mission freak!

It’s been close to a month since our ‘weekly’ column Freakin’ Weekend has popped up to tell you how to get down in Iowa City for everyone’s favorite three days of the week, and since then a lot has happened: we’ve done our year-end coverage, the calendar has turned another year, Obama has won our caucus, and we’ve announced two of this year’s headlining bands for Mission Creek 2k8. Damn. So this morning, as I was buttering my toast, all content and happy and thinking about the past and the good things to come in the new year, it became clear to me that one thing was glaringly missing: the JAM. “Where is the jam?” I thought, and then I realized it is smeared all over Iowa City this weekend, from prog/acoustic to jazz/blues/funk, every time a band describes itself as a hybrid genre mash-up you know that means long, long songs with a dash of noodling. And here at the Freak, we occasionally like our songs very, very, long. So dirty words be damned, The MC5 said it best: “It’s time to kick out the jams, motherfucker!”

Thursday
Nikki Lunden w/Sam Knutson and Matt Skinner | Yacht Club | 9pm
Nikki Lunden is bringing her beautiful acoustic pop songwriting to the ICYC tonight, and while the comparisons to both Ani and the Indigo Girls would be apt, there is something more fun and more haunting and more original about her; you can hear it if you listen real close. She’s got a slew of upcoming shows around town, including a CD release. Check out the myspace. Also, Sam Knutson opens, who is also acoustic and awesome.

Friday
Dennis McMurrin & The Money | The Mill | 9pm
These guys have a song called “Down to the Yacht Club,” but don’t get confused: they are in fact playing at the Mill. Taking the bluesier side of the jam genre and having a ton of fun with it, they promise a bit of musical debauchery. I have a feeling these local fellas will also be making the rounds in the local clubs as winter turns into spring, so come check them out now for your jam cred to fly off the charts.

Saturday
Mad Monks w/Mind Wad Willy, Sherpa’s Ruse | The Picador | 9pm
Oh these Monks are Mad, let me tell you. Despite being personally invited to every Mad Monks show that has ever happened by their fearless and somewhat laconic guitarist James, I have never seen the Mad Monks, and of this I am not proud. But from what I can see online they might wear costumes and list their influences as King Crimson and Shaolin training. Ninja jam? How can you not be into that? And clearly, other people are into it as well, as the Monks have been showing up on bills around town from Yacht Club birthday parties to anti-war rallies. These Monk Ninjas have politics as well as instruments. Jam on!