Minneapolis / St. Paul Music Blog

No, that headline is not a political slogan--though I can't begin to tell you how many times I wish I'd picked up a "Free James Brown" T-shirt during that forgotten liberation movement. And it's not an appeal to fans of the titular St. Bernard from the well-regarded cinema quintuple feature, Beethoven, Beethoven's Second, Beethoven's Third, etc.

Rather, BBC Radio, in a typically beebish gesture, has made Beethoven's nine symphonies available for free download at this website. You already missed your crack at one through five, which is fine because who really needs more than four? If you don't want to be a jerkoff, you might consider waiting until my downloads are finished, as the files are dribbling in at 3kb a sec--a rate so slow that I could probably inner-tube across the North Atlantic and pick up a cassette, or have someone cable over a string of 1s and 0s by morse code.

The cheap man, as is so often the case in this world, is a frustrated man.

This post represents the first in what I imagine will become a series dedicated to the places where mp3s still roam free. I started with Beethoven mostly because I have a hunch his name hasn't appeared in City Pages this decade, and probably won't again. Unless Grodin is signed on for Beethoven's Sixth.

"Brilliant uprising of musical mischief" to take place downtown

Received a letter today from someone called the "The Innominate Composer." It seems said composer has written a piece entitled "The Hobbled Hobbit," which he/she only describes as a "new and refreshing" piece of music. Mr. Innominate has distributed parts of the composed piece around the Cities, as well as clues to where the spontaneous one-time performance will take place (today at 2:00 at 100 S. Washington Ave.) The composer says that a calling card will be left at the location regarding the subsequent event/musical performance. Did I just get punked? Or is this the new flash mob?

I finally started reading Norman Rush's early '90s novel Mating, and I'm loving it. Here's a little piece about it from Salon.

Will Smith, "Switch"

I'd be totally cool with Will Smith if he weren't so bland and smug and humorless and if I were 11. True, I sure enjoyed "Parents Just Don't Understand," which made some super points about generational conflict, and Six Degrees of Separation, which made some instructive points about the pronunciation of "bottle of beer," but for the past decade or more I've held that Smith's only artistically defensible career move would be retirement. And then I heard "Switch," which is...not bad! That giant kick drum and the handclaps and the ooh-la-la-las and the Prince synth--straight up jiggy.

Most of the credit should go to Kwame, the former polka-dot-shirt wearing rapper (check out his 1989 debut, The Boy Genius) who's enjoying a healthy second career as a producer (Lloyd Banks's bluesy "On Fire," for instance, was his). Credit the star for picking the right friends. And for a while Smith sounds nothing like one of the vocal talents featured in A Shark?s Tale. Then he uses a verse to complain about celebrity and remind us, lest we question his cred, that he was a bona fide close-the-bar-down club rat way back when he was "amateur spittin'"--you know, before he had his first hit, in his late teens. --Dylan Hicks

Brad Paisley, "Alcohol"

Alcoholic poets are a dime a dozen, but poets of alcoholism, those are worth at least four bucks per six-pack. Country singer Brad Paisley had a hit last year with "Whiskey Lullaby," a duet with Alison Krauss in which a couple of hard-luck romantics slowly commit suicide by overboozing. In certain parts of Wisconsin, sources say, the song has become already become a wedding and prom-night standard. It wasn?t quite as haunting as it intended to be, but it wasn?t forgettable either. If "Whiskey Lullaby" was a drinking song for morticians sung from the vantage of a sympathetic observer, Paisley?s latest single, "Alcohol," is a drinking song for barkeeps sung by the sauce itself. "You had some of the best times you?ll never remember, with me, alcohol," sings Paisley, who notes common best-of-times results of dipsomania such as getting fired, unplanned excursions into amateur pornography, and the transformation of lampshades into hats. Surely no one but uninspired ironists ever does the lampshade-hat thing anymore, but then, uninspired ironists are a nickel a dozen.

