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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Mighty Fairly: Cute overload
Wednesday 01 November @ 12:28:57 (Read: 4485) |
 by ANDREA MYERS
“Excuse me while I go whore myself out for a moment,” says Mischa Suemnig, rising from our elevated booth at the front end of the Nomad World Pub. As he stands up and grabs a stack of concert flyers from the table, his giant 9-month-old Greater Swiss Mountain pup, Lothar, unearths himself from beneath our booth, where he has spent the last 45 minutes sitting on my foot, and follows his master around the room.
Mischa and Lothar, whose names sound more suited for characters in a children’s novel than for a local indie rocker and his dog, begin to circulate the room and work the crowds of people that have gathered for that evening’s Steve Poltz show. Every so often, I hear choruses of girls shrieking, “He’s soooo big!” and “What kind of dog is that?” and Suemnig politely repeats the breed over and over while he slips flyers into the distracted bar patrons’ hands, explaining that his band will play their CD release show at this very club on Friday.
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CD reviews: Wintry local releases
Thursday 26 October @ 15:48:34 (Read: 2695) |
by ANDREA MYERS
 The Winter Blanket
Golden Sun
Paper Trail Record
blanketmusic.com
‘Tis the season for a slew of local albums that seem custom made for the impending descent into sub-zero temperatures, like soundtracks for the task of unearthing hats and mittens and heavier bedding. Appropriately enough, it’s a good time to pull on a sweater and sit down with a handful of new tracks from The Winter Blanket (have you had enough of this metaphor yet?), a band known for its muted melodies and decidedly Low-inspired delicacies.
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Islands: A sailor’s life for me
Thursday 26 October @ 15:26:34 (Read: 1977) |
by STEVE MCPHERSON
Ring.
“Nick Diamonds’ office.”
“Uh, yeah, I’m calling for an interview with Nick.”
“Hold on one second.”
Exactly one minute later.
“Hello? Sorry: I just took the longest piss of my life. It was amazing. Sorry I kept you waiting. I think I broke a world record,” says Nick Diamonds from his .. home? home office? ... in Montreal. How long? “It was long—I lost count. I can only count to a couple hundred.”
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Andre Rodriguez: Opening doors
Thursday 26 October @ 15:07:37 (Read: 1954) |
by LOUIS LENZMEIER
Andre Rodriguez is an up and coming musician in the Twin Cities area with a unique combination of comprehensive storytelling and a rock/pop sound. Recently, the Pulse had an opportunity to talk with the Michigan native.
Pulse: How did you get your start as a musician?
Rodriguez: Well, it was from an early age. I started playing piano when I was 4 and it sort of took off from there. My parents couldn’t really stop me if they tried, I think. I learned to play classical piano and then I wanted to learn guitar. It’s funny because there really isn’t much classical piano in my work, but that’s where I got my start.
Pulse: So, you learned guitar right after playing piano?
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Joan Jett: Cooler than you
Tuesday 24 October @ 13:34:13 (Read: 2224) |
by SC ISADORE
Yeah, Joan Jett’s cooler than you. And I know she’s cooler than me. So don’t worry about it—ain’t no thing. Joan Jett is cooler than 99 percent of us skulking around this planet, and not because she’s survived 30-plus years in the rock biz, or spent 25 years running her own record label, but because she’s done it all her own way.
Joan Jett is cooler than you because in 1975 she started the Runaways at 15 years old, and managed to grow up in public without compromising or self-destructing. “Yeah, it was definitely different in terms of being a teenager. I didn’t do things like high school graduation or the prom or the regular rites of passage that most kids do. That whole social scene, the band aspect was our high school. But I don’t have anything to compare it to … I’ve had a great life—no complaints—I feel blessed every day!”
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Dosh: Rinse, repeat
Tuesday 24 October @ 13:31:35 (Read: 1933) |
by STEVE MCPHERSON
“Pretty much always I start off with some kind of a loop that'll give me a click track for a song,” says Martin Dosh. We're sitting in a booth at the Chatterbox Pub, discussing the way he approaches songwriting in general and on his new album The Lost Take in particular. “Mostly it's a drum part, and then I'll dump it down for like four minutes and have that track to work from. The thing that was different about this record, though, is that the germ of the whole thing was this old sequencer I have—the Korg EX-800—and I just hunkered down last winter and started writing these things I couldn't play—these really fast arpeggios—and doing sequences of different lengths. One sequence would be 60 beats long and the next one would be 40, just to see how they overlapped over time.”
The bulk of Dosh's music is instrumental, and while lyrical music is (most of the time) mainfestly about something, when you've got songs without words, the subtext comes to the surface. In Dosh's case, it manifests itself as playful experimentation shot through with the wonder and joy of just being a human being, making music.
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Lisa Germano: Death is the new life
Tuesday 24 October @ 13:28:57 (Read: 1775) |
by HOLLY DAY
“At first, I thought this record was a bunch of songs about death, but they’re really songs about life,” says multi-instrumentalist/songwriter Lisa Germano. “For instance, in the song ‘In the Maybe World,’ my cats were bringing me these dead birds from the roof, and it was upsetting me a lot, so I wrote a song about how I didn’t want that to happen anymore. But then I realized that these cats were really trying to give me a message here. They were so proud of themselves, so happy with these birds that they’d killed for me, and so happy to be able to show them to me. It was really a revelation. I mean, how many times do I have to be reminded to appreciate my life?”
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Minnesota sur Seine: More than just jazz
Thursday 12 October @ 10:53:31 (Read: 2429) |
by ANDREA MYERS
The Minnesota sur Seine festival is gearing up to for what may be its most diverse set of performances yet. What began as a jazz bridge between Minneapolis and Paris has now grown to include rock, blues and hip-hop—and according to organizers Jean Rochard and Sara Remke, they are excited to continue to push the limits of this French connection.
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David Daniels: High head blues
Thursday 12 October @ 10:37:56 (Read: 2085) |
by DWIGHT HOBBES
For an artist whose coverage in the area press ranges from scant to none, Rasta bard David Daniels doesn’t do badly for himself. In fact, his appearances routinely pack the house. Word of mouth gets around that Daniels is gonna perform at such-and-such a place and that’s good enough: folk show up in droves. He shrugs with a self-effacing smile and chalks it up to “that communal, cooperative spirit that has its base and root in the counter-culture. If you can remember, a lot of the early counter-cultural artists did not get widespread, commercial following in the beginning. It was word of mouth, person to person and a sense of community and that got the word out.” Fair enough. The dreadlocked Daniels, who used to baby-sit for some of the people who come to his shows, is, indeed, a longstanding fixture on what’s left of Minneapolis’ hippie scene. So, in part, it’s simply a matter of audiences getting out to support one of theirs.
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Grizzly Bear: This old house
Wednesday 04 October @ 15:38:55 (Read: 2517) |
by STEVE MCPHERSON
I honestly can’t imagine hearing a better record this year than Grizzly Bear’s Yellow House. Like a child’s game, it appears simple at first—interesting as a diversion. But closer inspection reveals a startlingly complex and consistent world fashioned from the most everyday of objects. Rather than attempt to embrace the scope of the world we’re all familiar with, Grizzly Bear, again like children, have taken as their north and south, east and west, the limits of a single house—and we’re fortunate to be invited to their tea party.
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Kelly Rossum: Reinventing the jazz image
Wednesday 04 October @ 15:18:23 (Read: 2431) |
by ANDREA MYERS
Armed with a resume of genre-busting gigs and a killer mohawk, trumpet player Kelly Rossum is unlike most contemporary jazz musicians—and it has helped him to make one of the more captivating and relevant local jazz releases of the year. Rossum’s third effort as a bandleader, Line, will be released this weekend at a pair of shows at the Dakota Jazz Club, and the album is a treat for jazzheads and casual listeners alike.
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Calexico: Feast of ire
Thursday 28 September @ 11:29:06 (Read: 1983) |
by STEVE MCPHERSON
Running order can be funny thing, if you give any thought to that kind of thing when you consider music these days. A collection of songs is more than the sum of its parts when you do something with that collection’s structure, so how do you decide what song goes first? Do you introduce the unfamiliar listener, do you comfort or shock the longtime fan? If you’re Tucson band Calexico, and you’ve made a name for yourself playing a peculiar brand of Latin-tinged Americana music, you wait until the last track of your new album, Garden Ruin, to show your hand to the table. “All Systems Red” is an obvious closer of a song, but I’d recommend skipping ahead and starting with the end, then rewinding it, Tarantino-style, and checking out how you got there.
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Jonathan Earl: Keeping it real
Monday 25 September @ 12:34:28 (Read: 3055) |
by ANDREA MYERS
Jonathan Earl is a standup guy. He speaks softly, with a faint gruff that comes from smoking too many cigarettes, and his eyes smile kindly as he discusses his music. Earl (as he is known to his friends; his real name is Jonathan Nelson) waxes philosophical over the recent changes in music and recording practices, and his no-nonsense approach to writing songs and making records just might be the kind of attitude needed to save rock and roll once and for all.
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The Thermals: Post-punk appreciation
Monday 25 September @ 11:39:01 (Read: 2652) |
by IAN ANDERSON
I have had the good fortune of following The Thermals since the band’s infancy and have enjoyed watching them grow from an underappreciated, noisy post-punk rock band to an almost-as-appreciated-as-they-should-be, noisy post-punk rock band. They’re a loud, abrasively energetic band with enough cool to lasso the everyday listener without alienating the indie elitists. They work hard: spending nearly all of the past three years on the road touring obsessively, and that hard work is finally paying off. Not to mention that they have made one of the best records of the year.
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Mark Mallman: Living between the lines
Thursday 07 September @ 15:57:24 (Read: 2624) |
by ANDREA MYERS
It’s a sunny afternoon in the Seward neighborhood, and I’m checking my watch and looking up and down the street, waiting for my interviewee to arrive. From down the street, I see a minivan careening my way, and in the least likely entrance possible local rock icon Mark Mallman pulls up next to me on the street, leans out of his van, and greets me sheepishly.
“I just woke up,” he says quietly. “Can we find some coffee?”
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Envelopes: Signed, sealed, delivered
Thursday 07 September @ 15:54:50 (Read: 2131) |
by STEVE MCPHERSON
“The point of it is that obviously we want to sound more fuller. I want to have a little more, how do you say, reptile brain in it this time,” says singer/guitarist/keyboardist Henrik Orrling. I’ve caught him and the rest of Envelopes (Frenchwoman Audrey Pic (vocals, guitars, keyboard) and fellow Swedes Fredrik Berglind-Dehlin (guitar), Filip Ekander (drums) and Martin Karlsson (bass)) in the midst of a stay at a studio in Malmo in southern Sweden. Their purpose there is twofold: prepare for the upcoming tour that will bring them to the U.S. (“We just hope we get to not be sick. We have demanded that in the venues they will have oranges and lemons so we can get our daily dose of C vitamins.”) and try to wrap up work on the follow-up to their debut record Demon. And unless he’s putting me on with the whole reptile brain thing, Orrling’s probably referring to the cerebellum, one of the evolutionarily oldest parts of the brain, traditionally associated with motor coordination and not emotion. So a tougher, more cold-blooded album, then?
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The Avengers: Still crazy after all these years
Wednesday 30 August @ 23:24:35 (Read: 2318) |
by HOLLY DAY
“I think punk rock’s got a gut-appeal to it, the righteousness, the anger; it’s something that people really relate to when they’re really young—when they’re teenagers—and trying to find their way into society and the world around them, and their realization at how unfair it all is,” says The Avengers’ lead singer and songwriter, Penelope Houston. “I think there’s this point in life where you go from being a little kid to becoming an adult, and you realize there are a lot of really shitty things in the world, and you want to cry out loud and say, ‘This isn’t right!’ So I think that there’s a real depth and purity to that feeling, and I think when people hear it, it reminds them of something they felt when they were younger--it reminds them of the outrage that they felt before life started beating them down.”
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twin town high release shows: Thanks to the bands, sponsors and fans
Wednesday 30 August @ 23:04:30 (Read: 2013) |
 Hey all: Steve McPherson here. First we put out Twin Town High Music Yearbook Volume 8, and now we’re presenting the Summer Supplement, full of photos of all the great bands that played our two release shows.
On this page, Above (L to R): Stef Alexander of Building Better Bombs, Anatomy of Kill the Vultures and Brandon Allday of Big Quarters repping it out front. I think Stef’s looking for the 16. Photo by Oren Goldberg. Top right: Stef Alexander during Building Better Bombs set. Note the tongue stud. Photo by Steve McPherson. Bottom right: James Diers of Halloween, Alaska, who headlined the first show. Photo by David de Young. Bottom left: Brian Just (L) and Brad Senne of Beight opened the the second show, plus they came on Homegrown to play a couple of songs and crack wise with me and David Campbell. Photo by SM.
Below, Top left: Isaac Gale of Building Better Bombs, wondering if there’s any way to make his guitar even blacker. Photo by SM. Middle left: Martin Devaney and his band were all smiles at the first show. I think it had something to do with a little lyrical switcheroo. Photo by DdY. Bottom left: Crescent Moon of Kill the Vultures, who played second-to-last at the first show and absolutely killed it. Photo by DdY. Top right: Benson Ramsey (L) and David Huckfelt of the Pines at the first show. They recently signed with Saint Paul-based Red House Records. Look for a cover story on Red House Records coming up in a couple of weeks. Photo by DdY.
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Glossary: Redemptive rock
Sunday 13 August @ 22:53:05 (Read: 2684) |
by ROB VAN ALSTYNE
PHOTOS COURTESY OF UNDERTOW MUSIC
Although located less than 40 miles from the Nashville glitz and glamour show, Joey Kneiser’s life in the decidedly more hardscrabble town of Murfreesboro, Tenn., bears little resemblance to the exploits of Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw. For What I Don’t Become, the chronicle of hard-luck Southern life delivered by his band Glossary, might as well be from a different universe entirely.
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Jeremy Enigk: Sunny days are here again
Thursday 03 August @ 15:17:07 (Read: 2755) |
by Steve McPherson
 It’s 2 p.m. in Seattle on a Thursday, and Jeremy Enigk is stuck in traffic. He’s running errands in preparation for heading out on his first solo tour on Sunday. “Right now,” he explains, sounding untroubled despite the long to-do list he’s about to lay out, “we’re practicing, we’re trying to get a tour van and everything’s sort of coming down to today and so once we get out, it’s just free and clear.”
Free and clear is a position Enigk’s taken a long time to reach. If Washington, D.C.’s Rites of Spring were the first dictionary definition emo band—combining the fury and edge of punk music with cathartic and personal lyrics—then Enigk’s Sunny Day Real Estate provided the textbook example with 1994’s Diary (Sub Pop). It was the album that launched a thousand emo bands (not his fault, really). Enigk’s personal demons were laid out for everyone to see; alienation, weakness, longing and loss dominated the album, and Sunny Day broke up during the making of their second album—which would be released in a semi-finished, yet still brilliant, state by Sub Pop under the name LP2—in the midst of Enigk’s much-publicized conversion to Christianity.
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The Rule: One groove to rule them all
Thursday 03 August @ 15:16:43 (Read: 2332) |
by Dwight Hobbes
 When Wain McFarlane, guitar virtuoso of Ipso Facto and Wain McFarlane & Jahz renown, discovers somebody, apparently he doesn’t fool around, as evidenced by the highly promising arrival of one The Rule aka Ryan Liestman, a singer-songsmith-keyboardist who basically has “can’t miss” stamped all over him. In block letters.
At only 23, Liestman, who was under McFarlane’s wing at 15, has bolted out of the gate with a killer CD and a choice gig, opening for Cyndi Lauper on a three-month tour in the fall. The only person harder to track down than Wain McFarlane for an interview is probably the notoriously elusive Prince. Liestman, however, was easy enough to get ahold of and readily agreed to meet at Bunker’s. The Rule (Liestman plus backup band) is midway into the vintage-soul sound of “See You Again” off the album. Talk about the night getting off to a good start. When the band takes a break, Liestman and I confer at the bar. “I had always been singing in the comfort of my own home,” he recalls. “But Wain pushed me to sing with him at his shows. I would sit in for a song or two several times a week. Once I started doing it regularly, I couldn’t stop. Eventually, Wain started hiring me to play keyboards and sing. Wain helped produce my first demo. It came time to shop that demo to labels and who better to shop it than Wain’s younger brother Micah.” Micah McFarlane just happens to be Lauper’s tour manager. Say what you may about nepotism; in this instance, it serves a just end: Liestman has chops to burn. Brandishing a mix of reggae and R&B, his material is remarkably fresh, delivered with a vocal style that is about as smooth as smooth gets.
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Look Down: Dance Force Fever
Wednesday 26 July @ 15:24:33 (Read: 2713) |
by Rob van Alstyne
 At least one thing can be said for sure, Look Down know how to have a good time. From the ridiculous photo adorning their debut album’s cover (presumably a snapshot of an early ‘80s all-male pep squad), to their song titles (“Zack Morris Phone” may very well be the first slice of indie-pop inspired by “Saved by the Bell”), the young local quintet appears to have their tongues planted firmly in cheek.
Thankfully, the merits of their aptly titled album, 24/7 Dance Fever, extend far beyond humor. Percolating fuzz-pop frayed at the edges, Look Down’s vocalists trade late adolescent yelps back and forth atop a sound indebted equally to the likes of Pinback in its earlier lo-fi moments and local heroes Hockey Night’s impassioned angular spasms. Encompassing both jittery get-on-the-floor dance shout-outs (the aforementioned “Zack Morris Phone”), sweeping wordless guitar upheaval anthems (“Jeans and Jackets and Dress Pants and Coats”) and some out-of-left-field precise pop moments (“We’ve Got the Same Number”), 24/7 Dance Fever is surprisingly expansive despite its short running time.
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Toki Wright: Reflection eternal
Wednesday 26 July @ 15:24:46 (Read: 2724) |
by Dwight Hobbes
 When you think about Twin Cities-based wordsmiths coming out of the inner city aesthetic, Toki Wright has to come to mind as one of the most significant. If you’re talking track record alone, there’s a veritable laundry list of accomplishments, highlighted by last year’s stint on MTV’s “MADE” with The C.O.R.E. (comprised of Wright and Adonis D. Frazier), international performances (U.S., Brazil, Portugal) and, most recently, his CD Low Budget High Quality 2.0. The seven-song disc features standout solo cuts “Focus” and “Cradle to the Grave” and performances with the likes of P.O.S., The Chosen Few, APHRILL, Sims and, of course, The C.O.R.E. It’ll be followed this fall by the full-length A Different Mirror. All that’s if you’re talking track record. Taking it to content, Wright gives hip-hop a welcome infusion of integrity—an artist who is about broadening the minds of soul folk and, for that matter, anyone else who happens to be listening. He spoke with Pulse of the Twin Cities about his craft, his consciousness and what’s going on in his career.
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Jim Walsh: Finding a new voice
Thursday 20 July @ 13:15:58 (Read: 3327) |
by Andrea Myers
In high school, I had a huge crush on Jim Walsh. While most girls my age were busy pinning up stock photos of rock stars and molded-abdomen pretty boys, my locker was lined with clippings from Walsh’s weekly rock columns, carefully cut out of the entertainment section of the Pioneer Press. Though I had no idea what he looked like, save for the little blurry rectangular photo that could have been cut off the driver’s licenses of half the blond men in Minnesota, I was drawn to his style of writing and love for music, smitten with his passion for words and sounds.
For the past 20 years, Walsh has narrated the passing of time in the Minnesota music scene with his signature writing style—personal and passionate—and extensive, firsthand knowledge of local musicians and their creative endeavors. He has studied, listened to, and interviewed hundreds of musicians and artists, trying to figure out what makes them tick.
And now, taking the next step in his lifelong endeavor to understand the depths of creativity, he has crossed the threshold from music critic to musician. He has become one of them.
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Joto: Afro-cuban jazz explosion!
Thursday 20 July @ 13:15:51 (Read: 3303) |
 by Dwight Hobbes
In February, Mint Condition front man, Stokley Williams, talked about a spin-off he and some cohorts had put together, a Latin jazz ensemble called Joto. It was him on drums with Mint’s Lawrence Waddell (keys) and Jeff Allen (sax), plus percussionist (and Stokley’s mentor) Wallace Hill and ace bassist Serge Akou (Kip Blackshire, Wain McFarlane & Jahz). He said something about wanting to stretch as artists.
He wasn’t kidding. Mint Condition is marvelous, sweetly funkified R&B. Hellified as that is, Joto presents a more challenging dimension. It’s very interesting to hear what Allen and Waddell can do outside a 4/4 time signature. Stokley is as tight a drummer as he is a vocalist (i.e. pretty damned tight). Akou and Hill are flawless. It began with woodshedding at Hill’s Drum and Art Center in South Minneapolis. The results were so encouraging, the fellas went ahead and did it for real, scaring up promoter Terrence Large to have their debut at his popular meet-market for upscale urbanites, First Friday.
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Duplomacy: Worth the Wait
Thursday 06 July @ 11:23:07 (Read: 3104) |
By Rob van Alstyne
For a while, Duplomacy lived a charmed musical life. The musical brainchild of 30-year-old Minnesota native Andy Flynn, Duplomacy quickly progressed from solely a bedroom recording endeavor to a hotly buzzed-about band in town, scoring a recording session with well known indie-rock veteran TW Walsh (formerly of Pedro the Lion) on the strength of their demos and landing choice opening gigs for the likes of Valet and Kid Dakota within weeks of performing live for the first time. By the end of 2004, Flynn’s band had already inked a deal to record for local label of the moment 2024 records, home to such heavy hitters as the Plastic Constellations and the Hopefuls. It was easy to see why so many fell in love with the band so fast: their placid angular guitar pop evoking shades of classic collegiate rock gone by (Pavement, Murmur-era REM), while Flynn’s boyishly skewed vocals placed him squarely in the present indie-rock pantheon of successful stoned-out troubadours like Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle and Built to Spill’s Dough Martsch. By all rights, 2005 was to be the year that Duplomacy released their debut full-length and possibly experienced widespread success beyond the Twin Cities club circuit. Suddenly, however, Flynn’s good fortune turned bad.
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Story of the Sea: Brothers at arms
Thursday 06 July @ 10:56:28 (Read: 2167) |
By Rob van Alstyne
Although they’ve been making music together on and off for the better part of two decades, starting in the family basement, it wasn’t until the formation of Story of the Sea in 2003 that brothers Adam and Ian Prince fully committed themselves to playing in a band together. After listening to their soon-to-be released stellar debut, Enjoying the Fire, one obvious question comes to mind: What took them so damn long? The chemistry between the siblings is instantly clear: Adam’s guitar and vocal lines synching up with Ian’s massive percussion showcases in a symbiotic telepathy that can only be explained through similar genetic makeup.
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Nathan Miller: Blues You Can Use
Thursday 06 July @ 10:51:03 (Read: 1852) |
By Dwight Hobbes
In the ‘60s, when labels were signing acts like The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Big Brother and the Holding Company (fronted by Janis Joplin), Johnny Winter and such, the question used to go, “Can white folk sing/play the blues?”
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The Alarmists: Rapid risers
Wednesday 28 June @ 14:16:38 (Read: 3304) |
By Rob van Alstyne
In a little less than a years time, local five piece the Alarmists have gone from complete unknowns to drawing over 500 people to their all-ages CD release party earlier this month and receiving regular airplay on 89.3 the Current. In the Minneapolis music scene, that’s about as close to an overnight success as one can get. As I learned, however, the band’s year old age is slightly misleading. “The band’s only a year old, but the keyboardist [Joe Kuefler] and I have been playing together for about five years,” explains vocalist/guitarist Eric Lovold. “For awhile we just kind of played privately and weren’t really interested in making a record. We had a couple of recordings we didn’t like. Eventually we assembled a bunch of gear and recorded for ourselves.”
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Maria Isa: Swing down, sweet chariot
Wednesday 28 June @ 14:12:02 (Read: 2894) |
by Toki Wright
Maybe it’s just me, but I always hear people complaining about the lack of things to do in Minnesota. With last weekends Hip-Hop at Harmony Park, Prince Paul and Lovebug Starski for free at the Dinkytowner, Heat 2006 with Lupe Fiasco, the 5th Annual Twin Cities Celebration of Hip-Hop and B-Girl Be all happening within the span of two months, I find that hard to believe. This upcoming weekend, Intermedia Arts will play host to the informative, all-female four-day summit.
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VICEBURGH: Children of the Eclipse
Thursday 22 June @ 02:33:04 (Read: 2296) |
I’ll readily cop to having fantasized on occasion about what it would have been like to grow up in the musically fertile Twin Cities rather than upstate New York. Discovering new music for me was generally something that only happened through far too many hours spent on the computer or lengthy road trips to bigger cities, meanwhile Twin Citties kiddos like the four teenagers who make up Viceburgh got to spend their school days inundated by exciting live music directly in their midst. As if that alone wasn’t enough to make me jealous they’ve gone quite a few steps further, taking the inspiration offered by their local heroes – their named after a Lifter Puller song - and running with it by creating an exciting band steeped in the sound of past and present Twin Cities greats.
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Tim O'Reagan: Just another new beginning
Thursday 22 June @ 02:28:00 (Read: 2657) |
by Andrea Myers
There are many different ways to refer to Tim O’Reagan: Ex-member of the Leatherwoods. Ex-Jayhawk. Ex-working stiff drummer. But for all the things he is not, O’Reagan is quietly preparing to unleash an album that showcases all of the things he has become: singer-songwriter, guitar player, and most importantly: frontman.
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Strays Don't Sleep: Collaborative cats
Thursday 15 June @ 15:56:45 (Read: 2332) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Proof of the transformative powers of collaboration, Strays Don’t Sleep—the new ambient pop project from Nashville singer/songwriters Matthew Ryan and Neilson Hubbard—sounds virtually nothing like either of the prior solo records from the involved artists. Inspired by a mutual love of cult ’80s Scottish mood rockers the Blue Nile, Strays Don’t Sleep’s self-titled debut certainly sounds more like music rooted in rainy Glasgow Mondays during the cassette era than its actual birthplace in the American South during the twilight of the Bush administration.
