Comments on: Secret History of the Cedar Valley

Secret History of the Cedar Valley

tracy_the_astonishing — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 22:22:29 -0800

Punk rock in north-central Iowa, 1977-2007 as featured in The Secret History of the Cedar Valley, an exhibit at Wartburg College (Waverley, Iowa). The opening reception is this Saturday, March 17, with performances by Modern Life is War, Beat Strings, Brooks Strause, and The Torpedo Darlings [WARNING: these four band links have music on them!]. --more inside

By: tracy_the_astonishing

tracy_the_astonishing — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 22:22:44 -0800

Wartburg professor Matthew Wilson-Pickering is a veteran of the Cedar Valley scene who came back to Iowa to take a teaching position near the town where he grew up. One of the innovative things he has done in the art department at Wartburg is a very good courseware catalog on del.icio.us. Perhaps also worth debating: how does punk rock square with Wartburg's central mission?

A capital addition to anyone's Iowa punk rock resources.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 22:25:07 -0800

Neat stuff. The only band I know out of those is Modern Life Is War, which shows up on comps from time to time.

By: freebird

freebird — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 22:50:44 -0800

I don't know any of those bands, but it's beautiful in there. Thanks.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 23:47:14 -0800

The stink of human sin is more that I can bear.

By: caddis

caddis — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:55:02 -0800

Long live "The Law!"

By: bardic

bardic — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 04:56:36 -0800

Des Moines Rock City.

By: Kudos

Kudos — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:51:19 -0800

Awesome. Brings back a few memories.

By: MarshallPoe

MarshallPoe — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:45:09 -0800

Nice post. I remember some of this from my days at Grinnell College...

By: slogger

slogger — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:46:12 -0800

Cool. I'll have to pass this along to Mrs. Slogger, who grew up near Waterloo. Who knew central Iowa was such a hotbed of counterculture!

By: djseafood

djseafood — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 11:28:49 -0800

I remember seeing House of Large Sizes quite a bit while growing up in Des Moines. neat.

By: kittyb

kittyb — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:49:47 -0800

Wow... I went to Wartburg College from 91-95. House of Large Sizes was definitely sort of the ubiquitous everybody-knows-them band, although Fat Bertha and the Love Shakers is one name that pops out at me as being really huge with the people I knew. We had really great music opportunities for such a small college -- I think our biggest on-campus show was probably Twin-Cities-born Trip Shakespeare, but I'm now realizing how foggy my memory of that time is. The radio station was fun, too. Really neat post, thank you! U-rah, rah, rah!

By: hal incandenza

hal incandenza — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 18:00:13 -0800

Well I'll be damned. I went to high school in Waverly and had a show on Wartburg's radio station, KWAR (rawk spelled backwards!). I even played a few songs by Houses of Large Sizes. Wow, something I never expected to see it on Metafilter. I live in San Francisco now, and interestingly it seems like there was a higher percentage of punk rockers there than here.

By: tracy_the_astonishing

tracy_the_astonishing — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 21:12:25 -0800

Vive the Iowan diaspora.

By: thedaniel

thedaniel — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 21:49:01 -0800

Vive the Iowan diaspora. Hear hear!!