June 2003

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(Above, top: Dolores Dewberry and

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(Above, top: Dolores Dewberry and Lorren Stafford in Nautipuss. Bottom: Dewberry performing in London, 2000.)

When I first met Dolores Dewberry at a party a couple of years ago, I didn't remember that I had already talked to her before, when she was under a different name: Nina. "Dolores" was a different person altogether--mannered, poised, a cigarette holder in her lipsticked mouth. She looked like she'd stepped out of some 1940s Hollywood thriller, or some futurist porno Noir. When she mentioned that she whipped herself onstage, I made a mental note to see one of her shows.

But I already had: Out of character, Dolores/Nina is a sweet, down-to-earth Minneapolis ambient musician who puts on local showcases featuring other experimental bands. Her blog reports that she just celebrated an anniversary with multi-instrumentalist Lorren Stafford, and the couple marked the occasion by doing field recordings under the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. ("I know: How romantic!" she says when I ask her about it later.)

Whether or not you missed her DJ set before Cyndi Lauper last week, I recommend her 21+ show at the Dinkytowner on Thursday, July 3 (I'll be out of town, unfortunately). It's the sixth installment of Cumulus, a recurring experimental music cabaret, this time featuring live music by the Minneapolis-New York duo Nicedisc (one half of which is City Pages contributor Nick Phillips), Datura 1.0 (who refers to himself as a "false construct" in his auto-bio, and is the subject of Rod Smith's excellent profile in this week's City Pages), the post-industrial band Fadladder, South Dakota computer musician BurnUnit, Dewberry, and DJs Miss Julia, Bubonic Plague, and Jon Nelson. (Visuals are by s4.) (The show is sponsored by Nelson's Radio K sonic-collage program, Some Assembly Required; Saturdays, 2:00-3:00 p.m.) Dewberry also performs Friday evening at the annual CONvergence science fiction convention at the Radisson South. (Rod Smith wrote about it last year.) Set phasers for noise.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 30, 2003 8:20 PM

 

More photos of Vox

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More photos of Vox Medusa dancers at Soulstice (see below) , first three by Paul WonSavage, the rest by Dan Gremillion.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 30, 2003 3:32 PM

 

Turn on the Black Lights

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(Photo by Daniel Corrigan; Here's my article on Signal & Report, who play the Turf Club this Wednesday with Audrey and Reno De Divorcee):

Chris Hall doesn't look like he's going to kill himself--or anyone else, for that matter. A polite soul with a baby face, he has a faint lisp when he speaks, and seems younger than his 27 years, much like everyone in his rock band, Signal & Report. ("Clean living," they explain.) But when he steps to the microphone, kicking the effects pedal on his guitar, something else rises out of him. He's like a puppy in the spotlight, casting a dragon's shadow.

The spectacle is both classic and comic: Neatly dressed Electric Fetus cashier by day morphs into a spitting, snarling, abusive monster by night. In the band's meat-locker-like practice space in Northeast Minneapolis, I hear Hall's gruff, demanding voice echo and realize how many perfectly normal kids Joy Division's Ian Curtis has liberated--and I don't mean by killing himself. The most famous suicide in punk was also the first icon to give sad kids permission to be sad in public--to make sadness a life force as relentless and irresistible as anger or joy.

Signal & Report, who play Wednesday July 2 at the Turf Club, turn their own bad mood into something propulsive. Christian Herro swoons over his blaring Roland synthesizer, and bassist Noah Miller locks into the bass drum pulse of Mike Cain--who first discovered the others in this same room two years ago, while taking a break from practicing with another band. After standing outside the door for a few minutes and listening to Signal and Report's haunting drone, Cain walked in and suggested he could do better than their drum machine.

He must have been right: The music pulls you in like a trap door in a basement. But it's songwriting that keeps you there. Over an urgent beat, Hall barks the words to "Control":

"I need control back in my life,
I need control of you
I need control to make things right,
So you get your due..."

What strikes me about the song, from the band's cool debut CD, No New Rome to Burn (Augustus Records), is how it dares to say something straightforward. "I need control back in my life" is about as vague and emo-artful as telling your lover, "Pick up some eggs on your way over." And the metaphor Hall employs next similarly works without laboring: "When you talk, every word that's been said/Seeps deep through the cracks in the wall built around my head."

Only the closing line betrays Hall's weakness for the literary. At first "For the love of God, Montresor!" sounds like "For the love of God, undress her!" until I reread the lyric sheet and reach for Google: Turns out the line is from Edgar Allen Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado"--the last words of a man who is literally walled in to die. That's a hell of a way to ask for more space in a relationship--and a pretentious one to boot. But as Morrissey fans know, one phrase isn't enough to throw you out of a song. Miller later confesses that he has loved Hall's lyrics for years without always exactly understanding what they mean. And Miller sings some of those words with Hall.

"So what do your girlfriends think of the songs?" I ask the musicians after practice, as all four settle into a booth at the nearby bar Mayslack's for cokes and ice teas (none of the band members drinks).

"There's a loaded question," laughs Miller. "Let's talk about Interpol."

