Not doing things is pretty much my favorite thing to do, but I recently set aside a Saturday afternoon to hop in a car with a couple buds, Ryan and Doug, and make a pin-grimage to East Moline to check out Midwest Ale Works. By the time we arrived, Ryan and I were in the […]
Lucas Benson
Posted inRecreation
Bumper Crops: Ames is for pinball lovers
Valentine’s Day is here, and when I think of Valentine’s Day, I think of love. When I think of love, I think of pinball. The two aren’t that different, really. Both require good timing and the right amount of physical interaction: play too gently and your chances of scoring go down; play too hard and […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Bumper Crops: Pinball bans and the Des Moines mafia
There was never an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting pinball, but that didn’t stop some major cities from banning the game from the 1930s through the mid-’70s. In fact, Oakland, California still had a ban on pinball machines as recently as 2014. I first learned about pinball’s checkered history after trying to cajole my mom […]
Posted inRecreation
Bumper Crops: You don’t have to bowl to ball at SpareMe, home of plentiful pinball machines and friendly competition
October Pinball TournamentSpareMe Bowling & Arcade, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 6 p.m. As an increasingly older, increasingly grumpy Iowa City townie, I have never been more hesitant to write a glowing review of a place. But my god, if you haven’t been hanging out at SpareMe, especially on Wednesdays, what are you even doing with your […]
Posted inFood & Drink
LV Recommends: The new food menu at Octopus, Cedar Falls’ accidentally iconic music venue, makes it even harder to ever go home
I arrived at the Octopus in Cedar Falls for the first time on a Friday around 6 p.m., hoping to catch the weekly 5 o’clock Free Chicken Wings special, a tradition/homage to the old crew that ran Stebs. Clocking the where-are-the-wings look on my face, the bartender chuckled good-naturedly and said, “Yeah, we had a […]
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: Chad Elliott & the Redemptions — Rest Heavy
Rest Heavy, the newest release from Iowa native Chad Elliott, opens with an arpeggiated piano riff and cymbal crash before launching into a leaned-back, eyes-closed, soulful-howl gospel-blues tune of which Sam Cooke would…
