Issuu

An Oral History of LV • The Rise of Ketamine Clinics • Defying the Ticket Mafia

Vitamin K

Fees Included

Villagers past and present discuss what it takes to keep this free print mag going.

The Schedule III drug may open the door to more psychedelics in mental health care.

Venues run on love, but soulless monopolies are putting the squeeze on Iowa’s indie stages.

Little Village (ISSN 2328-3351) is an independent, communitysupported news and culture publication based in Iowa City, published monthly by Bayleaf, LLC, 623 S Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA 52240. Through journalism, essays and events, we work to improve our community according to core values: environmental sustainability, affordability and access, economic and labor justice, racial justice, gender equity, quality healthcare, quality education and critical culture. Letters to the editor(s) are always welcome. We reserve the right to fact check and edit for length and clarity. Please send letters, comments or corrections to editor@littlevillagemag.com. Subscriptions: lv@ littlevillagemag.com. The US annual subscription price is $120. All rights reserved, reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. If you would like to reprint or collaborate on new content, reach us at lv@littlevillagemag.com. To browse back issues, visit us online at issuu.com/littlevillage.

@littlevillagemag

EDITORIAL

Publisher Jordan Sellergren jordan@littlevillagemag.com

Editor-in-Chief

Emma McClatchey emma@littlevillagemag.com

Arts Editor

Chuy Renteria chuy@littlevillagemag.com

News Director

Paul Brennan paul@littlevillagemag.com

Graphic Designer

Kellan Doolittle kellan@littlevillagemag.com

En Español Editor

Claudia Pozzobon Potratz

Corrections editor@littlevillagemag.com

July Contributors

Anne Wilmoth, Elisabeth Oster, Evan Weidl, Jessie Kraemer, K. Twaddle, Kembrew McLeod, Lauren Haldeman, Liz Rosa, Nichole Foxhoven, Ramona Muse Lambert, Rob Brezsny, Sam Locke Ward, Sarah Elgatian, Sara Williams, Tom Tomorrow, William Lowell

Special Thanks To

Alissa Hansen, Andrew Sherburne, Matt Steele, Melody Dworak, Todd Kimm

INDEPENDENT IOWA

NEWS, ARTS & CULTURE

Since 2001 | LittleVillageMag.com

LITTLE VILLAGE

CREATIVE SERVICES

Website design, E-commerce, Publication design creative@littlevillagemag.com

Digital Director Drew Bulman drewb@littlevillagemag.com

SALES & ADMINISTRATION

Jordan Sellergren jordan@littlevillagemag.com

Advertising ads@littlevillagemag.com

CIRCULATION

Distribution Manager Joseph Servey joseph@littlevillagemag.com

Distribution

Austin Chadderdon, Elida Martinez, Esther Windt, Heber Martinez, Joseph Servey, Oliver Booth, Van Holmgren distro@littlevillagemag.com

OFFICES

Little Village HQ, LV Creative Services 623 S Dubuque St Iowa City, IA 52240 319-855-1474

SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook @LittleVillageMag

Instagram @LittleVillageMag

Bluesky @littlevillage.bsky.social

Culture writers, food reviewers and columnists, email: editor@littlevillagemag.com. Illustrators, photographers and comic artists, email: design@littlevillagemag.com

Meet this month’s contributors!

Anne Wilmoth is a children’s and collection services librarian at Iowa City Public Library Her favorite local hiking trail is at F.W. Kent County Park.

Elisabeth Oster is a freelance writer and designer, and collector of dad rock

Evan Weidl is a University of Iowa graduate. He enjoys music of all kinds and large sandwiches

Jessie Kraemer is a writer and artist living in Iowa City. Follow her on instagram (@jkraem)

K. Twaddle is an Iowa transplant and a lifelong book enthusiast. She lives in rural Iowa with her partner and three cats

Kembrew McLeod is a founding Little Village columnist and the chair of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa

Lauren Haldeman is a graphic novelist and poet. She has received an Iowa Arts Fellowship, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award and fellowships from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop

Issue 354 July 2026

Cover by Kellan Doolittle

Had enough of Mega-this, Superthat and Big-whatever? Fed up with being treated like a dumbass by your local corporate paper? Little Village favors the small and local, champions the sustainable, yet believes in considering more than one side of an issue. Welcome to town. —From “Welcome to Little Village” by Todd Kimm, issue #1, July 2001

Liz Rosa is a journalism student at Drake University, juggling class, freelancing and work while still finding time for creativity

Nichole Foxhoven is a Youth Librarian at the East Side Library, where stories come to life every week

Ramona Muse Lambert makes art and music. Sometimes she’s in charge of dinner, too. Buy her art at ramonamuselambert.com.

Sam Locke Ward is a cartoonist and musician from Iowa City. He self publishes the comic zines Voyage Into Misery and ‘93 Grind Out

Sarah Elgatian is a writer, activist and educator living in Iowa. She likes dark coffee, bright colors and long sentences, She dislikes meanness

Sara Williams is a multidisciplinary artist who was raised in Bondurant, Iowa. She currently resides near Amana

William Lowell is an Iowa City native. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from Old Dominion University

LittleObituariesVillage

Free online, paid in print.

For more information, email obits@littlevillagemag.com or visit littlevillagemag.com/obituaries

Interactions

LV encourages readers to submit letters to Editor@LittleVillageMag.com. Please include your name, city of residence and any relevant job titles or affiliations. Letters may be edited for accuracy and style. To be considered for print publication, letters should be under 500 words. Preference is given to letters that have not been published elsewhere.

Through means outside of the Little Village magazine website, I recently discovered the “Horsecope” comics and, while there haven’t been many created, I’ve fallen in love with them. For context, horses are my favorite animal and the relatively simple designs and positive messaging from each panel are endearing. I’ve shared the comics with friends of mine and we all agree; there needs to be many, many more of these. In short, I just wanted to say thank you to Jessie Kraemer for creating these and I hope there are many more to come. Personally, I think my favorite so far was published on April 14, 2026. —Brian D.

Letter to the editor: Rob Sand and Josh Turek are dead wrong about trans athletes (June 3)

Sports is utterly insignificant and we should stop treating it otherwise. —Andy M.

HAVE AN OPINION?

Thank you Kent Williams for saying what needed to be said and for saying it so well. —Tara M.

Mr. Williams is a kinder critic than I am. I’m going write-in rather than vote for anyone who would throw me and my civil rights under the bus to whore for centrist votes they’re never actually going to get. —PJ J.

Self-righteousness is how we got Trump. —Kirsty C.

No, polite politics is how we got Trump not once but twice and we’re fucking over it. Trump did us one favor at least, proving gradualism a tool of oppression and that a political overhaul is both possible and sustainable. It’s time that we abandon the status quo and dismantle the systems that harm us. —Christie L.

PUBLIC NUISANCE

SARA WILLIAMS

Donate to the Iowa City Utilities' Donate to the Iowa City Utilities' Assistance Fund which offers Assistance Fund which offers eligible residents discounts on eligible residents discounts on monthly water, sewer, stormwater, monthly water, sewer, stormwater, and curbside charges through the and curbside charges through the City’s Utility Discount Program. City’s Utility Discount Program.

To learn more about the program, or to see if you qualify for assistance, visit: icgov.org/utilities

IOWA CITy, JuNE 11

To the sapphic couple leaving Heyn’s ice cream on wednesday night: You casually strolled out into the light rain, a knowing smile and gentle pat on your partner’s ass. Sitting on the curb, the three of us (queer, mid-20s, single) sighed in admiration. “Everything is going to be okay,” I say, watching you pull away in your subaru. “I think everything is going to be okay.”

HICKORy HIll PARK, IOWA CITy, MAy 30

You were on the bridge watching deer one morning when we exchanged a few words. As I walked my laps, our paths kept crossing. One time, I saw you crouched in the woods, listening to the stream and watching wildlife. I laughed to myself, thinking, “That’s exactly what I’d be doing.”

We met again later and shared another laugh as we said hello. I never caught your name, but I left thinking you seemed like someone who appreciates the outdoors the same way I do.

Maybe the trail was trying to tell us something. Trail buddy?

IOWA RIVER lANDING, CORAlVIllE, MAy 27

I was sitting on a bench during my lunch break, reading.

You walked by and asked if my book was in Arabic.

“Farsi,” I said.

“Oh, duh. Arabic and Farsi use the same alphabet.”

Then came that strange pause. The kind where both people are deciding whether to leave or stay a little longer.

“Well, yes. Have a nice walk,” I said, cutting the conversation short. You smiled politely and kept walking.

But I could tell you wanted to talk more. And afterward, I realized I did too.

I should’ve asked what else you knew about Farsi.

I should’ve asked what you were reading.

Submissions may be edited for clarity and length, and may appear in print or online. Think you’re the subject of one? Reach out: littlevillagemag.com/missed-connections

This subject is a trap and the GOP knows it. Democrats need to strategically, competently and intelligently address this topic without falling prey to the wedge politics the GOP desperately wants. It’s a distraction campaign issue and Dems need to address it as such. —Scotch F.

This is such a non issue when we have things going on like our water giving us all cancer. —Meredith C.

A friendship and a folk band, the Awful Purdies celebrates 20 years this summer with a ‘goulash’ of new songs (June 3)

Thank you, Little Village Mag, Kembrew McLeod, and Nicole Yeager! Our community is lucky to have LV celebrating local arts and culture! We’re honored by this awesome story celebrating our Voltron Mutt Goulash! —Awful Purdies

What a wonderful article! And fabulous photography. Congratulations on this epic 20-year run, ladies. —Stephanie C.

I cannot get over how much I love these photos! You babes are the inspiration! —Christina S.

This is exactly how I imagine all y’all inside of my CD player. Super fan! Thanks for 20 years of fun times and good tunes! —Nikki D.

University of Iowa launches new research project into state’s health crisis (June 4)

Has this study plan been approved by the Center for Intellectual Freedom? —Jim P.

Rob Sand warns Iowa is facing ‘a fiscal time bomb,’ calls for four debates with Zach Lahn (June 5)

“It is that long-term one-party control that puts a government off-track, not Republicans specifically, according to Sand.” I understand why he thinks he has to serve up lines like this in an election but it’s worth pointing out that it’s bullshit. I would rather we had a

candidate who knew how to describe the reality of what’s going on instead of just pandering to the dumb “both sides” fallacy that so many people are stuck on. It’s important to get him elected but in the big picture it sucks that so many Democrats think they need to let Republicans off the hook or hammer their own party for the pain caused by Republicans. It’s like a massive case of Stockholm Syndrome. —Henry W.

