122 posts tagged “concert”

Parking in the college area known as "Dinkytown" in Minneapolis can be kind of hard, especially when the meters on 4^th Street runs until 10pm. I didn't mind walking a few blocks to the beautiful Varsity Theater as the weather was nothing less than perfect that Friday evening.

Opening up for Har Mar Superstar are three very different genre and acts. Starting with Koo Koo Kangeroo (official / myspace), whose music styling is that of hip hop - for toddlers. Their songs are dead simple, like "AOA" (sample lyrics: "aye oh aye oh aye") and "Cheh Cheh Chi" and "LMNOP", but they're catchy and easy to sing along. The highlight of their set was when they threw down a white tarp-like covering and the audience was dancing under it like a party fort.

Wow, Bang Bang Eche (myspace) are young. Someone told me that they're about 18 years old, but they certainly look much younger. Their music is very punk high-energy and reminds me a bit of Arctic Monkeys influenced. My easily favorite song from their set is "Fist Full of Dollars", perhaps a reference to Sergio Leone classic film? They ended their setlist with "Die Hippy Scum". Oh, also, it's worth noting that bassist T'Nealle sported a three keyboard cat moon t-shirt. Adorable.

The odd group on the bill was two-person group, Lookbook (myspace). The band is basically guitarist Grant Cutler, who plays guitars and handles the pre-recordings, with vocalist Maggie Morrison. Their music sounds like 80s pop, not exactly the "body-moving" type of music that you'd think Har Mar's audience would demand. Not really much to say, except I think Maggie looks really cute and I will be talking about them in further detail on my "book"-theme news on Sunday.

Har Mar Superstar ♥ Varsity Theater, Minneapolis (11/06/09)

Compared to the last time I saw Har Mar Superstar, which was basically a man and his undies and boombox - he now has a full band, all dressed in white with a red cross on the back. Also, the last time I saw him, he basically stripped down after the first few songs - this time, he started off very heavily dressed with an African cover, hat, etc.

After the first song, he took off his hat. After "DUI", he took off the overall to reveal a Prince "Purple Rain" shirt. He kept taking off articles of clothing as the night went on. From "EZ Pass", to "Girls Only", to "Creative Juices"... the audience was loving it all.

Har Mar and Melinda Park singing "Powerline"

By the time "Brothers & Sisters" was played, he inevitably took off his shirt. The pants disappeared with "Apple Sauce", followed by "Turn it Around". The finale song was "Tall Boy", which Zach, from Bang Bang, and some woman called Melinda Park (or was it Mindy Park?) joined on stage to help sing the song. Park would later turn up again to help sing one of the encore, "Powerline".

The very last song, Har Mar sang an a cappella version of Boyz II Men's "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday". He would pretend the song ended and everyone would clap... only he would continue to sing the refrain. After the third false ending and after he said "goodnight", he came back and sang some more.

Har Mar's latest album is Dark Touches, available from Dilettante Recordings. Read Andrew's review of the album, pick up a copy at amazon

I arrived at the 400 Bar sometime after the doors opened, and the place was pretty dead. I thought there would only be a handful of people out that night, but thankfully as the night got longer, the place filled up.

Brazos ♥ 400 Bar, Minneapolis (11/04/09)

Brazos (official / myspace) warmed up the crowd around nine. What I liked about them is that they have a lot of lyrics in their song. The highlight of their set is the Adrienne Rich poem turned into song. I didn't recall the title, but I'm sure it had "Africa" in the lyrics.

Personally, I thought the best song on their setlist is "Feeding Frenzy", featuring these lyrics "We're interlocking, we're interlocking. It's a bitter conflict, this staring contest."

White Denim ♥ 400 Bar, Minneapolis (11/04/09)

In contrast to the lyrics-thing, White Denim are more like crazy pyschedelic, garagey, experimental rock 'n roll - with minimal lyrics. Whatever singer James Petralli spouted out, it didn't matter because you were so in awe of his amazing guitar-playing ability. You can just tell the guy is a rock god, the way his fingers frantically moved up and down the neck of the guitar.

