201 N. State 312-239-9501 roofonthewit.com
★★★★★★★★★★
201 N. State St. (Loop)
Sable Kitchen & Bar
| Jun 19, 2013
| Jun 23, 2011
showing 31 to 60 of 79
Berlin
on June 20, 2012 at 12:00AM
954 W. Belmont 773-348-4975 berlinchicago.com Runner-Up
T's
5025 N. Clark 773-784-6000 tsbarchicago.com Runner-Up
954 W. Belmont 773-348-4975 berlinchicago.com Runners-Up
Scofflaw
3201 W. Armitage 773-252-9700 scofflawchicago.com Runner-Up
Tie: L&L Tavern / Cole's
3207 N. Clark 773-528-1303 2338 N. Milwaukee 773-276-5802 coleschicago.blogspot.com
Cole's
Runner-Up Simon's Tavern
The Roof at the Wit
201 N. State 312-239-9501 roofonthewit.com Runner-Up
The Owl
2521 N. Milwaukee 773-235-5300 owlbarchicago.com Runner-Up
Admiral Theatre
3940 W. Lawrence 773-478-8263 admiralx.com Runner-Up
Rivers
3000 S. River Rd.,Des Plaines 847-795-0777 playrivers.com Runner-Up
Blue Havana
856 W. Belmont 773-242-8262 bluehavanachicago.com Runner-Up
GlitterGuts
glitterguts.com Runner-Up
Simon's Tavern
5210 N. Clark 773-878-0894 simonstavern.com Runner-Up
Alice's Lounge
3556 W. Belmont 773-279-9382 Runner-Up
Cave's flatbed truck performance
by Peter Margasak on June 20, 2012 at 12:00AM
Drag City Records usually rolls out some good promotional gimmicks every year, though two of its stunts pushing Bonnie "Prince" Billy's Wolfroy Goes to Town missed the mark—the custom BPB coffee blend (by Hawaii roasters Kona Rose) and the BPB condoms felt pretty hokey and predictable. The label outdid itself, though, plugging Cave's latest album, Neverendless, last September.
Azita
On last year's Disturbing the Air (Drag City), Azita Youssefi completed her transformation from top-shelf noise rocker to poetic singer-songwriter—though she continues to insist that the songs she cowrote with her cacophonous mid-90s band the Scissor Girls are catchy too. What's undeniably different is the craftsmanship: she's focusing on the songs themselves, having abandoned her penchant for bizarre costumes and her eccentric and aggressive stage presence.
Football
by Miles Raymer on June 20, 2012 at 12:00AM
Watching local supergroup Football onstage is like watching one of the last couple of cars in a demolition derby, where you know it's going to burst into flames, emerge victorious, or both. Their brute-force rock 'n' roll attack—a minimum of chords, played sledgehammerly—seems custom designed for wrecking gear, and all four of the guys involved (current and former members of the Baseball Furies, the Ponys, Tight Phantomz, and France Has the Bomb, among many other bands) seem locked in a competition to see who can cause the most chaos.
Jim Elkington
Singer and guitarist Jim Elkington has been an important figure in the Chicago music scene for years, but lately it seems like he's everywhere. He settled permanently here in 2000, moving from his native London, at which point he was leading sophisticated pop-rock band the Zincs, which dissolved a couple years ago.
Lord Mantis
by Philip Montoro on June 20, 2012 at 12:00AM
When I wrote about the second Lord Mantis full-length, Pervertor (Candlelight), in March, I said that it "puts me in mind of a huge rampaging machine from the Matrix movies." The machines I was picturing are called Sentinels—flying squidlike hunter-killers that pursue our heroes through the abandoned sewer tunnels of the "real" world.
The Hecks
by Luca Cimarusti on June 20, 2012 at 12:00AM
Over the past decade or so, it's become a totally acceptable thing for loud rock acts to have only two members—the problem is that such an outfit often sounds like half a band. But the Hecks, aka 22-year-old drummer Zach Hebert and 25-year-old guitarist-vocalist Andrew Mosiman, turn the limitations of the duo format to their advantage.
Incognito
by Joanna Miner on June 20, 2012 at 12:00AM
Isn't everybody's? But here's my case for Incognito.
Young Chop
Following the unexpectedly far-ranging explosion in popularity of local teenage rapper and house arrestee Chief Keef, major labels and publishing houses have descended on the south-side hip-hop scene with a fervor that has at times felt like the grunge-years feeding frenzy in Seattle. Keef is primed to be its breakout MC, and given the way hip-hop works, it seems likely that a local producer will get blown up to superstar status as well.
The sample of the little kid saying "Tony Baines!" on Tony Baines beats
Every rap DJ and producer who works on mix tapes and Internet-giveaway tracks needs a "drop," a sonic signature that alerts listeners to his or her presence on a song. Drops are essentially in-song advertisements, and a lot of them are prosaic, along the lines of some dude saying a DJ's name in his best tough-guy voice.
Meaghan "Moneyworth" Garvey
Hands-down my favorite thing to happen in pop culture over the past few years is the rise in popularity of an awesomely crazy conspiracy theory maintaining that the most successful stars in hip-hop are all part of a secret society of illuminati that's using pop radio as a propaganda tool in its campaign to establish an anti-Christian new world order. A surprising number of people actually believe this, and point to "clues" in lyrics and videos that "prove" that, say, Jay-Z advocates satanic human sacrifice.
Chance the Rapper's #10Day mix tape
by Leor Galil on June 20, 2012 at 12:00AM
High school suspensions always have a "Think about what you've done" subtext, even if nobody says it out loud. Slapped with a ten-day suspension, high school senior Chancelor Bennett, aka Chance the Rapper, took the opportunity to reflect upon more than his rebellious impulses—his education, his love of weed, his compassionate mother—and then channel those thoughts into rhymes.
Traxman, Da Mind of Traxman
by Tal Rosenberg on June 20, 2012 at 12:00AM
I considered many candidates for this award, including the comprehensive Bangs & Works compilations from 2010 and 2011, DJ Nate's disjunctive, minimalist 2010 album Da Track Genious (all three, like Da Mind of Traxman, released by the excellent Planet Mu imprint), and DJ Rashad's sample-clashing Just a Taste: Vol. 1 (on Ghettophile).
Running, Asshole Savant
Running have always had an aesthetic sense more sophisticated than that of a typical noise-punk band. Their J-card in their debut tape had been personally stomped on and scraped up by members of the band, their first full-length had a hand-lithographed cover, and the cassette Running Forever was set up in a loop so that it played a literally eternal sludge riff.
Ryan Duggan
by Kevin Warwick on June 20, 2012 at 12:00AM
Honestly, if Ryan Duggan stole my girlfriend, kicked my dog, and got a job at RedEye hate-blogging about the Reader, I'd still consider him the cleverest and most inventive gig-poster designer in the city. Fortunately, Duggan is both a good friend of mine and a favorite freelance designer at the Reader (see the B Side cover of this issue), which has put his tongue-in-cheek humor and scrappy aesthetic to excellent use.
John Yingling
As much as there is to like about technologies like smartphones and cheap prosumer digital cameras, they've attracted some criticism for enabling the swarms of concert documentarians who distract or disturb the people who are just there to enjoy the music. But it's impossible to hate John Yingling, who for the past five years has been at seemingly every vaguely artsy-weird rock show in the city shooting video for his blog, Gonzo Chicago.
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