“I sort of knew Matthew from around town ,and Brian Bequette had played guitar with both of us at different points, but we weren’t really close or anything,” recalls Hubbard of the Strays project’s humble beginnings. “We both were big Blue Nile fans and there aren’t too many of those in Nashville. Matthew approached me saying he wanted to work on a little EP-type project maybe just for us to self-release on the web, and when he talked about it he mentioned the Blue Nile song ‘Over the Hillside’ as a point of reference—I immediately knew what he was talking about because I love that song. He felt like I would get what he wanted to do and vice versa. It’s weird; I don’t know if on paper it’s the most logical pairing.”
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New Primitives: Boogie on reggae front man
Thursday 15 June @ 15:56:35 (Read: 2203) |
 by Dwight Hobbes
Over coffee with New Primitives’ Stanley Kipper at e.p. atelier I had, to say the least, not the average interviewing experience. Try for the life of me, I can’t recall the last time I was gleefully pummeled and kicked by a grown man so giddy over his passion for music that, verbally and physically, there’s simply no containing it. The amiable assault comes as we’re talking about New Primitives’ CD, specifically their cover of “Get Together” by The Youngbloods. Kipper, who sings a fine rendition, is stoked by the original and can’t say so quite hard enough. So, he resorts to, well, body language.
All this is in contrast to the persona I’ve witnessed when powerhouse Afro-Cuban rockers New Primitives are in effect. Onstage, front man Stan (vocals, timbales, percussion) is the quintessential image of cool, calm and collected: tall, reed-thin and laidback as the day is long.
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Middlepicker: Life of the party
Friday 09 June @ 17:24:49 (Read: 3544) |
by Rob van Alstyne
The perfect soundtrack for close quarter drink spilling, impulsive decision making and pirate-themed parties, up-and-coming quartet Middlepicker’s nervous energy and endless melodies have quickly found a permanent presence on my summer playlist. Led by a triumvirate of skewed vocalists—bassist Kristin Anderson and guitarists Bill Zastera and Kyle Kosieracki—Middlepicker’s stacks of interweaving spiky guitar lines instantly recall past college rock greats like Superchunk and the Pixies, but their three-headed overlapping vocal approach provides a fresh twist wholly their own.
Their 2005 debut offering, Middlepicker Brings the Nasty, set the template—colliding call-and-response vocal melodies, electric guitars alternately cleanly strummed and power-chorded into submission and energy to burn. Throw in a helping of obtuse lyricism equally intent on capturing hysterical highs and desperate longing and you’ve got the party record of the year hands down. The band even seemed to imply as much, sampling idle college party chatter as background noise for the album’s anthemic title track. According to Middlepicker’s press kit, the song has since gone on to inspire an annual fraternity tradition at Depauw University known as “The Nasty” party.
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Zebulon Pike: Tons of killer riffs
Friday 09 June @ 17:24:22 (Read: 2218) |
by Steve McPherson
“I would say that heavy metal—anything metallic—is going to be pompous on some level and over-the-top,” says Eric Fratzke, guitarist and chief songwriter for instrumental metal band Zebulon Pike. We’re sitting in a sun-warmed and airy living room in his modest Saint Paul house. Daisy the dog, after greeting me with a couple of palm licks, has retreated upstairs. The hardwood floors are clean, the chairs comfy. Not exactly what you’d expect from a big metal fan. “So,” he continues, “it’s almost impossible to have some sort of metal thing and not have it be funny to some people. I think there’s some metal fans that take that stuff way too seriously. I’m kind of in between—especially with some of the song titles on the new record—everything is kind of a salute, but then there’s sort of a wink, but it’s definitely serious. It’s not a parody. There’s always homages to things, but it’s never making fun.”
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Band of Horses: Equine and cheese party
Wednesday 31 May @ 23:20:37 (Read: 3280) |
by Steve McPherson
It seems like fewer and fewer drummers these days are content to stay behind the kit for the duration of their careers. I guess it goes back to Ringo Starr, really, but Phil Collins opened the floodgates. Dave Grohl goes from Nirvana to fronting the Foo Fighters and then Grohl’s own drummer Taylor Hawkins made the jump to the front-and-center mic with the Coattail Riders last year.
You might not be familiar with Seattle indie rock semi-legends Carissa’s Wierd (and yes, it is spelled that way), but when the band decided to go their separate ways in 2003, drummer Ben Bridwell wasn’t ready to quit the musical life.
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One for the Team: School’s out
Wednesday 31 May @ 23:05:31 (Read: 2883) |
by ROB VAN ALSTYNE
Unlike most 21-year-olds I've known, Ian Anderson has larger concerns then scrounging up enough money for the next night out and making sure his apartment is reasonably well stocked with Ramen noodles. Co-founder of 3-year-old on-the-rise local music label Afternoon Records, and guitarist in post-punk-prog trio Aneuretical in addition to being a full time student at St. Olaf, Anderson’s idea of a “slow” day typically involves calling up promoters to book summer tours for the nine different bands on his label. Somewhere in Anderson’s already overbooked day planner, however, time has been made for a new project that channels his workaholic tendencies in an exciting new direction—the shiny power-pop crunch of One for the Team, the first band for which Anderson has taken center stage.
“I really love pop music,” explains Anderson of the impetus behind his latest endeavor. “I’m a complete sucker for anything that’s catchy—but ever since I was 16 I’ve been writing weird indie music with Aneuretical that was consciously strange and sort of, ‘Hey, let’s play in odd time signatures because it’s cool.’ The creative nature and challenge of that was cool, but I’ve also still felt like I needed to write pop music and over the years I’ve written pop songs that never really fit in with Aneuretical; One for the Team really grew out of those ideas.”
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The Twilight Singers: Reborn amidst the ruins
Wednesday 17 May @ 15:55:06 (Read: 3425) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Greg Dulli has long been a creature of the night. In the two decades since the former University of Cincinnati film student first let his inner rock 'n' soul wild man out to play with the Afghan Whigs, his modus operandi has remained largely unchanged: simultaneously shaking the ass and scaring the pants off of every listener in the vicinity while spinning tales of afterhours delights and betrayals guaranteed to keep the faint of heart up at night. Dulli’s dangerous lothario guise first hit the masses back in 1993 with the Afghan Whig’s landmark major label debut, Gentleman, a fusion of prickly rock and libidinous soul that still sounds ahead of its time, and he’s continued to refine it ever since.
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The Weepies: At the movies
Thursday 11 May @ 09:01:08 (Read: 3246) |
 by Steve McPherson
To say that the Weepies go for the jugular when it comes to heartfelt, heart-on-sleeve, heartstring-tugging music would be an understatement. Their debut CD, Say I Am You, is a study in the light melancholy and simple pleasures of the everyday moments that make up life. Opener “Take It From Me” begins with muted acoustic guitar and pining mellotron chords, adds wistful arpeggiated electric guitar, and then Deb Talan hits you with “What could I compare you to?/ A favorite pair of shoes/ Maybe my bright red boots/ If they had wings.” Her small and intimate voice, which often has a quizzical lilt, is the perfect vehicle for these kind of sweet sentiments.
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The Vestals: It takes two
Thursday 11 May @ 08:58:24 (Read: 2591) |
 by Rob van Alstyne
As the film careers of the various Baldwin brothers readily attest, ibling rivalry does not always produce artistic greatness. Local pop group the Vestals, however, provide a nice counter-argument as to the benefit of sibling-abetted artistry. Led by Wisconsin ex-pat brothers Ben and Jeremy Gordon, the Vestals made a relatively large splash on the local scene with the 2004 release of their self-titled debut album, a taut collection of anglophile loving lusciousness that garnered comparisons to power pop legends like Big Star and Jason Falkner while throwing in just the right amount of darkness around the edges and vibrato in the throat to get Jeff Buckley fans excited. After touring the country and garnering props from some elite British music magazines, the Vestals reconvened in Minneapolis last summer to start work on a sophomore album, the recently unveiled Songs About Girls … And Other Mysteries.
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Stook: Don’t call me Joshua
Wednesday 03 May @ 15:07:17 (Read: 3910) |
 by Andrea Myers
“Are you Josh?” I inquire, a bit sheepishly, to the twentysomething guy sauntering into the coffee shop. He and I exchange awkward glances and try to guess if we are here to meet each other. Like some kind of strange blind date, the only descriptor I have for my interviewee is that “he wears orange shoes,” and sure enough, the guy I am addressing is dressed in a worn-in plaid button-down and faded, rust-colored suede Vans. He looks at me again, a bit confused, and his friendly face scrunches up a bit.
“Yeah, I’m Stook,” he replies, reaching out to shake my hand. “Only my mom gets away with calling me Joshua.”
Immediately, I am put at ease in Stook’s presence; we banter back and forth easily and he teases me like an old childhood friend. It takes a while to wind into a discussion about his debut album, Soundtrack to My Minneapolis, because, as he puts it, “It’s really, really embarrassing. It’s really a struggle for me that I have to sit here and deal with this. My stomach is in knots … I don’t like to talk about myself that much.”
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Thunder In The Valley: Big, playful, gritty
Friday 28 April @ 14:24:07 (Read: 3498) |
by Patrick Johnson
Thunder in the Valley is sick as hell of being called “old-timey.” The five-piece Minneapolis-based eclectic-rock band is practicing for their upcoming CD release show for the band’s debut full-length album, A Long, Long Walk, at the most famous indie-rock venue on University Avenue, The Turf Club in St. Paul. I meet singer-guitarist Graham Smith and guitarist Nick Ryan in the parking lot outside their practice space, a warehouse on a street full of warehouses, surrounded by a junkyard, an Asian grocery and a butcher shop. The asphalt is broken and barbed-wire fences line the side of the road. The rest of the band is inside, still boning up for the big show. For some performances and recordings the band incorporates an assortment of horn instruments and the group needs to make sure everyone is all on the same page.
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Aloha: Prog for the People
Friday 28 April @ 14:24:01 (Read: 3275) |
by Rob van Alstyne
I’ll be the first to admit ignorance when it comes to the legacy of overblown technical wizardry and awesomely dorky lyrical concepts that generally define progressive rock. I’ve never rocked out to Emerson, Lake & Palmer, don’t really know anything about Rush other than that drummer dorks seem to salivate over Neal Pert, and can’t say any prog-rock anthems have made a significant impact on me—aside from the occasional dance party moments taken to the next level by Styx’s “Mr. Roboto.” Given the amount of critical hosannas invoking the ghosts of prog-rock past currently being thrown at modern day outfit Aloha, however, I may just have to reexamine my past prog prejudices. Aloha’s latest, Some Echoes, filters the odd time signatures, abrupt dramatic flourishes and flair-heavy accoutrements of progressive rock dinosaurs through a modern indie-pop lens and is arguably the most exciting album I’ve heard so far this year.
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Soul Position: Getting better all the time
Thursday 20 April @ 17:40:06 (Read: 3139) |
by Steve McPherson
“Can I be honest with you?” asks producer/DJ extraordinaire RJD2 about halfway through our phone interview. “I have a hard time acting like I give a shit about rap. Man, I’ve always listened to other kinds of music. Since I was always around people who were really into hip-hop, hip-hop, hip-hop, I felt like when I was listening to Nick Drake or some shit, or classical music, I felt like it was this weird dirty little secret. People would laugh about it. I’ve never stopped listening to other music. I’ve just realized in the last two years that I’ve been looking at this thing completely backwards. If anything, I shouldn’t feel sheepish about listening to real music where people spent their whole lives honing their skill compared to rap. I’m not trying to shit on rap or anything like that, I just don’t care about the fucking seven elements of hip-hop or whatever-the-fuck, and I don’t care about commercial rap and I don’t care about underground rap. If there’s something that I have a cultural feeling of kinship with, it’s the greater artistic good of American achievement, is the best way I can put it. That, to me, includes anything from Paul McCartney to [artist] Phil Frost to Jim Jarmusch to anything that’s artistic and good. It’s not like I think one is better than the other, I don’t give a fuck about either [mainstream or underground rap]. To be honest with you.”
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Minus The Bear: No joke
Thursday 20 April @ 17:20:37 (Read: 2365) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Minus the Bear have come a long way in their six years together—from an outfit that started off singing about drinking heavily on yachts and penning tunes with sophomoric titles like, “Hey, Wanna Throw Up? Get Me Naked,” to a band poised as the next in a long line of Pacific Northwestern acts to grab the brass ring of indie-music stardom. It’s been a long, slow climb for the quintet, with a fan base built on the kind of road warrior work exploits typically associated with hacky sack-friendly jam bands rather than forward thinking post-rock mathematics.
With the amount of time Minus the Bear have spent living out of backpacks and sleeping on floors, one would expect they’ve come up with a solid go-to-strategy for life on the road … or not. “I still haven’t really found a good pattern yet,” admits bassist Cory Murchy the day before the band he plays in (alongside vocalist/guitarist Jake Snider, guitarist David Knudson, drummer Erin Tate and new keyboardist Alex Rose) head out on a massive 38-date-tour. “We’ve gone out so much you think I would have all my stuff together and ready to go but I’m always packing the last night and rushing in the morning. I’ve been home for like a week between tours this time, which is really nice. There’s no real way to prepare for the road except eating good meals at home in advance of the horrible food you know you’re going to have on the road.”
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Down Lo: Keeping it on the DL
Thursday 20 April @ 17:06:52 (Read: 2261) |
by Dwight Hobbes
The very first thing you notice when Down Lo gets up on stage is that front man Mark Grundhoefer (guitar, vocals) is stone cold serious about having real big fun. You can’t help it. The guy is everywhere at once, nodding his head, jumping up and down, turning around. Hell, I get tired watching him. Of course, you also notice that all four of these guys (Grundhoefer, bassist Ryan Nielsen, drummer Mike Cini and Will Nissen on keys, sax, vocals) came to play: from first note to last, they are dead-on with chops to burn. Down Lo works like a chain gang on overdrive. When you go to see them, be sure and bring dancing shoes.
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Josh Rouse: Musical conquistador
Thursday 13 April @ 13:11:52 (Read: 3353) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Josh Rouse has always been peripatetic when it comes to his music. Ever since he followed up the alt.country leanings of his 1998 debut, Dressed Up Like Nebraska, with the unexpectedly shiny pop platter Home, back in 2000, Mr. Rouse has made a career of zigging when his fans expect a zag. The one constant throughout all the permutations of Rouse’s popcraft—which includes the playful retro kitschy soft rock funk of 1972 and 2004’s countrypolitan leaning Nashville—has been his unerring ear for melody and precise arrangements. So when word reached me that Rouse had fled the Nashville music scene he’d called home for a decade and moved to the tiny seaside town of Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain, it was hard to predict how the move would shake up his songwriting. Now comes the answer in the form of Rouse record no. 6, Subtítulo.
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Javier Trejo: A man, a band and a jam
Wednesday 12 April @ 23:19:51 (Read: 3755) |
by Dwight Hobbes
Guitar man and singer/songwriter Javier Trejo does vintage, dyed-in-the-wool San Francisco rock and is pretty damned good at it, ranging from sensual acoustic music to state-of-the-art ballsy fare, all of it enriched by a sinewy, Latin aesthetic.
For an easygoing, intimate vibe, get ahold of Trejo’s newly released self-titled record. Laid back and freeform, it hints at the old, lamentably short-lived group It’s A Beautiful Day, engaging with exotic nuance, compelling with understated power and generally affording this captivating talent a lush showcase.
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Brian Just: Justify my strum
Wednesday 05 April @ 00:17:19 (Read: 3331) |
by Rob van Alstyne
The Twin Cities have never exactly been in short supply of male singer/songwriters of the low-key acoustic variety. Chances are if you walk into any given corner of the metro area for a cup of java you’ll bump up against at least one aspiring Dylan-phile with a CD-R to sell strumming away on stage. By and large these hobbyists make for pleasant background listening and little more, but every now and again a talent separates itself. Brian Just, 24, is one of those talents.
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Chris Koza: The Koza Report
Wednesday 29 March @ 17:24:05 (Read: 4050) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Chris Koza crafts “smart” songs. The kind of brainy tunesmithery that rewards repeated listens and offers no easy answers. Rather than marrying his affecting, oblique lyricism to the expected musical accoutrements of the moment (arty angular post-punk perhaps?), Koza knocks the listener off balance by pairing his avant-garde lyrical inclinations with precise folk-pop melodies of a largely traditional bent delivered in a clear, pleasing tenor, recalling ’70s singer-songwriters like Jackson Browne and Paul Simon in the process.
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Jenny Dalton: Picture of elegance
Wednesday 29 March @ 17:23:59 (Read: 4448) |
by Andrea Myers
Jenny Dalton is a lovely girl, at once timeless and classic. Her album artwork and photography depict a woman from another time. A throwback to the 1940s, it features Dalton as a dainty damsel of war-torn times, an era much more romantic than the war-torn times we face today. Her songs weave the narratives of two separated lovers, reminiscent of the perfume-doused postcards mailed overseas during World War II. At first glance, Dalton’s entire album—overflowing with delicate piano parts, tender and vulnerable vocal melodies and wandering, imaginative lyrics—is the stuff of dreamy old black and white movies.
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Edith Frost: Crafting Tearjerkers
Monday 27 March @ 12:43:52 (Read: 2933) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Despite the picture of the painted carousel horse’s head adorning the cover of her latest album, It’s A Game, Edith Frost would like to make one thing loud and clear … she’s NOT an alt.country musician—no matter how many lazy critics’ write-ups you may read to the contrary. “I never wanted anyone to put my music in the category of alternative country,” says Frost. “Or any other category for that matter. There’s a lot of country music in my past and in my life now, and if you’re hearing country strains in my own work then that’s why. But I’m not making all that much music that would fall straight into that genre ... a few songs here and there but not enough to get me labeled as ‘that’ kind of artist, you wouldn’t think. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love country and I feel really comfortable making that kind of music, I just wouldn’t want to do it 24/7. But if people want to use the fact that I’m from Texas as an excuse to forgive me for polluting their ears with my ponderous laments? Then yes, I’m all for it.”
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Haley Bonar: On Her Own
Wednesday 15 March @ 21:25:11 (Read: 5077) |
by Rob van Alstyne
A little less than three years ago, back in the nascent stages of the iPod era, local songstress Haley Bonar appeared to have it all. Barely out of her teens at the time, Bonar was already riding the gorgeous malleability of her breathy singing voice—equally stirring in moments of hushed vulnerability and brazen sultriness—to a wave of acclaim most seasoned Minnesota musicians would kill for. In short order, Bonar’s rustic folk-pop had already managed to catch the ear of indie-music legends (slow core trio Low plucked her out of Duluth coffeehouse purgatory to help record and release her sophomore album The Size of Planets on their nationally distributed imprint Chairkickers Music Union) and major label music executives alike (rumors abound that major label subsidiary V2, home to Grandaddy and the White Stripes, were chomping at the bit to sign her to a long-term contract). National tours with luminaries such as Richard Buckner were going swimmingly and all signs pointed to 2004 and many more to come as the Year of the Haley. Then … the bottom fell out.
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Pete Hofmann: Benevolent Dictator
Wednesday 15 March @ 20:44:39 (Read: 2873) |
by Nancy Sartor
Full disclosure, or how I know Pete Hofmann.
Ring, ring.
Sheryl: “Hello?”
Nancy: “Hey.”
S: “Hey, what’s up?”
N: “Blah, blah, blah … Izzy’s band’s playing Friday.”
S: “Really? Blah, blah, blah … I’ll call Sal.”
N: “Okay. I’ll call Cheryl.”
And so it goes. Gig after gig, year after year, the chick posse drags our well-beyond-twenty-something asses off to the bar to hear our friend Izzy—the masterful, music-loving bachelor drummer—play the skins in a pop band fronted by guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Pete Hofmann.
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Akron/Family: Collab Create
Thursday 09 March @ 15:33:10 (Read: 2327) |
by Holly Day
It’s almost like hearing two different bands. When Akron/Family’s eponymous first album came out last year (featuring Seth Olinsky and Ryan Vanderhoof on guitars, Miles Seaton on bass and Dana Janssen on percussion), the only word I think I could use to describe the music was “big.” The layers of sound were incredibly thick and textured, with undercurrents of buzzing and things clinking constantly, something you’d expect to hear in campfire songs composed and performed by a vegan robot choir that crash-landed in the Appalachians. There was an incredibly expansive feel to their debut album, as if the only thing keeping the band members from flying into space was a tenuous understanding of gravity.
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The Debut: Sunny Side Up
Thursday 09 March @ 15:34:00 (Read: 3530) |
by Andrea Myers
The boys of the Debut are working hard to find an answer to the one question that every twenty-something college graduate must ask him or herself, post mortarboard-hat-toss: what if I drop all the entry-level paper-pushing bullshit and just go play in my band?
“We were liking the direction we were going and we figured—what the hell, we’re 23, coming out of college, what are we going to do with our lives?” scoffs Ben Mulhern, drummer in The Debut, before taking another swig from his glass of beer. He looks around at his bandmates, crowded into a corner booth at the CC Club, who nod approvingly and contemplate their recent move to Minneapolis. “We’re young,” he says.
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Colonial Vipers Attack: Charmed Life
Thursday 09 March @ 15:33:39 (Read: 3325) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Contrary to rock ’n’ roll mythology, most bands endure a rather arduous birthing process, forming with half-cocked hopes and withstanding a succession of revolving door members and bouts of self-doubt before entertaining thoughts of ever even playing out live, let alone making a record. This makes the seemingly pain-free conception of local quintet Colonial Vipers Attack—one of the most exciting Anglo-leaning pop bands to hit Minnesota in some time—all the sweeter. From the first note of their impromptu initial practice session the members of CVA knew they were on to something special—and so did others.
Download an mp3 of CVA's song “Unnoticed.”
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Douglas Ewart: Inventions and Dimensions
Friday 03 March @ 17:34:53 (Read: 2869) |
by Dan Emerson
Those who market, write and talk about music have a penchant for putting musicians in categories. It’s a lazy substitute for insight. But, like the richly eclectic music he writes and plays, Douglas Ewart is immune to easy pigeonholing. He’s a musician, composer, instrument maker, teacher, actor, painter and tailor, among other things, drawing on multiple cultures and mediums, often simultaneously.
Since he moved to Minneapolis in 1990, Ewart, a longtime member of Chicago’s hugely influential Association For the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), has been the Twin Cities’ strongest link to the improvised music avant-garde. Saturday night at the Walker Art Center, he’ll lead his Inventions Clarinet Choir, as part of AACM’s 40th anniversary celebration.
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Malachi Constant: Lighten the Corners
Thursday 23 February @ 15:38:14 (Read: 2762) |
by Steve McPherson
It’s a pretty safe bet that any band named after the hero of a Kurt Vonnegut novel (that’d be “Sirens of Titan”) wouldn’t be in danger of taking themselves too seriously. And when a band has song titles like “New York City is Full of Pussies” and “Sex Fantasy” and sounds neither like heavy metal nor sexed-out R&B, you know the tongue is firmly planted in the cheek. I should mention that they actually use the word weltanschauung (German for worldview) in the song “Princess Billionaire.” If you’re familiar with Malachi Constant, you’ve already been treated to some seriously over-the-top riffage and densely layered instrumental music, but MC has a surprise for all of you: they found a microphone.
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Voxtrot: Word of Mouth
Thursday 23 February @ 15:38:01 (Read: 2886) |
by Steve McPherson
Voxtrot make it look easy. The Austin quintet have generated the kind of word-of-mouth hype and buzz over the last year that most bands would kill for, and songwriter Ramesh Srivastava crafts nonchalant pop gems that have an effect similar to the work of that other up-from-the-underground success story, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Soundwise, there’s not much common ground, but the feeling you get the first time you hear “The Start of Something” from their debut EP Raised by Wolves is a familiar one: this band is something special.
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Matt Pond PA: High Anxiety
Wednesday 15 February @ 11:38:12 (Read: 3208) |
by Rob van Alstyne
For being the mastermind behind six albums worth of lyrics revolving around awful accidents and awkward encounters, Matt Pond gives a surprisingly affable interview. The paranoid phrases that populate his work (“Look out: there is danger in the simple word hello”) are markedly absent from our half-hour phone encounter. Then again, the man’s got plenty to be happy about these days. After toiling in relative obscurity for five years, the last two Pond albums—both delicious concoctions of stately sparkling pop—appear to have finally found their niche. Throw in the surprise sensation their cover of Oasis’ “Champagne Supernova” started after being prominently featured on über-hot-teen-show-of-the-moment “The O.C.” and things are going rather swimmingly for Mr. Pond.
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Duncan Sheik: If 2 Country Houses Leave a Train Station at the Same Time ...
Wednesday 08 February @ 10:30:17 (Read: 3134) |
by Kate Silver
He calls it the “English Country House Problem.” Making it big, settling down, and never again measuring up to your own watermark. “The problem [with that] is once you become that successful and you go off and live in your fancy English country house, then it seems like anyone who does that loses the ability to write,” Duncan Sheik ruminates. “All these great songwriters—who shall remain nameless—wrote incredible stuff, became rich and famous, and [then] lost their ability to write anything decent.” It could be worse. Reflecting on retirement could come naturally to Sheik, currently content living in New York City. His 1996 smash single “Barely Breathing” alone could cover the kids’ tuition and Medicare at 36, but he’s not thinking that far ahead. Sheik has kept pretty busy of late, scoring for the New York stage production “Spring Awakening,” contributing to the “Transamerica” soundtrack, starting a new band with songwriter and tour-mate David Poe, and releasing his fifth record, White Limousine (Zoë/Rounder). Speaking by phone from North Carolina, where he’s already escaped into an area free of cellular roaming, Sheik steals away a few minutes before sound check.
