Little Village magazine issue 267: July 3-30, 2019

A L W A Y S

F R E E

ISSUE 267 July 3–30, 2019

METAL MAYHEM Sump Pump Records Closet Witch Dryad Heather Gabel of HIDE

18th th ANNIVERSARY ISSUE!

SPECIAL SUMMER SEASON OPENER

Diana Ross

Diamond Diana Celebration 75th birthday celebration Friday, July 19, 7:30 pm

Urban Bush Women

FREE AND OUTDOORS

Storm Large

TICKETS ON SALE NOW! $10 STUDENT TICKETS AVAILABLE FOR MOST SHOWS

Order online hancher.uiowa.edu Call (319) 335-1160 or 800-HANCHER Accessibility Services (319) 335-1158 RUBBERBANDance

Slingsby Theatre Company, Emil and the Detectives RENT

The Chieftains

UI alumna Luisa Caldwell’s Curtain Call Photo: Miriam Alarcón Avila

2019/2020 SEASON 2019

Audra McDonald

Diana Ross – July 19 Diamond Diana Celebration: 75th birthday celebration Storm Large – September 6 - FREE & OUTDOORS Van Jones – September 10 - FREE Audra McDonald – September 14 Urban Bush Women, Hair & Other Stories – September 21 Los Angeles Guitar Quartet – September 25 RENT – October 4–5 Chick Corea, Trilogy – October 11 Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center – October 13 Culinary Arts Experience: Pullman Diner/St. Burch Tavern October 16 *Tickets on sale September 16 Sankai Juku, Utsushi – October 22 SITI Company, The Bacchae – October 26 Club Hancher: Tomeka Reid Quartet – November 2 Culinary Arts Experience: Trumpet Blossom – November 20 *Tickets on sale October 21 CONTRA-TIEMPO & Las Cafeteras, joyUS, justUS – November 21 Brunch with Santa – December 7 *Tickets on sale November 4 BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet – December 7 A Cajun Christmas Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis Big Band Holidays – December 14

2020 The Color Purple – January 24–25 Miró Quartet and Kiera Duffy, soprano – January 29 Kids Club Hancher: Gina Chavez – February 1 Culinary Arts Experience: University Catering – February 5 Dinner with the Chefs *Tickets on sale January 6

CONTRA-TIEMPO

Rosanne Cash – February 8 RUBBERBANDance Group, Vic’s Mix – February 15

Negin Farsad

Syed Umar Warsi, Amir Safi, and Amal Kassir – February 21 Negin Farsad – February 22 The Actors’ Gang, The New Colossus – February 28–29 The Chieftains, The Irish Goodbye – March 4 Club Hancher: Dreamers’ Circus – March 8 Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater – March 10 Club Hancher: Melissa Aldana Quartet – March 25 Los Angeles Master Chorale, Lagrime di San Pietro – March 28 Beautiful: The Carole King Musical – April 3–4

Rosanne Cash

The Boston Pops On Tour – April 7 Lights, Camera…Music! Six Decades of John Williams ETHEL + Robert Mirabal, The River – April 18 Compagnia TPO, Farfalle – April 24–26 Slingsby Theatre Company, Emil and the Detectives – May 1–2 Danish String Quartet – May 4 Culinary Arts Experience: Maggie’s Farm Wood-Fired Pizza May 6 *Tickets on sale April 6 The Big Splash! – August 14–16 - FREE & OUTDOORS

Discover more at hancher.uiowa.edu Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa sponsored events.If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Hancher in advance at (319) 335-1158.

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DONALD TRUMP TO VLADIMIR PUTIN, ON JOURNALISTS:

“ GET RID

OF THEM.”

JUNE 28, 2019 G20 SUMMIT, OSAKA

JULY 2001 - JULY 2019

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VOL. 27 ISSUE 267 July 3–30, 2019 ALWAYS FREE LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM

DIGITAL DIRECTOR DREW BULMAN ART DIRECTOR JORDAN SELLERGREN MANAGING EDITOR EMMA MCCLATCHEY ARTS EDITOR GENEVIEVE TRAINOR NEWS DIRECTOR PAUL BRENNAN CONTRIBUTING EDITOR ANGELA PICO VISUAL REPORTER—PHOTO ZAK NEUMANN VISUAL REPORTER­—VIDEO JASON SMITH FOOD & DRINK DIRECTOR FRANKIE SCHNECKLOTH DISTRIBUTION GARY GREGORY, TREVOR LEE HOPKINS,

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HIDE and Seek

Heavy Stuff

This Machine Kills Fascists

Anarchic artist (and badass parent) Heather Gabel takes back the night.

Closet Witch is chaotic, scathing, ear-melting music therapy.

Dryad’s Claire on the politics, subgenres and Tolkien-ism of metal.

NATALIE BENWAY & EMMA MCCLATCHEY

DEREK TATE

DAN BOSCALJON

6 - Interactions 9 - Brock About Town 10 - UR Here 12 - En Español 14 - Bread & Butter 18 - Sex & Love

22 - Sump Pump 26 - Closet Witch 30 - A-List 34 - Events Calendar 51 - Your Village 57 - Ad Index

58 - Dear Kiki 59 - Astrology 60 - Local Albums 61 - Local Books 63 - Crossword

BRIAN JOHANNESEN MARKETING COORDINATOR, GRAPHIC DESIGNER JAV DUCKER ADVERTISING ADS@LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM LISTINGS CALENDAR@LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM CONTRIBUTORS NATALIE BENWAY, DANIEL BOSCALJON, AUDREY BROCK, CHRIS BURNS, LEV CANTORAL, THOMAS DEAN, MELANIE HANSON, ELAINE IRVINE, ALEX KRAMER, JOHN MARTINEK, TREY REIS, DEREK TATE, TOM TOMORROW, PAIGE UNDERWOOD, CASEY WAGNER, SAM LOCKE WARD, JOSÉ ZACARIAS, ANGELA ZIRBES SUBMISSIONS EDITOR@LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM DISTRIBUTION REQUESTS DISTRO@LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM CREATIVE SERVICES CREATIVE@LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM CONTACT (319) 855-1474, 623 S DUBUQUE ST, IOWA CITY, IA 52240

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Little Village is an independent, community-supported news and culture publication based in Iowa City. Through journalism, essays and events, we work to improve our community in the Iowa City, Coralville and Cedar Rapids area according to a few core values: environmental sustainability, affordability and access, economic and labor justice, racial justice, gender equity, quality healthcare, quality education and critical culture.

Letters to the editor(s) are always welcome. We reserve the right to fact check and edit for length and clarity. Please send letters, comments or corrections to editor@littlevillagemag.com. Little Village is always free; all contents are the licensed work of the contributor and of the publication.

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Zak Neumann / Little Village

PUBLISHER MATTHEW STEELE

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INTERACTIONS LV encourages community members, including candidates for office, to submit letters to Editor@LittleVillageMag.com. To be considered for print publication, letters should be under 500 words. Preference is given to letters that have not been published elsewhere.

Sen. Grassley says student loan debt helps people ‘appreciate’ their education ‘a little more’ In 1957, the year after Grassley graduated from UNI and the semester system was first instituted there, tuition was $80 per semester—roughly $729 in today’s money. Today, it costs roughly six times that amount ($4329) to attend UNI. To think, he could be a three-wit today. —Jan W.

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And tuition is just one part of the expense. Room & board is expensive, and so are fees. (And UNI is less expensive than ISU and Iowa.) With fewer Pell grants and scholarships, the college expense continues to

skyrocket and has become very problematic for many. Wouldn’t some of our societal problems today be helped if more people had the critical thinking skills, the global perspective and the appreciation of diversity that a college education develops? —Jane D. So sad that baby boomers never had the chance to fully appreciate their educations.

—Preston M.C. I wasted all my student loan money on “booze, women & movies.” —Sue K. The man who has bailed Iowa farmers out so many times over the years now has an issue with bailouts? When it actually helps

HAVE AN OPINION?

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more than just a select few of his constitutes? Grandpa needs to retire. —Alex G. He’s right. If you borrow money to go to school, build a house, buy a car etc, you have to make decisions that will result in you paying the money back. Quite simple.

—David F.

Iowa Board of Regents receives almost meaningless penalty for violating the law in contract talks with UI grad student union A slap on the hand with a feather…

—Bradley G.

How planting prairie strips on Iowa farms could save soil, water, wildlife and money — in-state and beyond Waouh! I love this new spirit to cooperate with Lady Nature! The domination relationship has to let way for partnership relationship! This is the sustainable future!

Congratulations for your insight and courage! —Ingrid S. We need this, urgently. —Kristin J.

IOWA CITY EASTSIDE

Glad to see this, but good luck putting this in practice widely in Iowa before the complete

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267 July 3–30, 2019 7

INTERACTIONS

/LittleVillage

READER POLL: Are dress codes at bars and restaurants a form of discrimination?

42% Yes

58% No

En Español: Becoming fluent in bicycle anatomy at the Bike Library

/LittleVillage

S T R E S S F R A C T U R E S

Gabriel was so much fun to work with.

This piece gave me a fresh perspective on how we as bike librarians can better communicate with patrons coming in to use Rent-A-Bench. We’ve even started putting bikes in the repair stand when someone checkouts a bike so we can talk through some of the different components used to operate the shifting systems. It makes so much more sense when it’s broken down and at eye level. Just like learning a new language. Thanks G! —Iowa City Bike Library

73% Yes

READER POLL: Have you or someone you know been denied entry to a local bar or restaurant based on a dress code?

and utter dismantling of every major farming company. Can’t pass any law or encourage any responsible farming practices in a state whose government acts as a wing of Monsanto and their corporate interests. —Sam B.

27% No

JOHN

MARTINEK

Iowa City wants to address possible discriminatory use of dress codes at bars and restaurants This is all so true. Many times people of color are denied entry for wearing certain clothes or having even a chain on their necks. And even worse, people of color are denied entry for certain attire while white people are let in while wearing the same clothes. —Javon D. I have been with white friends who have been denied entrance to bars based on them wearing a white T-shirt. We went to a different bar where they don’t give a damn. Don’t look back, there are dozens of other bars in Iowa City. You all can research it all you want. Those bars and restaurants reserve the right to refuse service… Get over it. —Joshua

Binky for joy! The Iowa City Animal Center is full of bunnies Thank you for this article! Bunnies are wonderful pets. I met all these bunnies last week while visiting the shelter and they were so good-natured and deserve great homes. I even got a kiss from Phoebe :) If I didn’t already have two bunnies, I would have taken her (and the rest) home with me. —Gina B. 8 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

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I

s it me, or are tensions running especially high in Iowa City right now? No, it’s definitely not me—there is a decidedly gloomy air among the populace. I think it’s the weather. Every other day, there’s a torrential downpour, but it still never gets any cooler. (Take that, climate change deniers!) There are 237 Democratic presidential candidates to keep track of, the price of báhn mì is going up and there’s a big, muddy hole in the center of town.

Of all these problems, the last is the only one with a definite end date. The Ped Mall is supposed to be completely refurbished by November of this year. It may seem like a long time, but time flies when you’re decorating. The price we’ve paid for a sleeker-looking downtown with no loose bricks is several dozen whimsical park benches painted by local artists. I say we jazz the place up a bit in true Iowa City style: with a completely government-unapproved community art installation. Here are some of my ideas: • An 11-foot-tall PBR can, crumpled as if on the head of a freelance DJ who spins altpop-crustpunk and wants to make sure you know he’s doing this ironically.

• A statue of Flannery O’Connor. She went here, right? She’s famous. Why not?

• Yarn-bombing, but garbage cans instead of trees. At this point, I’m just spitballing.

Seriously, anything’s better than another Herky statue.

And last but not least, a massive shrine to Mr. Rogers, patron saint of disillusioned millennials, who make up a majority of our population. Yes, this shrine will have candles and disturbingly personal memorabilia, but it will also have a box, much like the one you got this magazine from, except more … bedazzled. In this box, we will leave food and clothes and other supplies for those in need.

I think this is the best option, not just because I’m a goody two-shoes who still occasionally watches Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, but also because that’s who we are. Even though the planet is melting and there are seriously bad things happening around the country and we’re maybe a little frustrated with our own lives, Iowa City cares. Ugh, corny, I know, but I have to get it out there—you guys are great. And yes, this whole article was just me, buttering you all up so I can solicit some advice on my hair. It’s sooo frizzy, you guys. I might as well just be wearing a clown wig. What do I do?

––Audrey Brock LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267 July 3–30, 2019 9

al Lev Cantor

LITTLE VILLAGE

Mr. Roger’s Ped Mall

COMMUNITY

LittleVillageMag.com

UR Here

Summer of Anticipation and Aftermath An underrated part of festivals: the hours surrounding the festival.

BY THOMAS DEAN

A

s someone easily overwhelmed by crowds and sensory overload (and more so as I age), I can find Iowa City’s wonderful summer festivals a challenge. I have many times enjoyed the tunes, charts and riffs flowing from the stages of the Iowa City Jazz Festival. I have often parked my camp chair on the Pedestrian Mall on Friday night for more music under the stars (or vapors of humidity). I have wandered from tent to tent at the Iowa Arts Festival to take in the visual delights of paintings, wood carvings and jewelry. But I can take only so much, to be honest, before the buzzing in my head becomes unbearable or the teeming mass of humanity makes me feel the world is closing in on me.

Shortly before I wrote this column, I headed to work on the University of Iowa Pentacrest on a lovely Friday early morning. Downtown streets were already closed, and workers were assembling white tents up and down the deserted thoroughfares for the 2019 Iowa Arts Fest. A few food trucks and trailers were already parked on Iowa Avenue. Only a few signs for information booths and for a vendor or two were arising. I realized that this is probably my favorite part of a summer festival: its assemblage on quiet streets the day before the big show begins.

Anticipation is often more enjoyable than the actual event: not an unusual idea. For those who celebrate, think of Christmas. Even as a kid, I soon realized what I loved most about the season was getting ready for the big day: trimming the tree, listening to music, watching TV holiday specials, buying and wrapping presents I bought for family members on my meager allowance. I feel something similar as I wander the transforming streets of downtown Iowa City while the scaffolding for a big community celebration takes shape.

Similarly, I relish those moments after all is said and done. The days following Christmas return to quiet, a more pastel shade of the vibrant hoopla still lingering, memory of what has passed settling in after

10 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

2015 Jazz Fest. Britt Fowler / Little Village

the intense experience has made its performance. One of my favorite parts of Saturday Night Live is the closing “good night” segment when, as the credits roll, the cast and guests wander the stage, many stripped of their costumes and attired in T-shirts and jeans, hugging and high-fiving each other, ready to go home or go out and unwind as the camera pans backward through the band and then out of the studio past the mock Grand Central Station clock, announcing a few minutes after 1 a.m.

Likewise, as with my treks to my office before a festival, I also enjoy wandering the aftermath, the celebratory energy now spent, the stages and tents coming down, the streets being tidied up. All of these carry with them a special milieu of rest, relief, repose and recollection.

Communities are built and thrive on process as well as product—perhaps even more so.

Whether it’s a summer festival, the university’s Dance Marathon, the Ped Mall renovation or deciding on a new crosswalk somewhere in town, we take joy in the big event or the completed project, but the strength of our social capital is largely built through the process of getting there. Maybe that’s what I’m seeing and feeling on those mornings before and after: the emblems of deep community realized through constructing our social ties and big

(and everyday) achievements more than the cool factor of the final product that lands us on the myriad “best town” lists Iowa City proudly promotes.

If I don’t attend any of the Summer of the Arts fests, the Downtown Block Party or other big to-dos, by choice or by circumstance, my regret, if any, is fleeting. But if I miss the electricity of anticipation or the sigh of relief the day before or after as the white tents and stages go up or down, I feel I’ve really lost out on something.

When this column appears in print, our community will be preparing for the Iowa City Jazz Festival, July 5-7. I may or may not see you downtown or on the Pentacrest as talented musicians jam up and down Clinton Street and Iowa Avenue. But if you walk the streets of downtown Iowa City the day before as the tents, stages and concessions are being set up, you’ll likely run into me wandering there in the morning and at the end of the workday as I head home. Our community connection may be a little stronger as we encounter each other amidst the assembly rather than just the execution of something that makes our town a wonderful place to live.