LittleVillage READER POLL

How long have you been reading Little Village?

Some girls are content to rot on the couch and watch Love Island. Others, like 1-year-old Nina, crave a little more stimulation. This highly intelligent Doberman/Shepherd mix loves to stretch her mental and physical prowess every day. She’s developed some skills and tricks during her time at the Iowa City Animal Center, and she’s eager to show them off—and learn more. Think you can keep up with this gorgeous go-getter? Pay a visit to the shelter at 3910 Napoleon Ln.

INTERACTIONS

Will they debate in Iowa or Kansas? —Tom B.

Lawn watering ban enacted in central Iowa due to high nitrate levels, affecting 20% of the state population (June 9)

Let us all collectively thank Big Ag, data centers, and climate change deniers for this amazing situation! —Donald P.S.

And yet nothing will be done. —Sandy R.

Gov. Reynolds outsources IT services to New Jersey corporation, eliminating 200 state government jobs (June 10)

Of course she did. —Mike Wolfe, American Picker

lincoln Winebar is moving up in the world— one place, specifically. The influential “50 Top Pizza USA” list raised the Mount Vernon restaurant from 46th to 45th place after first adding it to the list in 2025. Mount Vernon is the only Iowa city represented, and one of the smallest towns to be recognized by the Italian gourmands behind www.50toppizza.it. They don’t accept nominations; pizzerias must impress the judges with their service, wine and beer selections, and, of course, pies.

In May, University of Iowa alumnus Samuel D. Hunter’s Broadway debut, Little Bear Ridge Road, was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. While it ultimately lost to Bess Wohl’s Liberation at the June awards show, Little Bear took home Best Play at the New York Drama Critics’ Circle earlier this year. The play ran in both Chicago and New York, starring Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock as an estranged aunt and nephew who reunite under inauspicious circumstances during the COVID-19 lockdown. Hunter, who earned his MFA at UI, also wrote the 2012 play The Whale. After winning a SAG Award (and ultimately an Oscar) for his star turn in the 2022 film adaptation, Brendan Fraser thanked Hunter specifically.

The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) has selected Brooklyn Wolthoff of Riceville as the recipient of the 2026 National High School Heart of the Arts Award—given to “individuals who exemplify the ideals of the positive heart of the arts and represent the core mission of education-based activities.”

Wolthoff, a senior, has excelled in the classroom, choir and speech team at Riceville Community High School, in spite of her diagnoses of dyslexia, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and, ultimately, Neurological Functioning Disorder, which took her ability to walk and dance. She has served as a speech coach, mentor to elementary students and Homecoming Court member and used writing and performance to express herself, including through an original oratory titled “On Wednesdays I Will Dance.”

INTERACTIONS

So much for creating jobs for Iowans. —Sandy G.

Nothing says Iowa First like New Jersey! —Andrew R.

Have any of you tried to hire a competant [sic] IT person in Iowa? Obviously not.

Maybe you should learn to code and Iowa would have a job for you? —Kevin A.

Bro. This isn’t because we can’t find IT workers, they’re cutting 200 existing positions. —Ben S.

Iowa City couple who sued the Trump admin for delaying their naturalization ceremony are now citizens (June 11)

Love Sunday forever and always! Blessings to him and his family. —Isabella S.

Happy to hear this update - though sorry for what you had to go through to get to this moment! —Rachael I.

Congratulations to both of them! Shouldn’t have been delayed in the first place. —Jeff A.

Congratulations Sunday Goshit. You do so much work for Iowa. —Lu-Kundy M.Z.

Good for them! Amen! —Ife O.

Republican for governor Zach Lahn chooses state Rep. Derek Wulf as his running mate (June 12)

Neither of these guys are good at running for offices where they actually live. —Brent C.O.

So wait. One of them lives out of state most of the time and the other lied about where he lived in our state? —Stevie T.

The current Iowa GOP “platform”: my opponent has trans friends!! Drag queen story hour coming to your small towns!! We’re not gonna become Illinois, California, or New York!! Flood of illegals!! They said something about guns!! —Eric C.

Letter to the editor: WRAC, an important resource on the UI campus, is being restructured. We’ve seen this playbook before. (June 15)

This makes me so very sad. I was there at WRAC’s beginning and I always assumed it would outlive me. It’s a wrong world these days. —Martha M.

So many things sadden me these days. The U of Iowa was a top notch academic institution and fostered intellectual and creative freedom. No more. Iowa’s educational systems, from K through College, were once rated at the top of the heap in the U.S. Now

we are in the bottom 1/3. Could that be because our Red Legislature has meddled in things which they should have left alone? Imposed their views of the world on all and suppressed diversity of thought? I for one believe that is the root of the cause. —Jane K.

The war on women continues… —Joe L.

Hair Art, the tornado-proof salon that never raised its prices, is closing after more than 28 years in Iowa City (June 16)

Farewell to an Iowa City institution. —Jack M.

For 28 years, it’s been a unique pleasure. Thank you and enjoy the next chapter! —David K.

I have been going there for about 15 years now….she will be missed, a well deserved retirement. —Mark M.

It’s admittedly selfish of me to say that I’m saddened by this news. Hair Art was a wonderful place, and I always got a

terrific haircut there. It was obvious that she’s passionate about her craft. Plus, the place looked like a perfect combination of Korean and Midwestern tastes. Her retirement is certainly well-earned. Hair Art will be missed. —Robert P.

Hair Art is a testament to how supporting local businesses can help our neighbors build a life here. Congratulations on such a long and successful run! Also, do any of your plants need new homes? I’m in love with all of them!! —Katie R.

This wonderful story demonstrates the value of having journalists who are plugged into their communities and recognize the contributions of people like Man Kwi Park. Thank you! —Tony L.

She’s an Iowa City original! —Debb G.

Auditor: School choice cost Iowans $258 million, is ‘paying tuition for the wealthiest families’ (June 18)

It’s not a surprise that the wealthiest

parents of children attending private schools are benefiting the most. —Tim B.

Needs to be income-based for those in need. —Shannon S.D.

MAGA: Socialism for the wealthy with the lowest incomes supporting the least taxed and most wealthy - and all without audits. It’s more MAGA corruption. And more “Heritage Foundation” destruction of our state. How ya going to pay for that, Kim? —Tom W.

An educated public is a dangerous public… —Keith H.B.

Iowans: Our special education students (& many others) aren’t enrolled/served by private schools! Plus public schools are weakened by giving away our public/taxpayer money to private schools! —Jill W.

This is sickening … what a ripoff of ALL Iowa taxpayers & the damage done to the once venerated Iowa public schools system may be irreversible. —Leigh R.M.

In Case You Missed It

Catch up on LV’s top arts stories from June.

Review: Veteran rock trio TsuShiMaMiRe and new Q.C. power group Sheer Image had scene kids reveling at Raccoon Motel By

Broc

Nelson, photos by Carly Hux, June 9

Review: ‘I’m Gonna Marry you Tobey Maguire’ follows a 14-year-old Spider-Man stan with a penchant for kidnapping By Isaac Hamlet, June 12

The 2026 Quad Cities Juneteenth Festival celebrated a longrunning local tradition in a new location

By Paul Brennan, photos by Kevin Richard Schafer, June 22

Photos: Pokey’s Fest 4 had the longhairs and baldies head-banging in Iowa City By Chuy Renteria, photos by Nicole Yeager, June 13

Have a question about sex, love and relationships?Submit to Kiki to have it answered in an upcoming issue.

littlevillagemag.com/dearkiki

COMPLETELY ANONYMOUS SEX & LOVE ADVICE FROM LV

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISTS THE WOMEN

September 17 – January 2

Drawn from the Christian Levett Collection and the FAMM (Female Artists of the Mougins Museum), France, Abstract Expressionists: The Women features nearly 50 paintings by 32 important women artists between 1936 and 1977.

The exhibition is organized by the American Federation of Arts.

Left: Mercedes Matter, Untitled, 1936. Oil on canvas, 38 x 35 in.

Courtesy of Mark Borghi, the Levett Collection, and FAMM. Photo: Fraser Marr.

Fully Booked: Recommendations from Local Librarians

Long before we learned to read, we learned to listen.

Some of my favorite reading memories are not just about the books themselves, but about the voices that brought those stories to life: A grandparent sharing a favorite tale, a teacher making a character unforgettable, a librarian turning storytime into a magical experience. Reading aloud has always been more than the words on the page; it’s about connection.

We often think of reading aloud as something reserved for children, but that idea sells the practice short. Long before people could hold a book, stories lived in the human voice, passed around fires, across kitchen tables and on long journeys. Science supports what storytellers have always known: hearing a story engages us differently, creating moments of attention, emotion and connection. Listening to a story is not a step toward “real” reading. It is real reading, perhaps the oldest kind we have.

Reading doesn’t have to look just one way. A novel counts, but so does a poem shared over coffee, a cookbook read aloud while prepping a meal, or an audiobook on a drive. A story comes to life when a voice carries it forward, adds emotion, creates pauses and draws us in.

Stories to Celebrate Disability Pride Month

Disability Pride began as a single day of celebration when the Americans with Disabilities Act became law on July 26, 1990. In 2015, July officially became Disability Pride Month on the 25th anniversary of the ADA. Representing decades of disabled-led activism, including an historic 26-day occupation of the San Francisco federal building in 1977 over a precursor law to the ADA, the passage of this extensive act finally recognized disability as a civil rights category.

The fight is far from over. One facet of the struggle for visibility, access and justice may include sharing stories and information about disability. Here are just a few favorites you can check out at the Iowa City Public Library.

Unbound: The Life + Art of Judith Scott is a picture book biography about a renowned contemporary artist. Scott, who was Deaf and had Down Syndrome, began creating highly unique sculptures made of found objects wrapped in intricate layers of string and fabric at an art program for disabled adults. A Tulip in Winter introduces disabled folk artist Maud Lewis, creator of joyful and whimsical landscape scenes.

Jessica Slice, a disabled author, has recently released picture books This is How we Play: A Celebration of Disability and Adaptation and

The best read-aloud books don’t just tell a story, they ask you to be part of it.

