Newcity Chicago August 2018

RETURNING TO CHICAGO PARKSAUGUST 26 - SEPTEMBER 1Clarendon Park | Ellis Park | Independence Park | Loyola ParkNichols Park | Ogden Park | Ping Tom ParkWest Pullman Park | Wicker ParkA traveling exhibition of Chicago films. Eightneighborhood park screenings and a three-dayfestival celebration of local film featuring dozensof films from all over the city.More about our films atbit.l y/Chica goOnscreenMovies in the Parks is presented by THE OFFICIAL REWARDS This program is presented as part of the Chicago Park District’s Night Out in PROGRAM OF THE CHICAGO the Parks with the support of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Arts programming in PARK DISTRICT neighborhoods across the city advances the goals of the Chicago Park www.ChiParkPoints.com District and the Chicago Cultural Plan. Learn more at:City of Chicago | Rahm Emanuel, Mayor www.nightoutintheparks.comChicago Park District | Board of Commissioners | Michael P. Kelly, General Superintendent & CEO For more information about your Chicago Park District, visit www.chicagoparkdistrict.com or call 312.742.7529 or 312.747.2001 (TTY).

The Conversation Art AUGUST 2018 NewcityKim Brooks talks about raising Robin Dluzen: artist, critic and curator“Small Animals” 447 DanceSuburban Modernism Keeping dancers healthy is harderA little more Mies at the Elmhurst than you’d thinkArt Museum 5110 DesignNothing But Netball An inspiration behind Crate & BarrelThe biggest sport you may never named Georg Jensenhave heard about 5315 Dining & DrinkingTaking Back Guyville Eating well is divineLollapalooza for feminists 5520 FilmMusician of the Moment Bing Liu’s graceful “Minding the Gap”Meet Jean Deaux 5724 LitMusic 45 Waiting for the apocalypse with Ling MaPut your hands in the air 60for these rapper and rockersand R&Bers and… Music27 A new era at Delmark Records 62 Stage Lookingglass goes under the sea 64 3

Newcity AUGUST 2018 Most summers around this time, I look forward to spending days and nights in Grant Park, hanging out with mostly kids younger than my kids, taking in the vastness of Lollapalooza, which is my annual crash course in popular music. And while I’ll still be there a bit this year, we’re once again spending long summer days and nights on a movie set. It was just two summers ago we shot “Signature Move” in August. (If you have not seen it, it’s on Amazon Prime, iTunes, Google Play and Fandango Now, so you have no excuses.) This July and early August, we’re teaming up with Jennifer Reeder again to make her feature “Knives and Skin.” It’s hard to describe how fully immersive the process is, unless you’ve done it. A typical day: Wake up between 5am and 5:30am and do my regular morning things, like check all the bank accounts for the various businesses, check the overnight VOD results for “Signature Move,” read three newspapers, take a quick Spanish lesson, skim new email and grab a shorter run than I’d like. Shower and try to head to set around 7am in hopes of arriving by 8am or so, thanks to traffic and/ or long multi-leg CTA journeys. Crew call at 8am coincides with continental breakfast and the set is instantly buzzing with activity, as the lighting, grip and camera crews scurry to get set up and ready for a 10am shoot time. The first actors will arrive at 8:30am, giving them time for hair, makeup, wardrobe and some rehearsal with the director. As producers, those first two hours are a hodgepodge of check-ins with cast and crew to ensure everything is on track and everyone is reasonably happy, problem solving around the in- evitable crises small and large that seem to surface daily and trying to get out ahead of future problems. When the camera rolls at 10am, we’ll either take a space behind the monitor to see how things are looking for a particular scene or, more often than not, get out the laptop and start editing Newcity stories or processing one of the 500 emails we’ll get each day. This cycle repeats itself all day, till we wrap around 8pm and we begin our journey home. A quick dinner at home, some catch-up on projects for the film or Newcity, and to bed by 10pm or so in order to repeat the cycle tomorrow. See you in Grant Park. I’ll be the one napping in the shade. 4

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CONTRIBUTORS men of the Arctic Monkeys, who she ON THE COVER once made the case for being the best Cover Photo: Sally Blood ROBERT RODI (Writer, “Musician of rock band in the world. Cover Design: Dan Streeting the Moment” and editor, Music 45) is Newcity’s music editor. But we’ve much JOHN MOSS (Writer, “Nothing But Vol. 33, No. 1382 longer known him as a novelist. He’s Netball”) writes proposals for a Fortune also a comic book writer, musician, travel 500 company by day, but combs the PUBLISHERS writer and television producer. And dog margins of sports for Newcity in his Brian & Jan Hieggelke owner, rounding out his polymathy. downtime. His most recent stories for Associate Publisher Mike Hartnett Newcity explored the insanity of parking SALLY BLOOD (Photographer, cover, around Wrigley Field during a Cubs game, EDITORIAL “Musician of the Moment” and Music 45) is and chronicled Billy Corgan’s foray into Editor Brian Hieggelke a Chicago photographer who last shot our professional wrestling. Managing Editor Jan Hieggelke feature about women in Chicago music for Art Editor Elliot Reichert the May issue. She says “her specialty is TONI NEALIE (Writer, “The Conversa- Dance Editor Sharon Hoyer using her Native American roots to bring tion”) is Newcity’s lit editor and, as the Design Editor Vasia Rigou the soul into the eyes of her subjects.” mother of two, is especially qualified to Dining and Drinking Editor interview Kim Brooks about the particular David Hammond ANNE K. REAM (Writer, “Taking Back perils of contemporary parenthood as Film Editor Ray Pride Guyville”) is the founder of the nonprofit a competitive sport. Lit Editor Toni Nealie “Voices and Faces Project,” which is Music Editor Robert Rodi dedicated to helping survivors speak VASIA RIGOU (Writer, “Suburban Theater Editor Kevin Greene out about sexual violence. She shared Modern”) is Newcity’s design editor and Contributing Writers Isa Giallorenzo, her feminist Lolla list with us in this issue, a native of Greece, where she’s headed Aaron Hunt, Alex Huntsberger, Hugh Iglarsh, but expect to also find her watching the this month to spend time on the Greek Chris Miller, Dennis Polkow, Loy Webb, Islands, just in time to enjoy the “Mamma Michael Workman Mia 2” vibe perhaps? ART & DESIGNNewcity AUGUST 2018 Senior Designers MJ Hieggelke, Fletcher Martin, Dan Streeting Designers Jim Maciukenas, Stephanie Plenner, Billy Werch MARKETING Marketing Manager Todd Hieggelke OPERATIONS General Manager Jan Hieggelke Distribution Nick Bachmann, Adam Desantis, Preston Klik, Quinn Nicholson, Matt Russell One copy of current issue free at select locations. Additional copies, including back issues up to one year, may be ordered at Newcity.com/subscribe. Copyright 2018, New City Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Newcity assumes no responsibility to return unsolicited editorial or graphic material. All rights in letters and unsolicited editorial or graphic material will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright purposes and subject to comment editorially. Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Newcity is published by Newcity Communications, Inc. 47 West Polk, Suite 100-223, Chicago, IL 60605 Visit NewcityNetwork.com for advertising and editorial information.6

Photo: Beth Rooney THE CONVERSATION Kim Brooks talks about “Parenthood in the Age of Fear” By Toni Nealie

P arenting involves walking a tightrope of vigilance. If you veer to one What I came to believe in end of the alertness continuum you risk being labeled a helicopter writing “Small Animals” is parent or tiger mom. Lurch in the opposite direction—your kids that the way we parent in could be deemed free-range, feral and possibly in peril. When Kim this country is unsustainable Brooks dashed into a store, leaving her son in the car momentarily, she was judged criminal. In “Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear,” and insane. —KIM BROOKS she examines her criminality and our anxious culture. Brooks discusses competitive parenting, lack of support and the forces that breed anxiety with us. Your personal story is the stuff of nightmares. I found myself terrified on your behalf, in the moments when you had to deal with the police over your outstanding warrant and for you when people read your account. How do you feel about leaving your son in the car, running afoul of the law and judgement? Have your previously published essays prepared you? I wrote “Small Animals” as a process of coming to terms with what happened, moving away from a place of blame or shame or confusion or defensiveness toward a more complex understanding of our culture’s obsession with child safety and mother-shaming. It was six years ago and I’m not losing sleep over it. If I was, it would be a sign that I hadn’t done the work I set out to do in the book. As for dealing with other people’s reactions to the material, I always tell my writing students that if they’re not ready and willing to make some people uncomfortable then they’re not ready and willing to write personal nonfiction. I try to remember this myself when I encounter criticism or judgement. There could be people who don’t like this process and respond with personal attacks—people who might call me a bad mother or a bad person. And that’s fine. I try not to take it personally. I believe that the role of the writer is to question, to disturb, to unravel and to challenge. I think a lot about Hannah Arendt’s assertion that “there are no dangerous thoughts; thinking is dangerous.” If some people feel threatened by the ideas in “Small Animals,” I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing.Newcity AUGUST 2018 You write that you are a person inclined to anxiety—are you The Age of Fear—bad stuff happens in every generation. Is the torturing yourself by putting this out there? Why is it important? subtitle hyperbolic? Is it really so different now? Well, I enjoy worrying. It’s probably one of my favorite pastimes. I don’t Bad stuff does happen in every generation, but what seems unique to view it as torturing myself. What I came to believe in writing “Small me about this generation is the way in which fear, particularly parental Animals” is that the way we parent in this country is unsustainable and fear, has been normalized, reinforced and transformed into a sort of insane. It’s unsustainable to withhold freedom and autonomy from moral virtue where fearful parenting becomes synonymous with good children, to make parents responsible for every aspect of their children’s parenting. successes and failures, to demand that mothers sacrifice themselves on the altar of an idealized and completely unrealistic conception of What is the cost of fear? Is it distributed fairly? motherhood. We live in a country in which the well-off pour massive Both parents and children pay a price for fear-based parenting. amounts of financial and emotional resources into protecting their own Katherine Reynolds Lewis and Julie Lythcott-Haims have both children from every imagined or nearly possible threat. At the same time published books in recent years on soaring rates of depression, anxiety, and in the same country, millions of other children live below the poverty substance abuse and suicide among adolescents, teenagers and line, drink lead-poisoned water and don’t have access to basic young adults. While we don’t know for certain these changes are healthcare or education. When caring for children, it’s easy to hyper-focus caused by fearful parenting, we do know that one of the factors that on things that really don’t matter. I thought that the first step to change promotes happiness and well-being is having what psychologists call this deranged parenting culture would be putting this culture in a larger an internal locus of control—being able to decide for yourself how you perspective. I hadn’t read many books that did that. I wanted to write spend your time, where you go each day and what you do, solving one. problems on your own, making choices for yourself. We don’t allow kids to do much of this anymore. In thinking about the cost for adults Where do our fears come from? How do we decide what to worry and particularly for mothers, I think it’s important to remember that about? Is it the same across the board or different for different parents today spend more hours with their children, driving them places, groups? What did you learn along the way about your assump- watching them in organized activities, than any previous generation. tions on race and social class? They’re also working longer hours. There are only twenty-four hours in a In my research for the book, I learned about something psychologists call day, so this means parents are spending less time with friends, less the availability heuristic. It means that when judging how likely a bad time with extended family, less time with neighbors, less time participat- event is, we rely on how easily we can recall an example of the event ing in civic engagement, less time, in other words, being connected to occurring. It works less well in the age of mass media when we’re and engaged with any larger community. I don’t think this is good for bombarded by details of terrible tragedies, no matter how rare. The result parents and I don’t think it’s good for society. of availability heuristic is that we’re often irrational in our fears. Car accidents, obesity and suicide pose the greatest threat to kids and teenagers, but we fixate on things like stranger-danger and sexual predators because it’s so easy to recall examples we’ve heard or read about. We also tend to fixate on the safety and security of the most privileged children in our society while we disavow or ignore the needs of the most vulnerable. One of the things I learned in my research is that parental fear is very much a form of privilege and can often mask class anxiety and racism.8

I was intrigued that risk assessment changes with our moral My first book took me over five years to write and I labored over everyjudgements. Can you explain how this works? sentence. It was a terrible five years. I wanted to write this book in exactlyBarbara Sarnecka and a team of cognitive scientists at University of the opposite way. I didn’t begin with a clear vision of how I wouldCalifornia, Irvine did a fascinating study on this topic. They wanted to structure it. I began with my own voice and with a desire to bettermeasure the extent to which moral judgements impact our assessment understand this very strange parenting culture I’d found so impossibleof risk, so they presented participants with a scenario where a parent has and I did everything at once—the research, the reporting, the writing. Ileft a child in a cool car in a safe parking garage for a few minutes. They wanted to live the book as much as write it.ask people to assess the danger the child is in on a numeric scale. Andseparately, they ask them to rate the parent’s badness. In each scenario, How long did it take? Challenges and pleasures of it?they vary the reason the parent has left the child. In some instances it’s It took me about a year. One of the greatest pleasures was that it allowedbecause the parent was hit by a car in the parking lot and knocked me the chance to talk to so many smart, interesting people. I generallytemporarily unconscious. In other examples it would be that the mother find the solitary aspect of the writing life challenging. I’m jealous of myhad to run into work to get something. In another, she’s visiting her lover. friends who get to gossip around water coolers. This book offered meWhat they found was that the reason for the parental “lapse” not only one giant water cooler of my own. I remember how I was printing out anaffected their moral judgement of the parent, it also determined their early draft and making a copy at the UPS store. The woman making theassessment of the risk to the child. So the child of a mother going to visit copies asked if I’d written the book and what it was about. I told her in aa lover was seen as being in more danger than the child of a woman sentence or two and before I knew it I was surrounded by five people,knocked unconscious. Logically, this makes no sense. Still, we do it all some parents, some not, discussing how and why our fears aboutthe time. Moral judgement comes first. Risk assessment follows. childhood and safety have changed so much. That was pretty exciting. A favorite professor in graduate school once said something like, “It’s notOne famous case spurring parental anxiety is that of Madeleine that hard to write a book. It’s hard to write a book that people actuallyMcCann who disappeared from a resort apartment in Portugal want to read.” That was the challenge I set for myself.while her parents went out for tapas nearby. I remember thinking Iwould never do that, but really—the risk was tiny. Even so, the “Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear”outcome was huge—isn’t that partly what we weigh up? By Kim BrooksYes, I think when we hear these horror stories, there’s a human need to Flatiron Books, 256 pages, $12.99feel safe, to feel that nothing like that is every going to happen to one’sown child. But the reality is that no one has complete control. You can do Kim Brooks is in conversation with Kathleen Rooney on August 21, 7pmeverything right as a parent and terrible things can still happen. It’s natural at Women & Children First, 5233 North Clark, (773)769-9299. Sheto want to protect your children and keep them safe, but I think when we appears on September 6, 7pm at Anderson’s Bookshop, 26 South Laallow our desire for safety and control to trump all of our other human Grange Road, La Grange, (708)582-6353 and on September 18, 7pm atneeds, we’re in trouble. the Forest Park Public Library, 7555 Jackson Boulevard, Forest Park Madeleine’s mother was vili ed. You say,“Rather than questioning the system and the culture and the lack of support that makes it so hard for all of us, we turnagainst each other.” What betteralternative do you suggest? I suggest the alternative of helping eachother, supporting each other, working together to find solutions to the problem of raising children in a country fundamentally unsupportive of the endeavor and operating under the assumption that most women aredoing the best they can, doing more than their share of everything, juggling the needsof everyone in their life and want the best for their kids. I’d love to see more babysittingco-ops, more communal solutions, moresupport networks, less judgement andcompetition.Why is parenting a competition?  AUGUST 2018 NewcityCompetition can be great for a momentaryself-esteem buzz. When you’re wracked withinsecurity, it can offer a moment of relief tofeel like at least you’re doing it better thansomeone else. The problem is that it’s a veryshort-term fix. If mothers stopped competingwith each other and judging each other, Ithink we’d have more time to take over theworld or at the very least to advocate for thekind of policies that would benefit allmothers—subsidized daycare, maternity andpaternity leave, free, high-quality earlychildhood education.Your list of what it takes to get smallchildren out of the house is a wonderfulpiece of writing. How did you approachthe book—stylistically and structurally? 9

