RUIX ZINE explores regional music and the DIY aesthetic through essays and interviews with area musicians, record label proprietors, and venue owners.

IMAGE: Wad @ DAAC Music Series II

CONTRIBUTORS:Editor Bob Bucko JrLayout Design Ivonne Simonds FalsCover Art Victor CayroPhotography Michelle Bechen Dean WellmanFeature Writers Jon Eagle

Gwen BeattyAlex Nowacki

Other Rick EagleDrew Bissell

Mat Hohmann

SUBMIT: Includes, but is not limited to, reviews of exhibits, shows, and recordings; promotion of upcoming events; and essays and creative writing (short fiction, poetry)- 2000 word limit.

EMAIL: grainruix@gmail.comRUIX ONLINE: http://issuu.com/grain-artsBLOG: http://ruixzine.tumblr.com

www.DAartscollective.com Dubuque, IA

CONTENTS:Grow The Fuck Up Or Get Incinerated 1 Dan Hutchinson - Interview 3Ben Fawks - Interview 6Uncle Jonn's record reviews 10The Most Important Thing of Being Fake-Pregnant 11Chuck Hoffman - Interview 15Noise 20Iowa Music Archive 22Pete Balestrieri - Interview 28

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T he other night I helped my friends and fellow DAAC members put on a show. It was the first show in a music series that we will be hosting in a space we rent as an art gallery and practice spot downtown. The event was DIY, invite only, and BYOB. There were two bands on the bill from Madison and a local Dubuque band rounding things out. This was not only the first show in the series, but it was also the first DIY show I had been involved with since I started playing music 15 years ago. But before the noisy fun could begin, a handful of us met up when we could to prepare our creepy basement for what was about to happen. We scrubbed the place down, set up a sound system, and hung some cool art all over the place. As things took shape, and our dingy practice area turned into something more and more like an actual venue, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. It felt kind of weird being right back where I started: in a rented spot, putting on a show.

I n high school I played in a band and we wrote our own songs - two things that no bar or venue in this area wanted at the time. We also played metal, so we basically had no hope of playing anywhere, ever. After fruitlessly trying to book shows for several months, and being rejected or stiffed by every bar owner and promoter we encountered, we gave up. We figured that if we could, we should go straight to the source. We knew there were people who wanted to see us after getting positive feedback from the few shows we were able to muster. We also made friends with other local bands and eventually pooled together money to rent reception and event halls. Each band pitched in some equipment, helped hustle flyers, set everything up, we ran sound for each other, and at the end of the night, packed it all up. We also had a blast doing it.

O n more than one occasion, we lost our asses. Crowd turnouts didn’t always cover the overhead expenses and

BY Don Garfield

GROW THE FUCK UP OR GET INCINERATED

IMAGE: Minotaurs @ DAAC Music Series I

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a couple of times we paid bands from out of town from our own pockets. More often though, we had good turnouts and sometimes even made a little money. But it didn’t matter to us either way. We were doing what we wanted on our terms and everyone involved felt as though they were a part of something. Even if that something was having a group of cute high school classmates flash you while you were on stage.

A fter graduating high school, we eventually worked our way into some larger venues in the area. We got a chance to open for some good bands, meet some cool people, and play for some audiences that kinda like us. It was a blast, and it was nice to not have to deal with every detail of playing a show, either. All we had to do was show up early (or at least on time), be nice, set up and tear down in a timely fashion, and play well. No more setting up the PA. No more dealing with overpaid security guards, insurance and the like. No arguments over who has to clean the toilet of the bingo hall you rented. Most of the stress of putting on a show - gone. Give up control for a little comfort and if all else fails, we could always go back to playing basements.

B ut eventually, local and regional venues had to shift gears. For myriad reasons, places were either changing formats (to DJ’s or commercial radio music) or just closing up outright. This left local bands, especially the ones who wrote their own music, in somewhat of a panic. All ages shows in particular were the first thing to end. Bands doing more original and avant garde music were also struggling to find venues. Things weren’t looking good for the scene, yet the only reaction I saw came in the form of social media belly-aching from local musicians. They complained they were running out of venues to play and that there was a

lack of good bands coming in from out of town as a result. Some folks even moved out of town. They packed up, more or less flipped Dubuque the bird, and went to a town with an already established scene.

I was appalled by the lack of fight in these bands. When did everyone become so entitled? Is any band owed a place to play? Or owed anything for that matter? Where were the types of people that I came up with? The musicians who said ‘fuck the places who don’t want us, we’ll find our own’? It became apparent that complacency had taken hold and bands were losing their sense of work ethic. Perhaps they didn’t have it in the first place.

M usic scenes, like the music and art within them, are only as good as the effort you put in. If you want it, roll your sleeves up and get involved. Work with like-minded people and make something. You’re an artist and creative, right? Put that to use. Find ways to do things outside of the box. Other people might have more resources than you but that doesn’t have to stop you. If you have a basement, a garage, a barn or a yard, you are most of the way there already. If those aren’t options, rent a space out. They’re there, you’ve just got to search for them. Put on shows you would want to see for people who’d want to see them and run the shows the way you would want them to be run if you were playing. It is time consuming and there’s rarely money in it. But if money is your concern, it might be time to hang up the guitar and put together an iTunes playlist for your DJ gig. For those who truly love original music and want a scene, you’ve got work ahead of you. But work and accomplishment feel good, even after 15 years. Remember, we are not owed opportunities. We have to create them.

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If it involves music in Des Moines, Dan Hutchinson is probably involved in it in some capacity. As co-owner of Sump Pump Records, guitarist for Fetal Pig and Love Songs For Lonely Monsters, record slinger at ZZZ Records, and all-around supporter of the scene, Dan’s enthusiasm for music is complemented by his encyclopedic knowledge and gift for gab.

Hi, Dan. I met you when Fetal Pig played at Off Minor a few years back. I am really impressed by the diversity of influences hinted at in your songs. Can you tell me a bit about that band?

Well, my buddy Mike Glenn (Burmese/Bottledog) and I started writing songs for what would become Fetal Pig in 1992. My brother joined in 1993 and the name was chosen. We played two shows with Mike and he went off to college in Iowa City. We tried a couple other bassists before finding Karl Siemers to fill my position on guitar - I switched to playing bass. We played a number of shows that way and recorded our 4 song cassette EP and then split up. We did one unannounced reunion show in 2000. In 2012, my wife threw a birthday show at the Vaudeville Mews here in Des Moines and she wanted two of my bands, Going to Grandma’s and Fetal Pig, to play (both had disbanded). So, I asked Chuck Hoffman, who I played with in Why Make Clocks, to learn the Fetal Pig set on bass and I went back to guitar and we did the

DAN HUTCHINSON - INTERVIEW

show. Afterwards we decided to record the [old] songs and some new ones to complete an album, which Fetal Pig had never done, and fell in love with doing it again and haven’t stopped.

What other bands have you played in over the years?

Well, currently I play in Fetal Pig and Love Songs for Lonely Monsters. Formerly, I played in Why Make Clocks, Going to Grandma’s, Airborne Catholics, French Dials, and Viraflora - those are the ones that actually played shows anyway.

How did Sump Pump Records come about?

In 1997, I started Why Make Clocks with Going to Grandma’s bassist Brian Wiksell and we started recording songs on my 4 track with the two of us playing all the instruments. After recording over 70 4-track songs, we decided to self release a 4 song 7” EP, “The Transient Swivel”, and since the songs were lo-fi songs recorded at home - “basement pop” as I used to say - we took the name of our label from a long running joke my brother and I had about Sump Pump Studios, which was my parents’ basement, where we used to hear the sump pump going in the background of our basement recordings. The idea to reboot the label came about with the release of “The Des Moines 4 Track Compilation Vol. 1”. I asked Brian and the other 2 members of Why Make Clocks, which had broken up, if they’d be

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interested in helping me get our label back off the ground using our band fund and they said yes. We all have similar diverse tastes in music and have never had a single argument, which seems like the perfect partnership.

Is there a theme or overarching aesthetic to the label?