For the youngest listeners: If You Make a Call on a Banana Phone by Gideon Sterer is silly, musical and impossible to read without a smile. The Book That Can Read Your Mind by Marianna Coppo, meanwhile, is inspired by 17th-century magic. Lady Rabbit’s adventure is one you’ll want to read again and again.

For all ages: The Wild Robot by Peter Brown is a story of survival, heart and nature versus technology that earns every emotion it asks of you. The quiet wisdom and warmth of Charlie Mackesy’s The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is best savored one page at a time.

For adult readers: A single poem read aloud can make you stop, look up and see the world differently—especially Mary Oliver’s poems. Devotions is an excellent collection of the poet’s work. The heartwarming novel Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt—now a Netflix film starring Sally Field—is best experienced as an audiobook, where each moment is revealed beautifully.

The next time you find a story you love, read it aloud to someone close to you, or even just to yourself.

—Nichole Foxhoven, Des Moines Public Library

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

This is How We Talk: A Celebration of Disability and Connection. For adults, check out Dateable: Swiping Right, Hooking Up, and Settling Down While Chronically Ill and Disabled and Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World Slice’s books are available in various formats at ICPL, including Read-Along (books with a built-in audio component), e-book and e-audio.

Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen! offers an authentic portrayal of autism alongside an exciting sports story. The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family depicts a range of neurodiversity—sisters Lara and Caroline are both autistic; Caroline is nonverbal. Follow along as the girls’ FIASSCO detective agency solves a series of comical mysteries involving missing objects and top-secret family recipes. In the sci-fi world of Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, main character Sal has Type 1 diabetes—but also the ability to reach into time and space to retrieve things from other universes. These titles are middle-grade chapter books that center a disabled character but not their disability.

According to the CDC, more than one in four U.S. adults live with a disability. This Disability Pride Month, mark the anniversary of a landmark civil rights law in America and continue the fight for fairness. lv

—Anne

Wilmoth, Iowa City Public Library

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

Des Moines

Highland Park/Oak Park

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

Neighborhood

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

HIGHLAND PARK/OAK

OAK PARK/HIGHLAND

‘Little Village, Motherf***er!’ Glorified Hobby

Or, how this humble publication got its name.

By PAul BRENNAN

What’s in a name? In Little Village’s case, a little bit of chaos sparked decades before its first issue appeared around Iowa City in July 2001.

Sonny Boy Williamson II was born in 1912 (or possibly 1897) in Greenwood, Mississippi (or possibly Money, Mississippi). As a baby, he was known as Alex (or possibly Aleck) Ford. Growing up, he was called Rice Miller. When he started his musical career in the 1930s, playing for tips in places around the Mississippi Delta, he performed as Little Boy Blue. Then in 1941, he got his big break when he was booked on the King Biscuit Time radio show on station KFFA in Helena, Arkansas. That’s when he became Sonny Boy Williamson.

Exactly what happened is a little unclear, but it seems Interstate Grocery Co., which manufactured King Biscuit baking flour and sponsored the radio show, was looking for a way to boost sales of its Sonny Boy brand cornmeal to Black communities around Arkansas and the Delta. The company probably felt sure the name “Sonny Boy Williamson” would get people’s attention. That’s because there was already a famous blues musician named Sonny Boy Williamson.

The actual Williamson lived in Chicago at the time, so perhaps Interstate Grocery didn’t think he’d notice. He did, and reportedly confronted the newer Williamson. After that, Clark/Miller/Little Boy Blue/Williamson became Sonny Boy Williamson II, as a way to indicate he wasn’t the original. That remained his name until he died in 1965.

Skip forward to Iowa City in the 1990s, where there’s an excellent publication in the alt-weekly tradition called Icon. In the late ’90s, a publishing company based in Indianapolis, Yesse! Communication, Inc. bought an 80 percent interest in Icon. The company had been buying alt-weeklies around the Midwest, as part of its master-plan to create a giant advertising network. The plan failed quickly, and Yesse! began shuttering the papers it had bought. The lights went out at Icon at the beginning of 2001. But members of its staff weren’t going to be stopped by a corporate decision in Indianapolis.

Matt Steele, who started working at Little Village as a volunteer in 2002 while he was a student at UI, explained what happened next, and how LV got its name, in a 2017 interview.

Beth Oxler was the art director with Icon, and she was a part of the relaunch with Little Village, and they were over at Beth’s house trying to figure out what they’re going to call this thing.

And there’s a Sonny Boy Williamson song that’s pretty funny; it’s called “Little Village,” and Beth’s husband, an Iowa City blues musician, Dave Zollo, was sort of razing them from the other room and he’s like, “you should call it Little Village, motherfucker!” And that was almost a direct quote from this Sonny Boy Williamson song, and it stuck. It did stick. But “Little Village, motherfucker!” isn’t from the song, although it is from the 1957 recording session where Williamson II performed “Little Village.”

An oral history of Little Village from some of the publishers and editors who kept it alive for 25 years.

COMPIlED

By EMMA McClATCHEy

Todd Kimm: I remember carrying a box of layouts into a small-town printer in Marengo, Iowa, on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. There was a television at the front counter. On the screen, one of the Twin Towers had smoke trailing from it—a thin, dark ribbon against the Manhattan sky.

Only one other person was in the room, standing there watching. It was Brian Fleck, publisher of a small chain of community newspapers near Iowa City—the man who’d given me my first job out of college. He didn’t know exactly what was happening yet. It didn’t look good, he said. Everyone knows what came next.

In the box I was carrying was the fourth issue of Little Village. Inside its pages: a story about the closing of Pearson’s Drug Store, and a letter to the editor grieving that loss—the slow erosion of small businesses under the weight of corporate consolidation. A cover story about the local house music scene. A

After producer Leonard Chess started taping, he asked Williamson, “What’s the name of this?” A clearly annoyed Williamson replied, “‘Little Village.’ ‘A Little Village,’ motherfucker! ‘A Little Village!’”

A more-or-less good-natured argument followed.

Chess: “There isn’t a motherfucking thing there about a village, you son of a bitch! Nothing in the song has got anything to do with a village.”

Williamson: “Well, a small town.”

Chess: “I know what a village is!”

Williamson: “Well alright, goddamn it! You know, you don’t need no title. You name it up, you. I got to get through with it, son of a bitch. You name it what you wanna. You name it your mammy, if you wanna.”

After that, the music starts. Chess left the exchange—motherfuckers and all—in the final version of the recording, which helped “Little Village” achieve a certain legendary status among blues records. Fortunately, for us, Dave Zollo decided to yell “Little Village, motherfucker!” that night in 2001, and not “You name it your mammy, if you wanna.” lv

Little Village issue 1, published July 2001 by Todd Kimm. Cover photo by Sandy Dyas

Left: Sonny Boy Williamson II. Public Domain; Dave Zollo. Courtesy of Sandy Dyas

House music was big in 2001. Inside, a story about the closing of Pearson’s Drug. Little Village, issue 4

notice that Kurt Vonnegut, still alive, was coming to read at the University of Iowa.

A small magazine about a small city, full of the texture of ordinary life.

After I left the printer, I went to teach my first Composition class at Kirkwood Community College. We didn’t do much composing. In front of another television we sat together—strangers—and watched the towers burn and fall.

Little Village was up and running that morning... but still a new thing arriving in the world on a day when everything felt like it was coming apart.

We started Little Village in 2001 because we thought Iowa City deserved a mirror that showed itself its own brilliance and weirdness, its own progressively political and cultural depth. We weren’t trying to change anything. Iowa City and the Corridor were far from perfect, but it was pretty much already all there: the wonderful artists and musicians; the brilliant activists and loveable cranks; the Mills, CSPSs and Cottages; the coffee shops, tattoo parlors and the bigger institutions that were, and still are, really knock-ons from what was happening down on the street, at grass level. And yeah, back then the “underground” wasn’t just abandoned beer caves.

Looking at it all now as one thing or arc, it seems both completely improbable and utterly

inevitable. None of it was accidental, but none of it could have been planned the way it actually unfolded either. That’s the strange alchemy of building something with the right people, in the right place, at the right time: you make choices and take risks, and then serendipity keeps handing you the collaborators and the moments that make those choices and risks pay off.

Alissa Hansen: I was straight out of journalism school, and I was a research assistant at the University of Iowa’s Biological Sciences Department by day, and waitressing at the Hamburg Inn by night. I was freelancing for the Press-Citizen and a music review site called Stanky Groove—true story. Somehow Todd and I had crossed paths. I was interested in freelancing for Little Village, and he was like, “Hey, you have a journalism degree. Do you want to edit the magazine?”

2001

Icon publishes its last issue on Jan. 25. Five months later, former staffer Todd Kimm begins publishing Little Village along with Icon alumni Beth Oxler, Andria Green and Steve Horowitz.

We were there to document the hyper-local shifts that defined our town. In my very first issue as editor, I brought in my friend and writer Brendan Spengler to cover the closing of the Green Room, a moment that truly felt like the end of an era (before the next venue came and went in its place). That same issue featured the beloved, eclectic Hall Mall on East College Street.

I was surrounded by giants. We had the legendary Dr. Star handling our horoscopes, and I got to work alongside unforgettable local talents like the late, great chef Kurt Michael Friese, E.C. Fish, UR Here columnist Thomas Dean and Prairie Pop columnist Kembrew McLeod. Later, Paul Ingram of Prairie Lights joined our pages to contribute book reviews.

When Todd offered to sell us the magazine, I know I talked it over with Melody quite a bit. We wanted to celebrate all that we could about what makes us love Iowa City. There was just a really fabulous music scene, all the artists, all the

2005

LV’s first publisher, Todd Kimm, hands the magazine off to publisher Alissa Van Winkle (now Hansen) and editor Melody Dworak.

Iowa City's News & Culture Magazine • September 1-15, 2001

END OF AN ERA

After a six-month hiatus, former designer Andrew Sherburne heads a revival of the magazine.

“ The stakes felt higher, and the stories grew deeper. I will always

be proud of our features on the local jukebox scene and our hardhitting news coverage of Newport Township residents fighting the Johnson County Board of Supervisors.

”

—Alissa Hansen

Matt Steele takes over publishing duties, expands the Little Village website and begins publishing longer issues. LV’s distribution and coverage area expands to include the Quad Cities, Cedar Falls/Waterloo and Fairfield.

