Currently on Twitter, there are seven accounts for RPM Steak, the carnecentric analogue to nearby RPM Italian. Among them are @RPMSteakChicago, @RPMSteakDC, @RPMSteakVegas, @RPMSteakNYC, and @RPMSteakLA. No one has tweeted from any of these accounts yet, and on a couple of them there’s even a forceful ALL CAPPED command to go follow the official @RPMSteakChi. Move along now. Nothing to see here. Let’s look at some of those familiar starters. A pair of small “coal roasted” king crab legs—a couple of joints really—is served in a giant bowl filled with what looks like road salt....

It’s not often that a stand-up comedy show includes a ticketing option for “lawn seats,” and, quite frankly, I can’t imagine a lot of stand-ups would be at their most thrilling in such a setting. But Funny or Die’s Oddball Comedy Festival has made outdoor-arena seating work for a crop of indie comics gone big. The festival got off to a rollicking start last year because it marked Dave Chappelle’s high-profile return (complete with a high-profile onstage “meltdown,” as it was called, in Hartford)....

Searching for a shopping experience that’s both low cost and high concept? This Sunday in Logan Square, two local artists are hosting the Pretend Garage Sale, an event that challenges the way we treat currency but still lets shoppers walk away with something new. “Our labels at this garage sale say things like, ‘Pretend that this item costs $5,’ which is funny in the immediate context,” Hamilton says. “But also, in a sense, this is exactly what we do every time we buy something retail....

In 2012, Shanna Collins went to her first black-run DIY punk show in Chicago. It wasn’t long after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot dead in Florida while walking to the home of his father’s girlfriend carrying a can of Arizona fruit juice cocktail and a bag of Skittles. “I was experiencing a lot of anger,” she says. “A lot of disenchantment with a lot of systems.” In 2017, Collins became a member of the Black and Brown Punk Show Collective herself....

I knew Nervochaos was playing at Reggie’s on Monday, but it surprised me a little to discover that this veteran Sao Paulo death-metal band had been booked on the venue’s small stage—at the Music Joint, not the Rock Club. But I guess Nervochaos’s stature in Brazil hasn’t yet translated to a similar audience in the States. You can listen to all of The Art of Vengeance below. And to you north-siders who like to complain about how far it is to Reggie’s: Do you now how far it is from Sao Paulo?...

In celebration of its 150th academic year, the School of the Art Institute is pulling out the big guns. This fall’s alumni exhibition, “Civilization and Its Discontents,” curated by SAIC faculty members and brothers Scott Reeder and Tyson Reeder, features work by notable graduates from the past 30 years, including Jeff Koons, Tony Tasset, Rashid Johnson, Rebecca Morris, Chris Ware, Amanda Ross-Ho, Angel Otero, Tony Lewis, Anya Davidson, Aspen Mays, Carrie Schneider, Zak Prekop, Golden Age, and many others....

“What does dance do besides make stories?” New York-based choreographer Tere O’Connor asks in Long Run, which proceeds in episodes enacted by subsets of his troupe of eight dancers, structured by scenes that accumulate without converging on a plot. “Is there a causality of some sort, or are we just looking at a choreographed randomness?” he muses. “Maybe every choreographer is going through some kind of drama of trying to control or hold on to time....

During the final days of his presidency, Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 64 people in prison. One of them was Oscar López Rivera. Depending on who you ask, the 74-year-old is either a freedom fighter, political prisoner, and activist or a terrorist. He was a member of Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN), a paramilitary organization that claimed responsibility for more than 120 bombings in Chicago, New York, and Washington, D....

ARTIST: Magic Ian SHOW: Cafe Racer, Ttotals, Head, and Wet Piss at the Owl on Sun 9/17 MORE INFO: maximumpelt.bigcartel.com

Makoto Shinkai’s anime feature Your Name is the most beautiful-looking movie in town—although François Ozon’s Frantz, which opens this Friday at the Landmark, will surely give Your Name a run for its money. Incidentally, both films are romantic dramas that deal with characters entering into the lives of strangers, but while Frantz is relatively realistic, Your Name is a delirious fantasy. The latter, in fact, may be too delirious for American audiences....

