If you are looking for a break from the PBR-sponsored bash at Bedlam Theatre tonight, or need a place to go before heading over to the late Fort Wilson Riot show at the Whole, might we suggest revving up and heading over to the 400 Bar for Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. The Detroit-based duo are nothing like the shredding-Nugent-wannabes their name might suggest- they are innovative indie-loopers and tech geeks who are making some pretty great propulsive and layered pop-rock you can dance to. That they would take on a mostly faithful but slightly space-age cover of “God Only Knows” gives you an idea of the direction of their ambition. They were just named one of Stereogum’s “Class of 2010“, an assessment of the 40 best new bands of the year, and you can stream the full Horse Power EP here.
Late in coming, but totally worth the wait summer jam from the kingpin madman himself, Cee Lo Green. Love the doo-wop, the kitsch, the flagrant profanity, the sentiment and the cute video, and also that Cee Lo’s nemesis seems to be some version of Fonzworth Bentley. Let the battle of the wailing ties & zoot suits begin!
A Thought on Torn Advertising Taken FarorGrand Adventures in a New Economy
It is good to have hope, that thing with feathers, as the poet said, and it’s best when it comes as a surprise. Biking down Nicollet back when summer seemed new and endless, before word came down that some Twin Cities cultural hubs were losing their spaces, it was good to see the reappearance of a certain flock of hopeful and forward looking birds, the quickly sketched but effortlessly floating marker work of Aaron Bickner and Andrew Shannon. The flying pigeons, black ink on the whitewashed panels of the building at the southeast corner of Nic & 10th first appeared last summer as part of the supposedly temporary Save Canvas show organized by Overproof, a show using empty retail spaces and found materials.
Even though a year has now passed, the installations in the abandoned retail spaces never were taken down but the shop tableaux were never my favorite part of the project. The birds were just so much more immediate, offering up a simple vision of how to use urban, publicly visible space (a legal and philosophical distinction from public space) in a way that makes the city more livable. This winter, the wall was covered up by a bright-hued ad campaign to visit Montana, wisely chosen to show the verdant mountains and crystalline lakes of Montana in summer, because in winter, Montana makes International Falls look like sunny South Beach. The color, in winter, was a nice mental getaway, but that’s all it was- escapism. The birds were put there by people, artists and organizers and entrepreneurs who live in this city and care about it.
It was the right positioning, too- the building once was the physical home of Let It Be Records, now a mail-order entity and still has the advertising for the failed 10th & Nicollet luxury highrise that followed adorning the top of the window canopies. That corner, for the better part of the decade has stood for collapse and failure, a downtown reminder of the decline of independent retailers, the folly of inflated real estate markets and the ensuing recession. Save Canvas, it felt, was a defiant bird flipped to hard times. When we go broke, when the state of affairs, to cop Dessa’s verse from Low light/Low life, feels like “the flight of the salesman, the death of the bumblebee, nothing left for the attorneys and the tumbleweeds”, when the For Lease signs start becoming more apparent and longer lasting, it is good to have artists move in and take the chance.
Tonight was the last night for the Art of This space on South Nicollet, a space that has hosted a lot of adventuring and risk-taking over the last five years. As the excellently ambient and passionateTake Acre played the last installment of the Tuesday Night Music series in that space, David Petersen, director of the gallery, looked in from outside. He didn’t seem too worried- the music series is moving over to the Open Eye Figure Theatre and hopefully they can get some grant funding to help keep it running, but they have a good deal going for now. The space won’t sit empty- Jake Luck of Leisure Birds and GAYNGS is opening Yeti Records in the storefront on October 16th. A new salon, Honeycomb, has opened next door and word is that Kim Bartmann of Bryant-Lake Bowl, Barbette and the Red Stag has purchased Casey’s, the dive bar on the block. “What would we do here?” Petersen smiled, “We wouldn’t even fit in. We’d be the black sheep.” Plus, now he gets to make his own art, which is ultimately what artists should do, even if running the gallery has been it’s own form of sculptural installation. Not having a space is suddenly freeing again.
The Los Angeles Times Culture Monster blog also ran a story earlier in the year about the non-profit arts entities making big moves in L.A. Alexandra Grant, a member of the board of the Watts House Project had a quote that brings out the best of the times we live in. She said, “It’s such an exciting time for nonprofits. There’s an opportunity to think of these legal entities as a very creative space for people to organize. To think about the relationship between money and creativity and how they’re applied, and how a small nonprofit that’s on the ground can rethink some of the bigger, slow moving boats of culture.” In other words, let’s be birds in flight and not mud-stuck hippos. Local projects like Works Progress, Minneapolis Art on Wheels and even projects of the “slow moving boats of culture” like the Walker Art Center’s Open Field project show a collaborative, survivalist and innovative bent. Joseph Belk, who helped organize Save Canvas, teamed up with printers Burlesque of North America to launch CO Exhibitions. The Art Shanty Project may taking 2011 off, but if it is to better re-organize and re-energize it’s audience, it is for the right reasons. Bedlam Theatre may be losing it’s beloved brick-and-mortar space, but it is fighting on. In fact, they just announced they have a temporary new space to move into, so be there this Friday to blow it all out. Flocking together is what it is about.
