Chicago Reader print issue of May 15, 2025 (Vol. 54, No. 32)
Labor Pains: retaliation against organizers; poor working conditions by Devyn-Marshall
Brown, p. 8
Gender Play at Steppenwolf by Kerry Reid, p. 14
Plastic Crimewave, aka Steve Krakow, on giving forgotten local musicians their flowers, p. 21
Reader Bites | Caporale Tonkotsu ramen at Alice & Friends’ Vegan Kitchen
08 Labor Pains | Brown IDHS workers protest poor working conditions in Lincolnwood; union says Chicago History Museum fired staff in retaliation for organizing.
10 Make it Make Sense | Mulcahy Free Our Moms Day, city evicts residents of Gompers Park, and a dispatch from the JTDC Advisory Board
12 Books James Stewart III’s debut novel recounts his Naperville childhood. 13 Art of Note Tony Tasset at Corbett vs. Dempsey and the latest 60wrd/min columns
14 Feature | Reid In Gender Play, or What You Will the queerness of Shakespeare.
16 Shows of Note Walter King Jr.’s Diary of a Black Illusionist Magic Lounge; Galileo at Trap Door Theatre; The Regulars Studio; and a timely new adaptation of R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) at City Lit
Preview | Friedman-Parks Block Cinema’s Endless Reveries explores water in experimental film.
Moviegoer A gay old time
21 Secret History of Chicago Music SHoCM at 20: looking back on two decades of digging into the fringes of the local scene
24 Shows of Note Previews of concerts including Bartees Strange, Wet, and Lia Kohl leading a ten-piece ensemble in Union Station
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CITY LIFE
FASHION AND STYLE
Raw elegance
Fashion educator and artist Gillion Carrara’s legacy of style
By ISA GIALLORENZO
Artist, professor, and metalsmith Gillion
Carrara’s Lakeview apartment/atelier feels like crossing the threshold into a temple devoted to beauty and contemplation. Her walls and tables hold a curated array of art, artifacts, and interesting materials gathered over the years. It’s a cohesive selection of almost exclusively black-and-white objects that exude a quiet yet potent presence. Carrara’s space is permeated with the memory of her late husband, Alfonso Carrara, an Italian American architect, artist, poet, and photographer who passed away over 20 years ago at the age of 90. Alfonso greatly influenced Carrara’s aesthetic; he designed many of the pieces on display in her home as well as multiple architectural features present throughout the interior.
“He was a beautiful husband,” Carrara said. “We went to Italy a lot, to Milan, Venice, Siena, Florence . . . because that’s where our interests were, in art and friends. Al loved to go places and draw and write poetry, in Italian or English. The whole closet there is full of his sketchbooks and his drawings.”
As an homage to Alfonso, Carrara posthumously published Happenchance , his poignant account of World War II interwoven with his striking photographs and poetry. “He never picked up a rifle. I put that book in every library I could all over the world,” she said.
Carrara has also published the book Fashion Icons , a must-have for fashion enthusiasts, created in collaboration with illustrator (and past Reader contributor) David Lee Csicsko. In Fashion Icons, Carrara draws on her deep expertise to share essential facts about 50 influential designers, including Elsa Schiaparelli, Issey Miyake, and Halston.
Currently an adjunct professor in fashion, dress, and art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Carrara is also the founding director of SAIC’s Fashion Resource Center, a
comprehensive fashion library and garment archive hosted at the school since 1987.
Another way to tap into Carrara’s fashion expertise is through Seamless: Fashion, Art, and Society, a six-part online lecture series she designed for remote learners. The upcoming June session will feature lectures titled “Man Ray: the Dadaists and Fashion Photography,” “Madeleine Vionnet: Elegant Discourse,” and “Dior: Volume Control.”
“Then I give attendees a list of books relat-
ed to those themes, along with access to that season’s six lectures. If you pay a little more, you can get recordings from when I started last fall. I’ve changed the topics each time,” Carrara explained, peppering the conversation with remarkable details about the designers—like Vionnet’s notably humane treatment of her workers (in stark contrast to Chanel’s di cult temperament).
Carrara’s presence itself is a master class in personal style, marked by her signature
thick-rimmed round black glasses, closecropped haircut, and voluminous black garments. A devoted walker, she’s something of a local fi xture. “In fact, I’m known in this neighborhood; ‘Oh, she’s the one who always wears black, walks with purpose, stands tall, and is nice.’”
Carrara is also a regular at Chicago fashion events, consistently at the forefront of the local scene and beyond. “Once, at a Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition opening
Gillion Carrara COURTESY GILLION CARRARA; ISA GIALLORENZO
in Dundee, Scotland, I wore a Comme des Garçons tartan suit, and people came up to me to ask, ‘Who are you?’” she recalls.
In 2012, Carrara curated an exceptional exhibition of her own, “Material Translations: Japanese Fashion Design,” presented in the Tadao Ando Gallery within the Asian Art wing of the Art Institute. The show featured a selection of Japanese garments from the Fashion Resource Center.
In addition to her work in education, Carrara is a skilled metalsmith and jewelry designer who incorporates organic elements gathered during her travels. She creates “art to wear” using silver, bone, brierroot, ebony, glass, and other raw, natural finds. Her fascination with unexpected objects— like old, heavy rusted keys, animal hooves, coral, or the center of a whale’s ear—is contagious. After spending time among her curated pieces, one begins to see the world di erently; even the most ordinary materials, like bricks
and cinder blocks, take on a new significance. Carrara’s designs, including housewares, are available through her website and at local shops such as Production Mode, iD, and James Ciccotti. She also participates in occasional trunk shows as part of the MATERIAL collective, alongside fashion designer Andrea Reynders. They frequently sell in private homes and venues like Alma Gallery, where they’ll be showing in mid-June alongside a selection of local designers.
In the meantime, Carrara stays content in her studio, experimenting freely with materials. “But you know what? Not to please anyone but me. If I’m pleased with a bracelet, I’ll show it. If I’m not pleased, I put it aside and I go on to something else,” she says. Or, as her late husband once put it, “If you’re going to do it, do it right, or don’t do it at all.” v
m letters@chicagoreader.com
Carrara works on a variety of projects in her studio including jewelry and metalsmithing. ISA GIALLORENZO; COURTESY GILLION CARRARA
CITY LIFE
The To-Do
Upcoming
By SALEM COLLO-JULIN
Sat 5/17
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Master Gardeners program offers free assistance from horticulturists and farmers for community groups and citizens in nearly every Illinois county. Experienced home and professional gardeners volunteer their time and lead workshops in growing backyard food, attracting and supporting pollinators, and tackling other challenges that new gardeners may face. This year is the 50th anniversary of the program, and today’s Container Gardening workshop kicks o a season of free events designed to teach the public about getting into the dirt.
10:30 AM–noon, Chicago Authors Room at Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S. State, seventh floor, free, recommended for those 18+, chi.gov/gardenmaster
Sun 5/18
Shedding those antisocial layers that you built around you over the winter? What better way to embrace the warmth of spring than to get out there and meet some new people? The Hot Potato Hearts community runs regular events designed to get your head into the romance (or friendship) game, and tonight’s Inclusive Speed Dating is truly for anyone open to connection. Participants will be randomly paired to have five-minute conversations with other participants. Hot Potato Hearts does not join people together based on sexual orientation for these chats, so you could find a potential date or a new friend, depending on your match. The evening is open to anyone 21 or over, and HPH stresses that means “all genders, all sexualities, all races, and all abilities.” Proof of vaccination is required for entry.
6–8:30 PM, Dorian’s Through the Record Shop, 1939 W. North, $13–$25 sliding scale, 21+, tickets at door or linktr.ee/ hotpotatoheartshotpotato
TUE 5/20
Write Club Chicago hosts May the Road Rise Up to Beat You , a battle royale disguised as a reading event (or perhaps it’s the other way around). Tonight’s lineup features Chicago writers and comedians facing o to deliver their best based on pre-chosen topics; for example, “flowers” for Nik Gallicchio versus Adi Alsaid on “showers.” Gina Watters, Deanna Ortiz, Jasmine Henri Jordan, and
Arch Jamjun are also reading (competing?), and the evening is hosted by writer Elizabeth Gomez with timekeeping help from actor and puppeteer Josh Zagoren (Chad the Bird).
7:30 PM, Gman Tavern, 3740 N. Clark, $25 suggested donation at door, cash bar, 21+, gmantavern.com
Wed 5/21
Incarceration has become an industry in the U.S., and private corporations (often along with their governmental partners) profit off the system. Families and inmates face expenses for simple transactions, like outrageous fees per minute for inmate phone calls. According to the Sentencing Project, 90,873 U.S. residents were incarcerated in private for-profit prisons in 2022, which represented eight
percent of the total state and federal prison population. Bianca Tylek, founder of the nonprofit advocacy organization Worth Rises, seeks to shed light on this issue with her new book, The Prison Industry: How it Works and Who Profits. Tylek will discuss the book, the use of prison labor, and other topics tonight with Urbana writer and former Symbionese Liberation Army member James Kilgore (Understanding Mass Incarceration), and Richard Wallace , director of Chicago’s Equity and Transformation (EAT), a south-side nonprofit founded by and for post-incarcerated people.
7–9 PM, Easy Does It, 2354 N. Milwaukee, free with reservation at Eventbrite, cash bar, 21+, eventbrite.com/o/ worth-rises-109486813131 v
m scollojulin@chicagoreader.com
Clockwise from top le : a Chicago roo op container garden; bird in prison; Hot Potato Hearts speed dating
POETRY CORNER
That’s What She Said
This is me
Remembering a person who was And I’m sure still is
It’s harder than you think….
To remember you as you were Seems like a distant memory and you were so far away But familiar
It’s almost like you were under me this whole time…
And now that these memories of you start to frequent
Death seems a little farther away than yesterday
And this makes me happy/
And now that there seems to be a cause for celebration
I’m glad you lasted longer than yesterday…
Imagine living forever
And foot working by the lake
Imagine living long enough to smile
And then long enough to show all your teeth
And count how many homes you’ve had in the back of your mind/
Long enough to live in them all
To sit and study the curvature of the orbit And sit in your hard work making furniture out the forest
A soft tongue to test heat By the surfaces of your porage/
This is no small dream
It’s a lot bigger than you expected….
Your pleasure in my success almost seems performative
But I’m aware that it’s not
By The Third
No matter how it looks to anyone else/
This is not the dream you wake up from Or just sleep through Or forget after You live it
And after a while it’s not a dream anymore You just kinda live it/
Question
How long would it take you
To believe in your own godliness And then how long would it take you to get comfortable with it And bask in it?/
What’s holding you back?
You helped me see all my inhibitions Counting all of them would be too many
It would take more than fingers to do it…
You taught me to look at all hills and turn them into molehills
Would you look at God
Would you look at God
“Because you can”
“Because you can”
I know this is way more than you’re used to handling…
“But you can” “Because we can”
“You are not what you’ve walked and tripped over”
“You are an amalgamation of the blessings you’ve fallen into”
“If you don’t believe me… Just turn around and see
“Look how much you’ve grown”
That’s what she said/
Third is a SouthSide born rapper and teacher with a deep affinity for words. As a lyricist and storyteller, Third is always looking to tell the stories of the underrepresented, challenge the norm, and inspire a higher tier or art.