SUBURBANMODERNISMBehind the Restoration of Mies’ McCormick HouseBY VASIA RIGOU

Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, “Untitled Film (Red)”/Photo: Elmhurst Art Museum I t’s early afternoon on a Thursday. The sky has become clear AUGUST 2018 Newcity after hours of pouring rain that made the drive to the western Chicago suburb extremely bothersome—the switches between insane heat and heavy downpour have that effect this time of year. Despite high levels of humidity, a small crowd is gathered at the Elmhurst Art Museum’s patio for their biggest event in years—namely, nearly twenty-five: Mies van der Rohe’s McCormick House open house. Considering the highly anticipated occasion of restorations to its original façade that would reveal the building’s full exterior for the first time in such a long time, the crowd patiently awaits the ribbon-cutting ceremony—a few quiet hellos and air kisses with eyes staring at the house’s closed door. It’s been several hours since the storm passed but the air still feels thick, accompanying the distinctive scent of soggy soil after a rain shower and bringing to attention the re-landscaping of the historic house’s front yard, carefully designed to reclaim much of its original feel. The eye rests in the green space—trees, plants, flowers and grass surrounding the museum space, concealing the parking lot, give a secluded feel, almost reminiscent of a day in the countryside. The one-story McCormick House sits peacefully, completing the picture—a sanctuary of sorts. Red ribbon draws a gentle line between the house and the visitors—a physical barrier: we look at art; we do not touch it. At least not yet. Composed of glass and steel, and set upon a concrete slab foundation, the McCormick House is one of only three single-family homes in the United States designed by famed architect and leading twentieth-century modernist Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. A very rare example of him working on a smaller, residential scale, among his more elaborate, best-known projects—the Chicago Federal Center, Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Manhattan’s Seagram Building and high-rises along the Chicago lakefront, including the historic 860-880 Lake Shore Drive—this one was built for American inventor Robert McCormick Jr. and his wife, poet Isabella Gardner. More than a prestigious suburban residence for the McCormick family the property was to serve as a prototype for prefabricated middle-class homes—a real-estate project for the future that Mies envisioned and one that McCormick Jr. himself was planning to develop. It was completed in 1952. After years of social gatherings of Chicago’s most prominent families, socialites, artists, architects, and writers alike, including figures such as Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Karl Shapiro and others that Gardner met as associate editor of Poetry magazine, the house was sold by its last occupants, 11

Photo: McCormick House, Elmhurst Art Museum, Photo: Kendall McCaugherty © Hall+Merrick Photographers mayor of Elmhurst from 1973 to 1977, Ray Fick and his and Mary Ann in the past. Providing access and interpretation to this home will Fick, to the Elmhurst Fine Arts and Civic Center Foundation, in 1991, provide a more complex view of the famous architect because it is not making it the museum’s most prized possession. one of his known masterpieces.”Newcity AUGUST 2018 It wasn’t long until it was moved from its original location and attached But that’s just the beginning of a multi-phase restoration project that to the Elmhurst Art Museum via a fifteen-foot-long corridor three years also includes the “Mies’s McCormick House Revealed: New Views” later—a project that won a 1998 design excellence award from the exhibition, organized by Barry Bergdoll, architecture and design curator Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects. But over the at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Columbia University years two major issues arose: first, as the house was mainly used for professor. Spanning three galleries and years of Mies’ design philoso- administrative offices, parts of it were inaccessible to anyone without phy and innovation from the 1950s onwards, it includes historical official museum business. Second, as the house was seamlessly drawings and artifacts (gallery one), a traveling show curated by Renato connected with the museum building, it was often overlooked to the Anelli of the University of São Paulo, that provides a deeper look into point of making visitors wonder where the house was, even when they glass houses across the world (gallery two), and a group exhibition of were standing right inside of it. contemporary photographic works that explore Mies’ use of glass as a material and as a concept. “The in-depth exhibition provides historical This was what the museum tried to rectify by bringing the McCormick information, context and new information about the McCormick House, House back to its original mid-century appearance. Which, in this case, from Mies’ prefab proposals to its relationship to other glass structures meant tearing down the corridor between the two buildings and and responses by contemporary photographers to his famous curtain restoring the carport at the house’s entrance. “One of the biggest walls,” McKinnon says. challenges was helping people visualize what the building would look like after the separation,” says John McKinnon, the museum’s executive As for Bergdoll, “I have studied Mies van der Rohe’s career for many director, as the ten-week restoration work has just ended. “As a years, ever since the late 1990s,” he says, “but his relationship to standalone building, one can better appreciate the original design of the pre-fabrication in the great experimental decade that followed the McCormick House, which is the cornerstone of the museum’s Second World War in the United States was unknown to me. It was a permanent collection.” short-lived episode but one that is fascinating in shedding new light on Mies’ relationship to housing,” he adds. “The McCormick House indeed Eager to explore the architect’s important relationship with the city, deserves to be put into a group of experiments that includes one of McKinnon says, “Chicago is filled with buildings by Mies but many are Mies’ most successful projects, Lafayette Park in Detroit, as a design not public, whether private apartments or federal buildings. The with great potential for the development of housing types even in the suburban residence of the McCormick House provides a differently future, even if the material and aesthetic choices would no doubt be sized structure and living conditions set by the architect. It is also a different. Mies was interested in creating flexible prototypes, a system, mass reproduction model, which many have not associated with Mies a language of architecture and not simply one-off designs,” he says.12

Photo: Exterior view of Robert H. McCormick, Jr. house, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and originallylocated at 299 Prospect Avenue in Elmhurst, Illinois, November 28, 1952. Interior wall with bookcase(McCormick House)/Photo: courtesy of Hedrich-Blessing Archive, Chicago Historical Society“The McCormick House is at once modest in scale and yet ambitious in seeks to create a situation and generate an experience,” Mangla- AUGUST 2018 Newcity its aesthetic goals,” Bergdoll adds. “The commitment of the museum to no-Ovalle says. “It is also, strictly speaking, an intervention on a have the house live again as a very significant piece of American historical subject so all parameters must be considered, including the architecture and as a site for creativity by contemporary artists opens a performative aspect of the public,” he adds. “The work is titled ‘Untitled whole new chapter in the life of this building.” He’s right. Film (Red),’ as such it claims to be a film, a sequence of events that reveal themselves by virtue of light and color, so it is a film but it is also Back to the newly renovated McCormick House’s front yard, numerous a work of celluloid and color on architecture, a red film or a film in red. gold-plated scissors are passed around on a tray as a group of people In this work light and color are not so much something to see, as some- crucial to the realization of the project are called out by name: the thing to experience, to be enveloped in. Red permeates the whole of ceremony begins and at once the red ribbon turns into fat confetti that the environment, including ourselves and the our view of the exterior. spins in the wind as it falls to the freshly watered ground enhancing the Red, a color with optical, emotive, psychological, social, as well as earthly smell. The door opens. And it all becomes red. political connotations, its meaning filtered not by the hue but by individual as well as cultural assignations or responses to red.” As the crowd curiously steps in, the eye gets used to the red glare the same way it adjusts to low lighting. Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s architectur- McKinnon agrees. “I think this exhibition may provide a more literal al installation is in full swing. In “Untitled Film (Red),” the multi-disci- point/counterpoint of past and present than the three-part show and I plinary conceptual artist has a bold vision for the newly renovated will elaborate a bit further: There is an interesting past-contemporary McCormick House—one that builds on the idea of the original relationship made more apparent with our new restorations—and made developers (Robert Hall McCormick and Herbert S. Greenwald) to make quite strikingly with ‘Untitled Film (Red),’” he says. “As people walk glass windows of “almost any shade of the rainbow.” The Spanish-born, across the restored carport and doorway, they can see the newly Chicago-based artist has colored film placed over every single unveiled work we have done to bring the building back to a 1952 state. floor-to-ceiling window breathing new life into the famous house—after Walking across the threshold of the doorway, they then encounter all it hasn’t been lived in for decades. Manglano-Ovalle’s architectural intervention—giving audiences something new to see outside and in. The red film he adhered to the Manglano-Ovalle is no stranger to Mies’ legacy. Over the past two windows provides a stunning immersive experience.” decades his wide body of work between the social, the political and the cultural, spans a variety of media: sculpture, video, installation. It Between the old and the new, whether an ode to Modernism and to includes projects at Mies’ Farnsworth House, Barcelona Pavilion, S.R. Mies’ legacy, an opportunity to ignite relevant conversations about Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), and Neue building and housing today to educate and inspire future generations or Nationalgalerie, Berlin, as well as a project based upon the architect’s simply a renovation long overdue, the Elmhurst Art Museum’s trifold uncompleted project, the House with Four Columns (1951). “An exhibition is best captured in McKinnon’s words: “There isn’t just one intervention such as this one is more tactical than aesthetic since it story to tell about the McCormick House, rather there are many.” 13

“Unpretentiously joyous” Photo by Adrienne Thomas. —NPRNewcity AUGUST 2018 Photo by Jude Goergen.Mike Reed’sPeople Places & Things Series SponsorAugust 27, 2018 / 6:00PM Mike Reed – drums Greg Ward – alto sax Tim Haldeman – tenor sax Jason Roebke – bass After-party featuring Chicago DJ Rae Chardonnay Taylor This performance takes place on the Harris Theater rooftop and is presented in partnership with Chicago Jazz Festival. “Mr. McCraven, a Chicago-based drummer,producer and beat maker, has quietly become one of the best arguments for jazz’s vitality.” —New York TimesMakaya McCravenSeptember 1, 2018 / 9:30PM Makaya McCraven – drums Junius Paul – bass Greg Ward – alto sax Matt Gold – guitar This performance takes place on the Harris Theater stage and is presented in partnership with Chicago Jazz Festival. 205 East Randolph Drive, Chicago, IL 6060114312.334.7777 | harristheaterchicago.org

NetballNOTHING BUT “I Googled whether Chicago had a AUGUST 2018 Newcity netball club,” Lisanne Jenkins, a tall, Bringing the athletic woman originally from Mel- bourne, Australia says. “That was COOMBMSOENSSWIEOANLTH actually one of the factors in my de- to Chicago cision to move here.” by John Moss • Photos by Delia Moore Jenkins came to the United States in 2013 to do a postdoc in function- al neuroimaging at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In Australia, she was club president at the Universi- ty of Melbourne and leaving behind her friends and family across the world was difficult. But in the Chi- cago Netball Club, she found “an immediate social network.” That same year, law graduate Stephanie Sumner moved here from her Lon- don home, settling on the North Side. The next year Claire Ralphs, from Durban, South Africa, arrived in Chicago to work as an occupa- tional therapist. 15

T hese three women arrived in Chi- me. Having a netball club in the city is a Basketball began in the United States in cago from member states of the benefit, allowing Commonwealth nation- the 1890s. An English teacher traveling in Commonwealth of Nations, once als to acclimate and connect while playing the States saw a women’s version of the “the best game ever.” game played at Smith College and took it known as the British Common- back to England. A few years later the At the social, a twenty-dollar wristband got sport known as “netball” began with its wealth. In Chicago, they rediscovered their you “all you can muster for three hours.” first published rules. The event was held on Super Bowl week- roots in a sport they grew up playing: net- end, this country’s paean to satiety. Con- The game spread through the British Em- versations that evening were on the up- pire, including Australia and New Zealand ball. Chicago is one of few cities in the coming game between the New England at the turn of the century. The appetite for Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles. One netball is global today, although it’s a part United States that can lay claim to its own Aussie-ruler planned to watch at a Phila- of the staple sports diet only within mem- delphia-themed bar in Lakeview. The next ber states of the Commonwealth of Na- netball club. night, more than one-hundred-million tions, of which there are fifty-three, most- viewers worldwide would watch the Super ly former British territories. Ralphs has been playing netball since pri- Bowl. mary school. Similar to basketball but But Netball has never come full played on a slightly bigger court, the sport While hardly that popular, the sport of net- circle. While it has had a pres- is traditionally associated with women. ball is played by as many as twenty-million ence in the United States for de- Men are on the next fields over, competing people in more than eighty countries. The cades, sustained by expats, it’s in rugby, cricket or Australian rules football. U.S. Open Netball Championships web- unclear if Americans will develop site claims that the 2017 U.S. Open Netball a taste for it. As of April, the top “It was a nice surprise to come to Chicago Championships event broke a Facebook five netball world Rankings were and join the club and find it that compet- record by having the most viewers in the Australia, New Zealand, England, itive,” Ralphs, who played for her high history of Facebook tuned in at any one Jamaica and South Africa. The U. school and later in both women’s and time to the live feed through the Facebook S.? Number twenty-nine. co-ed leagues, says. Live app. Styles of play differ around the Chicago Netball Club cofounders Olivia The United States has two national teams world. Netball in the Caribbean Civinelli and Penelope Parkes, Australian (a key distinction depending on who you is aerial and unstructured, while expatriates, set out to create an opportu- ask—only one is internationally “recog- play in Australia focuses on in- nity for Commonwealth expats to socialize nized”) that compete domestically and tense one-on-one defense. After and make friends while playing the game. abroad. American organizations work to the 1960s, when the Internation- The nonprofit CNC is co-ed and open to promote the sport on each coast. The al Netball Federation was estab- all nationalities, including Americans. In- game has a sizable presence in larger lished, rules around the globe dependent of deep-pocketed recreational coastal states like New York, Florida and were standardized. (The Chica- sports leagues, CNC relies on fundraising California, with new clubs recently found- go Netball Club adheres to the events like the Start of the Season Social ed in Las Vegas and Portland. The Chica- INF rules of play.) Netball is to pay costs, which include facility rental go Netball Club has been here since 2009 played seven-to-a-side on a at the British International School of Chi- and plays two twelve-to-sixteen-week rectangular court. cago in the South Loop. seasons each year, with the next kicking off in late August. The objective is for the team in I attended the club’s Start of the Season possession of the ball to attack Social on a snowy Saturday night in Jan- “When people its opponent’s territory and uary at Hook and Ladder in Lincoln Park ask me, score. In this way, netball, similar to soccer bar. Other area sports teams took part, in- and hockey, is an “invasion game.” But cluding the Chicago Swans, Chicago’s ‘What is netball?’ only by passing can players advance the Australian rules football club. Hale, tower- ball, similar to volleyball, up the court. Drib- ing men—the Aussie rulers—mingled with I tell them it’s a mix of ultimate frisbee and bling or running with it is prohibited. Even athletic young women—the netballers— basketball,” Stephanie Sumner, current routine ball movement can be a thing of over Shock Top drafts. Accented English club president (and a former colleague), beauty, like a textbook fast break—the ball rose over the jukebox playing music by says. “It’s a very fast-paced and strategic never hits the floor. The Thrills, an early-aughts Irish rock band. game. It’s not like a sport such as swim- Friends got reacquainted, some after the ming. You don’t have to be fastest if you As I watched teams attack, I thought of holidays in their native countries. position yourself well on the court.” astronomy, especially moons and planets. Due to a three-second player possessionNewcity AUGUST 2018 “I was excited—and quite frankly surprised, Anson Best, originally from Barbados and rule (the “hot potato” rule), at any given to find the sport I grew up playing in New one of the men in the Chicago Netball moment players orbit the ball, ready to re- Zealand here in Chicago,” a young woman Club, calls the sport “witty.” One of the few ceive the next pass. It’s dizzying. The from New Zealand, not even two weeks Americans to play in the club, Lauren game rarely pauses. Claire Ralphs says in the United States, says. She learned of Schwer, says, “It’s like basketball but one of the keys to netball is to “think on the Chicago Netball Club as well as this there’s no backboard.” your feet.” gathering through Facebook. “It’s a great way to bridge the gap between being a foreigner and living in the city,” Holly Jenkins, a policy officer at the Aus- tralian-Consulate General in Chicago, tells16

