An obituary by Andre Perry
Christopher (Chris) Wiersema of Iowa City died on Wednesday, March 13, unexpectedly, but peacefully in his sleep.
A public memorial will take place on Sunday, April 7 at the Englert Theatre from 2-5 p.m. The Englert is located at 221 E Washington St in downtown Iowa City.
Chris was born on July 10, 1980 in Naperville, Illinois to his loving parents Douglas Warren Wiersema and Mary Lynette Wiersema. He was followed by his brothers Brian in 1984 and Kevin in 1986.
Chris grew up in the Chicago area and began his career in the arts as a teenage extra in the film adaptation of High Fidelity. He was a brilliant, curious and adventurous young adult. During a tense stretch of his teenage years, he survived a stint in reform school in the Dominican Republic — an experience that profoundly shaped his life. By his own account, it was a difficult ordeal, but, in being temporarily displaced from the deluge of media that most American youth grew up with in the ’90s, he found hidden beauties in the new world around him. He explored the sounds of nature and the noise of man-made industry: cars, motorcycles and factories. He learned to see art, hear music and discover humanity in unexpected places. In spite of his harsh conditions, Chris developed a set of values that he would carry through his many friendships in life: in the most difficult or uncertain times, he could see the best in us, understand our possibilities, and encourage us to pursue our most promising outcomes.
After returning to Chicago, he spent several years writing about culture and community for Newcity magazine. Sometimes in print and often in casual conversation, Chris was a global arts and culture reviewer of the most refined order. He could focus a critical eye, often with sharp, humorous wit, on everything that was crooked about the world while maintaining a clear view on the good. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he believed we should keep living, keep trying and keep up our hopes.
In 2001, he moved a few hours west to attend the University of Iowa. He had heard that Iowa City was a good place for artists and the arts, and his influence on Iowa City’s artistic scene was immediate. As a musician, he often collaborated with his close friend Matt Schettler in the ambient/noise band Lwa. As a promoter, he hosted both internationally acclaimed and local musicians at house shows in his basement or in his backyard. As a community member, he supported countless bands and emerging local artists — attending their shows, providing couches to sleep on and offering a masterful mix of honest, kind and motivating feedback. Musicians started bands or kept making music after hearing encouragement and advice from Chris.
He took the role of manager of the local rock club Picador in 2006 (formerly Gabe’s and then Gabe’s again in 2010.) During his tenure, Picador established itself as an essential venue for touring and local artists in the Midwest in a period when indie and experimental music rose in popularity. In that time, it was possible to see bands like Animal Collective, Boris and Wolf Eyes, sometimes within weeks or days of each other. Chris was the steady hand who welcomed the artists to Iowa City and made space for the community to witness their immediate, vibrant art.
In the midst of busy days and longer nights, Chris met his life partner, Anne Marsh, one of the few people who could meet and exceed Chris’s sophistication by having a sharper wit, more daring sense of aesthetics and an even more heartwarming, welcoming laugh that could make any stranger a friend.
While stewarding Picador toward success, Chris remained fully committed to the “official” and underground music and arts scenes happening at other venues and in local basements. In 2009, he became a producer — and eventually programming director — with Iowa City’s Mission Creek Festival. He helped transform the festival from a DIY start-up into a leading national event for independent music and literature. He curated legendary, improbable performances in Iowa City with artists like Faust, Silver Apples, Laurel Halo and Philip Glass. He later joined the Witching Hour festival team as a founding producer and curated a range of multidisciplinary experiences.
Following his time with Mission Creek and Witching Hour, Chris founded Feed Me Weird Things, a concert series devoted to avant-garde, experimental and other music existing outside of society’s usual descriptors. While rotating across several local venues, the series found its spiritual home at Trumpet Blossom Cafe, an Iowa City vegan restaurant that became a listening room after dinner service.
Feed Me Weird Things was the culmination of a lifetime of listening and nearly two decades of working in the arts. Through FMWT, Chris shared his ultimate vision of welcoming his community into beautiful sounds and art that we might have otherwise missed. While his reputation had been earned over years, the range of artists featured at FMWT concerts affirmed Chris as one of the most singular, visionary, and caring music programmers in the United States. In 2022, he launched Feed Me Weird Things’ keynote festival event FEaST, a multi-day celebration of adventurous music that quickly became a marquee destination for underground, experimental and forward-thinking artists from around the world.
Through all this work, Chris was fastidiously and gratefully in service to the idea of building a better community, a place where we feel inspired to be creative and are bold enough to engage art that is unfamiliar to us. In many ways, he simply wanted us to be moved, to fall for something and be transformed, to be in awe of life.
