Chicago Best Weekend Bets

Boss Baby opens this weekend. So it’s The Boss, baby!

Also, tell all your friends to subscribe to the Chicago mailing list. We give away stuff.

We write stuff. Here’s some of that stuff from the last week that may be applicable to your preferences!

• We interviewed Trainspotting director Danny Boyle.
• Lashonda Lester is our Funny Human of the Week.
• Read our chat with Jay Som.

• Experimental musician and provocateur Jenny Hval brings her one-of-a-kind stage show to Lincoln Hall, with an opening set from the very good Matchess. This will be a good as hell show.
• Makaya McCraven is one of the best musicians in Chicago and we’re lucky to have so many opportunities to see him in intimate venues like the damn Hideout. Get over there!
• Check out a screening of the 1925 film Our Heavenly Bodies soundtracked by Coupler tonight at Constellation. This seems super cool.
• Local treasure Advance Base is playing the very nice bar GMan with special guests Gobbinjr and Karima Walker.
• Stay Tough Stay Tender is a benefit show at the Tonic Room featuring music from acts like Hawley Shoffner Radio Shaq, Brooke & The Nice Things, and Katie Kadan, coming together to raise money for the Young Women’s Giving Council.
• Check out the opening party for Great Ideas of Humanity: One of a Series, a new art show at Lost Arts near the West Loop area!
• Locals Fauvely, The Predictions, and Born Days have a nice, affordable evening of rock music planned for you at the Empty Bottle.
• The Music Box has a screening of the music documentary Sweet Dillard, followed by a performance by students from the Merit School for Music Conservatory Program.
• KOLARS and Doublespeak play Schubas this evening.
• Get ready to have a snoochy good time at Jay & Silent Bob Get Old, a live podcast recording starring Jay & Silent Bob themselves, Kevin Smith and Jason Mews. Snoogins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Chris Dertz & The River, Arizona Landmine, Vaya, Retirement Party, and Coaster play a 5 band show at Beat Kitchen so you know what that means: TOOT! TOOT! 5 BAND SHOW ALERT!!!!
• French electronic musician and producer FKJ headlines the Concord Music Hall!
• Celebrate the release of the latest issue of Fields, an independent arts journal, tonight at Café Mustache!
• Tijuana Hercules, Wet Wallet, and Velcro Lewis Group bring the garage punk madness to Township tonight.

• 
Glam rockers Foxygen headline The Vic tonight with an opening set from Gabriella Cohen.
• Constellation, one of the best venues in the city, celebrates its fourth birthday tonight with DJs, food, live music, and more!
• Chillwave survivor Toro Y Moi spins at the Mid tonight!
• Monthly BYOB comedy show Bread & Butter’s got a very nice looking collection of standups performing at Uncle Art tonight!
• Long-running noisy experimental pop weirdos Xiu Xiu are back at it again at the Empty Bottle tonight, with guests FACS and TALsounds.
• The Hideout’s monthly First Tuesdays show comes to FRIDAY for a very special interview with Congressmen Danny Davis and Luis Gutierrez! Get educated, folks!
• Crossover doomy metal dudes Pallbearer play Thalia Hall, with guests Marissa Nadler and Kayo Dot.
• The Lawsuits, Luke Henry, and The Thin Cherries play The Hideout tonight.
• Nonagon, T-Top-s, and High Priests bring some wyld rockin pop punk to the Downstairs space at Subterranean tonight!
• It’s opening night for the new modern dance documentary Mr. Gaga at the Music Box and they’re celebrating with a live dance demo and discussion after the screening!
• POWERS and James Hershey stop through Lincoln Hall as a part of the Nylon Music Tour.
• One-woman band Kawehi brings her I Am Eve tour through the Beat Kitchen tonight. Wild stuff!
• Bleep Bloop, X&G, Zebo, and Tommy Ruffingers play various types of electronic music at Subterranean tonight.