Tongues play

Clockwise from top left: Little Village issue 49 covered the closing of South Gilbert Street music venue the Green Room. At the same time, the eclectic Hall Mall venue on East College Street was thriving; Issue 54 commemorates the first Mission Creek Festival; Issue 52 introduced the first in a series covering an eminent domain stand-off in the Newport Township. Little Village Archives

independents—it was thriving, and we wanted to tell those stories. I have a fond memory of my North Dodge house, Melody and I drinking wine and trying to come up with headlines for different stories.

Melody Dworak: I was here living in Iowa City in 2001. I just remember picking it up and being happy that Iowa City had an alternative magazine and it made me want to stay around. I’m from Omaha, and we had the Omaha Reader. It has since shut down, but I always thought a town wasn’t a real town until it had an alternative magazine.

I know when I got involved, I had done one freelance article. I was roommates with a stripper and she was like, “Hey, come down and write a piece.” I met Todd Kimm that way, just exchanging emails, and at one point he was like, “Hey, do you want a magazine?” and I was like, “Nope.” But after talking with Alissa, it was clear that we would make a good team. There’s no way I’d want to publish a magazine on my own, but working with someone made it a successful, unpaid-for-now venture.

I really loved editing stories, working with the writers, making sure the content met a certain standard, as well as coaching them how to just be a better writer. My favorite stories to get published were the ones from new writers with great tales to tell, but nobody gave them a chance. So here’s this chance. You polish it and mold it, and let the community read it and make their own judgment on it.

Alissa Hansen: When I became publisher in early 2006, the stakes felt higher, and the stories grew deeper. I will always be proud of our features on the local jukebox scene and our hard-hitting news coverage of Newport Township residents fighting the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to preserve their land from North Corridor development.

The May/June 2006 issue was a heavy, vital piece of print. We documented the aftermath of the devastating tornado that ravaged our community, profiled the inspiring activism of Thai Flavors owner Cherry Nurak, and pushed boundaries with “Glitter Skank,” a controversial photo essay exploring female sexuality. That last one actually got us pulled from a few local establishments! But

that was the job. Little Village was there to hold a candle to the community.

We celebrated local poets, traveled to Fairfield to cover David Lynch weekend at the Maharishi School of Management, profiled a woman’s transitional journey from male to female, and documented the close of Sam Goody and the very first Mission Creek Festival.

Little Village expands to the Des Moines metro and Ames. A Dubuque route is added soon after.

Jordan Sellegren buys Little Village from Matt Steele, taking over as publisher. Distribution expands further to include Muscatine, Grinnell, Marshalltown and other communities.

iowa city’s news & culture magazine March ‘06

JUL 1 The Heavy Heavy w/ Lunde

JUL 3 An Evening w/ The Jayhawks

JUL 9 Pert Near Sandstone w/ Arkansauce

JULY 17 Drivin N Cryin w/ Laid Back Country Picker

JUL 23 Pokey LaFarge w/ Cedar County Cobras SOLD OUT!

JUL 26 Nick Shoulders

AUG 8 The Talbott Brothers w/ Wolfskill & The Wild

AUG 22 G. Love & Special Sauce: Lemonade 20th Anniversary Tour

SEPT 16 Sleater-Kinney SOLD OUT!

SEPT 24 Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy and Friends play

R.E.M.’s Lifes Rich Pageant SOLD OUT!

SEPT 27 Langhorne Slim: The Dreamin’ Kind

OCT 2 The Dream Syndicate w/ The Claudettes

OCT 16 Sam Bush

OCT 28 Tallest Man on Earth

AWESOME LIVE MUSIC COOL OLD BARN

MAQUOKETA, IOWA codfishhollowbarnstormers.com

the big 2-5

By 2007, I had become our sole advertising person, and my fiercest goal was to finally start paying our brilliant contributors. To build up our baseline contributor fund, we threw a massive fundraising concert at Gabe’s. It was an absolute blast. William Elliott Whitmore headlined alongside ft (the Shadow Government) and Skin Club, while local artists sold their work. We raised the capital to expand our circulation and footprint.

I stepped back from publishing after the September 2006 issue, which fittingly covered the closing of Gabe’s and its transition to the Picador, so I could return to school for my Master’s degree to teach English and journalism.

I sold the magazine [to Kevin Koppes, and it briefly folded]. In 2008, Andrew resurrected it, and I returned as editor-in-chief along with Melody as features editor. Together, we ushered in a more sophisticated look, retained our foundational advertisers and brought on an influx of eager new creatives.

Andrew Sherburne: I moved to town in 2004 from Minneapolis, and I think the first Little Village that I picked up was about the extension of Newport Road and the Wooden Nickel. I opened the front page, and the inside cover was like, “Graphic designer wanted.” I just moved here and I’m unemployed, and I know how to do graphic design, so I sent in my portfolio. A week after I picked up my first Little Village, I had the job designing the next issue.

My tenure as Little Village publisher included putting out the first issue of the newly reborn magazine in June of 2008, and then losing my house to the flood days later. It was overwhelming to think of putting out the next issue when I was still trying to figure out where to live or how to get groceries. But it also felt essential. If we could keep the magazine on schedule, it was proof that life could carry on. And we did it, without missing an issue.

Fast-forward one year and I felt like Little Village—and the Iowa City community—had carried me through. I wanted to honor that with a photo essay of my former neighbors to find out what they carried away from the flood as talismans for moving forward. That July 2009 issue helped me close a chapter with deep appreciation for the people and spirit of Iowa City.

When I was publishing Little Village, it felt like a glorified hobby. It was a self-selecting group of people that wanted to advertise, and I didn’t worry too much about it. Most people are like, “I’m glad this exists. Sign me up.” I remember thinking it was important that we keep publishing. We just brought this thing back, we can’t let it die again. As long as the bills got covered and we had a little bit to pay contributors, I wasn’t trying to make any money on it.

On the day it was done at the printer, I would drive to Marengo in my Honda Civic with shitty suspension, and I’d put 6,000 issues in that thing, every single seat, front passenger seat, back seat, trunk, it was just full. Riding solo, I would have to deliver it on my way back, because I had to get rid of them all that day—I didn’t have a garage to put things in. It was always so fun to pick one up and actually look through it, right in that moment at the printer. Then I’d get in the car, and it would just smell like ink, that fresh print smell. It was fun. My favorite memory that epitomizes the early days and foreshadows the radical evolution of Little Village into an actual business are my purchase and sale of the magazine. In 2008, our team met

up with Kevin Koppes, who deeply wanted the magazine to be reborn and was happy to hand it off with no strings attached. But I’d read a blog post or something about sales being more legally sound if there was an exchange. We agreed on $5. A media empire for a fiver! When I was ready to pass the torch, I jokingly asked Matt for $10 so I could say I doubled my money. He agreed!

Those handoffs were in the true spirit of Little Village. This was a community asset first and foremost that needed to persist. Thankfully, now, it’s a legitimate operation, and presumably one worth a few extra zeroes. But at its heart, I have to imagine, there’s that sense that we’ve all just been caretakers of something that belongs to the people.

Matt Steele: Having staff there full time, that was a huge game-changer. When you start paying people, they start working—funny, how that works. But when there started to be payroll, those phone calls to advertisers started to hit a little different. As publisher, I was scared most of the time. It was just sheer terror; that was my primary emotion.

“ My tenure as Little Village publisher included putting out the first issue of the newly reborn magazine in June 2008. And then losing my house to the flood days later. It was overwhelming to think of putting out the next issue when I was still trying to figure out where to live or how to get groceries. But it also felt essential. If we could keep the magazine on schedule it was proof that life could carry on.”

—Andrew Sherburne

I think it got easier as our staff grew, as we had really skilled people in specific positions. If someone wanted to make a comment on a political issue or some kind of news tip, I had the luxury that most of the publishers before didn’t—I can say, OK, email Paul Brennan, or one of the other editors. I think I learned this really from Melody; that firewall between the ads and the editorial was something that she really cared a lot about, and was one of the first goals of hiring an editor. I was no longer publisher and managing editor.

This was a period that saw massive decline in public trust in the media, and one of Little Village’s strengths was that we were explicit about our mission. Readers generally knew where we were coming from and what values informed our coverage. That didn’t mean everyone agreed with us, but it gave people a framework for understanding our work.

Also of note in this time period was the pandemic, which was, of course, hell. Our government didn’t give a shit and I can still hear the helicopters flying in and out of the UI hospital, nonstop. By the time it was “over,” the closeness of the relationship between Des Moines and Iowa City had become all too obvious.

on staff for a decade, Matt came over to drop off some stereo equipment he was getting rid of. We had a cocktail on the porch and started arguing about business. He offered to sell (“Why don’t you just buy it then?”) and I believe I told him to fuck off. Later that night I told him I’d sleep on it. I woke up the next morning and told him yes.

“

I didn’t mean to buy the magazine ... [Matt and I] had a cocktail on the porch and started arguing about business. He offered to sell (“Why don’t you just buy it then?”) and I believe I told him to fuck off. Later that night I told him I’d sleep on it. I woke up the next morning and told him yes.

”

Jordan Sellergren

I was born and raised in Iowa and moved back in 2010 after a decade away to witness the beginning of a major cultural and political shift. I’d always understood Iowa to be progressive––at least on a Midwestern scale––and the shift was unsettling. In 2012 or so, Matt approached me to sell ads on commission. My first attempt at a sale was Romantix Adult Boutique, but I failed completely. Matt brought me on as a freelance designer anyway, and eventually I became staff in 2014. I remember staying up with him until 2 in the morning during my first official production night and thinking… nope. This isn’t going to be how it works. We need a predictable work week.

Over the next few years, we really got our production schedule down to a science, especially after Genevieve Trainor, Emma McClatchey and Paul Brennan came on board. We had a good collaborative flow, bringing very different strengths to the magazine but with a shared vision of doing good while also causing a bit of trouble. That era is when Little Village became less of a job and sort of seeped into my bones.

