Democratic nominee Alexi Giannoulias is planning to release two new television campaign ads to air in the Chicago area on Tuesday — the first batch in his general election race to succeed retiring Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.
And once again they feature the former state treasurer playing basketball with children, a theme he introduced in his primary election campaign, which saw the Near North Side Democrat handily defeating City Clerk Anna Valencia and Ald. David Moore (17th).
Giannoulias now faces Republican Dan Brady, a veteran state representative from Bloomington, and Libertarian Jon Stewart in the November election.
An ad called “Promise” features Giannoulias teaching kids basketball skills and vowing to clean up government “for everyone, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican.”
“As secretary of state, I’ll keep politics out of the office, so that when these kids are old enough to pay taxes, they’ll get better services and less corruption,” Giannoulias says. “And yes, some more ice cream, too.”
If elected, Giannoulias has said he’ll enact an executive order on Day One to eliminate pay-to-play politics by prohibiting contractors from doing business with the office and banning employees from contributing to his campaign fund. An ethics plan has been a key promise of Giannoulias’ campaign, even as his primary opponents tried to bring up baggage from his past, including controversies surrounding his family’s failed bank.
Another commercial dubbed “Skip The Line” features antsy kids waiting in line to play hoops, with Giannoulias, as a narrator, detailing plans to modernize the office by making appointments online, creating digital drivers licenses and a vow of “no more waiting in line” at drivers’ license facilities.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican. Government needs to step up and make life easier for everyone,” Giannoulias says. “With modernized services, saving time and money could be a slam dunk.”
The bipartisan theme comes as Giannoulias tries to reach out to downstate voters. But the ads will first run simultaneously Tuesday on broadcast and cable, beginning with Chicago and the collar counties.
Giannoulias’ campaign said the TV spots feature new footage from the same filming that was used in his primary ads. In one of those primary ads, Giannoulias called former President Barack Obama his “friend and basketball buddy.”
Giannoulias was the fundraising leader in the primary. Campaign finance records show his campaign had $773,259.33 cash on hand at the end of June. Since then, he’s received more than $1.6 million in contributions.
Brady has $95,298.33 cash on hand, records show.
Brady, a 21-year General Assembly veteran and deputy minority leader, has promised to modernize the secretary of state’s office. Brady beat former federal prosecutor John Milhiser in the primary election 77% to 23% to win the GOP bid.
The Blackhawks defenseman will miss 10-12 weeks from Tuesday after undergoing cervical spine surgery, the team announced.
That timeline puts his return in approximately late November or early December, meaning he’ll likely miss the first 15 to 25 games of the regular season.
He missed all but 13 games of the 2021 pandemic-shortened season with the Sabres while recovering from knee surgery, too. He began last season shaky as a result of that long time off, too, but he managed to play in 75 of 82 games, averaging 20:18 of ice time per game and recording four goals, 18 assists and 166 hits.
He said in April he was “pretty unhappy” with how his first Hawks season went, particularly from a team perspective.
“Yeah, it sucks,” he said. “But I’m committed to helping turn this thing around here and continuing to work my butt off every night and trying to help us find a culture and identity here.”
McCabe’s early-season absence further explains why the Hawks signed free-agent defenseman Jack Johnson in order to have six established NHL defensemen under contract.
With only five immediately available — and that assumes Connor Murphy, coming off a major concussion, is good to go –the Hawks’ numerous arguably NHL-ready prospect defensemen, including Ian Mitchell, Alec Regula and Alex Vlasic, will now have a spot in the opening night lineup to fight for.
The Hawks also announced Tuesday that prospect forward Jalen Luypen, a 2021 seventh-round pick who signed his entry-level contract in August, will miss 14 to 18 weeks due to a left rotator cuff injury.
After taking a breath, stepping back and thinking about what transpired on Sunday, most Chicago Bears fans can step into the immediate future with a bit more of a positive outlook.
When the Bears took the field, though, it was under complete monsoon conditions. The rain had been heavy all morning in Chicago, and it wasn’t slowing down.
It was a golden opportunity for the Bears to establish themselves as a physical, gritty team that wasn’t going to lay down in their first game under head coach Matt Eberflus — and that’s exactly the type of team that showed up in Week 1.