Not necessarily, other than we want the albums we put out to reflect the pretty broad tastes that we have in music.

What are some recent Sump Pump releases?

So far there have been three since last November: “The Des Moines 4 Track Compilation Vol. 1”, A Is Jump “Weird Nostalgia” & Annalibera “Nevermind I Love You”. Sump Pump also distributes around 45 other releases through its Bandcamp site.

I know from previous conversations that you have a love for recording to 4-track cassette. What draws you to the form?

Its immediacy and its limitations, mostly. It forces you to consider what’s most important to capture in a song, because your options are limited. The results are a pretty direct and honest representation of what a band sounds like without overdubs that cannot be duplicated in a live setting. It forces you to be creative in ways you wouldn’t be otherwise, with accidents and flaws you fall in love with.

I have the 4-track compilation album you released through Sump Pump. What inspired this project, and were there any challenges to completing it?

I wanted to do something that unbiasedly represents what is really

happening in our music scene, not just what people choose to tell you about. There are so many great bands here that are overlooked, for whatever reason. This compilation was inspired by the idea of turning people onto great local music they may not have heard, with the selection of bands being chosen based on the merits of their music not the number of albums they’ll sell. It took 11 months to complete, the biggest challenge mostly being working around people’s schedules and my own and finding a way to sequence it all in a way that flows well.

How long have you lived in Des Moines? From my vantage point in Dubuque, it seems like a lot is happening musically over there right now. Does the town influence any aspects of your music or the label?

I’ve lived in Des Moines since 1992, there’s a ton of great bands here right now, in fact I’m about to start recording Vol. 2 with all different bands. Over the years, I’ve become good friends with most of the bands around here and I go to lots of shows. I’d be lying if I said that it doesn’t influence me to stay motivated and try to help our scene by drawing attention to it in ways that I hopefully can make a difference.

What’s on deck for Sump Pump Records and Fetal Pig?

We are releasing Goldblums “Gnat Bones” 7” EP and a full length Skin Of Earth LP later this summer, they are both at the pressing plant now. I have a 4 track compilation in the works of all nationally known bands and the second Des Moines 4 Track compilation plus a few things in the works after that as well.

Thanks for taking the time to let me ramble on, Bob.

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IMAGE: We Should Have Been DJs @ DAAC Music Series I

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Benjamin Fawks is the owner of Rozz-Tox, a coffee shop and music and art venue in Rock Island, Illinois. I emailed Ben some questions, curious about his business, which is one of my favorite places to play in the midwest. Ben was gracious enough to take a minute from his hectic schedule and reflect on Rozz-Tox, the Quad Cities, and the importance of community in art.

1. What prompted you to open Rozz-Tox? How long have you been in business? Can you explain the origin of name?

The Quad Cities needed a space like this. I felt it was a shame that with so many creative people here there wasn’t something like this existing already. I was running a venue in an art space (loft345) in South China for around 4 years before Rozz-Tox opened. It was that space, along with other cafes, hostels and bars I experienced through travels, that largely inspired the aesthetics and design of Rozz-Tox. The idea was to create a sustainable business with DIY ethos. The name Rozz-Tox comes from Gary Panter’s Rozz-Tox manifesto, which he wrote in the late 70’s. Panter was coming out of the LA punk scene as a audio and visual artist. Hiis work and ideals have been a huge inspiration for us. I first found out about the manifesto and Panter himself through a good friend of mine and another big inspiration for me, Max Lyons. When I had decided to call this venue Rozz-Tox I sent Mr. Panter (who now resides in brooklyn and is just as prolific as ever) an email asking permission, which he gave us, saying, “I am greatly complimented even excited that you have a cultural cell bearing the idea of ROZZ-TOX.” That meant a lot for me, and definitely gave me a good reason to not fuck up. After all, i did take on some responsibility when i decided to call the space rozz-tox. I owe it to Gary, and everyone who steps in here, to do a good job. We have been open just over 4 years now, and show no signs of slowing down.

2. What are the challenges of operating a business like Rozz-Tox? How are these impacted by your focus on arts and music?

For a place like this to succeed you have to give yourself to it completely, and of course there are loads of licenses that you need, and the overhead is high, which we were expecting, but it can still be frustrating - something as simple as putting tables and chairs outside for people to drink legally had to go through city council. It takes patience to deal with that kind of bureaucracy. The one ongoing battle that i have had is with the PRO’s (ascap/bmi/sesac). Let me first clarify that I fully support the idea of these organizations, and if artists are indeed getting pay-outs from them, all the better, BUT - what we are doing here is providing a physical space for these musicians to come eat, relax, gig, party, sleep, etc., and then walk out with a bit of cash. In my mind I am already doing my part, and these extra fees make it difficult for a small business like this to thrive. I could rant about this shit for hours.

BEN FAWKS- INTERVIEW

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3. What is the creative climate like in the Quad Cities? What sets Rozz-Tox apart from other venues in the region?

Rozz-Tox is a cafe, library, bar, guest house, gallery, small movie house. We have a residency program. We host events nearly every night, including shows, film screenings, and readings. It is, as Mr. Panter said, a cultural cell. Rozz-Tox is that place you stumble upon in your journey that feels like home, the place where you fill up and rest. It is a travelers’ hub just as much as it is a hub for locals. Everyone working in the space is passionate about it, and good at what they do. We take this seriously, it’s more than a job for us, it is our life. Most of us at one time have lived in the building - I still do, and with all of the bands that stay here, the people living here, and patrons in the cafe, it’s a safe bet that someone is in the building at any given time. That kind of energy keeps the space alive and breathing. I take care of this building like anyone would their home, so when people walk in they feel that the space is cared for, you can sense that kind of thing. Rozz-Tox is it’s own thing, there is no standard or model that we are conforming to. We do not subscribe to any school, or any method of business. All of this sets us apart.

4. What has been the level of local support for Rozz-Tox and the events it promotes?

Oh man, I couldn’t ask for a more supportive community. Even the city has been supportive of what we are doing. We have had a couple of benefit shows when times were tough financially, and the people came through for us! It’s a beautiful thing when you have the support of your community.

5. What do you offer as a venue that separates you from the rest of the pack, and encourages bands to travel to what may be construed by some as an out-of-the-way locale?

I think it’s a combination of the ‘out-of-the-way’ locale, it being a small venue, and the guest room. This area is great too - I think people are starting to realize how rad the midwest is, and affordable. Also, we’re nice and we work hard. Another big draw is Daytrotter - bands come to do a session, play a show, sleep (comfortably) at the venue, and then push off in the morning. It’s a great stop.

6. Rozz-Tox hosts a weekly series curated by Sean Moeller of Daytrotter. Has Daytrotter’s presence in the area affected Rozz-Tox and the local scene?

Most definitely, Sean (Moeller, Daytrotter head) brings in some amazing artists, artists that would typically overlook the Quad Cities, and probably wouldn’t be playing in a 100 capacity cafe anywhere - for example, most recently, Built to Spilll. Only this year did Sean start putting his name on shows at Rozz-Tox, but he always threw bands our way. Daytrotter is still a huge catalyst in bringing bands to this area, and our role is to take care of them. It’s working quite well, I feel.

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7. I’ve always been impressed with the diversity of music and art featured at Rozz-Tox. Is there a conscious decision behind your curation of events?

Oh yeah, diversity is key. I couldn’t do this if it was the same style/genre of art everyday. I’d go mad. You have to keep things interesting and appeal to a wide demographic. Plus, i have always been interested in diversity, and i love exposing people to unique and original experiences.

8. Though I associate Rozz-Tox with music shows, you also host many other creative events and feature a local artist’s work each month. What are some of the non-music events you feature?

We host film screenings, poetry readings and classes. Among those we have two monthly film nights - a horror film night presented by 365 Horror Films and curated by Jason Whitmarsh, who is a pleasure to work with, and the Sino Cinema series that is curated by yours truly, plus random short film screenings by both local and international artists. My friend Seth Knappen teaches qigong here on sunday mornings, and we are also host to Spectra. a reading series organized by Midwest Writing Centers’ Ryan Colliins.

