Detroit techno producer, DJ, label owner and fashion entrepreneur Jeff Mills returns for his annual appearance at Smart Bar. The Chicago-based techno pioneer has released prolific music nearly every year of his career since the early nineties and shows no signs of slowing down. In the last two years, Mills has performed a few eight-hour-long sets at venues like Rex Club in Paris, has composed music for several film expositions and has released several EPs on his own Purpose Maker and Axis labels. Expect quick mixes in and out of everything from icy cerebral minimal tracks, to pounding techno, to strings-heavy house. Also playing the “And What About the Truth’?” showcase is Chicago-based recording artist and DJ Common Factor, who got his start releasing music on Belgium’s SSR Records, Detroit’s Planet E, UK-based Soma Quality Recordings and his own Tactile imprint. More recently, he has released tracks on Playhouse and Moodmusic. Expect a set of throbbing tech-house with jazzy melodies and some more experimental techno-oriented sounds thrown in. Tyrel Williams, House DJ and wax-slinger for Gramaphone Records, takes on opening duties. (Elly Rifkin)
October 16 at Smart Bar, 3730 N. Clark, (773)549-0203, at 10pm.
Cooling It: A Preview of Colleen Green at Cole’s Bar When Green strums power chords or chiming notes on top of her backing track, you might think you’re at Ramones karaoke night and Madonna is taking her turn.
For “Want” of a Change: A Preview of Rufus Wainwright at Ravinia Park Rufus Wainwright isn’t the first singer-songwriter to reinterpret earlier work through an orchestral lens. And much of Wainwright’s third and fourth albums, “Want One” and “Want Two”—whose twentieth anniversaries are the prompt for this new tour—is fully scored. But when Wainwright hits the Pavilion stage at Ravinia tonight, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will be behind him.
Brutal Finesse: A Preview of King Crimson at Ravinia There have been few new compositions from King Crimson these past two decades, but the live arrangements of songs from its catalog are often strikingly different than the recorded versions.