The biggest surprise of Week 1 may have been, simply put, a Chicago Bears win.
Week 1 in the NFL was a wild ride, featuring some unforeseen outcomes around the league. No outcome may have been more surprising, though, than the Bears beating the 49ers.
This game had so many layers to it, from the weather conditions, to Eberflus’ first game in Chicago, to Justin Fields vs. Trey Lance in a battle of 2021 first-round quarterbacks.
After going down 10-0 at halftime, things looked bleak. But, the Bears came out and battled back for a gutsy 19-10 victory. Fields and company ran down the field and slid into the end zone, riding the waves that covered Soldier Field due to the abundance of rain.
It was a storybook ending to a game that looked reminiscent of many we have seen in the past. The Bears had their backs up against the wall, and they came out victorious. But, aside from the mere surprise that was the win, there were plenty of other surprises in this game, starting with this new coaching staff and how the team responded to adversity.
It took a day to digest the box of Pizza Hut chicken wings I had during the Chicago Bears’ win against the San Francisco 49ers Sunday. It was an improbable win after a first half that had me scrolling my news feed for coverage on the Death of Queen Elizabeth that had the Bears looking like a Jimbo Fisher coached team what national analysts had predicted this offseason.
The second half was near unwatchable for the rest of the NFL’s fans was a different story. Justin Fields turned this team around and showed the organization he would be the leader they drafted him to be. Fields finished the game with 121 more passing yards than Trevor Siemian with two touchdowns but that’s not the full story.
Fields resilience in the face of whoever Braxton Jones was blocking a 10-point second-half deficit was inspiring. On a drive where Fields should have been picked off a few plays earlier the offense had to come away with something; Fields escaped the pocket to throw a dime to Dante Pettis, who took it in for a score.
I’ll admit, when the ball was caught, my first thought was who the hell is Dante Pettis? should Fields have just made the check down? But the second-year quarterback is coming into his own. After that touchdown, Bears fans knew that Darnell Mooney looked like a fifth-round draft pick that head coach Matt Eberflus would have the team bring this one home.
Weather helped the Chicago Bears out
Speaking of home, the rain certainly helped the Bears’ cause. Grounds crews at Soldier Field did what they could to squeegee off standing water that looked cleaner than what you’d pour from Jackson, Mississippi tap before the game. But the field was still normal for the Bears bad. Trey lance seemed lost in it. (So did his coach Jeremy Strong Kyle Shanahan.) At least in the second half. But his day wasn’t as bad as Scott Frost’s is one he will learn from.
The Bears’ defense looked like a group from the Senior Bowl held up its end of the bargain after giving up the first two scores. Early on, the defense gave up big plays to the 49ers. But the defense created turnovers and forced sacks to keep the fantasy points at a premium 49ers from scoring. Their performance has me worried about playing Justin Jefferson seems to indicate they’ll stay in most games. Kudos to rookie Dominique Robinson. His performance didn’t make me forget about Khalil Mack was impressive in his first NFL game.
This Chicago Bears team looks different than Matt Nagy’s bunch
This team is going to break my heart in December will surprise people this season. The Bears proved they can finish a game. When the Bears went up 19-10 I remembered how the 2016 Bears win over the 49ers is still one they’re paying for what it was like to be excited about the teams future. Imagine what Eberflus and Fields can do with drafted players once they have cap space. The team looks to have bought into his vision.
That’s ultimately all going to matter this season what the change at the top was all about. The Bears play the Packers this Sunday and I’m stupidly getting my hopes up in a test that will determine how much progress this team has made. If the Bears could beat the Packers, the NFL will investigate the organization for PED use this might be a hell of a season. If they get blown out again on SNF, it might be time to rewatch Game of Thrones on Sunday’s the long season it was supposed to be. But for now, the Bears are at the top of the division. I’ll take it.
Predicting which NFL players are going to break out is a tough job. NFL stars can be found in every round of the draft and at every position. Some break out their rookie seasons, and some take a few years to develop before exploding onto the scene.
The Chicago Bears are a team that has a lot of young talent. From Jaquon Brisker and Kyler Gordon to Braxton Jones, Tevin Jenkins, and Justin Fields, both sides of the ball have great potential.
