Studio One

Audiophiles and live music enthusiasts of Iowa, UNITE! This is your season. Summertime is for craft beer, silly love songs, and dancing around barefoot at concerts. Am I right?!

You have been hearing our Studio One hosts Mark Simmet and Tony Dehner talk about which songs they're listening to on River to River lately. We also want to direct you to awesome live music happening this month around the state. Behold: The June Music Listical! 

Friday, June 8 --- Real Estate at Codfish Hollow

is the new album from the Boston-based band Lake Street Dive.  What is striking about the record is the evolution of their sound- the strong foundation of soulful, jazzy classic pop remains, but with a new rock and roll edge added.  It's a very appealing sound, and it certainly doesn't hurt that the songwriting on Free Yourself Up is top notch.  Many of the new songs were written or co-written by Iowa City native Bridget Kearney, who plays bass in the band.  Kearney and her bandmates Rachael Price (lead vocalist), Mike Olson (guitar and trumpet), and Mike Calabrese (drums) self-pro

Victoria Legrand & Alex Scally have been making music together as Beach House since 2004, when they formed the dream pop band in Baltimore.  7 is the duo's 7th full-length album of new material, and it's clearly an important record for Beach House.  Through their label, Sub Pop Records, they have commented on their recording process and what they intended 7 to be.  According to Beach House:  "We are interested by the human mind's (and nature's) tendency to create forces equal and opposite to those present.  Thematically, this record often deals with the beauty that ari

We're getting ready to wrap up our Studio One Underground series for the first half of 2018, as we'll be welcoming King Of The Tramps to the show on Thursday, June 7th at 7 pm! Based in Auburn, King Of The Tramps travel regularly across the state playing what they call "whiskey gospel" - a blend of country, soul, blues and rock n' roll that has broad appeal among fans of all kinds of music.

Okkervil River is a river in St.

Kyle Thomas performs and records using the far more expressive nom de plume King Tuff, and of course that's also the name of his band.  The music of King Tuff is almost always described as "garage rock", and while that's not an inaccurate classification, the growth toward a more sophisticated indie rock and power pop sound is apparent four albums in.  The new record, The Other, was totally written and produced by Thomas.  He also played all of the instruments (including guitars, various synths/keyboards, and autoharp), except drums (played mainly be Ty Segall) and

Critical Equation is the tenth full-length studio album from Dr. Dog.  The Philadelphia band began in 1999, gathering fans and hometown support, and eventually putting forth their self-produced and self-released debut album in 2001.  Toby Leaman (bass) and Scott McMicken (lead guitar) are the lead vocalists in Dr. Dog, and their musical partnership goes all the way back to eighth grade.  On Critical Equation the band continues to refine it's appealing indie rock sound.  Much of Dr.

Greta Kline is the daughter of two actors- Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates, and although she has done a bit of acting herself, Kline is best known for her lo-fi, DIY, indie pop songs.  She has released a lot of material under various names, including the monikers Ingrid Superstar and Frankie Cosmos.  At age 24, Kline has over 40 albums of home recordings- just check her Bandcamp discography.  Vessel is the third "official" studio album from Frankie Cosmos, the group comprised of Kline and her bandmates. 

Although Ben Harper made his reputation in the 1990s as an alternative rocker, blues, gospel and soul have informed his music from the very beginning.  Harper has gone on record as saying that he regards Charlie Musselwhite to be the best harmonica player in the world.  Mississippi-born Musselwhite has been active as an electric blues sideman and  bandleader since the 1960s, with many records to his credit.  In 2014 he and Harper won a Grammy award for Best Blues Album.  That was for 2013's Get Up!- their first record together.  Five years later we have the welcome followup- No

We're bringing in another great singer-songwriter from Missouri to Studio One Underground! Beth Bombara will be joining us for our live broadcast from the Des Moines Social Club on May 3rd!

The St. Louis-based Bombara has toured nationally and opened for Pokey LaFarge, Waxahatchee and Madisen Ward & The Mama Bear, and is developing a following in the Des Moines area. She cites George Harrison, Tom Petty, Neko Case and Aimee Mann as influences on her folk-rock sound.

