A Chicago Police Department blue light camera sits in the upper half of the cover art for “Pray For Me,” the brand new single from S.B.E., a west-side group responsible for some top-tier bop tunes. The blue box is the most prominent image on an otherwise monochromatic cover, and it hovers just inches above a statue of the Virgin Mary. It instills a strong sense of fear and dread in the midst of unrest and documented cases of police brutality in Ferguson, Missouri....

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place. Older strips are archived here. 

Dean Wareham 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.

The fine folks at Bric-a-Brac Records have a knack for booking great bands in their cozy Avondale shop. From time to time they take over other venues for even bigger gigs—such as this Sunday, March 12, when Bric-a-Brac puts on not one but two shows headlined by Irish punk legends Protex. Formed in 1978, the Belfast band fizzled out in 1980, shelving a Polydor full-length. Protex reunited after stateside reissue label Sing Sing rescued the recordings and released them as Strange Obsessions in 2010....

A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn. Lil Peep I haven’t made up my mind about this LA rapper, whose vocals make him sound like a third-stringer for the Used’s Bert McCracken. Pitchfork has called him “the future of emo,” but I’m curious to see how music outlets that have historically been allergic to anything remotely emo will approach him....

Q: I’m a straight 26-year-old man who wants advice on helping my fiancee realize a particular fantasy. We have been dating for three years and are in a happy monogamous relationship. I was always vanilla, but she enjoys rougher sex and light bondage. We’ve incorporated some of this into our sex lives, and we are both happy with how fun it is. She has expressed interest in a rape fantasy. Both of us want to be safe when we do this, and we trust each other completely....

To get to the bottom of Governor Rauner’s feud with Mayor Rahm, Mick Dumke and I have invited Steve Brown and Natasha Korecki to join us at the Hideout Tuesday night. So having him on stage is almost as good as having the speaker at the Hideout. First Tuesdays with Mick & Ben 6:30 PM 11/3 at the Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, $5. 

Artist Angela Davis Fegan debuted her Lavender Menace poster project during Dyke March 2015. She created jumpsuits covered with words like “butch” and “womyn,” and she designed and distributed letterpress-printed signs saying things like “We want agency beyond the dance floor” and “We are the queers you fear, the ones who riot, fuck, and vote.” So far Fegan’s brought the concept to Cole’s and Danny’s Tavern. Yesterday’s project took over the bathrooms at the Empty Bottle....

The much-loved 1969 historical novel Patience and Sarah, penned by lesbian writer and activist Alma Routsong under the name Isabel Miller, inspired this chamber opera by composer Paula M. Kimper and librettist Wende Persons, which premiered in 1998 at New York’s Lincoln Center. It’s the story of two small-town women in 1816 Connecticut who fall in love and hatch a plan to travel together as a pioneer couple. Patience White, a genteel “spinster” who lives with her brother and his wife, spends her time painting Bible-themed folk art; the much poorer Sarah Dowling, who dresses like a man while helping her pa out with chores, yearns to leave home and invites Patience to join her....

A look back on the early-aughts rave ban that rattled Toronto’s dance-music sceneAt the end of the 90s, Toronto’s booming rave scene took a huge hit after high-profile drug-related deaths and increased media attention snowballed into a wide-reaching “rave ban.” Thump looks back on how the city dealt with—and protested—the crackdown on its club culture. [Thump] Indie rocker Juliana Hatfield wrote about the new Lorde songYou may remember Juliana Hatfield as the singer who cofounded the Blake Babies in 1986 or as the solo artist who released Whatever, My Love with the Juliana Hatfield Three in 2015....

AP Photos Sportswriters have gone after NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for his tepid response to domestic violence by star Ray Rice—but is he the only one to blame? There are two great literary explorations into the kind of repeated endeavor that gives life purpose even if not always accomplishment. One is Camus’s “The Myth of Sisyphus.” The other is the nursery rhyme “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” Jarrett Bell, USA Today: “In a statement, the NFL again reiterated that it was ‘not aware of anyone in our office who possessed or saw the video before it was made public Monday....

There’s a visual-media sea change happening in Chicago right now. A growing crop of local production companies—focused on creating webseries, short films, and even commercials—is providing new opportunities for people of diverse races, sexualities, and genders. WOTN is hosting a series of workshops and initiatives this spring intended to help women develop their production skills and strengthen their voices in a male-dominated industry. “There’s a camera workshop where we’re going to encourage a bunch of femmes to sit down and learn more of the technical end of the camera,” says Laura Day, WOTN’s creative producer....

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place. Older strips are archived here.

If you’ve got a low tolerance for whimsy, this Australian psych-prog band are probably not for you (the name really should have tipped you off to begin with). But if you like your trippy art-rock with lots of impish smiles implied, welcome to the weird world of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. The group formed in 2010, and their most recent full-length album, September’s Flying Microtonal Banana, is already their ninth....

IAN DOUGLAS Miguel Gutierrez 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.

From Ebony magazine’s “cracked” Cosby Show cover to Eddie Murphy’s Bill Cosby crack at the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor awards—it’s about time. Judging from Black Twitter and beyond, many African-Americans are livid and hurt by the November issue, which shows the beloved 80s family smiling under cracked glass: I hear some of the hack contributor writers for #EbonyMag are upset with me for continuing to point out their disrespect for Black society — Tariq Nasheed (@tariqnasheed) October 16, 2015 #EbonyMag has gone the way of BET both OWNED & OPERATED by White folk & will do & say anything 2 uphold WHITE SUPREMACY #cosbyshow...

In the never-ending fight against the man—whoever the man might be—it’s rare to get a victory. So I’m happy to tell you about Bob Quellos’s great achievement: he got the Chicago Police Department to admit it had been spying on him. Investigators received permission from the police brass to engage in a range of spying techniques, including tapping phones, sifting through garbage, and infiltrating protest groups with undercover cops posing as activists....

What better way to celebrate a gray fall day than with a nine-minute, steady-driving postrock track from Athens band Maserati? Today’s 12 O’Clock Track, “Show Me the Season,” remains my favorite Maserati song, not only because it shows off late drummer Jerry Fuchs’s uncanny ability to hammer out a rhythm so effortlessly and with such refinement, but also because he’s unquestionably steering the ship—you can hear him absorbing the wisps of delay-heavy guitar and nonstop, galloping bass to eventually hatch a full-on dramatic crescendo, like something that would pair a little too beautifully with a flying scene from a mid-80s fantasy movie (because they all have them)....

It’s as reliable a sign of spring as buds on the trees and unfounded optimism in Wrigleyville: city crews patching the pockmarked streets. Irritated by the endless, cyclical nature of street repair in Chicago, artist Jim Bachor decided to pitch in. As part of a personal public art/public works project, he’s been repairing potholes with custom mosaics, including a Chicago flag design and one with the number 361,841—as good a guess as any for how many craters exist in the city’s roadways....

A great Waffle Fest poster or the greatest Waffle Fest poster? For the past few years Chicago vocalist Shawn “Awdazcate” Childress has thrown the annual Waffle Fest, a celebration of this city’s underground hip-hop scene. “Waffle Fest started after I noticed that some of the local cats never rocked a big stage,” Childress says. “So I provided that avenue for MCs, producers, and graffiti artists.” These minifests are an extension of Childress’s Waffle Gang—in a preview for the third Waffle Fest back in December Miles Raymer wrote that Waffle Gang “encompasses an Internet radio show, a loose rap collective, and a club dedicated to eating breakfast at night....