December 2004

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Wave of mutilation

Filed under: Imported

Before and after from Digitalglobe.com

Don't expect the Sri Lankan government to help. Give a few bucks online to these organizations for a happier New Year:

The Red Cross www.redcross.org

United Nations World Food Programme www.wfp.org

Save the Children www.savethechildren.org

Mercy Corps www.mercycorps.org

other charities listed on the Tsunami Help blog tsunamihelp.blogspot.com

Other worthwhile charities:

Code Pink's Help Iraqis/Global Exchange fund for Falluja refugees www.codepinkalert.org 

Canadian Harambee Education Society (send a Kenyan or Tanzanian girl to high school) www.canadianharambee.ca

Seismic monitor:  www.iris.edu/seismon/

Why Michael Crichton is full of shit: "They don't call it science fiction for nothing."

Coming in January: "I Hate 2004"

R.I.P.

Susan Sontag

Jerry Orbach (at right, with James Earl Jones, Julie Harris, and Angela Lansbury in 1969, at the Tony Awards)

See also: The Quotable Briscoe, the rejected Ben & Jerry's flavor Cherry Orbach, and buy a Jerry Orbach t-shirt to fight cancer.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 30, 2004 11:22 AM

 

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Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 30, 2004 10:32 AM

 

Susan Sontag 11.jpg

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Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 30, 2004 10:29 AM

 

tsunami beach.jpg

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Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 30, 2004 10:01 AM

 

Stephanie Says

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http://www.grimsey.com/stephaniesays/

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 30, 2004 9:03 AM

 

sonia.jpg

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Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 15, 2004 6:57 PM

 

Richard Paske 11.jpg

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Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 15, 2004 6:37 PM

 

cov01.jpg

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Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 15, 2004 6:31 PM

 

Erik Farseth Bushies.jpg

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Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 15, 2004 6:26 PM

 

m.jpg

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Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 15, 2004 12:39 PM

 

mallman finish line.jpg

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Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 15, 2004 12:38 PM

 

monroe.jpg

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Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 15, 2004 12:02 PM

 

Living in a world of Scholtes

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http://www.rds-menager.fr/60_1_scholtesx.htm

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 14, 2004 5:50 PM

 

Fun stuff

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A Couch Potato's Guide Televizzle On Porno Disc: We see da VHS tapes on izzle shelves 'n we want smash 'em! Or, da brighter siiiiide of planned obsolescence in da field of crib entertainment n' shit.

 

That's awesome. I wish those subheads were real. This one's my favorite:

Confessions Of A Psycho-Critic: Reeling from holiday fare, a movie reviewer goes heezee heezee wit tha dude's id n' shit.

 

 

Tonight is the night!  'The all new' TABU  Reggae/Dancehall night that is!

Doors open at 9:30 p.m.

No Cover Charge all night long

So you have nothing to lose just,,,,fun,dance or lounge.  It's anyway you like it.

also serving caribbean food

TABU - 323 1st Ave N

612-204-0790

(experience a change)

p.s. One year anniversary of Reggae night @ The Lounge this Sunday, Dec 19th

www.artofjam.com

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 14, 2004 1:35 PM

 

I went to the place where every white face is an invitation to robbery

Filed under: Imported

What can you learn about a country in a couple hours, talking to a couple people, picking up a couple newspapers, and buying a couple records?

A lot, it turns out.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 14, 2004 12:39 PM

 

I Hate 2004: Part One

Filed under: Imported

2004 kicked ass. 2004 kicked our ass. In addition to the anecdotes that make up today's City Pages Local Music Yearbook '04, and quotes from four notable local musicians of '04, here are a bunch of stories about the year in Minnesota music, as told to me in email by some of the artists and writers who saw it all up close.

Chris Monroe is a cartoonist for the Ripsaw and the Star Tribune who recently published an anthology of her "Violet Days" weekly strips, Ultra Violet (X Communication). She also exhibited her art work at the Frank Stone gallery, and her hilarious drawings have graced everything from SpinOut Records CD covers to Pizza Lucé menus.