Celebrating the publication of new and selected poems of Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize winner Kimiko Hahn. Featuring poetry readings by Sarah Ghazal Ali, Mónica de la Torre, and Rosalie Moffett. May 15, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Learn more at PoetryFoundation.org
FOOD & DRINK
Tonkotsu ramen is a Western favorite of Japanese cuisine because it’s peak East-meets-West comfort food. It’s typically made from pork bones (“ton” meaning “pork” and “kotsu” meaning bone broth) and sometimes upgraded with tonkatsu—a thin pankobreaded pork cutlet, which the Japanese adapted from the French. The result is a decadent improvement on the familiar chicken noodle soup that’s become synonymous with Japanese street food. Edgewater’s Alice & Friends’ Vegan Kitchen takes the idea further by delivering an eco-friendly take on the dish’s mouthwatering flavors and textures.
way because the broth is expected to be umami-packed and full-bodied, taking on a milkiness in both appearance and weight as a result of slow-cooking animal skeletons to release collagen.
Alice & Friends’ is part of a long Chicago tradition of vegan comfort food. The Chicago Diner, founded in 1983, casts a wide net on American casual dining, while Soul Veg City, established in 1981 as Soul Vegetarian, focuses on soul food. Since 2001, Alice & Friends’ has been operating in a similar vein but with a more east Asian emphasis. Tonkotsu can be tricky to reimagine in a satisfying and meat-free
Alice & Friends’ rises to the challenge by creating a plant-based stock with a complex flavor and silky mouthfeel. The soup is loaded with corn kernels, baby bok choy, and ramen noodles to create a satisfying array of textures, and it’s topped with green onions and seaweed strips, as well as shiitake mushrooms that have been marinated and fried for a bacon-y flavor and feel. But the dish’s pièce de résistance is delicate strips of fake pork, which the restaurant imports, then seasons in-house. I don’t know what it’s made of, but as someone who’s been meat-free for more than two decades, I’ve never had anything like it. The cuts are marbled to look like fatty meat without glaringly artificial dyes, and they’re tender, not chewy. Combining the right amounts of salty, sweet, and tangy, the Alice & Friends’ tonkotsu ramen is so good, it’s worth ordering even in hot weather. —MICCO CAPORALE ALICE & FRIENDS’ VEGAN KITCHEN 5812 N. Broadway, $19.50, 773-275-8797, aliceandfriendsvegankitchen.com v
Reader Bites celebrates dishes, drinks, and atmospheres from the Chicagoland food scene. Have you had a recent food or drink experience that you can’t stop thinking about? Share it with us at fooddrink@ chicagoreader.com.
Tonkotsu ramen at Alice & Friends’ Vegan Kitchen
A weekly series curated by the Chicago Reader and sponsored by the Poetry Foundation.
owned by another medical office. The front door doesn’t open automatically for people with disabilities. And the only accessible elevator cannot be operated independently.
Workers claim that they are reprimanded for speaking up. According to Edwards, supervisors threaten to “find someone else” to do their jobs. “They put you through the high-stress situation of possibly losing employment,” he says.
In a statement to the Reader , an IDHS spokesperson says the agency is committed to creating a safe and welcoming work environment. “All employees have the opportunities and venues to voice concerns, file complaints, and seek resolution for workplace issues without fear of retaliation. These rights are enshrined under labor laws and collective bargaining agreements. We encourage any employee with concerns to utilize the many available avenues for formal reporting should they have a matter in need of resolution,” reads an unsigned statement.
Regarding privacy concerns, the IDHS spokesperson says the Lincolnwood office
location opened in December and that all space requirements meet state standards and include a staff break room and a conference room. Additionally, the agency added 12 cubicles in March to address space needs.
The spokesperson added that the state Bureau of Accessibility and Job Accommodation, which reviews agency decisions to identify and correct accessibility issues, signed o on corrective actions taken by the agency and has not identified any additional issues. “At this time, we are unaware of any accessibility issues at the o ce,” the spokesperson says.
Chicago History Museum fires
four the day a er their successful union vote
One day after the Chicago History Museum (CHM) became the city’s tenth cultural institution to unionize since 2022, workers say management fired four staff members in retaliation.
Ninety percent of the 70 union-eligible
employees—which include full-time and parttime front desk and cafe workers and people in the curatorial, exhibitions, and development departments—voted in favor of unionizing with AFSCME Council 31 in an April 1 election.
Two days later, CHM management fired four union members without warning for alleged time theft, according to Nell McKeown, the museum’s development events manager. Prior to their termination, McKeown says none of her coworkers had been warned of issues with their time cards.
Three additional workers, including McKeown, were given a final written warning and told that their jobs were at risk. In her case, McKeown says management chided her for letting an older woman escape the cold in the museum’s foyer before the start of an event. “My belief—and the belief of many people at the museum—is that these are exaggerated or falsified claims to cover union retaliation, given the pattern and the timing,” she tells the Reader McKeown, who has worked at the museum for four years, says unionized workers at other
local museums like the Art Institute of Chicago and the Field Museum paved the way for their successful union drive. “It feels almost like it’s an industry standard in Chicago at this point to have a union at a museum or cultural institution,” she says. “We wanted to secure those benefits and protections that our colleagues at other cultural institutions have achieved by forming a union,” McKeown says.
When the union announced its intent to organize on February 12, CHM management responded immediately, the union alleges, telling workers they did not believe a union was right for their organization. On Wednesday, April 16, workers demonstrated in front of the museum against their colleagues’ terminations and discipline. Union employees from local cultural institutions, previous CHM staffers, coalitions like Arise Chicago, members of the public, and even state senator Graciela Guzmán attended and spoke to the crowd.
After the rally, the crowd tried to enter CHM to view the museum’s exhibits on labor histories. Despite allowing free entry to the
NEWS & POLITICS
continued from p. 9
museum on Wednesdays, the union says management told workers not to admit rallygoers and called police to disperse the crowd.
A large sign at the entrance to the museum’s popular “Facing Freedom” exhibit asks, “What would you risk to form a union?” McKeown says workers are being punished for exploring that very question. “It really is misaligned with the celebration of workers’ rights that exist
“It feels almost like it’s an industry standard in Chicago at this point to have a union at a museum or cultural institution.”
throughout this museum exhibit,” she says.
In response to a request for comment, a CHM spokesperson wrote in an email to the Reader, “The Museum denies that it has taken any action against any individual based on Union support. We congratulate CHM employees on
their decision to unionize and look forward to negotiations.”
While unionized staff at one Chicago museum prepare to start their contract fight, workers at another area museum are celebrating the ratification of their first contract. After two years of bargaining, three hundred employees at the Field Museum on April 16 approved a contract that guarantees pay increases of about 15 percent for all workers, bonuses for speaking languages other than English or providing translation services, and improved health and retirement benefits. The contract also ensures housekeeping employees, who currently work for a private contractor, will become full-time union employees.
“Five years ago, there were almost no union members with those benefits, rights, and protections in this city [at cultural institutions],” says Anders Lindall, public a airs director at AFSCME Council 31. “But now, the workers recognize that it is the minimum that they deserve.” v
m dmbrown@chicagoreader.com
In the shadow of Cook County Jail’s brutal red-brick facade, on May 10, dozens of Chicagoans built community and kept vigil for incarcerated mothers and caregivers separated from their families by the shackles of imprisonment.
Through music, poetry, and spoken word, performers at the annual Free Our Moms Day event, which is held on the same weekend as Mother’s Day, drew lines of struggle from the jail on the city’s southwest side to state women’s prison Logan Correctional Center in downstate Illinois to the besieged open-air prison of Gaza.
Dyanna Winchester described the pain of missing milestones in her children’s lives during her two decades of incarceration in Illinois. Now free, Winchester works at the Women’s Justice Institute, where she says she fights for “love, unity, and family.” She contrasted the purported goals of the criminal legal system—justice, rehabilitation, accountability—with the painful reality of relationships severed by prison walls. “Did the judge think about my children when he sentenced me to 20 years?” Winchester asked the crowd. “No!”
Maya Schenwar, director of the Truthout Center for Grassroots Journalism, spoke of her sister Keeley, who gave birth to her first child behind bars, only to have her newborn daughter ripped from her arms as the state shu ed her back into prison. Schenwar compared this to the “reproductive genocide” being waged in Gaza, as Israel indiscriminately bombs schools, hospitals, and residential buildings.
As attendees held space on the grassy median along California Avenue, the absence of mothers, sisters, daughters, and loved ones was palpable. Deana Lewis, the event’s emcee, led the crowd in a chant: “Brick by brick, wall by wall, close the prisons. Free them all!”
City evicts Gompers Park residents
Under the watch of newly installed Chicago Park District CEO Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, city crews on Monday evicted more than a dozen unhoused residents living in a longtime northwest-side encampment in Gompers Park.
O cials claim the eviction, part of what the city calls a “coordinated cleaning event,” was necessary to prepare the space for planned construction on a nearby playground, but, for more than a year, elected o cials, reporters,
Marissa Cro , dressed as a 1910s garment worker, at a CHM union protest on April 16 PAUL GOYETTE
Free our moms
Free Our Moms Day event outside Cook County Jail on May 10, 2025 SHAWN MULCAHY
NEWS & POLITICS
and a handful of vocal community members have vilified residents of the encampment and bolstered calls for the city to evict them from the park.
In March, under pressure from local alder Samantha Nugent to force residents from the park, the city hosted a so-called accelerated moving event to match people living at the encampment with permanent housing. However, as of Monday, just nine of the 30 people who signed up as part of the housing event had moved into their apartments, according to Block Club Chicago.
On Monday, residents scrambled to disassemble tents and save personal belongings as park district workers clad in yellow safety vests used cranes to load the remnants of the encampment onto city trucks. People who remained were allowed to move across Pulaski to Eugene Field Park.
JTDC advisory board
Members of the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) Advisory Board met on May 7 to hear updates on the implementation of restorative justice practices at the county youth jail and progress from the state’s new ombudsman.
County officials are working with the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation (PBMR), a Catholic community group based in Back of the Yards, to implement restorative justice circles into the jail’s disciplinary processes. Jail staff have long relied on solitary confinement—also known as room confinement—to punish young people accused of violating jail rules, despite mounting evidence that the practice amounts to torture.
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Rhonda Ramos, deputy executive director of the JTDC, told the advisory board that guards have already had success using peace circles to moderate disputes between young people at the jail and disagreements between incarcerated youths and JTDC sta . Ultimately, PBMR would like formerly incarcerated people to lead peace circles in the jail, rather than JTDC staff, according to the nonprofit’s executive director, Father David Kelly. Ramos stopped short of agreeing to permit peace circles led by outside facilitators, but she said conversations are ongoing.
