My day started at North Hall, where me and two other students, Julia and Sierra, were primed for some university transport, provided by MSW Program Director Stephen Cummings and Assistant Professor Aynsley Scheffert. We depart at 8:20, and Julia, Sierra and I get cracking about our plans for the future. Aynsley was loading us with information on her life trajectory and tips for work after graduating as a social worker, and Stephen gave me the lowdown on his experience teaching overseas.

It was 10:20 when we arrived at the Iowa State Historical Society building, or museum, really. The hanging biplanes and enormous mammoth skeleton made it seem that way. The place is packed with students, some I recognized and most I did not. A desk is set for us to check-in, and as we go through we are set up with nametags. There I find Rigby, a good friend I’ve had a couple classes with.

After a half-hour wait and a good deal of chit-chat, we are all ushered into a big lecture room. The smell could only be described as a used litterbox. Many struggle to hold their laughter, especially me, as a speaker tries to pull up their email, with increasingly less success. It’s kind of sad that in a room full of social workers, no one gets up on stage to help, but it was too funny. At one point the app-store was pulled up… Anyways, Dana Wickwire Cheek takes the stage, the Northeast Branch Chair for NASW Iowa, alongside Peggy Trosper, the Southeast Branch Chair, and Denise Rathman, the Executive Director for both the NASW Iowa and NASW Kansas Chapters. We get a good lecture on proper communication with legislators, which in the way they described it seems more like gambling than fruitful communication.

Here comes Ross Wilburn, a social work alumni of the University of Iowa and House Representative for the Story County District, alongside Johnson County Representative Adam Zabner. They’re here to answer questions, and oh boy are there a lot of them. I question Zabner about the progress of Senate File 2293 regarding the abolishment of the Iowa City Historical Society Building, asking “Where are the court proceedings and decisions at, and when can we expect the day for voting,” and though he gives a very descriptive assessment of the bill and what his future plans are, I don’t actually get a direct answer to my question. Should have been an easy one, considering Zabner is on the board supporting the continued funding of the Iowa City location.

I make it out of the lecture hall with a mild headache, courtesy of the litterbox smell, and grab my lunch. From there we set off to the capitol.

Iowa’s capitol is a great reason to be proud of our state. It’s consistently voted the most beautiful state capitol building in the states, and for good reason. Its massive golden dome is reason enough, but getting inside reveals its true beauty. Giant pillars made of scagliola stretch towards the ceiling, with capitals decorated by golden white oak leaves. Enormous murals depict settlers making their way into the west, religious imagery, native plants, and esoteric symbols, such as the roman god Mercury. Inside the senate chamber are four enormous chandeliers, each highly geometrical yet still so intricate I find them hard to describe. The ceiling is covered in more murals depicting flowers and leaves, with a stained glass window at the center.

By 1:15, we’ve made our way into the Senate chamber to watch the debate. We find
good spots in the gallery, and wait for the debate to begin. Senate files 2263 and 2280 are first up for debate. One senator uses hypothetical scenarios to defend his point, which becomes a theme for this senator. This is evident in the next file, which is refuted by another senator with concrete questioning and reasoning, making a very good case against the bill, but then our first senator stands up and goes on a rampage. He’s smacking his desk and practically screaming. I get so annoyed I decide it better to go explore the capitol.

I find the capitol library, a breathtaking space with books going up four floors flanking the walls. Aynsley finds me there and encourages me to write a message to a senator, but I just want to get up another floor, so I find a spiral staircase and ask two girls taking, suggestive pictures, and ask if I can go up. I’m good to go, so I walk through a gate I don’t notice and make my way around the first floor. I notice that I have to pass through an office to continue, until I find a woman in the second office. She immediately chastizes me and escorts me down, along with the two girls.

I figure it’s a sign to fill out a message, but I’ve forgotten my clipboard with all my notes in the senate gallery. I pull out the fastest speedwalk I can manage and make the confusing there and back. I address mine to the senator with the concrete argument. I wait and wait, but I am not offered the chance to go speak with him, cut short possibly by my previous effort to retrieve the clipboard and more probably by the picture scheduled on the main staircase at 3:00.

Just like that, the day is over. We file back into the van and I have a good nap on the way back, reflecting on how amazed I was at the capitol building, and conversely disappointed with the conduct of the senate chamber.

The post First Person POV of NASW “Legislative Day on the Hill,” February 24, 2026 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

MONDAY 

On Monday, the Iowa City Public Library and the UI Main Library Gallery are volleying events back and forth. Starting at 10:30am, the ICPL will host a Chinese Bilingual Storytime with children’s librarian Fang, before becoming a home for youth events later in the evening with a LEGO League Challenger. It is an opportunity to practice the overlapping world of robotics and LEGO in a competitive format. LEGO League Challenger runs from 4:00pm-5:30pm. 

For a graduate crowd, at 4:00pm the UI Library will be hosting a Curated Guiding Tour of Orchestrating Community: The Public Service of Iowa Coordinator James Dixon. This is a tour hosted by co-curators Sarah Suhadolnik and Kate Buehner to celebrate the man behind the podium who helped create orchestras here in Iowa City and all over the world. 

TUESDAY 

Tuesday has worldly opportunities such as another bilingual reading at the Iowa City Public Library!. This time in Spanish, librarian Miriam brings together singing, dancing, and reading into Iowa City every Tuesday from 10:30am-11:00am. Later on at the library, from 4:00pm-5:00pm, the West High Trojan Lions Dance Group from the Asian Students Union for a Chinese New Year celebration. 

Film Scene will also continue to host their Free Tuesdays and Alley Cat will host its karaoke night (21+) 

WEDNESDAY 

At noon, The Englert will host its building tour, where you can explore the historic venue and enjoy some quieter time in this lively building.  

Public Space One and the IC Press Co-Op will be showcasing the wonders of letterpress and screen printing at Iowa’s only community print shop! This event, where you can print your own design, will take place from 1:00pm-4:30pm. 

Prairie Lights will be hosting their first event of Free Week with a conversation and reading from Jake Fournier and his new collection of poems Punishment Bag. From 7:00pm-8:00pm, the Albuquerque based firefighter will be speaking with Alicia Wright, managing editor of The Iowa Review. 

THURSDAY 

The University of Iowa’s Theatre Building will be putting on a Festival of Ten-Minute Plays starting at 2:00pm. This is the 29^th edition of this celebration of undergraduate students and their work, artistically directed by Tony Meneses. 

On the other side of campus at the Voxman Music Building, Lowell Lieberman and Gabriel Kahane for a conversation with Director of Orchestral Studies Kenny Lee. The two composers will continue their weeklong residencies as a concert showcasing some of their work that will be conducted by Dr Lee will follow the conversation. The event will begin at 6:00pm. 

All skill levels are welcome at The Artifactory for a Life Drawing Class from 6:30pm-8:30pm. An opportunity to focus in on some artistic skills with your non toxic medium of choice. This event is dedicated to University of Iowa graduate Phil Dorothy, who loved art and was a big supporter of the Iowa City scene. 

FRIDAY 

Public Space One Northside will be hosting a wild and exciting immersive experience. Using Isadora technology, Dead or Amazing is unlike anything you’ve experienced before. This interactive visual display, that responds to audience movement and sound to alter its exhibit in a 180 degree immersive field. This optical experience was created with mixed media drawings by Ethan Edvenson and video by Charles Borowicz. 

You can take in the sights from one of the tallest buildings in Iowa City, The Vue Rooftop will be hosting Nebraska based singer-songwriter Dage Lee starting at 8:00pm.This busy musical night continues with Jacoozy playing at Gabe’s, John D Neal at Elrays, and another performance by the symphony orchestra at Voxman. If music is not your entertainment of choice, Studio 13 is hosting a drag performance (10:30pm) and AlleyCat’s Comic Cabin Comedy Show (9:30pm). Both events are 19+. 

SATURDAY  

Saturday will be off to a early start in Iowa City. The Artifactory will be hosting a Basics of Drawing Class at 10:00am while Chauncey and Merge will be putting on One Book Two Book Festival. This celebration of children’s literature aims to connect children to books trhough readings, discussions, and even chracter meet and greets with Clifford and everyone’s favorite amphibious duo, Frog and Toad.  

The UI Museum of Natural History will be anchoring the afternoon silent disco scene from 2:00pm-6:00pm. An unorthodox place to bust a move, the museum strives to make it a place to contemplate, ruminate, and gyrate.  

University of Iowa alumni Elizabeth Moen will be making her grand return to Iowa City headlining The Englert Theatre at 8:00pm. She is no stranger to The Englert as she opened for Bernie Sanders almost a year ago to date on February 22^nd, 2026. Moen blends a lively show with strong and weaving lyrics that feel are ripped straight from a bestselling book of poetry. Influenced by the greats such as Bruce Springsteen and Wilco, she will be opening up for recent Englert players, The Wood Brothers, in March. 

