View full list of events here.

Tuesday, February 18th

Schumann Quartet Concert — 1:00 PM

In collaboration with the University of Iowa’s String Quartet Residency Program, The Schumann Quartet will be performing at the University’s Dey House on 507 N. Clinton Street. Hailing all the way from Köln, Germany, the acclaimed string quartet will be playing selections from their Beethoven cycle, and will be holding a Q&A session following the performance.

Free Showings at FilmScene — 3:00 PM – 8:00 PM

As part of Free Week, Iowa City’s own non-profit cinema will be screening every film on Tuesday, February 18th with free admission. What’s being shown? 

At the Chauncey, 404 E. College St., families will be able to see Paddington In Peru at 4:00 PM and 6:45 PM. Oscar buffs will have the chance to see this year’s nominated live action and animated short films being shown at 3:00 PM and 6:30 PM respectively. The documentary From Ground Zero will be screened at 3:45 PM, showing 22 stories from Palestinian filmmakers living through war. In conjunction with Iowa City Pride, The People’s Joker will be shown for free and in 35mm film! RSVP to see The People’s Joker here.

In the Ped Mall location at 118 E. College St. Walter Salles’ 2024 drama based on a real story I’m Still Here will be screened at 3:30 PM and 6:30 PM. No Other Land, the award winning documentary made by Palestinian and Israeli activists documenting the region’s conflict, will also be at the Ped Mall.

Open Mic Comedy — 9:00 PM 

Held at the Alleycat nightclub at 13 S. Linn Street, come see local comedians take the stage! The Alleycat will also be open until 2:00 AM.

Wednesday, February 19th

First Round: Jan Weissmiller, Rachel Yoder, and Nina Loman — 5:00 PM

Award winning poet Jan Weismiller, author Rachel Yoder (Nightbitch), and author Nina Loman (The Body Alone) are coming together at the Prairie Lights Cafe on 15 S. Dubuque St. to host a conversation about authorship and literary happenings around Iowa City. Come to this panel to learn and socialize in the same space that once served as a gathering place for literary legends like Robert Frost and E.E. Cummings. 

A Year with Frog and Toad — Doors 6:00 PM, Show 7:00 PM

The Notle Academy and Iowa Conservatory are putting on A Year with Frog and Toad at The Englert located at 221 E. Washington St. featuring everyone’s favorite cottagecore icons. Watch Frog and Toad participate in all four seasons of the year, and celebrate the differences that make them unique. The original show was boundary pushing as it brought professional children’s theatre to Broadway, and now you can see it for free here in Iowa City. 

Good Habits, New Neighbors, Slow Retreat, and Gunk Lung at Gabe’s — 8:00 PM

Iowa City based punk and alt-rock bands Good Habits, New Neighbors, Slow Retreat, and Gunk Lung are uniting to create one rocking evening at Gabe’s at 330 E Washington St. Doors will open at 8:00 PM with the show starting at 8:30 PM. The last band is scheduled to take the stage at around 10:45 PM. 

Thursday, February 20th

SCW Pro Wrestling — 5:30 PM

Do you like to see mostly naked men beat each other up? Me too. Come to The Englert for a high energy muscle fest put on by the local underground DIY wrestling organization SCW. Doors at 5:30 PM, fighters at 6:30 PM. KA-POW.

Fishbait, KL!NG, Second Half, and Anti-Cash at Gabe’s — 8:00 PM

Prog band Fishbait, garage band KL!NG, along with rock bands Second Half and Anti-Cash will be at Gabe’s to entertain your Thursday night. Doors will open at 8:00 PM, and the show starts at 8:30 PM, with the last band set to take the stage at 10:45 PM.

28 Days Later — 9:00 PM

Norwalk indie rockers 28 Days Later take the stage at Elray’s Live and Dive at 221 Iowa Ave. in yet another Iowa City appearance. Consisting of four friends from high school, the band released their debut LP last year and maintains a headlining role in each bill they perform on. After the show, Elray’s will keep going with DJs spinning records on their two other stages. This show unfortunately is 21+ to enter.

