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Cameron McGill
Cameron is a Chicago-based singer and songwriter. He recently released his sixth studio album, Gallows Etiquette (Post-Important). The album was funded via a PledgeMusic.com campaign with a percentage of funds raised supporting Rock For Kids, a charity which provides instruments and music education to under-served Chicago public school children.
Cameron celebrated the album release with a residency at Chicago’s famed Schubas throughout October and November. His work has appeared in Measure. He is currently at work on a collection of poems, three of which will be featured in the forthcoming Fall Issue #80 of Poetry East. When not playing shows, he can be found singing for his supper at the Hopleaf Bar on Chicago’s Northside.
SONG: Heart of Gold by Neil Young
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Joe Meno
Joe is a fiction writer and playwright who lives in Chicago. He is the winner of the Nelson Algren Literary Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Great Lakes Book Award, and a finalist for the Story Prize. He is the author of six novels including the bestsellers Hairstyles of the Damned and The Boy Detective Fails. Joe is a professor in the Creative Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago.
SONG: Stephanie Says by The Velvet Underground
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Brian Babylon
Brian is a Chicago-born comic and radio host. The self-proclaimed “Prince of Bronzeville”, he is a fixture in Chicago's rich comedy community. He’s also been making a name for himself outside of Chicago, placing in the finals of the New York Comedy Contest in 2009. He has performed in Los Angeles at the historic Laugh Factory, and in London at Jongleurs comedy club.
Currently, Brian hosts and produces The Morning AMP radio show on Vocalo 89.5 fm, a sister station of Chicago Public Radio. He is also one of the newest additions to the popular NPR weekly news quiz show Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, contributes to BBC Radio and hosts The Moth Story Slam in Chicago.
SONG: Bonnie and Clyde by Serge Gainsbourg and Bridgette Bardot
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Martha Bayne
Martha is a writer and editor whose work has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Reader, TimeOut Chicago, Bookforum, the Baffler, the Rumpus, and the anthology, Get Out of my Crotch! (Cherry Bomb Books, 2013). Founder of the Soup & Bread series of hunger-relief fundraisers at the Hideout, she is the author of Soup & Bread Cookbook: Building Community One Pot at a Time (Agate, 2011), and a member of Theater Oobleck's artistic ensemble. She tends bar at the Hideout on Wednesday afternoons.
SONG: Sing a Simple Song by Sly and the Family Stone
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Dan Ponce
Dan is the co-anchor of the 4am and 5am newscasts of WGN Morning News. He joined WGN-TV in September 2010 as a general assignment reporter for WGN News, and was moved to co-anchor in September 2013.
Prior to working at WGN-TV, Ponce spent three years as a general assignment reporter at ABC-7 Chicago.
A Chicagoland native, Dan earned his master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and his bachelor’s degree from Indiana University.He is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Dan has toured the country with an a cappella group he founded called Straight No Chaser, the group released three albums with Atlantic Records.
SONG: Africa by Toto
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Steve McDonagh
Steve is one half of The Hearty Boys; trend setting Chicago caterers, authors of Talk with Your Mouth Full, original winners of Search For The Next Food Network Star and hosts of Party Line With the Hearty Boys. Their Michelin recommended Lakeview restaurant, ‘HEARTY’, received 3 stars from the Chicago Tribune and has been much lauded for its “inspired and deft twists on iconic dishes”.
His newest restaurant venture is ‘SpritzBurger’, a vintage seltzer cocktail/burger bar in partnership with chef Gale Gand. Steve's latest book is an everyman’s guide to the current cocktail movement titled The New Old Bar.
SONG: I Can Cook Too by Leonard Bernstein
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Sara Miller
Sara moved to Chicago for school some odd years ago and has been here ever since, despite her abject hostility toward winter. Since her arrival, she’s bounced around the city getting involved with non-profits and social organizations ranging from disaster relief work with the local Red Cross chapter to teaching photography basics at a community photo center. She braves the early morning hours DJing every Wednesday from 6 - 9 a.m. for CHIRP Radio. And while she loves music, storytelling is truly her favorite art form.
SONG: Baby's Got Back by Sir Mixalot