The Ties that Bind: Deni Y. Béchard’s Cures for Hunger delivers a powerful bildungsroman about distraught lineage, rootlessness, and the invention of personal identity
5 out of 5 stars
The Ties that Bind: Deni Y. Béchard’s Cures for Hunger delivers a powerful bildungsroman about distraught lineage, rootlessness, and the invention of personal identity
by Evan Giannobile
Deni Y. Béchard’s memoir Cures for Hunger catalogs the search for identity through alienated connections to the past, plucking the resonant and often dark strings which inextricably join the lives of parents and children. Desperate to understand his own motivations and drives, Deni Béchard relies on uncovering the history and true character of his father, Andre Béchard, to help untangle his own identity in a vivid narrative of discovery, longing, and unknown family histories.
Published by the local institution Milkweed Editions, Béchard’s new memoir has been extolled by critics as a hard-earned and honest lyrical exploration into the dynamics of a dysfunctional family and the residue left behind. Having previously won the Commonwealth Prize with his first novel Vandal Love, Béchard now delves into the complicated relationship with his father: a compulsive, criminally-minded, freedom-seeking man who for Béchard had always occupied the fragile space between fear, disgust and admiration. Cures for Hunger is beautifully written and was listed on Amazon Canada as this year’s best nonfiction book, and Milkweed Editions is publishing the first American edition of Vandal Love as well as Cures for Hunger.
Alas, Alas’ debut self-titled LP is evocative and full of imagery, worth the listen
Alas, Alas’ debut self-titled LP is evocative and full of imagery, worth the listen
[UPDATE: Live audio of Alas, Alas' "Whiskey Town" by Jeremy Kleider]
by D. Sykes
Alas, Alas offers a kind of music now very familiar to Twin Cities audiences, a traditional Americana sound that embraces the ragged edges common to hardscrabble traveling musicians. Like many groups you can find at quieter basement shows and stages like the Acadia, they adopt a loose, living-room jam feel, like a bunch of hipster kids who got a hold of their granddad’s fiddle collection—however, Alas, Alas set themselves apart from the vast run of these groups through sheer songwriting quality and musical talent, as evidenced on their debut self-titled LP.
Alas, Alas forego the minimalism of much anti-folk for a ramshackle, wall-of-sound approach, reminiscent of a hung-over Beirut playing in a living room somewhere in Arkansas. At more intense tempos, as on “Whiskey Bound,” they remind one of the alt-bluegrass of Duluth’s Trampled by Turtles. At times the similarities border on appropriation, but there’s only so many chord progressions and picking patterns in the traditional Americana idiom.
Minneapolis all-star band, Lovely Dark, offers a promising and enjoyable, if slightly flawed, debut
Minneapolis all-star band, Lovely Dark, offers a promising and enjoyable, if slightly flawed, debut
by D. Sykes
As a long-time fan of Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo, Travis and Sonia Even’s primary project, I’m compelled to compare them to side-project Lovely Dark–an instinct exacerbated by the new band’s similar thematic obsession with divinity and naturalism. While similar at their core, Lovely Dark is a thoroughly unique sonic experience. Both lyrically and musically, these songs rely on minimalism and graceful delivery to make their impact.
Lovely Dark is what music journalists once referred to as a “supergroup,” back before everyone and their mom was in three different bands. They’re a bunch of musicians from wildly different backgrounds, all in a grip of different groups, some of which have received positive media attention. While Territories has its flaws, the record is an example of talented musicians crafting a coherent and original sound together.
5 local sites you should be visiting
5 local sites you should be visiting
by Kristoffer Tigue
Data, data, data. The internet is ubiquitous and overbearing. Everyone and their aunt has a blog and praise Jebus, you simply don’t have the time to check out every friend’s personal feelings and creative expressions. However there is light in the haze. There are some proverbial needles in that stack that are worth the search, and luckily for you, we did the heavy lifting. Here are 5 recommended local websites you probably don’t know about that are worth the trouble of perusing.
1. Hazel & Wren
Paper Darts set the standard for local literary magazines, both in print and online since they popped out of inexistence back in 2009, but that didn’t stop local sisters Amanda and Melissa Wray from jumping into the mix. Adequately armed with their pen-names, Hazel & Wren, and a pinch of wit and a critical eye, they launched their online literary magazine in early 2011.
