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SWax Cannon is two guys–David Murray and Jay Miller–who have been playing together for several years. They put out the titanic Someone in Madison is Praying for You (And it’s not me) four years ago, a double CD that was a tour de force of rock ‘n’ roll songwriting, their answer to Daydream Nation or Zen Arcade.
Most folks who bother to go out to hear live music in Eastern Iowa know that Sarah Cram has that voice–a dark, smooth alto with a jazzy vibrato at the end of sustained notes. As good as The Diplomats of Solid Sound are when they roll stag, with Sarah and her sister Diplomettes, they’re a whole other thing–elegant, sexy, and even funkier.
Iowa City musician Keith Lynch has released seven albums and two collections of unreleased songs since 2002 as Unknown Component. His latest effort, The Infinite Definitive (releases 10/12) continues the one-man-band approach Lynch has been perfecting since the beginning.
The Tallest Man on Earth has spent his entire career drawing comparisons to Bob Dylan. A complimentary comparison, no doubt, and a deserved one at that. However, The Tallest Man on Earth warrants distinction of his own.
In the early 2000s, as many remember, there was much ballyhoo given to the return of real rock-n-roll. This was not represented in bands like Queens of the Stone Age, but bare bones garage rock bands like The Hives and The White Stripes. While these bands are awesome, they were only the headliners. As with any movement, there is always a subset that does not necessarily make it to mainstream attention, much to their detriment. While, in most situations, this would suggest that they were not as important (read: good), Birmingham, AL- based Dan Sartain serves as a very real exception to this rule.
Following years of Myspace releases, Uffie, the most divisive artist on Ed Banger Records (home of Justice and formerly most divisive artist Mr. Oizo), finally puts out her debut Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans. She has more than her own boatload of hype. The question is does her album actually stand up to it all?
A Facebook message showed up in my inbox the other day, from Stefanie Drootin, member of the well-known Omaha band The Good Life. It announced the availability of an album’s worth of songs she’d recorded with her friend Chris Senseney. No album title, no track order, unmastered. They went down into Stefanie’s basement and just had fun with writing and recording songs.
Why would Iowa folkie William Elliott Whitmore and Erase Errata frontwoman Jenny Hoyston re-record the six songs from their 2006 EP Hallways of Always for a vinyl-only release? Only they know for sure, but on their return, this time calling themselves Hallways of Always, the performances do seem sharper.
Iowa City indie pop quintet, The Wandering Bears, have offered up a potluck, of sorts, for their self-titled debut. The Bears have cribbed a little bit from nearly every great left-of-center pop act and placed it all in front of you in heaping, steaming, well-produced portions.
The group, comprised of members of The Western Front and Vagabonds, opens with the glitchy, down-tempo, electropop number “William S. Burroughs Teaches Photography” (they also have a knack for whip-smart-alec titles), followed by the alt-country swagger of “Tom Bodett Rearranges his Living Room.”
June/July 2010~ The Grateful Dead need to be rescued. Rescued from paunchy, balding nostalgia, rescued from the tribute bands, rescued from the scumbags who sold drugs in the parking lot at their concerts. Most of all, they need to be rescued from their hyper-recorded live career, spinning the same fifty songs again and again like […]
Local Albums: May 2010 – One and All, the sixth full-length from Pieta Brown, finds the folky at her most relaxed and confident. One and All feels like a commiseration at The Mill: It’s easy, fluid and full of prospective delivered in a comfortable drawl. The album opens with a double-shot of hopeless romanticism. “Wishes […]
Local Albums: May 2010 – The fact that you can hold this album in your hands is astounding. From the Privilege of the Grave faced nearly every hurdle imaginable–from technical and logistical issues to legal and financial difficulties. That it was worth the wait, is still more astounding.
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