Thomas Dean always loved rehearsals more than concerts when he was a band geek in school.

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En Español

La Abuela Virginia y el Tío Abelino POR JOSÉ ZACARIAS

D

oña Virginia Zamora nació en el año (de Dios) de 1902 en la Ciudad de México y murió 84 años más tarde. La Señora fumaba dos cajetillas diarias de cigarros. Leía ávidamente—sin usar lentes—y, hasta el final de sus días, mantuvo su lucidez mental. Juraba haber sido testigo de algunos episodios de la Revolución Mexicana y entretenía a media docena de nietos con historias de batallas y “trenes que mi General Pancho Villa llevaba y traía por todo el Norte de México, asediando al General Carranza y a las tropas federales, sin darles tregua alguna.”

Unas de sus aserciones fueron posteriormente corroboradas por el Tío Abelino Martínez, primo hermano de mi abuela materna y fiel custodio de la honra de mi madre, cuando mi padre decidió “salir hacia el Norte” para poder sostener a su familia.

En una de tantas visitas a la casa paterna, Don Abelino se sentó a platicar con los nietos, y contaba—una de sus tantas historias—de aquella ocasión en que, por primera vez, la población local tuvo la

12 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

oportunidad de conocer un tren.

Cientos de gentes se habían congregado en los alrededores de la estación local, recién construida, y acarreaban con ellos mocosos de todas edades, ancianos y perros. Todo mundo hablaba de algo que nadie había visto; por fin, cercano al mediodía, se oyó en la distancia el silbato de la máquina: la gente se levantó tratando de ver a lo lejos de qué se trataba. Un segundo silbato siguió al primero, el suelo comenzó a temblar y lo que un segundo antes había sido emoción, se convirtió de pronto en pánico: la gente comenzó a gritar y correr en todas direcciones, dejando atrás a pequeños y gente anciana.

“Aquello era un monstruo que nadie jamás había visto,” dijo Don Abelino. “Cimbraba la tierra y asustaba a gentes y animales; el silbato podía escucharse a leguas de distancia.”

Pasado el susto inicial, desembarcaron los soldados villistas. Las míticas Adelitas comenzaron a cocinar frijoles y “echar tortillas” para el almuerzo de las tropas.

No teniendo más que hacer, los soldados se entretenían disparando sus pistolas apuntando a las gallinas y pavos, tratando de volarles las cabezas. Aquí Don Abelino hizo una pausa para recalcar que el General Pancho Villa, viendo que nadie acertaba a matar ningún animal, se abrió paso entre los soldados, se perfiló y sin más drama, disparó su pistola. Con una sonrisa amplia y burlona les dijo a los

18 soldados: “Váyanse a comer frijoles, eso sí lo saben hacer cabrones.”

Allá, en la distancia, corría un pavo sin cabeza por todas partes.

Grandmother Virginia and Uncle Abelino

BY JOSÉ ZACARIAS TRANSLATED BY ANGELA PICO

D

oña Virginia Zamora was born in the year (of our lord) 1902 in Mexico City and died 84 years later. The lady smoked two packs of cigarettes daily. She read avidly— without eyeglasses—and, until the end of her lifetime, remained lucid. She swore she had witnessed some events from the Mexican Revolution, and she entertained half a dozen grandchildren with stories from battles and “trains that my General Pancho Villa led back and forth throughout Northern Mexico, besieging General Carranza and the federal troops, without giving them any respite.”

Some of her assertions were corroborated afterwards by Tío Abelino Martínez, who was my maternal grandmother’s first cousin and loyal keeper of my mother’s honor after my father decided to “leave for the North” to support his family.

In one of his many visits to his father’s house, Don Abelino sat with the grandchildren and told a story—one of thousands—of the time in which the local people had the opportunity to see a train for the first time.

Hundreds of people had gathered in the surrounding areas of the local station, recently built, and dragged brats of all ages, old people and dogs. They all spoke of something no one had seen; at last, close to midday, the machine’s whistle was heard in the distance. From afar, the people stood up, attempting to see what it was all about. A second whistle followed, the ground began to shake and what had been excitement but a second ago suddenly turned into fear. The people began to scream and run all over the place, leaving behind the children and the elderly.

“That thing was a monster no one had ever seen,” Don Abelino said. “It made the earth tremble and scared the people and the animals; the whistle could be heard from miles away.”

Once the initial shock was gone, the Villa soldiers landed. The legendary Adelitas began cooking beans and “throwing tortillas” for the troops’ lunch.

To kill time, the soldiers entertained themselves by firing their guns at chickens and turkeys, trying to blow their heads off. At this point, Don Abelino paused to highlight the fact that General Pancho Villa had noticed that no one managed to kill any animal, so he made his way among the soldiers, positioned himself and, without any fuss, shot his pistol. With a wide and cocky smile he said to his soldiers: “Go eat your beans, that’s something you can actually do, you bastards.”

In the distance, a headless turkey ran amok.

José Zacarias has lived in West Liberty since 1984. He was a member of the West Liberty City Council and School Board. In his free time, he cooks, plays pool and talks with everyone.

Angela Pico is Little Village’s En Español editor and has an MFA in Spanish Creative Writing from the University of Iowa.

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BREAD & BUTTER

Iowa brewers are working hard to protect their main ingredient.

BY CASEY WAGNER

A

ccording to Iowa brewers, a beer is only as good as the water used to make it.

Inside West O Beer’s taproom in West Okoboji is a poster that proudly states, “To us, the water is a really big deal.”

West O owner Matthew Matthiesen said the poster has been there since the taproom opened, emphasizing how important clean water is to the brewery not only to make award-winning beer, but also for the economy in Iowa’s Great Lakes region. Good water means good beer—and boating, fishing and swimming on the lakes.

Though Matthiesen said it would take something catastrophic to make his water supply unsuitable for drinking and brewing, he is paying attention to the state’s ongoing struggle with agricultural runoff and its effect on waterways. It is something other Iowa brewers are doing as well to ensure that the most important ingredient in their product is safe to use.

“If we don’t have good quality water, we can’t make quality beer,” Kent Ball, the head of quality at Iowa City’s Big Grove Brewery, said.

David Cwiertny, a University of Iowa professor of civil and environmental engineering and the director of the Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination, wishes the water in Iowa’s streams, rivers and lakes was better. Thanks to a complex mix of chemicals being applied to cropland, especially phosphorus and nitrogen, Cwiertny said Iowa’s waterways are “bearing the brunt of our agricultural intensification.” Although U.S. waters may not appear as dirty as they did in earlier decades (he cited the fires on Ohio’s Cuyahoga River in the 1970s, caused by pollution), the problems are still there.

“There are still challenges today that we need to take more seriously,” he said.

Chris Jones, a research engineer with IIHR—Hydroscience and Engineering center at the University of Iowa’s College of Engineering, said that while the level of phosphorus in Iowa’s waterways has remained steady, the amount of nitrogen has

14 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

increased 75 percent since 1999. The presence of both in Iowa’s water not only causes problems downstream, where algae blooms lead to a low-oxygen dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, they also cause problems at the local level. Water treatment plants need to remove the chemicals from the water, and algae blooms can make the state’s lakes and rivers unsuitable for recreation.

So far, though, brewers say they have not been affected. They are concerned, saying

Jordan Sellergren / Little Village

Helles or High Water

LittleVillageMag.com/Dining

they would like to see increased use of prairie buffer strips and cover crops and the restoration of wetlands to control and naturally filter runoff. But they voice confidence in the state’s water treatment facilities and the technology at their breweries to keep their main ingredient clean and useable.

While phosphorus and nitrogen unintentionally taint the state’s waterways, brewers are more concerned about a chemical intentionally added to water by treatment plants to kill bacteria: chlorine. Filtration systems that remove chlorine are commonplace at Iowa’s breweries.

Chlorine stresses yeast, resulting in a smoky, plastic flavor, according to Quinton McClain, the director of brewing operations at Cedar Rapids’ Lion Bridge Brewing Company. That’s why Lion Bridge uses a carbon filter to remove chlorine from the city’s water before brewing.

John Martin, president and head brewer at Des Moines’ Confluence Brewing Company, said he is blessed to work with Des Moines Water Works water, but the brewery still uses a carbon filter to remove chlorine. He said his employees often fill growlers with the brewery’s water because it tastes so much better than what they have coming out of the tap at home.

Martin said he has had no problems with Des Moines’ water and is confident the city’s treatment facility filters out everything that should not be there. However, he said the state’s water quality is something he is not only watching, but also working to improve. Confluence recently partnered with Confluence, a landscape architecture company with the same name, to release Local Cause Belgian White, whose net proceeds will benefit Iowa Rivers Revival, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting Iowa’s rivers and streams.

West O is also involved in the effort to improve Iowa’s water. Matthiesen said the brewery donates a portion of its proceeds to help preserve and protect the natural resources in the Iowa Great Lakes region. West O also donates 20 percent of the profits from Tuesday evenings over the 12 weeks of summer to a local nonprofit. A different organization is chosen each week; Matthiesen said Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, a stateowned facility that provides science classes and research opportunities to university students, was the first to benefit this year.

Martin said everyone has a hand in taking care of the waterways and trying not to pollute—something Big Grove’s Ball has taken to heart. Ball said he is very cognizant of the brewery’s impact on local waterways. Big Grove, which uses a reverse osmosis system to ensure the beer brewed at its locations in Solon and Iowa City is consistent, uses as little water as possible and reuses what it can.

Yeast and spent grain are repurposed as animal feed so neither contribute to the nitrates already leaking into the state’s water.

“We are all about good quality water in Iowa,” Martin said.

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HEATHER IS HERE HIDE’s voracious vocalist on finding ‘the rawest, most honest version’ of herself.

BY NATALIE BENWAY AND EMMA MCCLATCHEY

18 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

Zak Neumann / Little Village

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eather 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 “Bound/severed, a martyr to whomever”; of blood dripping from thin cuts on her torso; of a silver lock glinting on a black chastity belt.

Gabel has made art virtually her whole life, but HIDE—featuring Gabel as vocalist and Seth Sher as percussionist—was an exciting new project for the artist. Gabel was raised primarily in Michigan, just outside of Detroit, and earned a bachelor’s in fine arts degree from Columbia College Chicago. Gabel is also the parent to Evelyn, a Nine-Inch-Nailsloving 9-year-old.

Elements of Gabel’s visual art can be found in HIDE’s abrasive lyrics, sound and shows as well, including a Gothic tinge and a subversive view of femininity. “Just because something is lovely,” Gabel said of the female form, “doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have power.”

We caught up with Gabel in a phone interview ahead of HIDE’s July 18 show at Trumpet Blossom Café (and the release of the duo’s second full-length album, Hell is Here, on Aug. 23, with L.A.’s Dais Records), to discuss parenthood, “penis envy” and a prevailing theme in Gabel’s work: toxic masculinity.

EM: Could you tell us a little about your life before HIDE? What influenced you as an artist? My first job out of college was graphic design for a band. I was still doing my own work, touring in group shows, still doing photography, doing paintings. I moved to Oakland and that’s when I started doing more collages. I guess I was starting to get sick of making things for other people.

Then I met someone and I fell in love, and I moved to Florida, and we got married and had a baby. My partner was in a band and still doing everything they were doing before

Feed Me Weird Things: HIDE, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, Thursday, July 18, 9 p.m., Free-$8

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we were married and had a kid and I just wasn’t able to anymore. It was the catalyst for me, sort of like exploding into my own self, in a way. Having my daughter made me realize, this person is watching everything that I’m doing, and I am their example. All the bullshit fell away, and I could see what was really important to me, and how important it was to be the rawest, most honest version of myself in my work, the way that I lived my life, everything.

The band started four years ago, right after I moved to Chicago and separated from my partner at the time. I had never been in a band before. I was kind of freaked out at the idea of it, but that’s what was exciting about it to me. I’ve always been an interdisciplinary artist, but I needed something more visceral at the time. There were times when the only time I felt OK was when I was working on art. The band kind of came out of that.

EM: What are you processing through your music? These are all things that make me feel bad or angry, speaking generally: patriarchy, misogyny, racism, police brutality, inequalities, transphobia, every sort of bad thing you can think of. We have an EP [Black Flame] that’s all about human rights violations in Iran and specifically about this woman Reyhaneh Jabbari, who was hung for allegedly killing someone who was trying to rape her. The single off our new record is “Chainsaw”—I didn’t write the lyrics [“Smile / You’re too good for me? / Bitch / You’re too ugly for me anyways / Bitch / How much? / Fuck you then”], they are things men have yelled at me on the streets, sometimes when I’m with my daughter. Recontextualizing that and using that as a way to make a statement about rape culture in our society and how that contributes to people dying.

EM: I saw the music video for “Chainsaw” and it was very moving, obviously a little disturbing, to hear those words over video of a child. And then all the interspersed images of women who were raped and murdered last year—one was an Iowan, Celia Barquin Arozamena, so that of course stopped my breath, too. I’m guessing that’s kind of the reaction you were hoping to provoke? It’s filmed just around my neighborhood where I’ve been verbally assaulted with my daughter. We just walked around the neighborhood and filmed [my friend and her daughter]—just like normal stuff you would do with your kid, like

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CULTURE going to the park, walking down the street.

It’s almost a banal situation.

Evelyn knows what sexual harassment is; she’s 9 years old. She understands this stuff because she’s already experienced it with me, and it’s heartbreaking. With that video, I just wanted to show this is something that happens every day, this is ingrained in our society and these faces, these people, these names—these are people who are just like anybody. That’s just a fraction of victims from that year. I didn’t want it to come across as exploitative in any way, but I did feel like it was important to show people this could be your neighbor, this could be anyone you know.

NB: I have an 8-year-old, and I’m just wondering: We have this horrifying context where our young children are being exposed to the reality of our culture.

Obviously respond at your comfort level, but how do you raise a sexually healthy child within this context? I’m honest about my feelings about things and what’s right

and what’s wrong in regards to your own body and your autonomy and your control.

When Evelyn was in second grade there was a kid at school who told her, “You have a hairy vagina that smells like fish.” She’s 6. She doesn’t know what is going on …

I explained it to Evelyn, “This is not just someone making fun of someone, this was not just someone being mean or being a bully, but this was sexual harassment, and it’s wrong and part of the problem.” I try to be honest with her. I’m really open. I’m really comfortable with myself, finally, at 42. She knows so many different kinds of people and I think gets that a lot of people are discriminated against because of who they are. I just try to work through it situation by situation.

I was walking down the street with her and this guy said something about my tattoos and said, “Smile.” Evelyn looked up at me and rolled her eyes, just kind of like, “Here we go.” I was like, “Don’t tell me what to do with my fucking face, man!”

My mom is still scared of men and that

breaks my heart. It’s affected every life decision she’s ever made. I saw that growing up and I was like, fuck no. Since I was little, if somebody messed with me, I messed with them back. It may not be the safest way to go, but that’s how I deal with it with Evelyn—I just try to confront it when it happens so she sees that example. At least acknowledging that it’s wrong.

NB: And she knows it, it sounds like, ’cause she’s rolling her eyes. Yeah, totally!

I was almost like, “Sorry, bub, I got to go off on this guy now.”

EM: When you perform, would you say you have a stage persona, or is it just you?

Yeah, that’s just me! When we first started the band, I felt like I was in drag. I would wear seven-inch heels and it was more overtly sexualized, but that was my response to the inescapability of the male gaze and so I was like, yo, I know you’re going to objectify me so I’m just going to get that out of the way. Here it all is. I could be wearing

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18 a snowsuit going down the street and people would say something to me. So it’s like, here, I’m not afraid of my body and how you’re going to receive it. It was empowering in a way to just go, “Fuck you, I don’t care.”

Now, I don’t think about it like that. I’ve been cutting myself on stage; I put dirt all over my face. I’m still trying to subvert the male gaze in some way, and I’m still kind of trying to figure it out, but I’m not, like, getting into character. If you could imagine yourself as a kid in your room, listening to something that really moved you and you’re all alone, just thrashing—that’s what it feels like to me when we perform.

