Mission Creek est. 2005

TL; DR: Venues are also our homes; Reminder: Brìghde Chaimbeul plays this week (Fri, Nov 21 at Trumpet Blossom Cafe)

Gratitude

I recently dipped into Minneapolis to see the pre-Broadway run of Purple Rain. The new show, directed by Lileana Blaine-Cruz (whose otherworldly & beautiful direction of Zora Howard’s BUST ran at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in spring 2025 starring Iowa City’s own Caroline Clay), is messy, overlong, and still an enjoyable time. The elements of a stunning production are present; they just need to be arranged and re-focused.

A central set-piece of the show is a music venue called The First, a sendup of Minneapolis club First Avenue where Prince filmed several scenes in the movie Purple Rain. First Avenue has evolved into one our country’s most revered rock clubs–serving as a launch pad for Prince, The Replacements, Husker Du, and so many bands–known, unknown, legendary, and forgotten–over the decades. Even as it grasps iconic status, First Avenue still feels like a community.

A few days ago, I read that Lefty’s Live Music, a 350-capacity room in Des Moines, is closing its doors before year-end. This follows the closure of another Des Moines venue, the 200-capacity Vaudeville Mews in October 2020. This leaves xBk (250-capacity) as one of the last-standing small clubs in our state capital. (There’s also the relatively new Locals and the jazz spot Noce.) Sadly, I never made it to Lefty’s, but its loss somehow still hurts. It wasn’t my local spot, but it was someone’s.

Not ironically, First Avenue’s CEO Dayna Frank played a major role, as co-founder of the National Independent Venue Association, in securing the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from congress in 2020—legislation that supported thousands of cultural venues during the pandemic shutdown. In Iowa City alone, at least six of our arts spaces welcomed the SVOG federal cash infusion: The Englert Theatre, FilmScene, Gabe’s, Hancher Auditorium, Riverside Theatre, and Wildwood Saloon. What if we had lost all (or any) of those places?

I don’t know if there’s a call to action here. Maybe I’m asking myself (asking you?) to think for a moment on the experiences we’ve had in these small rooms where we see & hold art, connect with our friends, and sometimes go alone just to be in our own heads as we consider the world around us. These places reflect some aspect of our community’s character–the dreams, the failures, the highs, the lows–sometimes all of it. (I mean, Jeff Tweedy recently called the load-in stairs at Gabe’s “a ladder”… with affection!) Continued gratitude to the folks who run and support these places–for profits, nonprofits, above ground, and underground. It’s hard work, the numbers rarely make sense, but the art & community connection, at their best, bring real joy and meaning to this town.

THIS FRIDAY: Mission Creek Presents

^{Brìghde Chaimbeul - Fri, Nov 21 at Trumpet Blossom Cafe w. special guests Netochka Nezvanova (music) and Jessie Kraemer (lit) - Tix available here (doors at 8 p.m. / arts at 9 p.m.)}

Friends & Family

The sometimes-passing-through-Iowa City author/instigator Adam Voith just released the first chapter of a new novel on his litstack Adam Voith Memos. (Adam runs the touring reading series Morning F*ckers, last seen locally at Mission Creek this past April) A lifetime ago, he toiled in the Christian rock scene. Decades later, he’s crafting a book inspired by those experiences. RIYL: INDIE LIT

Next-level artist & thinker Jen Percy visited Prairie Lights this week. She just published Girls Play Dead. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the UI’s Nonfiction Writing Program, Percy explores our existence with the fearlessness of a wartime journalist. In fact, she has frequently been a journalist in warzones. But she also reveals—with care & empathy—the devastation and trauma of our interior lives. If you missed the reading, consider the book.

QC friends: I am likely saying things you already know, but just in case, the impeccable OUTLETProgramme series in Rock Island presents El Khat tonight!

More soon, always,