“My favorite neighborhood in Chicago is Uptown. To me, it is the most mysterious area of Chicago, the epicenter being around Broadway and Lawrence. You have the Green Mill and the old Goldblatt’s Building, Aragon Ballroom, the Riviera, and there are lots of other little places tucked away in these old apartment hotels.”

“I lived in Edgewater on the edge of Uptown in a place called the Sovereign Hotel. It was basically an apartment building that looked like a hotel and was mostly populated by retired Jesuit priests and nuns from Loyola. Hollywood [Osterman] Beach and the beaches that are north of there are some of my favorites because they have this sorta funky urban-beach atmosphere, and it feels exotic and urban, like it’s stuck in the ’60s and ’70s.”

“I remember visiting the parks down south of the Field Museum, which get very swampy in the summertime. It feels like you’re kind of in the South. Those were the parks that were created for the Columbian Exposition / World’s Fair. There are all these old statues from the World’s Fair in 1893, and it’s surprisingly unkempt and wild back there.”

“This one popped up after I had left Chicago, so it is not a nostalgic thing for me, but the 606 Line is a trail that they put on the Bloomington rail line, which goes through Bucktown up to the Palmer Square area via Humboldt Park. Every time I go back to Chicago, I find myself biking on that trail. Worth checking out to walk on or ride your bike on.”

“A great movie theater is the Music Box Theatre on Southport Ave. It’s a beautiful old ’20s/’30s movie theater with an old organ and an organist who will come out and play if there is an intermission or before the movie. I saw Latcho Drom there sometime in the ’90s, a beautiful music film about Romani culture and music. I’ve seen a lot of great films there, and it’s wonderful that it is still there and still thriving.”

“This is where I used to go when I was in high school for Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras. They used to have a movie theater on the first floor, which is where I saw Boogie Nights. You can go through the halls and hear musicians practicing and ballet classes happening. There is a sheet music store that has been there for ages where I would get whatever violin concerto I was working on. Same guy has been working there for 30 or 40 years, if not more. I just love how it hasn’t changed.”

“Dusty Groove is one of my favorite local record stores. It’s a good place to go for a lot of jazz and dance music. I think a lot of DJs go there to find source material and inspiration for building beats and whatnot. But I am just really into that funky dance music.”

“Laurie’s Planet of Sound is another of my favorite local record stores. It’s a little more indie oriented. Your classic old-school, ’90s-style record store.”

“Since around 2012/2013, I have been doing these shows called ‘Gezelligheid,’ which is an untranslatable word for ‘super cozy’ in Dutch. These concerts are my equivalent to a holiday show, held in a beautiful old church, just the right scale—it seats about a thousand people. My grandparents lived a block away from here, and I’d come downtown for my rehearsals on the weekends and go to the Drake Hotel with my grandmother and drink chardonnay with her.”

“My favorite restaurant in Chicago would be Lula Cafe in Logan Square. I have been going there since it opened. I know the owners and a lot of people who work there, and it was a pretty humble place when it opened. I actually played a show there with Nora O’Connor on that little somewhat-of-a-stage by the window. Over the years, I have watched them get even better and better at making delicious food, and I try to get back there every time I come back to Chicago.”