Minneapolis / St. Paul Music Blog

Interesting Femi Kuti piece on NPR today. Listen here. Sample quote:

There are so many, hundreds of thousands, of young boys in Africa now. No shoes, no clothes, no money. They don't eat. They live under the bridge. Lagos is disgusting. And they are growing. In five years these boys that are 5 will be 10. Those that are 10 will be 15. 15 will be 20. So when you understand that kind of mathematics it's really scary.

Fox has hired an independent counsel to look into claims that she had an affair with an American Idol contestant. Do we smell a spin-off? How's about a reality show that investigates other reality shows? If CBS picks it up, it could replace 60 Minutes II.

Maggie Chestovich has that ineffable quality, sometimes called "presence" or "it" or "that ineffable quality," that makes you remember a performance long after the rest of the play has turned into brain ether. Originally from Falcon Heights, she's worked with most of the major theater companies in town--Children's Theatre Company, the Jungle, Frank, Ten Thousand Things, Playwrights' Center, the defunct Eye of the Storm--and has a particular gift for acerbic comedy. At this year's Minnesota Fringe Festival, she'll star with Jim Lichtscheidl in a premiere, Why Actors Can't Love, by local playwright Allan Staples. (Visit www.fringefestival.org for the performance schedule.) We caught up with Chestovich on a rehearsal break at the Jungle, where the show is being staged.

If you thought Cowboy Hootie , Subservient Chicken, and "Wake up With the King" were disturbing advertising concepts, behold Burger King's latest surreal gimmick: Coq Roq. The members of this fictional beak-wearing thrashcore band look like KISS meets the heavily-rouged parrot from Zoobilee Zoo. Phallic puns aside, Coq Roq's "band" name alludes to BK's latest culinary mutation, Chicken Fries. Mmm, pressed meat!

Rogue agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky has obviously been entrusted with major creative freedom. Apparently, the Coq Roq website even contained a caption that read "Groupies love the coq!" until complaints neccessitated its removal.

Meanwhile we await the inevitable Vagina Monologues Happy Meal.

The Hold Steady will soon be making their screen debut in Odds Against Seven, a short film by Target. Yes, Target. Sure, calling it a screen debut is a stretch, since this is a film release limited to computer screens. But some film-school student went to great pains to create this wannabe-John Hughes-ian short, which is ostensibly about a college kid trying to find a band to play at his school's first party. Of course it's really about the lil' red discount store's "hip brand identity," and what better way to shout it loud than via a Crucifixion Cruise?

Or the company could go another route to market to a young, media-savvy demographic, perhaps using a song about ass fetishes that employs a whip as a sound effect. Click here to launch the new back-to-school commercial, "Baby Got Back...Packs."

They're not celebrities, they're not getting fit, and they're not in a club. Once you get past the premise, the personalities, and the medical hazards of VH1's Celebrity Fit Club 2, you can begin to appreciate the program on its own terms.

And what would those be? Hard question. Can I tell you the cube root of 58,998 instead? To start, there's tough-talking fitness trainer Harvey Walden IV, who has been tasked with carving the blubber off a cast of eight castaways. Walden, a former marine drill sergeant, is a parody of Lou Gossett Jr. in An Officer and a Gentleman. He barks and berates, speaks in ALL CAPS and exclamations. He spends a lot of time talking about the finer points of the relationship between his footwear and your ass.

There's no need for Harvey to embarrass the corpulent. The producers do that plenty well, thank you. The contestants box and run with rickshaws, activities that are sure to make them look like careering blimps with catastrophic punctures. It's no surprise that the show draws F-List celebrities: Phil Margera (father to the punk Peter Pan of Viva la Bam) is the only one of this crew who isn't exiled in reruns. Viewers probably have heard of Gary Busey and Victoria Jackson. Jackee Harris may be remembered for that superfluous and sassy "E." After that, the word "of" becomes increasingly important: Willie Aames (of Charles in Charge); Tocarra (of America's Next Top Model); Jani Lane (of Warrant). Then there's the Snapple Lady. While the British version of the program has the celebs donate their winnings to charity, the Americans will pocket $100,000 in prizes. When your Hollywood career has deposited you in suburban Kansas, as Aames's has, charity begins at home.

