The A.V. Club - Daily

City Life: Local Newswire: WWE wrestler CM Punk calls Chris Brown a turd on Twitter

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:35:00 -0600

In an utterly stupid turn of events, pro wrestler and Chicago local CM Punk of the WWE started shit with Chris Brown on Twitter this week, proclaiming that “curb stomping that turd” would be a true Wrestlemania moment. When Brown responded by suggesting that Punk uses steroids, the wrestler fired back with a Smackdown-like video in which he brags about being straight-edge and challenges Brown to a fight, saying the unexplained “proceeds” of that fight will go to the women’s charity of Punk’s choosing. Punk also reveals that he doesn’t have a PR team, which might explain ...

Promotion: Contest: Win tickets to see the Oscar-nominated Undefeated for free

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:30:00 -0600

Undefeated—not to be confused with the Sarah Palin documentary of roughly the same name—chronicles the 2009 season of the Manassas Tigers. The high school football team from inner-city Memphis was once so bad that it resorted to selling home games to the highest bidder. In the film, the Tigers attempt to win their first playoff game in the school’s 110-year history. And Chicago thought the Cubs were cursed. The 2011 documentary nabbed an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature and, judging by the trailer, the film promises to be one of those inspirational underdog stories that ...

Music: Local Newswire: Seminal Toyota Scion-approved garage-rock band Reigning Sound announces short summer tour

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:30:00 -0600

The garage-rockers of Reigning Sound—from Asheville, North Carolina by way of Memphis—are heading on the road in June for a quick run of dates across part of North America. This includes a date at the Double Door June 17. Fronted by the insanely prolific Greg Cartwright (The Compulsive Gambler, The Oblivians, Greg Oblivian & The Tip-Tops), Reigning Sound hasn’t released a proper full-length since 2009’s pretty good Love And Curses. The band did, however, put out a few singles late last year, released in conjunction with Toyota’s Scion line of economy cars, in a pretty obvious ...

City Life: Roll Call: The A.V. Club goes in search of answers to questions posed by Calumet 412 photos

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:40:00 -0600

Calumet 412, a Tumblr devoted to vintage images of Chicago, has been around since last November, but it’s only really recently driven The A.V. Club to near insanity. It’s not because the pictures are so good—and they are—or because Calumet 412 posts so much. Rather it’s because every image and caption raises more questions for us. A picture of Wrigley Field’s construction with a note about where Cubs games were played before throws us into a deep Internet wormhole, resulting in hours spent researching the history of Chicago ballparks, mapping out where each ...

Film: Local Newswire: The Hunger Games to create a deafening racket in malls across America

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:25:00 -0600

Utilizing the strategies of Twilight and Tiffany before them, the cast of The Hunger Games is going on a cross-country tour of America’s malls, hoping to build grassroots buzz for the forthcoming movie franchise based on the bestselling young-adult book series through sheer word-of-mouth. Various configurations of the film’s main ensemble will make themselves available for fans’ Hunger Games questions such as, “Do you feel as though Steven Soderbergh put a recognizable aesthetic stamp on his second-unit work?” and “SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!? Follow-up question: AAAAAAHHHH!!!!?” Hunger Games fans from Los Angeles, Atlanta, Phoenix, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, Minneapolis, or Seattle, go ...

Eat/Drink: Local Newswire: Wiener’s Circle customer loses billion-dollar lawsuit against Travel Channel

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:00:00 -0600

The Wiener’s Circle has seen its share of squabbles over the years: The verbal abuse traded nightly by employees and customers is what makes the stand Lincoln Park’s go-to hole-in-the-wall. So it’s not all that surprising that one such feisty customer filed a lawsuit against the Travel Channel after she was filmed there for an episode of Extreme Fast Food. Jennifer Zglobicki claimed that she and others never consented to appear on the show, and that the Travel Channel owed her a whopping $1 billion in damages. Apparently, she decided that while seeing herself on TV would ...

Music: Newswire: Slowcore semi-giant Codeine reuniting, touring this summer

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:30:00 -0600

After 18 years of not being a band, slowcore giant Codeine has reunited in support of its forthcoming reissues from the Numero Group. Rocking, slowly, from 1989 to 1994, the band was an arguably important though underrecognized part of minimalist indie-rock history. Maybe this time around people will finally “get” the band. Codeine’s full back catalog will be in stores again on fancy, fully liner-noted double LPs May 22, and Codeine will be touring this summer. That’s how these things work nowadays. The tour kicks off April 9 in Seattle, heads to Japan and Europe, and finally makes ...