"Helping white people dance" is another of the narrator/song?s noble missions, and Paisley and band?s amiable performance stands a good chance of starting some wobbly waltzes. But allow me to offer some sober complaints: Bringing in the obligatory "barroom chorus," a la Garth Brooks?s "Friends in Low Places," Toby Keith?s "I Love This Bar," and Gretchen Wilson?s "Redneck Woman," is a follower?s misstep; and the band--very good, mind you, especially the lead guitarist--might have done well to loosen up a bit before rolling tape. They sound like a bunch of professionals in a fancy air-conditioned recording studio at 3:00 p.m. playing music while drinking diet soda in moderation. Just a guess. Fun song, though. It should come fully into its own when plowed through during some cover band?s third set. --Dylan Hicks

Jack Knife & the Sharps are headed back to Iraq

The redoubtable local rockabilly outfit will be entertaining military personnel in Kuwait and Iraq from August 1st to the 15th. Owing to safety concerns they won't know their exact agenda until arriving overseas. "They don't tell us where we're going until we get there," says frontman Rick Hollister. "It's always been that way."

Jack Knife & The Sharps logged two military road trips last year, to the Balkans and then Iraq. (Here's a Q & A I did with Hollister last summer about the performances.) But this will be the band's longest journey yet. Hollister notes that, unlike military personnel, they don't get any time to acclimate to the heat upon arriving in Kuwait. They immediately have to push on to the first gig. "It's really a brutal hard thing to do," he says. "They just figure band people are made of steel."

Seriously. Let's pretend it doesn't exist. Can we? Let's erase Tom Cruise's protruding jaw from our brain, and his big horse teeth and that little chunk of cheek that vibrates when he gets angry or confused or postures like he's not five-feet tall. Scientology? Never heard of it. I think my eigth-grade earth-science teacher was into it, though. It's how he explained kinetic energy and random velocities.

Now that that's done: Instead of spending the holiday weekend in a theater watching a movie that doesn't exist, check out Multiplex at the Soap Factory, a three-day festival of video, film, and sound projects from local and national artists. Monday night includes fireworks, a film by Cory McAbee, and the 10-Second Film Fest, featuring short films captured on cell phones, still digital cameras, and more.

Former fans of The Rosie O'Donnell Show may recall that Ro openly worshipped one Tom Cruise. In fact, she referred to him exclusively as "My Tommy" and kept a soundbite from the Who's "Tommy" on her desktop control panel. T.C. fell just below Streisand and Drake's Cakes on O'Donnell's list of favorite things But now, as reported by PerezHilton.com, Cruise has even managed to alienate his biggest fan. Recently, O'Donnell subtly lambasted Cruise on her oft-inscrubtable blog. The backlash is now official.

"Black hip-hop kids as the gatekeepers for what's hot has long been the state of affairs for mainstream and cutting-edge hip-hop?but that may be changing in some parts of the country like Minneapolis, for example, where white MCs and white audiences have it on lock." --from this week's Village Voice examination of why underground hip hop is so white. Refreshing to see them quoting Brother Ali and not bringing up his skin color. Read more at Complicated Fun.

So this Saturday I finaly got to see Herbie: Fully Loaded, which should be called "The Greatast, Funnest Movie in the World" because it is. Lindsey Lohan is so beutiful. When I do grow boobs I hope they look exactly like hers. I hope I marry Fez from That 70s Show and we make a baby with our private parts. The baby will be called Maddison with two Ds. I made up that name isnt it original? Dont steal it!

Now Ive heard some things about Lindsay that are mean. That she takes Cocaine maybe, which isn't so bad because Bo Bice loves cocaine and Bo Bice is perfect. I also heard that she's not nice to people when she's making her movies and acts like a brat. That's NOT TRUE!!! They are LYERS. I read Teen People and they said she is nice and "Down to Earth" and sort of like the girl you want to be freinds with. I would love to be her freind. She could buy us matching pink dimond rings that say "BFF" ingraved on them and we would wear them forever because thats what BFF means. It means you are freinds forever (except for my former BFF Meghan who betraid me. She said she got her period and she didnt. She used marker.)