At one point, JTDC team leader Michael Fowlin seemed to insinuate that JTDC had moved away from punishment altogether, claiming that jail sta “don’t do anything punitive at this point.” (Surely putting young people in jail is punitive, no?)
Separately, the advisory board heard from Karima Douglas, who leads the state’s Office of the Independent Juvenile Ombudsman. In 2023, Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law a bill to expand the ombudsman’s oversight from the five youth prisons in Illinois to also include 16 country-run detention centers, including the JTDC. During her first visit to the youth jail under her new powers, Douglas described the experience as “curated” by jail administration and said she plans to continue visiting the JTDC to build trust and relationships with incarcerated young people.
The board meets next on September 10.
—SHAWN MULCAHY v
Make It Make Sense is a weekly column about what’s happening and why it matters.
m smulcahy@chicagoreader.com
Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center SEAN BIRMINGHAM VIA FLICKR,
ARTS & CULTURE
The defiant acts of the working class
James Stewart III’s debut novel details an interracial family’s complexities.
By CHARLIE KOLODZIEJ
James Stewart III’s dad grew up in Englewood and his mom in the northern suburb of Jefferson Park. Because of Chicago’s long-segregated geography, Stewart told a small crowd at a recent reading of his new debut novel, Defiant Acts , you can often tell the race of someone just by knowing where they grew up. He recalled that when he was growing up in Naperville in the 1990s, interracial relationships weren’t as trendy as they are now. (This joke earned some approving chuckles from the crowd.) In the next beat, Stewart mentioned his wife, a white woman, and how she no longer has a relationship with her parents, the result of her choice to marry Stewart. This is the author’s Defiant Acts in a nutshell—the highs and lows, the funny and the uncomfortable, set side by side.
Through the 1990s, Stewart’s real-life family of seven lived in a two-bedroom apartment in the upper-class, majority white suburb. Stewart’s mother, Connie, had two white sons from a previous marriage (Stewart’s older half-brothers) and three more children after marrying Stewart’s father, Jim. Told in a series of short vignettes set around 1992, Defiant Acts recounts fictionalized stories from the perspectives of each family member. Taken together, they o er an intimate reflection of the lives of working-class Chicagoans during a pivotal time in the city’s history.
In “Rodney,” one of the novel’s early vignettes, we follow Jim through a shift at Jewel where he hears the news of the 1992 Rodney King verdict. He struggles with the aftermath, dreading going home to his wife and children. He is frustrated and distraught, and the story ends with Jim visiting a familiar stretch of 31st Street Beach. He wanted, or needed, to be alone with his thoughts.
“It’s this story about Chicago in a lot of ways,” Stewart says of “Rodney.” “It’s this story about the pursuit of the American Dream, which I think is something that my dad believes in, that if you worked hard enough that things would work out.”
This last bit isn’t true, of course, and the
novel’s fractured narrative, bouncing as it does between different perspectives and timelines, seems to communicate that frustration—we’re never quite on track.
“I think the book is genuinely hopeful, but there’s also no clear path to financial solvency or ascending the rung of middle America. So I think I just wanted the reader to feel that sense that things are shaking,” Stewart says.
It was important for the book to sound like Chicago too; the author took inspiration from the anthology Black Writing From Chicago: In the World, Not of It? from his former North Central College professor Richard Guzman. The book sets literary heavyweights like Richard Wright alongside activists like Fred Hampton and journalists like Chicago Defend-
Defiant Acts separates the family’s world into two spheres: There’s the intensely personal (and safe) environment of the family’s Naperville apartment and the world just outside, one where they can’t ignore the intersections of suburban race and class pressing in on their front door.
This dichotomy appears strongly in “Sick,” a story in which the family’s youngest son, Mason, comes down with a horrible mystery illness. The family is forced to move quickly from the safety of their home to the very public setting of the hospital, where it seems the staff are more concerned with the nature of the family’s relationships to one another than they are with whether this little kid lives or dies. It’s a parent’s worst nightmare.
er publisher Robert S. Abbott. “The prose [in Defiant Acts] aren’t very flowery, and that reflects the lived realities of a lot of Chicagoans, especially Black Chicagoans,” Stewart says. (If it isn’t flowery, there is still a rhythm to Stewart’s writing. His sentences feel carefully
RDEFIANT ACTS BOOK LAUNCH Tue 5/20, 7 PM, Pilsen Community Books, 1102 W. 18th St., pilsencommunitybooks.com/ events/45366, free
plotted, like beats in a song. This might be a hangover from Stewart’s work with Exhibit B, the open-mike reading series/artist collective he organizes in partnership with the Guild Literary Complex.)
The family’s struggles with America’s health-care system in “Sick” are among the many indignities that working-class folks deal with every day. We get up early, we bring our kids to work, we stress over whether all the lights are off in the other room or whether clothes will last our kids through the school year. Defiant Acts is peppered with these moments in ways that make it feel particularly Chicago but are relatable across the U.S. This is perhaps where the novel shines brightest, as a close-up portrait of the failings of the American Dream made more complicated by the old intersections of race, gender, and class. It is about the dignity of struggling through indignity and the people who make it all worth it.
For Stewart, those people are undoubtedly his family. While writing Defiant Acts , he wasn’t running passages by his parents or siblings. It might be easy then to imagine that the real-life people behind the novel might feel some kind of way about having the hard parts of their lives laid bare for the public. Stewart doesn’t seem too worried, though.
“I feel like they’re all written in a genuine, heartfelt manner, where it’s easy to tell that I think these people are the heroes in the story. They’ve been the heroes in my life.” v
m letters@chicagoreader.com
Author James Stewart III TUAN H. BUI
ARTS & CULTURE
EXHIBITIONS
RTony Tasset cuts to the bone
The artist’s first show at Corbett vs. Dempsey is no facile victory lap.
Tony Tasset’s latest solo exhibition, “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!” now on view at Corbett vs. Dempsey, is a doubling down by an artist who has all of the assurances and all of the insecurities of a long career firmly behind him. Many in his position—major monograph published, slot set with a gallery whose roster reads like a who’s who of Chicago’s 20th-century art historical luminaries—might use the show as a victory lap. Tasset, long the faithless examiner of lowest-common-denominator American culture, knows better than to lean on his past.
The exhibition is dominated by a suite of monochromatic paintings, varying in size, that ring the gallery. Each bears fields of intentional distress, many abraded or slashed to bare the stretchers beneath. Despite the aggressiveness of these gestures, the works have a quiet, formal dignity about them that leaves one longing for a proper retrospective of Tasset’s work. Set them in line with his Domestic Abstraction works from the 1980s and Display series from the 1990s, and see if they don’t suddenly seem the providence of one who has not worn their success especially well.
In the center of the gallery sits Brick Barrow, a trompe-l’oeil painted bronze sculpture of a rotted-out, weathered hauling barrow. Produced with exceptional attention to detail at an unsettlingly, subtly exaggerated scale, it is
an elegant, elegiac monument to usefulness outlived.
Around the corner in the north gallery-turnedscreening room is a work of even greater discomfort and immediacy: a video piece, entitled My Lear, produced and codirected by artist Jennifer Reeder. It features Tasset in seemingly homemade Shakespearean regalia, reciting—right there alongside Hot Dog Man and the Blob Monster in his studio—a monologue from King Lear (a work itself dealing in the inherent costs of self-posession, and whose third act is, of course, also from where the exhibition title derives). One has to reserve a certain degree of admiration for Tasset, and for the plain if not painful display of desperation and neediness that feels just a little too real not to be something closer to the bone than pure performance. As is the case when confronted with so many of Tasset’s works, one wants reflexively to recoil, only to find that they instead remain riveted. —BIANCA BOVA “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!,” Through 6/7: Tue–Sat 10 AM–5 PM, Corbett vs. Dempsey, 2156 W. Fulton, corbettvsdempsey.com/exhibitions/ tony-tasset
60 WRD/MIN
In the project 60 wrd/min art critic, writer Lori Waxman explores how art writing can serve an expanded field of artists—including those incarcerated, trying to gain visas, working to establish themselves professionally, or just wanting feedback for a secret
hobby. For this iteration, Waxman reviewed work made by Jiaming You and Yalin Zhao.
RYalin Zhao turns insomnia into art
Her motorized Sleep Sound sculpture roams through galleries.
Most nights, I slumber eight hours in a queen-size bed, buried under a so duvet, with my husband beside me and our children nearby, dreaming as we lie safe and secure at home. Yalin Zhao, a Chicago-based artist originally from Chengdu, China, does not sleep this well, nor do so many others on this anxious, ambitious, war-ridden planet. Zhao’s Sleep Sound, a motorized bed programmed to roam around galleries, epitomizes this contemporary condition. Her sculpture, built of metal frames on wheels mounted by a mattress and bedding, integrates electronics that cause it to move smoothly, then abruptly, around whatever space it temporarily occupies. Sometimes the bed is empty, as in the “21st Century Wanderer” exhibition at Chicago Art Department; at other times it is occupied by the artist, who dozes through live events, as she did during the Performance Arcade festival in Wellington, NZ. Brightly lit and open to the public, neither of these places is any good for resting, nor, really, is the bed, with its herky-jerky motions and unnerving noises. But at a time when millions of people have few choices but to keep moving, a quiet, stable bed may not be in
the offing. Is Zhao’s adaptability admirable or pitiable? Perhaps both. —LORI WAXMAN 2025-04-28 3:44 PM Yalin Zhao instagram.com/linpanacee
RWays of seeing
Artist Jiaming You’s paintings make our complex selves tangible.
What makes a person? Nature and nurture both, surely, but also place. Some of the people portrayed in “Looking Out,” a solo show of paintings by Shanghai-born Jiaming You, recently on view at the Chinese American Museum of Chicago, illustrate this. They gaze at all sorts of landscapes—at the sunset, greenhouse flora, the skyline, a forest of trees—while reflecting others on the surfaces of their bodies. An urban woman’s silhouette is filled with a sunrise over the lake; the clothes of a child on a wintry bus are patterned with images of somewhere tropical. These geographies are felt in the layers that comprise our complex selves, magicked into visibility by the artist’s brush. In two standalone works, the effect is achieved through literal incorporation: a full-length mirror propped up against Viewfinder reflects the viewer and the library at the rear of the gallery. One Hundred Years and a Second, printed on vinyl and applied to the gallery’s front windows, allows the young women pictured to look outside, under the very real sky above. —LORI WAXMAN 2025-05-09 4:31 PM Jiaming You jiamingyou.net v
Clockwise from le : Exhibitions by Tony Tasset, Yalin Zhao, and Jiaming You CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: ROBERT CHASE HEISHMAN; COURTESY THE ARTISTS
BY JORDAN HARRISON CO-DIRECTED BY DAVID CROMER AND CAITLIN SULLIVAN
A “brilliantly imagined drama” (The Wall Street Journal) for anyone whose computer has asked them to prove that they’re a human. Which is to say, everyone.
