Chad Elliott, a singer-songwriter from Coon Rapids, says it provides audiences a close-up view of emerging talent while bringing musicians better exposure. "People can come and get the stories behind the songs, it’s a lot more intimate and you can meet the artist," Elliott says. "It’s a great way to just sit back and enjoy music and stories for an evening." Elliott says the audience goes to a house concert to hear the music without the distractions you’d get in a bar or a coffeehouse. "In a coffeehouse setting, it’s pretty popular but still you’ve got the grinder going, you’ve got espressos being made and so you get all this background noise," Elliott says. "The house concert is set up to be that completely listening crowd." The host doesn’t have to spend a bundle, either. He says they only need to provide the venue, some chairs and a place to plug in the amplifier. The musician is paid by the people who are attending the private show. "It’s a suggested donation so most people coming into it know, okay, I’m going to pay $10 or $15, and if you think about it, that’s really not much to pay for an evening’s entertainment," Elliott says. "This is set up to where the person hosting it doesn’t have any problems with the tax issues because it’s completely donations. All proceeds go to the artist." For more about Elliott, visit " www.chadelliott.net " while information on house concerts can be found at: " www.concertsinyourhome.com ". 
A new phenomenon in live music is growing in popularity in Iowa’s cities and rural areas. It’s called a "house concert," where you invite a group of friends to your home for a potluck dinner and a concert in the living room or back yard.
AUDIO: Radio Iowa’s Matt Kelley reports on backyard concerts :45 MP3
House concerts bring singers to back yards
Groundbreaking for new "green" state office building
Shiny new shovels were used to break ground today for a new state building that will serve as offices for the Iowa Utilities Board and the Consumer Advocate. Officials expect the $9.8 million building to be finished in the fall of 2010.
Project architect Carey Nagle says the structure will use 63 percent less energy than a typical office building of the same size. “The whole premise of the project was founded on energy efficiency,” Nagle says.
Project manager Tom Hilton says they’ve “oriented” the building to maximize sunlight. ”
We have a pretty elaborate sunscreen or sunshading system set up on the building which allows us to actually harvest the daylight during certain times of the year and block the daylight during other times of the year,” he says. “And it’s just really a simple move which makes a huge amount of difference in terms of the energy consumption.”
The sunscreens will be one of the largest architectural features of the building. ”That sunscreen is designed to bounce that sunlight into the space but at the same blocking down the glare that can be detrimental and it lets you take on some of that passive heat gain of the winter but also block out the direct heat gain from the summer,” Nagle says. “You know, it’s a pretty simple strategy, but it’s very effective.”
In addition, all the rain that falls on and around the building will be collected and reused to flush toilets and Nagle says that will dramatically reduce the water bill. ”We have savings in that department in the order of 46 percent below a typical building,” Nagle says.
Governor Chet Culver spoke briefly before the ceremonial ground breaking at the construction site which is southeast of the statehouse.
“What a fitting location here on a very busy intersection, a lot of traffic, a lot of people going out to the State Fair every year that will see this beautiful, new, state-of-the-art building,” Culver said.
State officials sold bonds to raise the money for the building’s construction and those bonds are financed, ultimately, by Iowa utility customers. That’s because agencies like the Iowa Utilities Board are financed by fees charged to the utility companies it regulates. Chuck Seel, a spokesman for the Iowa Utilities Board, says the new building soon will be more cost-effective than renting office space.
“We’ve been in our current building since 1998 and we’ve paid over $7 million in rent, so over the long pull, this is a much better deal for everybody,” Seel says.
Utility customers have footed the bill for that rent, too.
New turf part of upgrades for UNI football
A facilities upgrade at the University of Northern Iowa will find the Panther football team playing on a new surface this season. A new Mondo turf has been installed in the UNI-Dome to replace the old turf that had been in place since 1992. Panther coach Mark Farley says he "did not expect to have turf for this season, nor for my life here."
Farley says they hope to practice on the surface as often as possible to get ready for the season. He says there is not other surface in the country like this as it is a hybrid of the field turf and it is made especially for the UNI-Dome do it can be rolled up.
Among the other upgrades is a brand new weight room. Farley says it will be the first season ever with an athletic weight room, as they have had a student body/athletic shared weight room. He says it will make it easier for athletes to do their weight training and still get to class.Farley says the old weight room had scheduling conflicts where they sometimes could not lift before classes and had to miss some workouts.
Quarterback Pat Grace says all the changes are welcomed. He says the old astroturf was hard to land on and he says the new turf is soft.
Senior defensive lineman James Ruffin says all the upgrades will benefit the program. Ruffin says there has been a lot of change in facilities in the last five years and he says all those things were promised and now they are here.
