Patrick MacCready was a music-curious kid, but he didn’t take well to traditional music education. “I grew up in Pella and got guitar lessons from a local shop. I found it too scary, and I actually had a falling out with an instructor in the school band because the instruction part was too scary for […]
Iowa musicians
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‘Gorgeous gangsta’ Soe Heartlesz honed her rap persona after a high school breakup
Quad Cities emcee Soe Heartlesz — “The Gorgeous Gangsta” and “Rap President of Peoria” — is a 36-year-old mother of five who recently won the Iowa Music Awards Female Rapper of the Year. After performing on dozens of stages around the Midwest over the past two decades, she’s maintaining her momentum with Cardiac Arrest, a […]
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‘You’re My Waterloo’: How a very 1982 tourism song became a Cedar Valley sensation
In 1982, the inaugural My Waterloo Days Festival was held as a celebration of the beginning of the summer. Replete with a parade, laser light shows and hot air balloons, it was a special event seeking to foster community bonding amid economic strife. John Deere was seeing mass layoffs, the Rath Packing Company was on […]
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Ukulele maestro Andrew Hoyt is ‘bringing the fancy wine to the party’ with his new EP, Wooly’s release party
Des Moines singer-songwriter Andrew Hoyt isn’t letting the stress get to him. Not the stress that comes with debuting (and having entirely paid for) his first all-original EP of music, Kind of Paradise. Or the anxiety in planning the upcoming album release show at Wooly’s, the first time he’s headlined said venue. Sure that stress […]
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Spring brings a shower of music releases from Mission Creek performers, a family band in Des Moines and more
Last week saw a slew of new singles, fresh videos and premiering music projects from local artists. Is it the spirit of spring? Artists capitalizing on the build-up to festival season? Whatever the reason, it’s left a lot to catch up on. Let’s round it up!
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Iowa Blues Hall of Fame inducts Eddie Bowles, John Resch, Turk E. Krause and Scott Long
The blues. An evocative word used more than two centuries ago by John James Audubon when he wrote to his wife that he “had the blues.” Before that, the first written reference was in English playwright George Colman’s 1798 Blue Devils, most likely a term filtering down from the 1600s referring to “intense visual hallucinations […]
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As xBk expands, Tobi Parks is doubling down on her mission to uplift local talent
When Tobi Parks opened a 250-capacity music venue in Des Moines’ Drake neighborhood in 2019, she was enacting her plan B. “I think it always goes back to this idea: I was a musician [and] when I first started it was always like, yeah, you can be a musician but always have a plan B, […]
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Greg Brown, Iowa’s contribution to folk music mythology, reflects before retirement
The term roots is often used to describe unadorned country and folk music — though it is sometimes invoked without much thought about its deeper, more resonant connotations. But by examining the life of Iowa’s most well-known purveyor of this tradition, Greg Brown, we can better understand how it is ingrained in history, culture and […]
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Good Morning Midnight’s Charlie Cacciatore knew he ‘made it’ when he snagged a job at Record Collector
“I went to Catholic school in Des Moines, and I guess my way of rebelling was to be a total snob about records,” said Good Morning Midnight frontman Charlie Cacciatore. “Some people are in debate and others play tennis, and me and my friends survived in that ecosystem by taking on that kind of identity. […]
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Twenty for 2020: Songs that shaped Iowa’s sonic landscape
This is not a “best of.” For a brief moment, I thought I would try to collect the best songs of 2020 from Iowa artists. But there are too many fantastic releases this year that are on Bandcamp, and the only way I can make a mix is on Spotify. So I’m hamstrung. Once I […]
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Art in the time of COVID-19: Anthony Worden
This series, Art in the time of COVID-19, highlights musicians and artists in eastern Iowa whose life and work have been upended by the spread of the novel coronavirus in the state. If you would like to recommend someone to be featured in this space, please reach out to Little Village. Anthony Worden, Guitarist Anthony […]
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Art in the time of COVID-19: Miss Christine
This series, Art in the time of COVID-19, highlights musicians and artists in eastern Iowa whose life and work have been upended by the spread of the novel coronavirus in the state. If you would like to recommend someone to be featured in this space, please reach out to Little Village. Christine Moad, Singer/Songwriter The […]