9. What are some of the most memorable shows you have hosted, and for what reasons?

This is a very difficult question. Most recently, and one that I was unfortunately out of town for, was our first Chinese band, Chui Wan (it is a personal goal of mine to create a cultural bridge between China and this area). I have had so many memorable experiences here, like the beautiful connection I had with Julie Byrne when she first came through-- one that lead to her residency here and my accompaniment on her tour in England, Germany and the American Southwest. Or when the Blacktooth Gang (Fly Golden Eagle & Ranch Ghost) came and blew everyone’s mind, and then we had this big afterparty upstairs. And there was the time we had Spindrift here, Mondo Drag opened the show and we were screening El Topo behind them - it was the perfect cocktail. Or when Guy Blakeslee broke a string two songs in and then stood up on his amp and rocked it acapella. That same night we made a great friendship with Juan Wauters and Matt Volz. Juan was another resident we had here, and one of the most genuine humans i have met. He recorded his new album right next door at the Futureappletree 2 studio with our sound guy Ian Harris. Shit, one of our first shows was The War On Drugs!

These crazy, and memorable shows have been coming at us consistently for the last 4 years. We have this great photo from a show that stands out in my mind as one of the best (and craziest) - it was this punk/jug band called Everymen. At the end of their set they were using their washboard that someone lit up, and blowing fire, standing in the middle of the room. Needless to say we had to take that photo off the interwebs

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for insurance purposes. It was stupid and I wouldn’t give the okay again, but we had such a great night, and the faces in the photograph, illuminated by the fire, show that. And ONO! I love that band, their performance is up there in the top. I really could go on and on. I have made some beautiful friendships in this building, and we all continue to grow. It’s a pretty cool (inter)national DIY community we all have, and i love that Rozz-Tox is becoming one of the midwest hubs. it is a pleasure and an honor.

10. Are there any upcoming events you are particularly excited about?

I’m stoked for Dagmar, Subatlantic, and the Lonelyhearts on August 1st. Also, Sister Grotto on September 5th - she had a project called Mariposa (Tinyamp Records, Denver) when she came through before, and I am looking forward to seeing and hearing her new project. And of course the Moeller Mondays - I don’t know the line-ups for august yet, but Sean typically doesn’t disappoint.

11. Rozz-Tox is also well known for its cupcakes, and I’m a big fan of your slow pour coffee. It seems you put equal care into your food and drink as you do your music and art events. Is this quality control a central philosophy in running Rozz-Tox?

Oh yeah, i believe in serving quality product, but I also see the appeal of comfort foods, like cereal. My mother does all the homemade stuff - cupcakes, applesauce, pickled eggs, daikon, carrot, etc. She co-owns Rozz-Tox and has been a strong backbone for it. Honestly, Rozz-Tox wouldn’t exist if i didn’t have her support.

12. I’ve played Rozz-Tox a number of times now, and have always felt at home. I think your hospitality plays a large role in your success. Thanks for opening your doors to me and so many other artists. Any closing thoughts?

Thank you, Bob. You have always impressed me with your sounds, and your character. It is meeting people like yourself that makes this worth everything. My door is open for you, and many, many others.

By Bob Bucko Jr

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FAITH NO MORE – Sol InvictusFaith No More’s first album in 18 years is not bad for a “comeback” album, I guess. I didn’t really get into it at first. It kinda had to grow on me. As a longtime fan, I have to say that it’s got moments of FNM greatness. And those moments are particularly great. As a whole, the record is sort of weak when compared to the rest of the band’s catalog. It’s definitely worth owning if you’re a fan, but not a great starting point.

VIET CONG – Viet CongLoud, chaotic rock from the great white North. Definitely one of the strongest debut albums I’ve heard in a long time. Their influences certainly are undeniable, and sure, most of those bands do this better, but who cares. If you’re into late ‘70’s post-punk, you could do worse.

JIM O’ROURKE – Simple SongsA pop outing from Jim O’Rourke, this album is a little different than you might expect, if what you are expecting is something more in the vein of 1999’s Eureka or 2001’s Insignificance. The arrangements and the songwriting are top notch, with vocals that sound like Cat Stevens taking a stab at chanson singing. It sounds like it might be irritating, but it’s actually quite pleasant.

JOHN CARPENTER – Lost ThemesNine tracks of ominous instrumental synthesizer tracks. Fans of Carpenter’s early horror movie scores will note that the production is a little more contemporary-sounding, making the compositions sound a little flat in parts, but no less foreboding.

RYLEY WALKER – Primrose GreenI was attracted to the cover of this record because it looks so ‘60’s that I thought maybe it was a reissue of some forgotten folk-rock gem or something. And I think that’s the point, because the music here is definitely throwback ‘60s-sounding folk

rock. It’s good enough. Some of the guitar picking is particularly impressive, but by the end of the record I feel kinda bored.

TOUNDRA – IVIt’s tough to find a post-metal instrumental group that can hold my attention for very long, but the fourth album by Spain’s Toundra has some of the more interesting arrangements I’ve heard in a band like this in some time. Sometimes ambient, sometimes a bit sludgy, I could see comparisons to Pelican or Russian Circles being made. I actually kind of like this better in some ways.

BILL FAY – Who Is the Sender?A collection of new songs from early-70s British folk icon Bill Fay. Gorgeous folk-pop songs with a spiritual focus. The album ends with a reunion with his original band members on the song “I Hear You Calling.”

LOUIS C.K. – Live at the Comedy StoreCome on. What am I gonna say about Louie? Every record he releases is exponentially funnier than the last. This is no exception.

THE KING KHAN & BBQ SHOW – Bad News BoysTheir self-titled debut is one of the best lo-fi garage records of the 2000’s. Period. Their second album, not bad. Everything since, this one included sounds completely phoned in. They’re still a great live act to catch, but unfortunately, this album is less the sound of two guys having the time of their lives and more like two guys going through the motions.

THE SONICS – This Is The SonicsThe Sonics, on the other hand, are in their 70s now, and released this record and it’s some of the most vital work of their career. It’s sensational, and it’s high in the running for my favorite record of 2015. Not bad for a band that broke up about a half century ago.

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I have been fake-pregnant for thirty-three weeks now. My boyfriend, Chuck, has made 14 bellies and I swear to Christ they’ve gotten better every time. He reads these art magazines, full of bullshit made by kids who owe hundreds of thousands of dollars to a guy in a beret somewhere, so he’s great with papier-mâché.

My Mormon ex-boyfriend asked me to marry him sixty weeks ago in a too hot Volvo in the driveway of his house. He asked his wife to marry him forty-nine weeks ago in a gondola set on a track in a section of a theme park designed to look like Venice. I know this because thirty-one weeks ago his wife and I began sitting on pink yoga balls together to talk about morning sickness while he is at work every day.

When he asked me to marry him, I thought about how his mouth tasted like milk and how his sticky hands pulled strands out of my hair each time

The Most Important Part of Being Fake-Pregnant

(By Gwen Beatty)

he ran his hands through it. Immediately following the question I unceremoniously ripped my thighs up off the leather interior. Immediately following the rejection, he asked, “Well, do you wanna mess around?”

They met at a camp where children are scared into salvation, and I think most everything people believe is a sham. His wife is very pretty. When this pretty wife walked past me in the grocery store that I’d followed her to when I noticed she was pregnant, she didn’t say hi to me because she didn’t know who I was.

“Excuse me, but how far along are you?” I said, opening my jacket. I pushed my stomach out as far as I could, held myself steady, and placed a hand underneath my breasts, embracing but my full, empty belly.

The third most important part of being fake-pregnant keeping people from touching your belly, discovering the lie strapped to you.

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I was Mark’s rebellious phase. He was the only person to propose to me and I always wondered what saying yes would have meant. I imagined it would have meant going to church once a week or more. It would have meant no more coff ee, or booze, or gambling, or GG Allin on my iPod. But it also would have meant money, and security, and maybe my only chance at boring love with a schedule and a mini van. I always wondered if I could have stomached a whole life like that. I always wondered what happens when people say yes to things.

