Print Issue of January 4, 2018 (Volume 47, Number 13)

C H I C A G O ’ S F R E E W E E K LY | K I C K I N G A S S S I N C E 1 9 7 1 | J A N U A R Y 4 , 2 0 1 8

Plus:

LAST NIGHT AT MAN’S COUNTRY THE PIONEERING GAY BATHHOUSE’S 13-HOUR FINAL HURRAH 10

Stories from Chicago’s favorite rock ’n’ roll cluste£uck Ian’s Party is a music festival, yes, but it’s run mostly by volunteers—which helps it feel like a community, not a branding exercise.

By LEOR GALIL 20

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EDITOR JAKE MALOOLEY CREATIVE DIRECTOR VINCE CERASANI DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY JAMIE RAMSAY CULTURE EDITOR TAL ROSENBERG 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, AIMEE LEVITT, PETER MARGASAK, JULIA THIEL SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR RYAN SMITH GRAPHIC DESIGNER SUE KWONG MUSIC LISTINGS COORDINATOR LUCA CIMARUSTI FILM LISTINGS COORDINATOR PATRICK FRIEL CONTRIBUTING WRITERS NOAH BERLATSKY, ANNE FORD, ISA GIALLORENZO, JOHN GREENFIELD, ANDREA GRONVALL, JUSTIN HAYFORD, JACK HELBIG, IRENE HSIAO, DAN JAKES, BILL MEYER, MICHAEL MINER, J.R. NELSON, MARISSA OBERLANDER, LEAH PICKETT, BEN SACHS, DMITRY SAMAROV, OLIVER SAVA, KEVIN WARWICK, DAVID WHITEIS, ALBERT WILLIAMS ---------------------------------------------------------------ADVERTISING DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER BEST SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER EVANGELINE MILLER MARKETING AND EVENTS MANAGER BRYAN BURDA DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL JOHN DUNLEVY ADVERTISING COORDINATOR HERMINIA BATTAGLIA

FEATURES

IN THIS ISSUE

4 Agenda The film The Post, comedian Nick Thune, and more goings-on about town

CITY LIFE

LGBTQ

Last night at Man’s Country

The pioneering gay bathhouse’s 13-hour final hurrah

BY AARON GETTINGER 10

7 Chicagoans An AirBnb host from Chatham on the adventures and misadventures of renting to strangers 8 Transportation The Trump administration still threatens sustainable infrastructure, but despite a few bumps in the road Chicago’s year in transportation didn’t suck.

9 Crime How can the police have any authority when they’ve squandered the public trust?

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE

27 Shows of note Xiu Xiu, Buddy Guy, Sons of the Silent Age, and more of the week’s best 29 The Secret History of Chicago Music Underappreciated guitarist Johnny B. Moore links Delta blues with the electric postwar Chicago sound.

FOOD & DRINK

31 Restaurant review: Lonesome Rose The Logan Square spot’s food inspired by the “borderlands” isn’t quite what it sounds like.

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CORRECTION: DUE TO AN EDITING ERROR, THE SECOND PARAGRAPH OF AN ESSAY ON THE CHICAGO AUTHENTICITY POLICE IN THE 12/21 ISSUE MISSTATED THE GEOGRAPHICAL ARGUMENT ABOUT REAL CHICAGO. THE PASSAGE SHOULD’VE READ: “YOU CANNOT BE A REAL CHICAGOAN IF YOU LIVE (GASP!) IN THE SUBURBS RATHER THAN IN THE CONFINES OF AREA CODES 312 AND 773, AS THOUGH AN EXISTENTIAL BOUNDARY SEPARATES THE CITY AND ADJACENT MUNICIPALITIES, EVEN IF THE PHYSICAL, ECONOMIC, AND CULTURAL ENVIRONMENTS ARE INDISTINGUISHABLE.” ON THE COVER: PHOTO OF SALVATION

BY AARON EHINGER. FOR MORE OF EHINGER’S WORK, GO TO AARONEHINGERPHOTOGRAPHY.COM.

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE

Stories from Chicago’s favorite rock ’n’ roll clusterfuck

Ian’s Party is a music festival, yes, but it’s run mostly by volunteers—which helps it feel like a community, not a branding exercise.

BY LEOR GALIL 20

33 Key Ingredient: Doenjang The Korean fermented bean paste elevates the caramelly Italian custard budino.

14 Architecture Amazon won’t save the Thompson Center, but Nathan Eddy might.

15 Theater Collaboraction debuts Encounter, a peformance series focused on racism and racial healing in Chicago.

15 Dance Catalyst Movmnt showcases the experiences of black womyn through dances of their own making.

16 Visual Art Eddie Owens Martin’s seven-acre utopia in Georgia must be seen to be solved.

18 Small Screen Three Chicagomade webseries to watch in 2018 19 Movies Tonya Harding was a victim too, and I, Tonya tells her side of the story.

CLASSIFIEDS

34 Jobs 34 Apartments & Spaces 35 Marketplace 36 Straight Dope Is racism what explains people’s supposed reluctance to adopt black dogs from animal shelters?

37 Savage Love Can a clandestine heavy flirtation with an ex-husband be justified?

38 Early Warnings Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Yo La Tengo, Pedro the Lion, and more upcoming shows 38 Gossip Wolf Charlie Reed—the band, not the person—is poised to be the best new band in town, and other music news.

JANUARY 4, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 3

AGENDA R

READER RECOMMENDED

P Send your events to agenda@chicagoreader.com

b ALL AGES

F of 1919 and speaks with retired Cook County judge Sheila Murphy. Tue 1/9, 6 PM, American Writers Museum, 180 N. Michican, second floor, 312-374-8790, americanwritersmuseum.org.

Ava Kadishson Shieber: Here I R Am Schieber, an author, poet, and artist who was born in Yugoslavia in 1926

and survived the Holocaust in hiding, gives a talk in celebration of the opening of “Here I Am,” a new exhibit devoted to her life and work. There will be refreshments, and musical prayers from cantor Andrea Rae Markowicz. Wed 1/10, 7 PM, Poetry Foundation, 61 W. Superior, 312-787-7070, poetryfoundation.org.

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VISUAL ART Besa: A Code of Honor Norman Gershman’s stark, black-and-white photographs of Muslim Albanians who rescued Jews during the Holocaust in accordance with besa, the Albanian code of honor.

Through 3/4. Mon-Fri 10 AM-5 PM (Thu till 8 PM), Sat-Sun 11 AM-4 PM. Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, 9603 Woods Dr., Skokie, 847-967-4800, ilholocaustmuseum.org, $12.

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Sat-Sun, January 6-7 @ 4:30pm

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Fri-Sun, January 5-7 @ 6:30pm Tue-Thr, January 9-11 @ 6:30pm

Blade Runner 2049 Fri-Sun, January 5-7 @ 9:30pm Tue-Thr, January 9-11 @ 9:30pm

Thor: Ragnarok

4 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 4, 2018

In the ’Hood Artists use photography, illustration, and other media to showcase the diversity and perspective of 30 different Chicago neighborhoods.

Through 1/7: Mon-Sat 11 AM-8 PM, Sun 11 AM-7 PM, Jackson Junge Gallery, 1389 N. Milwaukee, j2gallery.com, 773-227-7900.

An illustration from Ava Kadishson Shieber’s unpublished children’s book A Drop of Sun, on display as part of “Here I Am” at the Poetry Foundation ò NATASHA SPENCER

Isabelle Frances McGuire: I’m a Cliche McGuire utilizes an unexpected medium: bread. Through 1/8/18: Mon-Sun by appointment only. Prairie Avenue Gallery, 1900 S. Prairie, 312-907-7909.

DANCE

MOVIES

Lather. Rinse. Repeat | Fall. Climb.

Release. Drawing on movement vocabularies evolved in the African diaspora, dancers Keyierra Collins, Trinity Dawn Bobo, and Keisha Bennett explore their journeys as black womyn. For more, see page 15. Fri 1/5-Sat 1/6, 7 PM, Links Hall at Constellation, 3111 N. Western, 773-2810824, linkshall.org, $10-$12.

COMEDY Lip-Schtick Improv group Melinda and the Mushrooms pull a Jimmy Fallon and host a combination comedy and lip-sync show. Through 2/8: Thu 8 PM, Cornservatory, 4210 N. Lincoln, 773-650-1331, cornservatory.org, $10.

The Original Improv Gladiators: Season 29 Combining short-form and long-form improv (if you can call eight minutes “long-form”), this recurring show puts comedians through the gauntlet for a shot at a five-week run at the theater. Through 2/10: Fri-Sat 8 PM,

Cornservatory, 4210 N. Lincoln, 773-6501331, cornservatory.org, $10.

Tangerine: A Two-Man Show This two-person improv group limits itself to one scene, exploring two characters for the whole show. 1/6-1/20: Sat 11 PM, Cornservatory, 4210 N. Lincoln, 773-6501331, cornservatory.org, $10.

TGIF-d Uncle Bobo, an up-and-coming improv group, headline a run at the Cornservatory. Through 2/9: Fri 11 PM, Cornservatory, 4210 N. Lincoln, 773-6501331, cornservatory.org, $10.

Showtimes and more at chicagoreader.com/movies NEW REVIEWS Behind the Door A sadistic aura surrounds this silent melodrama (1919),

which hinges on scenes of torture, kidnapping, and xenophobic persecution. A taxidermist of German descent (Hobart Bosworth), living in a quiet Maine town, courts the daughter of the town’s richest man, a coldhearted scrooge who wants better things for his child. This romantic tale is quickly abandoned, however, when America enters into World War I and the taxidermist enlists in the Navy to prove his patriotism to neighbors who suspect him of being a German spy. What follows is an exciting (and increasingly improbable) wartime story, featuring an entertaining turn by a young Wallace Beery as a sinister German submarine captain. The final scenes, which reveal the secret of the title, are shocking, displaying a warped imagination that elevates the film into the realm of the truly strange.

Irvin Willat directed. —BEN SACHS 70 min. Restored archival 35mm print.

Dennis Scott provides live organ accompaniment. Sat 1/6, noon. Music Box. Bobbi Jene Bobbi Jene Smith, R the subject of Danish filmmaker Elvira Lind’s exquisite documentary, is an

Iowa-born, Juilliard-trained dancer who moved to Israel when she was 21 to join the Batsheva Dance Company. At age 30, she decides to move back to the U.S. and launch a solo career in San Francisco, then New York City, all while maintaining a long-distance relationship with her younger boyfriend in Tel Aviv. Shot over the course of three years, Lind’s film mines the anxieties that many women face when they realize they’re no longer young—when previously vague ideas about motherhood, marriage, and success become urgent. The access Smith grants Lind is remarkable: she seems as open while talking to the camera as she is in intimate moments with her boyfriend, a reflection of the physical and emotional forthrightness of her onstage work. —LEAH PICKETT 95 min. Sat 1/6, 6:30 PM, and Tue 1/9, 8:15 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center.

Hostiles Scott Cooper often compensates for his middling work as a screenwriter with his evident talent as a director, elevating middlebrow fare about modern-day country music (Crazy

Nick Thune Guitar in tow, Thune R delivers wry one-liners and occasionally strums along. Sat 1/6, 6:30, 8:30, and 11 PM, Up Comedy Club, 230 W. North, 312-337-3992, upcomedyclub. com, $25-$60.

LIT & LECTURES Claire Hartfield Hartfield, a Chicagobased lawyer and social justice advocate, reflects on her new book A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot

The Original Improv Gladiators: Season 29

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Best bets, recommendations, and notable arts and culture events for the week of January 4

of Mr. Roosevelt as her own. Despite some cliched plot devices (surprise, the girlfriend turns out to be kind of mess too), Wells limns an authentic portrait of a rapidly gentrifying city, down to the thirtysomething cohorts of loafers and tech yuppies who vie for the same turf; she also gives her character a clear backstory that supports her mistakes and meltdowns, even when they’re overthe-top. —LEAH PICKETT 90 min.

The Post Veteran New York R Times reporters have complained that they were written out of this

Tangerine: A Two-Man Show Heart) and Whitey Bulger (Black Mass) by getting great performances out of his actors and skillfully capturing a mood.

He can’t manage the same with his attempt at a western, mostly because the script, based on a manuscript by deceased screenwriter Donald E. Stewart (Missing, The Hunt for Red October), is too awful to salvage. In the late 19th century, a bloodthirsty army captain (Christian Bale) is tasked, under presidential orders, with delivering a sadistic Cheyenne war chief (Wes Studi) from New Mexico to his home in Montana to die; along the way they encounter a woman (Rosamund Pike) whose family was slaughtered by Comanches and escort her north. The journey is beautifully shot by cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi, but Bale’s genius is wasted—he’s often resigned to looking sullen and straining to recite the clunky dialogue. With Ben Foster, Jesse Plemons, Peter Mullan, and Rory Cochrane.

—TAL ROSENBERG R, 133 min.

Keep Talking This documentary looks at a small community in Kodiak Island, Alaska, where committed individuals work to preserve the Alutiiq language spoken

by Native American tribes that once thrived there. Director Karen Weinberg observes a language-immersion summer camp, after-school classes on Alutiiq culture, and a preschool that introduces young children to Alutiiq; she also crafts character studies of some of the women who teach the language. Though some of these women have troubling pasts, the profiles are generally upbeat, conveying how the educational project has given positive meaning to their lives. The emotional heart of the movie, though, lies in interviews with an adolescent Native American girl who finds empowerment in discovering the language and traditions of her ancestors.

In English and subtitled Kodiak Alutiiq.

—BEN SACHS 80 min. Weinberg attends the screenings. Fri 1/5 and Thu 1/11, 8:15 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center.

Mr. Roosevelt Noël Wells writes, directs, and stars in this charming feature debut, playing a down-on-her-luck comedian in Los Angeles who has one viral video to her name. When the guy she dumped to pursue her dreams (Nick Thune) calls to tell her that the cat they shared, Mr. Roosevelt, is dying, she hops on a one-way flight home to Austin, only to find that her ex is living with a serene new girlfriend (Britt Lower) who thinks

drama about the Pentagon Papers, the classified government study of the Vietnam war whose June 1971 publication in the Times became a turning point in the national debate. But screenwriters Liz Hannah and Josh Singer aren’t making a reportorial thriller; this is essentially a boardroom drama about the legal and journalistic issues that confronted the small, family-owned Washington Post when a federal court injunction halted the Times series but the Post obtained its own portions of the study. Meryl Streep stars as publisher Kay Graham, gently raising her voice against a chorus of male board members who advise her to obey the injunction, and Tom Hanks gets all gravelly as executive editor Ben Bradlee.

Their best scenes together reveal how each journalist was compromised by cozy relationships with powerful Democrats (in his case, President Kennedy; in hers, defense secretary Robert McNamara). Steven Spielberg directed.

—J.R. JONES PG-13, 115 min. Century 12 and CineArts 6, River East 21 The Strange Ones This unnerving and frustratingly opaque drama focuses on a teenage boy (James Freedson-Jackson) who distrusts his own memories and present reality.The first half shows him

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

traveling with a man (Alex Pettyfer) through upstate New York; when they stop for food, gas, and temporary lodging in a motel, they pay cash and use fake names. There are implications of sexual abuse, as well as flashbacks to a house fire that the pair calmly left behind. The film’s more elliptical second half deals with the boy’s struggle to comprehend his trauma; however, cowriter-directors Lauren Wolkstein and Christopher Radcliff, expanding on a 2011 short, seem more concerned with building an eerie mood around the boy than with revealing what actually happened to him. Ambiguity can be effective for difficult subject matter, but here it ultimately feels like copping out on effectively telling a story. —LEAH PICKETT R, 81 min.

Tom of Finland Director Dome Karukoski brings an oddly tasteful approach to this biopic of Finnish gay-erotica illustrator Touko Laaksonen, who became popular under the pen name Tom of Finland.

The film covers roughly 40 years of Laaksonen’s life, from World War II to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, and like too many other glossy biopics, it’s structured as a series of dramatic, albeit shallow, showstoppers. Karukoski generates some decent suspense in the passages set during the immediate postwar era, when Laaksonen goes to great lengths to keep his drawings and sexual identity secret from the general public. But once Laaksonen achieves success and finds domestic happiness with a ballet dancer, the filmmakers don’t have much to say about their subject, instead opting for reenactments of major moments in µ

Keep Talking

JANUARY 4, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 5

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“One of the 10 best films of 2017.” — John Waters

Director via Skype on Sun.!

Nepal’s official Oscar® submission.

January 5 - 18

“A breath of fresh air from the top of the world.”

— Hollywood Reporter

Fri., 1/5 at 6 pm; Sat., 1/6 at 3 pm and 8 pm; Sun., 1/7 at 5 pm; Mon., 1/8 at 8 pm; Tue., 1/9 at 6 pm; Wed., 1/10 at 8 pm; Thu., 1/11 at 6 pm

January 5 - 11

Fri., 1/5 at 6 pm; Sat., 1/6 at 4:45 pm & 8:30; Sun., 1/7 at 3 pm; Mon., 1/8 at 6 pm; Wed., 1/10 at 7:45 pm; Thu., 1/11 at 6 pm

For showtimes thru 1/18, visit our website.

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“Stunning, a flawlessly executed journey through Van Gogh’s art.” — JR Jones, Chicago Reader

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Tom of Finland B the gay rights movement during the 1970s and ’80s. In English and subtitled Finnish and German. —BEN SACHS 115 min. Fri 1/5, 6 PM; Sat 1/6, 3 and 8 PM; Sun 1/7, 5 PM; Mon 1/8, 8 PM; Tue 1/9, 6 PM; Wed 1/10, 8 PM; Thu 1/11, 6 PM; Fri 1/12, 7:45 PM; Sat 1/13, 8 PM; Sun 1/14, 4:45 PM; Mon 1/15, 7:45 PM; Tue 1/16, 7:45 PM; Wed 1/17, 7:45 PM; and Thu 1/18, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center.

