Deuce 7 is a different breed of gallery artist. He's too busy to get his picture taken, and he'd rather hop trains across the West. Or head to Vancouver to meet women, or spend an afternoon getting chased around San Francisco by obese pimps or drop DMT in the Mojave desert -- all in a week's time.

Our local South Side kid -- who listens to '90s rap, Norwegian black metal, and outlaw country while he creates -- has gained a national following over the years for his bright, detailed work that demands attention on a canvas or the side of a bridge. He's done collaborations with local poster and design house Burlesque, and could be working with rapper Aesop Rock in the future. Still he remains camera-shy to avoid obnoxious art groupies and law enforcement.

Deuce 7 spends most of his days on the rails or working out of Northern California, but for now he's sitting outside an Uptown coffee shop. While meeting with Gimme Noise, he has a backpack full of Miller High Life, and he finishes a can every five minutes. A catfish is tattooed swimming around his neck, and the rest of his body is marked up from the hard life of being a trainspotter and street artist. Ahead of his curated Art-A-Whirl show at Abstracted Gallery -- its title, "It Was All a Dream," recalls the opening line of Notorious B.I.G's "Juicy" -- we discuss his life, his inspiration, and his fascination with trains.

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The 331 Club's music lineup at Art-A-Whirl
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STNNNG and ft (the Shadow Government) to debut STNNNGVRNMNT at Art-A-Whirl
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Photo by Tommy Ellis

Some artists only have enough creative juices for one medium, but Mike Davis can tap a keg of creativity spilling out into art, music and even the beef jerky industry. By day, Davis sits at his computer creating posters for bands for Burlesque of North America, as well as stickers with classic Andre Young quotes for the annual Dre Day celebration. By night he becomes Mike 2600 and throws down on the decks -- and laptop -- and hosting one of Minneapolis's best and beloved ladies' nights, Triple Double.

Just a few weeks ago, Nashville native Davis won the Red Bull Thr3style DJ Battle Qualifier locally and advanced to the regional final in Chicago on February 21. There, he'll take on the likes of DJ Godfather (Detroit), Buck Rodgers (Indianapolis), DJ Donkis (Cleveland) and others in the four-year-old competition. Gimme Noise recently got internet sheik with Davis to congratulate him, and ask a few questions before he heads out on his busy winter and spring schedule.
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Here at Gimme Noise, we are quite fortunate to be able to feature the stunning music photography of many talented artists who regularly augment our reviews and articles with their consistently impressive work. The Future Presence Gallery in Northeast clearly feels the same way, and they have put together a stellar exhibit that puts the spotlight squarely on the talents of those who tirelessly capture the visual elements of the area's music scene.

Sound Perspective--The Art Surrounding The Mpls Music Scene is a two-day-only exhibit that opens tonight and closes on Friday. It gathers the work of some accomplished Twin Cities photographers including Erik Hess, Adam Bubolz, Daniel Corrigan and Shari Simonsen, as well as music related poster art from Burlesque, videos from MPLS.TV, and many other gifted artists who help add a captivating visual spin to the local music scene.

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Photo by Austin Nelson

See Also:
Trampled by Turtles join Twin Ports Bridge Festival to help Duluth flood victims
The Duluth floods drowned my record collection
Duluth flood updates: Low, Charlie Parr, & Trampled by Turtles

Tip of the hat to Wilco for joining the cause to help those in need following the massive flooding in Duluth last week. We've all seen the pictures of the cars underwater, the ripped up roads, and the water-logged homes. With the Chicago band playing a show at Bayfront Festival Park on Sunday, and at May Civic Center Auditorium in Rochester on Monday, the guys have hatched a plan to raise funds for the many in need.


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Give us five! Our esteemed photographer Erik Hess, who recently provided a wealth of delightful GIFs and other visual stimuli from this past weekend's Rock the Garden, has made it big. Well, he has made some of his favorite photos big, and they're on display on some public walls.

We'd be remiss not to provide a brief urging to those who enjoy his slideshows on Gimme Noise and promotional work for artists including the Goondas, Pink Mink, the Idle Hands, Cloud Cult and Graham O'Brien to head out tonight to experience a select grouping of images on a grander scale. We'll also semi-invite those Stan-like creatures who are not-so-secretly hording the copies of NME, Village Voice, and other reputable publications where his work appears too.

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​Each year, the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association puts on one of the largest (and best) open studio tours in America during the annual Art-A-Whirl. Local art galleries and studios in Northeast Minneapolis are opened up to the public, which allows patrons and interested parties to connect with the artists and their work in a very unique and intimate way.

But, as anyone who has been involved in the event can attest to, music has always played a major role in the continued success of Art-A-Whirl. And this year shouldn't be any different, as the 331 Club has just announced a stellar music showcase over May 18-20 featuring a superb collection of local talent, with Zoo Animal, the Goondas, No Bird Sing, and BNLX amongst the 20+ bands scheduled to play over the three days of Art-A-Whirl.

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Here's part of the design inked by Minneapolis' Twilight Tattoo artist Shane Wallin.

​It's one thing to talk about Minnesota pride, but it's another altogether to ink it permanently to your torso. St. Paul resident Sean Kelsey is the new champion in that department with an Ork Poster-esque tribute to many of our local cultural landmarks and heroes that he can show to his friends once the temperature rises to a comfortable range that might not eat the flesh right off of him. Anyhow, Prince & the Revolution, the Replacements, Mint Condition, Bob Dylan, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, and our venerable rock club First Avenue all were deemed worthy enough for inclusion in Peter Bekke's design for Burlesque Design in the shape of the North Star State. See the full tattoo below.More »

​Bob Dylan's artwork is on display in a Lower East Side gallery in NYC this month, giving fans a chance to take "a visual journey" through Bob Dylan's life through paintings that the gallery says are inspired by Dylan's travels and provide "firsthand depictions of people, street scenes, architecture and landscape." More »

​Before gatefolds and cut-outs and embossments and screen prints, the record was a drab little thing, wrapped in brown paper and presenting you a just-the-facts textual representation of the culture your phonograph was about to holler at you. Until, in 1939, a twenty-two-years-young man named Alex Steinweiss began working at Columbia Records.

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Karnak Gallery? More like the Great Pit of Carkoon...Gallery! This Friday the recently-opened, forward-thinking-and-still-fun space is having a blippy blowout with five electronic artists playing to a room hopefully packed with Jawas and Sith (you get $5 off the cover if you cosplay, mind) for another installment of their Videodrome series called, a-doi, STAR WARS. Scheduled to play are DJ Fuckstorm, Claps, Memoire, and special guest Solvent, with 000000000001 and Visionquest bathing the space in video spacewizardry throughout.


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