Three years can be an eternity in the course of a young, razor-sharp punk band, but on their bristling new album Nose Picker (Trouble in Mind) Chicago’s Negative Scanner sound almost as if they’ve been on ice since the release of their blistering self-titled 2015 debut. I mean that as a compliment; the sense of fed-up fury in the vocals of the intensely charismatic lead singer Rebecca Valeriano-Flores sounds undiminished in their intensity and indignation....

Mike Sula Brisket from Todds BBQ inside Mariano’s There’s no kind of restaurant in which self-regard outmatches ability as consistently as the barbecue restaurant. I’m at my wit’s burnt end with the plague of lousy smoked meat that’s swept the city in the last year and a half, but part of what makes it so galling is the tedious Kountry Kitsch these places drape themselves in and the attendant boastfulness about their associated pitmasters....

Michael Gebert Chef Michael Taus and beverage director Don Sritong of Coppervine “You know, they did a really extensive training program. How would you like to take the wine test they gave the servers?” Jenn Galdes, publicist for Coppervine, a Lincoln Park wine bar and restaurant that opened in December, asked me. The concept behind the restaurant is that every dish on the menu—created by chef Michael Taus, formerly of Zealous and Duchamp—comes with a well-chosen wine pairing, beer pairing, and cocktail pairing....

Many a mental health professional advises that if you’re really afraid of something, the best thing to do is confront your fear. That’s sort of what comedian-musician Danny Black is up to with the God, Sex, and Death Variety Hour. During his opening monologue at the August show, Black, who plays host, admits he’s terrified of death but swears that “talking about it makes it better.” In reference to the god part, Black says he had a religious experience on a retreat once—god spoke to him, obviously—but he mostly ignored it at the time; so giving the guy (or gal) a nod now seems like the polite thing to do....

Courtesy of Wikipedia Mewithoutyou live Since emo’s underground fourth-wave scene crossed over and became a visible phenomenon on the Billboard charts last year its become distorted under the conspiratorial scrutiny of folks apprehensive about the term “emo revival.” In the past year I’ve read plenty of anti-trend pieces more focused on the misleading nature of the phrase “emo revival” than on why people might use the term in the first place....

In the afterglow of Donald Trump’s inauguration at Rebar, the second-floor cocktail lounge inside the Trump International Hotel and Tower, a sturdy white-haired man in a dark suit made a sudden beeline to the table where I was sitting, staring into my iPhone. It was clear, from the the coiled wire running from his ear into his shirt collar and his businesslike manner, that he was the bar’s bouncer. I’d posted two photos to Twitter that showed partygoers celebrating as the man whose name is on the front of the building was sworn into the highest office in the land....

Q: I’m a woman in my early 30s having sex with a guy in his early 20s. The sex is more than casual, and we really care about each other. My concern is this guy has some alt-right sympathies that reveal themselves in our political discussions. He’s a Trump guy, but hesitates to admit it because he knows I’m anti-Trump. He shares memes created by Mike Cernovich and Milo Yiannopoulos, he gets his news from hard-right publications, and his sister and brother-in-law are Holocaust deniers....

Gefilte fish—the traditional Passover dish of ground whitefish mixed with matzo meal, egg, vegetables, and seasonings—can be divisive, inspiring headlines like “Gefilte Fish: Is It Really That Bad?” and “Gefilte Fish: Why, Oy Why?” But until Adam Wendt of the Delta challenged Ashlee Aubin to create a dish with gefilte fish, the chef at Salero and Wood restaurants had tried only homemade versions, which he thought were pretty good. Wendt, however, specified that Aubin had to use Manischewitz brand of gefilte fish in gelled broth, which turned out to be a very different beast....

Nostalgia is the name of the game at Riot Fest. Since its early days, the festival has featured artists playing their most-loved albums front to back, and this year it’s ramped up the number of these sets to ten. But how have the years treated these alleged classics? I’ve listened to all ten, and they’re arranged below in order of initial release. Dinosaur Jr. You’re Living All Over Me (1987)...

