Saturday of Mission Creek weekend is the busiest day of the festival. With things starting as early as the morning, there are many things to see like literature fairs, community events, local vendors, art exhibits, and many shows in many different venues across Iowa City. Many of these are free to attend as well. There’s no reason to stay and fester inside away from the gatherings. From sunrise to sunset, there’s much to do and much to see, probably even too much for one person. Here’s what’s happening across the city and at the festival on Saturday.
ICE CREAM Zine Fair (11:00 AM PS1 Close House)
What draws students, writers, artists, and freaks to Iowa City is the longstanding traditions that foster our love of the arts, and our appreciation for making. It’s events like ICE CREAM (the Iowa City Expo for Comics and Real Eclectic Alternative Media) that are one of many facets of local and grassroots cultural celebration. As part of Mission Creek, ICE CREAM is returning once again for the 8th year in a row.
ICE CREAM aims to supply the community with an outlet to directly support underground and independent artists and micro-pressers. This year, it’s also getting support from local tourist board Think Iowa City and local comic shop Daydreams Comics.
Though as its acronym implies, ICE CREAM is not only about comics. It’s anything eclectic and alternative. Now, what does that look like? For 2025, ICE CREAM will boast 40 independent artists, offering zines, comics, handmade books, buttons, stickers, prints of their art, and general tchotchkes. It’s all about more wacky stuff, off the beaten path.
Some out of town artists who will set up booths in the Cloud House include: the Chicago based two-person-team COMA THEORY, providing poetry, transformative work, and more, all fueled by “100% self-indulgence”; and Ann Drew, an illustrator based out of Kansas City, who blends the aesthetics of the mid-century pulp magazines with queer characters and storytelling.
As for more local artists to expect, the Tree of Liminality and the Art House Collective will offer things such as handmade sketchbooks and typewritten poetry, all made in Newbo City Market in Cedar Rapids. Fatface Press, operated by Poojana Prasanna, an MFA student at Iowa studying Book Arts, will also set up a booth and offer works that blur the line between DIY creations and fine press printing.
Besides ICE CREAM, zine enjoyers and art freaks will also get down with a few other local operations of different mediums. Snacky Mini Mart will drive their food truck right beside the Close House, offering pan-Asian cuisine and Chinese street food. At the Cloud House next door, the Iowa City Video Zine will put up an open house and installation of local artists’ material.
In collaboration with Mission Creek fest, Ice Cream’s 8th year event will take place at the Public Space One Close House located on 538 S. Gilbert St., Iowa City. It will run from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM, with free admission.
-Harry Ginsberg, Editorial Staff
Small Press and Literary Magazine Book Fair (12:00 PM Spare Me Bowling Alley)
Mission Creek, known for its musical talents and celebration of the arts, is returning with its literary focused events for this year! One of the highlights is the annual Small Press & Literary Magazine Book Fair. This fair is known for bringing presses of varying sizes, ranging from local University of Iowa undergraduate literary magazines, like Ink Lit Mag, Catharsis Literary Magazine, New Moon Magazine, and Earthwords, to bestseller translated novels. There is something in this fair for everyone.
Spare Me Bowling Alley is completely transformed, where both floors have stands of different literary magazines and publications. At each stand, books are displayed and available for purchase. Representatives are there to answer any of your questions, explain the mission statements and goals of the press, or just to chat. Attendees are welcome to mill around at their own pace and to spend as much time as they would like. This is a great networking experience for fellow writers and readers, or a great opportunity to expand your reading palette and get exposed to some new work you may not have discovered otherwise.
-Noa Zapin, Music Staff
Samuel Locke Ward (2:45 PM Trumpet Blossom Cafe)
Samuel Locke Ward wears his love for creating on his sleeve. When he’s not driving a school bus here in town and tending to his wife and two kids, Locke Ward is something of a DIY Darling around these parts. His parents, high-school band teachers, were happy to supply the teenage Locke Ward with keyboards, guitars, horns, and the like to tinker with at home or at school. Back in the 90s, the do-it-yourself ethos of acts like Nirvana were what inspired him to create music in the first place. As he would collect CDs from bands like The Dead Milkmen, he’d eventually learn to jerry rig a children’s cassette tape into a homespun multitrack recorder.
Hailing from his family’s Ottumwa farm, Locke Ward moved to Iowa City in 2001. Some 24 years later, his Bandcamp profile has become chalk-full of more than 60 records ranging between indie-punk, avant-pop, and garage rock galore. His discography spans both lo-fi and self-produced solo works, and efforts featuring the likes of Half Japanese’s Jad Fair, Joe Jack Talcum of The Dead Milkmen and Mike Watt of Minutemen who he collaborates with under the pseudonym SLW cc Watt. While holding strong to his independent roots, he’s put out albums under the labels Kill Rock Stars, Already Dead, and Unread Records.
