HowWasTheShow.com

August: Osage County

2010-03-16T00:00:00-04:00

Estelle Parsons as Violet in August: Osage County - Photo credit Robert J. Saferstein

The setup of Tracy Letts's wonderful August: Osage County (at the Ordway, through March 21, ordway.org) is familiar: the family patriarch has died under mysterious circumstances and his three daughters, the "agitated Weston sisters", have arrived at the family manse in rural Oklahoma with their on-the-rocks marriages, their predatory fiancés, their marijuana-smoking daughters. They're here to bury Dad, eat a funeral meal, drink copious amounts of bourbon – and to talk, talk into the wee hours, rehashing the past, spinning confused dreams for the future, trying to make some kind of tentative peace with their gloriously dysfunctional family. Presiding over this mess is Violet Weston, the drug-addled matriarch, cigarette ashes dropping onto the carpet, quasi-incoherent but occasionally turning on her brood with breath-taking viciousness and clarity.

Aren't there, oh, five or six thousand plays on this theme? Living room dramas, with characters drinking heavily and talking endlessly, static, past-tensey and, let's face it, dull. Granted, the dark humor of this play, its emphasis on sexual and druggy nastiness does rather set it apart. Still, I'll confess that early on I glanced at my watch and wondered: three and a half hours?

But then – and it happened quickly – the acting grabbed me. Wow. It's a chicken-and-egg question: which comes first, masterful writing or astonishing acting? Who cares; all I know is that I sat mesmerized for three and a half hours and would have sat happily for another three. August: Osage County is the kind of play that Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater does better than anyone. Slightly old-fashioned, maybe, but it generates a genuinely incandescent glory.

How can I discuss the marvelous 13 person ensemble in the limited space assigned me by HowWasTheShow.com? Estelle Parsons' name appears in larger program type than the other actors, so I guess I should talk about her: she's great. Shuffling around with a stupefied grin ("these blue pills are my best friends in the world") that hides a cynicism and a scary-fierce will to survive. Similarly terrific are her daughters, Angelica Torn, Amy Warren and, especially, Shannon Cochran (I'm in charge now!"). Laurence Lau as Karen's dumb-but-creepy intended is fabulous, and I adored DeLanna Studi as the new maid. She and Ms. Parsons give us a gorgeous ending. Everyone amazes; enough said.

I know, the Ordway isn't the best venue for a straight play and this one only runs for a week, but how often do we have an opportunity to see something with this kind of unique intensity? Go see it.

Highly recommended.

Iron Ring

2010-03-12T00:00:00-04:00

Ansa Akyea as King Jaya in the CTC's production of Iron Ring - Photo by Dan Norman

Iron Ring (on the Children’s Theatre Company mainstage, 2400 Third Ave, through April 10, childrenstheatre.org) adapted by Charles Way from a novel by the gifted Lloyd Alexander is a journey story in the grandly mythic Joseph Campbell tradition. Way (one of the best and best known writers of theater for young audiences) and director Peter Brosius display an admirable instinct for the cinematic. The action, set in a nameless but very India-like fantasy land, flows naturally from a village, to a castle, into the Jungle, to a waterfall, to a battlefield, etc, with perfectly rendered sound/music (by the always excellent Victor Zupanc) and with (of course – this is CTC) gorgeous design. Vicki Smith, Rebecca Fuller Jensen and Mary Anna Culligan are the design team.

And dance. The play utilizes the immense skills of Ragamala Dance (choreographed beautifully by Ranee Ramaswany) who dance in the traditional Bharatanatyam style. Every moment they are onstage is magical. (It's worth noting, to veer briefly off-topic, that Ragamala performs at the Southern, May 20-23)

In a nutshell: young King Tamar is visited late at night by the mysterious King Jaya. They play a dangerous dice game, aksha. Tamar bets his life, literally – and loses. Jaya jams an iron ring onto his finger and summons Tamar to his distant kingdom. No one has heard of Jaya; nevertheless, Tamar feels compelled to leave his comfortable kingdom and become a denizen of the jungle. He acquires friends: Rajaswami, his elderly Teacher, Hashkat the Monkey, Garuda the Eagle. He mediates a battle between cobras, visits a village in time for the "Choosing" (when the women perform for the young men they will marry), becomes embroiled in the struggle between King Ashwara and the evil usurper Nahusha.

Sumptuous material, but it doesn't all quite land. In particular, Tamar's obsession with caste late in Act 2 feels sudden, off-putting and out of character; after all, early in the play he effortlessly sheds his king trappings to become a lowly jungle explorer. This confusion, combined with the overly complicated destruction of Narusha, causes the ending to feel flabby and the play a tad overlong.

Is there a more enjoyable trio of actors than Reed Sigmund, Dean Holt and Autumn Ness? The CTC triumvirate, these seasoned performers take and hold the stage with over-the-top zest, wild imagination and genuine power. The rest of the ensemble excels. Gerald Drake as the goofy but game Rajaswami, Zack Shornick as the tragically noble Ashwara and Ansa Akyea, outstanding in his multiple roles, all amaze.

There is a lot to like in this show: first rate acting, thrilling design and a story that, though it occasionally goes off-track, is still very affecting. Oh, and the dancers are truly marvelous.

Music Lovers, a Workhaus Collective Production

2010-03-12T00:00:00-04:00

Nathan Christopher, Lindsay Marcy, Randy Reyes in MUSIC LOVERS - Photo by Travis Anderson

There are plenty of things to like about Alan Berks’ new play Music Lovers (March 12^th-28^th at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis). The aphorism-laden and witty script will have you leaving the theater comparing memorable lines with your companions, and the music references strewn throughout the play will delight music fans, especially those steeped in Minnesota music history. (Posters and show fliers plastered around the set include ones of Bob Mould, The Hopefuls, and even an old Jayhawks flier from a 7^th Street Entry show.) Overall, Music Lovers is a fun piece for a play that takes on issues of artistic integrity and inspiration, friendship, and healing (or not) from past broken relationships.

The three act play starts in the present in Minnesota at an unnamed music club where female record company exec James Jennings (Lindsay Marcy) has come to check out a promising band called Stickleg Buddha. Stickleg Buddha includes two male musicians who….well I won’t give that part away, but trust me, it gets really, really as they say on Facebook, “complicated.” Stickleg Buddha features Domingo (aka Butch,) the bass player, played by the ever-delightful Randy Reyes (and there’s no exception to Reyes’ delightfulness in this show); and singer, songwriter, guitar player and troubled musical genius Courtney, played by Nathan Christopher. In Act II, we’re taken back 10 years to Albuquerque, NM to see how the present complications arose. Act III is a vain attempt at resolution (this may be part of the point), which really only complicates things further.

Partial cabaret-style seating in addition to two sets of risers enables the audience to sit on certain areas of the stage if they so wish. I actually found myself wishing I had sat on the stage as those seats potentially allowed 360 degree viewing of the show, and a good chunk of Act II takes place 90 degrees to either side of 80% of the audience, which makes for a bit of neck craning.

What works in Music Lovers, as I mentioned, is the clever and witty dialogue, most of which is delivered well by the entire cast. Skyler Nowiski, in particular, as Stick Like Buddha’s coked up and hyperactive manager Rodney, is hilarious.

But despite the play’s many moments, it doesn’t really work as a cohesive whole. Good performances and edgy, hip script aside, I think Berks (who directs as well as writes) tries to do too much with this play. It’s talky to the point where halfway through Act II and for most of Act III I found myself wanting the characters to shut up and actually do something. Despite a versatile performance by Lindsay Marcy as James, for example, first as a starry-eyed young artist and then later as a cynical and tough record exec, when her character goes into the bathroom to hide during the final act, I almost wished she would not come back out again.

I understand that some of this play is autobiographical and based on Berks’s life experiences with musician friends (see this Star Trib preview for more on that), but students of human nature know that people seldom succeed in working things out in real life the way these characters attempt to do so in this play. Time, and activities other than endless conversion are the ultimate healer. In real life or in a play, drawn out conversations hashing and rehashing the same issues over and over is annoying.

Those complaints aside, I still recommend this show for the sheer fun of it alone. The main caveat is that the 2 hour and 40 minute runtime, including the two 10 minute intermissions, might be about 30 minutes too long.

The Vaudevillian, Spirit of the American Dream

2010-03-12T00:00:00-04:00

The Vaudevillian - Photo by Marc Norberg Photography

Attending an event at the Southern Theater feels like taking a step back in time. Layers of remodeling and redecorating, one imagines – along with its history – have been stripped down to the bare and imperfect brick walls and proscenium façade. In celebration of its 100^th anniversary, the performance, too, takes us all the way back to where it began. The Vaudevillian is not an attempt to recreate an exact replica of the first show, but rather to capture the spirit of this kind of performance, as well as to glimpse a more personal drama, played out in silhouette behind a backlit scrim.

The first act was pure delight. Pairing Theater of Fools duo, Lloyd Brant and Rosie Cole, with solo artist, Arsene Dupin, was a stroke of genius. Dupin’s glum-faced clown with an attitude was the perfect foil for Brant’s cheery “Otto.” Cole, in this case, represented the only woman in the original show, Rose Monroe, to whom the performance is dedicated. The triumvirate set up the inevitable competition for the lady’s hand, and ample opportunities for variations on courting sketches.

This was clowning at its finest – wordless and realized with subtlety. The best of this type of performance art elicits a response with no more than the raising of an eyebrow, but that kind of success demands flawless timing. Every bit of silliness must be finessed, and it was.

But they were just half the show. The Medicine Show Band, a trio of banjo (Billy Mooers), bass (Bob Andrews) and drums (Scott Crosbie) provided a top-notch, period-authentic musical accompaniment, leading off the show with an absolutely dazzling tap number by Crosbie. And if you’ve never seen a real, old-time, one-man band, this is your chance. Crosbie is a master of the silliest instrument ever devised. Mooers and Andrews are every bit as accomplished on their more conventional instruments.

Where the show gets a little thin is the story – perhaps because Vaudeville is not really about “story.” An interesting enough plot is set up in Act I, and even though we are offered a resolution in Act II, we have the sense that the show hasn’t really gone anywhere. The exquisite timing within the sketches was not carried through between them.