I slammed the door upon hearing a, “Hi, honey,” and didn’t move. Maybe Chuck would think I left. I’m sure he wouldn’t think twice. He’d call me when it got dark, just to make sure I wasn’t dead. I could hear him snipping scissors. I gave up on standing there and wandered into the living room to watch a man gluing shit to other shit.

I lay down on the fl oor.“How was your day?” He said. “Fine.” I said, sticking my feet up in the air. I waited a while to see if he’d say anything else. He didn’t and kept gluing Oprah’s head on a diff erent picture of Oprah. “I have to pretend to be pregnant,” I said. He continued to collage. I kicked my feet around at the ceiling and rolled over onto my side.

“Want to help?” I asked, putting an elbow under myself to hold up my head.

“What for?” He set down his scissors and looked at me, rubbing his cheeks with both hands. I remember wishing he had seemed surprised by anything I said.

“There’s a pregnant girl I’m trying to be friends with and I may or may not have told her that I am also pregnant.”

He picked up his scissors and closed one eye. ‘Well. Fuck,” he said, pantomiming a cut around my stomach from across the room, the opposite of what I wanted.

“It really is wild that we are only two weeks apart from each other,” Lorrie repeated over the next few months. We would laugh over virgin cocktails about the strange parallels between our pregnancies and lives. We would cry to each other about our inattentive partners. She told me everything about Mark. From the way he likes his socks folded, to how he was in the sack. She told me everything that I already knew about the man she married. She told me exactly what my life would have been if I had been less like myself.

Chuck’s fi rst belly lasted only a week. It was lumpy on the left side and sat so high on me that it pushed my breasts to either side of it, but it was small, so it wasn’t too obvious. I spilled barbeque sauce on it and it soaked through my shirt as well as the belly, and I was out of explanations as to why I smelled like a smokehouse.

When he wasn’t making bellies, he was drawing new designs for them, experimenting with diff erent skeletons. We spent our nights together, me dipping strips of paper into a goopy mash, and him laboring over where to place the next piece. Sometimes he’d read me articles about other ways to prepare papier-mâché, the history of it, how traditional people used it in rituals. His favorite thing to tell me was that they used “impregnated paper” to make World War II airplane fuel tanks.

When he was in school for a semester, his fi nal project was an art installation in a gallery on campus. The assignment was a self-portrait. He formed himself out of cutouts from magazines and I guess he

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was given an honorable mention ribbon at a ceremony I forgot to go to. The first time we went out for dinner after the start of my fake pregnancy, Chuck and I touched the belly, not each other. Mark and Lorrie got married in the temple and now they both check in on foursquare every time they go to church. He throws money at refugees in Somalia because he can put it on his taxes. He has talked about adopting children and jokes about making a tiny Mormon army of their own, and he learned to golf. He bought a houseboat, and he hosts youth group retreats tethered to a dock on the river.

Did you know they get a planet when they die? It wasn’t until the fourth month of pretending that Chuck started to ask questions like, “Why are you still doing this?” and “What about when you don’t have a baby to show her?” and “Why would you lie about being pregnant in the first place?” It wasn’t until month five that I started to tell him the truth. Then, he had lots of other questions like, “So you still have a thing for this guy?” and “God, you want to fuck him don’t you?” and “Why am I still doing this?”

But Chuck kept making the bellies, which was what I needed him to do. The second most important thing about being fake-pregnant is keeping everybody on board. Chuck can be a killjoy sometimes.

Mark didn’t know his wife’s girlfriend was his ex-girlfriend until today. The first day of Lamaze. I had been preparing for this day for months. I’d been practicing my easy-going, pleasantly surprised smile in the mirror. I’d been wrestling with the idea of greeting him with a hug rather than a handshake.

I bought new makeup and curled my hair for an hour beforehand. Chuck sulked around for a full week before Lamaze. I had it circled on the calendar in pink, and I left him notes reminding him of its approach.

Chuck made me a brand new belly for my first Lamaze class. It sat lower on my abdomen and looked like twins, but weighed almost nothing, as it was made with chicken wire and the opinion section. Chuck truly perfected the belly shape in the past few months, but the better the bellies got, the more distant he became. He has a closet filled to the top with pregnant belly carcasses. Chuck stared straight forward as we drove down the freeway to Lamaze, and when we walked in, I didn’t have a chance to hug Mark, or give him my rehearsed easy-going smile before Chuck punched straight through the papier-mâché and chicken wire. Straight through my baby. Straight through to my belly. The most important part of being fake-pregnant is to know that it will not end in blood. It will end with chicken wire poking through your maternity shirt. It will end with lots of explanations to a room full of pregnant women and their husbands, to the man you could have loved and to the woman that you’re not.

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IMAGE: Wad @ DAAC Music Series II

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CHUCK HOFFMAN - INTERVIEW

BB Hi, Chuck. You are a busy man.

What bands are you currently involved with?

CH Currently I play in: Fetal Pig, a power trio with a sound probably best described as “prog-punk.” Someone once told us we sounded like a mix of the Minutemen and King Crimson, and I love quoting that because it sounds like such an incongruous combination on paper yet it totally fits us. Fetal Pig was originally started by the other two fellas back in the early ‘90s; I’m the new guy. We self-released an LP a few years ago, the first thing released on vinyl I’ve ever played on, so cross that off my bucket list. It’s also the first band I’ve ever been the youngest member of, so that’s kind of a hoot.

Cancer Lake, the duo of myself and drummer Matt Crowe, who is also in Sex Funeral and all these improvisational “initials bands” that have “MC” in the name. We play a kind of free-form-jazz-sludge-black-metal-noise, I guess. As a kid I used to have this fantasy of being in a band where I could basically just throw loud, dissonant tantrums on stage and freak people out, and Cancer Lake is the fulfillment of that dream. I wanted people to hate it, and I failed, but I’m OK with that.

Distant Trains was/is a solo project. I started it off wanting do kind of lo-fi sludgegaze, influenced a lot by Jesu, but it soon took on first some of my bedroom-songwriter tendencies, then my experimental, noise, and sound-collage

tendencies as well, until it sort of became a reincarnation of my 1990s home-taper project Flight Attendants. I don’t know if I’m going to do any more live stuff under this name, as many of its ideas get really difficult or impossible to do live by myself. I think I’ll probably keep it a recording concern from here on.Musician is my newest thing, another solo project. I kind of splintered it off Distant Trains, because I wanted a name under which to focus the more harsh noise stuff, in order that Distant Trains not lose too much of its identity. Some of the stuff gets near harsh noise wall territory but I generally stop short of pure wall, I think the hypnotic effect of a long static drone is good for exploiting by throwing in sudden changes once you’ve lulled/pummeled the listener to a certain point.

BB In addition to making tons of

music, you run a label, The Centipede Farm. What was the impetus to start a label?

CH I think from the first time I heard of the concept of independent record labels I wanted to start one. Initially though, I think starting a “label” has been just to have a name to put on my own self-released stuff, but then I end up getting various friends’ music on it too. That first happened in the ‘90s when I was just discovering the underground tape scene, when I started TapeSNotRecords, but I was too disorganized and broke to get very far with it then, forgot to answer

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letters, didn’t network very well, didn’t have the attention span to sit around dubbing tapes. Later I sort of merged it into Ragman Records, which was what my friend Joe Riehle came up with for putting out his various home-taping projects plus the band we were in together, No Consensus, and any other projects that members and friends of No Consensus had going. We had this awesome outsider/lo-fi scene going made up mainly of high school kids for a few years and put out tons of tapes and a few CD-Rs, though our focus was primarily local, around Cedar Falls.

The Centipede Farm similarly started as just a name I put on CD-Rs of solo stuff I was doing back ten years or so ago. After my band Exit Drills died off, I was writing songs and recording, just mashing up a lot of different styles and influences and sounds. Then I registered centipedefarm.com as a domain name and threw up a Wordpress install on some shared hosting I have and made it a music blog. When it really got going as a label was when I acquired a cassette duplicator, from Ed at Workerbee Records, in early 2012. It really takes a lot of the drudgery and potential for distraction out of the dubbing process because it goes so quick. I did a couple tapes of my own projects, then started putting out stuff by people I met on Facebook and it kind of took off from there.

