13 May 2003

Songwriting at Its Best

By Tom Swanson
As I was walking past our managing editor’s desk, the first thing I noticed about Quad Cities veteran players Driver of the Year’s latest EP, Some Girls Would Say … , was the artwork. It’s a plain black cover with a stylized green illustration of a nude woman lying with her head resting on the stomach of another nude woman.
13 May 2003

Hornucopia Taps Into Diversity

By Jeff Ignatius
You won't notice a lot of new features at this year's Hornucopia, because - as the first festival this year in The District of Rock Island - it carried with it some uncertainty. Namely, questions about how far along reconstruction of the Great River Plaza was going to be.
13 May 2003

Fewer Big Names, but Quality Reigns at the Quad Cities Jazz Festival

By Jeff Ignatius
This year's Quad Cities Jazz Festival at first blush looks less impressive than previous incarnations. But appearances can be deceiving. You won't find much contemporary jazz this year, yet fans of the classic styles won't be disappointed.
06 May 2003

At the Peaks of Their Powers

By Jeff Ignatius
Most artistically successful groups evolve toward obscurity - think most recently of Radiohead and Wilco - crafting an idiosyncratic vision that wins admirers and praise but threatens to alienate the bands' core audiences.
22 Apr 2003

Future Appletree Debuts Its First Full-Length, and It's a Winner

By Administrator
The local outfit The Marlboro Chorus has an easygoing, ambling style that’s belied by a keen attention to production and arrangement. What you’re left with on the group’s new album, “Good Luck” , is the lo-fi charm of a singer-songwriter such as Elliot Smith combined with playful but meticulous flourishes that remind me of The Flaming Lips.
15 Apr 2003

Upcoming Shows Feature Two Compelling Artists

By Jeff Ignatius
Matthew Clay, Crown Yourself King It’s pretty amazing what can come out of the do-it-yourself movement. Matthew Clay appears to be an artist with a new record on an indie label, but it doesn’t take much sleuthing to figure out that the Ottumwa, Iowa-based Freakin Records (as in, “Give me my Freakin Records”) is a one-man outfit, promoting only Clay.
15 Apr 2003

Symphony Tackles Challenging Work and Triumphs

By Zach Carstensen
William Walton’s classic oratorio Belshazzar’s Feast is a monument in the British musical canon and a perfect example of the British fascination with large-scale choral music. Feast is a synthesis of massive orchestral composition (the work calls for double brass) and towering choral forces.
04 Mar 2003

Symphony Goes to Extremes

By Zach Carstensen
After a one-month absence to allow for a guest conductor, Quad City Symphony Orchestra (QCSO) Music Director Donald Schleicher returned to the podium to conduct a concert of extremes on March 2: silly juxtaposed with the serious, German romanticism alongside “contemporary” American music, and program music leading into pure music.
25 Feb 2003

Western Pop Through Alien Eyes

By Jeff Ignatius
The Japanese band Elekibass produces a type of music that both loses and gains something in translation, almost as if aliens visited Earth and tried to combine several types of sugar-sweet pop as a way of explaining Western music.
18 Feb 2003

Blues Society Offers Excellent Primer

By Jeff Ignatius
People who don't yet have the blues - or those who just don't know quite what the blues are or how they came to be - have a fantastic resource in the form of a new book-and-CD package put together by the Davenport-based Mississippi Valley Blues Society.

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