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1 week ago | 
chicagoreader.com | Salem Collo-Julin |Salem Collo-Julin
Singer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens has dedicated much of her career to exploring folk and roots music, including old-time, blues, Celtic folk, country, and gospel. In April, she teamed up with fiddler Justin Robinson, her former bandmate in old-time string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, to release the banjo-and-fiddle duo album What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow (Nonesuch).
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3 weeks ago | 
chicagoreader.com | Salem Collo-Julin |Salem Collo-Julin
So my father died in January. He was 75, within the range of U.S. mens’ average life expectancy (it’s anywhere from 74 to 77 years old depending on if you believe the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Bank, or Johns Hopkins University). It still feels like too soon. He was living with a heart condition and some mental health concerns, including PTSD from serving in Vietnam and Cambodia.
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3 weeks ago | 
chicagoreader.com | Salem Collo-Julin |Salem Collo-Julin
Bobby and Bobbie Vylan aren’t siblings, but as the duo Bob Vylan, these London artists hammer together punk, hip-hop, and drum ’n’ bass to make music that could soundtrack a radical brotherhood. The title track of last year’s Humble as the Sun (released on their Ghost Theatre imprint) combines an easy-listening groove with an increasingly emphatic narrative that moves between personal and political.
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4 weeks ago | 
chicagoreader.com | Salem Collo-Julin |Salem Collo-Julin
We couldn’t miss giving you a 4/20 edition! Many dispensaries, smoke lounges, and CBD shops are running sales this month with special deals on items like prerolls, topicals, and accessories. Here are some cannabis-related events to check out. Some are meant to make you get in the door and shop, and some are just ganja-inspired, but be warned: none of these are family-friendly, and most are 21+ only (assume adults only unless we note differently below). Smoke ’em if you got ’em.
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1 month ago | 
chicagoreader.com | Salem Collo-Julin |Salem Collo-Julin
Last year around this time we were standing in the middle of Lincoln Park Zoo with some of you, watching two of the female lions remind us that they’re actual wild animals by grabbing two ducks from the air and chowed down on them, right there in the lion enclosure. It was the Best of Chicago’s Animal Kingdom, a fitting if unscripted moment for our Best of Chicago party that night.
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1 month ago | 
chicagoreader.com | Salem Collo-Julin |Salem Collo-Julin
It’s the time of year for birds to start gathering nesting materials and squirrels popping out of their tree hideaways. Tonight, a bunny will show up in Schaumburg, but be wary of getting too close—this one definitely has a bite.
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1 month ago | 
chicagoreader.com | Salem Collo-Julin |Salem Collo-Julin
Check out these upcoming events, exhibitions, screenings, and other activities to kick off April. You can’t throw a pair of original Nike Air Jordans without hitting a vintage vendors pop-up these days (and we really don’t recommend that you throw your shoes around anyhow). The Magnificent Mile is the latest spot where you’ll find a special grouping of clothing, jewelry, and accessories sellers purveying their retro wares for a limited amount of time.
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2 months ago | 
chicagoreader.com | Salem Collo-Julin |Salem Collo-Julin
Flesh of Fruit make experiential experimental compositions. The duo of local sound artists Allen Moore and Hunter Diamond have been creating sounds together for the past five years. Diamond, a multi-instrumentalist who centers his work on the saxophone, plays in improvisational settings and more traditionally structured ensembles, including jazz quartet Black Diamond (which he leads with saxophonist Artie Black) and Ethiopian-inspired psychedelic funk group Radio Outernational.
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2 months ago | 
chicagoreader.com | Salem Collo-Julin |Salem Collo-Julin
Zurich thrash-metal trio Coroner emerged in the early 1980s out of a Swiss scene that included pioneering extreme-metal outfit Celtic Frost. After some big changes in personnel and sound, in 1985 they settled on the trio lineup that would earn the loyalty of metalheads across Europe: guitarist Tommy Vetterli, bassist Ron Broder, and drummer Marky Edelmann. Members of Coroner had roadied on Celtic Frost’s early tours, and the band invited Celtic Frost front man Tom G.
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2 months ago | 
chicagoreader.com | Salem Collo-Julin |Salem Collo-Julin
For the last few years, our Best of Chicago issue has come out at the “will we ever have a spring” time of winter here in the midwest, when the temperature in our coverage area can fluctuate wildly every 24 hours and the entire city has that gray tinge left over from random ice skids, remnants of dirt-encrusted snowbanks in parking lots, and all the dog poop and trash that the melting reveals. It’s just a wash of blech for a while with the odd sunny day popping in.