White Sun In this absorbing R 2016 Nepalese drama, various members of a remote

FIND HUNDREDS OF

Himalayan community deal with intergenerational, political, religious, gender, and class tensions in the aftermath of Nepal’s civil war. At the film’s seriocomic start, a low-caste street urchin assists a former communist revolutionary (Dayahang Rai) as he journeys to his hometown for his father’s funeral; the humor ebbs as the revolutionary reunites with his feisty ex-wife, his resentful brother, and the cantankerous village elders. Writer-director Deepak Rauniyar frames the dead body as a metaphor for the corrupt old regime, and the mourners’ struggle to transport it on an arduous

mountain trek symbolizes Nepal’s rocky transition from monarchy to republic. Rauniyar gets the most out of the actors, a mix of pros and amateurs, and cinematographer Mark Ellam generates exhilarating images of this vertiginous corner of the world. In Nepali with subtitles.

—ANDREA GRONVALL 89 min. Fri 1/5, 6 PM; Sat 1/6, 4:45 and 8:30 PM; Sun 1/7, 3 PM; Mon 1/8, 6 PM; Wed 1/10, 7:45 PM; and Thu 1/11, 6 PM. Gene Siskel Film Center.

NOW PLAYING The Fencer An elite Estonian fencer (Märt Avandi), hiding from Stalin’s secret police because of his forced service in the German army during World War II, finds safe haven working as a teacher in a remote Estonian village, but his rapport with the students in his fencing club arouses the jealousy of the school’s principal and jeopardizes his safety. Based on the life of Endel Nelis, this 2015 Finnish biopic is an affecting portrait of a decent man who risks his life to uphold a bond of trust with his students. Though squarely in the tradition of Dead Poets Society and The Bad News Bears, the film offers

higher stakes and, consequently, a bigger payoff. Director Klaus Härö elicits fine performances all around, especially from his child actors, and Tuomo Hutri’s cinematography is gorgeous. In Estonian and Russian with subtitles. —MARILYN FERDINAND 93 min.

The Other Side of Hope R Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki delivers his timeliest and

most heartfelt film, mixing humor, pathos, and anger in a manner reminiscent of Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940). A Syrian refugee, having lost most of his family and friends to sectarian violence, arrives in Helsinki to begin a new life; after the authorities declare that Syria is no longer a crisis zone and order him to return, he finds work and shelter at a run-down restaurant, where he ingratiates himself with the ragtag employees. Kaurismäki offers plenty of his deadpan humor in the restaurant scenes, but the comedy never distracts one from the hero’s plight, or from the failure of European nations to provide enough help for the exiled. In English and subtitled Finnish and Arabic. —BEN SACHS 100 min. v

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CITY LIFE Chicagoans

The AirBnb host Afri Atiba, 51

I GOT THE IDEA from a friend who had started using AirBnB in New York. I thought it was strange to go and stay at somebody’s house that you didn’t know, but my friend is like that—a little peculiar. About a year after that, my husband and I separated. It was lonely being in this big house by myself. I have five siblings, so I had never been alone.

I was trying to figure out how to make ends meet. My back was against the wall, and my girlfriend said, “You should do AirBnB.” First I said, “No, that’s ridiculous,” but then I got really pressed, and I said, “I’ll try it.”

I stay in Chatham, and it’s quiet. I’ve had guests for the last six years and never had any incidents. It’s right off of King Drive, and it’s just half a block to the bus stop. And that bus will take you all the way to McCormick Place.

It’s just a quiet neighborhood, no one selling drugs on the corner, no kids hanging out. It’s a working-class African-American neighborhood where everybody goes to work every day, and everybody comes home every day.

Before Uber and Lyft, I had a big problem, because cabs never came into my neighborhood. And if my guests took a cab to come here, by the time they got here, the cabdriver would have scared them half to death. They would come in the house and say, “The cabdriver told me I shouldn’t be staying on this side of town.” People are afraid of the south side. It’s ridiculous. I educate my guests. I tell them: “Anything can happen in any neighborhood in Chicago.”

Early on, I think some gentlemen thought that AirBnB was something different. I had

“I put on my profile that I do not entertain male guests. I’m not going out to dinner, I’m not fixing breakfast for you, none of that,” Atiba says. ò JAMIE RAMSAY

to get one gentleman in particular really straight about that. He said he was coming for business, but when he got here, he didn’t have any business outside of the house, and he kept asking me when I was going to have dinner with him. And he walked around the house with pajamas on. I called my boyfriend, and he came over and said, “You have to put your clothes on. She’s renting you a room. That’s the end of the story.” After that, I rectified the situation very easily: I put on my profile that

I do not entertain male guests. I’m not going out to dinner, I’m not fixing breakfast for you, none of that.

I’ve had guests from all over the world, literally. And I love it. I love meeting new people who have become friends. I had one young lady stay with me who was telling me that she loves to travel, and she wanted me to go with her to Saint Croix. I said, “I’ve always wanted to go to an island,” so we went. She introduced me to people in Saint Croix, and

I go back every year and stay a month or so.

Another lady who stayed with me, we’ve gone on a cruise together. I had a couple from Germany stay with me, and they were like, “You’ve got to come to Berlin.” I told them, “I haven’t been to Europe a lot because I don’t want to go where I’m not wanted,” and they said, “No, it’s a melting pot!” So I promised them I would come to Berlin. The last place on earth I would want to go. But they were such good people.

—AS TOLD TO ANNE FORD

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

SURE THINGS THURSDAY 4

FRIDAY 5

SATURDAY 6

SUNDAY 7

MONDAY 8

TUESDAY 9

WEDNESDAY 10

M It’s a Wonderful Life: Live in Chicago! Tony Adler writes of this radio play based on the classic film by Frank Capra, “American Blues Theater has made this 90-minute piece an annual holiday staple, complete with commercial jingles, without letting it dull out into ritual.” 7:30 PM, Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont, stage773. com, $19-$49.

Windy City Ro llers The city’s beloved roller derby league nears the end of its local season with two back-toback bouts. The undefeated Double Crossers play Hell’s Belles, after which the Manic Attackers and the Fury fight to break their respective ties.

7 and 8:45 PM, UIC Pavilion, 525 S. Racine, windycityrollers. com, $20.

It’s My Pe nis and I’ ll Cr y If I Want To Jamie Black, who identifies as a trans male, plays both the female and male roles in his one-man show exploring gender norms as they affect three life-altering situations.

7:30 PM, Pride Arts Center, 4147 N. Broadway, pridefilmsandplays.com, $25.

ù In Wood We Trust Geneva-based architects the Chapuisat Brothers have re-created the feeling of being inside a treehouse in this large outdoor “architectural intervention” and exhibition venue, part of the Chicago Architecture Biennial. 1-5 PM, 6018 N. Kenmore, 6018north.org. F

× Eat Mo re Tamales Think you’re ready for the Delta’s tamale-eating contest?

Heed the event title and give it a shot—proceeds benefit MLB baseball player (and Chicago homeboy) Curtis Granderson’s Grand Kids Foundation. 6 PM, the Delta, 1745 W. North, thedeltachicago.com, $20 suggested donation.

E Th e Hea rtbreak Kid The Chicago Film Society unearths a 35mm copy of Elaine May’s 1972 film The Heartbreak Kid—about a newly married Jewish man who breaks both his bride’s and family’s hearts by pursuing a shiksa on his honeymoon. 7 PM, Music Box, 3733 N. Southport, musicboxtheatre.com, $7-$11.

J Elizabeth’s Crazy Little Th ing The multitalented Joe Lanasa—a street poet, songwriter, and guitarist—headlines this iteration of the monthly open mike known to welcome jugglers, rappers, and all manner of performance artists. 9 PM, Phyllis’ Musical Inn, 1800 W. Division, facebook.com/phyllismusicalinn. F

JANUARY 4, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 7

CITY LIFE The brand-new CTA station at Washington and Wabash, inspired by architect Santiago Calatrava, opened in August. ò SANTIAGO COVARRUBIAS/SUN-TIMES

TRANSPORTATION

Passing grades

The Trump administration still threatens sustainable infrastructure, but despite a few bumps in the road Chicago’s year in transportation didn’t suck.

By JOHN GREENFIELD

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ast year, writing in the wake of Donald Trump’s election and the Republican platform calling for the elimination of federal funding for Amtrak, mass transit, and other sustainable forms of transportation, I predicted that, on that front, 2017 would likely be the best year Chicago sees for a while.

Indeed, it was a kidney stone of a year in many respects, wrapping up with the passage of Trump’s swamp-friendly tax bill, which will slash taxes for the wealthy and corporations while starving the federal government of revenue. So it’s likely that the GOP will try to follow through with its threat to gut funding for rail, pedestrian, and bike infrastructure in 2018. But for the moment, let’s comfort ourselves with the fact that 2017 was still a pretty good year for Chicago transportation, although it definitely had its ups and downs.

8 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 4, 2018

From a street-safety perspective, the biggest news was the June release of the city’s long-awaited Vision Zero plan to eliminate all traffic deaths by 2026. The program is currently focused on west-side neighborhoods with high crash rates and, as it happened, five of Chicago’s seven on-street bike fatalities in 2017, up from six in 2016, took place on the west and near-west sides. One case, the hit-and-run crash that killed Angelo Resto, 46, on the 3800 block of West Augusta in Humboldt Park in December, is still unsolved.

Local cyclists were also dismayed at the light sentence handed out in January 2017—a mere ten days in jail—to motorist Ryne San Hamel, who pleaded guilty to killing 26-year-old Groupon employee Bobby Cann on his bike in 2013 while drunk and speeding.

As for bike infrastructure, the Chicago Department of Transportation kept fairly busy in 2017, marking 21.6 miles of bikeways from

Hegewisch to Edgewater. That said, the west and southwest sides got almost nothing, save for some half-hearted protected bike lanes (the only PBLs built this year) on Polk in the Illinois Medical District and Loomis in Pilsen.

The only protection from traffic offered by these bikeways is some sporadically placed plastic posts, and drivers are currently treating the curbside Polk lanes like parking lanes.

Also annoying was the further delay of the $60 million-plus Navy Pier Flyover bike overpass project, which has already taken longer to complete than the Golden Gate Bridge. In October, CDOT acknowledged that it won’t be finished until mid-2019, half a year behind schedule.

Still, plenty of good bikeways debuted in 2017. In May, CDOT opened the $65,000 Glenwood Greenway, legalizing two-way cycling on an already popular route through Uptown and Edgewater. Over the summer the department did a $253,000 makeover of the Milwaukee Avenue “Hipster Highway” corridor in Wicker Park-Bucktown, including experimental “dashed bike lanes” on the tight stretch between North and Division. The project also redesigned the chaotic North/ Damen/Milwaukee “Crotch,” setting aside more space for people walking and biking.

In August, the Forest Preserve District of Cook County completed a $7.7 million extension of the North Branch Trail four miles further southeast into the city, making it easier for urbanites to pedal to the Chicago Botanic Gardens in Glencoe. And thanks to a $12 million gift from Republican hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin, the Chicago Park District made significant headway on building separate paths for pedestrians and cyclists on the Lakefront Trail, a project that’s slated for completion this year.

Despite these improvements, there’s growing awareness in Chicago that new transportation amenities such as multiuse trails and CTA-friendly high-rises can be a double-edged sword in gentrifying communities. Affordable housing activists in Logan Square continued to protest the construction of upscale transit-oriented development towers, which they argue are accelerating the displacement of longtime residents. In May, in response to steeply rising home prices along the Bloomingdale Trail in Logan and Humboldt Park, housing advocates and al-

dermen proposed the 606 affordability ordinance, which would charge developers hefty fees for building teardowns and expansions and use the revenue to fund low-cost housing.

Another initiative that could boost equity is the new tax on ride-hailing trips that City Council passed in November, which is projected to raise millions of dollars for CTA infrastructure. On the other hand, faced with budget shortfalls partly due to state budget cuts, all three local transit systems are raising ticket prices in 2018, including a 25-cent CTA fare hike that kicks in on January 8.

The past year was a good one for new CTA stations. After a $75 million rehab, the brandnew Washington-Wabash stop opened in August, its graceful, undulating form inspired

by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. The $203 million Wilson station reconstruction in Uptown is also coming along nicely and should be finished this month. In addition to making the stop a transfer point between the Red and Purple Lines, the rehab added elevators and a dazzling installation by Sri Lankan-British artist Cecil Balmond, and is restoring the 1923 Gerber Building, on the north side of Wilson, to its former glory. The $280 million renovation of the 95th Street Red Line station, including artwork by Chicago favorite son Theater Gates, is likewise rolling along and should wrap up by the end of this year.

There was transit news of a more dubious sort in November, when Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a request for qualifications for a concessionaire to finance, build, and run his pet project, the O’Hare Express luxury transit line. Local transportation experts questioned whether the upscale initiative represents a wise or fair use of city planning resources, but tech guru Elon Musk immediately tweeted his intention of digging a tunnel to shoot travelers to the airport in “electric pods.”

As reported by Wired, however, at a recent artificial intelligence conference Musk stated that public transportation “sucks,” partly because “there’s like a bunch of random strangers, one of who might be a serial killer,” which calls into question whether he’s the right person for the O’Hare Express gig.

Regardless, here’s wishing you a safe, efficient, and vibrant 2018 whether on rails, wheels, or on foot, and may all your CTA rides at least be free of serial killers. v

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

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CITY LIFE Flowers for Cynthia Trevillion placed in a doorway in the 6900 block of North Glenwood Avenue ò JIM YOUNG

CRIME

This was what it was like to live in Chicago in 2017

How can the police have any authority when they’ve squandered the public trust?

By AIMEE LEVITT

T

here was a shooting in my neighborhood, Rogers Park, in October. There were probably shootings in every neighborhood sometime this year, but this one attracted extra notice because the victim, Cynthia Trevillion, was a teacher at the local Waldorf School—she was on her way out to a Friday-night dinner with her husband and was unlucky enough to get caught in gang-related cross fire. The bullets hit her in the head and neck and she died immediately.

The following Monday our alderman, Joe Moore, called a community meeting at the site of the shooting, the corner of Morse and Glenwood, next to the el stop. Reporters from DNAinfo and TV stations were there, but I went as a civilian, on my way home from work.

Maybe 150 people showed up. Someone had set up a few rows of chairs in front of the stage,

but most of us stood in the street and on the sidewalk. The sound system wasn’t good. We had to strain to hear.

The alderman spoke, and then Glen Brooks, the police department’s director of public engagement, spoke, and then John Warner, the organizer of neighborhood “positive loitering” events, spoke. They all said Trevillion’s death had been a tragedy. They said that future tragedies might be prevented if everyone in the neighborhood put up a united front of “vigilance” by attending CAPS meetings and forming block clubs and positive loitering groups to show criminals that they weren’t welcome.

On the surface, this all seemed reasonable.

Yes, let the neighbors of Rogers Park come together to mourn the loss of one of our own and then vow to maintain a united front to protect our streets! Kumbaya!

That’s how things should work, but that’s not how Chicago worked in 2017. For one thing, it was the police who were making this request, and, if you’re black, as one-third of Rogers Park is, you have to wonder how much you can trust the police. (You even have to wonder this as a white person.) You wonder even if the representative the Chicago Police Department had sent to this particular meeting was black.

Then there’s the perception that positive loitering is just another form of racial profiling, targeting people of color and assuming they don’t belong—even when the neighborhood is two-thirds people of color. Neighborhood policing is for white people.

So by the third speech lauding the virtues of community policing, a few members of the audience had had enough. They had objections to the police department’s view of the world, and no one was letting them speak. So they shouted. They shouted about positive loitering. They shouted about the $95 million that was going to fund a new police academy when public schools were grossly underfunded. The speaker, Warner, the positive-loitering organizer, wasn’t used to hostile crowds. He began to falter.

There was one young man who was especially loud. The cops who’d been standing behind the stage surrounded him and herded him down the street, away from the rally. A whole group of bystanders followed. We held up our cell phones to record, just in case the encounter went badly.

That was another thing about living in America in 2017. You expected encounters between white police officers and young black men to go badly, and you knew that it was your duty as a citizen to bear witness.

The protester asked the cops why he couldn’t speak his piece. A police officer told him he shouldn’t be interrupting. The protester asked why only the alderman and representatives of the police got to speak. The police officer said he didn’t know. They let the protester go.

Back at the rally, Alderman Moore was urging everyone to sign up for community policing and block associations. There was a

table set up on the sidewalk. A few members of the crowd, mostly older white people, were shoving to get close to it. The protesters kept shouting.

Moore and Warner, who are both white, told DNAinfo’s Linze Rice the next day that it wasn’t their goal to alienate people of color.

Instead, they wanted everyone to take a more active role in community policing.

“The thing is that they don’t want to join because they’re afraid they’re going to be called Uncle Toms,” Warner said. “That has come from more than one black person that I have talked to. That is why we have such a low count of people of color, because they’re afraid they’re going to be profiled by their own people.”

It’s not “your color I’m going after, it’s what you’re doing,” Warner explained. “People hear ‘positive loitering’ and they think we’re going after black people because they’re the drug dealers and gangbangers. Wrong.”

When asked what his group could do to change that perception, he said there was “nothing we can do to help that, that’s their mind-set.”

And it did indeed turn out to be true that the meeting did nothing to change anyone’s perception of community policing. There was supposed to be a period during the event when people who weren’t aldermen or police officers could come onstage to speak, Rice reported, but the organizers decided to skip over that altogether.

Instead, a black pastor came up to say a final prayer. As he began to speak, a woman in the crowd shouted, “Remember Laquan McDonald!” The pastor raised his voice. The woman kept chanting. He got louder. So did she.

And that was it: this was what it was like to live in Chicago in 2017, where everyone wanted the shooting to stop. The police thought they were doing a good thing by encouraging the people of the community to contribute to the overall safety of the neighborhood: when you have power and authority, people should accept your suggestions. They didn’t understand—or maybe they didn’t bother to acknowledge—that by squandering the people’s trust, they had also squandered their authority. Why should anyone listen to the police, even if it would be for their own good, when the police wouldn’t listen to the people they said they wanted to help? So here we are.

And still the shootings continue. v

v @aimeelevitt JANUARY 4, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 9

L A S T N I G H T AT

Man’s Country The pioneering gay bathhouse’s 13-hour final hurrah

By AARON GETTINGER

10 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 4, 2018

O

n the bitterly cold night of New Year’s Eve, heat emanated off the parquet dance floor at Man’s Country. Dozens of nearly nude men, most wearing little more than jockstraps or leather harnesses, plus shoes, bounced to a throbbing disco beat.

There were chests fuzzy and hairless, firm and flabby.

Bearish beards, porno-ready moustaches, and boyishly smooth faces. They drank and chatted, embraced, and kissed while they moved in a steamy mass to the music.