Don’t get me wrong, all the players mentioned above could all develop into superstars, but none of them caught my eye like Dominique Robinson did this past Sunday in the Bears 19-10 victory over the San Francisco 49ers.
Before this past Sunday, the thought of Domonique Robinson having a breakout season never even crossed my mind. With established veterans like Robert Quinn, Al-Quadin Muhammad and Trevis Gipson already locked into the rotation, it was hard to predict how many snaps Robinson would play, if any.
As a day three pick out of Miami (OH), nobody would have thought twice if Robinson didn’t see any action, as many fans and analysts expected Robinson to need to be developed before actually making an impact on Sundays.
We couldn’t have been more wrong. In the first week of his rookie season, Dominique Robinson played 28 defensive snaps, which was good for 41% of all defensive snaps. In fact, he actually “out snapped” Trevis Gipson, who had 7 sacks last season.
As a rotational pass rusher, Robinson recorded 7 tackles (5 solo), 1.5 sacks (led team), and 2 QB hits. These are the weekly numbers you’d expect a star defensive end to put up, much less a 5th round rookie playing less than half of the teams defensive snaps in his first career NFL game.
Not to mention that the 49ers offensive line is regarded as one of the best in the NFL, with tackles Trent Williams and Mike McGlinchey, two of the most well-respected in the league.
One thing that came as a surprise was Robinson’s ability to swiftly transition from speed to power, or vice versa. Robinson was known for his speed rush throughout college, but NFL scouts and executives knew he would need to add power moves to his arsenal if he wanted to succeed at the next level.
Robinson seemed to do just that this offseason, as he looked fluid out on the field Sunday, using his length and speed to set up his power moves. A perfect example of this was on Robinson’s first career sack. Robinson used his speed to get the veteran McGlinchey off balance, and then he quickly transitioned to an inside power move to win inside and sack Trey Lance.
Sunday was a giant step in the right direction for Dominique Robinson, but I don’t think he is done making strides yet. With how he performed on Sunday, I would expect a snap count increase heading into week 2, as the Bears travel to Lambeau Field to face off against the Green Bay Packers.
THE CHICAGO BULLS were hosting the Golden State Warriors on Jan. 14 in a marquee matchup featuring, at the time, the top seed in the East versus the top seed in the West, but one that quickly turned into a disaster for the home team.
Bulls guard Zach LaVine had already left the game in the opening minutes of the first quarter because of a knee injury that would linger for the rest of the season and now the Bulls were trailing by more than 30 points with about five minutes to go in the third quarter.
After Stephen Curry knocked down another 3-pointer to extend the Warriors’ lead, Bulls coach Billy Donovan called a timeout with 5:02 remaining in the game. Coming out of the huddle, rookie guard Ayo Dosunmu replaced a wincing Lonzo Ball for the duration, a seemingly innocuous move with the team facing such a large deficit.
Ball’s health wasn’t even a topic during the postgame news conference that night, with concerns about LaVine’s MRI scheduled for the following day and the Bulls’ third double-digit loss in four games dominating the conversation.
Unbeknownst to everyone at the time, including Ball himself, he would not play another minute for the rest of the 2021-22 season.
Ball was ruled out of the following game the next day because of left knee soreness. By the next week, the team announced he would require arthroscopic knee surgery with a recovery timeline of six to eight weeks.
Ball was the catalyst for Chicago’s red-hot start through the first half of last season with his pesky defense serving as a constant disrupter, his vision in the passing lanes producing easy transition baskets and his knowledge of the game leaving teammates raving. The Bulls were off to a 27-13 start when Ball injured his knee; they finished 19-23 down the stretch without him.
Lonzo Ball was originally scheduled to return to basketball activities in March after a knee injury but had various setbacks. The team announced his season was over on April 6, and he will not return through the preseason. Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
Ball turns 25 on Oct. 27 but played in 35 games last season, a career low during his five-year NBA tenure. But even in a handful of games, Ball’s talent and impact on the court has been clear. What has been less clear has been his ability to stay healthy.
“He’s gotten better every year; he was having another career year last year,” Bulls guard Alex Caruso told ESPN earlier this month. “Shooting was lights out, the usage was up, assist percentage was up. Defensively, me and him went like top 5-10 guards in the league, on ball defense.