EM: Do you have a favorite outfit or article of clothing? No, and everyone always focuses on what I’m wearing and I don’t like it. I think it’s a distraction. I don’t think people ask men what they’re wearing and why they’re wearing it. It’s something that I’m usually like, “I’m not talking to you about it,” but I feel like that’s not as productive as talking about why I

J U L Y

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don’t want to talk about it, you know? And I don’t identify as female. I’m nonbinary or genderfluid, I would say, but I feel like I’ve sort of been pushed into that—that that’s a reaction to the way our society treats women. I have a lot of conflicted feelings about anything that people are interested in based on their assumption of my gender, as a woman. Of course, that’s a part of me, but it’s not the total package.

It’s something I sort of struggle with, especially in music. Everyone thinks it’s this underground community and everything’s cool, people are respectful. It’s not like that at all. It’s all the same as the regular world; it’s just a microcosm of it and there’s the same problems and everything, and I deal with it daily when we’re playing shows. Like, people won’t talk to me, they’ll only talk to my bandmate because as far as they’re concerned, he’s male and I’m female.

NB: How do you navigate those situations where someone only wants to talk to your bandmate? It’s not Seth’s fault, but I started

C E N T E N N I A L

talking to Seth and being like, “Hey, when people do this, it’s a problem. Maybe rethink how you are dealing with these situations because these people won’t even look at me, let alone have a conversation.” At first he was like, “Well, is that really happening?” and then after a while Seth was like, “This is totally happening and it’s insane.”

When we were booking our own shows, if it was a show I had booked, they wouldn’t even know Seth’s name, but they would come up to Seth and try to pay him at the end of the night. Seth would be like what, “Huh?” Now, Seth will be like, “Go find Heather.”

In interviews, most of the questions will be directed at me, usually there’ll be a question about my outfits, and then they’ll ask about the music, and that question will be directed at Seth. And I get that when we perform, Seth is doing all the electronics and I’ll be doing the vocals, so people assume Seth’s making all the music. But he’s not, we make it together. Seth is a drummer. I don’t know how to use all the equipment we have, but Cont. >> on Pg. 36

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long with its wild abundance of musical talent, Iowa is also a treasure trove of top-notch record labels.

As someone with a passion for lifting up local artists, I’ve been obsessed in recent years with discovering just what confluence of events has put all of these talented and discerning folk in positions to do just that, to amplify the work being done here. Great music, after all, does no one any good languishing on self-pressed discs in a damp basement. It takes people with vision, persistence and the ear of the community to funnel it where it needs to be.

“The intent of [Sump Pump Records] ... has been to use our knowledge and experience to help out bands that we believe in,” said Des Moines label Sump Pump’s Dan Hutchison in a recent email. “We hope to be a stepping stone of sorts. We want them to be able to move on to bigger and better things.”

Hutchison has vision and persistence in spades. Sump Pump first came to life in 1998 as a kind of vanity project for Hutchison and his Why Make Clocks bandmate Brian Wiksell. They wanted their band to release an album, so they did it themselves. That record, The Transient Swivel, and Chad O’Neall’s Evolution No. 9 in 1999 (their only CD) were all the label released before going on a 15year hiatus.

Gone but not forgotten, Sump Pump came back to life out of necessity again in 2014, when Hutchison revived it to release a project he was working on, The Des Moines 4 Track Compilation Vol​.​1. Although Why Make Clocks had disbanded, he turned to former bandmates Chuck Hoffman and Will Tarbox to join him and Wiksell at the label (the team now also includes Tom Reelitz and Kim Hutchison, Dan’s wife).

In the five years since that compilation (also recorded and primarily mixed by Hutchison), Sump Pump has released 14 more albums, including the hot-off-the-presses House of Bellow, from Marshalltown’s Land of Blood and Sunshine (see 22 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

LittleVillageMag.com

Profile

PUMP UP THE VOLUME Through Sump Pump Records, Dan Hutchison works to elevate bands he believes in. BY GENEVIEVE TRAINOR

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review, pg. 60). They’ve worked with 14 total bands, although they don’t have a roster, per se (“we work with bands on an album-to-album basis,” Hutchison said; “none of them are tied to us”).

He’s certainly got my ear. Hutchison has impeccable taste. Sump Pump’s releases over the past years have been a string of top-notch albums. In addition to utter thrashers from the likes of Telekinetic Yeti, Skin of Earth and Traffic Death, their catalog includes albums from Karen Meat, Matthew James and the Rust Belt Union, Annalibera and more.

“I think sometimes people have this idea that an independent record label has to be genre specific,” Hutchison said. “None of us involved listen to music that way, so why would we want our label to impose those kinds of restrictions on what we put out?”

“Historically speaking,” Hutchison told me, “this is how [acquisition] goes: I bring an unreleased album that has been brought to my attention, in some way, to the rest of the team and if we all agree that we should put it out, we do. All the members of our team have very broad, yet similar, tastes in music, and if we agree on it, it’s a go.”

Seems straightforward, but Hutchison holds himself to a high standard: He is determined to “never put out an album that I don’t love, no matter how much I love the people making it.”

“My own personal taste and that of my partners is all the guidance we need,” he said. “If we don’t love it, why should we expect others to?”

That love is evident in the label’s curation, and it’s one of the key elements that engenders a loyal following.

Also important is Sump Pump’s physical aesthetic, endearing itself to vinyl nerds by releasing every album (with the exception of the 1999 Chad O’Neall CD) in that format, with digital download codes included. The arrival of a Sump Pump record is an event: a large, tidy package that makes you fight for access followed by several moments just luxuriating in the visual appeal of the contents before even spinning the disc. There have even been albums that

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surf punk trio Tough Ghost. Tarbox also plays in the genres-be-damned outfit Nostromo.

They all engage regularly with the countless fantastic unknown acts that can be found on the rise at any given time in the area.

“In Iowa, we have great bands and artists making art and music as great as anything you’d hear or see anywhere else, we just need more people to realize it,” Hutchison said.

That’s easier said than done, of course.

“People (generally speaking) are predisposed to not seek out new music,” Hutchison said.

“There’s very little going on to encourage it aside from [Iowa Public Radio] and going online to find it. I’d say 90 percent of radio stations in Iowa are playing the same playlist as two other stations on the dial, “I’VE ALWAYS FOUND THERE TO and those playlists have barely BE A REAL SENSE OF COMMUNITY changed in 30 years or more. So the ‘casual’ music fan doesn’t WITHIN THE METAL SCENE ... IT’S LIKE really stumble across new music YOU GO TO A SHOW AND YOU’RE and some may even assume that AUTOMATICALLY WELCOMED.” ‘if it was good, it’d be on the radio.’”

A hands-on label like Sump Pump can be a huge factor in cutting through the noise to reach potential audiences. Hutchison carries the “I think it’s always been there,” Hutchison label’s own early DIY approach through to said of the metal scene in Iowa that Sump everything from assembling and hand-numPump mines so effectively. “But the shows bering the LPs to running merch tables at [in years past], through necessity, had to be a shows for the bands. And his personal defilot more DIY, being put on by kids or bands nition of success is “being able to take what at Union Halls or at someone’s house.”

I know and help another artist whose work I He attributes the growth of the scene rebelieve in reach a wider audience.” cently to a variety of factors: “More music It all ties in together, for the success of the venues are open to booking metal shows. label and of the bands.

The DIY ethos is still going strong among “Every Sump Pump album or T-shirt sale these bands who now have wider-reaching goes into the next record,” Hutchison said. tools at their disposal to get the word out.

“That’s our model, so it’s important to get And let’s face it, most importantly, there are some really great bands that are making some them into the hands of the people who will love them.” really great and original music, so people are And on the statewide scene, something paying more attention to it now. I’ve always seems to be shaking loose. found there to be a real sense of community “There are people taking notice—for exwithin the metal scene too, it’s like you go to ample, Aseethe and Dryad have both been a show and you’re automatically welcomed.” signed to fairly respectable labels and are out Releasing only Iowa bands hasn’t been there gaining momentum,” Hutchison said. a matter of intent for Sump Pump, but it Ultimately, he wants artists to know that “it’s seems natural that it would fall out that way.

Hutchison, who was born and raised in small- not impossible. It really doesn’t matter so much where you make it, it’s where you take town Iowa and moved to Des Moines in it, right?”

1992, and many of his team are still deeply imbedded in the scene here themselves. He and Hoffman are two-thirds of the progGenevieve Trainor is arts editor at Little punk power trio Fetal Pig, while Reelitz and Village magazine. She believes in the Iowa Tarbox bend more genres as two-thirds of arts ecosystem. came out as multiple pressings of the same disc in different colors of vinyl.

Sump Pump shines, too, as a versatile label. “I think that Iowa has a very talented and diverse music scene,” Hutchison said, “and I feel like, to an outsider, we represent that better than anyone.” And he sees that versatility as an asset to Iowa generally. “There’s no specific ‘Iowa sound’ pigeonholing you to a potential new listeners,” he said.

But the bottom line is if you want great heavy music, there’s nowhere better to turn first.

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CRYING OUT LOUD Rising grindcore band Closet Witch infuses social justice with a dank, ferocious sound. BY DEREK TATE

26 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

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LittleVillageMag.com

O

f all the hardcore bands and DIY power violence outfits to emerge from Eastern Iowa in recent years, few have been able to channel sheer anger and emotion as effectively as Closet Witch. Forming a little over five years ago, the band is characterized by their aggression, both onstage and on-record.

Guitarist and primary songwriter Alex Crist provides the heavy yet skillful guitar riffs characteristic of the hardcore genre, while Cory Peak plays along with his equally fierce and dynamic bass licks. Royce Kurth adds to the controlled chaos on drums, fluidly setting the break-neck tempos of each song. But it’s Mollie Piatetsky’s screaming vocals that elevate Closet Witch’s sound to a new level of ferocity. Brutal and strained, her singing is paired with her intense stage presence.

Piatetsky laughs alongside bandmate Peak during a phone interview. “We’re like the two quietest members of the band,” Piatetsky said.

“Even though I’m so loud.”

Hailing from Muscatine, Closet Witch found each other in the midst of basement shows and DIY projects, united by their shared love of hard music.

“We all liked heavier stuff and we knew that would be a good outlet for a lot of different things,” Piatetsky said. “The music we play is pretty heavy and aggressive and a pretty good therapeutic outlet for more negative things we all want to get out of us.”

The heaviness and internal frustration can be heard on the group’s debut self-titled album, released just over a year ago. The LP is a shining example of Closet Witch’s ability to convey raw energy while still remaining dynamic. The band comes in swinging on the opener, “Blood Orange,” which combines Piatetsky’s harsh screams with the band’s strangely melodic backing instrumentation. The track reaches a resolving climax, a short breath of air before seamlessly transitioning into the next track and plunging the listener back into the band’s controlled nightmare, without warning.

The songs are short, averaging under two minutes in length, but each one packs enough energy to fill an entire record. Incredibly fast, yet clearly rhythmic and defined, the album stays sonically consistent.

Peak explained that there was never a concentrated effort to be cohesive with the album, but it did “come off that way” when it was complete.

Perhaps its fluidity can be attributed to the recurring theme of vented frustrations, present in nearly every Closet Witch song: the use of music Zak Neumann / Little Village

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as a “therapeutic outlet.”

Many of the band’s songs are fueled by larger political and social topics. Much of Closet Witch’s earlier work addressed issues related to public health care, after guitarist Crist went through numerous back surgeries.

“That was a thing we touched on,” Piatetsky said, “these frustrations about not having affordable health care or frustrations about how the medical industry puts you in a circle and takes money from you.

Then, with time, it evolved. When Trump was elected and running for president we touched on a lot of things like the disrespect for minorities and women.”

Most of the band’s lyrics are written by Piatetsky (although Peak and Crist contribute lyrics occasionally), and while much of the content is fueled by larger issues of injustice, some of Closet Witch’s music involves the airing of more personal emotions. Experiences of grief and loss are often channeled by the band and churned into the violent energy heard in their music. Piatetsky recounts her inspiration for some earlier songs, an incident she has since revisited in newer material.

“Most of that content was based on me trying to get any kind of contact with my mother who had passed away quite some time ago,” Piatetsky said. “There are two new songs that are geared around trying to touch base with something I’ve lost. I think a lot of people can relate to that too.”

As the band continues to release pent-up emotion, their vicious stage presence has yet to slow down. If anything, it’s only grown more ferocious. A recent tour brought them “further west than [they] are used to,” according to Peak. One of the stops included Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle, a music festival famous in the hardcore scene.

Their production value has upgraded slightly as well. Past projects relied on the recording capabilities of Crist, embracing DIY ethos and taking the recording process into his own hands. However, the latest Closet Witch record found the band in the more professional recording studio of Luke Tweedy’s Flat Black Studios—“A really good choice” according to Piatetsky.

But even with the recent boost in production and scope, Closet Witch is still a DIY outfit at heart.

“We just all come from a place, musically, where you shouldn’t let money limit you,” Peak said. “You can just kind of do things with what you have. In smaller towns you just kind of have to make your own scene and put on your own shows. You just have to do what you want to see happen around you.”

Now, a year has passed since their latest project, but the therapeutic need for expression is still driving Closet Witch to make new material.

This July, the group plans on heading back to Flat Black to record a couple splits. A new song will be featured on an upcoming compilation disc, the proceeds of which will be donated to organizations devoted to providing health resources for women. All the bands featured on the record, Piatetsky explains, are trying to raise awareness for the right things. Similar to Closet Witch’s material, the collective effort is driven by systemic injustice.

“As Americans, we’re not given as much as we deserve when we’re hard-working,” Piatetsky said. “I think we have to remember to stick up for each other and get help where we find it.”

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Derek Tate is studying journalism and geography at the University of Iowa. He expresses his pent-up frustrations by playing the baritone.

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‘A LIGHT IN THE OPPRESIVE DARKNESS’ White nationalists still occupy corners of the black metal scene. Dryad says, ‘fuck that.’

BY DAN BOSCALJON

30 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

Zak Neumann / Little Village

CULTURE

M

any psychologists acknowledge that suppressing anger and outrage can lead to unhealthy results: internalization of self-hatred, eruption of outrage through violence.

Music tends to channel these emotions, and it’s often been a space where people are able to safely express their most extreme feelings— live music, especially, as it allows these expressions to emerge in community with others who are similarly outraged.

This anger and outrage can be expressed through any musical genre, but metal has proven particularly contentious: From its inception, it found a place in working class culture—but, as the 2016 election exemplified, the revolutionary anger and discontent of the working class is often pushed toward the political right and into racist, nationalist and misogynist political advocacy.

Iowa City’s Dryad, recently signed to L.A.’s Prosthetic Records, sees itself as part of the other modality of metal.

The band has consistently worked against the white nationalism and patriarchal conservatism that established a foothold within the genre, particularly in black metal, which has repeatedly made headlines both for the beliefs of some of the bands and for the actions of those who count themselves among its fans.

Dryad is one of several bands working intentionally to counter that narrative from within.

All metal can make use of the tool of its sound—the distorted anguished vocals and the loud guitar and bass that literally cause the flesh to vibrate—to accomplish a kind of aesthetic or emotional resolution. Dryad’s goal is to do so in a way that seeks a common human denominator.

Following their recent successful tour, Dryad is playing a show at Gabe’s on July 17. I had a chance to email Claire, guitarist and vocalist for Dryad, a few weeks before the show.

You list your genre as black metal, and your sound is consistent with that— heavy guitars that create a landscape for screamed vocals over the top of it. At the same time, the songs are much shorter than many metal songs without quite

LittleVillageMag.com

getting into speed metal. Can you help readers unfamiliar with metal music distinguish among the major kinds of metal— heavy, black, speed, death, stoner—and discuss what elements you’ve integrated into your sound? One of my favorite things about metal is how many genres and subgenres exist within it—I think it’s some of the most innovative music out there. Traditional heavy metal from the late ’70s and early ’80s, under the influence of early garage rock and punk, quickly gave rise to more and more extreme versions of itself: faster, slower, heavier, louder, bigger, weirder.

Invention is constantly expanding the definition of “metal,” and we are always striving to push the boundaries between what is or isn’t. We’ve never actually labeled ourselves as a strictly black metal or crust punk band, although there are certainly components of both to our music, most notably the classic fuzzy “lo-fi” production and ominous keyboards often used on early ’90s black metal recordings and the snarling dual vocals, politically tinged lyrics and catchy guitar hooks found in hardcore and crust punk.

