Giorgio Moroder singlehandedly invented the electro-rockin’ sound of eurodisco, and since the late-1970s, European artists have continued to expand the possibilities of dance music. This year’s Pitchfork Music Festival features some of the most cutting-edge dance artists from across the pond. Neneh Cherry July 18, 4:35 p.m. Neneh Cherry first rose to prominence in 1989 […]
Kembrew McLeod
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Prairie Pop
Prairie Pop: An interview with mischievous media mogul Paul Krassner
In 1958, Paul Krassner founded The Realist, a magazine that inspired a generation of satirists and alternative-media moguls. You can draw a straight…
Posted inCommunity/News
Join the Million Robot March
In 1979, University of Iowa football coach Hayden Fry had the visiting team’s locker room walls painted pink. Fry said he did it because “pink is often found in girls’ bedrooms, and because of that some consider it a sissy color.” In 2005, UI doubled down by adding pink urinals, showers, floors and lockers. Many Hawkeye fans find it funny, while others see it as a leftover from a time when coaches motivated players by calling them “homo,” “girl” and in Fry’s own words, “sissy.”
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Prairie Pop
Loop interview: South London Psych-rockers return after 22 year hiatus
This is your brain. Crack. This is your brain on Loop. Sizzzzzzzzzle. Born in 1986, dead by 1991 and recently arisen from the ashes, this seminal British band specializes…
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Read an excerpt from Pranksters: Making Mischief in the Modern World
Prairie Pop columnist, Kembrew McLeod, will be reading from his new book, Pranksters: Making Mischief in the Modern World, at Prairie Lights this…
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Prairie Pop
Laurie Anderson interview: An artist of her own invention
Laurie Anderson isn’t solely responsible for me turning out a little bit weird, but she still played a significant role in skewing my worldview. I stumbled across her Big Science album not long after it was released, when I was an impressionable young teenager. This 1982 record contains her unlikely hit single “O Superman (For […]
Posted inCommunity/News, Prairie Pop
Prairie Pop: Who’s watching big brother?
Iowa native and UI alum Cindy Cohn is the Legal Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The National Law Journal named her one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America in 2013, noting, “if Big Brother is watching, he better look out for Cindy Cohn.” On Saturday, March 1—at noon in Meeting Room […]
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Prairie Pop: Power Ballads 101
Last year, Little Village turned over Kembrew McLeod’s “Prairie Pop” column to Umläut Nideldick—the legendary German song doctor and rock and roll life coach. Once again, we are proud to reprint Nideldick’s latest keynote address at the Eurovision Academy of Musical Arts (EAMA). Thank you, my fellow rockers! I am here to speak about what […]
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Pee-wee’s (remastered) Christmas Adventure: An interview with Paul Reubens
This year marks the quarter century anniversary of Pee-wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special, perhaps the most mind-bending holiday special ever aired by…
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Prairie Pop
An interview with Michael Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies
To paraphrase Grand Funk Railroad, Cowboy Junkies are a Canadian band—and a family band. It features siblings Margo Timmins on vocals, Michael Timmins on guitar, Peter Timmins on drums and longtime friend and collaborator Alan Anton on bass. Their quiet, hypnotic sound (imagine the Velvet Underground backing Patsy Cline) was cemented on their breakthrough 1988 album…
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Prairie Pop: A guide to the satirical hits inspired by A Modest Proposal
Few works of literature have loomed larger over popular culture than Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. This classic 1729 essay created the template for…
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Prairie Pop
Prairie Pop: Mobb Deep’s past, present and future
“I got you stuck off the realness / we be the infamous”—Prodigy rapped in the opening verse of “Shook Ones, Part II,” Mobb Deep’s classic 1995 single—“you heard of us / official Queensbridge murderers / the Mobb comes equipped with warfare, beware.” Grimy, blood-soaked and unrelentingly bleak, Mobb Deep’s albums were filled with first-person tales delivered over menacing beats and minor key samples. Prodigy and his partner-in-musical-crime Havoc sounded like they had roamed the mean streets of New York since they were old enough to lift a banana clip. The reality, however, was a little more mundane.