Walking back down in the cool summer dusk when the birds first re-appeared on Nicollet, two kids, barely teenagers, had taken over the corner with a fuzzy boombox and, apropos of nothing and a box for tips, were voguing their hearts out to Gaga as bikers rolled past laughing. That’s the feel a city needs to survive- that we can own it’s private and publicly visible spaces, that artists are a critical part of a city’s well-being (a point well-made by MNPlaylist.org’s Alan Berks in blog post titled “I Want Something More Than Money From Minneapolis”) and that life here matters. We all want something more and if we can be fearless enough to street-corner dance, to move our arts organization into the homeless unknown, to risk a new record store, we can have what we want and more. Like it said inside the front door of Art of This, a quote from the poet that is Kermit the Frog, “You are not going to watch the show, you are going to be in the show.” So join in and fly right.
Thanks to everyone who came out for Ben Kyle at the Cake Shop on Thursday night, it was joy to host him and to have Luke and Carrie playing along with him. For those of you who missed out, here are some videos for your edification, and just let us know at cakein15@gmail.com if you want to be updated about future shows at the Cake Shop. We’ll be busy with other projects through September, but we’ll be back with more shows soon so keep an ear open, and as always, keep supporting local music.
Umm, yes please. The good folks at Revision3 taped an entire Frightened Rabbit show from San Francisco’s Rickshaw Stop, which we are gonna settle in for here and watch in all it’s glory. If you want a special treat though, just jump ahead to the 48 minute mark to watch FR cover “Fake Empire” by the National. Icing on the cake, and I will say this- we cheer a hell of a lot louder in Minneapolis for these great Scottish lads.
Partway through the early Spirits of the Red City show at the Cake Shop we got a text from a member of the audience- “You have got to charge more than ten dollars for this band.” It’s true, even if they didn’t only play a handful of shows in the Twin Cities a year, a Spirits show is a precious thing, a beautiful an entrancing mix of co-operation and musicianship, full of powerfully orchestrated moments dropping off to the subtlest and most intimate of silences. It’s exactly the kind of experience we wanted when we started hosting the Cake Shop house shows.
On top of their musical generosity, the road-tested Spirits crew were full of stories of other bands and hosts who had been generous to them while on tour. They spoke of Austin, TX band Some Say Leland and their mash-ups of contact sports and whiffle ball, the giant barn of Willy T. Taylor and his wife Bethany outside of Modesto, CA where the people started coming and partying at 10:30 in the morning yet still sat silent through the set before getting back to partying. Dovekins from Denver, CO were also thanked for their friendship and support, and that’s the best that any of us can hope for- some friends to see us through travels and some more to welcome us home.
CakeIn15.com is happy to announce the next in the series of house shows at The Cake Shop. On Thursday, August 26th at 7pm we will be hosting an evening of solo music by Ben Kyle, frontman of favorite local alt-country band Romantica. Kyle, with his lush and emotive voice, has duetted with the likes of Carrie Rodriguez, Alejandro Escovedo and Ryan Adams, as well as played on stage with the Jayhawks. With his Irish heritage, he brings an inimitable touch to ballads, the blues and country-western tunes, so expect an evening of lovely and passionate music.
This concert will be limited in capacity, so reserve your space today. Reservation cost is $15, and to reserve space, please log into PayPal and send your payment to CakeIn15@gmail.com. Please mark your payment as a “GIFT” in order to avoid PayPal fees. This is money going to the artists, so please don’t short-change them!
Your reservation to this special show is confirmed ONLY when you receive an email both confirming your payment and giving you the house address. This email must come from CakeIn15@gmail.com and NOT Paypal (so make sure to check your spam filter). Guests are invited to bring a beverage of their choice to enjoy.
When: Thursday, August 26, 2010
Time: 7:00 pm
Where: The Cake Shop, location upon RSVP
How much: $15 reservations
The Cake Shop is dedicated to providing artists and audiences with a unique and intimate experience that allows artists to freely experiment with new material. Shows at The Cake Shop directly financially support the musicians playing. Previous performances at The Cake Shop include Spirits of the Red City, Dark Dark Dark and Elephant Micah, Pezzettino, Roma Di Luna, Jeremy Messersmith, The Pines and Chastity Brown.