But sociology might be the truer analogy. To score, players shoot the ball through a In the Midwest’sLisanne Jenkins pointed me to an article horizontal rim attached to ten-foot tall biggest city,where one country, in order to gain an ad- (3.05m) goalposts. Only Goal Attack andvantage, analyzed shoaling and schooling Goal Shooter are permitted to shoot, and resources andfish to better understand collective behav- they must do so within the shooting circle. coverage of netballior, the collective consciousness, and Since there is no safety of a backboard,group movement to predict different on- deadeye skill and steady aim are required. are scant.court scenarios. Scoring positions typically go to taller I couldn’t locate a single book about net-Are there then added gameplay challeng- players. Olivia Civinelli is an exception. She ball in the Chicago Public Library collec-es in the CNC? This might be the first time is one of the CNC’s most lethal scorers, tion. For major media coverage, I checkedSouth Africans are playing with Jamaicans, and at five-foot-two-inches, one of the the Chicago Tribune archive, finding aAussies with Israelis, as well as the first shortest. She credits positioning and foot- mixed bag of mentions and no recent fea-time the majority of expats are playing work for her success. Netball being a tures. One keyword hit led to a cursorywith Americans. Given the different styles mostly non-contact sport helps, too. Once appearance in a column by former sports editor Steve Nidetz from the early 1990s, quoting a Chicagoan that netball is “the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen.” “No one [outside of the ex- pats] had heard of netball,” Civinelli, one of the co- founders of the club, re- called when we spoke about the club’s origins. There is a netball corner on the website of The World- wide Leader in Sports, but best of British luck navigat- ing from the site’s homep- age. I wondered if it was be- cause of my U. S. IP address. But I located it through Google and found solid coverage of teams with names like the Magpies and Vixens, sourced from wires such as the Austra- lian Associated Press.of play across the world, and the synergis- a player has positioning, she can hold it. In this environment, it’s no AUGUST 2018 Newcitytic element of the sport, could the interna- Defenders must stay three feet from the surprise Civinelli and Park-tional character of the local club affect the ball, and not interfere with the player es hit roadblocks, both expected and un-quality of play? Sumner feels the impact shooting: one of the few times the game expected. A lack of interest, a lack of com-is minimal. She points out those who have pauses. mitment, a lack of awareness, sure. But aplayed at their university, or even a level lack of insurance? “We initially had troublehigher, already have experience with play- Early at the gym one day, I tried my hand insuring the club. Because none of the in-ers from other countries. at shooting. Comparisons to basketball are surance agencies were familiar with the inevitable: next to the suspended-glass sport. Eventually we ended up billing it asScores in CNC matches, lasting twelve setup of basketball’s backboard and rim, a basketball league.” More issues followed,minutes per quarter with a running clock, the netball goalpost is the Charlie Brown including umpire training and equipmentwent as high as the mid-thirties on Satur- Christmas tree. But what it lacks in ele- procurement—most netball equipmentdays I attended, showing impressive of- gance, it doubles with difficulty. I hoisted has to be imported from the U.K.fensive prowess. One shot equals one a series of airballs from steps away. Withpoint. Professional matches have fif- the unforgiving math of a rim minus back- But the biggest heartburn for the club wasteen-minute quarters and scores can board, despite how easy netballers make finding space. The process of adaptingrange anywhere from the twenties to, in it look, it is downright cruel to award only netball specifications to existing courts israre instances, upwards of one-hundred. a single point for a successful shot. difficult, including the size in relation to a basketball court and its tripartite court configuration. 17

The club first went with Windy City Field- for others, the club helped her establish a where because of the three-second rule house (too expensive), moved to the Fit- social base after arriving in the U. S. One (that “hot potato” rule), there can be no ness Formula Clubs near Union Station of her only regrets for the CNC is that not hogging of the ball. And Ottaway says (court much too small), then to a Chicago enough people know about it. “I would there is a position on the court for every- Park District location (don’t ask), and back love to see [the club] get bigger. Promo- one, regardless of height or size. to Windy City Fieldhouse (still too expensive). tion is something I am always trying to advance.” Sumner has pushed for broad- Netball is also emerging at American uni- During a match, frustration over venues er social media exposure. This is the versities. At Ohio University, a netball came up and a player named Lucy Harper CNC’s first year on Instagram and Twitter. course introduces the rules, history, strat- volunteered the British School would be a great venue. Civinelli told her she had al- ready reached out, but gotten no reply. “Lucy asked, ‘Have you tried the school’s athletic director?’” Civinelli said she hadn’t. “Motioning to herself, Lucy said, ‘You should ask her.’” The club finally moved to the British Inter- national School in the South Loop, for the 2016 fall season: a dream venue, the right size, the right lines. Civinelli says they are “super-lucky” to have found it. The club plays on Saturdays in the school’s 9,000-square-foot gymnasium. A majestic row of flags hangs from the rafters, of countries comprising the Commonwealth of Nations. Old Glory and the Union Jack are set apart and featured prominently. The South Loop campus is a good central location, as the CNC is a mix of players coming in from the suburbs and sections of the city. For those who play in both the winter and fall CNC seasons, and there are plenty who do, it’s a commitment— thirty Saturdays or so each calendar year.Newcity AUGUST 2018 The school’s South Loop location is an apt Sumner told me eight new players, main- egy, skills and general concepts of netball, metaphor for the sport of netball in Chica- ly expats, found the club through social “to provide an appropriate level of knowl- go. Their campus is tucked into a down- media this past season alone. edge and skill that allows effective play town cove accessible only from the north and understanding of the game.” Ottaway or south; the LaSalle Street Station com- With unavoidable turnover following each has even flown in to address the class. muter line forms the eastern border, the season, which can approach double digits river is west. It’s off the beaten path the for reasons ranging from life obligations Where Netball America is concerned with way the Hideout music club is: a place to expiring work visas, growth potential putting the sport in schools, Matthias you’d never end up at unless you meant to. exists for the CNC, and netball in general Wilkie, vice president of technical opera- through one essential yet still underrepre- tions at USA Netball, the other netball or- Sonya Ottaway, sented group: Americans. ganization in the United States, based in president of Netball New York, says USAN’s ultimate aim is to Netball America, led by Sonya Ottaway, build the game in America in order to America, calls the an Australian expat based in California make it an Olympic sport. The Internation- Chicago Netball and described as “the Queen B of Netball” al Olympic Committee officially recog- by an admirer. She was a few minutes late nized netball in 1995. A sport must be Club “a well- when we talked on the phone because she played by both genders, as well as all over established club,” was making breakfast for the USA Univer- the world to be included in the Olympics. sity Netball Team at her California home. Which may sound promising, until you with a board of directors, including a pres- Ottaway’s passion for netball and devel- consider that tug-of-war is, too. ident, vice-president, secretary and trea- oping it further in this country came surer, with three members at large. through across the distance. Netball Wilkie has been involved with netball for America’s overall goal is to get the sport twenty-five years. He tells me USA Netball Stephanie Sumner was elected president into more schools, primarily targeting is similar to Netball America, but “unfor- in January of 2018. She had been vice younger students because of the benefits tunately the International Federation of president for two years before. As it has of the sport, including the “teaming aspect” Netball recognizes only one organization.”18

His. I ask why the two organizations hav- the three-sport athletic hero on campus, He grew up in Barbados playing other en’t merged. “There have been several at- they now trade peer envy for the chance sports, including volleyball, tennis, table tempts, but we haven’t been able to find at a greater payoff: the possibility of a col- tennis and track and field. His involvement a solution that benefits both organiza- lege scholarship, or even the chance to with netball was by chance. “At my high tions.” An olive branch had been extend- turn professional in a league like the school we had a very good netball team. ed, he says. WNBA. “When I was growing up, I would The netball coach was also the track and never have had time to play netball. I field coach, so some of the guys on the track USA Netball is based out of New York, stopped playing other sports to play for a team were recruited [to match up] who Netball America out of California. I sensed rigorous volleyball program that required were taller, could jump higher, and could tension between the two groups beyond all of my time and energy.” make the netball team compete harder.” friendly bicoastal rivalry. With strategic po- sitioning in the Midwest, could a big-pic- Does that mean the future of netball in He pressed the need to grow the sport AUGUST 2018 Newcity ture scenario incorporate partnership with America is bleak? with men, believing their involvement the Chicago Netball Club, and become a makes it better. It’s generally acknowl- beachhead in each organization’s quest Schwer laughs. “If Quidditch can catch edged that male players speed up the for influence? on on college campuses, then netball game. Best is a fearsome defender, pa- can succeed.” trolling his zone with a center fielder’s Power-play musing aside, views on Amer- range, stabbing into passing lanes aiming ican involvement in netball go both ways: If not yet right for for the intercept—though he’s wary of one camp feels the sport is unspoiled due this place, maybe being too aggressive. He’s apologetic if he to low Yankee interest, while others feel netball is right for runs into the female players. But he also the sport can never take off until the Amer- plays at full speed and this seems right: to icans start playing. this time? go any other speed but all out would be unfair to competition. Players in the Chicago Netball Club are Netball, as a female-dominated sport, gracious to new players, those showing would seem to be precisely the right or Physical attributes, like in most sports, up out of curiosity, for a shot of cardio or wrong sport to be elevating. There are lend advantages in netball, but it’s as to try their hand at a new sport. Lauren views for and against this traditional seg- much about the strategy as anything else. Schwer, an American who became in- regation of the sport. A selective sampling Lisanne Jenkins echoes Civinelli: “Netball volved with the CNC through a Scottish of positive articles and threads online in- rewards players who know where to run colleague, tells me about her experiences. clude, “Feminist? Three reasons why net- and where to expect the ball. It’s a game“The club is accommodating to beginners ball should be on your to-do list,” and “Is of positioning.” who are learning the sport. Having grown netball a feminist triumph?” up with it, the expats have a certain level Tracy Ann Smith, of Jamaica and herself of game play [that we Americans do not], The critiques, those that focus on the fem- an elite defender, says, “The key to suc- but they were forgiving and patient.” inine aspect of the sport, just flipped. One cess in netball is to know where to be, suggests that the sport’s “zonal” permis- know where to run.” Schwer’s introduction to the game—Amer- sions for players are designed to minimize ican learns of netball through expat col- running and restrict movement. Put differ- For the players I spoke to, they agree in league or friend—is the most common ently: Keep ‘em on a leash. Another cri- the end all that matters is a good game, story. The prevailing opinion of those fa- tique singles out the sport’s rules, making no matter how you get there. Best, one of miliar with netball is that it just needs a it a prim, watered-down version of the the longest tenured players, marvels at good publicity blitz. But if more people games men play (“sissy basketball”). A col- how the CNC has gotten through, through knew about the sport, would they actual- umnist for The Telegraph blamed netball esprit de corps. ly start playing it here? Expats say yes. for making your daughter fat.“People just don’t know about it. But peo- “I’m so proud of how far we’ve come, from ple who play sports, they love it, even if it’s What’s undeniable is the rising popularity the community parks we played on, how strange at first,” says Lisanne Jenkins. of co-ed clubs. Netball America promotes the club has grown, how it has evolved,” the game as a co-ed sport. They’re pop- Smith says. “There is a core of people whoAnson Best sees for netball the template ping up in San Francisco, Seattle and At- like the sport and continue to play.” She perfected by soccer, which Netball Amer- lanta. In the Commonwealth countries has made close friends in the club, as ica is using. “The biggest opportunity is to where netball is common, such as New have others, including Sumner, Ralphs get it into schools. Because you want to Zealand, Australia and England, there are and Best. Civinelli will soon travel to Lon- teach it from an early age, then those kids now men-only teams. don to stand in the wedding of a friend will carry it. Make it a part of their culture. whom she met in the club. Lisanne Jen- It can’t grow like things are now.” Of the thirty-two roster players spread kins invited players from the club to her over the Chicago Netball Club’s four teams, own wedding in San Diego. About half of Schwer, a former Division 1 athlete in vol- Anson Best is one of only two men. He’s her friends in the United States came leyball, isn’t sure. She emphasizes an al- conscious of his position, and acknowl- through the Chicago Netball Club. She ready-crowded American sports landscape, edges that netball is still very much a fe- plans to continue playing in CNC well into with less time available for recreational male sport, but he prefers it to, say, Auss- the future. “I love it. I wish there were more sports because of increased specialization. ie rules. “I like my knees a little bit too clubs, more teams, more training. I’d love Where kids might once have aspired to be much for that.” to play even more games.” 19

Newcity AUGUST 2018 A FEMINIST GUIDE TO L OL L A PA L OOZ A by Anne K.Ream Lizzo Photo: Jabari Jacobs20

