Awhile back, I got to think about local “scenes”. Everyone has local bands. I grew in the sphere of St Louis, a city that had a few successful bands (the Urge, pale Divine, Gravity Kills) though none particularly grabbed me as much as they did my friends.
After that, I went to the college town of Carbondale, Illinois. While the town was too small to have much of a “scene”, there was a short time from around 1995 to 1997 where there were a bunch of great local bands. For a time, there was a website that had uploaded a bunch of area band songs but it may be defunct now
My favorite Carbondale band was a rockabilly band called the Bottletones who reunited for their fourth album in 2019. Highly recommended to fans of the genre
I never lived in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois but I almost feel like I did, by proxy. I did have friends there and the music filtered to me. Now, Champaign legitimately had some national impact. Probably the biggest bands were the late 90s Emo bands like Braid and American Football. Their impact being one of those that only grew in time. Other Champaign bands to have national success were the Poster Children and Hum
Bands that caught my ear (via friends in the late 90s) were Corndolly, the Beauty Shop, the Funky Butt Drum Club, the Viper and his Famous Orchestra and Hand to Mouth. All but the last at least have their songs still living eternally in time via streaming.
I moved to Iowa in 2003. Des Moines doesn’t have a large scene but it has had some good bands during my time here. When I moved here, there weren’t many venues. That would improve, likely peaking around 2011 or so, but in recent years, some smaller stages have closed. Not having those locations is a major bummer.
My favorite Iowa area (currently active) artists are roots rocker DICKIE, the self explanatory named Surf Zombies and alt country band Loose Gravel. The first two are available on streaming.
Ames, Iowa is about 40 miles north of Des Moines. It is the home of Iowa State University. It is close enough of course that I don’t know that there is much difference in the two cities’ “scenes”.
As with the previous two college towns I mentioned, Ames had a swell of great local bands. Particularly, around the same time the Des Moines scene seemed to peak (from 2010 to 2013 or so) there were a lot of interesting sounds coming out. The big boost (as often is the case) was the support of a local record label (Maximum Ames Records) and a concurrent promotion of the annual Maximum Ames Music Festival
If we are being honest, the most popular Ames musician is early Internet celebrity Leslie Hall (Gemsweater.com) and she, in fact, did release music for Maximum Ames.
But the more typical rock band that led the charge was a four piece called the Poison Control Center- a really talented band that got press from the likes of Pitchfork and the AVClub.
A top hit on a recent Google search I did was “Ames Music: What the Hell Happened” and admittedly, we are a decade removed from the magical time. I suppose like Carbondale and Chicago, Ames can only slow down ambition of a bigger nearby town like Minneapolis
Of course, the pandemic set things back for everyone.
Recently, I saw a musician perform live who had released an album for Maximum Ames Records: HD Harmsen
Harmsen’s discography probably looks as expected. His debut 2013 “Papoose” for Maximum Ames got some local press. A follow up in 2015 called “Idiot Boy” was also released by Maximum Ames
Now, after a recording hiatus, we have his third album Glaciers available on the usual streaming platforms.
Harmsen is hard to categorize as he jumps genres from Lo-fi rock on the albums opener to chamber pop to anti-folk.
On the standout “Enmeshed and Obsessed”, the dreamy "Hope Begins in the Heartache" and the instrumental "2020 Visions", he sounds like something off the Shimmy Disc label -which is right down but alley - but other moments on the record recall Guided by Voices or Pavement.
On stage, he’s dressed up for performance in a white suit. I am reminded of Elliott Smith and I think that could be coincidental, but there’s definitely the same ingredients making up both musicians- introspective and vulnerable lyrics and vocals but also an ear for melodic indie pop
I started this post saying I had a history of not being impressed by local artists, but I like Glaciers quite a bit and can see it as a really possibility for one being of this year’s favorite discs of mine.
https://hdharmsen.bandcamp.com/
(With apologies to the artist, concert pictures always look worse than real life)
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