Women and gender-nonbinary people—welcomed only in the last six weeks of the Uptown gay bathhouse’s existence—dotted the room. Against the stage, two muscular guys engaged in aggressive anal sex, but no one seemed to bat a lash.

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The debauchery continued until late in the morning on New Year’s Day. The 13-hour Loose Ends party that closed out 2017 also marked the end of an era of Chicago’s LGBTQ history: the last hurrah of Man’s Country after 44 years in business. For gays of a certain age, it was a pioneering place not just for unbridled sexual exploration but for building community. For younger gays it was almost unknown. The property on which the bathhouse sits is being sold and the three-floor building cleared to make way for a condo development.

“When I first became a member in the late 70s, you could check in here and no one would keep track. I know I was in here for four or five days at a time,” said Robert Harvey, who would later serve drinks at the Chicago Eagle, a defunct leather bar that once operated in the same building as Man’s Country. “I would come here at the end of every shift just to hang out. We would get a room and bring a six-pack over, sit around and shoot the shit for a couple of hours, smoke a joint, maybe get laid—sometimes, it depended on your mood—then just go on home.

It was definitely a space . . . for as much the social things as the sexual things.”

Opened in 1973, Man’s Country was the dream of Chuck Renslow, the entrepreneur and gay rights figure who died last June at age 87. Renslow founded the annual International Mr. Leather contest and the Leather Archives & Museum in Rogers Park. While the AIDS epidemic prompted

other U.S. cities to close gay bathhouses in the 80s, Man’s Country persisted. In 1987, Renslow and Ehemann (along with other partners) opened the nightclub Bistro Too in another section of the building. That club played host to big-name performers such as the Village People and Divine, as well as a variety of cabaret acts: dancers, comedians, magicians, hypnotists, even drag-queen wrestling. It

was closed in the 90s, around the time that Man’s Country became an Internet pornography pioneer, posting videos of strippers’ performances to the Web. Harvey, now a bookseller, was brought back to work the front desk in the weeks before the closing. He says he sensed that the end was nigh for Man’s Country around 2010, when there stopped being a waiting list for private rooms on weekend nights. While Steamworks in Boystown offers more modern facilities and the promise of a younger clientele, Man’s Country in the age of gay hookup apps had become increasingly niche: older, blue-collar, more men of color.

As city and county property taxes and insurance costs increased, amenities at Man’s Country waned and upkeep was postponed—the hot tub broke and was never fixed; a sundeck on the roof closed decades ago. Profit margins narrowed until the business began operating at a loss, said Ron Ehemann, Renslow’s surviving partner, who inherited full responsibility for the bathhouse.

To commemorate Man’s Country’s closing, Ehemann decided to host two parties at the bathhouse, one in mid-November and the final one on New Year’s Eve. He partnered with DJ Harry Cross, 39, cofounder of the seven-year-old Men’s Room party series that’s known as much for creating a sexually liberated environment as for the intense house music played—an atmosphere intentionally distinct from the weekend scene at the tamer J

JANUARY 4, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 11

continued from 11 bars of Boystown, where one is wont to encounter a group of straight women celebrating a bachelorette party.

As orchestrated by Cross and Ehemann, Man’s Country’s last hours were strange and spirited. Ehemann had the air of someone overseeing a boisterous wake. An affable, handsome man in his late 50s with close-cropped gray hair and earrings, his melancholy was curbed by the sheer amount of work to be done as hundreds of partygoers filled the dim, labyrinthine corridors of the building, from the dance floor to the steam room and the 80 small private rooms in between, some outfitted with BDSM equipment, others with TVs looping porn films. “It’s felt like a wake since Chuck died six months ago, and it’s going to be like this again five months from now during [International Mr. Leather],” Ehemann said before informing a customer that his thermos would have to be confiscated (Ehemann suspected it was filled with the club drug GHB).

As DJ L.A. Olympics played global club jams, two attractive young men peacocked together onstage, making out and at one point simultaneously smelling each other’s armpits. The air reeked of sweat, cigarettes, and “poppers”—alkyl nitrites huffed for a short-term high and preferred by gay men looking to have anal sex because the drug relaxes involuntary muscles. In the functioning steam room in the basement “wet area,” one guy was on all fours, fellating one man after another while his dominant partner looked on. The men spat in the submissive’s face after climaxing, and he’d dutifully answer, “Thank you, sir.”

“This is superfun. I haven’t been to Man’s Country in around nine years, and the fact that they’re having one last hurrah and trying to invoke what Man’s Country was in the 70s is amazing,” said David Sanabria, standing in the locker room. “If it was like this every weekend, it wouldn’t be closing. We need more places that promote community

12 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 4, 2018

and gay men being friends, where people could just go talk and flirt and be cool with each other, not like clubs in Boystown where people are just, like, superbitchy to each other all the time.”

“I’ve had many, many messy nights here,” said Les Greicar. “It’s a part of Chicago history. I just wanted to experience it for the last time.”

The music was extremely loud and never let up, like an engine running full throttle. Some attendees danced the whole night away. Some men had sex—on the dance floor, in the public play area on the first floor, in the bathroom.

Others watched. Some of the action looked disturbingly rote, some utterly joyous.

Around 4 AM, a skinny blond man in his early 20s who said he was visiting from out of state remarked “I’ve taken seven loads” in a low, blank voice and announced that he was going home.

“It’s fun. It’s like fucking for sport,” said another man, who was sitting outside the steam room, punctuating the sentence by pinching my nipple. “A lot of smaller cities are much more uptight. It’s liberating. A lot of us grow up not being able to experience sex like other adolescents do, and I think that this is a response to a lot of that.”

Older regulars in towels mainly observed from the sidelines or were in private rooms lying on their stomachs naked in hopes of attracting a top.

“I guess it’s maybe not for me,” said a shirtless man in his mid-20s who was at Man’s Country for the first time.

“I’m glad that it’s here for some people, but I don’t feel connected to this community. I guess I’m just outside this target demographic.”

“It’s a lot of white men,” said Gervais Marsh, originally from Kingston, Jamaica, and a graduate student in performance studies at Northwestern University. “It’s excessive, a

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little bit aggressive, and taking up a lot of space. But I’m here with good people, so I feel centered even with all of that.”

After Ehemann polled the membership of Man’s Country about whether to open the private men’s club to other genders, women and nonbinary people were welcome in the bathhouse beginning with the Loose Ends party in November. They showed up and actively participated in what was previously a zone of pure testosterone. During the New Year’s party, for instance, in the bench-lined room where classic porn had once screened, a woman was on her knees pleasuring the woman seated in front of her. Teri Zeinz attended with her bisexual husband, Balthasaar. “I’m always a little jealous about men’s-only environments—not that they don’t deserve it, but I’d like to observe. I want to see how this space evolved outside of heterosexuality,” Teri said. “I just feel like gay male culture is so different than the others. I’m interested in being

myself and being fabulous in a space that is not primarily interested in me.”

Drag acts served as interludes between DJ sets at the Loose Ends parties. At 3 AM on New Year’s Day, drag queen Abhijeet lip-synced “Fuck Machine” by Mindless Self Indulgence while wearing a flat-screen TV monitor that played a video collage of transgender pornography. It was a nod to the inclusion of all genders at Man’s Country, if only during its final months.

Will Wilhelm, a gender-nonconforming actor who performed in Steppenwolf’s Straight White Men last year, questioned the necessity for a place like Man’s Country in a world in which societal attitudes toward homosexuality are far more accepting than in the gay bathhouse’s heyday. “Thinking about the performance opportunities and community place, I don’t know if the need is there in the same way that it has been in recent decades,” the actor

said, “but I think there’s something really special about a community-based building that has this cool performance space.”

The end came suddenly, the music ceasing at around 11:20 AM on New Year’s Day, more than a half hour before the party was scheduled to conclude. There were no speeches or toasts. The small number of people who remained exited onto Clark Street into the harsh light of late morning.

“Man’s Country was designed as a space where people could be free,” Ehemann reflected later that evening.

“That allows for good and bad and, for better or worse, excess. Last night, partly because it was our final night, the excess seemed to dominate. That said, there were hundreds of people having fun and experiencing, maybe for the only time in their lives, the freedom to interact without inhibition.”

At one point during the party, Robert Harvey became wistful. “People [think they] don’t need a place like this anymore,” he told me. “It’s too bad, because things go in cycles. They will need a place like this eventually again because on Grindr you see what you get. You never knew what you’d find here.”

And he should know. A man Harvey had first met three decades before started coming to Man’s Country to pass Sunday afternoons after the death of a partner. Harvey reconnected with him at the bathhouse. They married four years ago. v

v @agettinger JANUARY 4, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 13

ARTS & CULTURE

STARSHIP CHICAGO: HELMUT JAHN’S THOMPSON CENTER AT THE CROSSROADS

Fri 1/5, 5:30 PM, Chicago Cultural Center, Claudia Cassidy Theater, 78 E. Washington, 312-7446630, chicagoculturalcenter.org. F

Starship Chicago

ARCHITECTURE

Amazon won’t save the Thompson Center, but Nathan Eddy might

By DEANNA ISAACS

I

s Amazon going to sweep into Chicago and claim the James R. Thompson Center as its new headquarters?

Sure. Right after the spaceship disguised as an office building lifts off from its launch pad at Clark and Randolph for a return trip to Mars.

In a stroke of delusional fantasy, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Governor Bruce Rauner made the Thompson Center the anchor of one of the ten locations Illinois proposed to the online retail giant (and one of 238 made to it nationally).

As soon as Amazon announces its choice, the fate of architect Helmut Jahn’s postmodern civic extravaganza, with its atrium echoing classical capitol domes, will be back in the hands of politicians who value the building

14 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 4, 2018

less than the prime block of Loop real estate it occupies.

Completed in 1985, when it was known as the State of Illinois Center, the Thompson Center has reached a dangerous age: too young for city landmark status (which is restricted to buildings at least 50 years old) and, after years of deferred maintenance by the state, too decrepit for the likes of Rauner.

In October 2015, from a vantage point in the building’s jaw-dropping lobby, Rauner announced that the Thompson Center is good for nothing, and that he’s ready to sell it to developers for demolition.

Freelance journalist Nathan Eddy was at home in Berlin when news of Rauner’s announcement reached him.

Eddy, who grew up in Rhode Island, has

been based in Berlin since 2008, mostly covering business and technology. But from 2002 to 2006 he was a Northwestern University undergrad, exploring Chicago’s streets with a camera and developing an appreciation for its architecture, including the Thompson building, which, on the phone from Europe last week, he called “a fun-house riot of architecture and democracy.”

In 2011, when he heard that another of his favorite buildings—Bertrand Goldberg’s Prentice Women’s Hospital—was going to be demolished, Eddy says he “went into shock,” and “called a bunch of people in Chicago,” including Landmarks Illinois president Bonnie McDonald, whom he’d never met. He told McDonald, “this is an outrage,” and proposed chaining himself to the building. When she

said that might not be the most productive response, “the next thing that jumped into my head was, ‘Let’s make a movie.’”

Eddy, a movie buff, had loaded up on film courses at NU but had no idea how to make one. He had college friends who did, however.

He says that with the help of two former roommates, Oscar Boyson and Felipe Lima, he shot The Absent Column, a seven-minute documentary about Prentice, in five days. Another former roommate, Nate DeYoung, did the editing.

The film was completed in 2012; it didn’t save Prentice, but it screened at architecture film festivals and gave Eddy a fast apprenticeship in the medium.

By February 2016 he was at work on a film about the Thompson Center, Starship Chicago.

Brian Cagle handled the camera, and DeYoung again edited. Neither Rauner nor Emanuel would agree to appear on camera, but Eddy scored interviews with (among others) Jahn, former governor and building namesake James R. Thompson, and Stanley Tigerman, who opens the 16-minute film by opining that the building’s “a piece of shit.”

Starship Chicago will be screened at the Cultural Center this week as the introduction to a free public panel, Starship Chicago: Helmut Jahn’s Thompson Center at the Crossroads, sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Landmarks Illinois. Eddy—who’s added preservation activist to his credentials, most recently launching a protest to alterations proposed for Philip Johnson’s 550 Madison Avenue tower in New York—will be here for the discussion, which will be moderated by DuSable Museum of African American History vice president Lee Bey and will also include CAB board chairman Jack Guthman.

Guthman, who says he’s a fan of Jahn’s work, doesn’t think the Thompson Center’s “uniqueness” qualifies it for landmark status. “It was never built to the quality Jahn intended,” he notes, and “it’s not a well-conceived building for a public body. There’s so much space that is not used. It’s inefficient and therefore inappropriate as a public building. To put millions of dollars [in repairs] into this building, which is perhaps more different than it is great, doesn’t make sense to me. If the question is ‘Should it be kept as is, as a landmark?’ my answer is, on balance, ‘No.’” v

v @DeannaIsaacs

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READER RECOMMENDED

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ARTS & CULTURE DANCE

ò COURTESY COLLABORACTION

Black womyn speak AS THE RECENT ALABAMA SENATE election showed, the strength of black women is both underestimated and impossible to ignore.

Hailed as the demographic that “saved democracy and human decency” (CNN), tasked with acting as the “moral force” of an immoral country (the Root), venerated as the “disrespected, unprotected, and neglected” who, nevertheless, persist (the Guardian), black women remain underserved by stereotypes that fail to see the lives of individuals who make up the body politic.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. | Fall. Climb. Release. offers one opportunity for contemplation as Trinity Dawn Bobo, Keisha Bennett, and Keyierra Collins, three self-described black womyn, all recent graduates of Columbia College, present a mixed bill of premieres that investigate the theme of catharsis from psychological, political, and personal perspectives. Curated by Aaliyah Christina of Catalyst

Movmnt, the program is intended to showcase black female experience within a context that includes queer identities, police brutality, mental illness, and our enemy in the White House. “Society often sees black womxn as hard or strong or homogeneous. Sometimes we’re treated as if we can’t properly express our emotions or show the world we live in,” Christina says. “In spite of those in power perpetuating our lowly status, we prevail. In spite of those trying to discredit the important work we do, we sustain. We fight constantly for justice of all people. We create our own safe spaces to hone in on the tumultuous journeys we travel throughout all of our work because no one else will.” —IRENE HSIAO LATHER. RINSE. REPEAT. | FALL. CLIMB. RELEASE. Fri 1/5-Sat 1/6, 7 PM, Links Hall at Constellation, 3111 N. Western, 73-281-0824, linkshall.org, $10-$12.

v @IreneCHsiao

THEATER

From Sketchbook to Peacebook to Encounter LAST FALL, IN THE VEIN OF its longrunning, now-retired Sketchbook festival, the social-issues-focused theater group Collaboraction brought together more than 200 artists to share 24 short “prayers for peace” in Chicago as part of a new performance festival, Peacebook. This winter, the company hones in more specifically on racism and racial healing between communities within the city by curating Encounter, a series of full-length solo plays, free staged readings, film, dance pieces, and more presented by a diverse array of local artists—including some familiar names like Sandra Delgado and Sir Taylor and the Example Setters.

“In Encounter,” says artistic director Anthony Moseley, “we are going much deeper into the most critical area of peace and violence, exploring Chicago’s history of systemic racism and cultivating dialogue in order to seek truth and transformation.”

And as Peacebook did, Collaboraction will

follow its initial presentation (this time in its Wicker Park Flat Iron Arts Building home) with a tour to Englewood, Austin, and Hermosa. “I would say [community] is a core ingredient to the show itself,” Moseley says.

It’s “all about cultivating space for the artists to connect with one another, see each other’s shows and talk, and then welcoming the audience to that circle and then amazing things happen.”

Entries—pulled from a submission pool up more than double from Peacebook’s— include Not Quite: Asian American by Law, Asian Woman by Desire, a solo piece by Ada Cheng that expands on her compelling and frank monologue How Long Do I Have to Continue to Prove Myself?, and D on the South Side, a short film directed by Diana Quiñones Rivera. —DAN JAKES ENCOUNTER 1/9-1/20: times vary; see website, Collaboraction Studios, 1569 N. Milwaukee, 312-226-9633, collaboraction.org, $10-$25, festival passes $50.

Keyierra Collins ò MATTHEW GREGORY HOLLIS/JELLO

JANUARY 4, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 15

ARTS & CULTURE Eddie Owens Martin, Pasaquan in Buena Vista, Georgia, 1957-1968 ò DAN SMITH; COURTESY OF KOHLER FOUNDATION INC.

VISUAL ART

A glimpse of Pasaquan—but a glimpse only

By DMITRY SAMAROV

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hat makes a person withdraw from the seen and known world most people live in in favor of an environment fashioned solely according to his or her own visionary fantasies? Failure, disappointment, opportunity, true ecstatic experience?

In the case of Eddie Owens Martin, it seems it must have been some combination of all those that transformed a son of sharecroppers in rural Georgia into the berobed creator of Pas-

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aquan—the immersive art environment Martin worked on for the last 30 or so years of his life. Organized by Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia, and running through March 11 at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, “In the Land of Pasaquan: The Story of Eddie Owens Martin” attempts to tell his tale through his paintings, drawings, clothing, sculpture, and ritual objects.

Born in 1908, Martin harbored artistic ambitions from an early age. He fled his rural

Georgia home in 1922 at age 14, ending up in New York City, where he quickly became a Greenwich Village character. He made ends meet as a drag queen, street hustler, and fortune teller, all the while trying with virtually no success to make a living as a painter.

Sometime in the 1930s he traveled back to his parents’ home outside Buena Vista, Georgia, and while gravely ill began to have visions of a fantastic land he named Pasaquan. He rechristened himself Saint EOM and set about making

his vision a reality. After his mother’s passing in 1950, he inherited the seven acres of land he’d spend the rest of his life turning into the utopia of his fever dream.

Much of the Intuit exhibit is taken up by Martin’s repetitive renderings of androgynous dancerlike figures in form-fitting, aggressively patterned outfits. Most have wide cheekbones, pointy slim noses, and combed-up bouffants culminating in spit curls. Sometimes these creatures float in undefined space; other times

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ARTS & CULTURE they’re placed in crudely rendered rooms or landscapes. The more successful pictures are ones in which brightly colored patterns dominate, as Martin’s ability to render seen space is at about that of a precocious middle schooler’s. Robbed of the larger context of Pasaquan itself, the exhibit can only hint at the grand, immersive vision Martin tried to create.

