Organized religion is responsible for more bloodshed than any institution in human history, but Christmas music is its biggest sin. I hate those songs—and the hegemony they hold over the airwaves, public spaces and every nook and cranny of our subconscious in the weeks leading up to Jesus’s birthday. Nevertheless, I make an exception for [...]
Copyright infringement, billboard “alteration,” an evil secret society known as the Illuminati, country music legend Tammy Wynette, the incineration of £1,000,000 in cash, and—most recently—No Music Day. These odd, interconnected events were engineered by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, an anarchic British pop duo who used several pseudonyms, including their most well known moniker, the [...]
The most unlikely outsiders to make a distinct, lasting impact on hip-hop were two ad men named Douglas DiFranco and Steven Stein—Double Dee & Steinski, respectively. Together, they produced a series of 12-inch singles in the mid-1980s now known as “The Lessons.” Steinski had been attending hip-hop shows around New York since the late-1970s, and by the early-1980s he had turned Double Dee onto the scene as well.
Arthur Russell was straight outta Oskaloosa, an Iowa native, born and bred. He died of AIDS in 1992, leaving behind a sprawling and obscure body of music that hops through genres—sometimes imploding them, and other times inventing new styles along the way. After escaping the Hawkeye state to join a San Francisco Buddhist commune in [...]
The Pitchfork Music Festival, now into its third year, is the best event of its kind happening in America right now. In fact, it is kind of a disservice to call Pitchfork a “music festival”—given the bad connotations associated with the term (drunken idiots, mud and garbage baking in the hot summer sun, ughh). However, [...]
IA Confidential is a serial comic depicting true tales form Iowa City’s storied past.
IA Confidential is a serial comic depicting true tales form Iowa City’s storied past. Read part two of the story here.
When Public Enemy released It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back in 1988, it was as if it had landed from another planet. The album came frontloaded with sirens, squeals, and squawks that augmented the chaotic, collage backing tracks over which PE frontman Chuck D laid his politically and poetically radical rhymes. [...]
The call came at 1:30 in the morning–from a friend in distress. Earlier in the evening we had developed a plan. Anyone could see by that point that the six days of sandbagging would not pay off. He was to box a few valuables tonight to facilitate the move in the morning. The city had [...]