SUNDAY 

The Englert will be hosting the Iowa City Flea Market from 11:00am-5:00pm as Free Week enters its final day. A great place to find new pieces form a variety of local vendors. This flea market spreads across all levels of The Englert, filling up the stage and aisles with countless items.  

Voxman will be busy once again, presenting two events, The Iowa Honor Band Showcase at 1:00pm and the Center For New Music Ensemble Concert III at 7:30. Sandwiched in between those two events is the continuation of the Ten-Minute Play Festival at the UI Theatre Building and One Book Two Book Festival. 

Iowa City Free Week is offering broad and welcoming lineup of events to hop into. Whether it is music, crafting, expanding your love of film, or anything else, there is no shortage of things to do. Take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to experience what makes Iowa City so special! More information about each event can be found from Think Iowa City.

The post Iowa City Free Week 2026 Preview appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Video Game: Dispatch

I have a lot to say about Dispatch but for conciseness’s sake and honest niceties, I’ll be frank. I didn’t think much about this game from the getgo when my manager at work started barking funny little references I didn’t understand, but when I went home, I caved and found something pretty nice. While there are a lot of narrative options I heavily disagree with, that’s the point of the game. Adopting the developers from Telltale Games, AdHoc Studios put together similar “choose your own adventure” elements in this superhero story from titles like The Wolf Among Us and Batman: the Telltale Series. What was put together, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful games to release in the last few years. The art direction is gorgeous and has this great comic book feel that most Telltale titles share, but Dispatch is so bright and colorful and lively like vintage superheroes. There are so many layers to the game and its characters that replaying even with roughly 12 hours worth of content feels new and fresh down to the third or fourth route.

Going online and seeing feedback on this game doesn’t do it justice, because the only way people know how to talk about Dispatch is by saying it isn’t dark enough to be profound like the inverted superhero tropes of Invincible or The Boys. But not everything needs to be dark and scary to have an impact on people. The speculative fiction aspect of Dispatch is meant more to reflect the everyman playing the game rather than be a massive political commentary. The characters act like your average coworkers, and the protagonist, Robert Robertson III (yes, that is seriously what they called him), is just some guy in his early thirties going through a transitional period in his life as he is essentially disabled out of being a superhero. There’s a lot of themes of grief, moving on, and finding peace through either contentment, or malice and revenge. Overall, a beautiful experience, would recommend playing it not only once, but a few times just to surprise yourself by making the “wrong” choices.

-Lee Nienhaus

TV Series: Peacemaker, Season 2

Peacemaker season two released at the tail end of the year, and was a sensation that built off the first season in amazing ways. They developed characters, expanded the DC Universe, and allowed for characters to take on heavy issues while still keeping that comedic element to the show. They pick up after the events of season one, with many members of the 11th Street Kids looking for new work, and trying to discover themselves in their professional and personal lives. The show faces various issues head-on, including themes of belonging, guilt, privilege, forgiveness, and grief. This show is set apart from other superhero media with how it handles its characters. They show honest growth throughout the series, with the start of this season focusing on Harcourt’s growth following the death of her ex, Chris’ dedication to become a ‘real’ hero, and Adebayo’s dedication to be taken seriously in her new job. Overall, the season is done well, with key comedic action and emotions always the centering point of the show. The one critique for the show held by many, is that the ending is seen as anti-climactic and boring. I personally disagree with this. I see the ending as a way to set up the future of the DC universe, and was a great way to wrap up the series.

-Will Clair

DJ Set: HOOCHIE MAMA MIX OF GHETTOTECH JUNGLE BALTIMORE CLUB JERSEY CLUB MIAMI BASS by girlypop princess

Ever had a bad day? I’ve got something to make sure you don’t have any more of those. 

In the year of our lord 2025, following the path set for me by many a screwtape, not to mention a growing fascination with DJ Kicks, Elevator Music, and NTS, DJ Sets occupied a considerable slice of my overall music listening. The internet is truly a wonder in running across such things, the vast expanses of SoundCloud proving my personal favorite- the depths from which this particular gem fell into my possession. An hour of lush, blissful ghettotech to keep your head high and your booty bouncing. I mean, really, what more could one ask? My favorite stretch goes around the 23-minute mark, featuring an absolutely electric jungle remix of Ciara’s Get Up that had me… well, getting up. A wise man once said, “The DJ got us fallin’ in love again,” and I live by that. In 2026, may a DJ help you fall in love again. Thank you, girlypop princess.

-Evan Raefield

Movie: Sinners

Released in April of 2025, Sinners took the film industry by storm, impressing both critics and audiences alike, rated with a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. And its reputation precedes itself. The movie is a vampire tale, blending southern gothic horror, drama and musical elements. It explores themes of racial oppression, ancestry, colonization, culture assimilation and spirituality. The film follows main character, Sammie as he abandons his duties as the preacher’s son and runs off to join his cousins, the Smokestack Twins, who want to open a juke joint of their very own. The twins are war veterans and gangsters who return to Mississippi in the hopes of giving back to their community. 

“Stack”, also known as Elias, is the approachable and outgoing brother, often depicted in red. Elijah, whose nickname is “Smoke”, is the serious and cynical brother, dressed in shades of blue. Together, they purchase a venue, gather materials and recruit musicians, cooks and dancers. During the opening night however, Sammie’s musical talent, which is so powerful it can transcend time and connect ancestors, attracts the attention of bloodsucking vampires who seek to harness that power. Therefore, the main characters must come up with a plan to survive the night or die at the hands of the supernatural evil that needs nothing but an invite to ruin their lives. 

Coogler really nails this film as both a horror and a well-developed drama: the characters are realistic and complex, the premise is simple yet effective, the vampire folklore is handled with expertise, and the cinematography is gorgeous. A standout moment in the film is when Sammie’s performance invokes different generations of musicians/performers, and as they join the fun, the screen extends beyond the standard widescreen and envelops the entire picture. It marks the transition to the second half of the movie and raises the stakes and horror elements without us even noticing it. Additionally, Sinner’s casting was exceptional, with the actors all giving award-worthy performances. Overall, it’s a beautifully crafted vampiric horror movie that is absolutely worth the watch.

-Clara Carrion

Video Game: No, I’m Not a Human

This year, I seem to have become the de facto video game journalist for the KRUI website. If you know me at all, you know I’m woefully unqualified for the position. I have no reputation as a gamer, having only started getting into gaming this year, and I’ve only played a measly few games that I got for free on Steam. In fact, my favorite game of the year, Trioskaz’s No, I’m Not A Human, is one I haven’t even played myself. I’ve only seen it played, over and over, by various streamers.

For those not familiar, No, I’m Not A Human centers around a dreary apocalypse: the sun is moving closer to the Earth, making daytime unbearably hot. Simultaneously, strange beings dressed in human skin (called Visitors) are emerging from the ground, trying to gain entry into people’s homes and murdering anyone they find alone. You just so happen to live alone. So, against your better judgement, you start accepting people in off the street who are searching for shelter from the sun. Except some of those people might not be people. So now you’re an investigator, trying to determine whether the people you let in at night are actually human or an alien Visitor in disguise. This is the main mechanic of the game, listening to your companions’ stories and checking them for signs that they might be Visitors. But the information you’re getting about what makes someone a Visitor is shaky at best. Visitors allegedly have red eyes, dirty fingernails, and perfectly straight teeth. But what if a human spent the night crying? What if a Visitor washed their hands? What if a human recently went to the dentist? There’s no foolproof way to tell if someone’s a Visitor, meaning you’re often forced to convict without enough evidence. Either that, or you let more innocents die.

The game’s art style and writing only heightens the tension of its premise. It’s tempting to decide who to let in based on looks alone, or maybe their general attitude. But, in this game, everyone who approaches your door, Visitor or human, looks uncanny. Not even humans look human, meaning your gut instincts on who to trust will often lead you astray. It’s hard to tell who’s honestly being nice and who’s faking it; every character has unique and well-written quirks, regardless of whether they’re human or Visitor.
When creating any piece of media, it’s hard to make your audience feel the specific emotion that you want them to feel. But I and every other person who has played or watched this game knows exactly the strain of paranoia that No, I’m Not A Human depicts so well. This is a game that will make you question everything. It will give you a piece of information, then immediately contradict it. It will introduce you to a sweet, lovable character, then force you to shoot them in the face before they kill again. In times of true unprecedented crisis, the only choices you can really make are shots in the dark. But who are the stray bullets going to hit?

Can you deal with the consequences?

-Bailey Vergara

World Cup Qualifier Match: Hungary v. Ireland, Nov. 16th

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is taking place across 16 cities in North America this upcoming summer, and boy am I excited. One of the final rounds of qualifiers for the UEFA (European) teams occurred this past November, where 12 nations have fully qualified, 26 have been eliminated, and 16 will continue to the vicious UEFA playoffs in March to compete for the 4 final available slots. Hungary hosted the final match for both Hungary and Ireland on November 16, 2025, neither team able to fully qualify, but both contending here for the playoffs. Hungary needed only a draw to move on, while Ireland needed a win.

