Minneapolis / St. Paul Music Blog

From 2004 through this past December, I was in a graduate program that had me spending my summers in Madrid, Spain.  During that time I became enamored with the art of translating.  And so, in addition to writing completely original works, I spend a great deal of my time running a theatre company that does translated works and also translating dramatic works from Castilian (Spanish) into English.  When I run across other theatre artists who are working on translated pieces, or translating the works themselves, I get excited.  There are a couple of pieces in this year's Fringe that are translated, or partially translated.  The Chasm: Two Prevailing Winds of Gabriela Mistral is, perhaps, the most notable.

Today is the day.  We've been looking forward to today with great anticipation, and it has arrived.  There is still a lot to do for all those involved, and I'm not excluded, by any means.  I've already been preparing.  I had to stop by the City Pages offices to pick up my press pass, and I had a lovely chat with my editor.  And now I'm sitting down to write this lovely little column.  But there's so much to do, still.  And so little time to do it.  I am a little worried that I may not get everything done.  Whether I do, or not, the festival begins at 5:30 p.m. today.

My charts are ready.  In fact, you can download today's charts through this link.  Handy, eh?  Now...let me explain how they work.  Essentially, what I'm going to do right now is test them out and take you through a hypothetical version of what the rest of my night could be like.  It's a little bit of role-playing.  So... open up the charts on your computer, or print them out, and grab a d20 (that's a 20-sided die).  That's all you need.  I suppose you could grab a pencil and a pad of paper if you wanted to more fully pretend that you're me.  There are other accouterments that would complete the ensemble, as well, but that's probably going too far.  So?  Got the charts and dice?  Good... so here we go!

The Minnesota Center for Photography, a space that proudly displayed both the work of world-renowned photographers and local amateurs since 1990, is closing. The board of directors blamed tough financial times, especially over the past six month, as the reason. On a sad/ironic note, in this week's paper I interviewed photographer Jaimi Novak who was set to have her first solo show open at MCP on Saturday. Check out a slideshow of Novak's work here.

Doomtree released their first full-length, full-crew album yesterday, and in preparation for their sure-to-be-monumental release show at First Avenue this Friday night, they posted this sweet new music video on YouTube:

In honor of bike riding season and this awesome new video, here's a rundown of some other great bike-related music videos:

David Lind has been a pillar of the theatre community in the Twin Cities for years now.  He is perhaps best known for founding TC Theatre and Film, the all-purpose resource for those of us in the theatre field.  He just recently sold the website in order to move on to other projects.  One of those projects is his theatre company, Zealots and Mystics.  Zealots and Mystics has been the subject of past preview articles that I've written, as David almost always has an interesting concept piece to throw into the mix during the Fringe.  He's put on a musical version of The Cat Came Back, and last year he did two one-acts called After Life, and this year he's branched out into the world of producing the work of outside artists. 

This week's extremely tall flyer is for a show with a killer lineup: Tomorrow night, the Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota is hosting an evening with Andrew Broder (of Fog), Black Blondie, Mouthful of Bees and Romantica. All proceeds will benefit young adult programming through the foundation.

There comes a time when one runs up against deadlines.  Sadly, not every interview invitation I sent out to various companies got back to me as soon as I would've hoped.  Sadly, I cannot write these any more quickly.  Actually, I could, but I think my editor would hurt me if I did.  When it comes down to it, I'm still not used to the fact that what I write goes through an editor.  It doesn't bother me.  I kind of like having someone else having a vested interest in what I'm writing.  But, I'm also used to just posting my blog and having it instantly available to the public.  That isn't the way it goes here at City Pages.  I send all sorts of stuff to my editor, he deals with it, and then it gets put online.  If I cranked out stuff any faster, I'm pretty sure that Jeff (that's his name) would be buried under a mountain of my crap and nobody else's.  Last I checked there's a lot of other stuff on this website, so I'm guessing he wouldn't appreciate it if I kept spewing stuff forth in his direction.

What I'm trying to say here is that I'm up against a wall.  There are a number of companies who did get back to me, but I can't do full-length features on each of them.  Otherwise they won't get posted before the Fringe Festival starts.  And when it comes down to it, what good is a preview article if it isn't really before the event?

To do something about this situation, I'm going to compile many mini-previews in this one entry.  Ready?  Go!

