You are browsing the archives of 2007 November.

Ah, December. ‘Tis the season of consumerism, mistletoe, and Year End Recaps. You might even say it’s a listy time of season: Christmas lists, Best Of Lists, and possibly even New Years Resolution lists, for those who are ahead of the game. The first snow has already dropped here in Iowa City, so what better [...]

Isaac Brock may not make the most essential albums anymore, but presumably the man still has unquestionable taste. And so when he picked Minnesota songwriter Mason Jennings to be the first artist signed to his new Epic Records subsidiary Glacial Pace, we couldn’t help but take notice. Jennings spent many years touring and releasing records [...]

Before John D’Agata was unleashing ill-literary lyric flavor all over middle school loose leaf and waxing prose-poetic about Halls of Fame (not to be confused with E-40’s seminal work, Hall of Game) William Blake was getting mad-hyphy with his poetics and visuals like he was the Matthew Barney of the 19th Century. But we’ve all [...]

It’s kind of a slow start to the week here at the Freak, with us all coming off our tryptophan hangovers, but for those looking to indulge in a quintessential Iowa City tradition this week, we recommend hitting up the Mill on Wednesday for the Burlington Street Bluegrass Band, a loose collective of local players [...]

On this first snowy evening here in Iowa City, I wanted to send some blog love over to Rock Sellout, who you can find in our “Friends” section, which happens to be another blog for which i contribute. Anyway, they’ve been nominated for a music blog contest by some site called Hey! Nielsen in collaboration [...]

This weekend I had the pleasure of seeing the Lonelyhearts twice as they embarked on a short Midwest tour alongside Skursula. The band, which is composed of Mission Freak’s own Andre Perry as well as Bay Area songwriter John Lindenbaum, dates back to the days before Andre was here in Iowa City, and has managed [...]

As folks gear up for fried turkey and tur-duc-hen extravaganzas, Iowa City’s favorite punk rock youth group plugs in for an early all-ages shakedown at the Picador tonight. Yes, Lipstick Homicide is here to give you your pre-Thanksgiving kicks. Also featuring locals, Family Van, this should be a pretty rad, no-frills rock show. So don’t [...]

[A dispatch from John C. Schlotfelt. See the photos here.]
Grinnell College’s Gardner Lounge almost couldn’t handle Menomena. The unassuming space which has played host to indie luminaries like Dismemberment Plan and Sleater-Kinney looks more like a venue for a dormitory battle of the bands than a stage for the blogger-lauded likes of Portland [...]

The University goes on hiatus starting tomorrow, for a week of freedom and relaxation. Unless you work a regular old job, in which case it’s regular old week. Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that everybody’s working for the weekend, and everybody wants a new romance. Everybody’s going off the deep end, everybody wants [...]

I’ll give you a full weekend update here in a few minutes, but the events going down tonight are so tender, and so extraordinary, and finally so booty-shakingly delicious that they warrant their own post. First of all, every time The Lonelyhearts get together and play a show it generates some attention, since [...]