Three blocks from the bar colony of downtown Iowa City sits the Northside Market, a neighborhood some of the quieter and more niche businesses call home. There’s Dirty John’s Grocery, the endless kitsch of Artifacts and the town’s only falafel joint, Oasis. There is also a little place called George’s Buffet. A slender two-story frame […]
Christopher Burns
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: Lou Sherry — ‘More Now Than Then’
Lou Sherry — More Now Than Then by Lou Sherry Sometimes in life, anticipation can veer towards obsession. It was after the first time Lou Sherry played Gabe’s that I learned this lesson — as soon as the show ended, I craved a full album. The wait seemed inconceivable, but then September rolled around and, […]
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Album Review: T.A.N.G. — ‘Big Bright Empty Nothing’
Big Bright Empty Nothing by T.A.N.G. Space is the place and T.A.N.G. is here to tell us about it on their 2023 release, Big Bright Empty Nothing. Recorded and mastered at Flat Black Studios by Luke Tweedy, T.A.N.G. has unleashed a doom-tinted contemplation of the cosmos and the emptiness that stares back. T.A.N.G. consists of […]
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Psychedelic legends Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. are touching down in Iowa City
If you ask a random stranger on the street about psychedelic music, they might name Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, or mumble something about sitars, samplers and LSD. “Psychedelic” is often regarded as a trippy, hippie, countercultural vibe—a phase music went through in the ’60s before arena rock. But fans know psychedelic has its own place […]
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Grab the VCR — Everything is Terrible returns to Iowa City on March 12 with a family-friendly show
Remember the Before Times of 2018? It was a nearly mask-less era, when friends, acquaintances and strangers alike came together to watch performances from out-of-towners or locals. It was during this time that Everything is Terrible, the California-based art collective, brought last their traveling show, The Great Satan Tour, to Iowa City. It is an […]
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Album Review: MAAAZE — ‘MAAAZE Vol. I’ EP
Some in Iowa City might recognize Dan Miller as a fixture at Gabe’s Oasis, hosting open mic nights every Tuesday with house band Next Door Four, as well as having played for the last several years in his group Doc Miller. Others might recognize him as the videographer from the live music series No Touching […]
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Album Review: SLW cc Watt — ‘Real Manic Time’
Real Manic Time by SLW cc Watt Being Iowa City’s — scratch that, Iowa’s — most prolific songwriter for years, you would think it would be hard to keep surprising people. While most of us gorged on trashy Netflix documentaries or started and stopped fad hobbies to fill in for the lack of human contact, […]
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Album Review: Hairless Monk — ‘Monolith’
Carved by the Sea, B-Sides from the Depths by Hairless Monk Even before the great quarantine of 2020 started, Jacob Willenborg, under the guise of Hairless Monk, was being highly productive. Since 2015 he has performed, recorded, mixed and mastered five EPs all while maintaining a full-time job and drumming for Cedar Rapids punk band […]
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Album Review: ZUUL — ‘ZUUL II’
Go to any ZUUL show, stand in the back then watch as the screaming aggression, pulsing rhythm section and melodic shift into doomed riffs enrapture the audience. It’s hard not to be swayed by their end-of-the-world, cathartic, danceable anthems. Capturing a sound like that in the studio is difficult. Capturing that feeling while
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Album Review: Land of Blood and Sunshine — ‘House of Bellow’
Listening to Land Of Blood and Sunshine is being taken on a journey through a fantasy world of damaged misfits moving through surrealist landscapes. From their first album, 2009’s Magick Carcass Ride, through their last, 2015’s Lady and the Trance, they’ve continued to spin fables in song form.
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Psychedelia spirals into the Trumpet Blossom
The term kosmiche expands from the modular, to the jazzy, to screaming, astral-effected guitars and to automaton pastiche. It is this expansive realm where Chicago’s Spiral Galaxy have found their garden to play in.
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Japan’s Kikagaku Moyo to trip through Iowa City
Beginning as a busking collective on the streets of Tokyo, Kikagaku Moyo has spent the six years of their existence gathering an ever-increasing number of fans. Their live shows on the festival circuits are constantly raved about, and their four albums and two EPs are drooled over by music lovers around the world. Kikagaku Moyo will be playing at The Mill on Friday, Feb. 22. Tickets are $12.