At just 3 minutes, Hungary scored the first goal to set their immediate daunting lead. The match continued scrappy from that point on, high energy and desperation from both teams charging their playing. Neither country is favored to make it into The World Cup, with Ireland’s most recent appearance in 2002, and Hungary’s in 1986. This time around, both teams have strong players carrying national hopes on each side, Ireland’s hero with two goals against Portugal just three days prior, Troy Parrot, and Hungary’s captain the Liverpool star, Dominik Szoboszlai. The qualifiers are an incredible series of matches to see these fierce teams as they scrap it out, and play with a kind of energy and madness that really makes the game special. It’s not a clean or perfect match from either team, but that kind of toe-to-toe brawl into a last minute, game-deciding hattrick goal is the pure vision of drama that’s special to The World Cup.

Ireland will continue to the playoffs after the unbelievable last minute score from Troy Parrot crushed Hungarian dreams 2-3. They will face The Czech Republic on March 26, 2026. If they win, Ireland will need to beat Denmark or North Macedonia during the playoff final to finally advance to The World Cup

-Pauly

The post KRUI Staff Picks our Favorite Media of 2025 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Tom Higgenson: I don’t think they’re like considered to be emo in the same scene. 

DeMar Hamilton: But they could be on the festival and it would be, it’d be awesome.  

Logan Melia: They were. First year, Avril Lavigne played weekend one, got sick, weekend two, they came in.

Tim Lopez: No shit? 

Logan: Yeah, so they like weren’t ‘on’ on the lineup but you know. They’re one of my all-time favorites.

DeMar: I love them, yeah they’re awesome.

Logan: All right, Plain White T’s, how are we feeling guys? 

Tim: Feeling good how are you? 

Mike Retondo: Feeling great man.

Logan: When We Were Young and we had a big show yesterday with Hawthorne Heights.

Tim: Oh yeah. 

Logan: How was that?

Tim: That was amazing. It was a pool party. 

Logan: You guys jumped in at all? 

Tim: None of us jumped in the pool. I didn’t bring trunks to be honest.

DeMar: We did that emo’s not dead cruise so it was like oh this is the cruise but in Vegas at our hotel.

Tim: Thats exactly what it was.

Logan: How do you like the Vegas Vibe so far?

Tim: I mean, I like it. I like Vegas in short spurts.  

Logan: Weekends.  

Tim: Yep, exactly. 

Mike: It’s nice this year. We did it two years ago, this fest, and it’s a lot cooler now than it was two years ago.  

Tim: Like temperature wise. 

Mike: Vegas breeze rolling through. 

Tim: I feel like Vegas is getting like a little grittier. 

Mike: Grittier? 

Tim: Yeah. 

DeMar: Going back to its roots. 

Tim: Yeah, I think so. As I was driving in, I was like, yeah, this is where like all the bodies are buried.  

De’Mar: Yeah, it is kind of sketchy. 

Logan: On the Uber over here, there was a place with a bunch of tanks and ammunition.  

DeMar: Yeah, right across right here.

Logan: Yeah, that’s my first time here. I woke up, you know, kind of got in the car and that was one of the first things I saw.  

Tim: Yeah, greeted with that. Welcome.  

Logan: Yeah. You guys are on the road quick with the Delilah v. Juliette Tour. So you keep going, are you guys excited for that?  

Tom: Oh, yeah, yeah. Cannot wait and Emo Nite is opening by like spinning a bunch and DJing emo bangers to get the crowd going so it’s going to be a super fun tour. 

Logan: Do you guys have any favorites that you go sneak on to that pre-show playlist?

Tom: Yes.

Tim: Ooh probably but I don’t know if we’re controlling that thing, I don’t know.

DeMar: I’m sure they’re gonna play some some Panic!, some Fall Out Boy you know Taking Back Sunday, Ocean Avenue.

Tom: Yeah the hits.

Logan: Now you’re from the Chicago suburbs, I’m from Westmont, Illinois.

Tom: Oh no shit?

Logan: Yeah right next to Lombard and I’m not sure I’m familiar with the current scene, but they got a cool couple of DIY venues. There’s one called Basement of the Coven in the bottom of a salon that you got like a ladder down or whatever, and your guys’ name is on the wall.

DeMar: No way!

Logan: I’m being completely serious right now. 

Tim: Like a sticker or we have been there? 

Logan: I don’t think you guys have been there. 

Tim: You gotta climb down a ladder to get into the place? 

Mike: That sounds awesome!

Tom: We should go play it!

Logan: Yeah, it’s awesome. Basement of the Coven. It’s right in downtown Lombard and right next to the train station in this little outlet. 

Tim: Dude we should go play it.

Logan: If you guys really want we can set it up.

Tim: Send the info.

Mike: Next to the train stop video building.

Logan: How was the scene when you guys were growing up there in Lombard, what was it like?  

Tom: It was so awesome.  

Mike: Great library. Lilacia Park is beautiful.  

DeMar: I love it.

Tom: I literally just, on the way here today in the car, listened to our friends Lucky Boys Confusion. I don’t know if you know them from back in the day, but they just released one of their independent albums digitally on Spotify. And so rocking that on the way here and thinking back to all those old suburban scene shows. We played with them all the time, Show Off all the time, DeMar’s band, Knockout, Mike’s old man, Tone Deaf George. It was a vibrant scene.  Everybody, all the bands just kind of helping each other out and just trying to build this thing that eventually we moved it into the city and you know we’re selling out The Metro and the freaking Fireside Bowl and places like that. So yeah it was really the scene was important to us back in the day.  

Logan: I did some research. 17 shows was my count for how many times you guys played The Metro.

Tim: Woah!

Logan: Do you remember the very first one?  

Tom: I do. These guys weren’t even in the band. When we started, one of our original goals was to play The Metro. That was like my favorite venue going to shows in the city and within about a year or so we got our first gig there so it was cool. Yeah, actually they let us into The Metro before the Fireside and before any of those other cool venues.

Mike: Who was there? 

Tom: It was with Woolworthy, who I believe is still maybe a band. 

Mike: I was at that show and I have the ticket stub. 

Tom: No shit? Yeah crazy.  

Mike: Didn’t play but it was a fan. I love Woolworthy.  

Logan: Well, I want to thank you guys so much for sitting down and taking time with me. I’m looking forward to your set later today. 

Tom: See you in Lombard, man.  

Logan: I’ll be there. 

The Plain White T’s showed once again what makes them the connective tissue for so many music fans, even beyond the scene. Hitting tracks off of 5 separate albums, and even throwing in a cover by Chicago suburb brethren Fall Out Boy with their song “Dance, Dance”, the Lombard locals flaunted their expansive and entrapping discography. They will wrap up the year opening for Waterparks in December and playing the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival in Chicago. You can find tour dates here as we await what is next for the quintet.

The post Interview: KRUI With The Plain White T’s appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Logan Melia: What are you drinking there?  

Jano Rix: I’ve got a black tea, a Fiji tips out-of-the-box from out there. 

Logan: Only the highest quality. 

Jano: Only the highest quality with nothing in it. Half a cup of water because that’s what it was like. 

Logan: You got to stay hydrated. Are you a coffee guy usually? Or are you tea?  

Jano: I have coffee in the morning. In fact, my whole life until I don’t know, two years ago, I never drank caffeine. 

Logan: Really? What changed? 

Jano: I don’t know. I started to like getting an espresso, like something sweet, like that one. And then I was like, I literally said, maybe I’ll see what getting a habit is all about with caffeine. And it’s on. So yeah. 

Logan: I just started like three months ago drinking coffee. 

Jano: Really. 

Logan: Yeah, like in college, I was like, I’m not going to do it because I can do it without it. I got this. And then over the summer, I worked at a golf course, and it was earlier mornings than I’ve ever had here at school. And that’s what made me fold. I’m a little disappointed in myself. 

Jano: Yeah, you know, it worked. Getting the habit worked. I got it. The thing about it, though, is that, I don’t know, it doesn’t really work that great if you didn’t get enough sleep. It makes you feel awesome if you got enough sleep, it’s even better. And if you didn’t get enough sleep, then you still feel like crap but jittery. 

Logan: Are you a full 8 hours guy or?  

Jano: I’m in a stage where, yeah, that’s good. Seven and a half. Seven and a half. 

Logan: You need it?  

Jano: I need it. Yeah.  

Logan: Do you feel like sluggish if you oversleep? Like if you are wiped, you sleep 10 hours, one day you wake up at, you know, 1130 A.M. 

Jano: If I, well on the road, 11:30 is reasonable. But I, it’s like all about timing. If it’s, I do believe in sleep cycles, at least for myself. So nine hours is awesome. 10 hours would suck. 

Logan: On the road, do you like the on the road thing? Does it mess with that schedule? 

Jano: Oh, I mean, yeah. It messes with my schedule. Yeah, last night wasn’t so great. You know, it depends on how the roads are, if the bus is going to stop in the middle of the night to fuel up. it depends on a lot of things.  

Logan: How long have you been touring for?  