He's joking, of course: The question of how Signal and Report compare themselves to the most popular band currently reviving British post-punk has dogged them from the start, and I barely bring it up before the musicians beat it down like a gopher. They hadn't even heard the "I word" when they entered Sacred Heart studios in Duluth to begin work on No New Rome to Burn. And their lyrics set the band apart from their New York contemporaries: When Hall sings "My heart sets with the glow of a red twilight," he means his heart is sinking, and he's saying it in a poetic way. When Interpol's Paul Banks sings "Saturn makes your mind break into pieces," he's being decoratively meaningless.

It should be pointed out that Miller and Hall had been playing ghoulish synthesizer rock for years--ever since they met in college in Iowa City--and had been loving Ian Curtis long before it was considered anything but nerdy. If the times are catching up to Signal and Report, so much the better. But if success does come, here's hoping it doesn't go to their walled-in heads. We need these boys miserable.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 30, 2003 2:58 PM

 

Feather dancing to BT

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See "Soulstice: A beautiful bust" below. (Photos courtesy of Paul WonSavage, with credits and more photos to come. Thanks Paul!)

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 27, 2003 9:17 PM

 

Legally Blonde 2: bomb, not bombshell

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(From my review of Legally Blonde 2, in City Pages:)

What made the end of 1950�s Born Yesterday such a letdown? Did love sanitize Judy Holliday�s Billie Dawn? Was her consciousness raised too much? Personally, I think the problem was the smothering presence of William Holden as the square--the journalist hired to smarten up the dumb blonde. As self-satisfied as one of those narrators in an old high-school instructional film, Holden was the archetypal liberal male. He taught the girl a thing or two about the Bill of Rights and liberated her from her corrupt thug of a boyfriend, only to introduce her to her proper place in 1950s American society--as the doting wife of a boring scold like himself.

By contrast, one of the things that makes 2001�s Legally Blonde so great is that Reese Witherspoon actually gets funnier with liberation. Like Billie Dawn crossed with Alicia Silverstone�s Cher in Clueless, Elle Woods is perky rather than brassy. (Her gasps--not her screams--make people jump.) And her plot-propelling character deficiency is "seriousness," not smarts. A fashion major from Bel Air, this blonde attends Harvard Law to impress a blueblood who has dumped her, but discovers true power only while helping others as an attorney--the joke being that her rarest skills derive from a lifetime of not giving a shit. (Her expertise in hair-care wins the climactic murder case.) I loved this fairytale, which remains one of Hollywood�s best rebukes to all those romantic comedies that tell you True Love is the Answer. And I love that William Holden�s old role was left to the affably helpless Luke Wilson, who hangs around mainly to cheer Elle on. You don�t need to remind me that the joke would be lost if the movie were called Legally Black: Elle�s blondness stands for not being taken seriously--an oppression so banal you might as well call it American citizenship.

I can imagine why Witherspoon signed on for a third installment even before the release of Legally Blonde 2: Red White & Blonde. To fans, Elle Woods was a kind of major-label debut for the actor. But it was also her most fully realized creation. Witherspoon had her indie coming out in 1996 with the Little Red Riding Hood update Freeway, playing a teen outlaw so tough and decent it made you laugh. ("You know you wouldn�t like it if someone was doing that to you!" she told the Big Bad Wolf.) Since then, only 1999�s Election has let Witherspoon play as broadly or deeply. And last year�s laugh-free Sweet Home Alabama, in which she owned up to a rural Southern past, felt like penance for her having taken on Hollywood airs. (The best comic actor of my generation was born Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon in Louisiana.)

My bet is that of all these characters, Elle Woods remains closest to Witherspoon�s heart, if only because her rise to power is so... ethical. The new movie imagines Elle as Election�s Tracy Flick, but with a heart and soul. Unleashed on Billie Dawn�s stomping grounds of Washington D.C., the lawyer turns amateur lobbyist on behalf of her Chihuahua, whose "biological mother" is being held prisoner by a cosmetics company doing animal testing. This premise produces some good lines: On seeing the inside of a committee hearing, Elle cries, "It�s just like on C-Span, except I�m not bored!" It also promises a broader sort of liberation this time--and at a moment when the box office electorate might actually be paying attention to C-Span.

But the sequel transforms Elle into an almost sci-fi-like force of irresistible warm fuzzies: Her charms are by now presented as virtually undeniable, so that she can convert Congress into a pack of weeping animal-rights advocates, or make Bob Newhart speak Snoop Dogg�s shizzelese. (He plays a doorman who becomes Elle�s Deep Throat, a turn that makes you wish he had gone for Donald Sutherland�s role in JFK.) The problem with Legally Blonde 2 is that the real-life Witherspoon isn�t a powerful enough force to make these things funny. And damn it, they should be funny. Is there a better foil for perkiness on God�s green earth than Bob Newhart?

In fact, the movie�s real square is director Charles Herman-Wurmfeld (Kissing Jessica Stein), who takes over the reins from the first film�s Robert Luketic and wastes every gift he�s handed. As Elle�s hairdresser from the first movie (and an actor-auteur of ditziness in her own right), Jennifer Coolidge makes you laugh every time she opens her mouth. (The way she says "Holy crap!" is enough on its own to recommend the video rental.) And as the mousy congressional assistant whom Elle instinctively takes under her wing, Mr. Show�s Mary Lynn Rajskub turns the "she needs a makeover" cliche into zippy physical comedy.