Each year I put out a top-ten list of shows.  Most of the other Fringe bloggers do, too.  Mostly because we were required to by the Fringe back when we were hosted on their site.  Matthew A. Everett normally couldn't bring himself to keep his list concise and always publishes a top-twenty.  Others listed ten shows they'd like to see based on the previews they've seen, or who was in the shows.  I always liked to keep the "By Numbers" theme going, even in my Top-10 list.  I think I'll stick to what works with this year's edition:

One thing that is certain.  There is never a shortage of new oddball musicals in the Fringe.  You can normally tell them by their titles which are followed by the words "The Musical!"  In past years we've seen works such as Jaws: The Musical and Google: The Musical!  This year we have been blessed by a number of musicals in this vein.  There is even one titled Musical the Musical.  The musical that this particular entry is about, however doesn't have the words "The Musical" at the end of its title.  No.  It's missing the word "the".  I'm talking about Great American Horror Movie Musical.

If you've ever lambasted bureaucracy, experienced hubris or decried corruption, tovarisch,, I'm telling you, don't miss this one.

In the summer of 2003, I had the honor to be in a show with three amazingly wonderful women.  One of those three was a beautiful redhead named Patty Nieman.  Patty is a skilled actress who brought warmth and caring to the character of LaVerne Andrews, a role that could easily have been misplayed as a stone-cold bitch.

I was glad to have the company of my 9 year-old daughter on the drive to the final MELSA-sponsored Fringe preview.  It was in Apple Valley at the Galaxie Library.  This past Thursday I went to a kids-themed preview alone.  And while I can judge pretty well what will and what won't appeal to my daughter, it was nice to have her along to confirm my thoughts and add her own insight.  I ought to mention that my daughter has been raised in the theatre world.  She is around actors all the time.  She goes to my rehearsals regularly when I'm directing.  She has a good grasp of what makes a good play.  She frequently surprises me with her wisdom regarding dramatic structure and the like.  So, I find it wholly appropriate to include her comments on the five previews we saw today.  Not to mention, she's a veteran Fringer.  Each year for the past four years I've set aside a day on which she and I did all the kids Fringe shows (and some of the adult ones that were at least mostly kid-friendly).  She knows what to expect.  She knows what she likes.

With all that in mind, I present our opinions on what we saw at the Fringe preview of July 26, 2008:

All right, so there have been some questions about what on Earth a d20 is.  And since the whole gist of my blog depends on this item, I thought I'd let you in on an important piece of knowledge.  The following picture is very important:

Those are dice.  I imagine you could've figured that out, but just to be safe, I told you.  Now, those dice are in order from bottom-left to top-right: 4-sided, 6-sided, 8-sided, 12-sided, 10-sided (percentile), 10-sided (standard), 20-sided, and another 10-sided (percentile).  Most people are familiar with a 6-sided die.  It is the little cube shaped die that comes in games like Monopoly.  The one that we're going to be worrying about for this column is the white-colored polyhedron.  It has 20 sides and is numbered 1-20.  It is also the die that an entire system of role-playing games is based on... called the d20 system.  Hope that explains it to some degree!

Western Fifth
Triple Rock, July 25

The last time I saw Western Fifth, I believe it was their second show ever. They had somehow landed the opening slot for Ike Reilly, and they fumbled through a shaky set and handed out burned copies of a couple of demo tracks in duct tape envelopes. Their live show needed some work but the demo showed promise; frontman Ryan Holweger sang with a quiet desperation, and the band accompanied him with a slow, unfolding country beat. Fast forward two years, and the band has improved exponentially as a group. Holweger seems to have grown more comfortable with his voice, which teeters between a subtle whine and a heart-wrenching warble, and has developed the band into a vehicle for delivering his slow, pensive country ballads.

The Triple Rock wasn't the ideal place to catch Western Fifth--the sound made it hard to hear the lyrics from almost anywhere in the room. Even still, the mood of their music washed over the room, causing the small crowd on the floor of the venue to hush up and sway back and forth.

When I started blogging about the Fringe, I declared that I do not like one-person shows, generally.  I find that many do not rise to the quality of actually being theatre.  Often times there is no plot, no acting, and no reason to watch.  That being said, it was through the Fringe that I became aware of a separate art: storytelling.  Now, I have been exposed to storytellers in other ways, namely as a child hearing them at library performances.  But through the efforts of people such as Nancy Donoval and Allegra Lingo I've come to appreciate certain types of one-person shows.  In fact, I've grown to enjoy the genre so much that last year I produced Allegra's show I Hate Kenny G.  Allegra is one of my favorite Fringe performers and so I chose her as my first pre-fringe interview.

