Recap: Richard Thompson at First Avenue

If you’re not close enough at a Richard Thompson concert to see his fingers dancing across his guitar neck, you’re missing one of the most consistently sublime sights in the world of rock music. Thompson moves with such fluidity that it’s astonishing that he’s 61 years old and can still make such virtuosity seem effortless.

That blazing fretwork shone with full force Saturday at First Avenue, where Thompson wrapped up his U.S. tour backing his latest album, Dream Attic. Eschewing an opening act, Thompson instead commanded the stage for the entire evening, playing two sets backed by the quartet with whom he recorded the new album earlier this year. With a leopard-print scarf giving a dash of color to his usual ensemble of black beret, black shirt, and black jeans, he first zipped track-by-track through Dream Attic in its entirety, followed by what he wryly termed “some of our hits-with-a-small-H.”

Originally published Nov. 8, 2010 on avclub.com. Read the complete article.

Review: Cloud Cult, Light Chasers

Dealing with grief has been the primary driving force behind Craig Minowa’s songwriting since the 2002 death of his 2-year-old son. It’s been at the heart of each subsequent Cloud Cult album, providing a grounding element to his cosmically minded, vaguely New Age-y explorations of the big philosophical questions of life and our place in the universe. It’s significant then that Light Chasers is Minowa’s first since the 2009 birth of Nova, his second son with wife and bandmate Connie. On its eighth studio album, Cloud Cult’s musical approach remains a sweeping mix of Arcade Fire-esque indie rock, electronica, and symphonically tinged folk—but new fatherhood brings a subtle, important shift in focus. Light Chasers isn’t about living with death, but about becoming better equipped for the journey through life. Minowa, who also produced, dives in with typical gusto, building the album into a sprawling, intricately interconnected 56-minute concept that often soars into emotionally operatic, cathartic heights. At their best, as on “Blessings” and “Today We Give Ourselves To The Fire,” Minowa’s songs are like hymns for a religion that hasn’t been invented yet. In weaker moments, they come across more like a self-help book, and occasional overindulgent touches, like the processed robotic vocals on “The Exploding People,” exacerbate that. It’s fitting, perhaps, that one of the album’s sparest songs, “You Were Born,” is also one of its most powerful—a simply stated father’s declaration of love.

Originally published Sept. 21, 2010 on avclub.com. Read the complete article.

Buy the album. (Amazon.com link)

The Book Of Right On’s right on

David Joe Holiday knows what he wants out of a rock band: It has to be loud. It has to be percussive to its core, with rhythms bouncing off each other at crazy angles. And it has to be done for the pure love of making music. The burly, tattooed singer has been working this approach for years in the Twin Cities music scene, fronting bands like Kentucky Gag Order and Belles Of Skin City that hit like a freight train with bold, exciting noise-rock. They also exited the scene in much the same way: Belles broke up acrimoniously in 2007 after Holiday’s band-mates, he says, “staged a coup.”

“I can understand that it’s pretty hard to tolerate my erratic approach to a lot of things,” he says wryly. Feeling burned out, Holiday took his time assembling a new band, starting with longtime collaborator Jason Underwood, and the slow approach has paid dividends both in the music and the interpersonal dynamics.

His new quintet, The Book Of Right On, has all the elements that made his previous projects sizzle—pounding polyrhythms, dryly witty lyrics belted out with a crazed-sounding yelp, and the quick-footed ability to jump off in a surprising direction at a moment’s notice. It’s the culmination of a sound he’s been refining for a long time. On Saturday at the Triple Rock, the band celebrates the vinyl release of its new debut, All These Songs About Music, which is tighter, richer, and more compelling than anything he’s done before. It’s a leap forward undoubtedly helped by his new crew, which doubles up on the percussion with seasoned local drummers Mark Jorgenson (ex-Song Of Zarathustra) and Kelly Pollock (The Haves Have It).

Originally published Sept. 10, 2010 on avclub.com. Read the complete article.

Review: Private Dancer, Alive In High Five

Private Dancer has one simple mission: to rock out. And that hasn’t changed now that the band is on album number two. The Minneapolis quintet knocked out a charmingly ragged, boisterous mix of garage-rock and psychedelia on its 2008 debut, Trouble Eyes, and its new follow-up, Alive In High Five, follows the template so closely it may as well have been titled Trouble Eyes Part II. Party anthems, monster riffs, and belt-’em-out choruses are still the order of the day, and there’s even a literal sequel in space-rocker “2,000 Year Wave,” following Trouble’s surf-inflected instrumental “1,000 Year Wave.”