Jano: 25 years, maybe? 

Logan: A little home on the road there, you know? You’re getting used to it. After the 25 years, maybe. 

Jano: Yes, I’m definitely used to it. I’ll tell you what, when I went away in COVID, I did miss it after a while. I loved it at first, actually. That particular thing of not touring, it was so awesome. I was home for months. And then after a while, it was just a huge part of my life, my expression, and also just being used to just seeing new places and waking up in a new place. And just, I don’t know, we have a tour family. I really missed it. 

Logan: When COVID first hit, were you like, I’m not going to do anything musical, I’m going to cleanse myself of this, or were the creative juices still kind of running for you? 

Jano: Oh, I mean, that was not a point in my life where I was like, no, I don’t want to do something musical. I had a point in my life, a few years before that, where I decided to quit music as a profession and that didn’t last. All that did was let me know that it was what I needed to do. It was good in that way. I tried to be a carpenter and I started working and doing like construction stuff. Working for a company and I quickly realized this is cool, but no, I need to put everything into music so that I can figure out a way to make a living doing this. I forget what year that was. I mean, 2009, something like that. But what was your question? Oh, COVID. COVID. Yeah. No, but it was just, I was, you know, I could do without the travel. So like stopping travel. I mean, I also spend the other, part of my artistic life is mostly spent in the studio. And that was mostly gone, but then we started doing sessions with masks and stuff, but touring was dead for a while. And I do remember vividly the first tour date, this live show date. 

Logan: What do you remember about it? 

Jano: Oh man, I cried. Like it was really awesome. I think it was outside, indoor/outdoor, like trying to do the COVID thing. At City Winery in Nashville and I think, what was it? Gosh, I’m trying to remember. Was it an Oliver Wood? I think we did an Oliver Wood Trio solo gig. And Seth Walker also played that night, like a bunch of people I’ve worked with and our friends and musicians I love. And I just, we played our set and then I just remember that felt amazing. And then I remember sitting in the audience, standing by the soundboard and watching Seth play. And I was just like, I was just so struck and moved by like how lucky I am to know these people and that we get to do this and I get to hear this, like after not hearing anyone play live music for so long. 

Logan: In those moments like that, is there like a song that kind of sticks with you from that exact time, or like maybe any other moments where you have a specific song that you remember hearing in a place during a time and you’re like, this is sticking with me? 

Jano: Oh, for sure. I don’t know if I remember a specific song from that night, but speaking of, it might’ve been, because I remember this from Seth Walker, hearing him, “Grab Ahold” which we’ve also done with the Oliver Wood solo stuff that I worked on. And I guess I worked on the original Seth Walker recording of that too. And he wrote that with Oliver and Oliver produced that first album and then I produced the subsequent ones. So I don’t know, that song goes way back and I’ve just, what really struck me, what I’m thinking about is hearing him from across festival grounds. Playing a daytime set, which can be tough in a festival early on, and telling a bunch of people there who didn’t know Seth, I was like, you have to go see Seth. And walking over to the stage and he was on the main stage and it was just like, you know giant fields, sun beating down, and he had everyone transfixed. Like you could hear a pin drop. When he gets into it, it’s remarkable. So I don’t know, there’s one. There’s one, yeah.  

Logan: You mentioned kind of coming out of your little, I’ll say, hiatus/retirement and realizing that you needed to do it more and more. When did you first realize that you needed to do it? Do you remember like how old you were or, you know, what’s really solidified that? 

Jano: I guess I wasn’t like a lot of people who were like, maybe, you know, they got a guitar in high school or something and they’re like in love with it. And I’m like, I think I want to do this because it was around me since I was a kid. My dad’s a professional drummer. And so I grew up, you know, from the time I was tiny, watching him play gigs. And like, there was a, I heard a cassette years ago of me playing when I was 4, playing and singing, and I was like that’s pretty good. I don’t really think I’ve gotten that much better from a four year old, I was just improvising a blues. My parents, they were outside and I went in the basement and just pressed record on a tape deck. And I played and made-up a blues about being all alone in the house, where they were and what they were doing. My dad’s in the shed, my mom’s out working in the garden and like. 

Logan: And here you are, all alone. 

Jano: Yeah. So I kind of, I wouldn’t say I knew I was going to do it because I was also, my mom’s a painter and I drew and painted growing up like equal time to music. So it was like, if I wasn’t skateboarding or something like that, because I also like to do athletic things, but I was drawing, painting, or working on music, piano or drums, mostly drums. So I don’t know, it was kind of bred into me. 

Logan: Who were your favorite artists or painters? 

Jano: My favorite artists or painters, here’s an inside one, Frank Frazetta. He did a lot of illustration, like he did a lot of book covers. My mom was really into illustrators and he was very much in a kind of fantastical fantasy sci-fi style, but fantastic craftsman and fantastic painter. Anyway, that’s kind of a random one to pick out because a lot of the greats I love too. I remember becoming obsessed with Picasso for a while. But yeah, I just saw someone wearing a Frank Frazetta t-shirt and I was like, where’d you get that? And she’s like, there’s this museum. I was like, you went? You know, it’s very inside, but in Pennsylvania, there’s just this Frank Frazetta museum. Yeah, so I don’t know. I was very, you know, that was another thing like my parents, my mom passed down that kind of stuff to me. So just, yeah, a bunch of illustrators I was into. That was a great one. 

Logan: Were you in the comic books at all? 

Jano: I wasn’t. I wasn’t, but I had a friend who really was, so I gained an appreciation of that. Actually, his name is Ben Mara, Benjamin Mara, and I was just seeing, he does amazing comic book stuff now. Really? He’s in it. He followed it all the way through. So I got an appreciation for what that was at the time, but no, I guess just more kind of like fine art stuff and painting. I don’t do too much of that. The most is like, people are like, Who painted that on your ‘shituar’? It’s like, Oh, I just did that. Randomly every few years, I’ll get the bug and I’ll like paint an owl on my ‘shituar’ or something. 

Logan: There you go, an owl on your ‘shituar’. Yeah. You mentioned skateboarding a minute ago. Now, when I think of a kid skateboarding, this music isn’t exactly, The Wood Brother’s isn’t exactly the music that comes to mind. So were you skating, listening to Rancid, or were you skating, like listening to John Prine? 

Jano: We were totally listening to The Misfits. You know, I think musically I had my own thing, but I was on the edge of that skate culture. So I did listen to that stuff. But musically, I was always kind of like, not with necessarily what my friends were listening to, because I had a very focused musical life and stuff I was into. I went through some phases with friends around, but I was really into Pink Floyd at that time. Like really, really into Pink Floyd. 

Logan: I was never a Pink Floyd guy. Me and some buddies put on The Wall for the first time I ever heard it. And it was a life-changing experience. You feel it over your whole body. It just washes over you. 

Jano: That’s cool to hear how someone else felt. I’ve never talked to anyone about what they thought of The Wall the first time. But yeah, I used to, I mean, I was young and I used to watch that movie. I didn’t know what the hell was going on in that movie. But it was like a feeling and they just were able to conjure certain feelings. And when I look back at it, they’re very patient. That music often moves very slow and there’s 16 measures, 32 measures in the middle of a song of just the groove vamp with maybe like 3 guitar licks. It’s like so patient and there’s so much space. And I think I’ve always gravitated to stuff like that. whether it was that or more funky music. Yeah. 

Logan: Do you feel like you incorporate some of that patience into your own music? 

Jano: I do. I don’t think about it consciously much. But if anything, like in the confines of making a record maybe, sometimes I listen back and I’m like, oh, I need to like, hit it a little harder sooner because there’s not enough time to be just patient. But I don’t think about it. It’s something that’s kind of automatic for me, I think. 

Logan: We talked about your mom’s influence a little bit. You were putting together an album with your father. Legacy. Not a whole lot of musicians are able to do that, you know? So I mean, obviously, I’m sure it feels incredibly special. But is there anything in that album that you just haven’t felt before while making music? 

Jano: Oh, good question. Yes. You know, and I don’t know if it’s purely a musical thing as far as like the aesthetics of the music, like the musical choices. But it felt very difficult. different to make that record. I make records all the time. I’m very lucky to have been doing that for a long time. Either as a musician or a producer and we have our studio, you know, me and The Wood Brothers in Nashville. But making a record with my dad was, I think I put more pressure on myself. Not that it had to be, it’s not going to be, I didn’t care if it was a commercial product, but it was just, it just felt more like, I don’t know, I wanted it to be good. I wanted him to like it. I don’t know. It was just, it was harder for me to finish it. I found myself dragging my feet, which is part of, I blame myself partially. We’re equally to blame why it took us 12 years from our first notes put down and recording to the end.

Logan: During those 12 years, were there any songs that you were able to get down in a day or get a good chunk of it down? Or were they all really laborious? 

Jano: Oh, I mean, in the end, I mean, we only had maybe five times we ever got together and recorded. I’d say probably 5 days. Total. 

Logan: To make an album, that’s a pretty good time to make album. 

