In a recent interview with Minnesota Public Radio host Andrea Swensson, rapper Chad Heslup (aka Longshot) talked about his history of involvement in protest movements since moving from Chicago to Minneapolis 11 years ago. He was inspired to join his first march after Minneapolis police shot and killed 24-year-old Jamar Clark in November 2015, and he returned to the streets to protest the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin on May 25. “My energy felt like I wanted to be up front with this,” Heslup told Swensson. The spirit that got him marching also drives his efforts on the mike throughout the new I’m Saying (SureShot Productions). Floyd’s death catalyzed Heslup’s ruminations about police brutality, the racial stratification of society, and Black life and death in the U.S., and he’s pledged to donate proceeds from Bandcamp sales of I’m Saying to Chicago and Minneapolis organizations dedicated to ending police brutality and social injustice. Heslup hates being forced to live in a country that prioritizes financial rewards over the lives of its Black citizens, and on the grimy, dramatic “P.O.P. (Profit Over People)”, that grief and anger are palpable even in his quietest bars. v
Sun Ra may have told everyone he was from Saturn, but the Afrofuturistic avant-gardist spent the 1950s in Chicago. While he was here, he recorded “El Is a Sound of Joy,” jazz’s greatest tribute to the city’s public transport system. No one in improvising trio Icepick–bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, trumpeter Nate Wooley, and drummer Chris Corsano–now lives in Chicago (Haker Flaten spent a few years here in the aughts), but in 2018 the group came to town to play a benefit for Experimental Sound Studio’s Option Series, a weekly concert and salon launched in 2015 that served as a beacon for improvisers around the world until COVID-19 closed everything down. Hellraiser, the trio’s splendid third album, was recorded at that gig, which took place at Fulton Street Collective, a near-west-side loft space where it’s possible to hear the Green Line trains when the music goes quiet. So it’s only fitting that two of the LP’s three tracks (“El-Bound” and “Blueline”) are titled in homage to the CTA’s elevated train system. The collective experience of Icepick’s members encompasses a myriad of improvisational possibilities, and their technical acumen allows them to tackle tradition-steeped swing as easily as post-everything noise, but they keep their focus on evolving sonic narratives that resolve each knotty exchange or coarse textural exploration with a nakedly emotional tune. v
Before I first press play on an “aging punks still at it” record, I try to prepare myself for the worst.
Whether the band in question have retained only one original member in a completely retooled lineup (like present-day Gang of Four), or replaced their figurehead (like the Misfits did in the 90s), or awkwardly embraced current musical trends (remember Iggy Pop’s 2003 collaboration with Sum 41?), or pivoted to whatever the fuck “Black Flag” were doing on 2013’s aptly titled What The . . . , the odds of disappointment are high. But I guess I should’ve given experimental postpunk pioneers Wire more credit: their recent 17th album, Mind Hive, can easily sit alongside their best. The London band formed in 1976 and initially split in 1980, but they’ve operated on and off since they first came back together in 1985. Today, their lineup still features three of the four original members. Perhaps it’s due to the amount of genuine Wire DNA at work that Mind Hive has everything you’d want in a Wire record: terse rhythms, robotic vocals, alien melodies, and angular guitar interplay from the band that invented it. “Cactused” sounds like it was pulled off Chairs Missing, while “Off the Beach,” the new record’s poppiest song, would be right at home on 154. This month Wire dropped their second record of the year, an odds ‘n’ sods collection called 10:20. This delayed Record Store Day release consists of previously unissued material they’ve accumulated over the past decade–half its tracks are outtakes from 2010’s Red Barked Tree, while the other half are from the Mind Hive sessions. With songs built on motorik Krautrock as well as the band’s signature dreamy postpunk, 10:20 demonstrates how modern-era Wire have managed to stay fresh while honoring their roots. Talk about aging gracefully–they’re doing it right, and really, none of us should be surprised. v
If you’ve been locked down in Chicago and feeling some wanderlust, you might be able to sate your appetite for travel (at least for a little while) with the help of your own tastebuds! Check out some of these local restaurants specializing in the cuisines of a number of different countries around the world.
Photo Credit; Original Rainbow Cone via Facebook
View the Best Desserts in Chicago
Sweettooth ringing? View our list of the best dessert spots in the city.
