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Welcome to the weekend, fair Weekenders!

If you own a house, cheers to you. If you don’t, you are most likely moving this weekend. Where to? Probably within a couple of blocks from where you live now.

Why? Why do we do this? I don’t know, tradition, I guess.

View the weekend weather report
The bad news is it’s going to be hot, like it always is. The good news is it’s not going to rain Saturday or Sunday, so you should be okay moving your broken dresser and totally abused sofa in the back of a borrowed pickup. If you are the owner of said pickup, thanks a lot, see you next year!

THURSDAY

Immigrant Rights Rally | Black Hawk Mini Park (on the ped mall by Iowa Artisans Gallery) | 5:30 pm | FREE

Today is International Day of Action against Arizona’s infamous SB1070, the law that you might say has spun US confusion over immigration into a full-blown identity crisis. Not to tell you how you should feel about this issue, but rather in recognition of its importance to our state, please note this evening’s event. Whatever your position, you are encouraged to pick up some propaganda, pick it apart, engage others and walk away wiser.

And Later…

Cheyenne Marie Mize | The Mill | 9 pm | $6 (21+)

Today, as I pack up the ol’ apartment, I am treated to a sweetly nostalgic soundtrack, courtesy of one Cheyenne Marie Mize. You can stream her latest album, Before Lately, HERE, and see her for yourself tonight at the Mill.

FRIDAY

Magnetos | The Yacht Club | 9 pm | $6

Magnetos (which I pronounce with a neat-o), are a new rocakbilly band from CR. That’s right, rockabilly! That sounds awesome to me right now. There’s another band that’s playing there, Paradise Waits. They are from Chicago, here doing two nights in a row, and they are called “Grateful Dead-esque,” which we all know is a euphemism for totally boring. On behalf of the actual Grateful Dead, shame on all of you. If anyone knows any bands in this jazz-funk genre doing anything worth paying to hear, please let me know. Oh man, did moving just get under my skin? Am I turning no fun? Sorry, I’ll try to hold my opinions back… Back to Rockabilly! Dear Doug Roberson, Pete McCarthy and other distinguished bookers: Please bring back the Reverend Horton Heat!!!!

Ever heard this one before??

Now try this one. Also nothing new, but with a bunch of added awesome…

SATURDAY

Human Aftertaste with Raw Mojo & Illth | Gabe’s | 9:30 pm | $5

Better be prepared to see some nasty wrongness as Human Aftertaste come back to town this weekend. Their live show must be seen to be believed. Fortunately, this weekend, you can buy a copy of their new DVD – 90 minutes of video proof that Human Aftertaste is, as the name suggests, totally gross. This is for mature audiences only, especially those voyeurs out there. There will be: Flying goo, hairy bums on display (and perhaps getting penetrated), self-mutilation, improvised monologues of twisted minds, and sometimes music (industrial, metal, disco). This show is a lot of things – most of them very wrong – but it’s not boring, and moving is boring, so if you need a break here’s your ticket.

View photos from Human Aftertaste’s last IC show

for more on…
Human Aftertaste
Raw Mojo
Illth

ALL WEEKEND (And Monday, as well) Rummage in the Ramp | Chauncey Swan Parking Ramp | 12:00 pm – 8:00 p.m.

Rummage in the Ramp is a city-sponsored event that allows residents to donate their unwanted items, helping reduce the large amounts of refuse left on street corners throughout this part of the Iowa City Summer. Individuals may take their items to the Chauncey Swan Parking Ramp, where they will be offered for sale at this same location. Whether you’re buying or selling, there’s sure to be plenty of items to browse throughout the weekend.

Proceeds are split between local non-profit environmentalist and human-service groups, so forego the dumpsters and street corners and help support this annual event!

From the official City of Iowa City website:

What items can I donate?
* Beds, box springs, and frames
* Books
* Clean clothes in good condition
* Furniture
* Kitchen items
* Non-perishable food items
* Electronic items such as computers, monitors, printers, TVs, stereos, copiers, cables, networking hardware, and other small electronic items will be accepted with a $5 disposal fee assessed for each item (in case they do not sell at the event). A fee is necessary as these items contain lead and other substances which are harmful to the environment if disposed of improperly.