The show made me ponder, not for the first time, the entire idea of the “outsider” artist.

At the heart of most definitions is the notion of an isolated, self-taught, obsessive eccentric conjuring a mysterious universe we’re then asked to admire with awe, from the perspective of our own dull, everyday lives. But was Martin really even an outsider? He spent many years in New York soaking in art and culture of every type, while trying and failing to make a conventional art career for himself. After concocting an origin myth borne out of his illness, he set about creating an art environment on the land where he was born; still, at no point was he estranged from the community around him. He had help from locals in constructing and decorating the buildings on the grounds of his domain. Also, much of the imagery and symbolism in his work is recognizably inspired by various native cultures of the Americas and elsewhere.

It’s no accident that Martin made his living

as a fortune teller for many years in order to fund his art. Photographs of him in turbans and colorful robes put one in mind of an amusing, mostly harmless charlatan. Wall text in the show indicates that he claimed the patterned suits many of his figures wear had magical powers of levitation and flight, but few of his pictures communicate any such magic. My favorite piece in the entire show is a simple tempera rendering of flowers in a container.

It’s painted in flat colors, and the two flowers are like eyes looking back at the viewer. Few other pictures here have the same unadorned evocative power.

The Kohler Foundation has done an extensive restoration of Pasaquan, and it’s now open to the public much of the year. The best thing this exhibit can do is inspire its visitors to make the trip to Georgia to see Martin’s temple to himself and his vision. Whether he was a mystical genius or just an aspiring artist who lucked into having a larger canvas than most artists could ever dream of might be answered in Georgia. Robbed of proper context, the show at Intuit just leaves one with a lot of questions. v “IN THE LAND OF PASAQUAN: THE STORY OF EDDIE OWENS MARTIN” Through 3/11. Opening reception Fri 1/5, 5:30-8:30 PM, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, 756 N. Milwaukee, 312-243-9088, art.org.

Eddie Owens Martin, Untitled

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ARTS & CULTURE

Code-Switched; Kappa Force; The T

SMALL SCREEN

Chicago-made webseries to watch in 2018

Three local boundary-breaking productions destined for bigger screens

By BRIANNA WELLEN

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ollywood is changing. With the rise of streaming, there’s more room for more productions, and now more diverse voices are forcing their way into those spots by virtue of the distinctive stories they have to tell.

“There’s a lot of exciting things happening on TV,” says Aymar Jean Christian, a Northwestern University communications professor and the founder of Open TV, a local platform that over the last few years has supported a number of webseries created in Chicago. “I think the industry realizes that its own survival is predicated on expanding who gets to make TV.” These days it’s more and more often the case that the people who make it to TV are those who first make webseries, and Chicago is a hotbed for the industry. The success of the last year’s Chicago-made series Brown Girls got the attention of major networks; its creators are now working with HBO. What will be the next big thing to come streaming out of the city? Whether or not any of these three Chicago-made series coming out this year hit it big, they’re still worth watching as views of the world still lacking on major television networks—for now.

CODE-SWITCHED Premiering spring 2018 Karan Sunil spent months talking with South Asian millennials across the country to gather inspiration for this ensemble comedy. His goal was to create something he never saw in sitcoms growing up: a group of main characters of color relatable to viewers no matter their background.

“I want to tell stories that are American, stories about the American experience, about the millennial experience that we can all relate to, but the details and the nuances are through a South Asian experience,” Sunil says. “A scene in the show has cultural details, but the scene is about something bigger like lost love and jealousy.”

In the pilot we meet the five main characters—all played by Chicago stand-ups and im-

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provisers—in their jobs, on dates, and, in one instance, passed out on the floor of a house party. The characters, all second-generation South Asians, are of different nationalities and religions and have different personal goals.

Within the first ten minutes of the series they deal with racism, white ignorance, microaggressions, parental pressure, and the perils of finding roommates on Craigslist—all in a way that’s lighthearted and genuinely funny.

“The most important thing is that the show is meant to tell stories that I think are not often told but stories that are very common,” Sunil says. “I always feel like, How can I expect the industry to answer my pleas and do what I want when I should be taking initiative to do it myself?”

KAPPA FORCE Premiering March 2018 This fantastical show written by mixed-race actor-writer Addison Heimann is as far from a DIY confessional webseries as it gets. The story follows five crime- and patriarchy-fighting sorority sisters who join forces with a group of college freshman to defeat an evil frat boy known as the Douche.

“The biggest thing is that it’s very profemale without being quirky twentysomething realist,” says series director Hannah Welever, who’s also the cinematographer for Brown Girls. “It’s way more over-the-top, and it’s the women who are doing the fighting and the talking and being the most interesting people onscreen.”

When Welever says fighting, she means it: Kappa Force uses a small budget to create big action sequences with hits coming from every angle, the heroes dressed in shiny spandex, the villain throwing out comic-book-style quips.

“What was cool about this show in general was there were so many times that things we’ve always seen on movies or TV or things we’ve always thought would be so cool to do, we did them,” Welever says. “The fight scenes are the perfect example. She’s using a quarterstaff to beat up these dudes, and it totally works.”

THE T Premiering summer 2018 Bea Cordelia, the cocreator and cowriter of The T, is poised to be a breakout star. She plays Jo, a white trans woman who lives with Carter, a queer black man (played by cocreator and cowriter Daniel Kyri) who just happens to be her ex from her pretransition days as a gay man. From the second the pair’s onscreen there’s a palpable yet complicated chemistry between them that promises a compelling story in the episodes to come. Meanwhile, in her solo scenes,

Cordelia gives a heartbreaking performance without saying a word, deftly tapping into universal emotions of love, loss, and confusion.

“It’s going to be supersincere,” says Christian, who’s distributing the series. “It’s a really complicated story that we don’t normally see in terms of, what are the kinds of tensions and points of solidarity amongst different kinds of LGBTQ-identified people? I think it’s breaking a lot of boundaries.” v

v @BriannaWellen

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Get showtimes at chicagoreader.com/movies.

ARTS & CULTURE MOVIES

Iced out

By LEAH PICKETT

Margot Robbie in I, Tonya

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ne of the most difficult moves in professional figure skating competitions is a triple axel, which requires the skater to leap forward from the outside edge of one skate blade, rotate three and a half times in the air, and land on the back outside edge of the opposite foot. Only eight women have landed the jump in competition, and Tonya Harding is one of them. In director Craig Gillespie’s new biopic I, Tonya, Harding (Margot Robbie) reminisces about being the first American woman to accomplish this feat in 1991. “Sorry,” she says, wiping away tears. “Nobody asks me about that anymore.”

Instead, Harding’s name is synonymous with one of the biggest scandals in sports history: a “hit” on rival figure skater Nancy Kerrigan after a practice session at the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, a lead-up event to the Winter Olympics; the perpetrator was hired by Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), and her bodyguard, Shawn Eckhardt (Paul Walter Hauser). “The incident,” as the characters in I, Tonya ominously refer to it, occurs about halfway through the film, but writer Steven Rogers positions Harding’s version of the story as the central narrative and tells it in mostly chronological order, beginning in her childhood. Rogers and Gillespie imply that Harding was also a victim, unfairly maligned by the media and its consumers. They argue that what Harding ssss EXCELLENT

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insists to this day—that she didn’t know about the attack until after it happened, and that she delayed going to the authorities out of fear of Gillooly and unjust punishment—is the truth.

The time line of the scandal, though largely told from Harding’s perspective, corresponds with the actual events. A man later identified as Shane Stant whacked Kerrigan just above the knee with a police baton as she was leaving practice, then made his escape in a getaway car. The injury forced Kerrigan to withdraw from nationals, which Harding won, but both women were selected for the U.S. Olympic team, and they competed in Lillehammer, Norway, seven weeks after the attack.

In the interim, the media pounced on Harding. Eckhardt confessed to the FBI not long after the attack. A few days later, Harding met with FBI agents and separated from Gillooly, with whom she’d still been living despite their 1993 divorce. Gillooly subsequently turned himself in, and Harding read a statement to the press in which she denied involvement in Kerrigan’s assault but admitted she’d learned about it and had waited to report it. At the Olympics, Kerrigan won the silver medal and Harding placed eighth. A few weeks later, Harding pleaded guilty to conspiring to hinder prosecution of the attackers. Consequently, the U.S. Figure Skating Association stripped her of her titles and banned her from professional figure skating for life. Gillooly, along with bodyguard Eckhardt, assailant Stant,

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and getaway driver Derrick Smith all received prison sentences ranging from 18 months to two years long.

Gillespie and Rogers include faux-documentary interviews that draw from the 2014 ESPN documentary The Price of Gold and more recent discussions Rogers conducted with the real Harding, Gillooly, and others.

The characters in I, Tonya comment on the action as it happens, whether through re-created interviews, voice-over narration, or by directly addressing the viewer. Gillespie and Rogers provide details that look bad for Harding (a piece of paper the FBI receives has the phone number of Kerrigan’s practice arena on it, in Harding’s handwriting) and distort or omit some as well (Harding sued the U.S. Olympic Committee to keep her on the team; in the film, she says they kept her for the ratings).

But the filmmakers establish Harding’s victimhood at the outset by focusing on a key aspect of her biography: she was born into a cycle of abuse that persisted throughout her early life. In I, Tonya, Harding’s mother, LaVona (Allison Janney), is a narcissistic monster who responds to her daughter’s question of “Did you ever love me?” with “Do you think Sonja Henie’s mother loved her?” A waitress in rural Oregon, LaVona pushes her child onto the ice at age four and believes she made the girl a champion through emotional and physical abuse. In one scene, LaVona throws a steak knife at her teenaged daughter that lodges

in the girl’s bicep; Tonya calmly removes the knife before slamming it on the table, the blade dripping with blood as she walks out.

Tonya soon after moves in with Gillooly, her first boyfriend, and marries him at the age of 19. The older and more subdued version of Gillooly in I, Tonya denies that he hit her, but in the next scene he’s beating her bloody. She kept returning to him, her character says, because she wanted to be loved, and Gillooly was the only person in her life who claimed to love her.

Harding considers herself a victim in another respect—as the target of class bias from elite figure skating competition judges. Gillespie and Rogers portray the latter as corrupt snobs who dock points based on Harding’s unruly “presentation.” In a memorable scene, Harding chases down a judge in the parking lot after one such competition and asks why he gave her an average score for a technically perfect routine. He insinuates that her white trash upbringing, made obvious by her hand-sewn costumes, clashes with the wholesome image the U.S. Olympic team aims to project. “You’re representing America, for Christ’s sake,” he says. “But why can’t it just be about the skating?” she replies. Years later, when Harding’s career is over and she’s nuking a TV dinner in her microwave at home, she watches David Letterman mock her on television. The audience laughs, and Harding looks numb, as if the last shred of hope she had for the American public to love or at least respect her for skating had vanished.

In her 30s, Harding turned to celebrity boxing to pay the bills, depicted in I, Tonya’s gruesome final scene. “Violence is all I know, anyway,” Harding says in voice-over, just before her opponent socks her in the mouth and she spews blood into the air. But even more wrenching is the only footage of the real Harding shown in the film, over the end credits: she’s performing her 1991 nationals routine and, radiant, lands her historic triple axel. With this, I, Tonya seems to implicate the viewer in Harding’s cultural abasement, rhetorically asking: It should’ve been about the skating, but you didn’t really care about that, did you? v I, TONYA sss Directed by Craig Gillespie. R, 119 min. For showtimes visit chicagoreader.com/movies.

v@leahkpickett

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A Giant Dog play an Ian’s Party show at Double Door in January 2017. ò AARON EHINGER

Stories from Chicago’s favorite rock ’n’ roll cluste£uck Ian’s Party is a music festival, yes, but it’s run mostly by volunteers—which helps it feel like a community, not a branding exercise.

By LEOR GALIL

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W

ho in their right mind would try to book dozens of more or less unknown local rock bands for a multiday festival in a northwest suburb of Chicago in the dead of winter? If you answered “Ian,” then you’ve already realized I’m talking about Ian’s Party—whose first annual installment, in January 2008, took place at the Clearwater Theater in West Dundee (now the RocHaus) and the Gasthaus in Elgin (now defunct). You’re also partway correct. Ian is a real person (his full name is Ian Floetl), and among people who know Ian’s Party well, he’s referred to as “Original Ian.” But he’s hardly the only person who was involved at the beginning, and back then he played a minor role. He’s stuck around, though, as so many people have—Ian’s Party tends to inspire family feelings in its regulars—and now he’s doing much more.

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Sass Dragons play an Ian’s Party show at Township in 2014. ò PATRICK HOUDEK

The 11th Ian’s Party—the seventh in Chicago—runs Friday, January 5, through Sunday, January 7, on both floors of Subterranean and in Chop Shop’s back-room venue, 1st Ward.

The party has become as much of a winter tradition as the better-known and much more widely promoted Tomorrow Never Knows festival, organized by Lincoln Hall and Schubas— even though it’s mostly run by volunteers.

Because Ian’s Party books dozens of bands whose regular haunts are small venues with underpublicized show schedules and “ask a punk” DIY spaces, it’s particularly beloved by musicians who still have their day jobs (or would never dream of quitting them) and by fans who care about bands that everybody else considers obscure (or doesn’t consider at all). But those modest demographics have helped Ian’s Party thrive and grow over the years. Its biggest incarnation so far, for its tenth anniversary last year, took over several high-profile venues in the heart of Wicker Park: both floors of Double Door, both floors of Subterranean, and 1st Ward.

In recent years, Ian’s Party has also provided an important boost to some of the city’s best breakout acts—it hosted one of the earliest sets by Meat Wave, played a part in Melkbelly’s rapid rise, and booked Nnamdi Ogbonnaya shortly before he released the 2017 album Drool, which carried his name outside Chicago. The best-known veterans of Ian’s Party continue to come back to play it, and these days out-of-town artists popular enough to headline the Empty Bottle show up on the bill too. So far the 2017 schedule features 69 acts, among them Meat Wave, rapper-poet Mykele Deville, dreamy postpunks Dehd, Boston indie-rockers Bad History Month, and lagomorphic garage-rock goofball Nobunny.

The party’s success hasn’t happened because it’s a well-oiled machine, however. “Ian’s Party is a clusterfuck,” says Meat Wave front man Chris Sutter. His old band Strawberry Pegasus opened the first Ian’s Party, and he’s played every one since. He’s also helped with booking and with shooting promotional videos, and in 2017 he recorded bands for an Ian’s Party benefit compilation. It takes a team to pull off Ian’s Party—though it’s a different team every time—but according to Sutter (and a couple dozen other people I interviewed), the

Absolutely Not ò AARON EHINGER

buck stops with just one person: Jim Miller.

Miller has championed local music for ages, not just by booking shows but also by running the zine Idiot Ego and the label Cassette Deck Media. The label was still a going concern when he came up with the idea for Ian’s Party in 2007—he was inspired by a visit to the Fest, an annual punk festival hosted by a wide variety of venues in Gainesville, Florida. Miller

refuses to take much credit for Ian’s Party, though (he calls himself “the least important person”), and he doesn’t think there’s any single individual at its heart. Even the name “Ian’s Party” is arbitrary: Miller wanted to avoid hackneyed festival nomenclature, and Ian Floetl won the honor in a game of rock paper scissors. “I sometimes think what would’ve happened if I’d shot rock instead of

paper,” Floetl says. “It may have been called ‘Miller Time’ instead.”

As the unofficial mascot of Ian’s Party, Floetl has been caricatured on many a poster over the years, but as the event has grown, other friends have played the role of “Ian” in promo videos and flyers. This has made it tricky for the general public to figure out who Ian is, or what his party is about. Miller has fielded lots of questions: “Is it a benefit? Is it his birthday? Why?” Miller and his ever-shifting team of organizers and volunteers have managed to build a festival that reflects the diversity of Chicago’s underground rock scene. “I think they’re doing a nice job at providing a nice broad stroke of some of the interesting things going on,” says HeWhoCorrupts front man Ryan Durkin. “It’s somewhat identical to what [MP Presents booker Brian] Peterson was doing at the Fireside.” Ian’s Party has also strengthened the bonds that hold that scene together, in some cases by giving the bands that play it a leg up. “Nobody really liked us around Chicago,” says Sass Dragons drummer Jimmy Adamson. “After we played Ian’s Party and started hanging out with all those bands, it opened the doors and we started getting J good shows in Chicago.”

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continued from 21

Because what people love about Ian’s Party has so much to do with community, for this oral history I wanted to talk to as many participants as I could. (Their bands or other affiliations appear in parentheses after their names.) I also asked everyone to try to recall moments that capture the party atmosphere that gives the festival its special appeal. Lots of people described their memories of Ian’s Party as a “blur,” but what their stories lack in verifiable detail they make up for in color.

KRIS MEGYERY (THE BROKEDOWNS) For me, the initial feeling—and the feeling I have almost every year—Jim [Miller] will lay out a series of ideas about [Ian’s Party], and they all seem so counterintuitive and silly. Like, “Well, you’re gonna fall flat on your face on this one.” And they always work. It’s like a wacky 80s comedy, how it all pulls together at the end.

JIM MILLER (IAN’S PARTY COFOUNDER) It was only supposed to be a couple days [in 2008], but as we started booking it, more and more bands wanted to be involved. We’d get to this point where there were so many great bands—instead of saying “No,” we just kept overbooking it, hoping we would figure it out. It became something where we needed bands to play on the floor, and then it became something where we needed to have a preshow.

NATALI WISEMAN (HEART SHAPED HATE, IAN’S PARTY VOLUNTEER) The first one, it was a mess, but it was really fun. It was in West Dundee, at the Clearwater Theater.

JIMMY ADAMSON (SASS DRAGONS) HeWhoCorrupts were playing—they were one of my favorite bands. That was kind of a big deal for me, that we were gonna get to play this festival with them. I remember Ryan Durkin’s penis came out, and that was exciting.

RYAN DURKIN (HEWHOCORRUPTS, 97-SHIKI) I was playing festivals with bands that were more like HeWhoCorrupts. To be at Ian’s Party as a grindcore band amongst many bands that weren’t, it was refreshing.

JIMMY ADAMSON One thing that really sticks out was my dad and my cousins all came out to see it, and we got super fucked-up and played like shit. My dad was very disappointed in me.