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Mint Condition: The Professionals
Wednesday 08 February @ 10:30:06 (Read: 3388) |
by Dwight Hobbes
Mint Condition's “Live From The 9:30 Club” (DVD) is a stone cold sucker-punch. And you don’t have to be a fan to feel it. If it’s your first exposure, you’re hit hard as Stokley and company brandish cast-iron chops. As backdrop, between one strong cut after another, you’re engaged by offstage goings-on. Now, the really good news. They’re kicking off the release of “Live From The 9:30 Club” at The Fine Line, performing in the Twin Cities for the first time in a long time.
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Marah: Brothers in Arms
Wednesday 01 February @ 11:38:37 (Read: 3949) |
by Rob van Alstyne
To a certain extent one assumes that high profile critical hosannahs for rock bands result in a subsequent upgrade in their personal fortunes; unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Exhibit A: Marah. A band with more famous fans than you can shake a stick at—Stephen King cites them as a favorite; the Boss himself called them onstage at Giants Stadium to jam; and novelist Nick Hornby devoted a whole 2004 New York Times column to them entitled “Rock of Ages”—that’s somehow still stuck playing in bars with a capacity of around 350 rather than 3,000.
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Fort Minor: We’ll Sign Your Stuff
Thursday 26 January @ 13:17:23 (Read: 5667) |
by Sean McPherson
Mike Shinoda has it good and he has it bad. On one hand, 286,000 people are going to hear his first rap record. On the other hand, 286,000 people are going to hear his first rap record. Recorded under the moniker Fort Minor, The Rising Tied is almost entirely produced and performed by Mike Shinoda, better known as “Oh my god, it’s the rapper from Linkin Park.” There is nowhere to hide after a band you’re in sells 36 million records and your artistic and commercial success or failure is going to be pretty well documented.
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Superdanger: When Ski Bums Learn Guitar
Thursday 19 January @ 20:15:11 (Read: 4736) |
by Rob van Alstyne
It’s spring 2003: Caleb Rick, a ski bum in Colorado who’s gradually been learning the guitar, calls up his old high school buddy Scott Hefte, then wrapping up graduate school in Ohio. A question is posed, “Will you move back to Minnesota with me and start a band?” This is the unlikely story of the birth of Superdanger, who in two and a half years have morphed from a seemingly half-baked idea into one of the Twin Cities most promising power pop outfits.
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Camper van Beethoven: Touching All 50
Thursday 19 January @ 20:15:05 (Read: 3120) |
by Holly Day
I first discovered Camper Van Beethoven in 1986. I was living in this beautiful old red Victorian house that had been broken up into apartments a couple of blocks from the Pacific Ocean, and my worldly possessions of value consisted of a skateboard, a guitar and this spankin’ studded leather bondage top that cost me several days’ worth of tips at the record store I worked at. It was a year after Camper Van Beethoven’s wonderful debut, Telephone Free Landslide Victory, had come out, and my housemates and I had already alienated much of the beachside foot traffic belting out barely-remembered lyrics to songs on the album in inebriated half-terrorism—especially, of course, “Take the Skinheads Bowling,” because back then, and in that particular place, not taking skinheads completely seriously was considered very dangerous. At least once a week, the Huntington Beach police would stop by and gently tell us that certain local gangs, all with acronyms like FSU, HBLB and ADS, were on the prowl, and that it would be in our best interest to not be seen on our porch playing offensive folk music.
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Icy Shores: Precision Angst Strike
Wednesday 11 January @ 16:56:12 (Read: 7966) |
by Rob van Alstyne
The Icy Shores, a two-headed monster of simultaneously slick and crunchy pop, are not your typical local rock band. Comprised of ex-pats from lands far (vocalist/guitarist Hunter Jonakin and bassist Shane Stubblefield originally hail from Alabama) and farther (vocalist/guitarist Nick Hegarty was born in the UK), only drummer Nick Larsen is a Twin Cities native. Already veterans of various outfits by the time of the Icy Shores’ formation—Jonakin and Stubblefield criss-crossed the country touring with Godplow during the mid ‘90s—the band chose to take its time and slowly sculpt what would become their debut project, What You Get and How You Get It.
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Robotboy: Fighting Lean
Wednesday 28 December @ 11:01:57 (Read: 3506) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Robotboy’s 7-song sophomore EP And There Was No Future flits by so fast that if you blink too many times, it’s already over. It’s an 18-minute burst of pixie-stick-snorting-pop-punk-pomp and one tends to envision a group of shaggy-haired youths in their parents’ garage as the likely progenitors of this head bop friendly slab of atavistic rock. In reality, Robotboy are a pack of grown-ups with 9 to 5’s, children of their own, and—perhaps most surprisingly given their primal three-chords-and-the-truth approach—formal music training (just not on the instruments they happen to play in the band).
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The New Congress: In Session
Wednesday 28 December @ 10:40:40 (Read: 5373) |
by Dwight Hobbes
If you have a sweet tooth for lush major 7 chords, a jones for rockin’ funk and always wished some band could bring it like that all night long, take heart. There is justice in the world and its name is The New Congress. These guys grab hold of a silky groove and fire it full of stank-ass funk. ‘Til the cows come home. They’re pretty damned good in the studio, too (and are finishing up work on their debut CD, mastering it in Nashville for late February release).
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White Light Riot: Underaged/Overtalented
Wednesday 21 December @ 18:34:17 (Read: 4443) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Despite what crotchety embittered types are fond of saying, youth is not always wasted on the young. I’ve got the proof right here in my hands in the form of The Dark is Light Enough, the debut EP by local youngsters White Light Riot. A six-song treatise in joyously rocking songs, WLR’s tunes are full of the wide-eyed ambition and impassioned verve that only those whose world still feels like its made up more of possibilities than responsibilities are capable of displaying—which only makes sense considering half the group are still teenagers.
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The Bad Plus: Curate This, Wynton
Wednesday 21 December @ 18:34:10 (Read: 2528) |
by Holly Day
Growing up, it seemed that the difference between the music that I liked and the music that my father liked eventually came down to my love of complete chaos and his love of absolute technical perfection. I don’t know how many evenings he’d sit me down and loudly play some god-awful elevator soundtrack for me, all the while explaining to me why this music was so much more musically valid than Shockabilly or the Butthole Surfers.
The two of us found absolutely no middle ground in our musical tastes and, in fact, had come to a point where we found great pleasure in torturing each other at our respective houses by playing the most offensive music in our collections when on home ground. My dad would come by to see the kids, and I’d slap Nancy Sinatra or Ornette Coleman on the stereo and turn up the volume. My husband and I would make the trek to my parents’, only to be greeted with the tediously robotic strains of the Pat Metheny Group wafting through the open front door.
Then it happened. For weeks, my husband and I had been planning to go see a Bad Plus show. We had the tickets and everything. At the last minute, he found out his night off from work had been cancelled, and he was going to have to miss the show.
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John Solomon: Losing A Year
Wednesday 14 December @ 18:06:35 (Read: 3054) |
by Steve Mcpherson
John Solomon of Friends Like These has a new dog: a beagle puppy named Lou Diamond Phillips in the Role of Chavez Y. Chavez from the Popular Movie Young Guns (Louie for short). And stopping by to feed Louie has made him late for our interview, but it’s the kind of responsibility that he feels all right shirking a press commitment for. “Even though it’s only been since August, it’s totally changed the way I look at my life,” says Solomon, who shares singing, songwriting and guitar duties with Adam Switlick in FLT, along with bassist Steve Murray and drummer Matt O’Laughlin. “I mean, that’s why I got the dog; I want to come home and know that I’m responsible enough. I mean, I still fuck up. But it’s totally changed my mentality about the band and what I’m doing.”
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Mel Gibson & The Pants: Seriously Laidback
Wednesday 14 December @ 18:06:30 (Read: 3833) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Local sextet Mel Gibson & the Pants make the kind of groundbreaking, genre-defying music that is easy to enjoy and hard to explain. Is it hip-hop? Well, there is a rapper who sounds remarkably like Snoop Dogg on speed (his decidedly non-hip-hop handle is Harold Sanders). Is it rock? Well, they do have a live band quick to peel out post-rock riffs and rubbery bass lines. Is it electronic music? The band does appear to rock about as much techie gear as your average Best Buy and knows its way around skittery beats, jittery sequencing tricks and Tron-styled keyboard craziness. Given the post-Thanksgiving timing of my interview with Drew Christopherson (drums) and Ryan Olson (beats/sequences), I couldn’t resist asking them how they explain the sound of the band when munching on turkey legs with their respective families.
Download an mp3 of Mel Gibson and the Pants’ song “Reagan’s Dead.”
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Low: The Beautiful Ripping Sound
Wednesday 07 December @ 20:33:49 (Read: 5017) |
by Keith Pille
Depending on which set of events you picked, you could make an argument for 2005 being either a stellar or a rotten year for Low. On the stellar side, they released a masterpiece of an album whose drastic departure from past work earned them wide praise and swept the Minnesota Music Awards. On the rotten side, they abruptly canceled a tour because of mental health concerns and accepted the departure of bassist Zak Sally.
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Reticence: Rock Survivalist’s Handbook
Wednesday 07 December @ 19:48:12 (Read: 3504) |
by Jennifer Whigham
You won’t find nicer guys in Minneapolis, which in some rock circles would be a reputation-killer. This isn’t the case for Reticence, a mellow-rock trio from Arden Hills, who combine hearty down-to-earthness with sounds influenced by everyone from Pedro the Lion (laments about media) to Edgar Allen Poe (four people die within the course of the album—lyrically, of course).
Download an mp3 of Reticenc's song “Competition Drives.”
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Tre Hardson: A Seat at Slim Kid Tre’s Café
Wednesday 23 November @ 18:00:01 (Read: 3485) |
by Toki Wright
In everyone’s record collection, there are certain albums that define periods of your life. Maybe an antiwar record from the ‘60s. Possibly a pro-Black album from the early ‘70s? .Hell, you might just have really loved Culture Club in the ‘80s. As a high-school student in the mid 1990s, there were a few albums that formed the soundtrack to my existence. Of those, the record that I never let anyone borrow was The Pharcyde’s Labcabincalifornia. I’m proud to say that I owned it on tape and it was also the first CD I ever purchased. After I finished this interview, it dawned on me that I had just interviewed someone that spoke my language at a point in my life when it seemed like no one else did.
This coming Saturday, Minneapolis will welcome back Tre Hardson to the Triple Rock Social Club with Heiruspecs.
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Rogue Wave: Bewitched with the Rogue’s Company
Wednesday 23 November @ 17:45:45 (Read: 3750) |
by Steve McPherson
Sometime last spring, I became aware of the fact that there are approximately one kajillion songs about California. Artists as diverse as Low, Rufus Wainwright, Jay Farrar, Quasi and Phantom Planet have songs called “California,” and a host of others (The Decemberists, Randy Newman, Death Cab for Cutie) have devoted tunes to either big-upping or laying the smackdown on the Golden State and its cities, but Rogue Wave comes with cred because they’re from Oakland. So what does former solo act/current bandleader Zach Rogue have to say in the first line of his band’s ode to his home state?
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Big Ditch Road: BDR Me
Wednesday 16 November @ 16:53:28 (Read: 4271) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Not too long ago Darin Wald’s life was in shambles. Big Ditch Road, the alt.country band he had led to local prominence, was falling apart—more importantly, so was Wald’s state of mind. Checking himself into a state hospital for treatment of what would be diagnosed as ‘major depression,’ Wald found the help he needed and immediately set about chronicling the whole traumatic experience in song; the result is Big Ditch Road’s sophomore album, Suicide Note Reader’s Companion. Featuring a new band (the lone holdovers responsible for BDR’s classically-leaning alt.country-styled debut Ring are Wald and pedal steel player Brian O’Neil), a new sound (gritty electric guitars galore, dangerous dalliances with distortion, sandpaper raw vocals) and a vastly different lyrical vision, SNRC is defined by its willingness to break from convention and defy expectations.
Download an mp3 of Big Ditch Road’s song “Ghosts.”
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Super Furry Animals: Imagining the Unimaginable
Wednesday 16 November @ 16:53:19 (Read: 3000) |
by Sally McGraw
During the first half of the 20th century, the Welsh language threatened to drop out of existence. Recent efforts to revive Welsh as both an official and a spoken language have seen some success, yet only about 21 percent of the Welsh population is fluent.
Among that 21 percent are Cardiff-based Super Furry Animals vocalist Gruff Rhys, guitarist Huw Bunford (Bunf), keyboardist Cian Ciaran, drummer Dafydd Ieuan (Daf) and bassist Guto Pryce. In fact, this group of post-alternative prog-pop explorers wrote and performed exclusively in their native tongue for the first three years of their collective career. This bold and quasi-patriotic choice earned them the adoration and respect of a remarkably cross-generational Welsh fanbase. The group’s first two EPs—Lianfairpwllgywgyllgoger Chwymdrobwlltysiliogoygoyocynygofod (In Space) and Moog Droog—were both sung entirely in Welsh.
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The Mood Swings: Dangerous Dames
Thursday 10 November @ 20:42:34 (Read: 2656) |
by Rob van Alstyne
For being the scene that essentially helped birth the riot grrl movement during the late ‘80s in the form of Babes in Toyland, the Twin Cities have had somewhat of a dearth of rockin’ ladies in the house in recent years (the Bleeding Hickeys notably excepted). Thankfully the Mood Swings, a three-quarters X chromosome-only outfit centered around vocalist/guitarist Ashley Prenzlow, have arrived to lend themselves to the rockin’ ladies cause with their years-in-the-making debut album Come On Tell Me. A classic sleaze-rock outfit whose sonic assault is heavy on gnarly riffage and locked-down rhythms, the racket the Mood Swings kick up is so fist-pumpingly fun that thoughts of what genders are pounding away on the instruments quickly become an afterthought.
Download an mp3 of the Mood Swings’ song “The Finest Line.”
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Askeleton: All Together Now
Wednesday 02 November @ 01:48:43 (Read: 3655) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Knol Tate is a man of many hats: producer, sideman, bandleader—but just one passion—music. “Music’s always pretty much been it for me,” says Tate, 31, via telephone from his newly opened St. Paul studio space where he’s continuing an esteemed producer/engineer career already responsible for some of this year’s most adventurous local rock releases (Vox Vermillion’s Standing Still You Move Forward and The Tin Horns’ Present the Champions of Victory). “I spent my entire teenage years growing up in the Dinkytown area with my brother and Mom. We were just surrounded by music. The old Coffman Union used to have a great record store and I remember going there and buying a Talking Heads album after hearing ‘Burning Down the House’ in ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ and thinking it was cool. It was really amazing because everybody around me was older and into such great music. My mother would let us hang out late at coffee shops and talk to people. Our mom let us practice our instruments whenever we wanted; we would have shows in the living room.”
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The Few Nice Words: The Reluctant Limelight
Wednesday 02 November @ 01:46:04 (Read: 2582) |
by Jennifer Whigham
Matthew Foust isn’t used to the attention. As a guitarist/songwriter for Love-cars and now-defunct 12 Rods, he’s normally lurking quietly in the background, keeping a steady rhythm for more “natural” (his word) front men, like James Diers. During our two-hour conversation about the dark art-rock of his new project The Few Nice Words, Foust, with his low-hum movie announcer resonance, makes sparse eye contact and admits to self-consciousness about his singing.
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Ben Lee: The Great Awakening
Wednesday 02 November @ 01:43:13 (Read: 2496) |
by Sally McGraw
Youth is not always wasted on the young. By the time Australian singer-songwriter Ben Lee was 16 years old, he’d befriended Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, released his first full-length studio album on the Beastie Boys’ (now-defunct) Grand Royal label, and had one of his songs covered by the Lemonheads. While most of us were locked in our bedrooms listening to these tastemakers, Lee was touring with them.
16-year-old Lee came on the scene just before the late-nineties deluge of teen performers hit the American airwaves. But the earnest, hooky, and charmingly-awkward songs on his first release, Grandpaw Would, would set him miles apart from the Disney-manufactured teen-pop parade that followed. And over the course of the next decade, Lee refined his sound – moving from Jonathan Richman-derivative geek-rock toward a quietly polished, uninhibited, folk-pop that thrums with vibrant emotion.
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My Morning Jacket: Chilly in the Dawn
Thursday 27 October @ 18:37:57 (Read: 3427) |
by Rob van Alstyne
In the past My Morning Jacket’s music always seemed to be floating in the ether. It was a sound defined by the high end—the lonesome thickly reverb-coated wail of singer/guitarist Jim James, celestial warped keyboard passages, lithe guitar lines—rather than the low. All of that has changed with Z, the Louisville, Kentucky-based group’s fourth album, and the one in which the long-haired-foot-stomping-friendly-quartet finally connect fully with the soulful bottom end heretofore given short shrift on most of their tunes. The Neil Young meets Radiohead comparisons bandied about in regards to previous critically acclaimed albums like the sprawling At Dawn (2001) no longer apply—at least not without mentioning that they’ve thrown a little bit of Prince and D’Angelo into the mix.
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Tapes ‘n Tapes: Keeping it Reel
Thursday 27 October @ 18:09:46 (Read: 4522) |
by Ian Anderson
The sophomore release from local rockers Tapes ‘n Tapes proves that they are, in fact, sticking around for some time. Embodying a sound that is distinctly reminiscent of 1973, the record sounds like David Bowie’s Hunky Dory, but with more dirt and frustration.
Lead singer and guitarist Josh Grier’s vocals quiver with a sensitivity similar to that of Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst or the Arcade Fire’s Win Butler, but with a poignant sense of pride and dignity that hints at a closeted Talking Heads fan—think David Byrne’s syncopation and pitch inflections, but with an actual melody behind it.
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American Analog Set: Killing Me Softly
Thursday 20 October @ 23:55:17 (Read: 3823) |
by Rob van Alstyne
In their decade long run, the American Analog Set have accomplished many things—they’ve written pristine pop albums (2001’s Know By Heart), made drone-heavy detours into ambient bliss (1997’s From Our Living Room to Yours) and generally done everything EXCEPT rock. The band prefers a softer route to listeners’ ear canals (and hearts): one centered on the magic of lingering vibraphone lines, half-whispered vocals and methodically seductive rhythms. It makes perfect sense that the band’s most recent release before this year’s Set Free was a special limited edition promotional EP sponsored by Tylenol—AmAnSet are all about pain relief. Encapsulating past stabs at both polished pop and more warped hypnotic whimsy, Set Free finds an exquisite middle ground never before reached by the band.
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Minnesota Sur Seine: The Revolution will be Improvised
Thursday 20 October @ 23:55:07 (Read: 2980) |
by Cyn Collins
Alliances continue to form and endure as world-renowned innovative musical pioneers from France, England, Brittany and across America perform in powerful collaborations with our local jazz, electronic, funk, hip-hop and spoken word artists. This year’s Second Annual Sur Seine Festival (Oct. 14–23) has expanded to pull together over 20 artists from diverse genres and cultures.
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sur Seine: News from the Jungle
Thursday 20 October @ 23:55:01 (Read: 2679) |
by Steve McPherson
It's a somewhat bitter pill to swallow for many musicians whose passions lay in the direction of jazz or blues that greater success is to be had in Europe than here, in the land where the music was born. Expatriate bluesmen, including Luther Allison, found greater success while living abroad in places like Paris than they had ever experienced on these shores, but by Allison’s own admission, it was hard to live apart from the place that had given birth to him and the music he loved. The sur Seine festival is seeking to bridge these gaps, bringing together the European (predominantly French) musicians that have carried the torch of jazz (free and otherwise) in their own country with the under-appreciated purveyors of all things jazz in this country.
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Nada Surf: Don’t Call it a Comeback
Thursday 13 October @ 01:49:35 (Read: 3057) |
by Steve McPherson
You remember Nada Surf, right? Or maybe you don’t. Not that band with the song about the phonebooth. No, not the one about a detachable penis. And not the song about Dizz-Knee Land. That’s Dada.
“You know, I’m the same way,” says Nada Surf’s drummer Ira Elliot by phone when I tell him about my brother’s Dada-Nada Surf mix-up. “‘I heard your single back in the ’90s, now go away.’ And we are that. To a lot of people we’re still associated with ‘Popular,’ so it’s kind of funny in that repsect. I think, though, if you just try to make something simply good, people will find it. I don’t like to pat myself on the back, but I’m happy we had this underdog status and we were able to come up with a good [album].”
Download an mp3 of Nada Surf's song “Do It Again.”
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Golden: Good as Golden
Thursday 13 October @ 01:44:52 (Read: 3122) |
by Toki Wright
In a city oversaturated with fly-by-night rappers you really have to find a way to stand out. Everyone has access to a computer, knows someone with an MPC (or Playstation), and you could probably get a show on any night of the week even if you just started rapping last Thursday.
He’s down with the Black Eyed Peas. He emcees and sings. He’s from Pennsylvania. He’s white. I’m sure by now you’ve concocted all sorts of assumptions in your head about Golden. He must be an underground backpack rapper. He must want to be like (fill in white rapper’s name here) when he grows up. The former S.U.S.P.E.C.T.S. front man returns with a new and improved project, live stage show and all around hustle. Throw all of your assumptions to the side. The first thing that Casey Golden will tell you is that “It
Ain’t Me.”
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The Bill Mike Band: Front and Center
Thursday 13 October @ 00:12:17 (Read: 3154) |
by Rob van Alstyne
In his 10 years on the Minneapolis music scene William “Bill Mike” Michel has largely been known for his work with others. Whether providing added crunch to the Love-Cars, limber melodies for hyper-kinetic MC Eyedea to bounce rhymes off, or funky rhythms for dance pranksters Iffy, Michel’s wowed audiences as a guitar gunslinger for hire with more Twin Cities notables than you can shake a stick at. After a long gestation period Michel is finally taking center stage for himself with the release of Better News, the debut CD from his own adventurous rock trio.
Download an mp3 of the Bill Mike Band’s song “Secure.”
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CocoRosie: Two of a Kind
Thursday 06 October @ 00:23:05 (Read: 5688) |
by Holly Day
Recently, my younger sister came to visit from Las Vegas. I hadn’t seen her for over a year, and had talked to her maybe three times over the phone during that period of time, mostly just to pass the phone over to my son for him to thank her for various Christmas and birthday presents. Over the years, she’s drifted solidly into grown-up, businesswoman territory while I’ve made an art of floundering around in life in the most uncommitted and immature of ways. I drive her crazy. She might as well be some strange pod person my parents found underneath a cabbage leaf and raised as their own.
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The Flavor Crystals: Sweet Dreams
Thursday 06 October @ 00:23:01 (Read: 3174) |
by Rob van Alstyne
If my dreams had a soundtrack I’d want the Flavor Crystals to score it. A local quartet whose every slow motion tremolo-guitar-clang and airy vocal refrain feels like a visit from an indie-rock lullaby master, the Flavor Crystals make music ideally suited to soothe you through long nights—with the occasional menacing bit of feedback just to keep you on your toes. Their debut album, On Plastic, comes after years of false starts and lineup changes since the core of Josh Richardson (vocals/guitar) and Nat Stensland (guitar / bass) started making music together in St. Cloud during the ‘90s.
Download an mp3 the Flavor Crystal’s song “Sheep.”
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M.I.A.: Guerilla Funk
Thursday 29 September @ 14:33:53 (Read: 3757) |
by Steve McPherson
A Mercury Prize would have been nice, but M.I.A. (née Maya Arulpragasam) is hot enough, at least in this country, to make it superfluous. As a budding fan of all things not-yet-blown-up, I paid careful attention to these British tastemaker awards since the winner was usually a harbinger of what my tastes would be shifting towards over the next year: first it was Gomez and their rambly, blues-tinged pastoral rock, then it was Badly Drawn Boy’s wooly and expansive folk. As it is, maybe the world will turn towards Antony and the Johnsons now that they’ve claimed the prize, but I’m too busy bumping M.I.A.’s Arular on the West River Parkway to notice.
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Ida: Music for Grownups
Thursday 29 September @ 14:30:50 (Read: 2864) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Plain and simple, Ida makes music for adults. Pensive, reflective, typically mellow with the occasional splash of rock bombast, the Brooklyn collective has spent 13 years exploring the outer edges of folk-rock to great critical acclaim and an impassioned cult following. Favoring a wide-ranging exploratory sound over standard rock ‘n’ roll conventions it makes perfect sense that Ida’s cerebral and complicated take on song finds its most receptive audiences in atypical rock venues—the group frequently plays community arts centers and museums and felt perfectly in its element at their 2003 gig at the University of Minnesota’s Weisman Art Museum—as opposed to hipster bars. Steeped in winning harmonies (courtesy of husband and wife team Daniel Littleton and Elizabeth Mitchell plus secret alto weapon Karla Schickle who all rotate on lead vocals) and introspective-yet-never-maudlin lyricism, Ida’s already lived multiple music lives by this point. Twentysomething-road-warriors-turned-major-label-martyrs-now-indie-elder-statesman, Ida have always been a band that’s rolled with the punches. That being said, the group’s latest adjustment—parenthood- —was perhaps their hardest yet, and a large part of the reason the group’s new album, Heart Like A River, comes after four years of recording silence.
Ddownload an mp3 of Ida’s song “Late Blues.”
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Bob Mould: “This is my life’s work.”
Thursday 29 September @ 14:27:31 (Read: 3593) |
by Keith Pille
Make no mistake: Bob Mould is looking forward to coming back to the Twin Cities. “By the time we get to Minneapolis, we should be just about on fire,” he says. “It’s a blessing and a curse, especially with First Avenue. You know, I helped build the stage in the Seventh Street Entry many years ago. Sort of grew up playing music in there, especially on the big stage as the years went on. It feels like home; and I think with any of us, when we go home, it’s a mixed thing.