Jano: There was a lot, okay, but there was a lot of… I spent other days myself, but I erased a lot of it because what we would do is we’d get together, the first time we got together at Southern Ground Studios in Nashville, and we spent an entire day, maybe it was two days, I think it might have just one day, and we tracked basics, just the two of us for, I mean, it’s only the two of us playing everything on the record. Yeah. And we got like half the record done that day. And then another day in the town where my parents live in New York, I went up there and we tracked again. We got basically the other half of the basic the tracks done. And then overdubs, I would work on them like in Nashville and I would add a lot. And in the end, it was just like, a lot of times I just stripped it back to mostly just me playing like a Fender Rhodes, my dad playing drums, our vocals. No, it can’t have been five days. I’m going to give us seven days, but totally working together. But I worked I worked a lot of other days on it myself, just adding little things, taking things away.

(Part 2)

Logan: Do you think you work best with simplicity?

Jano: Yeah.

Logan: In your dream scenario, what are the only things on a record or on a song? What’s the core that can’t be stripped away for you? 

Jano: Well, it could be anything. It could be anything, but I find myself often, like my favorite record by an artist is one with usually with like very little production. Sometimes there’s no crumbs on it, sometimes there’s, you know, not like the instrument I play like I necessarily care about hearing, you know. Like a Dylan record, like a really old one. That is just mostly just him. Yeah. Like, I’m like, oh, it’s not. No offense to my dad who played on Dylan Records. 

Logan: Your father played on Dylan Records? Which ones? 

Jano: The most known recording would probably be “Hurricane” or “Desire”. And he played on “Desire”, he’s playing with congas on that.  

Logan: That’s wild. You ever get to meet Bob? 

Jano: Unless I did when I was really tiny, no, but I heard plenty of stories. 

Logan: Any ones you can share? 

Jano: Oh man, my dad was on the Rolling Thunder Revue. Yeah, if you know that one, it’s like, that’s just a wild tour. Dylan was, I think the cool parts about it, some of the cool parts are he was tired of, he was such a big star at that point. He felt like his fans didn’t necessarily get tickets to the shows because everything was becoming expensive and would sell out right away. So he decided to do a tour, but not book it ahead of time. And he just got some buses, put the band together, because him and Rob Stoner put the band together. And they would just, as I know the story, show up in a town like the night before and just say, hey, we want to play your venue here like your veteran’s hall or something like that. And they would just put posters up, said Bob Dylan playing tomorrow night. And so it was very, to use the term freewheeling, and like, you know by the seat of their pants. And on that tour he kept adding artists and buses, just like pick up people. And then suddenly Joni Mitchell’s on the tour and Alan Ginsberg’s on the tour and like everybody’s on the tour. And it was, you know, so it was like this crazy social hang and wild tour, you know. 

Logan: That’s crazy. Is that something like, is there any off the wall ideas that you would ever want to do as an artist? Anything like a tour where you got, you got no direction in mind? 

Jano: I have, yeah, I have fairly ambiguous ideas that I haven’t really locked down of because I dance a lot. I don’t know if a lot of people know that, but like I teach dance. My wife and I teach Casino and Salsa. Casino is often called Cuban Salsa. But just through that world and interacting with music that way, I would love to incorporate that heavily for the audience into a set, as well as participating in rhythms in the music more than just clapping along every once in a while. Which goes to your question of, which I think this started out with a while ago, of what are the elements that you can’t get away from in music? And there’s a style of music that I really like, Cuban Rumba. And I love Huapango. And in Huapango, it’s just percussion and vocals. And man, music does not need any more than that. When anything’s grooving that hard, you do not need anything else, and all the space is wonderful. That said, I love guitars and keyboards and bass, but I love the simplicity of it too. I think that’s, and the rhythmic grooving nature of it. So I would just, and there’s something, our culture doesn’t have a lot of participation either. in dance socially, at least not white people. So social dances, that’s like, hardly anyone knows how to do those anymore, like partner dancing. But even just dance as a celebration and a ritual. And dance classes are for kids, you know, and then adults, unless they like to go to concerts and dance, they don’t really dance. So I would love to incorporate that, as well as, I think, everyone can play and sing and do music. It’s just like we’re not raised with that as part of our culture. And man, it’s very healing for people to do that. So I’d like to incorporate that. 

Logan: I remember hearing one time, one of my, I took choir in high school and a teacher said, singing and dancing is like running. Everybody can do it. doesn’t matter how good you are at it. And do you find that there’s a level that people need to cross them to be more comfortable dancing and doing that stuff? Do you find that there’s a switch that needs to be flipped because like, I think the average person isn’t maybe comfortable or think they’re capable of dancing. So is there some threshold that they need to cross, do you think? 

Jano: It depends on the person. Because in a way, no, because a little kid can do it. And a little kid can play and sing music and it’s perfect. It’s just what it should be. But I was that person who, I grew up on the bandstand on stage, I did not step foot, I did not dance until I was an adult. I was deathly afraid of dancing, which is probably why I got so into it once I conquered that fear of it, why it made such a difference to me. But yeah, so I was one of those people. It was not in my culture. And I was really afraid of dancing. And then my wife, we went to the Dominican Republic and we took some little dance lessons on the beach. We did some bachata lessons. And then we got back home and she’s like, I really want to take salsa lessons. And I was like, okay, I’ll go with you. And so we went week after week, I was kicking and screaming every week. I did not want to go and be bad at, because I was used to being good at art from the time I was little. I was like, I was like the one who was really good at the art, you know? And here I was terrible. I was terrible at dancing. And salsa requires, you know, a vocabulary, it’s a language. But once I finally got over myself and went to a social, which everyone told me to do, and just dance with people, which I was afraid. I was like, no, I’m going to get good first. They’re like, no, you’re not. You have to go and that’s going to make you get good. You just have to go and suck and dance with a lot of people. When I finally did that, I was so hooked. 

Logan: Really? 

Jano: Yeah, because you are basically dancing duets with different people all night. You’re improvising. It’s like a full body improvisation with music and another person. It’s just like a beautiful connection. It breaks the boundaries of physical connection. We don’t really touch much in our culture, except like with your lover. That’s it. Like otherwise you don’t really touch, you know, you pat your bro on the back. That’s that, yeah, that’s that. So yeah, it was like really opened my world and it was whole, opened my world to new cultures, new language, and the language of dance. So I don’t know, yeah. 

Logan: You mentioned it being like a full body, like experiencing that thing. Do you feel the same way when you’re on stage doing music? And is that, if it is, is it the same use of your full body or is it a different feeling? 

Jano: It’s a different feeling, but it can be very much the same and it should be. And dancing has informed me with my music because my music, has been a professional thing for so long. And in a lot of ways, I put pressure on myself since I was pretty young to perform at that. But dancing started as an adult, and I got to watch myself as it was like a third space. It was not, for a long time, it wasn’t professional and I became professional. And I also saw what that did to my experience of it, you know. And, but it made me aware that I was missing out on some of the joy I originally had in music. Because dancing, and I was like, I couldn’t believe I’d become this person who would just be like, no one on the dance floor, that’s me. You want to dance? Let’s go. I had no problem asking, going to an unfamiliar city somewhere in Europe and meeting everyone, asking them to dance. And it was just with so much joy, like that connection, just the joy of connecting in the moment to just that life between the two of you, between the music moving in the air. And so, yeah, you should have that with music too. And it is a full body experience. Even if you’re playing an instrument that mostly just your fingers touch some keys or something, your whole body’s involved, your breathing’s involved, you can dance with it. 

Logan: Do you feel like that kind of the love, that you’re describing, do you feel it growing every time you do it? Or do you find it to be maybe a little repetitive at times? 

Jano: Well, yeah, it goes through phases and it’s night to night and it’s moment to moment. And I think once you’ve done it long enough, at least for some of us, the only thing to really think about is to notice where you’re at. The music’s happening, like you’re playing the music, thinking about what you’re going to play next is a complete waste of time. Your conscious brain is really way too slow to do all the cool things that you can actually do. But you just kind of realize where you’re at, like, oh everything’s feeling hard. I’m feeling like I can’t hear, I’m annoyed with my in-ear mix, okay where am I at? Like, how am I feeling? Where is this in my body? Can I breathe? Can I just get curious about the sounds and where I’m at? And kind of sometimes I look at the lights in the room and that’ll like bring me back. I think you go through stages too, where it’s like all joy and you’re just excited about it. And then I noticed myself with dance and then I got a level of expertise with it, and I started teaching as people start looking up to you. And then you feel like you’ve got to be somebody. Like when you dance, people are watching you. And you’ve got to represent and you’ve got to, then the joy is gone. And you still might do some hot dance moves, but you’re not really connecting with your partner, you’re not really letting loose in the moment, and you’re not even modeling what you should be modeling. You’ll look back and you’ll, if people videoed you, see you’re not smiling.

Logan: How do you kind of disperse those expectations? When you feel them setting it, is there anything you do to make them go away? 

Jano: You schedule therapy.  