Todd Kimm: The expansions read like a strategy because they were one: into Des Moines and Ames in 2022, reaching central Iowa’s artists and musicians and independent business owners who’d been feeling culturally stranded; into Dubuque in 2024, stepping into the space a retreating legacy press had abandoned. But strategy is the easy part to describe after the fact. What’s harder to explain is how each move kept surfacing more people who

already believed in this kind of journalism and just needed a structure to plug into. Twenty-thousand copies a month now, free, across more than 800 locations from the Quad Cities to Waterloo and Cedar Falls and the rural networks between them. Still ad-supported. Still independent.

Jordan Sellergren: I didn’t mean to buy the magazine, but one night in August 2024 after being

When I officially took ownership at the beginning of 2025, one of my first sales was a full-page Romantix ad that ran next to Dear Kiki (the advice column we launched in 2015) in the February issue. I had handed over my design and production responsibilities. Now I get to sit in the back room, losing my mind over revenue and expenses while I eavesdrop on Kellan, Chuy, Emma and Paul brainstorming the next few weeks

Current LV staff read the latest issues at LVHQ. From left: Chuy Renteria, Joseph Survey, Drew Bulman, Paul Brennan, Jordan Sellergren, Emma McClatchey and Kellan Doolittle. Kellan Doolittle / Little Village

Little Village staff celebrate Best of the CRANDIC in 2019. LV ran the reader-selected local awards program from 2018 to 2022. From left: Frankie Schneckloth, Matt Steele, Jason Smith, Jav Ducker, Celine Robins, Brian Johannesen, Emma McClatchey, Genevieve Trainor, Drew Bulman, Paul Brennan. Front row: Jordan Sellergren and Zak Neumann. Little Village Archives

or months of stories. Occasionally I’ll stick my head in with an idea, but like Matt mentioned, the division of sales and editorial is crucial to the integrity of any newsroom––so I’m happy to stay out of it.

Since we’ve expanded over the years, we’ve gotten some flack about no longer being a niche Iowa City-focused publication. I’ve certainly wrestled with that, but to me, the big picture is more important. The goal is to expand our distribution into as many towns in Iowa as possible, giving as many readers as we can something to hold onto––literally a print magazine that pushes boundaries, opens minds and stands up for the rights of Iowans. Plus, free sex and love advice.

Alissa Hansen: It is a profound and beautiful thing to flip through the archives and realize you helped shape a piece of living history. Looking at Little Village today, thriving in its 25th year, I am filled with incredible pride for how much it has grown, and I am deeply grateful for the wild, beautiful, and sometimes scandalous years I spent at the helm.

In all honesty, what I see you doing now is exactly what I had hoped for. You’re not afraid to tackle what some won’t, and it really does come back to that integrity part. We all believed in the power of alternative journalism, and look at what it’s become. Now LV is in the Des Moines metro area, and I teach journalism, and my students know about Little Village, so they will send me pictures every time they see it out. My in-laws are in the

Reel time

Waterloo/Cedar Falls area, and it’s there. It is just such a beautiful thing to see. I think we all had a part in something really special.

Andrew Sherburne: Among other things, FilmScene wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t been the photographer that took pictures for a piece on the Bijou Cinema remodel where I met Andy Brodie and Emily Light. Andy was also briefly an arts calendar editor for LV. Those conversations about cinematic dreams for this town were the bond that led to co-founding FilmScene. In a full circle moment, LV published the first ink about our founding.

I think it’s interesting that 25 years ago, when Little Village started, it was truly an alternative print media. There were big newspapers in this town with dozens of employees. And now I feel like Little Village is the most reliable, well-resourced journalism around. It’s the primary source of coverage in a lot of ways for a lot of parts of this community. I think it’s only grown in importance.

Matt Steele: I haven’t been out for that long, but I really hope to see it continue in print as a print format magazine, and expand to more small towns around the state where people do not see people that look and feel and act like they feel and look and act. That I think is an experience that so many people had when they finally went to Iowa City for the first time: they had friends, they were able to say their interests out loud and not get laughed at. I think that, aside from terror, was the main driver for me. If I ever needed to tap into something deep to keep going, that was it.

Todd Kimm: We’ve all watched Iowa change in genuinely unsettling ways. This was a state that helped put Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama in office. It was a state that ranked near the top in education. Now it elects some of the most recklessly conservative figures in the country, and its schools have slid toward the bottom of national rankings. That’s not abstract to me. That’s the place Little Village was born in, changing underneath us.

No, Little Village isn’t going to save Iowa. I don’t think any single publication can. But what it can do, what it’s actually doing, is something quieter and maybe more durable: it can help aggregate a vision, and gather the people who are willing to carry that vision forward. That’s what local journalism does at its best. It doesn’t hand anyone a solution. It just makes sure the people who care about a place can still find each other. lv

While taking photos for a story on the Bijou Cinema remodel in 2006, Andrew Sherburne met Andy Brodie and Emily Light. Sherburne and Brodie would go on to found FilmScene, Iowa City’s long-standing nonprofit cinema. Little Village Archives

Ketaminefield

When all else fails to treat depression, psychedelic therapy could be the key. If you can afford it.

By WIllIAM lOWEll

Joshua Bohnsack is a member of the Chicago band Gold Dust, but he’s currently touring a solo album, Desire Path. The songs were inspired by his experience with ketamine.

Growing up in the Quad Cities, mental health wasn’t really talked about, Bohnsack explained to Little Village. While attending the University of Iowa, he sought help for a persistent sense of being unwell. He was given a prescription for an SSRI and sent on his way. He saw little improvement, and was unable to afford consistent therapy.

Years later, after he got a job that provided insurance, Bohnsack found a psychiatrist he trusted. Together, they explored varying avenues to treat depression. Ketamine was way down that list. His psychiatrist floated the idea after years of trying other treatments.

Bohnsack went to a clinic in the suburbs of Chicago without a great deal of faith in the process.

“It all felt very professional, but at the same time, I was like, ‘why am I in the suburbs with a

doctor I don’t know, taking a drug that I’ve heard is dangerous my whole life?’” he recalled. “It felt scary, shameful, and it was hard to trust.”

“I didn’t notice the effects right away,” Bohnsack continued. “It was just a weird, like, I-did-drugs-inan-office-setting kind of feeling. I spent some time on Reddit lurking for answers, like, am I doing this right? How long does it take for ketamine to work?”

He started to feel the benefit and the relief of his symptoms after a month. Now, after several years of treatment, Bohnsack can look back and see how much he struggled before ketamine. He currently teaches at Chicago’s Roosevelt University, and is a founding publisher of Long Day Press, which prints novellas and chapbooks from emerging Midwest writers.

Bohnsack started songwriting to coincide with his therapy sessions. He would listen to his own music at the ketamine clinic during his treatments, re-discovering tonal Easter eggs he’d hidden in the compositions in a dissociative state. He

compiled these songs into Desire Path, its title a reference to the paths that humans cut between formal roads—similar to the way the brain forges neural networks. There are pathways, modes of thinking, that instruct a person’s actions, feelings and addictions.

The hardest part of changing the brain is trying to convince it to find a new path or a different destination. But redirection is part of what psychedelics seem to be good at.

Ketamine has hallucinogenic and dissociative properties that make it a cousin to other psychedelics. But unlike those drugs, ketamine has legal uses. In 1970, at the same time other psychedelics were designated Schedule 1, the federal classification for illegal drugs that have no legitimate use, ketamine was approved as an anesthetic by the FDA.

While ketamine is typically administered via IV, the FDA approved a nasal spray, Spravato, for the treatment of depression in 2019. The prescription spray contains esketamine, a refined form of ketamine, as its active ingredient, and may only be administered in certified treatment centers. Spravato treatments may be covered by private health insurance and Medicaid with a co-pay of around $10 to $25. IV ketamine therapy, however, generally costs between $275 and $1,000 a session.

The dramatic growth of the ketamine treatment industry has been compared to the Wild West. As of 2024, there were over 1,500 ketamine clinics in the United States, with an estimated $3.8 billion in revenue, according to a study cited in the Journal of Medical Regulation

Three of them are called Corridor Ketamine, with locations in Coralville, North Liberty and Davenport. The clinics only accept patients with treatment-resistant depression who are already working with a psychiatrist who approves of using ketamine as a treatment.

The public reception was chilly when they first opened nearly five years ago, according to Corridor Ketamine co-founder Beth Westermann (DNP, ARNP, CRNA). Since then, the general perception of ketamine has oscillated between obscurity and infamy, and there hasn’t been much

room for anything else. The most attention the clinic ever got was in 2023 after Matthew Perry died of an overdose from illegally obtained and injected ketamine. People accused Westermann of being a drug peddler.

Westermann showed me one of the treatment rooms in the North Liberty clinic, which was comparable to a therapist’s office. There was a big comfy chair, a sound machine, dim lights and a collection of tactile toys in a basket. The windows of the clinic itself were darkened.

Though much of her job involves managing the reputation of a drug responsible for putting the word “K-hole” in the zeitgeist, Westermann feels confident in the future of her practice. Asked what she hopes people take away from this article, she said, “Ketamine therapy exists.”

Ketamine clinics multiplied quietly while a lot of fanfare was being made over other psychedelicassisted therapies. Large-scale studies into the efficacy of MDMA-assisted therapy as a PTSD treatment have shown promise. Oregon and Colorado have legalized psilocybin-assisted therapy, prompting other states to explore medicinal programs as well. (A bill advanced in Iowa this past legislative session, but was not taken up by the House or Senate.) In April, President Trump signed an executive order calling for $50 million in HHS funds to research “psychedelic drugs for serious mental illnesses,” specifically ibogaine, which is derived from the bark of the African iboga tree.

At the time of this writing, the University of Iowa Psychedelic Research Program (UIPRP) is recruiting volunteers for a study that measures psilocybin against ketamine for symptom relief of alcohol addiction. They are looking for individuals between the ages of 21 and 65 to undergo guided therapeutic sessions, receiving a randomized dose of either drug.

In the United States, there are currently 38 studies recruiting subjects for research on psilocybin-assisted therapy. There are 18 others underway. One of the unique aspects of UIPRP’s study is the inclusion of ketamine.

Ketamine will serve as the placebo in place of the usual sugar pill or low-grade stimulant in UIPRP’s double-blind psilocybin study. Almost everyone can tell the difference on between a trip and a sugar pill, said Dr. Michael Flaum, co-investigator with the UIPRP. Ketamine is their solution.