Kevin Kling’s interjections as the voice of the theater barely teased our curiosity. I really wished those walls had talked a lot more, providing an even stronger link with the space’s history, and setting up more of a dialogue with the wordless performers. There would have been ample time to explore this by eliminating the balancing sketch in Act II, which just went on a little too long.

All in all, though, it’s a delightful evening out. Kling’s voice ends the show, remarking on the building’s “flaws” at last, and bringing the show’s journey back around full circle. “They see my marks and see beauty,” he says, “as if I were a living thing.” In this case, it was.

The Vaudevillian runs through March 21.

Patches & Gretchen CD Release with Kevin Bowe, Adam Levy and Dan Israel

2010-03-11T00:00:00-04:00

Gretchen Seichrist of Patches & Gretchen - Photo by Pamela Diedrich (See more of Pamela's photos from this show here.)

I arrived at the Patches & Gretchen Sugar Head Pie CD Release Party so early that the recently remodeled (yet again) Varsity Theater (it’s still not done, but it’s awesome – you must check out the bathrooms!) was still mostly empty.

My promptness paid off, however, as at 8 p.m. sharp, Dan Israel took the stage, filling the room with an incredibly good vibe right from the start. Sounding and looking great under the Varsity’s incomparable stage lighting, Israel’s short set was intimate in the best sense of the word. You could easily make a case that this guy should open every bill.

Marc Percansky, a key member of the Patches & Gretchen entourage, decked out Vaudeville style, complete with walking stick, was playing emcee for the evening’s festivities and introduced Adam Levy’s new project, Liminal Phase. (The band name refers to various “in between” times, where one project or period may be complete, but the next one has not yet really begun.) I’ve always been impressed when already busy people still find time to develop new projects, and Levy, already playing in Hookers & Blow, The Honeydogs and the children’s music ensemble, Bunny Clogs, definitely qualifies as busy. Liminal Phase plays the kind of surrealistic fare which makes you want to “turn off your mind, relax and float downstream,” as the Beatles said in “Tomorrow Never Knows,” incidentally a song the band covered in their set, and that song established the tripped out tone for the entire set. The band included a bassoon, an oboe and even what appeared to be an antique, hand-operated pump organ. The set also featured a thought-provoking song I look forward to hearing again soon called “We Need a Better Word for Love.”

As Kevin Bowe and the Okemah Prophets took over the stage from Levy, Percansky and Bowe engaged in the toast “l'chayim!” (to life!) as had Dan Israel and Adam Levy before him. Bowe was playing tonight in a three piece configuration which consisted of him on guitar and vocals, Peter Anderson on drums, and Steve Price on bass. Bowe told me later this is a lineup he really enjoys. He played his own originals, including a song which wore so much Paul Westerberg influence on its sleeve that it sounded even more like Paul Westerberg than even Paul Westerberg does. Fans of Alison Scott may note that Bowe, Anderson and Price comprise the core of her backup band, so it was not a total surprise (though surely a bit of one) when Scott joined the trio to sing lead vocals on the final song of Bowe’s set, “Smash and Grab,” a song I understand she is currently recording with the same line-up.

But the star of the night was, of course, Gretchen Seichrist, the artistic force and voice of Patches & Gretchen. Having seen Seichrist and her band at least half a dozen times now, I’ve come to understand that every Patches and Gretchen show is a unique, thoroughly planned out production, down to minutiae like props and the costuming of each band member, which is different show to show. Though their music and performances are really nothing alike, this is something Seichrist shares with Mark Mallman, whose shows also have themes as well as set lists. In the case of either artist, seeing one show definitely doesn’t mean you’ve seen them all.

For Patches & Gretchen, tonight’s CD Release show for their second full length album Sugar Head Pie was even more of a multi-media experience than usual and included a video screen behind the band and a full length mirror dangling from the ceiling draped in cloth. Band members tonight consisted of Terry Eason, Tommy Tousey, Jaime Paul Lamb, Paul Mcfarland, Shane Huston and Todd Newman who were decked out in various garb that could only be called eclectic and fell somewhere between cave man and medieval prince. There was also a man in a red flower costume (Geoffrey Trelstad) who wandered the stage for the duration of the set. David Wynn of the London Underground (yes, really, he works as a signalman for the Tube) and one of Seichrist’s biggest international fans, had flown in from England for the show and was honored by his own special introduction pre-set from Percansky.

Well before Patches & Gretchen started their set, the Varsity had filled up nicely with fans. Seichrist and band opened with a couple of songs played from a seated position including “Sunrise – Sunset” and “Everything is Indian” and then stood for the rest of the set which included most of the key tracks off Sugar Head Pie. Sugar Head Pie, Patches & Gretchen’s second album, has been getting much-deserved rave critical reviews from well-respected members of the Twin Cities press and music scene, including writer Jim Walsh, The Honeydog’s Adam Levy and MPR’s Chris Roberts. I, personally, have placed the album at the top of my list of the best albums to be released in Minnesota this year, and given its relevance, power and refreshing honesty, it’s not likely to slip from that spot.

Expanding on the groundwork she laid down on her debut The Big Pink, Sugar Head Pie makes it all the more evident that Seichrist’s artistic vision comes from living in a world that few of us ever even visit. (Some of us never go there, if we’re lucky, or unlucky as the case may be, as it’s a place of often beautiful, though often harsh realities.) As way of metaphor, I found myself relying on how Bill Burroughs described the title of his novel Naked Lunch, which came to him via Jack Kerouac: “A frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork.” Seichrist tells it like it is.

Seichrist rounded out her show with a Dylan cover (“Positively 4^th Street”) and one of the more emotionally raw songs from Sugar Head Pie, “Tired of Chicken.” The post-show vibe I picked up was that of satisfaction all around, both on-stage and off. The crowd seemed to be made up almost entirely of people who really care about Seichrist, believe in this project, and are determined to get behind her as an artist. (If you hadn’t guessed already, I’m in that group.)

I hope Seichrist seriously considers taking this show on the road (worldwide, if possible) to get these songs in front of a wider audience. People need to hear these songs, and I think they will respond.

Patches & Gretchen’s Set list:

sunrise - sunset
everything is indian
blood suitcase
time of the lilacs
sugar head pie
black market
sweet wolves
ghosts i love
big things
gauze- short version
positively 4th street- bob dylan
tired of chicken
( crying states - encore)

Patches & Gretchen CD Release with Kevin Bowe, Adam Levy and Dan Israel

2010-03-11T00:00:00-04:00

Gretchen Seichrist of Patches & Gretchen - Photo by Pamela Diedrich (See more of Pamela's photos from this show here.)

Patches & Gretchen’s Set list:

Patches & Gretchen CD Release with Kevin Bowe, Adam Levy and Dan Israel

2010-03-11T00:00:00-04:00

Gretchen Seichrist of Patches & Gretchen - Photo by Pamela Diedrich (See more of Pamela's photos from this show here.)

Patches & Gretchen’s Set list:

Patches & Gretchen CD Release with Kevin Bowe, Adam Levy and Dan Israel

2010-03-11T00:00:00-04:00

Gretchen Seichrist of Patches & Gretchen - Photo by Pamela Diedrich (See more of Pamela's photos from this show here.)

Patches & Gretchen’s Set list:

Q&A with playwright Alan Berks about his new play, Music Lovers

2010-03-08T00:00:00-04:00

Nathan Christopher, Lindsay Marcy and Randy Reyes in MUSIC LOVERS - Photo credit - Travis Anderson

Those of us who regularly see both music and theater events in the Twin Cities know that the scenes overlap a lot more than people might suspect. Musical theater aside, as exemplifed by the recent production of Rent which featurng Twin Cities Hip Hop and R&B artist Maria Isa and Far From Falling vocalist Harley Wood, it’s still not surprising to see the same folks at the rock shows late in the evening that you just ran into a few hours before post-show in the Guthrie’s Target Lounge.

Exploring the long-standing marriage between theater and music, playwright Alan Berks of Workhaus Collective,and one of the creators of Twin Cities Theater site Minnesotaplaylist.com, has written a new play billed as “an indie rock romantic comedy about a generation that hooked up, broke up and grew to their own personal soundtrack.”

Starring Guthrie audience favorite Randy Reyes and Ivey award winner Nathan Christopher, Music Lovers plays March 12-28, 2010, at the Playwrights’ Center.

As Music Lovers readies to open on Friday, HowWasTheShow had a few questions for Mr. Berks about his new play and the relationship between theater and music.

HowWasTheShow: In addition to the theater events you’ve been involved with, I’ve run into you at some of the music venues in town that I haunt. Would you say you see a lot of shows? What are some of your favorite bands and venues on the local scene right now?

Alan Berks: I wish I saw more shows, honestly, but I had a bad run of bad guesses sometime soon after I moved to Minneapolis and grew afraid that I'd never see another good live local band again. Then I got caught up I going to theater an obscene and tiring amount.

This particular production was a great excuse to try again to get more familiar with the local scene and just ask people in the know what I should see. (I just discovered Spirits of the Red City, who I've been listening to a lot the last couple weeks, because one of the band members helped build our set.)

Sauce is one block from me so I can get there often now. And I also love the 331 Club in Northeast. Always great music and an easy place to hang out. But probably the 7th Street Entry will always be my favorite place to go, for sentimental reasons.

HWTS: Tell me about how Music Lovers came into being. How long has it been in the works?

AB: My closest friends since high school were always musicians, and from the time we got our first fake ids, we spent most of our teens and twenties listening to local bands in Chicago, usually whatever bands were playing on the same bill as my friends. . . I decided to be a writer instead of learning how to play an instrument, so I've kind of always wanted to write a play about musicians. It's the art I contributed to the gang, in a way.

This play in particular was originally written in 2002 and then developed a little at the Playwrights Center when I first moved here. I wanted to write a romantic comedy that I would actually like, not something saccharine and stupid like a Hollywood movie. And I wanted to write something more about the people I grew up with than a lot of the theater I usually see. Younger people, contemporary people, funny strange people, with wild streaks.