Anyway this weekend Lindsey Lohan was going to a party for some people that make dimonds. And these people called Protesters were outside saying "You shouldnt wear dimonds because people in Africa have to hunt for them and its really hard!" And they were yelling at Lindsey. But do you know what my girl did? She ignored them just like I ignore my teacher! Because she doesnt need their drama. And who cares if people in Africa have to hunt for dimonds? Thats their job. Thats what they pay them to do. That sounds like a very easy job if you ask me. My dad works at a big desk for the State of Wisconsin--THAT is a hard job. Hunting for beutiful diamonds in a warm place like Africa is not hard. Stop complaining, Protesters. You are just jealous of Lindsey because she's rich and wears a bra.

...but holy cats! What a total piece of crap! Burn Hollywood burn!

Yesterday B96 was putting on some sort of contest in which a male listener was asked to decide whether to walk in drag in this weekend?s Pride march or be zapped by a police taser. Naturally, he chose the stun gun.

 

Best Bitch Slap Contest at Jitters tonight, 9pm. Give a blow-up doll your best Alexis Carrington right hook and walk away with a Dynasty DVD. The contest is a part of a GLBT Singles Pride Party at Jitters, 205 E. Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis.

Up next: Jim Belushi and Steve Harvey are kidnappers turned matchmakers

Sometimes "the charts" are a great barometer of American culture: They're the entertainment industry's crystal balls that give the clueless record/film/TV execs a clear view of what America wants, offering them a springboard to launch an endless stream of copycats chasing the tails of their crapulicious predecessors.  (Mama Hilton, don't you know it's gauche to piggyback on your daughter's vapid dreams?)

So what do this week's sales and Nielsen ratings predict about our future? Hitch was the best-selling DVD, taking in $10.8 million and making it one of the biggest video releases ever. The Backstreet Boys were at no. 3 on the Billboard chart, selling more than 300,000 copies of their latest CD filled with insipid love songs and faux-hard-boy anthems. And the most-watched show on television this week was the Katie Couric interview with the perpetually surprised "runaway bride." This could only mean more awful buddy flicks are in the works, boy band reunions are being planned, and millions of people are plotting their own fake kidnapping.

British bookies don't like their chances. As this wire story attests, Ladbroke's has set 5 to 1 odds that they'll divorce by the end of 2006.

I always thought Edward Jay Epstein was a complete nut. Back in the '60s and '70s, he was a poster child for Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorizing--there was a second gunman, Oswald was a KGB agent, that sort of stuff. But for the past few months, he's been writing a swell column about the movie business at Slate. Did you know that box office receipts now account for less than 20 percent of the average movie's total revenues? That stars are almost always lying when they claim to have done all the stunt work in their movies? That Nicole Kidman's knee has been insured for as much as $54 million? If these sorts of details, or the broader financial chicanery of Hollywood accounting, interest you, check out Epstein's movie-writing archive here.  

The American Film Institute has released its list of the 100 all-time most memorable lines of movie dialogue. Along with the predictable ones from Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz, and Casablanca--six entries!--it contains such unforgettable utterances as "Is it safe?", "My precious," and "Snap out of it!" Don't remember which movies these timeless classics are from? Shame on you.

Grab your tie-dyes and incense, the Summer Sheep Tour is heading to Pipestone on July 9. Larry Goelz of the Pipestone Vet Clinic will discuss "Breeding Time Management and Scrapie Resistance," Rob Rule of Iowa Lamb will explain "What Kind of Lamb the Packer Wants/Needs," and Bob Koehler from the University of Minnesota Extension Service will cover "Preventing Pollution from Sheep Farms." So if you're into neck bells and dag wool, get yer baaaaad self to Pipestone this summer. And, yes, a lamb kabob lunch will be provided.

The Independent's Andrew Gumbel offers a compelling reason why people are starting to hate Tom Cruise--we don't want to see the machinations behind our illusory celebrity romances. The public's general discomfort with the TomKat romance reached its comic apex on Sunday when Cruise got squirted in the face by a reporter's trick microphone. Surprisingly, Cruise seemed annoyed; these days one might expect him to bray with laughter, kiss the reporter, and fall to his knees in a gesture of lovestruck ecstasy.

