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Is a ten-inch with four versions of Ray Parker Jr.’s Ghostbusters theme (original, instrumental, dance remix, dub) supercool or over-the-top ridiculous? And does it help at all to know that the release commemorates the film’s 30th anniversary and glows in the dark? I couldn’t tell you. But wait, there’s more! For a look at some of the art and science that goes into keeping a record store stocked the other 364 days of the year, see this week’s feature story—Leor Galil writes about tagging along with Permanent Records manager Dave McCune to the Chicagoland Record Collectors Show in Hillside....

Record Store Day returns for its tenth iteration on Saturday, April 22. This year the Reader is spotlighting a half dozen underappreciated neighborhood shops that don’t do much if anything for the occasion, but as usual we’ve also collected these listings about the places that do. Your menu for this year’s Record Store Day If a shop doesn’t appear here, that’s because as far as we know it isn’t doing anything out of the ordinary for Record Store Day....

One week before opening day, Riot Fest has finalized its lineup, though the three big additions went public yesterday. When the festival announced Run the Jewels, Weezer, and Taking Back Sunday (who play the fest almost as frequently as Andrew W.K. and Gwar), they were presented as replacements for previously announced headliners Blink-182, who were forced to cancel several dates because drummer Travis Barker has been struggling with blood clots in his arms since June....

To say that book writer Buddy Farmer and composer Michael Mahler’s newish biomusical respects its subject, legendary 1920’s Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, would be downplaying the sheer extent to which it venerates the guy. No doubt his contributions to university athletics and Hoosier pride at large are worthy of song, but sweet Jesus, this painfully earnest and often schlocky tribute plays out like the sort of show an autocrat in a banana republic would commission about himself....

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s latest book, Between the World and Me, is not an easy read, nor should it be. Presented as a letter to Samori, his 15-year-old son, Coates’s brutally honest diagnosis of the current state of affairs for the black male in America reads as a searing rejoinder to anyone convinced that progress is at hand. Does Coates have any hope for this country’s future? It’s a tricky question, one left unanswered by Between the World and Me....

There are plenty of shows, films, and concerts happening this week. Here’s some of what we recommend: Fri 8/3-8/5: The Third Murder deepens on a repeat screening. “Scenes that are tedious or familiar on first viewing become absorbing on the when you focus on small details that point to the characters’ true selves, writes the Reader’s Sachs. NR. Hirokazu Kore-eda directed. 125 min. Various times, Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N....

Did you know that you can patent a recipe in India? Me neither. But if you invent something delicious—say, unicorn tikka masala—and you don’t want anyone biting your style, you can lock that goodness down. And yet apparently there are chefs who wouldn’t dream of doing that, who believe their inspirations are gifts to humanity. That’s how, according to legend, a guy named A.M. Buhari gave his Chicken 65 to the world....

To any north-sider who might think for a second that this city’s fundamental segregation problem doesn’t touch his life in ways both trivial and monumental, I’d like to pose this question: Have you ever eaten a Chicago sweet steak sandwich? It’s puzzling that the purveyors of a bona fide Chicago delicacy get scant foot traffic from outside their neighborhoods and little love from the local food media, unlike, say, the Indian restaurants along Devon or the Vietnamese spots on Argyle....

“I believe that in all the work there is a freedom, a joy, and pleasure in the making, and it comes through,” Bernblum says. “It’s what makes all the work feel alive and visceral.” One of his pieces in the show, titled “Stuck,” places two wooden tongue sculptures aside a long, white slab of plaster. One tongue floats above, curling toward the object, while the other pushes into the plaster, forging a shallow divot in the material....

Schorle Fred Lonberg-Holm 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.

When singer-songwriter John Lutkevich wrapped up last year’s The Light (Disposable America/Exploding in Sound), his debut full-length as Soft Fangs, he told Independent Music News that he “became obsessed with the idea of transcendence, of struggling through something in order to reach a higher state.” It’s unclear what, if anything, Lutkevich may have been struggling with personally, and that lack of definition allows The Light to breathe: trembling guitars, mumbling vocals, and whispering electronic blips exude a deep sense of sorrow as they shade in emotions rather than articulate them....