Duluth music scene lost DJ Baby Judy, Nate Forneris, in August. That was extremely sad. Two sets of new owners have attempted to restart the Norshor. the first ones had an evil mulleted bouncer who yelled at us all the time, specifically near closing time at Homegrown, and all the old regulars were just too artistic and sensitive for that. We wanted to kick his ass in a group or find one really tough person to do it for us. Luckily, the toughest guy also had some common sense and talked everybody down. Going to the Norshor under their regime was like being in a Twilight Zone episode where you are in your own life, in your own house, but nobody is the same... and they're evil. It was horrible and depressing. The new owners have booked some good acts but we all still pine for Mr. Boo's leadership.

Duluth now has the MAC but I don't go there that much because they don't have booze and apparently that means a lot to me.

Willie Nelson cancelled his performance at Greenman and it was really fun except Saturday there just seemed like there was something missing... oh, it was WILLIE NELSON. But it was fun to see you at Greenman, Pete...

And the Black-Eyed Snakes in the tent was very cool, very fun.

I really enjoyed Kraig Johnson at Pizza Luce, with Ed Ackerson, etc. That was a great show with the perfect amount of vintage guitars and Mpls. hairstyles. I actually missed Mpls for a few hours...

Mark Mallman provided the year's most surprisingly heroic musical moment when he played one song, "Marathon 2," for 52.4 hours straight at the Turf Club over Labor Day Weekend--and rocked the camel's ass. Mallman's latest album of alternative piano-rock is Mr. Serious (Badman).

For me, the funniest part of "Marathon 2," aside from the lyric "I got kicked in the Unicorn," was around hour 48, when Martin Dosh played drums while Paddy from D4, myself, and Kermit from Superhopper rocked out ultra fast. Ultra ultra fast. Everybody was hyper as hell and we were all laughing cause Marty is used to playing this beautiful, sophisticated Jazz stuff, and here we were all playing hard and sloppy and fast as hell. I remember at one point the three of us were all yelling stuff at him, like, "Come on you fucker, play faster, PLAY FASTER!" as we jumped off of chairs all hyperactive. Marty was scheduled to play for two hours, but at the end of the first hour he looked up at me and said, "I canӴ do it anymore." He raised his hands at me and they looked like they were covered in bubble wrap, but it was BLISTERS! I donӴ think IӶe ever seen a drummer play that fast for 60 minutes straight before. And to top it off... it was his BIRTHDAY!!! It was an impressive display of dedication and pain! His new record is really good, by the way.

I played a John Kerry rally with Linda Ronstadt on election night in Tuscon, Arizona. Peter Anderson (my drummer) and I had absentee voted before we left on tour, but by the time we got to the club, there was a terribly unsteady vibe in the air. To top it all off, I was an emotional mess, having proposed marriage over the phone in a desperate attempt to win my ex-girlfriend back the day before--she replied "DonӴ get your hopes up," which was understandable, but I was a fucking wreck about it anyways. To make the night even weirder, the club had us play AFTER Linda on this big outdoor stage. She did her whole singing in Spanish thing with the mariachi band, and it was very cool. I, however, was a little apprehensive on how these people would react to my show. When everything was staged, just before we started my set, the promoter of the event comes up to me and says, "hey, IӶe read all about you and I know how you can be on stage, but maybe tonight you should mellow it out, you know, donӴ freak out up there. Play a songwriter set." But I must have not heard him right, because half way through the second song I was straddling a top my keyboard screaming, "They call me Mr. Serious!" I got no self control, man, shit.

The next morning I remember walking through the hotel and everybody was looking real bummed. My brother called me shortly after. HeӤ spent every weekend for the passed year campaigning for Kerry in Los Angeles, "This sucks, man. This really sucks." He was sad. Everybody I called was dazed and dreary, and to be honest, I never thought Bush would get re-elected. That night we drove through northern Texas to see snow falling, three inches deep, frozen to the emergency lane--it was terribly fitting. November 2 found me with crossed fingers, November 3 found me lost in an enveloping sadness of more war, more terror, and more greed. That night, it didnӴ feel like America anymore, it just felt like emptiness.