And also just a plain good record, Parry Gripp's For Those About to Shop, We Salute You must be heard at least once. Fifty one fake jingles from the ex-leader of Nerf Herder, which wouldn't much entice me either, but I just slapped the CD* in [the CD player, in a state of] ignorance [about the nature of the project], and have been getting a large kick out of it ever since. You can hear some samples here.

*See comment. The text above in brackets reflects later modifications.

Better Misfit: Pizzazz or Danzig?

The bad news: you missed JemCon2005 and the "GORGEOUS, LIMITED fashion " made especially for your favorite Jerrica doll. [Update: JemCon2005 is July 16th! You still have time to dye your hair pink!] The good news: you're not too late for the My Little Pony Fair! Gear up for a weekend of silky hair, glittery skin, and feed bags by taking a crack at Porn Star or My Little Pony?

FYI, guys: Medina Entertainment Center has been known to hold the occasional Fat Albert Toy Show.

 

Karl Mueller, 1963-2005

By Jim Walsh

 

A few years ago, Karl Mueller handed out pens stenciled with the words, "Your Friend, Karl Mueller." The gesture was inspired by Suicide Commandos founder Chris Osgood, who a few years earlier had passed out guitar picks inscribed with, "Your Pal, Chris Osgood."

Last Friday morning, Karl died in his wife Mary Beth's arms. That night, Osgood found himself at a cabin in the north woods with friends, several who consider Karl to be a dear friend. At dinner, Osgood lifted a glass of wine to his tribe, present and not, and talked about the gift of friendship and the preciousness of life. Then one of the diners, in an attempt to make sense of the day's events, grilled Osgood for two hours on the history of the Commandos.

 

"It started when [Commandos drummer] Dave Ahl and I were kids," began Osgood. "We were skateboard buddies." Which is how so many great bands start--friends first. And though it went unsaid, it was the kind of conversation that Karl would have loved, overflowing with names of long-lost musicians and clubs, and the kind of secret-code minutia (amps, gear, and guitars) that musicians use to talk about the passion, and which forge thicker-than-blood roots. 

A few weeks ago, I knew Karl wasn't doing very well. He was my neighbor, and he'd come out of the house to see my puppy and talk to me and my daughter and her friend through his newly installed voice box, the price of his yearlong battle with throat cancer. I asked Mary Beth, who sports an "(eye symbol) (heart symbol) K" tattoo on her right arm, if she wanted me to write anything.

 

She was optimistic. She said there was a good story about "band as family," which I presumed to mean how the Soul Asylum circle had risen to the occasion and helped care for their mate. But she may have also meant that once in a great while, a rock band becomes a really big family.

 

If you're reading this, if you were one of the girls who crushed out on him when he was a 14-year-old punk-rock bag boy at the Uptown Lunds, or the owner of Ron's Market down the street from his house who was devastated by the news of his passing, you were part of Karl's family. He wasn't that particular. There wasn't an insider-hipster bone in his body. He just loved rock, and he loved to rock. His dad died when he was young, so it was just Karl and his mom, Mary, and so when he became friends with Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy and unleashed Loud Fast Rules on the bars of the Twin Cities, his family grew. When Soul Asylum got bigger, his family got bigger.

 

In the fall, Karl drove with my family and me to the funeral for our friend Dave Ayers's father. Ayers was Soul Asylum's first manager. Karl sat next to me on a folding chair as Dave's wife Ambrosia sang "Amazing Grace." God knows what he was thinking at the time, but as we drove back from Shoreview to the cities, he told us much of his life story, but never once mentioned the chemo or radiation or the shitty cards he'd been dealt, probably because he didn't consider them all that shitty.

 

Up in the north woods last Friday, people talked about the first time they met Karl and the last time they saw him, and took silent comfort in the knowledge that similar spontaneous memorials were going on all over the world. A couple of hours after getting the news, Ayers told a few of us about Dan Corrigan's photo shoot for the cover of Clam Dip and Other Delights, the 1988 Twin/Tone EP that spoofed the cover art of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass's Whipped Cream and Other Delights.

