This weekend at Gabe’s, the Firecracker 500 Festival is back! Twenty-five bands from Iowa City, Chicago, Tennessee, Alabama and other primarily midwestern spots will be creating enough noise to make your ears bleed for weeks. Beginning in 1997, the original Firecracker 500 featured The Exotics, The Delstars and Iowa City’s own The Bent Scepters (who […]
Things to do in Iowa City
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Talking Movies: Forty Years of The Godfather
Forty years ago, throughout the spring and summer of 1972, a mob movie was making a killing at the box office, which was something of a surprise to its production company. Paramount had wanted Sergio Leone, of spaghetti-western fame, to direct it. They settled for a fairly young director whose biggest success at the time […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Hot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof, June/July 2012: The Bird
By Chelsea Bacon It might have been a bird. It hit the house with a soft thud, shuffled on the porch, and flitted away quickly as it came. It could have been a bat; it would have made no difference. It was aimless. It interjected into a cold Iowa evening, without meaning or significance, an […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
A-List: Insects: A Collection in Multiple Dimensions
Insects: A Collection in Multiple Dimensions By Kevin Chamberlain Old Capitol Museum Open May through July | FREE We’ve all been to museums featuring bug collections, but the current exhibit in the Old Capital Museum takes the idea a step further. University of Iowa graduate student, Kevin Chamberlain is a third-year MFA candidate with a […]
Posted inFood & Drink
The Hops: Pabst Blue Ribbon
For me, summer is synonymous with lawn mowing and lawnmower lager. As a kid, my summer breaks were spent playing basketball in the driveway and mowing lawns up and down my block. I mowed a neighbor’s lawn just about every day. The heat was oppressive and sometimes the grass was ankle-deep and littered with (doomed) […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
On the Scene: Iowa City Comedy
Rocks glasses, tumblers, coffee mugs and notebooks. Lots of notebooks. It’s a common scene at one of Iowa City’s open mic nights, where aspiring comedians try out new material. As a comedy lover and Iowa City resident I am happy to take a few bombs alongside the new favorite jokes because I love that there […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Iowa City Weekender: June 21-23
Happy solstice, everyone. As of yesterday, summer has officially begun, and boy, was it a hot one. Know what else is hot? The events lined up for this weekend! We’d better just get started… THURSDAY Everyday/Everynight w. Slip Silo, Melismatics // The Mill // 9:00 PM // $7 Everyday/Everynight released their first album, Moon Phases […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Iowa Opera House Project brings Old Venues Back to Life + Free Music Download
Iowa was a lonely place not that long ago. The 19th century saw its quiet prairie oceans replaced with cultivated fields as diligent settlers traipsed westward across the continent. Railroad companies would soon lay down steel tracks across the state, ushering in new waves of settlers looking to call Iowa their home. Farmers’ loneliness would […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
LVTV | Groove Theory on Little Village Live! // 6/13/2012
Iowa City’s very own Groove Theory playing live at Public Space One on June 13. —- Part I Part II “Groove Theory is a contemporary jazz ensemble from modest beginnings in the small college town of Iowa City, IA. Dedicated to original compositions, Groove Theory has placed a […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Iowa City Readings: June 19 – 22
Hello Iowa City readers, writers and bibliophiles – this sweltering week in the middle of June is the perfect week for you. A fantastic selection of readings are coming your way in the next few days, and whether you’re a veteran of Iowa City’s long tradition of literary readings, or you’ve been timidly waiting on […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Review: Moonface at the Mill – June 17, 2012
Moonface isn’t normally the kind of music that makes you want to get up and dance. But at their show on Sunday at the Mill, I found myself shuffling, nodding, swaying … riding a crescendo of sound that culminated in the closest approximation to “dancing” this non-dancer can manage. Yeah, it was that kind of […]