But who needs change? Private Dancer’s appeal—particularly live, where it can be electrifying—is all about angst-free, uncomplicated enthusiasm for music, and it doesn’t need fixing. All five Dancers have extensive experience in other Twin Cities bands—three members of STNNNG, ex-Hockey Night drummer Alex Achen, and Vampire Hands’ Chris Rose—and the band benefits not only from their veteran chops, but the fact that as something of a side project, there’s no pressure to do anything but have fun.

That’s not to say the musical interplay here isn’t rich and complex; Alive is bursting with catchy nuggets of sound, and stands up well to repeat listens. Sometimes the rough edges could use a little more smoothing: Love song “Diane,” which shares a title with one of Grant Hart’s HüDüclassics, could also have benefited from a more sweetly sung, Hart-like vocal than the rough yelp Achen gives it. But that’s a minor quibble. Private Dancer’s best on the straight-up anthems like “Bajama Beach,” which sounds like some forgotten gem by The Fall’s Mark E. Smith, and the raucous “Weekend,” which boils down the band’s ethic of jubilant celebration over how great it is to play in bars on a Saturday night: “My friends, we work all weekend!” It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.

Originally published on avclub.com July 16, 2010. Read the complete article.

Review: Peter Wolf Crier, “Inter-Be”

Slow, painstaking craftsmanship can make great music, but when inspiration strikes like a freight train out of the night, it’s best to just jump on and let the thing get where it’s going at its own breakneck speed. That approach worked well for Peter Pisano of Minneapolis’ Peter Wolf Crier, who pounded out the core of his duo’s debut, Inter-Be, in a single night after months of stagnation in the wake of the breakup of his previous band, The Wars Of 1812. The songs’ rough framework was fleshed out considerably later, especially when drummer and recording engineer Brian Moen came on board to help shape Pisano’s nascent folk-rock into something more sweepingly gorgeous and layered. To their credit, though, the embellishments respected the raw, lo-fi energy that powered the music in the first place, enhancing it instead of smoothing away its personality. The approach is superficially apparent in song titles like “Untitled 101” and “Demo 01,” but it weaves through the whole album on a more fundamental level via Moen’s rollicking percussion and Pisano’s melancholy, high-pitched vocals. There’s a touch of Bon Iver’s sad, haunted-sounding balladry in the mix here—not surprising, since Moen and Pisano have both worked with Justin Vernon—but also a refreshing exuberance, particularly on the bouncy album-opener “Crutch & Cane” and the angelic crescendo of voices that closes the terrific “Hard As Nails.”

Originally published on avclub.com May 25, 2010. Read the complete article.

Review: Roky Erickson And Okkervil River, “True Love Cast Out All Evil”

Few people have walked a harder road than Roky Erickson and survived. Founder of the groundbreaking 1960s psychedelic band 13th Floor Elevators, Erickson fell into a spiral of drug and legal problems that culminated when he was committed to a hospital for the criminally insane. Even after his release, Erickson’s mental state was fragile, and his most productive post-Elevators period was full of songs about demons and monsters; he also generated a notarized affidavit certifying that he was a Martian. Nearly a quarter-century of hermitage followed. But in recent years, Erickson has rebounded, playing music, touring, and at last recording his first new album in 15 years, True Love Cast Out All Evil.

It’s a triumph merely that this album exists, but True Love’s musical richness goes beyond what could reasonably have been expected from even a resurgent Roky. A big part of that is due to producer Will Sheff, who backs Erickson along with his band, Okkervil River. Sheff’s role was necessarily more than just turning some knobs; he’s helping curate Erickson’s legacy. Given a huge backlog of unrecorded songs, many going back 40 years, Sheff wisely focused on Erickson’s most spiritual and personal material, like the beatific title track and the sad lament of “Goodbye Sweet Dreams.” Gently philosophical and wistful, True Love reveals Erickson as a songwriter of resonant emotional depth—something all too easily overshadowed by his bizarre biography, not to mention his penchant for writing about fanged devils and acid trips. Erickson’s dynamic, soulful voice, always his greatest musical asset, has lost little of its power. Equally at home on the wistfully romantic “Birds’d Crash” and the hard-rocking firestorm of the angry, raucous “John Lawman,” that voice is the passionate heart of True Love, and rightly so. Not unlike Bob Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind, this is an album by a grizzled veteran of rock’s rougher roads who proves in his late career that he still has great work in him. Perhaps even better, Erickson sounds remarkably confident and optimistic; for all the tumult of his life, he’s happy to be living it.

Originally published on avclub.com April 20, 2010. Read the complete article.