CakeIn15.com is dedicated to covering and supporting culture issues of importance to the Twin Cities- local music, art, fashion and theater as well as national acts. After all, we do live here.
Perhaps to exorcise all the evil juju that comes along with tearing down a revered musical institution, the Apple Store in Uptown has been hosting a series of national and local acts in their cavernous new space. It also (along with the ever-changing upgrades and new models released by the generally benign but often grouchy reign of Overlord Jobs) gives people a reason to go into the store to drum up business for multi-colored earbuds or rubber bouncy things designed to correct your hand for being a less then perfect antenna. (I kid, please don’t wipe my hard drive by remote.)
All that said, the Apple Store was a contextually weird place for electro-art-dance-insert-hyphen-modifier-here-act Dearling Physique. The architecture of brushed metal and video screens really suited the band well in terms of aesthetic, but for their performance on the 31st it was inescapable that they were performing in a store, which made it stranger than any dark club experience with the band. An in-store is generally a more nonchalant affair but you can’t do nonchalant with Dearling Physique. As the video shows, you go all out, never-surrender dedication to warping tropes of masculinity through theatrics and intense layers of dance, electronically altered guitars and rattling drums. A Dearling Physique show, regardless of whether or not it is in a well-lit retail environment in the middle of the day, is an event and an experience, and that’s what makes it great. You can get more of the event and experience tonight at Hell’s Kitchen as part of the kick-off for frontman Domino, who is heading off to Europe, and the official release of the video for “Sleep and the Heart”, featuring c.a.s. of CakeIn15 (Apple and shameless self-promotion seem to go pretty well together). It all goes down at 8 and is free, so go get your art on and pick up a dance move or two to face down a normative hegemonic system, or for when you’re waiting on the next available “genius”.
We were happy to announce last week that the next show at the Cake Shop would be Spirits of the Red City on August 15th. The one 7:30 show is just about filled up, so to open up some spots and have more fun in the sun, we’re adding a second show! Doors for the show will be at 5, music promptly at 5:30, bring something to drink and a blanket or lawn chair if you want, and what better way to spend a Sunday afternoon?
This concert will be limited in capacity, so reserve your space today. Please specify which show you are RSVPing to. Reservation cost is $10, and to reserve space, please log into PayPal and send your payment to CakeIn15@gmail.com. Please mark your payment as a “GIFT” in order to avoid PayPal fees. This is money going to the artists, so please don’t short-change them!
Your reservation to this special show is confirmed ONLY when you receive an email both confirming your payment and giving you the house address. This email must come from CakeIn15@gmail.com and NOT Paypal (so make sure to check your spam filter). Guests are invited to bring a beverage of their choice to enjoy.
When: Sunday, August 15, 2010 Time: 5pm and 7:30 pm (almost sold out) PLEASE SPECIFY WHICH SHOW Where: The Cake Shop, location upon RSVP How much: $10 reservations
The Milwaukee-based band Kings Go Forth is a grand endeavor, a ten-piece soul and funk group fronted by a wailing, dreaded dude named Black Wolf and organized by Andy Noble, a musician, record label entrepreneur and owner of Lotus Land Records & Tapes, an independent record store with a specialty in hard-to-find music. By the time Noble and Black Wolf (born Jesse Davis) met in 2004 at Lotus Land, both had become fixtures in the Milwaukee area- Noble’s parents owned art galleries and brought him up in the local arts and music scene, and in the 70s, Black Wolf was part of a group called the Essentials, whose main claim to fame was having recorded in Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom Studios. They began recording in 2007 and in April released their debut full-length, The Outsiders Are Back, on David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label. With a range of influences from Mayfield to the Philadelphia Soul Sound to reggae, The Outsiders Are Back is a propulsive argument for classic sounds and a great rhythm section. Before their Minneapolis debut at the Cedar Cultural Center on July 31st, Cake In 15 caught up with Noble to talk about keeping control of a group, prison bands and the importance of dancing.
Cake In 15: It’s good to talk to you- I saw Kings Go Forth down at South By Southwest this March but it’s surprising that you haven’t played Minneapolis yet. I take it with the size of the band, touring must be difficult.
Andy Noble: We do as much as we can, which is not as much as other bands. There’s just a lot of dudes, and you know, everybody thinks we don’t travel because of people having jobs and families and stuff, but it’s actually because there are so many guys in the band that lot of the trips are cost prohibitive. We just canceled a trip to California in late August because we’ll get good guarantees but we’ll still lose money on it. It’s so expensive to bring 10 guys on the road that you have to be making a lot of money before you even break even.