The first home game for the Panthers is September 12th against South Dakota.
Tornadoes touch down in Fayette County
Damage assessment is getting underway this morning after two tornadoes touched down in northeast Iowa on Wednesday. Roger Valhollek, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, says most of the damage is minor, though a Fayette County barn lost its roof. He says a couple of tornadoes touched down in Fayette County, while there was hail in central Iowa, but "most of the storms weren’t too strong." No injuries are reported. The twisters were reported northwest of West Union and near Stanley. Valhollek says the storm system that brought the severe weather left behind cooler temperatures. More showers are expected today, tonight and tomorrow, with highs only in the 60s across Iowa’s northern half, with highs in the 70s for the southern half. That’s about ten degrees cooler than normal.
Iowa students stay in second place for ACT scores
Results from the ACT college entrance exam show Iowa remains in second place for the average composite score. Iowa Department of Education spokesperson, Elaine Watkins-Miller, says it is good news to see that Iowa held the number two spot.
Watkins-Miller says 59% of the graduating class took the test and it is one of the indicators that are used to see how well students are achieving. She says graduation rates and the SAT and ITBS test scores are other things they look at to determine overall student achievement. Iowa students had a composite average of 22.4, second only to Minnesota’s 22.7.
Watkins-Miller says another positive in the results is the increase in scores for African-American students. Watkins-Miller says it’s important that the subgroups of students are progressing, and she says African-American students who took the ACT improved their composite score from 17.8 in 2008 to 18.3 in 2009.
She says the number of African-Americans who took the test also increased. Watkins-Miller says more students are reporting that they’re taking at least three years each of math, science and social studies and four years of English in high school.
The department increased standards so all students must complete those core courses and she says that should show up on the ACT reports for the class of 2011. Watkins-Miller says the is important because students who take the core courses often do better on the ACT. The best score you can get on the ACT is 36 — and the national average score on the ACT was 21.1.
Woman calls for curfew in Iowa City
An Iowa City woman is calling on the city council to do something to put an end to recent violence in her neighborhood. Lorraine Bailey says a curfew would help cut down on the growing number of crimes committed by teens. She remembers when Iowa City had a curfew in place around 50 years ago. "And (my kids) were threatened by the curfew and they knew mom was going to go get them if they weren’t in by the curfew," Bailey said. Recently, Bailey wrote a letter to city council members, including her daughter Mayor Regenia Bailey, asking them to impose a curfew on juveniles. "I felt that there was something that needed to be done," Bailey said. "We’ve had different things occur in this area." A Mother’s Day brawl that happened just blocks from Bailey’s home involved dozens of teens who turned to bats, knives and guns to resolve a neighborhood feud. Then, a couple of weeks ago, a late night shooting just around the corner from Bailey’s home scared several people. Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine agrees that teens are causing problems in town. "Making noise (and) racket, being out at late hours of the night," Hargadine said. The adjacent city of Coralville adopted a curfew several decades ago and Hargadine believes Iowa City should do the same to "stop teenage mischief before it starts." Bailey says the curfew idea is directed at parents as much as their teenage children. "It’s time we go back to making parents responsible to have their children at home and if it entails a curfew, then that’s the route we need to go," Bailey said. The Iowa City city attorney is working to draft a new curfew ordinance and delinquent behavior ordinance that will be presented to the city council for review.
Vilsack sporting cowboy boots for fair
The former small-town lawyer from southeast Iowa who is now the country’s secretary of agriculture is sporting some new footwear.
Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack arrived at the Iowa State Fair with Christie, his wife of 36 years, at his side. While Vilsack didn’t ride in on a fiery horse called Silver, he did walk in wearing fairly new cowboy boots.
"These are a Christmas present from my wife," he told reporters during a news conference in a cattle show ring on the fairgrounds.
However, Vilsack’s a fairly recent convert, convinced by a cowboy boot-loving former president.
"I was on a trip to Africa with Bill Clinton and I noticed Bill Clinton was wearing cowboy boots and he said, ‘You know, these are the most comfortable things you’ll put on your feet.’ I said, ‘Really?’ — skeptically. He said, ‘No, seriously. These are really comforable.’"
Vilsack’s now a bit of an evangelist, touting the comfort of his eight-month-old boots.
"They’re from Texas and they’re made for my particular foot, so they are, indeed, the most comfortable things I’ve had on my feet."
It’s not the first pair of boots Vilsack’s worn though. Vilsack, who was born in 1950, watched a certain cowboy on television and got some much smaller boots back then to play his hero, the Lone Ranger.