The RegrettesIs it ironic, or sad, As has been duly, angrily noted by various ever I’ve seen). The problem extends toor simply inevita- and sundry music critics—not to mention the music itself.ble that during the year in the feminist blogosphere—Lollapalooza 2018 has a woman problem. In truth, it’s Lollapalooza 2018 is all about electronica,which we celebrate the twen- been ever-thus. The brainchild of Jane’s arguably the most male-driven of thety-fifth anniversary of Liz Addiction frontman Perry Farrell, Lollapa- contemporary music genres. And thePhair’s “Exile In Guyville”— looza launched in 1991. Its roots lie in that lineup of rap and hip-hop artists, impres-a bracing musical takedown era’s garage-rock scene, which was sive though it may be, is decidedly shortof male privilege and prerog- heavy on angsty, angry male energy, and on female names. This in spite of the factative, and one of the most light on forceful female acts (at least until that Chicago is home to some of the mostnoteworthy albums to spring later in that decade). unapologetically feminist rap and hip-hopout of the same early-nine- around (FM Supreme, Sasha Go Hardties music scene that gave us Given the events of the last year—the rise and Noname, I’m talking about you).Lollapalooza—we feminist of Time’s Up, the newfound force offans of that iconic music fes- #MeToo, and the emerging consensus And with a handful of noteworthy excep-tival are experiencing an that the privileging of all things male is tions—more on that to come—many ofexile of our own? both politically unacceptable and more the biggest female names on the Lolla than a little passé—some of us dared to 2018 roster are apolitical pop stars of the hope that Lolla might finally discover its decidedly un-feminist variety. Note to fes- inner feminist. tival organizers: feminine and feminist are not synonyms, and individual agency It has not. does not a political statement make. The problem isn’t just the overall absence And yet. As has always been the case AUGUST 2018 Newcity of estrogen at this year’s festival, evident with Lolla, if one digs deeply enough, in the all-male headliners, the fact that there’s always a tiny little feminist festival only about twenty percent of the featured to be found. With so many acts to choose artists are women, the indignity of seeing from, there’s bound to be. So read on for the majority of female performers rele- an admittedly subjective, decidedly short gated to the bottom half of the festival list of artists who will be speaking—and poster (as literal a demonstration of the singing—truth to male power at this year’s idea that men in music remain on top as festival. And see you at Grant Park. 21

Thursday August 2 yet still infectious punk. Whether explor- Saturday August 4 ing rape culture or the cruel realities of female aging, there’s always an overarch- YUNGBLUD ing theme at play: the ebb and flow of fe- 1-1:45pm – Bud Light male power. When Mjöll sings “I am not The right-this-moment indie rocker from my body / I am somebody,” it sounds like Doncaster comes by his talents geneti- a mantra. Or maybe a prayer. cally: he’s the grandson of a session play- er for T. Rex, the late, great seventies-era ALEX LAHEY glam rock band. Yungblud writes genre- 1-1:45pm – Grant Park bending protest songs from a decidedly The twenty-four-year-old Aussie makes feminist perspective. Notable right now the sort of punk-influenced power pop is “Polygraph Eyes,” an admonition to every guy looking to take advantage of a Larkin Poe girl unable to give consent: “You hear what you want when she can’t even talk LARKIN POE / leave it alone mate / she doesn’t want 1-1:40pm – BMI to go home with you.” He’s that rare sen- The roots rock band, fronted by Atlan- sitive guy who rocks out with searing ta-born sisters Rebecca and Megan force: proof positive that you don’t have Lovell, is a family affair all around, taking to be female to be feminist. its name from the singers’ great-great- great grandfather. These former session Alex Lahey TANK AND THE BANGAS players make the kind of old-school coun- Photo: Giulia McGauran 1:45-2:45pm – Tito’s Handmade Vodka try music we hear too little of. They’re also The five-piece group from New Orleans— master reclaimers, putting a sisterly spin that the world needs right now. It’s fun led by singer and poet Tarriona “Tank” on blues roots classics originally made without being frivolous, fueled by a grind- Ball—genre-busts in the most inspired notable by iconic male performers and ing guitar and Lahey’s gimlet-eyed view ways. The music—a hybrid of soul, hip- bands, including Son House, Robert of the world. Whether she’s mocking a hop, electronica and big band jazz—is Johnson and Lead Belly. man for his “Barbarella” wild and improvisational. It’s a band poster or riffing on how that’s never, ever the same act twice. But CHVRCHES different her life might be the main attraction is Tank herself, who 6:45-7:45pm – Grant Park if she hadn’t attended a commands the stage with the swagger I really like this indie electronica band “B” university, she looks only a seasoned spoken-word artist (with a shot of power pop thrown in to closely at the little stuff. If could muster. sunny up the mood). But I love singer Lau- songcraft mattered more ren Mayberry. Whether she’s penning an than star-making machin- exposé about misogynist online trolls for ery—something Lahey the Guardian or publicly taking down a seems to eschew—“I Ha- male audience member who shouted out ven’t Been Taking Care of a marriage proposal during a recent NYC Myself” would be the song performance (“What’s the hit rate on that, of the summer. when you go to public places and ask women you don’t know if they want to LIZZO wed you? Does that work out well for you, sir?”), Chvrches’ frontwoman is straight 3:45-4:45pm – Tito’s up, straight on and absolutely in com- mand of her voice. Handmade Vodka Tank and the Bangas Fearless, feminist and Photo: Gus Bennett Jr. body positive, Lizzo makes music that makes femaleNewcity AUGUST 2018 empowerment look like a hell of a lot of ST. VINCENT fun. The Minneapolis rapper’s latest sin- 6:45-7:45pm – Bud Light Friday August 3 gle, “Boys,” is all about what it means to Perhaps the most notable indignity of Lol- be a girl—or a woman—at home in her lapalooza 2018 is the fact that St. Vin- DREAM WIFE sexual power. “Baby, I don’t need you / I cent—with her extraordinary body of work 12:15-1pm – Lake Shore On their self-titled 2018 debut album, the just want to freak you,” she sings to a pro- and her outsize talent as a musician and London art school trio of Alice Go, Bella Podpadec and Rakel Mjöll make angry spective lover. Is she issuing a warning, performance artist—isn’t a headliner. The or a reassurance? Whatever she’s doing, gender- and genre-fluid singer has always it sounds really, really good. refused to be contained by categories,22

Sunday August 5 ers vibe—the “Figures” video opens with her smashing a guitar, Pete Town- FREYA RIDINGS shend-style—that signals she’s not to be Noon-12:45pm – Lake Shore trifled with. Moving from the personal to The London-based singer and pianist is the political, Reyez’s 2017 release, “Gate- in possession of one of the purest, pret- keeper”—a #MeToo anthem if ever there tiest voices you’ll ever hear. A modern-day was one—explores the sexual harassment Tori Amos with a soft spot for slow songs, she experienced at the hands of a pow- Ridings has mastered the art of writing erful producer, not so long ago. I can’t ballads that never bore, about women wait to see what she takes on next. who love till it hurts but never lose an ounce of dignity in the process. Bonus: PORTUGAL. THE MAN her latest single—watch for it as an en- 6:30-7:30pm – Grant Park core at Lolla—is an inspired cover of the The band’s name notwithstanding, on its Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps.” latest and best album, “Woodstock,” it’s the female singer who takes the songs St. Vincent THE REGRETTES from good to great. Listen to Zoe Manville 12:45-1:30pm – Grant Parksexual or musical. And her 2017 single, If you’re going to puncture the patriarchy, Portugal. The Man“Los Ageless”—an exploration of Holly- why not do it with a wink and a nod? “Awood’s cosmetic surgery culture that Living Human Girl”—the band’s brilliant, on “Feel It Still,” an ode to cycles of polit-manages to be both danceable and bebop-able takedown of the female beau- ical engagement, with a decidedly mater-creepy—is one of the best songs she’s re- ty myth—manages to be both teen-spe- nal slant, and you’ll find yourself torn: Docorded. Must. See. cific and timeless. If you’re a woman (any I dance? Or do I take up arms? woman; every woman), that song, and theTASH SULTANA band’s entire body of Ronettes-influenced JACK WHITE7:45-8:30pm – American Eagle music, is for you. 8:30-10pm – Grant ParkThe extreme multihyphenate—she sings, The debate over White’s feminist cred isshe writes songs and she plays twenty DURAND JONES ongoing. His advocates cite his history ofinstruments with a sort of manic energy & THE INDICATIONS working with and advocating for femalethat it’s hard to look away from—is one of artists (Meg White, Alison Mosshart, Lo-the best live performers around. No sur- 1:30-2:30pm – Lake Shore retta Lynn), and his public statementsprise there: Sultana has been making The best old school soul has always about the power of female performances.music since she was three and began her viewed the everyday female experience His critics point to his lyrical representa-career busking on the streets of Mel- with a rich and informed sympathy (ex- tions of sometimes-dark, often-compli- hibit A: Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Ten- cated male-female relations and see a derness”). Durand Jones & the Indica- man who doesn’t get it behind all that hair. tions mine that same territory, most My point of view? White is as hard on himself, and other men, as he is on the notably in their recent single, women who feature in his songs. What’s “Make A Change.” A searing and more, complexity is what separates art sensitive exploration of the fac- from cant. But what really sealed the deal tors that might drive a woman to for me is 2018’s “Connected By Love,” “work in the streets,” it calls for White’s searing, almost psychedelic call a change in her but also—more to compassion and redemption. When I importantly—a change in us. first heard it, in January, it seemed so When Durand Jones issues his heartfelt and necessary and yes, female, musical plea (“She’s got to make that it brought me to tears. My vote for a change / We’ve got to make a song of the festival. change), it serves as a reminder that political systems and not 23 just personal choices drive pov- erty, exploitation and a world of female pain. JESSIE REYEZ AUGUST 2018 Newcity 2:50-3:30pm – American Eagle Tash Sultana The Canadian-Colombian song- writer’s debut track, “Figures”—abourne. Watching her perform brings to spartan, almost a capella-sounding ex-mind a young Nina Simone: lost in the ploration of a romance gone sad and thenreverie of her performance, she is at once bad—peaked at fifty-eight on the Cana-energized by her audience, and oblivious dian Hot 100 in 2016. And while Reyez’sto it. There’s genius at work here. sound transfixes, it’s her take-no-prison-

MUSICIAN OF THE MOMENT 2018 by Robert Rodi Photo by Sally BloodNewcity AUGUST 2018The number of women thriving in Chicago hip- You grew up on the West Side, in hop is an old story now; the larger one, I think, is that our hip-hop North Lawndale. Did you have a big family? Was it a musical childhood? community is just that: an actual community, one whose members form a network of inspiration invitation, collaboration and support, creating an en- Our family was close-knit. I grew up in a vironment that encourages new voices to emerge. So it comes as no surprise house with my mom and my grandfather that many of our premier hip-hop artists made their debuts as teenagers, or the first several years of my life. It wasn’t that today, there’s a new crop of very young artists making their mark on the musical at all, surprisingly. But I vividly re- member there being an old piano in our genre (Ric Wilson, CupcakKe, Adamn Killa, Ravyn Lenae). Jean Deaux house I played with a lot as a child. I be- lieve it belonged to my great-grandpar- (pronounced John Doe) has been around a few years, coming up through the ents. Although I don’t know if either of ranks via spoken-word performances and honing her skills with memorable them played, really. guest appearances on other artists’ tracks. Just twenty-three, she’s an artist with a highly distinctive point of view and a restless creative drive, assimi- Did you always know you wanted to lating popular styles and genres like they’ve been waiting around for her to make performing into a career? discover them. She’s even tacked a couple of video-directing credits onto her résumé. A solo EP is due this year, which might officially cap 2018 as the year No, actually, I was interested in writing of Jean Deaux. and public speaking. I love learning, so I was game to study anything in college. A I talked to her about her road to where she is now, and about where this fiercely hobby of photography and film run in my gifted artist—again, still very young—is headed next. family; I picked up on videography and editing at thirteen. So I thought I’d go to24 school for that, and then a company of- fered to invest in my writing and musical abilities and it kind of found me.

AUGUST 2018 Newcity 25

Newcity AUGUST 2018 Let’s talk about some of the people of you. Have you always been a No. I think the power of music is its infec- in your life who influenced you: your singer, or is it something that you tious repetition and relatability. We con- cousin John Walt, Brother Mike, Saba. grew into? nect with artists through reflections they leave in music. People love artists they I’ll put it this way. Brother Mike created a I definitely grew into my singing. Very late can see themselves in. So I approach space that helped me cultivate my crafts. bloomer. Which is why I’m patient with every song the same, raw, honest, and That space also reconnected me and my myself as a vocalist, but still challenge my- vulnerable as possible. cousin John Walt again after childhood. self both in studio and performing. I still He was always older, so we spent less get so anxious wanting to give people You’ve had a pretty amazing run of time together before hanging out at YOU- shows they deserve. But R&B was the singles lately, and they have a pretty media (and Brother Mike’s open mic). The cornerstone to my life, childhood even. wide range; like the R&B and soul day I first saw my cousin John Walt per- flavor of “Wikipedia,” the EDM forming there, he introduced me to Saba How do you keep your fans loyal groove of “Energy,” and I hear you’re and Joseph Chilliams, who were also my when you take sharp left turns like working on a punk-influenced tune cousins that I had never met. For lack of that (rapping to singing)? Or is that now. In each case you take some- better words, this was pivotal in my life. itself the thing that keeps them thing from these other genres and Saba and Joseph’s basement is where i loyal—that you’re taking them on absorb it into your own persona. found myself as an artist. Saba and Pivot this adventure with you? Are you searching for something Gang were the first musical family mem- or are you just having fun? bers I knew. I knew I found my sound Man, God bless my listeners. Anybody there. But I found my voice working with that knows of me knows I’ve never lim- I’m just having fun. That was my goal with my brothers Kembe X and Alex Wiley. ited myself. I’ve never conformed to any this upcoming project. When I lost John They had me in a studio at fourteen, I had one thing. I’ve been called singer, rapper, Walt—last known as Dinner With John, for to sneak out and errrthing. poet. Everything. I don’t claim any one, reference—I vowed to myself to make but I won’t deny it. I’m all of those things music that made me happy. Music that I What was it like being in hip-hop at once. could be proud of. “Soular System” was circles when you were so young? so dark and moody, I can’t afford to be in And is it true that you still had You’ve directed two videos for that place right now. braces when you started recording Smino (“Anita” and “Wild Irish with Saba? Rose”). How did that come about? You’re at a stage where you’re established in Chicago, you’ve got Ha! It was amazing. To this day, I think I’ve Smino and I have been close for so long, a following, you’ve got a team. been a part of the most legendary and his- we’re best friends aside from everything Are you ready to break out on an toric renaissance this city has seen. We’re else. So naturally I’ve shared countless international scale? a melting pot of beautiful artists from the ideas with him, he sees my potential as city that raised us. And yes, unforgettable a director, and fortunately took the Am I? Do I? Ha. Hey the inter-nations will sis—me—had braces until twenty. chance on giving an amateur an oppor- have to tell me. It’s all up to God, honest- tunity to bring his art to life. Im honored ly. But I’m honored to be held up to an Let’s talk about a couple of mile- to have worked with him on those visu- important standard. stones, and where they led you: als and I look forward to working with Your first group, The Village; your him more. What can we expect to see from Jean first mixtape, “Soular System Vol 1.” Deaux in the next year and beyond? I’ve heard you credit your uncle with There’s an EP in the works, I hear. Ha! We’re really flowing with these ques- your interest in photography; is that tions. Kembe X and Alex Wiley created the source of your interest in film? And Growth. Exponential growth. And yes… The Village—the first collective I was ever will you be directing more videos? Sis is coming. You didn’t hear it from affiliated with. Then I found Pivot, Pivot me, though. led me to my first deal of sorts. And then I think I picked it up naturally, but he and that deal funded “Soular System.” my grandfather have definitely nurtured Finally: a young Chicago woman, it. I learn from them. They both have in- in her teens, has a headful of “Soular System” took me two-plus years. credible talent and poise in their work so rhymes and wants to pursue a It was intense and so much pressure, be- I admire them in that light. And yes, not career in hip-hop. What advice cause my city thought I was next. I was only videos, films, commercials, and TV do you give her? still a baby. Getting my rhythm. This up- shows eventually. coming project is a reintroduction, for First of all, DON’T LET THESE MEN sure. Same girl, new bars. You’re extremely versatile and BREATHE FOR A SECOND. When you extremely prolific. And you’ve talked go hard, come back, go even harder. Don’t You’d pretty much established in the past about not just continuing let nobody intimidate you, and keep your yourself as a rapper when you to write songs for yourself, but writing circle full of trustworthy people who be- introduced a new element to your them for other people. Is there a lieve in you. Don’t let negativity bury you performances: R&B-style singing— difference in how you write for longer than a day; you are worthy of all of which showed a whole new side yourself, as opposed to other people? the life there is to live. You know it.26