Have a great weekend!

~LV

I stepped into the Wherehouse to find Old Scratch bathed in green light, making their painted faces seem eerily inhuman. However, the green glow rendered my camera useless without the flash, which blasted the green right out of the shots. Though I’ve seen OSRS many times, last night’s show was a treat with all members of the band plugging in, allowing the perfect conglomeration of voices and instruments to take on a fuller sound through the amps. They always play wonderfully hard, and front man Brooks Strause is the most auditorily pleasing screamer I’ve ever encountered. Like I say after every show, I wished they’d played for hours longer.

They were followed up by the demiurgic displays of Cirque Stupendo.

I have seen the circus perform once before, and was in childlike awe at their G-rated trickery. To the contrary of these expectations, it was like my eyelids were peeled back from my eyes last night as I witnessed suspension, erotic dance, body paint, planned property destruction, phallic attachments on scantily clad men (a welcome alternative to the over exposure of boobs among the general realm of performance) as well as the standard juggling, belly dancing and live music. Sadly, as the show crept into the wee hours of the morning, I crept home and missed the tight rope walking, fire dancing and God knows what else – proof that I should never leave the party early. Here’s what I saw:
just a warning: there are some photos that may not be for everyone.

As for the coming weekend, here’s what sounds good to me:

THURSDAY

Slew Grass | George’s | 9 pm | FREE

Are you a person who loves George’s, the little bar on Market St, with the best little burgers around? Then you don’t need me to tell you that this is going to be a blast.

TONIGHT: Give the internet jukebox a break and keep it simple with virtuoso IC string band Slew Grass. Sorry to the teenagers, but you heard the man – 21 only.

(Besides, you don’t want to party that hard with your mom. It’d be weird.)

Oh, hey, from the vaults! Here’s a video of Slew Grass banjo player Jon Eric on Little Village Live.

FRIDAY

The Body is a Canvas: Photos and drawings by Dawn Frary and Alexander Iaccarino | The Java House downtown | 5 pm-8 pm

You may recognize some of these images from Dawn’s photo essay, “The Body is a Canvas”, which appeared in our April issue. Come see her work full size as she is joined this Friday by Alexander Iaccarino (aka That Kid Who Draws), and a host of musicians, this Friday at the Java House.

Here’s the schedule for the day:
Art by Dawn and Alex – open to close
5pm – coffee tasting followed by live music
6pm – live music by Skye and the Silver Lining
7pm – live music by Jon Eric
8pm – live music by Chris Miller

Dance the entire weekend away at the Blue Moose | Blue Moose Tap House | Thursday – Friday – Saturday night at 9

Three nights of Iowa City all-star booty shakers.

Thursday: The Bean, DJ Tiger Fighter (FREE)
Friday: DJ Kilo, The Lady Espina, Joe Baumann, DJ Wolf Blitzer ($2)
Saturday: School of Flyentology (FREE)

SATURDAY

Yoga and Massage Therapy Open House | Downward Dog Yoga and Fitness (120 2nd Street, Coralville) | 8 am – 2 pm | FREE

Do you like the idea of doing yoga but you’re not sure what kind would agree with you and your, I don’t know… chi? Or perhaps you are a master yogi and you want to spend 6 hours stretching and sweating and breathing and oxygenating and getting totally high on balance, well, this day is for you too.

Get to know Downward Dog this Saturday by trying out a sampling of their classes:

8:00 am Pilates
9:10 am Yoga Sculpt
10:00 am Vinyasa Yoga
11-2 Taco Bar
Noon Yoga Demo
1:00 pm Slackline Yoga Demo

SUNDAY

Blueberries are in! | Bock’s Berry Farm | Opens at 8 am | $3/lb

Have a classic Iowa summer day: Head out to Bock’s Berry Farm (Mapquest 5888 Sand Road, Lone Tree , IA 52240) for pick-your-own blueberries. $3/lb may barely be cheaper than the co-op, but hey, they do the weeding and you get to have a token agricultural experience before heading back into the office on Monday. That’s worth something!

