Minneapolis / St. Paul Music Blog

Their only eventual claim on the mainstream imagination was becoming the theme song to Jackass (with "Corona," a song about poverty), and serving as a soundtrack to a car commercial ("Love Dance," though I forget which car). But even if the greatest-ever American punk band deserves better than the new documentary opening Friday for a week at the Bell (where's the industrial landscape of San Pedro? Or the music videos? Or the stuff from IRS's The Cutting Edge? Or the bulk of their studio recordings?), I won't quibble with Spin editor Jon Dolan's eloquent rave in City Pages: "Equal parts civics lesson and group-therapy purge, a flashback to the hardly Edenic indie '80s, and an 'R.I.P.' written in sweat, We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen sends up a solemnly sweet glory-be for the corndog superheroes of American punk-rock humanism." Plus the rare live footage goes a long way.

News of a Sept. 10 benefit for New Orleans relief at the Cabooze plus more links at Complicated Fun. And read Steve Perry's straight-talking commentary and links at Blotter today. Me, I just can't accept that the cradle of jazz has met a watery grave. I won't accept it.

"Soon as I regroup with my band, we'll put everything on the table and decide where we'll go from here." Check out the interview and more New Orleans news links at Complicated Fun.

I don't get a lot of fan letters, outside the ones I compose and send from a fictional address, but we at the paper do sometimes get letters from folks presumably looking for help getting in touch with their favorite performers, such as Dom DeLuise and 50 Cent. Not so often Dom DeLuise. Here's a note that came today from a young 50 fan:

HELLO MY NAME IS [WITHHELD] AN I LOVE EVEYTHING ABOUT 50CENT, I LOVE HIM WITH ALL OF MY HEART, HE MEENS THE WORLD TO ME,I WISH I CAN MEET HIM. I WENT TO HIS CONCERT IN BUFFALO AT DARIEN LAKE ON AUG. 11 BUT I DIDNT GET TO MET HIM. I LOVE ALL OF G-UNIT, WHEN I SEEN THERE BUS WHEN WE WERE DRIVING TO THE CONCERT I COULDNT EVEN BREATH, I WAS CRYING TO HARD. I JUST WISJ I CAN MET HIM OR AT LESS WRITE TO HIM. MY YOUNGER SISTER IS IN LOVE WITH LLOYD BAN$, (CANT FORGET ABOUT BANK$ DOLLAR SIGN)I JUST WISH MY SISTERS AND I CAN MET ALL OF THEM.

Martin Scorsese's Bob Dylan doc is coming soon to PBS. Here's some info on the film and a summary of other Dylan product being released in conjunction or in response to the film.

Artist Skip Williamson, one of the beloved granddaddies of the nihilistic underground comics movement, finally has his own website. Trippier than a sheet of windowpane acid, and often more political than compatriots like R. Crumb, Williamson also invented the "Playboy Funnies" section of America's favorite lad mag. Check out his candy-colored paintings and culture-vulture collages here.

We're not one to toot our own horn (or in this case, jump the couch) over such little pleasures as "jumping the couch" appearing in Maureen Dowd's Sunday NYT column. But long before Dowd declared it part of the pop-culture lexicon, and before the phrase appeared on urbandictionary.com, CTG first claimed that "jumping the couch" had replaced the tired Fonzie-inspired expression "jumping the shark."

Sure, the phrase is about as clever as the term "technosexual," a play on 2003's ubiquitous "metrosexual." (And in that vain, we'd like to introduce the term "netrosexual," defined as someone who is obsessed with the internet and uses it to search for such ludicrous things as the etymology of ephemeral phrases.) But we have to admit, imagining George W. Bush vaulting over the couch of insanity, as Dowd outlined in her piece, is way funnier than Tom Cruise's actual psycho sofa swing. So though we declared "jumping the couch" dead on July 6, we'd like to resuscitate it, just for a moment, to honor the poor leather Rent-A-Center-like sofa sleepers that have no doubt gone through the ringer at Bush's Texas ranch.

