June's Five Can't-Miss Shows
(Tom Lynch)

1. Superchunk and the Mountain Goats
(Metro)
The seminal Chapel Hill indie-rock band comes to town for the Eff Cancer Benefit, with proceeds going to the The Ulman Cancer Fund for young adults. The great Mountain Goats open--one of the best two-punch bills of the summer.
(June 20)

2. Dinosaur Jr.
(Abbey Pub)
Now that the reunion giddiness can wear off, Mascis and crew can get back to being a band. "Beyond," the group's first album in ten years, sounds as if they haven't missed a step.
(June 1-2)

3. Switchyard Festival 2007
(Chicago and California)
The newest of the summer's endless festival line-up--this one hosted and curated by ultra-hipster 4am bar The Continental, with proceeds benefiting the McCormick Tribune YMCA--features performances by local acts The 1900s and Suffrajett, Canada's The Stills and many more.
(June 23-24)

4. Keren Ann
(Lakeshore Theater)
The France- and New York-based songstress' new self-titled record is near-perfect, a fantastic follow-up to her equally great "Nolita." The power of the pop-abstractness of "Lay Your Head Down," her new single, is unrivaled.
(June 8)

5. Taste of Randolph Street
(Randolph and Racine)
The Randolph Street fest boasts an impressive rock line-up this year--the goofy Fountains of Wayne, Merge recording artists The Broken West, local pop-punk stalwarts The Smoking Popes, New York art-rock-outfit The Walkmen and Chicago's Smiths-esque The Changes, to name a few.
(June 15-17)

June's Five Can't-Miss Shows
(Duke Shin)


1. Michael Mayer, Gui Boratto
(Smart Bar)
Repping Cologne, based in Berlin, Kompakt's head honcho drops his signature sinister shuffles and penchant for trippy melodics, with hot-shit Brazilian producer/remixer Gui Boratto in tow.
(June 1)

2. Justin Martin
(Lava)
From the deep to the bleep, a rare visit from the Dirtybird and Buzzin Fly house jock known for that quirky bump. Add in the intimate venue of Lava, and this party goes OFF.
(June 2)

3. Bel Eckhart Sound Experiment
(Eckhart Park)
Sonotheque mastermind Joe Bryl had a hand in crafting this innovative day-long festival that includes visual artists, brass musicians and a performance from experimental hip-hop producer Prefuse 73.
(June 2)

4. Datarock
(Empty Bottle)
Norwegian duo dance rock its way into the Bottle, preaching the word of its supposed holy trinity of Talking Heads, Devo and Happy Mondays. Ready your wafer for transublectrocution.
(June 5)

5. Druzzi & Matt B Safer (The Rapture)
(Smart Bar)
Matty's caterwauling voice might've been baptized by the Church of Latter Day Robert Smiths, but tonight he'll be trading in the mic for tables, with bandmate Druzzi along to find out whether people truly don't dance no more.
(June 8)


June's Five Can't-Miss Shows
(Dennis Polkow)

1. The Stone Horse: A Silk Road Journey
(Pritzker Pavilion)
The year-long "Silk Road Chicago" celebration reaches its culmination and climax when cellist Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Ensemble return to Millennium Park where they began the celebration a year ago, but this time accompanied by members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, its training orchestra, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and more than 500 Chicago public school students who will all join forces to perform an ancient Chinese folktale about a man who sets off on a quest to recover his mother's silk robe aided by a mythical stone horse.
(June 5)

2. West Side Story 50th Anniversary Production
(Ravinia Festival)
After presenting six straight years of Stephen Sondheim works, Ravinia turns to his role as lyricist in Leonard Bernstein's iconic "West Side Story," universally regarded as the greatest of all American musicals, with a fully staged production for one night only that has original cast members Carole Lawrence ("Maria") and Chita Rivera ("Anita") coaching the cast with Jerome Robbins' assistant Gerald Freedman choreographing and Bernstein assistant John Mauceri conducting.
(June 8)

3. Philip Glass' Book of Longing
(Martin Theatre Ravinia)
The High Priest of Minimalism celebrates his seventieth birthday by presenting the Chicago premiere of a major new work based on the poetry of Leonard Cohen. Glass himself will perform electronic keyboards for this two-hour multi-media staged work for four vocalists and a small instrumental ensemble.
(June 13-14)

4. Complete Bartók Quartets, Juilliard String Quartet
(Martin Theatre Ravinia)
The string quartet ensemble of two violins, viola and cello has been the introspective medium of choice from the eighteenth century to the Beatles, but no one put a more distinctive stamp on the genre than twentieth-century Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, who combed the mountains of his native pre-World War I Transylvania to locate, record and categorize folk tunes of the region and then used them liberally as the basis for his six remarkably rhythmic and hauntingly beautiful quartets.
(June 19-20)

5. American Icons, Grant Park Music Festival
(Holy Family Church)
While the seventeen-year cicadas are buzzing outside and the loud din of Taste of Chicago takes over Grant Park, the Grant Park Music Festival, the nation's only remaining free classical music festival, heads indoors to present an imaginative and introspective program of sacred choral works by contemporary American composers, including Leonard Bernstein's "Missa brevis," Aaron Copland's "In the Beginning," Samuel Barber's "Agnus Dei" (a choral setting of his haunting "Adagio for Strings"), Morten Lauridsen's "O Magnum Mysterium" and Eric Whiacre's "Cloudburst."
(June 26-27)






(2007-05-22)

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