I reckon these Austin lads don't care so much to slow down or stop, so all their songs are medleys - one song flow into the next, and pretty soon about six songs have passed before they have to take a breather.

If you like your music loud, loud, and loud, White Denim is the band for you. Be sure to bring earplugs.

White Denim's latest album is called Fits and is available now at their record label, Downtown Music, or amazon.

Patience Hodgson, from the Grates, tells me for Halloween, she dressed up as a cowgirl. She went into a store and saw a guy working there, all decked out in a cowboy outfit. She complimented how great his costume was, only to realized that it was how he's normally dressed. That's Texas for you.

That's the kind of weird stories you hear from her, even on stage, they're referencing strange things like trying to hi-fi-ing the "fat guy with the beret" or asking if there were any vikings in the audience. But before I get to all those crazy details from the 7th Street Entry last night - opening up for them was Zoo Animal (official / myspace). I had seen singer Holly Newsom before, but as a soloist. This time, she's doing Zoo Animal songs, not just her solo material.

Holly made some jokes, like how 'grate' the Grates should be to noticing that They Might Be Giants were playing next door and how "we might be miniatures". Most of the audience that showed up early, I think showed up because of Zoo Animal and possibly Ice Palace.

Unfortunately, at the last minute, Ice Palace canceled (I am told the singer was sick), they were replaced by Story of the Sea (official / myspace). Bassist John admitted that they only had a five hours notice. Despite the feedback and false starts, I thought they held up pretty well all things considering.

I will say that they seem older, for the kind of crowd that was there last night. Their music sounds like classic progressive rock. I don't know any of their songs, but I did like the song that had something to do with eyes and being gone. 

The Grates came on with full energy with their often-intro song "Trampoline". Yes, Patience does do that weird rabbit hopping dance, as seen on their Til Death Do Us Party: Live At The Forum DVD. Patience is now a blonde, dressed in a gymnastic outfit.... making her look even more child-like than ever. Which may sound quite weird to hear her talk about wanting a baby of her own (I thought to myself, well there's always cloning...)

Other things I learned from Patience: if you eat enough of your hair, you'll have to take a pill to poop out the hair. Hence "hair butt". Fist-bumping, she tells us is called "boning". She likes to climb onto things, or jump into the audience and singing... while using a twirling baton. Fun to watch, but they also require audience interaction.

"It was this big!"

I thought the highlight of their set was either "Howl" or "19-20-20". I'm not that familar with their new material, but I did recognize their single, "Burn Bridges", from the setlist.

If you are looking for a good time or see cuteness in action, check out Brisbane's export, The Grates touring through your area. They are quite approachable, so please have a friendly chat with them after the show. Their lastest album is called Teeth Lost, Hearts Won, which if you get it on vinyl, will come with a bonus CD. I might also suggest checking out their debut album, which four singles from that album made it onto Triple J Hottest 100. I'm sure Sally will keep us informed of the 2010's Hottest 100.

The Grates - Trampoline

 11/04/2009 04:57:32 ♥ vu () ♥ thegrates.com ♥ myspace.com/thegrates 

The Cedar Cultural Center is like the NPR of the venues around Minneapolis. The venue is usually a sit-down (removable fold-out chairs) venue that seems to be catered to World Music, jazz, and acoustic/folky bands. That's exactly the atmosphere last night, when Thao with the Get Down Stay Down, stopped by on their on-going tour.

The Cedar is notorious for keeping its schedule, so starting at 7:30pm sharp, was David Shultz and the Skyline (myspace) a pretty mild singer/songwriter that did end with a strong finish when Get Down Stay Down's Adam Thompson and Willis Thompson joined him on stage.

The Portland Cello Project, aka PCP, (official / myspace) are an interesting band. They consists of five cellists, who, as told by ringleader Douglas Jenkins, started around the Portland area between classically trained musicians. Lots of highlights, the Pantera cover, "Mouth For War", the Halo theme song, and the Elliott Smith cover. You can tell they like Smith, having stated that he passed away six years and two weeks.