If you're like me, you couldn't get enough "Prairie Home Companion" movie news! And how about "North Country," which was filming, um, up north? Charlize Theron was in our state!!! Woody Harrelson is in both movies! Crazy! Anyway, to hell with both of them. Between showing the backstage antics of some crazy liberal commie Public Radio show and fictionalizing the first major successful sexual harassment case in the United States (Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines), our fair state could use a cinematic palate cleanser. Enter "Bunyan & Babe," a heart-warming tale about two children, exiled to their grandfather's Minnesota farm, who discover the secret lair of fabled woodsman Paul Bunyan and his trusty sidekick, Babe the Blue Ox. Info is pretty spotty on the project.

The Streak has ended. Last night at 8:14, startribune.com posted a CJ column that contained no reference to Lindsay Lohan. It marked the first time since June 28 that the 15-year-plus veteran gossip columnist has failed to document some zany or galling antic pulled by the 19-year-old Lohan, in the Twin Cities or elsewhere. As City Pages reported yesterday, the consecutive column streak had reached 13 on Tuesday.

"It's a sad day over here," one Strib staffer did not tell CP, "but it was glorious while it lasted."

Don Johnson? Melanie Griffith? Jennifer Love Hewitt? A show about young lawyers called Just Legal? Why, this could shape up to be the worst fall TV season in recent history (save for 1987, when Small Wonder and Out of this World aired back-to-back.) Below is a purely self-indulgent exercise in which we review an upcoming show based on its synopsis and, of course, a gut feeling that has proven to be 67% correct.

How I Met Your Mother (CBS): Starring Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser) and Alyson Hannigan (exceptional flutist in American Pie), this sitcom focuses on a guy who falls for a girl at first-sight, only to find that a tired plot line keeps them from hooking up.
Why it will suck: See above. Also see Good Morning, Miami.

The Loop (Fox): Recent college grad deals with life-numbing corporate America while trying to bag his roommate (who is not Adam "Seth Cohen" Brody.)
Why it could work: Writer Pam Brady's credits include South Park and Team America: World Police.
Why it could suck: Stars guy whose IMDB bio is composed of this single sentence: "His roommate is Adam Brody." Also, see 1997 Fred Savage sitcom, Working.

A good rule of thumb for nonfiction writers: you can get away with making other people look stupid if you portray yourself as the biggest idiot of them all. Bruce Campbell adheres to this rule in his new novel, Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way. In this fictional story, the proudly B-list actor has been cast in Mike Nichols' romantic comedy, Let's Make Love!, alongside Richard Gere and Renee Zellweger. Campbell applies his previous film experience (from such classics as Maniac Cop, Waxwork II: Lost in Time, and Maniac Cop 2) to his new gig and the mainstream flick is soon destined for straight-to-DVD status. No one corrects his blunders because they all think his ideas are brilliant. Natch. Campbell will sign copies of the book tonight at the University of Minnesota Bookstore, before introducing two screenings of his new film, Man with the Screaming Brain, at the Oak Street Cinema.

Acid House Kings
Sing Along with Acid House Kings
Twentyseven Records

The Cardigans are Deep Purple next to this cheekily named Swedish outfit. The world, of course, isn't as soft as these folk-pop tunes, and neither are marshmallows wrapped in cashmere. Is music of so delicate and anachronistic dangerously hermetic, or is it a necessary counterweight to the more common escapism of dehumanization and violence? Do you like puppies? Over 12 songs--recalling Belle & Sebastian, Pet Clark, and Spanky & Our Gang--the co-ed foursome's well-wrought melodies can get oppressively anodyne, but several tunes, "That's Because You Drive Me" especially, are so sweet, so sincerely, romantically in search of beauty that shunning them might be a sign of grave emotional decay, the sort found in a great many successful people. Undoubtedly the group's members have wonderfully cozy apartments, and would open them up to you, were you being chased by a mugger or masher. --Dylan Hicks

While so-called professional press critics are fulminating about coverage of the Rove/Plame grand jury, the Roberts nomination, and the Iraq war, the most amazing streak in American journalism continues to pass under radar. With yesterday's item about Lindsay Lohan's tan, Strib gossip columnist CJ has mentioned the starlet they call Lindsay Blohan in 13 consecutive columns.

