Record Store Day: a cultural nod to our ever-present past

By |

“For me, it’s just how I grew up listening to music, how I always maintained listening to music, how I collect it.” -Danny Sigelman, DJ and collector Almost every memory I have of my father and his mother, my grandmother, orbit around playing records and sitting together listening to music. One of my earliest memories is asking my mother to play a particular Peter, Paul, & Mary record, of pressing my ear to my dad’s tall speaker on the floor of our living room, transfixed, listening to the soothing, melancholy harmonies of “Puff the Magic Dragon” and “Lemon Tree”. To this day, there is a childlike wonder I feel when I buy a new record, and bring it home to open it and immerse myself in the album art and a new musical experience.  Record Store Day brought out crowds of people with similar stories of their own first encounters with records, as well as many folks just coming out for the events and live music put on for RSD. One recurrent theme with everyone I talked with who collects records is a strong emotional attachment to these beautiful small pieces of interactive art that we call “vinyl” and their packaging. Continue Reading

MUSIC REVIEW | Information Society at The Fine line Music Cafe

By |

The crowd for Information Society’s April 18 homecoming show at the Fine Line Music Cafe appeared to have been mostly in junior high and high school while InSoc was releasing the albums that made them a hit. DJ Jake Rudh began the evening with music and media designed to take us back to that time, when a handful of weird kids with samples and synthesizers could become a band and an enduring band at that. Stony-faced and ambitiously coiffed young musicians of thirty years ago shared the screen with Star Wars sequels and Daleks to create a 1980s just a bit better than the decade we actually grew up with.When locals Dance Assault took the stage to open, the time warp was complete. While their music wasn’t derivative of any one band or even style from the era, its mix of New Wave, Disco-influenced electronica, and seduction rock would have made it perfectly at home on the radio in about 1983. A strong use of rhythm, particularly in transitions within the songs, had people dancing from the first few notes while avoiding the sense that we’d heard the whole thing before.After Dance Assault, another local electronic band took the stage. Continue Reading

Record Store Day 2015: 10 stores, 5 hours, 2 cities

By |

Saturday, April 19 was Record Store Day. My favorite 10 year old and I made our second annual pilgrimage to as many shops as we could visit in St Paul and Minneapolis. We started at Extreme Noise Records on Lake Street. We rushed to get there at noon to see Grant Hart. We got there a little late and heard a young hard core band instead. For better or for worse I learned from the very young gentlemen next to us that we hadn’t missed him; he hadn’t played yet. Continue Reading

MUSIC REVIEW | Charlie Hunter Trio, Molly Maher & Gabriela Sweet and Erik Koskinen on Real Phonic Radio

By |

Thursday, April 16 I heard a cover of Lorde’s Royals on the trombone and I’m not even sure if that’s the best thing I heard that night. On the Third Thursday of the month, Real Phonic Radio Hour presents music at the James J Hill Reference Library. Each month is something different; April was a month of instrumental wows!The Charlie Hunter Trio brought us Jazz – really happy, very loud Jazz with a twist of upbeat blues. Charlie Hunter plays guitar. It’s not experimental, but it’s different. Continue Reading

MUSIC REVIEW | Damien Rice nails it at Northrop Auditorium

By |

If there was a single line or moment that perfectly captured last night’s performance at the Northrop Auditorium, it was towards the end of the show when Damien Rice said with a smile after a particularly light-hearted moment, “We’re not supposed to be laughing, it’s a sad concert.”Anyone with a particular interest in Rice’s music could likely see how a “sad concert” is what a Damien Rice show would be on the surface. There really aren’t a lot of upbeat tracks in the Rice collection, a collection overflowing with heartache and longing, the audial equivalent of a rainy day. Rice’s songs are raw, emotional, and terribly intense. They are beautiful, but they are rarely, if ever, “fun.”It is a testament to Damien Rice’s strength as a performer, then, that for almost two straight hours he could work his way through those tracks, bringing to life that illusion of emotional openness that makes you believe that there is a man in terrible pain on the stage right in front of you, sharing something secret and personal, while also managing a wit and charm in between those tracks that allows a large audience to laugh along.Rice’s musical performance throughout the night was fantastic, intense, beautiful, heartbreaking, the list can go on and on. While it seems there is much in music that loses something in the translation from recording to live performance, Rice’s songs are better live, are better with proximity to the performer. Continue Reading

MUSIC REVIEW | Candid Kid EP release at the Turf Club

By |

You have to appreciate a band that plays a few new songs at an EP release party. The new songs are post-EP (Turtleneck) production. That’s a group with a lot of ideas and enthusiasm for the music. That’s Candid Kid.Candid Kid includes two founding members vocalist and guitarist Benjamin Muller and guitarist TannerUselmannand two excellent additions, bassist CooperDotenand drummer Reese Kling. They have the loudness and best of a rock band and the pensive twist of a more alternative band. Continue Reading