MUSIC REVIEW | Ani DiFranco channels her 90’s angst at First Avenue
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Surprising my wife with an Ani DiFranco ticket made me the sexiest man in the world. Finally, for one glorious night, Christian Bale and Joseph Gordon-Levitt could lick my boots.
MUSIC REVIEW | Dessa and Saul Williams enrapture the crowd at Triple Rock Social Club
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It was performance poetry that dissolved the barrier between the audience and the stage Friday, September 14. The local hero and the national legend. For two hours, Doomtree’s Dessa and hip hop-poet laureate Saul Williams enraptured the Triple Rock with their takes on the world spinning outside.
MUSIC REVIEW | The Bouncing Souls still got it at First Avenue
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For 25 years The Bouncing Souls’ sound has exemplified energy and a celebratory spirit in punk rock. See: “East Side Mags.” It’s music for those with spring in their step or whatever joie de vivre is called in their native New Brunswick, New Jersey. It’s a long time to keep it up, especially when many of their punk peers have slowed or stopped altogether. But the circle pit in First Avenue’s main room on July 28 betrayed very little about The Bouncing Souls’ age.
MUSIC REVIEW | The Gaslight Anthem come close to perfection at Fine Line Music Cafe
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My wife and I have been waiting to see The Gaslight Anthem for years. We’ve listened to their three full-lengths more times than I can count. I’ve lost hours—maybe days—of my life watching clips of their concerts on YouTube. I’ve read reviews of their shows in Chicago, New York City, and Seattle with such jealousy, because I, frequent concertgoer, have never been in the same city as them at any point in the last five years. But at the Fine Line Music Café on June 11, I finally saw them, and the show was almost perfect.
MUSIC REVIEW | Iced Earth win over fans at Myth
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Iced Earth’s amps went up to 11. Their sound galloped like some apocalyptic horseman born from an unholy union of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. Their songs and albums are epic, kindred to the universes of Tolkien, Martin, and Herbert. Iced Earth doesn’t move tickets in America like Hellyeah and Volbeat, the bands they opened for last Tuesday, June 26, but Iced Earth does carry the fire.
MUSIC INTERVIEW | Jon Schaffer of Iced Earth: The politics behind the music
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Before Iced Earth took stage Tuesday night on June 26, when the curl of fans had just lined up at the Myth’s doors, I sat down with Jon Schaffer in the back of Iced Earth’s bus and talked music and the politics he used as motivation for Dystopia and his overt solo effort, Sons of Liberty. Jon and I see some of the same crooked symptoms of corporatism, but from there diverge in our analysis of causes, Keynes, and the role of government due to—I think—a disagreement about realities of positive and negative liberty. Regardless, I think the interview shows a man who gives a shit about people and his craft. So, the tour. How’s it going?It’s definitely and honor for me [to be opening for Volbeat] because I love Michael [Volbeat] as a person, friend, and a brother, and I love his band. I haven’t been excited about a band since I was a kid. Continue Reading
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MUSIC REVIEW | Bad boy Ben Nichols of Lucero charms the 7th Street Entry
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I don’t know what you did with the wonderful weather this weekend—whether you raced Nice Rides with your significant other around Lake Calhoun, shotgunned Premiums on the Stone Arch Bridge, or sat
MUSIC REVIEW | “Bugger off!”: The Real McKenzies sweet-talk the Turf Club
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On June 1 the Real McKenzies brought 20 years of Scottish punk down on the Turf Club, supported by Long Beach punk outfit Civet.
Plan-It Hennepin has high hopes for the downtown thoroughfare
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“We want to string together the existing pearls [on Hennepin] and add more cultural activity to make the Avenue a more inviting place,” says the website of Plan-It Hennepin, a collaboration among the Hennepin Theatre Trust, the Walker Art Center, Artspace, and the City of Minneapolis to collect ideas for the “re-invention” of Hennepin Avenue between the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and the Mississippi River.
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MUSIC REVIEW | Flogging Molly gets political at The Brick
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I saw them crossing the Hennepin Bridge as the sun set between the buildings of downtown Minneapolis—the Flogging Molly fans—in their clovered t-shirts and flat caps, eagerly anticipating the blend of Irish folk and punk from guitarist/vocalist Dave King and his wild band of merrymakers.