In the classic Destiny’s Child song “Say My Name,” the protagonist suspects that her man is cheating on her because his voice has changed: “Every other word is ‘uh huh,’ ‘yeah,’ ‘okay.’ Could it be that you are at the crib with another lady?” The woman, voiced by Beyoncé, demands reassurance through spoken language. Fully rejecting the idea that “actions speak louder than words,” Beyoncé argues for the importance of words themselves and the voices that speak them. Who else is there? What is your voice hiding? And why can’t you just say my name?
Prairie Pop
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Prairie Pop: Jonathan Richman’s playground punk
Most proto-punk legends don’t write songs like “I’m a Little Dinosaur” or “Ice Cream Man,” but Jonathan Richman isn’t your typical rock ‘n’ roll dude. Since forming The Modern Lovers in 1970, he has made a career out of defying expectations.
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On The Beat: What shows are in store for the winter migration
Iowa City has been pretty quiet over the past few weeks. That tends to be the case when a big chunk of the population migrates to Chicagoland (or wherever), and another chunk goes into hibernation. We all must accept the fact that less people in town means fewer shows. That is not to say that […]
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Prairie Pop: Radiolies? “Truth” in Sound and Storytelling
At the end of September, the podcast Radiolab went in search of “truth.” It was a daunting task, to be sure, but not wholly outside the scope of the program, which bills itself as “a show about curiosity…where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy and human experience.” In essence, it’s a […]
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DOWNLOAD: The “ILLBOARD” Hot 100 playlist – Kembrew’s guide to going (instru)-Mental this Christmas
DOWNLOAD THE PLAYLIST If you’re like me, Christmas songs probably send you into a murderous rage that ends with a trail of bloody reindeer and a decapitated Salvation Army Santa (those incessant ringing BELLS!). Fortunately, I have a plan to combat this musical menace that does not involve bloodshed. What you need is an impenetrable […]
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Prairie Pop: Putting the Mental back in Instrumental
My son Alasdair turns two next month, and lately he has been immersing himself in the wild world of sound. If mom walks up the creaky wooden stairs to his bedroom, he’ll say, “Mommy sound!” Or, when I crack open a PBR, Alasdair points to the can and blurts out, “Daddy sound!” A train whistle […]
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Prairie Pop: Making Music Work – David Byrne on the economics of the music industry
I recently watched David Byrne give a Power Point lecture on the economics of the music industry. That a man with a flair for dramatic presentation, a wisp of a man who famously wore an outrageously large suit in a concert documentary, a punk-rocker who was singing at CBGB’s since before his new collaborator, St. Vincent, […]
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Prairie Pop: The Chump and the Champ
At the beginning of his professional boxing career, Cassius Clay was primarily known for winning an Olympic gold medal and possessing a loud mouth. Most sportswriters hated him, especially the old guard, who felt he was not properly deferential. The racist treatment by boxing crowds and journalists certainly would have justified Clay throwing his Olympic […]
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Brain Waves: MP3’s and the Science of Sound
“One of nature’s greatest wonders is the ability of the human ear to distinguish among the millions of sounds around us. Each sound has a distinctive pitch, loudness, and quality….these characteristics are determined by the frequency, intensity, and of sound waves which your ears pick up and analyze.” So begins The Science of Sound, a […]
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Prairie Pop: The Iowa roots of the “Paul is dead” hoax
Did you ever hear about the “Paul is dead” rumor, involving the Beatles’ Paul McCartney? Did you know it originated in Iowa? Back in 1969, news spread that he died in a car accident and was secretly replaced by a look- and sound-alike. The story originally appeared in an Iowa college newspaper and fanned out through the counterculture’s
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Prairie Pop: To Hell in a Handbasket – “Paradise Lost” and the story of the West Memphis Three
In 1993, three second grade boys were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas—a deeply conservative community in the heart of the Bible Belt. Naturally, Satanism was blamed and suspicion was cast on a trio of outsiders: Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. “Fears of satanic cults reached their peak last week when the teenagers […]
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Prairie Pop: Black Rain Onslaught – Pitchfork Preview + Interview with Tim Hecker
So, you are a composer and performer whose music requires close listening, preferably in the dark. Your recent Iowa City show at the First United Methodist Church blew the audience away—or, rather, it sucked them into an all-enveloping temporary autonomous zone created with pipe organ and electronics. This aural explosion transported some listeners into the […]
