Category: music

  • Offsite: Chicago Zine Fest Valentine’s Day Karaoke Fundraiser at Beauty Bar Chicago 2/14

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    Show your love through song this Valentine’s Day, Sunday, February 14th as you help raise funds for the independent literary event Chicago Zine Fest, at Beauty Bar, 1444 W Chicago Ave. (NOT AT QUIMBY’S.)

    For their fifth annual karaoke fundraiser, Zine Fest partners with Shameless Karaoke with a songbook of karaoke favorites from Blondie, the Smiths, James Brown, Madonna, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Prince, The Clash, Elvis Costello, the Kinks, Kiss, Britney Spears, Roxy Music, the Sex Pistols, classic punk and new wave and more. You can voice your feelings about Valentine’s Day with your song selection, whether it’s “Addicted to Love” or “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”

    Bring some extra dollars as Beauty Bar offers unique drink specials all night long, including a signature martini and manicure to make sure you look your best this holiday.  Plus Zine Fest will hold a 50/50 raffle, splitting the pot that night with one lucky winner. Purchase raffle tickets for a chance to take home a nice holiday gift.

    There is a $5 admission which will benefit the 2016 Chicago Zine Fest. The event beings at 8pm and is 21+.

    About Chicago Zine Fest: Chicago Zine Fest (CZF) is a celebration of small press and independent publishers. CZF’s mission is to showcase the culture and accessibility of zine-making through workshops, events, and an annual festival that welcomes artists and creators to share their stories, knowledge, and love of zines. Chicago Zine Fest 2016 takes place on April 29th and 30th, 2016. Visit chicagozinefest.org for more information.

    Join the event on Facebook and invite your friends: https://www.facebook.com/events/545483928934905/

    About Shameless Karaoke: Visit www.facebook.com/ShamelessKaraoke/

    See the Shameless Karaoke list here to think about what song(s) you want to do!

    Artwork by the lovely and talented Chicago artist Gina Wynbrandt (Big Pussy).

    Quimby’s is proud to co-sponsor Chicago Zine Fest, which is April 29th-30th, 2016.

  • Offsite: Quimby's Night at LiveWire Lounge: 3 Songs, 3 Writers Reading About Those Songs 3/22

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    The LiveWire Lounge (3394 N Milwaukee) asked Quimby’s if we wanted to curate a night at their lounge. And we said yes. So this is what we’re bringing, a themed mix of reading and music with a very specific focus:

    Quimby’s Night at LiveWire Lounge: 3 Songs, 3 Writers Reading About Those Songs

    Original Readings by:

    Mike “McBeardo” McPadden, reading about Kiss Me Deadly by Generation X
    Celia Forrest, reading about Black and White by the DBs
    Dan Kelly, reading about X Offender by Blondie

    All 3 songs performed by The Blue Ribbon Glee Club

    Celia Forrest is a writer, director, teacher and actress who was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska. She is a new mother and couldn’t shut up about it if she tried. She is well-known in Minnesota for her work teaching theater to kids and her award-winning turn in Neil Labute’s Fat Pig. In Chicago she is mostly known for her sketch comedy writing and directing, as well for her work on The People’s Republic of Edward Snowden. Celia is also famous in a subset of radical activists as a co-host of Morning Damnit, the morning news and talk show on Q4 Radio, and the weekly program The Celia and Erik Show, which features comedy, commentary and interviews with local artists. Find her on Twitter at twitter.com/thatcelia

    Mike “McBeardo” McPadden is the author of Heavy Metal Movies: Guitar Barbarians, Mutant Bimbos, and Cult Zombies Amok in the 666 Most Ear- and Eye-Ripping Big Scream Films Ever! (Bazillion Points, 2014) and the upcoming Going All the Way: The Ultimate Guide to Teen Sex Comedy Films of the VHS Era (Bazillion Points, 2016). You will love him. More info at mcbeardo.com.

    Dan Kelly is the author of Hilaretic. He is not to be confused with the Australian judoka and mixed martial artist Dan Kelly. He occasionally writes for The Baffler and Gapers Block. He blogs at mrdankelly.com/blog.

    The Blue Ribbon Glee Club is Chicago’s punk rock a capella glee club, and regularly performs songs by Fugazi, Gang of Four, the Dead Kennedys, the Buzzcocks and more.

    Please note: This event is NOT at Quimby’s. It is at the LIVEWIRE LOUNGE | 3394 N MILWAUKEE AVE, CHICAGO, IL

    Facebook event post can be found here.LiveWire Lounge

  • off-site: CAKE FRAME 2: Live Art Auction and Brain Frame Comics Performance Event to Benefit CAKE 4/20

    cakeframeSun, April 20 at the Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S Morgan Street, Chicago IL 60608 (NOT at Quimby’s)

    Doors at 6pm, show at 7pm
    $5 – $20 sliding scale entry

    For the second year running, the performative comics reading series Brain Frame is teaming up with the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) to host the CAKE Frame fundraiser, an evening of comics readings and a live art auction. Cake Frame 2 is All proceeds go to benefit CAKE, the weekend-long celebration of independent comics featuring comics for sale, workshops, exhibitions, panel discussions and more. CAKE is dedicated to fostering community and dialogue amongst independent artists, small presses, publishers and readers.

