Show: Renato Borghetti, Boris Malkovsky Accordionist Renato Borghetti, a native of Rio Grande do Sul, has been one of the premier musical ambassadors of Brazil's musica gaucha, a fast-fingered gaita ponto virtuoso who embraces tradition while incorporating just enough outside influence from jazz, pop, samba, and other Brazilian styles to keep the music from stagnating. Ukraine-born, Tel Aviv-based accordionist Boris Malkovsky opens.
6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, Michigan and Randolph, 312-742-1168, millenniumpark.org/artandarchitecture/jay_pritzker_pavilion.html, free
Dinner: The Purple Pig Snout-to-tail cooking is the name of the game at The Purple Pig, a convivial take on an Italian enoteca from Scott Harris (Mia Francesca), Jimmy Bannos Sr. (Heaven on Seven), and chef Jimmy Bannos Jr., who honed his skills at Mario Batali's New York restaurants.
500 N. Michigan Ave., 312-464-1744, thepurplepigchicago.com
It's definitely homerish of me to say, but I really like the work of Clayton Hauck, regular Reader contributor and proprietor of Everyone Is Famous; I was pleased to figure out how to run his shots of Pitchfork at 800px wide, because they deserve it.
He's technically skilled, obviously, with a talent for getting great color in low-light situations and for on-the-fly composition (note the second pic on this page). And beyond his technical skills, he's got a knack for... how shall I put this... taking pictures of the sort of people who go to concerts, whose dress and manner, at least if you're drab and wallflowerish like me (I'm wearing a beige golf shirt today), can seem like kind of a lot, and the pictures are wry about their subjects without being at all condescending. Here's a good example: he shot the Deadmau5 concert for us a couple weeks ago, and Deadmau5 fans can be a lot of look. And he got good-looking, kind of bro-ish Deadmau5 fans, the sort of people who I could instinctively be maybe a dick about, looking silly (first picture) without any snideness.
He's got an affectionate eye, is the best way I can think of to put it. That's one of the things I like about photography—good photographers are consistently able to get certain effects and emotions through a technological medium. And one of the things I like about being a shitty photographer is that good photography still seems like a small miracle to me.
I thought of Clayton's work when I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last weekend. I'd been to the Frick the day before, a fine but world-historically stodgy old robber baron's art collection housed in his mansion, and between the two I'd seen more European paintings of landscapes, rich people, and martyrs than you can shake a stick at. And then I ran into Frans Hals's Shrovetide Revellers, a 1615 portrait of drunks (complete with the Flemish-painting equivalent of dick jokes). It was one of the highlights of my visit, along with William Orpen's Self Portrait, also known as Leading the Life in the West, perhaps best described as Dude Who Puts a Lot of Thought Into His Clothes Heading Out to Party.
It's not that I don't like pictures of landscapes, rich people, and martyrs, but Hals and Orpen broke the tension. One too many oversized portraits of noblemen and you start to get a distorted view of the world.
July 2nd GDYNIA, PLOPENER FESTIVAL
July 4th ROSKILDE, DKROSKILDE FESTIVAL
July 6th NIJMEGEN, NLDOORNROOSJE
July 8th LIEGE, BELES ARDENTES
Food in Poland is very good, but it is also heavy. (It was the best borscht I've ever had, and the server was dressed like a princess.)
Roskilde in Denmark is the third best festival on earth and was the best show Pavement has played so far. (Best festival, you ask? All Tomorrows Parties. Almost all of them. Second best? Primavera in Barcelona.)
Yara Castanho is a bad ass.
Mark Ibold becomes a father while onstage in Nijmegen while the Dutch go on to the World Cup.
Grace Jones is a bad ass.
Cypress Hill was (surprisingly) great.
Michael Stipe was a student in James Herbert's art class at the University of Georgia in the early 80s, and after Stipe formed R.E.M. with fellow Georgia students, Herbert directed a number of the band's classic videos, including "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)," "Pretty Persuasion," "Driver 8" "Feeling Gravity's Pull," "Green Grow the Rushes," "Turn You Inside Out," and "Low."
Four of Herbert's short films, Cantico (1982), Frontier (1984), Piano (1988) and Soundings (1986) screen Friday at 8 p.m. at Chicago Filmmakers, 5243 N. Clark St.
According to Chicago Filmmakers' web site, these four films "have the style and themes of his later work: beautiful young couples naked, sunlit, and embracing in sumptuous environments. The scenarios are not especially sexual, but focus on the thrill and confusion of young adulthood in carefully crafted fragments and vignettes."
The best of the rest of this week's Early Warnings includes Band of Horses at the Riviera Theatre, Clinic at Lincoln Hall, !!! at Bottom Lounge, Guided by Voices at the Vic, Local Natives at Metro, and Planes Mistaken for Stars at Subterranean.
Check out an expanded list of notables after the jump:
Show: Lisandro Meza Button accordionist Lisandro Meza has been one of the biggest names in Colombian cumbia for more than five decades. Meza's songs are compact and propulsive, and he gives them a crackling energy with fluid, high-octane accordion patterns; his clear voice carries excitement and even joy with laconic, economical ease.
8:30 PM, Old Town School of Folk Music, 4544 N. Lincoln, 773-728-6000, oldtownschool.org, $30, $28 members, $26 seniors and children.
Dinner: Cafe Selmarie Small gem of a restaurant and bakery, popular for weekend breakfasts and pleasant dinner specials.
4729 N. Lincoln Ave., 773-989-5595, cafeselmarie.com
Show: Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti A movement seems to be afoot to anoint Ariel Pink the godfather of chillwave—and in fact his older songs, like "For Kate I Wait," do seem to have set the template for the lo-fi electro-pop filled with heavy nods to New Romantics that this season's most popular blog music is built on. But genre tags don't stick to Pink for long: on the new Before Today he adds psychedelic grunge, Francophile garage rock, and arch Bowie-style operetta to what was already a long list that includes Donovan-ish candy folk and slow-jam R & B.
9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, 773-525-2501, lincolnhallchicago.com, $14, $12 in advance, 18+.
Dinner: Red Rooster Wine Bar & Cafe Cozy, romantic French sibling to neighboring Cafe Bernard, more casual and affordable.
2100 N. Halsted St., 773-929-7660, cafebernard.com
Freddie Gibbs's headlining set on the side stage at Pitchfork on Saturday was full of firsts for the fest. First performer to bring a bottle of Hennessey out on stage with him. First stage banter aimed at keeping the audience (a couple thousand mostly white kids) away from gangs. And it was the first set of the weekend that really felt essential, one of those rare festival performances that feel like a moment, the type of thing that justifies all of the sun and sweat and eight dollar veggie burgers.
There wasn't anything gimmicky about his performance. He simply went out on stage, rapped, and tried to connect with his audience.
He connected.
I know a lot of people who read this blog do some from work, and as far as I'm aware most bosses aren't cool with their employees watching the entire 17 minute long (!) YouTube commercial for the 11th Annual Gathering of the Juggalos. "But," you're saying, "I absolutely need to know what to expect from the 11th Annual Gathering of the Juggalos because I already bought my tickets without even checking what sort of entertainment they have planned because I am a diehard juggalo and the Gathering is the highlight of the summer for my husband and myself. We actually met at the 5th Gathering when he visited my 'JUGGALETTE TITS FOR A DOLLAR' booth." Luckily for you some of us have jobs where watching Gathering of the Juggalos videos can be considered billable time.
Highlights and the entire insane commercial after the jump.
