27 Sep 2000

Intensity Rescues Progressive Rock From Itself

By Jeff Ignatius
Progressive rock has never been cool. It has sometimes been respected, but those periods have been fleeting and hastily apologized for. The genre had many practitioners in the early 1970s, bands unafraid of releasing 30-minute pieces (they can’t properly be called songs) rife with self-indulgence and pomposity.
13 Sep 2000

A Beautiful Late Summer Snow

By Jeff Ignatius
There’s nothing fancy-pants about Kelly Pardekooper’s music. It’s as unassuming, familiar, comfortable, and rugged as denim. That’s not to say it’s pedestrian. Far from it. Pardekooper’s new album, Johnson County Snow (on the well-regarded Trailer Records label), is simply spectacular, with 10 beautifully crafted pieces of corn-fed rock from Iowa City.
13 Sep 2000

Symphony Offers Sultry Sounds

By Zach Carstensen
There are times when I’m out and about that I feel the Quad Cities are a great place to catch a symphony, listen to some jazz, or ponder art, and the most recent Quad City Symphony Orchestra (QCSO) pops concert left me in a state of cultural bliss.
13 Sep 2000

Strange Bedfellows Take the Stage at Peabody's

By Jeff Ignatius
We’ve all heard confessional lyrics, but how does one go about writing soul-baring music? Listening to Shannon Wright’s striking Maps of Tactic (her second album on Chicago’s Quarterstick Records) feels like looking at somebody’s innards.
22 Aug 2000

Love Us -- Please

By Jeff Ignatius
The Nixons sound needy. I don't want to make too much of it, but if you go to see them at the Pig Pen in Clinton on August 24, please give the guys a hug and tell 'em you love 'em. Listen to Scott Bush, the brand spanking new guitarist for the Dallas-based band, after fumbling around looking for a description of his band's sound: "They can call it whatever they want, as long as they like it.
17 Aug 2000

Veruca Salt Won't Stand Still

By Jeff Ignatius
Say this for Veruca Salt: Static it ain’t. The Chicago-based band, which makes good on a canceled show at RIBCO this Thursday at 10 p.m. with Ophur, is hardly the same outfit that made a minor splash in 1994 with American Thighs and the single “Seether.
08 Aug 2000

Jamaica in Ya Maka

By Jeff Ignatius
Ya Maka My Weekend has built quite a reputation since its inception in 1992 as the inaugural festival of Rock Island's The District. Not only has it grown from a festival for residents of the Quad Cities to a regional destination, but reggae bands fight for a place on the two stages.
01 Aug 2000

The Rev. Raymond Conducts Outdoor Services @ Ribco

By Todd McGreevy Admin
I first heard these guys last summer at the Prairie Dog Blues Fest in Wisconsin. I wanted to see if they lived up to their name, and they do. I saw them again last year at the Rocking Rib Fest in Davenport, but last Friday I only had to roll down the hill to The District to catch my fellow man of the cloth, the Rev.
24 Jul 2000

Busy Times for Renaissance Bluesmen

By Jeff Ignatius

Michael "Hawkeye" Herman studied theatre in college, and last week he won his first theatre award. There was just a long time in between. The 55-year-old Herman, a Quad Cities native, was a theatre and communications major in college.

24 Jul 2000

Circle 7 Hits a New High - with a Little Help

By Administrator
The unexpected inclusion of Circle 7’s stage girls added some flare and sex appeal to the rank Clinton air and the crowd’s already metal-drained ears on the Fourth of July at Pig Stock V in Clinton, Iowa. The band’s set opened with "Cock Block," which entered the crowds veins quicker than alcohol enters the blood stream, and ended the set leaving the metal heads "Tortured.

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