https://mazuband.bandcamp.com/community

https://onlyechoes.bandcamp.com/album/sunsickness

https://ificouldjustgetsomesleep.bandcamp.com/

We’ll be closing at 7pm for this ticketed event.

(Tickets are required for this event. We will be closed to the public for this event.)

An evening of storytelling, interactive engagement, trivia, and a silent auction benefiting Investigate Midwest's organization.

You’re invited to join us on the evening of Wednesday, April 15th. Doors open at 5:30 PM, with the program beginning at 6:30 PM. Investigate Midwest will bring together a diverse group of storytellers for an evening centered on the theme "Not From Here." Through live storytelling, community engagement, and a silent auction benefiting Investigate Midwest’s investigative journalism and educational initiatives, the event aims to create a space where attendees can listen, reflect, and connect through stories of place, identity, and belonging.

The heart of the evening will be a live storytelling program featuring speakers sharing personal, off-script narratives. Storytellers will offer intimate, 10-minute stories exploring experiences of movement, transition, and what it means to navigate spaces and communities where one may feel like an outsider. The event welcomes a wide range of perspectives, encouraging meaningful conversation and shared understanding through the power of storytelling.

This event is made possible through the generous support of our sponsors and community partners. Their contributions help support Investigate Midwest’s mission of providing independent investigative journalism while creating opportunities for community storytelling and engagement. We are grateful for the organizations and individuals whose support helps bring this event to life.

Thank you to our sponsors:

Alan Swanson -Blank and McCune Realty

University of Iowa School of Journalism

New addition to the April calendar! We're proud to host a performance of this play, touring the US, on Monday April 13 at 4:30pm.
From @noctis.theatre.company The Last Time I Saw Caileigh is "a dark, funny and heartfelt one-act play that explores non-binary erasure through the lens of an unsolved mystery."
Admission to this special event is free and donations to the theater company are encouraged. Trumpet Blossom will match the final amount raised and donate it to United Action for Youth and their LGBTQ+ programs.
Doors will open at 4pm and the show lasts about 75 minutes. Our bar will be open for beverage purchases before and after the show but our kitchen will not be open. More info about the show can be found at the link in our bio and by visiting noctisheatre.com
Seating is limited so if you plan to attend, please RSVP via email trumpetblossom@gmail.com or DM me here :)
A special thanks to @mirandasimonne for bringing this to town 💗

Performances by Brian Johannesen, Jordan Sellergren, RAW SPACE, Pete Balestrieri, Elly Hoffmaier, and HVOG

Less than one week until our 14th Anniversary Party! Saturday April 11 we celebrate and we hope you can join us!
We'll feature a special menu highlighting some favorites from over the years and a few new dishes too.
We're looking forward to so many friends playing music on our stage starting at 5:30pm: @brianjohannesen @jsellergren @raw_space @petebalestrieri @penny.peach.jr @unsatisfyingsentiment ❤
The show is free and open to all; we'll be serving food 11am-8:30pm and the bar will remain open until 11:30pm. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the support. I truly couldn't do this without the love from the community and the dozens of amazing and generous folks I've worked with since before day one. Come party with us!
And check out that pic of the nearly-finished (and much smaller back then) stage from almost exactly 14 years ago, custom-built by @flatblackstudios & friends.
I never could have imagined the magic that thousands of talented musicians and artists would so graciously share on that stage. I'm forever indebted to everyone who booked, organized, worked, and played shows here, especially our deeply missed and dearest friend Chris of @feed_me_weird_things_iowa_city. I'm trying to keep it nice & weird for him.
So thanks for all the laughs & sometimes all the tears and all the food & beers & hugs & love. You're the best. Come hang soon!

tickets: https://littlevillagetickets.com/events/182744279/caroline-davis-with-gabi-vanek

$15 GA / $10 student (with ID)

$20 GA/student for this show AND Derek Monypeny show March 30

8pm doors / 8:30pm music

Caroline Davis bio:

Caroline Davis’s dreams for playing music come from a desire to connect and a wish for listeners to expand their ears, minds, and hearts. Her Swedish-British family moved from Singapore to the US around age 6, where she enjoyed R&B, full of horns that lured her to choose the saxophone. Caroline’s musical expression covers a wide range of styles. She has released eight of her own albums and is a collaborater on countless others. She has worked with Lee Konitz, John Zorn, Angelica Sanchez, The Femme Jam, Miles Okazaki, Nicole Mitchell, Rajna Swaminathan, and Matt Mitchell. Caroline has been a resident fellow of MacDowell, The Jazz Gallery, The Rockefeller Estate, Mutual Mentorship for Musicians, UCross, and Civitella Ranieri. She is a recipient of Guggenheim Foundation, Jerome Hill, Chamber Music America, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Jazz Gallery, and NYFA fellowships, and the winner of Downbeat Critic’s Poll Alto-Saxophone Rising Star Award. Her teaching practice centers around gender studies in jazz at The New School and a private saxophone studio at Manhattan School of Music. Caroline is an active advocate for gender equity (This Is A Movement) and current/formerly incarcerated people (Justice for Keith LaMar, Keys Beats Bars, Creatives Beyond Incarceration).