CHRIS SUTTER (MEAT WAVE, TRUMAN & HIS TROPHY) It must’ve been the first one. The band Johnny Bodacious & the Bad Attitudes, they were playing upstairs at the Gasthaus; I remember the floor felt like it was going to cave in because of the people bouncing.

TIM MURPHY (CANADIAN RIFLE) One of the first years, when it was still in Elgin, Canadian Rifle played before this band called Chronic Seizure [and] a band called Chinese Telephones.

I somehow got stuck in Elgin without a car, but wound up sleeping in a hotel room with everybody from Chronic Seizure and a bunch of people I’d never seen before. I don’t remember how I got there or how I got home. I remember waking up in this hotel room and being like, “I thought that was gonna be a disaster, but everything kinda worked out,” which is kind of what I’ve thought about every Ian’s Party.

JIMMY ADAMSON One of the times it was out in Elgin, me and my best friend, Jonathan Pool—who plays in Brickfight and Fuck You, Idiot—we ended up getting driven out to this girl’s parents’ house in the middle of nowhere and ended up in a hot tub naked together, washing each other’s hair. That was one of our earliest real bonding moments, and he’s still one of my best friends today.

IAN’S PARTY WITH MEAT WAVE, MYKELE DEVILLE, BAD HISTORY MONTH, DEHD, NOBUNNY, AND OTHERS Fri 1/5 through Sun 1/7, simultaneous shows upstairs and downstairs at Subterranean, 2011 W. North (7 PM Fri-Sat, 6:15 PM Sun), and at 1st Ward, 2033 W. North (5 PM Fri-Sat, no show Sun), $12 per day for admission to all three shows on Friday or Saturday, $10 for both on Sunday, $30 three-day pass, 17+

JIM MILLER We had this opportunity the second year to do four more stages and blow it out—it just fell into our laps, and we went with it.

JIMMY ADAMSON I believe it was at Gasthaus and Mad Maggie’s, which was like a Buffalo Wild Wings-looking place.

JESSICA BACON (IAN’S PARTY VOLUNTEER) The second or third Ian’s Party, we had this venue where the upstairs was being rehabbed—kind of just two big empty rooms and the ceiling. When you jumped on it, [it] felt like you were gonna fall through. Jim gave me $200 and was like, “We can’t just have these big empty rooms of nothingness up here while bands are playing. Do something about it.” I went to Kmart and bought a bunch of fabrics.

Everyone called it the “unicorn starship room” because it was just this pink-purple hookahlounge-looking thing, but it ended up being the place where everyone hung out that Ian’s Party.

JENN LEIS (IAN’S PARTY VOLUNTEER) We were going between the Gasthaus and Mad Maggie’s—they were a block away from each other, and bands were almost booked backto-back at both places. It was too cold, and I remember we stayed at Mad Maggie’s. A couple of us found this back staircase, and we went upstairs and there was a loft space. It was a couple days after New Year’s, and clearly some people were partying upstairs. They left booze—all this beer and vodka—so we were having mini parties between the bands upstairs.

JARED OLSON (ELEPHANT GUN) Every year, especially in the early days, Jim Miller would just walk around outside, smoking cigs, texting, rubbing his face—visibly stressed. One time I had to approach him in that state to inform him that the one band I’d booked that year forgot and weren’t gonna make it. His response was nearly murderous. But with my life—and my ass—firmly clutched in my hands, I made it through.

JANUARY 1,2,+3 1,2,+3 JANUARY

ABSOLUTELY NOT! / AL SCORCH / ANGEL LUST / THE BABY MAGIC THE BINGERS / THE BROKEDOWNS / BRONTOSAURUS / BULLNETTLE THE CELL PHONES / CHICKEN HAPPEN / CLOSED MOUTHS / COKEGOAT DETHWARRANT / DITCH CLUB / DRILLING FOR BLASTING / THE DYES ELEPHANT GUN / FEE LION / GRANDKIDS / HIGH PRIESTS / THE HOWL THE ICEBERG / JOHNNY BODACIOUS AND THE BAD ATTITUDES / KO MEAN SEAN / MELKBELLY / MR. MA'AM / PAPER MICE / PAUL CHERRY RAD PAYOFF / RAT HAMMER / RIBBONHEAD / SALVATION / SASS DRAGONS SODDY DAISY / SOPHAGUS / SPACE BLOOD / THE SPEED BABES STRAWBERRY JACUZZI / SWEET COBRA / TENS / TRUMAN & HIS TROPHY THE USUALS / VAYA

AND MORE TO COME! TICKETS & MORE INFO AT IANSPARTY.COM

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IAN’S PARTY 2016

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Ian’s Party posters over the years ò FRANK OKAY (2016), NATALI WISEMAN (2009 AND 2012), AND NIC CAMPA (2018)

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Salvation ò AARON EHINGER

Beat Drun Juel ò AARON EHINGER

JIM MILLER We were going to throw Ian’s Party in the ice rink of the abandoned Santa’s Village. On Christmas Eve, the owner said, “I was just reading about your festival. It’s a festival.” He said he wanted thousands more dollars for us to rent the room, and we couldn’t. . . . [After] months of our quoteunquote promoting for this thing, we had to tell everyone, “It’s not happening at Santa’s Village anymore—it’s happening at Penny Road Pub.” walked away, I remember turning to [my friend] Jay [Brinson] and being like, “Who was that?”

FRANK OKAY (STRAWBERRY PEGASUS, POSTER ARTIST) I got dumped on the weekend of Ian’s Party one year. It was a really hard time— it was a three-and-a-half-year relationship. I remember being really bummed out. I was getting on the Metra, going up to Elgin from Chicago, like, “I don’t know how I’m gonna get into this.” Everything just fucking turned around.

I watched the Brokedowns, and they played while the New Year started—they counted down and everything. It just destroyed every bad feeling I had.

JESSICA BACON I guess I have Ian’s Party to blame for my marriage.

JESSICA BACON I did meet my husband at Ian’s Party—I think it was the third Ian’s Party.

He was working the door with the boyfriend of a friend of mine.

FRANK OKAY We started saying “Happy Ian’s Party” to each other every year. It was something akin to the holidays; it’s the first thing that you do in the New Year.

NATALI WISEMAN Bier Slut played a really good set. They were running out of beer and Zack [Hjelmstad], the singer, was being a dick to everybody in the audience—that’s how Bier Slut works. He was knocking everybody’s beers out of their hands. Shortly thereafter, they ran out of beer.

JD BACON (IAN’S PARTY VOLUNTEER) I introduced myself, and didn’t do much more than that at that time. Just as soon as they

SARA SNOWWHITE (IAN’S PARTY VOLUNTEER) There was that terrible year at Penny Road Pub.

FRANK OKAY One year Zack borrowed some dude’s $2,000 bass and just fucking broke it onstage.

JIM MILLER He was trying to get her number, and it was fun watching her just shoot him down—kinda be flippant and crack jokes at him. But that was exactly what was drawing him to her.

SARA SNOWWHITE It was just one venue, and it was kind of rednecky. I also think I had to be sober driver because it was in the middle of nowhere, so someone had to drive all the idiots. Ian’s Party sober is . . . I don’t know. It’s not as much fun.

CHRIS SUTTER It’s an awful little bar. They were charging for water.

JIM MILLER When we moved [Ian’s Party] to Chicago, by moving it to venues like Township, Ultra Lounge, and Quenchers—they were smaller venues than we had used before, but they were also in Chicago.

DONNIE MOORE (ABSOLUTELY NOT) Quenchers has that separation from the main room to the bar. I ran out of the stage room, because there was almost no one in there but there were at least 80 to 100 people in the other room and the Fire Heads band was playing. I ran across the room, and I just screamed at the top of my lungs, “This is fucking Ian’s Party, you should be listening to music instead of talking about your bullshit.” And 50 to 60 people followed me back into the room—it felt like some weird Jerry Maguire shit. I was just doing it ’cause I was halfdrunk and trying to be an asshole, riling people up, and it completely worked somehow.

JEN DOT (SWIMSUIT ADDITION, BEASTII) I mainly remember Ian’s Party as the event where we get pizza and Jim Miller is running around like a madman, not making any sense and texting 4,000 people at a time to keep everything up to speed.

JIM MILLER I got burned-out with it. [MP Presents booker] Vito [Nusret] picked up the lead booking for a while, and he got burned-out with it. There was a year [2015] where it just wasn’t going to happen. A girlfriend of J

JANUARY 4, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 23

Ribbonhead ò AARON EHINGER

So Pretty ò AARON EHINGER

continued from 23 mine, Michelle [Loven], I was sitting with her, and I was like, “I’m really bummed about Ian’s Party being over, but I just don’t think anyone wants to do it this year.” She’s like, “Well, I’ll do it.” And just sitting there at her computer, she e-mailed a shitload of bands that she was friends with and that I was friends with.

MICHELLE LOVEN (IAN’S PARTY ORGANIZER, FORMER EMPLOYEE OF TOWNSHIP AND DOUBLE DOOR) My second home was Township; to lose that [in late 2014], and to be able to see everyone again and be around the music that I was so used to [at Ian’s Party in January 2015], it was really a special time for me. To help us all be together was great.

When we were hopping back and forth from Quenchers to Mutiny, I remember us all running across the street—running into people constantly, hugging people, high-fiving people in the middle of the street and making it really quick.

JIM MILLER There were times where there was a line down the street to get into Quenchers, which I’d never seen before. And watching

24 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 4, 2018

The Brokedowns at a Double Door Ian’s Party show in 2016 ò SARA SNOWWHITE

Meat Wave play at Mutiny was a trip because they’d already blown up.

WILLIAM COVERT (SPACE BLOOD) I remember Rad Payoff headlined Ian’s Party at Quenchers that night in 2015, and you could barely move—it was so packed. During Rad Payoff’s set the band was constantly pelted with beer cans, and some guy climbed up on the piano that used to be next to the stage and jumped off into the crowd. Their whole set was just absolutely bonkers!

JIM MILLER We had shows at Burlington— some were successful, and others I would stop into the show and there were 15 people, and

that was hard to watch. That’s not a festival.

A show happening at Burlington and a show happening at Quenchers, that is not a festival—that’s two shows happening.

MICHELLE LOVEN We had a little backlash when we first moved it to Wicker Park—people have a negative connotation about Wicker Park at this point. . . . But we wanted to keep the venue proximity, because we felt like that is the best part of Ian’s Party—keeping everything so close, because it’s still winter.

JEFF WOJTYSIAK (COKEGOAT) I had to ask the rest of the band what they remembered— they also had minimal memory. We drank—

too much, for those of us who are on the wrong side of 40. [Drummer] Jordan [Schultz] used pink tape to wrap his hands from a shoveling injury earlier that snowy day. Since he plays shirtless, Cokegoat did shots and made him a hot-pink tape shirt on his hairy torso. We played fast as fuck, loud as hell, and made it through the set. Afterwards I looked over and [keyboardist and vocalist] Rebekah [Brown] had torn off her shirt in a drunken rage.

MEG MACDUFF (MONTROSE MAN, BLEACH PARTY) Two years ago, when it was in Wicker Park . . . it was such a rager, and I was bopping from venue to venue. I ran into my old bass player Lucy [Dekay], from Mystery Actions—I

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The Swan King play an Ian’s Party show at Township in 2014. ò PATRICK HOUDEK

LINDSEY CHARLES SheWhoCorrupts was pretty crazy. It was HeWhoCorrupts dressed as women. They went all-out with the outfits— looked very good. The first song played, and all of the wigs flew off and all of the clothing started ripping. I pretty much only saw the lead singer’s penis the whole time.

M I R A N DA W I N T E R S ( M E L K B E L LY, SWAMPERS) One of my fondest memories is covering “Since U Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson during the Swampers set. We played a single chord through the whole thing, which maybe would have irked an average crowd.

But the Ian’s Party crowd jumped up and down and screamed along with the lyrics.

Canadian Rifle ò SARA SNOWWHITE

was like, “Hey, what’s up?” And she goes, “Oh my God, what happened to your face?” I go, “What?” She goes, “There’s blood all over your face.” I was like, “Holy shit.” She’s like, “Yeah, we’re gonna take you home.” So she and her drummer from Mystery Actions drove me home and tucked me into bed. I woke up with a huge fat lip—I had to play at Chop Shop with Bleach Party. I was like, “All right, I’m gonna take it easy tonight. Ian’s Party just completely put me through the wringer.”

SHANNON CANDY (STRAWBERRY JACUZZI) My favorite Ian’s Party moment happened two years ago during Beat Drun Juel’s set downstairs at Double Door. Their shows always had so much intense energy to begin with, so naturally they were killing it on this particular night. But then [front woman] Donna [Polydoros] put down her guitar and grabbed a pair of hedge clippers. That poor guitar didn’t stand a chance. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen, and I still have a picture of it on my phone two years later.

CHRIS SUTTER Last year we did this threeday session—we were doing video and audio recordings of the bands, and we put them all up on Facebook. We did, like, 40 or 50 bands, and put them on a compilation.

P. MICHAEL (ONO) Each band did a track for a cassette to be sold at the party, with proceeds going to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. It was great to record with [engineer] Chris [Lee], and it was a very friendly and organized crew that filmed each band session.

DONNIE MOORE When we were playing last year, after the first two songs, the audience started to get more comfortable being into it—dancing around a little more and being a little more energetic with us. I watched, over the first four songs, this pile of coats slowly forming on the edge of the stage, right in the middle where we were playing. It was this really awesome feeling of knowing with each song we were getting four or five more kids tearing off their coats, being like, “OK, fuck this, I’m gonna rage!”

JD BACON Donald Trump had just gotten elected, and there’s all this uncertainty in the world—everyone’s up in arms and everyone is so divided. I just remember sitting back in the crowd at Double Door . . . and Ono’s coming on. There’s just all of these different people, across every background, ethnicity, and who knows what religion. I remember thinking to myself, “There’s still hope.”

MYKELE DEVILLE [Jim Miller] spoke with me about wanting the festival to be more inclusive to other genres and asked my advice on which local hip-hop acts I thought could use the platform. Right then I knew that the festival had an interest in the curation of the attitude, aesthetic, and persona of its artists, which made me feel at home and even comfortable enough to recommend others who were developing an alternative sound to hip-hop. At the festival, much to my relief, everyone was supportive of my style. I felt validated by a crowd that may have not been expecting what I was about to bring.

LINDSEY CHARLES (CELL PHONES) I remember I shot a video on Instagram of Swimsuit

Addition—of Jen [Dot] bouncing around onstage. I could see people in the crowd that were my friends. Ashley Holman from So Pretty was in the audience. She immediately saw herself and was like, “Oh, that’s the exact moment that my wristband flew from my hand.”

JEN DOT (SWIMSUIT ADDITION, BEASTII) We [Swimsuit Addition] played our last show ever last year at SubT for Ian’s Party. It was the saddest thing on earth for me, but why I remember it and what I loved about it was our drummer, Mike [Martello], pulling Sarah [Chmielewski], who used to play drums for us, up onstage for the last song. It was super sloppy and crazy, and reminded me of why music is such a family affair.

TRAVIS (ONO) They were stunned that a 70-year-old black man—wearing, during the course of the performance, headdresses, a formal gown, and two changes of full-length lingerie—dared to inject U.S. military sodomy accusations, national security frivolity, and well-documented but little-taught American history of struggles of people of color into a single “rock” performance!

CHRIS SUTTER I saw Ono last year and it blew my mind—that was the first time I ever saw them. It almost brought a tear to my eye to see how much Ian’s Party has changed and grown and evolved. v

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26 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 4, 2018

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Recommended and notable shows and critics’ insights for the week of January 4

MUSIC

b ALL AGES F

PICK OF THE WEEK

Xiu Xiu reimagine the eerie, gorgeous soundtrack of Twin Peaks

THURSDAY4 Tim Stine Quartet Gerrit Hatcher opens.

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

Over the past couple of years one of my favorite working bands has been a knotty trio led by guitarist Tim Stine, with bassist Anton Hatwich and either Frank Rosaly or Adam Vida on drums. Both rhythm sections bring a deliciously teetering, and coolly swinging energy to Stine’s improvisations, which recall the early work of Joe Morris and the splintery spontaneity of Derek Bailey. Stine doesn’t appreciably change his style and tone in his quartet, but the tunes he performs with alto saxophonist Nick Mazzarella, bassist Matt Ulery, and drummer Quin Kirchner do demonstrate the elasticity of his compositional vision. This combo cleaves more tightly to postbop than the trio, which produces a fractured feel compared to the smoothness of the quartet’s rhythm—plus Mazzarella, a player in the tradition of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman can’t help but bring out an especially jazzy vibe.

Still, Stine distinguishes himself with comping that delivers sonic shards rather than clean chordal voicings, and as expected, his solos embrace a wonderfully off-kilter gait flush with gnarled phrases and accelerating tangles of notes. —PETER MARGASAK

Buddy Guy See also Friday through Sunday (with Eddy Clearwater, Lil’ Ed & the Imperials, and John Primer). Guy continues these shows till the end of January; tonight he performs with Bobby Rush. 7:30 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends, 700 S. Wabash, $55-$70. 21+

ò COURTESY THE ARTIST

XIU XIU, QUICKSAILS

Tue 1/9, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport, $25, $20 in advance. 17+

Ever since B.B. King died, there’s been a lot of unnecessary talk about Buddy Guy being the Last Bluesman Standing From the Golden Era. This isn’t strictly true, but among that generation of blues musicians, Guy does seem to have the highest profile. With reason: though he’s now going on 87, his singing and guitar playing are still in top shape, as is his energy level. Once a year, he continues to play a month-long stint at his club, Legends— proving that the man pictured on the sign outside is no myth. Guy’s most recent album was 2015’s Grammy-winning Born to Play Guitar (RCA), J Buddy Guy ò COURTESY THE ARTIST

AS GROUNDBREAKING AND fascinating as the television show Twin Peaks was when it ran in the 90s (and was again during its recent resurrection), it’s doubtful that the David Lynch-directed surrealistic murder drama would have reached its iconic status without its drop-dead-gorgeous soundtrack. The sparse, mesmerizing opening sequence, a collaboration between the chilly cool compositions of Angelo Badalamenti and the breathy innocence of singer Julee Cruise, set the atmosphere of the sinister Washington logging town from the very beginning. In the show’s later incarnation, Lynch gave his own music fandom full throttle, ending every episode with an up-and-coming band in a roadhouse, playing a song in the eerie-but-cozy retro style he loves (with the exception of that

one episode with Nine Inch Nails). You can’t improve on Lynch’s concept, but you can play with it, explore it, and revel in the music as its own entity. Iconic noise-pop group Xiu Xiu started doing so in 2016, originally as a commission for the Australian Gallery of Art’s David Lynch exhibit. Their interpretation picks the tunes apart and fearlessly and joyously reassembles them, and though the songs remain instantly recognizable, value has definitely been added in the remix. Xiu Xiu Plays the Music of Twin Peaks was released

by Polyvinyl as a Record Store Day exclusive in 2016. As for why they’re touring it now, well, that should be obvious: since Lynch has reimagined his own creation for the screen, the timing is right to appreciate Xiu Xiu’s reimagining as well. —MONICA KENDRICK

JANUARY 4, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 27

MUSIC

Green Jellÿ ò ROBERT BEJIL

continued from 27

which was right in the blues-rock mode he’s become known for. His special guests this week include Eddy Clearwater (Friday), Li’l Ed & the Blues Imperials (Saturday), John Primer (Sunday), and tonight, the eternally underrated Bobby Rush, who just played Legends last November. In addition to his wild stage show (shake dancers!), Rush is a fine guitarist and harmonica player who strolls the line between blues and southern soul. While he’s made a concentrated attempt to break through to white audiences in the last decade, he’s in no way compromised his sound—or his wicked sense of humor.

