Precious is Cedar Falls’ Oliver Weilein, and “He Has Abandoned Us” is a concept album based around the story of a man (of unspecified historic time) who loses his family to the plague and retires to an abandoned temple to beseech God, who never answers him.
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It’s a tale as old as time: Boy makes albums. Girl makes albums. Boy meets Girl. Boy and Girl make more albums. Boy and girl start touring together, performing in matching silver-lamé dresses. Or maybe that’s a new story, or at least news. In advance of their joint album release party May 12 at Gabe’s, I sat down to chat with Dana Telsrow (Dana T) and Arin Eaton (Karen Meat) at the Sanctuary. They’re now a couple, both personally and professionally, but met through music: Telsrow played a show at Vaudeville Mews in Des Moines, where Eaton was working the door. Later, Eaton asked Telsrow to play a show in Milwaukee when her full band wasn’t available, and they’ve been performing together ever since. […]
A.J. Worden and Ian MacMillan are trying something different this Sunday, April 29. They will be presenting a two hour performance without beats, without melodies, without words. Using modular synthesizers and keyboards, they will create minimal ambient drone music in the new Garden Club space, upstairs at RADinc. The event, which begins at 7 p.m., is free. […]
Dennis James and Lauryn Shapter are an Iowan roots/country duo who tour constantly around the middle of the United States. Their music is based in the folk tradition that wouldn’t seem novel 50 years ago. […]
Frahm is a gifted composer and performer, but what was most engaging about this concert was the simplicity of the music he presented. The closest comparison would be Philip Glass, but Glass can try my patience, and Frahm instinctively knows when to ride a static groove and when to switch up. […]
Phillip Klampe is a veteran of the dark ambient scene, self-releasing his first cassettes in the mid-1990s. His nom de ambient is Homogenized Terrestrials, which is a nod to his similarly long career as a grocery store dairy department manager. […]
To release two EPs under two different names within a few months of each other suggests Clancy Clark — aka Selec, aka Clarence Johnson — has been busy. According to Clark, horror at the election of Donald Trump motivated him to be more proactive at making and putting out music.
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Illinois John Fever are a country blues band with a backyard party vibe; they lock into steady grooves made more exciting by the occasional moments where they drop time.
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Fiddler’s Picnic Johnson County Fairgrounds — Sunday, Sept. 24 at 12 p.m. This coming Sunday, Sept. 24, at noon at the Iowa City 4H Fairgrounds, the Old Fiddler’s Picnic continues its four-decade tradition of celebrating folk music. The Friends of Old Time Music’s annual Fiddler’s Picnic is a casual, homemade event. So much so that […]
Trust a joker like Matthew James to open Impromptu Musicals For the Skeptic, his album with the Rust Belt Union, with a song titled “Goodbye.” Like Groucho Marx’s song “Hello, I Must Be Going,” it’s ironic but shows a restlessness mirrored in the lyrics: “But it’s just like before I’m always heading out a door and I never quite get where I’m supposed to go.” […]
Some of the best musicians in Iowa City and environs are not chasing a career in music. Keith Reins, for example, is a player and collector of folk songs who also works as a professor of English at Kirkwood Community College. After hours, you’re likely to find him at folk music sessions around Iowa City: at Hilltop Tap, Mickey’s or Uptown Bill’s Coffee House.
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SassyBlack w/ DJ Espina, Wolf Mixer, M50 The Mill — Friday, Sept. 1 at 9 p.m. SassyBlack (real name Cat Harris-White) is an artist in control of her own destiny. A singer with a warm, inviting voice, she also writes her own songs, produces her own music and even handles her own booking. As part […]