Logan: Not bad advice.  

Jano: Yeah, you know, and I don’t think there’s one solution, but over time, you get different home mantras to tell yourself. If you can remember to remember, then you, like this week I’ll tell you what it is this week on stage, it’s someone talked about curiosity. And so I just like try to get really curious. I mentioned that a few minutes ago, just get really curious about the moment. That’s what I’ve been doing this week, that word comes to mind. In fact, I wanted to paint it on one of my instruments, so I just see it. But I remember last week, I put a little, preparing for the tour, I put a little sign, put it on my rig, and it said, I think, smile, like smile with your body. And when I think of that, my posture gets better. My posture tends to smile and my chest comes up and I tend to breathe in. I smile with my face. And I realize, like, what are you practicing? Are you practicing being stressed out and worried about screwing something up and not being able to, not having your chops up for this tour? Because that’s how you’re going to feel on the tour. No matter, if you practice that for 1000 hours before the tour, you will still not feel ready for the tour, no matter how good your chops are because that’s what you practiced. So try to practice letting it flow and being curious and interested in the sounds as they happen, rather than trying to turn yourself into a machine, being constantly looking for your own faults. Because I can do that. I’m good at that. I spent years doing that. I can play like a machine, I know how to. 

Logan: But it’s better if you let it flow. 

Jano: Yeah. And you can. There’s machines, I mean, you can just have it tell AI to do it now. I think it can make you machine music. 

Logan: It’s not good music. 

Jano: It’s not good music, but it sounds, honestly, it sounds like lackluster music and a lot of people make lackluster music because they’re trying to treat themselves like machines. We’re lucky that’s not what our fans want. At least not with the Wood Brothers. Like they want to hear, like have a human, you know, they always say, God you guys sound so honest. I think it’s, we just let ourselves be what we are, you know, warts and all. 

With support from Irish duo DUG, The Englert was lively for The Wood Brothers. For over two hours, fans were showered with songs old and new with an encore of their hit “Luckiest Man”. It was a busy year for Rix as The Wood Brothers dropped their new album “Puff of Smoke” in August and “Legacy, Vol 1” from Jano and his father released in November. The Wood Brothers will continue their tour this winter, you can find dates here.

The post Interview: Jano Rix of The Wood Brothers appeared first on KRUI Radio.

We were wrong. But that doesn’t mean the description isn’t apt in a different way. Dan Soder, much like a golden retriever, is affably stupid.

This isn’t a dig at Soder; in fact, he said this himself multiple times during his routine. Several of his jokes hinged on his supposed stupidity, from him sheepishly admitting to the audience that he thought “the city” would clean out his grandmother’s house after she passed to mistaking Iowa for Wisconsin in terms of the latter’s considerable population of serial killers. He approached a wide variety of topics in this signature style, finding humor in everything from hair transplants to true crime podcasts to misadventures with his friend’s dogs. This approach to comedy — something along the lines of “confused, but happy to be here” — seems to work very well for Soder, and when he’s on stage, it’s patently clear that he is in his element. He had a very relaxed stage presence, often laughing at his own jokes with the audience. When one section or person in the crowd seemed to respond more to a joke than the rest, he often turned to them as if acknowledging them directly, a personal touch that definitely contributed to his “golden retriever” energy.

But what is to be gained from the comedy of a golden retriever?

As co-writer Bodhi noted upon walking into the theater that night, comedy is uniquely hard to write about. The only thing it really needs to do is make you laugh, so finding any nuance in a joke can be sisyphean, a futile attempt to be sincere in an ironic medium. The jokes were funny, sure, but what does it mean? Why does Dan Soder sell out shows? Why do people find what he has to say funny?

In 2016, one of the most popular comedians was Dave Chappelle. He’s since lost his goodwill with many, but it’s still possible to learn from his style of comedy. Back then, what he said was not only funny, but it also provided nuanced commentary on society. It felt like it was actually informing people, not only making them laugh. This is what makes a comedian stand out from their peers: the ability to speak their mind and tell an impactful story. In a way, a comedian’s punchlines are secondary to the messages they tell between their jokes.

Following this framework, Dan Soder, between the lines, is a reflection of his audience. Most of the people in attendance at the Englert that night were rural, working-class white Americans, and his comedy seemed to speak to them on a deep level. He talked to the audience as if we were sitting around a bonfire together, sharing a beer, telling funny stories. The plainness of his speech and his often crass delivery invited us to see him as a friend, not a performer. In the later parts of his routine, he touched on topics like animal abuse and alcoholism, living in a single-parent household, and growing up poor. He talks about his traumatic childhood so cavalierly that it’s almost as if he assumes you understand where he’s coming from— and a large part of his audience does.

Dan Soder may not have any great revelations hidden within his comedy, but he clearly still works as a comedian. He delivers his material in a way that makes him immediately relatable and likeable. You laugh with him because he’s your friend. 

Much like a golden retriever, his attitude is overwhelmingly positive, and we find him a net positive for comedy. He speaks to his audience in a way that fosters genuine connection, and he made every person in the crowd that night just a little happier— including us.

Co-written by Bodhi Brent and Bailey Vergara

The post Review: A Look at Comedy’s “Golden Retriever,” Dan Soder at The Englert Theatre appeared first on KRUI Radio.

There are a number of eateries that fit this description well, and doubtless those will be featured at a later date as further subjects of articles in this series, but ultimately only one could ever answer the question of what Iowa City food is to me.

George’s Buffet is an unassuming dive bar sat just off of the one-way, westbound, Market Street. The small structure is saddled between an alley leading back to another side street and a modern imposing building housing The Webster (a high-end feature in Iowa City’s restaurant scene) on the corner of North Linn Street. Further up the road is the Bluebird’s parking lot, and its corresponding classic diner.

On its own, George’s doesn’t seem particularly remarkable. It’s a bar with at best precarious street parking out front. The distinctive black-and-yellow striped awning, amidst a bright building, pairs curiously with the dark front window, a black-painted facade of the buffet itself. One could stand outside and barely see the dark interior through the glass, shrouded behind a myriad of verdant plants and signs of beer brands obscuring the heart of the building.

And even if one chooses to enter this place, there’s little immediately to write home about. It is, to the George’s-virgin’s eyes, exactly the kind of bar it’s exterior eludes it to be. Mostly black furnishing fills the murky space. At any given hour the bartender is serving a variously-sized crowd of locals, occasionally bolstered by a stray party of collegiate bar-crawlers or quieter, studious types, tapping away at laptops over choice beverages. Collages, maps, and beer-branded placards adorn the shady, antiquated walls. These ornaments catch one’s gazing eyes. Behind the counter, amidst the bric-a-brac of liqueur and oddities, hand two old and dimly lit machines. To a modern viewer, they seem nothing more than another bauble in the long line.

The keen reader will recall the full title of this establishment, George’s Buffet. An inquisitive sort might find themselves looking for food within. Without inquiry, this sort of fellow might find themselves deeply disappointed. Chips hang amongst the liquers behind the bar, but little more, and certainly nothing resembling the traditional sense of buffet. I’m certain many people have stopped here expecting that one named part of George’s Buffet, and unsatisfied by its absence sought elsewhere for more overt dining prospects.

But what is there if you pull away the curtain, and look behind the veil? What can we find in searching this place for eatery?

It’s a well-worn, time-honored process: step up to the bar, and order 2 burgers. In my experience, you ask for everything on them, which doesn’t really amount to much. You can add horseradish, but I’ve never been quite fond of it myself. After a few minutes (or longer, depending on how crowded it is), they’ll bring the burgers out to you. They’re wrapped in the classic paper style, not particularly imposing things. George’s burgers are neither big, nor heavy, nor tall. And yet, they are in my own opinion the greatest burgers Iowa City has to offer.

These burgers are rather hard to describe, because they are ultimately so simple. They have pickles and diced onions beneath the fairly austere bun. The cooks put ketchup and mustard on them. What is the secret then, dear reader? What puts these burgers above the average barbecue uncle’s handiwork?

I might be content to call it magic. The truth really isn’t that far from it. In the back of the bar stands an ancient boiler. Longtime George’s regulars speculate, that it was forged by the first peoples to walk the earth, in times long forgotten even in myth and legend, shaped by a thousand hands, each belonging to masters of their craft, suffused with all the awesome power known to the elders of man. It is a keepsake from a time of heroes.

I kid. However, the broiler is in all fairness pretty dang old. I’m not sure exactly when it appeared, but I believe it’s been there since Georges opened more than 8 decades ago, or otherwise shortly after. The burgers made in the thing have almost a century of built up flavor embedded in them. To my memory, the owner of Georges once even tried making a burger the exact same way but in a different broiler, and it wasn’t nearly as good.

That’s the magic, if you’d like to call it that. I certainly would, dear reader.

George’s works as a starting point because it stands for much of the culinary offerings here in Iowa City as a whole.