At the Museum of Late Human Antiquities, the curators are fiercely committed to bringing a lost civilization to life again: What were humans really like? What did they wear, what did they eat, how did they die out? By casting us into the far future, Jordan Harrison’s “compelling” and “beautifully drawn” (The New York Times) new play gives us an uncanny view of the present moment, as we straddle the analog world that was and the post-human world to come. NOW THROUGH JUNE 1
ensemble members
Cliff Chamberlain, Amy Morton and Namir Smallwood with Jordan Arredondo and Sadieh Rifai
THEATER
OPENING
RSome pig
Charlotte’s Web still has the power to enchant at Young People’s Theatre of Chicago.
Long before Babe, there was Wilbur. The sweet little porker at the center of E.B. White’s classic 1952 children’s novel, Charlotte’s Web, comes to delightful life in Joseph Robinette’s adaptation, now onstage with Young People’s Theatre of Chicago. Artistic director Randy White’s staging unfolds in just about an hour, but it hits all the comic high points and tear-jerking moments in the story of Wilbur and the barn spider who spins words into webs to save him from being turned into ham and bacon.
Renzo Vicente as Wilbur brings the right balance of guilelessness and self-absorption to the role—Wilbur has to grow up emotionally as he grows physically, and it’s his friendship with Charlotte that teaches him about caring for others as they care for him. Mary Margaret McCormack’s Charlotte, decked out in black velvet and lace with a cunning little net hat (nice work by costume designer Cindy Moon across the board) is both ethereal and earthy, with the grace of her weaving suggested through the simple but eloquent physical expressions of her hands and limbs (Jessica Neville is credited as movement coach). The supporting cast ably plays multiple roles, with Cameron Nalley’s sarcastic Templeton the rat channeling just enough of Paul Lynde’s wry sneer to satisfy grown-ups who can remember the 1973 film version. Judging by the reactions of the kids around me, the story hasn’t lost any of its power to enchant and move, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t wiping away a tear or two at the end myself. Some stories are just hard to mess up, and as a tale about compassion and community (two things we definitely need these days), Charlotte’s Web should hit the sweet spot for families. —KERRY REID CHARLOTTE’S WEB Through 6/1: Sat 11 AM and 1 PM, Sun 1 PM; Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, 773-404-7336, yptchi.org, $28.50 ($19.50 under 12), recommended for 5+
RWest-side “Spellbinder”
Walter King Jr.’s Diary of a Black Illusionist astounds at Chicago Magic Lounge.
What do you look for in a night out with friends and dates? Hopefully, it’s fancy bites and cocktails in an exclusive secret magic speakeasy. If not, I recommend you try it, especially at Chicago Magic Lounge, which is Chicago’s home for close-up magic. The entryway is disguised as a neglected laundromat, but once you climb through the dryer door, you enter a nightclub that transports you to a more glamorous era.
On Wednesday nights, close is the name of the game as magicians pump up the crowd preshow, visiting tables and blowing minds with card tricks that defy the laws of physics. Our visit to see the Chicago legend Walter King Jr.’s show Diary of a Black Illusionist began with a few drinks (try a French Drop or a spirit-free Gruvi sangria) and close-up visits from Kevin Kapinos and Justin Purcell, both well-known for their sleight of hand. When award-winning illusionist King (aka the Spellbinder) takes the stage, he brings so much with him—starting with his diary, a storytelling skill that is as riveting as his illusions. His demeanor demonstrates enviable poise and pomp to match his hip-hop and funk stylings, every flourish as proud and polished as it is playful. Along with this, he joyfully embraces Black cul-
ture, sharing a message of resilience along with a peek into his personal journey, with inspirational missives and quips to and from his parents and sister. You get a real sense of who King is and where he came from: born and raised on the west side of Chicago. Although he’s gone on to travel the world with his acts and shows, his heart is in the west-side club scene he ruled back in the day, when he decided to cast off his art school training and opt for a life of magic.
King’s spellbinding maneuvers cause much whooping and hollering in the crowd, but what makes him truly legendary is how seamlessly he weaves inspiration and
his worldview. I doubt there’s another show in town at the moment that will leave you so pleasantly astounded and invested. —KIMZYN CAMPBELL DIARY OF A BLACK ILLUSIONIST Through 6/25: Wed 7 PM; Chicago Magic Lounge, 5050 N. Clark, chicagomagiclounge. com, 312-366-4500, $42-$47.50
Time travel on the tab
Drink the Past Dry is like Doctor Who in a real bar.
Have you ever wanted to go back in time for something? Like your grandmother’s cheese grits recipe or just one
humor into the mix. King is a rare showman, one who can charm his volunteers and the audience alike with words and dance moves, but also surprise us by upending our expectations about what magic is and represents. He explains the difference between a magician and an illusionist. “Illusionists suck at card tricks,” he says, as he deploys the most intricate card trick you’ll ever see. He goes on to suspend and levitate items, transform objects, and generally astonish minds, all while sharing
need to suspend your disbelief and accept that time travel is complicated. The script by director Maria Burnham has a revolving door of characters between segments, with a few regulars: Mica (Katharine Jordan), Sidney (Alex Albrecht), and the bartender (Khnemu Menu-Ra).
This vignette format is an excellent way to demonstrate how world-changing the time-traveling bar can be for those who venture in. Yet, the additional five-minute intermissions between vignettes on top of a 15-minute intermission make this show much longer than needed. It o en felt like some of the vignettes were extended to make them all similar in length, though they would’ve served their stories better if they were allowed to naturally end.
—AMANDA FINN DRINK THE PAST DRY Through 6/1: Mon and Thu–Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; Mrs. Murphy and Sons Irish Bistro, 3905 N. Lincoln, ghostlightensemble.com, pay what you can ($25 suggested donation)
RThe price of reason
Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo at Trap Door resonates with our own dark age.
A naked man sits with his back to us, bent over in thought. The room’s walls are covered in black sheets of paper scribbled with mathematical equations. The numbers and forms continue all over the floor in white chalk. Merje Veski’s set for Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo simultaneously evokes deep space and the inside of a racing mind. Within this dark field, students, patrons, friends, and enemies orbit a man who tried to change our conception of just about everything. The tension between knowledge and power has always been the animating force in human society. The pendulum swings this way and that. It o en crushes those it should li . No one wants to give up what they’ve got, no matter how wrong-headed or ill-gotten. When someone comes along and says everything you’ve always believed is wrong, it rarely goes down easily.
Max Truax and his cast have fashioned a seamless, horrifying analog to daily lived experience. The visual metaphor of taking off layers of clothing to reveal truth and putting them on to hide from it is devastatingly simple but completely effective. TV screens emitting static, lugged about everywhere, cords dragging behind, tie these early Renaissance Europeans to our own dark age. We’re fighting the same battles today, no closer to an age of reason than the Venetians were. The new pope is from Chicago but likely also believes in his heart of hearts that the world is flat. It all makes this play read like a contemporary tragedy. —DMITRY SAMAROV GALILEO Through 6/14: Thu–Sat 8 PM, Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W. Cortland, 773-384-0494, trapdoortheatre.com, $31 (two for one Thu)
RBest in show
Gorgeous is a sure-footed two-hander.
more moment of normalcy with your family before it all goes haywire? Well, for the bar crawlers in the Drink the Past Dry universe, that’s possible—if you sit on one specific barstool and partake in a nondescript beverage. You, too, can go back in time, but only to a particular moment in the bar.
A bit like Doctor Who if you trade the Tardis for a bar tab, Drink the Past Dry requires some wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. Between the four vignettes, you’ll
Two opposites coming together due to circumstances out of their control is not a new template for theater. Two-handers of this sort pop up all over the theatrical landscape, from undergrad scene studies to Broadway. So it’s a good thing that Keiko Green’s Gorgeous is genuinely funny and charming. Raven Theatre and Rivendell Theatre Ensemble’s coproduction of this world premiere, directed by Kirsten Fitzgerald, is an excellent balance of the bitter and the sweet.
The foils in question are Jenny, a Japanese American millennial ball of anxiety, and Bernie, a Barefoot-swigging southern belle (less Dolly Parton,
Galileo J. MICHAEL GRIGGS
more Jennifer Coolidge). In the wake of the death of Jenny’s much-older boyfriend, Bill, Bernie shows up in Jenny’s garage in suburban Atlanta looking to get what’s hers. Bernie keeps moving the goalpost, but she eventually reveals that she wants Gorgeous, Jenny’s English bulldog, who has recently pivoted from floor-lump to show dog. Really, both women need closure, as Bill has cast a long shadow on both of their lives.
Green escalates the initially fractious relationship between the two women with ease, and Fitzgerald excellently handles the darker corners of Jenny and Bernie’s personalities. As Bernie, Rivendell artistic director Tara Mallen walks a fine line between charisma and chaos, and Stephanie Shum imbues Jenny’s straight-man role with humanity, not just exasperation. Gorgeous has surprises, but the play’s deeply humanistic questions about our capacity for change make it stand out—a true screwball comedy and not just a tennis match.
ROB SILVERMAN ASCHER GORGEOUS Through 6/7: Thu–Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark, 773-338-2177, raventheatre.com, $45
R Magic and mundanity
Employees at a Boston magic and novelties shop find connections in The Regulars
Eliza Bent’s The Regulars, now in a world premiere in the tiny Barron Mind Studio in Rogers Park, feels at times like a miniature version of Annie Baker’s The Flick (which played at Steppenwolf in 2016). But
whereas Baker’s Pulitzer Prize–winning story of three employees at a rundown movie theater takes place over three hours, Bent’s story of workers at a ragtag magic-and–novelty-jokes emporium in Boston’s Faneuil Hall Marketplace, circa 2002, unfolds in a sprightly 75 minutes under Shea Levis’s direction.
Gemma (Jaclyn Jensen), the manager, is stuck in a dead-end job rather than the academic career she was supposed to have as she cares for her dying mother.
Mike (Ash Aranha) is counting the days until he can move back to California (even though his high-achieving, venture-capitalist brother will still get all the accolades from his immigrant family). Monika (Jacqui Touchet) is waiting to start college, with all the big dreams that implies (“I want to be a famous actor or writer or philosopher or filmmaker”) and also harbors hopes of running into Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler, a er Gerry (Dustin Valenta), who plays Paul Revere for the tourists on the Freedom Trail, tells her he’s seen the rock star at a local eatery.
The three employees (plus Gerry, who spends so much time there in his quest to win a date with Gemma he may as well be on the clock) dust and stock merchandise (“Can you organize the fart section?”), quarrel, and reveal snippets of their lives. Mike and Monika fall into a sort of romance, though Gemma warns Mike not to break her heart. Callbacks to news items of 23 years ago, in the months before the Iraq war, carry pangs of irony—what good is a “freedom trail” that consistently leads us into folly as a nation? The title comes from
Gerry’s explanation that Revere would never have said, “The British are coming,” as the colonists would have considered themselves British, too; instead, the British troops were known as “the regulars.”
