This Saturday, Mar 6, 2010 at 8:00 PM  (7:00 PM DOORS)

JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound with guests to be announced  at The Blue Moose Tap House (formerly The Industry) – Iowa City

JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound“The Real Deal” – Chicago Tribune, 05/29/09

In his 1970 Playboy Interview, Ray Charles described soul as “people who do things from the heart.” In performance and on record, there is no question that JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound are 100% soul. Like Otis fronting the Stooges, JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound get crowds twisting and writhing on the floor, something that’s been sorely missing from live music.

Brooks knocks out his audience with heart and raw emotion, while the Uptown Sound’s post-punk attack updates the MG’s and JB’s groove model, resulting in pure and unrelenting soul music that ranges from sweaty on-the-one workouts, dance-punk booty shakers, garage-rock thump humps, and aching R&B ballads without a missed step in between. JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound are not just another throwback group, they came to be during an age of war, manifesting their style of aggressive dance music with lyrics that dig deeper than the standard “baby, baby” fare.

“Neo-soul glory” – New York Times

Born in the great melting pot of Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood in 2007, guitarist Billy Bungeroth, drummer Kevin Marks, and bassist Ben Taylor (Beat Down Sound/September Sessions soundtrack) lay down a ferocious foundation for the soulful shouts of Mr. JC Brooks. The son of a Jersey funk diva set adrift by the disco era, he’s renowned for his take-no-prisoners stage style, leaving audiences with no other choice than to get up and move!

Brooks & co. kicked off 2009 with a bang, playing to an ecstatic SRO crowd at Chicago’s historic Park West Theater, where they were MC and house band for the Numero Group’s critically acclaimed Eccentric Soul Revue. They’ve collaborated with greats like Syl Johnson, the Notations, the Impressions’ Nate Evans, and Tortoise’s Dan Bitney. They’ve appeared on WGN-TV and BBC 6, cut a live session for influential independent radio station WFMU, and been featured in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Magazine, TimeOut Chicago, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Now armed with their explosive debut album Beat of Our Own Drum (with Fall ’09 European release via Vampisoul Records) these intense young soul stirrers are bringing it to your door, ready to tour, score, and not be ignored.

JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound are for the people remaining awake through a great revolution… for people who want to move and not just sit tight…
for soul people!

“One of the most energetic, joyful live bands going on today… like if Otis Redding individually whipped each member of the Velvet Underground off of heroin, and transformed them into a disciplined, show-stopping Stax soul band.” – minneapolisf**kingrocks.com

For Tickets & More Info, visit:  www.ticketweb.com

The Blue Moose
211 Iowa Ave
Iowa City, IA 52240

Upcoming ‘Live at Prairie Lights’ readings have distinctive Iowa flavor

Four consecutive readings in the “Live from Prairie Lights” series, streamed live and archived at http://www.writinguniversity.org, share a distinctive Iowa flavor. The free events, all scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. at Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St. in downtown Iowa City, are:

Nicholas J. Pace

Pace served as secondary principal at North Tama Junior-Senior High School and a social studies teacher and basketball coach at Davis County and Seymour, Iowa, before returning to his alma mater as a faculty member and coordinator of the UNI Principalship Program.

When a senior in his tiny rural high school came out, Pace started down an unexpected path that would change his outlook on school leadership, and transform his practice. Presented in eight unique stories in students’ own words, his book reveals their challenges, fears, and triumphs — and shows how their schools and the people in them both helped and hurt.

Ellen Lewin

“Gay Fatherhood” is the result of interviews Lewin conducted with nearly 100 gay men who have or are trying to have children. The book chronicles the men’s lives, investigating how they cope with political attacks from the right and left, including criticism from peers in the gay community who view parenthood as a sign of conformity.

Learn about the book in greater detail at http://www.news-releases.uiowa.edu/2009/December/121409gay-fatherhood-book.html.

John D’Agata

A Publishers Weekly starred review of “About a Mountain” stated, “In this circuitous, stylish investigation, D’Agata (‘Halls of Fame’) uses the federal government’s highly controversial (and recently rejected) proposal to entomb the U.S.’s nuclear waste located in Yucca Mountain, near Las Vegas, as his way into a spiraling and subtle examination of the modern city, suicide, linguistics, Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream,’ ecological and psychic degradation, and the gulf between information and knowledge.

“Acting as a counterpoint to Yucca is the story of a teenager named Levi who leapt to his death off Las Vegas’ Stratosphere Motel. It is testament to D’Agata’s skillful organization of the book, broken into Who, What, When, Where, and Why, and his use of a rapid sequences of montages — Levi’s suicide is spliced with Orwellian Congressional debates on the stability of Yucca Mountain — that readers will be pleasurably (and perhaps necessarily) disoriented but never distracted from the themes knitting together the ostensibly unrelated voices of Native American activists, politicians, geologists, Levi’s parents, D’Agata’s own mother, and a host of zany Las Vegans.

“A sublime reading experience, aesthetically rewarding and marked by moral courage and humility.”

D’Agata is also the author of “The Next American Essay” and “The Lost Origins of the Essay.”

Lucy Silag

The sequel to her debut, “Beautiful Americans,” Silag’s teen/young-adult novel – now in development for a movie — follows exchange students who are searching the French countryside for a missing classmate. She has written for many publications, including Salon, Allure, New York Magazine, Real Simple Travel and the Independent on Sunday magazine.

Visit Silag’s blog at http://lucysilag.blogspot.com/.

–University of Northern Iowa faculty member Nicholas J. Pace will read from “The Principal’s Challenge: Learning from Gay and Lesbian Students” on Friday, Feb. 5.
–University of Iowa women’s studies faculty member Ellen Lewin will read from “Gay Fatherhood” on Tuesday, Feb. 9.
–UI nonfiction writing faculty member John D’Agata will read from “About a Mountain” on Wednesday, Feb. 10.
–And Iowa Writers’ Workshop student and Iowa native Lucy Silag will read from “Wanderlust: A Beautiful Americans Novel” on Thursday, Feb. 11.

The Writers’ Workshop and the Nonfiction Writing Program are units in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

UI arts events are searchable on the UI Master Calendar: http://calendar.uiowa.edu. For additional arts information, visit http://www.uiowa.edu/artsiowa. To receive UI arts news by e-mail, go to http://list.uiowa.edu/archives/acr-news.html and click the link “Join or Leave ACR News,” then follow the instructions.

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa Arts Center Relations, 300 Plaza Centre One, Iowa City, IA 52242-2500

MEDIA CONTACTS: Jan Weissmiller, jan@prairielights.com; Winston Barclay, 319-384-0073, winston-barclay@uiowa.edu

Back By Popular Demand

What a great way to kick off the Holidays!  Englert Theatre is presenting the

2010 Festival Of Carols, a FREE family event featuring :

• sing-a-longs
• performances by Crescendo Children’s Choir
• Old Capitol Chorus
• Market St. Theatre School
• UI Swing Club
• Dan Knight                                               FREE HOT COCOA!!!!
• Kevin “B.F.” Burt
• and much more

This event will take place on Thursday, Dec 19th at 7:00 p.m at the Englert Theatre, 221 E. Washington St, Iowa City, and is sponsored by the Community Foundation of Johnson County, MidWestOne Bank and Gay & Ciha Funeral & Cremation Services.  Thanks to all the sponsors of this wonderful event!

So bring kids, friends, and family and see you there!

Free $10 Gift Card

…and don’t forget  you can buy tickets to any TWO Englert Theatre events in 2010 and get a FREE $10 Englert gift card! Just call or stop by the box office (not available online). The free gift card can be used on any future event except movies.