I figured all of that would kill any chance of it getting a production, but last year, when Workhaus asked me what show I wanted to do, I pulled it out and updated it, because Workhaus has already done rock-oriented shows like God Saved Gertrude and it seemed to work out well.

HWTS: Aside from the obvious thrill of live performance versus recorded music and cinema, what else do you think drives the same set of people to be enamored of both theater and concerts?

AB: Well, I think the thrill you mention is a big part of it. A live concert is a different experience, and usually better, more full, more meaningful experience than just listening to the cd. And a live show is a much different experience than a movie or tv show. I think I wanted to join my friends' bands and have that live thrill, but I wasn't patient enough to play an instrument so I started doing theater as a substitute.

I also think there's a sense of community and collaboration that both musicians and theater folk value more than perhaps other artists in other art forms. You get to do this stuff with other fun, smart people. When it works, it's almost unbelievably cool.

HWTS: Many famous actors have been known to pick up guitars and become musicians and many musicians have been cast in both plays and movies. Which direction do you think is easier to move? Music to theater or theater to music? Why?

AB: If it were easy to move from theater to music, I probably would have done it. . . But I do know there are lots of artists who have all kinds of talents and, for them, it's probably the most normal thing in the world to do both, or do whatever art makes sense to them at whatever time. I also know some theater people who are great visual artists.

I think the reality of artistic expression is that the things that separate artists aren't as different as the labels would make it seem.

HWTS: Will music be featured in Music Lovers? Will we as music fans recognize the world you will be portraying?

The show isn't a musical, but music does play an important part in the play. I don't know how else to answer that. You'll have to just come see it. And hear it.

And it's not a documentary. It's a fictional story about a love triangle between three people, but, yes, I think you will recognize the world in a general way, like "I know those people" or "I am those people." I certainly hope you will. After you see it, I'm sure you'll let me know.

HWTS: Tell me about your cast. Have you cast people who share your passion for music?

AB: The cast is incredible and includes Randy Reyes who we snagged right between two gigs at the Guthrie and Nathan Christopher and Lindsay Marcy, Skyler Nowinski, and Jean (Salo) Wolff, and they're each pretty perfect.

Everyone loves music. Once you scratch the surface, everyone has certain artists that define a certain time in their life, or they always put on when they feel a certain way or want to feel a certain. Once we started to talk about it in rehearsal, it's kind of amazing how important music is in everyone's life. Even when you don't think about it that much.

HWTS: I understand you’ll have performances from live local bands after select performances. Who have you got lined up that you can share with us?

AB: So far, we've got Fan Fiction on Saturday, March 13 after the show, and Nikki Schultz after the show closing night, Saturday, March 27. (I've also been listening to both of them a lot lately and am excited that they're coming.) Everyone at the show that night can stay for the band for free, or people can come after the show for only $5.

Slideshow: SXSW Sendoff Party at First Avenue

2010-03-06T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow is proud to present Meredith Westin's photo slide show from The SXSW Sendoff show at First Avenue on Satrday, March 6th. The slideshow is set to Peter Wolf Crier's "Crutch and Cane" from his album Inter-Be.

Photos in this set include Peter Wolf Crier, City on the Make, Jeremy Messersmith, Lookbook, The Pines, and Romantica.

Slideshow: SXSW Sendoff Party at First Avenue

2010-03-06T00:00:00-04:00

Photos in this set include Peter Wolf Crier, City on the Make, Jeremy Messersmith, Lookbook, The Pines, and Romantica.

Slideshow: SXSW Sendoff Party at First Avenue

2010-03-06T00:00:00-04:00

Photos in this set include Peter Wolf Crier, City on the Make, Jeremy Messersmith, Lookbook, The Pines, and Romantica.

Song of Zarathustra

2010-02-27T00:00:00-04:00

Travis Bos of Song of Zarathustra - Photo by Adam Bubolz (See more of Adam's photos from this show here.)

My screenplay-fixing bike-fixated friend Kraus said "Yeppers!" to close the evening on the way out the door and the next day I deconstructed a few pages of Derrida and felt karaoke (a lil' bit a' Lil' Wayne) -- it was what many of us would call a good old-fashioned American afternoon -- but despite my best efforts to turn the penetrating memories over to distraction, I simply could not get the final Song of Zarathustra set from the night before out of my head for long.

I had gawked at a rarity -- a Captain Kirk Edgar Allen Poe rupture in the thoughts and traveling of temporal laces and what happens within them -- and I wasn't getting back to business as quickly as I had hoped. Maybe I have been prepping for an Alice in Wonderland viewing or three, but what these guys from Sioux City, IA, one-offed after a seven year hiatus was steady, pinpoint, furious and remarkable. I dealt my original hometown energy with all the chips down and each new completed project to ponder and the spins and dips and flight and sprinting felt pretty damn good -- like rain on your skin when you are out in the woods by the water, alone and connected to each movement in the world.

This was personal. I mean, I had a hard time getting it down in a coherent fashion. "Nice and still new hardcore pastiche," was not a phrase that occurred to me after two Saturdays ago at the TRSC. The message was really major releases desperately needed wow now do not forget how to move, strike and entrance. The quartet literally forced us to dance.

From the first moment of the first song, everyone from reluctant guides to the purely uninitiated jumped and reached and grandly bandied themselves about -- gleeful and humble and truly righteous and angry -- gaping at the rabbit hole and easily divining what transpires within all the concepts of every possibility ever known.

Recollecting how to ditch the small town woes, I felt cloudy, rowdy, bawdy and tawdry in simultaneous frequencies of tumult, and I thought, "where do we go from here?" Everyone knows what that question means, in any situation brimming with epiphanies -- I knew that was the best bet to take on how to approach a story of what took place, and I could not stop grinning from ear to ear. A telling symphony of realization was throwing exclamation points at all the full circles, and the one-time only don't-look-now circumference locked us in for a top-ten ride. A burnt sienna, Bob Ross euphoria swept across our faces -- an involuntary muscle action signaling approval, contracted and free in the same elevated breath. A healing to behold.

Any notion of pretense was stripped from the stage, and misunderstood irony lay gagged and whimpering in the distance.

I could happily fill these column inches with a meticulous appreciation of each song's every brilliant and authentic nuance, but this night's rendition of the decade-opener "Messenger of Heat" put people over the edge especially fast, without resistance and in a hurry.

Ultimately, Song of Zarathustra provided us with what we had been craving and raving about since we first heard about the plans for a reunion trip last autumn, unleashing an onslaught that took no quarter at any point along the perilous path. Prisons fell away like life before lasers and a Dionysian joy reigned. We wondered aloud at the proud permutation breaking through the daily grind -- while I was there bearing witness, the set popped with permanent liberation that promised to last forever, but now I sense it as a second, and a lit mirror on my life.

As the band took the stage that night, I leaned forward to ask singer and keyboard worker Travis Bos if they were going to play "Quantity at Hand" off that famous, black, year 2000 7", a question to which he quickly replied. Then there presided over us all a great pause of urgent expectation, and the final beginning began.

Addendum:

On top of the audiovisual explosion Song of Zarathustra conjured, D. Witt limited prints also emerged from the evening -- profound cerebral commentaries, masterful, composed, provocative, cheap and often disturbing. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't want more than one of these propped up at or hanging about their living places. Genuine genius, with a little bit of this and a whole lotta' that -- D. Witt has a mind-boggling find to please every tough-buy in the family. Celebrate spring, break the icy ground and check out these conversational koans as soon as you can.

Kill The Vultures

2010-02-26T00:00:00-04:00

Kill The Vultures in the Walker's Gallery 8 - Photo by Emily Crenshaw

As the haunting introduction of their classic "Beasts of Burden" provoked the mingling attendees to occupy a state somewhere between bewilderment and apprehension, Kill the Vultures' poet Crescent Moon and DJ Anatomy capped a wave of unbridled tension last Friday night from the stage of Gallery 8 during the Walker's AfterHours opening for its Abstract Resistance exhibition.

Not much else we have to offer from our metropolitan musical coffers could capture the phrase entitling the exhibit more aptly - those who ventured forth eight stories high in their finest gala apparel certainly found themselves subjected to abstract crafting of gruff and rumble hip hop concisely soldered to noir jazz that resisted any easy attempts to ignore the duo's unsettling, hypnotic delivery. With the full moon little more than a day off and a clear city skyline leaping into the room to christen the occasion, MC Alexei Casselle (aka Crescent Moon) and Anatomy took a bright space full of plush strangers and cool confidants and warped the big atmosphere into their own personal studio loft, one where dark advice is given freely and hope is kept cornered on a short leash.

Even the bright, white, shape-shifting Target logos that swung out into the keen Minneapolis panorama, neatly cut through your sharp, floating reflection and then swooped back across the cheerful party landscape could not deny the subterranean wisdom employed by selecting Kill the Vultures for a celebration of trailblazing and iconoclastic kinetics. I couldn't help but recall my luck in train-hopping to the dada retrospective at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art four years ago, where every expectation of the clash between curator and creator was fully embraced and discussed at the door.

When the band broke its lock on our attention and prepared for the second set, we found small plates of a delicious spinach mix to slather with a lemon-loaded baba ghanoush and worked our way back to the friendly and attentive bar staff for mineral gins that lent some levity to the surroundings while the music-makers' stark grip on us paused temporarily. Some things always change, but food and drink still reign as a staple for just about any opening you can imagine or remember.

After Anatomy had resumed the lotus position and donned the headphones for a second round, we all eventually got to a familiar bathtub track adopted by the Current a few years back - the insatiable singalong "Moonshine" that sets the outstanding Careless Flame LP into motion. Felt by many of the first-time listeners Friday night to be an oddly relaxing break from the new Ecce Beast album material, the onlookers who had remained focused seemed to finally find a bastion of comfort from the band's ceaseless challenges to the city and the night, and a few appeared genuinely shocked to find themselves suddenly swaying along with smiles to the earnest and happy-go-lucky mad frustration stitched into the chorus ("moonshine/drink it all the time/goes down rough but it's good for your dime"). The peaking moon outside, stoic and beaming, the moon onstage in a steamy rage, and nearly everyone awash in the moonshine of their choice. You could not have asked for much more illumination.