BB The Centipede Farm releases

mostly cassettes. What draws you to that physical medium?

CH For one, it’s the medium I grew up with. I’m an 80’s kid — being born in mid-’75, the 1980s neatly span kindergarten up to just starting high school for me. You know all about this, of course, but for the readers who weren’t around then, tapes were ubiquitous. Tape recorders were even popular toys for kids, so like a lot of

kids of my generation I started out just taping my own pretend radio shows and primitive songs and bad attempts at stand-up comedy. That was such a creative time in history I think, and one of the reasons is that these devices that you could easily make your own recordings with, without any technical background, amateurish though the results might be, were commonly and affordably available in retail stores to the point that pretty much everyone had them. (There were similar forces at work with videotapes and even computer programs then, too.)

So just about everybody recorded things on tapes. When a kid got their first stereo of their own, it was almost always a cassette boombox. I still listened to my dad’s LPs and 8-tracks sometimes but all my own music was on tape. Naturally, cassettes were also what small time musicians used most to get music out, on through the 1990s as well, because it was easy and cheap, and about the only way to go if you weren’t in a position to spend thousands of dollars and end up with thousands of copies to unload. For a while I got really into collecting homemade tapes, demos or whatever, from little-known bands; it seemed like the little local bands all over the world were often musically more interesting than anything on the radio or in the chain record stores, more about doing their own thing.

To this day, tapes are still one of the easiest physical formats to make. A lot of people have complained about this move to digital music over the past few years, bemoaning the loss of the physical object aspect of it, but personally, I don’t really go along with that so much. I love music, in all the formats, even mp3s and CD-Rs. But tapes are just fun. It’s fun to make the cover art. You can paint on the tapes themselves and order them in lots of

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different colors. Some call it a nostalgia trip, but a lot of the people putting stuff out on tape these days weren’t around for that cassette heyday, and yet there’s something about it that really appeals to them so tapes have a certain popularity. I have the advantage of having lots of years of experience using and abusing tapes and tape decks, so I like to think I’m especially good at tapes, and that makes it a great little scene to be part of.

BB Can you tell me a bit about the All Iowa Noise Insurgency?

CH A couple-three years ago I booked a show at Vaudeville Mews for a really great experimental solo percussionist named Ben Bennett. I don’t really recall how it came my way exactly, but I bet it had something to do with Bryan Day, who runs the Public Eyesore label, past few years he’s directed quite a few really killer artists my way who wanted to play in Iowa. In trying to promote the show, I got the idea in my head to come up with some kind of shadow organization for experimental music that I could say was “presenting” it, to kind of make it sound like more of a big deal, and came up with the name “Central Iowa Noise Insurgency” and put that on the flyers.

A while later I took a trip up to Minneapolis to check out the 2012 Minneapolis Noise Fest. I had a great time. It was neat to meet Emil Hagstrom of Cock ESP again after so many years since the time I’d gone up to see Wrong at The Red Sea in probably 1995 or so. The people at the fest were super nice, the performances were awesomely abrasive, it was The Thin White Puke’s first live gig, and I came away wishing there was something like this back home in Des Moines.

I figured there might be enough people interested in way out music to make it happen if enough of them got to know each other, so I took that idea of the Central Iowa Noise Insurgency and started a Facebook group by that name, inspired by the Contact Group of Homemade Experimental Electronic Music and Noise group that Hal McGee had started, and just started inviting people to it who seemed like they might be into something like that. It took off way better than I had hoped. Pretty soon we had a lot of folks from Dubuque and a few from Iowa City on it too so we decided to change the name to say “All Iowa.”

BB How does living in Iowa affect your music and label?

CH That’s a tough question because I’ve never lived anywhere else to compare it to. Based only on what I’ve seen of people who come here from larger cities or more established art scenes, it seems as if subcultures and subgenres have more bleed-over here; I think they need that bleed-over to survive, and it’s probably a factor of any place with sparser population. I observed this sort of effect first when I was a teenager in the 1990s in Waterloo and Cedar Falls; my social circle, such as it was, contained kids that were into hippie stuff and other kids that were into punk and other kids that were into industrial, and so on for electronica and goth and grunge and indie rock and every other kind of thing, but we hung out together with our general alternative-ness a lot, because if you defined your tribe more narrowly there wouldn’t be many kids in it. This kind of situation makes for fertile creative ground though, because there’s a lot of cross-influencing.

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BB

The AINI begat several festivals and united experimental musicians across the state. It also paved the way for more noise shows in Des Moines and Ames. What are some of the more memorable shows to come through the area the past few years?

CH I think the lion’s share of the credit belongs to Trent and Trey Reis who were really instrumental in making the Zeitgeist fests happen; they brought the location, the gear, and the organization and really put the work into it. All I did was start shooting my Internet-mouth off about how we should have a “noisefest.” Now that Trent’s moved to Colorado and the spot in Boone is no longer available, we’re going to need to come up with either some way to keep it going or something to replace it. It’ll work out though.

For me, Zeitgeist III really sticks out as especially memorable. Maybe there were better performances at some of the other times, but that third one was the craziest that people got, smashing stuff and just total mayhem, the wildest vibe I’ve ever been around; plus that was the show where we debuted Cancer Lake, and besides the fest itself, there was the pre-fest show at the Space For Ames, and then just a few days later was one of my earliest Fremont shows on which I’d booked Joey Molinaro — I wasn’t sure people would come or if they’d still be burned out from the weekend before, but then Breakdancing Ronald Reagan and Dromez decided last-minute to loop their tour back around to jump on the bill. I got to do a live collab with BRR, and tons of the Z crew came out; over that few days it felt like the fest had never ended, and maybe we could just keep it going forever.

BB You’ve taken a lead role in

booking bands at the Fremont. Aside from the painting of Prince riding a unicorn, what else makes this venue a go to for noise/ experimental shows?

CH A big piece of it is just the fact that the owner is open to whatever. The setup of the place is pretty much ideal for that too: they don’t charge a cover, and the music area is in another room apart from the rest of the bar. This means two key things: first, you can do weird-sounding shit in there without too much worry about scaring off folks who are just there to hang at the bar or play pool or whatever; in fact, sometimes people who didn’t know about the show get curious and come check it out, and that kind of thing is a lot of the reason I think more shows should be free — turns out, people are open to all kinds of things if you give them the chance. Secondly, there’s less worry if you put on something niche and it only draws a small number, because that’s still people on top of who was going to be there anyway. So there’s less to lose by being adventurous.

BB Thanks for your time, Chuck. What

are your future plans for The Centipede Farm and your musical endeavors?

CH To tell the truth, the Farm has been on a bit of a hiatus lately, I think over the past year about the only release I’ve done is that AMK one with the manifesto booklet by Luke from Social Drift. The impetus for that long pause is probably the birth of my daughter — having two somewhat high-maintenance kids takes up a lot of my time and energy. I get home from work

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and it’s dinner, baths, tooth-brushing, bedtime, and after all that a lot of times I just crash. But lately I’m looking to get the label rolling again soon, the time seems about right, and once I do, I plan to focus it more on artists from in and around Iowa, as I’ve met so many great ones since I first started. The first couple tapes will definitely be a Musician one and a Cancer Lake one.

I’m working on a Bandcamp site that archives everything related to the TapeSNotRecords and Ragman Records years that I can find. Lots of cool stuff there, including lots that was recorded but never released to anyone.

Fetal Pig will keep on rolling, and I’ve gotten myself wrapped up in yet another label, Sump Pump Records, with Dan from Fetal Pig and a couple other guys; it’s more of an indie rock label that also likes metal, and we’ve put some really good records out (Annalibera, A Is Jump) and have more in the works (Skin Of Earth, Goldblums). Dan’s the main boss of that but it helps when you’ve got people working together.

I’ll keep setting shows up too, even though I can’t put musicians up at my house anymore. A few other guys like Trey Reis and Luke Rauch are getting into the experimental music show game now too, so that’s good. I hope to actually tour one of these days or at least hit some fests in other cities, but that’s more of a dream than anything definite at this point.

