Marnie Stern may look like a bookstore clerk or a Starbucks barista, but this Brooklyn guitar virtuoso has little else to do with lit or lattes. She's a metalhead through and through, having mastered such thrash-god techniques as finger-tapping, shuddering time-signature shifts, and balls-to-the-wall shredding that would make Eddie Van Halen blush. So what's this obvious shred-head doing on venerable punk rock shock shop Kill Rock Stars Records? She's carefully bridging the gap between the colorful, technical, and often posturing world of metal, and the guttural vocals, minimalist production, and eff you attitude that "punk" has come to inspire. It's a tenuous position, given that punk set out to destroy all the egotistical excess and arrogance of the metal scene, but maybe the old adage is right -- it just takes a woman's touch. more ›

With summer easing onto its laurels and panting in the heat, it's easy to get into a mindset that all the fun the season brings to Chicago is over. Not so! While the rest of the city is waiting for the humidity to give way to fall, you could squeeze in some more entertainment, in the form of Queerfest Midwest. The event, from noon to 10pm on Saturday at the Pulaski Fieldhouse in Wicker Park,... more ›

We knocked ourself out at the Chicago International Film Festival and RESFEST|10, and we see no reason to end our film-addicted ways. So already we've been perusing the schedule for Reeling, the 25th Chicago Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. It's the second-oldest festival of its kind in North America, and when they say they're proud of the diversity of their offferings you know they aren't kidding -- we spied romantic comedies, avant-garde shorts, provactive dramas... more ›