Music: Blog: 11 David Lee Roths: Why loving Diamond Dave in Van Halen is not a crime

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

So often in the ’80s, we didn’t know what we had until it was long gone. Van Halen’s classic lineup held court in American rock arenas beginning in 1978 and reached artistic peak with 1984, an album that blew up the decade’s artificial and indulgent charms to totemic scale. In “Jump,” it expressed a footloose, life-loving exuberance with more bleached-coiffure swagger than most rockers muster in an entire career. Once at the top of the charts, frontman David Lee Roth dabbled in a cabaret-ready solo act, and the circus tent of rock collapsed under the weight of ...

Comedy: Newswire: Tim Heidecker records a Dylan cover with The Earth Is A Man, “doesn’t really know why”

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:15:00 -0600

Tim Heidecker, one half of the duo behind the oddball warp-fest Tim & Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, recently spent an afternoon in the basement of local experimental act The Earth Is A Man. Of this fruitful union was born a dreamy cover of Bob Dylan’s “All The Tired Horses,” the head-scratcher of an opening track from Dylan’s head-scratcher of a 1970 album, Self-Portrait. This is fitting, because the entire occurrence seems to be something of a head-scratcher for Heidecker. “I hope you enjoy it! I don’t really know why I did it!! Donate to Amnesty International today ...

Music: Visual Audio: Watch The Promise Ring perform three songs on FM 102/1 Milwaukee

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Back in the halcyon days before a certain three-letter word became a four-letter word, Milwaukee’s The Promise Ring reigned supreme over the burgeoning Midwest emo scene. Led by former Cap’n Jazz guitarist Davey Von Bohlen, the group exemplified the genre’s melodic, heart-on-sleeve songwriting, and produced two classic albums: 1996’s 30° Everywhere and 1997’s Nothing Feels Good. TPR took a decidedly poppier route with 1999’s Very Emergency, but by the time 2002’s underrated Wood/water came around, the band was near its end. Reunion rumors circulated for years (during which time Von Bohlen ...

Music: Newswire: Fiona Apple announces tour dates including SXSW appearance

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:50:00 -0600

She might not have a new album on the books yet, but Fiona Apple appears to be priming the metaphorical musical pump. After recently announcing an appearance she has planned for Pitchfork’s official SXSW showcase, she’s now confirmed a string of dates including a stop in Chicago March 19 at Lincoln Hall. Apple’s last record, Extraordinary Machine, came out in 2005 amidst a ton of production controversy and industry turmoil. In more recent years, Apple has released a string of singles and recorded a new album, which was reportedly completed in 2010 but has been languishing in ...

TV: Local Newswire: Speedy Delivery: Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’s Mr. McFeely to appear at C2E2

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:35:00 -0600

The following news is so perfect that you might think it could only happen in the Neighborhood Of Make Believe. David Newell, better known as Mr. McFeely from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, is coming to the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo April 13-15. On the long-running Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Mr. McFeely’s speedy deliveries formed the link between the neighborhoods of Mr. Rogers and of Make Believe. To honor Fred Rogers’ commitment to children’s education—and his penchant for stylish cardigans—Newell continues to tour around the country as McFeely. Other so-awesome-we’re-going-to-squeal-with-delight guests include Anthony Daniels (voice of C-3PO, the ...

Music: Interview: Zola Jesus

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

The world of Zola Jesus—née Nika Roza Danilova—isn’t easily accessible. Her music stirs emotions similar to hearing Tangerine Dream or seeing an Alejandro Jodorowsky film for the first time. It’s at once unnerving and engaging, otherworldly yet beautiful. Her videos, haunting and hypnotic, recall David Lynch fever dreams or a moody student filmmaker having a particularly depressing semester. On first listen, it might seem that Danilova is crafting impenetrably gothic mood pieces for her own benefit, with nearly unintelligible vocals awash in industrial crashes and icy synths. The music is a product of Danilova’s ...