Some fun facts about the CJ streak:

* CJ's last Lohan-free column, published on June 28, was anchored by a 425-word item about local businessman Irwin Jacobs's daughter.

* If Lohan's name appears in tomorrow's and Sunday's columns, CJ's streak will cover the entire month of July.

* The last four of the 13 consecutive Lohan mentions occurred after the paper-thin bottle-blonde left town!

* Closest call: CJ's July 24 column did not mention Lohan until the very last line.

The Television Critics Association was abuzz last Friday with news that the WB, a "network" that normally battles for viewership scraps with public access, has dropped their mascot of ten years, Michigan J. Frog, in an effort to attract 25-34 year old viewers. Yeah, because that demo hates cartoons! Michigan J. Frog was the most obscure of cartoon species, the One-Hit Wonder. Created by legendary animator Chuck Jones, MJ starred in the 1955 short "One Froggy Evening," about a frog that sang "The Michigan Rag" for its owner, but would go mute when the owner would pack theaters for the amphibian's performance. In typical gauche TV fashion, the demise of the frog was heralded with this quote from WB network chairman Garth Ancier: "The frog was on life support for a long time and then we got permission from a federal court to remove the feeding tube." It's Schiavo-larious!

In the halcyon days of the early oughts, Pussycat Dolls were merely a kitschy dance troupe known for recruiting celebrity guest stars. The Dolls were Hollywood's sanitized take on the subversive neoburlesque movement; why watch zaftig suicide girls dance the hoochie-coochie when you can hire Carmen Electra and a cadre of aerobicized fembots to do the same? Reasonable folks grew (somewhat) weary of seeing Us Weekly candids of Scarlett Johannson and Christina Aguilera writhing on the Roxy stage, but we assumed the Dolls would confine their schtick to the 310 area code. Not so. If you thought their incarnation as Lycra-clad teaseponies was grating, wait until you hear them sing.

Pussycat Dolls' first single "Don't Cha" is currently #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, and it's impossible to listen to mainstream radio without hearing these glorified Spice Girls sing "Don't cha (sic) wish your girlfriend was raw like me?", a lyric that seems to allude to a painful venereal disease. The video (which features a seriously humbled Busta Rhymes) is in heavy rotation on MTV. If you still insist on embracing this quasi-group, you ought to know that Pussycat Dolls choreographer Robin Antin is lechrosexual crybaby Jonathan Antin's sister. The axis of Antin must be stopped!

John Woo's 1997 thriller Face/Off featured one of the silliest premises in the history of recent cinema. To summarize: An undercover federal agent (John Travolta) undergoes a face transplant, so as to impersonate an evil terrorist (Nicolas Cage) responsible for the death of his son. Straining credulity is Woo's stock-in-trade, but this was just too damn stoopid. Or so I thought.

The lead feature in this morning's Science Times consists of an examination of an emerging medical technology: facial transplants for the severely disfigured.

Best passage: "The face to be transplanted will be removed, or 'degloved,' from a cadaver." From there, the details become increasingly clinical/horrific/fascinating.

The lesson: The truth is not only stranger than fiction, it's grosser.

In which I open some promo packages and, without looking at the CD cover, listen to one song (track one) and jot down my first impressions. After listening and writing, I check out who it is (noted in parenthesis).

1. Freak folk for hipsters or regular folk for hippies? Seems like the former. Singer, a man, very earnest, breathy, presumably under 30. Also a fan of vibrato. Singer doesn't know when he'll return, or so goes the lyric. Singer not likely to return to my CD player in a hurry. Not awful, though. (Syd Matters, "City Talks," from Someday We Will Foresee Obstacles.)

2. Mandolin intro. "At Last," as made famous by Etta James. Singer, a woman, overemoting, which is easy to do on this song. Singer accompanied by acoustic guitar and mando. Now the mando player is getting a solo--pretty good. A few sour notes, and all around overcooked and square. Might sound okay at an outdoor folk festival with a cold can of Bubble Up. Not particularly useful, though. (Monroe Crossing, "At Last," from Somebody Like You.)