Well!  Just as I get my charts close to completion, there are official changes to the Fringe Festival schedule according to the official staff blog (written by Matthew Foster, Fringe Festival Communications Director).  It looks like three shows dropped out.  Luckily three others were prepared to step up and fill those slots.

Cool thing?  The directories out there currently are wrong...BUT, the ones coming out on Wednesday in City Pages are going to be completely right.  Naturally!

Yesterday and today have really gotten me fired up even more about the coming Minnesota Fringe Festival.  You see, the structure of my column (meaning, going to see shows randomly) has always led to my not getting to talk to or about the shows that I have interest in prior to the festival.  So, a few years ago I decided that prior to the Festival, I would post little feature articles about some of the shows and some of the people who are involved in the Fringe.  As part of that effort for this year, I have been doing interviews that will result in a bunch of articles over the next few days.  Those interviews have me itching to get into the thick of Fringing.  I've been doing those yesterday and today.

Put that together with last night's preview at the Minneapolis Central Library, and this has been a great couple of days for stoking the fire of impatience for the start of the Festival.

Momentum: New Dance Works
Southern Theater
July 24-26
Thurs.-Sat. at 8pm
Post-show discussion each Friday
Review by Caroline Palmer

The Momentum: New Dance Works series co-presented by the Walker Art Center and the Southern Theater continues this week with choreographers Anna Marie Shogren and Eddie Oroyan sharing the bill. These artists have different approaches but both share a keen sense of timing, showcased well this weekend.

Shogren’s “La Brea” (nee “I’m a Jerk” or “Upstairs Bathroom”) sneaks up on you. It begins with Katie Rose McLaughlin in a cloak a lá the Grim Reaper or a druid in kneepads. She stutter-steps in the half-light, but soon she gets a groove on and Natalie Bogira joins in for a light run in place. The silence returns and McLaughlin is left staring, each eye made up with a black X. She’s still moving imperceptibly, mouthing words. This is where Shogren establishes her singular approach – long, semi-awkward moments of stillness or seemingly innocuous movements, like later when Bogira balances on two mattresses, dreamily biting a nail. Often the work seems more like an installation – time takes on a different quality here and no one’s in a rush to resolve anything.

The Minnesota Fringe Festival doesn't start until July 31, but there are ways to get a little taste of the main dish already. There are a number of previews at metro area libraries, and there are the Fringe-For-Alls. This past Monday (July 21, 2008) was the day of this year's second Fringe-For-All. I missed the first one, earlier in the year. But then, I didn't have a place to write about it at that point, yet.

So... Here's the format of a Fringe-For-All. Thirty of the shows that will be in the Fringe were given 3 minutes each to show what they've got. In theory they show off their best three minutes of entertainment, and we, as viewers, are able to decide if that is good enough to make us want to go to the longer version of their work.

Oh! You'll want to check out the first of my continuing podcasts made up of the sounds of the Fringe. Fringe-For-All audio! Yay!

Without further ado, I give you a list of four shows that made an impact on me in the positive, and another list of four that I'd probably not spend $12 to see. Finally, there will be a list of four shows that just struck me as odd for various reasons. After all, who doesn't like to talk about odd things, right?

Sunday was a great night in Minnesota slam poetry--a big crowd turned out for a four-team showdown pitting the grizzled veterans of the slam scene against the Cities' rising stars. The two-and-a-half-hour show was filled with freakin' great performance work, hosted by by local ghost-hunter enthusiast and comedian Mike Brody; rockers The Open Bones filled in downtimes between the poets. The St. Paul Soap Boxing nationals team took home the top prize.

The event also served as the kickoff for the Twin Cities' newest poetry slam, the 48th Street Slam, held at the spacious and super-comfy Parkway Theater every third Sunday of the month.

Here's some highlights of the performances; click the link to download an .mp3 of each poet's work.

It is that time of year again.  The Minnesota Fringe Festival is in the not-too-distant future.  The electricity in the air around the theatre community is palpable.  It's true.  As an actor and director in this town, this is one of the most exciting times of the year.  It is a busy, crazy time.  At no other time of the year are there over 165 separate productions going on in one two-week span of time.