Bent’s lovely little slice-of-life neatly captures the way we come to rely upon people we work with as our own touchstones or “regulars,” even (or especially) in the most ridiculous workplaces. It shares Baker’s fascination with the mundane, but as befits the setting, with a hint at the magic and humor we can find, even if just for fleeting moments, in the company of other misfits.
—KERRY REID THE REGULARS Through 5/24: Mon and Thu–Sat 7 PM; also Wed 5/21 7 PM; Barron Mind Studio, 7765 N. Sheridan, tickettailor.com/events/ bentertainment2/1641321, $22
Meet the parents
Relatively Speaking shows the early strengths of Alan Ayckbourn.
Alan Ayckbourn, o en referred to in this country as “the British Neil Simon,” had his first major success with 1967’s Relatively Speaking. The comparison isn’t exactly apt: Ayckbourn (who has written 90 plays) relies more on farcical elements and misunderstandings, whereas Simon’s comedy has always been rooted more in verbal feints and parries that reveal conflict and character.
Eclectic Full Contact Theatre’s current revival of Relatively Speaking, directed by Andrew Pond, is sturdy enough, though it takes a while to find its
THEATER
footing. The story involves a young couple, Ginny (Alexis Vaselopulos) and Greg (Timothy Merkle), who are cohabiting. Greg wants to marry Ginny, who had an affair in the past with a married man. Greg, being a bit on the gormless side, doesn’t fully understand where the flowers and boxes of chocolate filling their flat are coming from. Ginny makes up a story about needing to visit her parents, who wouldn’t be up to meeting Greg just yet.
In reality, she’s heading to the country home of her older, onetime married lover, Philip (Christopher John Grella), to break things off once and for all. For his part, Philip suspects his own wife, Sheila (Kat Evans), of cheating on him (pure projection). Greg follows Ginny and ends up at Sheila and Philip’s house before her. Philip thinks he’s Sheila’s secret lover, Greg thinks Ginny is Sheila’s child out of wedlock, and when Ginny shows up, things get even more complicated.
It all goes down easily, though the crisp edges that provide the framing necessary for the best comedy of this kind are lacking. But Evans and Grella in particular nail the mix of lived-in comfort and just-below-thesurface loathing of certain longtime marrieds, and the production serves as a reminder that Ayckbourn remains without peer in creating these kinds of Jengalike plots.
—KERRY REID RELATIVELY SPEAKING Through 5/24: Thu–Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 2 PM; Bramble Arts Loft, 5545 N. Clark, eclectic-theatre.com, $30
RRobot roll call
City Lit reimagines R.U.R. for the age of AI.
Karel Čapek’s R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) popularized the word “robot” in its 1921 world premiere, inspiring a genre of science-fiction media that, with the advent of AI, has rapidly become increasingly closer to science fact. Derived from the Czech word “robata,” or forced labor, his play was partially inspired by the legend of the Golem of Prague, while also providing a searing critique of the dehumanizing effects of industrialization. Čapek’s writing was also colored by his life under the impending invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Nazis. His journalism earned him the title of “Public Enemy Number Two” by the Gestapo—second only to Edvard Beneš, the Czech president.
Adapted by Bo List and directed by Brian Pastor, City Lit’s production cleverly uploads modern technology into Čapek’s work, changing the elusive “magic substance” that brings robots to life with the real-life mystery of the inner workings of the “black box” that comprises AI reasoning. Though it’s a bit long, this adaptation strips away much of the original’s exploration of the greed and hubris of nations and corporations, and replaces that with slapstick humor, allowing the evolution of the robot’s consciousness to take command.
The entire cast is excellent: Bryan Breau is charmingly buffoonish as the capitalist nepo baby Harry Rossum; Madelyn Loehr is delightful as the naive idealist Helena Glory; Brian Parry brings gravitas and hilarity as the sage clerk Alquist; and Alex George gives an excellent and nuanced performance as the recalcitrant robot-turned-revolutionary Sulla. All in all, R.U.R. provides the most LOLs I’ve ever had watching the downfall of civilization. —SHERI FLANDERS R.U.R. (ROSSUM’S UNIVERSAL ROBOTS) Through 6/15: Fri–Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Mon 6/2 and 6/9 7:30 PM; City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr, 773-293-3682, citylit.org, $35 ($30 seniors, $12 students/military) v
Gorgeous
MICHAEL BROSILOW
reservoir northwest of Los Angeles. “I was thinking about aspects of leisure and recreation,” she said in a FemExFilmArchive interview with Chris Dunleavy. “These spaces were designed with a very specific idea of how the place would be used.” People go fishing with their families—the Fillmore Fish Hatchery replenishes the reservoir with large numbers of fish in an almost comical fashion. A man describes the reservoir as a quiet oasis away from home; dogs run and play; a lifeguard recalls lives saved and lost; a brush fire burns in the background.
The reservoir itself sits on a legacy of de-
struction: The area’s previous reservoir, Saint Francis Dam, broke and caused a catastrophic flood in 1928, killing more than four hundred people. Currently, Castaic Lake’s dam has one of the lowest safety ratings in the county— with a large earthquake, it could cause significant flooding to the area once again. In Castaic Lake , leisure, beauty, and physical precarity coexist in one space.
According to Walters, it’s best to go into the final film, Sky Blue Water Light Sign (1972) by J.J. Murphy, knowing nothing. v m sfriedman-parks@chicagoreader.com
From top: Castaic Lake (2010); Sky Blue Water Light Sign (1972) BRIGID MCCAFFREY; J.J. MURPHY/COURTESY MUBI
THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHICAGO MUSIC 20TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
The celebration includes afternoon panel discussions and an evening concert. Sat 6/14, 5 PM and 10 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, hideoutchicago.com, early event $10, late event $20, full-day ticket $25, 21+
THE SECRET HISTORY OF CHICAGO MUSIC
MUSIC
The Secret History of Chicago Music turns 20
Revelations,
remembrances, reissues, and
By STEVE KRAKOW
Since 2005 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.
As of this month, I’ve been writing and illustrating the Secret History of Chicago Music for 20 years, and that whole time I’ve struggled with what to call it. It started as a kind of comic or “info-strip” (boy, did that ever fail to catch on), and now it’s more like a regular column or feature story. But in any case, now that my quest to “shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place” has reached the two-decade mark, I think I’m allowed to call Secret History a journey.
This journey has had long marches, surprising detours, and steep climbs along winding footpaths. I’ve been able to meet and collaborate with musical heroes I covered as subjects, which made for some seriously lofty peaks. And even in the dark valleys that followed the deaths of musician friends, Secret History helped me grieve by giving me a way to memorialize them.
This work has spawned a book, a concert series, library talks, LP reissues, and at least one band reunion. It’s also given me deep friendships I never could’ve imagined when I started. So before I go any further, thanks to the Chicago Reader, and thanks to everyone who’s sent me tips and stories and kept up with what I’ve written all these years.
I know I usually start these stories by going back to the subject’s very earliest days, but since I’m the subject, I’ll skip that part. If you’d like to read about my Chicagoland upbringing and the way I fell in love with music—oldies radio, zines, LP scores at flea markets and record stores—you can consult my musical memoir, A Mind Blown Is a Mind Shown, which Far West Press published last year. (End of shameless plug.)
In many ways, Secret History arose from
reunions: looking back on two decades of digging into the fringes of the local scene
another project of mine, the Galactic Zoo Dossier , an occasional fanzine with a heavy emphasis on psychedelic music. I’ve written, illustrated, and edited GZD entirely by hand since 1996, and in 2001 local label Drag City began publishing a version I called a “pro-zine” (another unwieldy term that didn’t stick). I noticed that I was writing about a disproportionate number of Chicago musicians who had slipped through the cracks, so when the Reader placed an ad looking for comics submissions, I jumped.
My first pitch was vague and halfbaked, and the Reader took a pass. A few years later, I submitted actual examples of what I had in mind and then tweaked the format with help from editor in chief Alison True, who had the idea to make the strip look like a trading card. The first installment, covering Chicago jazz-funk originator Kelan Phil Cohran, ran on May 6, 2005. To me, Cohran was the epitome of the Secret History of Chicago Music: a soulful, spiritual genius who’d never found fame despite mentoring and inspiring huge stars such as Earth, Wind & Fire and Chaka Khan.
For the next year, Secret History would appear only occasionally, sometimes in Section 3 with the music coverage, sometimes in Section 4 with the classifieds and other comics. For many years, though, it’s been published steadily every other week, with very few exceptions. It’s hard to be sure exactly how many musicians I’ve covered. I don’t keep the most organized records, and not every Secret History is online. In the early days, I asked to have some pulled down when I was trying to land a book deal, and others have been lost to platform changes and website migrations at the Reader. But I can say with confidence that the total is close to 500.
a synergistic relationship, and his meticulous attention to Secret History often adds valuable information, ideas, and insight. He also helps with fact-checking, which can be a tremendous task—and we’ve only been busted a few times for inaccuracies. Mistakes happen—especially when, say, just two sources exist and they contradict each other.
Almost every one of those hundreds of stories has passed through the hands of Reader music editor Philip Montoro. We’ve formed
The core of my creative process has stayed the same, even though almost every detail has changed. After my initial research, I sketch and ink the subject and their name (often creating a stylish logo if they don’t have one) on typing
paper, using Micron, Flair, and Sharpie pens. Then I head to ye olde copy shoppe, where I shrink the art so I can cut and paste it onto a preexisting photocopy of the Secret History title card—and I mean “cut and paste” with scissors and a glue stick. At first I lettered the strip by hand, and while each one might have had only three hundred words, I had to email the text to be edited first—it was important to minimize errors before the ink hit the paper, since then they’d have to be fixed with correction fluid or an X-Acto knife (or in Photoshop, once we could work with a scanned image).
Secret History creator Steve Krakow (right) and editor Philip Montoro
STEVE KRAKOW FOR CHICAGO READER
MUSIC
continued from p. 21
Since April 2020, though, I’ve used only digital text—we made the switch because I wanted more room to tell the story of Joe Mantegna’s high school garage band, the Apocryphals. We stuck with the new format because I like the extra space and my editor hates proofreading and correcting handwritten copy.
It’s funny to look back on how I operated in the aughts. At first I couldn’t scan or email my art, so I’d bike or take the CTA from my longtime Ukrainian Village home, no matter how terrible the weather, to submit each finished Secret History on paper, in person, at the former Reader o ce at 11 E. Illinois. I didn’t mind that much, though, because I was often greeted by Reader receptionist and delivery driver David Thomas at the front desk. Thomas was one of the two filmmakers behind the lost documentary MC5: A True Testimonial , so we always had a lot to talk about. Thomas also hipped me to his own wonderful old postpunk band Da!, which resulted in a memorable Secret History in 2009 and a reunion show in 2010. (Rest in peace to Da! singer and bassist Lorna Donley, who passed in 2013.)
diverse that I didn’t need them. But in 2014, I tried a sneaky April Fools’ joke, making up a band called Everlasting. Their name, look, and sound had come to me in a dream, and I took other details from my childhood in the suburbs. If you missed it, you’re not alone—no one called me out at the time, even though I’d named Everlasting’s only two recorded songs “Storms of April” and “Fools in Love.”