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13&God: Collaboration Über Alles
Thursday 22 September @ 00:42:40 (Read: 3015) |
by Steve McPherson
Attention MTV and whoever came up with the idea of mashing up Jay-Z and Linkin Park, Ludacris and Sum 41: combining rap with rock is about as innovative as putting together peanut butter and jelly. Like any bright new idea, when Run DMC and LL Cool J sampled heavy metal guitars, rap-rock had enough novelty to survive on that alone. But by the time Ludacris appeared on Saturday Night Live with Sum 41 in tow a year ago, the casket was already in the ground and Rick Rubin was throwing dirt on it. To survive and evolve, a musical revolution has to have staying power. The wartime consiglieri (say, the Beastie Boys in this case) might give way to incompetent boobs who go mad with power (say, Fred Durst), but once the wake is over, it’s time for brave, necromantic souls like 13&God to sneak out to the graveyard, dig up the decrepit Frankenstein corpse of rap-rock and breathe spooky, eerie life into that unholy combination—for the second time.
Download an mp3 of 13&God’s song “Men of Station.”
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The National: Life Writ Small
Thursday 22 September @ 00:14:36 (Read: 2770) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Awkward embraces stolen behind closed doors, epic nights of bacchanalian revelry, shadowy drunken reminiscences—these are the moments in life the National have chosen to set to song. “My lyrics are mostly about awkward, uncomfortable moments,” claims front man Matt Berninger. “Private moments, inner dialogues that you wouldn’t want to say out loud. I think that’s because when writing lyrics I’m usually home alone and reflecting on things that I’m trying to figure out or deal with. Sometimes they’re personal, but other times its just kind of contemplating the elements of existence that are most interesting to me, which tend to be things that are slightly bent or flawed. All the love songs are kind of love amongst difficult little questions. Other songs are about friendship and the ugly little details that can define it. There’s no judgment made on the characters, there’s a lot of empathy. I don’t write about aliens or made up supernatural stories. The common little normal human bumps and broken parts of people’s lives are the things I care about and think are song worthy.”
Download an mp3 of the National’s song “Abel.”
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Andrew Bird: Musical Misfit
Wednesday 21 September @ 23:51:47 (Read: 5276) |
by Sally McGraw
Visual artists may extol the virtues of non-conformism, but it can be quite the sticky wicket for musicians—especially those bent on taking their ideas beyond the local café circuit. Music is an art form with an “industry” built around it. Marketing execs and label reps balk if a small-potatoes artist deigns to tinker with a proven musical formula.
Luckily, Andrew Bird has the perseverance and bravery to flout industry norms. A capricious sonic innovator, he continues to push his own extraordinary talent to its limits, both live and in the studio. His utterly ineffable violin-based sound—a playful blend of pop, swing and Gypsy-folk—is made yet more entrancing by enigmatic, evocative and seriously crunchy lyrics. Packed with outlandish imagery and vaguely discomfiting emotional ideas, his is a music that appeals to the Lewis Carroll in us all.
Download an mp3 of Andrew Bird's song “A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left.”
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I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House: Rock Ethic
Friday 16 September @ 04:16:25 (Read: 5329) |
by Steve McPherson
If finding fame and fortune were merely a matter of the measure of your heart, then the members of the ridiculously and entirely accurately named I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House would already be living high on the hog. I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House delivers one of the most absolutely unbelievable live shows I have ever had the privilege to see, and it’s simple why: a strong work ethic. “How I’ve always looked at this from day one,” says singer/guitarist and principal songwriter Mike Damron by phone from Portland, Ore., “is if there’s five people at my show on a Tuesday night—you know how it was there in Des Moines: there was nobody there, but I came there to kick some ass. I didn’t come all that way to not play my guts out. If it’s just for you and Martin [Devaney] and the bartender, well that’s fine. That’s the best crowd there is.”
Download an mp3 of I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House's song “Regrets and Greyhounds.”
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Sufjan Stevens: The Anomaly
Friday 16 September @ 03:52:11 (Read: 3014) |
by Rob van Alstyne
The best pop music has always been made by weirdoes, outsiders whose every song bears their indelibly idiosyncratic creative stamp—just look at Minnesota’s own legends, Prince, Dylan, Westerberg—a pack of social misfits generally tagged as abrasive personalities. This triumvirate undoubtedly had an easier time penning genre-defining albums than, say, getting a date to the movies. Sufjan Stevens, hyper-literate-banjo-pluckin’-spiritually-enlightened-American-songbook-conjurer, is the new weirdo in town, but a kinder, gentler weirdo with a significantly lower commercial profile—at least for now.
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Robert Skoro: Into the Great Wide Open
Friday 16 September @ 00:37:11 (Read: 3747) |
 by Rob van Alstyne
Given the recent track record of established Twin Cities artists who’ve left for bigger cities to make their mark (Har Mar Superstar, Craig Finn and the Hold Steady crew) it’s hard to argue career-wise against young troubadour Robert Skoro’s recent move from Minneapolis to Philadelphia, but it couldn’t be coming at a worse time for Twin Cities music fans. Skoro, first introduced to Twin Cities stages as the fresh-faced teenage bassist in the Mason Jennings Band some eight-odd years ago, is exiting Minnesota stage right at precisely the moment his soon-to-be-unveiled sophomore solo album, That These Things Could Be Ours, will likely be winning him scores of new fans in his native land.
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Lifestyle of Wigs: Itinerant Rock
Friday 16 September @ 00:36:58 (Read: 2672) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Lifestyle of Wigs was born in Boston, raised in Minneapolis and currently resides (largely) in San Francisco. Just be thankful Max Edwards (songwriter/vocalist/guitarist) stayed in one place long enough to record LoW’s debut album—a collection of riotous power-trio guitar rock sure to please fans of Built to Spill and Dinosaur Jr.—in the first place.
“The band started back when I was living in Boston for a while,” recalls Edwards, 30, speaking via telephone from his new residence in San Francisco.
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Of Montreal: Love and Marriage
Wednesday 31 August @ 03:35:24 (Read: 2605) |
by Adrienne Urbanski
While love is probably the subject most commonly covered by music, the topic usually tends more towards that of heartbreak and loneliness than that of married bliss. Kevin Barnes—Of Montreal front man and mastermind—certainly has been no stranger to heartbreak, even naming the band after the hometown of a woman with whom he had a particularly bad breakup.
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The Plastic Constellations: A Bite of the Devil’s Pie
Friday 26 August @ 01:09:02 (Read: 4233) |
by Steve McPherson
How many of you out there started a band in seventh grade? Now, how many of you are still doing it ten years later, having just inked a deal with French Kiss records, home of the Hold Steady and Les Savy Fav? Now that all your hands are down, you can look behind you and see the only four still holding them up are The Plastic Constellations.
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TC Underground: The Kids Are Alright
Friday 26 August @ 01:08:56 (Read: 3125) |
by Nathan Hall
Area teens want more programs for their neighborhoods, according to data released last week by the Youth Mapping Project. Teens from ages 13 to 18 surveyed “kid-friendly” attractions in 20 different neighborhoods across the city. Each clipboard-toting surveyor asked 40 kids detailed questions about youth services, scoring a $250 stipend for their trouble. The six-month initiative was funded by the Minneapolis Youth Coordinating Board and the Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program. The bottom line? Few programs are designed for teens, and the existing ones are significantly lacking in regards to accessibility.
Wendy Pareene (aka Wendy Wilde of Air America), a mother of three and Uptown resident who helped direct the Lyndale neighborhood survey group, says it was the lack of teen hangouts here that led her to help found the TC Underground nightclub four years ago.
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These Modern Socks: Panic Rock
Friday 26 August @ 01:08:51 (Read: 3271) |
by Rob van Alstyne
From the opening unsettling rhythmic glitches of “Monitor Progress” to the closing notes of icy piano mini-ballad “Buster,” all 36 minutes of local indie-pop outfit These Modern Socks’ debut is a captivating journey through rock’s neurotic outer edges. The group’s highly-digitized panic-pop gets under the skin instantly, with front man Corey Palmer’s sexy tenor crooning crypto-odes-to-insecurity with a warmth that perfectly balances out the joyously skewed synthetic blips and electronically manipulated guitar figures at the core of most of the songs. It’s all a far cry from the more traditionally hard rocking sound of Palmer’s previous outfit, Daykit.
Download an mp3 of These Modern Socks’ song, “Glue.”
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The Fantastic Merlins: Modal Conversations
Wednesday 17 August @ 15:15:04 (Read: 2947) |
by Steve McPherson
“It’s interesting to me that you’re calling it jazz because I have some sort of freaky time with that word just because it’s this feeling of being pigeonholed,” says Jacqueline Ferrier-Ultan. “Because to me I don’t hear it as jazz: I hear it as chamber music, I hear it as choral or gospel music. It’s this really organic thing within itself that has its own life.” And I grudgingly have to admit she’s right, but it doesn’t change the fact that the Fantastic Merlins make improvised music with the spirit that’s the impetus behind the best jazz. They might not have chord progressions, they may not “blow” the way that Charlie Parker did, but they capture the intensity, freedom and flat-out beauty of some of John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Albert Ayler.
Download an mp3 of the Fantastic Merlins’ song “Lenny.”
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Skeletons & the Girl-Faced Boys: KS ain’t OK
Wednesday 17 August @ 14:54:48 (Read: 2406) |
by Holly Day
When my dad was a teenager, growing up in Dodge City, Kansas, there weren’t many employment opportunities available to young men outside of the military. So, like many other young men of his generation and that place, he went to work at the Dodge City Boot Hill Museum, where he spent his days falling out of trees after pretending to be shot and rolling between a horse’s legs while pretending to shoot his assailants back.
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Slow Dazzle: Tireless Troubadors
Wednesday 17 August @ 12:35:34 (Read: 4362) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Some musicians don’t feel connected to their craft unless they continually feel the ground moving under their feet. There’s no such thing as a day off and open spaces on the calendar are usually met with dread rather than delight. Timothy Bracy and Shannon McArdle are two such types of tireless troubadours. Two-thirds of the songwriting power in critically-acclaimed ragged folk-rock band the Mendoza Line, Bracy and McArdle so bristled at the thought of taking some vacation days from music that they went ahead and started another band—Slow Dazzle—rather than sit still when their primary band’s schedule was starting to slow down.
Download an mp3 of Slow Dazzle’s song “Fleur De Lie.”
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Jim Yoshii Pile-Up: Full Disclosure
Thursday 11 August @ 03:51:07 (Read: 2601) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Paul Gonzenbach was sick and tired of people misinterpreting his songs, of critics not taking the time to fully absorb the lengthy and often cryptic treatises on emotional turbulence at the center of his bands windy guitar epics. “With this set of songs I wanted be very specific about the situations being described and yet still have them feel applicable to other people,” claims Gonzenbach, singer/guitarist for awkwardly named San Francisco quintet The Jim Yoshii Pile-Up. “If I was saying things in there that only I understood then I think that’s of use to nobody. That’s a problem in a lot of lyrics that I hear. It’s like high school poetry—it means something to the high schooler, probably a lot, but it doesn’t mean anything to anyone else. I didn’t want to mince my words at all on this record. I generally like lyrics that sort of reveal themselves over a period of time but I’ve realized most people never take the time to actually listen to the lyrics. I think a lot of times I was dancing around what I wanted to say so much that it didn’t totally come through.”
Download an mp3 of the Jim Yoshii Pile-Up’s song “Silver Sparkler.”
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The City on Film: Cheer up, Emo Kid
Thursday 11 August @ 03:33:21 (Read: 2437) |
by Steve McPherson
Back in 1998, emo wasn’t a four-letter word. It seemed for all the world like there was a bona fide movement taking place, spearheaded by bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, the Promise Ring, Jimmy Eat World and Jets to Brazil. Something happened, though, and listening to the last or most recent efforts by any of these bands might make you wonder how anyone ever lumped them in together. The derisively (albeit accurately) categorized screamo or mainstreamo bands like Taking Back Sunday, Thursday (whence the obsession with the days of the week?) and Finch have taken up the mantle of the emotionally-stunted middle-class whiteboys and simmered down emo’s (“emotional hardcore”—ick) potent combination of pop melody, introspective lyrics and rhythmic fury to a reduction so bland and predictable it’s more like a brand of soda than a cathartic cocktail of pop.
Download an mp3 of the City on Film’s song “Forgiveness.”
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Kinski: From Helsinki with Love
Thursday 11 August @ 03:21:40 (Read: 2391) |
by Holly Day
What do a stenographer, Artie Shaw, illicit drugs and Scandinavia all have in common? No, it’s not some crazy, obscure foreign movie featuring the complicated “King of Swing” and his trusty big-breasted secretary being chased by a bunch of drug smugglers and a few of Artie’s ex-wives through the streets of Helsinki. They’re actually all words and characters from song titles, forming a theme held together by the imaginary thread that may or may not make up the story behind Kinski’s newest release, Alpine Static.
Download an mp3 of Kinski’s song “The Wives of Artie Shaw.”
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Beight: Hardcore Softie
Wednesday 03 August @ 16:56:49 (Read: 4045) |
by Rob van Alstyne
A lot can happen to one's musical career in just a few short years - ask Michael Jackson - and although the transformation Minneapolis musician Brad Senne's undergone is of a somewhat different nature, it's been no less extreme. Back when the '90s were drawing to a close, Senne was growling atop crunchy guitars in hardcore outfit Picturesque and acting out his Angry Young Man phase. Now, just five years later, it’s a far different Senne who's resurfaced under the name Beight with a polished pop platter in tow, the just released File in Rhythm.
Download an mp3 of Beight's song, "Parallels.
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I Self Devine: Tantric Hip-Hop
Wednesday 03 August @ 16:54:51 (Read: 5085) |
by Steve McPherson
“I was at the gym at Martin Luther King Park and I was watching the game, and I overheard two cats talking about 50 Cent and Nas and they were talking about who was better. And I heard one cat was like, ‘Well, I don’t even want to hear Nas; if I want to learn I can go to school,’” explains I Self Devine at a South Minneapolis coffee shop. I’ve asked him about how he’s felt about the different cities he’s lived in, but the conversation has drifted to a perennial problem in hip-hop and popular music in general: how to get people’s attention without feeling like you’ve sold out.
Download and mp3 of I Self Devine’s song “Ice Cold.”
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Cardinal Sin/Small towns: Team Rock
Wednesday 03 August @ 16:53:09 (Read: 3429) |
by Ian Anderson
The Cardinal Sin and Small Towns Burn A Little Slower (Small Towns for the hip and scene-savvy) have each been “the next big thing” for far too long, and soon will just be plain old “big.” But with the release of their split 7-inch, There is No Place Like MPLS (Grey Flight Records), these bright futures are just that much more apparent.
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Teenage Fanclub: 3 Heads Are Better
Wednesday 27 July @ 17:11:33 (Read: 4348) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Roughly a dozen years ago Teenage Fanclub was tagged for stardom. Spin hailed their sophomore record Bandwagonesque as 1991’s best (above Nevermind) and the Fannies were appearing on Saturday Night Live. Could it really be that a group of Scottish lads schooled in the teachings of power-pop goodness would finally capture the fame that had eluded the likes of their American forebears like Big Star, the dBs and Tommy Keene? Somewhat predictably for those who know their power-pop history, the temporary spotlight proved to be misleading as the Fanclub returned with a “difficult” follow-up album (1993’s Thirteen) and gradually slowed the pace of their releases and stateside appearances.
Download an mp3 of Teenage Fanclub’s song “It’s All in My Mind.”
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Robert McCreedy: Positive Thinking
Wednesday 27 July @ 16:32:36 (Read: 3367) |
by Holly Day
The first time I met Robert “Bob” McCreedy was at my sister-in-law’s house. It was sort of a belated housewarming party, but since I’d practically been in labor at the time they’d bought the house, I hadn’t actually been able to see it until this point. Anyway, Bob was there, and I was in the kitchen cutting up my fancy housewarming cake when he came up to say “hi,” because he really is a nice, polite guy. Myself, I’m a grumpy old bitch, and instead of smiling and making small talk like I was supposed to, I waved the gigantic butcher knife I was carving up the cake with in Bob’s face and ordered him to carry plates out into the living room and serve dessert to people. And that was the end of my first meeting with Bob McCreedy.
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Pernice Brothers: Shiny, unhappy people
Thursday 21 July @ 15:27:01 (Read: 4999) |
by Steve McPherson
Back when I was living in Northampton, my band briefly considered calling our next album Western Massachusetts, but nixed that idea when a friend informed us that Joe Pernice’s Scud Mountain Boys had already put out an album called Massachusetts. “Nuts to them,” thought I, and never even gave it a listen. A few years later, my band’s “next album” had become our “last album,” and looking at the remains of a band and a relationship I had put a lot of work into, I had my second encounter with Joe Pernice in the form of the Pernice Brothers’ third album, Yours, Mine and Ours. It seems that things don’t always work out the way you intend them, and are rarely what they seem.
Download an mp3 of the Pernice Brothers' song, "My So-Called Celibate Life."
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The Vets: Primal Screaming
Thursday 21 July @ 15:13:13 (Read: 3330) |
by Holly Day
“Adam was the one who actually thought of our name, just because he sort of liked the ring to it,” explains The Vet’s lead singer and guitarist Andy Larson. “I mean, it sounds a little bit like a messed-up take on a ‘60s garage band name, you know, like The Jets, or something like that, except that it sounds a little weird. Like, nobody would call a garage band ‘The Vets.’ I, personally, sort of like the kind of vague political context of it, but it’s not really supposed to mean anything. It’s just supposed to be like ‘veterans,’ [and not veterinarians, like I’d originally thought—h.d.] because anybody can be a veteran of pretty much anything.” He adds, “It’s meant to be slightly ambiguous. We don’t think about our name too much. That’s one of the best things about being in a band, is that once you’re named, you don’t have to think about it anymore, because the naming process sucks. You just end up the three or four people in a room tossing out ideas, and then somebody’ll get excited, and somebody else’ll be like, ‘no,’ and then you’re back to it again, and it goes on for hours. Naming bands is hard.”
Download an mp3 of the Vets' song, "Raging Scathe."
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Intonation Festival: Chi-town Get Down
Thursday 21 July @ 14:51:40 (Read: 5032) |
by Steve McPherson
A lot of summer festivals travel from city to city, dropping the rock as they go, but some you have to drive for, and only a very few of them are worth it. The Intonation Festival this past weekend in Chicago promised to be worth the trip. See, this isn’t just your average conglomeration of bands put together for maximum profits. The organizer, Mike Reed, wanted to put together the equivalent of a neighborhood festival, but with really kickass bands, so he approached Pitchfork Media (the current underground tastemakers on the web at pitchforkmedia.com) to curate the festival and they assembled a truly great lineup of bands. (Relatively) big names from the first day included A.C. Newman, Broken Social Scene, The Go! Team, Prefuse 73, Death from Above 1979 and Tortoise, while the second day featured Dungen, local (kind of) band The Hold Steady, Deerhoof, indie legends The Wrens and The Decemberists. “Damn,” I hope you’re saying to yourself, “that sounds awesome,” and it basically was.
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Bryan Barnett: Songs for a rainy day
Thursday 14 July @ 02:05:51 (Read: 3455) |
by Cindy Collins
Bryan Barnett sells “large pieces of iron” (cars) far more easily than the small discs of plastic holding his songs. “I honestly live the songs, which makes it hard to detach,” he explains. “It’s not just playing songs for fun or a hobby. It’s part of my life. I’m a pretty miserable guy (laughs). Actually, I hope someday I will write a record of all happy songs, but I want to do it when I feel that way.”
At the Chatterbox Pub, he talks about living in South Minneapolis and the hopes, fears and inspirations for his music. Barnett’s songs are filled with longing and regret, but gaze toward hopeful and resolved futures. Listening to Barnett’s emotive voice and guitar pulls me into his world, so much so that on first listen I had to take breaks every 20 minutes to go out in the sun.
Download an mp3 of Bryan Barnett’s song “What You Do.”
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The Humbugs: Pop fiction
Thursday 14 July @ 01:54:06 (Read: 3444) |
by Sally McGraw
Musical talent can remain dormant for years. Sometimes it takes a perfectly timed, perfectly formulated catalyst to trigger the reaction that brings it forth. For many, that catalyst is the experience of hearing music so powerful and personally moving that it inspires a desire to create music in the same vein. For others, it can be the deliciously heady rush of a well-received performance experience. But for some, that catalyst comes in the form of another musician.
Such is the case for Adam and Kristin Marshall, the musical masterminds behind the Humbugs. Purveyors of an energetic, harmony-heavy breed of quality pop, this five-piece outfit regularly captivates Twin Cities audiences with its bright, clean sound and dynamic live performances. The group relies on the standby pop configuration of drums, bass, lead and rhythm, yet manages to weave surprisingly varied sounds.
Download an mp3 of the Humbugs’ new (and currently unavailable anywhere else) song “One More Zero.”
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Feist: Canadian make-out queen
Wednesday 06 July @ 00:45:30 (Read: 2885) |
by Steve McPherson
Part of the joy of writing about music is learning not just about great bands, but about world traditions. For instance, July 1 is Canada Day, which is, according to the Canadian Heritage website, a celebration of “a proclamation signed by the Governor General, Lord Monck, call[ing] upon all Her Majesty’s loving subjects throughout Canada to join in the celebration of the anniversary of the formation of the union of the British North America provinces in a federation under the name of Canada,” a little factoid I picked up while interviewing Leslie Feist in transit from Ottawa to Toronto to play the second of two gigs in one day.
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The Subhumans: Speakin’ out
Wednesday 06 July @ 00:43:39 (Read: 2373) |
by Holly Day
“The thing that gets me about the whole straight-edged punk movement is that no one was saying you had to drink or do drugs or smoke or wear leather or any of that shit to be a punk rocker to begin with,” says vocalist Dick (Lukas) of the legendary U.K. punk band Subhumans about the state of punk rock today. “It seems a total waste of time to have created a new label-slash-identity based on the fact that you don’t do any of these things and go on and on and on about it so much. It’s almost as if they’re saying that people don’t have the freedom to let other people do their own thing, like they’re saying, ‘We demand the freedom to do—or rather not to do—what we like.’ No one was forcing people to drink or smoke. And if they were, they were being assholes! Getting a whole movement out of one Minor Threat song seems a bit extraordinary, especially since the drinking laws here are so excessively harsh—you can’t drink outside most places in the States, you can’t drink until you’re 21, you can’t drink in your van, and what do you get to drink? The local beer is usually piss. Straight-edge? It’s rebellion against not much. But I’m not going to harp on straight-edge—even though I just did. The good thing about punk rock now, I guess,” he adds, “is that it’s less violent. People don’t get banged up so much just by the fact that other people in the scene look different to what they look like, which is good. It’s sort of matured in that way.”
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JoAnna James: The voice
Wednesday 29 June @ 00:39:38 (Read: 4646) |
by Rob van Alstyne
JoAnna James the voice: sultry, soulful, a lived-in conveyor of world-weary wisdom alternately seductively breathy or intimidatingly booming in scope. JoAnna James the person: bubbly, personable and—the big surprise—young. It would be hard to reconcile the cheerful 23-year-old woman sitting across from me with the person one envisions after listening to Desire, James’ about-to-be-released second album, if I hadn’t already witnessed James in concert. I would have had a hard time believing that this chipper, wide-eyed St. Paul native could really be the force behind the poignant ache of songs like “Don’t Try” or the feral ferocity of “Desire” if I hadn’t seen the proof with my own eyes.
Download an mp3 of JoAnna James’ song “Wake.”
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Violent Femmes: American music
Wednesday 29 June @ 00:39:25 (Read: 2581) |
by Holly Day
I was 16 when my Polish housemate, Mark Lipovsky, discovered the Violent Femmes’ (already 4-years-old) eponymous debut. And from then on, or at least for the entire summer, all I ever heard on the stereo was Gordon Gano wailing, “How can I get/just one kiss!” etc., etc. over and over and over. “This? This is the shit, Holly!” Mark would say to me in his thick, booze-infused Eastern European accent, grinning maniacally, a big ridiculous top-hat bobbing precariously on top of his head as he tried to dance and drink and paint and smoke at the same time. “I mean it, this is the shit!”
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Planes for Spaces: A cosmic connection
Wednesday 29 June @ 00:39:18 (Read: 2868) |
by Adrienne Urbanski
It’s fitting that a band so caught up in atmosphere would insist upon a moonlit interview in a dark pocket of the Walker Art Center Sculpture Garden. Sitting beneath the strange shadows of twisting branches, it’s obvious just how far this band is willing to go to set the mood. Straying far from the verse-chorus-verse standard, the songs of Planes for Spaces instead meander through dark moments, taking time to contemplate the sheer eeriness of a particular sound.
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Turning point for Colombia?
Wednesday 22 June @ 18:25:05 (Read: 4777) |
MN residents push for U.S. to end involvement in troubled nation
by Adrienne Urbanski
This year may mark the end of Plan Colombia, the U.S. government’s five-year program to end drug trafficking in the South American nation. This week, Congress will vote whether to continue the program—and many Twin Cities activists hope it will end.
Launched in 2000, Plan Colombia has been the biggest recipient of U.S. aid outside of the Middle East, totaling $4 billion, 80 percent of it military. It was instated to end cocaine and heroin importation into the United States, but so far has had no effect.
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Sims: No nickname necessary
Wednesday 22 June @ 15:49:42 (Read: 4138) |
by Steve McPherson
The first time I met Andrew William Sims was playing pickup basketball over on Lyndale and 33rd. I knew he was involved with local rap collective Doomtree, but it wasn’t until several months later that I learned he was a rapper. Such is the down-to-earth and basically modest air he carries. Most rappers seem to be overly-concerned with letting you know who they are constantly, but Sims is just trying to be himself.
