Album Review: Aseethe – Reverent Burden
Aseethe Reverent Burden aseethecreation.com With its debut full-length, Reverent Burden, Iowa City drone metal outfit Aseethe finally has enough wax to stretch out and show their stuff. The album is comprised of two mysterious, side-long pieces on a vinyl, without track titles or even clearly marked a or b sides. Aseethe opens the longer of...
Album Review: Caterwaulla
Caterwaulla Self-Titled facebook.com/caterwaulla Since I was born in 1957, my life corresponds approximately to the life-span of rock and roll. In that 55-plus years, there have been times when rock has seemed to be tired and played out. But there’s always some snotty group of kids who come along and beat it back into shape....
Introductions and Gifts
Read an excerpt from Larry Baker's new book, Love and Other Delusions and his interview with Yale Cohn.
Album Review: Tom Garland – Leash Your Kids
Tom Garland Leash Your Kids tomgarlandcomedy.com Tom Garland is no stranger to the Iowa City comedic scene. Emcee of the Yacht Club’s weekly comedy night, One Night Stand, the stand-up performer and touring comic has fully embraced and helped expand on what Iowa City has to offer up-and-coming comics. Garland has opened for such acts...
Album Review: Surf Zombies – Lust for Rust
Surf Zombies Lust For Rust facebook.com/surfzombiesband My dad tells a story about seeing the seminal surf-rock band The Ventures at the Melody Mill Ballroom outside of Dubuque in the early 1960s. He happened upon a comb on the sink in the bathroom left by the band. He picked it up and shortly after sold...
A-List:Grand Opening Celebration – Trumpet Blossom Café
Grand Opening Celebration Trumpet Blossom Café (310 East Prentiss St.) May 19, 2 p.m. – Midnight Iowa City was left with a void in January with the swift and unfortunate demolition of vegetarian staple, The Red Avocado. As a new apartment complex begins to rise up in its place this month, The Trumpet Blossom Café...
The Deadwood Deadzone
What you need to know is that this was not what I expected. But haunted house stories almost never are. And in the wake of Public Space One’s exciting expansion into the Wesley Center early this month, where they’re creating a free workspace for artists, filled with materials and equipment, I wondered about PS1’s historical...
Album Reviews: Slip Silo – Monsoons / Koplant No – Transit EP
Slip Silo and Koplant No are two local groups which share two members (Brian Lewis on trumpet, keyboards and laptop, Drew Morton on bass, synth and vocals) with adjacent releases. This invites a classic English Final “Contrast and Compare” review. Firstly, Slip Silo (also starring Matt Logan on vocals and guitar and Justin Leduc...
Keeping Secrets
This is the craziest thing that ever happened in my taxi. One day, many years ago, I got to work and scored an airport run right off the bat. Better yet, it was a package delivery out of a medical lab so pay was guaranteed. Plus, boxes always make decent passengers. I was in the...
Lost in Transition
When you read this, presumably sometime in May, who knows what the weather will be like? You might be covering your plants for tonight’s frost, or you might be heading out for ice cream because you’re sweltering in 100-degree heat. That’s the kind of spring it’s been. Granted, spring in Iowa is often full of...
Talking Movies: Score One for Skin
If you like sex and art (especially in that order of enthusiasm), then you should definitely make a point of getting to the Englert on Friday, May 18, to see the Iowa premiere of Frederick Wiseman’s Crazy Horse, a documentary about Paris’s legendary cabaret. To sweeten the deal, FilmScene, the host of the event, has...
Your Town Now: Students Lobby for Sweatshop-Free Options
The name Alta Gracia means “high grace.” In the Dominican Republic, the Virgin of Altagracia is the protector of her people. Her name is invoked tenderly and with reverence by those seeking blessing on their land and on the many hands that help cultivate it, particularly in the poverty-stricken community named for her. Villa...
The Hops: Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA & New Belgium Ranger IPA
Much like buffalo wings and fixed-gear bicycles, IPA has a mystique I cannot understand. Everyone loves it but I have no clue why. When I asked John’s Grocery bier guy Joe Hotek to explain it, he shrugged his shoulders. Is it the invigorating and refreshing citrus? The strong, bitter bite? Hotek mentioned its very minor...
Atomic Andy Kaufman: The Comedian That Loved to Bomb
Early in Andy Kaufman’s career, the comedic performance artist sometimes opened for musicians—including, implausibly, schlock-popper Barry Manilow and R&B greats the Temptations. The latter group’s predominantly black fan base wasn’t feeling his inept Foreign Man routine, so they unleashed an avalanche of boos as he wept uncontrollably. Kaufman then pulled out a large cap...
Hot Tin Roof: Poolside Manner
By Lucas Sheperd It is one hundred and fourteen degrees according to the thermometer at the base swimming pool, and all I can see are clean haircuts, off the ears with neatly-trimmed necklines. No one is in the water. We spray on sunscreen, except Michael, who is from Oregon and has skin that is somehow...
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