Still, the movie�s set pieces fall completely flat. The "Million Dog March" climax follows on the supposition that Elle has the ability to mobilize her old sorority membership like a giant national cult. This is kind of embarrassing. Can�t Elle inspire change by getting ordinary people behind her cause? Isn�t Legally Blonde about being taken seriously by more than your friends? In the end, the movie�s best joke might be an unintentional one: the idea that by holding a giant protest in the nation�s capital, you can get on the cover of Newsweek.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 27, 2003 7:29 PM

 

The wonderful and frightening Fall

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Despite Chris Ziegler's hilarious and backhanded appreciation in this week's City Pages, you should go see the Fall tonight. The show starts in less than two hours at First Avenue, and I'm pretty excited: Mark E. Smith is a brilliant lyricist, and anything he brings with him on the road will be musically interesting--though I'll be happy to report the contrary, if it pans out that way... In fact, I've been slacking on live reports for too long, not to mention those elusive Top Rocknroll moments of May. Expect updates next week...

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 27, 2003 5:30 PM

 

Can't stop the body rock

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Heads & Bodies perform at the Triple Rock on Sunday. To see a real photo of them, check out the one by Corrigan accompanying today's article in City Pages by some dork. Pullquote: "We think it's funny to see your friends get naked. It's not really a sexual thing, it's just a kind of camaraderie."

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 25, 2003 9:39 AM

 

Repeat after me: Scholtes drinks for free at the Triple Rock

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All week I've been hearing that St. Patrick Costello was talking shit about yours truly all through Dillinger Four's set at the Triple Rock a week ago Saturday--something about me taking free drinks and skipping out on Lifter Puller's first reunion show. I find it hilarious and flattering whenever Paddy mentions my name onstage (he's apologized for this before). But since one part of this story is true--I did miss all but the end of the June 6 Lifter Puller set--here's an explanation for those who give a shit: I never intended to stay all night, since I had bought four tickets for the next evening's Lifter Puller show months ago, and wanted to see King of France at the Turf Club (they were really great, by the way; no regrets). For my account of how the set began, I relied on the uncredited memories of my friends Kate Silver, Michaelangelo Matos, and Melissa Maerz.

I actually overpaid for my second whiskey by about $15 on Friday, but that probably serves me right.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 24, 2003 4:39 PM

 

Request Magazine R.I.P.

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I just talked to longtime Minnesota music writer Jim Meyer yesterday during the mass office cleaning party at Request, and he says he wasn't that surprised when the news came down Monday morning that the mag would be closed. Acquired last week from Best Buy Co. Inc., along with the rest of the Musicland Group Inc., by Sun Capital Partners Inc., Request has for 15 years been an unlikely source of good music writing, mainly because it employs a bunch of Minnesota writers on its editorial staff and routinely throw locals freelance work. Its lifeline, meanwhile, was serving as editorial support for Musicland's corporate headquarters in Minnetonka.

The magazine's nine employees and two key associates were optimistic as recently as the middle of last week that they'd continue in that function. "We hoped they would be kind of hands off, and that the magazine would continue to be a perk for the million-plus-strong Replay membership [a customer loyalty program]," says Meyer. "But I can just see where they are going to cut down to be as lean an operation as can be. It's a surprise, but definitely not a shock."

In today's Star Tribune, company spokesman Michael Voss claimed that "Request magazine wasn't a driver of new members or membership renewals." Still, it was a nice perk, and infinitely more reliable and readable than, say, Blender.

As for Meyer, I've long admired his jazz broadcasts on KFAI, where he fills in sometimes. He'll continue his bi-weekly appearances on Kevyn Burger's Wednesday show on FM107, doing a segment every other week at 3:00 p.m. called "Hipster Fakeout" (check it out not this Wednesday, but next Wednesday, July 2), in which Meyer plays new records and talks about them.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 24, 2003 3:22 PM

 

Black Flag: So when's the real reunion?

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Note: Here's a live review of Tuesday's show at the Dread Pirate Roberts's Journal.

 (From TheologianRecords.com)

Black Flag might have been Greg Ginn's version of the blues, but the music emerged with so much force, and said so many of the right things at the right time, that even today the group's logo is synonymous with a certain way of thinking and feeling. For many lifelong rock&roll fans, Black Flag represents a kind of platonic ideal of punk: I still remember how Pete Rabid, the WORT-FM radio DJ in Madison, Wisconsin, summarized why he loves this kind of music. "Sometimes you come home from your job, and you just hate your boss and you hate your life," he once said. "But then you put on a Black Flag record, and everything's alright."

Should any sane punk fan miss tonight's Black Flag early-evening tribute/benefit for the West Memphis Three at First Avenue? Probably not. I will 'cause I'm busy, and also 'cause I'm looking forward to the real Black Flag reunion that Ginn is threatening. Ginn has revived his label as well (here's the discussion at I Love Music), started playing out more, and, on June 13, did the unthinkable: He played a set entirely of Black Flag songs at an L.A. club (according to this Black Flag site).

