Iowa Tapes, Part 1: Phyllis Khare, Greg Brown, Karen Meat
Introducing Physical Media Blog’s serialized survey of Iowa music in cassette tape form. Is the audio quality prime? No. Do all of these tapes...
Rock Autobiographies: A Woman Pioneer, Iron Maiden Beer, and New Year’s with Bono
It seems like every musician in the last decade has published a memoir or tell-all, or hired a biographer to write their story. Many...
Ames Poetry Zines and Songbooks
Zine makers don’t need anyone to tell them they are artists. They’ve proven it. They recognize no barrier to entry, they need no acceptance...
David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: From Cult to The King
It's the 30th anniversary of the debut of the celebrated TV show Twin Peaks, of which I'm a huge fan, so this edition of...
Independent Film Director John Sayles in the ’80s
John Sayles is one of the best and most influential independent filmmakers alive, but availability of his films seems to have waned in recent...
Weird Comics: The Flaming Carrot, a Woman in a Fish Tank, and the Wankathon
Thanks to the huge success of film adaptations, there's no longer the stigma associated with being a comic book nerd that existed just 25...
Maximum Ames Music Festival, Pridefest Canceled Over Coronavirus
Organizers of the annual Maximum Ames Music Festival announced in a Tuesday morning press release that the 2020 festival has been canceled in the...
The Iowa Connection to the Viral Story of the Man Who Died from Chloroquine...
In late March, after President Trump began touting the anti-malarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as potential “miracle" cures for the coronavirus against the advice...
Enya Cassettes for Stress Relief
My first exposure to Enya was through commercials for Pure Moods CDs. A brief clip of her singing, "Sail away, sail away, sail away…"...
Terrence Malick’s Emergence in New Hollywood
I've been slowly working my way through Terrence Malick's films and have seen the first three now, thanks to a sale on the Criterion...
