Our (fairly) regular roundup of Music & Arts related news from Chicago-based web media, featuring thoughts and insight from some of the city’s most dedicated writers.
- Mark your calendars: Glenn Kotche does ‘The Dinner Party’
Once a month, “The Dinner Party,” a project by Fear No ART and irrepresible host Elysabeth Alfano, brings together three Chicagoans from diverse corners of the art world for a spirited, unscripted conversation before an audience at City Winery enjoying a meal from one of the Chicago’s best chefs. (I can’t speak for anyone else in attendance, but I had a great time when I joined author Scott Turow and burlesque dancer Michelle L’Amour for conversation in between feasting on Heather Terhune of Sable’s risotto last November.)
Music fans will be particularly interested in the next fete on Monday, May 12, as the guests include Wilco drummer and solo percussion artist Glenn Kotche. (The musician is so skinny, you might think he doesn’t care much about dinner, but he certainly knows how to do the dishes, as evidence by his performance-art clip/TV commercial above.) He’ll be joined by radio host Kathy Hart of the Mix and actor Marc Grapey (Adventureland, While You Were Sleeping) with food by Chef Peter Coenen from the Gage. Tickets are available here.
Next Friday, May 16, Columbia College Chicago’s annual year-end Manifest celebration of its students’ many and varied artistic offerings will close out the school year at locations throughout the South Loop campus. In addition to film, fashion, visual arts, dance, theater, and many other pursuits, this year’s free outdoors musical offerings include the Hood Internet and Youngblood Hawke. The full schedule of events can be found here.
The next event of note is particularly dangerous for me—I own way too much drum gear already and never leave without buying more—but the 24th Annual Chicago Drum Show once again takes place at the Kane County Fairgrounds in St. Charles on Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18. Part swap-meet, part drum expo, and all percussive fun, the show includes clinics, demonstrations, raffles, classes, and more than 30,000 square feet of new, used, vintage, and custom drums, cymbals, and accessories—and I haven’t even mentioned legendary Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos, who always brings a dozen or so sets from his massive collection. More information can be found here or here.
Finally, endless (and rather desperate) are the many Kickstarter campaigns vying for attention, but a particularly worthy one with an actual chance of succeeding has been launched by Alice DuBois, who has long been one of my favorite local painters, with a wicked sense of humor and a strong rock ’n’ roll sensibility running through her work for the last 20-plus years. Though she sells most of her pieces to local collectors, she’s hoping to fund some “bigger/more sophisticated” canvases to comprise what would be her first big gallery show, and you can give her a boost to help get there at Alice in Wonderland before the campaign ends on May 20.
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