Slideshow: Electric Fetus Benefit

2010-02-26T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow is proud to present Meredith Westin's photo slide show from The Electric Fetus Benefit at First Avenue on Friday, February 26th. The slideshow is set to Unknown Prophets "Face The Storm" from their 2009 album Le System D.

Photos in this set include Cloud Cult, Peter Wolf Crier, Roma di Luna, Total Babe, Jeremy Messersmith, Caroline Smith and the Good Night Sleeps, Ruby Isle, Trailer Trash and Unknown Prophets. Proceeds from the show went to both help repair tornado damage to the Electric Fetus store in Minneapolis and to the American Red Cross's Haiti relief effort.

Slideshow: Electric Fetus Benefit

2010-02-26T00:00:00-04:00

Slideshow: Electric Fetus Benefit

2010-02-26T00:00:00-04:00

Slideshow: Electric Fetus Benefit

2010-02-26T00:00:00-04:00

Slideshow: Electric Fetus Benefit

2010-02-26T00:00:00-04:00

Slideshow: Electric Fetus Benefit

2010-02-26T00:00:00-04:00

Somebody/Nobody

2010-02-26T00:00:00-04:00

Elizabeth Grullon and Taj Ruler (in T-shirt) in Mixed Blood's SOMEBODY/NOBODY - Photo by Ann Marsden

Deranged starlet Sheena Keener flees the Surf Awards ("All those eyes"), stumbles out of her limo, rolls down a bebrambled freeway embankment and now with a photogenic scrape on her pampered forehead pounds on the wobbly door of Loli's cinderblock L.A. apartment. Loli has just been laid off and is down to her last $37. Still, a bizarre alliance is formed ("You can have my used lipstick." "Thank you, thank you!"). Which lasts until Loli's cracker cousin, Joe Don, arrives from Kansas and things get, well, tricky. And then Galaxy ("Because I'm bigger than a star"), Sheena's 19 year old agent shows up, drinks 4 Budweisers in as many minutes, and turns out to be...

Enough said about the plot. If you require story logic and credible character development then Jane Martin's wild Somebody/Nobody (Mixed Blood, 1501 S. 4th St, through March 14, mixedblood.com) may not be the play for you. But if you like clutch-popping comic frenzy, rapid-fire zingers, and actors having more fun than actors should be allowed to have, then by all means get yourself to Mixed Blood. Somebody/Nobody serves all this up in a manic and intermissionless hour and forty-five minutes. And the play is actually about something: celebrity worship, and... Well, that's all. Still, there's enough genuine intelligence at work here to keep even the grumpiest theater-goer content.

Elizabeth Grullon is impossibly leggy and winsome and she plays Sheena with relentless effervescence. Her screechy ego keeps the energy level at 10. Brandon Morris gives Joe Don lumbering charisma – and surprising intelligence. And I adored Taj Ruler's Loli. Her ability to switch from good-natured hero-worship to incandescent anger serves the play brilliantly. Rose Le Tran has a small but nice turn as Beverly, the auto repair specialist who invites Loli back – with fireworks. And Mo Perry, as always, amazes as Galaxy (somewhere some playwright is cooking up the perfect role for Perry; I hope the play finds her soon).

Director Jack Reuler has had the good sense to engage a first rate cast and keep the proceedings moving.

So if you're in the mood (and a few glasses of good wine might be helpful here) check this one out.

Recommended.

Violet

2010-02-26T00:00:00-04:00

Violet - Britta Ollmann, Monty - Randy Schmeling, Preacher - Alan Sorenson and Young Violet - Maeve Moynihan in Theater Latté Da's production of VIOLET presented by the Guthrie Theater - Photo by Michal Daniel

Theater Latté Da’s new musical, Violet – nicely suited to the Guthrie’s black box space, the Dowling Studio Theater – is a tight little ensemble piece that spins along like the bus carrying its title character on her literal and metaphorical journey.

Weaving past and present into one (isn’t it all just one life experience, when it gets right down to it?) a small cast deftly morphs from one character to another, illuminating the Southern, 1960s milieu in which Violet, played by Britta Ollmann, struggles to come to terms with herself. The story follows her quest to be healed of her facial disfigurement, but of course that’s not her real problem. Accepting herself and forgiving her father prove to be this protagonist’s larger dilemma.

The idea of this almost works in this play; the production almost satisfies our expectation. The transformative power of love and forgiveness is a solid and lofty theme, but then the chemistry has to be there for the ensuing reaction to believably create something new.

Which is why the first act is so much more engaging than Act II. How we imagine Act II to be played out turns out to be more interesting than what we saw. We know the showdown with the preacher she has sought to heal her is coming, but it could have been a far more dramatic moment – showing, rather than telling us what we know and what Violet is only just discovering.

Ollmann finally gets to show some grit at this point, wrestling with Violet’s tangle of emotional turmoil, past and present, but as written, isn’t given the opportunity to adequately demonstrate her new-found strength and belief in herself. If the solution is finding someone who loves you as you are, the budding romance has to be believable. However, we are as confused as Violet about who – or what – she really wants. We don’t see her face her choices and then decide. Rather it appears to end with others deciding for her, and she accepts it.

Ollmann faced a challenging task to create a Violet who was both naïve and vulnerable, yet capable of taking hold of her life. She was at her finest delivering the lovely ballad, “Lay Down Your Head,” with delicate emotional nuance.

Dieter Bierbrauer, playing Violet’s father, not only sings like a dream, he pretty much commands the stage when he’s on it, showing a skilled understanding of how to manage his many emotionally powerful scenes.

Randy Schmeling and Azudi Onyejekwe offered interesting counterpoints, Randy Schmeling, as the handsome, white and immature soldier, Monty; and Azudi Onyejekwe as his steady, Black counterpart, Flick. Flick’s ability to straddle the South’s still-segregated culture and his own more magnanimous sensibilities, provides both complications and the means to a denouement.

Maeve Moynihan as the young Violet sensitively melds her character with Ollman’s; Janet Hanson as the Old Lady and Lynnea Doublette as Lula and the Music Hall Singer carry off their colorful supporting roles with aplomb. Alan Sorenson certainly had the voice and presence for the part, but his Southern gospel preacher had a curiously British accent.

Strong and interestingly conceived lyrics, in particular, power the script, set to frequently gospel-flavored music suited to the story’s premise. Live, acoustic music, delivered just upstage of the action, was pure pleasure. With its simple staging and imaginative use of suitcases and trunks, Director Peter Rothstein’s use of the space worked beautifully to carry us from place to place.

All in all, not as powerful as it might have been, but definitely a show for those who appreciate intimate, intelligent musical theater. Violet runs through March 21.

Black Pearl Sings

2010-02-21T00:00:00-04:00

Crystal Fox (Pearl) and Stacia Rice (Susannah) -Photo credit: Ann Marsden

Playwright Frank Higgins does two very smart things with his vivid Black Pearl Sings! (at Penumbra, 270 N. Kent Street, St. Paul, through March 14, penumbratheatre.org). First, he shoehorns an amazingly wide range of Depression-era America into his story: the humid Texas penitentiary, complete with chain gang, the convict (Pearl) who holds, in her bones, a vast repertoire of old songs, the search in Houston for Pearl's longlost daughter, the dramatic parole hearing, the Greenwich Village flat where Susannah takes the recently released Pearl, the Cooper Union stage where she performs. Granted, the piece is a two-hander and much of this action takes place offstage which creates, inevitably, some dramaturgical clunkiness. But it's a small price to pay for the rich sweep of this play.

Second, Mr. Higgins finds and uses music, specifically singing – old lullabies, front porch songs, field hollers, privately composed songs, even ancient African melodies, and now the play crosses over into genuine theatrical magic. Are these archaic songs, evoking a lost time? Cultural artifacts to be recorded on vinyl and stored in the Library of Congress? Maybe, but Pearl sings them emphatically in the here-and-now. Are the songs commodities, to be performed for well-heeled New Yorkers (or theater-goers at Penumbra)? Higgins raises but never answers these questions. Beautiful stuff.

This play lives or dies on the power of the actor doing the eponymous Pearl and in Crystal Fox director Lou Bellamy has found the real deal. Fox (here making her Penumbra debut) is great. She quickly finds the softness inside Pearl's hard convict cynicism. Everything about her is quiet, understated, sweet. Pearl's vivid beauty shines. And the songs – it's as though they come through Pearl, from some mysterious source. Fox has received, no doubt, plenty of help from music director Sanford Moore and director Bellamy. Her transformation into the shy, awkward, yet expert performer is masterful. She's the best reason to see this show.

Also excellent is Stacia Rice as Susannah Mullally, the traveling librarian who "discovers" Pearl. Arch and angular, her initial reserve belying intense personal ambition, Rice's Susannah makes great changes, and this sharply rendered character development keeps the play focused. And then, finally, the two women...

Of course I'm not going to reveal the play's terrific ending.

The designers, C. Lance Brockman (the lovely sets), Marcus Dilliard (lights – is there a twin cities designer currently casting a wider net?), Kalere A. Payton (costumes, brilliant in the second half) and Martin Gwinup (sound, responsible for the gorgeous recorded music) all do first rate work.

Is Mr. Higgins working on a screenplay? I hope so and I really hope they make this one. The panoply of life presented here is unique.

Recommended.

Podcast: HowWasTheShow CD Reviews for February 2010

2010-02-21T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow's CD Review Podcast for February, 2010, recorded at Kings Wine Bar in South Minneapolis on Sunday, February 21st.

The panel includes Andrea Swensson of the City Pages and Ben Clark. Hosted by HowWasTheShow's David de Young.

Solid Gold – “Matter of Time” – (http://www.myspace.com/solidgold)
Wapsipinicon – “Vans on Dupont” – (http://www.myspace.com/thewapsipinicon)
Dewi Sant – “The Labor” – (http://www.myspace.com/dewisantmusic)
Rogue Valley - “The Warming Moon” - (http://www.lostinroguevalley.com)
Brass Kings – “Rural Methlab Blues” - (http://www.myspace.com/brasskings)
Joel Bremer – “Wille Toors” – (http://www.myspace.com/jbremer)

38 minutes.

