Cake In 15

It was a music menagerie at the Turf Club Friday night, with animals in every band name and a happy hungry crowd of interesting creatures milling about to make a night of it. Bethany Larson & The Bee’s Knees released their Sticks And Stones debut record (which we reviewed here) with the support of the crowd and Larson’s resonant folk-country vocals are a welcome addition to the Twin Cities scene. Peter Wolf Crier (Peter Pisano and Brian Moen) came straight from an early show with Halloween, Alaska, but showed no exhaustion, throwing themselves into the explosive, propulsive tracks from their debut album Inter-Be and proving that two guys sitting down can be a hugely dynamic experience. Aby Wolf took the stage following and started her set with some new slinky, Astrud Gilberto-esque jazz numbers that were sensuously downbeat and made great use of her articulated range , before shifting back to her guitar and lilting folkish tunes. To round out the night, the final beast was No Bird Sing, and they came out swinging, a blast of hip-hop rock fronted by Eric Blair’s bellowing baritone, backed by Graham O’Brien’s banging drums and held together by Robert Mulrennan’s hot guitars. They had some friends come out during their set- MC Kristoff Krane came out to duet on “Sparrows” and the finale was a raucous freestyle, ending the night for all with happy smiles, warm bellies and songs ringing from the aviary.

Bethany Larson “But I Love Him” from Carl Atiya Swanson on Vimeo.

Peter Wolf Crier “Lion” from Carl Atiya Swanson on Vimeo.

Aby Wolf “Keara” from Carl Atiya Swanson on Vimeo.

No Bird Sing “Dead Leaves” from Carl Atiya Swanson on Vimeo.

No Bird Sing w/ Kristoff Krane “Sparrows” from Carl Atiya Swanson on Vimeo.

No Bird Sing w/ Kristoff Krane, Peter Wolf Crier & Sector 7G from Carl Atiya Swanson on Vimeo.

Photo by Jeremiah Satterthwaite via MySpace

Minneapolis-based band We Are The Willows keep some pretty sweet company- they are with Amble Down Records & Management, home of Bon Iver and The Daredevil Christopher Wright. Their debut record, A Collection of Sounds and Something Like the Plague officially drops on Tuesday the 24th, but the band is starting early, playing CD release shows here in Minneapolis on Saturday, November 21st at The Beat Coffeehouse in the afternoon with The Cloud Hymn, History Books and Karin.Hasse and later at the 331 Club with Laarks and History Books. CakeIn15 is happy to be giving away a pair of tickets and a copy of the record to a lucky winner, so e-mail us at cakein15[at]gmail[dot]com if you want in. To widen the net, it can be a pair of tickets to any of the shows on their supporting tour, spreading across the Midwest over the next two weeks, so hit us up if you are interested about Mankato, Duluth, Sheboygan or other far-flung locales. Check their website for tour details, or do it up here in Minneapolis.

Also, snag the single, “A Funeral Dressed As A Birthday,” here, and check out their set on 89.3 The Current’s Local Show with David Campbell on November 15th here.

If you ever sat in the basement of Java Jack’s, this is one of the songs that is part of the orthodox canon of the Mad Ripple Hootenanny tunes, along with Brianna Lane’s “Porchlight” and Stook!’s “A Song Is More Then Just A Song”, “Death Bed Bride” is part of the liturgy of the Hoot, sort of a Trinity of sing-along pick-me-ups. Now that the Hoot has gone nomadic, it only seems appropriate to have shot the video in King’s Wine Bar, new home for musicians and drinkers in Sexy South Minneapolis, a place where even the unofficial mayor of St. Paul can show up in a Santa suit and have a good time. Here’s to Jim Walsh and all the saints behind the bar across the city, may they save us from ourselves.

Alright, so it came out a couple days ago on yo olde interwebs, which is an eon in the history of the tubes, so we weren’t going to post this, but then Kanye went and did it, so now we feel like we have to, if only as a segue to this interchange that took place last week while interviewing Har Mar Superstar (the interview will run over at The A.V. Club when Sean Tillman comes back into town November 5th & 6th):

Kanye blogged the video for “Tallboy” with Eva Mendes in it. That has to be an ego boost.

No. I was actually trying to campaign to get him to take it off his blog because I don’t want that kind of endorsement.

It’s good to be in touch with the zeitgeist. Either way, it’s the best video of the batch of six that was shot last winter, and perfect in time for Halloween. See, zeitgeist!

Earlier in the year, I sat down with MC Eric Blair and drummer Graham O’Brien of No Bird Sing to interview them for City Pages regarding their eponymous debut. One of the things that they were most excited about was the video for “Devil Trombones”, an old-school, hand-drawn stop motion affair put together by O’Brien’s 14 year-old brother Malone. “I would be like, dude, when’s he going to have this done?” Blair said, “And Graham would tell me to calm down, he’s got to do homework.” Malone has turned in his assignment, just in time for two of No Bird Sing’s biggest gigs yet- opening for Saul Williams on October 25th at the Varsity Theatre and performing with P.O.S, Eyedea & Abilities and Kristoff Krane on October 26th in Mankato at the What’s Up Lounge. Catch ‘em then, bring yer chalkboards.

