Spotlight
The 67th Annual O’Reilly Auto Parts World Series of Drag Racing, the world’s longest continually running drag racing event, returns to Cordova International Raceway August 27-29.
The 67th Annual O’Reilly Auto Parts World Series of Drag Racing features the most exotic racing machines on the planet, including fire-breathing Top Fuel Dragsters, Nitro Funny Cars, Jet Cars, ground-pounding Pro Mods, and a gravity-defying Wheelstander.
Alternating Currents Festival was founded in Davenport in 2017. This festival is ran and operated by the Quad Cities Chamber and has consistently proven to be one of the most welcoming, comfortable, and rewarding weekends of music, films, comedy and art, in the Quad Cities area. Hosting thousands of festival goers each year, Alternating Currents Festival offers a wide array of activities beyond music. With more than a dozen individual restaurants and venues, the festival works to support local businesses while promoting the downtown Davenport community and culture as a whole.
Einstein’s Sister began in the mid-’80s, when then-teens Kerry Tucker and Bill Douglas teamed up on various projects and became a popular acoustic duo around the area, Douglas and Tucker, with Tucker on guitar and vocals and Douglas as lead singer.
In 1996, the duo were joined by drummer Marty Reyhons, guitarist Steven Volk and bassist Andrew Brock to form Einstein’s Sister, releasing a self-titled debut album that gained considerable attention and got them signed to an indie record label where they recorded their follow up, “Oceanus.”
Unhappy with the label, they went DIY and released the critically-acclaimed power pop masterpiece, “Learning Curves,” in 1999, which got them airplay worldwide, including on MTV, and got them booked to various international festivals, including the International Pop Overthrow in Los Angeles. Another critically-acclaimed disc, “Humble Creatures,” followed two years later, and a “Best Of…” disc was released in Japan in 2003, after which the band went on an amicable hiatus to spend more time with their families and other careers.
The group periodically reunited for gigs, and Douglas and Tucker continued to play regularly out as an acoustic duo. Three years ago, they re-released a vinyl version of “Learning Curves,” to great acclaim, leading to the band reuniting to write the double-A sided single “Standing Still” and “Begin Again,” released in conjunction with the Sept. 26 Record Store Day.
Filmmakers Scott Beck & Bryan Woods first met as sixth-graders in their hometown of Bettendorf, Iowa. After discovering a shared interest in cinema, the duo began collaborating on stop-motion movies with their Star Wars action figures. This collaboration continued into high school, where they directed numerous shorts and their first feature films. In 2001, Beck & Woods formed their production company banner Bluebox Films, under which they would write, direct and produce films, commercials, and television content.
Together they co-wrote and executive produced A Quiet Place, a Top Ten Film of 2018 by the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review. And are currently releasing the thriller Haunt, which they wrote and directed for producer Eli Roth, releasing September 13th, 2019!
Tripmaster Monkey, one of the most commercially and creatively successful bands in Quad-Cities music history, will release its first album in more than two decades, “My East Is Your West,” in record stores and online stores and sites on August 6.
The group — guitarist and singer Jamie Toal, singer Chris Bernat, drummer Marty Reyhons, and bassist Wes Haas — is not signed to a label and has released the record independently.