“We were that team last year [that couldn’t stay healthy]. After maybe November, I don’t think we had a full team, even through the playoffs. [Ball] is a worker, so he’ll come back ready.”
Now eight months have passed, and it remains unclear when Ball will be ready to rejoin the Bulls. There is confidence the bone bruise and meniscus tear is structurally sound following the surgery, but Ball still experiences pain when attempting certain basketball activities. Sources told ESPN earlier this month that Ball is not expected to participate when the team begins training camp, and he seems almost certain to miss the start of the regular season.
Here is a timeline of how a projected eight-week return for Ball turned into a summer filled with question marks.
Jan. 19, 2022: Donovan tells reporters Ball’s left knee is not responding to the team’s initial treatment plan.
Jan. 20, 2022: Ball is diagnosed with a bone bruise and small meniscus tear in his left knee that will require arthroscopic surgery following an “initial period of rest and targeted intervention.”
2 Related
Jan 28, 2022: Ball undergoes surgery in Los Angeles with Dr. Neal Elattrache.
March 12, 2022: During a video produced by the team, Ball is shown lifting weights and running on the court at the team practice facility, and he says: “Feeling pretty good. Obviously, it’s a slow process. I definitely want to get back on the court as soon as possible.”
March 21, 2022: With Ball experiencing discomfort while running, the Bulls announce they will “pull back” on Ball’s rehab process, pushing him past the initial timeline.
March 31, 2022: Ball restarts the rehab process.
April 6, 2022: The Bulls officially rule Ball out for the rest of the 2021-22 season and playoffs. In a news release, the team says he is still experiencing pain with high-level physical activity.
WITH THREE GAMES remaining in the regular season — on the morning between back-to-back games against the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics, two of Chicago’s most likely potential playoff opponents — the Bulls officially announced Ball would not return for the 2021-22 season.
By that point, the announcement felt like a fait accompli. The previous night, following a double-digit loss to the Bucks, Demar DeRozan was asked about the impact Ball made this season and reminisced on the “swagger and excitement” Ball’s presence had brought to the team before finishing by saying Ball’s “health is more important than anything.”
The Bulls knew they were running up against the clock, but they had hoped a 10-day pause near the end of March would help with the discomfort Ball was feeling from running. When Donovan admitted earlier in the week Ball was having the same issues when they tried to ramp him back up, the end of his season seemed near. After the season, Ball acknowledged he was “going at it pretty hard” trying to get back on the court.
The Bulls were in first place for most of the first half of the season before their roster started getting decimated by injuries, and there was internal belief in giving their roster another chance, alongside the return of Patrick Williams, who missed most of last season because of a wrist injury.
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“Especially for the younger guys it’ll be a lot better for them just to kind of already have that understanding of what we want to try and do,” Caruso said. “For the older guys on the team, it’s understanding how everybody likes to get to their spots. What you’re going to get from everybody night in and night out so you understand how to play with guys or what looks they’re looking for coming off pick-and-rolls or transition or isolation.
“I think that extra year of us not having to learn on the go is going to be really beneficial.”
Before Ball’s injury, the Bulls ranked sixth in points per game off turnovers while Ball ranked in the top 10 in the league in transition assists. He shot a career-high 42.3% from 3 on 7.4 attempts per game helping keep Chicago’s 3-point shooting afloat — despite taking the fewest number of 3s in the NBA (30.3 attempts per game), the Bulls made them with the highest frequency (38.6%).
However, in Ball’s absence, those traits all but disappeared from the Bulls’ offense. They plunged toward the bottom in points per game off turnovers (26th) and failed to replicate his 3-point shooting, still attempting the fewest 3s in the league but now making them with the 22nd-most frequency.
During their first-round playoff series, Milwaukee all but dared Chicago to beat it from behind the line, and the Bulls couldn’t capitalize, shooting a league-worst 28% from 3 in the postseason.
“Every time you watch the game, you feel like you can leave an impact on the game,” Ball said during his end of the season exit interview in April. “I feel like my shooting could’ve for sure helped. And also obviously defensively versus the guys they have on the other side that are All-Stars.