Located in the Fulton Market District and offering a menu of modern Japanese food and beverages, Momotaro will fill you up with sushi, robata, and more.
If you’re craving the kind of carbs and meaty sauces that only traditional Italian food can deliver, look no further than Andersonville’s Bar Roma, where you can pair your beloved carbs with craft cocktails and great wines.
Photo Credit: Artango Bar & Steakhouse Facebook Page
According to Artango’s website, an evening at their restaurant “feels as if you’ve traveled to Buenos Aires,” which is probably as close as you’re going to get for a while to real international travel — why not enjoy some grass-fed Argentinean beef and pretend you’ve flown thousands of miles to taste it?
This chic spot near Fulton River District is serving up makhani, curry, and more to satisfy your cravings for modern Indian flavors. Choose from a variety of chutney, naan, or even some wine to go with your large plate items.
According to their website, Avli’s “core philosophies” include “Philoxenia (hospitality), Kefi (joy), and Meraki (passion).” If you have a passion for experiencing joy through Greek food, then this is a good spot for you. Get your mitts on some gyros, shish kabobs, or even a pork souvlakia plate (it comes with garlic aioli).
Whether you’re in the mood for noodle soup or you’re feeling more like a banh mi sandwich, this no-frills Vietnamese restaurant has what you need to fill the void in your heart left by lack of travel (and also human contact).
The soups at this Albany Park Chinese restaurant are supposedly for two, but in these wild times, we’re pretty sure you can stuff as much egg drop soup into your face as you want. If you’re looking for some protein or veggies to go with it, the menu is chock full of options.
If you’ve dreamed of waking up in the Philippines, the breakfast options (full of meat, eggs, and garlic) are just one small section of a stacked menu on offer at Kawayan, a Jefferson Park spot for Filipino fare.
Photo Credit: Paladar Cuban Restaurant: Rum Bar Facebook Page
There are few bad days that pierogis, stuffed cabbage, and some hearty stew can’t at least make a positive dent in. If you need some comfort food and a taste of Poland, look no further than the deliciously traditional Podhalanka.
According to customers, this Mexican restaurant blessing Irving Park with its presence has delicious food at great prices. Their tortas are supposedly a real strong point, as well as their carne asada.
This family-owned Puerto Rican restaurant near the Hermosa neighborhood boasts a menu full of fresh ingredients and homemade recipes — including, of course, jibaritos.
The home of “family-style Thai food” for 3 decades, Siam Noodle and Rice (in Buena Park) continues to bring you and your growling stomach an assortment of rice dishes, homestyle “esan” dishes, and all-around deliciousness.
Shawarma, falafel, dolmas — these are just a couple of the tasty treats you can find at this Ravenswood Manor Lebanese restaurant, which dutifully prepares all of its menu items from scratch.
To satisfy your Korean food cravings, head over to this spot in Lincoln Square — but don’t forget your bevies! It’s BYOB at Cho Sun Ok, where you can get soups, BiBimBap, and even BBQ for “tabletop cooking.”
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It goes without saying that Juneteenth should be more widely recognized as a national holiday. Instead, it’s known as a Texas state holiday, commemorating the day a Union general rode into Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, to declare that all slaves were now free. Nevertheless, Black people around America have reclaimed this holiday as their independence day; this year feels especially important in light of the continued Black Lives Matter protests. When we saw that Black People Eats® put together this list on Instagram of Black-owned restaurants with patios that are offering Juneteeth specials, we wanted to give these businesses some more attention. So, what are you waiting for? You can get a meal for just $6.19 in Chicago all weekend long!
An adorable breakfast cafe that caters a balanced blend of healthy food and guilty pleasures, Lizzy J Cafe can meet all of your needs this Juneteenth. Enjoy outdoor seating in this divine oasis.
Juneteenth Special: French Toast Side Any Flavor ($6.19)
Smoked meats are the name of the game at Mae’s Que House, a Hazel Crest restaurant just past the tip of South Side Chicago. With a few tables outside, Mae’s Que House is allowing patrons to dine in again.
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Juneteenth Special: Pork, Turkey, or Chicken Mini Tips with Fries ($6.19)
Featuring an eclectic menu that highlights dishes from varying cultures, The Woodlawn is offering a flatbread special on Juneteenth that includes the Gyro, Italian Beef, Buffalo Chicken, and Jambalaya.