I often ended up writing about artists I hadn’t contacted, either because they’d passed away or because the trail had gone cold in the decades since they’d left music. But from very early on, I also had the good fortune to correspond, talk, and meet with some of the luminaries I covered. The first was Jimmy Boyce, drummer for legendary 1960s garage rockers the Little Boy Blues, who rang my doorbell to tell me I’d drawn the wrong lineup of his band! He’d found my address in the phone book, and he happened to be selling records down the street. I apologized, and we became fast friends.
The very fi rst Secret History of Chicago Music appeared on the cover of the Reader ’s Section 4 in 2005. The logo hasn’t changed, but the text has grown from a few sentences to an average of 1,500 words. The stories got much longer when they stopped being written out by hand in early 2020. STEVE KRAKOW FOR CHICAGO READER
The first installment, covering Chicago jazz-funk originator Kelan Phil Cohran, ran on May 6, 2005. To me, Cohran was the epitome of the Secret History of Chicago Music: a soulful, spiritual genius who’d never found fame despite mentoring and inspiring huge stars such as Earth, Wind & Fire and Chaka Khan.
Before long I started experimenting with themes: “Winter Blues,” which honored the Windy City as the center of the blues universe; “Mystery Month,” for artists I’d been able to learn nearly nothing about; “Weird Summer,” which showcased dancers, comedians, and outsider musicians; and the relatively self-explanatory “Metal Month” and “Prog Awareness Month.” I eventually abandoned those rubrics, since Secret History was so
After I covered Word Jazz maven Ken Nordine in 2009, he called me, which was amazing. (Nordine: “Hello, this is Ken Nordine!” Me: “I know! Who else could have that voice?”) A few years before I wrote my 2012 memorial column on guitarist Pete Cosey (sideman to Cohran and Miles Davis), he’d phoned to tell me I should write about his guitar mentor, session man Reggie Boyd. Info on Boyd was thin on the ground, but we did our best. Within the first few years of Secret History, late-night WGN radio host Nick Digilio interviewed me on the air. The man knew his local music, and he started having me on every time the strip ran. This gave me another way to connect with Secret History subjects. The show was live, so when I called folks, it didn’t always go to plan. Once I accidentally woke up soul singer Darrow Fletcher, who handled it like a champ. When I tried to call Nordine for his appearance, he slept through it. Regular listeners would call in to tell lively tales of seeing the bands I’d covered—shout-
out to Trevor, who seemed to have seen everyone! The radio also gave me a way to share the artists’ music, which was especially important before I could embed tracks in the online versions of my stories. I still do my WGN segment today, with Mike Stephen on the 5 AM Saturday show Outside the Loop. It’s also archived as a podcast, in case you’d prefer to sleep in.
From the get-go, I knew that creating the Secret History of Chicago Music would involve tracking down artists who had zero Internet presence and very little information available anywhere else. My first big expedition had to do with the band Ono—and in the process of writing about them for a 2007 strip, I set in motion their eventual reunion, which is still one of my proudest achievements.
Since my college years in the mid-90s, I’d owned the 1983 Ono album Machines That Kill People, and I’d always wondered who was behind its uncategorizable underground fusion of industrial music, funk, noise, gospel, and seemingly everything else. Then in 2007, I discovered that art by Ono lead singer Travis (his full legal name—I’ve seen his checkbook) had appeared alongside my own work in a Sun Ra–themed exhibition in Hyde Park that had opened in ’06. Next I learned that bassist and bandleader P. Michael lived three blocks from me! Once the two of them got hold of Ric Graham, the third of the three original members, everyone reconvened for a long interview.
In 2008, I booked Ono to play on longrunning public-access TV show Chic-a-Go-Go,
cohosted by Reader contributor Jake Austen, one of my inspirations in the field of music history. I had a Secret History residency on the show that year, which lasted a few months and also included Da!, Cohran (who told stories and played his electrified kalimba, which he called a frankiphone), Gene Lubin of garage rockers the Knaves, Tony Stram of prog band Gabriel Bondage, and blues guitarist Jimmy Dawkins.
After that, Ono reunited for the long haul. They added members, hit the road, and recorded several new albums, building a new, younger audience awed by their inimitable sound. I helped them with booking and played shows with them, and in the 2010s my label Galactic Archive worked with Priority Male to reissue their two 80s LPs (the other is Ennui, from 1986).
I hunted down electronic artist Bil Vermette in the wilds of Berwyn when all I knew about him was that he’d released a kosmischeflavored platter in 1984 called Katha Visions. I wrote about him in 2010. We’ve since collaborated for live shows, and Vermette has added keyboards to my bands’ recordings. (I’ve also bought a chunk of his incredible record collection!) I helped reissue Katha Visions and a release called Tape #4 by his 70s synth collective VCSR, a Secret History subject in 2015. (Both came out on Permanent Records— in 2013 and 2015, respectively—and Galactic Archive coreleased the former.) I’d been looking for a line on musique concrète composer Edward M. Zajda since the 90s, when I first
heard his only album, a self-titled release from 1969. After finally finding a phone number for his recording services, I covered him in 2012. Not long after that, I recorded with my project Solar Fox on the vintage gear in his basement studio, inviting Travis from Ono to sing. Sometimes, of course, I get a story dropped in my lap. Music historian Robert Manis had already taken an interest in J.T. IV, aka John Henry Timmis IV, when he contacted me in 2007 about featuring the damaged glam punk in Secret History. He’d collected J.T.’s musical output and amassed tons of biographical info, and after the story came out, I launched my Galactic Zoo Disk label (an imprint of Drag City) with a 2008 archival release called Cosmic Lightning that collected many of the outsider musician’s recordings from the 1970s and ’80s. (I know it’s confusing, but Galactic Archive is a later thing that’s separate from Galactic Zoo Disk.)
Other folks helping Secret History along has become a recurring theme. I think the next case was in 2008, when soon-to-be-bestie Annette D’Anna, who’d known power-pop group the Vertebrats in college, dropped their whole catalog in my mail slot, complete with liner notes. It’s happened as recently as 2022, when my old bud Angel Ledezma (from the band Allá) hooked me up with members of Stations, a fascinating postpunk band he’d heard because he worked at Whole Foods with their former guitarist, David Stowell. Stowell had loaned him a Stations demo tape recorded in 1982 by Factory Records producer Martin Hannett, and Secret History helped make one of its tracks accessible to the public for the first time.
The Secret History of Chicago Music hasn’t just existed on newsprint and online, of course. The Museum of Contemporary Art hosted a monthlong exhibition of Secret History artwork in 2010, and I tapped Ono, Vermette, and folkie Chet Nichols for a string of weekly performances. In 2012, I kicked o a sporadic concert series at beloved club the Hideout, which would eventually include a sold-out gig with Cohran and shows by baroque folk project O.W.L., R&B singer Renaldo Domino, proggy band McLuhan, and earthy folk-pop group Stumpwater (whose long-lost album I would release via Galactic Zoo Disk in 2019).
In 2015, local independent publisher Curbside Splendor released My Kind of Sound: The Secret History of Chicago Music Compendium, a hardcover collection of more than 200 strips. The book landed me invitations to library talks
(including at Harold Washington) and led to one of the more surreal moments in my life.
In 2018, I was honored at the Chicago Public Library’s Carl Sandburg Literary Awards, hosted at the UIC Forum. The main attractions were Judy Blume and Neil deGrasse Tyson, but I got a little moment in the spotlight too.
I made a ceremonial stage walk, along with some other writers I admire—including gospel expert Robert Marovich and rock journalist Jim DeRogatis, who helped break the story of R. Kelly’s crimes and doggedly pursued it for years. (DeRo also wrote the foreword for my book.) As handlers led me around backstage, I felt like I was in Spinal Tap, lost in that huge venue in Cleveland. Newscaster Bill Kurtis announced me, and as I hit the stage, “White Rabbit” by Je erson Airplane played. Kurtis made a joke about psychedelic mushrooms, and images from Secret History flashed on huge LED screens. Governor Bruce Rauner, then near the end of his term, also spoke—and when he mistakenly referred to “Eric Tyson,” he got booed.
I’ve never hidden the fact that Secret History is a personal endeavor, and as such it can be very emotional for me. In the strip’s first year, I created a memorial for three Chicago musicians, two of whom I’d known well. John Glick of the Returnables, Doug Meis of the Dials, and Michael Dahlquist of Silkworm were killed at a red light while on lunch break from their jobs at Shure by a driver who’d attempted suicide by ramming her car into theirs. In 2021, I wrote what might still be the longest Secret History ever about the passing of my friend Alejandro Morales, an underground scene pillar who played in Running, Piss Piss Piss Moan Moan Moan, and sometimes Ono.
When my dear friend and collaborator Joe Cassidy died in 2021, I eulogized him in my column, and that piece led to another unexpected stop on the Secret History expedition. Cassidy had been born in Belfast, Ireland, but he moved to Chicago in the late 90s and made his mark with projects such as the dreamy Butter fly Child and the electro-punk Assassins. He also produced and played on several of my bands’ albums. In 2023, Tourism Northern Ireland and the Oh Yeah Music Centre contacted me, having seen my tribute to Cassidy, and asked if I wanted to cover a ceremony in Belfast for the presentation of the inaugural Joe Cassidy Chrysalis Award, a monetary prize intended to support an up-and-coming artist making original music in Northern Ireland.
The award was announced as part of the Northern Ireland Music Prize event, produced by the Oh Yeah crew. The funds came largely from a 2022 benefit concert at Metro called Hear in Heaven, where I’d played alongside other musicians in Cassidy’s orbit. Being in Belfast for the occasion meant a lot to me, and I was finally able to visit Cassidy’s grave. Folks like to ask me if I think I’ll ever run out of artists to cover for the Secret History of Chicago Music, and I always say no. Chicago’s musical history is too rich for that. I keep a list of artists I’m ready to write up (and others I need more info on), and even after 20 years it’s growing faster than I can write stories. I can still find a record by an unknown local band at a thrift store or via a friend. So here’s to 20 more years of this long and winding road—by then I’ll be 71 years old and pretty historical myself, and all your forgotten favorites from the 2010s will be fair game for Secret History. v
The Secret History of Chicago Music will celebrate 20 years at the Hideout with two separate ticketed events on Saturday, June 14. At the first, Steve Krakow will moderate panels with Renaldo Domino, soul diva Jackie Ross, and Aaron Cohen (author of Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power); with Bil Vermette (who will also play a short set) and P. Michael and Travis of Ono; and with Reader editor in chief Salem Collo-Julin and music editor Philip Montoro. The late event features a concert by Domino (with the Heavy Sounds) and the Heart of Chicago Soul Club DJs.