Zine historian and Walk the Plank blogger Erik Farseth showed his woodcut and xerox art at January's punk poster show at the Speedboat Gallery. He writes the J. Cruelty Catalogue fanzine, and is the author of the recently reprinted essential DIY punk history, Wipe Away My Eyes. Here's his email on 2004:

The abrupt closure of the First Avenue nightclub and the early election returns had cast a noticable pall over the Twin Cities music community. At the Triple Rock Social Club, Happy Hour was about as happy as a funeral. All eyes kept returning to the big screen T.V. overhead. As the clock struck 9:00, all evidence seemed to point towards another (or should I say the first?) victory for George W. Bush. Meanwhile, in downtown Minneapolis, a small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk in front of (an empty) First Avenue to watch The Knotwells play an acoustic concert. The Knotwells had originally been scheduled to play in the Entry. Then the news came: show's cancelled, First Avenue has filed for bankruptcy. Undeterred, The Knotwells were giving the nightclub an Irish wake.

In the light of the giant neon billboards of the Block E Entertainment Complex, singer Arik Knotwell scraped his vocal chords raw, screaming like a demented carnival barker, while his bandmates hammered on acoustic guitars and an upright bass that looked like just an oversized banjo.

Passing cars slowed down and started idling their engines in the middle of the intersection. Passersby wanted to know what the big to-do was all about. A Mexican immigrant stopped and launched into an impassioned rant about the two Major Party candidates. And one woman yelled out the window of a passing automobile: "Allan Fingerhut is an asshole!" To which Arik Knotwell replied: "Fuck Allan Fingerhut!"

The audience, which never numbered more than 15-20 people, laughed in appreciation as The Knotwells performed not one, but two ragged covers of the Circle Jerks' anti-government anthem 'Coup d'Etat.'

Dan Israel recently released the wonderful pop album Time I Get Home, and wrote an entertaining review of his own release show for Howwastheshow.com.

The only truly good anecdote I can come up with was this one...nothing too earthshaking, but kinda funny... On Sat. July 10, 2004, Dan Israel and the Cultivators were playing a show at Mayslack's (home of the world-famous roast beef sandwich) in NE Mpls. It was our drummer Dave Russ' birthday show and everybody was in a pretty good, silly mood (and drunk too).

We were doing a particularly boozy version of the Stones' "Dead Flowers" (everybody's favorite drunken cover song) when a guy walked into the music half of Mayslack's selling flowers (you know those guys who walk into bars late in the night, hoping to convince drunk guys to buy flowers for their girlfriends)....we spotted him, and without hesitation, Dave Russ and I both changed the words to "live flowers" and, seemingly reading each others' minds, changed the entire chorus to these words (yes, in tandem...amazing): "Send me live flowers every morning, send me live flowers to Mayslack's, send me live flowers on Dave's birthday, and I won't forget to put roast beef on your plate" that's all i got!

Richard Paske relocated to Los Angeles in 2004, after 25 years of performing jazz in the Twin Cities and hosting hugely fun and adventurous jazz shows on KFAI.

Last April there were two gigs I didn't want to miss - Eddie Palmieri's Ritmo Caliente and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring performed by the Minnesota Orchestra. Unfortunately, they were both the same night. Fortunately, Eddie was at the Convention Center at 7 PM and the Rite was after intermission at Orchestra Hall. Before the gigs I timed the walk between the two venues so that I could hear as much Eddie as possible before speed-walking to OH for Igor. My planning paid off by providing me with a musical experience I'll never forget--hearing perhaps the seminal work of the 20th century performed LIVE by one of the world's great orchestras.

Hearing the Rite on recordings is one thing; hearing it in the room as it happens is something else entirely - fine gossamer webs interwoven by reeds and flutes, clouds of ether in the high strings, raucous eruptions in the brass, growling low strings, a bass drum that walks the Earth like an apatosaurus - all of it alive with harmonies and melodies that laid definitions for so much music across the genres in the years after 1913. If you've never heard the Rite live and you care about the evolution of music in the modern, post-modern, and/or post-post-modern worlds, my advice to you is to run, or at least speed-walk, to hear it the next time it comes nearby.

Rich Mattson produced a number of bands at his Flowerpot Studios this year, including the Gleam, and released a new album by his band Old Yeller, Sounder.