In a nice bit of synchronicity, Wye Oak's new album The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs was released on the same day that the band played The Mission Creek Festival in Iowa City this month.  Since their self-released debut in 2007, the duo from Baltimore have sent a new full-length record into the world every couple of years or so.  That debut album was impressive enough to gain re-release on Merge Records, and Wye Oak have been with that well-respected indie label ever since.  Beginning with a folk-influenced sound eleven years ago, Jenn Wasner (lead vocals, guitars, bass) and A

Erudite and often springing from some dusty old corner of history, the music of The Decemberists sounds like what one would expect from a band that named themselves after the 1825 Russian insurrection known as the Decembrist (sic) revolt.  But The Decemberists are also a tuneful indie rock/baroque pop band, as one would expect with acknowledged influences like Morrissey, R.E.M., and XTC.  I'll Be Your Girl is the eighth studio album from the group, formed in 2000 in Portland, Oregon.  Like a lot of music coming out these days, the record is informed (in a nonspecific way) by the mo

Nathaniel Rateliff 's story is the "overnight success" tale of  a formerly obscure musician who comes out of nowhere with a song that catches fire, propelling the musician and his band to seemingly universal awareness.  Of course, there's a lot of hard work, struggle and even desperation behind that story.  St.

As I entered the lobby of the Westin Crown Center hotel in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, I was met with a cacophony of sound. People milled about, talking and laughing. Sounds of guitars, mandolins and fiddles wafted through the lobby as musicians jammed.  It was mid-February and the opening of the 30th Folk Alliance International annual four-day conference.

Kim Deal and Tanya Donelly began The Breeders in 1989.  The critical acclaim that Deal was receiving as part of The Pixies, and that Donelly was enjoying as part of Throwing Muses, continued with their new side project.  Donelly left after a couple of years, and Kim Deal recruited her sister Kelley Deal to join up.  As the 1990s rolled on, The Breeders had a hit single and album ("Cannonball" from 1993's Last Splash).  ​There have been times of inactivity for the group, with various personnel changes and years between albums.  The new full-length release All Nerve is the first from

Dan Auerbach is keeping things humming along at his Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville.  One of his new production projects is Onion, the fifth full-length album from the Oakland, California band Shannon & The Clams.  The quartet are known for their garage punk take on 1950s and '60s pop genres like doo-wop, rockabilly, girl group, surf, and other variations of good old rock 'n' roll.  Auerbach is a fine fit as producer for Shannon & The Clams (Shannon is Shannon Shaw on bass and vocals).  Like the band, he loves those genres, too.  But he also brings his productio

We'll be expanding our borders a bit on IPR's Studio One Underground in the coming months, as we'll be welcoming some great musicians from Missouri in April and May! First up, from the Ozarks, it's Izabel Crane!

Last week Franz Ferdinand, and this week Belle and Sebastian.  Two Featured Release bands in a row from Glasgow, Scotland.  Belle and Sebastian have been around a bit longer though, and they haven't had the kind of mainstream success that Franz Ferdinand have enjoyed.  Founding member Stuart Murdoch leads the band named after the French novel Belle et Sebastien, which he and his mates knew from a television adaptation.  The new album, How To Solve Our Human Problems, is filled with their distinctive indie pop songs- so filled that Belle and Sebastian originally released it

IPR is always looking for new ways to bring great music to our listeners, and more and more, that means going beyond what we do on air. It's no surprise to anyone that social media is playing a growing role in reaching our listeners. With this in mind, we've invested in video equipment that will make it possible for us to regularly stream our in-studio performances. We've already done it on our Classical stream, and this week you'll have two chances to catch Studio One events on Facebook Live!

No doubt many have googled "Franz Ferdinand" and stumbled upon the fact that this was the guy whose assassination sparked World War I.  The band Franz Ferdinand began in Glasgow, Scotland in 2002.  They liked the alliteration of the name, and mused that perhaps one day they would be more well-known than the Archduke himself.  Releasing a solid, danceable indie rock album like Always Ascending every few years can only help to make that more and more likely.