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NOISE BY ALEX NOWACKI Usually I start my introductions as, “This is Boar From Dubuque, Iowa”, and after that I let my electronics do the rest. (I know how super lame that attempt of being clever with my intro was, but oh well, I thought it was funny.) I have been involved with the underground experimental scene of Dubuque for about 8

years or so, performing/recording experimental music under the names Polyester Pants and Boar. I specialize in more of the harsh side of experimental music, creating sounds through effect pedals, synthesizers, samples, microphones, and other various instruments.

Although I have been on many tours in the span of

my “noise career”, in general, Iowa has not always been the

easiest to promote and put on a good experimental show. The

first ever noise shows I’ve played were with Polyester Pants (a noise duo

I was in with Kevin Mueller) at the Busted Lift in Dubuque. If I recall correctly, there were

maybe a little over ten people at each show. So attendance was pretty scarce, which is not an out of the

ordinary situation when it comes to noise shows.

Noise in Dubuque didn’t really catch fire until Randy Carter (who performs under ARU) started having basement

shows at his residence. These shows took place around 2008-2009. That’s when shit was rockin! It was very easy to book touring projects who were coming through, which, in return, created a gateway of new people to network with.

NOISE

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Networking is huge in the noise community, because the more people you know, the easier it is to tour and release tapes/cd’s/whatever. Randy’s house brought in a lot of curious people and a new hope to the almost non-existent scene. Unfortunately, the neighbors didn’t like the noise level, so the shows stopped, as usual. So, what was the next step? Hitting the Road.

Touring was a whole new world. I’ve been to the East Coast with ARU and Devin Dart and Breakdancing Ronald Reagan, the Midwest region with Kels Backyard, Sobou Shuu, Justin Marc Lloyd, and MassComm, the West coast with Swim Ignorant Fire and Patrick Gilligan (I Like You Go Home), the North with Joe Grove, and the South with Oblive. Plus, many more trips with other various artists and a lot of small tours with I Like You Go Home, who is also a Dubuque native.

Touring is insane! Day to day, city to city, state to state. By far, I’ve had some of the best times of my life touring. You can’t really go wrong with meeting new people, partying, and performing every night, while seeing things you would have never seen across the country. Then again, there is a depressing side of touring when you play a show in front of a mere five people on a Tuesday night in the middle of nowhere, and all you want to do is be back home. Touring is not for everyone but being from Iowa I find it extremely necessary.

Iowa is growing by putting on more shows and fests, mainly in Des Moines. It has come a long way from when I started playing, when it was almost impossible to get a show in Iowa. I feel Dubuque has a bright future with the Dubuque Area Arts Collective movement and labels such as Personal Archives (Bob Bucko’s label), and Breaching Static (my label) pushing sounds that most people don’t hear.

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IOWA MUSIC

ARCHIVE BY BOB BUCKO JR

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As a newly post-adolescent music nerd, I spent the turn of the century commuting from sleepy Mt. Vernon, where I was failing school, to Iowa City, to lean against the lip of the stage at Gabe’s Oasis, taking in the best underground post-this-and-that from around the midwest and beyond. I suppose one’s late teens/early 20s always tend to be magical times in retrospect, but I would offer that this particular era in Iowa City holds up quite well, nostalgia be damned. Along with the titans of Touch & Go and AmRep, there were a solid number of local groups pounding out equally strong sets in support of their heroes. Some of these became fairly well-known in their own right, while others disintegrated in flames brief seconds after formation.

My recollections are foggy at best - Gabe’s was as much a lifestyle as anything else, and for most that meant overindulgence. In skimming through my record collection, I am reminded, in bits and pieces, of this miraculous time of discovery, and the people that played a role in making me believe music was mine to make as well.

Below, in no particularly significant order, are ten albums by some of my favorite Iowa artists. Far from a comprehensive list of homegrown achievement, this list should be considered nothing more than a scrapbook, an audio archive of misspent youth, as related from near-middle age.

BLACK VATICAN- Zed Omega (Night People, 2007)

When I returned to Iowa in 2006, there was a whole new thing going on in Iowa City, based around then-hip Kraut-worship, tape-trader ethics, and various other middle-class conceits. Shawn Reed’s Night People label represented the finer end of this art school scene, locally and internationally. As opposed to the grunge-informed ‘90s not-giving-a-fuck approach to record packaging and stage presence, the visual aspect of this music became just as important, and occasionally overshadowed, the sonic substance.

Black Vatican came into this somewhat aloof scene with a heart-on-sleeve tenderness, transmitted via singer Andy Roche’s plaintive tenor and simple, repetitive lyrics, which often veered toward the Catholic religiosity of his native Dubuque. Multi-instrumentalist Owen Gardner (Horse Lords) sonically translated these obsessive narratives, creating a washed-out world

of broken drums, super trebly reverbed guitars, and pawn shop synths, alongside Roche’s trademark underwater Oberheim drum machine.

For all the atmosphere and effect on Zed Omega, it’s the songs that carry it through. “Now You’ve Been Told” tells a full story with two simple, repeated lines, leaning heavily on Biblical verse. Closer “Beautiful Reformer” takes a simple drum machine and synth line and reimagines these sounds in the most organic of ways, as Roche intones, “Do you hear it? / Yes, I believe I do.”

By the time this cassette was released in 2007, Roche had relocated to Chicago, where he is a visual artist and avant-garde filmmaker, and Gardner set off for his present home of Baltimore. For a brief moment, however, Dubuque’s basements and garages were blessed with some heavenly tones.

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EDWARD GRAY & COMPANY- The Old Bending River (Almost Halloween Time, 2011)

Ed was kicking around Iowa City long before my time, and continues to make wonderful records full of cynical wordplay that belies a lot of heart. Crossing genre lines without looking both ways, Ed, to his credit and detriment, has time and again proven he gives not a fuck. Whether delving into blistering feedback at an alt-country festival, or playing soft dirges alongside a gaggle of HxCx bands, Ed is the outsider’s outsider, uncomfortable in his own skin, perhaps, but determined to make you question yourself in similar measures.

The Old Bending River follows a series of scattershot releases packed with incisive lyrics and musical exploration, but often feeling fragmented due to this experimentation. On The Old Bending River, Ed makes, more or less, a straight country-rock album, and the results are sublime. Well-recorded and concise, the eight tunes “flow through you like water” (to quote from the opener, “Chafe”). There is nothing out of place on the album - arrangements are lean, but perfectly tempered, and the turns of phrase cut deeper with every passing verse.

SPEAKERWIRE COLLINS- The Boy Said My Name’s Johnny (Unread Records, 2013)

The Boy Said My Name’s Johnny, credited to Speakerwire Collins, is a duo comprised of the aforementioned Ed Gray and Brian Boehlman (Miracles of God), on bass and drums. In some ways the diametric opposite of The Old Bending River - released on cassette and recorded on 4-track, with the sparest of backdrops to Gray’s bemused musings, it’s singular template creates a unified concept for the twelve short tunes. Again,

Gray spouts profundities in the most direct of terms, delivering his missives in a weary baritone above a nigh-funky bass/drums skeleton.

If the above gushing wasn’t indication enough, I think Ed Gray may be Iowa’s strongest songwriter, and his relative obscurity, even in Iowa, is criminal, even if leveled by his own design.

KICKASS TARANTULAS - Nobody Knows All the Bad Shit I Done (Hot Potato, 2005)

Another group featuring Samuel Locke Ward, the Kickass Tarantulas were emblematic of the crash-and-burn lifecycle of many great Iowa bands. Centered on the feral howlings of David ‘Luthor the Geek’ Hagedorn, the Kickass Tarantulas’ garage-raunch took sub-fidelity and fetid riffing to high new lows. With Locke Ward bashing distorted acoustic guitar, Ross Meyer banging on a caveman’s variant of a cocktail kit, and Pete Balestrieri busting a lung on his horn, melody was obscured and buried beneath six feet of sludge.