But there are also elements of early death and doom metal, mostly in the brutal imagery and slow breakdowns, as well as the harsh noise and walls of sound found in post-punk and shoegaze. I’ve never given much thought to where each song fits in the spectrum of genres, though, as I never want to limit ourselves to one sound.

With a song like “Orcrist,” it seems like you play very intentionally within Tolkein’s boundaries. What is it about his imaginary that inspires you? What are other mythic landscapes that you find compelling as motivations for your music?

It’s less about the mythic landscapes and more about the obvious metaphors; Tolkein’s timeless themes of good versus evil and the corruption and greed of mankind versus the altruism of the natural world are all too applicable to our current state of existence.

The Earth is burning, and the men in charge are fanning the flames with wads of cash. Orcs march through the streets under the Eye of Sauron, but the Fellowship prevails, wielding the sword known as Orcrist the Goblin Cleaver, a light in the oppressive darkness.

UN w/ Wormwitch, Aseethe, Dryad, Gabe’s, Iowa City, Wednesday, July 17, 8 p.m., $8

31 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

Your label, L.A.’s Prosthetic Records, is known for its anti-fascist political sentiments, and your band is known for its

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LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267 July 3–30, 2019 31

CULTURE anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-white nationalist stance. Can you share a little about how metal relates to politics? At what point did it start becoming appropriated by right-wing extremists? What led to the resurgence of musicians reclaiming the roots of metal as an expansive, welcoming space for self-expression? Metal has always been political. Music has always been political. Art has always been political. It’s nothing new, but it’s become much more widely discussed because we’re in a time of such extreme political and environmental crisis right now, and the art being created seems increasingly reflective of that.

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32 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

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DO YOU LIKE CLASSICAL MUSIC, BUT FASTER? DONE. HOW ABOUT WEIRD HEAVY JAZZ? SURE. SOME OF THE MOST TECHNICALLY ADVANCED MUSICIANS IN THE MUSICAL WORLD? EASILY. I TRULY BELIEVE EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE METAL BAND THAT THEY’D LIKE, GIVEN THE CHANCE.

It’s not an extreme political stance to say that you’re against Nazis, or racism, or hate, but somehow it’s become viewed as such.

Sadly, fascism became involved in punk and metal almost as soon as they both came into being in the 1970s, using the signature theme of working-class frustrations as a disguise for hateful Nazi ideologies hidden in plain sight. As metal grew more extreme, so did the efforts of the alt-right. They used shock value as an excuse to parade swastikas and Nazi salutes at shows, because metal has always been about taking things to another extreme, and it’s easy to excuse Nazi worship for excessive stage antics.

Thankfully, alongside its introduction, there have always been those brave enough to speak out against fascism in music. Woody Guthrie’s famous “This Machine Kills Fascists” guitar from the 1940s is an easy example. Metal, and music in general, are more politicized these days because we’re paying

18 closer attention, but this battle has been quietly waging for decades. It’s gained substantial visibility in the age of the internet, because we have more information at our fingertips than ever before—it takes about a second to Google lyrics or “[insert band] + fascist” or “[insert band] + controversy” to find out if your favorite unintelligible band is actually singing about the “superior race.”

It’s important to know what you’re supporting or giving money to, especially on a local level. Fighting fascism starts at home!

Those who are not part of the metal scene are often dismayed by the distorted, screamed vocals over heavy, repetitive riffs. Can you explain the kind of artistry involved in this—why lyrics still matter even if they’re not able to be understood— and advice for how those unfamiliar with metal can appreciate it? Metal is an incredibly primal, emotional form of music, and the often extreme guttural or screaming vocal styles are an expression of that primeval part of ourselves. They’re sometimes used more as an overlying textural instrument to spark a feeling of ancient recognition in our lizard brains than as a vehicle for actual lyrics in a song, although other bands use vivid imagery and elaborate verses to paint a portrait of the same sensation.

While I can understand someone’s initial dismay, there are a myriad of bands in the metal universe, and not all of them are necessarily harsh or abrasive. Do you like classical music, but faster? Done. How about weird heavy jazz? Sure. Some of the most technically advanced musicians in the musical world? Easily. I truly believe everyone has at least one metal band that they’d like, given the chance.

What did you learn as a result of your recent tour? I learned that I am capable of far more than I ever expected. And to drink plenty of water. And that truck stop showers are absolutely worth the money. And that Las Vegas is not worth the hype, but the Grand Canyon absolutely is.

Daniel Boscaljon is a public intellectual and experimental humanist. Find information about upcoming workshops—Intuitive Thinking and Tarot Interpretation (with Dawn Frary) and Reconceiving the Divine Feminine (with Angela Amias)—and enjoy expansions to “The Thoughtful Life” platform at danielboscaljon.com.

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267 July 3–30, 2019 33

EDITORS’ PICKS

CALENDAR EVENTS AROUND THE CRANDIC JULY 3–30 2019 Planning an event? Submit event info to calendar@littlevillagemag. com. Include event name, date, time, venue, street address, admission price and a brief description (no all-caps, exclamation points or advertising verbiage, please). To find more events, visit littlevillagemag.com/calendar.

Please check venue listing in case details have changed.

= Metal Picks

Wed., July 3 Iowa City Wednesday Farmers Market, Chauncey Swan Ramp, Iowa City, 5 p.m. (Weekly) Open Mic Night, Penguin’s Comedy Club, Cedar Rapids, 8 p.m., Free (Weekly) OKLAHOMA FOLK DUO

Desi & Cody w/ Good Morning Midnight, Grazzhopper, Wayne Gibbous, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $7 Open Stage, Studio 13, Iowa City, 10 p.m., Free (Weekly) STAR SPANGLED BANGERS

Trevin Blackfeather, Benny the Jet, Lucid16, La Rello, Yungmanderek, The Zeffsterr, Vltra Uision, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 10 p.m., $10 THIS WEEK: ‘PIRANHA’

Late Shift at the Grindhouse, Film Scene, Iowa City, 10 p.m., $5.50 (Weekly)

Thu., July 4 FKA THE 4TH OF JULY ANTIQUES EXTRAVAGANZA

Lincoln Highway Nitty Gritty 2019, Uptown Mount Vernon, 7 a.m., Free

34 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

STAFF PICKS

WHAT ARE WE DOING?

JULY 3-30, 2019

Restaurant

‘The Office’ Olympics, Big Grove Brewery, Iowa City, Monday, July 8, 6 p.m., $5 (spectator), $40 (team of four)

They’re taking The Office off of Netflix in 2021. A crushing blow? Yes. Will I get over it? No. But life goes on. The prospect of not having constant and unlimited access to The Office, even the post-Steve Carell seasons, without giving over more money to yet another streaming service makes me want to punch a wall, blow off my corporate-mandated (anger) management training and Scranton Strangle the nearest NBC executive. What I will direct my poorly negotiated regional manager’s salary towards is a ticket to Riverside Theatre’s The Office Olympics competition on July 8 at the IC Big Grove. Up to 25 teams of four will compete in Flonkerton, Dunderball, Skeet Schruting and the Coffee Cup Relay from 6-9 p.m. Beer me all the yogurt-lid medals. —Emma McClatchey Big Grove for Good: Iowa City Public Library Book Bash, Big Grove Brewery & Taproom, Tuesday, July 9, 5p.m. Turn an

average night into a philanthropic contribution to the Iowa City Public Library by attending Big Grove for Good! Ten percent of all purchases from 5-8 p.m. on July 9 will go straight to ICPL, and the welcome table will accept donations for the library. Children and adults alike will enjoy the games set out on Big Grove’s spacious lawn, while the of-age guests will love the expansive beer-list. The ICPL Bookmobile will be making an appearance as well so guests can grab a few books, return items or sign up for a library card, all while supporting the library. There is nothing like relaxing in the evening air while contributing to one of the community’s most accessible resources! —Elaine Irvine

Grey Area Battle of the Bands, Gabe’s, Friday, July 12, 2019 at 7 p.m. I’ll tell

you what we need: an event where we can witness the performance of a variety of candidates, then have the opportunity to scrutinize and vote for our favorite one. If we could just sweeten the deal by turning social media buzz around the contest into a hellscape minefield and add estrangement of family members, it would be just like our actual lives. Anyway, where were we?

Right: For the first time, Grey Area (the 3-year-old festival presented by Flat Black Studios and White Rabbit) is offering a spot on stage to the lucky winner of a real-time, old-school battle of the bands. Will blood be shed on this night? It is impossible to say. What can be said is that if you don’t go, bear witness, choose the band you believe best represents you and your country and then place your damn vote, the results won’t reflect the true will of the people. It’s your RESPONSIBILITY. —Jordan Sellergren

Summer Showcase, Arganbright Auditorium, Iowa City West High School, Friday-Saturday, July 26-27, 7 p.m., $10 suggested donation This month, I’ll

be attending West High School’s Summer Showcase. The theater department will be performing a variety of songs from a range of musicals such as “When He Sees Me” from Waitress, “How Far I’ll Go” from Moana and “Lay All Your Love on Me” from Mamma Mia! I’m going to support my talented friends that are involved in the production, but I recommend the event to anyone who enjoys musical theater. Shows are at 7 p.m. on July 26 and 27. —Natalie Dunlap

(lunch, dinner, Sunday unch)

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CULTURE >> Cont. from Pg. 21 we compose songs together, we find samples together. If I say in interviews, “Why are you assuming that Seth wrote everything? This is how we write songs,” then they’ll take that out. Leave it in! You just did something not very cool. I’m explaining to you why it’s not very cool.

There are no credits on the record as to who does what. We don’t even have our names on some of the things we’ve put out, and it’s for that reason: because it’s not about us. I don’t care if people know my name.

EM: We’ll never make the mistake of asking you “How do you manage to balance parenthood and working?!” [Laughs] I don’t even mind that, though! I think there’s a lot of parents in bands, and that part of it is really interesting. Everything is potentially problematic, I suppose, depending on where someone is coming from.

EM: Do you have an affinity for Freud? I noticed that influence in your album title [Castration Anxiety], and I saw you have a “penis envy” tattoo. [Laughs] Penis Envy is my favorite Crass record.

But yeah, it’s from Freud—that’s where they got it. When I had my daughter, I had to have a C-section after almost two days of labor. I had a bald spot from the incision and it really bothered me for a while.

Then I thought, oh, this is perfect for my Penis Envy tattoo. Some people were like, “Why? Vaginas are magical.” And I’m like, “Well, I didn’t say I only want a penis!” I want it all; I don’t want to have my experience be colored by my gender. I want everything: I want the respect that a man gets for not doing anything except walking in a room.

Castration Anxiety, that album title—I was thinking a lot about how so many power struggles are coming from that fear that men have of being emasculated, and the way that plays out in the world is violent and horrible.

EM: What do you hope people bring to a HIDE show? How do you hope they behave, and what do you hope they leave on the dance floor? I hope that people maybe just feel inspired to do whatever they want to do, to feel empowered to do what they want to do, because that’s what this does for me. It’s coming from a place in me that’s raw and real, and I don’t have an expectation of how that’s going to make people feel listening to our music or witnessing a performance. But a lot of women do come up to me and tell me, “You make me proud to be a woman,” and that kind of fucks me up. They don’t know that I don’t identify as female, and that’s fine, because I’m genderfluid, so that’s a part of me.

When women tell me it makes them feel good, that makes me happy: That makes me feel good. Because if you can catch a good vibe these days, and I can be part of it, that’s huge.

Natalie Benway LISW is a psychotherapist in private practice in Coralville. She has a certification in sexuality studies from the University of Iowa and is currently pursuing additional licensure with the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists.

Emma McClatchey feels like an ass for asking the “outfit” question; in her defense, she contracted some serious outfit envy from Heather Gabel’s Instagram.

36 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

EDITORS’ PICKS ALSO JULY 6 AND 7

The Picture Show: ‘Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation,’ FilmScene, Iowa City, 10 a.m., Free-$5 10TH ANNUAL BOURBON & BLUES

John-Paul Jones Group, Cedar Ridge Winery & Distillery, Swisher, 1 p.m., Free FT. CEDAR COUNTY COBRAS AND FREE POOL ADMISSION!

Special 4th of July Party in the Park, Upper City Park, Iowa City, 2 p.m., Free Thursday Night Live Open Mic, Uptown Bill’s, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly) Daddy-O, Parlor City Pub and Eatery, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly) Live Jazz, Clinton Street Social Club, Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free (1st & 3rd Thursdays)

Fri., July 5 10TH ANNUAL BOURBON & BLUES Cristina Vane,

Cedar Ridge Winery & Distillery, Swisher, 5 p.m., Free THIS WEEK: RUNNING IN PLACE

Rock the Block, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 6 p.m., Free (Weekly) FAC Dance Party, The Union, Iowa City, 7 p.m.

(Weekly) CELEBRATING 10 YEARS

Brotherhood of the Mudkat w/ Ancient Elm, Dark Agenda, Space Virus, Allt Mina, Calling Grace, Into the Cove, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 7 p.m., $10 OPENING NIGHT! RUNS THROUGH JULY 28

‘Men on Boats,’ Riverside Theatre, Iowa City, 7:30 p.m., $30 10TH ANNUAL BOURBON & BLUES

OTIS, Cedar Ridge Winery & Distillery, Swisher, 8 p.m., Free Ross Clowser Quartet, Sanctuary Pub, Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free MISSOURI METAL

Acid Leather w/ Traffic Death, Mutilated

by Zombies, Iowa City Yacht Club, 8 p.m., $10 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267 July 3–30, 2019 37

EDITORS’ PICKS

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/CALENDAR

TOP PICKS: QUAD CITIES

JULY 3-30, 2019

SoulShake, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 10 p.m., Free (Weekly) Flirty Friday’s Drag & Dance Party, Studio 13, Iowa City, 10:30 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

Sat, July 6 Iowa City Sunday Farmers Market, Chauncey Swan Ramp, Iowa City, 7:30 a.m. (Weekly) Cedar Rapids Downtown Farmers Market, Downtown Cedar Rapids, 7:30 a.m.

Marion Farmers Market, Taube Park, Marion, 8 a.m. (Weekly)

InDOOMpendence Day: Conan w/ Aseethe, REZN, Crater, Wake Brewing, Rock Island, Thursday, July 4, 4 p.m., $12 Celebrate the red, white and

doom with a heavily stacked line-up consisting of Aseethe, REZN, Crater and headliners Liverpool sludge metal three-piece Conan.

Be sure to try Volt Thrower IPA, the new collaboration beer premiering at this event and named after a track from Conan’s newest album. Ticket includes one regularly priced beverage. If you’ve yet to visit Wake and have some of their riff-infused brews, this is the perfect day to stop by.

—Paige Underwood Dawn and On 2019, Schwiebert Riverfront Park, Rock Island, Saturday, July 6, 11 a.m., Free-$10 This growing an-

nual celebration packs all the art and energy of a weeklong fest into one delirious day.

The region’s most jamtastic bands play one set after another with no break in the rock, reggae, bluegrass and fusion until midnight, at which point everyone hustles over to the afterparty at Rock Island Brewing Company.

Line-up includes the Dawn, Steady Flow, Jon Stickley Trio, Sun Beard, Chicago Farmer, Esso Afrojam Funkbeat, the Golden Fleece, Rude Punch and Dead and Gone.