Still, tonight's Ginn-free gig (with Rollins Band doing the music) should be a rare treat for anybody who never saw co-headliner (and ex-Black Flag singer) Henry Rollins sing "TV Party"--Black Flag stopped doing it live as early 1984, so heads up oldsters. Rollins is also joined by ex-Black Flag singer Keith Morris (Circle Jerks), who will handle the first set, and thus many of the best songs (Rollins-phobes take note). Here's a sample set list, courtesy of First Avene publicist Sam Sawyer and swiped off Ween's web site: 

Keith Morris on vocals:

Nervous Breakdown

I've Had It

Depression

Wasted

No Values

Fix Me

Revenge

Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie

Henry on vocals:

Rise Above

Thirsty and Miserable

Clocked In

I've Heard It Before

American Waste

Jealous again

Room 13

Don't Care

TV Party

Can't Decide

Police Story

Six Pack

What I See

No More

Black Coffee

Slip It In

My War

(encore)

Modern Man

Damaged 1

(usually ends with some Ramones songs)

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 24, 2003 1:46 PM

 

Soulstice: a beautiful bust

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"Look at all these porto-potties," says Jen Boyles, pointing at a horizon that's lined with them. "There's a porto-potty for every person!"

We're standing at one end of Float-Rite park in Somorset, Wisconsin, a parking lot-like space surrounded by fenced-in hills. The site normally hosts massive summer music festivals like Ozzfest and the Vans Warped Tour. Today, however, on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, the concrete is mostly empty. It's the second day of the Soulstice festival (June 20-21, 2003), an event featuring more than a dozen hip-hop and dance-music headliners (KRS-One, the Pharcyde, Scott Hardkiss, Mix Master Mike, Felix Da Housecat, and many more), along with a tent for local performers. Yet only a few hundred kids are gathered near the stage, where L.A. house producer-DJ Richard Humpty Vission is spinning a vigorous set. Otherwise, there are no lines for beer or food. The hillside is dotted with empty tents--no signs of the art displays or skater half-pipes I mentioned in my City Pages A-List blurb. Even the garbage on the ground is light. On MNVibe, somebody later says that there were more cars parked across the street for tubing down Apple River than for the festival.

Too bad: Soulstice was supposed to be the closest thing Wisconsin has had to a legal outdoor rave since Even Further was discontinued two years ago. Boyles, my old City Pages colleague, helped the promoters book DJs for Soulstice, and she seems to have held up her end, at least: The show itself is spectacular. As Liverpudlian hip-hop producer and drum-n-bass DJ Adam F tells me backstage, any two of the headliners could have filled a large dance club: BT and Christopher Lawrence each have kids pumping their fists. And by all accounts Rahzel (the Roots' human beatbox) was stunning. The production values are pristine: loud but rich sound, huge video screens, lasers, the works.

There are also the stage dancers, from the Vox Medusa dance company and HeartBeat Studios, whose presence marks a rare meeting of the dance and dance-music worlds. Vox Medusa specializes in this kind of thing, having done memorable Richochet Kitchen participatory art-dance parties such as Nudes (where you could check your clothing at the door, and have your portrait taken) and Paint (where you could ruin you clothing by splashing paint on canvas). I come across the dancers backstage, huddling near a trailer in skimpy yet flowing red satin outfits, preparing for the next number. They're about to bring fire out onstage during a set by American trance giant Christopher Lawrence. It's the post-club fires era, remember, so no one seems sure whether some manager or other will get skittish and pull the plug.

Kristen Freya, Vox Medusa's founder, announces that she has just received the okay from Lawrence to come out during his set. "But if we skip one of his records, he'll kick us off the stage."

No idle threat: As everyone grabs tiki torches (or chain torches, or hand torches), Vox Medusa dancer Nicole Grandstrand tells me that Mix Master Mike already kicked the dancers off earlier that day.

Watching these clashing sensibilities can be fun: I only see three of the dance pieces, but they're all memorable: First a "Fosse" riff (in bowlers and lace) during DJ Humpty Vission's set, then the spinning torches during Christopher Lawrence, then "Showgirls" (featuring feather dancers, some with giant feather headdresses) during BT, who kicks off with a sped-up techno sampling of Missy Elliot's "Work It" and has his fans hooked from there. Each time the professional dancers come out, about two thirds of the crowd seems oblivious or indifferent, while many in the front seem puzzled at first, then gradually won over--even cheering the more acrobatic stunts.

All of this suggests that the ambitious mix of genres, artforms, and audiences might have paid off (rather than incurred a huge debt) if attendance had been anything but apallingly low. Certainly the promoters were optimistic in the Star Tribune. So who knows what the problem was. Lack of promotion? Lack of focus? For the thousands who attend Plush every week at the Quest, or once sought out raves, maybe this $60 ticket smelled too much like every other traditional outdoor rockfest: It was held in the sun during mostly daylight hours, with music ending at 11:00 p.m., paid food and drink, and with a strict cap on outdoor music volume at the camp sites afterward. On the other hand, to more traditional rockfestgoers, this event might have seemed too much like a rave--packed with DJs well known mainly, if not exclusively, in the dance-music arena.

