Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/category/music/page/16/)
On Saturday, October 4, Christopher Owens played at the Turf Club in St. Paul.Coverage of issues and events that affect Central Corridor neighborhoods and communities is funded in part by a grant from Central Corridor Funders Collaborative. Continue Reading
Friday, October 3 The Erickson’s released their latest album at the Cedar Cultural Center. It was clearly a very emotional experience for them and half of the fun was seeing how excited and grateful they were for the support of fans and colleagues. I don’t know them and I left a little drained!The Ericksons are two sisters, Bethany Valentini and Jenny Kapernick. As sisters I suspect they’ve been singing together forever, but during the show they alluded to an eight year career together. Their interaction together on the stage is fun to watch. Continue Reading
Old Crow Medicine Show should not play at a sit down venue. Ever. There just isn’t enough room for fans to dance, jump, hoot and holler between those tiny rows of seats. This was all evident from the get go when they opened last night with “Brushy Mountain Conjugal Trailer,” which is the first track on their new album Remedy.As quickly as Critter Fuqua’s (doubtful that’s his real first name) banjo strings were plucked and Ketch Secor’s harmonica spewed notes laced with passionate country love, the crowd was on its feet dancing as if it was barefoot at an outdoor music festival. Suddenly, any hint of Minnesota passive aggressive niceness was gone, replaced by a sweaty, gritty, twirling, hee-haw screaming frenzy mirroring the seven-man band on the stage before them.Ferocious in their playing style and polished and refined in their showmanship, OCMS balances their performance quite well by bringing hard-charging bluegrass and alt-country with songs such as “Alabama High Test” and “Bootlegger’s Boy,” but calms the mood with old-timey and somber sadness pieces such as “Dearly Departed Friend” and “The Warden.”When introducing “Tell That Woman” (Willie Dixon cover), which was followed by “The Warden,” Secor told the crowd, “We’re gonna do it like they originally did with one microphone.”A four-part harmony simply accompanied by an occasional single strum of the guitar by Chance McCoy and snapping by Secor, Fuqua, and Cory Younts, “Tell That Woman” displayed how well connected OCMS are as musicians. Continue Reading
Last night I went to a revival meeting. It was unusual because there wasn’t a lot of praying and there wasn’t a lot of God but there was so much joy and music and dancing. That joy emanated from JJ Grey and Mofro as they played the Varsity Theater.Grey is the preacher who drives the service through a range of emotions, who tells the tales of “Orange Blossoms”, “Sweetest Thing” (for his daughter) and leads us to “Brighter Days” after we survive “99 Shades of Crazy”. His voice is a little gravelly and very southern; sometimes soulful sometimes southern rock. There’s something churchy about a southern accent to me; Grey hails from Jacksonville, Florida. Continue Reading
Audiences at the Ordway on Tuesday night were treated to an intimate recital of lieder and American art songs. Baritone Nathan Gunn and his wife, pianist Julie Jordan Gunn, were the featured performers for a show that was almost done in by the cascading series of problems still afflicting Chicago’s Midway and O’Hare airports. Fortunately for the audience, a few planes did manage to claw their way out of the Windy City during its current tumult.The program consisted of a mixture of classic German lieder by Schumann, Schubert, and Wolf, cut with 20th-century American art songs by Samuel Barber and Charles Ives. The Gunns came out first with Robert Schumann’s famous song cycle Dichterliebe (“A Poet’s Love”, 1840), presented in its entirety. This laid down the basic style of performance for the evening: measured and economical in expression, with something of a rich but covered sound. Continue Reading
Lily Allen is pop. I guess I wasn’t quite ready to admit that until I saw her live at the Skyway Theatre on Wednesday night because her lyrics are clever and her music hold hints of deeper roots but the staging, costumes and audience all scream pop.Lily Allen is also cute as button and has a voice that curls up at the corner like a smile. And you know how a smile just makes someone that much more attractive, well the curl in her voice makes her strong and clear tones that much more interesting.But back to the pop. The stage was set up like a big Target-Center-type show with giant plastic baby bottles everywhere, a nod to Allen’s reason for staying home for a few years. Her chatter between songs spoke nearly as much to her children and her husband (who she is meeting on Thursday after a two weeks apart) as her music. Continue Reading
On Sunday, September 28, Lykke Li played at First Avenue in Minneapolis. Mapei opened.Coverage of issues and events that affect Central Corridor neighborhoods and communities is funded in part by a grant from Central Corridor Funders Collaborative. Continue Reading
Lowertown Line’s show at the Amsterdam Bar this week got everything right. It’s in St Paul! It’s right by the train station. I walked in and got a ticket for a free beer. I didn’t have to worry about eating before the show as the Amsterdam has the best broodjes (mini-sandwiches) in town. Continue Reading
School was in session last night in the Twin Cities as DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist rolled into the Skyway Theater with an aggressive and infinitely danceable turntable sound brought out through the record collection of the “The Godfather” of Hip Hop culture, Afrikaa Bambaataa.One part excellent turntable DJ show, one part history lesson, DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist’s “Renegades of Rhythm” tour is a headfirst dive into the crates of one of modern music’s most influential figures. The pair bounce between six turntables and numerous old-school gadgets to spin decades worth of hit records into one amazing mix in what is a worthy tribute to an individual that both cite as an important influence on their work.DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist invited the crowd which packed into the Skyway Theater on a journey through the decades, putting a modern spin on the tracks which Bambaataa became a legend with, on the very same records that Afrika Bambaataa used. There was a sense of importance in what the duo was trying to accomplish as they brought to life a spirit of a pioneering era, paying homage to their influence while trying to both educate and entertain, hoping to instill within the crowd a sense of how meaningful these records were both as physical historical objects and as the sources of the beats which drove not just this show but decades worth of shows previous. There was a sense of reverence from the pair as they engaged with Bambaataa’s collection, and this sense of reverence seemed to transfer nicely to the crowd, who, while perhaps a little too timid to dance, were nonetheless appreciative of what DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist were trying to accomplish.The music was the central feature of the show, as it should be, with only a small video backdrop behind the pair to offer any sort of distraction for the attention impaired. The duo spun records and twiddled knobs in front of the modestly sized video screen which played host to images of Bambaataa and the Bronx community which he was so central a part of. Continue Reading
You could pretty much label the Nick and Knight concert at Mill City Nights September 24th a “Girls Night Out.” What else would you expect from this collaboration between boy band superpowers Nick Carter of Backstreet Boys and Jordan Knight from New Kids on the Block. It was just the 6th night of the 39-date tour and you could feel an energy of anticipation and excitement from the line formed outside the club clear up to the front of the stage. With plenty of material to choose from between the two of them, there was no need for an opening act and a big plus is they perform with a talented band of live musicians unlike many harmony bands who perform to a recorded track. The show opened up with “Nobody’s Better” and included an assortment of tunes from their new album as wells as their respective groups and solo projects.Coverage of issues and events that affect Central Corridor neighborhoods and communities is funded in part by a grant from Central Corridor Funders Collaborative. Continue Reading