In all seriousness, and this is a very serious matter, I had some pie made with blueberries from Bock’s last weekend, and my heart still gets faint when I think about it. Maybe it’s just in your head but there’s something about eating something that you know just got picked that day. By someone you know! Maybe I should be embarrassed that my inner city-kid is showing again, but golly I love Iowa!

Have a great weekend!

~LV

I’ve listened to a ton of music this summer. Forgive me for a second because I’m about to just start name checking bands for a second. If you know them, awesome. If you don’t, that’s cool too. No big whoops. So, amongst other things I’ve listened to: Ian & Sylvia, Dan Sartain, Back from the Grave comps, Lightning Bolt, Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Dolly Parton, Johnny Horton, Das Racist, Adult., School of Seven Bells, The Go-Betweens, Yo La Tengo, Chris Isaak, Polly Jean Harvey, Ghostface Killah, The Gap Band, Rare Essence, The Gun Club, Uffie, and ESG. While I’ve liked everything that I have listened to, I’ve found myself struggling to make it the soundtrack for my summer.

This is not to say that I don’t think that this summer has a particular aesthetic. I think that this is the summer of the guitar. It has either been too rainy or too hot to listen to anything too hectic. It’s been a summer of forced relaxation for better or worse. I think this is why I’ve found myself listening to a considerable amount of country as I showed above in all of the name checking. I also believe the bizarre nature of this summer is why I’ve also found myself connecting well with folk music. This isn’t to say that a non-guitar based album can’t sneak in here, but when I look back, I’ll see more guitars than drum machines. Even with the lack of a perpetual soundtrack, I think I can point to a couple of albums that will nicely summarize my summer if I look back at it when there are 2 feet of snow on my steps (don’t freak out yet).

The Feelies – Crazy Rhythms

The debut album from this NJ-based quartet is amazing. Surely, it is the influence for probably forty of your favorite bands. No matter who it has influenced, it is an awesome album on its own. It starts with easily one of the greatest songs about being weird ever: The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness. The guitars twitch and erupt. The lyrics are touchingly sad. The rhythms are, in fact, completely crazy. It’s an absolutely gorgeous post-punk album.

Best Coast – Crazy for You

Best Coast has been making waves for a little while now with their EPs. This summer, the band released its debut Crazy for You. The album will not win any points for originality. Every song is about having a boyfriend or smoking pot. This album, instead, wins because it is a collection of well-written and performed pop tracks. They are catchy and completely infectious. It’s got a bit of that washed-out sound from last summer, but it doesn’t seem derivative or stale. Rather, it comes across as very sincere. An amazing opening album from Bethany Cosentino and company. It’s been on steady rotation in my car.

My Favorite – The Happiest Days of Our Lives

A collection of tracks from the now-defunct NY band, The Happiest Days of Our Lives is the record for late night drives along Burlington and out under the stars in the country. It’s a morbid album, but the band deals with its morbidity in a way where you are singing along with strange choruses such “the ghosts of dead teenagers sing to me while I am dancing.” Additionally, they write excellent pop songs, which can always take a band very far. This is a CD for people who like to roam through cemeteries at night for fun like myself.

The Go-Betweens – 78 til 79: The Lost Album

The Go-Betweens are one of those bands that doesn’t get the recognition that it should. I don’t say this as a fanboy (which, for full disclosure, I am). I say this as someone who stumbled upon a copy of Before Hollywood at my old radio station and realized that it’s one of the best albums I’ve ever heard. Since listening to that album, I’ve gotten pretty much the rest of their catalog. This is their earliest set of recordings. It features songs about apathy, rain, Lee Remmick, and a librarian. All of their albums are incredible, but this is the one that resonates with me this summer.

While this is all fine and dandy, this is not going to get my summer mixtape made. There’s no way that I can be the only person with this problem. Others have to be struggling to find a way to score this summer. It has just been too strange. Up and down. Highs and lows. Ins and outs.

Tell me your stories about finding the summer sound. Have you already found it? What is it? Can I get a sample?

Although I can’t find my sound, I have to keep listening. It’ll eventually click in and I’ll be happier than when the new seasons of Mad Men and Jersey Shore start. I can only hope this happens before the beginning of the school year.