Missy Elliot collaborator Adam F flew in from London especially for his Saturday set, and praises the lineup ("incredible"), the sound ("sick"), the dancers ("elegant"), and the weather conditions ("perfect"), before neatly summarizing the event: "It's the best show no one saw."

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 23, 2003 6:59 PM

 

The Hulk: best movie of the century

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My only real problem with Colin Calvert's review of The Hulk in the Star Tribune today is that he gives away one of the film's key surprises (albeit obliquely). Otherwise, he has every right to be completely and utterly wrong wrong wrong. Not only is The Hulk a great superhero movie, it's great movie, period, and I think it will be looked back on as one of the best of this decade.

To give this first-blush opinion its proper weight, first consider that while I always hated the modern Batman franchise and disliked the first X-Men, I slightly overrated Spider-Man, maybe overrated the second X-Men, and definitely overrated Daredevil. Also consider that I chose these movies as my Top 100 of the century so far, and I'm used to being the only one in a theater laughing--this happened more than once during The Hulk. But let me say this: Ang Lee's use of wipes/split screen/dissolves/lightening-speed zooms to immitate the look and feel of comics is such an obvious technique that you might come away thinking that anyone could pull it off--and you'd be wrong wrong wrong. And let me also add the following quick points:

-- The movie is brilliantly paced: No scene (with the exception of the mutant dogs one) lasts longer than it should, and often the lines get everything across that they need to in just a few words.

-- The first half hour holds you like nothing since Mullholland Drive or Memento, and holds you without, as Colvert says, any real action. Colvert asks rhetorically "what 9-year-old will sit still for 35 minutes of emotional setup without an opening action scene"? Well the five-year-old nearby me at the same screening seemed to do okay, and since the early part of the movie involves drama surrounding kids and family, I doubt anyone under 7 will get bored just because they don't yet know what emotional distance in relationships means.

-- While the actual Hulk looks like the old Mighty Joe Young at first, you get used to the effects, and, if you give yourself over to the movie, you grow to love the animation's character. This Hulk is really, really funny and fun to watch.

-- The politics are great: Once again, Marvel/Fox make a parable against militarism...

I'll come back with more when I can, but right now, oh shit, Orchestra Baobab are starting soon...

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 20, 2003 6:32 PM

 

Email from Paul Saarinen:

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Is there any reason why Mark couldn't just make Lost Cause an online zine? Losing the overhead of paper and ink may be a solution.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 20, 2003 5:07 PM

 

Hey, who hasn't made out in the Galaxy Room?

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Chris Riemenschneider writes today about the Quest's quest for a new location. I have a love-hate relationship with the Minneapolis club formerly known as Glam Slam. The venue and sound were perfect for the Funk Brothers show a couple months ago, and terrible for last night's Buzzcocks concert (I suspect some combination of the Clear Channel boycott, optimistically high ticket prices, and those truly outrageous extra charges had something to do with the low turnout--none of which would have been a factor at First Avenue. Side note: Here's Holly Day's interview with the Buzzcocks in Pulse, and David DeYoung's review of the concert at How Was the Show?, and the review at the Dread Pirate Roberts' Journal.)

On the love side, though, Saturday night's Plush has been the undisputed center of the local dance music universe for years now. Monday's Noche de Salsa remains the biggest and best salsa night in town, particularly now that Vannandi's has closed (too many fights there, I hear, though the landlords have driven everything cool about that block of Lake Street out of the neighborhood). Plus the Quest routinely features 18+ nights (Wednesday's dancehall/reggae night) and R&B/hip hop nights (now the place to go Fridays). Many of the club's shows are also 18+, with a 21+ bracelet to drink--much handier than First Avenue's upstairs-downstairs division. Oh, and I've always loved that second floor view of the stage, those cozy couches (the best concert makeout seats in town), and the fountain in the Garden Room.

On the hate side, the Quest loves to tell you not to go places. You can't go past this velvet rope, you see. Or you can't watch Ascot Room shows from the side of the bar (for reasons they never tell you). Or you can't go upstairs until it's open (why it doesn't open the same time as the rest of the club, who knows). Or once you get upstairs, you can't get closer to that balcony view than the barricades they put up after a show has started, and at an absurd distance from the edge of the balcony--supposedly to keep you from dropping your drink (or, at that distance, tossing your drink) on the performers below. Or maybe the Quest doesn't open the upstairs at all, but then you still see people up there, anyway--the elite, I guess. Half of the Quest's security is paid to keep you from going somewhere. Then there's the awful sound in the Ascot Room, and those afforementioned extra charges, and the drink prices, coat check prices, and ticket prices (before charges), which are higher than almost any other club--and for what? The balcony they won't let you lean over?

For the pluses, however, I'm rooting for the Quest to keep going, and I actually hope it stays in the same location. I'm not the only Minnesota fan of R&B, dancehall, and techno, who has fond memories there, and would feel like he's losing a childhood home if the Quest skips to a new spot.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 20, 2003 4:59 PM

 

I refuse to believe this...