Some Of The Best Things Happen in Secret or Wolf Like Me

Full disclosure: Staciaann from CakeIn15 shot the cover art and promotional photos for Peter Wolf Crier and cas is a founding member of the theatre company Lamb Lays with Lion, of which This Is Not For You director Jeremey Catterton is Artistic Director. Neither blogger here at CakeIn15 was involved in any aspect of the production of This Is not For You.

A man wakes up in the middle of the night to write an album, a theatre troupe appears in a house to play it’s ghosts and the house shakes and grows of its own accord. This Is Not For You, is a CD release show like none other.

The CD is Inter-Be, the debut release from Peter Wolf Crier, the duo of Peter Pisano (The Wars of 1812) and Brian Moen (Laarks, The Shouting Matches). The record, streaming in full at their website is a breathy, pulsing affair, appropriate to the woken-in-the-middle-of-the-night writing sessions that produced most of the text. Inter-Be stands up well alongside contemporaries like The Antlers’ Hospice and Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, with driving folk and blues guitar and metronomic, spare percussion. Inter-Be plays faster than The Antlers and with less of the Dylan-on-downers feel of MBAR, but Pisano and Moen wring their instrumentation for a texture that carries from the record to the live performance of This Is Not For You.

Because This Is Not For You is definitely a performance, and one that only few are privy to. Pisano, Moen and director Jeremey Catterton have shanghaied a non-descript house in Saint Paul to create an interactive venue to debut the songs of Inter-Be in a promenade performance inspired by the visual novel House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. It is not an adaptation, but the cast and crew (Billie Jo Konze, Jenna Lory, Adam Scarpello, Abbie Williams, Kevin Chick) take on the personas of the Navidson family, who in the novel are afflicted by a house that grows of it’s own accord. The conceit of This Is Not For You is that we are witness to the remnants of the family, that the house contains it’s own surprises, as if activated by the music of Peter Wolf Crier.

The actual show is divided in to three levels according to level of involvement and price types. The General level witnesses most of the action via handheld camera and a pile of televisions warping in and out in the main foyer of the house, and then the Private and Handheld levels that follow Catterton through the house as witnesses to the action. The Handheld break off at a point to be privy to a final secret of the house. The different levels play into some basic human emotions- curiosity, jealousy- that are effectively and subtly manipulated to create an investment in the performance that extends beyond the performers themselves, who are creating a living, immersive fantasy, a tactile MTV.

The vignettes and tableaux that follow do not form a linear narrative (there is no sound but the music and Catterton guiding the tour) but impressionistically leave participants in the experience with the aura and haunted feel expressed by this lost family. Catterton made the point after the preview performances, that all the actions in This Is Not For You are “manifestations of their greatest fears.” The ensemble created the movement with an economy of resources focused around items that would be found in a home with children, and effectively leaven that fear with child’s play and wonder, aptly passed on to the crowd with some simple but breathtaking technical effects.

There is a tension between the desire, since it is theatre, to hear every word of Pisano’s vocals articulated but that is sublimated in favor of the textural and ambient aspect of the music; Inter-Be provides the sutures of the performance. The sound literally fills the house at points, as the drums reverberate through the walls and music from different rooms leaks and flows through doorways. To fully describe the event would be to undercut it’s secrets and as unfulfilling as the cliff-notes to House of Leaves. This Is Not For You deserves to be experienced, and since it is not for you, it is all the more special that you can be there.

This Is Not For You opens tonight and runs through October 23rd. Visit peterwolfcrier.com for tickets, pricing and secret directions.

This is Not For You Trailer: Presented by Northern Outpost from Peter Wolf Crier on Vimeo.

A while back we posted up this kick-ass video for “Dead and Gone” by Twin Cities rockabilly trio Reckless Ones. These guys are all young guns, but also experienced, coming out of outfits like horror rockers Treehouse Bordello and the experimental collective Plastic Chord. They were kind enough to forward over their new disc Make Your Move, a sharp collection of tunes firmly rooted in the classic rockabilly sound but with enough quirks and flourishes to keep it from being a throwback pleasure. Check out The A.V. Club review here, and go see them tomorrow at the Nomad World Pub.

