Arts

Chicago at the State Theatre: As perfect as they needed to be

By Dwight Hobbes, TC Daily Planet

Photo courtesy Chicago

Once upon a time, way back in the late 1960s there were three bands who played rock music a la big-band style. They were The Electric Flag, Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago Transit Authority. Hipster authorities had it that the Flag were the baddest, followed in quality by the Al Kooper-led B, S & T, then the Kooper-less lineup, then the woefully commercial CTA (who quickly shortened the name to Chicago). Well, baddest to the bone or not, Chicago, charting higher and lasting a whole lot longer than the other two put together, wound up leaving an indelible, signature imprint on the music industry.

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Polaroid moments in a post-Brady world

By Patrice Johnson, Cultural Construct

There are two Americana indulgences I enjoyed earlier this week. The first was an old episode of the Brady Bunch. Remember when the whole gang traveled to the Grand Canyon and got locked up in a ghost town jail by a manic recluse gold prospector, but upon release Mrs. Brady and Alice exclaim that they are having a groovy start to a great vacation? Later they meet a Native American who without any hint of irony or offense uses the term "squaw" to describe the women in Mr. Brady's "tribe."

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Cultural Construct

Widespread Panic at the Orpheum Theatre: Master musicians at their very best

By Dwight Hobbes, Sounding Off On Sound

Courtesy Widespread Panic

On April 14, the Orpheum Theatre was struck by Widespread Panic, inciting a completely sold out house of revelers to create absolute pandemonium. Fans of this veteran rock powerhouse are nothing if not faithful, wildly devoted to what can only be called an extreme. It must be pretty thirsty work, because when Panic hit the State Theatre across the street on Hennepin Avenue in 2011, the bars ran out of beer before the show was half underway—so, quite sensibly, things were moved to the larger venue and the venue laid in a stronger supply of brew.

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MUSIC PHOTOS | Marijuana Deathsquads at Icehouse

By Meredith Westin, TC Daily Planet

Photos by Meredith Westin

On Friday, May 17, Marijuana Deathsquads played at Icehouse in Minneapolis.

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THEATER REVIEW | "Rock of Ages" is so 80s at the Orpheum Theatre

By Morgan Halaska, TC Daily Planet

Photo credit Scott Suchman

My understanding of the 80s is mostly constructed by the stereotype of the era—growing up Carebear-obsessed didn't gain me much perspective outside of what was happening in Care-A-Lot. Yeah, I know all the songs I'm supposed to and the style just like everyone else. And while Friday, May 17th's performance of Rock of Ages didn't show or tell me to anything non-cliched about what it was like to live in the 80s, I concluded that—between the crass tongue lappings, booby jokes, and repulsive hair styles—it was just simply a gross time. That probably wasn't the consensus in the midst (is it ever?), but it certainly seems to be now.

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Screaming On. Reflections on Lao American Horror Poetry

By Bryan Thao Worra, Bryan Thao Worra on TCDP

As I prepare for the release of my next book, DEMONSTRA, this year, some ask why much of my poetic work is centered on horror, compared to other writers who escaped the Southeast Asian civ

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Bryan Thao Worra on TCDP

MN VIDEOS | Art-a-Whirl 1996: What the first year looked like

By Jay Gabler, MN Videos

Art-a-Whirl, now the largest art crawl in the country, had its start in 1996. John Akre was then a volunteer at MTN, and created a 40-minute documentary about the new Northeast Minneapolis event. He's now edited the documentary down to a more concise five minutes to provide this peek into the past.

Question Bridge at Juxtaposition Arts: Creating more complex and whole narratives of Black men

By Brenda Bell Brown and Yvette Howie, KFAI Radio

A new exhibit at Juxtaposition Arts in Minneapolis is called “Question Bridge – Black Males.” It’s a video installation that threads together fifteen hundred conversations with Black men across the United States in an attempt to create more complex, multi-faceted, and whole images and narratives of Black males.

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"Sex and Sugar"...and art, and writing

By Amina Harper, The Art House

This is a photo of sugar cubes (by David Pacey, Creative Commons), not an artwork by Elizabeth Erin Fowler. To see one of those (NSFW), click here.

I took a break from the column last week because I really just needed a little time off. Such a thing probably won’t happen often, but I expect that it will happen from time to time. I’ve been making up for my lack of writing by painting and drawing whenever I get the chance. The work for my upcoming solo show is coming along nicely, but not at the speed I would like. I suppose I’ll never be satisfied until everything is finished, framed and hanging on the Smitten Kitten's walls.

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THEATER REVIEW | "An Illiad" at the Guthrie Theater: Homer, up close and personal

By Dan Reiva, TC Daily Planet

Stephen Yoakam in An Illiad. Photo by Aaron Fenster, courtesy Guthrie Theater.

In Athens, Greece, circa 450 BCE, the blind poet Homer was bigger than the Beatles. His The Iliad and The Odyssey put him on the level of John, Paul, Luke, and Matthew in terms of laying the literary foundation of a civilization’s religious beliefs. Dramatizations of Homer’s work are always a challenge in the modern day and I can only imagine a theater approaching Homer with fear and trepidation. Director Benjamin McGovern rises to this challenge in the Guthrie Theater production of An Illiad.

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