The band name of aggressive and exciting Chicago outfit No Men refers to the opposite of “yes men” rather than throwing down a “misandrist” gauntlet—though their abundantly queer and confrontational approach suggests they’re totally fine with weeding out the MRA-type “Red Pillers” and wearers of red hats. After relocating here from Austin in 2014, singer-percussionist Pursley and guitarist DB joined forces with drummer Eric Hofmeister and got down to the business of building a fierce sound through constant gigging....

Getty Images Residue Records Showcase Looking for something to do today? Agenda‘s got you covered. For more on these events and others, check out the Reader‘s daily Agenda page.

Sandra Cisneros has spent her whole life searching for a place to call home, documenting her journey in essays, poems, and novels, the most famous of which is The House on Mango Street, her semifictionalized account of growing up in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. In her new memoir out October 6, A House of My Own (Knopf), the 60-year-old author recounts more than 30 years’ worth of personal stories about the places she’s lived and the writing they inspired....

Saxophonist Miguel Zenon opens his new quartet album Típico (Miel Music) with the hyperactive original “Academia,” which was inspired by his experiences teaching jazz at the New England Conservatory. He built the tune from exercises he developed for students, and between the tune’s breakneck pace and its harmonic jujitsu he seems keen on challenging not only his pupils but also his bandmates—pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Hans Glawischnig, and drummer Henry Cole—who chew up the changes and tempo shifts like a berserk Pac-Man....

Swiss-Congolese producer Soraya Lutangu, who records and performs as Bonaventure, makes music that sounds like a late-night Internet-surfing session fueled by sugar and adrenaline. “I really don’t have any agenda or strategy when it comes to composing music. I definitely get inspired by my surrounding, not even in the glamorous sense of the term—literally the everyday life,” she told the site Pan African Music in November. “Most of the time, I find another idea while I am trying to remember the initial idea so it is really like constantly surprising myself....

Donald Trump’s failure to repeal and replace Obamacare last week represented the first major defeat for his fledgling administration. But obviously there are still many future battles to be fought. First, let’s survey the potential damage. Trump’s budget calls for eliminating the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investments Program, which includes Core Capacity grants to accommodate more ridership on “legacy” transit systems and the so-called New Starts funding for newer transit lines....

JoJo Whilden/Netflix Laura Prepon and Taylor Schilling in Orange Is the New Black Dropping an entire season of an hour-long dramedy onto Netflix puts viewers in an interesting predicament. Fail to watch it all at once and you run the risk of spoilers (which were on Twitter almost instantly). But a binge session can monopolize an otherwise lovely weekend, not to mention that you run the risk of not being able to process the subtleties of each episode when you turn viewing into a cram session....

Jean Lachat/Sun-Times These two to continue to laugh last when it comes to pension reform. To read the self-congratulatory remarks uttered by many of our most prominent elected officials, you’d think they really did something courageous yesterday, when the General Assembly passed Mayor Emanuel’s pension bill. Our elected officials promised to make regular payments into the pension funds for cops, firefighters, teachers, etc. As for the leaders who actually made the mistakes—how are they being held accountable?...

One of the best pop songs of 2012 was Disclosure’s “Latch,” a throwback house track flavored with some of the smoothed-out funk of turn-of-the-millennium UK two-step and a synth part that salvages the last little bit of class that the dubstep wobble bass had left in it. Plus it was topped by a gorgeous part by guest vocalist Sam Smith that nails the 90s club-R&B vibe they were going for with almost frightening exactitude....

HBO We’ll miss you Rust Cohle, most lovable nihilist. We battled Carcosa-themed nightmares, the flat circularity of time, and HBO Go’s epic server crash to bring you this Gchat about the flawed but still pretty great finale of the best television show ever. GS: Well, I’m always a little bit drunk, so . . . MS: Why do you think you (and I and everyone else) were sold so early on?...

Juraj Lehotsky’s Miracle screens tomorrow and Tuesday. In addition to hosting Chicago premieres from internationally lauded filmmakers, every year the European Union Film Festival spotlights active directors who aren’t especially well-known here because their work is either too modest, too strange, or too culturally specific to attract U.S. distributors. I enjoy catching up with these filmmakers as much as the famous ones—sometimes it’s nice to chart a director’s maturation on his or her own terms, without having to contend with a backlog of criticism....