Mixed Blood Theatre has won the eighth-annual Arts Access Award, a plaudit that recognizes individuals and groups that promote access to the arts for people with disabilities. In recent years the theater has staged several shows about physical and developmental disabilities, and taken aggresive measures to make the theater accessible to the disabled. The award is presented by VSA arts of Minnesota, an arts nonprofit.

The August issue of Britain's Q Magazine features "The Fifty Biggest Villains in Music." Setting aside for the moment the "Fifty Reasons Rock Mags Have Nothing to Write About, and Thus Compile Endless Lists" issue, it's pretty good. Tommy Lee appears at No. 14 ("Put a photo of his ex-best mate--Crue singer Vince Neil--down the toilet so he could piss on him."). Malcolm McClaren earns the No. 8 spot for

In the March Vanity Fair, James Wolcott wrote an engrossing appreciation of the subversive 1964 anti-war film, The Americanization of Emily. Owing to contractual disputes, the movie has been virtually impossible to rent, steal or borrow for years now. Recently, however, my wife managed to obtain the single copy owned by the Minneapolis Public Library. As Wolcott points out in his VF essay (alas, no link), the movie contains one of the great anti-war scenes in movie history. Unlike the usual anti-war classics, the scene does not depict carnage and slaughter. Rather, it consists of an epic exchange between a cynical "dog robber" Lt. Charles Madison (portrayed by James Garner of Rockford Files fame) and a war widow Mrs. Barham (the mother of Madison's lover).

The dialogue--composed by the masterful Paddy Chayefsky--is especially resonant in these times of flag waving and heroism, bluster and bullshit. Here is an excerpt from the best part:

Johnny Depp recently told the AP that his androgynous child-like portrayal of Willy Wonka wasn't based on Michael Jackson, as many have speculated. Instead, he says, he found inspiration in children's show hosts. But the chalky visage, the retro fascination, the penchant for bizarre outbursts, and an obsession with old-timey music and delicious striped candy remind us more of another Jacko, Jack White of the White Stripes, who at one point seemed to be morphing into Edward Scissorhands. Suddenly Jackson's fascination with Diana Ross doesn't seem so creepy.

Robert McCreedy, former member of the reverb-drenched country outfit The Volebeats, will mark the release of his second album at the Turf Club this Friday. McCreedy was introduced to country while working in his grandpa's record store in the Detroit suburbs. He played in psychedelic garage bands as a teenager, but when Marty Stuart, Johnny Cash's guitar player at the time, came in to scoff at the store's country section, he offered McCreedy a chance to meet the Man in Black. "Me and a buddy waited for him on a couch in the lobby of the hotel where he was staying," McCreedy remembers. "Johnny came in with June Carter--they were so tall--they walked right by us and said, "Morning, fellers." We just sat there holding his albums." McCreedy's new record, It Might Kill You, was recorded with producer Mark Stockert and features a rotating cast of musicians including Martin Devaney and Bellwether's Eric Luoma.

Minor 7 Studios and Pop for Charity are preparing to release Friends with Benefits, a 16-track collection of unreleased songs by Twin Cities bands. The proceeds will go to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The acts are mostly indie-pop and folk-tinged and include the Owls, Mike Gunther, Heavy Sleeper, the Idle Hands, Romantica, the Hang Ups, Autumn Leaves, Spaghetti Western, the Deaths, and others. All of the tracks were produced by Dave Anderson, who did the Spaghetti Western album. So far the album sounds pretty good, I'm particularly into the Idle Hands' Only Ones-like "Sunshine on the Testaments." There will be release parties for the CD on August 12 (Nomad) and 13 (Triple Rock).

Best Buy and Target have announced they're pulling Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from their store shelves. After the flap over the "hot coffee mod," a hidden game that requires a fair amount of nerdy know-how to download, ESRB has changed the game's rating from M (mature, 17+) to AO (adults only). Both Target and Best Buy refuse to carry AO games.