Ah, 2004. Let's start from the top. New Year's Eve I was wearing a dress onstage at Lee's. I'll never do that again. It was stupid. The year started off pretty slowly, uneventful, somber even. It was the dress. I had no business putting it on. There was some fun in February, my band got a new bass player and that was exciting, taking him on the road and seeing great bands like the Preacher's Kids and the Dynamite Brothers, hanging out in NYC... Going to SXSW with Ben Hayter, who hates everything, was a cryptic good time. We saw Patty Smith and somehow I just knew we were going to lose the election. Kris Kristofferson gave me some hope though, that we'd live through it. In April The Strokes played at First Avenue and I realized why I hate rich kids who start rock bands, they got no drive but for selling out and being cool. Nothing to do with sticking it to the man. It sounded funny in "School of Rock" but he was right, ya know. Have kids forgotten the very essence of rock? I think my favorite show at First Ave. this year was the Detroit Cobras, opening for the Rev. Horton Heat. I didn't even stick around for the headliner, he couldn't hold a candle to the depraved loveliness of Rachel and her sleazy cohorts..and that hip-shake--ah, BABY!! There were some cool Swet J.A.P. shows, notably at Big V's, I'd never seen them before and after a couple one-hits seeing them come down all OVER me just standing at the bar, I was befuddled, amused, amazed. Their 20 minute set was like a flash flood of rockenroll goodness, all those smiling faces in the audience.

I finally got my band into the Triple Rock in June, and we got a new guitar player too. Our best buddies from Austin, Grand Champeen came to town and woo'ed everyone in attendance, like they always do, luv luv luv. Then I went on a folk tour with Baby Grant Johnson and Charlie Parr..here's one of my favorite musical moments of 2004: After a night of playing for 5 hours straight to 5 people in Lawrence, we wind up at a young college couple's shoebox apartment, all hanging out on the bed/chair while Baby Grant sings "LA Freeway" with more passion and raw emotion than I've ever seen, feet all twisty and voice all spitty and spent. Summertime, and we went crazy in Eveleth, my hometown, and showed that town what freedom means..to us anyway, on the 4th of July. Fall, September 5-6 exactly, Mallman's Marathon was the closest I've ever been to seeing the light. I mean the end, the grand finale, not so much the ongoing thing, but the ending, when he came out draped in the American flag and they dropped the "Mission Accomplished" banner, it brought tears of joy to my eyes it was so awesome. That was my favorite rock and roll moment of the year, bar none. Aside from that, my favorite had to be Paul Westerberg at Pantages. I hadn't seen Paul since the last time the Replacements ever played, that cameo at First Ave. in what..'97??? Seeing him play made me realize why I do it, and I remember saying to myself, "Oh yeah, THAT's why he's my idol. He fucking BRINGS it."

Of course, after that, my band goes to Texas and has a blast, spare some incident in Ft. Worth working over the one-legged bartender for pay..we had to tear out of that parking lot very swiftly..dance party in Duluth, do the limbo...2004 turned out okay.

Rich Mattson

G.R. Anderson Jr. [mailto:granderson5@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 10:20 AM
To: Peter Scholtes
Subject: westerberg

Hair Police founder Sonia

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 14, 2004 12:26 PM

 

Hip hop mood indigo

Filed under: Imported

"Untitled," aerosol on canvas, 2004, by Ernest Arthur Bryant III

I bought this painting last month, after seeing it at Juxtaposition Arts this summer. Standing taller than me, it's one of those things I look at when the world seems cold. The art also connects to my own creative labor in a satisfying way: A few months ago I interviewed the two guys who started Juxtaposition, graffiti artists Roger Cummings and Peyton, for my TC hip-hop oral history (still planning on updating the Old-School Page in early '05). These writers now teach kids how to combine the aesthetic of graffiti with more traditional art-school techniques.

Ernest Arthur Bryant III, the MCAD student who made the painting, also borrows from the best of both worlds (here's his MNArtists.org page). Truth is, I don't know much about the guy except that he delivered the painting himself to my apartment, in person. That kind of face-to-face exchange is what DIY culture is all about. Hopefully, I'll be posting my own paintings here by next year, once I've shaken the sea off me--I just got back from a "fun cruise" with Toasty's family in the Caribbean (more on that soon) and I feel like I'm constantly falling sideways.

Other works by Ernest Bryant:

self-portrait

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 13, 2004 9:23 AM

 

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