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Posted inArts & Entertainment

Art City: Holy places

by Russell Jaffe

Art, like people, often fragments mysteriously, like light into a prism. And that prism can be a little trickier to observe in a place like Iowa City, with its rich art scene that at times can feel equally rich in its inaccessibility to the general public. Where can definite lines of meaning be drawn, if […]

Posted inArts & Entertainment

Your guide to the Firecracker 500 Festival

by Melissa Zimdars

The Fourth of July is right around the corner, and that not only means grilling out, day drinking and illegally setting off fireworks in your yard, but also the return of the Firecracker 500 Festival. For the third consecutive year, Firecracker 500 will feature some of the coolest garage, psych and soul bands both from the midwest and beyond, including a ton of local favorites like The Ills, Lipstick Homicide, Good Habits and Autodramatics. Spanning four nights, the festival’s first half will take place at The Mill ($10 cover each night), but will move to Blue Moose Tap House for both Friday ($12) and Saturday ($15) evenings. Below are a few highlights that attempt to capture the diversity and awesomeness of this year’s line-up.

Posted inArts & Entertainment

Spend the weekend with Seldom Seen

by Drew Bulman

Seldom Seen festival | June 28-29 | Monmouth, Iowa Seldom Seen returns to Mineral Crossing this weekend, and festival organizers have put together their biggest offering to date — by quite a margin, in fact. Since 2011, the quiet 625-acre farm in Monmouth, Iowa has brought people together to camp out and celebrate artistic endeavors […]

Posted inAlbum Reviews

Album Review: Limbs – Diverted Urges

by Kent Williams

I was a little worried by the first song (past the trippy intro) “Roll Like Down,” because it had such a late-90s Matchbox 20/Smashmouth/Sugar Ray sound to it. I could do an entire review-length rant on how much I hate that kind of thing. But there’s more to Limbs than the tunes they heard in mom’s car when they were kids. They also manage to avoid the other godforsaken musical monster of the ‘90s: rap rock. MC and singer Ty James has the rap thing down, but these guys have cooked up something stranger and more interesting.

Posted inFood & Drink

The Hops: Quality assured?

by Casey Wagner

Beer freshness dates are an inconsistent hodgepodge. While brewery A prints a month-day-year bottling date, brewery B prints an internal batch code—a code which only the company can easily decipher—and brewery C does not print any information at all. While some beers benefit from a controlled aging process, many taste best fresh, and a date […]

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