Friday, February 21st

The Englert and KRUI’s Local Showcase: The Uniphonics, Sun Centauri, and Ahzia — 6:30 PM

Local rapper Ahzia, R&B group Sun Centauri, and funk band The Uniphonics will be performing at The Englert. Doors open at 6:30 PM, with the show starting at 7:30 PM. Ahzia may be a familiar face, but his sharp lyricism never loses its punch. Sun Centauri, a joint effort from the smooth Iowa City darlings Alyx Rush and Jim Swim, are transcendent. The Uniphonics bring nothing short of the quintessential groove. Come enjoy this genre spanning showcase for free!

Grimmtooth Zine Release Show (feat. Anglegrinder, ghOstMiSt, Chemosh, & Ill Omen) — 7:30 PM

Public Space One’s Close House on 538 S. Gilbert St. will be hosting Grimmtooth’s zine release show. Perzines, or personal zines, will be featured, as well as story anthologies, poetry, and comics. Many of the zines present are produced by Iowa City and Midwest based artists. Along with this, industrial drone project Anglegrinder, experimental folk artist ghOstMiSt, Wisconsin death metal group Chemosh, and Cedar Rapids thrash band Ill Omen will be performing live music!

Eva Maeve — 8:00 – 11:00 PM

At the Vue Rooftop located on 328 S. Clinton St. local artist Eva Maeve will perform over the backdrop of downtown Iowa City at night. The Earlham, Iowa singer/songwriter blends pop, folk, and country sensibilities with her original songs and powerful, expressive singing. The 22-year-old artist has been releasing music since 2020 and is involved with Iowa City’s community of gigging singer/songwriters.

Saturday, February 22nd

The Englert’s Local Showcase: Stnic, Lex Leto, and Makebelief — 6:30pm

We at KRUI are partnering with The Englert Theater for a show on Saturday night of Free Week, with local acts Stnic, Lex Leto and Makebelief, and the Iowa City Video Zine. Stnic is an electronic and acoustic improv band who thrive in exploring the eclectic and unknown. Lex Leto and Makebelief are an experimental pop duo who combine moments of ambient recluse, and more bumping danceable beats.  

These two acts will be performing in front of the visual backdrop generated by the Iowa City Video Zine. The open platform and experimental video collective will have projections across the surface of the walls of the inside of the theater itself, enhancing the vibe of the space. The show will be a complete auditory and visual experience to lull souls into a trance.  More info at the Englert’s website here.

Dance Party with DJ Anthony Worden — 10:00 PM

Anthony Worden, songwriter, guitarist, and head honcho of Iowa City’s Illiterati Records, is no stranger to Gabe’s. After releasing his latest record, Plain Angels, and conducting the third annual Illiterati Fest in August, Worden’s coming to Gabe’s once again to spin records. He’ll be taking the reins as their house DJ for the night. A dance party until close to bookend the first annual Free Week.

Drag Shows at Studio 13 — 10:30 PM

In spite of the Iowa legislature’s recent proposal of House Study Bill 158 that would criminalize public displays of drag or queerness in general, Iowa City’s Studio 13 will be hosting drag shows almost every night during Free Week. This includes an open stage act Wednesday, and drag shows on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, all starting at 10:30 PM. Come spend your nights at Studio 13 on 13 S. Linn Street with no cover! The dance floor will also be open after each show.

Written with help from Amanda Moy

The post Iowa City Free Week 2025 Preview appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Origami Angel’s Feeling Not Found stays true to their ethos of deeply expressive, raw emo rockers; all with a tinge of geeky goodness. Opening with as soft-spoken of a track as “Lost Signal”, they immediately contrast it well in “Dirty Mirror Selfie” with gritty guitar riffs, passionately vulnerable vocals and lyrics that follow. The harmonic changes in songs like “Where Blue Light Blooms” and “Living Proof” flow into the ears the way butter spreads so easily on bread. Guitarist and vocalist Ryland Heagy’s tenor voice fits the bill of a classic emo-rock whine, which is nothing short of impressive. Drummer Pat Doherty’s versatile chops also remain top notch. Everything up until “Fruit Wine”, I just can’t get enough of. 

