2024 News & Publication Archive

2024-09-24 “The Aces make a triumphant headlining stop at Wooly's with opener Lady Revel” – Iowa Public Radio

• The Aces are from Provo, Utah — but that distance from home but it didn't stop them from putting on an amazing performance Sunday night. The band powered through a fifteen-song-set, including their new single "The Magic." Locals Lady Revel opened the show. See photos Alyssa Leicht captured from the night.

2024-09-18 “Goth Babe brought a late summer party to the Val Air Ballroom” – Iowa Public Radio

• Crowd surfing inflatables and positivity were in the air last Friday night as Goth Babe headlined at Val Air. See the photos Alyssa Leicht captured from the evening. Were you at the show?

2024-09-10 “The Mr. Softheart show happened like this” – Little Village

• Two valued team members from Principal Financial Group were delivered here to the LiFT — by the divine means of Court Ave, or maybe, Fong’s — and found themselves next to me. There was nowhere else to go. The place was packed on Aug. 1 to welcome Mr. Softheart (the band, not man) into the home stretch of their summer tour. This would be the first of four final shows in Iowa, following a dozen others that covered more of the continental United States than Culver’s franchise locations.

2024-07-15 “Photo Gallery: Scenes from the 80/35 Music Festival, featuring Killer Mike, OK Go and more” – Little Village

• The 80/35 Music Festival covered Des Moines’ Water Works Park in confetti on the first of two great (and hot!) nights of performances from national, international and Iowa acts alike.

2024-06-10 “Album Review: Anthony Worden and the Illiterati — ‘Plain Angels’” – Little Village

• Anthony Worden makes music that an archivist of 20th century music would make. His early albums were heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground. Since then, he’s branched out. On Plain Angels, he writes songs as winsome and pleasing to the ear as Badfinger and Matthew Sweet. The album title itself seems to reference Gram Parsons’ album Grievous Angel, or maybe Lucinda Williams’ song “Drunken Angel.”

2024-02-26 “Album Review: Mr. Softheart — ‘Magdalene in Crisis’” – Little Village

• Somewhere in the search engine results for “magnolia,” there is one of many paintings titled exactly that. It’s just a JPG of the original by Martin Johnson Heade, but thanks to the click-to-zoom functionality on slam.org, you can get close enough to see the wrinkles in the white paint. The digital placard is also doing its best to describe the “voluptuous blossoms.” Any hint of horniness, however, doesn’t translate through the screen.