If you came here as somebody from outside Iowa, what does Iowa City mean to you? We have a football team. We host a number of great academic institutions. You’ve likely heard of our hospital. But isn’t that just the surface level? There are so many wonderful shards of this place hidden beneath the surface, if you only look a little bit closer. I suppose that’s a kind of mission statement for this column: Looking beneath the superficial, gathering fragments to reassemble the whole of this college town. Seeking out the great food in Iowa City, be it obvious to–or obscured from–the surface view.

I only hope I can shed light on new experiences for you, dear readers. To look closer. Dig deeper.

Until the next.

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I sat down with Jordan Brown and Matt Wilson of Set Your Goals while at When We Were Young Festival. The California natives made their highly anticipated homecoming this past February, playing their first gig in 6 years. We spoke about their return to live performances, whats next for Set Your Goals, and how good “One Battle After Another” is.

Logan Melia: How are you guys doing today? 

Jordan Brown: It’s hot. 

Matt Wilson: Yeah, exhausted.

Logan: Are you not desert folk? 

Matt: No. We’re actually from California.

Jordan: The 8:30 sun here is blistering. So different from California sun, I think. 

Logan: This is my first time here, does it really get that cold at night? 

Matt: Yeah it’s freezing. 

Jordan: Yeah, it’s freezing here. But Nevada’s awesome. 

Matt: Hoodie or jacket weather the last couple nights. 

Logan: How long have you guys been in Vegas for? 

Jordan: Since Thursday. We got in in the morning and did a rehearsal. We rehearsed at MDV rehearsal space. So, plug for MDV. 

Logan: How was that? 

Jordan:  Very good. They’ve got, like, four rooms for local artists and touring bands who want to stop in and a full back line. You know, bring your own gear or borrow from them. So we got to play there for a few hours. 

Logan: Now, I never thought I was going to be able to see you guys. This is huge. I’m 20. I grew up with guys in the background but a little too young to go to your final gigs.  

Matt: We’re also 20. Our band is 20. 

Jordan: 20 years old. Yeah. We play at 5:40 on the Allianz stage. If you don’t have other interviews, come on by. 

Logan: I will definitely be there. I’m absolutely stoked for you guys. 

Matt: Appreciate that. 

Logan: Your first gig back, Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, how was the preparation for that? How were you feeling going into the gig?  

Matt: We booked an adequate amount of time to get prepared. And we felt really good going into it. It was just so cool to play music again after five years off and see so many old friends and family. People flew in from all over the world. It was crazy. So yeah, it was a warm welcome back. 

Jordan: We didn’t really know what we would be doing exactly. Matt and I hung out in 2023. 

Matt: Yeah. Something like that. 

Jordan: Like, the end of 2023. We went into COVID lockdown like everybody else and just went our own ways, you know, doing our own thing. And then, end of that year, I asked Matt. 

Matt: Whenever “Dune Part 2” came out.  

Jordan: I asked him if he wanted to go see “Dune Part 2”. And so we watched that and then, I thought during the film, ‘Hey, this is some great music. Hans Zimmer is a genius again. I miss music. Matt, do you want to play shows?’ He said, I’ll ask the rest of the guys. And so, we just thought we’d do a couple of shows in our hometown. And then, we got offered When We Were Young and Four Chord Fest within weeks. 

Logan: Which was a crazy lineup. Four Chord Fest. I mean, anything with Jawbreaker. 

Jordan: Yeah. AFI headlining with Jawbreaker. blink-182. 

Matt: blink. Jimmy (Eat World). 

Jordan: Jimmy. 

Matt: Great lineup. 

Jordan: Yeah, Knuckle Puck. 

Matt: I like this lineup, really.  

Logan: Oh this lineup’s awesome. Don’t get me wrong. You mentioned “Dune 2”, they just released a teaser for “Dune 3”. 

Jordan: Yeah. They’ll probably keep going. 

Logan: Are you guys big movies guys? 

Jordan: Oh yeah. 

Matt: Jordan’s the biggest movie guy. 

Jordan: Me and Dan and Matt, though. Matt and I hit up movies pretty frequently. I work at a movie theater on the weekends so, it’s like a nice amenity being able to just hop in and see anything. We watched “One Battle After Another” a few days ago. 

Matt: Best movie of the year. 10 out of 10. 

Jordan: Incredible. It is the best Paul Thomas Anderson movie. It is an odyssey. It’s filmed in VistaVision. It looks and feels exciting. It’s funny and thrilling at the same time. I’ve never laughed so hard and been on the edge of my seat for like nearly three hours. Wish it had been five hours. 

Logan: The Springsteen movie is coming out. Are you guys Springsteen fans? 

Matt: Yes. 

Jordan: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. You’ve got a great cast supporting that feature. I think it’s opening later this month. Yeah. I’ll be there. I liked the Bob Dylan movie, that was good. The Queen movie was excellent. Biopics are great. Even if critics are not on them, audiences love them. If you have fun, you’re having fun. 

Logan: You guys announced Slam Dunk Festival, so this is going well. You guys are having fun if you’re still going next year. 

Matt: Yeah. The ball is rolling. 

Logan: The ball is rolling. I understand if you can’t say anything, but have you guys started jamming maybe some new tracks here and there?  

Matt: We are working on some new music. Very excited about it.

Logan: It’s been a minute, but if you can remember back then, how long did it take to get a track going for you guys? Is it a laborious thing or does it kind of fall out of the sky?  

Matt: It depends. There’s some songs where we just, I don’t know, Jordan will come up with an idea that’s really complete. And other ones, it’s just a riff and we build around it. 

Jordan: Mikey and Dan are contributing a lot as well. Mikey, our drummer, plays a lot of guitar. We’ve just been working on one of his songs. We’ve also been working on a song that we first originated in 2019, pre-COVID lockdown. Mikey and I had a batch of, I’d say, 10 to 12 songs pretty ready to go. And then 2020, everything shut down. We went a little hard that first year because we had nothing else to do. But yeah, Matt, I remember you hit me up in 2023 and were like, ‘Hey, I heard some of the songs you and Mikey were working on a few years ago. How do we get this ball rolling?’, and I just had no idea at that time. It’s nice to not have a deadline. Just spend our time with tracking it and getting it to where we’d like to be. 

Logan: When you guys are in the studio, do you ever say, ‘let’s get a banjo in the mix. Let’s do something off the wall.’ Is there any wild ideas that you guys either want to do or have done? 

Jordan: Yeah.  

Matt: I’m trying to think of a good one. We used a shaker in one song, little egg shakers. 

Jordan: We do like percussion. Any sort of texture you can add to the underground of a song. 

Matt: Yeah, we’ve been talking about some very subtle synth, stuff like that. 

Jordan: Yeah, I saw John Williams play two summers ago at the Hollywood Bowl, and it was phenomenal. It was like a bucket list thing. But there’s something about cinematic film scores, the cues and the way they lift the scene. So we’ve been playing around with effects, even a basic tremolo effect on some of our guitars. Things that are pleasant to hear in the headphones, but we might also be able to play live if the audience reacts to it once we release them. There’s a great studio in Oakland, California called Shark Fight Studios. It’s like $350 a day, which is very, very affordable compared to LA prices. We hit a day there for drum tracking, and we’ve just been enjoying tracking guitars, bass, vocals with a buddy of ours. He has a recording studio in his ADU in his backyard. So it’s got a very… what is it, the vibe is good? The home vibe is good? 

Matt: The vibe is chill. 

Jordan: The vibe is chill. 

Logan: You mentioned Oakland. Your first gig back in 2016, if I’m correct, was 924 Gilman Street. For any kid who listens to Jawbreaker, that’s the coolest venue in the world.  

Matt: Thank you. I agree. We’re fortunate to have grown up going to shows there. That was incredible, that was a great gig. 

Jordan: Yeah, no barriers. 

Matt: Uncomfortably packed, but that’s the best way to do it. That’s how you do it. 

Jordan: Gilman. Another venue on the rise in Berkeley is Cornerstone. I don’t know if the UC Theater is still doing shows. Berkeley is an incredible city. It would be great to play Gilman again. 

Logan: Do you guys have any dream venues?  

Matt: I would love to play Red Rocks one day. That would be incredible. I guess we played The Gorge on Warped Tour.  

Jordan: Yeah.

Matt: Red Rocks would be unreal. 

Jordan: Outdoor amphitheaters like the Greek Theater, another Berkeley venue. The Greek Theater would be a very neat place to open for anybody if we could get that opportunity. 

Matt: That would be really cool. A hometown venue on the bucket list. 

Logan: Do you guys have any favorite gigs you’ve been to? 

Jordan: So many. You just saw two Oasis shows. 

Matt: Oasis was great. One of the most recent ones was this last Nine Inch Nails tour. The production is incredible. They have a live camera and a see-through screen around the stage that they project onto. It was just so cool. 

Jordan: Going back to John Williams, two nights at the Hollywood Bowl. He played everything from the Jurassic Park theme to Princess Leia’s theme, Yoda’s theme, Asteroid Field. He had some deep cuts. Then he had the Indiana Jones theme. A new pick from the most recent Indiana Jones movie. They had the whole Cal State University Fullerton Choir on stage for A Duel of the Fates. That was an unbelievable experience. That’s probably my most memorable in the last couple of years. 

