“There are some times when it doesn’t matter what happened. You could be having a bad day, you could be having a good day, or whatever, but when we set up our stuff and we start the first song, you just feel this calmness. I don’t know what it is. It feels magical,” Dogs on Skis drummer Mike Roeder said.
Dogs on Skis has been a local cover band since the 1980s, performing a little bit of every genre, specializing in the 1960s to 1990s era. Their devout fans have been following the group around the state, from festivals to weddings, for 39 years.
“Music affects people emotionally. There’s nothing like it. It comes from the ether, and nobody knows how it comes into people’s minds and how it’s made up out of thin air, and it’s magical in that way,” Dogs on Skis member Nick Stika said.
For Dogs on Skis, music is about community, love, and keeping the joy of music alive. Throughout their whole time playing together, they said it never gets old, being on stage is like home, and they are surrounded by the people they love doing what they love.
For artists, feeling comfortable having a spotlight on you is a rare and treasured characteristic. Recently emerging local artist Jase Douglas, also known as Bloomer, doesn’t have stage fright but struggles with similar anxieties.
“I have a panic disorder and general anxiety disorder on top of that. I’m kind of dealing with anxiety all the time, every day, and so as a result of that, things that would give most people anxiety are my normal level,” Bloomer said. “As a performer, it’s great. I get on stage, and arguably, I get less anxiety because I’m focused on performing and singing and just doing my thing.”
Bloomer is best known for his TikTok account, which has garnered 1.8 million followers in the eight years he has been making music. The account didn’t have a name behind it, though, and no music for his fans to listen to.
When he made the move to Iowa City to be closer to his partner, he decided to take a chance and devote the side of his life that he hadn’t fully invested to music.
“People had been waiting for original music for a long time. I came up with the style combination of influences I’ve liked since I was a little kid and started putting that out,” Bloomer said.
The specific genre Bloomer works in is shoegaze, a dreamy, spacey guitar style with a lot of reverb and delay. He puts his own spin on the format with very fuzzy noise and ghostly vocals.
“I call it sky gaze because it is heavily rooted in shoegaze, but I feel like what’s lacking in a lot of the underground stuff in shoegaze, and the reason why there hasn’t been a major shoegaze act, is because it is hard to hear what they’re saying,” Bloomer said. “My favorite thing about it is the massive wall of noise you get with that type of music. But I wanted to combine that with more pop abilities.”
On March 29, Bloomer performed for the first time in his new “sky gaze” persona. The stage was nothing new to the artist, but the number of people that showed up was two to three times larger than the crowd at a festival he had played last year.
Bloomer was shocked there was support for him, an artist in a genre not well represented in Iowa, but welcomed it.
“Even in a separated place like Iowa City, with no big shoegaze scene, there is support. There’s an underground hardcore scene, a big bluegrass scene, a country scene, but there’s not much else. I picked shoegaze artists open for me because I want to see more of that out here,” Bloomer said.
The annual Mission Creek Festival that recently took place April 3-5 reminded fans around Iowa City of the thriving music scene. This year, the festival featured 36 bands from metal to bluegrass and everything in between.
Another local band breaking through with the community is Worst Impressions. They are a self-proclaimed indie-rock-garage band, and they promise that no two songs are alike. They broke into the Iowa City scene through an accident and the unfortunate end of a previous band, Part Time Vegan.
“I had booked a show in February at ReUnion for Part Time Vegan and was looking forward to playing that show. The stage manager for ReUnion Brewery Pete Becker rolled the dice on Kiley [Peterson] and me and suggested we start a new project and still play the show,” founding member Garrett Hinson said. “A week before the show, we filled a last-minute spot for the Summer Camp Battle of the Bands at Gabe’s for our first show ever to a crowd of over 400 people. Thanks to popular bands like Dolliver and Fishbait, we were quickly introduced to the Iowa City scene.”
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Through this introduction and networking, Worst Impressions played show after show, but even with their success in the Iowa City grunge scene, they were lucky enough to break even.
“Our music isn’t necessarily geared towards being a viral TikTok sound or anything like that. The dream is definitely to one day break even with our music. But you won’t catch any of us quitting our day jobs anytime soon,” Hinson said.
Another alt-rock group known as Dearborn is in a similar spot to Worst Impressions. Despite finding some traction when they debuted, the band hasn’t broken out of its Iowa City following.
Eli Smith and Elijah Mickey met in undergraduate school and started making music Mickey describes as “goofy and jazz-centered pieces” because of Smith’s training within the jazz genre. This began Mickey’s endeavors into songwriting. Eventually, they found their lead guitarist Jonah Marcussen and Aaron B. Knight, their drummer.
“Eli, Jonah, and Aaron are the best at what they do. I often say I am the worst musician in the band, and a lot of that is due to how talented they are. All of these songs would’ve stayed as voice memos on my phone if not for them,” Mickey said.
Dearborn has also run into a similar situation to Worst Impressions, in which the community has helped elevate their art. A lack of funds makes it inaccessible to keep going solely on what they make from being in the band, yet they keep pursuing their dreams.
“None of us rely on the band for sole income yet, though that’s the goal. We’re working hard to make it a sustainable career. Balancing our time is tough … Iowa, especially Iowa City, has been a great place to start. I’ve found a lot of inspiration from the local artists here, and it’s been a big motivator for me to continue pursuing music throughout college,” Mickey said.
All these artists love the stage and sharing their art, and Iowa City has become their preferred destination for performing. The different, thriving cultures within Iowa make the forgotten Midwest state a breeding ground for all types of music.
“This might sound simple, but I play music because I genuinely love it. Every part of the process — writing, producing, recording, practicing, performing — is something I’m passionate about. Nothing makes me lose track of time like working on music, and that feeling of being fully immersed is what I love. Everyone has their thing that makes them feel that way, and for me, it’s music,” Mickey said.
Even if the band makes a lot of money, or none at all, the community and the friends and family each of them has made along the way make creating music in Iowa so special, Mickey said, and that is a sentiment shared among other bands.
“We all fill a really good role, and each of us has a niche that fills a need for the band. We kind of, after a while, became family at some point,” Stu Mullins, Dogs on Skis member, said. “We are in it for each other regardless of time and space. We are gonna be in it for the long haul, ‘till one of us is done.”