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Mark Baumgarten's now saying there won't even be a July issue of Lost Cause. I can't accept this. Come on, somebody out there must have either money or time or talent to help keep this thing going. (He said here he'd still be open to relaunching the mag after a break.)

I already miss it today. Every month on the 20th for the past year, I've cherished the whole ritual of drawing cartoons for Mark--and it really is drawing them for Mark, because I always call him the day before, usually get up way early the next day from a weird dream, go to some breakfast place that's open all night or at dawn, draw something related to the dream or something that struck me as funny the night before, go to Lost Cause's sun-soaked office in that beautifully grungy giant old white building near the Minneapolis campus (the smell of that building is worth the trip alone--what a great old building smell), and either drop the drawing in the mailbox or run into Mark on the way out to do some errand (it's all those errands that killed it for him I bet), and wait to see if he likes the cartoon. If he likes it--and he doesn't always--it makes my week. This will all sound cornball, I bet, and I suppose Mark's leaving regardless of whether the publication keeps going. But my point is that you could multiply the small effect Mark has had on me by hundreds of writers, readers, and musicians. Thanks, Mark. Going away party, anyone?

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 20, 2003 10:32 AM

 

Crap, what am I going to say to Josh Hartnett next time I see him?

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My dad laughed at Hollywood Homicide on Father's Day, and I guess that's all that really matters. I even found one scene slightly inspired--the one where a helicopter-riding reporter, following a high-speed chase on the ground, namechecks all the other reporters in the air (with their first names), as if that were part of the news.

Oh, and Meredith Scott Lynn (who had the thankless role of the stereotypically PC lesbian in Legally Blonde) actually gets laughs here just by lusting after Josh Harnett (something Shannyn Sossamon couldn't manage in all of 40 Days and 40 Nights). But honestly, I can endorse this movie only if:

A.) You still think Johnny Cochran jokes are funny.

B.) You think there's a lamentable shortage of stupid black male characters on the silver screen.

C.) You believe the conspiracy theory that Suge Knight killed Tupac, and were hoping for a fictional film treatment.

D.) You think Master P isn't getting enough work.

E.) You think the Tupac theory deserves not just a fictional film treatment, but an action-comedy-buddy-movie starring Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett.

F.) You sympathize with (and find hilarious) a homicide detective (Ford) who sells inflated real estate on the job, beats up security guards without a warrant, hates rap music, drinks like a line chef, abuses his inferiors, thinks acting is "gay," and orders fast food before doing anything else on a crime scene. 

G.) You love Harrison Ford so much that all of the above is funny and forgivable if played by him.

H.) You think the idea of a yoga class taught by a man (Hartnett) and attended exclusively by bland, catalogue-model-looking women with impossibly skinny waists and no asses is either 1.) plausible, 2.) desirable, 3.) funny, or 4.) all of the above.

I.) You're the producer of this movie, thus probably fitting descriptions A.) through H.), and you really, really hoped to make a picture that didn't require you or anyone else to leave the three-block radius around the studio. Congratulations!

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 16, 2003 7:02 PM

 

"[Americans should] take action now in Liberia to end war as they have in Iraq. They are our brothers, and we are suffering."

Filed under: Imported

--refugee quoted by Ellen Knickmeyer in the Associated Press, June 12

One definition of "trauma" is any experience that radically, jarringly reminds you that the world is not the way you think it is. Only rarely does the word describe a media experience, though September 11, 2001  is the common exception. For me, watching videotaped footage of Liberian rebels torture President Samuel Doe to death while singing the Melodians' "Rivers of Babylon"--that was somehow worse.

I haven't brought myself to review the scene, from last year's documentary, Liberia: America's Stepchild. But I can't get it out of my mind, especially now, as Liberians face another possible bloodbath in Monrovia, the electricity-less capital surrounded by rebels.

Judging from Nexis, the presence of that song at that moment in September 1990 went completely unremarked by history. I can't imagine how it got there: Was warlord Prince Johnson a reggae fan? Did descendents of Marcus Garvey number among the executioners?

For whatever reason, there it was: the gorgeous melody sung in boisterous unison by men cutting off the ears off a helpless dictator. Nothing postmodern about that--this wasn't "Stuck in the Middle With You" in Reservoir Dogs, or "In Dreams" in Blue Velvet. This was real. And I cried as I watched it.

Doe was a mass murderer, so I wasn't exactly mourning. And the execution itself, while revolting, was somehow at least recognizable as part of a terrible world I'm acquainted with. What got me was the song. "Rivers of Babylon" is the most beautiful Jamaican hymn ever recorded. It's the obvious highlight of a roundly perfect 1972 soundtrack to the reggae movie The Harder They Come, which introduced Jamaica's pop reserves to the world. Hearing it in this context was nauseating, like walking into a crime scene and finding an old friend who never hurt anybody among the victims. The lyrics, adapted from Psalm 137:1 by vocalists Brent Dowe, Tony Brevette, and Trevor McNaughton in 1969, appear as follows on the soundtrack record's liner notes:

By the rivers of Babylon
Where we sat down
And there we wept
When we remembered Zion

But the wicked carried us away in captivity
Required from us a song
How can we sing King Alfa song
In a strange land
Cause the wicked carried us away in captivity
Required from us a song
How can we sing King Alfa song
In a strange land

Sing it out loud
Sing a song of freedom sister
Sing a song of freedom brother
We gotta sing and shout it
We gotta talk and shout it
Shout the song of freedom now

So let the words of our mouth
And the meditation of our heart
Be acceptable in Thy sight
Over I
So let the words of our mouth
And the meditation of our heart
Be acceptable in Thy sight
Over I

Sing it again
We've got to sing it together
Everyone of us together

By the rivers of Babylon...