Thao with the Get Down Stay Down was eager to get on stage. Lots of foot-tapping and lots of hand-clapping. Thao admitted that this was only the second-ever sit-down venue they played. That the other one, it was a Christian college, and they weren't allowed to dance. "It was the Footloose town!," she laughed.

Since that story, the audience seemed to warmed up and pretty soon everyone stood up. This is weird, considering that I don't think I've ever seen the venue with people standing up.

Thao with the Get Down Stay Down ♥ Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis (10/27/09).

Highlight of the show for me was them doing earlier songs, like "Feet Asleep" with David Shultz and Douglas Jenkins joining on stage to help out. In fact, throughout the show, various other band members joined on stage to play. As you can see on the setlist list, they ended with "Easy" and their encore was "The Give" and "Fear and Convenience". What's not on their setlist is "Violet" and a goofy Salt N Pepa's "Push It" cover.

Thao Nguyen with the Get Down Stay Down are currently on tour. Their latest album, Know Better Learn Faster is out now. For a free download song, "Know Better Learn Faster", head over to their record label, Kill Rock Stars.

Inspired by the 2003 documentary "Afro-Punk", the website of the same name, Afropunk.com, brings together all kind of culture and lifestyle. That company is also behind a series of tour dates with headliner Saul Williams, with a special guests joining on and off tour (I did notice that one of the original black-in-rock Living Colour will be joining on for a few dates!)

Afro-Punk is necessary about punks, it seems to also inherited punk attributes, such as its attitude and DIY mentality. So what we all witness last night was basically a very interesting mix of music genre, art, and lifestyle, in one show. One thing for sure is that all the acts on the bill is high-energy and, you can tell, in love with music.

The whole tour is being sponsored by Converse shoes and Bud Light (which was a bit ironic since the majority of the audience seems to be underage the legal drinking age). Throughout the night, MC Tchaka Diall (myspace) kept us entertained by throwing out T-Shirts and introductions.

Kicking it all off was Dearling Physique (official / myspace). Having already seen the band a few times already, I can already expect a funky outfit and even funkier dance moves. Well, in addition to those things, singer Dominique Davis also brought props on stage! Peacock feathers and a birdmask, that looks like it was from the imagination of Grant Morrison.

No Bird Sing (official / myspace) seems to me to be from the same school as Atmosphere and Eyedea & Abilities. I thought they were very good, especially on their last song of the set, "Ars Poetica".

The most punkish sounding band on the bill was American Fangs (official / myspace). Lots of movement and high energy, definitely a great band to see live. Don't believe me? Check out their song "My 2 Richards" at Vimeo. Their debut EP is $5 at, which the touring people claimed is "your new favorite EP".

CX Kidtonik & Tchaka Diallo (myspace) basically warmed up the audience with two or three songs before Saul Williams (official / myspace) joined them on stage with the rest of the touring band. For those who aren't familiar with Williams, he started as a spoken word poet (which he also incorporate between his songs during the show). In 2001, he made his first cross over to the world of music, and since then have worked with Trent Reznor, KRS-One, De La Soul, among others.

Although there were some excellent songs played during his set, I'll have to say that the highlight for me was his rendition of U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday", sort of appropriate for that Sunday evening. As for the encores, I believe the first one was "Surrender", followed by "a new song" and "Raised to be Lowered".

But just when you thought the show was over, CX and Diallo came on stage to do some improv music as the few audience that remain gathered around to see what they're doing.

Overall, a very eclectic mix of bands. If the Afro-punk tour is coming through your area, check them out. The least you can do is download FREE Afro-punk compilation at downloads.afropunk.com.

Below are photographs from Erik Hess, our latest addition to the W♥M family.