Matt: Also, last time I was here for Sick New World last year, which this same company does, I saw Danny Elfman and that was unreal. They had like 30 people on stage, it was crazy. A whole orchestra. It was nuts.  

Logan: Do you guys have any dream gigs that you want to play that you’re like, you know what, I want to do something with these artists. I want to do it with a live orchestra. 

Matt: So many. I wouldn’t even know where to start. 

Jordan: I’d really love to play with All Time Low again. It would be great to reconnect with them. They’ve been one of the first bands outside of the hardcore scene that really appreciated us and would take us out. We did our first tour of Australia together. They dropped a new album today. I’ve been listening to it all morning. 

Matt: I just got my haircut in the barbershop tent next to Zach. He was getting his haircut at the same time. 

Jordan: Just talking about Danny Elfman, a couple of the tracks on their new album sound a bit like Oingo Boingo to me. I can hear that 80s horn influence. No horns on the song, but you can just feel the deep roots. Turmoil would be great. We were talking about playing with some friends of ours. Turmoil, Terror, maybe trying to do some throwback type tours that we did in the early years. 

Logan: Anything else you want to talk about as I let you go here? 

Jordan: I just want to thank everyone who’s come out and supported the shows. We booked those February shows and didn’t know. We didn’t have any plans and these offers came. We played Area 15 yesterday, and people were so supportive of us opening that show. 

Matt: We just really appreciate the love after 20 years of doing this. So it’s really cool.

Logan: Thank you so much for taking the time. I’m looking forward to your set tonight!

Set Your Goals played an electric set at the Allianz Stage that was an absolute joy to watch. With enough energy to power the whole festival, Jordan and Matt picked up right where they left off. They have wrapped up their shows for 2025 but recently announced that they will be playing Slam Dunk Festival in May of 2026. You can find tickets here. I’m eagerly awaiting what Jordan and Matt have in store for the future of Set Your Goals. Tune in Monday nights 9-11pm for Downey’s Hour for your latest festival news and more coverage of When We Were Young Festival!

Cover photo by Sophia Juliette, courtesy of When We Were Young Festival.

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From the beginning, Wang made it clear that age has given him a new perspective on comedy. He began with jokes about eating more antioxidants and losing his skill on the monkey bars, material that clearly resonated with the mostly older audience. Although he touched briefly on more juvenile topics like edible bras, most of his set relied on what I call “adulting” humor: jokes that lean heavily on the shared understanding that sometimes, being an adult can be a bit absurd. As a nineteen-year-old (and I suspect the youngest person at the Englert that night), I understand that I am probably not Sheng Wang’s intended audience. I did find a few of his deliveries to be a bit cringeworthy, but for the most part, his oddball humor struck a chord with me, even if I couldn’t relate to much of his material; I found myself keeled over in laughter more than a few times that night.

The rest of the theater enjoyed the performance as much, if not more, than I did; nearly every joke was met with uproarious laughter. Occasionally during the set, I would hear one woman sitting behind me whisper to her friend through giggles, “That’s so real!” Towards the end of the night, Wang remarked on the demographic of people that tend to come to his shows. He complimented the audience on being such laid-back, friendly people, and thanked them genuinely for their love and support. As someone who’d gotten to the show early that night, I was able to observe a little bit of that audience dynamic, and I think Wang is right on the money. Quite frankly, I can’t imagine anyone getting rowdy or irate at one of his performances; he exudes a cool energy that you just can’t help but be calmed by.

However, to me, Wang’s biggest asset is his creativity: he frames mundane events like jury duty as wacky adventures that the whole audience can enjoy. In one particularly well-received bit, he described his experience backpacking through a forest with one of his friends. As he relayed his journey to the campsite, he told us how, as a part of the backpacking experience, he had to abandon his car on the side of the highway and walk the remaining twenty-six miles to the campsite. Wang trotted across the stage, commenting on how absurd it felt to him to hike when he had a perfectly good car: “I’m a Subaru!”

Overall, Sheng Wang’s time at the Englert was well-spent. I thoroughly enjoyed his performance— as well that of his opener, Kevin Camia, who did a delightfully self-deprecating fifteen-minute set to get the audience warmed up. Both comedians delivered big laughs, but Wang’s inventiveness and whimsy were the highlight of the night for me. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does next.

Like he suggests, I think he’ll only be getting better from here.

The post Review: Sheng Wang Shines at the Englert appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Well, yes, obviously. Fish have pain receptors like the ones found in humans, and when they are injured, they act how you’d expect an animal in pain to act.

But consider this: we’re not fish. 

We don’t know what fish feel. What we can identify physiologically as pain in a fish’s body might not be expressed that way in their minds. Maybe fish pain feels different from human pain.

And consider this: maybe we don’t care.

Humans as a species have a reputation for treating other animals like playthings. We eat them en masse, experiment on them, dress them up and keep them as pets. We grind their bodies in large metal machines, keep them locked in cages and pens. We manipulate them as we see fit. 

Maybe, to a fish, we are a race of uncaring, unfeeling gods.

In How Fish is Made (2022, Wrong Organ), you play as, quite literally, a fish out of water who must make its way through a mysterious, pixelated landscape that walks the line between cold, unfeeling machine and graphic, fleshy human organ. As you traverse through the machine’s disgustingly rendered belly, you encounter other fish, who seem to have only one question for you: are you going UP or DOWN? You must answer every fish, but, interestingly, you can change your answer at will— the game doesn’t make you commit to your choice until the final room.

The mechanics of the game for the PC are relatively simple. You use your arrow keys to move forward and backward, your mouse to rotate, and the spacebar to interact with fish. It’s also a short game, clocking in at around 30-45 minutes to complete. But despite its simplicity, this game contains a surprising amount of depth. The environment, while pretty low-poly, evokes a visceral sense of discomfort and disgust through its depictions of disturbing body horror imagery. (The example that immediately comes to mind is the lotus seed pods, which have small, beady eyes instead of seeds.) And as you inch past your surroundings, your fishy flopping is accompanied by a score of mechanical whirs and fleshy squelches enough to make skin crawl. 

The game’s driving force is its NPCs: your fellow fish. When you first crash-land into the story, you meet a large fish who presents you with a choice — UP or DOWN — that will haunt you for the rest of the game. Every fish you meet afterwards will ask you the same question, but each one has a different perspective on the issue. One fish with a bent spine preaches the gospel of UP with a maniacal intensity, while another ensnared in a ring of plastic confidently declares that DOWN is the way to go. Some fish seem almost cartoonish in their convictions, while others act more human. A fish you meet will ask you whether they should travel UP with their family, or DOWN with their best friend. “I don’t want to choose,” they squeal, “if I can’t know exactly how it will turn out!”

At its core, How Fish Is Made breaks the human experience down to its most basic component: choice. And yet, when playing, you’ll notice that there are no humans in sight, only fish. However, there is a distinct human presence that remains unspoken. In one room, human voices play from distant recordings. The lights and buttons you find in the different rooms are fully functional, installed (presumably) by a human. In one of the most quietly disturbing moments of the game, you find one fish dead, trapped inside a condom filled with an unsavory white goo.

It’s interesting, then, that this game is about choice. As I mentioned before, humans typically remove most elements of choice from the life of a fish; we act almost like gods. So if humans are gods to fish, able to manipulate them at will, then perhaps the choices a fish makes in its lifetime are essentially meaningless. Whether it is eaten, used for testing, or kept as a pet, every fish ends up the same way: dead. Does it matter what the fish chooses to do in the meantime?

I fell in love with this game not because of its striking graphics, easy gameplay, or clever dialogue, but because of the way it considers the emptiness of choice. As soon as you are presented with the game’s central question — UP or DOWN? — you know that it doesn’t really matter which way you go. It’s not as if one path leads to death and the other salvation; this isn’t that type of game. You don’t get to choose if you die, you just get to choose how. You’re a fish.

In How Fish Is Made’s most memorable cutscene, a dancing parasite (I promise, this makes more sense in context) sings a song to you in front of pictures of decaying flesh and wriggling bugs. In the middle of his slideshow, he shows you a picture of a heap of dead fish in a cannery. On top, text reads: “Do Fish Feel Pain?” For the longest time, we humans didn’t think so, and we treated fish accordingly. But pain exists regardless of whether we perceive it or not.

When we picture a god of humans, we typically think of it as resembling ourselves. We draw them in human form, call them human names, and imagine that they understand human pain. But what if they can’t? What if the entities that control our fates, that make our choices virtually worthless, don’t understand the pain of deliberation that goes into making a decision? What if they exist only to use us while we live, harvest us when we die, and make our bodies into the filling of a delicious sandwich? 

What if they don’t know — or don’t care — How Fish Is Made?

The post Ethical Gaming: Choices, God, and “How Fish Is Made” appeared first on KRUI Radio.