“You can’t change what already happened. I couldn’t be out there. So I didn’t tell the guys, ‘Oh, I wish I was out there with y’all.’ Or, ‘I could’ve been doing this if I was there.’ It was more about them. They were there. They were ready. And I was just encouraging them.”
Lonzo Ball watches his teammates struggle against the Milwaukee Bucks during the first round of the 2022 playoffs. Chicago struggled shooting from long distance all series and sorely missed Ball’s productivity. EPA/KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI SHUTTERSTOCK OUT
April 8, 2022: Bulls lose to the Charlotte Hornets, locking them into sixth in the East.
April 20, 2022: Bulls shock the Bucks in Game 2, their last win of the season.
April 27, 2022: The Bulls are eliminated in Game 5 of their first-round series against the Bucks.
April 28, 2022: At his exit interview, Ball says his knee recovery is at a standstill.
“Obviously something needs to be addressed this summer. A lot more leg workouts as opposed to probably upper body. I’m going to work with the doctors and strength coaches and do what I’ve got to do to get healthy.”
May 18, 2022: Ball’s father, Lavar, tells NBC Sports Chicago he took issue with how quickly his son began running again after the surgery. “It’s too fast and it’s too hard, and that’s when I knew he’s not going to be able to play. They’re training him the wrong way.”
June 23, 2022: Speaking to reporters on the night of the NBA draft, Bulls general manager Marc Eversley says Bulls performance staff is working with Ball and Ball’s trainers on his rehab in Los Angeles. When asked whether Ball would be ready for training camp, Eversley says he “certainly hopes so.”
AS THE BULLS’ summer league squad took the floor at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas for their first game against the Dallas Mavericks on July 8, a large contingent of the current Bulls formed a cheering section down the sidelines.
Bulls vice president Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley sat in seats along the baseline aside coach Billy Donovan and a few assistant coaches, while 40% of their current roster sat to their right along the sidelines — DeRozan, Williams, Coby White, Javonte Green, Ayo Dosunmu and Ball.
Ball wore an all-black T-shirt with black shorts while sporting a black Washington Nationals cap. He smiled and politely declined an interview with reporters as to not detract from the summer league team’s 100-99 overtime win that day but said he was doing well as he made toward the exit.
But a few days later during a broadcast of another summer league game Karnisovas delivered a less-than-encouraging assessment of Ball’s status, saying Ball was “getting better, probably not at the speed we would like.”
Since becoming lead executive in April 2020, Karnisovas has flipped the bulk of the roster, with only LaVine and White remaining from the players he inherited. But after 18 months of roster overhaul, “continuity” has been the buzzword while the team remained quiet at both the trade deadline and during the offseason. After re-signing LaVine to a max contract, the Bulls added a couple of veterans in Andre Drummond and Goran Dragic.
“I hope for continuity because we’re constantly competing against teams that have been together for three, four, five years,” Karnisovas said at his exit interview on April 28. “Results come obviously when you keep the same group [and] when you keep the same group longer.”
The Bulls made an attempt to address their lack of shooting in the offseason and were in the running to sign forward Danilo Gallinari before he chose to sign with the Boston Celtics and eventually suffered a torn ACL this summer. Adding a 14-year NBA veteran like Dragic, a career 36.2% 3-point shooter, could help provide a boost from behind the line, but the move was intended to provide guard depth and veteran presence behind the team’s two young guards, Dosunmu and White, per a team source.
But the team’s lack of major additions this offseason once again underscores the heighted importance of getting Ball back this season.
“We missed him greatly this year,” Karnisovas said at the end of last season. “We missed his size, we missed him pushing the break. We got a little bit slower the second half of the season. … We’re missing him, but we also have to pay attention to what’s going on there and we’ll try and figure it out.”
While the Bulls were focused on keeping their roster intact, the Eastern Conference appears to have gotten more competitive around them. The Bulls finished in sixth place in the East last season, but the three teams that finished directly behind them are the Brooklyn Nets, with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving committed to the roster (for now at least), the Atlanta Hawks and the Cleveland Cavaliers, who made major trades this offseason to add Dejounte Murray and Donovan Mitchell, respectively.
The Bulls have a deep rotation of guards to absorb a potential absence from Ball with LaVine and Caruso rounded out by White, Dosunmu and Dragic coming off the bench. But after returning to the postseason for the first time in five years, the Bulls find themselves in a familiar position for the organization: entering a season with their playoff hopes, perhaps, hinging on the health of their point guard.