The radio version of the Secret History of Chicago Music airs on Outside the Loop on WGN Radio 720 AM, Saturdays at 5 AM with host Mike Stephen. Past shows are archived at outsidetheloopradio.com/tag/ secret-history-of-chicago-music.
m letters@chicagoreader.com
The Secret History of Chicago Music is sponsored by Dusty Groove Records. Find rare, new, and used LPs
CDs at dustygroove.com
Recommended and notable shows with critics’ insights for the week of May 15
PICK
OF THE WEEK
Experimental cellist Lia Kohl submerges her sounds in Union Station’s Great
Hall
Kohl performs a site-specific chamber piece called Music for Union Station with Dorothy Carlos, Zachary Good, Gerrit Hatcher, Riley Leitch, Nick Meryhew, Beth McDonald, Zach Moore, Jason Stein, and Macie Stewart. Thu 5/15, 6–7 PM, Union Station, Great Hall, 225 S. Canal. F b
LIA KOHL MOVED TO TOWN to study with Chicago Symphony Orchestra cellist John Sharp, but opportunities for cross-pollination within the local arts community soon lured her into more experimental practices. An inveterate collaborator, Kohl has played improvised chamber music with violinist Macie Stewart and with the trio ZRL, which she launched with clarinetist Zachary Good and percussionist Ryan Packard; she’s recorded thickly textured tunes with the quintet Honestly Same; and she’s created site-specific performances with fellow cellist Katinka Kleijn that expose the instrument to elemental forces that can be both playful and destructive. Even when Kohl shifted to working alone in a home studio during the pandemic, she incorporated field recordings and radio captures to complicate the music’s representations of space and time. On her most recent solo album, 2024’s Normal Sounds (Moon Glyph), field recordings of an ice cream truck and self-checkout chimes unite with percolat-
ing synthesizers and resonant string harmonics, situating purposeful music making within a larger realm of oft-overlooked sound.
On Thursday, May 15, Kohl will stage a site-specific piece in Union Station during the evening rush hour. Her ten-player ensemble, which includes Stewart, Good, clarinetist Jason Stein, saxophonist Gerrit Hatcher,
THURSDAY15
Adult. Plack Blague and Choke Chain open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $20. 21+
When Adult. emerged out of late-90s Detroit, the city’s art-rock scene was dominated by the revival of protopunk and garage rock, not by drum machines and synths—so this electronic duo sounded like a signal from a futuristic parallel universe. Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller (who are also married) have since released nine studio albums of dark, gritty, danceable music—most recently 2022’s Becoming Undone (Dais). They blur the boundaries of synth pop, techno, noise, industrial, and punk while ruminating on alienation, existential crises, and death. Kuperus is a photographer and Miller is a painter, and their razor-sharp aesthetics bleed across their recordings, their album art, and their live performances. They’ve often used Adult. to explore audiovisual interests, including producing and directing their own music videos and releasing a triptych of interconnected short fi lms titled The Three Grace(s) . Adult.’s creative focus and genre-pulverizing songwriting have earned them devoted followings in punk and electronic- music communities at home and abroad (they toured Europe and the UK for three weeks in February). In 2023, Adult. released a caustic two-track collaboration with California group Planet B, where Kuperus trades vocal barbs with Planet B’s Justin Pearson (the Locust, Deaf Club). Last year, Adult. put out a remastered version of the 2000 12-inch NewPhonies, underscoring the durability of their dystopian, moody sounds. —JAMIE LUDWIG
Lia Kohl See Pick of the Week at le . Kohl performs a site-specific chamber piece called Music for Union Station with Dorothy Carlos, Zachary Good, Gerrit Hatcher, Riley Leitch, Nick Meryhew, Beth McDonald, Zach Moore, Jason Stein, and Macie Stewart. 6–7 PM, Union Station, Great Hall, 225 S. Canal. F b
trombonists Riley Leitch and Nick Meryhew, tubaist Beth McDonald, bassist Zach Moore, and cellist Dorothy Carlos, will disperse throughout the station’s Great Hall to play a composition that will enable intentional and inadvertent listeners to experience a onetime juxtaposition of planned and incidental sounds. —BILL MEYER
LIA KOHL
Lia Kohl leads a ten-piece ensemble on Thursday in Union Station. LEAH WENDZINSKI
FRIDAY16
Wet Julie Byrne opens. 6:30 PM, Outset, 1657 N. Elston, $25. b
Anxiety looms around Wet vocalist Kelly Zutrau, but she uses the music of her New York indie-pop group to imagine a path through it. Across their four studio albums, she invites listeners into a soulful dream world, and last month’s Two Lives is her most vulnerable and sparkling invitation yet.
In a recent essay Zutrau wrote for New York arts and culture quarterly Byline , she describes her teenage years in Boston, when she partied too much, dropped out of high school, and took countless risks with no regard for the consequences. When she discovered she was pregnant while working on Two Lives with coproducer Buddy Ross in 2022, those memories came flooding back, along with a sharp sense of self-doubt. “How could I possibly risk trusting someone enough to have a baby with them and risk what kind of parent I would be?” she wrote. With motherhood bearing down on her, she began to contemplate how to grow beyond the adult life she’d mindfully built for herself. “Can I move on from the safety of the world I’ve carefully created onto something that could be deeper, more meaningful, but it’s a big risk to take?”
On Two Lives , Wet tenderly distill the uncertainties of these questions—and the hope gleaned while discovering the answers—through their signature slow-burning electro-pop. This album is an excavation of memory as well as an earnest quest for wholeness, safety, and certainty through life transitions. Though Wet’s early material expressed traditional pop sensibilities, with clear, crisp vocals and highly singable tunes, Two Lives feels more like a continuation of 2021’s Letter Blue—which contains influences from 90s R&B and early-2000s electronic indie pop. The songs retain the band’s taste for sentimental balladry, with emotional storytelling and perfectly catchy melodies, but they find varied ways to complicate their arrangements with scurrying electronics, heavy bass drum, and lush, cinematic textures. Zutrau’s airy vocals—often treated with layers of reverb and Auto-Tune—bring to mind contemporary R&B artists and fellow masters of sensuous hypnotic serenades such as Erika de Casier and Kelela.
On the standout “Double,” Zutrau steadily repeats “This time I’ll be all right” amid speeding breakbeat drums and pulsing piano. This feeling resonates throughout the album. By the time Two Lives arrives at its sweet end, she seems closer to the core of herself: She’s allowed her fear to transform her into someone braver, more grounded, and more deeply filled with love.
—TASHA VIETS-VANLEAR
SATURDAY17
The Singleman Affair Quarter Mile Thunder open. 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $15, $5 livestream. 18+
For close to 20 years, Chicago guitarist and sitarist Dan Schneider has released exquisite music in
dribs and drabs as the Singleman Affair. His carefully cra ed, artisanal style is rooted in refl ective acoustic balladry, albeit with an undercurrent of simmering psychedelic energy that’s waiting to rise up like a tide at the moon’s command. Schneider was one-fourth of eclectic indie-rock group Pedal Steel Transmission in the early aughts; he’s operated a small but long-running label called Cardboard Sangria; and he curates performances that bring together a who’s who of local genius, including a new folk series at Oak Park arts space Compound Yellow. He also works with video: Earlier this month he released a stunning work dedicated to the people of Gaza and calling for solidarity in the fight for a more peaceful world, soundtracked by an old recording he’d recently rediscovered where he covers the West Coast Experimental Pop Art Band’s 1968 protest song “A Child of a Few Hours Is Burning to Death.”
The Singleman Affair’s latest full-length, 2022’s 4PM Sunlight , is a delight from start to finish. The ethereal, delicate yearning of “Smile at Me” is reminiscent of Nick Drake, and that tune flows into the sparse and subdued “How Can You Live Out a Dream.” The introspective “Begin Again” builds up to the throbbing pulse of the moody, sensual “Breathe Out” and the elegiac, droning “Autumn Leaves.” This is an album meant for you to settle into slowly as the sun moves through the seasons. Schneider tells me he has new material written and will drop a single and video in July while he works out the details for a full-length he’s planning for 2026. Schneider’s band for this show includes several of his longtime collaborators, all Chicago stalwarts: Azita Youssefi on keyboards, Adam Vida on drums, and Anton Hatwich on upright and electric bass. —MONICA KENDRICK
WEDNESDAY21
The Serfs A Place to Bury Strangers headline; the Serfs, the Mall, and DJ Philly Peroxide open. On Thu 5/22 the Serfs play at the same venue at the same time, again with A Place to Bury Strangers headlining; the Serfs, Astrobrite, and DJ Scary Lady Sarah open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, Wed 5/21 sold out, Thu 5/22 $25. 21+
Controversial music opinion: Right now the most exciting, forward-thinking bands in the evolving landscape of postpunk and EBM aren’t coming from Chicago. They’re clamoring out of smaller midwestern metropolises. Need proof? Look no further than Cincinnati, where the Serfs—whose name captures the truly medieval state of today’s underclass—are making songs that pulse with the tension between dance music’s lust for abandon and industrial music’s fascination with decay. The trio’s first two releases, the 2019 EP Sounds of Serfdom (Detriti) and the 2022 album Primal Matter (Dream), have an unflappable, albeit slightly generic fidelity to the kind of lo-fi 80s aesthetic that’s catapulted bands such as the Serfs’ former Detriti labelmates Molchat Doma to viral popularity. On 2023’s Half Eaten by Dogs (Trouble in Mind), the Serfs carve out a more individual sound: tinny, nihilistic synth punk with a few surf-rock flourishes and some surprisingly airy moments that create a sense
of orbiting through grit.
The Serfs are at their most compelling in front of an audience. Though they released Songs of Serfdom before they ever played a gig, their live show
has matured faster than their songwriting. Front man Dylan McCartney is an unrelenting force who keeps time by slamming a sparse drum kit while scream-singing into the microphone with such hun-
Kelly Zutrau of Wet COURTESY THE ARTIST
Dan Schneider of the Singleman Affair COURTESY THE ARTIST
Let’s Play!
MUSIC
ger that you half expect him to swallow it. Plus, when was the last time you saw a harmonica at a postpunk show? Or a flute? The Serfs make these instruments appear like rabbits pulled from a magician’s hat, adding a warmth and personality that ricochets off the colder, more mechanical parts of their sound—a kind of creativity this scene desperately needs. Only three underdogs from the wastelands of Ohio could bite this hard.
—MICCO CAPORALE
Bartees Strange Sloppy Jane opens. 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport, $22, $30 seated balcony, $240 six-person opera box. 17+
Bartees Strange is one of several high-profile musicians who’ve recently adopted a goth visual aesthetic, but his sound remains grounded in indie rock, neosoul, and hip-hop. On his latest album, Horror (4AD), which dropped on Valentine’s Day, Strange mines the existential dread that’s haunted him for most of his life. Born in England in 1989, he moved all over the world as his parents changed jobs, but when he was 12 years old, the family settled in Mustang, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City. He spent his adolescence queer and Black in a community where Black people made up less than
one percent of the population. Multiple tracks on Horror speak to his long-term psychological hangover from that experience, but none capture his lingering sense of alienation quite like the album’s first single, “Sober.”
