Slumgullion

Check out yesterday’s Weekend Reminders post for events happening this weekend.

First, a warm welcome back to the Chicago area for Ann and Nancy Wilson. Heart’s 8:00 pm show tonight in Highland Park, IL kicks off the 2025 Ravinia Festival concert season, which will last through the end of August. Grace Jones and Janelle Monae will perform tomorrow night.

To be honest, I had no idea this year’s Ravinia Festival was starting already until I saw the Heart concert as the lead item in Mary Houlihan’s The Mix column in yesterday’s Chicago Sun-Times. She does a great job each week of highlighting each weekend’s entertainment event.

I interviewed Ann Wilson and guitarist Howard Leese after a Heart concert at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre in Wisconsin several years ago, and they were both incredibly nice.

As recently reported on The Second Disc, an informative website that covers upcoming CD and vinyl releases, fans of the sophisticated techno pop trio Ivy have a surprise coming on September 5. That’s when Traces Of You, a 10-track album of previously unreleased songs recorded by Adam Schlesinger, Andy Chase, and Dominique Durand between 1995 and 2012, will be released. Sadly, we lost Schlesinger due to COVID-19 in 2020. The Second Disc writer Mike Duquette explains Chase and Durand, “completed the tracks with the help of longtime collaborator, guitarist Bruce Driscoll; the tracks also feature contributions by Beck/R.E.M. touring drummer Joey Waronker as well as guitarist Jody Porter and drummer Brian Young, Schlesinger's bandmates in Fountains of Wayne.” The official video clips of “Say You Will” and “Edge Of The Ocean” provide an enticing preview of Traces Of You.

We must be in heaven, man. Nah, it’s Berwyn, IL. But there will be some genuine hippie vibes when Tributosaurus Becomes Woodstock at FitzGerald’s Outdoors on August 23. Tributosaurus is one of Chicago’s best known tribute acts; tickets for this show are already on sale at the venue’s website.

American garage rock masters The Chesterfield Kings have released a seven-inch green vinyl single of “Your Strange Love,” a song they co-wrote with Steven Van Zandt for their 2024 album We’re Still The Same. The B-side is a cover of The Beatles song “It’s Only Love.” The band has a series of U.K. concerts with The Len Price 3 as their opening act starting in Glasgow on June 15.

Ascendant, the Chicago-based soul band that’s been giving audiences spirited performances for 20 years, will likely showcase its new single “Love Saved My Life” during its show at City Winery Chicago next Wednesday, June 11.

It looks like director Justin Fielding’s long-awaited documentary The Power Pop Movie is moving closer to being released. According to a recent Facebook post from executive producer David Bash of International Pop Overthrow fame, The Power Pop Movie is pretty much a complete film, and Fielding “will be working on licensing shortly.”

New Orleans vocalist Kate Fagan will return to her former hometown of Chicago on August 10 for a showcase of women performers at the Empty Bottle venue. Fagan is still known here for her work with BB Spin and Heavy Manners, so her August 10 show will feature some of that material, as well as her latest single releases. Clickbait, Beastii and DJ Modern Girl will also be on the Empty Bottle bill.

A new five-track, ten-inch vinyl E.P. of R.E.M.’s iconic first single “Radio Free Europe,” is being released to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the actual United States Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which broadcasts news and information to various countries. The E.P. already can be downloaded on Bandcamp; and it can pre-ordered alone or in various bundles from the band’s official website.

The latest edition of the power pop recording artists Dolph Chaney and the Phins residency at Montrose Saloon on Chicago’s north side comes on June 19. Local trio The Dry Look and the quartet Brother Derek will also perform at Montrose Saloon that night.

 The Journey – Part 3, due out on July 11, will wrap up The Kinks’ 60th Anniversary Anthology series with a selection of songs from their 1977 – 1984 recordings. Available as two LPs, two CDs or as a download, it will include hits such as “(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman,” “Come Dancing,” “Better Things,” “A Rock And Roll Fantasy,” “Low Budget,” “Destroyer,” and “Sleepwalker.” The Journey – Part 3 will also feature live recordings of “Till The End Of The Day,” “Where Have All The Good Times Gone,” “Apeman,” and other Kinks favorites.

