TEETH by Wax Cannon In Eliza Gilkyson’s “Solitary Singer,” she croons, “He sings his best when nobody’s listening.” Wax Cannon reminds me of that song. A housepainter (David Murray) and a hospital pharmacy worker (Jay Miller) have been making music together for a quarter century, to no particular acclaim, except from their friends in the […]
Kent Williams
Posted inLetters
Letter to the editor: Contemplating the life of Joseph Dobrian
By Kent Williams, Iowa City Joseph Dobrian died on Nov. 22, but his obituary wasn’t published until Dec. 12. To most people in Iowa City, he was the guest columnist at the Iowa City Press Citizen most likely to piss people off with his opinions. It isn’t hard to see why if you take a […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The importance of being Colleen Ernst
Colleen Ernst did not blend in, even in 1980s Iowa City. She was imposingly tall, with brightly dyed red hair, multicolored plastic glasses and homemade earrings. I met her because my sons were in a home daycare with her son Max, named for the surrealist artist Max Ernst. She’s best known now for striking up […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Bo Ramsey, Joe and Vicki Price set to make the Ideal Theater feel like the Mill this Saturday
Young musicians dominate the press and public consciousness, because talent and the energy of youth will always be compelling. But if we’re talking about music as a capital ‘A’ Art, people like Bo, Joe and Vicki have been making music for well nigh five decades…
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: Anthony Worden and the Illiterati — ‘Plain Angels’
Plain Angels by Anthony Worden Anthony Worden makes music that an archivist of 20th century music would make. His early albums were heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground. Since then, he’s branched out. On Plain Angels, he writes songs as winsome and pleasing to the ear as Badfinger and Matthew Sweet. The album title itself […]
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: Swampland Jewels — ‘Swampland Jewels’
The Swampland Jewels by The Swampland Jewels Swampland Jewels, led by Iowa City music veteran Nate Basinger, is a band that’s found its niche, combining music from Louisiana’s musical tradition with a mélange of jazz, country and roots rock. The Jewels also represent the hard-to-define terroir of Iowa music, a “why not?” sense of musical […]
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: William Elliott Whitmore — ‘Silently, The Mind Breaks’
If you’ll permit a strained simile, Will Whitmore is like Iowa’s basketball phenom Caitlin Clark. He’s never been anything short of ridiculously excellent, and he makes it look — or sound — easy. I’ve seen him hold hundreds of drunk college kids spellbound with nothing more than a pawn-shop banjo and his voice. That kind […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Album Review: Nevāda Nevada — ‘Past Life’
Past Life by Nevāda Nevada It isn’t often I review a band that isn’t heavy metal that includes a diacritical mark in its name. This one is there as a pronunciation guide: Neh-Vay-Duh Neh-Vah-Da. It indicates a particularity that carries over to the music itself. Nevāda Nevada wants to be understood, to be paid attention […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Essay: RAGBRAI’s one-note music lineup is an insult to riders
This is the 50th anniversary of the RAGBRAI, the yearly summer bike ride from the Missouri to the Mississippi. I remember the first one happened when I was in high school. Between being a fan of Donald Kaul and John Karras’ writing in the Des Moines Register and hanging out at the local hippie bike […]
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: Byrn D. Paul — ‘The Great Vehicle’
The Great Vehicle by Byrn D Paul Byrn D. Paul is one of those musicians on a wavelength entirely their own. He plays guitar, cello, violin, oud, koto, pedal steel guitar and modular synthesizer on The Great Vehicle. On previous releases he positively shreds on the guitar, but this latest album is not about virtuosity. […]
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: Ramin Roshandel & Jean-François Charles — ‘Jamshid Jam’
Jamshid Jam by Ramin Roshandel & Jean-Francois Charles Since the 1960s, it seems the University of Iowa School of Music has loosened up about what is allowed and appropriate music for which one can get a Ph.d. Composition — in a good way. There’s always been a raffish, crusty side to the department going back […]
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: Emery Clair Comer Hart Taylor — ‘Undustrial Devolution 1 & 2’
Undustrial Devolution I by Emery Clair Comer Hart Taylor Justin K. Comer and his friends who play on Undustrial Devolution 1 & 2 are on the vanguard for free improvisational music in Iowa. That means they’re somewhere out in a cornfield where the other footprints stop, striking out in random directions. There’s focused intent here, […]
