Cedar County, Iowa is home of West Branch, Springdale, Clarence, Lowden and the Cedar County Cobras. Their debut album’s title, Delta Avenue Juke Joint, is an inside joke: Delta Ave. is a county road that connects nowhere to nowhere a few miles north-east of Cedar Bluff, where the album was recorded. It’s the kind of place where fun is, of necessity, homemade…
Album Reviews
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Album Review: Holy White Hounds’ ‘Sparkle Sparkle’
The guys in Holy White Hounds have been kicking around the Des Moines/Ankeny area for a few years in other bands, but it was the 2013 reunion of high school bandmates Brenton Dean (vocals, guitar) and Ambrose Lupercal (bass) that started the path to their debut record, Sparkle Sparkle…
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Album Review: Hailey Whitters’ ‘Black Sheep’
Hailey Whitters Black Sheep www.haileywhitters.com I hesitated, at first, to review this album. I’m not generally a fan of country music, and I didn’t know if I could pull off something both generous and honest, without getting caught up in genre biases. I listened to Black Sheep, set it aside, walked away. Then something strange […]
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Album Review: Dana T’s ‘tiny mind MASSIVE soul’
Popular music is a tug of war between artistic and commercial concerns, and at the center of it all lays genre. For an artist, genres have stylistic signifiers and limits. A great musician can make punk rock that is satisfying and original within those limits, but if he or she adds a sitar or using diminished 13th chords, it usually stops being punk rock.
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Album Review: Danny Dysentery—’My Fangs Are Wet’
Danny Dysentery My Fangs Are Wet dannydysentery.bandcamp.com For every rabid fanbase there is a genre of music, it seems. For example, there is a crossing of horror fan culture with pop music that dates back almost to the dawn of rock and roll (“Monster Mash” anyone?). Alice Cooper, Danzig and The Misfits birthed the blood […]
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Album Review: The Ills – Fuck this planet
Erika Ebola, Danny Dysentery, Molly Marburg, Tommy Tinnitus, Stella Salmonella; I think I’m sensing a theme here. This is definitely punk rock/hardocre straight out of the 1980s, reminiscent of the Circle Jerks, Plasmatics, and the Rezillos. One may well ask, does the world need more hardcore punk rock with track names you can’t say on the radio or TV?
Short answer: Yes. Longer answer: Punk rock at this point is beyond a sociological phenomenon of the past, and has become a vernacular folk tradition.
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Album Review: ‘The Chymical Wedding of Brooks Strause’
Iowa City attracts songwriters; you might even say it creates them. The “Class of 1970,” which includes Dave Moore, Greg Brown and Bo Ramsey, set the template: rooted in American folk music, but shot through with the personal and the cosmic. Those older artists cast no shade on the younger cohort that includes Ed Gray, […]
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Album Review: Broken Water – Wrought
Although Shawn Reed no longer lives in Iowa City, his label — Night People — has its heart here, at least partly-so. In an interview for Art of Iowa, Reed said that while “the label grew out of being into records, booking shows, inviting touring bands to play (in Iowa City),” it “doesn’t live any place in particular.”
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Album Review: Creeping Punk – Mirror Woods
Creeping Pink Mirror Woods (Castle Face Records) www.facebook.com/creepingpink Mirror Woods is the first full-length effort from Creeping Pink, the newest band on the Castle Face Records roster. Neither the slow verb in the band’s name nor the album’s languorous pace reflect the speed with which this music will lodge itself in your brain. Creeping Pink […]
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Album Review: Tom Jessen – Hunting Season
Tom Jessen Hunting Season www.tomjessen.bandcamp.com At the bottom of the back cover of Hunting Season—Tom Jessen’s first album since 2002’s Night—is a dedication to the late frontman for The Clash, “Special thanks to Joe Strummer for giving me a second wind!” Jessen, a Strawberry Point native spent time in Iowa City and released two albums—the […]
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Album Review: Circuit Des Yeux – In Plain Speech
In Plain Speech by Circuit des Yeux Circuit des Yeux In Plain Speech www.circuitdesyeux.bandcamp.com Circuit des Yeux, the project of Chicago-based experimental songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Haley Fohr, is winding circuits around the world touring her latest release, In Plain Speech. The album’s release in May has launched an ambitious tour cycle that has will […]
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Working class Joe: Bucky Halker covers Joe Hill’s labor rights ballads
Though it’s a century too late to save Joe Hill from the Utah firing squad, Bucky Halker wants to rescue him from the folkies …
