Gem Jones Exhaust (Night-People Records) gemjonesia.bandcamp.com The latest EP from Gem Jones, Exhaust, is a brief study in juxtaposition. At only 19 minutes, Jones milks Exhaust for every second; vacillating wildly between light-hearted pop romps and intense aural assaults. Yet Jones finds a nice balance, keeping the effervescent material exciting with kamikaze guitar attacks or […]
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Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: Samuel Locke Ward- 7 AM New Year’s Day
Samuel Locke Ward 7 AM New Year’s Day samuellockeward.bandcamp.com The normally prolific Samuel Locke Ward, no longer content with releasing two recordings per year, has embarked on an ambitious project: write, record and release an album each month for a year. On his first shot across the bow, 7 AM New Year’s Day, Locke Ward […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Talking Movies: The Lincoln of Yore
In 1975, Henry Fonda gave a retrospective interview to the BBC about his career up to that point. When asked about his reaction to being suggested for the title role in John Ford’s 1939 film Young Mr. Lincoln, he said that his initial response was simply fear. Playing Lincoln, Fonda suggested, was “like playing God.” […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The Stage: Interview: William Missouri Downs
Riverside Theatre is now featuring William Missouri Downs’s play The Exit Interview (directed by Ron Clark), showing Jan. 25-Feb. 17 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. The play is about a professor who’s just lost his job, a sanctimonious university administrator and the colorful cast of characters who interrupt their interview. Recently, playwright Bill Downs […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Iowa City Weekender: January 31 – February 2
Hello and welcome to another edition of the Weekender. I know there were a lot of things cancelled today because of the weather. For those of us that got to stay in, it was a great day for doing a whole lot of nothing. There’s some great stuff coming up this weekend, but in the […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The Tube: The Price of Choice
In the first installment of a two-part series on a la carte television, A.C. Hawley asks if viewers can expect to save money by moving away from traditional cable packages and toward purchasing individual channels online. At the beginning of this year, Internet and business circles buzzed with discussion about a new television project being […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Prairie Pop
Prairie Pop: The World was a Song..Then it all Went Wrong – Review of Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables
In 1915, American opera singer Mary Case took to the stage and sang alongside phonograph recordings of her own voice. She was Thomas Edison’s favorite singer, so the story goes, and she was participating in a massive series of promotions for Edison’s phonograph and record company that became known as the Tone Tests. The purpose […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Hot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: Electron Configurations
When light collides with an electron, the electron’s trajectory is immediately altered. The collisions can be measured, plotted on graphs, connected like constellations. by Kyle Laws I. It might have happened on a Tuesday. Maybe a Sunday night after the weekend had lost its momentum. They might have been high together for the first time, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Community: Iowa Humane Alliance is Sheltering the Multitude
As I sit down to talk to Mary Blount, executive director of the Iowa Humane Alliance, a gray cat slinks its way across her lap and nuzzles against her shoulder. Blount’s reaction to the animal is automatic as she slides her hand down its back and uncrosses her legs so it can more easily […]
Posted inCommunity/News
American Reason: Foreign Policy: To Serve And Protect?
In light of the upcoming changes in President Obama’s cabinet as well as the United Nation’s recent estimate of 60,000 deaths in the ongoing conflict in Syria, this is the time to discuss the future of U.S. foreign policy. In this months edition of American Reason, we ask whether or not the U.S. should act as […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Your Town Now: A treaty to end competition between Iowa City, Coralville and North Liberty.
The collective brass of the Iowa City-Coralville-North Liberty Commerce Triangle are hard at work on a landmark economic policy charter to be known as the Community Business Attraction and Anti-Piracy Compact. A lofty title for what some believe to be little more than a misguided protectionist reaction to the giant sucking sound emanating from the […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Chicken Little Reviews Clinton Street Social Club
Tucked into the busy lineup of Clinton Street storefronts, wedged between two other doorways, an unassuming red awning marks the entrance to one of the city’s newer and more exciting dining establishments, the Clinton Street Social Club. This elusive entrance opens to a flight of stairs that lead up to the second floor. This obscure […]
