Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Thankfully it’s not always necessary to resort to this vast gray market to find great music that fell out of print decades ago. In 2008 legitimate record labels continued to churn out killer reissues–so many, in fact, that I was often tempted to simply let myself recede into the past, basking in vintage sounds as fresh and vital as anything made today....

ANTHONY COLEMANFreakish(Tzadik) Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In his liner notes he refers to the Jorge Luis Borges story “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” about a fictional 20th-century author who immerses himself in Cervantes’s novel in an attempt to write it again, word for word. Borges calls Menard’s version “infinitely richer,” by dint of both the 400 years of history that separate it from the original and the effort required to write in the language of another time....

Not long ago, Caitlin Bergh was a self-described “repressed Catholic virgin.” But since diving into the local comedy scene in early 2011, she’s emerged as one of the rawest, raunchiest stand-ups in the city—which, given that “working blue” is a foregone conclusion for many comics, is saying a lot. She also happens to be one of the funniest. This month Bergh presents her one-woman show Chunks, and if you suspect the name implies a sexual awakening miles beyond what Anais Nin scribbled in her diaries, you’re right....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » And Business? That section of the Tribune is now four employees lighter—and there’d been other layoffs before Wednesday. “They don’t care about Business,” said someone who knows the department well. “They’re now a privately owned company and they don’t want to be written about.” With David Greising, Phil Rosenthal, and Greg Burns, Tribune Business still has compelling columnists, but Jim Miller was a workhorse as a straight reporter who specialized in reading and understanding financial documents, and Miller is out....

Era I feel like 2013 is ushering a new era for industrial music, or at least some sort of fresh industrial awareness. Yeezus, the Godflesh tour, Author & Punisher opening up for Phil Anselmo’s solo project, Nine Inch Nails at Lollaplaooza—it just seems to have jumped back on to everyone’s radar recently. Another act to add to the list are local favorites Disappears. A couple of days ago Kranky Records released the song “Ultra” from the band’s upcoming LP, Era, and it’s got a surprising industrial flair to it....

Andrew Barber at Fake Shore Drive reports that Philadelphia native and former Roc-a-Fella Records artist Beanie Sigel has been considering setting up shop in Chicago: he’s been on a tear through some of the city’s higher-profile open mikes and word has spread of a collaboration with local MC King the Hood Savior. Today Barber posted the first collabo between the two, a double diss on Jay-Z and Kanye appropriately voiced over “Hate,” one of Kanye’s contributions to The Blueprint 3....

Best Gay Variety Show or Open Mike Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » It’s a simple formula: One queer writer plus one queer musical act, an all-ages venue, and a tip jar from Ikea. Oh yeah—and a magnanimous and community-minded host like Scott Free, master of ceremonies at Chicago’s longest running and, to my mind, best queer variety showcase. After eight and a half years and five other venues, Homolatte seems to have settled into a comfy relationship with Michelle Fire’s Tweet restaurant (and its sister bar, Big Chicks)....

Washington Phillips is the kind of oddball musician listeners love to romanticize. A preacher from Texas who recorded a scant 18 gospel songs in the late 1920s, he played a strange-sounding zither of some kind that he may have built himself—but because his life and career are barely documented, no answers are likely to be forthcoming about what he thought he was doing. The weird, fragile twinkling and chiming of Phillips’s zither, combined with his heartfelt, bluesy drawl—his nasal high tenor sometimes quivers with a vibrato so intense you’d expect him to shatter—gives his songs an otherworldly aura that can appeal to people who’ve never set foot in a church....

FROZEN RIVER sss Written and directed by Courtney Hunt With Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, Charlie McDermott, Michael O’Keefe, and Mark Boone Jr. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » People like Ray don’t find their way into commercial movies very often. When the working poor do turn up on-screen, they’re usually suffering saints, hardened criminals, or tasteless clods. Treating them as individuals would involve taking account of their daily lives, and no one, rich or poor, goes to the movies to think about that....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I learned today that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had passed from the earthly plane, but the news didn’t exactly choke me up. Though a surprising number of people I otherwise respect seem to have admired him, I think he was a con artist, albeit an extremely talented one who got to hang out with the Beatles way more than I ever did....