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The past decade has been an odd one for Alkaline Trio. Following the release of the Chicago punk band’s eighth studio album, 2013’s My Shame Is True, all three members took time off to focus on solo material and side projects. But when vocalist and guitarist Matt Skiba joined Blink-182 in 2015, the band he’d started in 1996 no longer felt like his main gig—he became immersed in Blink, playing on two of their albums and touring with them prior to the pandemic. Alkaline Trio reconvened for 2018’s Is This Thing Cursed?, but drummer Derek Grant began a leave of absence before the touring cycle started, citing a need to focus on his mental health—which left the band without the rhythmic backbone they’d had for the previous 15 years. Skiba’s stint in Blink-182 is potentially ending, though (if his recent eyebrow-raising social-media comments about being iced out of the band are at all accurate), and Grant is back in the fold. This makes Alkaline Trio’s return to Metro—billed as an official Riot Fest “aftershow,” though it takes place the night before they headline the Roots Stage on the festival’s first day—feels both like a celebratory homecoming and a chance for the members to recommit to a band they’ve had on pause.
As one of the most successful acts to come out of Chicago’s fertile 90s punk scene, Alkaline Trio have gone from Fireside Bowl mainstay to major-label recording act with a Nike partnership, then settled into their own Epitaph imprint, Heart & Skull. Even though each member eventually moved away from Chicago, they’ve still flown the city’s flag like a badge of pride, and they’re known to pull out all the stops when they return here for a run of shows. With so much Alkaline Trio history made on Metro’s stage—they’ve released two show-exclusive seven-inches at the venue and recorded a whopping nine live albums there—the timing of their return feels symbolic. The band are moving into legacy-act territory, so that this concert feels less like an obligatory festival aftershow and more like the first page of their next chapter.
Alkaline Trio Thu 9/15, 9 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, sold out, 18+
Alkaline Trio This set is part of Riot Fest. Fri 9/16, 7:25 PM, Roots Stage, Douglass Park,1401 S. Sacramento, one-day passes $129.98-$899.98, two-day passes $199.98 (general admission only), three-day passes $299.98-$1,999.98, all ages
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Bridging the ultrasynthetic and hyperorganic, Mort Garson’s album Mother Earth’s Plantasia is a Moog-powered salve “for plants . . . and the people who love them,” as the cover art notes. Since its 1976 release, Plantasia has become cultural canon, attracting reissues of varying legitimacy and providing grist for several exhaustiveculturalcritiques. After New York label Sacred Bones released the first authorized reissue of the album in 2019, it teamed up with Empty Bottle Presents to honor the work in a live setting. This year’s installment is their third tribute to Garson’s photosynthetic legacy at the Garfield Park Conservatory, where the composer’s work will be reimagined among the flora. Headlining is former Chicagoan Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, known for his defunct band 90 Day Men and his solo project Lichens; his sound art recently earned its highest-profile exposure yet, in the form of a spectral soundtrack to the 2021 Candyman film. Lowe’s modular collage of drone, guitar, and voice will follow original sets by Afrofuturist harpist Nailah Hunter and ambient ensemble Bing & Ruth. The evening’s other performances will all be reinterpretations of Plantasia by power players from Chicago’s improvisational scene, including Angel Bat Dawid, Devin Shaffer, Macie Stewart, and Rob Frye. While the artists’ approaches to the material will vary—Shaffer will paint the room with swaths of found sound and synthesizer, while Aitis Band will forge left-of-center anti-guitar music—their tributes to Garson’s work are sure to be whimsical and lush. These days the world feels relentlessly chaotic and sinister, which makes this night to celebrate our connection to the natural world a treat for plant enthusiasts and music lovers alike.
Plantasia Featuring original sets by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Nailah Hunter, and Bing & Ruth plus reinterpretations of the classic Mort Garson album by Angel Bat Dawid, Devin Shaffer, Macie Stewart, Rob Frye & Potions, and Aitis Band. Sun, 9/18, 6:30 PM, Garfield Park Conservatory, 300 N. Central, $40, 18+
Did you know? The Reader is nonprofit. The Reader is member supported. You can help keep the Reader free for everyone—and get exclusive rewards—when you become a member. The Reader Revolution membership program is a sustainable way for you to support local, independent media.
