Line Check: Chuck U provides clothing for impoverished musicians
Chuck U T-Shirt Release Party /Nomad / 12-16-11
by D. Sykes
Photos by Jeremy Kleider
Kinda want to live in that house...thing, dontcha?
Chuck U is a damn good artist, and he also throws a damn good party. The Nomad was decked out with his prints, originals, and his new t-shirts Friday night, turning the West Bank mustache-and-bicycle bar into a psychedelic funhouse.
His work is surreal but methodical, depicting woolly cyborg creatures, anthropomorphized houses, and bizarre postmodern structures—something akin to the love child of Dr. Seuss and MC Escher. His style is clean and precise, dominated by strong lines and obsessive detail. Having seen him paint live (notably at last summer’s Bella music festival), I can attest to the care he puts into each design, making it all the more impressive that he’s so prolific.
You can check out a wide variety of Chuck’s work at his official website, right here.
The show started with a brief set from Remo Williamz. He comes across as a straight-up party rapper, but behind the posturing you’ll find genuinely insightful lyrics, delivered with a flow that’s alternately lazy (in the southern style) and brusque. His set was too short to get a complete feel for his style, but it seems that he’s at his best when he’s working with classic funk/soul beats.
Weekly Obsession: Toy Drives and Timeline
by Nicole Smith
(republished from nicolereneesmith.wordpress.com)
Inspired by just about every magazine and blog out there, every week I will provide a random list of whatever I happen to be obsessin’ about at the moment. From the obvious — new products, apps and entertainment — to the obscure, everything is fair game and every week will be different. Check out what I’m loving this week:
This is just one of many piles of toys ResourceWest is preparing to go to families in need in the Hopkins and Minnetonka area for the Toy Chest Drive this year.
Toy Drives: Giving isn’t always better than receiving, but in this case, it definitely is. Nothing is more satisfying than giving gifts to children on Christmas, and a shiny new toy is the best present a kid can get. There are hundreds of drop sites for a spectrum of toy drives across the metro area, but ResourceWest puts on a program that really stands out to me. The Toy Chest Drive lets families in need stop by and pick out the presents for their children; one small toy, one big toy, stocking stuffers, used books and one stuffed animal per child! ResourceWest is a Hopkins-based family resource center that has been around since the early ’90s. Each year, they help more than 1,000 kids have happy holidays and my support goes out to them because that is pretty incredible.
Facebook Timeline: Facebook is always coming up with new ways to present information (and confuse us) and Timeline is their newest attempt at that. Don’t freak out everyone. Timeline probably won’t ruin your Facebook experience and even if it does, is that really worth crying over? If anything, it will enhance your stalker capabilities because it lets you navigate the most popular posts, photos, statuses and more in a yearbook-esque manner that is categorized by year. It won’t go public quite yet, but I urge all Facebook users to take the tour beforehand to know what you are up against as it will eventually replace your profile. On a personal level, seeing what I was up to 5 years ago in a nutshell is a little daunting, but the concept itself is quite impressive.
Gotye and Kimbra from the video for "Somebody That I Used To Know" off his third-studio album, Making Mirrors.
Making Mirrors by Gotye: This Belgium-born Australian musician has one of the most hauntingly captivating voices I have ever heard. Making Mirrors may be this third studio album (released in August), but I have never considered myself to be above the curve when it comes to music. I first fell in love with the track “Somebody That I Used To Know” after I stumbled upon the music video featuring fellow Australian musician Kimbra on YouTube and I have been neurotically listening to it since. His aching vocals flow against entrancing music that takes me places and his videos are a good inclination of the depths to where his songs can travel.
ThisIsWhyImBroke.com: This aggregated shopping site is full of quirky, nerdy and downright astonishing gifts and gadgets in just about any price range. Want a Russian-style AK-47 lamp or ninja star coat hangers? ThisIsWhyImBroke.com has ‘em. Lightsaber chopsticks and an Apocalypse survival guide? Yep. As ridiculous as some of these products seem (and definitely are), I just can’t get enough. From ThinkGeek to Etsy and even Amazon, this site’s staff scours the web for blow-your-mind brilliance worthy of breaking any bank. There are so many desirable products on this site that it is overwhelming, but most of the items I really want, I simply can’t afford (and will likely never be able to), so I will continue to salivate on my MacBook over them and if you are bored, I highly recommend doing the same.