    Brain Frame founder Lyra Hill will host the evening as master of ceremonies and auctioneer. Attendees can bid on original art from 30 talented Chicagoans including Chris Ware, Nicole Hollander, Ivan Brunetti, and Edie Fake. All bids for artworks will start at $30. The evening will also include a wide variety of comics performances by Brain Frame alums Kevin Budnik, Rachel Niffenegger, Pup House and Jen Rickert. There will be live drawing by Jenna Caravello and live music by El Is A Sound Of Joy. Doors open at 6pm and the event starts at 7pm, but we recommend attendees arrive early if they want to review the auction items before bidding.

    With only two months until CAKE on May 31/June 1 at the Center on Halstead, the CAKE organizers are kicked into full gear. Organizers Ben Bertin, Neil Brideau, Marnie Galloway, Max Morris, Grace Tran and Jeff Zwirek are committed to making this year’s show one that goes down in history, and the CAKE Frame 2 fundraiser will help them towards that goal.

    For more information on CAKE, please visit cakechicago.com
    For more information on Brain Frame, please visit brainframe.tumblr.com
    Contact: Max Morris, cakexpo(at)gmail(dot)com

  • Art Spiegelman's WORDLESS! with music by Phillip Johnston at the Logan Center, Performance Hall

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    Two performances only
    Sat, Jan 25, 2014 / 3 pm and 8 pm
    Logan Center, Performance Hall
    In his Pulitzer prize-winning masterpiece, Maus—a moving father-son memoir about the Holocaust drawn with cats and mice—Art Spiegelman changed the definition of comics forever. In WORDLESS!—a new and stimulating hybrid of slides, talk and musical performance—he probes further into the nature and possibilities of his medium.
    A noted artist, historian and theorist of comics, Spiegelman collaborates with critically-acclaimed jazz composer Phillip Johnston, whose all-new scores performed by his sextet will accompany the cartoonist’s personal tour of early graphic novels and their influence on him: silent picture stories made by early 20th Century masters like Frans Masereel, Lynd Ward and Milt Gross. As Spiegelman explores “the battle between Words and Pictures,” he smashes at the hyphen between High and Low Art in a presentation featuring a new work drawn specifically for this project, “Shaping Thought.”
    The Logan Center is proud to host the Chicago premiere of Art Spiegelman and Phillip Johnston’s WORDLESS!, an innovative show combining slides, talk, film, and live musical performance.

  • Chicago Zine Fest Punk Rock Karaoke Fundraiser at The Beauty Bar 1/9

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    Prepare to belt out your favorite punk songs Thursday, January 9th at Chicago Zine Fest’s first fundraiser of 2014, their 3rd annual event partnering with Punk Rock Karaoke Chicago at Beauty Bar at 1444 W Chicago Ave.

    The Punk Rock Karaoke songbook has selections from bands including Ramones, Rancid, Green Day, Blonde, Against Me!, the Clash, Misfits, the Smiths and more! These tunes will make you pump your fist in the air and pogo around all night long. Bring your friends to join in on the fun.

    Beauty Bar staff will offer a unique drink special all night long, a signature martini and a manicure.

    Hosts for the night will be the energetic and outrageous duo of Marisa Overton and Tara Anley.

    There is a $5 admission which will benefit the 2014 Chicago Zine Fest. The event beings at 8pm and is 21+.

    About Chicago Zine Fest: The Chicago Zine Fest is an independent event creating an outlet for small press and independent publishers to showcase their work. Our goal is to make DIY zine-making accessible, highlight the talents of self-published artists, and give independent artists a chance to interact, and swap skills through tabling, community events, and workshops. The festival will be held on March 14 and 15, 2014. For more information visit chicagozinefest.org.

    Note: This is NOT at Quimby’s! It is at Beauty Bar at 1444 W Chicago Ave.

  • David Novak Reads From Japanoise at Quimby’s 11/22 With performances by Roth Mobot and Peter Speer

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    David Novak’s new book Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation (Duke University Press) describes how Noise, an underground music made through an amalgam of feedback, distortion, and electronic effects, became a global phenomenon. Noise first emerged as a genre in the 1980s, circulating on cassette tapes traded between fans in Japan, Europe, and North America. With its cultivated obscurity, ear-shattering sound, and over-the-top performances, Noise captured the imagination of a small but passionate transnational audience. But does Noise really belong to Japan? Is it even music at all? Novak draws on more than a decade of fieldwork to trace the “cultural feedback” that generated Noise in circulation between Japan and the United States, illustrating his talk with rare videos of Noise performances.