Newcity AUGUST 2018Everyone from the singer-songwriter Music 45 was written by with a guitar slung across her back, to Craig Bechtel and Robert Rodi the mightiest of metropolitan orchestras, will answer the muse’s (and the bank account’s) call to pull up stakes and take to the road. For some, touring is a with additional items from regular undertaking; for others, it’s a strategically planned endeavor. For some, Dennis Polkow. actually resettling in newer locales is a way of challenging old ways of thinking and playing, of seeking fresh ideas and inspiration. For some, new horizons All photos by Sally Blood with bring a greater cognizance of the richness to be found at home. stylist/photo assistance by All this is by way of explaining the means by which we select the forty-five Lizzie Cook. Shot on location musicians and musical acts featured in this biennial survey, which is a process at Reggies Rock Club more instinctive than prescriptive. Most of the artists profiled here live and and Music Joint. work in Chicago, but there are several who have left the city; some in fact who haven’t lived here for years. A few are from elsewhere entirely, and owe their affiliation with Chicago to artistic residencies. What they all share is a spiritual connection to this city that tethers them to our collective identity in ways that can’t be severed by time or distance. Call it a Chicago soul. For every battalion of artists who depart this city without a back- ward glance, there’ll be one with the grit of the city’s foundations mired in her character; and everything she achieves over the decades to come will almost mystically redound to our credit. Such artists are our emissaries to the larger world. They—along with those who remain our daily neighbors, who enrich us both through their artistry and their citizenry—are worth celebrating. The forty-five individuals and ensembles who follow are those whose gifts resonate most powerfully in this city… no matter where the music they make may originate. (Robert Rodi)28

HELEN MONEY — 341 raphy of Mavis and The Staples Singers, gathered from across the country, witness “I’ll Take You There,” received the 2017- an open rehearsal of what we take forMAVIS STAPLES 2018 “One Book, One Chicago” treatment granted and have their collective jaw drop. from the Chicago Public Library.  One of the wide-eyed attendees ecstati-On the title cut and first single from her cally summed it up in one word: “Perfec-sixteenth solo album, 2017’s “If All I Was 2 tion.” The 2018-19 season will begin Sep-Was Black,” Mavis Staples sings that she tember 20 with an epic, free “Concert forwon’t be afraid, that she’s got “perspec- RICCARDO MUTI Chicago” in Millennium Park with Mutitive” that “might make yours shift,” con- conducting the CSO together with thecluding that “it’s time for more love.” The League of American Orchestras Civic Orchestra, the training orchestra ofAlthough she and The Staples Singers recently held its annual convention in Chi- the CSO celebrating its centennial andwere inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall cago, considered the mecca of orchestral with which Muti also works regularly.Of Fame in 1999, 2017 was in many ways performance. There is the presence of ourthe year of Mavis Staples, at least in Chi- own Chicago Symphony Orchestra, of 3 AUGUST 2018 Newcitycago, and although she’s turning seven- course. But taking that venerable ensem-ty-nine this month, judging by her touring ble to increasingly unimaginable heights CHANCE THE RAPPERschedule, she’s not slowing down. Her is a legendary figure in his own right, Ric-record, produced and primarily written by cardo Muti. The combination of Muti and While we’re still hoping that ChancelorWilco’s Jeff Tweedy, was just one highlight. CSO was combustible from the start. But Bennett will show up at an event wearingShe was a Kennedy Center honoree in as that relationship has deepened over a an “r” on his baseball cap, signaling the2016, was inducted into the Blues Hall Of decade, it has been fascinating to watch release of his fourth mixtape, Chance hasFame in 2017 and Greg Kot’s 2014 biog- conductors and orchestra administrators, been keeping busy since winning a 29

Grammy for 2016’s “Coloring Book,” the first record to chart on Billboard based on streaming alone. He’s donated mil- lions to help fund Chicago Public Schools and runs summer camps for low-income youths (taking one group to the Great Wolf Lodge grand open- ing in Gurnee). Artistically, Chance has done no less than usher in a Chicago hip-hop renaissance, founded not on negativity, braggadocio and violence, but on positivity, pride and peace. At the same time, Chance has been out- spoken in his criticism of the establish- ment, specifically the Donald Trump presidency and Bruce Rauner gover- norship, and has been a leading figure in the movement to end Chicago’s epi- demic of gun violence. 4 DANIEL KNOX — 42 BUDDY GUY Once he was the new kid on the block, keeping Chicago blues alive (via his home state of Louisiana). Now, at eighty-two as of July 30, he’s an elder statesman. This year Buddy Guy fol- lowed up 2015’s excellent “Born To Play Guitar” with “The Blues Is Alive And Well.” His eighteenth studio album since his 1967 debut, the record fea- tures Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck and James Bay. Guy is on a North American tour throughout the summer, with Europe slated for fall; expect the annual multi- night residency at his Legends’ club in January, then he’ll be on the Rock Leg- ends Cruise in February. “Every time I go into the studio, my hope is that I give my best and come out with something good enough to try to keep the blues alive,” Guy told Forbes in June, and he’s definitely met that goal with his latest.Newcity AUGUST 20185 titled Loft Acoustic Sessions, in which statesman of Chicago hip-hop today, as Tweedy will revisit songs from Wilco, he resides in Los Angeles and busies him- JEFF TWEEDY Golden Smog and Loose Fur—both casual self with movie and TV commercial work. fans of the band and Tweedy completists His post-election album “Black America His bobblehead may be sold out in the have found much to love in these stripped- Again” was one of the strongest musical Wilco store, but Tweedy’s touring North down versions. He also produced and and political statements he has released, America this summer and fall (along with wrote Mavis Staples’ most recent record, and more recently he appeared on and European dates), so you might get a and Wilco announced that their Solid served as an executive producer for “The glimpse of the genuine article, although Sound Festival will return to Massachu- Chi,” a Lena Waithe-created television no Chicago dates are planned. The leader setts in June 2019. drama on Showtime set on Chicago’s of Wilco (and former co-conspirator with South Side. Film and television roles not- Jay Farrar in Belleville, Illinois’ Uncle 6 withstanding, Common still brings it as a Tupelo, which ushered in the alt-country live rapper in concert, and he’s serving movement No Depression) is touring COMMON as a mentor for lots of Chicago hip-hop behind his first solo album, “Together At community members. Common has also Last.” While it’s comprised of solo acous- You might remove Common from Chicago, started the Common Ground Foundation, tic renditions of previously issued songs— but you can’t remove the Chicago from which offers youth mentoring, college the first of a proposed retrospective series Common. Hard to believe he’s the elder30

RIC WILSON — 45transition assistance, a youth business predecessor that the PR materials call it which was technically a Branford Marsa- AUGUST 2018 Newcityleadership conference and the Dreamers “the new, new album from Umphrey’s lis album on which he was just the admit-& Believers Summer Camp. McGee.” Meanwhile, the band continues tedly ubiquitous guest star. He wrapped to be one of the fan-friendliest outfits: a up the year by releasing “The Beautiful7 deluxe version of “It’s Not Us” included a Day,” a relentlessly hip Christmas album book, double vinyl and bonus seven-inch (“Same Old Lang Syne,” anybody?). ThatUMPHREY’S MCGEE platter, and in 2017, they signed with the was his first release for his new label, music VR platform Endless Riff, enabling Okeh. Its follow-up, “The Questions,”In addition to the usual jaw-dropping people who haven’t caught them live to do dropped early this year, and featuredschedule of gigs and festivals, Umphrey’s so in a specially curated streaming setlist. Elling (again with Marsalis) taking on theMcGee kicked off its twentieth-anniver- pantheon of great American songwriterssary year of 2018 by releasing its eleventh 8 from Leonard Bernstein to Bob Dylan. It’sstudio album, “It’s Not Us,” an exhilarating the singer’s metaphorical ascent to Olym-splash through just about every musical KURT ELLING pus, which is pretty much all that’s left towave from prog and disco to jazz and him at this point. And he’s still touring upmetal. Five months later, Umphrey caused In 2016 the perpetually suave jazz singer a storm. While the Chicago native hasn’tan industry-wide double take by issuing managed to snag a Grammy nom for Best lived here in years, he retains his spiritualthe follow-up, “It’s You”—so soon after its Jazz Vocal Album for “Upward Spiral,” 31

Newcity AUGUST 2018CARLOS KALMAR — 15 BROKEBACK — 4432

citizenship through the pied-à-terre he as usual suspects like Syd, The-Dream, site (and on thumb drives at concerts) AUGUST 2018 Newcitymaintains here—that being, of course, the Chief Keef, Joey Purp, Pusha T, Ty Dol- he’ll be selling a fifty-three-song packagestage at The Green Mill. la$ign, and an unusual suspect, Weezer. called “Revenge of the Doberman.” Fulks But that shouldn’t come as a surprise: is on the road 120 to 150 nights each year,9 Mensa has always cited rock acts like Jimi describing his thirty years of driving Hendrix, Prince, Guns N’ Roses, AC/DC around and performing as his “primarySMASHING PUMPKINS and Nirvana as influences. Since his group professional reality.” Kids These Days broke up in 2013, he’sThe Pumpkins started the year by offi- toured with J. Cole and Wale, Danny 14cially welcoming founding members Brown and Justin Bieber and worked withJames Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin back Damon Albarn and Gorillaz, Travis Scott, MAKAYA MCCRAVENinto the fold. Original bassist D’arcy Kanye West as well as a who’s who ofWretzky claims she was also invited back, current Chicago hip-hop. The SaveMoney When drummer McCraven began aonly to have the invitation overruled by collective founder is playing festival dates weekly improvised, rotating-players ses-frontman Billy Corgan. Corgan went pub- this summer, and has released a Marsh- sion at the Bedford in 2013, he probablylic with a denial, in another of the moves mello-produced single featuring G-Eazy. didn’t foresee it turning into a new kindthat inspired this magazine to profile his of jazz form. But in 2015 he took theincreasingly diva-ish behavior. The band 12 recordings of the previous year’s materialis now on the road, its “Shiny and Oh So and used it as raw material, cutting, rear-Bright” tour taking it first across the coun- TWIN PEAKS ranging and enhancing it for an album oftry, then across the Atlantic. Meanwhile, collage compositions, “In the Moment”Corgan refined his solo act, styling him- The quintet may have formed while in high (on Chicago’s International Anthem label),self as William Patrick Corgan and issu- school, but that was eight years ago, so that set the jazz world on its ear. He per-ing an album, “Ogilala,” produced by Rick they’ve long since dropped out of college formed similar creative wizardry on hisRubin, that features stripped-down, to rock out full time. Their live double latest album, 2017 “Highly Rare,” with theno-frills reinventions of his earlier mate- album, “Urbs in Horto,” came out in May difference that instead of twelve months’rial; it met with mixed reviews. 2017, and from July to the end of last year, worth of material, the album comprises they released the monthly “Sweet ‘17 Sin- music improvised on a single night at Dan-10 gles” series. Twin Peaks sold out three ny’s Tavern in January 2017—with the play- Thalia Hall shows to commemorate New ers audibly responding to the still-numb-SIR THE BAPTIST Year’s Eve, but they’ve also set the road ing news of two months before… in ablaze, including tours opening for Por- essence, employing art to make sense ofSir has come a long way since scoring tugal. The Man and Spoon, and festival chaos. The album, critically lauded, boastsmusic and doing digital marketing for Leo appearances including Coachella, Desert stellar work from the top tier of Chicago’sBurnett, then living out of his car and driv- Daze and a bunch of U.K. and EU fests. jazz hierarchy, including alto sax man Nicking for Lyft, playing his music for custom- Cadien Lake James, Clay Frankel and Mazzarella, bassist Junius Paul and cor-ers on their trips. Behind “Saint Or Sinner,” Colin Croom (primarily keyboards) all con- netist Ben LaMar Gay.a triumphant full-length debut that tribute lead and backing vocals and guitar,dropped on Atlantic in May 2017, Sir has Jack Dolan plays bass and sings lead and 15taken his trailblazing cause of “healing backing vocals and Connor Brodner drums.hip-hop” to festival stages including Lol- James also produced the just-released CARLOS KALMARlapalooza, Bonnaroo, Tidal X, Voodoo, debut Calpurnia EP, the band fronted byFirefly, Essence, South By Southwest, “Stranger Things” actor Finn Wolfhard. Principal conductor of the Grant ParkMade In America and Afropunk, and per- Music Festival since 2000 and artisticformed with, or for, Jay Z, Beyoncé, Lau- 13 director since 2011, Carlos Kalmar is theryn Hill, Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige and the de facto music director of the nation’s onlyJoffrey Ballet; he also recently toured ROBBIE FULKS remaining free, outdoor summer classicalEurope with Nelly. The hip-hop chaplain music festival. Kalmar takes that respon-has authored “The Travelogue of A Vision- Chicago alt-country institution Robbie sibility very seriously, consistently offeringary” and created The Urban Bible Lifestyle Fulks turned fifty-five this year, but the the city a festival of innovative andNetwork, a media outlet designed to Hideout regular hasn’t lost his youthful wide-ranging programs of astonishingshowcase his “original lifestyle content, exuberance and his energy, as evidenced variety and scope in a magnificent lake-unscripted visual podcasts, travel specials, by the quality and quantity of projects front setting. In addition to two differentlive events, branded content and offering coming up. He’s dropping an excellent programs a week on Wednesdays andreaders once in a lifetime experiences.” duo exploration of honky-tonk  with Linda Saturdays through mid-August with Gail Lewis this month on Bloodshot, pre-concert lectures an hour before, all11 called “Wild! Wild! Wild!” and that’s not of the rehearsals of the Grant Park Orches- the only wildness to come. He anticipates tra are open to the public. Among the high-VIC MENSA what he calls a “reversioning” of Bob lights of the season’s closing programs, Dylan’s 1978 “Street-Legal,” called “16,” Kalmar leads Haydn’s “Theresa” MassAfter two strong EPs, last year Vic Mensa to be released as a vinyl-only double with the Grant Park Chorus on August 3released his full-length debut “The Auto- album this November; he’s producing a and 4 and artists from the Ryan Operabiography,” signed to Roc Nation by Jay-Z record for country singer-writer Brennen Center in a concert performance of Gianhimself. The album featured guest appear- Leigh, which he says is coming out well, Carlo Menotti’s 1939 radio opera “The Oldances from Pharrell Williams and Saul Wil- with “very strong songs;” and via his web- Maid and the Thief” on August 15.liams on the first single, “Wings,” as well 33

