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Best shows to see: Cakes da Killa, Big Star's Third, Naked Raygun, Owen
Maybe we're biased, but the Best of Chicago Bash tonight at Metro, presented by your favorite Chicago weekly, sounds like a dashing way to start off the weekend. Soundboard understands, though (not...
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Did you read about Aaron Hernandez, Paula Deen, and Rick Rubin?
Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, amuse, or inspire us.Hey, did you read:• That the pay of the average corporate CEO is now 273 times the pay of the average worker? —Mick Dumke• About the...
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"David Mamet warned me that this would break my heart"
Organic Theater founder Stuart Gordon formally gave up the fight to save the Uptown Hull House Center theater Wednesday with this letter to the signers of an online petition that had asked the city to...
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12 O'Clock Track: the leaned-out funk of Beautiful Swimmers'"Open Shadow"
Earlier this week NPR premiered Son, the forthcoming debut album from Washington, D.C., dance duo Beautiful Swimmers, which I'd been waiting for ever since I first heard a single they dropped a couple...
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In town only through Saturday, Inner Voices is a killer farce
Eduardo de Filippo's Inner Voices (Le voci di dentro) starts out looking like a farce. But in the sharp, spare, perfect production directed by Toni Servillo—who also stars—the jokes are gradually...
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You say tomato, J.P. Graziano says gelato
If I had tasted it sooner I'd have submitted the gelato that they're pushing at J.P. Graziano for last week's Best of Chicago issue. Launched a few weeks ago for the great Italian imports/sandwich...
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San Francisco's Burnt Ones play two shows tonight
Bric-a-Brac Records promised that last weekend's grand opening party featuring Madison's the Hussy and local duo Slushy would be the first in a regular series of shows hosted at the shop. The brand-new...
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At risk: The education beat at WBEZ
Is WBEZ missing a bet?The current pledge drive runs through the end of this week. The station is drilling into our heads the reasonable argument that if we like the station's programming we ought to...
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John Lydon's Public Image Ltd. still great and annoying
I first heard Public Image (aka First Issue) by Public Image Ltd. about three decades ago, some five years after it was initially released. I had already fully ingested the music of the Sex Pistols and...
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Two free programs on Saturday spotlight the work of Vivian Maier and...
There are two noteworthy film-related events happening around town this Saturday night. At 8 PM Black Cinema House will host a program called Radical Speculation, a collection of short films on...
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Reader's Agenda Fri 6/28: After Dark at the Art Institute, Summer Music Film...
Looking for something to do today? Agenda's got you covered:Would we love the impressionists as much as we do if the people they painted all dressed like slobs?…[ Read more ][ Subscribe to the comments...
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Death be proud, and the rest of this week's screenings
The Summer Music Film Festival, a five-day compendium of music documentaries, opens today at Music Box with a 4 PM screening of A Band Called Death, about three African-American brothers from Detroit...
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Did you read about Roberto Bolaño, Richard Posner, and drone-themed Pakistani...
Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, amuse, or inspire us.Hey, did you read:• Or see next week's New Yorkercover? (Can it be true that Sesame Street was that progressive?)…[ Read more ][...
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12 O'Clock Track: "Do the Night Train" is a creepy postpunk blast from Toupee
This year's Best of Chicago issue featured Toupee, who was Steve "Plastic Crimewave" Krakow's pick for Best Band With a Front Woman Who Looks Hot Even in a Monster Mask. Toupee, who released their...
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Mayor Rahm learns about the Blackhawks
Mayor Emanuel's got himself in a lot of trouble with some hockey fans I know for prematurely killing off the greatest Blackhawks player, so to speak. That would be Robert Marvin "Bobby" Hull, aka the...
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A bounty of brilliance from Boston pianist Pandelis Karayorgis
Habitués of this space probably know of my esteem for Boston pianist and composer Pandelis Karayorgis, a musician whose rigorous explorations of the less frequented corners of jazz history have...
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Emma Watson in The Bling Ring: Acting as 3-D printing
The Internet Movie Database informs us that Emma Watson prepared for her role in The Bling Ring—as real-life criminal turned reality TV star Alexis Neiers—by studying Neiers's body language as...
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Are the Blackhawks Chicago's team?
Is this a hockey town, or what?No, it's not. Lake Forest and Wilmette, those are hockey towns.…[ Read more ][ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
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Former Thursday front man Geoff Rickly's unusual and moving antifolk EP
It's an interesting time for emo, which has been going through several sea changes since the late aughts, when "emo" became divorced from much of the music it had represented and turned into a...
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In praise of fat books: The Transylvanian Trilogy
When my editor left the review copies of the new edition of Miklós Bánffy's Transylvanian Trilogy on my desk during my first week working here, I assumed it was some sort of joke or hazing ritual....
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