Despite the chaotic performances and abysmal recording quality, the songs shine through, and Hagedorn’s unhinged vocal delivery conjures the debased sexual energy of cult leaders and serial killers. Dark and intimidating in all the right ways, Nobody Knows All the Bad Shit I Done is legitimately frightening, and totally exhilarating. It is no surprise the band’s run was brief - their only other release was a split 7” EP with Breakdance - but Eastern Iowa’s underground scene was much richer for their squalid existence.

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SAMUEL LOCKE WARD - Boombox By Bedside (Unread Records, 2005)

Sam’s list of musical achievements makes the rest of us look shiftless and lazy. For example, in 2013, he recorded and released an album for each month of the year. He has recorded and toured relentlessly in various solo permutations, as well as with the Miracles of God and as a member of Joe Jack Talcum and the Powders.

Despite his nearly-pathological productivity, Sam’s quality control remains impeccable. Among a steady stream of strong releases, however, Boombox By Bedside sticks out. Containing some of his finest writing, Boombox also has a harrowing backstory. Literally recorded into a boombox, by bedside, the album was written and recorded following a severe accident that left Locke Ward hospitalized for several months.

Prior to this, I always felt Sam used humor in his songs to accent the pathos in his writing, to illustrate the absurdity of our miserable human feelings. Boombox strips this veneer away, and the results cut deep. Understandably, the lyrics focus heavily on death and dying, and the hope of redemption on one side or another of the divide.

Recorded sans overdubs, with the simplest of instrumentation and boasting necessarily raw recording quality, these songs are given ample space to unfold, one after another, as a sort of stationary travelogue. Over the years, many of these songs would appear in Sam’s live sets in varied guises, but, on Boombox By Bedside, they are represented in their truest form, a voyeuristic peek behind the veil. That this album more or less marks the beginning of Samuel Locke Ward’s solo onslaught further cements its importance in his vast discography.

THE SLATS - The Great Plains of San Francisco (The Tyros Label, 2002)

The Slats were an anomaly even within the fairly diverse Eastern Iowa scene of the turn of the century. Based in Cedar Rapids, Brian Cox created a universe of sound based around 4-string guitars, 4-track recorders, and equal measures pop songcraft and noise sensibility. Stripped down to the essence of rock, the Slats’ songs sometimes seem slight on the surface - they often skid by in under two minutes, and there is little bottom end, with most songs featuring a couple mid-range guitars and garbage can drums. There is a world inside these tunes, however, and a little exploration unpacks a great reward.

Cox’s lyrics are, to say the least, cryptic, and occasionally endearingly clumsy, conjuring the word association so common in the ‘90s underground.

Guided By Voices are an obvious stylistic touchstone, but, despite their obvious love of everything from the ‘90s alternaverse, you would never confuse the Slats for anything other than themselves. There is an internal logic to the proceedings, as when Cox intones seeming non sequiturs that inherently convey the post-collegiate condition, like, “I like dichotomy/a double shift at Quick Trip handing out fashion rations/doctorate from University of Barnes and Noble/it’s a Beatleloser”, while atonal guitars squall and squeal behind a pop-punk chord progression.

The Great Plains of San Francisco is something of a transitional album, reconfiguring a few tunes from the previous album, American Rock Vol. 1, and pointing the way towards the

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higher fidelity explored on subsequent albums. To me, Great Plains feels like the album where Brian Cox accepted

himself as a writer of great pop tunes, while choosing wisely to keep his quirks, without letting them obscure his hooks.

THE VIDABLUE/TEN GRAND - A Comprehensive List of Everyone Who Has Ever Done Anything Wrong to Us (Golden Brown/Level Plane, 2001 / Sickroom Records, 2002)

The legend of the vidablue/Ten Grand has been told many times, by many people way more informed than I. Needless to say, they earned their celebrity, putting on the most incendiary sets time and again, whether at an eight band hardcore matinee at some VFW hall, or opening for whatever hot shit indie sensation touring act was passing through. Their live show was akin to going to church, a moment of transformation and purging for all in the room. Their passion was undeniable, and bolstered by a musical sensibility and group interaction that was far beyond their tender years.

A Comprehensive List represents the transition from the vidablue to Ten Grand, both literally - the vinyl release is under the vidablue name, the CD is credited to Ten Grand - and sonically, as well. Their first album, Our Miracle Point of Contact, is sloppy and frantic, the sound of youth trying to get it all out at once, ideas and emotion spilling onto the floor. By the final LP, This Is the Way to Rule, the music is more dynamic, explosive and taut. On A Comprehensive List both elements are represented, placing chaos in context. It is the sound of four young men discovering themselves and each other, their limitless potential, and it serves as one of Iowa’s finest musical moments.

THE MULTIPLE CAT - The Return of the Multiple Cat (Guilt Ridden Pop, 2013)

Davenport’s Pat Stolley has been recording as The Multiple Cat for over 20 years, and boasts a solid back-catalog loaded with subtle pop gems. Primarily a studio project, releases have been somewhat intermittent since the early 2000’s. On The Return of the Multiple Cat, Stolley and pals deliver a short album packed with hooks and memorable melodies. Much like their first album, “Territory” Shall Mean the Universe - which I initially seeked out following their set opening for the Archers of Loaf at the Col Ballroom in 1996 - this most recent entry in the Multiple Cat cosmology conjures an autumnal melancholy, the epitome of indie rock’s pre-commercial promise.

The studio is its own instrument on these recordings, with layered synths

supporting snaky bass counter-melodies and stacked vocal harmonies. Whereas many of their ‘90s contemporaries were using the studio to obfuscate their songs, Stolley utilizes his skills to enhance the catchiness of his songwriting. While I have given “Territory” and it’s followup EP, “Universe” Shall Mean the Self, endless listens over the years, each song on The Return of the Multiple Cat sits comfortably next to those releases, in terms of concept and quality.

In the past I have marveled at how, on “Territory”, much like the Kinks on Village Green, such young people could have created such wistful tunes. A couple decades later, I am comforted by The Multiple Cat’s assured and graceful transition into musical midlife.

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TWINS - Tomboys on Parade

Twins represent, to me, a new presence on the Iowa scene. Harboring an unabashedly pop aesthetic and proclivity toward well-written tunes about ladies and love, it is a far cry from the doom-and-gloom of so many of the Iowa bands I came up with. Granted, Des Moines and Ames are filled with similarly-minded bands these days, but I feel Twins takes the promise of this positivity and imbues it with top-tier songwriting and no-frills musicianship.

I first saw the Teddy Boys in 2008, playing with them at an art gallery/warehouse in Dubuque. Soon after, the group splintered, eventually branching into Dylan Sires and the Neighbors and Twins,

two groups whose variations on the pop theme were both represented in the Teddy Boys. Separately, the Neighbors are a breezier affair. Twins, on the other hand, went full-on power-pop, tightening their song structures and working out saccharine-sweet falsetto harmonies.

At their finest, the songs on Tomboys on Parade are reminiscent of the days of Mods and Rockers, sounding like the Who before they sucked, or a less speed-addled Creation. Lead single “Babe City” is the epitome of the classic lost pop gem, much like many of the Big Star tunes the band aspires to - one listen and you have to wonder, “why is this not on the radio?!”

LIBERTY LEG - Boom Box Years (Candy Dinner, 2010)

Liberty Leg’s story is Sisyphian - success always within reach, yet a series of setbacks repeatedly knocking them back to the bottom of the hill. Singer Ethan Richeson’s earlier band, the Iowa Beef Experience, was Iowa City’s great noise rock hope, a series of nearlys and almosts that bolstered their legend, but resulted in nothing more than another promising band’s premature demise.

With Liberty Leg, this trend continued. Though, to my memory, capable of putting on one of the most consistently fierce live shows in Iowa City, the group, which centered around Richeson and guitarist Craig Ziegenhorn, supplemented by a revolving door of drummers, never quite pulled the trigger. While the reasons for this are best left to Richeson and Ziegenhorn, it always bummed me out a bit that more people, particularly outside of eastern Iowa, never got to experience Liberty Leg.