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Seymore Saves the World: Masters of chill
Wednesday 22 June @ 15:17:04 (Read: 3811) |
by Keith Pille
So, here we are halfway through 2005, and the world has no shortage of problems. We should be worried, depending on who you ask, about environmental degradation, or military adventurism, or a housing bubble, or steroids in baseball, or the United Nations’ bid to overthrow the United States and install some sort of godless One World Government wherein we all have to wear gray and drive tractors around.
What can the average person do in the face of all of this fear? We can chill out, that’s what. And that’s how the Minneapolis keyboard-pop band Seymore Saves the World manage to live up to their name; light and pleasant and fun, their self-titled debut EP is perfect for sitting back and getting lost in the easy melodies and excellently weird keyboard noises, and, in the process, forgetting your (and the world’s) troubles for 20 minutes.
Download an mp3 of Seymore Saves the World’s song “Red Wing.”
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Aesop Rock: Paid in full
Wednesday 22 June @ 14:25:38 (Read: 3522) |
by Sean McCarthy
On my way back to Minneapolis from a northern Minnesota cabin excursion, I had the pleasure of listening to Brainerd’s very own classic rock station. It was nicknamed “The Power Loon,” and every time the station’s call letters were announced, a loon’s call would briefly sound before Boston or Journey kicked in. The unabashed anachronism of the woeful bird cry with butt-rock was delicious. Likewise, on Aesop Rock’s newest release, Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives, Hip-Hop’s resident word doctor isn’t afraid to unleash conflicting ideas pertaining to his world; be it about himself, his family, uber-hip scenesters, or even the violence of the government. Aesop fearlessly whips words together—who else would namecheck Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka or reference Occam’s Razor?—on an engaging release that once again finds Aesop Rock relentlessly pushing his creative boundaries.
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Redstart: What practice?
Wednesday 15 June @ 00:24:35 (Read: 3734) |
by Sally McGraw
It is an unspoken rule that too many stars spoil a movie. You just know if the cast list includes more than four big names, it’s going to be a load of unwatchable dreck. This leads one to believe that performers can cancel out each others’ talent in collaborative situations. Yet the rule doesn’t apply across the artistic board. Sure, we’d love to eradicate the Traveling Wilburys from popular memory, but think of the Wu Tang Clan, the Buena Vista Social Club and Gorillaz. Unlike actors, groups of widely renowned musicians seem perfectly capable of complementing each other. In fact, talented musicians seem to bring out the best in other talented musicians. Throwing a group of amazing players on stage or into the studio can yield exceptional—and often unexpected—results. Such is the case with local gem Redstart.
Download an mp3 of Redstart’s song “Alien Day.”
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Dead Meadow: Buddy music
Wednesday 15 June @ 00:24:27 (Read: 3053) |
by Holly Day
Just imagine: You’re 16, and it’s the first day of summer vacation. You and your buddies pack up a pile of towels and suntan lotion and your cassette player and head out to the lake for the day. The sun is blistering hot, and still you manage to down the warm beer surreptitiously smuggled in the stinky trunk of someone’s car, and, as you lie there in the sun, you can feel every single tiny spot on your body that didn’t get enough sunscreen slathered on. You can actually feel the skin puckering and curling up in the first stages of sunburn, but it feels so good to be outside in the middle of the day that you just don’t care.
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eels: On the move
Wednesday 15 June @ 00:24:23 (Read: 3830) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Mark Oliver Everett, the 42-year-old mastermind behind the musical group eels is a musical chameleon nearly on par with David Bowie in his penchant for restless re-envisioning. When eels (not Eels or The Eels, just eels, as it is strongly noted in their press materials) briefly swam in the mainstream, thanks to their 1996 hit single, “Novacaine for the Soul,” Everett looked like a poster-boy of the then booming Alternative Nation, replete with neon dyed hair and painted fingernails, only to reemerge just a few years later sporting dark hair and a mangy beard, with a decidedly darker and morbid album (1998’s Electro-Shock Blues) about the untimely deaths of his family members. The intervening years have been just as full of surprises with eels consistently scoring critical kudos even as their stateside commercial appeal has shrunk to the point that the band’s new double album, Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, is seeing the light of day on indie imprint Vagrant Records (the same label that launched the start of Paul Westerberg’s “basement” phase three years ago).
Download an mp3 of the eels’ song “Sweet L’il Thing.”
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The Narrator: Triumph of the will
Wednesday 08 June @ 01:40:34 (Read: 4448) |
by Nathan Hall
Picture, if you will, a young man fighting with his inner critic, eventually allowing himself to connect with a middle-aged woman he is smitten with over the course of the night at a house party. Then you realize that your storyteller for the evening is, shall we say, highly unreliable. In fact, the story is not about that at all. Instead, it concerns the sorrowful, 110 percent non-ironic mourning of some long-dead house pets.
Welcome to the wonderful and wacky world of the Narrator, a hard-working but still relatively new-ish Chicago-based indie rock band currently signed to Flame Shovel Records.
Download an mp3 of The Narrator’s song “Pregnant Boys.”
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The Blood Brothers: Barney killers
Wednesday 08 June @ 01:40:23 (Read: 3683) |
by Holly Day
“Popcorn—is fun to eat! Popcorn—is fun to eat!” sings an inane children’s chorus in the space behind me, goaded on by a big, highly annoying purple dinosaur. They repeat the chorus, over and over, until it feels like my head’s going to explode. I mean it—whenever Barney’s on TV, I literally want to die. Apparently, some grown-ups out there watch this show of their own volition—myself, all I can do is hope and pray for the coming of the day my daughter outgrows this show.
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Cloud Cult: Question marks to candy canes
Wednesday 01 June @ 00:08:40 (Read: 5271) |
by Steve McPherson
“I’d like to get a piano that works, and I’d like to play piano a lot. And I’d like to work on the farm a little more,” offers Cloud Cult leader Craig Minowa, discussing his plans for the future. It’s a room temperature early summer evening and I’m sitting with Minowa and the rest of his band on cellist Sarah Young’s deck in south Minneapolis.
Download an mp3 of Cloud Cult’s song “Living On the Outside of Your Skin.
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The Blind Shake: No ex-members
Wednesday 25 May @ 16:24:49 (Read: 3525) |
by Donny Doane
Roughly 13 years ago I was record shopping at Northern Lights on University Avenue in St. Paul. Rifle Sport front man and then proprietor of Big Money Inc., Chris Johnson, was delivering an animated monologue that had something to do with “paying the bills.” The clerk just smirked and rolled his eyes. I quietly paid for The Jesus Lizard’s Head and Cows’ Cunning Stunts, then made my way home to enjoy these twisted masterpieces.
Download an mp3 of The Blind Shake’s song “Roosevelt.”
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Lucero: Finest worksong
Wednesday 25 May @ 16:06:36 (Read: 3513) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Lucero are a workingman’s rock band. Plenty of groups pay lip service to the ideal of life as a touring musician, but few are actually willing to embrace the harsh reality of playing on a Wednesday night in Idaho (one of many not-so-glamorous gigs currently slated on Lucero’s upcoming eight week long tour). Playing 200 shows a year, self-releasing records, re-injecting much needed passion into rough and tumble rock—Lucero takes on all tasks the same way —full tilt.
Download an mp3 of Lucero’s song “Sixteen.”
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Digitata: Enter sandman
Wednesday 25 May @ 15:48:15 (Read: 4604) |
by Nathan Hall
For some strange reason I have yet to be able to explain, local electronica act Digitata’s hypnotic new CD, Sexually Transmitted Emotion, is the disc I have consistently been falling asleep to this week. Not in the Good-God-this-new-REM-album-is-so-boring sense, more of a My-what-a-soothing-sound-oh-man-it’s-already-3 A. M.-why-am-I-still-working type of vibe. The reason I mention this is that I have also duly noted that Digitata-fueled dreams are by far some of the most bizarre and intense dreams I have experienced in my 26 years on this here planet.
Download an mp3 of Digitata’s song “Spring Fever.”
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Wes Burdine & The Librarians: Songs for the literati
Wednesday 18 May @ 13:10:15 (Read: 4313) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Wes Burdine was never a rocker—an evocative lyricist, a talented young songwriter, sure, but never a rocker. If one thing was made abundantly clear by his solo debut last year, This Is How I Discovered Gold, it’s that Burdine, 23, was too busy poking at listener’s gray matter or tugging on their heart strings to worry much about making them tap their toes. That’s why my first spins of Burdine’s The Jose Canseco EP, recorded with his newly found backing mates the Librarians, caught me completely off guard. It’s the sunny pop music day that follows This Is How I Discovered Gold’s long and tormented night.
Download an mp3 of Wes Burdine and the Librarian ‘s song “A Sense of Duty.”
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Mary Timony: Ms. charming melodee
Wednesday 18 May @ 12:47:43 (Read: 3333) |
by Sean McCarthy
The recent resurgence of “The Family Guy” on the airwaves proves that a brilliant concept—say, like a talking dog, or blowjob jokes—can be successfully revisited. And despite Hollywood’s best attempts to discourage retrospection (note: reversing a character’s race does not make a film edgy or interesting, despite the claims of “Guess Who?” or “The Manchurian Candidate”), Mary Timony looks back to her own past on her newest album, Ex Hex. A guitar-heavy record that has more hooks than a tackle box, Ex Hex also features some of Timony’s most interesting compositions. And if we’re really lucky, Ashton Kutcher will star in the movie based on the record right after his relationship with Demi Moore begins to fall apart.
Download an mp3 of Mary Timony’s song "Friend to JC."
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Vox Vermillion: Places to go
Wednesday 11 May @ 15:03:10 (Read: 4207) |
by Steve McPherson
Vox Vermillion are going places. Or rather, they’ve just gotten back from places all over with Atmosphere, P.O.S. and Grayskull. Come again? They’re not Hip-Hop, but singer/pianist Kelsey Crawford explains, “We were all very stunned at the acceptance we got. Typically the audience members that we met actually looked a little punk rock to me.” I guess it’s not a shock to find Atmosphere fans looking a little punk rock, but the crossover goes a little deeper than that. Hip-Hop acts around the Twin Cities have approached the group asking to sample their creepily compelling blend of cabaret, rock and chamber music, although today the only guy who approaches Crawford, cellist Emily Dantuma, bassist Ollie Dodge and drummer B.J. Wuollet in a Dinkytown coffeehouse is asking for money for destitute children.
Download an mp3 of Vox Vermillion’s song “Wanted.”
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Okkervil River: Going for broke
Wednesday 11 May @ 14:57:58 (Read: 3661) |
by Rob van Alstyne
There’s no way getting around it so I’m just going to say it—Okkervil River make difficult music. Their songs are frequently long, the vocalist not always in tune, and their lyrics quick to punish those without a thesaurus at the ready (anyone happen to know off hand what the word “diapason” means?). Like all the best art, Okkervil River require a bit of work for you to fully reap the rewards of their dense and adventurous music—and are worth every second of the effort.
Download and mp3 of Okkervil River ’s song “For Real.”
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The Blackfire Revelation: Dare to dream
Wednesday 11 May @ 14:50:07 (Read: 2654) |
by Holly Day
A few years ago, The Blackfire Revelation’s John Fields was attending film school in New Orleans, working several odd jobs to keep his head above water, and going nowhere fast. “Everything was all wrong,” he said, his voice still rough from the 12-hour recording/party session of the night before. “That’s the only way to describe it. It was just wrong.”
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The Ashtray Hearts: An old conversation
Thursday 05 May @ 01:46:06 (Read: 3742) |
by Steve McPherson
In Elizabeth Bishop’s poem ‘The Moose,’ passengers on a bus late at night fall into fitful rest hearing “[i]n the creakings and noises/ an old conversation/ -not concerning us,/ but recognizable, somewhere.” Those half-heard conversations that feel strangely familiar when you’re alone and it’s late are the Ashtray Hearts’ bread and butter. Their first album (2002’s Old Numbers) was the perfect soundtrack to late night nostalgia and melancholy, and their new long-player Perfect Halves continues in that vein, even if things are a little different this time around.
Download the Ashtray Hearts’ song “Rules.”
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Hello Blue: Dynamic duo
Thursday 05 May @ 01:25:28 (Read: 4935) |
by Rob van Alstyne
John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett, those two dudes from Pinback. Throughout history memorable music has come from the melding of two creative minds into one dynamic duo (some of the time anyway—sorry Captain and Tennille). Jason Fox and Ned Moore can now be added to the illustrious names on the list of terrific twosomes. Inseparable musical buddies since they met a decade ago in their early teens, Fox and Moore’s musical camaraderie has culminated in the release of one of this year’s best local rock releases, What It Takes To Wake Up, the full-length debut from their band Hello Blue.
Download an mp3 of Hello Blue’s song “Ted Is Made of Wood.”
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James Apollo: King of the road
Wednesday 27 April @ 21:43:26 (Read: 3702) |
by Keith Pille
James Apollo claims to aspire, both in person and on his website, to live by a modern-day version of “the code of the hobo.” While it’s hard to imagine him riding empty boxcars from town to town or smoking old stogies he found (short, but not too big around, if you’re going for the full Roger Miller “King of the Road” effect), some other parts of the hobo mythology actually do make some sense; after listening to his latest opus, Good Grief, I don’t have much trouble imagining him sitting at a fire with a beat-up guitar, belting out a laid-back (and very nicely arranged) version of “The Big Rock Candy Mountain.”
Download an mp3 of James Apollo’s song “Dead Men Weigh More.”
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Fitzgerald: Matrimonial musicians
Wednesday 20 April @ 01:25:18 (Read: 4271) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Married couples tend to have shared hobbies. Perhaps they’re both bicycling enthusiasts, maybe they take cooking classes together. Nathan and Mandy Tensen-Woolery follow a slightly different path, their shared hobby is the innovative folk-rock band Fitzgerald, and the high-school-sweethearts-turned-married-musicians have just unleashed their second proper album, Raised By Wolves, on local label of the moment 2024 Records.
Download an mp3 of Fitzgerald’s song “ How Far North?”
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Mint Condition: Back in action
Wednesday 20 April @ 00:53:39 (Read: 2479) |
by Kandis Knight
One of Minneapolis’ most celebrated R & B groups, Mint Condition, recently ended a six-year hiatus with the release of Livin’ The Luxury Brown this month on their own label, Caged Bird Records. That’s right, the group with gold albums and mega-hits such as “What Kind Of Man Would I Be” and “(U Send Me) Swinging” is back with vengeance. I recently caught up with the fellas at Babalu on Washington for dinner and conversation about music and life.
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Perceptionists: Politicized partiers
Wednesday 20 April @ 00:47:01 (Read: 2330) |
by Sean Mccarthy
If you squint long enough in the sun while sitting at Lake Calhoun, you’d be forgiven if you momentarily imagined yourself sunbathing on an exclusive beach in the South of France. With eyes half-closed, the pasty complexion of the conspicuous exercisers dissolves into a satisfying red-drenched haze. The towering condominiums of St. Louis Park transform into luxury hotels. For a moment, the constant traffic of low-flying airplanes carries exuberant tourists, rather than disgruntled business travelers forced to take a layover on their way back to the coasts. Likewise, it’s to be expected if you mistake Black Dialogue, the debut album from the Perceptionists, for a recently restored album recorded decades ago. Smartly shrugging off the expected boundaries of independent Hip-Hop, the Perceptionists artfully fuse vitriolic polemics with dance floor anthems into a challenging yet cohesive sound.
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Michael Gira’s angels of light: Poetic post-nuclear hillbillies
Wednesday 20 April @ 00:40:08 (Read: 2829) |
by Holly Day
More than two decades ago, Michael Gira and his band, the Swans, were known for being one of the more disturbing-sounding musical acts in the burgeoning pantheon of American alternative. During their 15-year existence, the Swans made music that could almost double as clinical examinations of what made humankind weak and awful and grimly beautiful, backed by mangled keyboards, thunderous walls of guitar feedback and tribal-sounding percussion and drum lines. Almost immediately after dissolving the Swans in 1997, Gira started a new project, Angels of Light, as well as his own record label, Young God Records.
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Sarah Lee & Johnny: The perfect pair
Tuesday 12 April @ 23:30:14 (Read: 2362) |
by Sally McGraw
Many musicians dream of being descended from musical royalty, imagining a world of hassle-free booking, gear that hauls itself and studio time at half price. But take it from Sarah Lee Guthrie, privileged lineage is a mixed blessing. The granddaughter of Woody and daughter of Arlo Guthrie, this now-blossoming singer-songwriter was slow to accept the musical mantle from her legendary relatives. Despite being surrounded by music and musicians her entire life, Guthrie showed little interest in singing or songcraft early on.
“I think it was in me, but I wasn’t ready for it,” she explains.
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Arthur Yoria: Less is more
Tuesday 12 April @ 23:22:07 (Read: 3842) |
by Rob van Alstyne
With the advent of affordable home recording computer programs putting a thousand synthesized versions of instruments at any musical amateur’s fingertips, instrumental inflation is on the verge of spiraling out of control. More and more the independent musician appears to be a sugar-loving kid spazzing out in the 21st century music technology candy store. Why put out a traditional three-minute pop song when you can throw a computerized flugelhorn bridge on there, or better yet, an extended glockenspiel solo! Thankfully, restraint still reigns in some circles and Arthur Yoria’s debut album, I’ll Be Here Awake, serves powerful notice that plenty more gold can be mined out of traditional pop sounds.
Download a mp3 of Arthur Yoria’s song “She Looks Like You.”
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The Bleeding Hickeys: Rock of ages
Tuesday 12 April @ 23:13:19 (Read: 4110) |
by Cyn Collins
“If you play rock and roll, you’ll never get old,” Phil Solem, of the Rembrandts, told “ageless” Chachi Darin, the brand new drummer of the Bleeding Hickeys. Darin’s bandmates (vocalist Jenn Gori, bassist Sarah Black and guitarist Christina Schmitt) agree: “Sometimes rock and roll suspends you, keeps you ageless.”
As with vampires, that can be a blessing, or a curse. “Just think of Keith Richards and Iggy Pop . . .” offers Black. “You’re like, how is he alive?” counters Schmitt. “You either die young, or you live forever,” concludes Black. “You live forever. It’s an extreme sport!” declares Gori triumphantly, ending our group contemplation of rock ’n’ roll aging.
Download a mp3 of the Bleeding Hickeys’ song “Road Kill.”
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The Cardinal Sin: The Reese’s of rock
Wednesday 06 April @ 23:26:18 (Read: 4462) |
by Steve McPherson
Remember those commercials for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups that re-enacted the drama of the first accidental combination of chocolate and peanut butter into one potent mix? Some bright soul at Grey Flight Records should make a promo spot for the Cardinal Sin, but instead of chocolate and peanut butter, insert pop and punk. And no, they’re not the first band to come up with this winning combination, but they are an effective reminder of why this one-two punch is such a sugary and bittersweet delight.
Head on over to our Mp3 page and download the Cardinal Sin’s song “Where We Shine.”
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Crooked Fingers: Quick change
Wednesday 06 April @ 23:03:52 (Read: 3603) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Eric Bachmann likes to play dress up and his musical resume bears the proof. For nearly a decade during his tenure fronting the Archers of Loaf he was an angry young man bathed in feedback. At the same time, however, he was sporadically sneaking off to change into his ambient instrumental film score music clothes under the alter ego Barry Black. Since the Archers fell by the wayside in 1998, Bachmann’s penchant for quick-change stylistic shifts has only increased. His solo outings with a rotating cast of collaborators under the moniker Crooked Fingers have touched on everything from stripped down acoustic gutter blues to mariachi-horn driven pop pomp—at Bachmann’s current rate of genre-hopping don’t be surprised if Crooked Fingers first reggae album hits shelves sometime later this year.
Download an Mp3 of the Crooked Fingers’ song “Call to Love.”
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The STNNNG: Army of rock
Wednesday 06 April @ 22:51:34 (Read: 4489) |
by Ian Anderson
Don’t pick a fight with Chris Besinger—seriously, it’s not a good idea. Ever ready with a witty retort or some clever comeback on the tip of his tongue, the lead singer of the STNNNG just might kick your ass.
The STNNNG’s debut album Dignified Sissy is great. It’s dirty, it’s loud and it captures their untamable live show.
Download an mp3 of the STNNNG’s song “My Golden Oldie.”
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Ben Glaros: Having fun on his own
Wednesday 23 March @ 01:04:57 (Read: 4692) |
by Keith Pille
Some albums fall together almost immediately. Uncle Tupelo, for instance, recorded their best (and least-creatively named) album in the space of March 16-20, 1992.
Others take a bit longer. Local scene veteran Ben Glaros figures it was almost a decade between the inception and the completion of his solo album. “I started taking the solo project thing seriously several years ago,” he says. “Like eight years ago. It’s taken me quite a while to get to where I was actually ready to put out an official release. It’s been a slow process.”
Download an mp3 of Ben Glaros’ song “Don’t Get High.”
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The Midnight Evils: Baby let me in!
Wednesday 23 March @ 00:59:05 (Read: 3727) |
by Holly Day
The first time I met with the Midnight Evils, it was an unseasonably cold evening in March of 2000. I had been unable to find a babysitter, so the band offered to drive down to my apartment before playing a show at the Turf Club to celebrate the release of their debut CD, Once inside, the core foursome of Curan Folsum (bass), Stevie Cooper and Brian “Vandy” Vanderwerf (guitars), and Jesse Tomlinson (drums) found themselves in an apartment with almost no furniture and a very inquisitive 5-year-old playing Superspy around the corner. They managed to make the “best” of it, however, sprawling out on the floor around the mic of my Norelco tape recorder, pretty much filling my entire living room with arms and legs (Jesse Tomlinson has to be at least 6’4” alone). They were probably the most accommodating bunch of guys I have ever met in my life.
Download a RealAudio file of The Midnight Evils’ song “Let Me In.”
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Death To Our Enemies: Ambition lives
Wednesday 23 March @ 00:59:18 (Read: 3338) |
by Tim Kindem
Death to Our Enemies don’t wear the prototypical no-interest-in-making-it-big indie rock mask. While the band expresses their passion for playing around town in the Minneapolis rock scene, they make no excuses for their desire to storm the gates of the castle of rock immortality.
Death to Our Enemies proudly turn their amps to 11 while mixing the most raw forms of power pop, big ’70s rock, Please Kill Me punk, and suddenly-refreshingly-classic grunge. And they play as if on a mission to drench the flickering flame of rock with a gallon of gasoline.
Download an mp3 of Death to Our Enemies’ song “Karate Bike.”
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Fog: Apocalpse now
Wednesday 16 March @ 17:24:28 (Read: 4321) |
by Holly Day
“I don’t know if I’m a great lover of new technologies,” says Fog front man and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Broder. “I mean, they’re there. I’ll use whatever’s at my disposal that I happen to think sounds good. When you get into electronic music and things like that, there’s always a danger that the music becomes too reliant on new technology, and the music sometimes can feel empty in that way, where the music just becomes a matter of keeping up with the latest products, and if you don’t have them included in your music, you’re somehow behind the times. I’m very hesitant to get into that kind of thing. But that said, you know, it’s really cool to be able to make a whole album on your home computer,” he adds, laughing.
Download an mp3 of Fog’s song We’re Winning.
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The Worn Out Shoes: Isolation rock
Wednesday 16 March @ 17:08:01 (Read: 4810) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Things get weirder out in the country. Free from society’s watchful eye, people’s eccentric tendencies are left to grow unchecked, their behavior and style taking cues from the surrounding wilderness rather than the latest episode of the “O.C.”
Donny Moon knows this truth better than most. In a former life, in the city of Minneapolis, Moon was Phil Parhamovich, running mate of legendary local pop outfit the Hang Ups and musical partner with HU guitarist Jeff Kearns in the light pop leaning band the Waves. A few years back Parhamovich made the move to an isolated patch of rural Wisconsin … and things started get interesting.
Download an mp3 of The Worn Out Shoes’ song Ain’t Found Home.
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Lou Barlow: Alone at last
Wednesday 09 March @ 16:57:02 (Read: 5467) |
by Rob van Alstyne
At this point in his 20-plus years career, Lou Barlow’s had more musical lives than Madonna. His resume is staggering: bass player in the original lineup of legendary ’80s collegiate rockers Dinosaur Jr., warped lo-fi noisemaker in Sebadoh, unlikely top 40 artist with his band Folk Implosion (whose slinky 1995 single “Natural One” was an unexpected smash). Despite Barlow’s storied career, there was one (seemingly minor) achievement he hadn’t managed until now—making his own solo record.
Download an mp3 of the Lou Barlow’s song Home.
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Chariots: Battling uphill
Wednesday 09 March @ 16:56:59 (Read: 4812) |
by Ian Anderson
Travis Bos is back with a brand new invention. With his new band, Chariots, the ex-Song of Zarathustra front man has picked up right where he left off, only this time sporting a slightly more user-friendly sound. Chariots’ debut album, Congratulations, is worthy of its title, and will no doubt be earning the group plenty of kudos in the coming year.
Download an mp3 of the Chariots’ song Twister Party Fails to Get Dirty.
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Ryan Lee: Successfully eclectic
Wednesday 09 March @ 16:56:50 (Read: 4097) |
by Sally McGraw
Singer-songwriters are understated exhibitionists. They are driven to write and perform music as a way to purge themselves of experiences too painful or complex to examine in the mundane light of daily life. They may do it under the guise of high art, or with political undercurrents, or even in a state of utter ignorance—but make no mistake, they all do it.
Local up-and-comer Ryan Lee is no exception to this rule. His contemplative, narrative-driven lyrics speak of intense emotions and scarring experiences. His earnest, expressive vocal delivery draws you into the jagged landscape of his imagination, and his undulating melodies suspend you there.
Download an mp3 of Ryan Lee’s song Unconditional.