This is the biblical story of the Israelites in Babylonian exile, asked to sing by their tormentors even as Jerusalem was being razed. It's not hard to see why the descendants of African slaves might hear their own tune in this old number.

But how easily the tormented become tormentors. Maybe, to those soldiers, "Rivers of Babylon"'s loping rocksteady harmonies were a call for revenge.

I bet even Americans who can place Liberia on a map don't know that the country's first president was an American, a freed slave from Petersburg, Virginia, named Joseph Jenkins Roberts. Liberia, the oldest republic in Africa, was founded by African Americans, most of them slaves from Rhode Island, who started making their colony among the indigenous population in 1822, nearly a century before Marcus Garvey's "back to Africa" movement. The creation of the state (named for "liberty") was negotiated by the U.S, much as Israel was negotiated by the British. And since our government subsequently refused to officially recognize Liberia until the Civil War, you can imagine the cynicism that went into the undertaking (getting freed blacks the hell outta town).

Today, America's mark there is unmistakable: The official language of Liberia is English. Monrovia, the capital, was named in honor of President James Monroe. And slavery, having been successfully escaped by Liberia's founders, was promptly instituted by them in Liberia, inflicted on the indigenous tribes that still make up the nation's working class--i.e. the overwhelming impoverished majority.

To these Liberians, Doe might well have represented the new face of the slavemaster. He helped overthrow the descendents of slavemasters, sure, but he quickly discovered the benefits of U.S. stooge-hood, becoming a reliable gangboss in our little diamond Laundromat/Firestone rubber colony. Even as he fell, though, our government maintained communications with rebel groups challenging him. I imagine today some part of our intelligence bureaucracy is doing the same, as another warlord president fights for his life, though the civil war is mostly treated as a distraction from the current Sharon-Hamas efforts to prevent peace in the Middle East.

I don't understand people who argue that the U.S. is always better off doing nothing in the world--any more than I understand people who think our government's motives can be any higher than those of the good folks who pay for it. But the U.S. arguably did the right thing for the wrong reason in Iraq. It can be pressured into doing the same in Liberia. In any case, as the various factions agree to a ceasefire today, it's time to sing the song of freedom now, to talk and shout it.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 13, 2003 4:08 PM

 

Email from Vinnie and

Filed under: Imported

Email from Vinnie and the Stardusters:

Hey Scholtes you little fucker! What the fuck do you think this is? How dare you not place our show on your a list and how dare you not write an article about your favorite band! What gives you the right! You think this is funny you little motherfucker? Well you just wait till I see you Saturday night at the show bitch, I'll get you! Just wait till we play the Peter Scholtes song you bastard! How do you like that goddamnit!

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 13, 2003 1:44 PM

 

Weekend Plans in Minneapolis: June 12-13

Filed under: Imported

 I'm heading out of town to Madison, Wisconsin, on Saturday for Father's Day (don't forget that call) but before then: Tonight, Thursday, there's Green Velvet at Tabu. Tomorrow night, Friday, there's the legendary Nas, first at an all-ages show at the Quest, then at a 21+ show at the Cotton Club. (If you're near the north side, pick up tickets at Classic Records, 905 W Broadway, Minneapolis, MN; 612.588.2932.)

There's also Wilco outside the Walker (which has the edge of being cheaper and outdoors, plus City Pages favorites Fog and the Bad Plus open. Set times are: Fog, 5:15 p.m.; the Bad Plus, 6:30 p.m.; Wilco, 8:00 p.m.; show ends by 10:00 p.m.). Then there are parties galore, but I plan to head out to Lisa Jackson at Urban Wildlife (here's her site) or the Soviettes at the Speedboat and the Triple Rock Gallery and the (here's theirs). Maybe I can call a cab to Wisconsin in the morning.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 12, 2003 8:37 PM

 

Record Store of the Month:

Filed under: Imported

The Electric Fetus in Minneapolis, if for no other reason than they've been around 35 years, still have the best selection of international music in town, and offer 20% off everything through this Sunday, June 15 (Father's Day).

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 12, 2003 7:09 PM

 

South Beach goes techno?

Filed under: Imported

Strictly on the word of my man Michaelangelo Matos, whose tastes in dance music are uncannily reliable (if you don't believe him, here's Simon Reynolds), I'm heading to tonight's Green Velvet show at Tabu, the Minneapolis club formerly known as South Beach (325 1st Avenue N.; 612.204.0790).

