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.

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.

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.

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.