R. Sieler's Saxaphone Orchestra Sioux City

R. Sieler’s Saxophone Orchestra played dance tunes for Sioux City listeners on KSCJ radio.

Members (left to right): Marvin Johnson (trombone); L. Fredericks (banjo); L. Gunderson (cornet); R. Sielers (saxaphone); T. De Mare (percussionist); N. Connovar (saxaphone); and A. Flurie (piano).

Photo from the Sioux City Journal. July 24, 1927.

The Bat, The Bite, And The Midwestern Freak Show

January 1982. The Blizzard of Ozz plays Veterans Memorial Auditorium, and for a few chaotic seconds, Des Moines became the center of the American freak show.

Ozzy Osbourne is onstage. Lights slicing through smoke; guitars loud enough to rearrange your organs. The crowd is packed in tight. Denim and teenage adrenaline fill the auditorium.

Then something comes flying onto the stage. Small. Dark. Flopping wings.

A bat.

Depending on who you ask, it was a rubber toy or the real deal—a dead bat someone had brought like a twisted party favor. Either way, it lands near Ozzy’s boots, and that’s when reality shifted.

Ozzy picks it up. And bites it. The crowd watches, unsure how to react. They aren’t horrified. Just stunned. Like their brains need a second to catch up and decide—is it part of the show or some new-fangled Ozzy Voodoo ritual?

Then it hits. Screams. Cheers. Confused people, unsure how to react.

Afterward, Ozzy said he thought it was rubber. Maybe, but— There’s something unsettling about it. Grabbing something off the ground and biting it.

 The moment lives on, one of those stories that’s too ridiculous to die. Forty years later, the legend persists. And the question—reality or sideshow.

Wicked Liz and the Bellyswirls Rocking Davenport for 30 Years

Davenport, Iowa. 1998. Back when bands still had to earn it. No algorithms. No “content.” You played until your fingers hurt and the bartender hated you and the sound guy stopped pretending he was going to help. You played until people finally went, “Alright. Fine. These maniacs are for real.”

Liz Treiber sings like she already knows what you want. Behind her: Leo Kelly on lead guitar, Bob Kelly on bass, Greg Hipskind on drums.

That’s the BellySwirls. The name sounds like something you get from gas station nachos, but onstage it’s a tight machine built to wreck a room. These guys don’t float through songs—they kick the door in.

Genre? Call it blues-rock if you need a label—greasy, hooky, and mean enough to make you forget you were going to leave after one drink. Big riffs, fat groove, stomp-on-the-floor energy. Stuff that makes you spill your beer and not care.

Their songs have that “we’ve done this the hard way” feel. “Believe.” “Mary Kate.” “Nick of Time.” “Ruby.” “Wicked Waltz.” “Break Me” is exactly what it sounds like—not a poem, not a diary entry, more like somebody slamming a door and daring you to follow.

Iowa's Misfit Band: Susie's Kitchen Kabinet Band

Susie's Kitchen Kabinet Band

It wasn’t like any band people were used to seeing.

The instruments didn’t come from a music store. They came from the kitchen. Dish pans. Tin spoons. Pie plates. Curtain rods. Flour sifters. Everything was bent, soldered, and turned into something that could make noise.

Every instrument started out as a household object.

One of them had a kazoo soldered right into the mouthpiece. The violin player skipped the soldering altogether and just held a kazoo in her mouth while she played.

It worked better than it had any right to.

The Joye Sisters Betty Ballard and Bobby Jean Lewis

Betty Ballard and Bobby Jean Lewis, better known as the Joye Sisters, were a Des Moines singing duo in the 1920s and 1930s. They headed to Mexico in May 1928, but were forced to turn back after a series of unfortunate events.

While in El Paso, they saw two Negroes lynched for attacking two white girls. That “horrible sight,” said Miss Ballard, “seemed to forecast the nightmare” of events.

They were detained in Juarez, then sent home because of the Revolution. They told reporters, “The queer taste of the Mexican food and a rumor that the revolutionists were poisoning all the food made them refrain from eating anything.”

No matter, the girls didn’t intend to let a bit of bad luck discourage them. They planned to return to Mexico in a few months after things cooled down.

That Charleston Band Davenport Iowa 1925

That Charleston Band were the featured entertainers at the Coliseum in Davenport on December 19, 1925.

(from The Daily Times. December 27, 1925)