If you try to label his work, you’ll quickly find that it’s hard to cast as wide of a net as possible. Locke Ward’s music is at times experimental, ludicrous, and inherently random. At times, it’s delightfully odd and humorous. At times heartfelt, with passionate tributes to the local scene he loves. At times, he simply makes painfully catchy pop-rock. But no matter what rod you cast from the vast lake that is Samuel Locke Ward’s discography, there’s an infectious love of making that oozes from his creations.
Besides music, he’s a zine maker whose comic strip Futile Wrath is a regular edition of Little Village’s print magazines. In all his output, each part of the process is uniquely him — from his songwriting, vocals, underground comic storytelling, down to his self-supplied album art and his at-home recording studio. What comes to mind is a sort of technological Frankenstein’s monster, an outdated PC tower full to the brim with sketches of songs-to-be and songs-that-were. All the while, this geriatric Dell computer powers a songwriter’s gear heaven. But as you listen to his music, you’d really want nothing more, wouldn’t you?
-Harry Ginsberg, Editorial Staff
Slacker (3:45 PM Trumpet Blossom Cafe)
Iowa City’s raucous garage-grunge duo, Slacker, is making waves with their raw energy, electrifying programmed drumbeats, gritty guitar riffs, and gravelly, radio-mic vocals. A fresh force in the Iowa City music scene, they’ve quickly gained attention for their off-kilter sound, magnetic stage presence, and explosive sound. With their self-titled EP celebrating its one-year anniversary shortly before their performance at Mission Creek, this is a set you won’t want to miss. Prepare for a high-voltage performance that promises to leave you buzzing long after the last note.
-Amanda Moy, Editorial Staff
Sun Centauri (7:00 PM Riverside Theater)
I love Sun Centauri. There, I said it. I mean, what city doesn’t want their own super-duo? Alyx Rush’s exquisite vocals meld perfectly with Jim Swim’s layered production, creating an effortlessly dreamy sun-kissed sound. It’s a brilliantly generative collaboration, and one that keeps gaining creative momentum. I’ve been lucky enough to catch them live across the state, most memorably at Lost Woods Festival in Cedar Falls last September where their futuristic R&B lit up the forest. I recently saw them at The Englert in Iowa City during the city’s Free Week programming, and I was delighted to hear some new material that I’m sure will get another showing at Mission Creek.
So far, Sun Centauri have released two EPs, 2022’s Fruit to the Knife and 2023’s After the Last Time, alongside a superbly breezy 2024 single, “Two Shots”. For a relatively small body of work, their music is packed with bangers. These include “Fighter Jet” and the infectiously catchy “Right on Time”. In 2023, the duo released an inspired remix of “Gimme Life” from their first EP, which became a stand-out song in their growing repertoire. If you’re in the mood for innovative pop or R&B at Mission Creek, as you should be, look no further than Sun Centauri. On a personal note, seeing Sun Centauri also means I can check out the Riverside Theater as a venue for the first time, which I’m very excited to do. I hope to see you there, bopping at the front of the theatre alongside me on Saturday night.
-Glenn Houlihan, Editorial Staff
Supersonic Piss (7:30 PM Gabe’s)
Iowa City’s hardcore scene may be the strongest now as it has ever been, but its foundation didn’t come out of nowhere. People have been building the scene for decades. Supersonic Piss is one of those older generational Iowa City bands, being primarily active in the mid 2000s. The members of the band are reuniting together for their Mission Creek performance at Gabe’s. Their inclusion on the festival bill is an interesting homage to Iowa City’s old Mission Freak performances that used to happen around the same time as Mission Creek. That pseudo-festival was put on by local punk bands who felt there wasn’t as much local representation of their scene at the festival proper.
The brand of punk performed by Supersonic Piss is extremely abrasive. Rhythms, riffs, and screeches feel like they just barely make it through the disintegrated threshold of the high gain hiss that persists throughout their songs. The instrumentation style is extremely sludgy and feels like it melts as the songs trudge through, before bursting to life again. It feels like the band is morphing time into their own image. We’ll see how it flows in punk time or festival time, whichever they choose.
-John Glab, Editor-In-Chief
William Elliott Whitmore (8:00 PM Englert Theater)
Iowa’s own William Elliot Whitmore will be gracing the stage of The Englert Theater on Saturday. Whitmore is no stranger to The Englert, with this upcoming Mission Creek set tallying his third time performing at the Iowa City staple venue. His one-man band performance puts you at ease with a welcoming baritone voice, warm Martin acoustic guitar, the occasional banjo, and kick drum rounding out the rest of Whitmore’s unique and charming sound.
