Davenport-based psych-rock power trio Giallows have been pumping out a steady stream of studio-recorded material, live shows, and odds and ends on their Bandcamp over the last couple years. Their newest recordings from April 2020 include the full-length release Enochian Power Ballads that features three improvised jams in the psych/stoner rock vein, and the standalone single “The Sun Falls Down (Plague Music)” that falls closer to a surreal collage of horror-movie music and somber poetry.

There were loads of huge hits in the summer of '92: Batman Returns and Lethal Weapon 3 and Sister Act and A League of Their Own … . But as usual, the releases that affected me most and lingered most were the ones that went dark, even for comedies – works that continue to resonate more than a quarter-century after my initial viewings. Here are my five favorites – all but one seen gratis, and all of them enjoyed before I had to start paying for movies all the time like some kind of chump … .

The most mystifying phenomena of this COVID-19 pandemic is the public's resistance to a wealth of compelling new data that confirms the SARS-CoV2 virus, claimed by the CDC, NIH, and WHO to be the cause of the disease COVID-19, is not nearly as lethal as originally feared. In fact, the data is showing less than 1/10th of 1 percent (0.01percent) of people who test positive for COVID-19 will actually die, with 90 percent of those people averaging 65 or older and having multiple critical comorbidity conditions.  [UPDATE: The CDC has estimated the lethality to be 0.26%, while detractors disagree.] The percentage of children 12 and under at risk is infinitesimal. So the question should now be: Is COVID-19 worthy of pandemic status, and based on widespread compelling new data, is the extreme global response still justified?

On October 18, 2019, the planners of the 2020 worldwide panic called a Covid-19 pandemic emergency fully mapped out and role-played how all of this fear and economic chaos would arise and what steps global leaders will take. Visit Plannedemic.org to see the World Economic Forum and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded Coronavirus pandemic simulation's own Web site of materials and video recordings. Participants include non-government organizations (NGOs) such as the World Health Organization, the United Nations, global corporations and media, Johns Hopkins University, the World Bank, and both U.S. and China Centers for Disease Control agencies.

Davenport's progressive metal band Kronos Resistor released a lengthy LP called The Book of Pariah earlier this year. The five-piece band has a discerning ear for epic metal arrangements that veer between guttural metalcore beatdowns and more stately, almost neo-classical interludes built over washes of synth and bright guitar harmonies. When your band has “Between the Buried and Me” listed as a genre tag on Bandcamp alongside more conventional but no less indicative choices such as “mathcore” and “melodic metal,” you might go into their music knowing what to expect: a fusion of disparate genres and moods, all of which orbit around a bruising core of barked vocals and palm-muted guitar shred.

In honor and celebration of my college-senior theatre-major friends who are now graduating yet were denied the opportunity to enjoy one final send-off performance, allow me to guide you to five of my personal favorite film performances from the years in which I attended Augustana College.

Currently Installed in the Figge Art Museum’s second-floor orientation gallery, the Davenport venue's new exhibition Seen & Heard: The Art of Empowerment will be available for online and in-person viewing through May 2.

Brett Hitchcock, director of audience development at the Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse in Rock Island, discusses the venue's operations during this period of social distancing. We spoke on Thursday, May 7.