Though he has more than 30 years’ experience as a psychiatrist, Flaum made it clear that he is no ketamine expert. As he described it, he only has a toe in this world. The U.S. and larger scientific community lost 60 years of research into these promising mental health treatments to cultural stigma and the War on Drugs, he pointed out.

“In my view,” he said, “ketamine clinics were being stood up so that when classic psychedelics were approved, they would be up and ready to go. In reality, ketamine clinics show us we are looking at a two-tiered healthcare system where the people with the least need have the greatest access.”

Ketamine therapy patients are predominantly middle-aged and able to pay for the treatment out of pocket, a 2025 study into the industry found. Insurance coverage for even FDA-approved ketamine drugs like Spravato is inconsistent at best, and many patients are never reimbursed. Moreover, clinics are primarily located in cities far from rural patients.

“We know it is low socio-demographic people who overwhelmingly suffer from chronic health conditions,” Flaum said. “They don’t have access to the drugs they need, and there’s no foreseeable future in which they will.”

If we know a treatment works, then why isn’t it legal?

Dr. Flaum countered this query with his own: “What does ‘works’ even mean?” There’s still no consensus on the best drug for psychedelic therapy, the method of delivery and the regimen. Should it be prescribed in conjunction with talk therapy? Motivational interviewing? How do you prepare someone for a potentially life-changing psychedelic experience? What’s the best way to follow up with them?

These are just a few of the questions science needs to answer, Flaum explained. Meanwhile, legislators and government regulators need to ensure equitable access to care. …

Songwriter Joshua Bohnsack says that he has no interest in branding himself as the ketamine guy. He was resistant to the phrases I threw at him, like “raising awareness” and “shedding light.” Perhaps because of the dual reputation of ketamine, or because it would feel disingenuous to claim anything else, the only message Bohnsack was comfortable endorsing was the same as Westermann’s: Ketamine therapy exists. lv

Ketamine nasal spray for therapeutic treatment. Photo courtesy of Ketamel, illustration by Kellan Doolittle / Little Village

Here’s to the Outsiders

Reflections on a music & culture column that’s been around as long as iTunes.

By KEMBREW MclEOD

When I wrote about Awful Purdies’ 20th anniversary for last month’s column, Kate Rowe joked that the band was her longest-running relationship. “It’s actually been part of my entire adult life,” she said. “I was one year out of college when I joined this band.” Rowe’s quip struck a chord because it made me realize that Prairie Pop, this column, predates my relationship with my wife Lynne Nugent by a couple years.

When I was approached to write for Little Village in 2001, it never occurred to me that I’d be at it

a quarter century later. The publication is part of the fabric of my life, which has been spent in the independent media ecosystem since before I was an adult. My DIY publishing career started back during the mid-1980s when I donated some of my demented comics to a friend’s photocopied punk rock zine in Virginia Beach.

I had no intention of ever moving to the Midwest until I interviewed for my current job at the University of Iowa’s Communication Studies department and fell in love with Iowa City. During my visit in the spring of 2000, the head of the

search committee took me to see David Zollo at the Green Room, and Dave gave me a copy of his most recent CD after the show. I wound up liking Uneasy Street so much that I reviewed it for The Valley Advocate, and after one of Dave’s relatives who lived in the area sent him a copy, it sparked an email conversation.

Dave connected me with the folks at Icon, which led to me writing a bi-weekly column starting the week I arrived in Iowa City. I couldn’t have been more fortunate moving to a new town and immediately being plugged into local culture via this alt-weekly. It’s how I grew roots. When Icon folded a year later, a few core staffers were in the planning stages of launching Little Village when they asked me to be a founding columnist.

Fun fact: This column’s name was coined in an outdoor hot tub with a half dozen friends on a cold spring evening. My pal Shari created a fizzy citrusy cocktail that she called “Prairie Pop,” and a few drinks in, we all agreed that this should definitely be the name of my column.

When I started writing Prairie Pop in 2001, I wanted to create a forum to showcase cultural outsiders. These intellectual preoccupations permeate much of my work, which has explored the links between alternative media, the spaces that cultivate oppositional social practices and the people who populate these communities. As I learned from living in Iowa City, the cultural peripheries in so-called “flyover country” can also incubate the same sorts of oppositional practices that happen in coastal cities.

One notable IC creative I profiled is Nicholas Johnson, who was the Federal Communications Commission’s “house hippie” and the only commissioner (and most likely, Iowa Citian) to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone, in 1971. When he was a schoolboy in the mid-1940s, Johnson

Nicholas Johnson, a UI professor and former Federal Communications Commissioner built a short-lived pirate radio station as a student in the mid-1940s. Andrea Chapman Day / CC BY 3.0, illustration by Kellan Doolittle

“ Be as playful as possible. Most of the things that I’ve made, I’ve made in the spirit of goofing around with stuff.”

Laurie

Anderson in a 2015 Prairie Pop interview

built a short-lived pirate radio station that wound up drowning out the local station WSUI. This irreverent act anticipated his rabble-rousing career in the 1960s and ’70s steering media policy. During his time at the FCC, he successfully advocated for community media (like public access television) before returning to his hometown to teach law.

Prairie Pop has also spotlighted another UI professor who made an unlikely contribution to popular culture: the laser light show. Lowell Cross refined this new media art form in Iowa City beginning in the early 1970s, where he blew people’s minds at Hancher and other venues with his Argon laser necromancy. Before he arrived in town, Cross was tapped by experimental composer John Cage to build an electronic chessboard that could trigger sounds during a game he played with Dadaist Marcel Duchamp. Hands-down, he has a much cooler CV than yours truly.

Over the years, I have featured current and former Iowa City residents who were part of the national and international zine scene, such as the writer Andrea Lawlor, who created an irreverent fanzine (Judy!) that was dedicated to Judith Butler when she was an undergraduate at UI. Another important figure in this underworld was Lloyd Dunn, a member of the sound collage group the Tape-beatles and the publisher of PhotoStatic Magazine

Another favorite interviewee was Dan Perkins, a.k.a. Tom Tomorrow, who launched the longrunning strip This Modern World while working

at a local copy shop. My Prairie Pop column also covered a documentary about The Storm Lake Times, a family-run community newspaper in northern Iowa that is run by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Art Cullen (his family comprises half of the small staff). It was an honor to talk to Cullen for my story about family, community and factbased journalism.

The most fun column to research was about Gabe’s Oasis, a venerable Iowa City music venue with a half-century musical history. It hosted cosmic cowboy country acts in the 1970s, touring SST punk acts during the 1980s and a pre-fame Nirvana in the early 1990s, while also becoming a key site for the Midwest’s techno music scene.

One of thousands of acts that performed at Gabe’s is Rehtek, a metal band founded by three members of the Meskwaki Nation tribe who weave Indigenous cultural references into their music and lyrics. As Native Americans who are working within a white-dominated musical genre, they exist in the margins. The same can be said of the hip-hop artists I profiled in my pieces on the Des Moines battle rap scene and the capital city’s graffiti art underground.

In addition to covering local and regional artists, I’ve been privileged to be able to talk to several paradigm-shifting musicians and artists: Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson, Shabazz Palaces, Richard Hell, Paul Reubens, John Waters and Public Enemy’s Chuck D, which barely scratches the surface of the dozens of iconoclasts who appeared in Prairie Pop.

One of my favorite interviews was with Laurie Anderson, who answered questions posed by my then-2-year-old son Alasdair, because he was obsessed with watching her videos on YouTube at the time. “Yaaaaaay! A 2-year-old fan,” Anderson said. “I love it. I am so happy to hear that, I tell you.” I concluded the interview by asking her what advice she had for an aspiring toddler performance artist.

“Be as playful as possible. Most of the things that I’ve made, I’ve made in the spirit of goofing around with stuff. Goofing around. Be playful. Have a really good time and you’ll find some interesting things, but kids don’t need to be told to play. They just want to play, you know? So I really respect that about kids.”

Words to live by. lv

Metal band Rehtek performs in 2022. Video still via the artist

Musicopoly

Opening an indie venue in the age of Live Nation is both an act of faith and defiance.

By lIZ ROSA

The last time you paid to see live music, you probably didn’t think much about the venue itself. You thought about the band, the traffic you would endure, whether you could get a drink before the opener finished. But the venue was thinking about you—whether the parking garage was running at capacity, about what you would spend at the bar, how many upsells the app could push before you got to your seat.

That’s the experience Live Nation has spent the last two decades perfecting. It’s live music as a logistics operation, optimized from the moment you open a ticketing app to the second you file out past the merch table.

It is, by any measure, extraordinarily profitable. It is also, by almost any other measure, totally not what music is all about.

On the independent level, you are treated as a human as opposed to a marketing statistic. Tickets are available for purchase at the door or online without the processing or booking fees that we are becoming increasingly accustomed to. It’s the joy of listening and gathering for music that brings people here, not just the money they bring in.

Defining “indie”

Ask five venue owners what “independent” means and you’ll get five different answers. For some, it’s about ownership. That means no corporate parent, no private equity, no silent investor calling the shots on the booking calendar. For others, it’s about autonomy: the ability to take a flyer on a weird local bill, to say yes to the

“We talk to people, we try to have our programming reflect the community that we exist [in],” Johanssen said, “whether that’s local bands or [events] we know people want to see, like drag brunches or a fundraiser. That’s the power of a community venue that is locally owned and independently [operated]. We get to be that gathering place and representative of our communities in ways that a corporate-owned venue cannot do.”

Independent venues have existed as third spaces for community members for generations; what’s changed is what independence is up against. The live music industry has consolidated at a speed and scale that would have seemed impossible even a decade ago. The pressure filters down to every 200-cap (and smaller) room in Iowa, whether they’ve dealt with a corporate promoter or not.

The squeeze on small rooms

Here are some facts worth sitting with: Live Nation Entertainment has management deals with hundreds of artists, owns Ticketmaster and controls roughly 86 percent of the market for concerts. That’s not just a market share state, it’s a description of a closed loop. When one company can influence where an artist plays, how their tickets are sold and who manages their career, the independent venue isn’t just competing for bookings. It’s competing against an ecosystem.

On every ticket you purchase from Ticketmaster, there is a string of extra fees disguised as “service fees,” “processing fees,” “facility charges” and so on. These fees add up quickly; the ticket price can increase 50 percent or more by checkout. Without an opponent big enough to compete with Ticketmaster, the fees remain jacked.