"If more drummers played like Kevin," Doug Little said from the Artists' Quarter stage during his quartet's CD-release party, "jazz would be a lot different in a better way." Seconded. During the group's first set this past Saturday, a living-in-the-moment Kevin Washington spurred his compatriots through galloping swing, hiccupping New Orleans funk, bossa nova ballads, tango meditations, what have you. The drummer's grooves were tight, his fills and accents surprising, his solos loud and crowd-pleasing but not bombastic. Not long after Little's stage compliment, when the band played the title track from the alto saxophonist's new CD The Phoenix, Washington responded with precisely the sort of pugilistic solo that striking NWA mechanics would want to hear right about now. Pianist Mary Louise Knutson's soulful chords and melodic blues playing suited the leader's sometimes Cannonball Adderly-esque compositions, and bassist Jeff Bailey was creative and responsive. Little, formerly with the Motion Poets, writes tuneful, harmonically fertile compositions that give musicians enough to sink into and listeners enough to grab hold of. He isn't, alas, always above sentimentality. One of the set's ballads, "Reminiscence," verged on the lugubrious. But his playing is sensitive, his tone dusky. All around, very good straight-ahead jazz. Unfortunately, the quartet has no gigs coming up at present, but Little will return to the AQ in late September with his Latin jazz group Seven Steps to Havana. --Dylan Hicks

According to new documents obtained by the San Francisco Bay Guardian, "The nation's two largest alternative newspaper publishers have been in intense negotiations over a merger that would create an 18-paper chain controlled to a significant extent by venture capitalists." Click above for the article, and here for more background. UPDATE 9/7/05: NY Press is all for the takeover.

Let it be known that it was on this day, Friday, August 26, 2005, that we discovered how Steve Carell's rise to fame would cease, plummet and fizzle out. The actor came to prominence as a faux-reporter on the Daily Show, then scored some choice roles in Bruce Almighty and Anchorman. He tackled Ricky Gervais' role in the American version of The Office, and most recently fronted the number one movie in America last week, The 40-Year-Old Virgin. (Yeah, yeah he also played Uncle Arthur in that shitty Bewitched remake earlier this year, whatever). Carell's white hot star will soon leave our galaxy and cool off in the deepest darkness of space known as Evan Almighty, the Jim Carrey-less sequel to Bruce Almighty, in which Carell's newsman character is inspired to build an ark. I'm hoping this is a joke, and that I've been fished in like the dim-witted rube I am.

Originally, the term "house music" was used simply to apply to the disco and discofied R&B spun by Frankie Knuckles at the Chicago nightclub the Warehouse. Starting in 1983, though, house developed into a distinct genre--or better put a distinct genre containing divergent subgenres. Some of house's architects (sorry) advanced a high-tech, economical variation on '70s-style disco and Philly soul. Others used the same technologies (the Roland 303 bass synthesizer, for instance, and the then-new digital synths) to create experimental, four-on-the-floor dance music with no use for traditional song structure and an open mind toward strange noises. Anyway, you can't fence house in (sorry): Deep house like that made by Ten City is some of the most soulful music of its era; acid and jack tracks like those found on the new double-CD collection, Can You Jack? Chicago Acid and Experimental House 1985-1995 (Soul Jazz Records), are often deliberately soulless. The compilation is partly a tribute to the late Ron Hardy, a DJ who spun at the legendarily intemperate Music Box and competed with Knuckles for house-DJ supremacy. Hardy was the more accessible and adventurous of the two spinners, favoring hard, abrasive music and often turning demos from aspiring house producers into underground hits. He was also the guy to first spin "acid house," tracks for which 303 tones were distorted and abused to sound like demonic bird chirps, Miro squiggles, and other odd things. Can You Jack? includes a few (relatively) famous singles, such as Phuture's archetypal "Acid Tracks" and Marshall "Sleezy D" Jefferson [pictured] epic "I've Lost Control," which is at once absurd and harrowing. Most of the other selections are obscure but not unworthy. Larry "Mr. Fingers" Heard's "Beyond the Clouds" just might take you there, and Tyree's "Acid Crash" is fabulously over the top and polyrhythmic. This is trashy, intense (also occasionally warm and sorta pretty) DIY music, recommended even to folks who'd just as soon hear it on a quiet night at home. --Dylan Hicks

One-time Twin Cities resident and titan playwright August Wilson has told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he is dying of liver cancer and has only months to live (link here). Wilson recently finished the tenth and final play, "Radio Golf," in his dramatic cycle about the experiences of African Americans in 20th century America. It is currently in production at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