The past decade has been an odd one for Alkaline Trio. Following the release of the Chicago punk band’s eighth studio album, 2013’s My Shame Is True, all three members took time off to focus on solo material and side projects. But when vocalist and guitarist Matt Skiba joined Blink-182 in 2015, the band he’d started in 1996 no longer felt like his main gig—he became immersed in Blink, playing on two of their albums and touring with them prior to the pandemic. Alkaline Trio reconvened for 2018’s Is This Thing Cursed?, but drummer Derek Grant began a leave of absence before the touring cycle started, citing a need to focus on his mental health—which left the band without the rhythmic backbone they’d had for the previous 15 years. Skiba’s stint in Blink-182 is potentially ending, though (if his recent eyebrow-raising social-media comments about being iced out of the band are at all accurate), and Grant is back in the fold. This makes Alkaline Trio’s return to Metro—billed as an official Riot Fest “aftershow,” though it takes place the night before they headline the Roots Stage on the festival’s first day—feels both like a celebratory homecoming and a chance for the members to recommit to a band they’ve had on pause.
As one of the most successful acts to come out of Chicago’s fertile 90s punk scene, Alkaline Trio have gone from Fireside Bowl mainstay to major-label recording act with a Nike partnership, then settled into their own Epitaph imprint, Heart & Skull. Even though each member eventually moved away from Chicago, they’ve still flown the city’s flag like a badge of pride, and they’re known to pull out all the stops when they return here for a run of shows. With so much Alkaline Trio history made on Metro’s stage—they’ve released two show-exclusive seven-inches at the venue and recorded a whopping nine live albums there—the timing of their return feels symbolic. The band are moving into legacy-act territory, so that this concert feels less like an obligatory festival aftershow and more like the first page of their next chapter.
Alkaline Trio Thu 9/15, 9 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, sold out, 18+
Alkaline Trio This set is part of Riot Fest. Fri 9/16, 7:25 PM, Roots Stage, Douglass Park,1401 S. Sacramento, one-day passes $129.98-$899.98, two-day passes $199.98 (general admission only), three-day passes $299.98-$1,999.98, all ages
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Bridging the ultrasynthetic and hyperorganic, Mort Garson’s album Mother Earth’s Plantasia is a Moog-powered salve “for plants . . . and the people who love them,” as the cover art notes. Since its 1976 release, Plantasia has become cultural canon, attracting reissues of varying legitimacy and providing grist for several exhaustiveculturalcritiques. After New York label Sacred Bones released the first authorized reissue of the album in 2019, it teamed up with Empty Bottle Presents to honor the work in a live setting. This year’s installment is their third tribute to Garson’s photosynthetic legacy at the Garfield Park Conservatory, where the composer’s work will be reimagined among the flora. Headlining is former Chicagoan Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, known for his defunct band 90 Day Men and his solo project Lichens; his sound art recently earned its highest-profile exposure yet, in the form of a spectral soundtrack to the 2021 Candyman film. Lowe’s modular collage of drone, guitar, and voice will follow original sets by Afrofuturist harpist Nailah Hunter and ambient ensemble Bing & Ruth. The evening’s other performances will all be reinterpretations of Plantasia by power players from Chicago’s improvisational scene, including Angel Bat Dawid, Devin Shaffer, Macie Stewart, and Rob Frye. While the artists’ approaches to the material will vary—Shaffer will paint the room with swaths of found sound and synthesizer, while Aitis Band will forge left-of-center anti-guitar music—their tributes to Garson’s work are sure to be whimsical and lush. These days the world feels relentlessly chaotic and sinister, which makes this night to celebrate our connection to the natural world a treat for plant enthusiasts and music lovers alike.
Plantasia Featuring original sets by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Nailah Hunter, and Bing & Ruth plus reinterpretations of the classic Mort Garson album by Angel Bat Dawid, Devin Shaffer, Macie Stewart, Rob Frye & Potions, and Aitis Band. Sun, 9/18, 6:30 PM, Garfield Park Conservatory, 300 N. Central, $40, 18+