From a songwriting standpoint, both Heagy and Doherty are at the top of their game so far. It’s lines like “Tell me something good, I wanna smile one more time/Tell me I’ll be safe from the virus in my mind” from the track “Viral” that complement the emo instrumentals well. “Fruit Wine”, “Dirty Mirror Selfie”, and “Where Blue Light Blooms” were the singles released ahead of the album’s release on September 27th. At the same time, these are also among the standout tracks. These are the tunes that in my journey with this album have stuck with me the most. However, tracks like “secondgradefoofight”, “HM07 Waterfall”, and the album’s title track are so much more lightweight than the first half of the album. While the second half’s tracks add their fair share with respect to the album as a cohesive unit, they were only as good to me as their first few listens. They’re nowhere near as memorable as the first half of the album.

As you could probably tell from the titles of the tracks, Feeling Not Found is based on the isolation and disillusionment in the digital age of today. The question is, does the album tackle the subject well? So much of its lyrics are far from contrived and feel like candid glimpses into the digital lens of Ryland and Doherty. I applaud the creative commentary on the internet age we find ourselves in as social media and doom scrolling are a couple of major topics explored. They even cleverly tackle the struggle for Spotify artist’s pay in the track “Sixth Cents (Get It?)”. I can’t help but feel nostalgic in “Where Blue Light Blooms”, as it harkens back to a more innocent time where CRT displays may as well have kept the vast frontiers of unexplored webpages condensed into a singular box — “Just waiting for the cue to go outside/So I can lock up every single door and/Hide behind these firewalls.”

“Underneath My Skin” tells the story of being caught in the crosshairs of social media anxiety, expressing concerned over arbitrary follower and like counts with a line like, “Bigger number, better person/Bigger picture, better mercenary tactics get you where you wanna be.” Origami Angel is sharing these experiences with the listener, an audience of people who’ve also been raised by the internet. They have astutely centered their writing beyond this album on having grown up in the 21st century, and it’s no wonder their fanbase gel with that. In Feeling Not Found, they and their audience are now a group of digital mountain men reminiscing on what was, and at the same time, resenting the development of what that land has become now; the Las Vegas strip that is big tech. 

The album excellently captures the rage we feel living in these virtual times. However, while jamming to tracks like “Where Blue Light Blooms” and “Underneath My Skin” today, I’m curious to see where this album finds itself in discussion thinking back on the 2020s. Does Feeling Not Found explore these themes beyond the frustrations we feel with it now? Not so much. Of course, this album falls under emo, so why wouldn’t there be such raw emotion and whine in the lyrics and vocals? But when I think about living in the digital age, there’s more to be said outside of the anxiety we feel wasting time in front of screens. This album just speaks so much in the present tense.

Origami Angel’s audience, with them being perhaps late Millenial or early Gen-Z in age, are still so young. We’ve still got a lot to live for, and we’ve grown up like this for damn near our whole lives. This album doesn’t show much on what they think this anxiety now will mean in future. They’ve invested so much in the concept that I’m not sure what stopped them from exploring even a tad further. Their writing chops have blossomed so much since Somewhere City, and these dudes totally have the wits to go even further in the concept album department. In this candid conversation with Origami Angel, I’m curious to know their opinion on where we’re headed in the future, because as far as Feeling Not Found is concerned, they’re too busy moping about the now. 

Nevertheless, I have a feeling that this album has the capacity to be an important, if not at least interesting time capsule for our frustrations on the trials and tribulations surrounding social media use, especially for us Gen-Z folk. It still covers heaps of emotional ground on the topic, while supplying a stellar deal of mosh material that’ll last fans years (I really want to get my foot broken next time I show up to a Origami Angel gig). For fans of Origami Angel, this album is right on par with Somewhere City and will for sure keep you satisfied. For patrons of pop-punk or emo, as well as all those feeling some lost signal themselves, Origami Angel’s Feeling Not Found is well worth your time.

The post Origami Angel Feels 21st Century Anxiety in “Feeling Not Found” appeared first on KRUI Radio.