TIM KINSELLA — 18 16Newcity AUGUST 2018 Dan Bitney remains an active member of co-founder and co-owner of community the Chicago experimental community initiatives including M.U.R.A.L (formerly TORTOISE with ensembles including Spectralina The Lupe Fiasco Foundation), The Neigh- with Selina Trepp. borhood Start Fund, Society of Spoken While there hasn’t been a Tortoise record Art and Studio SV. He also sits on the since 2016’s typically remarkable “The 17 advisory board of Zero Mass Water. Catastrophist,” that doesn’t mean that the members of the groundbreaking post- LUPE FIASCO 18 rock ensemble have been working at a tortoise’s pace. The quintet toured the Twelve years since releasing his Gram- TIM KINSELLA world, including North America, Europe, my-nominated debut, Lupe Fiasco has South America, Japan and most recently become better known for what he hasn’t In 2017, Kinsella’s band Joan of Arc China, releasing “The Catastrophist Tour done, as opposed to what he has, even released its twenty-second full-length Book” featuring photos by Andrew Payn- after winning a Grammy and twelve nom- album, “He’s Got the Whole This Land Is ter. Last year Douglas McCombs released inations. His on-again, off-again retire- Your Land In His Hands”; it was their first “Illinois River Valley Blues” with his Chi- ment announcements have attained a record to include singer-guitarist Melina cago quartet Brokeback, John McEntire’s soap-opera level of drama, but after prom- Ausikaitis in the lineup. This year brings trio The Sea And Cake released their first ising three records in 2017, he did manage a follow-up, “1984,” built around a cap- record in six years, “Any Day,” and Jeff to drop “Dragos Light” last year and so pella songs written by Ausikaitis. Kinsella Parker and John Herndon released a col- far in 2018 he has put out some intriguing promises “lots of touring” to support the laborative record with Joshua Abrams singles and freestyles (his latest “mic album. Joan of Arc also tag-teamed with and Kjetil Møster in January. Jeff Parker check” is actually a check of a microphone Devendra Banhart for Joyful Noise & The New Breed tour this summer, while he just acquired). “Dragos Light” show- Recordings’ “Cause & Effect” seven-inch Herndon performs regularly with Tara cases his talent as a rapid-fire rapper and series, with Banhart performing JoA’s Jane O’Neil and drummed for Fred innovative lyricist while at the same time “Shown & Told” and JoA taking on Ban- Armisen’s recent Netflix standup special. drilling harder sonically. Fiasco is the hart’s “First Song for B.” But Kinsella isn’t34

coasting on this mere whirlwind of activ- ZESHAN B — 36 AUGUST 2018 Newcity ity; he and his girlfriend Jenny Polus (for- KEN VANDERMARK — 25 merly known as Spa Moans) have formed a duo act called Good Fuck, whose debut 35 album drops in January. “It’s all duets, and all electronic instrumentation,” Kinsella says. “We recorded the record at The Mil- lay Colony for the Arts in upstate NewYork, on 100,000 acres of national forest under four feet of snow. The intense cir- cumstances really made for a lot of sur- prising choices.”19EIGHTH BLACKBIRDThe veteran four-time Grammy Award-win- ning Chicago-based new music group was Musical America’s 2017 “Ensemble of the Year” and continues to tour nation- ally and internationally to acclaim. Its evening-length Irish folk music collabo- ration, “Olagón: A Cantata in Double- speak,” was released last fall on Chicago label Cedille Records and performed here in December; but the innovative sextet doesn’t perform locally as often as it used to. Eighth Blackbird memo- rizes its repertoire to allow greater ensemble and audience interaction with attention also given to visual space, light- ing and the movements of the players. On the boil for 2018-19 is a commission culminating in a seventy-minute staged work by David Lang. 20BIRDS OF CHICAGO Husband-and-wife team JT Nero and Alli- son Russell hit it out of the park with their most recent album, this year’s “Love in Wartime” (our review called it “a flat-out extraordinary piece of work”), which is also their first release since relocating to Nashville. The duo still consider them- selves “a hundred-percent Chicagoan,” as Nero phrased it. It’s just that, for their brand of Americana-influenced rock (“whatever Americana means today,” Nero qualifies), Nashville is the epicenter;“it’s where the work is getting done.” The act’s energy and outlook remain distinctly that of its hometown (“It’s why we took the name”); though being on the road between 180 and 200 days a year, even returning to Nero’s Logan Square ’hood makes him feel increasingly like “a stranger in a strange land” (best expressed in the tune “Travelers” on the new album). Next up for the duo is the summer festival circuit. Nero has also begun writing for a new album.

SPEKTRAL QUARTET — 38Newcity AUGUST 2018 21 language, I know the truth sounds like Wale and Jeremih. She’s also worked with curse words.” But in reality Jenkins is Common, Tink, DeJ Loaf and Chicago SABA unapologetic, especially on his most female MCs Sasha Go Hard and Katie recent mixtapes streaming via Sound- Got Bandz. Off to a strong start in 2018, Saba’s “sabiquity” hasn’t lessened since cloud, “or more; the frustration,” from Feb- Dreezy has dropped a string of singles the last time we profiled him, in 2016; if ruary and “or more; the anxious,” from last including “2nd To None” featuring 2 anything he’s become even more “sabiq- November, which followed his full-length Chainz, and she recently graced the stage uitous.” The Austin product’s great- debut, 2016’s “The Healing Component.” at the Rolling Loud Festival in Miami. The grandmother was a music teacher, his THC, as it’s abbreviated, featured produc- South Side emcee will have a chance to grandfather and grandmother were in a tion work from THEMpeople, Kaytranada champion her city when she stars along- funk band and his father (who left when and BADBADNOTGOOD, as well as side Anthony Anderson, Young Chop and he was five) is R&B singer Chandlar. guest appearances from theMIND, Ravyn Dave East in the upcoming “Beats,” a While Saba first achieved notoriety by Lenae and Noname. But Jenkins is the star made-for-Netflix movie that shines a light rapping verses for Chance the Rapper, he of whatever he raps on; he doesn’t censor on Chicago’s music scene. Her latest sin- and his Pivot Gang (whose members also himself for anyone, and has been known gle is “Where Them $ @.” include his brother, Joseph Chilliams, Frsh to wear a “Fuck Trump” t-shirt featuring Waters, MFnMelo and Squeak) have an upside down American flag. This spring 24 made their own mark in hip-hop, and their he toured Australia and New Zealand; this other collaborators have included Jean summer he’ll be in Spain, The Netherlands JAMILA WOODS Deaux, Daedae, Dam Dam, Noname, and Belgium. He’ll also perform for Steez ProbCause and Smino. His 2017 “Bucket Day In New York City’s Central Park. In a Venn diagram, hip-hop would occupy List Project” was partially inspired by the the overlap of R&B, funk and performance death of his uncle, who passed away after 23 poetry; Jamila Woods comes at the genre being released from prison. Saba’s “CARE from the latter sphere, as her ongoing FOR ME” album dropped in April, dedi- DREEZY association with the Louder Than a Bomb cated to the memory of his cousin and youth poetry slam attests. She’s also col- frequent collaborator, rapper Walter “John Dubbed the “Princess of Chicago Rap,” laborated with Chance the Rapper and Walt” Long Jr. Dreezy has captivated fans and critics Donnie Trumpet, and in 2016 digitally with her rapid-fire delivery, intense lyri- released her own record, “HEAVN,” a con- 22 cism and staying power. Since signing cept album about black girlhood, Chicago with Interscope, she has released two EPs and the hereafter. The album received MICK JENKINS and a well-received debut full-length, near unanimous acclaim, and Woods 2016’s “No Hard Feelings,” which included consolidated the attention with a mem- On Smino’s new single, “New Coupe, collaborations with T-Pain, Gucci Mane, orable Pitchfork set the following summer Who Dis?,” Mick Jenkins raps “Excuse my36

SONS OF THE NEVER WRONG — 28 and, this year, an NPR Tiny Desk concert. 26 leased an EP, “Moon Shoes,” which was AUGUST 2018 Newcity She also made news by holding a com- sufficiently revelatory to land her a con- petition for Chicago Public Schools stu- NONAME tract with Atlantic Records. With a major dents to conceive a visual treatment for label behind her, Lenae found herself rub- the video of the album’s duet with Chance, Noname’s moniker is entirely irrelevant, and bing shoulders—and making music with—“LSD” (a competition won by Ashley Hul- it’s almost like she has come to have this established Chicago artists like Mick Jen- cochea, a senior at Prosser Career Acad- name as a way of illustrating how incon- kins and Noname. A second EP, “Midnight emy). The video was released in August— sequential a name can be. That’s especially Moonlight,” dropped in 2017; a third, two months before the physical release the case after you see her rap, and all com- “Crush,” in January of this year, was pro- of “HEAVN.” parisons to other hip-hop artists, female duced by Kendrick Lamar collaborator or male, Chicagoans or not, become Steve Lacy. At this rate, Lenae may be a 25 entirely irrelevant, too. Noname gained soul-music superstar before she’s old name recognition after doing slam poetry, enough to drink.KEN VANDERMARK placing third in Chicago’s Louder Than A Bomb competition, and she got to know 28The jazz composer and multi-instrumen- Chance The Rapper as a teen participat- talist continues to accomplish more in a ing in Chicago Public Library’s YOUMedia SONS OF THE two-year span than many artists accom- project. She contributed verses to both his NEVER WRONG plish in a decade. Since we last profiled “Acid Rap” and “Coloring Book” mixtapes, him in 2016, he’s started a Chicago-based and has also spit verses for Mick Jenkins, In 2017, the folk trio—comprising sing- ensemble called Marker, whose debut Saba and Smino. Although it took her three ers-songwriters- multi-instrumentalists album, “Wired for Sound,” was critically years to produce her debut, 2016’s “Tele- Sue Demel, Deborah Lader and Bruce acclaimed when it dropped in December. fone,” it was worth the wait. Noname is Roper—celebrated their twenty-fifth anni- But Vandermark’s discography swelled playing a slew of festivals in the United versary in high style, with the release of far beyond that, with half a dozen releases States, U.K. and Europe (including Chica- their tenth studio album, “Song of Sons,” with other bands, as well as a collabora- go’s Pitchfork) this summer and fall. plus a series of celebratory concerts that tion with pianist Michael Snow (“Duol”). played out like pagan lovefests. There He tours extensively, both stateside and 27 were also the expected tributes and enco- abroad, continues to co-program the miums in a wide swathe of local media weekly Option music salon at Experimen- RAVYN LENAE (including this magazine—which called tal Sound Studio, organizes the Audio- them “a folk music representation of graphic Records label for Catalytic Sound, Lenae is still a teenager (she turns twenty Freud’s id, ego and superego”). The Sons and writes erudite liner notes for a range in January), yet the R&B singer-songwriter have since begun their second quar- of other artists’ releases. has the sheer drive of a to-the-manner- born diva. While in high school, she self-re- 37

HALEY FOHR — 31Newcity AUGUST 2018 ter-century with another series of con- 30 opposite. Fohr dwells in her baritone range, certs, and will be recording an online with spare, dark, borderline gothic video series—the first time, amazingly, PATRICIA BARBER arrangements. Her fifth full-length, 2017’s that the venerable trio will have been cap- “Reaching For Indigo” is her most accom- tured live. “We still have work to do as a The decades-long trajectory of Patricia plished and fully fleshed album, aided by band,” says Lader, “and important things Barber from innovative jazz piano player deep electronic underpinnings and that we want to share with people.” Mean- who sang and wrote songs, to sublime thoughtful production from Fohr and Coo- while, Roper is developing a stage musi- multi-genre composer who is a virtuoso per Crain. This summer saw the release cal (working title: “Someone’s Mom Will pianist and vocalist extraordinaire, is a of the fourth single, “Falling Blonde” and Die at Starville”), incorporating material uniquely Chicago story. Without the Green an accompanying black-and-white video, from the band’s catalog over an all-new Mill, which Barber has used as her Mon- produced, directed and starring New Zea- narrative. “We’ve often talked about hav- day night laboratory for over a quarter land artist Veronica Crockford-Pound. ing a vehicle to hang the Songs on,” he century, it is doubtful that Barber would Fohr’s been a Chicagoan for six years, but says. “With fembots and kickboxing,” have sought to stretch to the degree she won’t be home much this year, as she adds Demel. has without a regular devoted audience tours the Midwest (including Pitchfork), that savors stretching with her. Barber’s Scandinavia in the fall, and debuts her 29 pianism has become so expansive that soundtrack to the Charles Bryant 1923 her once roaming quartet is now a leaner, silent film “Salomé” in New York. ANITA WILSON more dense trio. Her harmonic vocabu- lary has become as rooted in contempo- 32 Chicago’s gospel community has been a rary classical sonorities as in the Great thriving part of the city’s musical land- American Songbook. Songs have become JON LANGFORD scape for decades, and occasionally its lieder that marry music and drama. Lyrics vitality seizes well-earned national atten- have become poetry. And Barber’s vocal Described as “l’homme de Renaissance tion. Such is the case with singer Anita delivery of even material she wrote for the of indie rock” on the Bloodshot website, Wilson, whose jazz-inflected “Sunday likes of a radiant voice such as Renée Flem- the Welshman-cum-Chicagoan Jon Lang- Song” (released on her own label, Reflec- ing, are no less compelling. ford has done it all. As a founding mem- tion Media) earned a Grammy nomination ber of Leeds art/punk collective The this year for Best Gospel Album. Alas, Wil- 31 Mekons, his country inspirations and son missed out on the statuette (it went impulses drove their rocking, aggressive to CeCe Winans), but reaped rapturous HALEY FOHR roar into unique musical directions on press along the way. It was the third records like “Fear and Whiskey,” “Honky Grammy nod for Wilson—daughter of a If all that you knew was that Haley Fohr Tonkin’,” “Rock’n’Roll” and most recently, Baptist pastor who’s been singing since had a four-octave vocal range (when it’s 2016’s “Existentialism.” His alt-country the age of six—which consolidates her not raining) and hailed from Bloomington side projects are too numerous to cata- status as one of the gospel scene’s most Indiana, you might expect the soprano logue but include The Waco Brothers, prominent talents. histrionics of a Mariah Carey-type; but Pine Valley Cosmonauts, Skull Orchard the music of Circuit Des Yeux is the polar38