Frontier’s outdoor space is a breezy haven away from the streets of Chicago, and though their Juneteenth special is a $6.19 martini, you’d be remiss not to also order some delicious meats served right off their patio grill.
A quintessential Chicago food truck that roams where it may, Lexington Betty Smoke House will be located in Pullman all weekend, serving up their Juneteenth special.
Juneteenth Special: Mini Rib Tips with Fries or Smoked Chicken with Fries ($6.19)
This straightforward restaurant has been giving back to the neighborhood since they opened. Having gifted over 150,000 free meals to people in the community, Litehouse is a shining beacon of hope in Hyde Park.
Juneteenth Special: Fire Glazed Salmon Bowl ($6.19)
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – MAY 31: Eloy Jimenez #74 of the Chicago White Sox speaks with Chicago Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky before the game against the Cleveland Indians at Guaranteed Rate Field on May 31, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty Images)
The Chicago Bears are hoping that Mitchell Trubisky could have a similar turnaround to two stars from Chicago’s baseball teams.
The Chicago Bears have a lot on their plate when football gets going. They have one of the best defenses (if not the number one best) in the National Football League. That means that bad quarterback play has kept them down over the past year and will continue to keep them down if it doesn’t get better. They traded a fourth-round pick for Nick Foles earlier this offseason to compete with Mitchell Trubisky for the starting job.
The Bears took Trubisky with the second overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft ahead of studs like Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes and he has been awful, especially in 2019. He seems to be getting one more chance to be the Bears starting quarterback as they didn’t pick up his fifth-year option. If this year goes poorly for him, he will be gone.
There are two baseball stars in this town that make you wonder if we should give Trubisky one chance to rebound from his lousy 2019 season. Friend of the program, David Kaplan, discussed the topic on his ESPN 1000 show “Kap and Co.” with his co-hosts about the fact that they need to “let things play out”. They used that logic because of the rebound that Javier Baez had with the Chicago Cubs.
Baez was awful in his rookie 2014. He was so bad that he was in trade rumors and a deal with the San Diego Padres was extremely close to happening. Now in 2020, it is clear how bad of a trade that would have ended up being. Javy proved that letting it all play out is sometimes the best possible strategy because the Cubs now have an MVP level player on their roster.
I’ll even do Kap one better, how about Yoan Moncada? He was so awful in 2018 and struck out a billion times for the Chicago White Sox. It was tough to see Moncada truly ever living up to being one of the world’s best baseball prospects but in 2019 he made us all look bad by being a top-ten hitter and third in the American League. It was an incredible turnaround for both of these guys and now both of them are some of the best players in the world.
Now, keep in mind that Moncada and Baez might both be players that are so good that they go to the Hall of Fame one day. Nobody, including Kap and company, is saying that will happen for Trubisky. What we’re saying is that we let things play out with those two guys and look how it turned out. Trubisky doesn’t even have to become one of the league’s best like Moncada or Baez, he just needs to be average and this football team will win games. Hopefully, something like this could happen.
After a down year and reduced playing time in 2020, Albert Almora appears to be fading out of the Chicago Cubs’ future plans.
Albert Almora was Theo Epstein’s first draft pick as President of Baseball Operations of the Chicago Cubs. At the time, various media sites graded the pick highly, because of Almora’s ability to put the bat on the ball. And through his first three seasons in the big leagues, he looked the part…mostly.
But while 2019 was downright awful for Almora, it really started in the second half of 2018 when the former first-round pick hit just .232 in 62 games. He finished with a .286 average on the year, thanks to a .319 first-half surge.
He was on the rebound through 48 games last year, hitting .259 with eight doubles, seven home runs, and 20 RBI. But then in Houston, Almora’s foul ball went into the stands, hitting a young fan, and he was never the same after that.
Almora would go onto hit .215 the rest of the year while also posting a negative defensive rating for the first time in his career. His glove has always been highly-touted coming up through the minors, but it was a matter of whether his bat was Major League-ready.
There was some level of suspicion whether the Cubs would tender Almora a contract in the offseason. Had they seen enough? Apparently not, as he was tendered a one-year $1.6M deal and, thus, avoiding arbitration. He’s under team control for two more seasons, but it raises the question if he should be part of the Cubs’ future plans.
