With a command of the four foundation elements of hip hop, Des Moines artist ASPHATE is harnessing them for a noble pursuit: making a magazine.
Kembrew McLeod
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Growing up in Normal, USA with Pharrell Williams
After entering my 25th year in Iowa City — longer than anywhere I’ve ever resided, including my hometown — I’ve been thinking about how places can shape our lives. Those thoughts came into sharper focus while watching a compelling new documentary about musician Pharrell Williams, who grew up down the street from me. “I’m from […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa dad Jeremy Pfaff is skateboarding across the state for a great cause, with a soundtrack made by his friends
Imagine doing RAGBRAI — riding the entire length of Iowa — on a skateboard. Jeremy Pfaff plans to do just that as he departs on Oct. 5 to head west across the state. If the street skating gods are on his side, he’ll finish his journey in Sioux City around mid-Oct. Pfaff first discovered skateboarding […]
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‘We are going to make this a FEaST he’d be fucking proud of’: Chris Wiersema’s deep-listening festival carries on in Iowa City
“Bring the Noise” was a musical mantra popularized by the hip-hop group Public Enemy, and Chris Wiersema lived that aesthetic ideal as Iowa City’s premiere programmer of experimental music and other out-there sounds. Over the past quarter century, he brought hundreds of boundary-breaking artists to town in his myriad roles as a house show promoter, […]
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The belt-buckled Bronco are an enduring staple of Tejano pop music, with dancing fans the world over — including Iowa
When Bronco takes the stage at the Val Air Ballroom on Aug. 4, the iconic Mexican group will weave into their live show a tapestry of musical influences imbued with layers of cultural history. Originally hailing from Apodaca in the northeast state of Nuevo León, this five-piece grupero ensemble has been around since the mid-’70s, […]
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The Flaming Lips, coming to Cedar Rapids June 25, have embodied alt-pop absurdity since Valerie Malone first introduced them on ‘90210’
“Hey man,” Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne asked me with a hippie-punk inflection, “are you a cop?” Back in 2006, I was interviewing him backstage after a show in St. Louis with co-headliners Sonic Youth, where Coyne was winding down after an explosive performance filled with confetti, balloons and a psychedelic light show. One of […]
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Monkee Micky Dolenz plans to play the hits ‘exactly as people remember them’ — and then some — at the Surf Ballroom on Sept. 13
Editor’s note: Dolenz’s May 24, 2024 performance and meet-and-greet at the Surf was rescheduled for Friday, Sept. 13 at 7 p.m. The headline of this article has been updated with the new date. When Micky Dolenz sets foot on the stage of Clear Lake’s Surf Ballroom, the last living member of the Monkees knows that […]
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KRUI student radio celebrates 40 years fighting dead air and adult control on the University of Iowa campus
This is a scrappy story of young folks bum-rushing the airwaves through sheer force of will. With humble origins that can be traced back to a University of Iowa dormitory broom closet, KRUI is now celebrating 40 years of FM radio broadcasting thanks to the passion of students and other community members. In the beginning […]
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Legendary pro skater, punk rocker and Des Moines local Mike Vallely is living his teenage dream
Growing up in New Jersey in the 1970s and ’80s, Mike Vallely was, of course, aware of skateboarding. But it didn’t seem approachable. Popular culture presented it as something made for Californians with nice tans and well-built bodies who wanted to show off and do handstands on their boards. So Vallely didn’t pay it much […]
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‘As long as our music touches people, we’re gonna keep on singing’: The Blind Boys of Alabama are coming to Iowa for two shows
The Blind Boys of Alabama’s decades-spanning career speaks to both the universal human condition — we are all just passing through this world, searching for connection — and the very specific experience of being Black and disabled in America. This venerable gospel group endured brutal Jim Crow racism, embraced the defiant optimism of the Civil […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Marginalization and book bans protect abusers, warns Iowa writer Lyz Lenz: ‘Silence always benefits power’
Growing up in a conservative evangelical family, Lyz Lenz internalized Old Testament proverbs, like, “It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.” She was conditioned to believe that anger was a bad emotion, especially if you were a girl or a woman. As […]
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‘Nosferatu’ and a live, electronic symphony of horror will invade the James Theatre on Oct. 23
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is one of the most unsettling visual tales ever imprinted on celluloid, with an origin story and afterlife as shadowy as its vampiric subject matter. The 1922 German Expressionist film, directed by F.W. Murnau, first crept into this world by sinking its teeth into Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, which […]
