As you well know, Mission Creek takes over large sections of this town of ours, including but not limited to: drinking establishments, DIY venues, established music spots, tattoo parlors, dance clubs, and clothing stores. One of the venues that I think will be particularly exciting for this festival is one that all of the readers of this blog are pretty familiar with: Public Space One.

As I’ve moved through this town for the past three+ years, something that perpetually strikes me is the fact that people have no idea of where this place is. If you are one of those people, it’s underneath the Subway on Washington. You enter through that door to the left of Subway, and go down the stairs to the right. Watch your head as the clearance is a little low. With that out of the way, I think this is probably going to be one of the continually coolest spaces during the course of the festival for a number of reasons.

The first is that there will be live broadcasts down there everyday being done by either KRUI or Little Village with the bands playing later that night. You can see them FOR FREE during the day as they talk with DJs and playing smaller and/or acoustic sets to a small audience. This is certainly enough to get most people through the door, but if it weren’t enough, you can personally interact with the bands.

This year, PS One will be operating as a media tent/lounge/hangout spot for the various media professionals that will be in town writing about the festival as well as the bands. It will be a cool place to run into bands, hang out between shows, and blog about whatever is going on. There will also be snacks and product demos from West Music, which will allow you to look at cool samplers and things of the like. This is going to be open from noon to six, and all are welcome, not just those nerds that write about musical things like myself.

While all of this is promising, I think the main reason that I write about PS One is because it was one of the first places that I ever saw a show when I came to Iowa City (I believe it was Wet Hair, A Daren Ho side project, and a couple of bands from Chicago, one of which featured the keyboard player for Cave) and is, in a lot of ways, one of my favorite places to see a show in this town (the other being White Lightning). The reason that I have an affinity for this place outside of some of the excellent shows that I’ve seen here (AIDS Wolf and Real Estate stand out in my mind) is that it is such an intimate space. This is going to sound super stupid, but it’s like being in someone’s basement without being in their basement. You can get right next to the band and touch them (if that’s your game). You have to deal with obstructions like the pillars. More than anything else, it puts you in close proximity to your fellow wo/man, which is a nice feeling to have for many of the bands that play down there.

During this festival, we’ve got a couple of free shows lined up, featuring Slut River, Winters Ruby, Lipstick Homicide, The Olympics, Brass Bed (who are featured on the mixtape), and Smokestack and The Foothill Fury (a band that Brian previews below this post). None of these shows are going to be bad (they are going to be awesome. I’m actually looking rather forward to The Olympics and Slut River shows) and they are all free. If you’re at another show and it’s sort of boring (hey, it happens even with bands that we love), move over to PS One. Experience the space for the first time or the umpteenth time and have a good time.