With the 2020 season likely settling on 65-70 games, playing time is going to be sparse, especially with the addition of Steven Souza Jr. added during the offseason. The real offseason, I should say.
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However, with the DH likely to be implemented permanently, Kyle Schwarber figures to step into that role, freeing up left field to the group. Ian Happ will have a larger role in 2020 after spending the majority of 2019 in the minors working on his timing. He returned for 58 games, reducing his strikeout rate from over 36 percent in 2019 to 25 percent last season.
Happ played well in limited time, but he also needs to prove that it wasn’t a fluke. We know one thing. Jason Heyward is a permanent fixture in right field, and Kris Bryant is likely to get some spot starts in the outfield to accommodate David Bote’s playing time, especially with a crowded middle infield.
So, to put it mildly, Almora has a difficult task ahead of him. Thankfully, he comes at a fairly insignificant cost, but at some point, he may no longer justify getting regular at-bats. Especially with Brennen Davis and Cole Roederer knocking on the door in the minors. Let’s see if he can make the most of a shortened season.
ChicagoBears (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Going into training camp and the preseason, the Chicago Bears have a lot of questions surrounding their offense.
Two years ago when the Chicago Bears hired Matt Nagy to be their head coach, fans immediately felt something they hadn’t in quite some time. From the get-go, Nagy was an excited, positive and outgoing character who brought the team together. He instilled hope from the very first moment he spoke to the fans and media.
Nagy’s background was supposed to help lift the Bears’ offense from the ashes to better days ahead. In 2018, the rookie head coach saw his team take a small step forward, finishing as the league’s 19th ranked offense in yards per game.
Last year, though, the offense seemed to regress in every sense of the word.
Whether it was Mitchell Trubisky looking like a rookie all over again, the offensive line falling apart or the run game failing to find itself, the Bears were miserable on that side of the ball. Heck, Nagy was at plenty of fault throughout the season as well.
A year after winning the NFC North and seeing so much hope brought to the future of this team, and specifically the offense, the Bears fell backwards to the NFL’s 29th ranked offense, putting up a measly 296.8 yards per game.
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They ranked similarly in points per game (29th), rushing yards per game (27th), passing yards per game (25th), first downs achieved (28th) and third down percentage (25th).
All in all, they were horrendous. Needless to say, there are going to be continuous questions regarding the offense all the way up to the first game of the season. Five, in particular, are overly worrisome. Hopefully, these are answered early on in the regular season — and let’s hope these answers are the ones we want to hear. If not, the Bears are doomed once again.
The ChicagoBlackhawks should be so proud of how Patrick Kane has grown up over the years. He has truly developed into a great leader for this franchise.
The Chicago Blackhawks owned the National Hockey League for about eight years. It was a lot of fun to watch the growth and development of all their star players which allowed them to win a boatload of hockey games. In particular, Patrick Kane developed into one of the greatest players who ever played. It was a bumpy ride off the ice at first but he has developed in that area of his career as well and it has been wonderful to see.
There was the Cinco de Mayo pictures, the cab driver, and alligations against him early on that made people wonder about his character but it has all turned out well for Kane. He is a tremendous leader on the ice and off the ice which makes him an even more valuable asset to the organization. He is the face of the franchise and he is going to be for a long time still. There might be a time in the past where nobody ever would have thought that Kane deserves an “A” on his sweater at all but here we are.
He has 1022 points in 973 games played for the Hawks and is on his way to being known as the all-time greatest Blackhawks player. He is also headed towards being known as the greatest American born player in the history of the sport. All of that is fine and dandy but his character off the ice is important too and that has really come a long way from where he once was.
Kane recently appeared on ESPN’s “The Return of Sports” special version of SportsCenter. He just speaks so eloquently now and is a great representative of the Chicago Blackhawks and National Hockey League as a whole. He talked about getting back to playing hockey and how he is a guy that needs to be skating regularly and working on his craft in order to be ready. It makes complete sense that Patrick Kane is addicted to practicing hockey because of how good he is.
At this point in 2020, it is fair to go into the playoffs (whenever they happen) with a bit of confidence that the Hawks will be able to at least make it interesting. That is because of the fact that Patrick Kane is there with some other experienced veterans like Jonathan Toews and Duncan Keith to lead the way.