Dearling Physique at The Varsity Theater, Minneapolis (10/25/09) ♥ Photoset from Erik Hess

No Bird Sing at The Varsity Theater, Minneapolis (10/25/09) ♥ Photoset from Erik Hess

American Fangs at The Varsity Theater, Minneapolis (10/25/09) ♥ Photoset from Erik Hess

Saul Williams at The Varsity Theater, Minneapolis (10/25/09) ♥ Photoset from Erik Hess

I think the fact that we don't claim a genre is very important to what Lucero is, there are too many rules in punk rock. Too many rules in country music. We’re hard headed and… god damn if we don’t do things the way we want to do them.

- Ben Nichols

Fans waiting at the door for Lucero ♥ The Varsity Theater, Minneapolis (10/23/09)

I've said this again and again, but of all the venues in Minneapolis that I've been to, The Varsity Theater is still the best venue in Minneapolis. It's Friday night and everyone was very excited and eager to see Lucero play. You have to keep in mind that these fans waiting outside the theater have seen Lucero before, if not multiple time.

At the last minute, I was informed that singer/songwriter Amy LaVere (official / myspace) had canceled her appearance. So the set time was pushed back to 9:45pm at the earliest, but it seems forever waiting nearly two hours for the first band.

The "two man wrecking crew" Cedric Burnside & Lightnin' Malcolm (myspace) came on with an introduction by Lucero bassis John Stubblefield, who would later join the duo for their finale song. I wasn't expecting Cedric & Malcolm to sound so swamp bluesy, most of their songs went well with the audience. The highlight for me was when they brought Lucero's saxophonist McKnight on stage near the end of their set.

Lucero ♥ The Varsity Theater, Minneapolis (10/23/09)

When Lucero took the stage, the crowd quadrupled, as they pushed forward to the front. There were a lot of very excited fans in the audience. They all knew their songs, singing along at the top of their lungs. With nine albums, the latest is 1372 Overton Park, they had a large pool of songs to choose from to play live.

I was a little taken back when I did hear singer Ben Nichols speak in this very Tennessean gruff accent. As if he's spent years drinking whiskey.

They kicked things off with a track off their new album, "Sounds of the City", after Nichols mutters something about wanting to start with the theme song to Simon & Simon.

Their songs comes off as sounding Americana, alt-country heartland music. There are also some hints of punk, if not evident by their years of tattoos then by the heavier songs.

While I can't claim to understand Lucero and their very obsessive fans, I'm sure this has to do with their extensive touring schedule and building up a massive fanbase all over the country. At one point in the show, a fan threw on stage one of his shoe. Everyone, including Nichols, was wondering why he did that. Nichols joked that he was going to just keep the one shoe.

As far as I'm concern, Lucero is a band that needs to be seen live. Their high energy and their fans interactions are infectious. 1372 Overton Park from major label, Universal Republic, is out now at all major music sellers, including amazon ($10).

PS, There may be additional information and pictures later.

 

Let's get one thing straight: Shonen Knife is still adorable, they still try and sound like the Japanese Ramones band, and, yes, they still love singing and eating food. Shonen Knife is all that at the 7th Street Entry last night, October 21^st.

Opening up for them was Red Pens (myspace), who I previously saw (and loved) with Those Darlins. Laura Bennett is in shorts with ringed tube socks (it's funny but I don't think they make socks with those rings anymore), Howard Hamilton is still a rock god in his blue button shirt. Their setlist was about the same from the last time I saw them, except they did "Cave Something" early on, like the second song.

Shonen Knife Setlist ♥ 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (10/09/09). Scan from Mats Sexton

Shonen Knife came on stage shortly after 11pm, dressed in their "Power Rangers"-type costumes, looking very uniformed. They were holding up their Shonen Knife/Osaka hand towels in the air, as if we had no idea who's on stage. It wasn't until midway did I realized that they were actually sort of advertising that they had "Shonen Knife/Osaka" merchandise for sale. It seemed to go hand-in-hand with their official sweat wristbands.

From my memory, they did only a handful of songs from their new album, Super Group, including the title track, "Super Group". The other songs I recognized from the new album were, "Pyramid Power" (this was done near the end) and "BBQ Party" (which sounded fantastic live).