Hey, our annual Picked to Click poll, in which we ask experts on local music to vote for their favorite new musical acts, is coming up in late September. I've already received about 70 ballots, and am expecting more, but I know there are important people whom I haven't contacted or haven't heard back from. So if you're involved in the local music scene as a producer, talent buyer, record-store employee, promoter, record-label owner, DJ (radio or live), writer, sound engineer, etc., and have opinions about which new local acts are most deserving of a little recognition, please e-mail me, let me know what your credentials are, and I'll send you the info you need to vote (promptly, since we're approaching an already extended deadline.) Basically, the poll is designed to be voted on by folks with some kind of "music industry" position, rather than by musicians, but of course many of our voters are also musicians, or rather musicians first, and local-industry folks/tastemakers second. Anyway, drop me a line. The more, the merrier, and we're always looking for folks with an expertise in genres that are often under-recognized: heavy metal, hip hop, jazz, for instance, and I suppose everything that's not indie rock. Not that we don't want your indie rock faves, too!

No longer a cartoon, the cat finds a home at the Current

Fans of Paula Abdul (pre-Idol/Corey Clark days) might remember MC Skat Kat as the crusty cartoon cat who rapped and danced his way straight outta South Central L.A. and into the hearts of suburban moms everywhere via Abdul's 1989 "Opposites Attract" video. While the myths of MC Skat Kat are on par with stories about the kid from the Life commercial whose head supposedly blew up after he washed down his Pop Rocks with Pepsi, MC Skat Kat's true-life tales are a little less explosive. It turns out that Skat Kat, Derrick Stevens, is alive and well and working as the production manager at 89.3 the Current.

In Peter Scholtes' excellent history of Twin Cities hip-hop, the story of Derrick "Delite" Stevens is detailed, from his days as Kid Delite to MC Skat Kat. Still, it seems that MC Skat Kat's real identity has eluded most fans for years, as illustrator Michael Patterson has been mistakenly credited as the voice behind Abdul's feline friend. Now that the, ummmm, cat's outta the bag, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that some day I'll hear Skat Kat's "I Ain't No Kitty" sandwiched between songs by Sufjan Stevens and Sleater-Kinney.

In honor of synthesizer pioneer Bob Moog, who died on Sunday, August 19, we asked local keyboard hero Mark Mallman for some thoughts on Moog and a list of his favorite Moog-driven or Moog-accented recordings. Here's what he came up with:

My father took me to a dusty garage just off the Milwaukee River when I was 12 years old. "Your cousin Randy has a synthesizer in here, if you want it," he said. On a card table was a white spaceship of a keyboard called a Moog CDX. This Moog could have been my first synth, but in 1985, analog was on the outs. I bought a Casio instead. Regrets, I've had a few..., and that decision goes in my top 10 list.

Bad news, Joshketeers: Star reports that Mr. Hartnett is shopping for real estate with buxom The Island culprit Scarlett Johansson. They're said to be looking for posh New York digs. (Look out SoHo, here come JoHar and ScarJo!) If only we could find a way to lure Josh back to the pebb'ly shores of Lake of the Isles, where he lived in less heady times.

Remember when Josh was a real Minnesotan, with that $8 monk's-tonsure haircut, blank, boyish gaze, and crappy roles opposite the likes of Shannyn Sossamon? He's totally gone Hollywood on us, with his unable-to-open-a-movie-yet-inexplicably-A-list girlfriend and Curtis Hansen cred. Looks like you get a D-minus in keepin' it real, Josh. A charitable D-minus.

We have a new "jump the shark," folks. Call it "the Partridge Family scene." It happens midway through the wretched Must Love Dogs, when the cast inexplicably breaks into the Partridge Family theme. I saw it Tuesday night. I turned to my wife and said there are no words for how bad this is, how insulting it is. We left shortly thereafter, and I'd been trying to work out why ever since. I got my answer last night.

I've walked out on movies and concerts before, and felt the empowerment of hearing, say, Simon & Garfunkel doing "Kodachrome" from the parking lot, or the knowledge that Bo Derek (Ten) or Bloc Party (after being killed by openers the Kills) would have to soldier on without me. Oh, there have been a few times when I"ve regretted bailing early--most recently at a Walker Art Center-sponsored anti-performance that people I trust were transformed by.

Like I said, I've been thinking about why we bailed. It's not enough to say it was a bad movie. That's been said, and it's been said well recently--first by Rob Nelson in City Pages, then a special issue in Entertainment Weekly and seemingly everywhere else: There is a tsunami of crap out there, and the theater-going experience is getting annoying. We didn't listen. We The Duped sat there for 20 minutes as commercial after commercial for pure shit bludgeoned us in digital sound, which was followed by a major motion picture with two likeable stars (Lane and Jon Cusack, shame on you) that was, from the get-go, soul-sucking.