and Jon Langford’s Four Lost Souls, his finally.” He also didn’t want to be the “nine- which she plans to record this summer,quartet whose debut dropped in 2017 to teen-gin-and-tonics-Ryley any more” so and has been awarded a grant from therave reviews (including one from this recently quit drugs and drinking and his city to produce a fully-orchestrated per-magazine). A skilled artist and painter, “brain is working a little better now.” Walker formance of three of the new album’sLangford has also created lots of cover refers to “Deafman Glance” as a love let- pieces, which she’ll mount toward the endart and comic strips, written books, pro- ter to the sounds and silences of Chicago, of the year.duced many records and contributed gui- and he’ll tour the United States to pro-tar work to recordings by the Old 97’s, mote it throughout September, October 35Rosie Flores, Kelly Hogan, Andre Williams, and December.Alejandro Escovedo and fellow Mekon   JEAN DEAUXSally Timms. Equally important, he’s asnice as he is prolific. 34 Briefly a protégé of Saba, Deaux’s arrived on the scene as a rapper, and her razor-33 HELEN MONEY sharp rhymes drew plenty of attention. But heads swiveled when she revealedRYLEY WALKER Helen Money is the latest identity and her singing chops. The cascade of gor- project of metal cellist and composer Ali- geous, candy-colored vocal overlays thatNever mind his instrumental collabora- son Chesley, who recently returned to Chi- opens her 2017 single “Wikipedia” recallstions with Bill MacKay, Ryley Walker’s cago after a sojourn of several years in seventies R&B at its most seductive; hersolo records are when we see his heart Los Angeles. “We loved L.A.,” she says of release for Valentine’s Day 2018, “Due toon his sleeve, and he’s done the utmost herself and her boyfriend, also a musician, Me,” ratchets up the temperature to tor-on his new record “Deafman Glance.” “but we missed the community and the rid levels; and “Energy,” which followedHe offers over 1,200 words about the scene here in Chicago; particularly the in May, playfully launches into its bouncyrecord on his website, but the gist is it jazz clubs, like Constellation and Hungry EDM groove with Deaux ironicallywas a tough record to make: “I went in Brain and The Whistler.” In autumn 2016, lamenting, “I don’t like it / I don’t like itexpecting to make a fucking masterpiece, Helen Money released “Become Zero,” all / I don’t like your energy.” She pullsbut I kept hitting a brick wall.” He didn’t written after the deaths of Chesley’s par- surprises out of her sleeve at regularwant to be “jammy acoustic guy anymore. ents. The album—which uses distortion intervals; a natural video performer, lastI just wanted to make something weird and other effects to sonically evoke grief year she stepped behind the camera toand far-out that came from the heart and transcendence—has been widely direct Smino’s “Anita” (in which she also acclaimed. She’s working on a follow-up, THE HANGAR AUGUST 2018 Newcity at Fort Knox Studios 7,200 square feet of flexible production space and all of the resources needed for your creative project. A truly integrated space for film, video, music, photography and special events.For more informationcall (630) 689-6969 39

co-starred), and it’s as visually lush and textured as her music. electric eels) and an experimental film, “The Farnsworth Scores” She returned to direct the rapper’s 2018 video “Wild Irish Roses.” (made with filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt), in which Mazurek An eagerly anticipated EP (her third) is due later this year. “captures the interaction between humans, nature and architec- ture” at Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois. 36 38 ZESHAN B SPEKTRAL QUARTET Chicago’s multicultural melting pot served up a winner in Zeshan Bagewadi. His parents are Indian Muslim immigrants; his music The dauntless string ensemble has made a personnel change since is rooted in gospel, blues and funk; and his debut album, 2017’s our last check-in, with violinist Maeve Feinberg replacing the depart- “Vetted,” features heartfelt, high-art crooning in three languages: ing Austin Wulliman. The switch didn’t cause the group’s upward English, Urdu and Punjabi. The result of the layered influences trajectory so much as a bobble. In 2017 they earned a Grammy might have been passionate but unfocused, but Bagewadi weaves nomination for “Serious Business,” an album exploring humor in them not simply into coherence but transcendence. The album music that featured three pieces written by Chicago-affiliated hit number eight on Billboard’s World Music chart and scored composers; the year also brought them a citation by the Tribune enthusiastic reviews. Now he’s touring up a storm, earlier this as “Chicagoans of the Year” in the classical category. As usual, summer landing at both Lincoln Center in Manhattan and the the quartet’s calendar was packed with performances and events, Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee. If any artist is equipped to bridge many involving outside-the-box collaborations with other Chicago the cultural divide between those two venues, it’s this one. artists and artisans, including actor-improviser Michael Patrick Thornton, printmaker Ben Chlapek and Illuminated Brew Works. 37 39 ROB MAZUREK TOWKIO The Chicago-bred composer-cornettist now hangs his hat in Marfa, Texas, but creatively maintains what he calls “deep ties” The twenty-five-year-old rapper, who made a name for himself to his Midwestern hometown. Since 2016, he’s been involved in as a mixtape maestro and member of the SaveMoney crew, many performances, projects and sound installations here, includ- released his debut album in February to generally positive, if ing 2017’s “Psychotropic Electric Eel Dream IV” at Lincoln Park sometimes bewildered reviews. “WWW,” produced by Rick Rubin, Conservatory Fern Room (incorporating sounds generated by is cheekier, dreamier and more whimsical than the hip-hop land- scape is accustomed to. But Towkio hasn’t lacked for either Yes, and... audacity or bravado in the promotion of the album: he rode a helium balloon into the stratosphere, a hundred-thousand feet The new album from Geof Bradfield above the terra firma, so that he could literally “drop” the album. It’s the kind of grandstanding wit that either wins you over, or WTF’s you. Fortunately for Towkio, he’s winning that coin toss. 40 MUCCA PAZZA The thirty-piece pomo marching band is still thriving after cre- ating a genre so singular that no one appears to have followed their lead. Part instrumental daredevils, part rollicking perfor- mance artists (with well-worn school band uniforms, choreog- raphy and cheerleaders), the troupe is a natural favorite at fes- tivals, despite which it has earned a reputation for serious musical chops, as at home in Stravinsky as in Sousa. This spring Mucca engaged Chicago Sinfonietta in a “battle of the bands” set to Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet Suite.” (They’d previously faced off in 2014.) As for the year ahead, Mucca plans to release more tracks, videos and merry mayhem.Newcity AUGUST 2018 “The music ranges from carefully scored passages for reeds 41 and horns to more spontaneous interchanges among various subsets of players. In both scenarios the music finds continuity TAYLOR BENNETT in the tonal glow of the ensemble playing, the subtlety of instru- mental voicing, and the harmonic sophistication of everything Dynasties are by nature the antithesis of meritocracies, so you these musicians have to offer.” -Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune don’t usually find them represented in lists like this one. But in 2017, Bennett released his second album—the follow-up to 2015’s Geof Bradfield Yes, and...Music For Nine Improvisers well-received “Broad Shoulders”—and the new work, “Restoration Delmark 5027 at finer record stores or www.delmark.com of an America Idol,” is sufficiently fresh and idiosyncratic to earn Bennett respect on his own, even as he winks at the fact that he’s Chance the Rapper’s younger brother. “I need them VMAs, it’s in my DNA,” he raps on the album’s “Favorite Colors”). Chance him- self shows up for one cut, among other guest artists; but the twen-40

ABSOLUTELY NOT — 43 ty-one-year-old Bennett keeps tight hold (Donnie Moore, Madison Moore and San- vocals by the Paulina Hollers’ Amalea AUGUST 2018 Newcity of the reins. Definitely one to watch. tiago Guerrero) for live shows—a move Tschilds. The album also finds Areif prompted by the dual guitar lines Donnie Sless-Kitain (of The Eternals) joining the 42 Moore wrote into the band’s new material group as drummer, with former drummer (“also I just wanted a bigger crazier sound James Elkington moving up to lead guitar.DANIEL KNOX for concerts”). Artistically, the new addi- tions are tonal and political—“almost going 45 Knox’s highly personal, highly acclaimed for horror-synth-punk,” Moore explains, eponymous album was one of the high- “mostly influenced by the combination of RIC WILSON lights of 2015; since then, his output has how awesome the new ‘Twin Peaks’ series been satisfyingly idiosyncratic. He was… and how NOT AWESOME our new The twenty-two-year-old is an alumnus released two tightly packed and austerely president is for this country.” The band’s of Young Chicago Authors, early cultiva- lovely instrumental albums (2018’s “Work full-length album “Errors” came out in tors of half-a-dozen other hip-hop artists for Hire: Music for Theater & Film” and 2017; other releases are forthcoming. on this list. But Wilson is an outlier in that“52 Short Films”). A 2017 single, “Fun,” he’s equally inspired by visual artists; the whets the appetite for a full-length album 44 cover of his latest EP, “BANBA” (a fol- of his compositions and singing; but Knox low-up to 2017’s “Negrow Disco” EP), is cryptic about timing, saying, “I am still BROKEBACK shows him seated in a gallery setting, gainfully employed as a projectionist at backed by swirling, color-drenched can-The Music Box Theatre and I am making Begun as a side project by guitarist-bass- vases, and he’s been explicit about want- music I expect will be heard at some point ist Douglas McCombs of Tortoise, Broke- ing the album to evoke the paintings of before the year is out.” back has become one of the city’s most Jean-Michel Basquiat and Hebru Brantley. (nearly literally) transporting instrumental “BANBA” (for “Black Art, Not Bad Art”) is 43 ensembles. Its third release, 2017’s majes- expanding Wilson’s steady conquest of tic “Illinois River Valley Blues,” drew crit- Chicago listeners; but it will have a waysABSOLUTELY NOT ical acclaim for the way it layers liquid to go to equal his biggest reach—a video guitar chords and shimmering reverb to mashup of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Septem- 2016’s Music 45 cover subjects have create aural landscapes. Occasional ber” and Migos’ “Bad Boujee” that racked added a few new elements to their act. Brokeback collaborator Rob Mazurek con- up more than two-and-a-half millionThe first is guitarist Chris Sutter from tributes a ballad, and a few cuts feature views on Twitter. Meat Wave, who now joins the original trio 41

CARRYING A PLACE CALLED HOMENEW WORKS BYVICTORIA MARTINEZARIF SMITHBRITTNEY LEEANNE WILLIAMSExhibition on view: July 20–August 31, 2018Carrying A Place Called Home is theculminating program for the 2017-2018resident artists, Victoria Martinez, ArifSmith, and Brittney Leeanne Williams. Theexhibition features new works the artistsproduced during their ten-month residencyat the Arts Incubator in Washington Parkthat reflect on identity, memory, and placethrough painting, collage, dance and video.Learn more: https://carryingaplace.eventbrite.comFREE Arts IncubatorOpen to the publicGallery Hours: 301 E Garfield BlvdWED–FRI 12–6 pm Chicago, IL 60637Presented by Arts + Public Life arts.uchicago.edu/apland the Center for the Study 773.702.9724of Race, Politics, and Culture.@artspubliclife

Greg Breda at Patron Gallery & Resplendent Flame II (First Love, Ish & Isha), acrylic on mylar, 40×68, 2015Through August 25 Culture rts

Art Robin Dluzen Pulling No Punches A Conversation with Artist and Curator Robin Dluzen By Alan Pocaro With a great shock of shoulder-length artists in the show to boxing or her beloved (amongst many other things), has made Windsor furniture for decades, and my brown hair and sporting oversized aviator Detroit Lions. paternal grandmother was a self-taught oil painter. glasses that disguise crisp features on a lithe In a city where making it in the art scene often How did you end up in Chicago? frame, Robin Dluzen cuts an unmistakable means a continuous stream of soul-crushing As I was finishing my BFA at Adrian College majoring in Studio Art and English Literature, I profile. If you’ve spent time in and around low-paid temp and part-time work fortified applied to the nine best studio-art grad programs in the country, though SAIC was my Chicago’s art scene, you’ve encountered her with a healthy dose of bartending, Dluzen’s number-one choice. SAIC accepted me into the Painting and Drawing department, and I earthen-hued artwork, read one of the full-throated embrace of the many-hats moved to Chicago the next fall, August 2008. I’ve been here ever since. numerous and insightful reviews she pens, or approach to building a career is awe-inspiring. We’ve run into each other on and off for visited a show she’s curated. During one the last six years. One of the reasons I curious fall season a few years ago, I saw her at Recently, she’s made the enviable transition always found it very easy to talk with you every opening I attended for over two months. into full-time creative practice but was was because you’re from Michigan and gracious enough to spare time to continue the I’m from Ohio, so there’s a Midwestern culture we share. Can you tell us how Dluzen is one of those relentlessly creative casual back-and-forth banter we enjoy in being from Michigan has played a role in who you’ve become?Newcity AUGUST 2018 types who keep the gears of Chicago art person and via email. First and foremost, I make artwork about my turning; an individual whose commitment to art is matched only by her love of this city. When I When was the first time you thought, “yeah, I want to do art, this is something I caught up with her on a sunny afternoon in early May, she walked me through “Images on want to dedicate my life to?\" File,” her thoughtfully assembled show on the I’ve been drawing and painting since I was a nature of place and memory at Stuart and Co. child, and while I didn’t have a ton of fine-art Utterly without pretension, Dluzen is clear and experiences, I did grow up with a family of makers. My mother is an excellent draftsman, direct—Midwestern in the best sense—and can switch effortlessly between discussing the and she did a lot of botanical illustrations during her time as a horticulturist, my father formal values and thematic concerns of the44