—Melanie Hanson

great reviews after releasing just a few tracks since their 2014 inception. On this night, one can expect to hear chill-inducing harmonies and the singing of string instruments galore floating through the barn and off into the rolling hills. —PU

Guest Vendor Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 10 a.m. (Weekly) Family Storytime, Iowa City Public Library, 10:30 a.m., Free (Weekly) I.C. Press Co-op Open Shop, Public Space One, Iowa City, 12 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Sessa w/ Dark Family, Rozz-Tox, Rock Island, Saturday, July 13, 8 p.m., $10$13 I got tickets for this show the second

they went on sale, having discovered Sessa through his collaboration with guitar titan Yonatan Gat. Brazilian Sessa is a steamier Leonard Cohen with the strong voice and soft tongue of Gillian Welch. You don’t need to know Portuguese to love his lyrics—you’ll feel them in all the right places. —MH

10TH ANNUAL BOURBON & BLUES

Bryce Janey, Cedar Ridge Winery & Distillery, Swisher, 1 p.m., Free 10TH ANNUAL BOURBON & BLUES

The Tanya English Band, Cedar Ridge Winery & Distillery, Swisher, 5 p.m., Free TENNESSEE COUNTRY

Mark Burke, Wildwood Smokehouse & Saloon,

Homebrew Festiv-Ale, Wake Brewing, Rock Island, Saturday, July 20, 2 p.m., $20 Entry gets you 15 sampling tickets for

over 50 different home brews (including some team-ups with local commercial brewers) plus event glassware to catch all those suds. Roy’s All Fed Up helps stave off the hangover with “the best damn dogs in the QCA.” Event profits go to Kings Harvest NoKill Shelter. —MH

Iowa City, 5 p.m., $10-20 FL ALT-ROCK/POP PUNK

Red Jumpsuit Apparatus w/ Wolves at the Gate, Manhattan Blockade, Caught In the Crypt, the Unsettled Serenade, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 6 p.m., $20 10TH ANNUAL BOURBON & BLUES

Davy Knowles, Cedar Ridge Winery & Distillery, Swisher, 8 p.m., Free CLASSIC AMERICANA

Cracker, The Mill, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $20-22

I’m With Her, Codfish Hollow Barnstormers, Maquoketa, Thursday, July 11, 8 p.m., $35 I’m With Her is the

supergroup of strong, accomplished songwriters Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan. The folk trio dropped their highly anticipated debut album in early 2018 to 38 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

Elation Dance Party, Studio 13, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

Sun., July 7 Guest Vendor Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 10 a.m. (Weekly) Hiawatha Farmers Market, Guthridge Park, Hiawatha, 10 a.m. (Weekly) Sunday Funday, Iowa City Public Library, Iowa City, 2 p.m., Free (Weekly) 10TH ANNUAL BOURBON & BLUES

FunkDaddies, Cedar Ridge Winery & Distillery, Swisher, 4 p.m., Free Cedar Rapids Municipal Band, McGrath Amphitheatre, Cedar Rapids, 7:30 p.m., Free Pub Quiz, The Mill, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $1 (Weekly)

Mon., July 8 Coralville Farmers Market, Coralville Community Aquatic Center Parking Lot, 5 p.m. (Weekly) Open Mic, The Mill, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly) Next Page Books Presents: Caleb Rainey, CSPS Legion Arts C-Space, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., Free Comedy Open Mic with Spencer & Dan, Yacht Club, Iowa City, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Tue., July 9 Food Truck Tuesdays, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 11 a.m. (Weekly) Cultivate Hope Market, Cultivate Hope Urban Farm, Cedar Rapids, 4:30 p.m. (Weekly) Practice in the Prairie, Indian Creek Nature Center, 6 p.m., Free (Weekly) Blues Jam, Parlor City Pub and Eatery, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly) TRANSAMERICAN MUSIC

The Iguanas, CSPS Legion Arts, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., $17-21 READING: ‘THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD’

Claire Lombardo, Prairie Lights Books & Cafe, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free

Using consumer fireworks in Iowa City is illegal.

VIOLATORS FACE A $250 MINIMUM FINE. Report illegal fireworks to Police at 319-356-6800.

Have a question about the local fireworks ordinance?

Contact Fire Marshal Brian Greer at 319-356-5257.

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/CALENDAR

TOP PICKS: DES MOINES

JULY 3-30, 2019

Jerry Seinfeld, Des Moines Civic Center, Friday, July 26, 7 p.m., $65-150 What is

Via lizphairofficial.com. Marty Perez

there to say about Jerry Seinfeld? The guy revolutionized television comedy, both in form and in content. With Seinfeld, he turned the gaze to our everyday occurrences, making comedic observations of the mundane. He’s furthered that style with his new ongoing series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, which features Seinfeld and guests driving around, telling stories and cracking jokes about whatever they see along the way. His standup on this tour is sure to stay in that ballpark with fresh material on the absurdity of the dull moments in our days.

The 80/35 Music Festival, Downtown Des Moines, Friday-Saturday, July 12-13, $25-220 For one weekend in July, the 80/35

Music Festival fills the streets of western downtown with a smattering of musical acts from the last 25 years. The festival turns 12 years old this year and features its usual line-up of national acts alongside a handful of local bands. Headliners this year are Elle King and Portugal. The Man, with Metric, MisterWives, Liz Phair and Murder by Death.

Local acts include Druids, MarKaus and Squirrel Flower, with Younger and Crystal City joining the line-up from Iowa City. Most of the big performers can only be seen with a ticket to the main area, but the local acts can be caught at the free stages placed throughout the festival grounds.

MemCave w/ White Flashes, Coughman, Sister Zo, White Flashes, Vaudeville Mews, Friday, July 12, 11 p.m., Free

Oftentimes, the afterparties are the best part about the 80/35 weekend. At that point in the night, everyone is drunk, sweaty and committed to carrying on until the bars close and kick everyone out. This year’s Friday afterparty at the Vaudeville Mews features MemCave and White Flashes—the two acts responsible for the Memory Network music label. Both projects approach electronic music with the same atmospheric and thoughtful touch, as represented by many of the other releases they’ve done via the label. This is an after-party, however, so I imagine they’ll be forgoing some of their more heady hits in favor of the bassy beats.

40 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

The Flaming Lips w/ the Claypool Lennon Delirium, Particle Kid, Water Works Park’s Lauridsen Amphitheater, July 24, 7 p.m., $35-75 The last time the

Flaming Lips played Des Moines, they filled the Hoyt Sherman Auditorium with their usual barrage of technicolor paraphernalia. Now, I’m a big fan of the ornate, classical vibes of the Hoyt Sherman, but outdoor venues are really the best way to experience the grandiosity of the Flaming Lips’ live show. We’re talking balloons, confetti cannons and Wayne Coyne crowd-surfing in a human-sized hamster ball, of course. Also, the show will be one of the first in the new Lauridsen Amphitheater opening this summer in Water Works Park in case you needed further convincing.

—Trey Reis

EDITORS’ PICKS Yahoo Drummers, Downtown Iowa City, 7:30 p.m., Free (Weekly) Weekly Old-Timey Jam Sessions, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 7:30 p.m., Free (Weekly) Dance Party with DJ Batwoman, Iowa City Yacht Club, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly) Comedy & Karaoke, Studio 13, Iowa City, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly) Karaoke Tuesdays, The Mill, Iowa City, 10:30 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Wed., July 10 Iowa City Open Coffee, Merge, Iowa City, 8 a.m., Free (Weekly) THIS WEEK: PRAIRIE ROSE COFFEE/K&T DESIGNS

One Million Cups, Merge, Iowa City, 9 a.m., Free (Weekly) Iowa City Wednesday Farmers Market, Chauncey Swan Ramp, Iowa City, 5 p.m. (Weekly) History on Tap: Pop! Nuclear Weapons, the Cold War and Eighties Popular Culture, National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library, Cedar Rapids, 5 p.m., Free Burlington Street Bluegrass Band, The Mill, Iowa City, 6 p.m., $5 (2nd & 4th Wednesdays) Cedar Rapids Municipal Band w/ Student Performers, Johnson STEAM Academy, Cedar Rapids, 6:30 p.m., Free IWP SUMMER INSTITUTE INAUGURAL EVENT

Rochelle Potkar, Anjali Sachdeva, Harris Khalique, Prairie Lights Books & Cafe, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free Open Mic Night, Penguin’s Comedy Club, Cedar Rapids, 8 p.m., Free (Weekly) Open Stage, Studio 13, Iowa City, 10 p.m., Free (Weekly) THIS WEEK: ‘HIGH ON THE HOG’

Late Shift at the Grindhouse, Film Scene, Iowa City, 10 p.m., $5.50 (Weekly)

Younger NIGHT MILK

LittleVillageMag.com/Younger

EDITORS’ PICKS

Thu., July 11

FAC Dance Party, The Union, Iowa City, 7 p.m.

(Weekly)

ALSO JULY 13 AND 14

The Picture Show: ‘The Lego Movie 2: The

GREY AREA 2019 BATTLE OF THE BANDS

Second Part,’ FilmScene, Iowa City, 10 a.m., Free-

Doc Miller, Elly h. & the Sexi Bois, the BeSides,

$5

the Horse Theory, Near Misses, Stubborn, Tiny Lights VS Clustering Darkness Forever OK?,

I.C. Press Co-op open shop, Public Space One,

Hobby Horse, Wave Cage, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 7

Iowa City, 4 p.m., Free (Weekly)

p.m., $5

TALK BY UI PROF. SIMON BALTO

ALSO PERFORMING JULY 13

Occupied Territory: Policing and Racism in

Burlesque in the Black Box Ft. the Va Va Voom,

Twentieth-Century Chicago, African American

Theatre Cedar Rapids, 7:30 p.m., $35

Museum of Iowa, Cedar Rapids, 5 p.m., Free PHILADELPHIA FOLK

AVAILABLE NOW LITTLE VILLAGE HQ

623 S DUBUQUE ST, IOWA CITY

RECORD COLLECTOR 116 S LINN ST, IOWA CITY

THE MAKERS LOFT

125 S DUBUQUE ST, IOWA CITY

Meet Me at the Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar

Amos Lee w/ Mutlu, Paramount Theatre, Cedar

Rapids, 5 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Rapids, 7:30 p.m., $45-89

Lamrim Kadampa Buddhist Centre Iowa City

ALSO PERFORMING JULY 13

Meditation Class, Quaker Friends Meeting House,

Jackie Fabulous w/ Jeff Pfoser, Penguin’s Comedy

Iowa City, 6:30 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

Club, Cedar Rapids, 8 p.m., $15-18

Thursday Night Live Open Mic, Uptown Bill’s,

MINNESOTA JAM BAND

Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Kind Country, Famous Mockingbird, Marion, 8 p.m., $10

READING: ‘ANGRY TIAS: CRUELTY AND COMPASSION ON THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER’

MIDWEST AMERICANA SUPERGROUP

Daniel Blue Tyx, Prairie Lights Books & Cafe, Iowa

Middle Western w/ Ryne Doughty, The Mill, Iowa

City, 7 p.m., Free

City, 9 p.m., $15

Daddy-O, Parlor City Pub and Eatery, Cedar Rapids, 7

EXPERIMENTAL; FMWT #25

p.m., Free (Weekly)

Headboggle w/ Malocclusion, Purcha$e, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $8

“INDIE. ACID. MELLOW. HEAVY.”

Holy Fawn w/ Moonlighting, The Mill, Iowa City, 8

CEDAR RAPIDS ALT ROCK

p.m., $10-12

Lefthand Lover w/ the Unincorporated, Blist Her, Kickstart The Sun, Iowa City Yacht Club, 9 p.m., $10

MIDWEST ACOUSTIC DUO

MMCM, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free

SoulShake, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 10 p.m., Free (Weekly)

WISCONSIN FOLK

Flirty Friday’s Drag & Dance Party, Studio 13,

Joseph Huber w/ Nadalands, Trumpet Blossom

Iowa City, 10:30 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

Cafe, Iowa City, 8:30 p.m., $7-10

Fri., July 12

Sat., July 13 Iowa City Sunday Farmers Market, Chauncey

THIS WEEK: FUNK STOP W/ BROKEN RECORD

Swan Ramp, Iowa City, 7:30 a.m. (Weekly)

Rock the Block, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 5 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Marion Farmers Market, Taube Park, Marion, 8 a.m.

(Weekly)

Friday Night Out, Ceramics Center, Cedar Rapids,

BStar LittleVillageMag.com/BStar 42 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

6:30 p.m., $40 (2nd Friday)

Guest Vendor Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 10 a.m. (Weekly)

THIS WEEK: PIGS IN CLOVER W/ FLASH IN A PAN

Summer of the Arts Friday Night Concert

Monarch Fest 2019, Indian Creek Nature Center,

Series, Ped Mall, Iowa City, 6:30 p.m., Free

Cedar Rapids, 10 a.m., Free

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM Family Storytime, Iowa City Public Library, 10:30 a.m., Free (Weekly) NORTH LIBERTY BLUES & BBQ

Shemekia Copeland w/ Southern Culture on the Skids, Gloria Hardiman & the Monday Night All-Stars, Kevin Burt, Joe and Vicki Price, Blues, Blues, Blues and Brian Johannesen, Centennial Park, North Liberty, 12 p.m., Free I.C. Press Co-op Open Shop, Public Space One, Iowa City, 12 p.m., Free (Weekly) CRBT Movies on the Riverbank: ‘Incredibles 2,’ McGrath Amphitheatre, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., Free OAKLAND SINGER-SONGWRITER

Thadeus Gonzalez w/ Faces Turned Ashen,

NEW

House-made soft serve House-made cones THE BIG GIRL THE SHORTY AFFOGATTO

Funky Prettys, In the Attic, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 7 p.m., $8 TEXAS GROOVE

Midnight River Choir, Wildwood Smokehouse & Saloon, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $15-20 THIS WEEK: ROBIN HOOD MEN IN TIGHTS

Summer of the Arts Free Movie Series,

S U M M E R AT DELUXE CAKES • PASTRIES • SOFT SERVE • ESPRESSO • VIENNOISERIE • SUNDAY BRUNCH 812 SOUTH SUMMIT ST | IOWA CITY | DELUXEIOWA.COM | 319.338.5000

Pentacrest, Iowa City, Sunset, Free (Weekly) Elation Dance Party, Studio 13, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

Sun., July 14 Guest Vendor Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 10 a.m. (Weekly) Hiawatha Farmers Market, Guthridge Park, Hiawatha, 10 a.m. (Weekly) 10 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES CONFIRMED!