William has been making music since 1999, starting out in the Iowa City punk scene but later leaving the distortion for the folk genre, becoming a songbird for personal tragedy as well as the ever-scarier landscape when you leave the farm. The past 26 years have been filled with lyrics hitting the heart, focusing on the passing of his parents and grandparents. Whitmore used his music to work through the struggle of loss and come out the other side with a more optimistic and hopeful tone, which is reflected in his most recent LP from last year, Silently, The Mind Breaks. This encouraging and buoyant outlook is exactly what you need to listen to as the weather gets warmer and the flowers start to bloom.
-Logan Melia, Music Staff
Dawn Richard + Spencer Zahn (8:15 PM Riverside Theater)
The collaboration between multimedia artist Dawn Richard and instrumentalist Spencer Zahn is an extraordinary partnership blurring the divides of narrative, sound, and music. Originating from New Orleans, Dawn Richard has traversed the scenes of pop music as a founding member of both Dainty Kane and Diddy’s Dirty Money. She has continued her solo career to self-release six studio albums dancing around and between R&B, jazz, and electronic, pushing boundaries of music and culture at every step. Massachusetts native and multi-instrumentalist Spencer Zahn is a classically trained bassist, who has cultivated a collaborative ethos exploring jazz in ambience to inspire dimensional soundscapes. Together, their partnership does not merely subvert genre, rather they work to create art beyond the idea of conventions. As Richard describes herself, “I am the genre.”
Their album from last year, Quiet in a World Full of Noise, blends storytelling into a neoclassical ambience, with quiet features from the Budapest Film Orchestra. Richard’s velvet voice echoes poetic narratives between the wefts of Zahn’s orchestral atmosphere, together weaving an arrangement to enrapture listeners into their world. Futurisms intertwine with sound, as intimate lyricism and sparse composition remind us to reflect in the stillness, a reality shaped by restrained silence where quiet can rule. Altogether entrancing, atmospheric, and orchestral, it will be fascinating to experience how Richard and Zahn bring their genre-transcending orchestration together at Riverside Theater this Saturday.
-Pauly, Music Staff
The Tanks (9:00 PM Gabe’s)
Not your dad’s typical punk band, The Tanks from Dubuque, Iowa and the Midwestern underground scene popularity are taking part in the Mission Creek Festival this year. Since 2004, The Tanks have been putting out heavy tracks with strong political messaging and head-banging good tunes. While their members have come and gone, their sound and image have remained consistent through 11 years of activity. Over those years, they have put out a total of three EPs and four albums, two of which are available on Spotify, and all of which are available on their blog page. Expect plenty of explosive songs, danceable beats, and interesting spoken word vocals during their set at Gabe’s on Saturday.
-Lee Nienhaus, Editorial Staff
Raekwon (9:45 PM Englert Theater)
Raewkon, one of the most influential artists to ever come out of East Coast hip hop, will be headlining Saturday’s shows with an appearance at The Englert Theater. The Chef is on tour in advance of his upcoming album The Emperor’s New Clothes, which will release later this year. For his show, he will be performing tracks from his iconic ‘90s debut concept album Only Built for Cuban Linx…. Since his string of legendary albums with the Wu Tang Clan, and collaborations with rappers like Mobb Deep, MF Doom, and Rick Ross, he’s remained active in the underground, along with collaborating with numerous artists involved in the Boom Bap revival, including Schoolboy Q, Freddie Gibbs, and Westside Gunn’s collective Griselda. His lyrical narrative and gritty worldbuilding represent the pinnacle of golden age hip hop, and continues to resonate with OGs and new generations alike.
-Amman Hassan, News Director
Cabeza De Chivo (11:00 PM Gabe’s)
An incessant rhythm drives Cabeza De Chivo, pulling influences from around their city into a surfy psychotropical groove. Hailing from Chicago, Cabeza De Chivo thrives in the culture of their local scene, creating music that reflects the colors of the city. In an interview with South Side Weekly, Los Chivos described their songs as bridging cultures to bring people together into a place of belonging into their shared place of music. Drummer Alex Aguayo notes, “At the end of the day, I hope you find that safe place. I hope you find that place where you feel yourself.”
Largely instrumental, their psychedelia constantly changes shape between languid and dark, to fuzzy and driving. It never stalls or stales. Full of tempo changes and instrumentals cutting in between each other, they perform with a refreshing vigor. The classic instrumentation of guitars, bass, keys, and drums are disfigured by electronic effects to get that fuzzy ‘60s psychotropical vibe. Their sound pulls inspiration from across Chicago, as cumbia and Jamaican rhythms intermix into something brightly colored and inspired. This band’s grooves are absolutely crazy. Catch their infectious psychedelia at Gabe’s as they close out Mission Creek 2025. The last set of the festival always goes hard.
-Pauly, Music Staff