Hopefully he’ll trade a round of verses with Guy, like he did during his last Legends appearance (though as those who were there remember, Guy was visibly more interested in Rush’s dancers than in duetting with Rush). —JAMES PORTER

FRIDAY5 Black Asteroid Jeff Derringer and Hiroko Yamamura open. 10 PM, Smart Bar, 3730 N. Clark. 21+ Minneapolis native Bryan Black was fronting an industrial band called Haloblack when Prince invited him to work as an engineer at Paisley Park, a position he held for only six months. Later, he told the bloggers at his label, Electric Deluxe, that the work was “tedious and painful,” but he gained knowledge he wound up applying to his own music, first as part of a “techno punk” duo called Motor, and currently as a solo techno artist under the name Black Asteroid. His recent debut full-length, Thrust (Last Gang Records), fits comfortably within the industrial thrum that’s old hat to Black, though these songs add a polished sheen to the grimy metallic rust. Black builds his music to keep people on the dance floor while he finds the most alluring groove in each song and slowly pulls them out as if he’s stretching taffy. He displays a pop songwriter’s affection for concision, usually cutting songs off at

28 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 4, 2018

around three or four minutes instead of letting them run on. His arsenal of contributing vocalists (which includes Cold Cave’s Wesley Eisold and Zola Jesus) double down on the album’s accessibility; Black may revel in darkness and harsh noise, but he also knows how to use them as hooks for people who like their music clean and bright. —LEOR GALIL

Green JellŸ Black Bear Rodeo, Svlphvrvs, and Aped open. 9 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, $14, $10 in advance. 21+ Since 1981, Green Jellÿ (yes, styled with an umlaut over the y) have doggedly pursued one goal: to be the world’s worst band. And by some indications, that title’s not unfounded. How many other groups have burned through more than 400 musicians, a number vocalist and sole original member Bill Manspeaker lists prominently on Green Jellÿ’s Facebook page? How many other groups have been halted less than a minute into a performance on The Gong Show, a fate that in 1987 befell Green Jellÿ just as Manspeaker—wearing a jack-o-lantern mask—looked like he was getting into the groove of “Rock ’n’ Roll Pumpkin?” How many groups have been forced to change the spelling of their name because Kraft pressured them with claims of copyright infringement (they were originally called Green Jello, aka the “worst” gelatin flavor, and they still pronounce it that way)? But these incidents aren’t so much indicative of Green Jellÿ’s badness as much as evidence of their knack for making seemingly bad things work in their favor. And their successes go far beyond just turning their luck: they’ve sold more than two million albums (the 1993 “soundtrack” to their 1992 VHS-released long-form music video “Cereal Killer” went gold), made the upper ranks of the Billboard Hot 100 with a musical version of a classic childhood fable “Three Little Pigs” (which featured Maynard James Keenan, Les Claypool, and Pauly Shore as the voices of the title characters; the Claymation video for it became an unusual staple of alt-rock TV programming), and in 1994 they provided music for the Dumb & Dumber

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MUSIC

Find more music listings at chicagoreader.com/soundboard.

soundtrack and the video games Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage. Plus, their music isn’t even bad, really: Manspeaker’s gruff vocals, which split the difference between irate speaking and controlled yelling, fit their rudimentary, minimal punk-metal instrumentals; at their height the band fit right into the broad spectrum of radio-friendly alt-rock. Manspeaker put Green Jellÿ on the back burner when he became a dad in the mid-90s; in 2008 his son encouraged him to relaunch the group. If not for the long hiatus I imagine they’d be spoken about with the same reverence as their friends and early mentors Gwar, though Manspeaker appears to revel in the fact that Green Jellÿ’s own cult status allows him to easily connect with his audience. The forthcoming self-released Garbage Band Kids features songs cowritten by fans, many of which were released as singles in 2017. —LEOR GALIL

Buddy Guy See Thursday. Guy continues these shows till the end of January; tonight he performs with Eddy Clearwater. 9 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends, 700 S. Wabash, $55-$70. 21+

SATURDAY6 Buddy Guy See Thursday. Guy continues these shows till the end of January; tonight he performs with Lil’ Ed & the Imperials. 9:30 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends, 700 S. Wabash, $55-$70. 21+ DJ Haram Itsi opens. Midnight, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, $5. 21+

In a 2015 interview with the blog Electric Llama, Zubeyda Muzeyyen, aka DJ Haram, explains the significance of her taking as a stage name a word that refers to things forbidden by Islamic law. Haram, she says, “refers to my attempt to communicate the nuances of where I’m at—being a Muslim and being queer and being a DJ, spinning global bass and repping the motherland as an American.” A community builder in her hometown, Philadelphia, Muzeyyen is a key player in the city’s young nightlife scene; she’s part of ATM, a collective that throws alternative dance nights, and she also works on noiserap tracks with experimental artist Moor Mother under the name 700 Bliss. In 2016, she signed with Discwoman, the Brooklyn-based dance collective and booking agency formed to promote women, trans women, and gender-nonbinary artists, a move that has further bolstered her standing as a player in the international scene and has demonstrated that women working together can help make the dance community more welcoming to everyone. As a producer, Muzeyyen is electrifying and inventive, grafting hard-hitting club bass onto Middle Eastern percussion in way that harmonizes disparate sounds and cultures while also allowing them to separately shout out what makes them unique. That last quality shines through on her bustling 2017 track “Body Count.” —LEOR GALIL

Sons of the Silent Age TALsounds and Craftwerc open. 8 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, $22, $20 in advance. 18+ After David Bowie decamped from Los Angeles to the then-divided city of Berlin in the mid-70s, he recorded Low, “Heroes,” and Lodger. The three albums, known as the Berlin Trilogy, contain some of the most challenging music of his career, and he

DJ Haram ò AMY BEESMAN

paid the price for it; to this day, none of them has gone gold. But their icy synthscapes, alienated lyrics, and robotic funk grooves seem prescient now, and the period yielded one of his most enduring songs, the anthemic “Heroes.” While producerconceptualist Brian Eno deserves plenty of credit for the sound of those records, another figure also exerted a profound influence: Iggy Pop, who shared musical ideas and an apartment with Bowie in Berlin. Pop sang on Low, the two men worked together on Pop’s The Idiot, and Bowie played keyboards in Iggy’s band for a tour and a memorable appearance on The Dinah Shore Show. If anyone’s suited to do justice to this music, it’s Sons of the Silent Age, a nine-piece band that began convening to play Bowie’s songbook for a charity gig in 2013.

The group play deep-catalog oddities with as much

fidelity and fire as the biggest hits, and they’re likely to bring plenty of empathy to the Berlin Trilogy material; not only does singer Chris Connelly sound uncannily like Bowie, he’s made his own fair share of robot disco during his associations with Ministry and the Revolting Cocks. Sons of the Silent Age have tapped actor Michael Shannon to play the role of Iggy Pop, so expect some songs from The Idiot as well as songs from the Berlin Trilogy during the main set; the rest of Bowie’s songbook is wide open for the encores. And opening acts Cratwerc and TALsounds will channel the analog electronic sounds of the Krautrock acts that inspired Bowie and Eno back in the day. The beneficiary of this concert is the NorthShore University HealthSystem Medical Group’s Integrative Medicine Program. —BILL MEYER J

JANUARY 4, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 29

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Jason Stein; Greg Ward ò SHEA WHINNERY; ZAKKIYYAH NAJEEBAH

continued from 29 Space Blood Part of Ian’s Party (see page 20). The Avantist, Bloom, Perspective . . .

A Lovely Hand to Hold, Options, the Most, Salvation, Grammaw, and Oscar Bait open. 7 PM, Subterranean, 2011 W. North, $12 day pass, $30 weekend pass (details at iansparty.com). 17+ Start a two-piece instrumental bass-and-drums rock duo with a penchant for mutant masks and sounds that might’ve been forged during the opening reception of a back-alley art gallery, and watch the Lightning Bolt references roll in. Space Blood are plenty deserving of comparison to the iconic noise-rock band, but to stop at that alone would underserve their music. On 2017’s very solid Tactical Chunder (Lonely Voyage), the pair of Sam Edgin (bass, etc) and William Covert (drums, etc) are much more sci-fi theater and less hardcore punk than their Providence-born predecessors, using synth loop after synth loop to tip a ten-gallon hat to Battles while soldering enough rhythms and deviant riffs together to hurtle their sound into the cosmos. Next to many of their fellow meter freaks, Space Blood’s math quotient is colorful rather than complex, which allows listeners to sink into their pockets and grooves. But the moment you get cozy or lost in the clouds, the shit really hits the fan. —KEVIN WARWICK

Buddy Guy See Thursday. Guy continues these shows till the end of January; tonight he performs with John Primer. 7:30 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends, 700 S. Wabash, $55-$70. 21+

Jason Stein / Greg Ward / Eric Revis / Jim Black See also Sunday. 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 W. Western, $10. 18+

Jason Stein / Greg Ward / Eric Revis / Jim Black See Saturday. 9 PM, Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, $10. 21+

Bass clarinetist Jason Stein spent a good chunk of last year and most of 2016 playing large theaters and basketball arenas with his scrappy trio Locksmith Isidore as the opening act for his half-sister, comedian and actor Amy Schumer. Since then he’s gone back to playing more modest stages, but his latest music is bigger than ever. In Septem-

30 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 4, 2018

ber, he dropped one of the strongest albums of his career, Lucille! (Delmark), a spry quartet recording built around his interplay with reedist Keefe Jackson. This weekend he’s debuting a beguiling new collective with some of the strongest, most idiosyncratic figures in improvised music. On the front line he’s joined by alto saxophonist Greg Ward, one of the greatest reedists at work anywhere—let alone here in Chicago—whose soulful, sweet tones promise a distinctivep contrast with the tang of Stein’s instrument. The powerful rhythm section pairs protean bassist Eric Revis—a longtime member of the Branford Marsalis Quartet who also works with outward-bound folks like Ken Vandermark, Kris Davis, and Aruán Ortiz—and drummer Jim Black, an instantly recognizable percussionist who’s turned surface slackness into a calling card.

I’m eager to hear how their muscle and elasticity will propel and cushion the horns, and how the writing styles of the four musicians will coalesce.

—PETER MARGASAK

SUNDAY7

TUESDAY9 Xiu Xiu See the Pick of the Week on page 27.

Quicksails opens. 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport, $25, $20 in advance. 17+ v

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Tacos, from left: “fire chicken,” al pastor, shrimp ò JAMIE RAMSAY

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Lone Star?

Lonesome Star?

No, no, no. Lonesome Rose is the name of the latest spot from Land and Sea Dept., the outfit that starting in the aughts conquered Logan Square with Longman & Eagle, Parson’s Chicken & Fish, and Lost Lake before landing downtown at Michigan Avenue’s Chicago Athletic Association reboot. But it does bear a certain affinity for Wicker Park’s original gringo taco sensation, Big Star.

It’s not squatting on an abandoned gas station parking lot, but it is in the spot that in a more innocent time housed the late, lamented Ronny’s, a dive of some legend among a slightly older wave of gentrifiers. Land and Sea describes the menu at Lonesome Rose, executed by the Cherry Circle Room’s Pete Coenen, as the cuisine of the “borderlands,” or food inspired by “the rich cultural histories of the regional states of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States”—which sure sounds like they’re trying to avoid saying “Tex-Mex.” I’m sure those words still conjure up the wrong idea for a lot of people whose idea of Tex-Mex is limited to faded memories of smothered chimichangas and deep-fried J

JANUARY 4, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 31

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

FOOD & DRINK

Sweet-corn soup ò JAMIE RAMSAY

Black beans, avocado, and a fried egg on a tostada in salsa verde ò JAMIE RAMSAY

Chorizo burger ò JAMIE RAMSAY

continued from 31

ice cream at the Chi-Chi’s by the mall. Nice memories, perhaps, but not of places they’d revisit now that they’re old enough to hang out without their parents.

And Coenen’s not really going there. Not all the way, anyhow. For starters he presents a half-dozen tacos, true, but each is also customizable, sans soft corn tortillas, in bowl form, for those so dead inside that they’ll literally refuse to eat tacos when presented with the opportunity.

There are a few curveballs in the lot too— well, one, namely, a taco of “fire chicken” (aka buldak, aka Korean barbecue chicken), poultry bathed in the chile paste gochuchang, a relatively muted application, with roasted nori, crispy shallots, and pickled daikon for texture.

That’s about as far abroad as they go here. For strict plant eaters there’s a basic taco with black beans and cheese and one with roasted

32 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 4, 2018

poblano, chayote, and corn crema; there are also standard Baja-style fried fish tacos, chipotle-seasoned shrimp with charred corn, and carne asada served al pastor-style, marinated with pickled pineapple.

And then we approach the aforementioned “borderlands”: a collection of larger dishes, not really identifiably border inspired, ranging from “truck stop nachos” with black beans and carne asada to shrimp aguachile (a restrained version, with faded heat and acidity) to a griddle-crisped double-stacked chorizo burger topped with a messy gob of aioli, shredded iceberg, roasted chiles, and chihuahua cheese.

On top of that there’s a nicely balanced pile of black beans, avocado, and a fried egg on a tostada resting in a pool of salsa verde, and a creamy, rich sweet-corn soup better than it has any right to be in the depths of winter.

Speaking of corn, a pretty, Instagram-ready six-dollar cotija-caked elote, similarly miraculous at this time of year, is squirted with “chili gastrique, pepita aioli, and chili worm salt.” This resides on the menu among a group of sides including a salad of cucumber with pickled grapes and marcona almonds that could’ve come from just about any kind of kitchen.

Lonesome Rose gets closest to hallowed Tex-Mex trash with a crock of chili con queso, liquid cheese hiding a dense understory of black beans and chorizo. It’s pretty much the only real gut buster on the menu.

The other draw is the beverage program

by Paul McGee, headlined by five margaritas, including one with the sleeper Jaliscan agave spirit raicilla. Mexico pervades the rest of the list, with bourbon spiking the horchata, maguey sap in the old-fashioned, Mexican cane rum and tomatillos in the Southern Highlands Smash, and, naturally, a michelada.

For the last few years I’ve touted a series of what I’ve called “progressive” Mexican restaurants that have clustered in Logan Square— Dos Urban Cantina, Quiote, Mi Tocaya Antojería. I’m not sure Lonesome Rose yet belongs on that list, but it has enough crowd-pleasers to at least keep pace with their crowds. v

v @MikeSula

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○ Watch a video of Kymberli DeLost working with doenjang in the kitchen—and get the recipe—at chicagoreader.com/food.

FOOD & DRINK

KEY INGREDIENT

A sweet Korean-Italian collision

By JULIA THIEL

Budino mousse with doenjang, green tea gelato, Korean-style popcorn, and makgeolli, a rice-based Korean alcoholic beverage ò JULIA THIEL

king crab house 37th Year Anniversary!

Roll Back Menu Come and Join us to celebrate Jan. 4, 2018 thru Feb. 11, 2018 Appetizers your choice

Popcorn Shrimp $6.95 • Mussels $6.95 Chicken Wings $6.95 • Chicken Quesadillas $6.95 Fried Calamari $5.95 • Chesapeake Oysters (6) $6.95 Shrimp Cocktail (6) $6.95

Entrees your choice

DeLost says the biggest challenge to working with doenjang was bringing out its flavor, especially the caramel and umami notes, without allowing its saltiness to overpower the dish. “We did an ice cream that kind of tasted like a salt lick with butter,” she says. “It was pretty intense.” Still, the pastry chef was determined to create a dessert. Inspired by doenjang’s caramel flavors, DeLost settled on budino—an Italian custard often flavored with butterscotch or caramel. She started by adding a full two cups of bean paste to the whipped cream, eggs, sugar syrup, and white chocolate that made up the budino mousse. That, DeLost says, was “just to see how far not to take it.”

She ended up using a quarter cup of doenjang in a recipe that yields a full three quarts of mousse. Though the recipe doesn’t include caramel or butterscotch, the white chocolate is made with muscovado sugar, which adds “molasses notes and deeper undertones that go really well with the salt,” she says.

To go with the budino mousse, DeLost created a gelato flavored with green tea, Koreanstyle popcorn, and makgeolli (a Korean alcoholic beverage made from rice). For crunch, she coated caramelized puffed rice with more melted white chocolate, then tossed it with pistachio flour, matcha powder, dark chocolate shavings, and orange zest. For a fresh, sweet, and slightly bitter flavor she sprinkled orange segments with sugar and torched them until the sugar blackened slightly.

Tasting the dish, DeLost said, “I really love this, because the flavors of the bean paste really come out despite everything else that’s going on.” She liked the combination of Italian and Korean influences so much that she ended up running it as a special at Acanto. “This is an approachable way for people to get comfortable with Korean flavors,” she says.

