The Faint “Doom Abuse” SQE The Omaha, Neb., indie-whatever-it-is returns with the band’s first album in six years, and in many ways, it’s classic Faint. A lot is going on all over the album, with the first few tracks (“Help in the Head,” “Mental Radio,” and “Evil Voices” and “Salt
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Posted April 09, 2014in Sound Check
Posted April 09, 2014in Food Dude
Dining in the ruins
American restaurant history spins many tales of blind luck. In 1929, Malcom Nichols, the prudish mayor of Boston, Mass., banned Eugene O’Neill’s infamous play. “Strange Interlude.” Promoters moved the five-hour show to downtown Quincy, across the street from a new restaurant built by ice-cream man Howard Johnson. Since the long
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Posted April 09, 2014in The Sound
Combichrist is risen
Combichrist — the aggro-tech brainchild of the Norwegian-born Andy LaPegua — has been accused in the past of being overly aggressive, misogynistic, racist and glorifying of violence. It’s nothing that metal and goth acts haven’t been dealing with for years, but LaPegua looks at his critics and sees cognitive dissonance.
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Posted April 09, 2014in Your View
Braley needs to remember his roots
Bruce Braley’s message to a roomful of Texas trial lawyers is still reverberating. But somehow the issue that should have turned heads didn’t. What should have had Iowans across all party lines feeling disgusted is that Braley told a group of non-Iowans that if they gave him campaign money, he
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Posted April 09, 2014in Sound Circuit
Improving the product
The Des Moines Music Coalition has often preached the concept of inclusion and unity — helping to promote music of all styles and genres. Then it has often turned around and continued to promote the same acts that it promoted the year before. But this year could be different. Yes,
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Posted April 09, 2014in On the Move
DMSC sets grand opening date
DMSC sets grand opening date The Des Moines Social Club has finally set a date for its grand opening at its new permanent home at the downtown Firehouse, 900 Mulberry St. A free Grand Opening Party will celebrate the launch of the new space on Saturday, May 10 from 5-9
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Posted April 09, 2014in News of the Weird
JOB SECURITY IN THE PAPERWORK MINE “The trucks full of paperwork come every day,” wrote The Washington Post in March, down a country road in Boyers, Pa., north of Pittsburgh, and descend “into the earth” to deliver federal retiree applications to the eight “supermarket”-sized caverns 230 feet below ground where
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Posted April 09, 2014in Joe's Neighborhood
Fathers and sons
Old farmers in the Midwest tell tales of winter blizzards so fierce that a farmer had to tie a rope from the house to the barn to be able to get back home. The tied-off rope kept the farmer from getting lost in the blinding snow and freezing to death
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Posted April 09, 2014in On The Tube
‘Fargo’ the flop
Only one word best describes the Coen Brothers’ 1996 movie “Fargo”: genius. It creates a parallel universe where a desperate family man contracts with criminals and gets tripped up by a cop who’s shrewder than she looks. The Coens keep comedy and carnage, satire and suspense, in perfect balance. As
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Posted April 09, 2014in Political Mercury
Republican challenger for governor says he’s the true conservative
Tom Hoefling wears the underdog label with pride. The Lohrville Republican, a long-time conservative activist, is on the ballot in the GOP gubernatorial primary, the lone challenger there to Gov. Terry Branstad, a five-term officeholder seeking a sixth, four-year stint at Terrace Hill. Does Hoefling, 53, a political consultant, think
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