• Do some daytime stuff:
• The Hideout’s got the release party for the new book The Age of Inequality, which features writings from Bernie Sanders, Chris Hays, Barbara Ehrenreich, and more!
• Check out a nice pre-noon showing of the classic movie musical Thoroughly Modern Millie at the Music Box
• Baconfest Chicago is upon us, so go forth and sup upon ye bounty.
• It’s the 14th annual International Tom Hanks Day! The celebration honoring all thinks Hanks-y comes to Lincoln Hall this afternoon.
• The Betches Who Brunch comedy tour comes through City Winery Chicago! Tickets are going fast for this one, folks!
• The Mikkeller Running Club is running 3 miles and then congratulating themselves with a celebratory beer! Join them……..

• Then, night stuff:
• The mighty Wham City Comedy Tour comes through Chicago for one night only at The Hideout. These guys are incredible and you’re really missing out if you don’t hit this up.
• And then The Hideout Dance Party’s got a set from this writer’s favorite Chicago-based partystarter, DJ Yung Zucchini!
• Son Volt and Anders Parker play the always nice Thalia Hall!
• Co-Prosperity Sphere’s got a party offering up an exclusive glimpse at their new photo exhibition, Ramones: What is this punk rock?, which has a batch of never-before-seen photos of the band before/during/after a show in May of 1980 at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn. Neato!
• Dude York and PAWS play a Riot Fest-approved show at Cobra Lounge tonight!
• The Beauty Bar’s Indie-pendent Dance Party is always fun! Check it out!
• The Empty Bottle hosts DIY folky punkers Nana Grizol, Al Scorch, and Toby Foster!
• Boo Seeka and Small Tines play Beat Kitchen this evening.
• Mipso and Tyler Childers play Lincoln Hall tonight.
• James Falzone’s Allos Musica celebrates the release of their new album, Gnossienne tonight!
• Brutally honest storytelling show We Still Like You is back at Collaboraction for another night celebrating all things shameful!
• Home Burial, Victor Shores, Pierre, Affogato, and Boss Fight all play a (five! band!) show Downstairs at Subterranean.
• The Dig brings their Bloodshot Tokyo tour through Schubas alongside guests McFabulous.
• Emblems, As Giants, and Faux Furrs are at the dang Beat Kitchen!

• Salonathon uproots from its normal home at Beauty Bar to Art AIDS America Chicago at the Alphawoods Gallery in Lincoln Park for a special engagement with some of the show’s best and most engaging performers.
• Drop Lear Dinners brings their acclaimed pop-up dinner series to the Sportsman’s Club for a special soup-y engagement.
• Sure it’s like three weeks since Saint Patrick’s Day but it gets cold in the middle of March and less so in early April so let’s have an 8k run called the Shamrock Shuffle in early April I guess???
• Bad old man who your parents like Billy Crystal is at the Chicago Theatre raking in almost entirely unearned laughs for two hours.
• Empty Bottle Dance Academy convenes to teach you the hottest dance moves, specifically Born This Way by Lady Gaga for an admittance fee of just $10!
• The Bottle’s got a mind-expanding experimental show featuring Arnold Dreyblatt, Tim Kinsella, and Jeremy Lemos tonight.
• Greg Ward Quintet and the Caleb Willitz Band bring some heady jazz vibez to the Hideout this chilly Sunday night.
• The Laugh Factory’s resident roasters of fictional characters and absent celebs, Character Assassination, is back to give the business to the cast of the Beauty and the Beast!
• Electro-folksters Crystal Fighters bring their jim jammers to the Concord Music Hall.
• Hit up The Regrettes, Active Bird Community, and Junkee Girl show at Schubas if you’re a fan of any/all of those bands!
• Beyond This Point & Matthew Duvall perform a collaborative set at Constellation tonight! Damn, folks!
• Headquarters Beercade in River North has got their 4th annual Firkin Fest, with over 40 breweries pouring some rare-ass brews for you to sample at your leisure.
• Aseethe & Bereft, Sough, and Snow Burial are Downstairs at Subterranean.
• Head to The Logan Arcade for Magic: The Gathering: The Gathering presented by Three Floyd’s, a simple, bare-bonesy M:TG tournament for old times’ sake!