April showers have finally brought May flowers, and there’s plenty to do to celebrate. Here’s some of what we recommend: Wed 5/3: Annoyance Theatre (851 W. Belmont) presents Platformance Anxiety, Huggable Riot’s tenth sketch revue exploring generational differences. 8 PM Thu 5/4: In honor of Star Wars Day, the May the 4th Party at Spin Chicago (344 N. State) features intergalactic cocktails, a ping-pong tournament pitting the light side against the dark side, food specials, DJs, and a costume contest....

Around 100 people gathered in the pews of the Chicago Temple building Monday night looking for faith-based answers to the gun violence that has ravaged the south and west sides of the city. The panel and conversation they came for portrayed the violence plaguing the city, and the nation, as multifaceted as the stained glass of the temple hall. Though the conversation meandered—touching on everything from the bond system to the letters Dart has sent President Donald Trump—its main focus was the history of race, racism, and disinvestment in the city....

Would it surprise you to learn that the food at Level 257, a gargantuan Pac-Man-themed Dave & Busters-style arcade-slash-bowling alley-slash-restaurant at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, isn’t very good? How do you like the sound of a “Filet Mig-nom,” an unpronounceable $34 steak served with a Donkey Kong barrel potato? For clarity, a DK barrel potato is a spud that’s been impregnated with a squirt of mashed potatoes, a sort of Frankenstein version of a twice-baked potato, except with not enough of the good, buttery filling....

If American listeners know about British singer Peter Perrett, it’s probably from the 1978 classic “Another Girl, Another Planet,” a brilliant pop tune covered by the likes of the Replacements. In England Perrett’s band the Only Ones, who originally cut the song, were would-be stars who made three albums before Perrett flamed out in the early 80s while fighting heroin addiction. He got his shit together to make a 1996 with a band called the One, and over the past few years he’s been involved in occasional Only Ones reunion shows in Europe....

Update 12/21: That was no temporary blip at Redmoon Theater last week: the company announced Monday that it has closed its doors, after 25 years in which it grew from a Logan Square puppet studio to a high-profile producer of massive, free, urban spectacles. And nobody seems to be at home at Redmoon Central. Midweek calls to the office and box office in the company’s Pilsen home went to voice mail; the online box office deflected would-be ticket buyers....

When battle lines were drawn in Charlottesville, standing among the white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and Ku Klux Klan members (“some very fine people,” according to President Donald Trump) were men brandishing shields bearing the image of an ax bundled with wooden rods—a symbol of fascism. That weekend’s tragic events, which swirled around a “Unite the Right” rally against the city’s decision to remove a public Confederate statue, reminded Northwestern University history professor Bill Savage of the disturbing fact that there’s a 2,000-year-old Roman pillar on Chicago’s lakefront, donated to the city by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini....

shutterstock Talking on the phone is the worst—can you blame these guys for texting? A man of a certain age confides: What brought on my query was a passage in the New Yorker review of a new movie, Men, Women & Children, whose theme, says critic David Denby, is that “our obsession with screens and devices has erased our ability to get to know one another.” Denby—who shares this concern—offers a moment from his private life: “A parent I know, grounding his teen-age daughter, took away her texting privileges for a week but allowed her to use the house landline....

Leo Schwartz and DC Cathro’s musical is a title in search of a show. A mildly campy spoof of The Book of Mormon, this 75-minute one-act focuses on two young Mormon men in contemporary Los Angeles going door to door to convert people to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. When the mismatched missionaries, devout Elder Braithwaite and doubtful Elder Shumway, show up at the home of a lady who appears—and claims—to be legendary Broadway diva Ethel Merman, she presumes they are raising money for their church and invites them in....