After three new songs, singer Naoko Yamano, said eagerly that "Now for some classic Shonen Knife!!", launching into such classics like "Banana Chips", "Ramones Forever", and, of course, the best song, "Riding the Rocket".

Ritsuko Taneda singing "Johnny, Johnny, Johnny" ♥ 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (10/09/09)                                     1 comment

Interestingly enough, there was one song, "Johnny, Johnny, Johnny", that Ritsuko Taneda took over singing for the band. The song is actually quite old, from their 1994 album, Rock Animals.

For encores, they did "Sushi Bar Song" and "Top of the World" (their popular Carpenters cover). Sadly, I was hoping for "Tomato Head", "Daydream Believer" (Monkees) or even "Brown Mushrooms"... but hey, I'm perfectly happy with the Rocket song.

After the show, they did a meet & greet, signing autographs. I got my old 712 album and bought a few singles for them to sign. One of the Shonen Knife single was a Christmas song, with lyrics by Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), which I'm looking forward to putting on my iPod.

If they're coming through your town, go see and meet them! Their new album is called Super Group, out on Good Charmamel Records.

UPDATE 10/27/09 10:26am: Added Setlist

The band was deafening. Yuki was adorable. The crowd swooned. All in all, it was a very successful night and an emotional victory for anyone below the 5’2” mark.

I'm so glad I got a chance to catch School of Seven Bells on their recent tour. Opening up for them were two solid bands, Warpaint and The Depreciation Guild.

Warpaint ♥ 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (10/13/09)

I actually quite enjoyed Warpaint (myspace), who wowed me with their melodic music as all three girls took turns singing their part. They seem like a lot of fun, and they seem really happy that a lot of people showed up early to see them play. I'll have to admit, 7th Street Entry was pretty packed that Tuesday night.

They opened up with their harmonizing cover version of "My Guy", which may sound a little outdated with such lyrics as "he's the cream of the crop" to rhyme with "I think he's tops". As soon as that song ended, they launched into an instrumental song, and continued for another thirty minutes. Setlist seems short, but all the songs I heard, I did like.

I'll have to find out more about them later, all I know is that they recently released an EP called Exquisite Corpse on the Manimal Vinyl label.

The Depreciation Guild ♥ 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (10/13/09) The Depreciation Guild Setlist ♥ 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (10/13/09)

In some ways, whoever put together this tour did a good job, because all the artists sound at least in the same kind of music genre. So, The Depreciation Guild (official / myspace) sound more or less like the other band on the bill, a little shoegazey with sweet vocals by all very handsome young people on stage (certainly Depreciation had the best hair).

They borrowed some of their musical instruments from Warpaint and borrowed the movie projector-thing from School of Seven Bells. The movie of various colors and blocks played throughout their whole set.

I think all their live songs required some computerized help with the quirky noises, and for the most part it made their music more video gamey. Unfortunately, for one song, there was a hiccup when an unwanted looped noise continued to play onto the next song.

As you can see from their setlist, most of their songs are taken from their 2007 album In Her Gentle Jaws, which got a recent vinyl release (500 copies only) on Kanine Records. I think the future is in vinyl, so I was quite happy to see that all three bands here have continued to release music on this funky format.

When School of Seven Bells came on stage, after the intro song played on for about a minute, the lights on stage were turned off - save for the one lone red light that shined on Benjamin Curtis. I suppose it's to make the movie that were shown in the background to be more of the focus, but I suspect the twin girls might be shy if the spotlights are on them.

I think if I remembered correctly, that Claudia is the one on keyboard, which as it turned out is an Indigo keyboard. Both of the sisters are dressed in mostly black and, I think, Alejandra is in knee-high boots. I have photographs, but in poor light, it's not worth showing (and I'm too lazy to produce any drawing).

My favorite autotune song, "Chain", was played on their set - but it didn't sound 'tuned' live. Instead, there are stretches in the song that extended the song a bit. Other highlight from the show was probably their closer, "Half Asleep". They came back on for a one-song encore, but I don't remember what song it was.