City Life: News Net: New public art installation aims to make everyone think they’re tripping balls

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:45:00 -0600

Since sifting through dull newspapers, hyperbolic blogs, and overflowing RSS feeds for meaningful news can be an arduous process, News Net catches and compiles both the amusing and the significant reports that were overlooked throughout the weekend. Here are some things to think about as the workweek begins. • Multimedia artist Jessica Stockholder wants to make Chicagoans think they’re tripping balls. The Chicago Loop Alliance announced Thursday that its next public art installation will be a project by Stockholder called “Color Jam.” Stockholder essentially says she wants to “fill an intersection with color.” The installation will be unveiled in June ...

Music: Local Newswire: Surprise, surprise: @LollaLeaks has been fucking with us the whole time

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:40:00 -0600

In the first non-shocker of the week, Twitter user @LollaLeaks announced that he or she has “been fucking with [us] this whole time.” We knew that Sonic Youth rumor was total bullshit. In a Tumblr post, the still-anonymous person behind LollaLeaks said the account began as “a bit of an experiment” to see if one random tweeter could “throw a random lineup on the Internet and get people to believe it.” Mission accomplished, apparently, because LollaLeaks was retweeted thousands of times and deemed credible by numerous local and out-of-town blogs. The account also succeeded in freaking the fuck out of ...

Eat/Drink: Local Newswire: Koval is looking for whiskey-loving volunteers to help bottle

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:30:00 -0600

Thirsty Chicagoans can toast the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre a couple of weeks late at Koval, the first craft distillery inside the city limits since prohibition. On Feb. 26 Koval, an organic and kosher distillery, will be bottling its single-grain, single-barrel whiskey, Lion’s Pride, and the people at the distillery are inviting outsiders to join the party. With sleeves rolled, volunteers will help Koval with bottling, capping, sealing, labeling, and boxing some 180 cases of whiskey—that’s more than 1,000 bottles of the good stuff. After the work is done, samples will be waiting in the ...

Promotion: Contest: Win tickets to see Polica or Crocodiles

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:26:00 -0600

Did this year’s Grammy Awards make you feel confused, concerned, and scared? Were you one of those people who Tweeted something like “Who the F is Bonny Bear,” or wondered what the guy with the mouse head was supposed to be doing? If your lack of knowledge regarding the world of popular music worries you, fret not. A bunch of up-and-coming artists are performing in Chicago this month, and The A.V. Club wants to help beef up your indie cred by sending you for free. To win tickets to see Polica with Marijuana Death Squads and Total Fucking ...

Music: Newswire: Billy Bragg, Wilco still milking Mermaid Avenue sessions for all they’re worth

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Let it never be said that Billy Bragg and Wilco don’t have enough material out there in the market. Bragg just announced on his blog that the two acts will be releasing a third Mermaid Avenue album drawing from the 1997 sessions the group did commemorating the work of Woody Guthrie. Nonesuch Records will issue the record as part of a box set celebrating Guthrie’s life and works. Mermaid Avenue Volume III will feature 17 songs from the original sessions and will only be available in the set, packaged with 1998's Mermaid Avenue Volume 1, 2000's ...

Comedy: Interview: Ped Crossing’s Paul Thomas

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Paul Thomas’ new web series, Ped Crossing chronicles the adventures of a hapless pedophile. Despite the questionable subject material, Thomas is no cheap provocateur. He’s more interested in the psychology behind the character, producing a series with high production value and a rich cast of supporting characters. The show’s arc explores the territory that’s opened once an audience is on board, comfortable spending time with someone with reprehensible urges. Thomas’ career path is an unusual one, abandoning a PR job with ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut for a Chicago-based life of Second City writing classes and improv troupes ...

Arts & Culture: News Net: Logan Square artist says street piece zombie-related, not horribly racist

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:09:00 -0600

Since sifting through dull newspapers, hyperbolic blogs, and overflowing RSS feeds for meaningful news can be an arduous process, News Net catches and compiles both the amusing and the significant reports that were overlooked throughout the week. Here are some things to think about as the weekend begins. • A Logan Square artist said his piece of street art is not, in fact, racist. Instead, it’s something totally legit: a zombie attacking Chicago. Zach Wirsum told Chicago that he’s “horrified... [and doesn’t] want to cause anyone offense or anyone to feel attacked in any way.” • Artizone, a delivery ...