https://carolinedavismusic.bandcamp.com/album/fallows

Gabi Vanek bio:

Described as making “shadowy music that prickles on your skin” and “unafraid to be anything at all”, Gabi Vanek is a bassoonist who exists in a world of harsh noise and drone/doom. She’s performed as both an ensemble member and soloist at small and large festivals such as the Darmstädter Internationale Ferienkurse, International Double Reed Society, Oh My Ears, and exhibited at the Osaka University of the Arts Electro-Acoustic Music Festival. More likely, you’ll find her making noises in more “unconventional” spaces, like your local dive bar.

https://netochkanezvanova.bandcamp.com/

tickets: https://littlevillagetickets.com/events/182745503/derek-monypeny-kelby-clark-with-dan-padley

$15 GA / $10 student (with ID)

7pm doors, 7:30pm show

$20 GA/student for this show AND Caroline Davis show April 1

Derek Monypeny Bio:

Born in the Arizona desert, a veteran of multiple explorations into the Sahara desert via Morocco and Western Sahara, and now a resident of the Mojave, Derek Monypeny sees his musical mission as adding to and expanding on what he calls the "desert continuum;" the psychedelic sirocco swirl of desert-based stringed instruments played with utter abandon by musicians the world over.
Derek uses a variety of instruments to achieve these ends. In addition to guitar, he has recorded an album of solo oud recordings (Don't Bring Me Down, Bruce) and is currently performing and recording using the 15-string bulbul tarang (Indian electric banjo).
Derek is a former member of the bands Oaxacan (Oakland, CA), ALTO (Portland, OR), and Sir Richard Bishop's Freak Of Araby Ensemble.  He has collaborated and toured with artists such as Bill Orcutt, Jozef van Wissem, Mike Watt, Eva Aguila,  Ak'chamel, and many others. 

https://derekmonypeny.bandcamp.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sg9gOmln3s&t=304s

Kelby Clark Bio:

Kelby Clark is a Los Angeles-based banjo player originally hailing from South Georgia. He is inspired by the old-time music of his home state as well as drone, free improvisation, raga, and many other forms of both experimental and traditional music from around the world. Clark has released records and tapes on labels such as Tentative Power, Working Man Lay Down, Garden Portal, Aural Canyon, and Vaagner. He has also collaborated with other artists including Donald Miller (Borbetomagus), Joseph Allred, Jeremiah M. Carter, Sarah Viviana Valdez, Hal Lambert, and Mitchell Mobley. His most recent solo LP titled Language of the Torch was released in January of 2025.

"The way Clark attacks his instrument, allowing songs to unspool in tumbling, organized chaos is magnetic and feels distinctly his own" - The Quietus

https://kelbyclark.bandcamp.com/

Dan Padley Bio:

Dan Padley is a guitarist/composer based out of Iowa City, IA. Since studying music at the University of Iowa, Dan has performed with many artists including Deb Talan, Wayne Newton, Elizabeth Moen, River Glen, Dana T, Blake Shaw, comedian Jimmy Pardo, and many more. Dan has released several albums and EPs, including his most recent full length 'Crumbs, part II'.

https://danpadley.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-the-trumpet-blossom-again

https://highdiverecords.bandcamp.com/album/slimephone-surveillance

https://mrsoftheartintl.bandcamp.com/album/reflections-on-primitive-action

https://daisyglue.bandcamp.com/album/daisy-glue

https://earlygirl.bandcamp.com/music

https://misschristinemusic.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-deep-cuts

https://allegrahernandezmusic.bandcamp.com/

tickets: https://littlevillagetickets.com/events/182803185/chutes-dearborn

https://dearbornband.bandcamp.com/

https://chutes.bandcamp.com/album/nothings-growing-in-the-yard

$10 all ages, 8:30pm doors, 9pm show

https://freegrasstrio.bandcamp.com/track/jingle-hell

Freegrass:
@theeblakebass cello
@padleydan guitar
@tunedtotruth fiddle
Friends:
@stephaniecatlettsongs guitar & vocals
@goddard1257 viola
@alyxrushmusic vocals

https://vveckermusic.bandcamp.com/album/coastal-depression

https://justinkcomer.bandcamp.com/

https://willyager.bandcamp.com/

https://dicqbeats.bandcamp.com/

https://lucyxx.bandcamp.com/

https://birdlabs.bandcamp.com/album/borflans

https://jacoblampmansegodeath.bandcamp.com/album/jacob-lampmans-ego-death

https://davehelmer.bandcamp.com/album/such-a-clown

$10 no one turned away for lack of funds, all ages

50% of door proceeds donated to Iowa City Trans Mutual Aid Fund

https://www.france-rreally.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr3Y2r8kZc8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePcFdjjg8Ng