More than a month after the mod was leaked online, word of the already well-known game finally made its way into daily newsrooms, causing the press mob to salivate and jump all over the story, following each other like lemmings to a brothel. Days later, alarmist parents groups and hungry politicians (including Hilary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman) looking to either re-create their image or reach out to their slowly receding base demanded the game's creators, Rockstar Games, recall the title immediately.

The very public knee-jerk reaction to target these "purveyors of smut" is more than laughable: First of all, the game was rated "M," which, to reiterate, is for mature audiences. Secondly, the actual "pornographic" game within the game that's causing such a stink is nothing more than a dude (a fully clothed cartoon dude), whom you can maneuver to spastically hump a cartoon woman. There's nothing in it that teens won't see in, say, American Pie, which Best Buy sold in truckloads. Believe me: Stealing cop cars and beating the crap out of strangers on the street is way more titillating than this minigame. To see the controversial video, click here.

Hey, Suicide Machines has put out a new collection of hardcore and ska tunes. It's called War Profiteering Is Killing Us All, and on first listen it sounds pretty good. Check it out, you have nothing to lose but your chains.

Pick your way through the snarky remarks about messenger bags, geek love, and pop culture debates, and you'll find pictures of our very own Rex Sorgatz, as well as former TCers Jon Dolan and Melissa Maerz. Yeah, Gawker, we get it. Chuck (like 98.7% of his music critic brethren) is a self-indulgent dork. There's a reason normal people don't usually crash our parties...

Jen Boyles on the local dance-music scene's continued woes

Being an electronic-music lover in Minneapolis is a frustrating affair these days, and our weekend entertainment options are only getting slimmer. The drought became more pronounced this month when First Avenue--just five years ago a dance-music hub--cancelled the nearly one-year old "Ba-sik" Saturdays, thus snipping the thin thread connecting it to the dance-music scene. "Ba-sik was not only not growing, but lately it had been doing worse," says First Ave's booking Manager Nate Kranz. "Two Saturdays previous to their last, we did our worst business on a Saturday night in at least eight years."
Kranz says he talked to Ba-sik promoters Zak Khutoretsky, Adrian Herrara, and Steven Lee about improving attendance and consistency, but was unsatisfied with the results. "They played starkly contrasting styles week after week, and some nights they brought in DJs that were really bad," he says. "I wanted them to do something more along the lines of what System 33 did--and that is to be consistent so the night can grow and build a fan base."

While still recovering from the news of James "Scotty" Doohan's timely death, it was recently reported that James N. Aparo, a DC Comics illustrator for over 30 years, has passed away at age 72. Starting in the late 1960's, Aparo drew Batman, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Spectre, and other titles until his retirement about four years ago. Read a brief obit here and Jim Amash's August 2000 interview with Aparo for Comic Book Artist here.

Networks reclaim watercooler title, CBS claims.

Also: Newspapers are all the rage, the NYT says. And Americans can't get enough of Fox News, according to Fox News.

And just now overheard at the CP watercooler: "Have you seen that show The Cut on CBS? It has to be the most gawd-awful idea for a television show since CBS execs greenlighted INXS: Rock Star. When Tommy Hilfiger fires a designer he says, 'You're out of style. You'll have to take the runway.' I mean, don't people strive to walk down the runway in the fashion world?" This was followed by a lengthy, awkward silence.

Chicklit convention dictates that marriage is the tidy, happily-ever-after endpoint of a long and infuriating quest for love. Local author Jennifer Jeanne Patterson begs to differ: In 52 Fights, a lighthearted memoir of her first year of bondage--er marriage--Patterson catalogues the petty arguments that have tested her relationship with hubby Matt.

James Doohan is dead at 85. And here's the best bit of the wire service obit that the Strib is carrying--Doohan's 1998 revery about the good old days on Star Trek:

"I started out in the series at basic minimum--plus 10 percent for my agent. That was added a little bit in the second year. When we finally got to our third year, Paramount told us we'd get second-year pay! That's how much they loved us."

He accused Shatner of hogging the camera, adding: "I like Captain Kirk, but I sure don't like Bill. He's so insecure that all he can think about is himself."