Literally or metaphorically, great muckraking aims to make your gorge rise. Consider those heartwarming scenes of men and rats ground into sausage in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, or the yummy tidbits about how much you were lovin' e.coli in Fast Food Nation. By that standard, Devils on the Deep Blue Sea: The Dreams, Schemes, and Showdowns that Built America's Cruise-Ship Empires (Viking) merits only an unpleasant belch or two.

Sure, there are appalling moments. In the industry's early days, so many elderly cruisers passed away en route that one line used its meat locker as a temporary morgue. A beleaguered Carnival Cruises broke a four-day sitdown strike in 1981 by sneaking its private SWAT team aboard, then hustling the strikers onto buses that drove them directly to the airport and instant deportation. Grungy little Majesty Cruise Lines tried desperately to avoid foreclosure on a ship in 1995 by offering up a lifeboat and one of the stewards as collateral.

On Tuesday the San Francisco Bay Guardian posted a thorough editorial on the rumors (more here) of a possible imminent merger between the Phoenix-based New Times alternative weekly newspaper chain and Village Voice Media, which owns City Pages: "If there's a grain of truth here, and VVM and New Times are in any sort of talks, the implications for the alternative press and for readers, advertisers, and employees in 18 cities are too serious for federal regulators to ignore." A spokeswoman for Village Voice Media, Jessica Bellucci, denied the rumors in the New York Sun on August 16: "As far as I know, it's complete fiction." But recent pay cuts at the Village Voice have fueled speculation to the contrary, and some anticipate the cookie-cutter layout and apolitical bent of a New Times Twin Cities. UPDATE 8/29/05 From the San Francisco Bay Guardian: "Internal Village Voice documents detail plans to create 18-paper alt-press chain." For anyone who's ever wondered who owns City Pages, here's a brief history of the newspaper and its corporate parents so far...

Shortly before Diablo Cody's Tinseltown memoir (here) hit the street in this week's City Pages, she scored yet another screenwriting coup: a network is buying the rights to a TV project she's developed, whose premise is said to involve--well, we're sworn to secrecy here, but we can say that it's kind of, well, ironic--when you consider, you know, everything.

This latest gig, piled atop the three screenwriting projects she's got in the works, will unfortunately require Cody to depart the staff of CP at the end of September. She'll continue on, however, as the paper's TV columnist, and we'll still be hosting her Pussy Ranch blog.

Reached by phone at her recently purchased New Zealand ranch, Cody had this to say about her future plans: "Television is a sure thing! I look forward to fifty years of resounding success in this non-competitive industry. Meanwhile, I've hired a manservant."

K&K Mime, a traveling miming duo featuring twin brothers who are the founders of "gospel mime," vow to catapult viewers to the next dimension of worship with only the sheer force of their silence. The self-proclaimed God-appointed prophets to the nation slap on robes and some white cream over their stubbly faces and mime gospel tunes for a tearful audience. But from the looks of this video, it's hard to tell if they're actually mimes or just untalented dancers who didn't quite make the cut on Star Search. I just mimed this post. Did you feel it?

Su Doku, a Japanese puzzle craze already popular in the UK, is now making addicts out of Americans. Linguistics professor/So Doku enthusiast Mark Huckvale's new book, The Big Book of Su Doku #1, explains how to solve the deceptively simple puzzles using just a pencil and brain cells. While Su Doku does involve numbers and basic logic, killer math skillz are entirely optional. The rules can be picked up in a few minutes, though it may take years to regain your sanity after attempting an advanced puzzle.

The cover of Huckvale's book promises that players will get hooked, though one can't help but notice that Su Duko is suspiciously similar to the mind-enriching "games" your teacher assigned in sophomore geometry. However, if you you enjoy mental calisthenics, Su Doku is your new Scrabble.

A quick blast through the first 50 pages (in the spirit of numerological appropriateness) of 50 Cent's new autobiography "From Pieces to Weight" has been a bit of an odd experience. Tucked inside the title page is the offhand acknowledgment "This book was written with Kris Ex." That might explain who came up with such prose gems as the gangsta primer on cocaine to start things off ("Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology, called coke 'magical' and couldn't get enough of the stuff.") and odd bits of political insight ("Most politicians don't have any respect for the people who vote for them . . . but come election time, they're at the voters' mercy."). In fairness, it's a straightforward, decent read, and

I'm kicking myself for not tuning in earlier to local saxophonist Doug Little's CD-release show, coming up this weekend at the Artists' Quarter. Little's new album, The Phoenix, sounds real good on first listen, and features more than able backing from pianist Giacomo Aula, bassist Jeff Bailey, and drummer Kevin Washington. The quartet will be playing Friday and Saturday at the AQ. Look for a review of one of the sets in the Aug. 31 "In Da Club."