Snow crab Legs $19.95 • Tempura Shrimp $12.95 White Fish $13.95 • Salmon $13.95 • Blackened Cat Fish $13.95 Stuffed Swai $12.95 • Chicken Kabob $9.95 All Beers $5.00 • All Well Drinks $5.00 All House Wines $4.00 • Mai Tai $5.00 Not Valid with coupons, VIP’s or any Promotions

1816 N. Halsted St., Chicago, IL 60614 312-280-8990 www.kingcrabchicago.com Mon, Tues, Wed and Thur 3:30PM-11PM Fri and Sat 11:30AM-12AM • Sun 11:30AM-10PM

CAN YOU SING???

Recording choir needs volunteer

singers for debut CD and YouTube video projects. ALL VOICES (especially SOPRANO and ALTO) for multi-cultural, non-denominational, adult community choir.Widely varied repertoire includes traditional and contemporary gospel, anthems, spirituals, hymns, international, and acappella. Saturday rehearsals, 9:30 am to 11:30 am, Chicago (SE Side) – close to the University of Chicago. Text or Call NOW – slots are filling quickly. ClaimYour Star Power!

(312) 883-0716

WHO’S NEXT:

K

YMBERLI DELOST uses DOENJANG at home in ramen, sauces, and marinades, she says, but she’s never experimented with the Korean fermented bean paste at the GAGE, ACANTO, or the DAWSON, the three Billy Lawless restaurants where she runs the pastry

programs. At least, she hadn’t until Hanbun chef David Park challenged her to create a dish with doenjang. The bean paste is similar to miso, DeLost says (both are made from soybeans), but with more fermented flavor and less sweetness.

DeLost has challenged pastry chef KEVIN MCCORMICK of BEACON TAVERN to create a dish with EGGPLANT. “I’ve had it in dessert and it’s one of my favorite things, but you never see it,” she says, “so I want to see how creative he can get.” v

v @juliathiel JANUARY 4, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 33

JOBS General SACIA ORCHARDS, INC, in

APPLICATIONS DEVELOPER/ TMS INTEGRATION Development of automation processes for McLeod Powerbroker, Development of Transportation Management System (TMS), research and recommend solutions for systems integration between multiple TMS and other systems, assist with development of practices and procedures for users of McLeod Powerbroker, TMS, other applications, and automation development projects as needed, plan and perform project management duties related to deployment of McLeod Power Broker Software.

Mail résumé to Jada Hodo, 11240 Katherine Xing # 400, Woodridge, IL 60517.

Galesville, WI is hiring 24 temporary Farmworkers, Apple Orchard from 03/01/2018-05/14/2018: 40 hrs/ week. Workers will plant trees, do fence and trellis repair and maintenance, cut away dead and excess branches from fruit trees using handsaws, chainsaws, pruning hoods and shears., may apply healing compound to pruning wounds. May cut down and fertilize trees. Workers will operate pruning equipment and tractors to remove limbs and brush from pruning sites. Must be able to work in extreme weather conditions, stand and walk long periods of time, use sharp instruments, be able to work with open fire, able to do ladder work and lift 50lbs. 3 months experi- TECHNOLOGY EXPEDIA, INC. has openings for ence required. $13.06/hr. (prevailing wage). Guarantee of 3/4 of the work- the following positions in Chicago, IL (various/levels/types): days. All work tools, supplies, and SOFTWARE ENGINEERS (Job equipment furnished without cost to ID#: SW1217-CH): Design, implement, the worker. Free housing is provided and debug software for computers to workers who cannot reasonably including algorithms and data return to their permanent residence structures. SENIOR SYSTEM at the end of the workday. Transportation and subsistence expenses to ENGINEERS (Job ID#: 728.2105): Apply architectural design, the worksite will be provided or paid development, UI, and technology by the employer, with payment to be integration to drive the envisioning, made no later than completion of development, and delivery of 50% of the work contract. Send Retechnical solutions. To apply, sume or contact; Illinois Department of Employment Security, Migrant/ send resume to: Expedia Recruiting, Farm Workers Programs, 33 State 333 108th Avenue NE, Bellevue, WA 98004. Must reference Job ID#.

Street, 8th Floor, Chicago, IL 60603, (312)793-1284 or your nearest State Workforce Agency and reference #2230160.

Find hundreds of Readerrecommended restaurants, exclusive video features, and sign up for weekly news chicagoreader.com/ food.

34 CHICAGO READER | JANUARY 4, 2018

Principal Training Engineer Forsk US Inc, mail resume to TECHNOLOGY Nicolas Dubois 200 South Wacker Drive, 31st Floor, ChicaMICROSOFT CORPORATION go, IL 60606 Must have MSEE & CURRENTLY has the following 1yr of exp wrkg w/pre-sales &/or openings in Chicago, IL (job op- sales suppt & utiliz’g radio planportunities available at all levels, ning & optimizat’n s/ware. In lieu e.g., Principal, Senior and Lead of Master’s Deg, a Bachelor’s deg +5yrs of progressively resp levels). exp as an Engr, wrkg w/pre-sales Technology Solutions Profes- &/or sales suppt & utiliz’g radio sional: Improve Microsoft’s rela- planning & optimizat’n s/ware is tionship with customers, from a acceptable. Candidate must be capability development perspec- fluent in Spanish. Travel is rqd of the time & candidate must tive, by positioning workload- 75% be able to travel internationally related software and services sol- (Central America, North Ameriutions. Requires travel up to 50% ca). with work to be performed at various unknown worksites throughout the U.S. Telecommuting permitted. https://jobs-microsoft. icims.com/jobs/9703/go/job Multiple positions available. To view detailed job descriptions and minimum requirements, and to apply, visit the website address listed. EOE.

TECHNOLOGY MICROSOFT CORPORATION currently has the following openings in Chicago, IL (job opportunities available at all levels, e. g., Principal, Senior and Lead levels).

Solutions Sales Professional/ Specialist/Technology Solutions Professionals: Improve Microsoft’s relationship with customers, from a capability development perspective, by positioning workload-related software and services solutions. http://bit. ly/MSJobs_Solution_Sales Multiple positions available. To view detailed job descriptions and minimum requirements, and to apply, visit the website address listed. EOE.

TRANSUNION, LLC SEEKS Sr. Advisors –Info. Tech., Business Analysis for Chicago, IL location, responsible for functional & tech. support, maintenance, & admin. of the PeopleSoft Finance application. Master’s in Comp. Sci./Comp. Eng./any Eng. Field + 3yrs exp. or Bachelor’s in Comp. Sci./Comp. Eng./any Eng. Field + 5yrs exp. req’d. Req’d skills: 2yrs exp. w/ implementing PeopleSoft, PeopleSoft Financial Modules (GL, AM, OM, Billing, AR, Purchasing, AP), PeopleSoft Tools (PS Query, Application Designer, PeopleCode, Application Engine), working w/offshore teams, SQL, Oracle Database Concepts, nVision Reporting, & Crystal Reports. Travel to company sites as req’d. Send resume to: C. Studniarz, REF: SG, 555 W Adams, Chicago, IL 60661

CONSULTANT Slalom’s Chicago, IL office has openings for INFORMATION MANAGEMENT & ANALYTICS CONSULTANT: Analyze engineering, business & other data processing problems to implement and improve computer systems.

Must be available to work on projects at various, unanticipated sites within commuting distance of Slalom Chicago office. TO APPLY: Email resume to recruithr@slalom. com & indicate job code KB034.

WOOD DESIGNER: Plan, design, furnish interiors of buildings.

Spec in European wood design for kitchens/floors projects. Design decorative wood elements acc to client’s specs. Review/detail drawings for constr plans. Estimate mat erial/costs. HS. 2 yrs exp. Res: CB Recovery Group, Inc., 1821 Walden Office Square, Ste 395, Schaumburg IL 60173

REAL ESTATE RENTALS STUDIO $600-$699 CHICAGO, HYDE PARK Arms Hotel, 5316 S. Harper, maid, phone /cable, switchboard, fridge, priv bath, lndry, $165/wk, $350/bi-wk or $650/mo. Call 773-493-3500

STUDIO OTHER 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

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 2018 NEW YEAR SA VINGS! Newly Remod. Studio $550, 1BR $650 w/Heat. 2BR and up starting at $750. Qualified Applicants rcv. up to $200/month off rent for 1 year. No App Fee. (773)412-1153 Wesley Realty

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

MIDWAY AREA/63RD KEDZIE Deluxe Studio 1 & 2 BRs. All modern oak floors, appliances, Security system, on site maint. clean & quiet, Nr. transp. From $445. 773582-1985 (espanol)

CHICAGO 92ND AND M a r quette, Good location, 2BR, 3rd floor, quiet bldg, Nice! Heat included, $700 w/1 mo rent & 1 mo sec.

773-505-1853

BUSINESS LINKEDIN CORP. has openings in our Chicago, IL location for INSIGHTS ANALYST,Talent Solutions (6597.2395) Leverage LinkedIn’s unique data to create innovative narratives & tools to address business specific business needs or challenges. Limited domestic travel required. Please email resume to: 6597@linkedin.com.

Must ref. job code above when applying.

BIOSTATISTICS MANAGER: Northbrook, IL ASTELLAS PHARMA GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT, INC. seeks experienced Biostatistics Manager – to contribute to the efficient planning, execution and reporting of clinical studies, among other duties.

Interested candidates submit detailed resume by mail, referencing Job Code YC2017 to: Mr. Walter Garcia, Astellas Pharma Global Development, Inc, 1 Astellas Way, Northbrook, IL, 60062.

CLEAN ROOM W/FRIDGE & micro, Near Oak Park, Food -4Less, Walmart, Walgreens, Buses & Metra, Laundry. $115/wk & up.

773-637-5957

7520 S. COLES - 1 BR $520, 2 BR $645, Includes appliances & AC, Near transp., No utilities included (708) 424-4216 Kalabich Mgmt

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

232 E 121ST PL.: 1/2 Off 1st mo rent + security - Nice lrg 1BR $565; 2BR $650 & 1 3BR $800, balcony.

Sec 8 Welc. 773-995-6950

MAYWOOD, 2 & 3BR Apartments, new Stainless Steel appliancess, Section 8 Welcome, Available Now. Call 708-790-2354.

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Newly updated, clean furnished rooms in Joliet, near buses & Metra, elevator. Utilities included, $91/wk. $395/mo. 815-722-1212

Chicago - Hyde PARK 5401 S. Ellis.

1BR. $625/mo.

Call 773-955-5106

1 BR OTHER

NICE ROOM w/stove, fridge & bath Near Aldi, Walgreens, Beach, Red Line & Buses. Elevator & Laundry. $133/wk & up. 773-275-4442

63RD & CALIFORNIA - 2 Bedroom, $800 Heat Included 773-916-0039 BIG ROOM with stove, fridge, bath & nice wood floors. Near Red Line & Buses. Elevator & Laundry, Shopping. $121/wk + up. 773-561-4970

7425 S. COLES - 1 BR $620, 2 BR $735, Includes Free heat & appliances & cooking gas. (708) 424-4216 Kalabich Mgmt

6930 S. SOUTH SHORE DRIVE Studios & 1BR, INCL. Heat, Elec, Cking gas & PARKING, $585-$925, Country Club Apts 773-752-2200

CHICAGO - $299 Move In Special! 110th & Michigan, 1BR & 2BR Apts, $580-$725/mo. Avail. now Secure building. 1-800-770-0989

SECTION 8 WELCOME! South side, Recently renovated, 1, 2 & 3BR Apts. FREE HEAT! $800$1250/mo. Call Sean, 773-410-7084

1 BR $700-$799 62ND & MAPLEWOOD , 4BR, 2BA ,$1200/mo, $850 move in fee, lrg LR/DR, utilities not included, No security deposit. Call 773406-0604

1 BR $800-$899

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

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

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

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

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MGMT & INV. Ltd. Hot Summer Is Here Cool Off In The Pool OUR UNITS INCLUDE HEAT, HW & CG Plenty of parking 1Bdr From $795.00 2Bdr From $925.00 3 Bdr/2 Full Bath From $1200 **1-(773)-476-6000**

1 MONTH FREE South Shore Studios $600-$750 Free Heat, Fitness Ctr, Lndry rm. Niki 773.808.

2043 www.livenovo.com

ADULT SERVICES

ADULT SERVICES

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

Rent is based on 30% of annual income. For details, call us at 847-546-1899 ∫ MOST BEAUTIFUL APARTMENTS! 6748 Crandon, 2BR, off street pkng 7527 Essex, 2BR, $850/mo and up.

773-947-8572 / 312-613-4424 SUBURBS, RENT TO OWN! Buy with No closing costs and get help with your credit. Call 708868-2422 or visit www.nhba.com CHICAGO, RENT TO OWN! Buy with no closing costs and get help with your credit. Call 708868-2422 or visit www.nhba.com

ACACIA SRO HOTEL Men Preferred! Rooms for Rent. Weekly & Monthly Rates. 312-421-4597

2 BR UNDER $900 CHICAGO - 6336 S Rockwell.

2BR, Heat included. $800/mo + $400 Move in fee. Section 8 ok. Call 773-426-8723 or 708-261-8953

RIVERDALE, NEW DECOR, 2BR, appls, new crpt, heated, A/ C, lndry, prkng, no pets, nr Metra.

Sec 8 ok. $800. 630-480-0638 RIVERDALE, IL 14141 S. School St. Newly Renovated 2 BR, 1 Bath avail. No Pets.

Rent $825/mo. 312-217-6556

2 BR $900-$1099 CHICAGO-PORTAGE PK 2BR 1Bath - 5254 W Montrose-1st floor, hardwood floors, enclosed porch, heat included. $1,000/mo. $35ea credit checks. Text/call 773.349.6608

2 BR $1100-$1299

CHICAGO - BEVERLY, large studio, 1 & 2BR Apts. Carpet, A/ C, laundry, near transportation, $680-$1020/mo. Call 773-2334939

NO SECURITY DEPOSIT NO MOVE IN FEE 1, 2, 3 BEDROOM APTS (773) 874-1122

EVANSTON: 2111 WESLEY, 2BR, near Northwestern, parking, storage, all utilities, A/C, laundry included. All wood floors, 2-flat. $1250/mo.

Available January.

847-424-1885 or alanbirman@ hotmail.com

ADULT SERVICES

ADULT SERVICES

ADULT SERVICES

HUMBOLDT PARK. ONE bedroom apartment for rent. Newly remodeled. Next door to food store. $880/mo plus security deposit.

Includes gas. Near shopping area.

Tim, 773-592-2989.

APTS. FOR RENT PARK MGMT & INV. Ltd. SUMMER IS HERE!!

Most units Include..

HEAT & HOT WTR Studios From $475.00 1Bdr From $550.00 2Bdr From $745.00 3 Bdr/2 Full Bath From $1200 **1-(773)-476-6000**

GARFIELD RIDGE: 4546 S. Lamon, Beaut rehab’d 3BR, 2BA house, fin bsmt, granite ctrs, SS appls, 2-car gar, $1625/mo 708-2884510

SECTION 8 WELCOME 7134 S. Normal, 4BR/2BA. $1150.

PARK MANOR; 7528 S. St. Lawrence, Beautiful rehab, 6+3BRs, 2BA house, fin bsmt, granite ctrs, SS appls, $1650/mo 708-288-4510

4010 S KING DR. 3BR heat incl.

225 W. 108th Pl, 2BR/1BA. $950.

9116 S. So Chgo Ave, 2/1. $675.

No Deposit. 312-683-5174 $1050. 7906 S Justine. 2BR $775 & Restaurant for Rent $900.

708-421-7630 or 773-899-9529

SECTION 8 WELCOME. NO SECURITY DEPOSIT. 6717 S. Rhodes, 5BR, 2BA house, appls included. $140 0/mo. 708-288-4510

3 BR OR MORE $1200-$1499

2 BR OTHER

6230 S GREENWOOD, 3BR, sep DR, all new kitchen with D/W, micro. W/D on site. Good location & off-street parking. No pets. $1290/mo + heat. 773.858.7551

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

SECT 8 WELC - 1048 W. 81st, 2BR, stove, fridge, crpt, c-fans, ten pays heat. 6432 S. Peoria, 3BR, heat incl. Newly decor.

312-608-7622

3 BR OR MORE UNDER $1200 75TH & ESSEX. 3 bdrms, 1

bthrm apt. Appliances, free heat, & 1 month free heat included. $200 gift card if move-in by 1/1/18. Sec8 welcome. Call 773-263-3922.

ADULT SERVICES

Avail Now! 11728 S. Harvard, Well maint 3BR, 1BA, bsmt, fenced in bkyd, 2 car garage avail w/ fee. $1225/mo. 630-240-1684

65TH AND CARPENTER 3BR, 2BA, carpeted, heat & appls incl, 1 mo free rent (with Sec 8). No Sec Dep. $1250/mo. 773-684-1166

3 BR OR MORE $1800-$2499 OLYMPIA FIELDS Newly remodeled 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath house, full basement. Beautiful area. 708-935-7557.

GOODS 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

SERVICES

VOLUNTEER TAX PREPARERS

NEEDED Center for Economic Progress is looking for volunteers to work one-on-one with clients providing no-cost, highquality tax and financial services for income-eligible households.

Why Volunteer With Center for Economic Progress? *Gain powerful new skills: all training provided, no experience necessary *Multiple locations, flexible scheduling *Be part of an experienced team that makes a real impact Visit economicprogress.org/volunteer to learn more, register and begin your online training as a Tax Preparer, Tax Site Specialist or Savings Coach

3 BR OR MORE $2500 AND OVER

GARY NSA ACCEPTING applications for SECTION 8 STUDIO, 1 & 2BR UNITS ONLY. Apply Tuesdays HEALTH & and Thursdays from 10am to 2pm ONLY at 1735 W 5th Ave. Applica- WELLNESS tions are to be filled out on site.

Adult applicants must provide a AFFORDABLE CAREGIVER SENIOR CARE - Looking For A current picture ID and SS card.

3 BR OR MORE OTHER

COLLEGE GIRL BODY RUBS

MARKETPLACE

Job To Live-in 24/7 or Come & Go Best price, All Loc.’s, No Fees. Eng. Spkng. Bonded/Insured. Has Car. 10 Yrs Experience. Excellent references Clear background check 708-6922580

7543 S. PHILLIPS, Luxury Apts, Two 4BR, 2 full BA,Amenities incl: walk in closet, storage, appl & granite counter tops. Section 8 Welcome.