CI15: Have you been losing money on the band so far, or found a way to break even?
AN: Definitely losing money.
CI15: Fortunately Minneapolis isn’t too far away.
AN: I know; I’m really surprised that it took us this long to book Minneapolis, but it’s going to be great to have Minneapolis in the loop. That’s something that really helps, that the band has towns we can play that aren’t a plane trip away.
CI15: With Kings Go Forth, it feels like the relationship between your music and Black Wolf’s lyrics and vocals are the driving relationship in that band. Is that the case?
AN: It’s one of them. Really, it was just kind of a basement project, we were recording songs on an 8 track recorder in the basement and they got really popular and so we had to become a real band to back that up. The way that people, the world looks at groups, they think that every group is a group and they’re hungry to go on the road and make money and that’s what you do for a living and in our case that wasn’t really correct, it was just a little basement project and it’s had to become a real band to fulfill the public I guess.
CI15: What kind of records were you and Black Wolf bonding over when you started working on the Kings Go Forth project?
AN: Well it wasn’t any specific records and if it was it wouldn’t be anything that anybody would really know. When you talk about black music history it is these epoch moments and there are so many releases. I am very focused on single releases and 45s, I am not very much of an LP oriented person. I really like to hear 2 or 3 minutes of a band. So many people are capable of making a single that aren’t capable- very few people make full length albums that are worthwhile to listen to the whole thing. So me and him bonded over our knowledge and our enthusiasm of the local music scene from that era, 60s 70s and 80s, actual soul era, golden era. Acts like the Esquires and Harvey Scales would be the really famous ones but going on from there you’re talking about [bands like] Upheaval. The [track] “Paradise Lost” on our album is a cover of a song that only 20 copies were ever made and it was a group where everyone was serving life sentences in Waupon Prison. They were Milwaukeeans and they were in prison, and the song was discovered from one known copy, so things like that, hopelessly obscure things like that. But just the concept of local heroes, no hit wonders, people who self finance things where the artists paid to make the record.
CI15: You have a wide knowledge of under-appreciated and unknown bands. In the light of that kind of music history, what kind of success do you want for Kings Go Forth?
AN: Well, honestly, I want it to get to the point where it feels like we’re steering the ship. If you have success for one of your projects it should make your life better and not worse, you know? [Laughs] And that’s tricky, because where there’s a lot of demand for what you do and there are other parties involved like managers and booking agents and clubs it gets really tough and there are other people that rely on your band for income. It’s really tricky at this point when a band is beginning to establish a name that you establish a precedent that we’re doing this to make our lives better and not worse and so really trying to have the freedom to go play shows because we want to and not because people tell us we have to, to have the freedom to write and record music because we want to and not because we have to. I honestly believe that music is a byproduct of life and that life comes first and music comes second.
CI15: With that desire to retain your own control, what was the impetus behind signing with a label?
AN: I was planning on putting out the record on our own, I was not shopping it to labels at all and so they came to us. Yale Evelev, president of Luaka Bop convinced me it would be a good idea and I like Yale and he’s really into music, he likes a lot of music that I’m really into too and Luaka Bop had a good track record in selling CDs. I am such a vinyl person that almost all my connections in distribution and sales for the record were just going to be in LP and 45, I really didn’t know too much about digital music sales or CD sales and a lot of people aren’t even buying CDs any more but Luaka Bop still has a fairly faithful CD audience which is a bonus. We retained the right to create and distribute our own singles on 45 in our contract though, so those still come out on Mr C’s, which is our own private imprint.
CI15: Who do you see as your target audience? From the promo I’ve been seeing it seems like you’re being marketed towards an indie or rock crowd as opposed to a soul audience.
AN: Anyone who makes a record, they’ll market you towards those people, I think it’s totally an economic thing, those are the people who buy the most music and go and see the most concerts, it’s not kind of a musical consideration. It works, I’m not slagging off indie music in general. There’s some of it that I like a lot, there’s some I don’t like at all, the whole gamut really, but they’re not that rhythmically oriented. Even indie dance which has been this big thing over the last ten years is really just a guy who obviously grew up in punk bands playing his version of a disco beat. It’s OK, but in our group, our rhythm section is coming straight out of Latin jazz or Afro rhythm and these are guys who really know their rhythmic stuff and have a great rhythmic sensibility, you’re coming from a lot more in-depth rhythmic place with our group and Sharon Jones and all that. Sometimes people want to sit at home and cry and listen to some indie songs and that’s fine and there’s a time and a place for that, but sometimes when people go see live music they just want to have fun.