More privately, he was, increasingly with age, an expert gardener. He was an accomplished prose writer, working in both fiction and essay formats, most recently on a long-form reflection of his time in the Dominican Republic. After a hiatus, he had returned to playing and recording music in a collaborative project called Death Bag with his friend Gabi Vanek. His record collection was worthy of review by the Library of Congress and, as a local DJ, he shared his curated archive with eager audiences. And, he loved his cats! He perhaps saw them as a more elevated species than anything else. Chris was also wickedly funny, discussing the issues of the day in elaborate modes of satire. He criticized Iowa City on all matters culture and politics accurately and painfully — and he did it because he loved this place; despite being born a city kid, he was quietly ecstatic to commit much of his life to this place in an effort to make it all better. And the joyous energy he brought to the world with his closest friend and partner, Anne, was magical. Together, they were exquisite hosts feeding friends, old and new, in warm and cold weather, near the bonfire in their backyard — always sharing stories and laughter into the late hours.
In all his actions, it was rarely about Chris. It was always about the rest of us — his community, his people. Every show, every conversation in the park, every joke traded over IG messenger — it was an invitation to be alive and engage with the world around us. He was also beloved by artists and artist agents and managers across the country and the world who knew that when they came to Iowa City, Chris and his team would treat them like family. At his core, he was committed to kindness and taking care of those around him. He cooked for us, made sure we always got home safely, and listened to us for hours as we tried to figure out our lives.
As Chris embraced his 40s, he actively supported young, emerging artists and curators in Iowa City. He steadily paid his experience forward, ensuring the path would be easier for people coming up 20 years behind him. Many saw Chris as a friend, a brother, a father, an uncle, a guide, a mentor, and no one saw him better than his wife, Anne, who loved him so deeply and was the truest of partners, supporting him through his work and passions.
Chris loved his wife, his parents, his brothers, his nephews and his community. And his community and family truly felt that love. And, again, he loved his cats!
Chris was preceded in death by his mother, his brother Brian, and by his dearest cats: Ornette, Preston and also Margot.
He is survived by his wife Anne Marsh, father Douglas Wiersema, in-laws Dawn Elizabeth Marsh and Timothy Weston Marsh, brother Kevin Wiersema, sister-in-law Danielle Wiersema, and nephews Trey and Dylan Wiersema.
When Chris moved to Iowa City, he had heard it was a good town for artists and the arts. When Chris left Iowa City, he had made it a better town for artists and the arts, a place that might inch closer to making its dream of itself an actual, breathing reality. In doing so, he has left a foundation, roadmap and endless inspiration for the rest of us to continue the work. He will be remembered, missed and loved forever by his family and friends in Iowa, the Midwest and across the world.
This obituary was originally published on Gay & Ciha’s website.
Reflections from the Community
We’re all losers. I don’t mean that we lost a competition or that we’re down on our luck. I mean that in the sense that our community has suffered a great loss, whether we know it directly or not. We lost when Kirk Walther died in 2017. We lost when the Mill closed. We lost when Trevor Lee Hopkins passed away last year. And now we’ve lost Chris Wiersema. As a community that prides itself on art, music, literature and thoughtful culture, it’s difficult losing the spaces, and more importantly, the people that make Iowa City unique, beautiful and weird.
Chris was intelligent, self-deprecating, inclusive, thoughtful, exuberant, and empathetic, no matter where you happened to catch him. From behind the Tobacco Bowl counter, to behind the bar at The Picador, to Little Village articles, to basement house shows, to backyard bonfires, to his carefully curated, booked, promoted and hosted Feed Me Weird Things events — Chris always made time for everyone. Despite his depth of knowledge and esoteric tastes, when he came through the store (which was regularly for over 25 years) he always displayed curiosity and was always willing to talk music.
Kirk Walther used to refer to people who were music obsessed as “music heads,” and Chris was the definition of the term. He always sought new wavelengths and auditory experiences, seeming to take as much joy in the delicate sounds of an expertly plucked harp as recordings that sound like the murmurs of an industrial boiler room in action. That’s not to say he wasn’t discerning, because he was, but his open mindedness and penchant for the off-kilter, avant garde, unknown and underrepresented never waivered. Squelching synthesizers and unrelenting feedback that would drive the average person to madness not only didn’t cause him to flinch, but were enjoyed like a morning songbird. This is part of what made him an exceptional leader for booking music in Iowa City: absolute fearlessness.
Even when the ends didn’t meet or Chris had to use his own funds to book a faraway act, he believed in a shared sonic space that he could create for our community. When going to a Feed Me Weird Things show you were likely to hear people say things like “that was the best thing I’ve ever heard” and other people saying “that was the noisiest thing I’ve ever heard, but it’s an experience I won’t forget.” It was bound to open minds and it seems that’s what Chris wanted. Never settle for the mundane when you can try something new and perhaps even weird. Some of the best music we’ve ever tasted came from following Chris into the proverbial kitchen.
Going forward it’s hard to imagine what things will look like for young Iowa City outcasts and derelicts who will never know the shelter that Chris provided, but from our perspective we owe it to them, and to Chris, to try to provide those spaces, to remind them the world is small, but full of new things to taste test. Perhaps the best recipes are still unknown. Go ahead and feed us weird things. (Sorry to you, dear reader, and to Chris’ memory for beating this metaphor so thoroughly.)
