The Secret History of the Cedar Valley

Last week we launched a new phase of "The Secret History of the Cedar Valley": A Wikipedia-style website where we all can collectively write the secret history together! Contribute your personal knowledge, insights, and memories about the underground music scene in the Cedar Valley over the past 30 years.

The site is located at:
http://www.splitred.com/secretwiki/

Once you quickly create an account (username/password), you can start writing and editing pages of the site by clicking on the "EDIT" button on the top of each page. Please feel free to contribute to this site!

This weekend I was rummaging through my parent's attic and found the box with almost all my old flyers! I had thought they were lost. They are invaluable in figuring out which bands played at which times in which venues from 1985-1988. I will be scanning these in over the holidays and will post some of the more interesting ones!

I also found the original collages that I used to make flyers for shows I set up, plus the original pasteups for all the zines I put out. I'll be sharing the highlights from those too in the coming weeks!

I went to check out the Iowa Underground Archives and they have just released a beta version of their own Wiki. They've wrapped a Mambo CMS around a MediaWiki installation.

It is a bit confusing to use and navigate, so until the beta testing is over, their old site can still be accessed here.

This is great news--as the site had languished a bit due to infrequent updates. With their new site and our own Secret History Wiki, which launched in November, the collaborative history of the Iowa underground music scene should be well-represented.