The Kalona Brewing Company’s signature IPA, Sucha Much, was named after a song by Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeeans titled “She’s Such a Much.” According to Lew Brewer, Kalona’s co-owner and head brewer, the song is about a girl who is “such a much.” “We just felt that way about the beer,” he said. While […]
April 2014
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Get down with the darkness at Public Space One
Down for a gloomy and doomy metal show this weekend? Baton Rouge-based Thou and hometown heroes Aseethe will be at Public Space One this Saturday at 1 p.m. Thou is not for your casual listener. As the case with most doom metal, their lengthy songs often shift from calm to frantic in just one riff […]
Posted inFood & Drink
New beer alert: Surly Brewing Company comes to Iowa
The Surly Brewing Company of Brooklyn Center, Minn., has begun selling a limited amount of beer in the Des Moines, Ames, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City areas and plans a larger rollout in 2015. Surly made a grand entrance last Thursday, taking over the taps at El Bait Shop in Des Moines. Surly spokesman Lee Jones said representatives dropped off a pallet of BLAKKR, an Imperial Black IPA, for distribution by Johnson Brothers of Iowa.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Pro Tips with Wayne Diamante: Self-confidence woes
Wayne Diamante, actor, director and best-selling author of DIY parenting books like Orphan Selection and Rearing Practices and the triple-platinum hardcover autobiography Poopy Diapers: Who Gives a Shit?, answers his readers’ questions in yet another installment of Pro-Tips with Wayne Diamante. Do you have a question, concern or grievance you’d like addressed in an online and/or print publication? Send
Posted inArts & Entertainment
This Wednesday: Julianna Barwick to play Danforth Chapel
Last year — like every year for the last four — I worked as a producer during the Mission Creek Festival (Full disclosure: I worked Mission Creek Festival this year). This gives me the opportunity to check out as many bands as possible. One of the major experimentalists that was brought in last year was William Basinski, who is best known for The Disintegration Loops. While I remember what he looked like — long white hair, leather blazer — I can’t really remember what he sounded like…
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: Bedroom Shrine – No Déjà Vu
If you are a follower of the music website daytrotter.com, you have already been exposed to Johnnie Cluney’s illustrations, which give the site its signature pen-and-ink look. What you might not be aware of, however, is Cluney’s work as a musician with his band Bedroom Shrine. The group’s debut full-length album, No Déjà Vu, is a product of the Quad Cities’ tight-knit music community. No Déjà Vu is the first release for Iowa’s newest record label, Cartouche Records, run by Davenport’s Ragged Record…
Posted inAstrology, Community/News
Astrology forecast for April 2014
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera says that the brain has “a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful.” In the coming days, it will be especially important for you to tap […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Mission Creek Plan of Attack: Saturday and Sunday
Even though getting through today will require at minimum three disco naps (mostly just to mitigate the perpetual hangover I’ve had since Wednesday) it will be worth it. So, what will I be checking out this weekend? let’s start the insanity… 11 a.m. (ongoing) Presses and magazines from around the country will be at The […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Not your parents’ record store: An interview with Ben Swank and Chet Weise
There are plenty of record stores with considerable cultural cachet. Amoeba Music in Los Angeles has made a place for itself as a multi-media juggernaut…
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Interview: Matthew Israel on how the Art Genome Project is making the world of art more comprehensible
Matthew Israel, art historian, author and director of The Art Genome Project, will be giving the closing talk for the first-ever Mission Creek Tech + Innovation…
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Show review: Philip Glass and Oneohtrix Point Never
At the Englert Theatre during Oneohtrix (oh-nay-ah-tricks) Point Never’s performance, I was standing by the back wall, where apparently all the bass goes after passing through the volume of air in the theater. Though the sound system used was not that loud, if you stood where I stood, the bass was a whole body experience without obscuring the detail of the sounds in the higher register. I saw a dimly lit stage with one man illuminated by a laptop screen and dim blue lights. What I heard was dislocated ambience punctuated with synthetic thunderclaps.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Mission Creek plan of attack: Friday
I feel a bit like a Mission Creek failure today because I only managed to complete two thirds of Thursday’s plan. After the Little Village/Slow Collision Press reading at Trumpet Blossom last night, I found myself faced with three very tempting options: 1.) S. Cary at the Mill, 2.) Dessa at Gabes, or 3.) falling […]