When I reacquire the radio signal I will state the mission status and Houston will copy that and all will be well. Sometimes Houston asks me to repeat what I have already said. So I will state the mission status again if they ask me to. I will speak clearly and calmly and precisely and they will copy that and all will be well. Most mothers go to their children’s special events and wave and clap and take pictures and hold signs and cheer....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » His Daily News specializes in the sort of B-list local reporting that once formed the backbone of the dailies’ city report — in the day when the various municipal and county boards and courthouses each had its own assigned beat reporter. Dougherty said that Monday morning his site would offer the best local news in Chicago. I don’t agree — I’d describe his report as supplemental coverage, though it’s valuable....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » University president Robert Zimmer announced Monday that Lipinski will be “charged with advancing, coordinating, and articulating the University’s ambitious efforts in pre-K-12 education, community health, local economic growth, business and job creation, business diversity, real estate development, social services, programs for children at risk, student volunteer activities, safety and security, and research efforts connected to the City and its communities....

Kathy Halper Family Portrait At least once a week, I hear something that makes me glad that I both am no longer a kid and have none to worry about. There are countless stories of young people getting into varying degrees of trouble for things that they’ve posted on Facebook. Facebook of course is not a diary that you hide under your bed, but a fairly public forum. So news of your erstwhile virginity, plans to throw a party while your parents are away, and pictures of you passed out in your friend’s front yard are probably best kept somewhere else....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Earlier this month west-siders Lil Kemo and Dlow released tunes that teach some simple moves to the playful and intuitive Chicago-born dance style known as bop; before the kings of the scene rap through the how-tos for “Kemo Step” and “The Dlow Shuffle,” each gives a shout-out to the other bopper. Those brief acknowledgements on the melodic party tunes are emblematic of the inviting and positive nature of bop....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Chicagoans who love checking out interesting international music outdoors in the summertime have taken some hits this year. The worst has been the city’s decision to can the great Music Without Borders series, but it’s also a drag that the Old Town School of Folk Music has put the kibosh on its annual Folk & Roots Festival. The economy sucks, of course, and that means corporate sponsorship dollars are in short supply, so I can’t be too hard on a private institution for downsizing a bit....

Fawad Mohammadi in Buzkashi Boys All this month we’ve been reviewing the Oscar nominees for the best animated, live-action, and documentary short films, alternating daily between categories. This is the last entry. As I wrap up my coverage of this year’s crop of live-action nominees, I’ve somehow managed to save the best for last—as did my colleague Ben Sachs, apparently. At an even 30 minutes, Buzkashi Boys is the longest of the bunch (the others averaged out to around 20 minutes apiece), but director Sam French doesn’t let a second go to waste, displaying a strong command of form and structure....

When Rocko dropped his Gift of Gab 2 mixtape back in February, it looked like the Atlanta rapper slash music-biz entrepreneur was on the verge of a mainstream breakthrough—a hunch I based largely on the strength of its addictive first single, “U.O.E.N.O.,” featuring Future and Rick Ross. Then, as you very likely heard, shit kind of blew up in the face of everyone involved with the song, thanks to two lines in Rick Ross’s verse where he seems to boast about drugging and date-raping a woman....

Maybe I shouldn’t have expected it would be easy to pin down Indian Jewelry for an interview. Most bands at their level—popular enough to generate modest word-of-mouth hype and support a national tour of small but respected venues—are eager to do whatever press work is needed to get them to the next one. But Indian Jewelry doesn’t really operate the way most bands do. They cultivate an image of mystery and rebellion, like they’re some sort of quasimystic gang of psych-rock revolutionaries—an art-damaged Baader-Meinhof faction out to thrill those who get it and offend those who don’t....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I have to admit, it took me a while to write this, because I love Joe Crede. Not in that way, silly, but in almost every other way that involves a modern-day baseball fan. When Crede first arrived with the White Sox, in 2000, he was a ballyhooed two-time minor-league Most Valuable Player, and statheads wanted him to succeed, because his stats suggested he would succeed....