Ziegenhorn remains, to my mind, one of the finest guitarists I’ve ever had the privilege to hear and see. His ability to fill the mid-range between booming drums and Richeson’s basso profundo with snaky riffs and small bursts of harmony, more implied than realized, defined the group’s sound, and a less-makes-more ethos that managed to make their swamp blues even creepier.

Recorded between 2000 and 2002, before their sojourn to New Orleans, Boom Box Years captures some of the group’s finest moments, with two of their best drummers, Jonathan Crawford and Pierre Tannous, in tow. The album title is literal, and, given the leanness of their guitar/vocals/drums lineup and the spareness of their songs, the audio verite approach turns out to represent their majesty with subtle accuracy.

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(Maximum Ames, 2014)

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IMAGE: Arc Numbers @ DAAC Music Series II

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PETE BALESTRIERI - INTERVIEW

1. You’ve been at this music thing for a while now. Can you tell me how you got you started?

I got started when I was 10, I think. I wanted to play trumpet, still do, but my mom wouldn’t hear of it, literally and figuratively, so she bought me a sax. I took lessons for about six weeks and gave up. It sat in the closet for years and I would pull it out to play noise, free improv. Then I joined a punk/New Wave band around ‘77 and that’s how it started.

2. Has sax always been your main instrument? You have a very identifiable sound on the instrument. Was playing in rock bands an influence on your style? What are some of your musical influences?

My influences are everything I hear, everything I’ve heard. I didn’t have sax heroes exactly, and still don’t. There’s nobody I tried to copy but I love Ben Webster, Lester Young, Benny Carter, Dexter Gordon. Then there’s Charlie Rouse, Mulligan, Harry Carney, Albert Ayler, so many. And I love trumpet players, especially Cubans with mutes, like Manuel Mirabal. And Louis Armstrong is still a god, for sure, always.

My style? My sound? I used to play harmonica a lot in high school and you can hear that in my tone. I like screaming saxes from the ‘50s and ‘60s. I guess I like to think that the time I didn’t spend on technique I spent on tone, on having an identifiable style. That’s something that’s meant a lot to me and I don’t think I’m there yet. Playing in rock bands has meant learning to play loud and not care when people tell you your mic wasn’t on. You learn to wing it a lot when somebody invites you to play on two or three songs you’ve never heard. And you learn the patterns, the forms of rock, the bridges, the turnarounds. It’s been a good school for some things, but I’m pretty bored with rock.

3. You’ve played with the Violent Femmes for many years. How did you start performing with them? What were some highlights of that experience?

I started playing with the Femmes in Milwaukee, in the late ‘70s. They were a band that couldn’t get gigs and mostly busked and played parties and such. They were kinda cool but I thought a little precious for my taste. I was the front man for a band that did covers of soul tunes like the Jam and dabbled with reggae and hardcore. I was one of only 3 or 4 sax players on the scene. I knew Brian and I met Victor when he and Brian played at an underground noise jam that lots of guys from “normal” bands sat in on.

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I started sitting in with the Femmes and went on their second tour. That lasted for about ten years of steady touring and recording, and I still play with them, last in Cedar Rapids in June. It was a wild ride being part of their thing and I learned a lot about rock, touring, show biz in general. I’m glad that I went from just the four of us to the days of the huge entourage and the best hotels, to experience that whole arc. I’m very grateful to them for that opportunity. Highlights? I saved Gordon’s life when he was almost crushed by a speaker column. Various people I met, celebs and simple folk. The playing, especially the playing, every night. Getting to really wail and let them hear sax like they’ve never heard before, giving it everything. I saw snow falling through the Eiffel Tower and the battlefield of the 300 Spartans in Greece.

Having said all that, I like doing what I do now and who I play with now. I’m happy to be back at the beginning, practicing in basements, playing the gigs with twenty people.

4. You relocated to Iowa City in the early 2000s. What are some of your more memorable musical endeavors in that city?

I moved here from the Bay area in 2001, right before 9/11. It took me a while to get started, but I began playing free improv with Ed Nehring and Ed Gray in the Iowa City Improvisers Co-op. That was incredible. I would still put that trio, even today, up against any noise or improv group anywhere. That trio could levitate, make you levitate. Killer. Then I started playing with Sam Locke Ward and Ross Meyer in the Kickass Tarantulas. That was my return to rock but I was playing a lot of noise. I had a lot of fun and that led to playing with Sam a lot on his solo projects and with Ross and Tim Krein on Rusty Buckets. All these guys are very special and were very kind to me.

I’ve played with so many people since those days. There was the Circus band in its two incarnations, both fabulous. Then I wormed my way into the now defunct Old Scratch Revival Singers and joined that group of super talented musicians, especially Maestro Brooks Strause. Brooks is the greatest and I owe him a lot. Mostly that he writes great parts for me to play in beautiful songs. And I’m as happy to play with my sax partner, Ali Cooper, as anyone I’ve ever played with. She has her own style and surprises me all the time. I’m very lucky.

5. I’ve seen you a few times in recent years playing solo interpretations of tunes from the Classic American Songbook. I am always impressed by how you graft nontraditional techniques on to traditional melodicism. How did you arrive at this idea?

My solo career was built out of my old band, the Ghostly Trio. Imagine that Lawrence Welk or Guy Lombardo decided to go avant-garde but kept the repertoire. My dear friend and colleague, Geoff Worman, was the guy that developed this concept. He believed nothing was more psychedelic than super square white music. We began as the ‘Wedding Band from Hell’ but that quickly became something more. We didn’t have a drummer so that set us free in time. We only played memory versions of covers, so we were always truncating and simplifying arrangements. If a part was too tricky or we had forgotten the bridge to Mancini’s “Experiment in Terror”, Geoff just wrote something new.

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I had a background in free jazz and improv so we were always adding that to songs, too. We approached improvisation in a different way than jazz. We didn’t really like soloing much, so we played pop versions but improvised each run through the melody and chorus, changing a little or a lot each time. When Tim Taylor quit (first on slide guitar and then bass), it was just Geoff and I. That changed a lot and I learned so much listening to what Geoff did on guitar.

He was an amazing player with chops that nobody could get a handle on. I was always amused when big shot Milwaukee guitarists would show up at our gigs and watch Geoff. Then they would tell me that they had watched him but still couldn’t see how he was making this sound or playing that run.

When I moved to California in the late ‘90s, that broke up the Trio (we kept the name after Tim left). In 2002 or 2003, I started playing a solo act made up of Trio tunes and things I liked. I had to adapt stuff so that there was melody, rhythm, changes, all the instruments on the sax. That gave me a lot of freedom to experiment and keep the Trio ideas going. Geoff died in 2009 and it broke my heart, but I’ve kept what I hope he’d like going.

This style thing - you know, you’d have to listen to the Trio to really understand. Geoff and I never had to talk. We were always on the same wavelength. We changed at the same times, we distorted the same, we knew that this polka would sound better as a dirge. And my style developed like it did because Geoff was so open. He never said don’t play that way or this part should go like this. He listened to what was happening and always said Yes. I have always loved slurs and blue notes, expressions of joy and misery. I love movies and soundtracks, TV. And I’ve always really loved classical for its variety and the quality of the playing. And I love magic and surprise, everything that can’t be explained, be spoken. All of that is in that style. That and the fact that I still can’t play the damn thing.

Oh, and I want to say that though I appreciate mastery in others, I can’t aspire to it. I don’t want to master anybody or anything. The sax and I are in a relationship, a long one, and I’m still not sure what’s going on. I just know how I feel.

6. Any other current or upcoming projects you’d like to mention?

I don’t have anything special coming up in the way of projects. I’m always learning new songs that grab me. Right now it’s Mary Poppins tunes. It could be anything I hear. I’ve been very lucky to play in Brooks Strause’s band, the Gory Details, the last few years. That’s a great band and one I think folks should see. I’d like to record a solo album someday, and I dream about putting a little combo or a big band together to play the solo stuff, but I don’t know.

As I get older, I wonder why I’m still doing this, but I love it and so long as somebody will let me play somewhere, I probably will. How can you you give up magic and transcendence?

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