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A Girl Called Eddy: The examined life
Wednesday 02 March @ 19:12:12 (Read: 4521) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Erin Moran is a Jersey Shore girl with a golden voice and a broken heart. When she steps behind the mic as A Girl Called Eddy she belts out emotional open-wound tales of regret, betrayal … and more regret. Is Moran’s own worldview and personality as dark and melancholy as her songs would suggest? “I think the songs are a pretty accurate reflection of me—I’m a depressing bitch,” states Moran laughingly as I catch her cell phone in the midst of her first U.S. tour. “I think it’s a pretty honest expression of who I am, that’s not to say that I don’t have perkier songs in me, but for where I was in my life—and where I am still sometimes today—I do think the songs are an accurate description of myself.”
Download an mp3 of A Girl Called Eddy’s song Golden.
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The Centurions: Phi slamma jamma
Wednesday 02 March @ 18:57:53 (Read: 4273) |
by Keith Pille
There are bands who approach their music and their lives very seriously, practicing a couple of times a week and never laughing; walking around all grim and generally doing the best they can to work the tortured, brilliant artist angle.
And then there are the Centurions.
Download an mp3 of the Centurion’s song Hyde’s in Guys Heads.
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Kings Of Convenience: The Double Life
Wednesday 23 February @ 00:20:28 (Read: 2724) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Eirik Glambek Bøe leads a double life fit to rival any comic strip superhero. In one life he’s a Norwegian grad student finishing up his studies in psychiatry and leading a quiet existence that revolves around the treatment of his patients. In the other he tours the globe with longtime buddy Erlend Øye in the acoustic duo the Kings of Convenience garnering rapturous critical acclaim and new fans at seemingly every turn. It’s a disparate enough existence one could easily see an identity crisis ensuing—but Bøe wouldn’t have it any other way.
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The Slats: Separation Anxiety
Wednesday 23 February @ 00:14:28 (Read: 4238) |
by Ian Anderson
The Slats are a Midwest-spanning power-trio—giving new meaning to the term “separation anxiety”—destined for garage-rock stardom. Based in both Iowa and Minnesota, with band members split up due to various school and work commitments, the Slats have managed to come together as a cohesive unit of noise-rock, with a sound tight enough you could be forgiven for thinking they cohabitate rather than cross state lines to cook up their racket.
Download an mp3 of the Slats’ song Teena.
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Sage Francis: Put up your dukes
Friday 18 February @ 22:05:15 (Read: 3550) |
by Sean McCarthy
Over the course of his nearly decade-old career in rap’s underground, Sage Francis has been called many names: college radio DJ, vegetarian, battle rap champion, slam poet, white boy rapper, self-bootlegger and even paid spokesperson for ESPN’s X-Games. On his newest album, A Healthy Distrust, Sage is poised to add another label to his ledger—Hip-Hop’s sharpest and most outspoken critic. A Healthy Distrust finds Sage fully conscious of his surroundings, be it examining failed individual relationships or the current climate of national politics. Armed with nothing more than his words and moral outrage, Sage takes aim and unloads on plenty of worthy targets—Clear Channel, trustafarians, ex-girlfriends, the Vote or Die campaign—and renders them all immobile as he tongue lashes them unmercifully.
Download an mp3 of Sage Francis’ song Slow Down Gandhi.
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Antony & The Johnsons: “Discovered” again
Friday 18 February @ 22:02:24 (Read: 5269) |
by Holly Day
“I wish I could have a kiss at every station, you know what I mean?,” says Antony of Antony & the Johnsons about putting together his concert rider for his upcoming tour. “To have someone there to give me a real, fresh waterfall kiss everywhere I go. That would be nice. But I don’t think they can sort that out for me, you know? So I guess I would just put on it that I’d like a little petting zoo at each concert. That would be really nice, to have a petting zoo with kittens and wombats, and kisses. And maybe an ostrich or an emu, some birds just hanging around eating seeds and talking. That’d be really cool, too. But there would have to be wombats, they’re really incredible. They’re so cute.”
Download an mp3 of Antony & the Johnson’s song Hope There’s Someone.
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Low: The spirit of Duluth
Wednesday 09 February @ 16:53:41 (Read: 2706) |
by Holly Day
Once upon a time, about 130 years ago, the city of Duluth was a vibrant metropolis with an economy that seemed to be going nowhere but up. In 1870, Duluth was the fastest growing city in the country and expected to surpass even Chicago in size by the end of the decade. More millionaires per capita lived in Duluth, and in the warmer months, wealthy socialites that weren’t permanent residents rented luxurious mansions on the shores of Lake Superior.
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The Tin Horns: A band’s band
Wednesday 09 February @ 16:42:27 (Read: 4230) |
by Rob van Alstyne
“This band was kind of born out of loss,” explains Andy Allen, singer/guitarist for new Twin Cities outfit the Tin Horns. “We sort of all had lost sight of what we were doing and were having a hard time. Then we came together and this band was sort of the answer.” Coming together at a time when all of their previous projects were fizzling out, Allen and singer/bassist Dan Wenz (who had worked together for years in The Tide) found themselves joining forces with drummer B.J. Wuollet (formerly of the Stereo) and guitarist Casey Nelson (formerly of End Transmission) early last year. All involved immediately realized that moping over the demise of their former groups was no longer the order of the day.
Download an mp3 of The Tin Horn’s song Ballad of Nonsenso.
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The Ike Reilly Assassination: Working for a living
Wednesday 02 February @ 16:44:44 (Read: 2623) |
by Holly Day
Ike Reilly is finally enjoying himself at work. After over a decade of trying to support himself and his family (including four children) doing a variety of blue collar jobs, including working as a gravedigger and a bellhop in Chicago, Reilly is making a living as a songwriter in the Ike Reilly Assassination, along with drummer Dave Cottini, guitarist Phil Karnatz, bassist Tommy O’Donnell, and pianist Ed Tinley. However, it’s obvious that from the level of maturity and retrospection that earmark his two albums, Salesmen and Racists and, on his newest album, Sparkle in the Finish, that it was necessary to live through the shit that life put him through in order to get where he is today.
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Beau Kinstler: The apprentice
Wednesday 02 February @ 16:35:20 (Read: 3392) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Beau Kinstler is a musical sponge, ready and willing to absorb whatever music comes his way—and he’s just found himself in the middle of the damned ocean thanks to a regular Thursday night residency in the cozy confines of the 400 Bar. “The 400 Bar was always sort of an icon to me and I never really thought I was going to play there,” claims Kinstler, a laidback Minnesota native and high school classmate of innumerable current Twin Cities musicians in the hallowed halls of St. Paul Central High School during the late’ 90s. “I got put on a show through some friends of friends opening up for Ela in early 2003 and got invited back by the 400 Bar and it just went from there. That was really the first real show that I even played in town.”
Download an mp3 of Beau Kinstler’s song Caroline and Beautiful Stars Shine.
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Heavy Sleeper: Pure pop for now people
Thursday 27 January @ 14:39:47 (Read: 4611) |
by Rob van Alstyne
If you’re a fan of thoughtful local indie-pop, chances are you’ve spotted Marcel Galang sometime over the past decade—coolly plunking the keyboards in the Hang Ups while absentmindedly smoking a cigarette perhaps, or in a similar sideman role with the now defunct Dearly. If you’re in select company you may have even caught the short-lived Komodo, Galang’s anglo-leaning shoegazing outfit(or so I’m told from what little information I’ve been able to gather). None of these previous associations would have properly prepared you for what Galang had in store when he finally got down to the business of starting a proper band in the form of Heavy Sleeper, and unleashed a veritable rock ’n’ roll beast upon the Twin Cities scene in the form of their debut long-player, The Gifted Curse.
Download an mp3 of Heavy Sleeper’s song Back to Me.
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The Thermals: A list of demands
Thursday 27 January @ 14:39:41 (Read: 4871) |
by IAN ANDERSON
Coming up with creative innovative music while employing just three chords admittedly sounds like a rather impossible trick to pull off. But Portland outfit The Thermals, rather than throwing in their hat and accepting that perhaps all that those chords can say, has already been said, throw spastic fits of wishful thinking and demands for change.
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HanZsolo: Pop perfectionist
Thursday 20 January @ 11:26:59 (Read: 2783) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Hans Erickson is in love with sound. Every second of his years in the making debut solo album, Closet Pop, recorded under the already regretted stage name of HanZsolo, bears witness to this love. Nearly every moment is bursting at the seams with ear candy, awash in dense layers of keyboards, a veritable choir of Erickson’s backtracking the main vocal. It’s a busy and frenetic sound, future pop with an R&B twist that is at times nauseatingly full and slick—more often jaw-droppingly pretty. After several band endeavors that fizzled along the way and various recording false starts, Closet Pop makes one thing abundantly clear: If Erickson was finally going to make his long-awaited debut, he would do it full tilt.
Download an mp3 of HanZsolo’s song "Turn Your Eyes To Mine.”
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Maplewood: California dreaming
Wednesday 12 January @ 19:20:17 (Read: 4415) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Steve Koester is a geographically complicated man: a former Minneapolitan currently making music in New York City that sounds like it came straight out of California. Koester first made his musical mark here in the Twin Cities with post-punk outfit Punch Drunk during the latter half of the ‘90s, picking up stakes at the dawn of the new millennium for the hustle and bustle of NYC with his bandmates. Punchdrunk quickly went their separate ways upon relocation, however, leaving Koester to pursue a solo career under his surname, but Koester maintains there’s still a strong enclave of Minneapolis music scene transplants giving it a go in the big apple.
Download an mp3 of Maplewood’s song Indian Summer.
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Dallas Orbiter: Dalllas, we have lift off
Wednesday 12 January @ 19:17:43 (Read: 4031) |
i>by Keith Pille
What sort of music does Dallas Orbiter play, exactly? It’s tough to say. Sure, it’s not classical or bluegrass or young country or acid jazz, but after you weed out all the things it obviously isn’t, you’re still left quite a pile of things that it might be. The songs on their new album, Magnesium Fireflies, are tough to pigeonhole. You have the usual guitar, drums, bass, vocals, keyboards thing going—but there’s generally a cloud of misty-but-melodic noise enveloping them. Sometimes the drums drop out and are replaced by drum loops. Sometimes the four-to-five-minute songs wind up stretching out to 12 minutes. Sometimes, you’d swear you could hear a guy using a bow to play a saw (that would be track 4, “73rd and Something.” And yes, it is a guy using a bow to play a saw).
Download an mp3 of Dallas Orbiter’s song 73rd and Something.
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Vicious Vicious: Mr. Soul
Wednesday 05 January @ 16:04:02 (Read: 5738) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Erik Appelwick’s time is now. After years spent honing his craft—in his native South Dakota, on the coffeehouse “scene” of Montana, and finally in the more fertile creative grounds of the Twin Cities—Appelwick (under his recorded guise Vicious Vicious) has made a record guaranteed to turn heads and shake behinds. There’s only one catch of course—it’s not quite out yet.
Download an mp3 of Vicious Vicious’s new (and currently unavailable anywhere else) song 2 Much Time On My Hands.
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Mission 19: Five Days From Home
Tuesday 28 December @ 20:20:34 (Read: 3425) |
by J. Parker Hageman
“What I think sets us apart from the other bands is that we have a solid record. We intentionally worked hard to make a complete disc, from front to back.” Says the 27-year old babyfaced Ryan McConeghy; the front man of the Denver band Mission 19. “How often do you buy a CD from Best Buy or whatnot and realize there are only, like, one or two decent songs?”
Which is completely true -- how frequently have you brought home a CD only to immediately regret the decision by the fourth track? Off the top of my head I can recall approximately ten instances of buyer’s remorse in this past year alone.
“Which is why with the release of Five Days From Home, we want to give our fans their money’s worth. This is the album we always knew we could make.”
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Die Electric!: A league of their own
Thursday 23 December @ 10:59:52 (Read: 4347) |
by Nathan Hall
With the onset of yet another unimaginably harsh and brutal Minnesota winter, cases of Seasonal Affective Disorder (real or imagined) multiply at an unnervingly high rate around these parts. Some trek over to the tanning beds, others construct crude homemade light boxes to brighten up their dreary domiciles. I, for one, recommend local post-punk band Die Electric! as a cheap, reliable and relatively carcinogenic-free alternative form of cold weather therapy.
Download an mp3 of Die Electric’s song Aries.
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Unguided Missile: Cure for pain
Wednesday 15 December @ 20:32:54 (Read: 4996) |
by Donny Doane
Music can be medicinal and multi-functional. It can console a lonely heart, turn that frown upside down or inspire an apathetic soul. Sometimes it can act as a tonic or salve to soothe the invisible bruises sustained through human commerce. If Duke Ellington can neatly iron out the wrinkles of a hectic yet not overly traumatic day, local rock band Unguided Missile is the jackhammer that can shatter the hardened residue after the most stygian day atwork.
Download an mp3 of Unguided Missile’s song Do the Right Thing.
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Islero: Like you mean it
Sunday 12 December @ 19:05:32 (Read: 3976) |
by Ian Anderson
Finally, a stocking stuffer you can give without hesitation. Set aside the jello and casserole—or Norwegian sweater—because just in time for Christmas, Islero’s new EP, Like You Mean It, puts the sarcastic “Jesus Christ” back into the holiday, our government and even the voting public.
Download an mp3 of Islero’s song Door to Door Knife Salesman.
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Landing Gear: Practice makes perfect
Sunday 12 December @ 19:06:05 (Read: 3968) |
by Keith Pille
The thing that most starkly sets rock ’n’ roll apart from other styles of music is its embrace of amateurism. At a very fundamental level, rock celebrates raw emotion over polished technique. The examples are endless: if you’ve taken four guitar lessons, you’re capable of playing anything the Ramones ever wrote; most of Guided By Voices’ records sound as though the band had to leave the studio in a hurry to escape from mobsters; most of Jimmy Page’s Led Zeppelin guitar solos feature a couple of dead notes; and Minneapolis’ patron saint Paul Westerberg has only in the past few years learned that the quality of his solo albums have a direct relationship with how sloppy they are.
Download an mp3 of Landing Gear’s song Surprise, Surprise.
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Magnolia Electric co.: Don’t it look like the dark
Sunday 12 December @ 19:05:59 (Read: 5403) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Jason Molina was born with the kind of high and lonesome tenor any Neil Young-ophile would kill for. Just like Young, it took Molina awhile to come around to embracing his voice (he spent his formative years as a sideman, playing bass in various heavy metal and classic rock cover bands around his native Ohio). For the last decade, however, Molina’s been front and center, unleashing a series of dark and dense albums at a dizzying rate under the moniker Songs: Ohia, and, more recently, The Magnolia Electric Company. In 2003 Molina finally assembled the stable backing band he’s always longed for, and has been indulging his classic-rock jones to full effect ever since.
Download an mp3 of The Magnolia Electric Company’s song Farewell Transmission.
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Pete Hofmann: Master of mellow
Wednesday 01 December @ 19:56:28 (Read: 6173) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Pete Hofmann, the musician, as presented on his recently unveiled third album Mermaid on the Rocks: smooth, relaxed, lazing about in sun-baked melodies or lounging in the dark corner of a cool jazz club. Pete Hoffman, the interviewee, as experienced first-hand: fast-talking, massively gesticulating, damn near hyperactive. Rarely have I encountered a musician whose personality appeared to contrast so strongly with their album-portrayed selves. Mermaid on the Rocks had me expecting a Minnesota variant on the uber cool sunglasses-wearing beach bum, not the incredibly peppy man who keeps constant eye contact while gleefully delving into the details that led to his musical transformation from another power-pop contender, into a one-of-a-kind-torch-song-crooner.
Download an mp3 of Pete Hofmann’s song Mermaid on the Rocks.
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Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers: The long haul
Wednesday 01 December @ 19:49:53 (Read: 7873) |
by Tom Hallett
“I was raised by a very Atticus Finch-like person,” says Alabama-born and bred Patterson Hood, when asked about his early Southern upbringing and the decidedly liberal bent his songwriting eventually took. His reference to the sympathetic lawyer of Harper Lee’s racially-charged, classic novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” is matter-of-fact, tossed off almost with a shrug, as if anybody who’s ever heard those songs should just know. “Atticus probably comes closer to capturing the essence of my great-uncle George than anybody else I can think of,” he gushes. “He and Gary Cooper. I spent every weekend with him until I was 14 or so, and started chasing girls. He still lives there, on a farm that’s been in the family since the 1800s. I wrote ‘Sands Of Iwo Jima,’ on our last record, about him.”
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Popcycle: Baby boom
Tuesday 30 November @ 20:03:26 (Read: 4857) |
by Donny Doane
It’s been a big year for Scott Peterson. Over the course of the last year, the primary songwriter/frontman for local hip shooters Popcycle has seen the birth of not only his daughter, Saida, but the delivery of a new album to boot. As if being a new father weren’t enough, Peterson still has a rock band he has to nurture and keep in line. And I still can’t decide which would require more baby-sitting.
Download an mp3 of Popcycle’s song Funny Looking World.
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The Arcade Fire: Something filled up my heart with nothing
Tuesday 30 November @ 19:55:35 (Read: 9520) |
by Ian Anderson
The Arcade Fire’s debut album Funeral isn’t even three months old yet, but the Montreal seven-piece has already created an increasingly sizeable buzz on Hipster Street—and it’s not just because of the constant Pixies references or cool Debussy name drops. There’s just something undeniably compelling about a mini-orchestra fusing accessible indie-rock with more subtle nuanced forms of artistic expression.
Download an mp3 of the Arcade Fire’s song Neighborhood #3 (Power Out).
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Julie Doiron: Not so sad
Wednesday 17 November @ 00:01:29 (Read: 4473) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Julie Doiron’s music is usually described with a limited set of adjectives by lazy critics: depressing, downcast, lugubrious—you get the idea. Admittedly, the typically minor-key folk-rock explorations that Doiron favors tend to invoke thoughts of clouds and various muted shades of gray regardless of their accompanying lyrics, but Doiron’s plaintive fragile voice probably isn’t helping matters any either—this is a woman whose windpipes could make “Shiny Happy People” sound morose. That said, Doiron views her music in a different light.
Download an mp3 of Julie Doiron’s song No Money Makers.
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The Glad Version: Still waters run deep
Wednesday 17 November @ 00:01:23 (Read: 4645) |
by Keith Pille
The day I spoke to Adam Svec and Chris Salter of The Glad Version, they were preparing to drive to Omaha to play a show the next night on Omaha’s sort-of-famed Saddle Creek Drive. Looking back, this appears to have been some sort of cosmic sign blinking at me; after a couple of months of listening to their album Smile Pretty Make Nice, it’s become more clear that in their youthful earnestness, their polished recording, and their pervading wistful mood, The Glad Version would fit right in with Conor Oberst’s stable of Saddle Creek bands.
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Johnny Dowd: The ‘funny’ uncle
Wednesday 17 November @ 00:01:09 (Read: 2888) |
by Holly Day
“I wouldn’t consider myself a sinister person,” drawls Johnny Dowd. “I’m more like a funny uncle-type personality. An uncle that comes to Thanksgiving dinner and gets drunk and goes face-down in the turkey.” Still, listening to a Johnny Dowd record is like being invited to a party by a stranger, only to find out, upon arriving, that there is no party—only a strange man with a 12-pack and a lot of stories to tell. You’ve got two choices—turn around and run, or sit down, grab a beer, and let the man talk.
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Laibach: This is hardcore
Friday 12 November @ 15:16:55 (Read: 8928) |
by Holly Day
During Communist rule, and under the leadership of Marshall Josip Broz Tito, the collection of republics once known simply as Yugoslavia enjoyed an existence not shared by the majority of Eastern bloc countries. Art, literature, and even popular music from the United States and the United Kingdom was readily available to the citizens of the region, partly because of Yugoslavia’s relative distance from the U.S.S.R., and partly because of Tito himself. “It was actually quite a nice country during Communism,” agrees Ivan Novak, aka “Ivan the Terrible,” of the Slovenian band Laibach. “Economically, it was the wealthiest country of the Eastern countries. It was pretty open to nformation about the rest of the world—it wasn’t so hermetically closed as it was in East Germany or Romania. So life wasn’t so bad, I would say.”
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Bellwether: Not exactly bluegrass
Friday 12 November @ 15:17:40 (Read: 5618) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Bellwether reinvented themselves pretty much by accident. “It all started with Jimmy really wanting to make a bluegrass record,” explains singer/guitarist Eric Luoma, 32, of the long and winding road that led to Bellwether’s long-completed but just-released fourth album, Seven & Six.
Download an mp3 of Bellwether’s This Time.
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MF Doom: Rhyming superhero
Friday 12 November @ 15:17:29 (Read: 14953) |
by Sean Mccarthy
Like most comic superheroes, MF Doom’s life has been marked by great tragedy, awe-inspiring acts of greatness, an artfully crafted costume, and more split personalities than you can shake a stick at. On MM...Food?, the follow-up to 1999’s Operation: Doomsday, MF Doom further cements his reputation as one of the more daring and innovative musicians in Hip-Hop. Few rappers can center an entire album around the not-so glamorous (and wholly necessary) concept of eating, but Doom—along with the help of some guest “chefs” —pulls it off magnificently.
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Giant Sand: Soundtrack to the Desert
Thursday 04 November @ 07:08:56 (Read: 3055) |
by Holly Day
You can almost feel the desert when you listen to anything by Howe Gelb, the wide, open spaces and hot, languid breezes that make music like this possible. His newest release, and the first Giant Sand record in four years, is no exception. It's All Over the Map is full of slow, creepy songs heavy with stillness and melancholy, beautifully oppressive, struggling to move.
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Matthew Sweet: Lone Wolf
Thursday 04 November @ 06:59:18 (Read: 5245) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Matthew Sweet was born too late. Had he entered the world in 1945, not 1965, then perhaps his ear for melodic pop would have been properly appreciated, lauded alongside Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney as an arranger/songwriter with skills of unquestionable magnitude and a permanent place in pop music history.
[Note: Matthew Sweet was scheduled to at First Avenue this week,but as you may know, First Avenue has filed for bankruptcy and will be temporarily closed. Matthew Sweet was rescheduled to play on Fri., Nov. 5, at the Cabooze with The Velvet Crush (also playing as his backing band) and The Weakerthans. 6 p.m. 21+. $12.
Advanced Tickets PURCHASED for Matthew Sweet's and First Avenue Show WILL BE honorer at the door, but COMPLIMENTARY First Avenue tickets WILL NOT be honored for this shows.]
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Blues Explosion: No blues, plenty of explosion
Thursday 04 November @ 06:41:13 (Read: 3910) |
by Donny Doane
First things first for the purists out there—Blues Explosion are not a blues band. They’re a rock band. But we already knew that. Here follow but two fundamental differences between blues and rock: One could never accuse the real folks making the blues of being grandiose. Neither the subject matter nor the rendered product comes close. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The blues are about facing adversity with the underdog strength of humility.
[Note: Blues Explosion was scheduled to play on Thu., Nov. 4, at First Avenue with the Ponys, but as you may know, First Avenue has filed for bankruptcy and will be temporarily closed. They have rescheduled to play on Thu., Nov. 4, at the 400 Bar. Early show, 5 p.m. 18 +. $15. 400 Cedar Ave., Mpls. 612-332-2903.
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Pop for Charity back from hiatus
Thursday 04 November @ 06:30:57 (Read: 3201) |
Three nights. Nine venues. 39 different acts. Yup, I think it’s safe to say Pop for Charity is back in a big way. After taking a brief hiatus as board members dealt with real life issues like job transitions and starting families, the local nonprofit that uses great local bands to raise money for great local charities is back! For a complete schedule of this year’s events, please flip to pg. 11 of this week’s paper.
Past performers at Pop for Charity include Pedro the Lion, Low, Atmosphere and the Selby Tigers. So rest assured even if you don’t know the names of some of these bands now, it’s more than likely you will soon.
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Dosh: To the beat of his own drum
Wednesday 27 October @ 21:42:49 (Read: 5469) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Martin Dosh is a man of seemingly many contradictions—an artist with a degree in creative writing who crafts music almost entirely devoid of words, the creator of dizzyingly clever and layered instrumental recordings who self-effacingly calls himself “just a drummer.” His just-released second solo album, Pure Trash, continues the trend in contradiction, its dozen cuts of elegant and jazzy instrumental glitch pop about the furthest thing possible from the skuzzy collection of garage rock its title would suggest.
Download an mp3 of Dosh’s song I Think I’m Getting Married.
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Eufio: Can I Borrow A Feeling
Wednesday 27 October @ 21:30:26 (Read: 4360) |
by Mark Desrosiers
It has been nearly 15 years since Bikini Kill first recorded “Rebel Girl,” and the rocker-girls have since risen, and dispersed. These days, no matter whether you live in Richmond or Redondo Beach, as long as you have good taste in tunes and an active appreciation for live music, you have a favorite local girl-punk band. Mine is Eufio.
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Dave Alvin: Rock ’n’ Roll Survivor
Wednesday 27 October @ 21:06:12 (Read: 3196) |
by Holly Day
“The one weird thing about being a musician—one of the weird things, that is—is that certain people that you know, and that you’re close with, have lifestyle issues. And at a certain age, people involved in those lifestyles tend to have a really short life,” says singer/songwriter and punk/roots/rockabilly guitarist extraordinary Dave Alvin. He laughs, and it’s such a deep, warm laugh, it’s hard not to spontaneously join in. And then he’s serious again. “Then one day you reach middle age, and your friends start dying just from natural things. That’s kind of what this new album is about. It’s a combination of a lot of that stuff. It’s not just about mortality, but also about surviving and keeping your love about you, for lack of a better term. It’s about keeping your spirit together, and not letting your spirit get completely destroyed by, you know, the sort of things that life throws at you.”
