Welcome to everyone who’s in Chicago this weekend for
The Pitchfork Music Festival. As with
Lollapalooza and
Riot Fest, I leave it to the daily newspapers and well-informed free publications to offer their recommendations on the best acts to see.
Lenny Kaye has a Nuggets 50th Anniversary celebration coming up next weekend, July 28 and 29, at City Winery New York. Patti Smith, Ivan Julian, Peter Buck, James Mastro, Marshall Crenshaw, Juliana Hatfield, and Bob Mould are among the performers, and the house band will feature Lenny Kaye—who’s also hosting the event—-Tony Shanahan, Jack Petruzzelli, Glen Burtnik, and Dennis Diken.
DisFest, an event honoring performers with disabilities, will take place from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm tomorrow at The Cultural Center in downtown Chicago. Tellin’ Tales Theatre founder/performer Tekki Lomnicki will serve as emcee, and other participants include A.B.L.E. (Artists Breaking Limits and Expectations) and LaDonna Freidheim, as well as improv, jazz, and hip hop performers. Visitors to DisFest are encouraged to join in the fun. Admission is free, The Cultural Center is located at 78 W. Washington.
The Who have a 50th anniversary edition of their Who’s Next album coming out on September 14 that will include songs from Pete Townshend’s Life House project. As with most anniversary releases from major acts, Who’s Next - Life House will be available in various formats. They range from a 10 CD set that also includes a Blu-ray, posters, a t-shirt and two books for $305.98 to a single CD with a 12-page booklet for $13.98. All the versions are now available for pre-order on the official Who website.
The Dark Room Men will be performing at The Sovereign tonight, along with The Rut, who’ll be playing an acoustic set. The Sovereign, which is said to have a dynamite jukebox featuring mixes compiled by the staff and friends, is located at 6202 N. Broadway.
God Is In The TV, the Cardiff, UK record label and culture webzine, has a put together another multi-act tribute album, and it will be available to download on August 4. Pictures Of You: A Compilation Of Covers Of Songs By The Cure offers 44 tracks for a mere £5.
Tickets are now on sale for the rescheduled performances by X on August 27 and 28 at The Old Town School Of Folk Music. The pioneering L.A. punk band, which still has all four original members, had to cancel an earlier date at the venue.
If residents of Cheshire are seeing UFOs, it could because The Bluedot Festival is being held in the UK city this weekend. Billed as an “Intergalactic festival of music, science, art, technology and the exploration of space,” it runs through Sunday at the Jodrell Bank Observatory. Pavement and Grace Jones are among the headline acts, and the featured events include 60 Years Of Doctor Who: A Celebration and An Afternoon Of White Rabbit Books Featuring Miki Berenyi In Conversion. Berenyi, the vocalist-guitarist for Lush, recently released a memoir titled Fingers Crossed - How Music Saved Me From Success.
NEO Reunion 2023 takes place at Metro next Saturday night at 7:30 pm. DJ sets by Suzanne Shelton, Jeff Moyer, Rob Kokot, Glenn Russell and others will no doubt bring back fond memories of the iconic new wave club that reigned on Clark Street for so many years.
Director Greta Gerwig’s off-kilter comedy Barbie, which features Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in the lead roles, recently received positive reviews from The Chicago Tribune’s Michael Phillips and The Chicago Sun-Times’ Richard Roeper.
YippieFest, the Famous In The Future comedy group’s annual three-day celebration of counter-culture entertainment, returns on the weekend of August 4 – 6 at PrideArtsChicago. If you dress up as Barbie, longtime Famous In The Future member/Barbie impersonator Desire Burcum will mostly likely give you a thumbs up. Modeled after the late Mary-Arrchie Theatre’s long-running Abbie Hoffman Died For Our Sins Festival, YippieFest has done a good job of carrying on that tie-dyed tradition. The people behind it—Frank Carr from the Famous In The Future comedy group, and James Moeller from the whitewolfsonicprincess alt rock band—are Abbie Fest veterans. (Full disclosure: I was a member of Famous In The Future for several years.) Ticket prices are $15 for a day pass and $25 for a weekend pass; proceeds will benefit Howard Brown Health, Brave Space Alliance, and Greater Chicago Food Depository. PrideArtChicago is located at 4139 N. Broadway.
Congratulations to Graham Nash on being chosen to receive the John Lennon Real Love Award from the nonprofit organization Theatre Within. According to a recent piece on the Billboard magazine website, the presentation will take place on December 2 at this year’s John Lennon Tribute at Town Hall in New York. This is the 43rd year Theatre Within has staged the tribute, and Yoko Ono has been involved for much of that time. Her cooperation resulted with the Real Love Award being established in 2014. According to the official website, the award acknowledges performers for “for their creative excellence, positive social impact and support of charitable causes.”