A f**kin' jet pack for the water? Absolutely. But only if you have $130 Gs to spare. This bad boy is capable of cruising up to 20 ft. high and forward at a rate of 22 mph. (Shown on ThisIsWhyImBroke.com, from Jetlev-Flyer)
This labyrinth aquarium looks like something out of my dreams, but at $6,500, that's probably the only place I will ever see it. (Shown on ThisIsWhyImBroke.com, from OpulentItems.com)
Grant Cutler / Wizards Are Real / Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo / Your Friends and Family
Wizards Are Real
by Claude Culotta
It took me a second to get into Grant Cutler, the greasy guy behind a keyboard whose sincerity and sadness was illuminated by a single blue spotlight. His lyrics are simple and repetitious, which I am usually not a fan of. Musically, he uses a very simple, effective approach. No pedals, no frills, just vocals, a drum loop and a keyboard. The lyrics sit in the back, behind the tones, and it all goes on top of slowed-down club-hop beats.
Wizards Are Real is a self-proclaimed Instrumental Post-Rock Jazz band, and they were awesome. Hearing them live brings me to distant times and places, The French Quarter or The Village in a dark booth of some seedy bar, smoking Lucky Strikes and drinking whiskey sours.
They’ve got a big sexy loping sound, but it leaves enough room that if you close your eyes you can build your own instrumentation around them. Tim Baumgart plays a little jazz cocktail kit holding his sticks the old school way. Classic, tight, and subtle. Small flourishes, but never overwhelming. Ted Held is the bass player and he is extremely charismatic. He drives the melody and enjoys the shit out of it. Brian O’Neil on pedal steel functions largely as a rhythm instrument, even though there is lots of give and take between him and the bass. He brings an element of three chord punk to the mix, a wistfulness, and that ever elusive sense of nostalgia. Melanie Bergstrom plays an incredibly delicate lyrical sax. It’s her instrument that tells the story, while the rest of the band establishes mood, she is both soothing and heartbreaking.
Venus DeMars & All the Pretty Horses – Lust/ The Triple Rock/ 12-2-11
From All the Pretty Horses’ last album Creature, “Lust” is a glam punk gem. The band opened the song with a long reggae tinged jam, accompanied by Venus playing with power tools. Hell yeah I’d watch that!
Video by Jeremy Kleider and Gus Ganley
InfeStation is produced by Aephy.org and Jeremy Kleider and cannot be reproduced or used without written permission from Aephy.org. InfeStation documents the diverse live music scene that infests our beloved Twin Cities in all its nooks and crannies. If you’d like to see your live performance recorded and produced in InfeStation email Jeremy Kleider at j.kleider@aephy.org.
Venus DeMars & All the Pretty Horses – Broken Down/ The Triple Rock/ 12-2-11
Headlining the 12/2/11 show at the Triple Rock, Venus DeMars & All the Pretty Horses played an hour set, full of lusty singing, dangerous power tools, intensely fuzzy guitar lines and sexy young ladies burlesque dancing . “Broken Down” is from ATPH’s brand new album 10 Bones.
Video by Jeremy Kleider and Gus Ganley
InfeStation is produced by Aephy.org and Jeremy Kleider and cannot be reproduced or used without written permission from Aephy.org. InfeStation documents the diverse live music scene that infests our beloved Twin Cities in all its nooks and crannies. If you’d like to see your live performance recorded and produced in InfeStation email Jeremy Kleider at j.kleider@aephy.org.
The Japhies – Love Ain’t Enough/ The Triple Rock/ 12-2-11
We showed up at the Triple Rock to catch a little rock and roll. We bit off almost more than we could chew when The Japhies took stage, to open for Hastings 3000 and Venus DeMars & All the Pretty Horses. Their guitarist, Ben Hovorka, looked a lot like Dave Grohl, and appropriately so — The Japhies were the Foo Fighters on Adderall. With a drummer to match. But don’t be fooled. They won’t be putting out catchy licks and choruses. Think more Black Flag. Check out our first video of the night.
Video by Jeremy Kleider and Gus Ganley.
InfeStation is produced by Aephy.org and Jeremy Kleider and cannot be reproduced or used without written permission from Aephy.org. InfeStation documents the diverse live music scene that infests our beloved Twin Cities in all its nooks and crannies. If you’d like to see your live performance recorded and produced in InfeStation email Jeremy Kleider at j.kleider@aephy.org.
Weekly Obsession: From Melancholia to Mod Cloth
By Nicole Smith
(republished from nicolereneesmith.wordpress.com)
Inspired by just about every magazine and blog out there, every week I will provide a random list of whatever I happen to be obsessin’ about at the moment. From the obvious — new products, apps and entertainment — to the obscure, everything is fair game and every week will be different. Check out what I’m loving this week:
Evernote: This app is the best thing to happen to my MacBook. You can organize your thoughts, ideas, files, favorite photos and web pages; there really is no wrong way to use it. Best of all? It is free and syncs smoothly with all of your devices. Since I downloaded it last year, I have created 15 notebooks. I keep track of my finances, Christmas lists, brainstorm ideas for articles and screenplays, etc. I Evernote daily, religiously. If you have any writing aspirations whatsoever, this is a must, but anyone can benefit from its brilliance. I have read blogs by lawyers, private investigators, personal trainers and journalists who all have great things to say about its functionality and capabilities. It’s a modernized Moleskine. What’s not to love?