New Pisgah Properties, 773-488-2317

CHICAGO, 11820 S. UNION, 3BR Apartment, newly rehabbed.

Section 8 welcome. Available Now. Call 773-440-5801

$40 w/AD 24/7

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

HYDE PARK 3BR Sec 8 mobility program area, near 73rd & Ryan, 1BR w/den, heat included 773-895-7247

non-residential

224-223-7787

SELF-STORAGE

CENTERS.

T W O locations to serve you. All units fully heated and humidity controlled with ac available. North: Knox Avenue.

773-685-6868.

South: Pershing Avenue. 773-523-6868.

ADULT SERVICES DANIELLE’S

LIP

SERVICE.

Adult Phone Sex and Web Cam Provider. Ebony Beauty. Must Be 21+.

All Credit Cards Accepted.

773-935-4995

MESSAGES

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

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A : Well, your vet-student pal’s certainly right about one thing: it’s an accepted truth among animal-shelter staff that people just don’t want to take black dogs home. Articles and message-board commentary from shelter workers attest to this sad injustice; pounds across the country (and in some cases dedicated black-dog rescue groups) host special adoption events to try to get the poor creatures out the door.

Guess what, though? All the concern notwithstanding, this phenomenon—known as black dog syndrome—doesn’t seem to actually exist, at least as far as research has been able to demonstrate. Among the more recent findings:

• A 2013 analysis of 1,200 dogs and puppies at

two no-kill shelters in New York State saw no significant variation in length of availability for adoption (LOA, in the lingo) related to coat color. The study did find that LOA increased about a day per year of age for adult dogs, and that medium-size dogs could expect to wait longest; adopters gravitated toward the smallest dogs and the biggest, and (understandably) to the puppies.

• Writing in 2015 in the journal Animal Welfare,

researchers crunched the numbers from two Pacific Northwest shelters over a four-year period, taking into account the fates of more than 16,000 dogs. Here they left the puppies out of it and limited the data set to the tougher sells, dogs between one and 13 years old. This time the black dogs actually got adopted faster than dogs overall; it was the brindles that had to hang around longer. Older dogs experienced a higher LOA, as did so-called bully breeds; both groups were euthanized more often too.

• In

an online article from 2016, the ASPCA looked at shelter records for nearly 300,000 dogs and cats in 14 communities. Again, the black dogs did better than the general dog population: in 2013, for example, they accounted for 30 percent of canine intake but 32 percent of adoptions. Brown or white dogs weren’t in the same kind of demand.

For what it’s worth, black cat syndrome may be a thing. Several scholarly papers have reported longer adoption waits for black cats, though the ASPCA data showed them doing OK, while tabbies of all colors tended to be adopted less readily.

As far as any supposed black-dog problem is concerned, though, I think we can pretty much put this one to sleep—an image that brings me to my next point. Euthanasia is where the BDS illusion may take its real toll. Say you’re a shelter worker who believes black dogs are less likely to be adopted out.

And say your shelter is full to bursting, and you’ve got to select a few unlucky animals to meet their maker. Who you gonna pick?

The really weird phenomenon here, I’d say, is the durability of the BDS canard, despite all the studies debunking it. What gives?

The best explanation is pet demographics.

According to the ASPCA, there are simply more black-coated animals out there—it’s a dominant genetic trait in both dogs and cats— so naturally they’d appear to be overrepresented at the pound.

Not to get too Freudian, but I’d suggest that given how much attention the specter of BDS continues to garner, it could be saying a little something about our own cultural anxieties. Specifically, BDS may seem to offer another bit of evidence about the perniciousness of racism in American society—and in a venue where the apparent solution (host another black-dog adoption day!) is a bit simpler than anywhere else.

Meanwhile, less-damning theories still flourish to explain black dogs’ alleged unpopularity, and this rationale for a nonexistent trend has evolved with technology: now the story’s about how selfies are an important part of bonding with our pets, and nobody wants to adopt a dog whose face won’t show well on Instagram. Clearly there’s something going on that keeps us coming back to this zombie black-dog myth. v Send questions to Cecil via straightdope.com or write him c/o Chicago Reader, 30 N. Racine, suite 300, Chicago 60607.

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SAVAGE LOVE

By Dan Savage

Long story, longer sentence

Can a heavy flirtation with an ex be justified? Plus: a suspicious mind Q : I married my high-

school sweetheart at 17, had a baby, together a few years, mental illness and subsequent infidelity led to things ending. My ex-husband remarried, divorced again, and is now in another LTR. I’m in a LTR for a decade with my current partner (CP), we have a few kids, and I’m so in love with him it terrifies me. My ex frequently makes sexual remarks to me, lowkey flirts and I feel an animal attraction in the moment.

Whatever. I don’t want to be with him, my relationship with CP is solid AF, and I get amazing fucking at home from a man far more skilled. CP knows about ex-husband’s remarks and one actual physical advance.

CP has offered to talk to my ex. I told him nah, I’ll deal with it and make it stop. I talked to my ex-husband today, and he said: “I’m sorry, it’s just teasing, I won’t make an actual move ever again, but you’re the only woman I ever just look at and get immediately hard for, and it’s only a few more years before our kid is fully grown and we don’t see each other anymore. So humor me because you know we both enjoy it.” And it’s true that I do enjoy it. But how harmful is it to engage in flirty banter without any touching, nudity, or worse? I hate having secrets, as I feel they are barriers to intimacy, but I’m a thirtysomething mom and it is so fucking unbearably sexy to be made to feel so desirable even after all that shit between us and it’ll never, ever happen because hell no am I sleeping with my ex-hubby, but knowing this man will never get a whiff of my pussy again but can’t help but beg for it with his eyes gives me a sense of power like I’ve never fucking

felt before, but even so I don’t want to be a terrible person for hiding this from my CP because I don’t like having secrets from him but this is just one that turns me on to no end but I should nip this in the bud and put a stop to it yesterday because it’s wrong, right?

—SECRET LONGINGS UTTERLY TITILLATING

A : I love a good run-on

sentence, so I’m going to give it a shot too. I don’t see the harm in enjoying your ex-husband’s flirtations so long as you’re certain you’ll never, ever take him up on his standing offer, but you are playing with fire here, SLUT, so pull on a pair of asbestos panties when you know you’ll be seeing your ex-hubby.

And I don’t think you should feel bad about this secret because while honesty is great generally and while the keeping of secrets is frowned upon by advice professionals reflexively, SLUT, a little mystery, a little distance, a little erotic autonomy keeps our sex lives with long-term partners hot—even monogamous relationships—so instead of seeing this secret as a barrier to intimacy, SLUT, remind yourself that the erotic charge you get from your ex-hubby—the way he makes you feel desirable—benefits your CP, and there’s nothing wrong with that, right?

Q : I’ve been with my

girlfriend “J” for two years.

Her best friend, “M,” is a gay man she’s known since high school. He seems cool, but lately I’ve been wondering if he and J are fucking behind my back. For starters, J and I rarely have sex anymore. Even a kiss on the cheek happens less than once a week. Meanwhile, J’s Facebook feed has pictures

of M grabbing her tits outside of a gay club in front of her sister. She told me he’s spent the night in her room, though he lives only a few miles away. I’ve also recently found out that although M has a strong preference for men, he considers himself bisexual. I understand that everyone loves tits, even if they’re not turned on by them, and gay men can sleep with a girl and actually just . . . sleep. I also know that her antidepressants can kill her sex drive. All three things at once feel like more than just coincidence, though.

At the very least, the PDAs seem disrespectful. At worst, I’m a blind fool who’s been replaced. Am I insecure or is there something to these worries? —YOU PICK THE ACRONYM I GOTTA GET TO WORK

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A : Your girlfriend’s best

friend isn’t gay, YPTAIGGTW, he’s bisexual—so, yeah, it’s entirely possible M is fucking your girlfriend. But while we can’t know for sure whether M is fucking J, we do know who she isn’t fucking: you.

If the sex is rare and a kiss— on the cheek—is a oncea-week occurrence, it’s time to pull the plug. Yes, antidepressants can be a libido killer. They can also be a dodge. If your girlfriend doesn’t regard the lack of sex as a problem and isn’t working on a fix—if she’s prioritizing partying with her bisexual bestie over talking to her doc and adjusting her meds, if she hasn’t offered you some sort of accommodation for the lack of sex—trust your gut and get out. v Send letters to mail@ savagelove.net. Download the Savage Lovecast every Tuesday at savagelovecast. com. v @fakedansavage

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EARLY WARNINGS

chicagoreader.com/early

JANUARY 4, 2018 - CHICAGO READER 37

Margaret Glaspy ò EBRU YILDIZ

NEW

Howie Day 3/29, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 1/4, noon b Margaret Glaspy 4/3, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 1/5, 10 AM b Langhorne Slim 3/12-13, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 1/5, 10 AM b David Lindley 4/25, 7:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 1/5, 10 AM b Pedrito Martinez Group 4/17, 7:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 1/5, 10 AM b Mountain Heart 4/21, 7 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 1/5, 10 AM b Ana Moura 4/10, 8 PM, City Winery, on sale Thu 1/4, noon b Music Frozen Dancing with Oh Sees and Adult. 2/17, 1 PM, Empty Bottle F Profanatica 2/9, 9 PM, Cobra Lounge, 18+ Rooftop Love Club 2/16, 9 PM, Quenchers Saloon Tygapaw 1/13, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Ernie Watts Quartet 4/22, 7 PM, SPACE, Evanston, on sale Fri 1/5, 10 AM b

UPDATED Joshua Radin 3/26-28, 8 PM, City Winery, 3/26 added b Shakira 8/3, 7:30 PM, United Center, rescheduled from 1/23

UPCOMING Alvvays 3/23, 7:30 PM, Metro b Trey Anastasio Band 4/20-21, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre

Sandra Antongiorgi 1/18, 6:30 PM, City Winery b Gabrielle Aplin 3/1, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Dan Auerbach & the Easy Eye Sound Revue, Shannon & the Clams 4/2, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ John Beasley’s Monk’estra, Melissa Aldana 1/26, 8 PM, Symphony Center Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet 3/8, 7:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Big K.R.I.T. 4/28, 7 PM, Metro b Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Night Beats 2/10, 8 PM, the Vic, 18+ Doyle Bramhall II 3/1, 8 PM, City Winery b Cam’ron 1/19, 8 PM, Portage Theater, 17+ S. Carey 4/5, 8 PM, Schubas Brandi Carlile 6/15, 7:30 PM, Chicago Theatre Carpenter Brut 4/26, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+ Kenny Chesney 7/28, 5 PM, Soldier Field George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic 1/31, 7 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Coast Modern 4/7, 7 PM, Bottom Lounge b Billy Cobham Band 3/29, 7 and 9:30 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Coin 2/7, 8 PM, House of Blues b Commander Cody 2/28, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Darkest Hour, Whores. 2/22, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ The Darkness 4/11, 8 PM, Park West, 18+ Darlingside 4/19, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Craig David 1/13, 8 PM, 1st Ward, 18+ Davina & the Vagabonds 1/17, 8 PM, City Winery b Dears 3/21, 8 PM, Schubas

38 CHICAGO READER - JANUARY 4, 2018

Devil Makes Three 1/12, 8 PM, Concord Music Hall, 18+ Diet Cig 2/1, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Beth Ditto 3/19, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Drive-By Truckers, Erika Wennerstrom 4/6-7, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Eagles 3/14, 8 PM, United Center Enslaved, Wolves in the Throne Room 2/23, 7 PM, Metro, 18+ Enter Shikari 2/9, 8 PM, Metro, 18+ Alejandro Escovedo Band 1/25-27, 8 PM, City Winery b Pedro Fernandez 1/27, 8 PM, Auditorium Theatre Fetty Wap 1/25, 7 PM, House of Blues b Haley Fohr 1/11, 6 PM, Art Institute of Chicago Fb Foreigner, Whitesnake 7/11, 7 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion Forq 2/18, 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint Frightened Rabbit 2/16, 7 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ G-Eazy, Trippie Redd 3/9, 7 PM, Aragon Ballroom b Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds 2/24, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Godspeed You! Black Emperor 3/18-19, 8 PM, Metro, 18+ Glen Hansard 3/18, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Helloween 9/10, 7 PM, Concord Music Hall, 17+ James Hill 2/3, 8 PM, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Hippo Campus 2/16, 7:30 PM, the Vic b Peter Hook & the Light 5/4, 9 PM, Metro, 18+ Niall Horan, Maren Morris 7/26, 7 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park

b Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, Head for the Hills 3/24, 8 PM, 1st Ward, 18+ Iced Earth 3/29, 7:30 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ J Boog 2/28, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Jimmy Eat World, Hotelier 5/8, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre b Theo Katzman 3/10, 9 PM, Subterranean, 17+ Stephen Kellogg 3/15, 8 PM, City Winery b Kesha & Macklemore 7/14, 7 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park Killers 1/16, 7:30 PM, United Center L.A. Salami 3/30, 9 PM, Schubas Natalia Lafourcade 5/3, 6 PM, Concord Music Hall b Lorde 3/27, 7 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont Jeff Lynne’s ELO 8/15, 8 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont Machine Head 2/23, 6:30 PM, Concord Music Hall b John Maus 2/18, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Miguel 3/5, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Ministry, Chelsea Wolfe 4/7, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Kevin Morby 4/28, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Neck Deep 2/12, 6 PM, Concord Music Hall b Nightmares on Wax 3/3, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Willie Nile 4/14, 8 PM, City Winery b Of Mice & Men 2/11, 5 PM, House of Blues b Lindi Ortega 4/17, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall Brad Paisley 2/24, 7 PM, Allstate Arena, Rosemont Passion Pit 1/17, 8 PM, United Center, 18+ Pedro the Lion 8/24, 9 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ John Prine 4/27, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Radio Dept. 2/1, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Radio Moscow 2/11, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Residents 4/17, 7 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b Lucy Rose 3/23, 8 PM, Schubas, 18+ Ross the Boss 3/23, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Royal Thunder 4/5, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ San Fermin 2/1, 8 PM, SPACE, Evanston b Joe Satriani, John Petrucci, and Phil Collen 2/23, 7 PM, Chicago Theatre Screaming Females 3/10, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+ Screeching Weasel 2/16-17, 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 17+ Ty Segall 4/8, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Shredders 2/3, 9 PM, Subterranean, 17+

ALL AGES

WOLF BY KEITH HERZIK

EARLY WARNINGS

CHICAGO SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IN THE WEEKS TO COME

F

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Soft Moon 3/31, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle St. Vincent 1/12, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre b Mavis Staples 2/3, 8 PM, the Vic, 18+ Taylor Swift 6/2, 7 PM, Soldier Field They Might Be Giants 3/17, 7:30 PM, the Vic, 14+ This Is the Kit 5/18, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+ Tune-Yards 3/3, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Shania Twain 5/19, 7:30 PM, United Center U.S. Bombs 1/27, 8 PM, Reggie’s Music Joint U.S. Girls 4/17, 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle Vundabar 4/7, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, and Aoife O’Donovan 3/2, 8 PM, Thalia Hall b Aaron Watson 1/12, 8 PM, Joe’s Live, Rosemont Wedding Present 3/26, 7:30 PM, Lincoln Hall Weepies 4/14, 8 PM, Thalia Hall b Weezer, Pixies, Wombats 7/7, 7:30 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park Bob Weir & Phil Lesh 3/10, 8 PM, Chicago Theatre Whitney 2/13-15, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 18+ Andrew W.K. 5/12, 8 PM, the Vic, 18+ “Weird Al” Yankovic 4/6-7, 8 PM, the Vic b Yo La Tengo 3/29-30, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+ Zombies 3/19-20, 8 PM, City Winery b

SOLD OUT Borns 1/27, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre b Creed Bratton 1/17, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+ Dangerous Summer 2/10, 7 PM, Cobra Lounge b LP 2/24, 7:30 PM, Metro b Our Last Night 3/16, 5:30 PM, Bottom Lounge b Robert Plant & the Sensational Space Shifters 2/20, 8 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Protest the Hero 3/23, 7 PM, Bottom Lounge b Quinn XCII 3/9, 6 PM, Concord Music Hall b Joe Russo’s Almost Dead 2/17, 9 PM, Riviera Theatre, 18+ Brett Young 2/2, 8:30 PM, Joe’s Bar v

GOSSIP WOLF A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene GOSSIP WOLF HAS only heard one song

by Charlie Reed, but if the beautifully languid, psych-tinged acoustic garage-pop of “Love Hangover” is any indication, then they’re gonna be one of the best new bands in town! That’s right, Charlie Reed are a band, not a person—with roots in the solo project that singer-songwriter Luke Trimble started after his band Uh Bones called it quits. Trimble decided to ditch Uh Bones’ shaggy electric guitars and experiment with a nylon-string acoustic, recording on an eight-track reel-to-reel in his bedroom. “Love Hangover” is whimsical and catchy, and local label Randy Records (run by Trimble’s former Uh Bones bandmate Nathan Johnson) is putting it out as a seven-inch—Charlie Reed’s debut release. On Saturday, January 6, Trimble and company celebrate the single at the Hideout with Deeper and Cafe Racer; the show costs $8 and starts at 9 PM. When Beyoncé’s lush visual album Lemonade dropped in 2016, it reminded many viewers of Julie Dash’s 1991 film Daughters of the Dust—in fact, Dash told Vanity Fair in August that the response was so immediate that her “phone blew up the night Lemonade came on and my Web site shut down.” On Thursday, January 4, film discussion series Cinema 53 hosts a free screening of Lemonade at Hyde Park’s Harper Theater, followed by a conversation with Dash, Cinema 53 curator and U. of C. film professor Jacqueline Stewart, and singer and poet Jamila Woods.

Congratulations to local online music magazine Anchr as it arrives at its first birthday—Gossip Wolf has enjoyed following its sharp live reviews and groovy concert photography! Having a birthday without a birthday party just wouldn’t be right, and Anchr celebrates at Schubas on Friday, January 5, with live sets by Lucille Furs, the Evening Attraction, and Capital Soiree. Cadien Lake James of Twin Peaks and Matt Williams of Post Animal DJ between bands. —J.R. NELSON AND LEOR GALIL Got a tip? Tweet @Gossip_Wolf or e-mail gossipwolf@chicagoreader.com.

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