Open player in new window | Download

Podcast: HowWasTheShow CD Reviews for February 2010

2010-02-21T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow's CD Review Podcast for February, 2010, recorded at Kings Wine Bar in South Minneapolis on Sunday, February 21st.

The panel includes Andrea Swensson of the City Pages and Ben Clark. Hosted by HowWasTheShow's David de Young.

Solid Gold – “Matter of Time” – (http://www.myspace.com/solidgold)
Wapsipinicon – “Vans on Dupont” – (http://www.myspace.com/thewapsipinicon)
Dewi Sant – “The Labor” – (http://www.myspace.com/dewisantmusic)
Rogue Valley - “The Warming Moon” - (http://www.lostinroguevalley.com)
Brass Kings – “Rural Methlab Blues” - (http://www.myspace.com/brasskings)
Joel Bremer – “Wille Toors” – (http://www.myspace.com/jbremer)

38 minutes.

Open player in new window | Download

Podcast: HowWasTheShow CD Reviews for February 2010

2010-02-21T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow's CD Review Podcast for February, 2010, recorded at Kings Wine Bar in South Minneapolis on Sunday, February 21st.

The panel includes Andrea Swensson of the City Pages and Ben Clark. Hosted by HowWasTheShow's David de Young.

Solid Gold – “Matter of Time” – (http://www.myspace.com/solidgold)
Wapsipinicon – “Vans on Dupont” – (http://www.myspace.com/thewapsipinicon)
Dewi Sant – “The Labor” – (http://www.myspace.com/dewisantmusic)
Rogue Valley - “The Warming Moon” - (http://www.lostinroguevalley.com)
Brass Kings – “Rural Methlab Blues” - (http://www.myspace.com/brasskings)
Joel Bremer – “Wille Toors” – (http://www.myspace.com/jbremer)

38 minutes.

Open player in new window | Download

Podcast: HowWasTheShow CD Reviews for February 2010

2010-02-21T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow's CD Review Podcast for February, 2010, recorded at Kings Wine Bar in South Minneapolis on Sunday, February 21st.

The panel includes Andrea Swensson of the City Pages and Ben Clark. Hosted by HowWasTheShow's David de Young.

Solid Gold – “Matter of Time” – (http://www.myspace.com/solidgold)
Wapsipinicon – “Vans on Dupont” – (http://www.myspace.com/thewapsipinicon)
Dewi Sant – “The Labor” – (http://www.myspace.com/dewisantmusic)
Rogue Valley - “The Warming Moon” - (http://www.lostinroguevalley.com)
Brass Kings – “Rural Methlab Blues” - (http://www.myspace.com/brasskings)
Joel Bremer – “Wille Toors” – (http://www.myspace.com/jbremer)

38 minutes.

Open player in new window | Download

Podcast: HowWasTheShow CD Reviews for February 2010

2010-02-21T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow's CD Review Podcast for February, 2010, recorded at Kings Wine Bar in South Minneapolis on Sunday, February 21st.

The panel includes Andrea Swensson of the City Pages and Ben Clark. Hosted by HowWasTheShow's David de Young.

Solid Gold – “Matter of Time” – (http://www.myspace.com/solidgold)
Wapsipinicon – “Vans on Dupont” – (http://www.myspace.com/thewapsipinicon)
Dewi Sant – “The Labor” – (http://www.myspace.com/dewisantmusic)
Rogue Valley - “The Warming Moon” - (http://www.lostinroguevalley.com)
Brass Kings – “Rural Methlab Blues” - (http://www.myspace.com/brasskings)
Joel Bremer – “Wille Toors” – (http://www.myspace.com/jbremer)

38 minutes.

Open player in new window | Download

Podcast: HowWasTheShow CD Reviews for February 2010

2010-02-21T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow's CD Review Podcast for February, 2010, recorded at Kings Wine Bar in South Minneapolis on Sunday, February 21st.

The panel includes Andrea Swensson of the City Pages and Ben Clark. Hosted by HowWasTheShow's David de Young.

Solid Gold – “Matter of Time” – (http://www.myspace.com/solidgold)
Wapsipinicon – “Vans on Dupont” – (http://www.myspace.com/thewapsipinicon)
Dewi Sant – “The Labor” – (http://www.myspace.com/dewisantmusic)
Rogue Valley - “The Warming Moon” - (http://www.lostinroguevalley.com)
Brass Kings – “Rural Methlab Blues” - (http://www.myspace.com/brasskings)
Joel Bremer – “Wille Toors” – (http://www.myspace.com/jbremer)

38 minutes.

Open player in new window | Download

Podcast: HowWasTheShow CD Reviews for February 2010

2010-02-21T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow's CD Review Podcast for February, 2010, recorded at Kings Wine Bar in South Minneapolis on Sunday, February 21st.

The panel includes Andrea Swensson of the City Pages and Ben Clark. Hosted by HowWasTheShow's David de Young.

Solid Gold – “Matter of Time” – (http://www.myspace.com/solidgold)
Wapsipinicon – “Vans on Dupont” – (http://www.myspace.com/thewapsipinicon)
Dewi Sant – “The Labor” – (http://www.myspace.com/dewisantmusic)
Rogue Valley - “The Warming Moon” - (http://www.lostinroguevalley.com)
Brass Kings – “Rural Methlab Blues” - (http://www.myspace.com/brasskings)
Joel Bremer – “Wille Toors” – (http://www.myspace.com/jbremer)

38 minutes.

Open player in new window | Download

Podcast: HowWasTheShow CD Reviews for February 2010

2010-02-21T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow's CD Review Podcast for February, 2010, recorded at Kings Wine Bar in South Minneapolis on Sunday, February 21st.

The panel includes Andrea Swensson of the City Pages and Ben Clark. Hosted by HowWasTheShow's David de Young.

Solid Gold – “Matter of Time” – (http://www.myspace.com/solidgold)
Wapsipinicon – “Vans on Dupont” – (http://www.myspace.com/thewapsipinicon)
Dewi Sant – “The Labor” – (http://www.myspace.com/dewisantmusic)
Rogue Valley - “The Warming Moon” - (http://www.lostinroguevalley.com)
Brass Kings – “Rural Methlab Blues” - (http://www.myspace.com/brasskings)
Joel Bremer – “Wille Toors” – (http://www.myspace.com/jbremer)

38 minutes.

Open player in new window | Download

Podcast: HowWasTheShow CD Reviews for February 2010

2010-02-21T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow's CD Review Podcast for February, 2010, recorded at Kings Wine Bar in South Minneapolis on Sunday, February 21st.

The panel includes Andrea Swensson of the City Pages and Ben Clark. Hosted by HowWasTheShow's David de Young.

Solid Gold – “Matter of Time” – (http://www.myspace.com/solidgold)
Wapsipinicon – “Vans on Dupont” – (http://www.myspace.com/thewapsipinicon)
Dewi Sant – “The Labor” – (http://www.myspace.com/dewisantmusic)
Rogue Valley - “The Warming Moon” - (http://www.lostinroguevalley.com)
Brass Kings – “Rural Methlab Blues” - (http://www.myspace.com/brasskings)
Joel Bremer – “Wille Toors” – (http://www.myspace.com/jbremer)

38 minutes.

Open player in new window | Download

Podcast: HowWasTheShow CD Reviews for February 2010

2010-02-21T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow's CD Review Podcast for February, 2010, recorded at Kings Wine Bar in South Minneapolis on Sunday, February 21st.

The panel includes Andrea Swensson of the City Pages and Ben Clark. Hosted by HowWasTheShow's David de Young.

Solid Gold – “Matter of Time” – (http://www.myspace.com/solidgold)
Wapsipinicon – “Vans on Dupont” – (http://www.myspace.com/thewapsipinicon)
Dewi Sant – “The Labor” – (http://www.myspace.com/dewisantmusic)
Rogue Valley - “The Warming Moon” - (http://www.lostinroguevalley.com)
Brass Kings – “Rural Methlab Blues” - (http://www.myspace.com/brasskings)
Joel Bremer – “Wille Toors” – (http://www.myspace.com/jbremer)

38 minutes.

Open player in new window | Download

Podcast: HowWasTheShow CD Reviews for February 2010

2010-02-21T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow's CD Review Podcast for February, 2010, recorded at Kings Wine Bar in South Minneapolis on Sunday, February 21st.

The panel includes Andrea Swensson of the City Pages and Ben Clark. Hosted by HowWasTheShow's David de Young.

Solid Gold – “Matter of Time” – (http://www.myspace.com/solidgold)
Wapsipinicon – “Vans on Dupont” – (http://www.myspace.com/thewapsipinicon)
Dewi Sant – “The Labor” – (http://www.myspace.com/dewisantmusic)
Rogue Valley - “The Warming Moon” - (http://www.lostinroguevalley.com)
Brass Kings – “Rural Methlab Blues” - (http://www.myspace.com/brasskings)
Joel Bremer – “Wille Toors” – (http://www.myspace.com/jbremer)

38 minutes.

Open player in new window | Download

Podcast: HowWasTheShow CD Reviews for February 2010

2010-02-21T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow's CD Review Podcast for February, 2010, recorded at Kings Wine Bar in South Minneapolis on Sunday, February 21st.

The panel includes Andrea Swensson of the City Pages and Ben Clark. Hosted by HowWasTheShow's David de Young.

Solid Gold – “Matter of Time” – (http://www.myspace.com/solidgold)
Wapsipinicon – “Vans on Dupont” – (http://www.myspace.com/thewapsipinicon)
Dewi Sant – “The Labor” – (http://www.myspace.com/dewisantmusic)
Rogue Valley - “The Warming Moon” - (http://www.lostinroguevalley.com)
Brass Kings – “Rural Methlab Blues” - (http://www.myspace.com/brasskings)
Joel Bremer – “Wille Toors” – (http://www.myspace.com/jbremer)

38 minutes.

Open player in new window | Download

Q&A with Red Pens' Howard Hamilton

2010-02-21T00:00:00-04:00

Red Pens at Jagerfest in fall, 2009 - Photo by David de Young

It’s been a fast year for Twin Cities upstarts the Red Pens. After dropping their first album, Reasons, last summer, Howard Hamilton and Laura Bennett won City Pages’ Picked to Click honors in September and, more recently, had the honor of topping the bill at First Avenue’s Best New Bands concert.