Melancholia: It’s a Lars von Trier film, so before I even knew what it was about, I knew I was in for it. Dunst plays Justine, a distraught wife-to-be who deals with some serious depression but it has a sci-fi element to it; mysterious Melancholia, a new planet, threatens to collide with earth. Visually, the despair channels the celestial collision that is on the horizon; it’s breathtaking in every sense of the word. More intriguing than entertaining on many levels, this is one of the rare films that will continue to linger in my mind. The concept and composition is immaculate, regardless of the troubling content, and Dunst radiates in flickers of light and dark in a performance that is as Oscar-worthy as it is pensive.
Stadium Burger: At the Gold Nugget in Minnetonka, this award-winning burger is the epitome of delicious. With a pretzel bun and made-from-scratch nacho cheese sauce (with a kick) for dipping, it puts a spin on the classic cheeseburger. It comes with fresh-cut fries and a pickle spear, but I recommend adding the cherry on top: fried onions! Executive chef Eli Renn originally created the burger as a special of the week (one of 52 each year!) but it was so mouth-watering, it eventually landed a permanent place on the menu.
Mod Cloth: In lieu of Christmas shopping, I have been cruising web sites, browsing for potential presents for my friends and family and finding a few things to add to my wish list along the way. Mod Cloth is one of the best sites out there for retro, vintage and indie gifts. They have amazing vintage dresses but their accessories and gift ideas are really unique and offer something for everyone. Check out Gift Land for interesting gifts categorized by person, price and interest. Happen to be shopping for me (ahem, Mom!)? Conveniently, here are my two must-haves:
This tote channels A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess as part of the Bookshelf Bandit collection. (Mod Cloth, $17.99)
I am in love with this clever cuckoo clock necklace, Flock Around the Clock by British designer titiMadam. (Mod Cloth, $37.99)This tote channels A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess as part of the Bookshelf Bandit collection. (Mod Cloth, $17.99)
Armchair Essays/ 12-14-11
A boring zombie book?
By Kristoffer Tigue
Currently I’m reading Colson Whitehead’s Zone One. New York is in ruins. The Zombie Horde lost, and the survivors of the human race sweep the streets, killing stragglers in preparation of rebuilding the once great city.
The world that protagonist Mark Spitz knew is gone. The Pale Horse came and went, the question is: did he survive hell, or is this lonely, dissonant zombie-post-apocolypse it?
My theory? Hell is trying to read this book.
I had high hopes for this book. Whitehead had supposedly taken the supersaturated zombie tale and made a work of literature out of it. The focus wasn’t action, the story wasn’t the suspense of survival, but rather the bleak, monotonous, and stark world of a lonely survivor, still haunted by his memories of before everything went awry.
I admit, Whitehead is a talented writer. His observations, when you understand them, are poignant and thoughtful, and his vocabulary is something to be reckoned with. But when you don’t understand what he’s saying, dismemberment via zombies seems a pleasant alternative. Whitehead carries on his sentences, indulging in every tangent that comes to mind and choosing words that show off his vocabulary more than they benefit the story. Whether you like that or not is a matter of opinion, but personally, anytime I can avoid long winded speeches that remind of me of Nathaniel Hawthorne, I do.
However, I don’t prefer giving up on books, so in the meantime, I’ll vent my frustrations by filling you in on the passages I come across that put me on my knees, praying for Rapture to come and deliver sweet, sweet release.
Fables of the Cloth, debut album by Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo: A review review review
By D. Sykes
Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo could easily be misjudged as just another group in the glut of experimental folk music that’s plagued hippy basement jams and college radio stations ever since someone decided to weave Animal Collective some invisible clothes, but that would be doing them a grave disservice. While the common tropes of this genre—droning passages, pastoral imagery sung over walls of stringed instruments, and that overall campfire-jam feeling are often present, they are used as a launchpad rather than a crutch.
These songs evolve over time, eschewing conventional verse-chorus-verse structures in favor of gradually rising passages and artfully-executed breakdowns that often dramatically shift the tone of the music.
The opening track, “Shafts of Divine Light,” begins as a fairly standard flutey folk-rock tune about changing seasons, before it takes a dark turn, finally developing into a near-raga about burning undergrowth and decomposition. It’s a great microcosm of the album as a whole—while rooted in American folk traditions, the album is unafraid to adopt elements from other musical styles and does so very well (they definitely take a few cues from the British “folk baroque” movement of the late 60s, often recalling the criminally underappreciated group Pentangle).