Terminator Genisys, which is currently in theaters, is heavy with self-knowing camp, especially when Arnold Schwarzenegger’s onscreen. His performance registers as one long, self-effacing joke, his dialogue touching on how he’s too old to be an action star anymore and how limited he’s always been as an actor. (One running gag involves him struggling to smile in a realistic manner.) And yet the film inspires a certain sympathy for his character, a killer cyborg reprogrammed to be a loving parent....

The first act of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull centers on a botched production of an experimental play that’s been written and directed by an oversensitive young man named Konstantin Treplev. The production bears all the markings of bad avant-garde theater: it’s humorless and incomprehensible, full of baffling imagery and pretentious language. Treplev thinks he’s broken new ground. His mother, a successful actress on the commercial stage, laughs at the poor boy, dismissing his work as decadent nonsense....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Monday, April 3, 2017. A mother and son were shot to death almost exactly one year apart Dejenaba Altman was shot and killed March 31, 2016, after being caught in crossfire in West Garfield Park. Her son, Romille McCall, died March 30, 2017, from injuries sustained in a shooting in Austin, according to the Tribune. “I feel very numb. I don’t know what to feel or what to believe in,” Altman’s daughter and McCall’s sister, Tyshawnda McCall, told the newspaper....

My Real Deal has expired. Can the offer be extended? The promotional value of your deal will expire on the date displayed on the voucher. If the promotional value of your deal has expired, you may still redeem the voucher at the merchant for the amount paid for the deal, as required by applicable state and federal laws. If a voucher becomes unredeemable, please contact realdealsupport@chicagoreader.com for an account credit or refund in the amount paid for the voucher....

There’s plenty to do this weekend. Here’s some of what we recommend: Fri 5/12: New England psych-pop merchant Doug Tuttle plays at the Hideout (1354 W. Wabansia) tonight. Peter Margasak writes, “There’s no question Tuttle mines inspiration from the past—his sprawling arrangements occasionally remind me of Morgan Delt’s hermetic, multicolored sound world—but he sounds more concerned with crafting glistening nuggets of pop than with singling out influences.” 9 PM Sun 5/14: Chef Edward Kim presents a four-course meal Mother’s Day Brunch at Ruxbin (851 N....

While in New York in January I caught a performance by Stockholm-based sound artist John Chantler, who hunkered down behind a small table outfitted with two small analog synthesizers and a computer. The set began with pinging electronic sounds that flickered about, then gained in density, volume, and physicality as the minutes passed, eventually transforming from a pleasant ambient splatter of electronic starbursts into a punishing din that toggled between assaultive and enveloping....

Our text today, sisters and brothers, is from Genesis 4: the story of humanity’s first murder. Adam and Eve’s elder son, Cain, was a farmer and their younger one, Abel, a shepherd. Both brought offerings to God, but when He rejected Cain’s offering, Cain became angry. Unable to kill God, he killed Abel instead. Needless to say, Adam isn’t the same after that. In his despondency he lets both the farm and his boys grow wild....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago. —A well-tended beard is not any more kempt or unkempt than a clean-shaven face. It is a matter of comfort and ease. (Excerpts taken from Esquire, written by their fashion editors.)

Visitors I’m glad to have seen Godfrey Reggio’s feature-length montage Visitors on a big screen (it’s currently playing at the Landmark Century Centre), even though I didn’t particularly care for the movie on the whole. Jonathan Rosenbaum’s critique of Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi seems equally applicable here (“This quasi-mystical documentary is largely a dull rehash of ideas given infinitely better realization in Vertov’s The Man With the Movie Camera and many other experimental films of the 20s”), as does Fred Camper’s assessment of Baraka, a like-minded project by Reggio’s former collaborator Ron Fricke (“With a few exceptions ....