Armchair Essays: A decade later, Zadie Smith’s The Autograph Man is still an easy recommendation
3.5 out of 5 stars
A decade later, Zadie Smith’s The Autograph Man is still an easy recommendation
by Evan Giannobile
Zadie Smith’s latest novel The Autograph Man will be familiar territory for the cultural studies major. Characterized by the strange place occupied by popular culture in the intellectual realm, Smith delves into a world where fiction has eclipsed real life. Published in 2002, the novel chronicles the stunted growth and uncanny obsessions of Alex Li-Tandem, a half-Chinese, half-Jewish 27 year old who has turned his childhood hobby, collecting autographs, into a rather unrewarding job and unhealthy obsession. He doesn’t deal directly in the realm of the famous but in their scribbles, their sanctified chicken-scratch meant to be collected, bought, and sold. Through this medium the novel offers a thoughtful critique on the dark and lonely realm of cultural obsession.
As her second novel, there were high expectations following the commercial and critical success of her first novel, White Teeth, which beautifully explores the conflict between the preservation of cultural identity and the pressures of assimilation experienced by immigrants of various ethnic backgrounds.
While the novel didn’t quite win over critics and the public as did her first novel, The Autograph Man still speaks to Smith’s literary prowess. Her writing style is strong and well-developed, making the book more of a quick read and less reminiscent of a competition to see who can write the longest grammatically correct sentence (13,955 words, ugh). Smart and savvy, Smith’s attention towards the natures of representation, desire, and transcendent religions paired with a literary playfulness makes for a novel dense with ideas sans the abject seriousness and melodrama.
The life of Alex Li-Tandem revolves around the procurement of an autograph by the Golden-Age cinema star Kitty Alexander, and since turning all of his attention to this incredibly sad goal, all other aspects of his life have wilted considerably. The reader finds Alex awaking from an acid trip—his car totaled, his girlfriend injured and incensed, his friends legitimately concerned over his mental health, and it’s the 15th anniversary of his father’s death, which he is still grieving.
Seen Your Video: Hardcore Crayons’ new music video “Sarcasmic” is a whimsical romp
Seen Your Video: “Sarcasmic” by Hardcore Crayon
by D. Sykes
With the recent proliferation of inexpensive video equipment and the shortening attention span of modern independent music lovers, the music video has become an increasingly viable method for local and regional bands to get their tunes heard. It is no longer purely the domain of corporate rock bands and auto-tuned pop sensations, but yet another route out of the basement and towards the cultural mainstream. This series aims to study and inform about these videos, and maybe someday answer the question: who the fuck wants to see a bunch of crusty musicians in HD? In our first Seen Your Video, we take a look at Hardcore Crayons’ new video from Northern Outpost Media.
Hardcore Crayons – “Sarcasmic” Music Video from Northern Outpost on Vimeo.
Really Hard and Incredibly Dangerous: A night with Dr. Farrago’s Burlesque
Really Hard and Incredibly Dangerous: A night with Dr. Farrago’s Burlesque
by D. Sykes
Photos by Mike Thue
Every day is a good day for partial nudity, erotic titillation, laughter, and spectacle; so when I was offered the opportunity to come review Dr. Farrago’s Burlesque Theater on the first of June, I jumped on it like a stripper leaping for her pole. I recruited the intrepid photographer Mike Thue with vague promises of T&A and we set off for Ground Zero to find out if we could stand up during set breaks without embarrassing ourselves with unsightly trouser bulges.
The show, founded and produced by dancer-cum-author-cum-magician Mia Malone, is a long-running affair with an obviously high standard of quality. It goes down every first Friday of the month, except for a hiatus in July. Our hosts for the evening were the hilarious Miss Colleen and David Walbridge, who was accosted with good-natured heckling the moment he took hold of the microphone. After a brief introduction, the performance proper began with a short magic show starring Malone and some highly confused doves, before guest artist Musette, head of the Midnight Muse Burlesque, took to the stage to get the juicy part rolling.