5th Annual Progress Iowa Corn Feed, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 12 p.m., Free NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE

‘Small Island,’ FilmScene, Iowa City, 2 p.m., $9-18 CLOSING PERFORMANCE

‘Puffs,’ Giving Tree Theater, Marion, 2 p.m., $17.12 Sunday Funday, Iowa City Public Library, Iowa City, 2 p.m., Free (Weekly) READING: ‘SCARLET CINDERS’

Martha Letterman, Prairie Lights Books & Cafe, Iowa City, 3 p.m., Free LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267 July 3–30, 2019 43

EDITORS’ PICKS VINO VÉRITÉ—DIALOGUE W/ DIR. MO SCARPELLI

‘Abnessa,’ FilmScene, Iowa City, 7 p.m., $20-25 BOSTON THEATRICORE

Ice Nine Kills w/ Toothgrinder, Phinehas, Hawk, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 7 p.m., $20 Cedar Rapids Municipal Band, Noelridge Park, Cedar Rapids, 7:30 p.m., Free BEDROOM POP

Kibby w/ Dinner Time, Dana Telsrow, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $7 Pub Quiz, The Mill, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $1 (Weekly)

Mon., July 15 Doctor Who Party, Coralville Public Library, 2 & 6 p.m., Free Coralville Farmers Market, Coralville Community Aquatic Center Parking Lot, 5 p.m. (Weekly) PRIDE AT FILMSCENE

‘The Happy Prince,’ FilmScene, Iowa City, 6 p.m., $8-10.50 Open Mic, The Mill, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly) PHILADELPHIA FUZZ

The Stone Eye w/ ZUUL, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free Comedy Open Mic with Spencer & Dan, Yacht Club, Iowa City, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Tue., July 16 Food Truck Tuesdays, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 11 a.m. (Weekly) Cultivate Hope Market, Cultivate Hope Urban Farm, Cedar Rapids, 4:30 p.m. (Weekly) Practice in the Prairie, Indian Creek Nature Center, 6 p.m., Free (Weekly) MEMBERS ONLY; JOIN AT THE DOOR! ALSO SHOWING JULY 18

‘Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation,’ FilmScene, Iowa City, 6 p.m., $8-10.50 Blues Jam, Parlor City Pub and Eatery, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly) 44 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

Coming to CSPS Hall Mon Jul 8 Tue Jul 9 Thu Jul 11 Fri Jul 26 Sat Jul 27 Tue Jul 30 Tue Aug 6 Fri Sep 6 Sat Sep 7 Tue Sep 17

Caleb Rainey The Iguanas Opening reception Bob Campagna Winterland performs Reckoning The Sea the Sea and Freddy & Francine Seth Glier Trio The Jocelyn & Chris Arndt Band Holly Bowling Halfloves Dan Bern Art, music and theatre in Cedar Rapids since 1992 www.legionarts.org 319.364.1580

JULY STUFF Coralville 4thFest

Jazz Fest

Wed., July 3

Fri., July 5

Carnival, Coralville Community Aquatic Center,

Youth, College and Local Stages,

Coralville, 2 p.m., $1-20

Downtown Iowa City, 5:30 & 7:30 p.m., Free

Steve Agueri w/ the Sidewinders, S.T. Morrison

Jane Bunnett and Maqueque w/ The Nayo

Park, Coralville, 6:30 p.m., Free

Jones Experience, Jazz Fest Main Stage,

Iowa City Community Band, S.T. Morrison Park,

Iowa City, 6 p.m., Free

Coralville, 8:30 p.m., Free

City of Iowa City Fireworks, Jazz Fest Main

4th of July Fireworks, S.T. Morrison Park,

Stage, Iowa City, 9:30 p.m., Free

Coralville, 9:45 p.m., Free

Jam Sessions: Blake Shaw Quartet, Clinton St Social Club, Iowa City, 10:30 p.m., Free

Thu., July 4

Thumbscrew, The Mill, Iowa City, 10:30 p.m.,

Carnival, Coralville Community Aquatic Center,

Free

Coralville, 9 a.m., $1-20 4th of July Parade, 9th Street and 22nd

Sat., July 6

Avenue, Coralville, 10 a.m., Free

United Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Fest Main

Activities in the Park, S.T. Morrison Park,

Stage, Iowa City, 11:30 a.m., Free

Coralville, 1 p.m., Free

North Corridor Jazz All Stars, Jazz Fest

Cedar Rapids Freedom Festival

C R E AT I V E S E R V I C E S

https://www.yourwebsite.com

WEBSITE CREATION

Main Stage, Iowa City, 12:30 p.m., Free Youth, College and Local Stages, Downtown Iowa City, 1:30, 3:30, 5:30 & 7:30 p.m., Free

Wed., July 3

Sasha Berliner, Jazz Fest Main Stage, Iowa

Celebration of Freedom Fireworks, 2nd Avenue

City, 2 p.m., Free

Bridge, Cedar Rapids, 4 p.m., Free (ages 8 and

Ryan Keberle’s Catharsis, Jazz Fest Main

under)-Button Required

Stage, Iowa City, 4 p.m., Free

Star Spangled Organ Concert, First

Craig Taborn Daylight Ghosts Quartet, Jazz

Presbyterian Church, Cedar Rapids, 4 p.m., Free

Fest Main Stage, Iowa City, 6 p.m., Free

The Johnny Holm Band w/ Boot Jack Band,

Danilo Perez Trio with special guest Chris

McGrath Amphitheatre, Cedar Rapids, 5 p.m.,

Potter, Jazz Fest Main Stage, Iowa City, 8

Button Required

p.m., Free

Music at the Museum: Pianopalooza, National

Jam Sessions: Blake Shaw Quartet, Clinton

Czech and Slovak Museum and Library

St Social Club, Iowa City, 10:30 p.m., Free

Amphitheater, Cedar Rapids, 6 p.m., Free

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION MAINTENANCE AND SECURITY

319.855.1474

creative@littlevillagemag.com

littlevillagecreative.com

Five Seasons Ski Team, Ellis Park, Cedar

Sun., July 7

Rapids, 7 p.m., Free

The George Jazz Trio, Ped Mall Stage, Iowa

Cedar Rapids Municipal Band, Guthridge Park,

City, 12 p.m., Free

Hiawatha, 7 p.m., Free

The Blake Shaw Big(ish) Band, Jazz Fest

Five Seasons Ski Team, Ellis Park, Cedar

Main Stage, Iowa City, 1 p.m., Free

Rapids, 7 p.m., Free

The Dick Watson Trio, Plus, Jazz Fest Main Stage, Iowa City, 2 p.m., Free

Thu. July 4

Brick Street Ramblers, Jazz Fest Main

Fifth Season Races Featuring Health Solutions

Stage, Iowa City, 3 p.m., Free

8K, Green Square Park, Cedar Rapids, 6 a.m.,

Ritmocano!, Jazz Fest Main Stage, Iowa

$10-45

City, 4 p.m., Free

Pancake Breakfast, Veterans Memorial Building,

The Bad Plus, The Mill, Iowa City, 5 p.m.,

Cedar Rapids, 8 a.m., $3-6, $1 off with button

Free

Freedom Festival Car Show, Downtown Cedar

The Bad Plus, The Mill, Iowa City, 9 p.m.,

Rapids, 8 a.m., Free-$15

Free LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267 July 3–30, 2019 45

EDITORS’ PICKS READING: ‘MOSTLY DEAD THINGS’

Dance Party with DJ Batwoman,

Kristen Arnett in conversation with

Iowa City Yacht Club, 9 p.m., Free

UN w/ Wormwitch,

THROUGH JULY 28

Lyz Lenz, Prairie Lights Books & Cafe,

(Weekly)

Aseethe, Dryad, Gabe’s, Iowa

‘Apples in Winter,’ Old Creamery

Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free

SEATTLE FUNERAL DOOM

OPENING PERFORMANCE! RUNS

City, 8 p.m., $8

Theatre, Amana, 2 p.m., $12-32.50

CELLIST SINGER-SONGWRITER

I.C. Press Co-op open shop, Public

Sam Rae, The Mill, Iowa City, 8 p.m.,

Space One, Iowa City, 4 p.m., Free

$10

(Weekly)

Open Stage, Studio 13, Iowa City, 10

Meet Me at the Market, NewBo City

p.m., Free (Weekly)

Market, Cedar Rapids, 5 p.m., Free

Comedy & Karaoke, Studio 13, Iowa REVOLUTION STARTS IN THE STREETS

City, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly)

SERIES

Lecture: Paco Rosic, National Czech

Karaoke Tuesdays, The Mill, Iowa

and Slovak Museum and Library, Cedar

City, 10:30 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Rapids, 7 p.m., Free Yahoo Drummers, Downtown Iowa

Wed., July 17

City, 7:30 p.m., Free (Weekly) Weekly Old-Timey Jam Sessions,

Iowa City Open Coffee, Merge, Iowa

Late Shift at the Grindhouse, Film

Lamrim Kadampa Buddhist Centre

City, 8 a.m., Free (Weekly)

Scene, Iowa City, 10 p.m., $5.50

Iowa City Meditation Class, Quaker

(Weekly)

Friends Meeting House, Iowa City, 6:30

Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 7:30 p.m., Free (Weekly)

(Weekly) THIS WEEK: CLOWNADO

p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

THIS WEEK: CUSTOMIZE YOUR AUTO/ CLEAN SLATE

TEXAS COUNTRY/FOLK

One Million Cups, Merge, Iowa City, 9

Robert Earl Keen, Englert Theatre,

a.m., Free (Weekly)

Iowa City, 7:30 p.m., $37.50

Thu., July 18

Novel Conversations, Coralville Public Library, 7 p.m., Free (3rd Thursday)

ALSO JULY 20 AND 21

Iowa City Wednesday Farmers

The Picture Show: ‘Modest

AUSTIN AMERICANA

Market, Chauncey Swan Ramp, Iowa

Heroes,’ FilmScene, Iowa City, 10

IWP YOUTH PROGRAM VISITING

Big State w/ Scout Shannon & the

City, 5 p.m. (Weekly)

a.m., Free-$5

INSTRUCTORS

Willing Deceivers, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free

Asli Perker, Armen of Armenia, Open Mic Night, Penguin’s Comedy

Yuriy Serebriansky, Prairie Lights

Club, Cedar Rapids, 8 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Books & Cafe, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free

JOIN US FOR

Sidewalk Sales J U LY 1 9 - 2 1 .

20% OFF

STOREWIDE & UP TO

50% OFF

SELECT GIFTS 105 S. Dubuque St. on the Ped Mall Artisans have been paid in full. Discount applied to item of equal or lesser value. Offer valid at participating stores and online from 5/1/19-5/12/19 at 11:59 pm ET. Not valid with other offers or discounts, or purchase of clearance merchandise, gift cards, Bunyaad rugs, or consumables.

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/CALENDAR Thursday Night Live Open Mic,

Fri., July 19

Uptown Bill’s, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly)

THIS WEEK: BIRDCHILD W/ WE THE PEOPLE

Daddy-O, Parlor City Pub and Eatery,

Rock the Block, NewBo City Market,

Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Cedar Rapids, 5 p.m., Free (Weekly)

NASHVILLE SINGER-SONGWRITER

THIS WEEK: KEVIN BF BURT & BIG

Gretchen Peters, The Mill, Iowa City,

MEDICINE

8 p.m., $12-15

Summer of the Arts Friday Night

Where Everyone is Welcome and Equal

Concert Series, Ped Mall, Iowa City,

Sunday, August 18 • 12pm - 3pm

ALSO SHOWING JULY 19 AND 20

6:30 p.m., Free

DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Cedar Rapids Convention Complex

‘Always a Bridesmaid’ Ladies Night Out Reading, Giving Tree Theater,

FAC Dance Party, The Union, Iowa

Marion, 8 p.m., $10

City, 7 p.m. (Weekly)

Live Jazz, Clinton Street Social Club,

READING: ‘WE WENT TO THE WOODS’

Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free (1st & 3rd

Caite Dolan-Leach, Prairie Lights

Thursdays)

Books & Cafe, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free

ELECTRONIC; FMWT #26

DIAMOND DIANA 75TH BIRTHDAY

HIDE, Trumpet Blossom Cafe,

CELEBRATION

Iowa City, 9 p.m., $8

Diana Ross, Hancher, Iowa City, 7:30 p.m., $95

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All brides will be entered to win a wedding dress courtesy of White Willow Bridal Boutique!

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EDITORS’ PICKS ALSO PERFORMING JULY 20

Uncle Lar’ Larry Reeb w/ Brett Hiker, Penguin’s Comedy Club, Cedar Rapids, 8 p.m., $12-14 Cole Peterson Trio, Sanctuary Pub, Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free

IOWA CITY NORTHSIDE MARKETPLACE

OHIO ROCK AND ROLL

The Turbos w/ THE LOWDOWN, Iowa City Yacht Club, 9 p.m., $7-10 BENEFIT FOR TRANS LIFELINE

Kane Edwards w/ Jonathan Foster, Wayne Gibbus, Nalani Proctor, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $7+ SoulShake, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 10 p.m., Free (Weekly) Flirty Friday’s Drag & Dance Party, Studio 13, Iowa City, 10:30 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

Sat, July 20 Iowa City Sunday Farmers Market, Chauncey Swan Ramp, Iowa City, 7:30 a.m. (Weekly)

BREAKFAST • DINNER • DRINKS 203 N Linn St, Iowa City (319) 351-1924 • goosetowncafe.com Open everyday except Tuesday Dinners Wednesday-Saturday

VISIT FOUR NATIVE PRAIRIE SITES

Parade of Prairies, Indian Creek Nature Center,

Classic & Contemporary Furniture Lighting Housewares & Gifts Registry

Cedar Rapids, 7:30 a.m., $45 Cedar Rapids Downtown Farmers Market, Downtown Cedar Rapids, 7:30 a.m.

Marion Farmers Market, Taube Park, Marion, 8 a.m.

(Weekly) Guest Vendor Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 10 a.m. (Weekly) Family Storytime, Iowa City Public Library, 10:30 a.m., Free (Weekly)

Corner of Dodge & Davenport Street Iowa City, Iowa 319-354-2623 info@designranch.com www.designranch.com

I.C. Press Co-op Open Shop, Public Space One, Iowa City, 12 p.m., Free (Weekly) Immigrant Foodways: The Witch’s Garden, National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library, Cedar Rapids, 1 p.m., $20

(abridged) [Revised],’ Cedar Rapids Public Library, 2 p.m., Free (ticket required) 48 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

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‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

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SECOND PERFORMANCE JULY 21

o

Rapids, 2 p.m., $30-45

rn

Battle of the Brews, NewBo City Market, Cedar

es

BENEFIT FOR MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY ASSOCIATION

George’s

est. 1939

312 E Market St | 351-9614

IC’s original northside tap, serving up cold brews, lively conversation, & our award-winning burgers.

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EDITORS’ PICKS

SOUL & BLUES FESTIVAL Presents

D OWNTOWN I OWA C ITY A UGUST 2 & 3, 2019

Tomar and the FC’s JC New King of Funk Rico McFarland Band Kevin B.F. Burt Tanya English Band GooseTown DJ Dance Party with DJ Freeze and Mr. DJ Ice

Also Featuring: Fashion Show Black Authors’ Panel Kid’s Activites Culinary Delights Beverage Garden Artist MarketPlace Late Night Entertainment

Free Admission Sponsored By

summeroftheARTS.org

50 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

FT. DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND

Pub Quiz, The Mill, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $1 (Weekly)

Grand Opening Celebration, Riverfront Crossings Park, Iowa City, 3 p.m., Free

Mon., July 22

PA ALT-ROCK/RAP

From Ashes to New w/ the Funeral Portrait, Five AM, Wildwood Smokehouse & Saloon, Iowa City, 6:30 p.m., $20-25

CA DEATH METAL

Summer Slaughter at Wildwood—Nine Bands Featuring: Cattle Decapitation, Carnifex and the Faceless, Wildwood Smokehouse

BURLESQUE—CATTY WOMPASS

& Saloon, Iowa City, 3 p.m., $25

Bawdy Bawdy Ha Ha, The Mill, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $10-25

Coralville Farmers Market, Coralville Community Aquatic Center Parking Lot, 5 p.m. (Weekly)

3 Dawgs & a Bone featuring Steve Grismore, Sanctuary Pub, Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free

Open Mic, The Mill, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly)

PSYCH FOLK

READING: ‘MAGIC EVEN YOU CAN DO’ / ‘THE LINES’

Cold Mountain Child w/ David S Kruse, Spectral

Charles Holdefer and Anthony Varallo, Prairie

Snake, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 8:30 p.m.,

Lights Books & Cafe, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free

$7 Comedy Open Mic with Spencer & Dan, Yacht THIS WEEK: INCREDIBLES 2

Club, Iowa City, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Summer of the Arts Free Movie Series, Pentacrest, Iowa City, Sunset, Free (Weekly)

Tue., July 23

Elation Dance Party, Studio 13, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

Food Truck Tuesdays, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 11 a.m. (Weekly)

Sun., July 21

Cultivate Hope Market, Cultivate Hope Urban Farm, Cedar Rapids, 4:30 p.m. (Weekly)

Guest Vendor Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 10 a.m. (Weekly)

Practice in the Prairie, Indian Creek Nature Center, 6 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Hiawatha Farmers Market, Guthridge Park, Hiawatha, 10 a.m. (Weekly)

Blues Jam, Parlor City Pub and Eatery, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly)

THIS MONTH: JEFF ALLEN

Artifactory Presents: June Art In The

READING: ‘WILD MILK’

Afternoon, The Center, Iowa City, 1 p.m., Free (3rd

Sabrina Orah Mark, Prairie Lights Books & Cafe,

Sunday)

Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free

Sunday Funday, Iowa City Public Library, Iowa City,

Yahoo Drummers, Downtown Iowa City, 7:30 p.m.,

2 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Free (Weekly)

CLOSING PERFORMANCE

Weekly Old-Timey Jam Sessions, Trumpet

‘Newsies,’ Theatre Cedar Rapids, 2:30 p.m., $25-48

Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 7:30 p.m., Free (Weekly)

EXPERIMENTAL SINGER-SONGWRITER

Dance Party with DJ Batwoman, Iowa City Yacht

SASAMI, The Mill, Iowa City, 7:30 p.m., $15-18

Club, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly)

ROOFTOP SCREENING

Comedy & Karaoke, Studio 13, Iowa City, 9 p.m.,

‘The Matrix,’ FilmScene, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $15

Free (Weekly)

NE GARAGE ROCK

Karaoke Tuesdays, The Mill, Iowa City, 10:30 p.m.,

Death Cow w/ Basketball Divorce Court, Gunk

Free (Weekly)

Lung, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $5 suggested donation

Sponsored By

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July 13

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Where’s the $20,000 “Play� bike rack? —BS, Iowa City, via Facebook

I

t’s surprising how many people don’t notice a 25-foot-long, 8-foot-tall bike rack in the shape of the letters P-LA-Y is missing until you point out it’s gone. Technically, it’s not a rack, it’s a “parklet,� which is a structure that not only offers large-scale bike parking (in this case, 40 bikes), but is also supposed to help beautify its surroundings.

