Crystal City is hitting its decade mark as a band this year, and it shows. Sam Drella and Dave Helmer have a tight sound together that could only come from an instinct for each other born in synchronicity, honed through familiarity and sparked to life by a mutual joy in experimentation. The Iowa City duo bill the band they front as “heartland rock and roll,” […]
Crystal City’s first two albums — ‘Change’ (2014) and ‘Bartenderly’ (2017) — drew from Paul Westerberg’s playbook. They shared his penchant for ramshackle punk and glistening, soaring pop — the electric and acoustic, the sad and hopeful. […]
Blow off some steam before the holiday hits! Head to Gabe’s Saturday night, Dec. 23, for Black Christmas: a night of rock and roll featuring Crystal City, The Gentle, and Otros Outros. […]
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Iowa City band Crystal City’s newest record Bartenderly molds midwestern milieu into 17 tracks of honest-to-goodness barroom rockers and ballads — the kind not heard from perhaps since the Replacements dragged their lager-soaked poetry to the masses. It’s clear that Dave Helmer and Sam Drella worship at the Temple of Westerberg with their loose and quick first-take don’t-look-back approach to chugging rock and roll. […]
Have you heard the one about two New Yorkers and an Icelander traveling halfway across the country together? It’s not really a set-up to a good joke, but it is a good set-up for Friday night’s show at Public Space One, which will feature the music of Icelandic musician HEK, New York’s Julianne Mason and Luke Spartacus, as well as Iowa City’s own Crystal City and The Men from … Beyond. […]
Little Village Issue 323
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Rec'd 2023
