By Tommy Morgan Jr.
tommy-morgan@uiowa.edu
Local rock band Birth Rites will play their last show before a semester-long hiatus tonight with Coyote Slingshot and Grand Tetons at the Mill, 120 E. Burlington. The show begins at 9 p.m. and admission is $3.
Birth Rites formed in Iowa City in 2007.
They got their start playing house and basement shows, drummer Gregory Markus said, but they played shows that were atypical of the type.
Keggers and huge house parties were where Birth Rites got its start, Markus said, not more intimate basement gigs. The UI junior described some of Birth Rites’ first audiences as “real bro-ey.”
“We’d play for people that didn’t want to hear us,” he said. Still, “we prefer playing in basements more than we prefer playing on stage.”
The band is going on hiatus because Markus will be studying abroad in Prague, Czech Republic, during the spring 2010 semester.
“I fell in love with it,” Markus said of Prague, after he took a class about the city, adding that the UI’s Czech department “helped propel [his] interest in the country.”
Markus said that his study plans are just one of many changes that Birth Rites has faced recently. Members Jack Hennessy and Jarrett Hothan moved back to Illinois after finishing their studies at the UI, so the band does not get together or play shows as often as they used to.
“This whole semester has been weird for us,” Markus said, adding that it has been refreshing for the band. “When you wait a month to play a show you’re show much more excited.”
The members of Birth Rites view the show not as a parting, but as a celebration of their time together and with other artists in Iowa City.
“Our friend and roommate for the past three years is playing one of his first solo acoustic shows,” Hennessy, Birth Rites’ singer and guitarist, said. He also said that Markus will play some of his own acoustic songs at the concert.
“We want to thank all of the people who have supported us,” Hennessy said.
The band plans to record an EP – a follow-up to their first album, *All Success Stories* – this winter before Markus heads to Europe.
Hennessy also said that Birth Rites may play the 2010 Mission Creek Festival with a different drummer, then will play a small tour over the summer when Markus returns.