This sounds like something you’d peek at from behind your window curtains, but Phil Angotti and The Naughty Neighbors Celebrate Mick Jagger Turning 80 is coming to SPACE in Evanston this Tuesday, July 25. Jagger’s actual birthday is July 26; some other famous person was born on July 25. Five days later on July 30, Phil Angotti And Friends will continue their Beatles Brunch series at City Winery Chicago.
As reported in a recent Associated Press article, the Fender guitar company has opened a three-story flagship store in the swinging Harajuku district in Tokyo, Japan. Writer Yuri Kageyama states, “the flagship store is designed to serve as a kind of museum-cum-amusement park for Fender lovers.”
Built To Spill will be the headline act next Friday night when this year’s Wicker Park Fest kicks off on Milwaukee Avenue from Damen to Paulina. Los Angeles-based The Regrettes, one of the more impressive new acts of the past few years, are the main attraction on Saturday, July 29. Several other acts are scheduled through July 30, and there will be an arts area and food vendors.
John Mead’s True Believers will perform a mix of acoustic and electric Neil Young songs next Saturday at Martyrs’ on Lincoln Avenue. Mead will be joined by fellow Chicago music scene veterans Steve Dawson, Tommi Zender, Alton Smith, John Abbey, and Gregg Ostrom. Other upcoming shows at Martyrs’ include Irish blues singer-guitarist Gráinne Duffy and folk singer Rosa on July 27; Cheer-Accident and Outronaut on July 28; and Dead Letter Office performing A Tribute To R.E.M. on August 11.
The Factory Theater’s Lane Call: A Night Of Closing, a workplace comedy set at a department store in the 1970s, continues its run through this Sunday at The Factory Theater.
Congratulations to Chicago author Toya Wolfe on being honored with this year’s Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award for her novel Last Summer On State Street.
Marie and Rosetta, writer George Brant’s play with music about rock and roll pioneers Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight, recently received a four star review from Catey Sullivan in the Chicago Sun-Times. The show, currently running at Northlight Theatre in Skokie, is directed by E. Faye Butler, and features Bethany Thomas and Alexis J. Roston.
The State Of Sound exhibit is now open at Navy Pier. This is a pop-up version of the award-winning exhibition that was held at the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Springfield, and celebrates Illinois-based stars such as Muddy Waters; Material Issue; Earth, Wind & Fire; Chicago; Chance the Rapper; Wilco; Shoes; and Cheap Trick. Admission is free, and you’ll find the exhibit at Festival Hall A in the lower level lobby of Navy Pier through Aug. 27.
The 94-piece exhibit Andy Warhol Portfolios: A Life In Pop continues its run through July at McAninch Arts Center at the Cleve College Of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
Personality - The Lloyd Price Musical wraps up its successful run at the Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building on July 30. The musical celebrates the amazing career of Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame songwriter The Lloyd Price, who gave us “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” and “Aint It A Shame.”
Out Of Space, the summer music festival created by the City of Evanston, radio station WXRT, the SPACE music venue, and Canal Shores Golf Course, returns next Thursday, July 27 with performances by Dawes, Lucius and Celisse. The live entertainment continues on July 28 with Lord Huron with Allie Crowe Buckley and Kara Jackson; Regina Spektor with with Allison Russell and Elizabeth Moen on July 29; and Andrew Bird with Uwade and Nora O’Connor on July 30. Check the official website for tickets; some shows are already sold out.
As reported by film critic Michael Phillips in today’s issue of the Chicago Tribune, Pickwick Theatre, the ornate landmark movie house in Park Ridge, will soon offer live entertainment as well as flicks. Bookings will be done by the same team that manages the Copernicus Center in Chicago’s Jefferson Park neighborhood. I have no expertise in the business end of all this, but I will say I’m optimistic, based on the quality of acts that have performed at the Copernicus Center over the years. A quick search of Broken Hearted Toy shows the venue has booked Sparks; The Alan Parsons Project; Jackson Browne and Greg Leisz; the Celebrating David Bowie Tour, featuring Adrian Belew, Todd Rundgren, and others; The Monkees Present The Mike Nesmith And Micky Dolenz Show; and Little Steven and The Disciples Of Soul. Chicago’s premier tribute band Tributosaurus has done a number of its ‘Becomes’ shows there. The Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge is a quick Metra ride from those of us in the northwest suburbs as well as people living in Chicago.