Having pretty well conquered the local scene, the Red Pens decided to make the next big step and take their show on their road. Starting February 21st with a show at Chicago’s Hideout, the duo – accompanied by fellow Minneapolis band, Voytek, who Hamilton describes as being similar to the Ramones “with super bratty lyrics” – are embarking on a two-week tour out east that will take them through New York, New Jersey, and Ohio, with other potential dates to be added.

As they were preparing for their trip, How Was the Show caught up with Hamilton to see how the band’s plans are shaping up.

How long have you been planning this trip? Was there a certain point when you knew it was time to go out on the road?

We have been playing almost weekly in the Twin Cities and I think everyone that needs to see us has seen us and formed an opinion by now. We were planning on going to South By Southwest in Austin but we didn’t get asked so this tour popped up and we said, “Why not?” We both could really use a road trip and this is going to make us reset ourselves and miss home so we can come back and take things to the next level.

What sorts of new pressure have there been to deal with in organizing the tour? How have you dealt with them so far?

This tour is really poorly set up so we had to let go of control and put it all in someone else’s hands, which for me is a huge stretch since I usually set up all of our shows and ask questions and get all the info before we say yes. This tour is forcing us to put our lives in other peoples’ hands and fly by the seats of our pants a little more than usual.

Yes, it has been stressful. We are down to the wire with booking – some of the shows are still tentative even a few days before jumping in the van. We are trying to convince ourselves that it’s a baby step in the right direction and we really do need to get out of town badly. Mid-February in Minnesota is a good time to leave; maybe when we come back it will be spring. . .

Did anyone else help organize this trip? What was the planning process like, and did you have control over it?

Dusty Miller, part owner of Nicollet Park Recording Studio and the guy who just engineered the new Hold Steady record, pretty much told us he was setting the whole thing up for us. He just joined Voytek on bass duties. Like I said before, we had no control and it has been an experience for sure, a very good exercise in patience and trust. Our expectations are low for turn-outs but we know we will make some connections and contacts that will help out tons the next time we go out.

What sorts of venues will you be playing on this trip? Are there any in particular venues or cities that you're looking forward to?

We are playing at Pianos in NYC, which is the most important show on the tour, and Maxwell's in Hoboken which really could turn out to be a gas, so we are really looking forward to those. We have some adventures around the corner, for sure; some grey areas on the tour where we know we are playing that night but where and with whom is still a mystery so we will see how it all pans out.

You were asking for gas money last week at the Kitty Cat Klub. How will you be traveling and living over the next few weeks?

We are renting a huge van from a local band and both bands are going in it. I can only imagine the gas it will guzzle, and some of the shows aren’t exactly money makers so motels will be on a case-by-case basis. If we can afford it we will go for it, if we meet or know someone in the town we play we might crash at their pad. Who knows, we are really throwing it all up into the air and seeing where it lands.

Aside from playing in new areas of the country, what has you most excited about going on tour?

I personally love truck stop gift shops and meeting people that see us by accident and freak out about our music. I love just watching the countryside go by and the few hours you have to explore the city you are in. I like taking photos of ridiculous things you don’t see everyday. I look at it as a paid road-trip.

You played a new song, “I Want More,” last Saturday. Do you have much new material in the works, and do you foresee writing more while you're on the road?

I think we are going to do an EP of new songs this spring, we have three or four new songs that we bust out live once in a while, then back off of to let them simmer. I have some ornate plans for the new songs, but instead of going, “Today I am going to bang out a new song from start to finish because I am inspired right now,” I am going to use a little bit more planning and slow forming of the ideas.

I am working on tons of lyrics in the van, I have a new way of working “workbook style” where I am going to work on song ideas, lyrics, and written descriptions of how I imagine the songs will sound, what background loops there will be, et cetera. I am not going to work on the music until I have several of these ideas filled in with titles, words, and sketches of the sounds. I am looking forward to working on a fresh new batch of songs as soon as we get back.

Photo set: Retribution Gospel Choir

2010-02-20T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow is proud to present Meredith Westin's photos from Saturday's Retribution Gospel Choir show at the Triple Rock. See also, Dan Alvin's review.

Retribution Gospel Choir

2010-02-20T00:00:00-04:00

Alan Sparhawk of Retribution Gospel Choir - Photo by Meredith Westin. See Meredith's complete photo set for this show here.

I arrived at The Triple Rock too late to catch any of opener Andrew Broder’s material, so I could only imagine how one of our most unpredictable troubadours set the stage for the headliner Saturday night. When the clock struck 10:30, however, the pesky thoughts of how I had somehow misplaced four twenty dollar bills between the workplace and the rock club faded into the background as Retribution Gospel Choir began to tear apart the air and drop the jaws of those lucky enough to be in attendance. Their new album, simply entitled "2," had everyone buzzing at the bar.

As the cash I had managed to retain began to dissolve into neat Red Breasts, the first sign of the extended sonic bloom we were about to behold came from the pulsating perfection flying off of Eric Pollard's kit. Setting down an onslaught of ferocious and precise patterns and fills for ebullient bass player Steve Garrington to effortlessly weave into and out of, this North Country drummer once again captured the essence of real rock in all of its timeless power and glory. And after witnessing some sub par efforts at other venues recently, special kudos go out to the sound guy for this one -- that angelic voice we all know and love sounded especially clear and transcendent. The house was packed with content and captivated hometown faithful, all ages heads bobbing and even a few fists pumped as the boys lathered up and their songs started to sing

You know, it's just plain fun to see this dynamite rhythm section connect like a current to the legend of somber reflection that is Alan Sparhawk. Every time I see the guy perform, I find myself getting a little misty for at least a moment or two, remembering all of the years spent following this tireless poet from Duluth, and feeling indebted to the man for opening my mind to the magnitude of restraint (I still vividly recall one of my best friends from hardcore punk land weeping the first time he experienced Low live, playing with Rachel's in some basement venue in one of the Quad Cities just off the Mississippi in 1996 -- Rock Island, anyone?) Now, I continue to be in awe of how restraint is no longer the only point Sparhawk chooses to pursue, and his wild, throbbing, and at times convulsive gesticulations leave one wondering if this choir takes a chiropractor with them on the road. Indeed, I would not be entirely surprised to see this frontman levitate during one his most visceral explorations of the human body in motion.

You feel the unbridled crash of a thawing Superior lake shore when the squall erupts from Alan's guitar, and glimpse the solace and beatitude of pine stands when the trio pauses momentarily for those aforementioned pockets on the slow and quiet side. Seldom does a listener encounter such a stripped-down outfit encapsulating the machinations of a metronome and a tsunami simultaneously, but Retribution Gospel Choir makes it look natural and easy, yet profound and calculated -- a universe of possibility and execution where anything can happen, handed over to us for safekeeping.

Case in point: I am one of those people who tend to cringe at the onset of one of the biggest clichés in live music -- the obligatory encore -- but on Saturday, the screeching feedback and straightforward tribal pounding and improvised low end lines made me forget I had ever seen a band finish and then come back out. Far from annoyance or amusement, I instead felt the flood of satisfaction, gratitude and longing that had gripped everyone in the room. Not one of us wanted that magic to conclude, and when the crowd finally began to leave the premises, we were reeling in anticipation of the band's next move.

Dewi Sant CD Release Party with The Starfolk and Alison Rae

2010-02-19T00:00:00-04:00

Dewi Sant at the Cedar - Photo by Pamela Diedrich (See Pamela's full set of photos from this show here.)

Michael Morris slipped a disc into my hand last Tuesday night at Kings Wine Bar and asked me to check it out. The timing couldn’t have been better. Morris had just returned from a 33 day tour of the West, and with his band, now going by the moniker Dewi Sant, he was set to play a CD Release Party for the band’s debut album, May, at the Cedar Cultural Center that coming Friday. The deal was cinched when I learned that also on the bill was The Starfolk, in my opinion one of the most delightful new bands to emerge in 2009.

Unfortunately I arrived too late to see opener Alison Rae, but our photographer Pamela Diedrich (Punctual Pamela, let’s call her) reported that Rae’s voice struck her as “softly angelic” and the audience had listened with rapt attention. One song in Rae’s set in particular stuck out for Diedrich, a song Rae had written about her grandfather. Rae said she’d written it one day when she’d been watching him and suddenly realized how much she was going to miss him when he was gone. (That song may have been “That’s When I Miss You,” a track you can listen to in an MPR in-studio recording here.)

The Starfolk occupied the middle spot on tonight’s bill. They have been one of my favorite new bands since I first heard them in the fall of 2009 when they opened for the Twilight Hours on this same stage. (Read that review here.) Though the band has yet to release a full-length disc, I have seen them enough times now that I found myself singing along and was so enamored with the show I wished honestly I could take it home with me. They’ve released only two tracks, both on 2009’s Lemon-Lime split EP with Typsy Panther, and I can’t wait to hear more recordings of their distinctly psychedelic acoustic pop.

The Starfolk - photo by Diedrich

The evening, however, belonged to Dewi Sant, an ensemble fronted by songwriter Michael Morris and featuring cast of supporting musicians too numerous to count when you include both those who played on the album and those who comprised the live band on this night. Just to mention a few, however, contributors included Ted Held (Wizards Are Real, The Wapsipinicon), Sarah Woolever and Arlen Peiffer (Cloud Cult).

My Welsh friend Chris, who was in attendance at the show pointed out that the phrase Dewi Sant is Welsh for Saint David. And Saint David, for those in the know (and those in the know did not include me) Dewi Sant is the patron saint of Wales, honored with a feast day celebrated each March 1^st. (The history of St. David’s day itself is interesting stuff, and we delved into that subject a little more deeply on this month’s HowWasTheShow podcast.)

Morris and band opened up with “Red Flowers,” the CD’s opening track, and they played the nine songs on the album from start to finish. “Red Flowers” is a song whose title inevitably reminds one of “Dead Flowers” by the Rolling Stones, but whose musical feel is more aligned with Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.” It’s a simple and tender five minute love song that that descends from F to C to B flat, never visiting any chords other than those, but never needing to. A fourth chord in this song would just be showing off.

