great_american_taxi.jpg Fans of the self-described "polyethnic Cajun slamgrass" band Leftover Salmon have reason to rejoice this summer, as the outfit is reuniting for a few festival dates in July. But washboard player, vocalist, and guitarist Vince Herman said those shows aren't a sign that the band is back together. His priorities are elsewhere.

Churches United announced that it received a $30,000 grant from the Scott County Regional Authority in support of Winnie's Place. Winnie's Place is an emergency shelter for homeless women with or without children. Winnie's Place opened in December 2006 and through March had served 67 women and 63 children. The mission of Churches United of the Quad City Area is to unite Christian churches, to empower them for service, and to honor diversity. 

 

EOTO When I put the album from the electronic duo EOTO in a CD player at work, my office mate Mike Schulz asked - after about five seconds of music - "You're not watching porn, are you?"

I'm guessing that question would please Jason Hann, a percussionist with jam-band/bluegrass favorites String Cheese Incident and half of EOTO. While he's more than happy to talk about the impressive technical elements of the live-looping project - which will be performing at the Redstone Room on Monday, May 28 - he'd rather you just dance.

Churches United has announced two awards received in support of its Hunger Ministry: $500 from United Church of Christ, Neighbors in Need, and $5,000 from the Illinois Conference of the United Church of Christ. Churches United operates 23 food pantries and three meal sites in the Quad Cities area. In 2006, the volunteers that work in the food pantries responded to more than 26,800 visits, and meal-site volunteers provided more than 30,800 meals to those who were hungry.

 

The City of Davenport has more than $66 million in the bank. One committee within city government hopes to make that money work harder for the city as a whole by encouraging banks to reinvest more in the community.

Chris Botti You'd never know it by listening to him, but every time Chris Botti picks up his instrument, he's wrestling with it.

The jazz trumpeter coaxes soothing, true sounds out of his instrument, and they woo and lull you.

But it ain't easy.

Kyle Ferguson Most everybody knows that Blur song as "Woo Hoo," even though its proper title is "Song 2." Neither is particularly meaningful.

But Kyle Ferguson, a senior philosophy major at Augustana College, called one of his songs "Notes from a Solipsist," and that title frames the song's lyrics. Solipsism is a belief that one can only know what one directly experiences - that there might not be a world outside of your own mind.

"You identify your experience with the world," Ferguson explained. "So there's no reality external to your experience."

For several weeks now, the Illinois General Assembly's spring session has been a slow-motion train wreck. Those of us who work at the Statehouse are moving around in real time watching it happen all around us, saying to ourselves, "Oh, this is gonna hurt."

The Reverend George McDaniel, author of A Great & Lasting Beginning, will be awarded a State Historical Society of Iowa "Shambaugh Award of Merit" for his history of St. Ambrose University. The award, one of two given this year, will be presented at a luncheon in Des Moines on May 21. Benjamin F. Shambaugh Awards of Merit are given to one or more significant books on Iowa history published during the preceding year, based on their contributions to Iowa history, scholarship, readability, and appropriateness for the intended audience, according to the State Historical Society's Web site. A Great & Lasting Beginning is available at the St. Ambrose University bookstore and the Davenport Borders store, and it can be ordered online at (http://www.sau.edu/125).

 

smile.jpg A country-music performer's decision to move to Nashville is typically the product of a dream. For Suzy Bogguss, it was eminently practical.

In the early 1980s, the Aledo native and Illinois State University graduate was knocking around the country, doing gigs at coffeehouses and ski resorts. She lived in the Quad Cities, Kewanee, Peoria.

She didn't envision a future as a respected and popular country singer. She didn't aspire to the gold and platinum records she would eventually earn.

"It just never really occurred to me that that's what my goal was going to be," she said in a phone interview last week, in advance of her May 12 performance with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra at the Adler Theatre. "It was just fun."

Pages