Take a young band of indie-folkie nomads and some older musicians looking for a new challenge and what do you get? Northern Howl the band and Rest + Noise the record label. Rest + Noise is the project of The Wars of 1812’s Bobby Maher and Barnes & Noble co-manager Ryan Potts and they signed Northern Howl after seeing the young guns playing house parties. They brought Wars’ Kenyon Rosewall on to produce and finesse the band and the result is All That’s Under The Night’s Sky, a sprawling concept record about camping, the woods and young love. The disc is subtle enough in it’s simplicity to amount to more than the sum of it’s parts, with each member of the 7-person collective adding texture to ostensible frontman Paul Erling’s poetic chops. Check out the band profile for City Pages online here, or if you’re feeling nostalgic for a more tactile and innocent age, you can check it out in print this week.

Dropped this iPod on the Trail or Beards of Glory

The beard has a tenuous place in American history. The only famous president to have one was Lincoln, so that was a good thing, but he was shot, so that was not. Coca-Cola’s Santa Claus has one and he is unreproachable as the paragon of commercial wonder and merriment, but so did Allen Ginsburg, full of unreproachable wonder and merriment in his own right and style. Utah Phillips had one and he was a great singer of folk songs, and also a Wobbly. Beards are the domain of folkies, jolly men and oddballs, which is why it is perfect that the men of Megafaun are so stylishly hirsute.

The ex-Eau Claire, WI, residents moved to Durham, North Carolina several years ago in their previous incarnation, indie-folk band DeYarmond Edison. There was a fourth man at that point, another occasionally bearded man named Justin Vernon who split from the band to go back to Wisconsin and record a solo record called For Emma, Forever Ago under the name Bon Iver. Things worked out for that guy. Things also worked out for Megafaun. Brothers Brad and Phil Cook and drummer Joe Westerlund stuck it out, made a record called Bury The Square that got some all around great reviews. They pushed together a blend of folk harmonies and free jazz/noise experimentalism, like men tinkering at workbench with lathes and bits of watch parts.

The result is a disarmingly beautiful mix, one that is pushed even further by their most recent release, Gather, Form & Fly. At the 7th Street Entry on Tuesday night with The Wars of 1812 and The Bowerbirds, Megafaun put that mix on full display, with the audience willingly along for the experience. When kicking off “Kaufman’s Ballad”, the opening CSNY-style harmonies (although, it ought to be CSN, as there are only 3 of them) came in high above the sliding guitars and banjo picking with a delicate intimacy that was palpable in the crowd. The song is a dark, brooding tune about the story of Gram Parsons’ manager, Phil Kaufman, stealing Parsons’ body from his father in Louisiana to carry out Parsons’ final wishes to have his ashes scattered in the Joshua Tree desert by dousing the corpse in gasoline and setting it ablaze. That history, coupled with the insistent finale of “We had no choice, we had to try” set up a fundamentally American weirdness, a mix of passion, talent and excess that soaked through the layered instrumentation.

Getting into “Darkest Hour” took a minute, as the band moved through field recordings of nature and into a chant of “I have been/ wallowing in/side the darkest hour” that started unified and then broke into a round and harmony and then disintegrated into tape hiss, noise and more bird chirps and water dropping before Westerlund pulled the drums together and reigned the song into a clattering finish. The rickety structure though, is one of the main appeals of the band- everything is perfectly placed so as to seem carefree and nonchalant. Listening to “Columns” on the record moves through what sounds like bottles spinning around on a back porch hootenanny to electronic whispers pulsing and growing into something more organic before dissipating into the next track.

The band also couldn’t have been happier to be onstage. Brad Cook apologized at one point if they seemed too overly thankful for being there, noting that “Indianapolis wasn’t like this. Pontiac, Michigan, wasn’t like this.” as Phil Cook and Westerlund chuckled along. Minneapolis is a pretty close to home show for the ex-Wisconsinites, and they brought along some help with them in the form of Sara Jensen, who came up to sing the women’s vocal line on “The Longest Day” a swooning love song. Jensen has played with the Cooks and also with Justin Vernon before- check out this early DMB-esque number from “Mount Vernon“, featuring the Cooks, Jensen, Vernon.

It was really the finale that stole the show, encompassing all those elements that drive the bands sound, innovation and deserved success (Pitchfork gave Gather Form & Fly an 8.1 today). Check out the two part video, and the revel in the dynamic distance, the transportation from Appalachia to inside your laptop and the striking American mix of this band.

Megafaun Finale I- 7th Street Entry 7/21/20009 from Stacy Cupcake on Vimeo.

Megafaun Finale Part II- 7th Street Entry 7/21/2009 from Stacy Cupcake on Vimeo.

This seems to be the summer that I write about Eyedea & Abilities. Which is alright, because there is plenty to write about (believe me, the surface has just been scratched) and also because the record is so damn good. How good, you may ask?

“With By the Throat, Eyedea & Abilities claim their position as lynchpin between the battle-tested storytellers like Atmosphere and the current crop of up-and-coming innovators like Kristoff Krane (who worked with Larsen in Face Candy) and P.O.S.

That’s just an excerpt of the review I wrote for City Pages, so I will direct you over there to more fully answer that question. Read about it here, buy the record here.