Our hearts and sincere condolences go out to Chris’ loved ones, close friends and family. —Record Collector
Chris was such a profound master of our language; he was able to describe things — music, art, people, pop culture, food — in a way that left me perpetually in awe. Evoking deep feelings and clear imagery, his words were a reflection of the depths he plumbed to discover forms of creativity and passion that we didn’t even know were possible until he presented them to us.
It was a genuine privilege to have known him for over 20 years and to have had the opportunity to work with him to present the Feed Me Weird Things series at Trumpet Blossom. He made my place incalculably better and although I got to thank him several times while he was still here I desperately hope he knew how much I appreciated his support and partnership. I will miss my friend, my confidant, someone who I could commiserate with who truly knew what it was like to just pour your soul into something.
We’re all better (and weirder) people, and have built a better (and weirder) community, because he shared his magic with us. Our grief is monumental but I hope we can see that his spirit lasts in everything he touched. —Katy Meyer, Trumpet Blossom Cafe
Early this year, I wrote to Chris, “I had a dream last night and you were there. You were in a space of creative possibility and ripeness, curating an old music collection we’d found.” In the dream, he was behind a table with a turntable and crates of records, flipping through each one. In both dreams and in life, Chris was the bringer of things ripe and rich, be they cookies, lasagnas, albums, performances, jokes, or Instagram stories.
I’ve been reading everyone’s beautiful tributes to Chris over the last days, and the word that keeps coming to mind is belonging. For those of us who were lucky enough to know Chris, he made us feel we belonged here, in Iowa City, in art, in music, in dark rooms standing beside each other, feeling. And it’s clear many of us also felt that, in some small special way, Chris belonged to each of us, uniquely. I felt cherished by Chris, and I hope he knew I cherished him back. He had a way of being immediately vulnerable and honest, no bullshit, and created a space where I could be the same with him. His legacy is kindness, generosity, and unapologetically being exactly who he was. Chris was an aspirational human being. I miss him already. I hope he keeps visiting me in dreams. —Rachel Yoder
I regularly wrote about events that Chris Wiersema masterminded, and in doing so we often conversed about music, sound, aesthetics and community. The best way for me to honor Chris’s deeply held beliefs about art and everyday life is by sharing his own words, which I recorded last fall and have edited for this space.
“I think we have a greater chance of discovering paths to empathy by engaging with the unknown—paths that we don’t necessarily have when we go back to the familiar. Engaging with something new is both terrifying and also cathartic, because it can reveal things about the ways we think and process information in real time.
That can make us feel vulnerable, but through doing that, we can also recognize that vulnerability in others. By taking in things fully without the armor of critique and past experience, it creates a path to more positivity.
I mean, I’m a recovering cynic, and so this has been my practice to move away from that. If you have quiet minds that are together and open to what is being presented, I think it engenders an empathy, an understanding of each other’s unique experience and perspective—not just in art, but in the world.” —Chris Wiersema —Kembrew McLeod
Thank you Chris for introducing Magik Markers, Noxagt, Jack Rose, Lau Nau, Mdou Moctor, Thumbscrew and so many more to Iowa City. Thank you for trusting me to be Jim Jarmusch’s body man when Squrl played at the Yacht Club and asking me to screen films before Damo Suzuki & Bill Orcutt. Thank you for being able to quiet down a raucous crowd and kindly ask them in the most irrefutable way to pay attention. —Phillip Ochs
Technically I was Chris’s uncle (by marriage). But I’m pretty sure he never saw me that way and I never really thought of him as a nephew. I always thought of him as that cool, weird (term of endearment here…) friend everybody should have in their life. And that quick, sharp, perverse sense of humor of his aligned perfectly with mine.
Chris was the perfect house guest. Our favorite. He had this ability to fade into the wood work, only appearing when needed, to flip an album, share a drink, or talk about books and films. We shared some good times (and laughs) around our dinner table.
Feed Me Weird Things was not just a project for Chris. It was his mission statement. Chris was the guy who could find those amazing, often eclectic, rays of light in a sometimes dark world. He turned me on to a lot of wonderfully strange things over the years, certainly music. From Grinderman to Moondog, and finding for me a rare dub album album that I thought I’d never own… they all have pride of place in my collection.
The world is a little less weird and strange, now that Chris has tripped the light fantastic into the sweet hereafter. The Too Much Fun Club has lost a charter member. And I, like many of you, am profoundly sad. That’s the way it goes when people get ripped out of our lives for reasons that never get fully explained. But my life would be even sadder and poorer, if I had never known Chris. And it’s the memories, the music, and the wicked laughs we shared that I will take forward and know my life was better for having him in it. Sail on, Chris, sail on. —David Fulgham
This article was originally published in Little Village’s April 2024 issue.