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Badly Drawn Boy: In Pursuit of Perfection
Wednesday 20 October @ 14:58:29 (Read: 2862) |
by Rob van Alstyne
The last seven years for Damon Gough have been a blur. The scruffy-faced British troubadour has been working at such a feverish pace that the accolades (winning England's prestigious Mercury prize for his 2000 full-length debut, The Hour of Bewilderbeast and playing coveted headlining slots at various European festivals) haven't even had time to register in his seemingly-permanently-knit-capped-head. "It can get kind of weird when I actually stop and look at my life the last seven years," admits Gough, 36, via telephone from his current tour while taking a pre-soundcheck smoke break. "It's easy to question why you do what you do."
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The Good Life: Hindsight love is 20/20
Wednesday 20 October @ 14:58:16 (Read: 3847) |
by Ian Anderson
Tim Kasher is growing up. Not in the “moving on and turning away from the past” sense of the word, but rather in scrupulously studying the mistakes he’s made and trying to figure out what the hell went wrong. This self-examination begins with the retelling of his love life during the past four years.
Download an mp3 of The Good Life’s song A New Friend.
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Camper Van Beethoven: Rock Opera Reunion
Wednesday 20 October @ 14:58:07 (Read: 3064) |
by Holly Day
One of my happier club memories of the past couple of years has to be the Camper Van Beethoven reunion tour of 2003, when CVB played First Avenue on the very coldest night of the year (about -20 degrees). My husband and I had spent the day showing violinist Jonathan Segel the sights, most memorably the frozen waterfall at Minnehaha Park, and then I got to sneak out for the evening while my husband stayed behind to watch our son with the knowledge that I probably wouldn’t be able to get out of the house like that for years, or at least until our next baby was old enough to leave with sitters.
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Hayden: Reluctant Talent
Friday 15 October @ 16:59:38 (Read: 3799) |
by Rob Van Alstyne
Hayden Desser turned his back on music towards the close of the ‘90s. After five years of constant touring and recording, a period which saw him grow from a Canadian home-recording troubadour in his early 20s still living with his parents into an artist hand-picked to perform at Neil Young’s Bridge School benefit and signed to a major label in the U.S. with the Spin press clippings to prove it, Hayden had had enough.
Download an mp3 of Hayden’s song Home by Saturday.
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Aneuretical: Hampers are Hideouts
Friday 15 October @ 16:16:29 (Read: 4345) |
by Mark Desrosiers
Only twice in my life have I opened my mailbox to find a hastily burned CD which made me reconceive the magic of rock ’n’ roll. The first was a Drive By Truckers bootleg, whose populist target audience (indie fogies and lefty cowboys) seemed to welcome me into its grimy ranks. The second, arriving in my mailbox just two weeks ago, was the forthcoming album by local power-trio Aneuretical, When You Were a Kid.
Download an mp3 of Aneuretical’s song Hampers are Hideouts.
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Ova!: Bring the Noise
Friday 15 October @ 15:58:42 (Read: 3962) |
by Kate Silver
If you’re going to love ‘em and leave ‘em, first take your partner to the Renaissance festival. Patrick Dundon, guitarist in local noise-rock duo Ova!, offers the following supporting evidence, “My sister just broke up with a guy who was a [festival] dancer. He brought her down to the fest, they camped out. When the weekend was over … things were on the rocks.” We’re at the festival watching lads and ladies raise their spirits in song, careful to keep from spilling on their costumes.
Download an mp3 of Aneuretical’s song
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Mark Mallman: As Serious as a Heart Attack
Wednesday 06 October @ 18:21:21 (Read: 4800) |
by Nathan Hall
Bleary-eyed local piano madman Mark Mallman, covered in sweat and swaddled in an American flag, is basking in the adulation and applause that appropriately befits someone who has just performed for 52 and a half hours straight. A banner drops from the ceiling of St. Paul’s Turf Club, proclaiming “Mission Accomplished.” The spectacle has been grim, sadistic and yet strangely exhilarating to witness in person.
Download Mark Malman's song Hardcore Romantic.
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Flogging Molly: Shamrock Punk
Wednesday 06 October @ 18:20:56 (Read: 3880) |
by Holly Day
Fronted by Dublin native Dave King, Flogging Molly draws on influences ranging from traditional Irish folk music to even more traditional punk rock. Joined by Bridget Regan on fiddle, Dennis Casey on guitar, Nathen Maxwell on bass, Bob Schmidt on mandolin, George Schwindt on drums and Matt Hensley on accordion, Flogging Molly has consistently been one of the most innovative bands on the Warped Tour lineup, and possibly the most eclectic band you’ll see on any punk circuit.
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The Faint: Another kind of Omaha
Thursday 30 September @ 11:45:02 (Read: 3641) |
by Holly Day
It’s always strange for me to think about Omaha, Nebraska, as some sort of interesting cultural hotbed. Omaha’s apparently gotten so damn trendy that people move there from New York in order to hang out with all the interesting people there. When I was a kid living in Nebraska, the most exciting cultural happening in the first decade of my life was the accidental discovery of an Indian graveyard in my neighbor’s back yard, a graveyard that was probably less than a hundred years old. I remember sneaking over to my friend’s house and sifting through sand with her just off of the official dig site, trying to find teeth and fingerbones to take home and make necklaces out of.
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Mike Watt: Wheelin’ and Spielen’
Thursday 30 September @ 11:39:51 (Read: 2982) |
by Donny Doane
Mike Watt is a pilgrim. Hell, we’re all pilgrims whether we know it or not. Our dreams and endeavors inevitably render us as such. It’s an all-encompassing aspect of the human condition spanning our whole lives yet occuring on a daily basis. Learning a musical instrument is a pilgrimage. Reading a book is a pilgrimage. Writing a book is a pilgrimage. The fevered dry spell between meaningful relationships is a pilgrimage. Anyway you want to put it—a pilgrimage is a HEAVY TRIP.
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Ben Weaver: Ramblin' man
Thursday 30 September @ 11:34:08 (Read: 4233) |
by Rob van Alstyne
The clichéd term “old soul” was invented for people like Ben Weaver. All of 24, the world weary tunes on his just released third album, Stories Under Nails, sound like the work of a man more than twice his age. His voice is a weathered croak (think a slightly less carnival-spooky Tom Waits) and the tales it tells—of murderous strangers, lonesome travelers and betrayed lovers—ring so authentically true that it feels like Weaver must have been enrolled in the school of hard knocks by the age of 10 in order to have accumulated enough life experience to pen them.
Download an mp3 of Ben Weaver’s song 40 Watt Bulb.
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Diamanda Galás: Jazz?
Wednesday 22 September @ 12:58:08 (Read: 3136) |
by Holly Day
For some odd reason, the All Music Guide categorizes Diamanda Galás a jazz performer. Maybe it’s because she plays the piano, usually unaccompanied, and that’s something jazz performers do. If Diamanda Galás is considered a jazz artist, then I hold great and high hopes for the future of jazz. Jazz that includes Diamanda opens the door to a potential horde of intense, wild-eyed performers that scream in multiple octaves and utilize Tibetan throat singing and operatic wails, sometimes all in the same song. Because this is what Diamanda does in her music, and whether you’re frightened or intrigued by her performances, one thing’s for sure—you will never forget having been in her presence.
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The Ocean Blue: Hiding out in Minneapolis
Wednesday 22 September @ 12:49:33 (Read: 4540) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Unbeknownst to all but a few, David Schelzel, the frontman for early ’90s modern-rock chart toppers The Ocean Blue, has been lurking in our midst for years. The man behind such jangle-heavy hits as “Between Something and Nothing,” “Ballerina Out of Control” and “Sublime” has quietly been making his home in Minneapolis since 2000.
Download an mp3 of The Ocean Blue’s song Ticket to Wyoming.
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Missing Numbers: Breaking all the rules
Wednesday 22 September @ 12:40:31 (Read: 5747) |
by Tim Kindem
The members of Missing Numbers harbor no delusions of musical grandeur, no aspirations of headlining stadiums, no desire to get on a soapbox, rambling some political diatribe. They prefer to let their music do the talking; let the next note lead the way—and since they started playing together nine months ago, the members of Missing Numbers have been enjoying the ride.
Download an mp3 of Missing Number’s song Sleep Don’t Wake the Dead.
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Paul van Dyk: Global DJ
Thursday 16 September @ 16:57:18 (Read: 6844) |
by Holly Day
Germany’s Paul van Dyk has proved to be one of trance music’s most enduring artists, and shows a musical style capable of moving with the times. His music provides lingering glimpses into a world of crystal reverb and subterranean basslines through his music, something in between REM-inducing trance meter and mid-’80s melancholy dance pop. Born in the former GDR in 1971, van Dyk’s musical influences were minimal—basically, anything that could get through the Wall or could be filtered out of the faint, static buzz that made up the West German radio stations.
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The Rakes: Rock 'n' Roll Insurrection
Thursday 16 September @ 16:57:09 (Read: 8398) |
by Tom Hallett
Everybody knows rock ‘n’ roll music is supposed to be about rebellion. From Elvis “The Pelvis” to the British invasion to the advent of heavy metal, the form has always relied heavily on both shock value and a certain, inherent tendency towards danger and excitement. These days, though, when pop songs are used in political and advertising campaigns, kids’ movie soundtracks, and at sporting and family events, good ol’ rock ‘n’ roll seems to have lost a good deal of its bite.
Download an mp3 of The Rake’s song Satellite Whine.
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Dana Thompson: Regressive Country
Thursday 16 September @ 16:56:41 (Read: 3603) |
by Keith Pille
The day before this issue of Pulse of the Twin Cities hit the streets, the New York auction house Sotheby’s began the process of auctioning off the estate of Johnny Cash. For the rest of the week, as the collected belongings of one of the giants of twentieth-century American culture go off to the highest bidder, the high-water mark of country music as a vital music force will recede a bit further off into the distance; it’s tough to remember, in the current age of corporate Nashville hat-and-goatee shit, that there was a time when country music was awash in creativity and, well, worth listening to.
Download an mp3 of Dana Thompson’s song Ona’s Song.
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The Winter Blanket: Love will keep us together
Wednesday 08 September @ 13:39:01 (Read: 5174) |
by Nathan Hall
One of the basic unwritten rules in the rock ’n’ roll game is to never date a fellow band member. From Sonny & Cher to the girlfriend swapping madness of Fleetwood Mac, musical twitterpaiting has inevitably ended in tragedy and misery for all parties concerned.
Download an mp3 of Winter Blanket’s song Why I Act This Way.
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Amateur Love: Eau Claire Rock City
Wednesday 08 September @ 13:31:58 (Read: 5034) |
by Rob van Alstyne
There are a few things that automatically pop into my mind when I think of Eau Claire, Wisconsin: cheese, readily available beer on Sundays—but a thriving independent rock scene isn't one of them. Or at least it wasn't until I was hipped to the riches of Amateur Love, a young group representin' Eau Claire in all its Wisconsinite glory to fine effect on their recent self-released debut album, It's All Aquatic, nine tracks of high caliber slightly Mr. Gadget-ed indie-pop.
Download an mp3 of Amateur Love’s song Numbers.
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Thunder in the Valley: Vaudevillian Punks
Wednesday 08 September @ 13:10:58 (Read: 6706) |
by Kate Silver
Like jamming a safety pin through a felt derby hat or supporting Doc Martens with spats, punk and vaudeville make an unlikely fashion statement. A consultation of Greil Marcus’ counter-cultural backtrack “Lipstick Traces,” however, finds both the punk and European Surrealist and Situationist movements holding common ground in Proletariat vaudeville: entertainment for the people.
Download an mp3 of Thunder in the Valley’s song Hey Baby it Ain’t My Funeral.
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Little Dirt: Go team
Thursday 02 September @ 15:53:06 (Read: 4862) |
by Rob Van Alstyne
People use the internet for lots of things: e-mail, Ebay, surreptitious fetish gratification. The painful truth is that most people cruise the information superhighway with little to show for it other than bloodshot eyes and carpal tunnel syndrome. Not so the members of up-and-coming local rock quartet Little Dirt, a troupe of intrepid music-makers who owe their very existence to the web.
Download an mp3 of Little Dirt’s song Sell Yourself on Yourself.
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OL' YELLER: Give it up for a man's best friend
Thursday 02 September @ 15:52:57 (Read: 4424) |
by Donny Doane
In 1978, an anthology entitled “The Literary Dog” was published. Within its pages notable writers of all stripes, origins and eras offer their musings, the sole purpose of which is championing humankind’s best friend. No, you moron, it’s not about the Republican Party. Those assholes already shanghaied the noble pachyderm. Talk about white-collar crime.
Download an mp3 of Ol Yeller’s song Nightstand.
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Stiff Little Fingers: Still Stiff
Thursday 26 August @ 16:56:03 (Read: 5046) |
by Holly Day
“You’ll never hear Stiff Little Fingers played in an Irish-themed pub in America, because those places don’t consider us Irish,” says Stiff Little Fingers frontman and founding member Jake Burns. “It’s mainly because we’ve never worn a shamrock. And that’s the thing — I’ll bet you’ve walked into those Irish bars and seen the Dropkick Murphys on the jukebox, and they’re about as Irish as Mom’s apple pie. If we can ever have shamrocks and shillelaghs in our music, or brought them out on stage with us during our shows, I have no doubt we’d be getting played in those establishments.
Download an mp3 of the Stiff Little Finger’s song
Guitar and Drum.
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The Vestals: All in the Family
Thursday 26 August @ 16:55:52 (Read: 4887) |
by Rob Van Alstyne
The Gordon household, Green Bay, Wisconsin, circa 1989. A teenaged Ben Gordon sits in his room absorbing the Beatles White Album, strumming along on a guitar. His pesky younger brother Jeremy, all of 12, won’t stop banging along on his own guitar to XTC’s Skylarking, cranked at full volume in the adjoining bedroom. Ben gets fed up and stomps across the hall intent on kicking ass, a war of words ensues, and rather than beating the shit out of each other, a truce is called, and a band, The Vestals, is formed.
Download mp3’s of Jeremy Gordon’s Vestals song Telescope
and Ben Gordon’s Vestals song Another Way to Kill Me.
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The Skinnys: No Atkins Necessary
Thursday 26 August @ 16:56:08 (Read: 5383) |
by Donny Doane
Amphetamine addled artists? Ephedrine energized bunnies? Methed up monkey men? Advocates and abusers of all dietary aids and appetite suppressants? A local punk foursome? The Skinnys (bassist Carlos “Los” Lamas, drummer Damien Tank, guitarist Paul Puleo and vocalist Rusty Detty) are all of the above. “Skinny is a state of mind,” explains Lamas with just a hint of Jeff Spicoli stonerdom in his voice. “It’s a way of life,” adds the skinniest Skinny. And whether or not their trim existence is the result of lean, clean living, or fast-paced calorie burning rockin’ The Skinnys are by no means lightweights.
Download an mp3
of the Skinny’s song 30-Megaton Love.
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The Original Mark Edwards: Super-Dad
Wednesday 18 August @ 09:54:00 (Read: 4960) |
by Rob van Alstyne
It reads like a movie script: your college band becomes tipped for greatness four months into their career after winning a mail-in contest to perform on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," your band quickly becomes the toast of the town and you could easily be forgiven for thinking that a life of rock 'n' roll-abetted luxury is just around the corner. Then disaster strikes when, just three years after your big break, the band you lead implodes under the weight of its own expectations just after releasing its arduously labored over debut full-length. The name of the film, "The True Adventures of the Original Mark Edwards."
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Los Straitjackets: Masked Men
Wednesday 18 August @ 09:30:09 (Read: 3784) |
by Holly Day
Being the big fan of Mexican wrestling that I am, I was really excited when Fox Kids debuted a show featuring a group of adolescents that fought crime while wearing Mexican wrestler costumes. Unfortunately for me and every other kid in America, "Los Luchadoras" just plain sucked.
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Malachi Constant: Love is on the way
Wednesday 11 August @ 17:46:04 (Read: 5793) |
by Nathan Hall
About four years ago, local post-punk quartet Malachi Constant recorded a song called "May Server." It was a great song, but not one that even a person inclined towards grandiose satements would dub "cinematic." Nonetheless, “May Server” was featured prominently in an instructional sex video entitled "Please Don’t Stop: Lesbian Tips For Givin’ And Gettin’ It." Produced by a girl-and queer-positive sex toy outlet out in San Francisco called Good Vibrations, "Please Don’t Stop" marked the historic debut of the first sexually explicit film created expressly for lesbians of color.
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Yonder Mountain String Band: Not a jam band
Wednesday 11 August @ 17:34:45 (Read: 3761) |
by Holly Day
Now that what once passed for “alternative” is practically “adult contemporary,” hitherto neglected musical types are resurfacing again, brought back to life with a new type of vitality that only a young and inquisitve group of musicians can bring to it. A good example of this is the resurgence of bluegrass music. Once only found on the soundtracks of PBS specials about Appalachia and on reruns of Hee-Haw, bluegrass music is being played on college campuses throughout the country—or at least in Colorado, where bluegrass music is apparently being performed in clubs across the state. At the forefront of this bluegrass explosion is the quartet of Adam Aijala (guitar), Dave Johnston (banjo), Jeff Austin (mandolin), and Ben Kaufman (upright bass), aka the Yonder Mountain String Band.
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JG Everest : Learning to Let Go
Wednesday 04 August @ 15:46:52 (Read: 6010) |
by Rob van Alstyne
James Everest has been a seemingly omnipresent character on the Minneapolis music scene for nearly a decade, making his name with a wide variety of groups and recording projects (among them The Sensational Joint Chiefs and Lateduster) and playing a key role in organizing the wildly successful electronic music showcase “Cross Faded Thursdays” at the Dinkytowner.
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Mike Gunther: The Seeker
Wednesday 04 August @ 15:25:46 (Read: 4070) |
by Troy Pieper
It’s a “Ray Charles,” the woman behind the bar snarled. “It’s Stoli Rasperry, Bailey’s and Soda—here’s to him fellas. Ahhh. That’s better than a dead Reagan.” Onstage, the Restless Souls readied themselves to play music. Mike Gunther, the front man dressed in a snappy mortician’s costume, began to sing. They started out slow at first, only slightly stirring, as if from the long slumber of death. The percussionist, banging chains on an old oil barrel, drew them slowly back up each time, like rattlesnakes in her gloved hand.
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Josh Aran: A world-weary 27-year-old
Wednesday 28 July @ 16:53:02 (Read: 4482) |
by Rob van Alstyne
The number of musicians who have mined captivating albums out of painful life experience in the annals of pop history numbers somewhere roughly in the tens of thousands. The Twin Cities’ own Josh Aran and his self-released sophomore release, Between Us There Arose Happiness, can now be added to that count.
Download Josh Aran's song High Like Atmosphere.
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Sonic Youth: Forever Young
Wednesday 28 July @ 16:53:18 (Read: 13612) |
by Holly Day
I strive to find meaning in titles. I do. When a record like Sonic Youth’s “Sonic Nurse” comes across my desk, I dissect the songs contained in the album to find out exactly what a bloody nurse has to do with a song about hand lotion and/or masturbation. I hold up the record jacket to the light and try to make out what the words hidden behind layers of paint are—does the cover say “CG Ward,” “Fog Ward” or “Boo Ward?” I still can’t figure it out. It’s a brainteaser.
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The Deaths: Out of Fargo, into the rock revolution
Wednesday 21 July @ 16:41:12 (Read: 6620) |
by Tim Kindem
No band is like The Deaths. In a crowd of emo clones and flavor-of-the-week garage rockers, The Deaths stand alone. Perhaps that is why, without a record deal or even a recording they are satisfied with, they have shared the stage with some of the biggest names in indie rock, from The Kills to Dub Narcotic Sound System. Perhaps that’s why their friends wouldn’t let them break up when they wanted to. Perhaps that is why they have attracted interest from Sub Pop and other reputable names in music.
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Alva Star: Upward escalator
Wednesday 14 July @ 14:05:30 (Read: 3932) |
by Rob van Alstyne
John Hermanson is living the dream; a full-time musician with steady work as a producer (for local youngsters such as Friends Like These and countless others) a side man (that’s John bopping along on keyboards and backing vocals in the Olympic Hopefuls) and a respected performer in his own right (as one half of the recently revived acoustic duo Storyhill and the frontman for Alva Star). Even when you’re living the dream though, you sometimes have to stop and wonder what it all means.
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Camera Obscura: Speaking with Gavin Dunbar
Wednesday 14 July @ 13:43:28 (Read: 4211) |
by Holly Day
The Scottish accent is the damnedest thing. Not only are the vowels pronounced completely different than most English-speaking people of the world’s, the rhythm of the way the words are spoken is different, too. I’ve been told that the Scottish accent is akin to the Jamaican accent in its deviation from the King’s English, but personally, I think the Jamaican accent is miles easier to understand.
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Basement Apartment: Die Computer Die
Wednesday 07 July @ 11:55:18 (Read: 4246) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Vince Caro was sick and tired of staring at his computer screen. The once seemingly endless creative possibilities afforded by his home music-making programs, the same tools that he had used to shape his band Basement Apartment's tech-heavy debut EP Interstellar, had slowly turned on him, turning into a creative dead-end. Quite simply, Caro wanted to rock.
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Cowboy Curtis: Observing Life on the Prairie
Wednesday 07 July @ 11:17:02 (Read: 4379) |
by Keith Pille
Neal Perbix is watching you. Well, maybe not you in particular, but he’s got his eye on life, and if he happens to catch you doing something interesting, he might write a song about it. “I’m interested in being the silent guy in the corner,” he says, “listening to quotes and watching people. It’s kind of like sociological observation. That’s something I personally work from a lot with all of my art. The record is more about the things we see, the conversations we overhear.”
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The Lesser Birds of Paradise: Surreal as they come
Thursday 01 July @ 11:51:49 (Read: 5150) |
by Sean McCarthy
Somehow, in the midst of a hazy Sunday hangover, I managed to watch every episode of “The Surreal Life 2” during a marathon session on VH1. The contrived reality TV adventures of c-list celebrities, a porn star and a heavily eyelinered evangelist did wonders for my booze-addled condition.
Download an mp3 of the Lesser Birds’ song "A Magnet in You".
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Coach Said Not To: Life (and song) is in the details
Thursday 01 July @ 11:28:37 (Read: 6076) |
by Troy Piper
Coach Said Not To never meant to be a band. The St. Paul quartet simply wanted to get together and casually bash out the music they weren't currently hearing in the local music scene. They wanted to hear more abrupt rhythm changes, strange meters, more humor—so they did it themselves. It was a casual decision, but the results have been anything but as the band has slowly turned into a musically cohesive and lyrically eye-catching unit intent on elevating the mundane details of life to drama worthy of song.
Download an mp3 of Coach Said Not To’s song "Words That I Employ".
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Pedro the Lion: A different brand of God-rock
Wednesday 23 June @ 17:52:09 (Read: 5377) |
by Nathan Hall
In person, David Bazan looks like he should be resolutely hauling crates of clams on a fishing dock out in New England with a bright yellow rain slicker and trusty pipe. Bearded, slightly paunchy and fitted with the mouth of a hearty sailor, Bazan hardly fits the part of the lead singer of the most controversial band in modern Christian rock, Pedro The Lion.
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Peter Himmelman: Mr. Unpredictable
Wednesday 23 June @ 17:51:57 (Read: 4168) |
by Jeremy Breningstall
Peter Himmelman is many things, but predictable is not one of them. During an outdoor show at Lyons Folk Festival in Colorado, he "married" a couple, had three-year-olds come up and do vocals for him, made up songs on the spot, and occasionally broke into riffs from The Who or Prince-like yelps.
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Beulah: Beautiful Bitterness
Wednesday 09 June @ 11:03:59 (Read: 3287) |
by Rob van Alstyne
San Francisco's Beulah had been painted into a corner by fans and critics alike—branded '60s Cali-music revivalists, happy-go-lucky horn heavy pranksters praying at an altar made of Brian Wilson's fried brain cells. Never mind the fact that over the course of their three prior albums the sextet had been just as likely to marry its musically upbeat tunes to downcast lyrical sentiments ("A Good Man is Easy to Kill" off of 2001's The Coast is Never Clear providing a prime example). Beulah's instrumentation and arrangements were simply too lush—too instantly gratifying—for more than a few of the group's following to pick up on the complicated lyrical themes it frequently accompanied.
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Handsome Family: Wait, no arguments?
Wednesday 09 June @ 10:43:08 (Read: 3289) |
by Holly Day
Years ago, my husband and I were hired to write a book together, and it proved to be one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. By the first deadline, my husband and I were at each other's throats, unable to look each other in the eye without snarling under-the-breath insults. I got used to seeing only the backside of my husband as he stormed into his corner of the apartment, ready to tackle whatever chapters he was working on at the time, and he—well, I was the perfect writing companion, and he has nothing to complain about my performance during the ordeal.
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Trans Am: Bring it On
Thursday 03 June @ 12:27:55 (Read: 4006) |
by Holly Day
Some of the best music of the past hundred years has been inspired during times of great political turmoil. The Folk era was inspired by the aftermath of World War II, and again, during the Vietnam War, while the punk movement began directly after Vietnam and blossomed again during the Reagan administration. In fact, for a while, musicians were expected to be controversial and political in their musings in order to be taken seriously.
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Duplomacy: Elegant Simplicity
Wednesday 26 May @ 15:42:13 (Read: 4442) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Like so many bedroom music maestros, Andy Flynn was at first content to lurk in the shadows. A home-recording enthusiast, he spent nearly a decade accumulating tracks, building whacked out instrumental music snippets with names like “Sheep Beats,” plucking his way through acoustic meditative folk-pop and sharpening his electric guitar skills.
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Rivulets: Ramblin’ Man
Wednesday 26 May @ 13:46:46 (Read: 4203) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Nathan Amundson is a restless man, a roaming troubadour who needs to feel the earth moving under his feet in order to appreciate his surroundings. Born in Denver, Colo., the young Amundson first picked up stakes at the age of 5 (to Anchorage Alaska of all places). Leaving the frozen tundra of Alaska at 16, he spent the following dozen years all over the map (in Texas, Oregon, Washington and Illinois), managing to make a brief pit-stop in the Twin Cities between 1997 and 2002, where Rivulets, his spare, dirge-heavy folk music project, was finally birthed.
