Tony Dehner

As summer winds down and school rolls back into session, we’ve been looking back on the music that made our summer. From festivals around the state to live sets straight from our studios in Cedar Falls, we’ve been busy bringing our listeners “music that matters”. Check out some highlights from Studio One’s summer schedule and look ahead with us at what’s to come in the next few months as well.

JUNE

Studio One Underground with “whiskey gospel” group, King of the Tramps

The music festival scene in Iowa gets bigger and better every year! It's an exciting time for live music fans in our state, but it can also get a little overwhelming if you're trying to make plans for the summer. We're here to help with our list of festivals happening in Iowa.

The Aubur, IA band King Of The Tramps are in the middle of a tour, and that included a stop at the Des Moines Social Club to perform live on IPR's Studio One Underground!

The Des Moines hip-hop artist is having a busy year. His new EP Riot Gear was released earlier this year, and his label Media Fresh will be releasing music by additional artists this summer. We talked about all of this, and more, and heard some great music during a live performance on IPR's Studio One Tracks!

The Host Country are a band that's definitely evolved over the years. Originally a folk-inspired duo, they added a rhythm section for their first full-length album, and expanded to a five-piece band with two electric guitars in the past year. The Host Country brought their bigger, more rockin' sound to Studio One Underground in March, and now you can hear their performance right here.

As we look forward to upcoming Studio One live events in 2018, we still enjoy taking a look back at what we accomplished in the previous year. With that in mind, we hope you enjoy this live set from Iowa City singer-songwriter Elizabeth Moen, recorded in our Cedar Falls studios in 2017.

IPR's Studio One Underground series is back for 2018, and we got off to a great start in January with the long-running Iowa band The Nadas!

Despite the crazy cold outside, it was a full house in the Basement of the Des Moines Social Club.We were treated to two great sets of music during the evening, including songs from The Nadas' upcoming new album One Louder, plus a few "crusty rusty old ones" that had the crowd singing along.

Lots of new music was released in 2017; here at Iowa Public Radio, we received more than 2,000 albums. If wading through all of that sounds overwhelming, never fear. During this hour of Talk of Iowa, host Charity Nebbe talks with Tony Dehner and Mark Simmet of Iowa Public Radio's Studio One about their favorite albums of the year. 

We've also had our most musically-minded staff curate their top five favorite albums of this year, including Morning Edition host Clay Masters. Check out our Spotify playlist and read album reviews below. 

Gloom Balloon albums are known for their extensive production, and Gloom Balloon live shows are known for their unpredictability and exuberance. For our October trip to the Des Moines Social Club, Gloom Balloon gave us something special for Studio One Underground.

It's just about time for our monthly trip to the Des Moines Social Club, as we welcome Middle Western to Studio One Underground on June 1st!

Middle Western is the Iowa-based "supergroup" featuring David Zollo and William Elliott Whitmore, along with Stephen "The Kid" Howard, Brian Cooper and Stevie Doyle. This is Middle Western's second appearance on Studio One Underground: the band joined us last June as we highlighted artists participating in the Iowa Music Project.

Regular listeners of IPR's Studio One Tracks and Gas Money will recognize Dustin Smith as the leader of the Des Moines band The Maytags, but lately he's been branching out and creating new music incorporating a wide variety of styles and influences. Dustin joined us at the Des Moines Social Club in March to present some of his new songs, and a few from his previous band Dustin Smith & The Sunday Silos. Backed by a terrific band of local musicians and performing before a packed house, Dustin showed a whole new side of his songwriting.

Wayne Coyne, best known as the leader of the long-running band The Flaming Lips, is having a busy year so far, and it's only February! The latest album from The Flaming Lips, Oczy Mlody, was released in January, with a tour beginning in March (including a stop in Des Moines in April). And now he has a traveling art exhibit entitled Works By Wayne Coyne Featuring King's Mouth, which will be on display at the Waterloo Center For The Arts now through April 23rd.

In the long history of rock and roll music, Iowa is, unfortunately, best known as the state where Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash. Of course, there’s much more to it than that. The UNI Museum’s exhibit Ballroom Bash: Iowa’s Rock n’ Roll Legacy shines a light on Iowa’s influence and importance in rock history. The exhibit has been on display at UNI’s Rod Library since August of 2016. It’s a collaboration between the UNI Museum and the Iowa Rock n’ Roll Music Association.

Mark your calendars. The third annual Hinterland music festival is happening August 4th-5th in St. Charles. The lineup has been announced, and it's terrific.

"We wanted to pick something a little bit different than what we did last year -  kind of bring out a different crowd, but also kind of accommodate the crowd we had curated here from the beginning," says Sam Summers, organizer for the festival. 

IPR's Studio One Underground series for 2017 has begun! On Thursday the 5th, we returned to the Des Moines Social Club for our monthly live broadcast, with our guests the Surf Zombies performing two terrific sets. While we were at it, we talked about the band's recent honors bestowed upon them by the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame and an Iowa brewery. And as if all that weren't enough, the Surf Zombies were kind enough to help jump-start the IPR van at the end of an especially cold January night!

We received around 1,800 albums this year, and we put just under 900 of those into rotation on IPR's Studio One. There's been so much incredible music released this year; it's impossible to get to all of it. Never fear! We've created a guide. 

Below, you'll find lists of favorites from 2016 from all three of IPR's Studio One Tracks hosts, alongside lists from IPR's Sean McClain and Clay Masters.