Now, here's the odd challenge that goes along with the excitement.  How does one see all the shows?  You can't.  Plain and simple.  Even if you saw a show in every single time slot of the Fringe Festival, you'd still fall just shy of 60 shows.  This causes a conundrum for those of us in the theatre community.  How do we see all the shows our friends are in?  We can't.  The answer is the same.  Realizing that fact led me to a decision a few years ago.  Back in 2004, Leah Cooper (then the Artistic Director of the Fringe Festival) invited me to join the League of Extraordinary Fringers.  We were a group of eight folks who wrote blogs on the official Fringe website in order to promote the Fringe, Fringe shows, and anything else even remotely Fringy.  The moment I started covering the Fringe Festival, every single one of my friends in theatre, and many people who I didn't know at the time, sent me messages begging me to come to their shows.  I did the math.  There was no conceivable way for me to see all the shows.  And, there was no good way to tell some of my friends that I'd have to choose other friends over them.  I had to devise a system of choosing shows that, at the very least, appeared to be fair to all parties.

Which leads me here.  For the 2004, 2005, and 2006 Fringe Festivals I wrote a column on the Fringe site called "Fringe By Numbers".  Strangely, you'll note that title is on this blog, too!  How about that!  In 2007, I took a break from being a Fringe Blogger in order to accept a role in a play out-of-town (that's a long story, in and of itself, for some other time).  I'd planned to return to the scene in 2008.  But, just as I'd made that decision, the Fringe Festival got out of the business of hosting blogs.  Timing isn't always one's friend, I guess.  But, sometimes luck is. 

I've found a new home for my Fringy thoughts.  Right here at City Pages.

Back in June, I posted about the strange, tacky, and weird things voters can buy to support their candidate (or some guy who trying to profit off of politics). Among the gems I found were a McCain golf kit, a Bill and Hilary Clinton teddy bears, and something called Obama's chocolate balls. Now local artists Aldo Moroni and Konstantine Berkovski are bringing politics to the the dinner table with Obama and McCain salt and pepper shakers. It's useful, but it's still presidential crap.

My head aches as I type this. The sun streaming in my window only serves to further intensify the pain behind my eyeballs. It's afternoon, for Christ's sake, and I am still hungover from last night. The Hold Steady almost killed me.

Photo of Craig Finn by Stacy Schwartz.

How did I manage to bike home last night? Why am I several hours past deadline? Where did that bruise come from? These are questions that will have to be answered later -- for now, I must attempt to piece together my glorious evening at First Avenue.

Jay Reatard
Triple Rock, June 21
By Amber Schadewald

Just like the 1960s influence would be, Jay Reatard’s garage rock sounded nothing but classic Monday night at the Triple Rock Social Club. Ratty squealing guitars, strong bass and fleeting drums made for great head banging, speeding to a finish in under 30 minutes. During the rambunctious half-hour Reatard and two band members were on stage, the music never ceased. Even while guitars were tuned between songs, reverb held the room’s attention, never letting sound leave the speakers.

Hiding behind his socialist-symbol shirt and a mop of frizzy, grizzly curls, the legendary Memphis rock man was nothing but hair behind a mic. No face to be seen, imaginations were left to wonder the shapes his lips made for each of his differentiating singing voices. A masculine man, a helium induced child’s tone or a teenage boy’s intonation, Reatard traded between the character sounds during songs, creating the illusion of multiple vox personal.

The Kadane Brothers
7th St. Entry, July 19
By Jonathan Kaminsky

The music of Matt and Bubba Kadane gets called a lot of names: slowcore, post-rock, sad core. The label I like best, after seeing them for the first time on Saturday night (after nearly a decade of listening to their music) is shoegaze.

Ween
Roy Wilkins, July 19
By John Braaksma

The cloud of fog machine, cigarette and marijuana smoke that descended upon the Roy Wilkins theater served as the perfect backdrop for the Ween show Saturday night. It was a show unlike anything I’d been to before, but at the same time it had the feel of a night at one’s favorite dingy bar.

Drummer Claude Coleman Jr. set the tone early by divesting himself of his shirt while nearly simultaneously hammering out a driving beat and taking long swills from the array of beers within easy reach of the drum set. The crowd sang along as front man Aaron Freeman, aka Gene belted out old favorites like “Even if You Don’t” and “VooDoo Lady” with a fervor that left him sweat-soaked yet vocally unreserved. Meanwhile, Mickey Melchiondo, or Dean, his mop of curly hair plastered to his forehead, remained flawless on guitar. He wedged his cigarette between the strings as he performed solo after solo.

Reprimanded for taking cell phone video footage of his favorite band at the Fine Line, self-described "Minnesota mediamaker" Chuckumentary has uploaded his protest to YouTube. It's a sort of essay on being a music fan and I'll let the video do the rest of the talking: