” drinking as an Oscar Wilde-worshiping teenager, when my goth cronies devised concoctions of wormwood (from the spice aisle of Whole Foods) steeped in legal Pernod (illegally procured by older friends). While living in Japan, one of a handful of countries that was never subjected to an absinthe ban, I got my hands on the real thing....
If there’s a music critic equivalent of finding five bucks in a pair of jeans you haven’t worn in a minute, it would be finding an unopened, weeks-old promo mailer in your desk mess that just happens to have some great music in it. That’s what happened to me this week, and the music in question is the debut EP from local dream-surf-goth quartet Tiger Bones, Go Over Here. Formerly known as Gay Baby, the group rebooted itself recently and started making weird, gray-toned pop music that Monica Kendrick describes as “enough to make you picture pale goths with black parasols on the beach, getting high enough to like it without giving up their passion for the sinister undertone....
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » If you’ve got a great recipe for a traditional Mexican dish, you’d better hurry: the deadline for submissions to the “Recetas de mi tierra” cookbook contest is this Friday. The National Museum of Mexican Art is holding the contest to celebrate its 20th anniversary, and winners will receive a copy of the cookbook, not to mention “their place in history....
The Reader has always watched Time Out Chicago with a wary eye, and that goes back to the months before TOC debuted here in 2005, when we knew it only as a formidable interloper that had taken aim at our market. We are wary yet. Certainly I am. On Tuesday, it was learned that Morningstar’s Joe Mansueto, who owns all but a small piece of TOC, was selling out, and it was going out of existence as a print publication....
You could walk into Paleteria Arco Iris in Avondale and buy a scoop of mint chocolate chip or a Good Humor Ninja Turtles ice cream bar, but what’s really special about this blink-and-miss-it shop—to describe the store’s sign as “modest” would be generous—are the paletas. Well-known in Hispanic communities, the ice-pop street treats come in milk-based and water-based varieties—the former is creamy and smooth like ice cream, the latter fruity and icy like a popsicle....
In a contradictory but helpful gesture, General Growth Properties—which owns and manages Water Tower Place as well as a slew of other malls around the country—has announced “surprise flash mob performances” at three locations downtown Chicago tomorrow. Produced in association with Ryan Mackey, whose Break Out in Song public art events ambush innocent shoppers with elaborate, professionally performed Broadway-style numbers, the performances are meant to celebrate Steppenwolf Theatre‘s 2009-10 season and it’s theme: the power of belief....
Man, what a difference a year makes! Last year Pawar was the golden boy of reform, coming from nowhere without any major endorsements to beat the party candidate on a platform of saying no to TIFs, budget gimmicks, and sales of public assets. He even won the Reader‘s prestigious designation as “Best alderman whose dreams haven’t yet been crushed” in the 2011 Best of Chicago issue. Yet within a few weeks he was one of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s most loyal council acolytes, happily voting for each and every one of the mayor’s harebrained schemes, including the infrastructure trust, which the mayor can use to privatize schools, buildings, and public transit lines....
Most sports mascots are lame, especially in Chicago. Southpaw of the White Sox, Tommy Hawk of the Blackhawks, Staley of the Bears: all plushy pushovers. For a long time, the liveliest mascot in town was probably Ronnie Woo Woo of the Cubs. Benny the Bull, by contrast, always had a little sass, as when he got tossed out of a 1974 playoff game along with coach Dick Motta for arguing a call....
Twilight Supergroup is an iffy word to throw around when you’re talking about a bunch of dudes whose main bands are hardly household names in the first place, but to fans of boundary-pushing underground metal Twilight more than qualifies. The current incarnation is a six-piece that includes three members from the group’s 2005 debut, Chicagoan Blake Judd (Nachtmystium) and out-of-towners Neill Jameson (Krieg) and Jef Whitehead (aka Wrest of Leviathan), and adds three new guys: Aaron Turner of the late Isis and two more Chicagoans, Sanford Parker of Minsk and Stavros “Steve” Giannopoulos of the Atlas Moth (see Best Mustache in a Local Band)....
Best Beer Selection The restaurant’s new monthly Brewmaster’s Series offers a four-course dinner ($45) with beer pairings from a regional superstar ($15-$25) on the last Sunday of each month. Goose Island brewmaster Greg Hall kicked things off in January; the March installment featured beers from Three Floyds, including a dark wheat dopplebock cooked up with Kahan and McAvena. Offerings from Saint Feuillien and Jolly Pumpkin are in the chute for April and May....