Morris exhibits a hesitating, almost shy control in the presentation of his music, which gives you the impression you are eavesdropping on something intensely personal, though never self-indulgent. His songs often build in volume as they progress live in a way that can’t possibly be captured on disc. (If you’ve ever heard Ravel’s Bolero performed live, you’ll know what I mean.) Opener Alison Rae, who also sings on the Dewi Sant record, joined them on “May,” the album’s title song which features mandolin and forlorn-sounding pedal steel from Ted Held. In this song’s chorus, when Morris repeats, “I’m never letting go of you again,” you believe him.

Up next was “Forks,” a song about driving (one of many of Morris’s songs that use driving as the primary metaphor) has a certain timelessness to it. Before moving on to the next song, Morris admitted to feeling a little self-conscious on this night. His halting, formal confessions to the audience as he occasional sipped wine was somehow balanced out by pedal steel player Ted Held who casually took swigs from a PBR tallboy a few feet behind him.

The next song, “The Day I Broke the Record,” featured Morris on ukulele. This song is childlike in quality (the ukulele often has a way of bringing that out in a song), and brings to mind another quality of Morris’s music, that of prayer. Several of Morris’s songs either directly reference the word, or the entire song could almost be said to be one.

Alison Rae - Photo by Diedrich

Over the course of the evening Morris said a couple times that this show had been “a long time coming.” The band had been playing almost every night while on tour before returning home a few weeks ago to get ready to play this show. Morris admitted his nervousness came from “wanting to give the best of it to you guys.” But that nervousness really didn’t show. To me it came across simply as refreshing genuineness and honesty. He mentioned that after playing for strangers so many nights in a row it was different playing for close friends and relatives, and this is something I have heard from many musicians.

The next song, a waltz called “Paulus” started quietly and then built suddenly, kicking into overdrive with a shouted out “1-2-3!” countdown from drummer Arlen Peiffer, who looked downright maniacal at times behind the kit with his oversize glasses and shaggy hair. Shortly after the build, the song returns to its quiet origins to end.

Next up was the album’s only cover song a spooky rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love,” which made me imagine what the song might have sounded like if Cohen himself had recorded the song as a much younger man.

“The Labor,” another song in Dewi Sant’s arsenal that has traveling as a central theme, is nothing short of fragile. He makes reference to demons in his head, and the song comes across almost as an exorcism to help free him from those demons. “The Labor” also exhibits another feature of Morris’s music, the un-affected dramatic pause. In this song, the song I selected for this month’s podcast, there’s a pause that could almost kill. It tells the story of a young man doing 95 mph on the freeway while racing to see his lover, but is pulled over by a wise-cracking state trooper who tells him, “Son, you’re making real good time. Seattle’s going nowhere. You’ll get there and she’ll be fine.”

Towards the end of the set, Morris introduced several of the band members as they left the stage leaving him alone with just Sarah Woolever for “Lullaby #1”, a song I had literally fallen asleep to earlier in the day when I’d first put the album on after a hard day at the office. I don’t mean to imply that it’s in any way boring. I mean to say that it’s just that comforting. And shouldn’t sleep be the net result of any real lullaby, especially if you are feeling weary or care-worn? I told Morris after the show that I was looking forward to putting the album on before bed again later that night. The beautifully arranged strings on this song prominently featured Hilary James on cello.

For an encore, Held and a couple other musicians rejoined Morris onstage and the band played a song from the new record they’ve already apparently begun recording, a cover of a song by Athens, Georgia based musician Madeline Adams called “To Hell and Back.”

Dewi Sant is definitely a band to watch this year, and their debut CD May is highly recommended.

Dewi Sant CD Release Party with The Starfolk and Alison Rae

2010-02-19T00:00:00-04:00

Dewi Sant at the Cedar - Photo by Pamela Diedrich (See Pamela's full set of photos from this show here.)

The Starfolk - photo by Diedrich

Alison Rae - Photo by Diedrich

Dewi Sant is definitely a band to watch this year, and their debut CD May is highly recommended.

Dewi Sant CD Release Party with The Starfolk and Alison Rae

2010-02-19T00:00:00-04:00

Dewi Sant at the Cedar - Photo by Pamela Diedrich (See Pamela's full set of photos from this show here.)

The Starfolk - photo by Diedrich

Alison Rae - Photo by Diedrich

Dewi Sant is definitely a band to watch this year, and their debut CD May is highly recommended.

My Antonia

2010-02-19T00:00:00-04:00

John Catron as Jim Burden & Katie Guentzel as Antonia - Photo by Lauren B. Photography

I will admit that I wondered why Illusion Theater (528 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis) might pick this standard in American literature classes for a new adaptation. I know the book well, and even after years away from the classroom, I could recollect many images from its pages. Such is the power of Cather’s writing.

Though I might not have chosen exactly the same details to script, I was pleased that Allison Moore, with the sensitive guidance of director Michael Robins, captured the simple beauty of this timeless, bittersweet story.

A young Bohemian girl, Antonia Shimerda arrives on the wild, Nebraska prairie with her coarse peasant mother (Angie Haigh), sensitive-musician father (Brian Goranson) and her brother, Ambrosch (Tony Brown), and meets Jim Burden (John Catron), a young boy who has come there to live with his grandparents. Their friendship grows as they do, and although Jim is deeply in love by the time he is off to college, Antonia – now a hired girl – knows she will never be a proper match for Jim. The tension created powers the show, complicated only slightly by his romantic liaisons with another childhood pal, Lena Lingard.

The choice to strip down the number of characters and actors (all but Antonia play double roles) and focus on this triangle, causes a curious shift. The play, in fact, could just as well be called, My Jim. From beginning to end we are so invested in him – played with such tenderness by Catron as young Jim and Goranson as adult Jim – that Antonia’s future becomes almost a non-issue.

And interestingly, it is Cather’s use of a narrator that best served its adaptation as a play. Goranson was the guiding light on this stage, illuminating page after page with barely a rustle as each turned. His perfectly understated performances of Jim Burden as both a character in the action and the narrator, Mr. Shimerda, and Gaston Cleric were absolutely lovely to watch. Every transition was pure finesse.

Katie Guentzel as Antonia took hold of the opening scene with wide-eyed gusto, but playing a character drawn so exuberantly without taking it over the top is not easy. Guentzel certainly grasped what is most appealing about Antonia - sunny defiance in the face of tragedy and hardships, and there were moments she surely brought tears to more eyes than mine. But there is such a fine line – a tiny thread, even – between wearing a role like a comfortable sweater and drawing attention to the sweater itself.

The rest of the ensemble (Beth Gilleland, David Roberts and Molly Sue MacDonald) flowed from scene to scene, character to character with grace and skill, drawing a picture (a sketch, really, but it was just enough) of the austere social order they inhabited. By paring down the cast of characters to its core, Moore fashioned a story that was free to inhabit the airy space between the floor of the stage and the fly loft, without the distracting encumbrances of moving crowds of actors.

Or sets. A big, heavy, elaborate production would have overpowered this intimate story and ruined it. Set designer, Dean Holzman, chose instead to place a permanent level upstage and two mobile ramps downstage, which were imaginatively used to offer the actors backdrops, levels and seating – quick conversions from one time and place to another.

The lightness of this production allowed the relationship between Jim and Antonia to gently alight here and there, like two butterflies, as if a relationship so loving cannot possibly be attached to anything so heavy as a set or furniture. Even so, I could have used just a little more visual interest, and the ramps, functional though they were, might have been less contemporary and more rural.

Costumes by Kathy Kohl were beautifully conceptualized and executed and allowed the actors to slip between roles with ease.

The production is accompanied by original music composed by Roberta Carlson – a tastefully appropriate mix of acoustic piano, cello, violin and guitar. The cello, in particular (Diane Tremaine Kogle) was exquisite.

Although audiences on either coast might not warm up to it, it is a good fit for audiences here. You can feel comfortable taking your children and your grandparents. In fact, I recommend doing that. The conversation afterward could be a memorable one.

My Antonia runs through March 20.

According to Coyote

2010-02-14T00:00:00-04:00

George Keller in ACCORDING TO COYOTE - Publicity photo by Dan Norman

The Trickster pops up everywhere. Reynard the Fox, Prometheus, Eshu (in the Yorba culture), the Monkey King (in Chinese mythology). In western literature, the quintessential Trickster is probably Shakespeare's Puck.

The character appears most vividly, though, in the vast and varied Native American storytelling tradition. He can be a crow or a spider, but most often he's a coyote, raggedy-looking but fast and strong, moving over the living bones of the world, always alone, always hungry, always on the lookout for mischief. Which he creates, spectacularly. He always escapes retribution, though, and moves on, leaving an altered world in his wake.

Playwright John Kauffman collects a number of Coyote stories in his lovely According To Coyote (on the Childrens Theatre Co.'s Cargill Stage, through March 21, childrenstheatre.org). In this hour long one-person show Coyote steals fire from the Old Ladies on the mountain and brings it to the world, dances with the stars, tries (unsuccessfully) to catch and eat Rabbit, dies and is resurrected by Fox. The stories are funny, unpredictable and they all have, like Coyote himself, a sharp edge of world-changing passion. Marvelous stuff.

Our storyteller in the CTC production is George Keller (who is, her name notwithstanding, a member of the feminine gender). Keller is a natural. She engages the audience, initially, with the houselights up, smiling, friendly. Then, as the stories take on momentum, the house goes dark and lighting and sound effects are layered in. Keller's Coyote fills the Cargill Stage and the ancient world she evokes is vivid. There is a very nifty costume effect (Lee B. Dombroski is the designer): Keller starts out wearing simple jeans and tee shirt but as the stories build she dons moccasins, deerskin leggings, breechcloth, face paint, ending with coyote fur and a mask that flies in from above. This transformation is effortless and effective.