As mentioned here in previous posts, McLuhan has been selling vinyl copies of its ground-breaking and recently re-released album Anomaly at gigs. As of July 25, the adventurous seven-piece Chicago band inspired by philosopher Marshall McLuhan will have CD copies of that album for sale via Think Like A Key Music.

Ringo Starr And His All Starr Band’s 2025 Tour will include a show at the Chicago Theatre on September 10. Starr’s latest album, Look Up, finds him working in a Country and Western vein, but it’s likely he and his mates will be covering all kinds of music, including Beatles tunes.

Singer-guitarist Michael Steven Cohen will return to the Tuscan Market & Wine Shop in Arlington Heights from 7:00 to 9:30 pm on June 13 to perform selections from the Great American Songbook. The evening will also feature Cohen performing as part of the Everly Hillbillies band, which covers hits by the Everly Brothers.

Wolf Alice’s North American tour will kick off on September 10 in Atlanta. The London-based indie rock band will return to The Vic in Chicago on September 26; other stops on the tour include Washington, DC; Philadelphia; Boston; Montreal; Toronto; Dallas; Denver; and Los Angeles. Wolf Alice has a new album titled The Clearing coming out August 29.

Singer-guitarist Dag Juhlin, a member of several Chicago area bands, has been releasing new solo albums on his Bandcamp page over the past year. The latest, Who’s Your Favorite Clown?, with a cover illustration of Bozo and Ringmaster Ned, offers six parables set to a variety of arrangements. The lyrics are consistently sharp and clever, and conjure a feeling the games we’re playing these days could lead to serious trouble.

The Twigs, AKA fraternal twins Laura and Linda Good, will perform a Sunset Sessions acoustic set at Wet Whistle Wines in Brooklyn, NY on June 13. The former Illinois residents started their career as The Good Twins before morphing into The Twigs and releasing a few albums of fetching indie/techno pop. More recently, they wrote the book, music, and lyrics for Ladyship The Musical.

Chicago independent radio station CHIRP 107.1 FM has a summer fundraiser titled Sounds Like Chicago - Conversations About Music, Life And Our City coming up on June 11. The event will take place at Trigger in the Irving Park neighborhood, with Sound Opinions radio personality/journalist Jim DeRogatis serving as moderator. Guests will be Toni Preckwinkle; Kelly Leonard; Beverly Kim and Johnny Clark; Mindy Segal; and Doug Sohn.

Chicago area fans can check out the Jason Narducy and Dag Juhlin Celebrate Pete Townshend’s (Belated) Birthday performance at Hey Nonny in Arlington Heights, IL on June 21. Tickets recently went on sale for a late show that will start at 9:30 pm; tickets for the original 7:00 pm show are quickly selling out.

Singer-guitarist Phil Angotti recently released his latest album. Notebook Head, a well-crafted collection of 10 acoustic solo performances can now be downloaded on his Bandcamp page, and will be available on CD in a few weeks.  All the tracks sound like winners, but “Wreck Of The Rowboat Named Harold” is particularly impressive in a Bob Dylan vein.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater, which recently imported the Kinks bio musical Sunny Afternoon from England, is now offering another pop music fueled show. 42 Balloons, written by Jack Godfrey, utilizes a 1980s-inspired score to tell a tale based on an actual 1982 event when a Los Angeles man attached weather balloons to a chair and sailed upward. It’s directed by Ellie Coote, with choreography by Alexzandra Sarmiento and orchestra ad music supervision by Joe Beighton. 42 Balloons will run at Chicago Shakespeare Theater through June 29.

 “Leitmotif,” the fourth song Chicago-based singer-songwriter AJ Rosales has released from his upcoming album Phasedrift on Bandcamp, continues the string of melodic acoustic songs with well crafted, introspective lyrics. Once again, listeners will likely be reminded of vintage Neil Young as Rosales supplies all the vocals and instrumentation. It might be the last preview we get since Phasedrift is due out on June 20.

Chicago area vocalist Gerald McClendon “The Soul Keeper” has a concert coming up at The Des Plaines Theatre in Des Plaines, IL on June 14.

Online applications are now available for those interested in being part of YippieFest 2025 at Chopin Theatre on Chicago’s north side. The freewheeling, in-person entertainment event will return for its seventh year on the weekend of August 22 – 24. The long-running sketch/musical comedy group Famous In The Future will once again host YippieFest, which is inspired by the annual Abby Fest that was staged by Mary-Arrchie Theatre for several years.