Talismandala by Shining Realm “Welcome to the Hallucination we call Home,” beckons a calm, steady voice in its echoes and layers of slithering percussion and Eastern-influenced stringed instrument tapestries. Where is home? Well, at least for these 40-odd minutes, that home is the Shining Realm — both an Iowa psychedelic supergroup and a state of […]
Feed Me Weird Things
Posted inEastern Iowa
John’s Grocery fried chicken returns for one night only as part of Chicken Town, a FEaST fundraiser
Many Iowa Citians have had a fried chicken-shaped hole in their lives since John’s Grocery closed its kitchen in early 2022. But this month, they’ll have a chance to fill that void with a two-piece (or two), if they act quickly. The fried chicken that was a staple for University of Iowa students and other […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘We are going to make this a FEaST he’d be fucking proud of’: Chris Wiersema’s deep-listening festival carries on in Iowa City
“Bring the Noise” was a musical mantra popularized by the hip-hop group Public Enemy, and Chris Wiersema lived that aesthetic ideal as Iowa City’s premiere programmer of experimental music and other out-there sounds. Over the past quarter century, he brought hundreds of boundary-breaking artists to town in his myriad roles as a house show promoter, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
In memoriam: Chris Wiersema, curator of the weird and wonderful
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 […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Improvising with her trombone, FEaST performer Kalia Vandever creates ‘music that is reflecting on itself’
Revenge is a dish best served cold, and FEaST is a sonic smorgasbord best consumed with ears wide open. The off-kilter brainchild of Iowa City-based experimental music maker and promotor Chris Wiersema, this annual festival builds on his aptly named Feed Me Weird Things live performance series — which pushes the boundaries of convention in […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Tiny pianos, big ideas: Witching Hour and FEaST bring playful creatives to Iowa City this fall
When Lucy Yao and Dorothy Chan began collaborating with each other and creating as Chromic Duo, both were already experienced educators and performers, looking for a way to foster community and lift up the Asian American diaspora in New York, which at the time was increasingly the target of racist violence. “I think eventually, when […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
HIDE’s Heather Gabel is taking a chainsaw to rape culture
Heather Gabel, one-half of the Chicago-based industrial EDM duo HIDE, has an affinity for the haunting, empowering and confrontational. You may have seen Gabel between flashes of strobe lights and clouds of dry ice in the Yacht Club basement during Mission Creek Festival 2019: glimpses of black-smudged lips yelling
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Psychedelia spirals into the Trumpet Blossom
The term kosmiche expands from the modular, to the jazzy, to screaming, astral-effected guitars and to automaton pastiche. It is this expansive realm where Chicago’s Spiral Galaxy have found their garden to play in.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Louise Bock’s intense dreamscapes
Saturday, May 4 will bring vocalist and instrumentalist Louise Bock to Trumpet Blossom in Iowa City as part of the Feed Me Weird Things listening series. Bock’s unique take on song structure and multi-instrumentality allow her to create soundscapes that are intensely layered.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Egyptian musician Nadah El Shazly on her fight against ‘musical political correctness’
There are songs of great sadness, written in the early 20th century by Egyptian Arabs and recorded mechanically. They’re written in a forgotten style, slightly grating on the ears, but evoking a sense of melancholy and nostalgia. These are the sounds which guide the latest musical ventures of experimental multi-instrumentalist Nadah El Shazly
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Digging up the ‘underground,’ DIY music scene in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids
From singer-songwriters to heavy metal bands, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids breed a wide variety of musical acts. Dozens of artists make up the local music scene, but not many receive the recognition of concert-goers in the area. Naturally, the local DIY scene — united by the “do it yourself” idea that art shouldn’t have barriers to entry, and that anyone, regardless of skill or status, should be free to make art and share it as they please — tends to operate underground while the artists are often shrouded from curious music fans. Some local venue owners are working to change that
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Five questions with: Bill MacKay
Feed Me Weird Things Vol. 3, Edition #11 brings the brilliant guitar improviser Bill MacKay from Chicago to Iowa City on Thursday, Sept. 27. MacKay lives on the unexpected razor’s edge between jazz and experimental folk, stylistically, but his guitar is conversational in a sense typically only associated with the blues.