Good as Keller is, the icing on According To Coyote is the design. Don Yanick has created a wonderfully simple circular set, gorgeously painted, with two large wooden (I think) eagle feathers suspended over it, along with an off-center Coyote image. The sound (Chris R. Walker) and lights (Paul Whitaker) are great, pitch-perfect and dynamic, enriching but never interfering with the action. The fire effect alone is worth the price of admission.

Which is not inexpensive. CTC shows may not be cheap, but they are always worthwhile. The audience at the show I saw had a great time.

Definitely recommended.

Slideshow: Valentine's Day Joel Bremer / Mad Ripple Hootenanny at Dusty's

2010-02-14T00:00:00-04:00

HowWasTheShow is proud to present Jenn Barnett’s photos from Sunday's Joel Bremer / Mad Ripple Valentine's Day marathon (7 hours!) hoot at Dusty's in Minneapolis. Many in attendance remarked that this was the "best hoot ever," and I tend to agree. The love and music in the room spilled out onto Marshall Street in Northeast and went home with us that night. Days later, I'm still reeling.

At the time of writing, Joel Bremer, our favorite Swedish fiddle player has returned safely to his homeland. On behalf of HowWasTheShow, I can only say Joel, we miss you. Come back soon!

This slideshow is set to Joel and Jim Walsh singing the Mad Ripple tune "Homebodies".

Slideshow: Valentine's Day Joel Bremer / Mad Ripple Hootenanny at Dusty's

2010-02-14T00:00:00-04:00

At the time of writing, Joel Bremer, our favorite Swedish fiddle player has returned safely to his homeland. On behalf of HowWasTheShow, I can only say Joel, we miss you. Come back soon!

This slideshow is set to Joel and Jim Walsh singing the Mad Ripple tune "Homebodies".

Expecting Isabel

2010-02-13T00:00:00-04:00

Expecting Isabel - Publicity photo

At the outset I have to declare a prejudice: my wife (my play-going companion last night) and I are adoptive parents. We underwent, 13 years ago, the infertility/adoption tribulations of the hapless couple in Lisa Loomer's Expecting Isabel (Theatre Unbound, Lowry Lab Theatre, 350 St. Peter St., St. Paul, through Feb 28, theatreunbound.com). Anyone who has ever gone through this god-awful process, or knows someone who has – and this is everyone, right? – will enjoy this delightful and frighteningly funny play.

Loomer really puts her characters through the wringer. Her heroes, Miranda and Nick (Christine M. Johnson and Eric Knutson) begin as a happy if somewhat bland couple in their late 30s who, almost as a lark, with growing awareness of their advancing age (at least in child-bearing terms), decide to get pregnant. It doesn't work, and they soon find themselves in Infertility World, taking megadoses of hormones (which cause, among other lovely effects, bloating, violent mood swings and hair loss), trying to get impregnate hamster eggs, etc. Failing here, they move into Adoption World, with weird support groups, larcenous birth moms, oddball counselors, etc. Along the way, they fall deeply into debt, lose their NYC apartment, their jobs and – almost – their marriage. I say "almost" because this is where Loomer really excels. Her Miranda and Nick discover untapped reserves of strength and resilience and this keeps the play focused and funny. The ending, the details of which I won't reveal here, is truly lovely.

As Miranda and Nick, Johnson and Knutson are marvelous. Johnson's Miranda is sweet, shy, gorgeously neurotic and Knutson's Nick is pugnaciously upbeat, confused about everything – except that he loves his wife, desperately. This is their triumph: as different as Miranda and Nick are, we never doubt their passion.

The rest of the ensemble (Delta Rae Giordano, Dwight Gunderson, Noë Tallen, David Schlosser, Roneet Aliza Rahamim and Nora Montañez) is very good. I wish I had space here to wax enthusiastic about everyone. Still, I have to mention the astonishingly beautiful Montañez who plays birth mother Lupe with vivid intelligence and the diminutive Rahamim, whose presence in a variety of roles is quiet yet luminous. We'll be hearing more from her, I'm sure.

Director Rebecca Rizzio and her squad of designers (Brittany Eastburn, Carol Critchley, A. Emily Heaney and Brian Hesser) work wonders with the space and the limited budget. The play flows cinematically, with no energy-sapping set changes and lots of good mood-building music.

Oh, yes: our son Michael is a happy seventh grader and he challenges you all to a World of Warcraft showdown.

Recommended.

Is/Is, Red Pens, Strange Lights and Camden

2010-02-13T00:00:00-04:00

Red Pens - Photo by Pamela Goetzke Diedrich

Whoever publicized Saturday night’s show at the Kitty Cat Klub did their best to confuse me about the line up. There were at least four different combinations of bands floating around online and in the local rags, so I headed to Dinkytown knowing only that I'd see Is/Is and Red Pens with some combination of openers. Despite the fact that the order seemed to change right up to the last minute, it proved a fun night of music.

The eventual opener was a band called Camden, who are apparently an electronic act. I wouldn’t know because, responsible journalist that I am, I missed their set. (Lazy journalist that I am, I blame the confusion over the bill.) The doorman said they “sounded like a David Lynch soundtrack,” which bodes well for their music. Of course, he also told me my name sounded like I should be a metal guitarist, which I found dubious.

StrangeLights were the first band I saw and, for his part, Joe Werner’s guitar playing was straight-up metal. He laid down lots of wah over the trio’s droning, psychedelic proto-punk which, with Werner snarling things like “leave me alone” and “I’m losing control,” made my thoughts jump to the Stooges. Their music was really too organized for such comparisons, though; another Detroit band, Awesome Color, would probably be more on-target – still quite a compliment. It was a good set, one of the highlights of which was drummer Kieran Holcomb’s immaculate mustache.

Red Pens went on next, playing their last show before a two-week tour out East, and they sounded incredible. Someone in the audience walked through saying, “This is the best band in Minneapolis,” and you really had to believe it. The acoustics in the Kitty Cat Klub worked well with their music, the mix was good, and Howard Hamilton and Laura Bennett never missed a beat. With Hamilton playing surf guitar licks and Bennett drumming like a jackhammer, there isn’t anything particularly complicated about their music, but they do it as convincingly as anyone around.

Hamilton, chewing gum and referring to his songs as “little pieces of shit,” announced the “last two songs” about three times, always proceeding to go beyond that number (to the crowd’s pleasure), until the pair finally rounded things off with a new song, “I Want More.” Introduced dryly as being about how “people come to see their favorite local bands and just stand there,” “I Want More” had a tough, even more-streamlined-than-usual sound with traces of the Sex Pistols. These two were clearly excited about their trip, and with good reason.

Is/Is - Photo by Diedrich

The last band of the night to go on was would-be local supergroup Is/Is. Boasting an all-female lineup that includes Sarah Rose on guitar and vocals and Sarah Nienaber on bass, there was reason to be excited by the potential for sprawling, dreamy reverb washes and furious jams such a pairing promises. The first song certainly delivered, and the drummer was a powerhouse, but things started to unravel soon after. From the beginning, Rose’s voice was too shallow in the mix, which was a shame considering the band has two great vocalists. Then when Nienaber started having technical problems it seemed to throw everyone’s rhythm off and the playing got messy.

All of which really was unfortunate. Is/Is haven’t been together very long and they’ve stayed mostly under the radar. It was clear Saturday night that they’re still working out the bugs in their music, but there’s no doubt they have enough talent to work with and, even with the problems they encountered, all the evidence pointed to some very promising ideas in the works.

Once they iron out the glitches, we’ll probably be hearing a lot more from these three ladies in the year ahead.

Is/Is, Red Pens, Strange Lights and Camden

2010-02-13T00:00:00-04:00

Red Pens - Photo by Pamela Goetzke Diedrich

Is/Is - Photo by Diedrich

Once they iron out the glitches, we’ll probably be hearing a lot more from these three ladies in the year ahead.

Is/Is, Red Pens, Strange Lights and Camden

2010-02-13T00:00:00-04:00

Red Pens - Photo by Pamela Goetzke Diedrich

Is/Is - Photo by Diedrich

Once they iron out the glitches, we’ll probably be hearing a lot more from these three ladies in the year ahead.

Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice

2010-02-12T00:00:00-04:00

Eurydice - Publicity photo by Scott Pakudaitis

Last night I had the pleasure to attend the first performance of the first production of the Prospero Theatre Company, a group composed, so far as I can tell, of three "founding members", actors Rebekah Henrickson and MaryLynn Mennicke, along with director Kate Wulf. For their premiere, Prospero is tackling Eurydice (at the Friends Meeting House, 1725 Grand Ave., St. Paul, through Feb 21, prosperotheatre.org) Sarah Ruhl's meander through the rough shoals of love, death and rebirth. This is shoestring theater: the space is a big square church meeting room, with steel chairs no doubt fetched in from a storage room, no set, a grand total of four (4) lighting instruments, a fledgling acting company composed of artists just out of or in many cases still in college.

It all works surprisingly well, largely because of MaryLynn Mennicke's lovely take on the title character, Eurydice. Mennicke's natural and naive sweetness serves the play perfectly. She displays a newborn quality, as though her character is just waking up from a long sleeping beauty nap. This creates a sense of discovery which animates every scene. I couldn't take my eyes off her.

Also good is Jameson Jon Baxter as the lyrically intense Orpheus. His attempts to communicate with the dead Eurydice through the magic medium of his music are wonderful. I also greatly enjoyed Josiah Laubenstein's arch and angular Nasty Man, followed by his malicious Child – whose main job seems to be procuring partners for his sexually voracious mother, played in a very nice turn by Rachel Kuhnle.

The play starts promisingly, with Eurydice's marriage to the ever-sweet Orpheus, followed by her seduction away from her marriage party by the Nasty Man with a letter from Eurydice's dead father. But then Eurydice herself suddenly dies and from this point on the play proceeds in fits and starts, with interesting ideas introduced – the language of the dead, for example – but undeveloped. Orpheus's need to find his wife in the Land of the Dead is deeply felt, but their final encounter feels anti-climactic and doesn't satisfy. The second deaths of Eurydice and her father, caused by bathing in the River Lethe, feel tacked on. All in all, I found this play unaffecting.

Next up for Prospero: a production of Christopher Durang's wickedly funny The Baby With The Bathwater, in May. This is a terrific piece and I'm looking forward to it.