And, if your venue wants to partner with Live Nation to bring bigger names to your room, they better be prepared to bring big fees to their audience—not one cent of which will go to your venue or crew.

“ The easiest way to avoid getting scammed is by purchasing a ticket directly from the venue’s website.”

Here’s yet another issue online ticketing presents. Ticketing sites like TickPick, SeatGeek and StubHub are unofficial resale sites that allow users to sell ridiculously upcharged or speculative tickets. In other words, they sell tickets before they even own them. This creates issues on show night when a person arrives with a ticket that

doesn’t exist—and usually ends up as a loss for the venues.

“We try not to turn anybody away,” said Robert Warren, CEO of Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines. “We will hold maybe eight or 12 tickets, what we call emergency reseating [in case] somebody shows up and didn’t realize they were in the balcony and they just had knee surgery so we could reseat them. … If we see that [someone] got scammed, we say, ‘Hey, you got scammed.’ This is the site you went to, it’s bogus. We can report and you should report it as well, but since you’re here, we’ll accommodate you.”

Usually the lesson is learned by the consumer after the first time it happens, but it can be a hard-earned lesson for both the patron and the venue. The easiest way to avoid getting scammed is by purchasing a ticket directly from the venue’s website.

Vibrant Music Hall is a Live Nation owned and operated venue. It’s a bigger room than most in the area with a capacity of about 3,500, but it still competes with the smaller clubs.

“Say your favorite band comes through and they’re playing Vibrant,” explained Tobi Parks, owner of Des Moines’ xBk Live and the xBk Annex, an even smaller venue next door. “It’s a $50 face-value ticket. But then you pay all the fees, so suddenly your $50 ticket is now an $80 ticket. Then you drive out there and it’s $25 parking. So now you’ve spent over $100. Maybe you went with some friends and you get dinner while you’re out there. So you’re drinking and doing all the things. So suddenly you’ve spent $250 for one show, one night. Well, of course, you’re not going to come to xBk the next day or next weekend, even if it’s for 15 or 20 bucks because you’ve spent all your disposable income [at] this larger show.”

What could potentially hurt small venues the most is something most concertgoers have never heard of: the radius clause. When an artist signs on to play a Live Nation venue, they’re prohibited from performing anywhere else within a certain distance—somewhere between 60 and 90 miles—for a window of weeks or months, both before and after the show. For a venue like xBk or Hoyt Sherman Place, that can mean an entire tier of touring artists is simply off the table.

It begins in the contracting process, Warren said. If an artist signs with Live Nation, Live Nation has the option to ice out other venues on a tour route.

“If it’s a routed date, meaning that they are going from Point A to Point B and xBk happens to be in the middle and [xBk] wants to make an offer to them for a little extra money on their day off, Live Nation could say, ‘No, we have a radius clause…thereby freezing out everybody

in the middle,” Warren explained.

The federal government has started paying attention—but not enough. The Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against Live Nation in 2024, alleging the company has used its market power to illegally monopolize the live music industry. In March 2026, Iowa signed a settlement with Live Nation and will receive $3 million. As part of the agreement, competing concert promoters would be allowed to sell up to half of tickets at amphitheaters, service fees for ticket sales would be capped at 15 percent, and Live Nation is required to give up some of its exclusive bookings.

For a $40 billion company, it’s barely a slap on the wrist. In a newsletter for Mission Creek Festival, co-founder Andre Perry shared his disappointment, “I can’t be sure what this all means in the short- and long-term for culture in Iowa. My sense is that our communities have been weakened in our defense against a company allegedly conducting anti-competitive practices.”

Perry also shared a snippet of a New York Times article published a few days after Iowa accepted the terms of the Live Nation settlement: “Ticketing employees at Live Nation joked about trying to gouge people for parking and V.I.P. upgrades at concerts, calling fans ‘so stupid’ for paying the inflated charges and boasting that they were ‘robbing them blind, baby,’ according to internal messages …”

COVID hangover

In spring 2020, the nation shut down and every venue in Iowa went dark. As the world returns to what we are calling normal, what has come back— and what hasn’t—is still being reckoned with.

Parks was among the original group that formed the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) and lobbied for the Save Our Stages Act.

“NIVA didn’t exist pre-pandemic; it began as a group of independent venue owners and concert promoters getting on conference calls,” Parks said. “We recognized pretty early on that if we wanted to save our small venues, we [had to] figure out some kind of program that was actually tailored to our industry and that’s where the basis of the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program came from.”

The federal Save Our Stages Act, passed in late 2020, eventually sent relief money totalling $16.4 million to independent venues, festivals, promoters and talent agencies through the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program. It is the largest federal investment in the arts in American history.

Not everyone made it. The Gas Lamp closed in summer 2023 and Lefty’s joined it last December. For those who survived, survival sometimes meant burning through personal savings, taking

on second jobs, or quietly renegotiating leases and vendor relationships just to stay standing.

NIVA has shifted from its early pandemic relief efforts to nationwide advocacy. They are leading change against deceptive secondary ticket resellers and monopolistic practices with Live Nation.

The case for independence

So why keep doing it?

“I think I can speak for other live small venues that support original music: it’s kind of a calling,” said Dave Deibler, owner of Octopus College Hill in Cedar Falls. “You do it because you love music and art. I’m not saying people who work at Live Nation don’t love music, but their bottomline is money—they’re a huge company [and] that’s the nature of that business. It’s so unfair.”

Independent venues don’t yield big profits, but they do generate rich cultural and community connections. They’re where Iowa bands play their first real show, where touring artists discover that Des Moines or Iowa City has a real scene, where a 19-year-old hears something that rearranges their brain.

Some venue owners are diversifying to include comedy shows, or renting out their space. Others are leaning into regional solidarity—sharing booking contracts, co-promoting shows, pooling resources in ways that would have seemed unusual before the pandemic.

“We had our offer accepted on the building [the same day that] Lefty’s closed. That was pretty sobering,” recalled Bryon Dudley, one of the owners of Mary Jane’s Bar & Stage, which officially opened May 15, 2026 in Ames. “I thought Lefty’s had great music and did everything right … Who the hell are we to think we can come in and try to do this with less experience? There’s definitely [a level of] concern. But it also feels like it’s now or never in a way, if we want the culture in our city to get better; no one’s gonna bring it to us. It’s an investment.”

Despite the uphill battles, longtime venue owners will tell you it’s worth it.

“Some of the best moments in my life have happened in Octopus,” Deibler said. “You’re just sitting there watching music generally surrounded by people you know and love—it just can’t get any better, there’s no improvement.”

For now, that’s enough. Whether it will be enough five years from now is a question nobody in this business is comfortable answering— including the people who’ve staked their lives on the answer being yes.

If we want our independent venues around, we have to keep going. We have to go to a weekday show or spend the night listening to a band no one’s heard of yet. The best way to show support is by being there. lv

July A-lIST:

DES MOINES/AMES

Fri, July 3, 7 p.m., Charlie & The Tropicales, Noce

Fri, July 3, 7 p.m., Sparta w/ War on Women, xBk Live

Sat, July 4, 7 p.m., Total Chaos w/ Noogy and Old Dogs, xBk Live

Mon, July 6, 7 p.m., Kattywentmissing, Locals

Mon, July 6, 6 p.m., Felicity, xBk Live

Tues, July 7, 5:30 p.m., Jazz in July, Hoyt Sherman Place

Tues, July 7, 7 p.m., Grand Motel, Spin Art, Intermurals, Locals

Wed, July 8, 6:30 p.m., 432HZ

Harmonic Activation, xBk Annex

Thurs, July 9, 7 p.m., Keller Williams, xBk Live

Fri, July 10, 7 p.m., Not the Law, Locals Fri, July 10, 7 p.m., Show

Business: The Noce Folly, Noce Fri, July 10, 7 p.m., Illusion of Safety, Karl J. Paloucek, Eager Green, xBk Annex

Sat, July 11, 7 p.m., Cootie Catcher, Mesmerists, Locals

Sat, July 11, 7 p.m., Torch Songs: Lauren Vilmain w/ Her Jazz Orchestra, Noce Sat, July 11, 7 p.m., The Band Feel w/ 10 Watt Robot, xBk Live Sat, July 11, 7 p.m., Sam Locke Ward and Greg Wheeler, xBk Annex Sun, July 12, 6 p.m., Daniel Donato, xBk Live Sun, July 12, 7 p.m., Benjamin Tod & Lost Dog Street Band w/ Leon Majcen, Wooly’s

Mon, July 13, 7 p.m., Saeed’s Punk Nite, Maggie’s Rumble Room

Mon, July 13, 7 p.m., Colony House, Wooly’s

Mon, July 13, 7 p.m., Jinjer, Entheos, Crystal Lake, Val Air Ballroom Tues, July 14, 5:30 p.m., Jazz in July, Hoyt Sherman Place

Tues, July 14, 7 p.m., 7-11 Jesus, Toon

Smokes, Jinnouchi Power, Locals

Tues, July 14, 7 p.m., Jeff Rosenstock w/ Good Luck, Wooly’s

Thurs, July 16, 7 p.m., Rutabaga, Dirty Blonde, 37 Houses, Locals

Thurs, July 16, 7 p.m., The Tanner Taylor Trio, Noce Thurs, July 16, 7 p.m., Mammoth, Wooly’s

Fri, July 17, 7 p.m., Alegra Hernandez, Lani, Locals

Fri, July 17, 7 p.m., The Faster Horses, xBk Live

Sat, July 18, 7 p.m., Absolute Power, Locals

Sat, July 18, 7 p.m., Nicolas King, Noce Sat, July 18, 7 p.m., DAKØTA w/ Modern Tiger and Soulcage, xBk Live

Sat, July 18, 9 p.m., Off Campus Night, Val Air Ballroom

Sat, July 18, 9 p.m., Subtle Sound Wav, Wooly’s

Sun, July 19, 7:30 p.m., The Head and the Heart, Val Air Ballroom

Mon, July 20, 6 p.m., Flagman w/ Fishbait, xBk Live

Mon, July 20, 7 p.m., Shakey Graves & Dope Lemon, Val Air Ballroom

Tues, July 21, 5:30 p.m., Jazz in July, Hoyt Sherman Place

Tues, July 21, 6 p.m., DED w/ Dropout Kings, VRSTY and Safe Space, xBk Live

Wed, Thurs & Fri, July 22, 23 & 24, 7 p.m., Christmas in July w/ Max Wellman – A Live Recording, Noce Wed, July 22, 6 p.m., The School of Rock AllStars, xBk Live