Armchair Essays: Local author John Jodzio’s Get In If You Want To Live is laugh-out-loud funny
4 out of 5 stars
Local author John Jodzio’s Get In If You Want To Live is laugh-out-loud funny
by Evan Giannobile
(Pictures courtesy of Paper Darts)
John Jodzio’s Get In If You Want To Live is weird. Not the ‘weird!’ whispered by children during an M. Night Shyamalan movie, but a weirdness that flaunts itself, embraces discomfort, and utilizes the absurd. As a collection of short-shorts with long titles, Jodzio delves into a mystical world where the idiosyncrasies of kidnappers, Stockholm-syndromers, drunken bears, and forlorn suicidal mattresses take precedence.
Paper Darts published the book last year, but even before that, Jodzio had been getting around. His work has been featured in national publications such as McSweeny’s and Opium, but also locally, such as METRO Magazine, Minnesota Monthly, Vita.mn and The Tangential.
His form is that of the short-short, a boiled-down short story which places emphasis on brevity. So don’t expect some fully hashed out story where the main character explains what he or she learned at the end. Jodzio takes a figurative dump on the school of blunt didacticism, and more power to him. His stories read like fantasy mixed with grotesque back-alley harlotry and moral degeneracy, and the result is a surprisingly beautiful collection of bizarre vignettes perfect for those of us with fetid imaginations and ailing attention spans.
Jeff Mangum, Will You Be My Valentine?
by D. Sykes
[Ed. Note: This is not a review. This is a love letter. Happy V-Day, kids--stay safe and love one another.]
That perfect beauty, half-glimpsed, slipping into the fog of a mundane crowd; the black powder smell of the last shot you fired next to your father; the frighteningly clear memory of lights emerging over the crest of the hill as you descend on the last leg of your road trip, at seventeen years, the journey where you came of age. These elusive highway colors, these frequencies heard so loudly so many times that they might never catch hold of your eardrums again. It’s the texture of lost innocence, it is the desolation of acute tinnitus after the best show you ever saw; and beyond all that it’s the desperate attempts to grasp these ephemeral memories, to hold them tight and keep them safe before their beauty and significance are ripped away by the cruel mechanisms of an uncertain world.
Can any of us weave a net wide enough to catch it all? The way I see it, the majority of Jeff Mangum’s work is the sound of that sieve being torn to shreds as the terrible weight of history and love and beauty bear down on these pathetic tools we’ve designed; cheap sackcloth jury-rigged to capture just a small portion of some higher truth. Angels hurtling through space, rebounding off of guitar strings, splattered against the insides of horns and drums and that most immaculate voice; and all of it leading to one perfectly damaged statement, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. In Mangum’s world it’s this destruction of our carefully contrived reality that forces us to evolve as humans. “And now we must pick up every piece of the life we used to love,” indeed.
I’d like to hope that everyone has experienced a work of art that touched them this deeply. I’ve certainly taken that dance a few times, amidst Mark Rothko’s fields of color, David Foster Wallace’s barracks of verbiage, Grant Morrison’s strange visions. There’s something singular, though, about Neutral Milk Hotel, something that seems magnetic to nearly everyone who’s heard it, as long as they carry a functioning soul. Every element of the tragicomic pratfall of human life is represented here, illustrated by the war that bound this planet together but nonetheless sent it tumbling towards the abyss, by the disembodied love between Mangum and Anne Frank, the horrors of lonely trailer parks and persistent psychic wounds, the strangeness of being anything at all.
Just as discovering this music in the first place will often be a defining moment in someone’s life, seeing Mangum perform his songs live was an initiation unto itself. We never thought we’d get to see this. There may have been some suspicion early on that it was a lame cash-grab, like the now-flimsy prophet Zimmerman mumbling his moldy songs from behind the wheel of his 24-karat keyboard. Well, everybody’s gotta eat, but I think Jeff Mangum is sustained by the idea of a world where love is more important than butter and bread.
He pulled that out of us. He got an audience full of Minnesotans—amongst the most trivially repressed of all Americans—to sing along at the State Theatre. He got us out of our seats, calling us to bum-rush the stage for the final few songs. When he took his smartly-chosen encore, the title track of his most widely-recognized record, my friends and I were bellowing of youth and the beauty of the world, swaying arm in arm, as we had done many times before.