Interview: Daniel Martin Moore objects to mountaintop-removal mining with quiet, reasoned outrage

Before Daniel Martin Moore and Ben Sollee ever met, they were united by a love for their Kentucky homeland and Appalachia’s rich musical culture. Classically trained cellist Sollee made his name as part of the folk supergroup Sparrow Quartet (which also featured Bé Fleck) before launching a solo career with 2008′s Learning To Bend, while Moore came from obscurity with his folky 2008 debut Stray Age after scoring a deal with Sub Pop on the strength of an unsolicited demo. But they bonded after Sollee heard Moore’s song “Flyrock Blues,” a quiet, plaintive protest song about the environmental and social destruction caused by mountaintop-removal mining, a controversial method of extracting coal that literally blasts away the top layer of an entire mountain. Their collaboration soon blossomed into a full-fledged album, Dear Companion, produced by fellow Kentuckian Yim Yames, better known as Jim James of My Morning Jacket. Though the mining issue is at the heart of Dear Companion, it’s not so much a protest record as a celebration of Appalachian culture mixed with concern about what stands to be lost. Moore and Sollee are on tour now behind the album, playing Evanston’s SPACE on Friday and Schubas on Saturday. Moore talked to The A.V. Club about the album, its inspirations, and the importance of staying positive.

Originally published on avclub.com March 12, 2010. Read the complete article.

Interview: Retribution Gospel Choir’s Alan Sparhawk unleashes his inner classic-rock beast

Plenty of musicians get mellower with age, but Alan Sparhawk’s been doing the exact opposite. For the past couple of albums, his main band, Low, has been progressively increasing the noise level on its minimalist (and originally very quiet) rock, and he pushes that envelope even further with side project Retribution Gospel Choir. Where Low is about doing more with less, RGC is a place where Sparhawk can cut loose. Rounded out by bassist (and Sparhawk’s Low bandmate) Steve Garrington and drummer Eric Pollard, the band has just released its sophomore disc, simply titled 2. Although it still shares a lot in common sonically with Low, the album gives free rein to a fuller, almost classic-rock sound, and it has a sense of freewheeling fun not usually associated with Sparhawk’s main band. Before playing at the Triple Rock Social Club Feb. 20, Sparhawk talked to The A.V. Club about Huey Lewis harmonies, Low’s dip into the dance world, and his toughest critic.

Originally published on avclub.com Feb. 19, 2010. Read the complete article.

Interview: Winging it with Mary Lucia

Since 1994, when she debuted as an on-air DJ at the short-lived alt-rock radio station Rev-105, Mary Lucia has been an unabashed booster for underground and local music—particularly during the last half-decade, as one of the most recognizable voices at Minnesota Public Radio indie-rock outpost at 89.3 FM, The Current. In an age when music on commercial radio is largely locked down by rigid formats, The Current’s playlist is marvelously eclectic, heavy on indie big-hitters like Neko Case and Wilco, but also with a hefty complement of Minnesota musicians, and spiced with the occasional dip into Jerry Lee Lewis or Howlin’ Wolf. Though The Current has never reached the ratings heights of mainstream-rock giants like KQRS, it has been (along with smaller left-of-the-dials like KFAI  and the U of M’s Radio K) hugely important in giving exposure to underheard music, helping drive up audiences for deserving musicians, local or otherwise, that would otherwise be ignored in favor of another spin of some Tom Petty song. Mary Lucia embodies the station’s approach—freewheeling and affably conversational, she’s clearly a fan of music, and as enthusiastic about turning her listeners on to something new and great as she’d be with a close friend. In advance of The Current’s fifth-anniversary show at First Avenue Jan. 29—featuring a stellar all-local lineup including Solid Gold, P.O.S., Mason Jennings, Lookbook, and The Twilight Hours—Mary Lucia talked with The A.V. Club about the beauty of mistakes, the pains and pleasures of winging it, and how she got revenge on She Wants Revenge.

Originally published on avclub.com Jan. 27, 2010. Read the complete article.

Interview: Modern Radio’s 7 ways to make it as a record label

It’s not easy to keep a labor of love alive—that’s certainly true for indie record labels, and even many successful ones have been wrecked by bad luck, bad decisions, or plain old burnout. But Minneapolis label Modern Radio has been happily plugging away for a decade thanks to both a passion for documenting the Twin Cities music scene and a pragmatism focused on long-term survival. “I’ll be the first to say that I’m not surprised that we made it to 10 years,” says founder Tom Loftus, “and I won’t be surprised when we make it to 20.”

Originally posted on avclub.com Jan. 20, 2010. Read the complete article.