They left a lot of eager fans who wanted more, especially the guy from Madison, Wisconsin, that wanted to have the girls record the call letters to Madison radio station (WSUM?).

Anyway, it looks like Ghostly is re-releasing their Alpinisms in a "deluxe" album on iTunes, so perhaps there'll be a real physical deluxe album release at Ghostly Records in the near future.

This was a perfect bill for the tiny 7th Street venue in Minneapolis: Asobi Seksu, Lonely Dear, and Anna Ternheim.

Since I've been closely following each of these artists through my various album reviews and show reviews by other W♥M writers. What I expecting was "yellow fever" and "Teeny tiny Yuki" and "audience sing-along". I do suggest you check the previous reviews, since I probably won't add much to it. All are true, with the exception of Asians in the audience (there were a few, but not like overwhelming "itwasallyellow" moment).

Anna Ternheim (annaternheim.com / myspace.com/annaternheim) was the only artist that we haven't reviewed live, so I was quite excited to see her. Although she's not that well-known in the States, she's quite famous in her home country of Sweden (having won both "Best Female Artist" and "Album of the Year" on the Swedish Grammy). So for her to tour here, at very intimate settings, is such a boon. In fact, there was a group of Swedish fans (like six of them) who visited Minneapolis just to see Anna in such a small venue.

Ternheim's "band" was basically stolen from Loney Dear (we'll get to him later). They adapted well to playing (and backup singing) her songs. My favorite from the set was, of course, "What Have I Done". This song feature this distinctive violin, which was replicated by pre-recording, so no live violas on stage.

So embarrassingly enough, I only had a brief chance to play around with the Pen camera's setting. At the show, for Anna Ternheim, I could not figure out how to change my shutter speed and ISO settings. Thanks to Erik who looked it up to tell me that the up/down/left/right d-pad doubles as a wheel! Who knew?

The only thing I savaged out of Ternheim is this video of her performing "Let It Rain" (see video), which includes the lyrics that would inspired the title of her latest album, Leaving on a mayday.

Lonely Dear ♥ 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (10/09/09)

The same band that played for Ternheim came back for Emil Svanängen, aka Loney Dear (loneydear.com / myspace.com/loneydear). Loney has been doing this musician for a while now. You can just tell, the way he handles himself on the stage and the way he manipulate his audience - yes, he made the audience do that "na-na-na-na" chorus from "The Meter Marks OK".

Compared to Ternheim's set Loney's set was much longer, or at least it felt more like a full set. To be honest, it seems that Loney could continue to play for another hour. He kept asking the soundguy (who was probably with the touring bands as it was not the typical staff guy) if they could have four more minutes to play one more song.

Asobi Seksu Setlist ♥ 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (10/09/09)

I read that Asobi Seksu's Yuki was small, but wow, she's really small. Sometime, I think the loud noise of guitar, bass, drums, and effects, drowns out Yuki's voice. So, combined with my already damaged hearing, I could not make out what she's singing about. Something about cats and strawberries and rain or something.

While this may be attributed to the fact that they were already late on arriving at 7th Street, due to some detours driving from Vancouver, Canada, which resulted in no soundcheck, I just think the band is normally loud when played live.

One thing I will mention is that the band is incredibly hard to shoot, due to poor lighting, because they wanted to emphasis on their own line of blue lights and strobes effect lights and combined with Yuki's hair-in-face and/or looking away.

They started off with "New Years", a Japanese song that's been a staple of their intro song since 2006. They played "Thursday", which I know a few people liked, and for the finale, Yuki took over the drumming-action on "Red Sea". The final song was ridden with all-out strobe light city. It's very cool effects when you see them on stage, blinking in and out, but yeah, not so much for photosensitive epilepsy people.

This is one of the best bill for a band I've seen in a while, so it's definitely worth it to see them all together.

PS, Stay tuned for Kate G's update on Asobi Seksu when they arrive in New York on the 16^th of October.