DMB (Debbie-Marie Brown)

Chicago, Illinois

(HE/HIM) trans guy. musician, extrovert reporter & staff writer @chicago_reader. award-winning queer. || CT✈️ Chi. 🇩🇴🏳️‍🌈 dmbrown@chicagoreader🫡

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Articles

First Ascent staff launch union drive

1 month ago | chicagoreader.com | DMB (Debbie-Marie Brown)

Before First Ascent opened its Avondale location in 2015, there were few if any dedicated climbing gyms in Chicago. The climbing scene was less accessible; it was difficult to break into if you weren’t already traveling and climbing outdoors on your own. Now with four Chicago gyms, First Ascent has built a reputation as a social hub for newcomers, who are welcomed with an array of weekly meetups for solo climbers and perks that let members bring first-time guests for free.
Mikel Galati, owner and operator of Modest Merch

1 month ago | chicagoreader.com | DMB (Debbie-Marie Brown)

Mikel Galati owns and operates a small screen-printing shop on the northwest side called Modest Merch. He prints custom apparel for musicians, clothing companies, small businesses, and others—but his niche is the DIY scene. Galati has been running his shop for 13 years, and he headed down the bumpy road of business ownership when he was 21. He hasn’t held another job since. “I will work with anybody for the most part, but bands are what I know,” Galati says.
The fight to ban mail into Illinois prisons ramps up

2 months ago | chicagoreader.com | DMB (Debbie-Marie Brown)

Illinois lawmakers and prison guards are ramping up efforts to ban physical mail into state prisons, blaming synthetic-drug-sprayed paper for a rise in overdoses behind bars. Similar policies are being pushed across the country, and have already been approved in 15 states, including Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Texas.
Life as a barista in Chicago

2 months ago | chicagoreader.com | DMB (Debbie-Marie Brown)

Living in a city as sprawling, progressive, and queer as Chicago means that, for every handful of young adults you meet, chances are one of them is a barista or has peddled espresso at some point in their work history. Service jobs like those at coffee shops are not just temporary gigs for college students. People build their lives—and sometimes careers—off of their barista work and incomes.
The fight to protest the DNC

Jun 20, 2024 | chicagoreader.com | DMB (Debbie-Marie Brown)

Tens of thousands of people are expected to gather to protest the 37,000 people killed in Israel’s U.S.–funded bombardment of Gaza. But whether those protests result in a clash between protesters and Chicago police is up to the courts to decide.
Rapper Joshua Virtue retires that persona to become Rama

Jun 18, 2024 | chicagoreader.com | Leor Galil |DMB (Debbie-Marie Brown)

When local rapper and Why? Records cofounder Joshua Virtue dropped the album Rama in October 2022, they decided to change their stage name. “I started going by Rama around the same time that I put that album out, in my everyday life,” Rama says. “I wanted to feel more rooted into that. I want everything I do to be under that name now; it felt like a completion to start calling myself that.” Last week, Why? Records released Rama’s final album as Joshua Virtue, titled Black Box: Joshua Is Dead.
To T or not to T

Jun 12, 2024 | chicagoreader.com | DMB (Debbie-Marie Brown)

The first time I started testosterone, I stayed on it for three months. The 2022 edition of my four-piece band was only a few months old. After I was done fishing around online for “street ’mones” that spring, a transmasculine homie gave me several months of T gel as a gift to begin my own transition. T gel causes physical changes at a much slower rate than intramuscular testosterone injections, but I wasn’t ready even for that.
Pritzker to shutter, rebuild two prisons

May 29, 2024 | chicagoreader.com | DMB (Debbie-Marie Brown)

In early March, Governor J.B. Pritzker announced a $900 million plan to demolish and rebuild the crumbling Stateville and Logan Correctional Centers over the next five years. The plan sits on the back of a report by CGL Companies, a firm contracted by the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) to assess the conditions of the state’s prisons.
Guitarist and oud master Rami Gabriel releases a multifaceted solo debut

May 29, 2024 | chicagoreader.com | Leor Galil |DMB (Debbie-Marie Brown)

Chicago multi-instrumentalist Rami Gabriel began dabbling in home recording as a teenager in the 1990s, and last week he finally put out his first solo album, the Sooper Records release That’s What I Been Sayin’. Playing in a variety of contexts, he’s already amassed a heady, eclectic catalog that traverses styles and disciplines. For his debut under his own name, he decided to combine as many of them as he could.
Chicago’s service workers are unionizing like never before

May 15, 2024 | chicagoreader.com | DMB (Debbie-Marie Brown)

As the pandemic first sank its talons into the service industry—closing hotels, restaurants, grocers, and retail stores—service were lauded as “essential workers.” Since then, they’ve been unionizing their workplaces at a speed the U.S. hasn’t seen in more than half a century. Between March 2022 and April 2024, about 290 workers at nine Chicago hotels, bars, and restaurants won union representation with Unite Here Local 1.