The parklet has stood at the corner of Dubuque and Washington Streets across from the Ped Mall since October 2016.

Except during the winter, when the city puts it in storage.

Even though winter is long gone, the parklet is still in storage, Iowa City Transportation Director Darian Nagle-Gamm explained to Little Village in an email. It didn’t return this spring because “contractors for the Ped Mall project are utilizing the commercial loading zone on Dubuque Street for the duration of the Ped Mall project.� “We expect the rack to reemerge once the project is complete and the space is no longer needed,� she added.

Since construction on the Ped Mall is scheduled to finish in November, if the parklet does show up this year, it won’t be long before it’s back in storage.

According to a press release sent out when the structure was unveiled in 2016 from the firm that designed the parklet, OPN Architects, the big bike rack is supposed to celebrate “Iowa City’s community identity by marrying three functions—public sculpture, community playground and bicycle parking—into one structure.�

The parklet was a joint project of the Iowa City Downtown District and Think

Bicycles of Johnson County. Funding was provided by Iowa City as part of its efforts to improve bikeability downtown. But not everyone agreed with OPN’s belief that the parklet “makes a bold statement with an iconic structure that will create memorable experiences for all ages.� Many people thought the city could have spent the $20,000 that the project cost in other bike-friendly ways.

The parklet parking isn’t the only bike-related thing missing from downtown Iowa City. In August 2018, Nagle-Gamm told Little Village that Iowa City’s long-awaited bikeshare program would start soon. “The goal is to have it in place by the fall,� she said last summer.

Obviously, that didn’t happen.

In her email to Little Village, NagleGamm said last year’s negotiations with the vendor the city selected fell through because the vendor wanted the city to add a scooter-share program.

According to Nagle-Gamm, “the City would prefer a phased approach where a bike share is integrated first and that there is an option to potentially add e-scooters at a later date ... At this point I can’t tell you when e-scooters might be introduced, but I can say that the City is considering them and sees their potential as a quick, easy and affordable mobility option.�

It’s been four years since the city first announced it was creating a bikeshare program in partnership with the University of Iowa. “We are now finalizing the vendor selection process and expect to launch near the beginning of the semester,� Nagle-Gamm said in her June 28 email.

Have a question about what’s going on in your community?

Ask Little Village. Submit your question through the Your Village feature on our homepage, or email us at editor@littlevillagemag.com.

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267 July 3–30, 2019 51

EDITORS’ PICKS

Wed., July 24 Iowa City Open Coffee, Merge, Iowa City, 8 a.m.,

THIS WEEK: ‘FEMALE PRISONER #701: SCORPION’

Daddy-O, Parlor City Pub and Eatery, Cedar Rapids, 7

Late Shift at the Grindhouse, Film Scene, Iowa

p.m., Free (Weekly)

City, 10 p.m., $5.50 (Weekly)

Free (Weekly) THIS WEEK: SUGAR FIEND SWEETS/THE IMPLEMAID

GEORGIA COUNTRY

Thu., July 25

Billy Currington, McGrath Amphitheatre, Cedar Rapids, 7:30 p.m., $35-95

One Million Cups, Merge, Iowa City, 9 a.m., Free (Weekly) Iowa City Wednesday Farmers Market, Chauncey

ALSO JULY 27 AND 28

TENNESSEE AMERICANA

The Picture Show: ‘Missing Link,’ FilmScene, Iowa

Liv Noelle w/ Abby Kouri & Katie Senn, Brad

City, 10 a.m., Free-$5

and the Big Wave, Iowa City Yacht Club, 8 p.m., $7-10

Swan Ramp, Iowa City, 5 p.m. (Weekly) I.C. Press Co-op open shop, Public Space One, THE PURE NOISE TOUR

Iowa City, 4 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Stick To Your Guns: Counterparts, Terror, Sanction, Year of the Knife, Blue

ARKANSAS FUNK ROCK

Groovement, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $10 Meet Me at the Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar

Moose Tap House, Iowa City, 5:30 p.m., $20

Rapids, 5 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Burlington Street Bluegrass Band, The Mill, Iowa

Lamrim Kadampa Buddhist Centre Iowa City

City, 6 p.m., $5 (2nd & 4th Wednesdays)

Meditation Class, Quaker Friends Meeting House,

THIS WEEK: THE MAGNETOS W/ INDIGO SOUL

Iowa City, 6:30 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

Rock the Block, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids,

Open Mic Night, Penguin’s Comedy Club, Cedar Rapids, 8 p.m., Free (Weekly)

6 p.m., Free (Weekly) Thursday Night Live Open Mic, Uptown Bill’s, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Open Stage, Studio 13, Iowa City, 10 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Fri., July 26

THIS WEEK: BRICK STREET RAMBLERS

Summer of the Arts Friday Night Concert READING: ‘THE COLOR INSIDE A MELON’

Series, Ped Mall, Iowa City, 6:30 p.m., Free

John Domini, Prairie Lights Books & Cafe, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free

52 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

FAC Dance Party, The Union, Iowa City, 7 p.m. (Weekly)

TENNESSEE COUNTRY/RAP

Shotgun Shane w/ Drix, Aces and Eights, Wildwood Smokehouse & Saloon, Iowa City, 7 p.m., $20-25 OPENING NIGHT! RUNS THROUGH AUG. 11

CEDAR RAPIDS NEW BOHEMIA/ CZECH VILLAGE

‘Disney’s® FROZEN JR.,’ RHCR Theatre, Cedar Rapids, 7:30 p.m., $15 FOLK/COUNTRY

John Paul White, The Mill, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $20-22

the

RELIVE THE GRATEFUL DEAD

Winterland: Reckoning, CSPS Legion Arts, Cedar

DAISY

CLOTHING • GIFTS & DECOR

Rapids, 8 p.m., $16-19 ALSO PERFORMING JULY 27

Marion

Tommy Ryman w/ Dante Powell, Penguin’s

319-249-1898 1105 8th Ave

Comedy Club, Cedar Rapids, 8 p.m., $10-18 IC ROCK-JAZZ-SOUL-FUNK

New Bo

319-362-3615 208 12th Ave

Tu, Wed, Fri 11-5 Th 11-7 • Sat 11-4 ~ closed sunday & monday ~

Rubbur w/ Ivory James, Iowa City Yacht Club, 9 p.m., $7-10

www.shopthedaisy.com

SoulShake, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 10 p.m., Free (Weekly) Flirty Friday’s Drag & Dance Party, Studio 13,

Black Earth Gallery

Iowa City, 10:30 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

Sat., July 27 Iowa City Sunday Farmers Market, Chauncey Swan Ramp, Iowa City, 7:30 a.m. (Weekly) Marion Farmers Market, Taube Park, Marion, 8 a.m. (Weekly) Summer Family Free Day, National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library, Cedar Rapids, 9:30 a.m., Free Guest Vendor Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 10 a.m. (Weekly) 29TH ADA CELEBRATION

#DisabilityisDiversity, Iowa City Ped Mall, 10 a.m., Free Family Storytime, Iowa City Public Library, 10:30 a.m., Free (Weekly) I.C. Press Co-op Open Shop, Public Space One, Iowa City, 12 p.m., Free (Weekly)

f lowers • ya r n

The Garden Wren f lorist & yarn studio gifts • classes

102D 16 TH A VE . SW IN C ZECH V ILLAGE 319-241-9987 • T HE G ARDEN W REN . COM

1010 3rd Street SE, suite 2 entrance on the alley Cedar Rapids, IA #NewBoDistrict blackearthgallery.com @black_earth_gallery hours: w-sat, noon-5:30pm

EDITORS’ PICKS CONCERTS AT THE CREEK

The Feralings w/ Sonia Rao, Indian Creek Nature Center Amazing Space Patio, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., $18-22 TAKE IT DOWN COMEDY TOUR

Tom Segura, Paramount Theatre, Cedar Rapids, 7:30 p.m., $35-75 Choro Moingona, Sanctuary Pub, Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free INDIE FOLK-POP DUO

The Sea the Sea w/ Freddy & Francine, CSPS Legion Arts, Cedar Rapids, 8 p.m., $18-22 OLD SCHOOL BLUES

The Blue Dog Band, Wildwood Smokehouse & Saloon, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $10 ALT COUNTRY

Will Bennett & The Tells Record Release w/ Lily DeTaeye, Paul Cary, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 8:30 p.m., $7 THIS WEEK: THE PROPOSAL

Summer of the Arts Free Movie Series, Pentacrest, Iowa City, Sunset, Free (Weekly) Elation Dance Party, Studio 13, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

Sun., July 28 Guest Vendor Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 10 a.m. (Weekly) Hiawatha Farmers Market, Guthridge Park, Hiawatha, 10 a.m. (Weekly) READING: ‘A LIFE ON THE MIDDLE WEST’S NEVERENDING FRONTIER’

Willard L. “Sandy” Boyd, Prairie Lights Books & Cafe, Iowa City, 2 p.m., Free Sunday Funday, Iowa City Public Library, Iowa City, 2 p.m., Free (Weekly) Pub Quiz, The Mill, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $1 (Weekly)

Mon., July 29 Coralville Farmers Market, Coralville Community Aquatic Center Parking Lot, 5 p.m. (Weekly)

54 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

IOWA CITY SOUTH OF BOWERY LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM Open Mic, The Mill, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly) Peter Frampton Finale: Farewell Tour, McGrath Amphitheatre, Cedar Rapids, 7:30 p.m., $46-136 Comedy Open Mic with Spencer & Dan, Yacht Club, Iowa City, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Tue., July 30

Professional Printers for 65 Years 408 Highland Ct. • (319) 338-9471 bob@goodfellowprinting.com

Food Truck Tuesdays, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 11 a.m. (Weekly) Cultivate Hope Market, Cultivate Hope Urban Farm, Cedar Rapids, 4:30 p.m. (Weekly) Practice in the Prairie, Indian Creek Nature Center, 6 p.m., Free (Weekly) Blues Jam, Parlor City Pub and Eatery, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly) SINGER-SONGWRITER

Seth Glier, CSPS Legion Arts, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., $16-19 READING: ‘FURIOUS HOURS: MURDER, FRAUD, AND THE LAST TRIAL OF HARPER LEE’

Casey Cep, Prairie Lights Books & Cafe, Iowa City, 2 p.m., Free Yahoo Drummers, Downtown Iowa City, 7:30 p.m., Free (Weekly) Weekly Old-Timey Jam Sessions, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 7:30 p.m., Free (Weekly) BLUES/SOUL/FUNK

Charlie Hunter & Lucy Woodward, The Mill, Iowa City, 7:30 p.m., $20-25 “Weird Al” Yankovic: Strings Attached, McGrath Amphitheatre, Cedar Rapids, 8 p.m., $32-289 Dance Party with DJ Batwoman, Iowa City Yacht Club, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly) Comedy & Karaoke, Studio 13, Iowa City, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly) Karaoke Tuesdays, The Mill, Iowa City, 10:30 p.m., Free (Weekly)

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IOWA CITY OLD TRAIN DEPOT

DEAR KIKI

LittleVillageMag.com/DearKiki

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ear Kiki, My significant other died six You refer only to a sexual relationship. Is this months ago from a long-term sex you’re having worth drawing a line in the illness. In our 25 years togethsand that could mean losing your children? er we had a 25-year-old daughter and a Those are the questions I think you should 21-year-old son. During that time he had ponder. But on to the ones you asked me. My an illegitimate son that is also 21 years old, bottom line in most things is that grown-ass just a few months older than my son. I didn’t adults (which includes both you and your even meet this son until he was 15 years old. playmate) are free to make what choices After my significant other’s death he began they please with one another. However, it living with me and my son. About a month isn’t hard to see why your children are given ago I developed a sexual relationship with pause by these circumstances. You didn’t my significant other’s son. My children have raise this man, it’s true—but you’re being now disowned me calling the relationship entirely disingenuous when you argue from disgusting, a poor decision, and inappropria semantic standpoint when it comes to ate. The way I see it, other than the age gap step-parenting. It doesn’t matter whether you of 25 years, we are both single, both adults, were legally his step-parent by marriage, just we are not related, I didn’t raise him, I didn’t as your relationship with his father wasn’t even meet him until he was at all diminished by the lack of 15 years old and I was never formal recognition. You say you actually married to his dad didn’t parent him, per se, and I IS THIS SEX therefore I was never an see no reason to disbelieve you.

YOU’RE HAVING actual step-mom. Do you But why even bring up a techWORTH think my children are correct nicality? in their perception of this Likewise, saying you “didn’t DRAWING A relationship and if so, for even meet him until he was 15” LINE IN THE what reasons? is hair splitting, and ignores SAND THAT how extremely impressionable Dear All My Children, a 15-year-old can be. You were COULD MEAN I think you’re asking the the woman his father chose to LOSING YOUR wrong questions here. I can build a life with, instead of his CHILDREN? dig into what you’re actually mother. That’s a pretty strong asking in a minute, but first imprint to leave on a kid. Even I want to ask you: Does it if there is nothing untoward matter? That is, if your relationships with behind your choice to be with him, you are your children are valuable to you, then (as almost certainly taking advantage of a power long as their reasoning isn’t racist or in some over him you might not even realize you other way independently unethical) does have. You may not have parented him then, it really matter whether they are “right” or but if he were your child, what advice would “wrong” in their discomfort? I’m not saying you give him about choosing this relationship you have to bow to their every whim (many with you? Do you think he is in a healthy a relationship has been maintained against place? the wishes of friends and relatives), but is I encourage you to seriously consider what being right, in-and-of itself, more important the various relationships in your life mean to to you than your connection to them? you. Examine each one carefully. Remember Here’s the other thing that jumps out at me: that all four of you are still in a place of acYour framing of what’s going on with this tive grief right now: While that doesn’t inyounger man. Never once do you say that validate the choices you make, it does inform you’ve fallen in love. Nowhere do you use them. Live gently. the terms “dating,” or “seeing each other.” xoxo, Kiki

K I K I WA N T S Q U E ST I O N S !

Questions about love and sex in the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids area can be submitted to dearkiki@littlevillagemag.com, or anonymously at littlevillagemag.com/ dearkiki. Questions may be edited for clarity and length, and may appear either in print or online at littlevillagemag.com.

ASTROLOGY

Upcoming Events: EVERY MONDAY - PARCHMENT LOUNGE - 6:30 PM free write session hosted by Iowa Writer's House EVERY WEDNESDAY - ANDREW'S BAR EXAM - 7:00 PM

JULY 5

Ross Clowser Quartet

JULY 8

A Little Wine Event

JULY 19

Cole Peterson Trio

8 PM

6:15 PM 8 PM

JULY 20 8 PM

3 Dawgs and a Bone with Steve Grismore

JULY 27

Choro Moingona

8 PM

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Parchment Lounge: Room Reading!

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BY ROB BREZSNEY

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian voice actor Tom Kenny has played the roles of over 1,500 cartoon characters, including SpongeBob SquarePants, Spyro the Dragon, Jake Spidermonkey, Commander Peepers and Doctor Octopus. I propose that we make him your role model in the coming weeks.

It will be a favorable time for you to show your versatility; to demonstrate how multifaceted you can be; to express various sides of your soulful personality.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Leo author Donald Miller reminds us that fear can have two very different purposes. On the one hand, it may be “a guide to keep us safe,” alerting us to situations that could be dangerous or abusive. On the other hand, fear may work as “a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life.” After studying your astrological indicators for the coming weeks, Leo, I have come to the conclusion that fear may serve both of those functions for you.

