Vandelux As the world wakes up to spring, many people seek new music to feed their souls. I am pleased to share ten very special songs collected over the past few months that were released in 2023 or 2024. Genres include singer-songwriter, dance, house, electronic, and electronica. Contributing artists hail from Canada, Korea, New Zealand, Belarus, South Africa, UK, and the U.S. The mood is serene, down- to midtempo, and uplifting. Enjoy this freely shared Spotify playlist under my handle as DJ Andy Bargerstock with playlist title: “2024 Spring Fringe Toast Music List.” Follow me on Spotify to ..read more

Swamp Dogg played at Willie Nelson’s “Luck Reunion,” held in Austin the same week as SXSW but not officially associated with it  (photo by Steve Horowitz). Problems with the 2024 South by Southwest (SXSW) conference started before the event began. The festival had serious financial issues exacerbated by having to close suddenly in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic. In 2021, the original owners sold half of the company to Penske Media Corporation (PMC) to help offset debts. PMC in turn recruited patrons to assist with costs. This year, the U.S. Army, a regular exhibitor at the festival, b ..read more

Poet and professor Hadara Bar-Nadav Iowa City’s Mission Creek Festival celebrates its 19th anniversary with an adventurous lineup of music, literature, and community events from April 4–6. Highlights will include performances by Kentucky singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman, the recent winner of the Americana Music Association award for Emerging Act of the Year; multi-prizewinning poet and professor Hadara Bar-Nadav, the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship; and the New York City-based hip-hop duo Armand Hammer, whose most recent album, We Buy Diabetic Test Strips, made many cri ..read more

Matthew Sweet performing at Paste Studios in New York in 2017 Matthew Sweet is one of those enigmatic legends of rock and roll. The supremely talented musician has made some of the coolest power-pop records of the past 50 years. His songs are hook filled and catchy without being overly saccharine. They rock without losing a sense of the melody on the way, like the Beatles did during their Revolver and Rubber Soul days. Sweet’s been a critics’ darling with limited popular success. The reason for Sweet’s mysteriousness is due in part to the fact that he has released so few records—15 solo studio ..read more

Nanci Griffith at the BBC Radio Folk Awards in 2010 (Wikipedia) Part of Iowa’s claim to musical fame is that the town of Shenandoah was the boyhood home of the Everly Brothers. The legendary pioneer rock ’n’ rollers had a morning radio show for farmers and small-town folk that was broadcast in the early morning until the brothers moved to Nashville in 1953 and became big stars. The duo had their ups and downs during the 1960s before acrimoniously splitting up at a California concert in 1973. However, the chemistry between the brothers remained strong. Three years after a reunion concert at Lon ..read more

CMAT (photo by Sarah Doyle) This was a banner year for recorded music. The sheer number of great albums released makes choosing a top ten an overwhelming task. No doubt today’s listeners will remember 2023 in the way boomers recall 1967, a time in which the Beatles and Motown dominated the airwaves—just as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have conquered today’s concert scene—but it was the variety of other performers, from Aretha Franklin to the Doors to Bobbie Gentry, who left the greatest mark. Today’s musical renaissance is the result of the Covid lockdown, a reaction to the rise of political popul ..read more

Madeleine and Lily Jurkiewicz of the sister duo Lily & Madeleine (photo by Anna Powell Denton) Lily and Madeleine Jurkiewicz began their musical careers while in their teens. The sisters started writing and singing songs together and posting them on YouTube when still in high school in 2012. They released their eponymously titled first full-length disc in 2013 on Sufjan Stevens’s Asthmatic Kitty label. The duo has gone on to release four more studio albums over the last ten years to much acclaim, including their most recent one, Nite Swim. Their beautiful vocal harmonies have made them a s ..read more

Erin Rae (photo by Bridgett Aikens) Before coming to Iowa as part of her six-week fall tour, Erin Rae will be on stage for the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Country music fans revere the venue as the “Mother Church” because of its historic importance. Rae will be there along with Margo Price and S.G. Goodman as back-up singers for Tyler Childers. Rae’s sung at the Ryman before, but now she’s looking forward to playing smaller, more intimate clubs. Rae will perform at Raccoon Motel in Davenport on October 22. She had a show there back in April and has appeared at the Raccoon ..read more

Sonny Burke and Smokey Robinson in the home studio that Paul Squillo helped set up for Smokey. Recently, I was sitting with a friend who has a very good audio system and loves it, so he gets what I do. However, he has a pessimistic view of my business model as an AV expert with a store. He’s sure that the newest generation of buyers feels that they can get all the help they need from a video blog on the internet. He’s certain that they don’t want to pay for expertise beyond free web advice. He also makes his living as an artist and has an MBA, so he is aware of how the internet has changed the ..read more

Lyle Lovett at AmericanaFest 2023 (photo by Steve Horowitz) The joke used to be, “What is Americana? Country music that doesn’t sell.” That’s not true anymore. Top-tier Americana artists such as Jason Isbell and Rhiannon Giddens recently played sold-out shows in Iowa, with most tickets selling for over $100. Americana music has never been more successful. But what exactly is Americana music? Loosely defined, it is a smorgasbord of different styles rooted in folk, country, blues, and soul from the past. For the last 23 years music fans and industry professional have met in Nashville to celebrat ..read more