But anyway, it was hot, it was humid, blah blah blah. I guess I could reiterate what all the reviews I’ve read thus far have said about the weather, but the fact of the matter is that it really isn’t important. So rather than trying to give you a broad overview of the weekend that will provide you with no useful information, I am going to discuss a few acts and events that I saw this weekend that caught my attention.

First off, I want to give a disclaimer that I MISSED The Tallest Man on Earth due to insane traffic and the most unbelievably long will call line I have ever seen. I was incredibly bummed but I heard that he killed it. I guess that could have been expected.

One of the things that Pitchfork does very well as a festival is that they always try to change it up from year to year. This year there were two notable changes: One, no more Goose Island beer to be served (it was replaced by Heineken, which is fine, but the festival is in Chicago, not Amsterdam). Two, there was a comedy stage. Bummer on the beer, but I was really excited about the comedy stage. I thought it was a great idea, since three straight days of music can be tolling on the ears (more on that later). Not to mention the comedians they had lined up were fantastic. So on Friday, I posted up at the Balance Stage for some serious lolz. The first comedian I saw was Hannibal Burress, who is currently a writer for SNL. He was very funny, but it was a little hard to hear him over the noise from the other music stages and slightly uncomfortable standing in the sun with hundreds of people and watching comedy.

For the next comedian, Daily Show correspondent and writer Wyatt Cenac, I decided to shift positions so I was closer and able to sit down. While this fixed the problem I had with hearing the comedy, it was clear that Wyatt wasn’t able to establish himself as well as he could have in a club. He seemed distracted, and with reason as there was a constant roar of noise coming at him from not only the main stages but also the street. He was funny, but uncomfortable. Many of the laughs that the comedians received almost seemed forced – like the audience was laughing at the potential and circumstances of the jokes rather than the delivery.

I decided to stick around for Michael Showalter, a comedian that I have idolized since the first time I caught an episode Stella, rather than give up on the comedy and go see Broken Social Scene. Showalter had a large and eager crowd waiting for him, expecting perhaps that a more experienced comedian could handle the distractions better. He started his set by commenting on the difficulties of performing at a music festival, recalling one time when he did a spring break show and just DJ’ed instead of performing comedy. After the acknowledgment, he proceeded with his comedy routine but had to stop after about five minutes. He seemed like he was forgetting his jokes, and his flow was broken by sirens on the street and Broken Social Scene’s epic jams on the main stage. He paused, thought for a moment, and the shifted gears.

He started talking about how horrible the situation was for comedy, and how the audience deserved better out of him. He did a lot of crowd work, improvising as he went. Luckily for the audience, Showalter is very talented at improvising and still pulled off a very funny show, but it was clear that he was just drowning up there. He stopped his set short, joking that he was going to go backstage and drink himself to death.

I can’t say I was disappointed in Showalter’s performance, but I will say that I was disappointed with the results of the comedy stage experiment. It really is a great idea, and I hope Pitchfork can find a way to make it work in years to come, but this year it failed.

Although the comedy situation left me slightly disillusioned, the music delivered as always. I don’t really have the time or energy to talk about every band I saw over the weekend, so here are the top three acts that I saw:

Number three: Free Energy. This was one of those shows where you can just tell that the band is having the time of their lives. After just about every song, they were thanking the audience and talking about how awesome it was to be there. This is something I have always appreciated in a band. Whereas Modest Mouse, seasoned veterans of the festival scene, will get up there and hardly give mention to the fact that they are playing in front of thousands of people, these young, unpretentious bands give you something to relate to. They seem slightly overwhelmed, but cannot stop smiling. They let you know just how great it is to be able to write and play music that other people will enjoy.

Oh yeah, and Free Energy’s music is awesome. Straight-up rock and roll is the perfect way to start the second day of a festival. Free Energy brought it, hitting every wailing solo marching perfectly in (and only in) 4/4 time. Dudes just write simple songs with simple lyrics about hanging out and girl trouble. I mean, it’s the basic formula, and when executed, it’s easy to see why it has been relied upon over the years. Free Energy rocks.

