You are browsing the archives of 2009 December.

Better late than never! Probably should’ve run this post a couple days ago to give you more than a couple of hours to ruminate on all the great stuff our town is offering tonight for your festivities, but we’ve been taking a little holiday break. So, here’s a quick rundown of musical events at all […]

It’s somehow fitting that a decade that began with one classic Wu record would go out with another. Back in the first month of 2000, Ghostface dropped Supreme Clientele, an album that gave the Wu-Tang brand some much needed reinvigorating. The ensuing decade for the Clan was colorful, but not dominant. They released three albums, […]

Axel Willner is best known as minimal techno / micro-house artist The Field. Willner’s debut, From Here We Go Sublime (2007), was a masterful record, one that engrossed its listeners with wildly manipulated samples stretched, reformed, and re-contextualized over a back drop of endless four-on-the-floor beats. With that record Willner created a sound and a […]

Like so many musicians, critics, fans, and bloggers these days, I’m obsessed with texture.  While previous years of the decade might have been marked by a certain amount of genre “discoveries” (especially for forms popular outside of the United States, like dance hall, dubstep, grime, baile funk), this year the buzzed-about “new” genres weren’t really […]

This is that crit-dick move that some people pulled back in 2004, by throwing DJ Dangermouse’s mash-up masterpiece The Grey Album on their best of lists instead of the great original material (Animal Collective, Ghostface, Madvilliany, etc…). But if you’re going to put an obscure album that more or less amounts to a remix collection, […]

This is the definition of modern pop. Or at least it’s what I want it to be. If not where it is right now, then where I want it to go. Electro-infused pop has become a prominent movement at the end of the decade with groups like Crystal Castles, Phoenix, Cut Copy, and Passion Pit. […]

Who knew there was a market for holiday themed hip hop mix tapes? More here (that’s not the holiday spirit, Tony!). In other news, it’s our last Freakin’ Weekend of 2009! I’m going to use this as an opportunity to wish everyone a happy and safe holiday break, and let you know that we’ll be […]

An evening of pure sonic abandon at the Mill for this week’s Tuesday Night Social Club. Joining our own Datagun are Quad Cities psych-rockers Mondo Drag and Iowa City’s music deconstructionists Lwa. To be succinct: Mondo Drag draw on decades-long history of garage rock with punk influences. Think Nuggets era pop, updated and stoned. Lwa’s […]

So, did you hear about the snow? Just kidding. It’s pretty frigid in Iowa City these days, as the first snow of the year really made it’s presence felt over the last couple of days. That shouldn’t keep you from braving the cold this weekend to take in some great events in our area. Things […]

I definitely realized, at some point around 10:00 last night, that I indeed had totally forgotten to write our usual weekend column. Oops…hope everyone out there enjoyed Melt Banana last night. Since we already told you about a great cause for going to Rock Island on Saturday, I’m going to give a brief run down […]