The album is well-structured, the sequencing well-designed. The instrumentals make you think just as much as the lyrically intensive tracks (especially the hellish and disturbing “Nirvana of the Buddha Jesus on the Cross”), and every song serves to elevate the others surrounding it—there’s not a single skippable track on here, and that’s impressive for a debut album.
A brief review of Wilco: they were good.
Wilco, Nick Lowe/ State Theater/ 12-6-11
By Kristoffer Tigue
I love the State Theater. I’m simply going to start off with that.
I’m 26, so standing around isn’t the worst thing in the world yet. Sure, my dogs bark, but it’s a chipper yelp at this point. Despite, I can’t think of anything I enjoy more than sitting while watching a band. Did I mention they serve booze at the State Theater? OK — correction: I can’t think of anything I enjoy more than sitting while watching a band and getting plastered. This is what we did and it was fantastic.
Nick Lowe opened. His voice was serene, his guitar folky. The fit made sense. He’s not of our generation, however, and I had to look him up afterward. This could be M. Ward in 30 years — so says my girlfriend.
If his name doesn’t ring a bell, you most likely know him from his ’79 hit “Cruel to be Kind,” which he performed last on his set. He also peppered the set with a few Elvis Costello songs, including “Alison” and “What’s so Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love and Understanding,” which Lowe wrote for Costello. Overall — a good set.
NaNoWriMo: It gives you permission to suck
By Kristoffer Tigue
If you participated in NaNoWriMo this year, last week may have been bittersweet, or just sweet, depending on your word count.
Most likely you’ve heard of National Novel Writing Month since its official startup back in 2001. The goal — write a novel of at least 50,000 words between November 1 and 30. Creator, Chris Baty, started it as a small scale project with just 21 participants, but by 2010 NaNoWriMo became a webwide phenomena. That’s including right here in our own home of Minnesota.
Locally, over 2,600 participants entered the contest this year, contributing to a worldwide total of 3 billion words.
And the winners are…
Kathleen Olson and Megan Lundquist. Congratulations, ladies. Keep posted for more ticket give aways and contests.
Wilco Scavenger Hunt List
Alright, here’s the list. It’s cold out, there’s wet snow everywhere, but remember, you don’t need to get ALL of the items. You just need to get more than anyone else.
Each item is worth one point each, for a total of 25 points. There is, however, one huge bonus question. If you nail the bonus question, it’s worth 15 points.
Dress appropriately, you will be outside. Bring some nerve, you’ll need to talk to strangers. Good luck! The hunt starts at 2pm and ends at 3pm TODAY @ The Acadia Cafe:
Minneapolis
(612) 874-8702
THE LIST>>
1. A dog.
2. A Wisconsin ID.
3. An University of Minnesota ID.
4. Someone under dressed for the weather.
5. Someone wearing sunglasses.
6. Someone named Jeff.
7. A couple, kissing.
8. Someone wearing a full biking suit.
9. A Taco Bell.
10. An art museum.
11. A school of business.
12. A library.
13. A hospital.
14. Two colleges (make sure you get a picture of the college name on a sign or building).
15. Two bars with a number in its name.
16. A bar with “world” in its name.
17. A bar with a body of water in its name.
18. A liquor store.
19. A radio station.
20. A live performance theater.
21. A once beloved theater, no more.
22. A bike trail.
23. A high rise apartment complex (you don’t need to go inside).
24. A pharmacy.
25. Three Cafés.
Bonus Point (worth 15) Wilco constantly plays off ideas of memory and nostalgia. Find a children’s playground where the downtown skyline can be seen off in the background. We all have to grow up eventually.
Did we mention that we have 2 Wilco tickets and we’re giving them away?
Well, we do. And we meant it. But winning them will take some effort on your part.
This Sunday, December 4 (only two days before the concert at the State Theater), we are holding a scavenger hunt at Acadia Café on West Bank. Meet us there, with your partner in crime or solo, and make sure you bring a working digital camera (or phone) and some good transportation (bike, car, running shoes – we suggest bike).
We’ll meet at the Acadia for some tailgating at 1pm — the scavenger hunt starts at 2pm, and will last until 3pm. That means you have ONE hour to find as many items as possible. If you show up late, you may still participate, but you’re just putting yourself behind the curve. The winner is the person with the most points when time runs out, or the first person back with ALL the (correct) answers.
The scavenger hunt will consist of 25 items, all of which you must provide photographic evidence. If possible, include yourself in the picture when it’s taken. Any old photos used (if so happen you have some that apply) will result in immediate disqualification. The list will be made available on our site on Sunday at noon. Please print off a copy before you come — we will have some copies but not many.
The winner will win TWO tickets to see Wilco on Tuesday, December 6. Alright Twin Cities, we’ll see you Sunday and good luck!