That track—easily the album’s strongest song— describes repeatedly falling short in relationships and drinking to cover up that pain. In interviews, Strange has described feeling foiled by a lack of healthy relationship models, especially growing up, and he connects this to his habit of self-sabotage. “That’s why it’s hard to be sober,” he sings. While Stereogum describes the song as “a delicately chugging 80s-style heartland rocker,” to my ear, its breezy, poetic anguish recalls Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” (a gay TikToker is overdue to grab some juice and skateboard to “Sober” while lip-synching). In the music video, Strange plays an acoustic guitar and wears a blazer embellished like a Nudie suit jacket—except the detailing is more typical of a Black woman’s Sunday church clothes than a country superstar’s outfit, and he pairs it with knee-length shorts that feel very schoolboy. The look blurs the line between country and gospel while embracing a tension between rock-star bravado and human insecurity. It’s compelling and vulnerable—just as Strange is as a songwriter. —MICCO CAPORALE v
continued from p. 25
Bartees Strange ELIZABETH DE LA PIEDRA
The Serfs LIESE STIEBRITZ
CLASSIFIEDS
JOBS
Senior Software Engineer position at Big Red Rooster Flow LLC Position located in Rosemont, IL. Responsible for development, maintenance, testing, and implementation of in-house website and software applications.
Salary: $127,754. Benefits: Med., Dent. Vis., 401k, PTO. Position requires Bachelor’s degree in Comp. Eng. Comp. Sci. or rltd field (or foreign equiv) & 4 yrs. relevant software development exp. Position allows for telecommuting within commuting distance of reporting office in Rosemont, IL. Apply via the company website: https:// www.bigredroosterflow. com/careers/ (Req. JR0000034215)
Business Analyst: Research, gather, analyze, document, dvlp & validate functional reqmnts for web solutions w/project stakeholders to support & dvlp custom web apps. Translate user reqmnts into system reqmnts, process flows, wireframes, & mockups, etc. Facilitate reqmnt review & approval w/stakeholders & act as a liaison betw biz experts & dvlpmnt teams. $65,500/ yr. Req’d: Bach’s deg in Comp Sci, Comp Engg, or rel fld. Resumes to: Svanaco, Inc., d/b/a Americaneagle.com, Attn: HR, 2600 S River Rd., Des Plaines, IL 60018. Americaneagle.com
Clarity Business Solutions seeks Sr. Practice Manager in Chicago, IL to manage the process from application, interview through offer stage and close of sale. Mng your own prtflio of cndidts and clints, bth exstng & new. Reqs BA Mngmnt, Bsnss, Hmn Rsrcs, Sls, Cmmnctns or rltd & 5 yrs exp. Pstn allws rmte wrk undr a hybrd schd and rprts to the company’s offce in Chicago, IL. Tchncl sklls rqrd. Salary range: $90,000 to $140,000/ yr. Email rsme and cvr lttr to benminton@ claritycbs.com.
Construction Supervisor: Bolingbrook IL. Supervise, coord activities of constr workers. Inspect work progress, eqpt, constr sites. Read specs: blueprints, to determine constr requirements. Assign work to employees. Coord work activities. Participate in the conceptual dvlpt of constr projects. 2-yr exp in any tech field. Bachelor’s degree in any tech field or foreign eqvlt. Res: Z Builders, Inc. zibby@zbuilders.com
DegyUS Financial Services Inc., a CPA firm based in IL, seeks a Bookkeeping, Accounting, & Auditing Clerk. FT. Ability to follow stndrd operating procedures to detail & demonstrate fundamental understanding of tax filing & fin stmt prep’n, strong organizational skills for managing docs, sched’g appts, & maint’g comm’n w/ clients, & completion of indiv Income Tax Preparation Course is preferred. Proficiency in technology tools, incl MS Office Suite & var acctg s/ware prgms, is necess. Must have min of 2 yrs of similar wrk exp. Manage doc’n, handle client comm’ns, provide front desk spprt, maint co supply invts, rcrd fin transactions, & anlyz balance sheet, adjust journal entries & prepaid expenses, rcrd accts payable & depreciation of fixed assets, prep tax filings & input data into acctg syst. Send resume to: DegyUS Financial Services Inc, 380 E Northwest Hwy, Ste 350A, Des Plaines, IL 60016.
Financial Analyst (Chicago, IL) Forecast financial performance; Develop quantitative & qualitative models for financial analysis. Reqs: Bachelor’s in Finance, Econ, Business Admin, or closely rltd field that includes completion of coursework in Finance or Financial Mgmt. Must possess 3 months of exp in: analyzing financial data; developing financial or investment risk mitigation plans; evaluating financial performance; & preparing financial analyses & reports; working with an ERP system; Spreadsheet s/w; Advanced spreadsheet functions; & Statistical modeling s/w. $72,779/yr. Send resume to Wells Plumbing & Heating Supplies, Inc. at hr@wellsplumbing.com
Global Logistician in Chicago, IL to Handle ocean import & multimodal & complex routings in order to deliver timely & accurate supply chain spprt & efficiently mng N.A. inbound supply chain & logistics; Review new shipment info & rsrch & report optimized routing of shipments; Send trucking order to Drayage team & BOL to Long haul team; Request customs clearance; Prep & distrib int’l doc’n for shipments originating in US & Canada to global destinations. $53K to $55K/Yr. Medical, Dental, Life Insurance, Paid Time Off, 410(k). Req’rd: Bachelor’s or Equivalent Degree in Logistics, Supply Chain, or International Trade. Mail resume to Rachel Kim, HR Team Manager, FNS, INC. at 1545 Francisco St, Torrance, CA 90501.
Quantitative Researcher
Aquatic Group is seeking a Quantitative Researcher in Chicago, IL. Create and improve proprietary trading models and strategies. Must live within normal commuting distance of worksite. Remote work allowed 10 days per year. Please go to https://aquatic. com/#careers to apply and get info on role and benefits.
IT Specialist: Resolve tech problems, prov training to max productivity of tech in business. Support new tech impl. Troubleshoot hardware, software, network issues. Develop, write comp programs. Website support, monitoring systems security incl servers, cloud. Lead the design, devlpmt, impl new ELD platform tailored to comp’s requirements. Support existing Logbook ELD platform, ensuring compl w/industry regs. Monitor & analyze data from ELD platforms to ensure accurate tracking, diagnosis of vehicle perf. 6 months’ exp as an IT Specialist or Software Engineer. Bachelors in comp science. Bony Transportation, Inc. 16W289 83rd St, Suite A, Burr Ridge IL 60527
Lead Engineer II/ Engineering Lead II sought by Resource Innovations Inc. in Chicago, IL. Reqs: BS in Industrial, Mechanical, Energy, or Envrmt’l Engnrng, or rltd field & 3 yrs exp in job offd or in rltd engnrng role. Must have exp w/ mngng, reviewing, & conducting Energy Assessments (ASHRAE level I & II); Perform engnrng analyses such as weather regressions & statistical mod; & etc. Must be Certified CEM. 15% domestic travel req; Telecommuting permitted w/i commutable distance to office. Salary: $113,298. Apply at: https://www.resourceinnovations.com/careers
Marketing & SEO Specialist in Chicago, IL. Cndct mkt rsrch on consmr opins & mktg strats, collab w/mktg profs, & oth profs to coord brand awrns & mktg effrts. Coll & anlyz data on cust demog, prefs, needs, & buyg hbits to idntfy potntl mkts & fctrs affectg prod dmnd, & hlp shpe mktg campgs & strats. Plan & dvlp ideas for crtiv mktg & promo campgs, implmnt mktg strats whle effctvly mng mktg budgts. Mng co’s wbste, usg custmdvlpd CMS, cndct lrg-scal semntc rsrch, & mntnce thru reg updts & trbleshtg. Utlze HTML & Photoshop for cntnt crtn & wbste dsgn. Engge in socl med mktg (SMM) to rlay prod msgs to trgt audnc, nhnce co’s online visblty & partcpte in exhtns & oth prof evts. Lead & dvlp cntnt mktg prodctn & promo strats & chnls by crtg SEO-frndly cntnt bsd on compttv anlyss & indstry trnds. Cndct reg intrnl anlytcs, to invstgt & eval perf of mkt cmpgns & strats, & implmt strats, usg tools like Google Analytics (GA), Google Search Console (GSC), Screaming Frog Ahrefs, Semrush, & Netpeak to idntfy & rsolv SEO issues. Req’d: Bach Deg in Social sci flds s/ as Mktg, Sociolgy, or Int’l Studies, or frgn equiv Deg. 2yrs exp in Mktg or promo positns, s/as PR Mgr, Mktg Mgr, Intnet or Digtl Mktg Spclst, SEO or Web Med Spclst. Must hv utlzd foll skills/tech: Google Analytics (GA), Google Search Console (GSC), Screaming Frog Ahrefs, Semrush, & Netpeak; Photoshop, HTML, CMS; SMM, Robot.txt file, sitemaps. Salary: $48,610/ yr. Mail CVs to Volodymyr Barabakh, CEO, United Tires, LLC, 2720 W Grand Ave, Chicago, IL 60612.
Mechanical Engineer: Multiple positions avail. Research & investigation of the design, functionality & maintenance of mechanical products, equip, systems & processes. Make engrg drawings, & read & interpret blueprints. Reqs. up to 100% trvl to various unanticipated domestic clients in US. $104,874/Yr. Med Insurance, PTO. Send resume to: Servotech Inc., 329 W. 18th St., Ste. 301, Chicago, IL 60616, Attn: Charlie Cetin .
TheMathCompany, IncChicago, IL - Associate Principal - Dsgn strat & roadmap for bldg analytics capabilities for clients. 20% domestic trvl. Telecomm permitted. Benefits: Mdl, Dental, & Vision Insurance, Commuter Benefits, Paid Paternity & Maternity Leave, 401(k). $190,000/Year. To apply: Send resumes to yuvaraj.r@mathco. com. Req# 8335489
SERVICES
CHESTNUT
ORGANIZING AND CLEANING SERVICES: especially for people who need an organizing service because of depression, elderly, physical or mental challenges or other causes for your home’s clutter, disorganization, dysfunction, etc. We can organize for the downsizing of your current possessions to more easily move into a smaller home. With your help, we can help to organize your move. We can organize and clean for the deceased in lieu of having the bereaved needing to do the preparation to sell or rent the deceased’s home. We are absolutely not judgmental; we’ve seen and done “worse” than your job assignment. With your help, can we please help you? Chestnut Cleaning Service: 312-332-5575. www.ChestnutCleaning. com www. ChestnutCleaning.com
THURSDAY, MAY 22 8PM
Feat. Joe Pug, Craig Finn, Courtney Hartman, Nathan Graham, Steve Dawson, and Jonas Friddle A Weekend of Concerts, Workshops, Podcasts, and more!
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MAY
JUNE 3 ASTROPICAL
FAIRGROUNDS BOMBA ESTÉREO + RAWAYANA
JUNE 5 & 6 CAAMP
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