Given Mangum’s reputation as a reclusive artist and the obvious emotional torment and vulnerability intrinsic to his music, I was immediately surprised by his graciousness, his lack of pretense, and his conversational attitude. He made the large theater seem as intimate as a campfire, and hearing songs like “Holland 1945” stripped down to a single acoustic guitar and voice made one feel as if one was being drawn deeper into them than ever before (he wisely got that particular tune out of the way right quick—excitable partygoers with hipster-cred-packed iPods have nearly ruined it for me). That Mangum peppered the set with less ubiquitous songs was a treat, but he knew what his audience was there for, and he gave it to us. He was joined later in the set by some of his cohorts—after all, some of these songs are defined by the beauty of their expansive instrumentation. They came to the stage and left just as casually as if they were engaged in a late-night scratch-track recording session or a front-porch jam. It was nevertheless just as exciting to hear Mangum replace horn lines with simple “da da da”s, or to watch him choose the guitar he’d use for the next song. It was like any other night at an old friend’s place, except it was quite possibly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
For some this might read like hyperbole, but it’s not. I’m not shy about admitting that Mangum’s songs are closer to my heart than probably any other creative work I’ve ever experienced. My eyes misting up in the theater, I could see myself laying in bed listening to Aeroplane endlessly after the end of my first romantic relationship—a relationship incidentally guided at an early stage by the same old friend who first introduced me to Neutral Milk Hotel, someone I don’t talk to much anymore but for whom I’ll be eternally grateful for introducing me to two of the great loves of my life. I could see myself celebrating the life of a different friend, one lost to that world beyond this one with which Mangum is so poetically obsessed. We were crowded around the remains of a bottle of Jameson that night, my blurred hands fingering the simple, humble chord changes of the music that had helped to bring us all together in the first place. My legs were dangling over the edge of a tall precipice, singing Mangum’s songs, our songs, the songs of our lost loves, out to the Mississippi river.
But everyone who’s fallen in love with Neutral Milk Hotel has fallen in love with Jeff Mangum, and the memories we share with this music can be as important as memories of families, friends, and lovers. It’s hard not to feel as if you know the man on some deeply personal level, given the confessional, emotionally naked tone of his lyrics. However oblique and abstract they might be, the powerful emotional truths of these songs can punch through our walls and masks with the force of an aerial bombardment, exposing the lost and lonely child within each of us, giving that oft-forgotten inner self a rare glimpse out into the deepest recesses of the people surrounding us, an opportunity to connect on a basic human level. This is something rarely found in even the most celebrated of artistic feats—the intrinsic ability to bring people more closely together.
When one woman in the audience shouted out a request for a date, Mangum responded, in typically witty fashion, with something to the effect of “It’s nothing against you, but I kind of keep to myself.” This elicited a hearty spurt of laughter from the crowd. While I think we’re all pretty sure we’re never going to get too close to this indie poet-laureate, this living legend who seems at some times a ghost wandering through sordid, desperate pasts, and at others a champion of that utopia found only in the union of human hearts, I hope that we’ll at least get to see him around again. Hopefully sometime soon. Happy Valentine’s Day, Jeff. Thank you for bringing more love into the world.
“And when we meet on a cloud, I’ll be laughing out loud, I’ll be laughing with everyone I see.” – Jeff Mangum
Armchair Essays: I can’t believe I’m still reading Colson Whitehead’s Zone One
I can’t believe I’m still reading Colson Whitehead’s Zone One
by Kristoffer Tigue
It has been over a month since I last discussed this book, and retrospectively, I haven’t made it much further — neither has Whitehead. My rule of thumb, give a book until page 60, or chapter four, whichever comes first, to decide that the commitment to the book is worth it. Well, one hundred and fifty pages in and I find myself in an unhealthy one-sided relationship, where Whitehead won’t let me see my friends (“They’re bad influences, Kris.”) and I’m confined to a low calorie, no beer diet.
I’m sorry, Colson, but this relationship sucks and I want to break up.