Mesmerizing.Massive.William Kentridge: More Sweetly Play the DanceThrough August 19, 2018Experience an immersive, multisensory experience from thefamed South African artist that combines drawing, filmmaking,and animation with a spirited soundtrack.William Kentridge, More Sweetly Play the Dance, 2015. Installation view at LUMA Arles, Parc des Ateliers, France. © William Kentridge.Courtesy of the artist and LUMA FoundationWeight of a World Opening ReceptionJuly 13 – September 15, 2018 Friday, July 13, 5 – 9 PMFeaturing work by Alison Ruttan, Deborah Stratman, Facing Today: How LGBTQ history canand Orkideh Torabi, with a program by Rebecca Keller. inform and empower young people today Thursday, August 2, 6 – 8 PM IMAGE: DEBORAH STRATMAN, THE ILLINOIS PARABLES (FILM STILL), 2016 AUGUST 2018 Newcity Facing History and the Fragility of Democracies Across the Globe Thursday, August 23, 6 – 8 PM Exhibition Walk-through with Alison Ruttan and Orkideh Torabi Friday, Sept 7, 6 – 8 PM Remembrance/Resistance Excavating History Project Presentation and Closing Reception Friday, Sept 14, 5 – 8 PMWeinberg/Newton Gallery300 W Superior Street, Suite 203Chicago, IL 60654312 529 5090weinbergnewtongallery.comHours Weinberg/Newton GalleryMon – Sat 10 AM – 5 PM is free and open to the public. 45

roots, and my roots are in Michigan. My What are some of the best parts about family’s labor history, and the labor history of being engaged in the Chicago scene? the region, are tied to the landscape and the The best part about Chicago’s art scene is that architecture. The combination of industry and it’s small and accessible. If you want to meet a natural landscape that defines Michigan is very obvious in my practice. certain artist or curator or art dealer or collector, odds are you can.Newcity AUGUST 2018Greg Breda I know you as someone who wears a lot And the worst? of hats—artist, writer, curator, and so on. The worst part about Chicago’s art scene is a ART TOP 5 One of the reasons a lot of people give up lack of ambition. Because the scene is so on a life in art is that they confront the small, and so many of us know each other, 1 Greg Breda. Patron necessity of having a lot going on there’s a tendency to pat people on the back Gallery. If you haven’t simultaneously and that it usually offers for mediocre efforts, because it’s easier than heard of Breda’s paintings, very little compensation, but you’ve really criticizing your friend. I’m biased in that I very you soon will. embraced that approach. much value ambition in an art practice. Yes. I love being busy. I wanted a life in the arts, 2 Shinnosuke Miyake. and now I have it. And yes, it’s a low-income Right. I remember a few years ago Pedro Matthew Rachman field, which makes life harder. Velez wrote that great piece for Newcity Gallery. Abstraction looms called “Friends Curating Friends” that large in paintings that break I worked part-time for five or six years as an pissed people off. I personally loved it, down vision into brushstrokes. arts administrator, which was a great way to and I think the underlying criticism about keep myself immersed in the community, to seeing the same artists over and over 3 Weight of the World. capitalize on the opportunities that come with again, while there are tons of artists who Weinberg Newtown being a part of galleries and institutions, and to never get a show, is still pretty valid. I’ve Gallery. A gallery committed work with artists I admire. Of late, I made the heard from some folks that a lot of to social justice pairs with a decision to quit pushing papers as an curators won’t even go out to the ’burbs. non-profit to present work administrator, and focus instead on what I So how do you avoid that? How do you about history and identity. really want to do, which is to make art, write get out and see artwork to find artists? Is and create exhibitions. it important to you personally to find fresh 4 Intimate Encounters. talent? I hate that phrase. Blanc Gallery. This group How does one impact the other? For me, Like Pedro wrote in that article, we’re all tired show centers POC identities for example, if I’m writing a lot, it’s not of seeing the same artists in shows over and and their spaces of intimate going well in the studio, and if it’s going over again with the same work. It’s easy to get domesticity. well in the studio, I’m writing very little. overexposed in Chicago, but I can’t blame the Do you have similar experiences? artists for saying yes to opportunities, and for 5 Erica Mott. Hyde Park I’m an artist first. I approach everything else I curators to know which artists will attract the Art Center. Occupy Wall do through the lens of an artist. I know that most visitors, press and collectors to their Street meets the Arab Spring there are a lot of art critics who aren’t artists exhibitions. in this expansive exhibition. themselves, but I can’t imagine how I would write about art if I wasn’t an artist! The process I’ve been in Chicago ten years now, which 46 of pinpointing exactly what’s valuable in other means that for some of our more established people’s artwork when I’m writing about it is a artists, I’ve seen at least four solo shows of process that helps me define what I want from their work at their galleries. Unless they’ve my own work. Curating has definitely come made great strides in a new direction, I won’t about through my art criticism. I curate the write about their work twice. So I am very shows I want to see in the world. eager to see shows by new artists, and new and risky projects by artists I already know. I’ve known a lot of people over the years The internet makes it pretty easy to find DIY who have left the city. Have you ever felt shows of student work and weird exhibitions in the pull of New York City or Los Angeles? alternative spaces. But also, there are a lot of I don’t like New York, and while a lot of my art venues that dedicate themselves to friends and colleagues have gone to L. A. over exhibiting artists that might be new to our the past ten years, the scene is not as compel- scene. ling to me as Chicago’s. Being in the Midwest is important to me. I love Filter Photo for the fresh programming. They introduce me to a lot of photographers I How does being from Chicago impact have never seen before. Places like Chicago the way you see your work as an artist, Artists Coalition, Roots & Culture, Adds Donna writer and curator? and Chicago Art Department are all dedicated Strangely enough, the fact that Chicago is to young, emerging or still-underappreciated not seen as a huge art market—though I artists. And the programming at the Museum think that’s been changing since EXPO of Contemporary Photography is always fresh. began—provides a lot of freedom. Without the expectation of making profits from What’s your process when you’re thinking exhibitions, I think that artists and curators about putting together a show? feel more comfortable taking risks and Very rarely do I ever have an exhibition theme looking beyond saleability. I want my art to in mind first. Almost always, it starts with the sell, of course, and some of it does, for which artists. I take a look at the art and artists I’ve I am extremely grateful. But there’s room in been thinking about lately, and I start looking Chicago to be ambitious and strange. carefully at what they might have in common. I

Everything is Politics Through December 30, 2018 Luis Gispert Thomas Hirschhorn Jenny Holzer Emily Jacir Annette Lemieux Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle Gordon Matta-Clark Gordon Parks Michael Rakowitz Nancy Spero Mickalene Thomas JULY 13–AUGUST 17, 2018 1711 WEST CHICAGO AVENUE CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60607 WWW. R HOF F MAN G A L L E RY.C O MA Home for Surrealism7 June - 17 August 2018Harold Noecker. Angular Landscape, c. 1944. Oil on canvas 30 x 36 in. (77.2 x 91.4 cm). AUGUST 2018 NewcityCollection of Bernard Friedman, Chicago.201 East Ontario Street www.artsclubchicago.orgChicago, Illinois 60611 information@artsclubchicago.org312.787.3997 @artsclubchicago 47

EXHIBITIONSANDREW BAE GALLERY ILLINOIS HOLOCAUST MUSEUM & EDUCATION CENTER300 W. Superior Street312 335 8601 9603 Woods Drive, Skokie, ILandrew@andrewbaegallery.com / www.andrewbaegallery.com 847 967 4800Tues–Sat 10-6 info@ilhmec.org / www.ilholocaustmuseum.orgJuly 13–August 25 Da Bin Ahn: 2 + 3 Mon–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sun 10-5 July 19–January 13, 2019 STORIES OF SURVIVAL:BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART Object. Image. Memory.At Northwestern University March 15–September 16 Where the Children Sleep:40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, IL847 491 4000 Photos by Magnus Wennmanblock-museum@northwestern.edu / www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu January 21–September 23 The 75th Anniversary of theTues, Sat–Sun 10-5, Wed–Fri 10-8, Mon closedApril 14–August 5 Hank Willis Thomas: Unbranded Warsaw Ghetto UprisingJuly 17–November 4 Paul Chan: Happiness (finally) after 35,000 years LINDA WARREN PROJECTS of civilization 327 N. Aberdeen, Ste. 151CARL HAMMER GALLERY 312 432 9500 renee@lindawarrenprojects.com / www.lindawarrenprojects.com740 N. Wells Street Tues–Sat 11-5 or by private appointment312 266 8512 June 22–August 18 Emmett Kerrigan, Lora Fosberg,info@carlhammergallery.com / www.carlhammergallery.comTues–Fri 11-6, Sat 11-5 & Juan Angel Chavez: What Is Not Is Isn’t IsJuly 13–August 18 FRESHLY PICKED: Summer Group Show LOGAN CENTER EXHIBITIONSDEPAUL ART MUSEUM At the Reva and David Logan Center for the ArtsAt DePaul University 915 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637935 W. Fullerton Avenue 773 702 2787773 325 7506 logancenterexhibitions@uchicago.edu / www.arts.uchicago.edu/logan/artmuseum@depaul.edu / museums.depaul.edu galleryMon–Tues closed, Wed–Thurs 11-7, Fri–Sun 11-5 Tues–Sat 9-9, Sun 11-9, Mon closedThrough August 5 Out of Easy Reach Please contact gallery for information.Through August 5 BEVERLY FRESH: Really Somethin ElseThrough August 5 DPAM Collects: Happy Little Trees and MONIQUE MELOCHE GALLERY Other Recent Acquisitions 451 N. Paulina Street 312 243 2129 info@moniquemeloche.com / www.moniquemeloche.com Tues–Sat 11-6 June 9–August 18 Jeff Sonhouse: Entrapment Viewing Room: Jarvis Boyland, Abigail DeVille, Sheree Hovsepian, Caroline Kent

THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY RHONA HOFFMAN GALLERYPHOTOGRAPHY 1711 W. Chicago AvenueAt Columbia College Chicago 312 455 1990600 S. Michigan Avenue contact@rhonahoffmangallery.com / www.rhoffmangallery.com312 663 5554 Tues–Fri 10-5:30, Sat 11-5:30mocp@colum.edu / www.mocp.org July 13–August 17 Everything is PoliticsMon–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sat 10-5, Sun 12-5July 19–September 30 Lucas Foglia: Human Nature RICHARD GRAY GALLERYJuly 19–September 30 View Finder: Landscape and Leisure Richard Gray Gallery, Hancock: 875 N. Michigan Avenue, 38th Floor in the Collection Mon–Thurs 10-5:30, Fri 10-4 Gray Warehouse: 2044 W. Carroll AvenueTHE NEUBAUER COLLEGIUM By Appointment July–AugustFOR CULTURE AND SOCIETY 312 642 8877 info@richardgraygallery.com / www.richardgraygallery.comAt the University of Chicago Please contact gallery for information.5701 South Woodlawn Avenue773 795 2329 SCHINGOETHE CENTERcollegium@uchicago.edu / www.neubauercollegium.uchicago.eduMon–Fri 10-5 of Aurora UniversityThrough September 14 Anna Daučíková and Assaf Evron: FOR 1315 Prairie Street, Aurora, IL 630 844 7843POETRY FOUNDATION museum@aurora.edu / www.aurora.edu/museum Closed For Summer / Staff Available61 W. Superior Street Reopens September 20 Joel Sheesley: A Fox River Testimony312 787 7070info@poetryfoundation.org / www.poetryfoundation.org SMART MUSEUM OF ARTMon–Fri 11-4June 21–September 14 On Visiting the Franklin Park Conservatory At the University of Chicago 5550 S. Greenwood Avenue & Botanical Gardens: An Interactive Poetry Installation 773 702 0200 smart-museum@uchicago.edu / www.smartmuseum.uchicago.eduTHE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY Tues–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sun 10-5 May 8–August 5 Tang Chang: The Painting that is PaintedAt the University of Chicago5811 S. Ellis Ave., Cobb Hall, 4th Floor with Poetry is Profoundly Beautiful773 702 8670 Through December 30 Expanding Narratives: The Figureinfo@renaissancesociety.org / www.renaissancesociety.orgClosed For Summer / Staff Available and the GroundReopens September 15 Shadi Habib Allah

find that the theme tends to present itself. How do you think social media has affected the way people think about making art and exhibiting it? The whole art-made-for-Insta- gram phenomenon has been much discussed. I wonder how you think about that, with regards to curating especially. Well, I can’t blame artists for thinking about what looks good on social media. It’s so hard to get strangers, and even our friends and colleagues, out to see our exhibitions in person, so social media is the way most of our art community will experience our work. If photos of your work look shitty on Instagram, then you’re dead in the water. But should that be the main focus of a practice? No, unless that concept is literally your content. As far as curating, I’m still mainly concerned about how artwork looks and reads in a room. That’s first and foremost. Let’s switch gears and talk more Robin Dluzen, \"Drawing of a Drawing my Mom Made (Prairie Dock)\" 2017, charcoal and cardboard, 33 x 46 inches specifically about your practice as an artist. Can you describe what you do in the studio and what my work is accompanied by the creative to run back to the studio and immediate- ly get to work? inspires you to make your work? output from members of my family. Scott Hocking’s last solo show at David Klein I make drawings and sculptures with non-art materials. Throughout my adult life as an artist, In this exhibition, my mother’s botanical Gallery in Detroit reminded me of what an I’ve only made work about one thing: my illustrations, my father’s handmade Windsor artist’s scope can be, the scale at which family and their labor history. I really don’t chairs, my late grandmother’s self-taught oil simple but powerful gestures can take place, know what else I would ever make art about. paintings, and my great-grandmother’s and the importance of putting strangeness, hand-stitched quilt are being exhibited along obsession and guts out there in a seemingly unselfconscious way. When I was nineteen years old, a junior at with recent pieces of mine based on my Adrian College, my dad told me a story about mother’s drawings. “Anthology” illustrates the Speaking of guts, we’ve talked recently when he was nineteen, also at Adrian College, multigenerational aesthetic link amongst a some thirty years prior. He had left school for a family of makers. about your love of boxing and I consider myself a runner, although I hate it and year to work in an iron foundry to make the I’m not very good at it, but there’s Anything else on the docket? money to finish his degree. I had known my something about the discipline of dad had worked in a factory, but it wasn’t until My friend and colleague Stano Grezdo and I this point that I learned the details about that are the creators of a documentary film about running that I really appreciate. Is that the founding of the Ukrainian Institute of how boxing is for you? experience. Modern Art, “The First Lions,” produced and My dear friend, Fang-Tze Hsu, who was in graduate school with me when I was at SAIC, In the 1970s, an iron foundry was still directed by On The Real Film. The film was a champion boxer. Something about the operating on basically turn-of-the-century premieres on August 11 at the Chopin Theatre as a part of Art Design Chicago. The fact that Fang and I were of a similar size, we technology, and my dad said to me: “I wish were both mild-mannered, and we were both week prior, on August 3, the concurrent I could paint pictures, because no one in the arts, made me look at the sport as museum exhibition we’re curating, “LIONS: would believe what it looked like in there.” something that could be right for me. I went Founding Years of UIMA in Chicago,” opens So, I decided to start painting those at UIMA—again, a part of Art Design Chicago. to a few boxing classes at her gym in pictures. I began illustrating that specific Bridgeport, but the stress of grad school was story of my dad’s, and through the years, What artists are you looking at right taking a toll on me at the time. I knew I my narratives have widened and narrowed, now? wanted to seriously pick up the sport in the addressing things like my interest in In terms of stuff that relates to my own studio future. And I did. functional architecture, and most recently, practice, these days I’m looking at Diane making work about my mother’s thirty-year Simpson, Scott Hocking and Brad Kahlham- And it’s absolutely the discipline of boxingNewcity AUGUST 2018 career as a horticulturist. er. Other artists who are having a big impact that appeals to me. Boxing training is I just had a show at Orbit, an alternative on me in terms of practices and careers I rigorous and time-consuming, which are also space run by my dear friends Linda Dorman aspire to are Michiko Itatani, Alison Ruttan, terms that describe my studio practice. Both and Tom Torluemke. Over the years, my Lynn Basa, Tom Torluemke, Mary Lou boxing and art require constant effort, and it immediate family has become far more than Zelazny, Kay Rosen and Bibiana Suarez. It’s doesn’t matter if you’ve had a bad day, or just subject matter—they’ve become active hard to narrow this down, so I’m sure I’m you’re feeling tired or unfocused—you have participants in the creative problem-solving, missing some important ones. to get to work in the gym or the studio. My conceptual development, and the evolution coach Johnny Higgins says, “Sleep when of material and craft of my practice. This Have you seen any standout shows you’re dead.” That’s a philosophy that applies exhibition, “Anthology,” marks the first time recently that made you feel as if you had to my whole life, I think.50