By: David de Young, Zosia Blue
To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie
Jenna Wilhelm of To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie - Photo by David de Young
People have been telling me to see To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie for more than a month, and in the music scene, that’s practically forever. If there’s one thing I’ve learned is to listen to those in the know. The local buzz about To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie may not have surfaced yet, but believe me, when it does, this band will come up like a blue whale.
Friday night at the Hexagon Bar, To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie (hereafter TKAPB) celebrated the release of their first full-length CD Patron (Kranky, 2007). The bill also featured White Jazz, Young Dudes (more on them later from Zosia Blue) and Styrofoam Duck.
I arrived during Styrofoam Duck. It was my first time seeing them. A noise rock act consisting of just a drummer and guitar player, their free-form noise rock reminded me of the old days of the Hexagon when anything came and anything went. I didn’t get them, and that’s fine. But I didn’t dislike them either. Let’s just say my lack of understanding got in the way of my enjoyment in this case. And I’m not just trying to be nice. They elicited from me a rather uncommon sense of ambivalence. Perhaps that’s what they were going for.
I was also seeing TKAPB for the first time. Coming into the show, I had seen footage from Dave Loomer’s twincitieslive.blip.tv site. I had liked what I saw and heard in his videos: Ethereal, dreamy, spooky pop, ala Cocteau Twins, or early Enya. (I admit I might have liked it even more 20 years ago, but I like it enough now, and that’s where I live.)
The band's CD Patron is an ambitious 10-song disc that’s actually an album, in other words something best absorbed as a whole even if the pieces are quite enjoyable on their own. The song “The Man with the Shovel, Is the Man I Will Marry” has already gotten attention from Pitchfork Media who featured their video a while ago. The song is evocative and will likely stick with you after one listen.
 |
| To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie |
Pitchfork remarked that the album is a party killer, but it’s handy if you want to kill your party in an exquisite way. I put this to the test as soon as I got it home and found it slid nicely into the background and set a perfect mood. But as I write this review at 39,000 feet while listening through headphones, it also passes the test of listening with a whole head. You probably saw this coming, but it will likely be on my list of the best Minnesota albums of this year.
TKAPB’s live show is also nothing groundbreaking. Like the album, it’s practically retro (think shoegazer.) From her station at the center of the stage, Jenna Wilhelm is downright elfish, and both audio and visual comparisons have been made with Bjork. Technically, the band is a duo, the other half of which is Mark McGee on effects. But for the live show three or four additional musicians contribute to the experience: a bass player up front who also functions as a second drummer, a violin player and a drummer. (Who these people are exactly, I can’t tell you, as neither the album nor their website makes that information readily available.) The total effect of TKAPB live is a show where almost nothing at all is going on but you can’t take your eyes off it. As morose and disinterested as the band comes across, they’re riveting. Listening made me want to space out and pay attention to the set as a whole instead of the individual songs, much like the album did. Suffice it to say that what I heard on stage sounds very much like the disc I brought home with me after the show. And it’s to the bands credit that they do such a good job of recreating their studio sound live.
Young Dudes
By Zosia Blue
I dropped by the Hex to catch To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie, but left a raving fan of one of their openers, Young Dudes. Young Dudes – a four-piece rock outfit from Minneapolis – is neither particularly young nor full of dudes, but they had the most genuine fun on stage I’ve seen any band have in years. Lead singer Matty Torb is wiry and long-haired and straight from The Strokes, good-looking to the point where he seemed out-of-place in the dressed-down atmosphere of the Hex.
But I was skeptical at first – another band in plaid shirts with black glasses? Another pretty chick drummer? But on the first hit of the guitar, they blew my face off. I had a nasty hangover from the previous night and a pounding head, but I couldn’t stop grinning through the entire set. Every song was full-on spastic rock with Torb flailing and gyrating, but they had that extra bit most young hyper rock bands don’t: catchy song-writing. As mentioned, there’s a little Strokes, a little new-school Phantom Planet and – I swear! – a touch of The Beach Boys in a few of their swingy beach tunes.
My favorite song of the night, “Sons of Seven,” can be found on their MySpace, but don’t stop there: you’ve gotta see Young Dudes live. There was a moment when a kicking, hip-shaking Torb looked back and winked at drummer Katelyn Farstad, and – without missing a beat! – she started laughing hysterically. Guitarist Dusty Miller (a Drew Carey look-alike) joined in and suddenly everyone in the room was in on the joke. If you can walk away from a band feeling like a different person from when you entered, that’s a damn good band.
Related links:
Share this story:
Location Info:
Hexagon Bar
Artist Info: Styrofoam Duck, To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie, Young Dudes
Share this story:
Article comments powered by Disqus