Number two: Major Lazer. Okay, so I’m going to do the best I can to try and describe what happened on the stage while I stood and waited for Big Boi. First, there was the Diplo set up in the back manning the turntables/Macbook, then there was Switch, a man who without a doubt puts the hype in hype man, sporting an insane bleached blonde mohawk and no shirt. Then there were two booty dancers, participating in the kind of filth that you have to stop yourself from wondering what their parents think of their chosen career paths. So that’s fine and all and can be expected from an act like Major Lazer. But then came the Chinese dragons. That’s right, two large, dancing Chinese dragons on either side of the stage. About a third of the way through the set, the dragons were dismissed and replaced by two ballerina dancers who combined traditional ballet with some form of hip-hop. This included at one point moon-walking on their tippy-toes.

Setting aside the obvious “what the fuck?” invoked by such a spectacle, the reasons for incorporating the two acts are less than obvious. Switch and Diplo maintained the “why not?” attitude, making the selections seem spontaneous and random. They called on stage whomever the felt, whenever they felt like it (including initially reluctant but eventually raunchy VIP audience members). There was no rhyme or reason to any of it. There was no evidence of Chinese influence in the tunes being spun, nor any nod to traditional dance styles like ballet. It was simply an onslaught of randomness. And then came the sex.

The last part of the set started with Switch screaming what seemed to be the mantra of the Major Lazer set. And I quote, “We got an ambulance outside, we got a fire truck outside, but we don’t got the police. Whatever happens at Pitchfork, stays at Pitchfork. We gonna get drunk, we gonna smoke weed and get high, but most importantly, (begins humping the air) we gonna have sex and somebody’s gonna get pregnant!” At this, Switch and the booty dancers traded swigs from a bottle of Hennessy, and out came a ladder. After rolling around on the ground dry humping each other, the ladder was set up and Switch climbed to the top while one of the booty dancers laid spread eagle on the ground beneath him. Switch removed his pants, leaving his undergarments on, and grabbed his crotch. Then he leaped off the top of the ladder into the wide-open crotch of the booty dancer and humped her excessively. Then he laid on the ground while the booty dancer climbed the ladder and jumped on him. More humping. And the humping continued. At one point it appeared a cameraman had gotten on stage and was being humped. The set reached a crescendo at the end when all of  the cast members joined the stage for one last song, humping and dancing and drinking Hennessy.

The music was good, but irrelevant. Major Lazer put on a show, and it was extremely entertaining. The crowd was captivated and into it and nobody left early to get a good spot for Big Boi (who killed it, by the way). They were a pleasant surprise to me, since I had absolutely no intention of watching them. They blew my mind.

Number one: Titus Andronicus. This band kicks so much ass live, it’s not even funny, and they have built a reputation for doing so. As I waited amongst the sweaty fans for them to begin their set, I heard countless accounts of people who saw them in Detroit, or Austin, or Trenton, and every single one was filled with nothing but excitement and praise. When they finally took the stage, all regard for one’s physical well-being was lost. The swarm took me much closer to the stage than I had ever intended to be, a distance I hadn’t watched a punk show from in years, and I couldn’t have been happier. The camaraderie, the screaming in each other’s faces, the brotherly love that one feels for a stranger just based on the fact that he loves the same band you do, these are all things that Titus Andronicus embodies in their music. The sweat, the pain, the things that a jaded concertgoer like myself has forgotten since he was sixteen. This was what Titus Andronicus was.

They opened with the first track off their newest album, The Monitor, and didn’t slow down until the last note. Lead singer/guitar player Patrick Stickles poured himself into the microphone, with his veins bulging from his forehead and sweat dripping off his giant beard. He conducted the crowd in the many chants and sing-a-longs that the band has become known for. He even joined the crowd for the end of the song “Titus Andronicus,” crowd surfing and holding the mic to the screaming mouths of impassioned fans. In between each song, much needed water was passed back from the bouncers in the front to hydrate the crowd. Every sip taken after each song was sweat out by the end of the next, but nobody seemed to mind. Towards the end of the set, Titus broke out in their classic Chuck Berry-esque jam “The Enemy is Everywhere,” inviting members of the tour mates Halleluiah the Hills out to hit organ, trumpet and cello solos. There was no build up for the set, and no coming down, just straight rock right through to the end. It wasn’t too much, it was just right. They were without a doubt the most exciting band at Pitchfork this year.

