As an outsider looking in, Iowa might be mistaken for a cultural desert. As someone who’s lived most of their life outside of the state, that’s largely how I viewed it. My mother was born in Elk Horn, but I began my time on Earth some 1,400 miles northwest of Shelby County. And it’s been […]
Mike Watt
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Meet Sam Locke Ward, Iowa City’s pop music MacGyver
Since the time Samuel Locke Ward grew up in relative isolation on a family farm in Iowa, he has taken the road less traveled at every turn. With a preternatural talent for crafting earworm hooks and catchy melodies, the prolific musician could very well have beaten a path to Nashville or Los Angeles and developed […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Album Review: SLW + BBJR — ‘Bubblegum Necropolis EP’
Bubblegum Necropolis EP by SLW + BBJR Iowa is beautiful: a land of verdant cornfields, ball diamonds, quaint small towns and Shire-like rolling hills. But the realities of life are grim: the mask of “Iowa nice” all too often hides a deep core of red-state intolerance. Those acres of corn are nurtured by chemicals that […]
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: SLW cc Watt — ‘Real Manic Time’
Real Manic Time by SLW cc Watt Being Iowa City’s — scratch that, Iowa’s — most prolific songwriter for years, you would think it would be hard to keep surprising people. While most of us gorged on trashy Netflix documentaries or started and stopped fad hobbies to fill in for the lack of human contact, […]