Wed, July 22, 6 p.m., Madeleine Kelson w/ Brian Johannesen, xBk Annex

Fri, July 24, 7 p.m., 65 North Pickers, Locals

Fri, July 24, 7 p.m., Royale Lynn w/ Kingdom Collapse, xBk Live Fri, July 24, 7:30 p.m., The Mavericks & Friends, Hoyt Sherman Place

Fri, July 24, 7:30 p.m., Houndmouth, Rayland Baxter, Val Air Ballroom

Sat, July 25, 7 p.m., Attacked by Badgers, Locals

Sat, July 25, 7 p.m., Boy Dirt Car w/ Mystery Roach and Vibrational Consciousness, xBk Annex

Sat, July 25, 7 p.m., Belles, xBk Live Sat, July 25, 7:30 p.m., Aimme Mann, Hoyt Sherman Place

Sun, July 26, 1:30 p.m., Girls Rock! DSM Showcase, xBk Live

Sun, July 26, 8 p.m., Dirt Monkey, Chozen, Noetika, Wooly’s Mon, July 27, 6 p.m., Autumn Lies Buried w/ SELIAS, xBk Live Mon, July 27, 7 p.m., TRHA, Saidan, Barbelith, Locals Tues, July 28, 5:30 p.m., Jazz in July, Hoyt Sherman Place Tues, July 28, 7 p.m., Nonpoint, Infernal Instinct, Saving Sidon, Wooly’s Wed, July 29, 6 p.m., DEĀ EX MACHINĀ w/ Teri Underhill, Sayler and Ryan Lombard, xBk Live Thurs, July 30, 6 p.m., Tyce Delk, xBk Live Thurs, July 30, 7 p.m., The Carson Parker Trio, Noce Thurs, July 30, 7 p.m., Chuck Prophet, Wooly’s Fri, July 31, 7 p.m., The Paul Lichty Jazz Orchestra ft. Annie Kemble, Noce Fri, July 31, 7 p.m., She Got Next: Female Hip Hop Showcase, xBk Live Fri, July 31, 8 p.m., An evening w/ Band of Horses and Dinosaur Jr., Val Air Ballroom Fri, July 31, 9 p.m., Parranderos Latin Combo, Wooly’s Sat, Aug 1, 7 p.m., Morbid Visionz, Skinned Alive, Locals Sat, Aug 1, 7 p.m., The Domita Show ft Travis Ness, Noce Sat, Aug 1, 7 p.m., Josh Weathers, xBk Live Sat, Aug 1, 8 p.m., Spyro Gyra, Hoyt Sherman Place Mon, Aug 3, 6:45 p.m., Geena Fontanella w/ Turning Jade and Riley Jane, xBk Live Mon, Aug 3, 7 p.m., The Cybertronic Spree, Wooly’s

IOWA CITY

Fri, July 3, 8 p.m., Drip Edges w/ Dead Level Set & Daisy

Glue, Gabe’s

Nicole Yeager / Little Village

FREE MOVIES UNDER THE STARS

S P O N S O R E D B Y

VISIT

M A R S H A L

A R S H L S Where cre a t i vity grows

LTOWN VISIT

Experience live music, 25+ murals, cultural celebrations and more...all in the 50158!

View all things creative: artsandculturealliance.org

View Marshall County’s Events Calendar: business.marshalltown.org/community-events

ft. Shane Reilly, Wildwood Fri, July 17, 7 p.m., 501 Bryze, Gabe’s Sat, July 18, 6 p.m., The Swampland Jewels, Iowa City Northside Sun, July 19, 7 p.m., Full Moon Horizon, Wildwood Mon, July 20, 7 p.m., Until I Wake w/ Deadlands & PinkNoise, Wildwood Tues, July 21, 7 p.m., Lucero, Wildwood Wed, July 22, 6 p.m., Ded w/ Dropout Kings, VRSTY & NonGrata, Gabe’s Wed, July 22, 7:30 p.m., Aimee Mann w/ Kimon Kirk, The Englert Thurs, July 23, 7 p.m., MC Chris w/ Swell Rell, Gabe’s Thurs, July 23, 7 p.m., Islander w/ OverThrow & Fungal Mass, Wildwood Thurs, July 23, 7:30 p.m., Tab Benoit w/ Sgt. Splendor, The Englert Fri, July 24, 6 p.m., KAZHA w/ Little Evil, Gabe’s Sat, July 25, 6 p.m., Burlington Street Bluegrass Band, Iowa City Northside Sat, July 25, 8 p.m., Lord Buffalo w/ Shining Realm, Gabe’s Sat, July 25, 8 p.m., The Faster Horses, Wildwood Sun, July 26, 6 p.m., The Bunny The Bear, Gabe’s

Sun, July 26, 7 p.m., Lindstrom, Wildwood

Wed, July 29, 6:30 p.m., Nascar Aloe + Jasiah, Gabe’s Fri, July 31, 8 p.m., Riki Rachtman, Wildwood Sat, Aug 1, 6 p.m., Fork in the Road, Iowa City Northside Sat, Aug 1, 7 p.m., Cactus 5, Lipstick Homicide, Younger, Gabe’s

CEDAR RAPIDS

Tues, July 14, 6:30 p.m., The Deltaz, The Ideal Theater & Bar Fri, July 17-26, various times, Mean Girls Jr. The Musical, CSPS Hall Wed, July 22, 7:30 p.m., Miles Damaso, Opus Concert Café

CEDAR FALLS/ WATERLOO

Fri, July 3, 8 p.m., EDM/Hip Hop Showcase, Octopus Sun, July 5, 5 p.m., Trio Oblique, Octopus Fri, July 10, 8 p.m., Bat Problem, New Sins, The MLC’s and Jonny H, Octopus Fri, July 10, 8 p.m., Megadestroyer, Illegal Smile, Linus, The Loft, Waterloo Sat, July 11, 8 p.m., Three Eye Atlas, Octopus Sun, July 12, 4 p.m., Jazz Matinee, Octopus

Fri, July 17, 8 p.m., Free Range Medicine, Octopus Fri, July 17, 8:30 p.m., 404, The Uncollectables, The Deeves, The Loft Waterloo Sat, July 18, 8 p.m., Mike Taylor, Octopus

Fri, July 24, 8 p.m., The Value of Human Life, Jimmy’s Brother, the Singer and Daisy Glue, Octopus Sat, July 25, 7 p.m., The Beaker

Brothers Band, Peace Love Rock and Roll, The Loft, Waterloo Sat, July 25, 8 p.m., St. October, Speak of the Devil and Silence//Me, Octopus

Wed, July 29, 8 p.m., New Band Night, Octopus

Fri, July 31, 8 p.m., Alt Rock Showcase, Octopus

QUAD CITIES

Sun, July 5, 6 p.m., Julianna Joy, Raccoon Motel, Davenport

Mon, July 6, 6 p.m., Johnny Delaware w/ Grand Motel & Company Dimes, Raccoon Motel, Davenport

Tues, July 7, 6 p.m., The Convalescence w/ Squidhammer, Raccoon Motel, Davenport

Wed, July 8, 6 p.m., Rachel Swain w/ Reilly Downes & The Acid Cowboys, Raccoon Motel, Davenport

Fri, July 10, 8 p.m., Earworm Buzz w/ Pat Stolley, Rozz-Tox, Rock Island

Sun, July 12, 8 p.m., Hembree, Raccoon Motel, Davenport

Mon, July 13, 7 p.m., Horse Lords w/ Friend Less, Rozz-Tox, Rock Island

Tues, July 14, 6 p.m., Insomniac & Slumbering Sun, Raccoon Motel, Davenport

Wed, July 15, 6 p.m., Xolex w/ Liv McNair, Raccoon Motel, Davenport

Thurs, July 16, 6 p.m., Mason

Jennings, Raccoon Motel, Davenport

Fri, July 17, 7 p.m., Charlie Parr w/ Marble Teeth & Sam Locke Ward, Raccoon Motel, Davenport

Fri, July 17, 8 p.m., With My Good Eye Closed w/ J. Barger, Rozz-Tox, Rock Island Sat, July 18, 7 p.m., Sparkle Carcass w/ William Wright & Kayla Ray, Raccoon Motel, Davenport

Tues, July 21, 6 p.m., Ditchweed w/

Kat & The Kodachromes, Camp Regret, Brain Frog, Raccoon Motel, Davenport Wed, July 22, 6 p.m., The Cactus Blossoms w/ Pieta Brown, Raccoon Motel, Davenport Thurs, July 23, 7 p.m., Magic Tuber Stringband w/ David Lord, Rozz-Tox, Rock Island Fri, July 24, 7 p.m., Muddy Ruckus w/ Gooseberry, Raccoon Motel, Davenport Tues, July 28, 6 p.m., Snooper, Raccoon Motel, Davenport Thurs, July 30, 6 p.m., Sweet Magnolia w/ The Textures, Raccoon Motel, Davenport Fri, July 31, Kelsey Lamb, Raccoon Motel, Davenport Mon, Aug 3, 6 p.m., Larry & Joe, Raccoon Motel, Davenport

DUBUQUE/ MAQUOKETA

Fri, July 3, An Evening with the Jayhawks, Codfish Hollow Thurs, July 9, Pert Near Sandstone, Arkansauce, Codfish Hollow Fri, July 10, 8 p.m., Maggie Valley Band, The Lift Sat, July 11, 8 p.m., Emily Elgin, The Lift Thurs, July 16, Dubuque Fest Fund Raiser, The Lift Fri, July 17, Drivin N Crying, Laid Back Country Picker, Codfish Hollow Fri, July 17, 8 p.m., Slapdash Bluegrass, Marques Morel, John Till, The Lift Sat, July 18, 9 p.m., Space Burial, Strange News, Shining Realm, The Lift Wed, July 22, 8 p.m., Kat and the Kodachromes, Ditchweed, Sophie Coyote, The Lift Sat, July 25, 7 p.m., Pendulum Hearts, The Lift Sun, July 26, Nick Shoulders, Adeem The Artist, Codfish Hollow

LITTLE VILLAGE TICKETS