One final event that I feel earned a mention here is Flatstock, the poster market that has been a part of Pitchfork since I started attending six years ago. I have spent way too much money at this event every year, and with good reason. Some of the best poster artists from around the country make the trek to the festival every year, and all of them are great. Seriously, if you’ve never been to Pitchfork and are thinking about going next year, block out a decent amount of time to check out the posters. This year’s highlight for me was Daniel Danger. He makes very dark and haunting posters with sharp lines and almost exclusively nighttime colors. His posters glow blue and green from behind black, silhouetted landscapes, creating an apocalyptic feel in images as basic as a neighborhood block. Check out his stuff, he’s great.

Well, that just about does it for my Pitchfork input. It really is one of the most well run festivals in the country, and if you’ve never been I suggest checking it out next year. This year was another one in a long line of satisfying Pitchfork trips for me. See you there next year.

OneloveRIPPitchfork2010

As a result, when I review CDs, I usually never read the promotional material. It might get glanced over, but that’s at best. My review process is totally basic: I look at the booklet/cover of the record (1/2 of judging a record is if it has a cool cover or not; there are noted exceptions to this rule) then I listen to it. Super simple.

Filtering through my email one day, I found a press package for a young lady named Cheyenne Marie Mize who is currently on tour to support her debut album Before Lately. While she has street cred from working with Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Mize has to be able to stand up on her own. One cannot ride the coattails of a more famous star to get ahead. If you don’t believe me, ask Audio Two (I swear I’ll stop making Audio Two references, but this one works here). So, to begin the review, I did step one: looked at the cover. The album passes the first test: it has a really cool cover. It would catch my eye in a CD rack.

Now on to the music. I will hesitate to give her album a full review because it is not available until September. I’ll review the album more fully then. For the time being, I’ll keep it vague but useful. Mize’s songs are quite gorgeous, filled with beautiful, sparse instrumentation and a voice that is clear and expressive. The songs maintain a sadness and a vague sense of longing for something more. Some have a tinge of country flavor while others might not be out of place on a revision of Music for Airports. For someone who is stepping out on her own for the first time, Before Lately shows a great amount of talent, diversity, and promise. While there are some missteps on the album, the overwhelmingly majority of the album is filled with the kind of songs that one wishes folk singers to write, songs where the listener is entranced and focused upon every word. In short, she’s someone to pay attention to now and in the future because, from what I can tell, she is only going to get better.

Lucky for Iowa City, we will have the opportunity to see her on the 29th of July at The Mill. She will be opening for Portland, OR-based folksters Archaeology. They are also quite good. This show promises to be a humdinger for the folk fans that populate our fair town. Admission’s $6 and restricted to those of drinking age (21+). Doors are at 10 PM.

Tim Stop Trio stopped by Gabe’s over the weekend to play some music, much to Iowa City’s benefit. The Chicagoan quartet played a lengthy set of original material as well as a few covers, including Warren G’s Regulators. It’s hard to argue with Warren G, to be fair.

Give them a listen below, and if you like what you hear, keep in mind they’ll be performing Friday at 9:00 p.m. at The Redstone Room in Davenport, Iowa.

From left to right: Holly O'Dell, Vicki, Joe, Dustin Busch, and keeping the beat in back behind Joe is Sonny Lott.

Image and Commentary Courtesy of Gregory Fischer

Just in from a California Tour, Joe and Vicki Price brought the boogie back to town. On Saturday night it was not just Joe’s foot that was stompin’ as the dance floor filled quickly and a glance around the room showed the rest were dancing in their chairs. Sonny Lott sang a fantastic duet with Joe and the great fiddle player Holly O’Dell, back from Nashville to attend a class reunion, joined the Price’s for much of the second set. Dustin Busch also sweetened the mix trading slide licks with Joe on lap steel guitar. All in attendance were thankful Joe and Vicki stopped in before they head back on the road for tour dates in Minnesota, Missouri, and Illinois.

CONGRATULATIONS TO JOE AND VICKI PRICE, WINNERS OF THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE INDEPENDENT MUSIC AWARD FOR BEST BLUES CD 2010