I don’t know which is more absurd: how much I hate this book or the fact that I’m still reading it, and probably plan to finish. With a strict regiment of five pages per day (shut up, it’s grueling), and a little less than half the book to go, I find myself, like many other terrible relationships I’ve been through, focusing on a couple of those “good moments” we had. Yes, he’s hit me, but you don’t know what he’s been through. He’s not all bad, ya know? We’ve had some good moments.
A Rogue’s Gallery: Nicholas Harper
"Paris," by Nicholas Harper
by D. Sykes
Northeast’s Rogue Buddha Gallery is a strange place. Behind the small storefront lies a wonderland of the surreal and the disturbed. The air inside seems thick with mystery, as if it was transported there in canisters from a dead czar’s crypt. The artwork displayed within belongs to some hazy limbo where the classical and the absurd, the beautiful and the grotesque, and the playful and the dangerous all coexist harmoniously. In short, it’s a lot like its owner, Nicholas Harper.
He’s a tall guy with an ever-present short-brimmed cap that makes him look like he ought to be fighting a nineteenth-century land war somewhere. He’s jovial and hilariously crass, but he’s nonetheless a highly disciplined artist. He refers to his own work as a “hybrid of surrealism or magical realism and classical.” His often macabre oeuvre is full of layered textures, smoky colors, and bizarrely disfigured portraiture. Elements of this aesthetic are present in the work of all the artists he exhibits, making the RBG one of the most cohesive galleries you’re likely to encounter.
When I asked Harper why he chose to run an art gallery for a living, he responded in his typically irreverent manner, laughing and calling himself unemployable. The path that led to that decision was, of course, a bit more complex than that.
Harper got his first studio in downtown Minneapolis in 1998. He was sharing it with another artist who was rarely around, leaving him a lot of room to work with the space. He started by bringing in friends to view and critique one another’s work, and eventually moved on to throwing informal shows, his first experience in curating an exhibit.
This is a good time to point out that Harper can really throw a party. When he put together a holiday showing at the small studio, art lovers showed up in droves and things got a little out of hand. The odor of a batch of hot buttered rum he had thrown together in a coffee urn permeated the entire building. There may have been some light vandalism. A good time was most likely had by all, but Harper lost the studio, and had to move his workspace back into his mom’s basement.
This became the staging area for his mission to find a new place where he could officially exhibit artwork, as well as indulge his other creative passions, and those of his friends, including dance performances and poetry readings. The gallery has even played host to music video shoots.
It was when Harper found a storefront on East Hennepin that he began seriously considering transitioning from day jobs to making his passion for art his business. Things really kicked off, though, when he moved to the current Rogue Buddha space in the mid-2000s.
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.
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.
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.
The Fine Line Music Café crushes it, American Revival style
American Revival, Riverwood Dub, The Premiums/ The Fine Line Music Café/ 11-27-11
The Premiums funk out at the Fine Line
By Claude Culotta
American Revival greeted us on the street by the joyous blast of Rock before we even hit the door. When I approached the lady to give her my ID I could hear that the happy noise was tinged with nostalgia. When I finally reached the bar the fullness of precision became very clear.
The first one you notice is Thomas Pendarvis, the front man, and he’s got a crazy manic look in his eyes not quite befitting the sweet twang in his voice. I couldn’t quite hear his lyrics, but the gist was pretty much traveling, being from Arkansas, and failed relationships. Lyrically dynamic, vocally acrobatic. Jared Wagner is the hairy beast on lead guitar, although he calls himself the Accompaniment Player. His playing is melodic, subtle and focused. Leif Petersen is the bass player who isn’t afraid to go there with his classic metal wide leg stance, but he is a surprisingly flexible player. Jeremy Krueth, eats, lives and breathes drums and he’s got Krash Custom Drums from North East to prove it, if the exceptionally precise yet satisfyingly aggressive drumming doesn’t do it for you.
They ended the set on a pretty sweet two step that blurred into a crazy pop punk implosion. I was deeply impressed by American Revival. They have this very epic almost metal sound with this incredible alt country twang over it. As performers they are articulate and passionate. As musicians they are crisp and punchy. They’re clean and tight and brought the girls out. It might be interesting to see a little more grit and grime on ‘em.