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWcWUZKj67k&t=1s

8:30pm music

$10, all ages

kitchen closes at 8pm, bar remains open for the show

https://koryreeder.bandcamp.com/

Kory Reeder, described as “one of the most captivating composers in modern classical music” (Dallas Observer), is an American composer and performer whose music is often introspective and atmospheric, investigating ideas of objectivity, place, immediacy, situation, and interaction with pieces ranging from symphonic works to text scores and computer-assisted improvisations. Kory runs/operates Sawyer Editions, a small-batch label specializing in contemporary, experimental, and improvised music, especially of new and unreleased artists and the Sawyer Spaces imprint focusing on field recordings and soundscape composition. https://www.koryreeder.com/

HVOG, aka Sarahann Kolder, is a solo semi-improvised vocal and pre-recorded audio project. Lyrics are diaristic and poetic with delivery alternating meditative and raw, a live experiment in articulation and soundscape that provokes states of presence and exaltation.

A long-time collaboration between saxophonist Charlotte Leung and composer-percussionist Levi Raleigh Brown, EudaeDuo specializes in both free improvisation and the performance of new compositions for their instruments. Their improvisations are eclectic and highly performative, often drawing inspiration from forms and images found in daily life.

830PM DOORS / 9PM MUSIC

$10 ALL AGES

KITCHEN CLOSES AT 9PM, BAR REMAINS OPEN FOR THE SHOW

https://mazuband.bandcamp.com/album/mazu

https://dreamthiefia.bandcamp.com/album/disrupt-the-flow-of-everyday-life

https://blisther.bandcamp.com/

8:30PM DOORS / 9PM MUSIC

$10, ALL AGES

KITCHEN CLOSES AT 9PM, BAR REMAINS OPEN FOR THE SHOW

https://rawspace.bandcamp.com/

https://sinnerfrenz.bandcamp.com/

https://birdlabs.bandcamp.com/music

Join Peter Balestrieri and friends for some holiday fun!

Live music from Pete—our favorite holiday saxophone Santa, Erik Whittaker, Dustin Busch, Phil Ochs, and Nozu

Free admission :)

8:30pm doors // 9pm music

$10 all ages

For two decades now, the duo of Weedghost has combined acoustic instrumentation with layers of electronic noise to channel the droning gospel from the depths of the hills themselves. Lush beds of drone loops intermingle with glacial shards to create a blissed out ambient wash as old as time itself.

Ion Alexakis focuses on the resilience of the working class through the Guthrie lens and performs with gutteral rawness reflective of the overwhelming burdens we have to endure through the unpredictables in life.

8:30pm doors // 9pm show

$10 all ages

8:30pm doors, 9pm music

$10 all ages

https://wombatnoise.bandcamp.com/

https://danpadley.bandcamp.com/album/crumbs-part-ii

https://netochkanezvanova.bandcamp.com/

8pm doors $20 GA / $10 student

tickets: https://littlevillagetickets.com/events/169823356/mission-creek-presents-brghde-chaimbeul-w-special-guests-tbd

Haunting, entrancing, breathtaking, beautiful – this open-eared, understatedly virtuosic performer is transforming and creating new definitions for Scottish folk in the 21st century.

Brìghde Chaimbeul is a leading purveyor of celtic experimentalism and a master of the Scottish smallpipes – the bellows-blown, mellower and more emotive cousin to the famous Highland bagpipes – and she’s taken them to the global stage.

A native Gaelic speaker from the Isle of Skye, Brìghde roots her music in her language and culture. She rose to prominence as a prodigy of traditional music, but has since begun a journey to take the smallpipes into uncharted territory. She has devised a completely unique way of arranging for pipe music that emphasises the rich textural drones of the instrument; the constancy of
sound that creates a trance-like atmosphere, played with enticing virtuosic liquidity.

She draws inspiration from the world of interconnected piping traditions, and her most recent album brings in influence from ambient, avant garde and electronic music. One can talk about Brìghde’s awards (BBC Young Folk Award; BBC Horizons Award; SAY Award nominee) and her wide array of collaborators (Caroline Polachek; Colin Stetson; Gruff Rhys; Aidan O'Rourke...) but after it all, her music speaks for itself.