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The Violettes: An international musical bouquet
Wednesday 19 May @ 13:49:26 (Read: 4684) |
by Tom Hallett
"I always wanted to sing, even when I was little, and my mom said, ‘You can't be a singer, because they don't make any money.’ And she was serious, but I ignored her." Minneapolis singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Sarah Khan laughs—she laughs a lot, a light, half-nervous titter that's both endearing and infectious—but the weight of her statement hangs in the air long after her chuckles have subsided.
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Southern Culture On the Skids : Chicken anyone?
Wednesday 12 May @ 12:43:16 (Read: 3906) |
by Holly Day
My own introduction to the Chapel Hill, N.C. ensemble known as Southern Culture on the Skids came much later than their 1985 self-titled debut, and honestly, I knew a lot more about what the swamp rockin’ trio looked like for a good while before actually getting to hear their music.
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Drunk Drivers: Ten years of dairyland delights
Wednesday 12 May @ 12:17:24 (Read: 4283) |
by Donny Doane
Despite the supposed bitter rivalry between Minnesota and our eastern neighbor, I’ve never had a problem with Wisconsin. I mean, c’mon. Wisconsin is a beautiful state with breathtaking scenery; it’s close; has lots of fun college towns; and liquor stores are open on Sunday. What else couldja want?
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Shearwater: A bird like no other
Wednesday 05 May @ 16:24:02 (Read: 4586) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Main Entry: shear·wa·ter
Pronunciation: 'shir-"wo-t&r, -"wä-
Function: noun
1): any of numerous oceanic birds (especially genus Puffinus) that are related to the petrels and usually skim close to the waves in flight
2): wondrously adventurous two-headed folk-rock songwriting beast from Austin, TX, blending literate lyricism with woozy keyboards and ornate chamber-pop arrangements
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Gawker Slowdown: Good stuff in the basement
Wednesday 05 May @ 15:09:20 (Read: 5337) |
by Keith Pille
Eric Kalenze is an unusual man. In a city of several million, the odds are better than decent that he’s the only person to be simultaneously acting as a high school English teacher, a football coach, and a fully self-contained one-man rock band. More unusual than that, possibly, he may be the only person in North America to own a 4-track recorder and actually do something productive with it.
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Mike Viola & The Candy Butchers : Perserverant Pop
Wednesday 28 April @ 13:40:28 (Read: 4989) |
by Rob van Alstyne
At just 37, Mike Viola has already been through enough bad breaks to last three lifetimes. First came a short-lived shot at teen stardom (Viola cut a record with notorious pop-music Svengali Kim Fowley at 14 that ended up being shelved), next he spent the ’80s on the verge of big things with his band Snap! without even a record deal to show for it by the time the band imploded. And then, when things finally began looking up for his music career in the ’90s, he lost his first wife to cancer. If there was a pop musician version of “The Survivor” television program there’s little doubt where Viola would finish in the standings.
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Deerhoof: Confused? Good.
Wednesday 28 April @ 13:33:31 (Read: 5672) |
by Kate Silver
“Words at Work” (1968; Amsco) is the literary equivalent of “Learn to Play Guitar with 8 Chords,” a preparatory workbook with priceless vocabulary tips and etymologies of the English language (the origin of "Assassin" is A drinker of Hashish, did you know that?) For instance, "The names of the different species of fishes have not only a piscatorial value, but a colloquial significance: Riders on the crowded underground trains have been humorously called subway sardines." As the old saw goes, give a man a fish … you know the rest. Likewise, give San Francisco art-punks Deerhoof eight chords, and they’ll forever reinvent the pop song.
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Brice: It’s party time
Wednesday 28 April @ 13:23:33 (Read: 5454) |
by Tim Kindem
Brice is Minneapolis’ answer to good time indie pop rock. Brice combines the hard rock of Weezer with feel good Ben Folds-like hooks, with tight, top-notch musicianship, savvy use of layered vocals and sounds, and hard work ethic that translates into an orchestra of fun. Brice displays the coveted ability to inject even their most lighthearted songs with a sense of honesty while keeping an underlying level of real emotion and credibility.
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The Plastic Constellations: Jump in unison, not collision
Wednesday 21 April @ 12:43:26 (Read: 7951) |
by Mark Desrosiers
First, let it be known that the Plastic Constellations are no longer teenagers, so we music scribes can cease using that played out angle when writing features on the band. Sure, rock and roll seems to have fed and clothed TPC throughout their adolescence, even giving them an absurd growth spurt (all four members must be at least 6 feet tall now). But now they’re adults in their early 20s, ready to embark on a Midwest tour to promote Mazatlan (2024 Records), their first new album in nearly four years.
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Def Jux Records’ S.A. Smash: Modesty is for bitches
Wednesday 21 April @ 12:13:21 (Read: 3526) |
by Sean McCarthy
Even though S.A. Smash haven't reached indie Hip-Hop superstar status yet, frontman Camu Tao's swagger is years beyond his fame. He refused to talk about his upcoming collaboration with El-P, the super secretive Central Services, thus following Indie Hero Rule #1: Deny everything, even if it's positive. This keeps the fans surprised and the interviews short. When I asked him what it was like working with famed NYC producers like El-P, Blockhead (Aesop Rock's collaborator on his earlier albums) and Ese & Hipsta of Embedded Studios (Brooklyn's hippest production duo from the hippest borough of the hippest city in the world) Camu Tao gruffly reminded me that "I'm a producer too." This brings us to Indie Hero Rule #2: Always keep the focus on you. Your interview, your album, your production skills.
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Rosie Thomas: Songs With Substance
Wednesday 14 April @ 13:00:47 (Read: 4993) |
by Rob van Alstyne
With modern pop music in both the independent and major label spheres increasingly focused on insouciant coolness, artists like Rosie Thomas, an emotionally naked and über-earnest folk singer, appear on the verge of extinction—which is a shame.
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Air: So much more French then you
Wednesday 14 April @ 12:50:27 (Read: 3672) |
by Sean McCarthy
Look, I’m not going to go lie to you; I’m really not sure what to make of the French. Their demeanor is foppish at best, their fried potatoes hate freedom, and, according to Macaulay Caulkin, their women don’t shave their armpits. Then there’s the matter of Air, the most frequently exported French musical act since Bridget Bardot went through menopause.
Is it merely soundtrack music? Is it ironic? Is it a gimmick? Talkie Walkie, their latest release, answers none of these questions, but does find the duet returning from their experimental phase to a more comfortable, if uneven, space.
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The Olympic Hopefuls: Going for the Gold
Thursday 08 April @ 13:44:15 (Read: 6031) |
By Rob van Alstyne
Perhaps only Minnesotans can properly appreciate the beauty of summer - for only those of us who have braved countless snowdrifts and endured endless cold fronts can truly perceive the beauty of the summer’s first rays. It’s something most Twin Cities folk spend a good six months out of the year waiting for, and it was in the heart of yet another brutal Minnesota winter that the audio lover letter to summertime known as The Fuses Refuse to Burn, (the debut release from new local outfit the Olympic Hopefuls) was crafted.
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The Great Depression- Music for grownups, by the grownups
Thursday 08 April @ 13:25:42 (Read: 6160) |
By Keith Pille
The Great Depression have a lot on their collective minds: the human condition; the interactions between the different layers of the human mind, the current singles-driven state of the music industry; traffic conditions between Minneapolis and Madison; the limitations placed on a person by a given location and set of circumstances; the cohesive flow of their newest album, Unconscious Pilot; the music-consumption habits of America's future bomber pilots, and so on.
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The Unicorns: Yes... they are fucking with you
Wednesday 31 March @ 13:31:52 (Read: 3839) |
by Holly Day
As positive as I was that there weren’t any unicorns in the Bible, I still had to run to the family Bible right after this interview to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. “Oh, yeah, there are unicorns in the Bible,” The Unicorns percussionist J’aime Tambour had assured me just minutes before. “Like, from before the Flood. Ask any Catholic about unicorns, and they’ll tell you some stories you just won’t believe,” he added, and he sounded so sincere, I decided to believe him.
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Ben Kweller: After the gold rush
Wednesday 24 March @ 12:38:01 (Read: 4579) |
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by Rob van Alstyne
Being a teenager is hard enough without having to worry your
acne will flair up on the day of your Late Night With Conan O'Brien performance—just
ask Ben Kweller. A pop music wunderkind (he garnered honorable mention in Billboard
Magazine's young songwriters competition at the age of 9), Ben Kweller was hitting
the late night talk show circuit and touring the world in earnest by 16, at
the helm of Texas rock group Radish and with the weight of some serious major
label promotional muscle behind him. It sounds like every kid’s dream
but—as so frequently happens-—it morphed into something more closely
resembling a nightmare when commercial expectations weren't met. Burnt out and
disappointed, Radish quietly disbanded at the end of the 90s and Kweller appeared
poised to become another fizzled out former child star. Kweller, however, had
other plans and set out to prove he was born with a steely resolve in addition
to an uncanny ear for melody.
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Ela: Reality bites
Wednesday 10 March @ 13:48:58 (Read: 5849) |
by Rob van Alstyne
It’s a familiar story: college ends, relationships dissolve, people move back home to parentally abetted misery or stay in town and feel like they’re treading water. Almost everyone faces the same question—what the fuck do I do now? Bill Caperton started a band and made a record.
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The Wrens: This boy is exhausted
Wednesday 10 March @ 13:33:04 (Read: 5950) |
by P.J. Morel
Once upon a time, The Wrens all lived together in a house in Secaucus, New Jersey: Kevin, Jerry, Charles and Greg. They wrote very good songs, worked hard and, in 1996 released an excellent album, Secaucus. Critical chatter followed the Wrens then: Some people called them “The Next Big Thing.” The band toured near and far in hopes of getting a contract with a major record company.
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News Briefs: Go for the good time!
Wednesday 03 March @ 13:41:13 (Read: 4437) |
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by Ed Felien
Political songwriter David Rovics, singing "songs of social
significance," and Atilla the Stockbroker, social surrealist and rebel
poet, will be in concert at the First Uiniversalist Church at 34th Street and
Dupont Avenue South in Minneapolis on their first stop on a national tour on
Friday, March 5, at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10.
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American Music Club: Reunited and it feels so good
Wednesday 03 March @ 13:29:29 (Read: 4235) |
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by Rob van Alstyne
From the outside looking in Mark Eitzel appears to be the saddest of all the
sad-eyed songwriters, a glutton for punishment spotlighting his personal demons
in song but never breaking free from their tight grip. Eitzel claimed to be
“tired of being a spokesman for every tired thing” 16 years ago
(in his devastatingly powerful tribute to the AIDS related death of a close
friend, “Blue and Grey Shirt”), but still he soldiers on—chronicling
the disaffected, penning solitary tributes to alcoholic living, and generally
exposing his embittered dirty laundry in a frank and unsettling manner. Is Eitzel
the man every bit as tortured as his songs would lead listeners to believe?
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Broken Social Scene: Baker’s dozen plus one
Wednesday 03 March @ 12:39:28 (Read: 4760) |
by P.J. Morel
When Radiohead released Kid A a few years back to overwhelming
acclaim, the band created a nasty precedent: leveraging their own brilliant
song-writing, the very best studios and the services of one of the world's foremost
producers, they made a record that unabashedly “did it all.” It
had some pop-y songs, some more raucous ones, too—quite to be expected.
But by mixing up the usual pop-rock formula with dub-y instrumental passages,
electronic tracks and dusty, bedroom-folk interludes, Kid A threw the door wide
open for all the indie rockers who had spent years peppering their record collections
with the likes of Aphex Twin, Folk Implosion and Tricky. If some had doubted
the wisdom of dumping such sprawling influences into a rock record, now they
had proof that it could be done, and done well. Of course, most bands aren't
Radiohead, and many a sprawling album has followed in their wake.
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Statistics: Score another one for Omaha
Friday 27 February @ 12:38:45 (Read: 5454) |
by Rob van Alstyne
If Omaha is the new Seattle; then Statistics are the new Alice in Chains. OK, that’s a bit of a stretch, the slickly rocking solo venture of Omaha boy-done-good Denver Dalley doesn’t actually bear any resemblance to the sludge-crunch of Layne Staley and company, but the point remains the same.
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The Alpha Centauri: Gleaming progressives
Friday 27 February @ 12:14:48 (Read: 5150) |
by Patrick Johnson
Outside: Physicists currently explore a new, revolutionary philosophy that everything in the world, in the universe, is made of cosmic strings, vibrating with a unique resonance and in turn creating the matter this string will become. There is a distinct possibility that the microscopic speck we know as Earth merely clings to a universe that is only a cross-section of a vast loaf-shaped membrane containing multiple dimensions that our feeble minds cannot yet understand.
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Askeleton: The Future is Now
Wednesday 18 February @ 13:43:05 (Read: 5184) |
by Keith Pille
Here’s one of the weirdest memories I have of my formative years: I remember watching MTV and seeing the video for INXS’s “New Sensation,” in which frontman Michael Hutchence (in suit, tie and ponytail) vamps at the camera with animated neon squiggles radiating from his head and a repetitive two-chord guitar part jangling in the background. For whatever reason, this spectacle left me with an intense feeling along the lines of “Wow, 1987 is soooo futuristic, and I’m lucky to be here.”
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Halloween Alaska: First “The O.C.” . . . then the world
Wednesday 18 February @ 11:05:06 (Read: 6282) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Halloween Alaska in short: old faces in new places making genre-defying music. Now for the long version...
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[Lucky] Jeremy is a Punk Rocker
Wednesday 11 February @ 11:14:50 (Read: 5036) |
by Keith Pille
Commercial radio drives me nuts these days, and a lot of it is because of these silly feel-good pseudopunk bands that are everywhere. You hear a song that’s got a kick-ass uptempo beat, a distorted, driving guitar part, and you get ready for some good, old-fashioned cynicism. And then some cheerful butthead starts singing about how everything’s gonna be all right, and the moment’s ruined.
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The Melismatics: Standardsetting Rockers
Monday 09 February @ 15:36:56 (Read: 5069) |
By Tim Kindem
The Melismatics are the new standard bearers of Twin Cities rock ‘n’ roll. Like the Replacements in an era of post punk, Husker Du in an era of hardcore, and Soul Asylum in an era of grunge, The Melismatics play music with distinctly Minneapolis flavor that swims against the flow of the current river of rock.
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Wheat: Swinging for the fences
Monday 09 February @ 15:55:43 (Read: 3734) |
By Rob van Alstyne
Wheat was sick and tired of being 98 lb. indie-music weaklings with beach bullies kicking sand in their faces. They were looking to pound milkshakes, scarf Creatine powder and eat raw eggs (even –gasp!- sign with a major label) - anything to bulk their music up and super-size their previously obscured and hazy melodies. Mission accomplished.
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Matthew Ryan: True grit
Tuesday 27 January @ 20:15:45 (Read: 4372) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Matthew Ryan was ready to turn his back on music. After years of pushing his literate aching songs via a major record label that couldn't have marketed him more poorly, Ryan was through with the uphill battle of trying to find space on the airwaves and in chain store record bins for a craggy-voiced songwriter with a bad haircut and sincerity to spare.
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Motion City Soundtrack: They are the movie
Wednesday 21 January @ 14:24:44 (Read: 8565) |
I am the Movie
by Patrick Johnson
White clouds crawling across a blue sky as we float down to see a copper spire pointing heavenward on a gray stone steeple. Still descending, we move away from the stone and two bell towers appear on opposite sides of the steeple. As we float down, slowly pulling away, the façade of a great basilica opens in front of us.
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Cloud Cult: On a Roll to Somewhere
Wednesday 07 January @ 12:44:41 (Read: 4930) |
by Keith Pille
Cloud Cult, the Twin Cities band and self-contained ecological movement, is on one hell of a roll right now. Bandleader Craig Minowa can trace the beginning of it to a phone call from Alaska. He’d been on the phone for 13 hours, calling college radio stations around the nation to promote the band’s third album, They Live on the Sun, and had reached the point where he was slurring words and forgetting who he was speaking to as he begged indifferent station managers to give the disc a listen.
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Best Fight Story: Talk Politics, Fecal Rock
Wednesday 07 January @ 12:26:13 (Read: 4550) |
by Chris Allison
A few months back I went to see Best Fight Story play at their CD release party at the Terminal Bar. I hadn’t yet heard any of the new music I was anticipating—but was already a devout fan of BFS’ prior output. After a great set from Lonesome Dan Kase’s Crush Collision Trio, Best Fight Story took the stage in front of me for the first time in several years.
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Friends Like These
Tuesday 23 December @ 19:32:01 (Read: 5315) |
by Rob van Alstyne
“People are going to give us a lot of shit for this next record,” claims John Solomon, singer/guitarist of Twin Cities up and comers Friends Like These. Now I’m not one to run around town calling people liars or anything … but based on the universally positive reception that greeted Friends Like These’s debut, I Love You, it’s hard to imagine their soon-to-be-completed sophomore effort will be greeted with anything other than open arms by Twin Cities rock music devotees.
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Revolver Modele
Tuesday 23 December @ 18:46:59 (Read: 5424) |
by Dana Madden
Question: take a guy who learned to dance listening to Duran Duran, an actual dancer, a lead guitarist with primate-like climbing abilities, and a former English major who pounds out his love on the drums, and what do you have? Answer: Revolver Modele.
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Luke’s Angels: Much cooler than Charlie’s
Wednesday 17 December @ 13:59:08 (Read: 5203) |
by Louis Lenzmeier
Luke’s Angels, hands down the deuce cities coolest three-girl/one-guy band, released their self-titled debut back in September and have been garnering a solid buzz around town ever since. If you like the sound of pure unfiltered indie-rock, Luke’s Angels may just be your new favorite band.
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Andrew Bird: No boundaries
Wednesday 10 December @ 12:36:56 (Read: 5043) |
by Rob van Alstyne
There's never been a shortage of passionate musicians out there in the world, persons willing to forgo all creature comforts (or steady rent money) in order to pursue their art. But even in a world full of fervent musical dreamers Andrew Bird's passion stands out.
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Rufus Wainwright: Piano man for a new millenium
Wednesday 03 December @ 13:54:02 (Read: 4611) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Rufus Wainwright—equal parts lugubrious piano balladeer, flamboyant pop-operetta showman and precocious songwriting talent—has always been a perplexing pop music figure.
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12 Rods Revisited
Wednesday 03 December @ 13:38:25 (Read: 4347) |
Ryan Olcott, the last original member of one of the Twin Cities finest groups soldiers on
by Celeste Tabora
Regrettably, I haven’t seen a 12 Rods show in a few years. Upon hearing that their upcoming Dinkytowner show in Minneapolis will be one in which they play two sets. One of new material, the other set consisting of the band’s first release, the Gay? EP performed from beginning to end, I couldn’t wait to chat with the band about this interesting take on their next gig.
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Kraig Johnson & The Program: In it for kicks
Wednesday 26 November @ 12:00:03 (Read: 6190) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Off-stage Kraig Johnson is a low-key unassuming sort, a lanky laconic man whose flatly intoned voice barely rises above the level of the loud heating vent at our interview location in a downtown Minneapolis bar. The slight hint of creases beginning to settle around the corners of his eyes provides the only hint that Johnson’s a well-established vet of the Twin Cities music scene (at 38 he was guitarist in the seminal Minneapolis 80s band Run Westy Run, a principal songwriter in beloved supergroup Golden Smog and had a four year tenure as guitarist in the Jayhawks), and not some shy fresh faced kid (he could otherwise still easily pass for 25).
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Rank Strangers: a lesson in repetition
Wednesday 26 November @ 11:47:21 (Read: 5250) |
by Donny Doane
Imaginary, yet believable, verbal exchange:
Mike Wisti: So hey, Donny. Two guys are walking beside a lake.
Pulse: OK.
MW: And their names are Pete and Repeat.
Pulse: Yeah, yeah.
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Thought Cloud: Running Forward to the Past
Wednesday 19 November @ 13:03:03 (Read: 6147) |
by Keith Pille
Thoughtcloud aren’t like other Twin Cities bands. There’s the unusual mix of three Packer fans to one Viking backer (with one abstention); there’s the concentration on swooping guitar riffs that rock you AC/DC-style on something like a subatomic level; and, yes, there’s lead singer Leah Horne, theoretically old enough to have kids at the U of M but belting it out with more energy than lots of people who still need fake IDs.
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The Shins: Startlingly better than Keanu Reeves
Wednesday 12 November @ 22:26:30 (Read: 6255) |
by Sean McCarthy
If I’ve learned anything from “The Matrix Revolutions”—beyond the fact that fiery crosses made of electrodes are way cooler than ordinary, non-combustible crosses—it’s that sequels tend to suck. The material and dynamics that comprise the original have a habit of being ripped apart and blown up into an overwhelming satire of its own creation. Thankfully, The Shins’ follow-up album — Chutes Too Narrow — doesn’t attempt to replicate the style of their debut album, 2001’s Oh Inverted World.
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Grickle-Grass: Fall’s Musical Ambassadors
Wednesday 12 November @ 21:54:21 (Read: 4487) |
by Donny Doane
A good new record, like local trio Grickel-Grass’ latest, The Discount Hits, always seems to uncannily evoke the season in which it was made. The aural hues of the tunes blend in with those of the visual natural world with sublime ease, achieving what I like to call “the haphazard precision of the cosmos.” On the all-too-rare occasions this happens, it’s usually unintentional; such cohesion can never be forced.
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What sunrise? Greg Dulli’s Twilight Life
Wednesday 05 November @ 10:54:26 (Read: 7433) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Right about the time everyone else is going to bed, mentally preparing for their dreary day ahead working for the man — Greg Dulli comes alive. As you toss and turn hoping in vain to form the perfect union between neck and pillow, Dulli is out on the streets, causing mayhem, getting into more trouble and excitement in one night than most of us will experience in two or three lifetimes.
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Crosswalk Hero: Loud, vibrant . . . crazed
Wednesday 29 October @ 13:31:17 (Read: 5267) |
by Patrick Johnson
Practice starts late — 11 p.m. Crosswalk Hero frontman and bassist Scott Ketcher gets up from his relaxing sprawl on the loveseat and slams his Hamm’s on the coffee table covered with porno magazines and a butt-filled ashtray.
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Okkervil River: At Work in Uncharted Waters
Tuesday 21 October @ 16:44:57 (Read: 5518) |
by Rob van Alstyne
Will Robinson Sheff (singer/guitarist of Austin, Texas, band Okkervil River) never wanted to be in an alt. country band. So when his group rose to critical prominence on the strength of its second record, Don’t Fall in Love With Everyone You See, it was frustrating for him to see the band dissected as an alt. country enterprise on the basis of its geography and instrumentation (prominent banjo, pedal steel and mandolin).
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Iron & Wine: Southern anthem maker
Tuesday 21 October @ 16:22:01 (Read: 6250) |
by Sean McCarthy
Iron & Wine’s recently released EP, The Sea & The Rhythm (Subpop), served as a nice reminder why last year’s debut album — The Creek Drank the Cradle — appeared on more music editors’ yearly best-of lists than you’ve seen Ashton Kutcher’s silly trucker hat on MTV promos. But Sam Beam (insert your own Southern Comfort slash Beam pun at your own risk), the erstwhile Miami film professor behind Iron & Wine, isn’t taking his success too seriously.
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Tha' Tunnel
Tuesday 14 October @ 18:23:39 (Read: 4104) |
Anonymous writes: "Kandis Knight - 612-296-1466
Event Title "Tha' Tunnel"
Saturdays in October 2003
Doors open at 8:00 p.m.
Urban Wildlife Night Club
7.00 at the door
Real hip-hop, Real DJ's, Old Skool Style! "
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(S)low down you move too fast
Tuesday 14 October @ 18:07:19 (Read: 4303) |
by Rob Czernik
Sometime back in the dark ages of 1993, a trio of people in the northern city of Duluth tried to escape the onslaught of NirvanaPearlSoundPilots and decided to take matters into their own hands.
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Hieroglyphics: A crew with a purpose
Tuesday 14 October @ 17:52:03 (Read: 4318) |
by Jera Plucker
Some of the undeclared kings of Hip-Hop, Hieroglyphics (which includes among the large number founder Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Casual, the Souls of Mischief, Extra Prolific, producer/manager Domino, Pep Love, and producer Jay Biz) will be riding into town soon—and the Twin Cities best get ready. In an effort to see how the Oakland’s underground Hip-Hop collective is doing I spent the last few days tracking down a few of the crew. Taija brought me up to date.
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Freedy Johnston: Ready for Round Two
Wednesday 08 October @ 11:10:51 (Read: 5481) |
by Rob van Alstyne
It's a romantic story: a 16-year-old in rural Kansas teen gets his first guitar from a mail-order catalog (because there's no record or department store nearby), spends a few years learning to play and then decides to head for the big city and his shot at stardom.
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Josh Rouse: Feelin' Groovy
Wednesday 08 October @ 10:44:22 (Read: 4273) |
by Andrew Brantingham
Damn it all, I’m too cool to like this album. I listen to a lot of music, and I almost never smile because I’m too busy evaluating it and making lists about it. When I go to shows, my glasses are bigger and nerdier than anyone else’s glasses. My T-shirts and mesh hats are very ironic. I’m pretty sure Josh Rouse’s 1972 is not ironic. It’s just, well, fun. It’s too damned fun.
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How to throw a party—or not
Thursday 04 September @ 14:49:20 (Read: 4591) |
by Louis Lenzmeier
I attended the Pride Block Party in June and the Aquatennial Block Party in July and they were definitely not the highlight of my summer. They weren’t even in the top 10. Compared to the best organized outside party of the summer, the two-week State Fair, these parties have a lot to learn.
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