But a few things weigh on my mind: 1.) This electronic music night cuts short Urban Thursdays, which featured one of my favorite local rappers, Contac. Does this mean the club is abandoning R&B and hip hop? 2.) Does the name change signify not just new ownership but a new direction, maybe toward techno? 3.) And don't we already have enough techno downtown with the Drink, Mell's Beauty Bar, Fahrenheit, and the Imperial Room?

I'm interviewing Tabu's owner tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 12, 2003 6:35 PM

 

Hey, want a magazine?

Filed under: Imported

Some sad news: Next month, Mark Baumgarten will step down as co-editor and publisher of Lost Cause Magazine (where I draw cartoons, including one reprinted in this week's City Pages--here's a better reproduction). This may well be the end of the music journal. But if anyone wants the job, Mark says he's willing to hand over the monthly mag to somebody else, provided they maintain its current level of awesomeness.

To see what I mean, check out the new issue with the Soviettes on the cover (not online yet): Looks great, reads great, has a Lifter Puller history (by Kate Silver), a Rich Best interview (by Mark), an Interlock profile (by Tom Horgen), the Soviettes' punky twin siblings International Robot (by co-editor Chuck Terhark), and tons more. It'll be a shame to lose something this cool. So calling all aspiring media moguls: Email Mark now at markb@lostcausemag.com

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 12, 2003 5:20 PM

 

Clear Channel goes bananas! Finally,

Filed under: Imported

Clear Channel goes bananas!

Finally, somebody working for the Big Bad who fits the Hollywood stereotype of a corporate stooge. Demko's piece is pure genius from the headline on down...

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 12, 2003 4:25 PM

 

From BlackPeopleLoveUs.com: "We hope you

Filed under: Imported

From BlackPeopleLoveUs.com:

Check out these testimonials from our real life friends!"

 "Sally's always saying: 'You go girl!' while 'raising the roof' to mainstream hip-hop tracks at cheesy bars. That's fun! I relate to that."

Thanks to my friend Keesha for the link (Keesha just loves me, no really!), and for the link to Rent-A-Negro.com, another great work of satire. Here's Salon.com on it:

"Launched on April 20, ayo's satirical site rent-a-negro.com, invites companies, nonprofits and individuals to hire her, 'a creative, articulate, friendly, attractive and pleasing African American person' to attend their picnics, focus groups, or nights out on the town."

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 12, 2003 3:14 PM

 

 "Oh boyfriend up yours!" The

Filed under: Imported

 "Oh boyfriend up yours!" The Soviettes play Off the Record, the Speedboat Gallery, and the Triple Rock on Friday, June 13. They rule, and I wrote about 'em. Oh, and the person who took this great photo is Tema Stauffer; the one below was taken by Nathan Grumdahl of the Monarques.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 11, 2003 2:38 PM

 

If my City Pages report on

Filed under: Imported

If my City Pages report on last Friday's Lifter Puller show and the expanded Triple Rock Social Club lacks anything like a point of view, keep in mind that I wrote it during the long hangover of a Saturday night that began with me walking into a backyard party and immediately running into a group that included two crush objects, one of whom asked me right off the bat, "So, what do you think of choke-fucking?"

Actually, the night began for me with Lifter Puller, who were dumbfoundingly great (check out Nate Patrin's account in Hipster Detritus, or Chuck Olson's video footage at Blogumentary.com) And the only thing I banged that morning was the drums in Unguided Missile guitarist Ben Durrant's basement studio. Ever since I said here that I initiated an orgy, my colleagues seem convinced that I get laid more than the crayon paper at Little Tijuana's. (Laid, banged--I still think fucking is still the superior verb, with its labio-dental fricative slamming into that velar plosive with just an "uh" between them and a contented "ing" afterward.) Anyway, where was I? Oh, the point people missed was that I left before the par-tay really got going (and left small and soft, by the way, stepping on a bottle on the way out... the girl I was into wasn't into me...). And I've since heard it was more like a play party.

Speaking of journalism, in the past couple weeks I find myself crossing an undefinable line between work and fun, where I'm doing "interviews" in which I don't really ask any questions (see my Soviettes piece this week), where techniques I once would have called "lazy" are now legitimate tactical responses to a writingform more or less initiated by "blogs" (oh, God, there's a crap word), and it occurs to me that if these things ever start making any money, they'll result in tax write-offs for every conceivable expense known to human experience... (Does the brilliant author of Dirty Whore deduct the linens she must tear through?)

To get paid for writing about fun at a time when some of my friends (and much of the world) is unemployed represents a privilege that boggles the conscience...

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 11, 2003 1:47 PM

 

Rock Against Chirac

Filed under: Imported

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 9, 2003 5:04 PM

 

Get Clean

Filed under: Imported

As great in their way as Lifter Puller, and playing as many shows in Minneapolis this week, the Clean are to New Zealand pop as the Sex Pistols were to London punk: the unsurpassed big bang of their particular sound and scene... (read the rest here)

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 9, 2003 1:19 AM

 

Is First Avenue closing in August? "No," says Steve McClellan

Filed under: Imported

The buzz this week was that First Avenue would be closing in August, and sources at the club say they've been inundated with calls about the rumor... (read the rest of the story here)

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at June 5, 2003 8:41 PM