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Most people at this time of year are compiling their stack of books to bring to the beach, so what say we music fans catch up on our reading and take a look at some of the best recent rock-related tomes?

Topping this list is Text and Drugs and Rock ’n’ Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture (Bloomsbury) by U.K. journalist and University of Leeds lecturer Simon Warner. The goal is a noble one: to explore the historical intersections between poets and novelists Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and the rest of the Beat gang of the ’40s and ’50s with the rockers of the ’60s and later eras, as well as the influence of the Beats’ prose on the rockers’ lyrics. And with an academic thoroughness that doesn’t hamper the flow of his own pen, Prof.

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In a must-see two-part report for WGN-TV on Tuesday and Wednesday plus a live call-in segment for CLTV, Randi Belisomo, one of the best broadcast reporters in town, dug deep into Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plans to create an Uptown Music District.

The mayor’s been talking about his vision for the area and for Chicago music since shortly after his election two years ago. But just as people having been boasting that “Uptown is coming up” for 25 years or more, nothing really has happened yet.

The lynchpin of any arts-based revitalization of Uptown is the restoration of the Uptown Theater, which is owned by Chicago-based concert promoters Jam Productions. They also own the neighboring Riviera Theater and do most of the major concert business at the nearby Aragon Ballroom.

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Even in the midst of an epidemic of violence that’s earned Our Town the nickname of Chiraq, life on the South Side is anything but one-dimensional. Gangs, drugs, poverty, a fundamentally flawed school system, and the despair that comes from knowing that so many people in a position to help just don’t give a crap are inescapable facts. But so are love, hope, community, and reveling in a thousand humble joys—from grilled cheese sandwiches to birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese, and from smoking weed to dissing Kobe Bryant—all of which combine to make life worth living.

Alternately giddy and profound, veering from braggadocious to comically self-deprecating, and equal parts slacker pothead and street philosopher, on his second mixtape Acid Rap, Chance the Rapper paints the most complete portrait of young male African-American life on the South Side of Chicago since Kanye West gave us The College Dropout in 2004.

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In his third appearance in Cook County Circuit Court Thursday facing a long list of building, health, and fire code violations at the 87-year-old Congress Theater, controversial venue owner Erineo “Eddie” Carranza once again was given the “all’s clear” to continue operating.

During the court appearance, which lasted less than five minutes, attorneys for the city and Carranza updated Judge James McGing on building renovations, including the removal of obstructions from passageways in the corridors and installation of back-up lighting on the upper floors.

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Unapologetically announcing that I was going out on a limb with a chainsaw, in our post-South by Southwest episode of Sound Opinions, I expanded on this blog’s earlier hyper-enthusiastic gush about the young London-based quartet Savages (I saw god and/or Savages) by declaring, “I have not seen a more galvanizing or gripping rock ’n’ roll front person since Kurt Cobain two decades ago.”

I’d amend that now, but only because I was slighting the band as a whole by singling out singer Jehnny Beth, who really does have Kurt-level charisma.

So, what did I mean by that comparison?

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Though the Deleterious Impact/Public Nuisance hearings can be credited—or blamed, depending on your perspective—with increased scrutiny of the Congress Theater over the last 15 months, signs that the Department of Building Affairs would let embattled owner Erineo “Eddie” Carranza continue operating as he has for the last seven years already were there at the last hearing on Oct. 31.

While some damning testimony once again was heard from police and some neighbors of the Logan Square theater at the latest hearing on Tuesday, mediator and assistant DBA commissioner Barbara Gressel seemed pleased with the owner’s progress—“Your reports show that you have spent lots of time and effort resolving these issues… I’d like to see these positive changes continue”—she scheduled one more hearing to update the situation on Nov.

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Asked to assess the most important part of the legacy of long-running English art-punks Wire, most fans will cite the quartet’s first three albums—Pink Flag (1977), Chairs Missing (1978), and 154 (1979)—which chart a startling arc of growth and creativity that echoes and inspires to this day.

If you value my opinion at all, and you do not own these recordings, you should download them immediately. Your life will be richer for it, and I’ll wait.

Done? Good. Because here I will venture that as extraordinary as that music is, a case can be made based on Read & Burn: A Book About Wire, an impressive 400-plus-page appreciation of the band by Wilson Neate newly published by Jawbone in the U.K.

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