To
be blunt about it, there's no way people in the Quad Cities have
any reason to know of the Los Angeles-based rock band Also,
performing Sunday at the Redstone Room in downtown Davenport.
Unless you listen to L.A.'s KCRW - the West Coast's premier public-radio station - it's highly unlikely you've ever heard of Also beyond promotion for the group's Quad Cities show.
The trio is a young and independent band, meaning they have no name recognition, no label, no touring support, and no airplay outside of their own market. The closest the band has been to Iowa - hell, the Midwest - was "the very nearby, adjacent city of Tempe, Arizona," said singer, guitarist, and lyricist Drew Conrad. When they aren't playing within an eight-hour drive of their home base, they go to Europe, where audiences are more open to ... well, bands they've never heard of.
The
Quad Cities' Future Appletree Records is back in a big way this
year, but that might create a false impression. Put simply, the label
- home to some of the Quad Cities' most distinctive musical
outfits - is struggling to find its place in the new music economy,
even as its bands are creating some of the best music of their
careers.
During
the mid- to late '90s, Pat Stolley's band The Multiple Cat
released four albums, a multitude of singles, and a remix album. The
Secret of the Secret of the Multiple Cat is a retrospective that
makes use of songs from that period.
"A long time ago, way back in history / When all there was to drink was nothin' but cups o' tea / Along came a man by the name of Charlie Mops / And he invented a wonderful drink and he made it out of hops."
By
the time the trumpets enter the picture halfway through the opening
track of Tenki's new EP, the listener has been enveloped by
atmosphere. On top of muted drums and guitar come layers of gentle
keyboards - and are those voices harmonizing with the organ? Hints
of gull-like string sounds suggest the ocean.
Struggle
in the Hive's self-titled debut is caught in limbo - somewhere
between adolescence and adulthood, wakefulness and sleep, joy and
sadness, hope and loss.
A
few years ago, Hummel's reviews of books about harpist Little
Walter and guitar legend Mike Bloomfield were published. "The main
reason I started writing," he said in a recent interview, is
because so many writers "didn't seem to have a whole lot of
knowledge about the music." Now the noted West Coast harmonica
player in the trademark porkpie hat has broadened that desire to
educate as a contributing writer to the online blues magazine
BluesWax (
Although
born and raised in Chicago, Liz Carroll has found a stunning amount
of success in her ancestral homeland of Ireland. In 1975, at the age
of 18, the fiddler won the Senior All-Ireland Championship - the
first American to win that title in nine years, she recalled in an
interview last week.
Chris
Vallillo studied archeology in college, but when that didn't suit
him professionally, he decided to give music a shot.
