Review: Purple Onyx Productions Celebrates Prince’s Purple Rain at Funky 40
Next week is the 40th anniversary of the date that Prince’s album, Purple Rain, hit the airwaves; the film appeared in movie theaters a month later. I did not have […]
Review: Orville Peck Rounds Up His Stampede Tour to the Aragon Ballroom
Orville Peck is no stranger to the limelight having been thrust into it immediately after his debut album Pony, deservedly so. And with his star ever rising, this is his […]
Dialogs: Reggie Watts Celebrates Glorious Black Nerds at the Old Town School
Reggie Watts is far more than James Corden’s bandleader on the former The Late Late Show. He’s an innovative musician (keyboard, looping machine, beatboxer), dry comedian, wearer of cool geometric […]
Review: Róisín Murphy Delivers a Shapeshifting Electropop Dance Party at the Riviera Theatre
Róisín Murphy is a powerhouse performer. The Irish electropop artist vamps, dances, and whirls from one end of the stage to the other throughout the show. She changes into a […]
Review: Grant Park Music Festival Opens a Hit-Filled Season
On the first truly summery evening of the year, the Grant Park Music Festival opened its 90th season in excellent fashion at Millennium Park’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion on Wednesday. With […]
Review: Khruangbin Clears the Skies for Their Ethereal Set at Salt Shed
Khruangbin scratches an itch in my brain that not many other bands can really do for me. You don’t often come across bands like this remarkable trio of psychedelic geniuses […]
Review: Allie X Debuts Girl With No Face US Tour at Thalia Hall
I have been waiting a long time for the opportunity to catch Allie X live again; especially with her latest immensely synth-heavy record Girl With No Face that I am […]
Riot Fest Announces Departure from Douglass Park, Making a New Home at RiotLand in Bridgeview
Change is nothing new to Riot Fest. Starting off as a multi-venue festival before calling Humboldt Park home for a few years, then migrating to Douglass Park, the festival is […]
Feature: The Return of Fig Dish!
In the second wave of label signings as the music industry descended on Chicago in the mid-’90s, Fig Dish stood out as particularly resistant to playing the major label game. […]
Dispatch: On Blues Fest Day Three, Women Rule the Day as the Queen of the Blues Is Celebrated
On Saturday, it was proclaimed to be Dinah Washington Day in Chicago. June 8 would have been her centennial. She had been declared Queen of the Blues in her day, […]
Dispatch: Day Two of the 40th Chicago Blues Festival Is a Celebration of the Mississippi-to-Chicago Connection
The Mississippi Delta is considered the cradle of the Blues. This treasure sprang up in the state where cotton was king. It was born of the sweat from grueling work […]
Dispatch: The 40th Chicago Blues Festival Kicks Off at the Ramova Theatre in Bridgeport
I wondered what the audience at the Ramova Theatre for the opening night of the Chicago Blues Festival would think about the second-generation lineup of blues artists. Shemekia Copeland and […]