Comic book characters have finally come to life. GWAR, or God What an Awful Racket, combined elements of heavy metal, comic books, and horror movies to provide a brutally entertaining experience at Davenport’s QC Live on Saturday, February 26.
• With music fans packing up the van for SXSW in Austin, Texas, this month, or dreaming of the big tie die in the sky in June's return of the Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, Tennessee, one more outstanding music fest deserves a big red road-trip circle on your calendar: the second annual Wakarusa Festival near Lawrence, Kansas.
• Tribute madness heats up as five upcoming new CDs bow down in salute with intriguing possibilities. Magna Carta Records is set for the March 15 release of Subdivisions: A Tribute to Rush, with performances by Sebastian Bach of Skid Row, Jani Lane of Warrant, Alex Skolnick of Testament, Kip Winger of Winger, Robert Berry of Ambrosia, Andreas Kisser of Sepultura, and master bassist Stu Hamm.
• This Tuesday R.E.M.'s catalogue gets the sweet reissue treatment as eight albums - Out of Time, Green, Automatic for the People, Monster, Up, Reveal, Around the Sun, and New Adventures in Hi-Fi - are upgraded and expanded with bonus tracks.
With the disappointing news that the River Music Experience will not be bringing any nationally known musical acts to the Quad Cities as previously advertised, jazz fans will seldom have a chance to catch creative jazz musicians and bands from out of this area.
• Birds do it. Bees do it. And like humans, they often make strange "music" in the process. Next month The Residents are back with a new album on Mute Records that makes new music from the chippings and rhythmic mating sounds of coitus (non-interruptus).
Lon Bozarth, the River Music Experience's new director, has worked in just about every aspect of the music business - outside of a museum. In the 1970s and '80s, he was vice president of operations for Sound Warehouse, overseeing 150 large record stores.
I enjoy music in several different ways. There’s the intellectual satisfaction of learning, being engaged by a piece, and using my imagination to make the music come alive. There are the quirky nuances of the piece, performance, and musicians that spark my interest and make me smile.
• Have the Wiggles lost their wag with your preschooler? Is Sesame Street too old for your old-skoolerz? Please welcome John Linnell and John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants to the rescue, ready to get rid of those minivan blues.
When a promising roots-music musician leaves his home environs for Nashville, it's not difficult to guess the reasons: fame and fortune. But Iowa native Kelly Pardekooper left Iowa City for the country-music capital of the world with an entirely different motivation.

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