     

    Novak’s presentation at Quimby’s will also be supported by electronic music performances featuring Roth Mobot, the circuit bent hybrid performance/teaching duo of Tommy Stephenson and Patrick McCarthy (www.RothMobot.com) and Peter Speer, a Chicago artist working with improvised electronic sound (www.diode-ring.com).

     

    “David Novak goes inside the Noise scene and presents an astounding perspective: historically astute, inspired, and completely shell-shocked.”

                                  —Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth

     

    David Novak is Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of essays in Public Culture, Cultural Anthropology, and The Wire, and his research has recently been featured on podcasts by MIT and MoMA. Novak is also a radio host, sound engineer, and musician who has performed in the groups Habit Trail, Maestros, the Anthony Braxton Ensemble and Dymaxion.

     

    For more info: www.japanoise.com

    For the Facebook event invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/204576466391960/

     

    Friday, November 22, 7pm – Free Event

  • Novelist and Musician Dylan Hicks Reads from Boarded Windows and Performs from Companion Album

    Dylan Hicks’s debut novel Boarded Windows (May 2012, Coffee House Press), follows a record store clerk in 90s Minneapolis as he searches for his origins and confronts his con-man father figure. A postmodern orphan story that explores the fallibility of memory and the weight of our social and cultural inheritance, Dylan Hicks’s debut novel captures the music and mood of the fading embers of America’s boomer counterculture.

    Join Dylan for a reading from the book as well as a musical performance of some of the songs from the soundtrack, Dylan Hicks Sings Bolling Greene.

    “As a work of American iconography, Boarded Windows is a continually hilarious, hopes-dashed account of an indelible American character: the con man.”

    —Greil Marcus

    “Boarded Windows is a shrewd and soulful novel.” —Dana Spiotta, author of Stone Arabia

    Dylan Hicks is a songwriter, musician, and writer. His work has appeared in the Village Voice, New York Times, Star Tribune, City Pages, and Rain Taxi, and he has released three albums under his own name. A fourth, Sings Bolling Greene, is a companion album to Boarded Windows. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife, Nina Hale, and his son, Jackson.

    For more info, visit:

    www.dylanhicks.com

    www.coffeehousepress.org

    Thursday, May 24th, 7 pm

  • Quimby's Podcast Episode #4 is up!

    This episode features a discussion with Jon Kristiansen and Tara G. Warrior talking about Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries (Bazillion Points Publishers). Jon started it in Norway in 1985 and put out 20 issues over the span of 25 years. The zine covered a variety of extreme metal bands, including Emperor, Slayer, Kreator, Nihilist, Celtic Frost, Bathory, Cathedral, Entombed, Morbid, Napalm Death, and more. The Onion AV club called Slayer zine founder Jon Kristiansen “one of the best primary sources for facts and stories about Mayhem, Varg, and what really happened back in the day.” The Chicago Reader called this book “a chronicle of death and black metal at their births but also a personal coming-of-age story.” It’s an awesome 744 page hardcover with tons of pictures and reproduction pages from every issue, and there’s even material from the precursor Live Wire zine. It’s also part memoir. Co-editor Tara interviewed Jon all about his experiences with the zine, and then together they decided what to include.

    Yes, we have Metalion: The Slayer Mag at Quimby’s. It is $39.95. You can come and get in the store or order it here on line!

    Jon and Tara were at Quimby’s for a Chicago release event for the book on 6/8/11. But we conducted this interview in our dark and creepy basement beforehand.

    You can listen to all our podcasts quimbys.podbean.com either streaming live or in downloadable formats. Or you can click on the link there to get it on I-Tunes. Or you can just look up Quimby’s Bookstore Podcast on I-Tunes and subscribe to us there.

  • Not at Quimby's, but check it out: Obbityfest

    Tastee records and The Earth Program present: Obbityfest 2011! Obbityfest is Chicago’s best DIY / Punk / Psychedelic festival featuring 21 local, national, and international acts, visual art, and a whole bunch of other goodies. July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd at The New Rock Theatre 3393 N. Elston Ave, Only $5! Visit Obbityfest.webs.com for more information or find them on facebook.

  • Not at Quimby's, but you should go to this: Neon Marshmallow Fest


    Don’t miss the experimental/psychedelic music event Neon Marshmallow Music Festiva, which returns for its second year June 10th, 11th & 12th at The Empty Bottle. Featuring full performances by: synth creator/legend Morton Subotnick, Pelt, OneOhTrix Point Never, Lucky Dragons, Sam Prekop (the Sea & Cake), Lichens, Bill Orcutt, Rene Hell, White Rainbow,  Dylan Ettinger, Sword Heaven and many more. Plus films from Alice Cohen, Amy Ruhl & Experimental 1/2 Hour.

    Complete passes & individual night tickets available at www.neonmarshmallowfest.com

    This is at the Empty Bottle at 1035 N. Western Ave, Chicago.