MC ILICIT (I Live In Crucially Intense Times) appears in a short video about "battle rapping" at MNStories.com, while Young Plukey is quoted about the ease of buying drugs on Plymouth Avenue by Nick Coleman in Friday's Star Tribune: "If this was a white neighborhood, the cops would go crazy. I mean, how can we be next to the station and yet you can come up here and get everything you need? It's a damn shame."

Last Thursday's Atmosphere listening party at the Kitty Cat Klub was novel, if not unprecedented, for being an invite-only event focused on a local group. Partaking of the open bar, members of the Rhymesayers and Doomtree hip-hop collectives mingled with a broad cross-section of local industry and media. "This album is going to be huge," said Ross Raihala of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, as You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having (due October 4) played over the speakers. (This is the studio album, not the promised live one.) The real news came during a Q&A with rapper Slug and mustachioed producer Ant. Ant, who has never toured with Atmosphere before, will hit the road this fall as DJ for the group, doing half a set with Slug before the MC's live backing band comes out. "I'm going to buy a house, motherfucker," said Ant. "He could get fired after a week," said Slug.

The Hunter Thompson memorial tribute--a $2 million affair underwritten by actor Johnny Depp, which included the gonzo journalist's ashes mixed in with a fireworks display and fired off at his Colorado ranch--is given a fairly thorough recounting in today's NY Times.

Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle, via Obscure Store, reported last Friday that Amazon.com has added a Sex and Sensuality department with very little fanfare, mostly likely to avoid attention from the religious right. The inventory features toys, lube, books, condoms, douches, performance enhancers - 37,000 items including over 4,800 toys. Sex and Sensuality appears to be a part of their new Health & Personal Care section which also features wheelchairs, toilet seats, and low-vision aids. Morford reports Amazon seems to be primarily a reseller in the sex toy department, offering its distribution channel to specialty sex-toy companies like ForePlay and Frolics Superstore. So next time you're contemplating purchasing Quinton Skinner's new book or the latest New Pornographers CD, head over and pick up a pair of remote control vibrating panties to score free shipping.

A recently discovered concert recording finds Bird and Diz at their peaks

The story of how bebop was, and was not, documented on recordings is one of serendipity and missed opportunities, felicity and rotten luck. There were sides made with the right people but at the wrong time, others made with the right people at the wrong time, squeaky saxophones out to sabotage inspired solos, great bass players that one has to use some imagination to hear, plus labor disputes, technological limitations, heroin. The recording ban of '43 and '44 kept Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie from committing their initial bop essays to wax, and when things got going again the commercial records of the time still couldn't accommodate the seven-minute renditions Bird and Diz would present in concert. Then again, those last two factors were curses and blessings. We get an incomplete historical record of bop's evolution--and a marvelously realized form once it debuts in '45. We have few records of how the music was actually played and heard in clubs--and a lot of perfect, economical solos that might have given quarter to some second-rate ideas if allowed to go on for an extra minute. Well, it's a great story.
Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945, a newly uncovered recording just released by the tiny Uptown label, offers a new wrinkle.

Kanye West wants to put an end to the homophobia in hip-hop. "Gay" has been used all too often in certain hip-hop circles as a deragatory term to mean the exact opposite of the word "hip-hop," he told MTV. (Funny. I always thought the antonym for hip-hop was "Will Smith.") He added that he wanted to come on TV to tell his friends, and America, to stop it.

St. Louis rapper Nelly, meanwhile, is doing his part to get the word out on what he considers equally important to universal equality: the power of the bling. Nelly's heading up a hip-hop summit in his hometown this weekend, called "Get Your Money Right," where he hopes to educate his young fans about the benefits of financial empowerment. The hot, youth-centric topics Nelly hopes to cover include credit scores and asset management. Nelly's not exactly the ideal candidate to espouse the virtues of money management. Recently, 50 Cent told the press that he was terrified Nelly's "bling addiction" was spiraling out of control. To quote Fitty: "If you're spending $5 million on diamonds, you's a damn fool."