Website for Iowa music of ALL and ANY genres. Showing the wonderful and diverse music our state offers!
We feature music podcasts, interview podcasts, videos, among other media, to present to you what is happening and has happened in the Iowa Music Scene.
To submit a song or website, app, playlist, etc, send audiofile or link to iowamusicshowcase@gmail.com!
Emery Brown in the guitarist and singer for the Des Moines area band The Sleepover. We sit down and discuss his experience as a keyboardist in past bands, the music scene in Des Moines, the formation of The Sleepover, and so much more!
"The Sleepover is a post rock band out of Iowa with influences from 80s punk and 70s rock with pop perversions throughout the years."
- from The Sleepover's Facebook page
"The soundtrack to sexy underwear, painting each other's nails and pillow fights."
- from The Sleepover's Bandcamp page
GriffleTV was a YouTube show that ran from May 2010 to Mar 2011 featuring local bands in live perfromances. We will feature some of these videos from time to time.
"The Poison Control Center is a band from Ames, Iowa.
"The band's indie rock sound is strongly influenced by bands of the 1960s, such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys, but they have also touched upon more unrelated genres since their inception. Their earlier recordings show influence of the lo-fi sound and pop sensibilities of indie rock bands of the 1990s, such as Guided by Voices and Pavement, although recent albums have featured more polished production."
- from their Wikipedia page
"The Poison Control Center have long been considered one of Iowa's personal favorite local bands. The creation of Patrick Tape Fleming and many of his friends, the band's inspiration has stood as one of Iowa's music scene's key ideals: community and friendship. Though the numbers and band members have changed throughout the years, the band has continued to release music in a more condensed version, having most recently released 2011's Stranger Ballet. The band is best known nowadays to consist of Patrick Tape Fleming on guitar and vocals as well as Devin Frank, who also plays guitar and sings, Joe Terry, who plays bass and sings (and does a cool thing with a trumpet and some swingin' hips), and Dave Olson, who plays drums (... and he sings, too). Though some of the members have moved away, the band still likes to get together to entertain the masses, doing cartwheels, standing on their heads while shredding through guitar solos, dancing in the crowd, and leading many a sing-a-long with the crowd (basically, putting on legendary rock shows). The PCC have spawned many other great bands around Iowa INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO: Mantis Pincers, Gloom Balloon, and Histo (technically, not an Iowa band, but we still have love for Don). The PCC have also had special guests perform with them, such as Bob Nastanovich of Pavement, and Paul Shaffer from Late Night with David Letterman."
- from their page in DMMC's Music Directory
"Hailed as 'the best currently active rock band in Iowa' by the Iowa Informer, indie rock outfit Halfloves offers a variety of songs on their self-titled debut album made with renowned producer Brandon Darner (Imagine Dragons, The Envy Corps). Halfloves mixes pop sensibilities with heady textures and space to create an emotionally charged sound."
- from their Bandcamp page
This episode was recorded back at the end of March when the guys from Halfloves were rolling through Ames. This is probably the goofiest and one of the most fun epsiodes I had recording. Half of what you hear the band didnt know they were being recorded so it created a good sense of general humor. I had a blast hanging out with these guys again!!
Back in September Maximum Ames happened, adnit was a great year of shows. One of my favorite bands to perform was Dear Rabbit, and I was able to sit down with there front man and conduct an interview as well as record some of his solo set.* The entire band which played later that day came into the studio and did a rehersal of sorts with me before playing that night. Here is the compilation of Dear Rabbit tuns while they were in Ames.
This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm All Recordings done in the Studio at [88.5 KURE Ames Alternative] *Recordings done at the Vinyl Grind
Week Six Jon Marko, a singer songwritter from Ames joins me in the studio! He plays a Sufjan Stevens cover and belts out a couple originals as well! Listen to us talk about growing up in Puerto Rico, picking up music because of a girl, and his other projects and new album about to come out!
All Recordings done in the Studio at [88.5 KURE Ames Alternative]
This month's podcast features rock music from Iowa that really hasn't fit nicely or neatly into any other category we featured before. So we have thrown all this mish-mash together in this one episode for your listening pleasure.
But it should give you an idea of the variety and breadth that Iowa's rock music can and does take.
Well, well, you've made it this far. And still in one piece? At least, physically, bwahahahaha!
Shall we see if your little human minds can handle the last of our awe-inspiring hymns of horror?
I warn you now, these final tunes contain subject matter and language that some of the more delicate of you can't handle. If you believe you are one of these, then leave now while I still give you a chance to do so!
Now for the more hardy of you, prepare for hard rock and hip hop tales of Satanism and murder mayhem!
All song are copyrighted by the performers and composers, and used by their kind permission.
Next episode: We'll taking the month of November off to relax and do some behind the scenes stuff, but will be back after Thanksgiving with the first of our holiday episodes! Ho! Ho! Ho!
What?! You dare returned for more of our corn fed musical fantasies of fear?!
Very well then! Be prepared for even creepier creations, you mortal fools!
We continue our terrifying Iowa musical horror stories with meanacing man-bulls, phantom appendages, clubbing with the blood-sucking undead, and romancing the brain-eating undead!
If you can cope with such occurences, please go ahead and enter our parlour!
Well, we present the second part of our shows with guest producer, Craig Hlas, of the Iowa Made Network!
As we said last time, Craig and his wife have a website that shows where you can get and find all sorts of stuff from and made in Iowa - Iowa Made Network! So with both of us being proud Iowans celebrating Iowans, I was more than happy to put a couple of podcasts from a list of tunes chosen by him!
In the last podcast episode, we featured some of Craig's folkier and more laid back tunes. This episode, we feature some of the poppier, and more upbeat stuff.
Well, if I had my act together, I've would have had a podcast for this all set to go today! Considering it's been *5* years! And especially since this subject is all topical and in the news! Probably would have got me some extra exposure!
But I don't have my act together, so instead you get this playlist I cobbled together today from YouTube videos.
Five years ago today, I put together a live music benefit show to earn money for Transformations Iowa, the transgender support group. A friend cleverly came up with the title. "The Other T Party", since the Republican Tea Party was all in the news at that time.
I'm still rather proud of that show. It spoiled me, because it went better than any other show I put on. Didn't have the attendance or make as much money as I would have liked.
But I did get all the speakers I wanted, a doctor whose has a majority of trans patients, the head of Transformations Iowa, the head One Iowa, and a mom with a transgender child. Plus, we had two drag queens performing!
And I got 4 1/4 of the bands I wanted! I was proud of that line up! The only band I didn't get was Poison Control Center, but Pat Fleming did a pre-Gloom Balloon solo set!
And the cherry on the sundae? I met my wonderful and awesome wife there! (Okay, we had been corresponding via Match.com and email before that, but it was the first time I met her in person, so it still counts!)
So only the Ladysoal video is from the actual show. Afraid there aren't any other videos. But the rest are live performances from around that time by the bands that were there!
For my second episode, I thought it only fair I feature a group of people I call my "Board of Trustees". These are four people who provided plenty of morale support and good practical advice when I was trying to put together a Christmas album (it never happened) and when I was getting this podcast started. So in return for their wonderful help and support, they get a big spotlight on one of my earliest episodes!
If you want to know about the song or the artist, just click on the name...