Your challenge will be to discern between them; to know which situations are genuinely risky and which situations are daunting but promising. Here’s a hint that might help: trust your gut feelings more than your swirling fantasies.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Why do flocks of geese fly in a V-formation? Because to do so enhances the collective efficiency of their travel. Each bird generates a current that supports the bird behind it. Let’s make this phenomenon one of your power metaphors for the coming weeks. What would be the equivalent strategy for you and your tribe or group as you seek to make your collaborative efforts more dynamic and productive? Unforeseen help will augment any actions you take in this regard.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue,” mused Libra author Truman Capote. “That’s why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.” That cynical formulation has more than a few grains of truth in it, I must admit. But I’m pleased to tell you that I suspect your experience in the coming weeks will be an exception to Capote’s rule. I think you have the potential to embark on a virtual binge of rich discussion and intriguing interplay with people who stimulate and educate and entertain you. Rise to the challenge!

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In accordance with astrological rhythms, you are authorized to make the following declarations in the next two weeks: 1. “I refuse to participate further in this situation on the grounds that it might impinge on the expansiveness of my imagination.” 2. “I abstain from dealing with your skepticism on the grounds that doing so might discourage the flights of my imagination.” 3. “I reject these ideas, theories and beliefs on the grounds that they might pinch, squash or deflate my imagination.” What I’m trying to tell you, Scorpio, is that it’s crucial for you to emancipate your imagination and authorize it to play uninhibitedly in the frontiers of possibilities.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Dear Sagittarius: I invite you to make a copy of the testimonial below and give it to anyone who is in a position to support your Noble Experiment. “To Whom It May Concern: I endorse this Soulful Sagittarius for the roles of monster-tamer, fun-locator, boredom-transcender, elation-inciter and mountaintop visionary. This adroit explorer is endowed with charming zeal, disarming candor and abundant generosity. If you need help in sparking your enthusiasm or galvanizing your drive to see the big picture, call on the expansive skills of this jaunty puzzle-solver.”

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Life will conspire to bring you a surge of love in the coming weeks—if you can handle it. Can you? Will you be able to deal adeptly with rumbling love and icy hot love and mostly sweet but also a bit sour love? Do you possess the resourcefulness and curiosity necessary to have fun with funny spiritual love and running-through-the-labyrinth

love and unexpectedly catalytic love? Are you open-minded and open-hearted enough to make the most of brilliant shadowy love and unruly sensitive love and toughly graceful love?

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I don’t endlessly champion the “no pain, no gain” theory of personal growth. My philosophy holds that we are at least as likely to learn valuable lessons from pleasurable and joyful experiences as we are from difficult and taxing struggles. Having said that, I also think it’s true that our suffering may lead us to treasure if we know how to work with it. According to my assessment, the coming weeks will bring one such opening for you. To help you cultivate the proper spirit, keep in mind the teaching of Aquarian theologian and author Henri Nouwen. He said that life’s gifts may be “hidden in the places that hurt most.”

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The Japanese word “wabi-sabi” refers to an interesting or evocative imperfection in a work of art that makes it more beautiful than if it were merely perfect. “Duende” is a Spanish word referring to a work of art that gives its viewers the chills because it’s so emotionally rich and unpredictably soulful. In the coming weeks, I think that you yourself will be a work of art with an abundance of these qualities. Your wabi-sabi will give you the power to free yourself from the oppressive pressures of seeking too much precision and purity. Your duende can give you the courage you need to go further than you’ve ever dared in your quest for the love you really want.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): When the universe began 13.8 billion years ago, there were only four elements: mostly hydrogen and helium, plus tiny amounts of lithium and beryllium. Now there are 118 elements, including five that are key components of your body: oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus. All of those were created by nuclear reactions blazing on the insides of stars that later died. So it’s literally true to say that much of your flesh and blood and bones and nerves originated at the hearts of stars. I invite you to meditate on that amazing fact. It’s a favorable time to muse on your origins and your ancestry; to ruminate about all the events that led to you being here today—including more recent decades, as well as the past 13.8 billion years.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Most American women couldn’t vote until 100 years ago. Women in Japan, France and Italy couldn’t vote until the 1940s. Universal suffrage has been a fundamental change in how society is structured. Similarly, same-sex marriage was opposed by vast majorities in most countries until 15 years ago, but has since become widely accepted. African-American slavery lasted for hundreds of years before being delegitimized all over the Western world in the 19th century. Brazil, which hosted 40 percent of all kidnapped Africans, didn’t free its slaves until 1888. What would be the equivalent of such revolutionary transformations in your own personal life? According to my reading of the astrological omens, you have the power to make that happen during the next 12 months.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini musician Paul Weller is famous in the UK, though not so much elsewhere. According to the BBC, he is one of Britain’s “most revered music writers and performers.” To which I say: revered, maybe, but mentally healthy? Not so much. He bragged that he broke up his marriage with his wife Dee C. Lee because “things were going too well, we were too happy, too comfortable, everything seemed too nice.” He was afraid that “as a writer and an artist I might lose my edge.” Don’t you dare allow yourself to get infected with that perverse way of thinking, my dear Gemini. Please capitalize on your current comfort and happiness. Use them to build your strength and resilience for the months and years to come.

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267 July 3–30, 2019 59

LOCAL ALBUMS

Land of Blood and Sunshine House of Bellow SUMPPUMPRECORDS.BANDCAMP.COM

L

istening to Land Of Blood and Sunshine is being taken on a journey through a fantasy world of damaged misfits moving through surrealist landscapes.

From their first album, 2009’s Magick Carcass Ride, through their last, 2015’s Lady and the Trance, they’ve continued to spin fables in song form. Their sound has a lot in common with the fairytale psych-folk of early Elf Power combined with the new age sing-a-along hymns of the Danielson Family.

House of Bellow, their sixth full-length album, takes these same influences, then turns them upside down to see if they still tick—in the process, making one of the best psych records of 2019.

Opening track “The Orchestrate� lays the groundwork, opening with funky guitar plucking that disappears as the collective vocals arrive. A minute in and the mix is overwhelmed

Submit albums for review: Little Village, 623 S Dubuque St., IC, IA 52240

by a prog-y organ that delivers a near sugar rush of glee. It isn’t until the doomy guitars and forced growl vocals take over that we become aware that this trip is about to become darker and stranger. “Driving With A Ghost,� track two, changes the mood slightly.

It’s the closest the album gets to a rock song, and it does a fine job setting us up for the next turn. “The Fifth Field� starts with spaghetti western guitars that slowly deliver us into a child-like creepiness, both innocent and unsettling.

As the album continues I am more and more aware that LOBAS have spent their 10-plus years together sharpening the edges of their songwriting, where most bands become formulaic.

This is most evident on songs like “Leaf Merchant,� with its Amon Duul stylings, and the fragile warbling of “Fossil Toss.�

It continues with the melodic guitars that give in to a hidden anger in “Keeper of the Cabin� and on “The Portable Forest,� which might as well be an anthem for the feral climate change children who will take over the world.

With the addition of Land of Blood and Sunshine to their eclectic roster, Sump Pump Records continues to shine a light on some of the best music made in Iowa. —Chris Burns

Bonne Finken Gauntlet BONNEFINKEN.COM

S

ometimes, a short, powerful album free of forced lightness is exactly what you need. Bonne Finken gives just that. Her junior album tells the artist’s truth—no sugar, no cream. Gauntlet, out July 7, is refreshing in its bitter yet hopeful honesty.

Finken has all the makings and skill of a great rock vocalist.

Her gut-wrenching low range melds seamlessly into pleading high notes. This is nothing new— Finken’s move into a heavier rock sound is. Electronic ambiance teases over pounding rock rhythms; these sounds seem to be the only hint left of Finken’s poprock beginnings. Even what’s left is very different.

Finken is building a whole new world on this album, filled with castles and heartache and church choirs. In “Someday� and “Warning Signs,� the touches of eeriness pair well with the rock-and-roll vibe. The same can be said of the hauntedness

and religious undertones. “Silver Skin� broaches the territory of her pop roots, but contains a cinematic-level build up that is a joy to move through. On Gauntlet, Finken has hardened the edges of her music, but at the heart of her powerful verses she maintains vulnerability. That is artistic prowess.

Finken states in her website bio her goal is to “present the sounds in her head.� Gauntlet allows the listener a step into the mind of this independent artist: a bold and unwavering step. Listening feels like sanctioned eavesdropping— sinful, yet rewarding. That feeling echoes the decadence of the music itself; think Bishop Briggs introduced to Evanescence. That level of female power play encapsulates Finken’s sound. Her resilience both in her personal life and in the male-dominated music industry shows through beautifully in her work. Finken is uncompromising in her message and delivery.

One can hear the influence of producer Matt Sepanic (of Slipknot) on the record. Sepanic seems to have nudged Finken into a more wholly rock sound.

But despite having such a heavy-hitter behind the scenes, Finken’s calculated and determined approach never fails to maintain the forefront. The album is appropriately titled: Bonne Finken has thrown down the gauntlet. —Alex Kramer

 2790 N DODGE ST., IOWA CITY (319) 569-1722

Your Opportunity to Engage with Arts and Culture CulturalCorridor.org

60 July 3–30, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV267

LOCAL BOOKS

Claire Lombardo The Most Fun We Ever Had DOUBLEDAY

Reading: Claire Lombardo, ‘The Most Fun We Ever Had,’ Prairie Lights Books & Cafe, Tuesday, July 9, 7:30 p.m., Free

I

n Claire Lombardo’s debut novel, The Most Fun We Ever Had, she isn’t afraid to tackle the biggest of topics, specifically for women—sisterhood, fear, general annoyance and birth or the absence of it. The reader gets an intimate look at the conception of the Sorenson family (literally, considering Lombardo’s plethora of sex scenes), giving narrative control to each member: Marilyn and David Sorenson and their four daughters, Wendy, Violet, Liza and Grace.

By moving back and forth between the story of the family’s growth from the ’70s to the ’90s and the Sorenson family in 2016, Lombardo is able to weave a classic secrets-will-be-spilled plot while creating a hilarious, original and authentic vision of

Submit books for review: Little Village, 623 S Dubuque St., IC, IA 52240

a wealthy—and sometimes hostile—hive of Midwesterners who do ultimately love one another.

Lombardo is expert at crafting any sentence, using n-dashes, colons and semicolons liberally while keeping the thoughts concise and understandable, with realistic human inflection in dialogue.

Though some of the family interaction feels too set up and situationally ideal, the picture-perfect and yet uncomfortable atmosphere forgives these moments.

Something most admirable in Lombardo’s world is that extreme wealth is not normalized.

The Sorenson parents live in a large, suburban house, while their daughters live in two-story condos, their own gigantic houses and—highly coveted in a college landscape—a studio apartment. Their white privilege and rich lifestyles aren’t left unacknowledged by the other characters; quick quips about barre classes, $40 headbands and organic Whole Foods delicacies abound.

The Most Fun We Ever Had is emotionally real in an abrasive way, and this makes the novel magnificent. It is a reality check— an invitation to call your family, chosen or otherwise. Lombardo invites any reader to look upon their own ways of loving those around them: children, parents, sisters or strangers. It’s a stunning accomplishment for a debut.

—Elaine Irvine

Lyz Lenz God Land: A Story of Faith, Loss, and Renewal in Middle America INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

T

he Christian Church’s confusing, conflicted space in culture and politics after the Religious Right’s embrace of President Trump continues to draw ire and inspire critical and creative thought. Lyz Lenz’s God Land: A Story of Faith, Loss, and Renewal in Middle America (out Aug. 1) is a strong contender for a must-read list: The nonfiction work deftly synthesizes Lenz’s personal divorce along the fault lines of the white, privileged version of American Christianity reflected across the Midwest.

The book incorporates the intelligence, wit and courage that Lenz has become known for in her journalism—but it includes a sympathetic element as it demonstrates how difficult it is to extricate privilege, place and culture from the question of finding God. From starting a church (and watching it disintegrate) to

visiting a tailgate to exploring how Christianity is practiced beyond white evangelicalism, the book presents a thoughtful glimpse of a struggle beyond pat put-downs or easy solutions.

The book succeeds both at a level of aesthetic pleasure (it’s funny) and academic parlance: Its ethnographic exposure of the fears and frailties that buttress those who embrace religion as a nostalgic roadmap for the future provides a cutting-edge performance of contemporary works of religious studies and place studies. Lenz is unafraid of providing multiple perspectives on a complex question, and readers benefit from her diligent reporting and honest, soul-searching account.

Lenz’s approach—which offers information and evidence to substantiate a problem that is universal, with solutions that can only be particular—is masterful.

While one can read and forget any number of scholarly works, Lenz’s informed and informative account of the tensions at the heart of the “values” of Middle America can be remembered and lived. God Land is an audacious attempt to synthesize and personalize the range of issues confronting 21st-century Americans, and Lenz does this with humor, honesty and aplomb.

—Daniel Boscaljon

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BAD CALLS

BY BY R O N WA L D E N

The American Values Club Crossword is edited by Ben Tausig.

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ACROSS 1. Be irritated by 8. Closed with string 15. Reveal 16. Like some common wintertime medicines 17. Faux pas on Morning Joe? 19. Like a famished person’s Doritos bag 20. Fam. member 21. Headline about the

52

firing of a kitchen worker?

25. Thing bought by campaign contributions 26. Bowls over 29. See 58-Across 30. Primatologist Fossey 34. Hand or foot, for example 35. Not to mention 36. Dance for oil prospectors?

39. Put under the hammer

and sickle 40. Where a coop resident might keep passports and extra cash?

43. Soft avian sound 46. Unsigned release, say 47. Hardens 48. Outgoing mayor Emanuel 49. Its anthem is “March of the Volunteers” 51. TV title role for Brandy

53. Expo that showcases all the latest jargon?

58. With 29-Across, sporting series that opened in 2019 with the Hall of Fame Classic in Arlington, Texas 60. Certain protective item in bed 61. Collective action that disrupts the social calendar?

66. Suck, from the Latin

67. With the exception of 68. Ninja’s asset 69. Acapulco affirmative

39. Baked treat served with clotted cream 40. HHS agency based in Atlanta 41. Beavis and Butt-Head syllable 42. Worthy of copying 43. Home to about half a billion people?

44. “Fancy meeting you here!”

45. Congresswoman whose Twitter handle is @ IlhanMN 48. Ring master?

50. Perfume compound 51. Seminomadic people of Kenya and Tanzania 52. Sporters of rabbit ears 54. Parent of Andaz boutique hotels 55. Broken Politics singer Cherry 56. Adherent 57. “One Night in Bangkok” musical 58. Common email attachments 59. Exemplar of redness 62. Diminutive suffix 63. Folksy conditional 64. “Rock and Roll, Hoochie ___” (1973 hit) 65. Go wrong

DOWN 1. Jewel box fillers 2. SunnyD alternative 3. A Wrinkle in Time director DuVernay 4. Help to progress 5. Bent pipe sections 6. Ancient marketplaces 7. Fork-tailed birds 8. Hosiery shade 9. Actress Stevens who costarred in Hang ’Em High 10. Group that shares a common culture 11. “What’s the ___?”

12. Bombastic song from Carmina Burana about the vicissitudes of fate 13. Chimney passage 14. New’s opposite 18. “Cool!”

21. Census numbers, e.g.

22. Representation to click 23. Gulf War missile 24. Glass item that turns up in a lab?

27. Woeful soccer score 28. Card cap letters 30. Nose tackle’s grouping, familiarly 31. Clarifying phrase, from the LV266 ANSWERS Latin 32. Fulfill the role of S T R A P O N O M I G O S H OR I NOCO R A N I N T O 33. Babe in the B I ND S T O N I CO L A S OB S H E NC E A R E N T woods ROEG T E A A NN A L S 36. Kitchen item E RROR C A S S OV E N DOS V I D A N I Y A E E L similar to the T B A R D EMO Indian karahi A B S S K E L E T ON K E Y B E E T A S CH K E A N E 37. “As I was going C A R V E R DUM A C T S to St. ___ ...”

K N I T S A S S AM H E L 38. Mo-___ (anI D E A T E S T H EW I R E D I S P E L S L OS I N I T cient philosopher) S P I E SON

E N S I GN S

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