7:30pm doors, 8pm music

$10 all ages

https://earlygirl.bandcamp.com/track/the-knife

https://ratbathmke.bandcamp.com/music

https://lipstickhomicide.bandcamp.com/album/out-utero

8:30pm doors, 9pm music

$15 GA / $10 Student, All Ages

Tickets:

https://littlevillagetickets.com/events/174417508/jon-mueller-tom-lecky-all-colors-present-with-stnic-pgc?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAad3VwZN83_nVt640E0aDfCTAHv7dGOf8NbEfatNNP-z_8ce-i6bpk9ajnyPsA_aem_cHt2dqIj8AUZ4-hZy07b-Q

https://www.rhythmplex.com/all-colors-present

In early 2025, All Colors Present was performed in ten cities throughout the midwestern and southeastern US, and will reach more cities throughout the east and west coasts before the year’s end. A collaboration with photographer Tom Lecky, it’s a nearly 60-minute sound and visual meditation.

I am very grateful to have worked with Tom on this and to have his photographs involved. They are an integral part of the performance, offering their own detail and mystery in such a complementary way to the sound.

Table of the Elements plan to release a physical edition of it. Here are some of their words about it…

“Here, recorded in real-time and with no overdubs, two crisp beats repeat and reverberate—one, then two; two, then one—in a confluence of hand and stick, drumhead, and heartbeat. Yet, from this seemingly metronomic exercise blossoms every possible tint and hue of infinite spectral sound.

An apt reference point resides within the broad, decades-spanning catalog of Table of the Elements. Like Tony Conrad’s surging Outside the Dream Syndicate, the aural and conceptual headwinds are real, but the perceived affronts of provocation are not. These works are not endurance challenges, nor are they threadbare minimalist upholstery. They are not obstacles. They are invitations. Within their simplicity and formalism await a sympathetic repose, a comfort. These are gestures of generosity.”

P//G//C Is an ever morphing acronym. A vehicle for exploring experimental soundscapes, ugly and ephemeral, harsh and haunting. Always improvised and unexpected.

Stnic — (pronounced ‘Saint-Nic’, or ‘Satan-ic) — is an experimental music project from Iowa City, IA. Based in a regular practice of free improvisation, they defy categorization by choosing to play without predetermined styles or goals; there is a constant sense of searching shared by the performers and audience. Embracing absurdity, their music carries elements of noise and postmodern collage while maintaining, or attempting to maintain, sincerity of expression. They emphasize the creative documentation of their process, recording all their sessions on tape and experimenting with different forms of media and production.
Sitting in a nest of splitter cables and extension chords, Patrick O’Connor outputs various toy keyboards, drum machines, a sampler, and numerous media players through a 4-track recorder.
Meanwhile, Levi Brown wrestles with a combination of drums, found percussion, and other acoustic instruments in a never-ending rotation of untested sounds.
Stnic’s secret weapon really-cool-rock is the voice of Jordan Decker, projected through an antique microphone. He tells stories, improvises poems, and utters non-sense, or, I should say, stuff that only makes sense to you.
The most recent addition to the group is Charlotte Leung on saxophone and other wind-blown instruments, fed through a pedalboard and creating varied sounds ranging from squawks and wails to melodies and dense soundscapes.
Together they conjure the weird and wonderful from the ether, like radio-movies from, not just the past, but the deep-sleep-dreams of some whack-o from those days.

8:30pm doors 9 pm music

$10 all ages

https://sungrave-denver.bandcamp.com/

https://www.sungrave.com/

Denver-based Post-Metal band.

At times crushingly heavy, at others sinking and ambient, but through it all lies unrelenting darkness. SUNGRAVE's end-times music will drown out all your thoughts and take you on an epic arc of descent.

https://aseethe.bandcamp.com/

Aseethe carve their own path in the world of heavy music. A singular blend of seismic weight, mesmeric drone, and gripping tension is the Midwestern band’s musical signature. Driven by an exploratory ethos, Aseethe warp sounds into emotionally potent songs that are as detailed as they are immense.

https://measuresofagony.bandcamp.com/

Dark noise ambient for the soul you sold long ago.

7:30pm doors / 8pm music

$10 all ages

8:30pm doors / 9pm music

$10 all ages

Fri Oct 24 8:30pm doors $10, all ages

Together Again! Americana's most notoriously unknown duo this side of John Prine's hot dog - Brian Johannesen and Ryan Joseph Anderson - reunite after years of intolerable industry slog. An evening full of severed hands, insufferable drought, sassy orphans and, well, yes, (vegan) hot dogs awaits. Glory will ensue. And we will celebrate a certain special someone's birthday......

Tickets: https://littlevillagetickets.com/events/173415862/brian-johannesen-ryan-joseph-anderson