The response to our spring photo contest was, in a word, overwhelming, with double the number of entries we received last fall. For the first time in our photo competitions, last fall we built the contest around themes ("danger," "metamorphosis," and "liberation") rather than categories such as "people" and "places.
• Three old friends from the 1980s are back on the radar next week, all with new CDs worth seeking out. No longer growling over the driving churn of The Psychedelic Furs, Richard Butler re-emerges with a self-titled solo album that's calm, mature, and a bit theatric.
• The new face of Rock Island's original mayor was unveiled on Friday, March 31, at the opening reception of the 30th Annual Rock Island Fine Arts Exhibition at the Augustana College Art Museum. The portrait restoration of Rock Island's first mayor, Benjamin Barrett, was a project of the Rock Island Art Guild, which sponsors the annual juried art show that features regional artists.
• Flashbacks to the decadent, swaggering 1970s burst forth from the boogie juggernaut of the Eagles of Death Metal in the group's sophomore album, Death by Sexy, due next week. Getting sweaty with the grind of Blues Explosion, T.
• The Centennial Bridge Commission Building will get a new lease on life as a visitor's center, thanks to a $43,342 Preserve America grant - for "Hosting Heritage Tourism in Rock Island" - received by the City of Rock Island, partnered with the Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Chippiannock Cemetery Heritage Foundation, RiverAction, and consultant Curtis Roseman.
I see by your February 15 issue that the Harold Stassen of Scott County politics, "Ole Hubcap" Rhomberg, has injected himself, à la that anachronism Jesse Jackson, into a tempest-in-a-teapot flap. (See "Cronyism Still Thrives in Scott County Government," River Cities' Reader Issue 568, February 15-21, 2006.
• Almost 9,000 students didn't graduate from Iowa's high schools in 2004, costing the state more than $2 billion in lost wages, taxes, and productivity over their lifetimes, reports the Alliance for Excellent Education.
For Matt Oltman, the news that Chanticleer was auditioning singers didn't sound real. A friend told him about the opportunity when he was a master's student in England, he said, and his reaction was disbelief. "The Chicago Cubs are having open tryouts," he said by way of comparison.
Octane, the debut album from the Quad Cities' The One Night Standards, features a reverb-y guitar that calls no place home on the fret board, wandering place to place in search of the perfect combination of notes.
The story of Stanley Dural Jr. is the story of a kid who hated his father's music. His dad was an accordion player, and he would play the instrument in their Louisiana home before and after his job as an auto mechanic.

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