 

"He was this silly, funny guy with such a heart. He was such a good sport," said Ayers. "That thing stunk so bad that day. It was a combination of sour cream, paint, and whipped cream, and then there was all this seafood. He sat there for hours. After a while, he got tired, and a little cranky, and just as he was about to climb out, someone put a dollop of the stuff on his head and put a chip in it. He sat back down, and that was the shot."

And that was Karl, who died on June 17, 2005 after a courageous battle with cancer. He is survived by his family.

 

UPDATE: Soul Asylum statement on Karl Mueller

 

Pictures and memories from the fundraiser for Karl 

 

Karl Mueller, the bass player for Soul Asylum, died this morning of throat cancer. Look for more about Mueller either in this space or in next week's paper. Below are two columns written by Jim Walsh during Mueller's illness. -- Dylan Hicks

Let's Go Crazy

Ooh La La

Tres Hombres is that it sucks. My vinyl copy of ZZ Top's finest album (Deguello is a close second) is very beat up and in fact produces very little sound at all--like I have to turn the volume knob way, way up just to get it to hear it. Of course ZZ Top should always be played at a decent volume, so this means I'm cranking the way up there, about where it needs to be to play my copy of the Grass Roots' greatest-hits album, my copy of which is also anemic. So I finally decided to replace Tres Hombres (translation: Three Men) on CD. Do not make my mistake. Whereas the original recording has a lean, dry sound, the remastered CD version is hypercompressed and saturated with outsized, '80s-style reverb. The stupid idea, I guess, was to get Hombres to sound as much like Eliminator as possible. A travesty, much like those fake-stereo versions of '50s and early '60s rock, R&B, and country records they used to put out in the mid to late '60s. Good to get that off my chest, though. Whew. I feel much better.

Screenwriter and director Cameron Crowe's latest movie, Elizabethtown, finds Orlando Bloom, failed shoe designer, returning to his hometown of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, for his father's funeral. Along the way, he picks up flight attendant Kirsten Dunst, who helps him through his issues. Crowe, who brought his own life as a teenage rock critic to the screen in Almost Famous, and has made music an integral part of his movies Say Anything and Singles, gives the Duluth trio Low a pat on the back by showcasing their Chairkicker's Union t-shirt on the spindly frame of Ms. Dunst. Be the coolest 35-year-old on your block by picking up your own version at Low's online store.

With St. Louis Park High School on summer break, Radio K is free to use its FM signal (106.5) 24 hours a day. Ignore the website's outdated signal map; the transmitter was moved a couple months ago, meaning you can now listen to the station's much improved sound just about anywhere in Minneapolis, parts of St. Paul, even into the first ring suburbs. The "K to the Second Power" celebration runs June 20-24 with special post-sunset programming, including midnight performances by Atmosphere and Bridge Club. Finally you can listen to "Skyway" in the skyways, "7th St. Queen" on 7th St., Uptown Jesus in Uptown!

 

http://eyesandhandsfestival.com/

http://www.mnlocalmusicfestival.com

The Clown Lounge is open again. Urban Wildlife's Rock Room is closed.

These logos are bananas!

If you spent hours snickering at Joe Camel's nose back when questionably-snouted cartoon characters were allowed to hawk smokes to kiddies, then you'll enjoy The Phallic Logo Awards. And remember, maturity is highly overrated.

What does a former Minneapolis rocker have in common with a burning mobile home?
We don't know why this video clip from a KARE-11 news story that aired a couple months back hasn't made its way around the internets to become the next big contagious-media hit. And we're not sure why the America-flag-wearin' guy featured in it doesn't have his own reality show yet, either. But this hilarious and endlessly watchable footage of a guy who still listens to eight-tracks giving us the play-by-play of what happened after a mobile home got "all blowed up" makes us sure of one thing: Suddenly, it all makes sense that Minnesota leads the nation in sales of Larry the Cable Guy CDs.

Speaking of getting "blowed up," what former frontman for one of our favorite local and now-defunct indie-rock bands can be seen on MTV? Ok, he's not exactly in a video. Give up? Check out the commercials for the Real World Austin. The guy strumming the guitar and caterwauling in the signature style that made the band so likable is none other than Steve Salett of Deformo, the group voted Best Local Rock band by CP in 1998.