Weed Wolf Street art tends to fall into one of two categories: tags that basically just show that someone with a nickname and a willingness to deface property was in a specific location at some unspecified time or self-conscious “pieces” that make you suspect they were done by an art student going through a Banksy phase. I don’t consider either category to be inherently bad (of course, I also don’t own property) but as much as I appreciate any effort to bring art to the public, most graffiti doesn’t do much for me....
It might surprise you to learn that some people make a living importing frozen French bread into this country. If that violates everything you hold dear about the baguette, consider that prebaked and preproofed frozen French bread is not infrequently superior to fresh, domestically baked loaves hot from the oven. And in places that don’t have master bakers, it sure beats Wonder Bread. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Nevertheless, the mini baguette that initiates a meal at Bistro Voltaire, his snug, congenial new River West North cafe, provides an auspicious sign, its crackly, chewy crust girding a slightly moist, tangy interior....
After several years of seemingly nonstop touring, Minneapolis MC Brother Ali is starting to reap the benefits—his fans are all over the brand-new The Undisputed Truth (Rhymesayers Entertainment), and he’s slated to play Coachella. His latest record launches from the same gut-wrenching place as 2004’s unfuckwithable Champion EP. Guided by the Koran and an allegiance to the Funky 4+1, Ali alternates rap-game chest beating with impassioned survival screeds about trying to hold a family together, and his flow is a blustering gospel fury that makes it all potent and personal....
It’s bad enough that the Park District—which is funded by property tax revenues—agreed to a costly and unprecedented deal to pay property taxes on its central office. But it gets worse: as it turns out, the district paid even more than it said it would. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The strange tale goes something like this: Property tax bills are paid in two installments....
Check out our photos and video recap of Friday’s Lollapalooza performances. See our previews and photo/video recaps of bands playing on: Saturday ·Sunday ·Afterparties Lollapalooza main » Deap Vally1:30-2:15Petrillo Stage Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Los Angeles blues-rock duo Deap Vally play songs that sound custom-made for the kind of run-down hole-in-the-wall you seem to find on the edge of every small town in America—you can practically hear the groaning floorboards, smell the stale piss, and see the red neon bar sign with half a letter burned out....
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I just came across a link from Twitter user @mikelikesbikes—posted in response to yesterday’s cycling death at Augusta and Ashland—on what cyclists should do (and not do) around trucks. The article, from Commute Orlando, is titled “What Cyclists Need to Know About Trucks”, and the image alone is informative enough to make it worth passing on; I had no idea what a truck driver’s blind spot looks like....
Last night I went to Reggie’s Rock Club to catch the Stand4rd, the experimental hip-hop “supergroup” comprised of four Internet-famous artists, and it was great—even more impressive when you factor in that it was only their sixth show together ever. While each member of the group possesses a magnetic personality, the best moments of the set all fell onto singer Spooky Black, a mysterious, allegedly 16-year-old white kid who rose to popularity with his viral music videos and massive, velvety voice....
The details of Isaac Carothers’s recent guilty plea—how the former alderman accepted about $40,000 in home improvements from a developer in return for pushing a zoning change through the City Council—have already been splashed across the front pages. Initially the issue facing Mayor Daley and his planners was finding the best way to develop it. The owners, CMC Heartland LLP, wanted to change the zoning so they could put in a residential and commercial development, which would bring them the most money....
Testimonium Songs Local avant-garde indie-rock collective Joan of Arc, the brainchild of former Cap’n Jazz and Owls front man Tim Kinsella, celebrate the release of their new record, Testimonium Songs, tomorrow night at the Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the museum’s First Friday series. In the midst of a selfie-themed art exhibit from Kelly Kaczynski, Joan of Arc will play two half-hour long cover versions of the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter....
The Chef: Rob Levitt (The Butcher & Larder) That was just the day before, so the mollusk was still pretty fresh. Levitt had searched the Asian markets in and around Chicago and checked with two fish companies before finally finding abalone through a third fish purveyor. Some species are now endangered, but farmed abalone is generally sustainable—if not always easy to find. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Levitt had never worked with abalone before, but he’d tasted it earlier this year at a restaurant in New York, where it was thinly sliced and paired with shaved beef tendon as an antipasti course....
