TUESDAY: Mary Bue Album Release Show
This week accomplished recording artist Mary Bue released her latest album, Holy Bones. It is an indie-pop, musical commentary regarding a frazzled & hungry society. Written primarily on electric guitar with thick bass & rock ‘n roll drums, her new sound is fresher and lighter even when exploring the shadows of the modern American psyche. Mary Bue’s 6th studio album is a creative shift from her typical piano-driven singer-songwriting, funded in part by a career development grant from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council of Minnesota. The impetus for Holy Bones sprang out nightmares of cleaving a grand piano in half with a table saw. Sassy and full of fire and joy, the songs explore themes like simplicity, following your bliss, mindfulness and love as well as darker shades of human experience – addiction, family dysfunction, and mortality. Holy Bones is a reflection of the shattered attention spans which swirl in modern American life, the enormous pressure we carry to attain wealth and success, and the ultimate bliss of letting go.
Tuesday night’s bill also features the Brian Just Band and Chris Koza. The Brian Just Band recently enlisted some of the finest folk and jazz influenced talents in the Minneapolis music scene (including members of the Como Avenue Jug Band, The Brass Kings, John Mark Nelson and Corpse Reviver) the seven-piece band spent two years writing and recording their second full-length album Enlightenment released in June of 2013. Chris Koza is a singer-songwriter-composer living and working in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Critics have taken note ranging from local press: “The man’s got ‘pop’ down!” (Minnesota Monthly) to national attention: Paste Magazine calls Rogue Valley one Minnesota’s best bands. Koza performs with regularity in the Twin Cities, the greater Minnesota region, and also nationally.
Sounds Like: Jenny Dalton, Chris Koza, Lily Holbrook, Jennifer Terran
WEDNESDAY: Chiefs of the North SXSW Send-Off Show
You know that feeling, when you hear a song that makes all of life’s realities melt away? It could be one lyric in the middle of a verse or a big soaring chorus. Whatever it is it takes you somewhere, it impacts you, inspires you. This is what Chiefs of the North survive on. They conspire to make rock-n-roll that moves people. Mike Nilsson of mplsmusic.com wrote:
They were a band I saw randomly at a show at 7th St Entry. It didn’t take long to see their live energy contain the room; making me a fan from then on. Every time I see these guys the stage is way too small to contain them. The sound they produce takes you on a real journey, not just your average grab-another-beer modern rock band; but rather an uncommonly unique sound, like if a twisted reincarnate of the birth of rock and roll met the 90′s grunge era. There’s not a big enough stage for the Chiefs; they’ll continue to take over the whole thing. What you can do is go to one of their shows, buy their albums, play it in your car and learn something more about yourself. This is the type of band and album that will change your life; whether you want it to or not, and you will know exactly why.
Supporting the act that night will be a combination of three talented, local bands. MEMEME has been collaborating for three years now and has performed at Triple Rock Social Club, The Cabooze, The Fineline and many other venues. Denim Matriarch, a young, heavy, three piece band guaranteed to blow your mind. And finally, Inspired by numerous prog-rock and post-rock acts, The Great Went is a band with a unique blend of instrumental rock that gets to the point.
THURSDAY: Swervedriver
The band who brought the car song into the shoegaze era, Swervedriver was formed in Britain in 1990 by vocalists/guitarists Adam Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge, bassist Adi Vines, and drummer Graham Bonner. Fusing the swirling textures of the shoegazer aesthetic with the more traditional boundaries of pop, the group debuted with a series of brilliant EPs – Son of Mustang Ford, Rave Down, and Sandblasted – before issuing their full-length debut, Raise, in 1991. The show at the Turf Club will be the sixth stop for Swervedriver as their recently launched North American tour comes into full swing. The tour features the band’s newly released album, I Wasn’t Born to Lose You.
Sounds Like: Slowdive, Ringo Deathstarr, My Bloody Valentine, Chapterhouse
FRIDAY: Al Church Next Summer CD Release Show
Al Church’s career began in a sunny living room, over coffee, on a Friday morning that quickly turned into every Friday morning. Musician and songwriter, Al Church has a distinct style, matured over years of Minneapolis gigs, wove to form lyrics that are both contemplative and playful with harmonies both sophisticated and singable. This will be the release show for his latest CD, Next Summer. The early parts of Friday night will feature Alpha Consumer, the Lady Heat DJ crew, and Staraoke karaoke in the Clown Lounge. The members of Alpha Consumer have worked with Bon Iver, Arcade Fire, Andrew Bird, Chuck Statler, Brother Ali, and more while DJs Christy Hunt, Danielle Morris and Sara Jean Hanson take the decks as Lady Heat.
Sounds like: BBGUN, Al Church & State, Weezer
SATURDAY: The Cactus Blossoms (Duo) | Sam Outlaw
Brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum grew up in northeast Minneapolis and have been blending their voices as The Cactus Blossoms since 2010. Their hypnotic harmonies and unforgettable songs have made them favorites in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul music scene. Their latest album, Live at the Turf Club, blurs the line between old and new as they sneak a few originals into their repertoire of early country and Western swing. “Country” and “music” has become such an unsavory combination of late. On the other hand, the Cactus Blossoms are the result of myriad wise pairings. First off, the interweaving of the brothers Page Burkum and Jack Torrey’s voices are era-less, ageless, and fearless. Second, the Turf Club has such faith in teaming with the Cactus Blossoms that it has etched the whole band onto its outside wall as an elaborate mosaic and booked weekly meetings of a twangy broken-hearts club for more than a year now every Monday night.
Sam Outlaw is a country singer living in Los Angeles. He was born in South Dakota and ‘Outlaw’ is his mother’s maiden name. Sam writes original songs that seek to capture the spirit of the classic country music he learned from his favorite singers: George Jones, Willie Nelson, Gene Watson, Don Williams, Keith Whitley, Dwight Yoakam, etc. While still relatively new to the scene, 2014 was a pivotal year for Outlaw. CMT premiered his first-ever music video last Christmas, after which his second music video became a viral hit, premiered by The Bluegrass Situation and shared by thousands in the Americana community.
SUNDAY: Blackwater | The Courtney Yasmineh Band | Buddakao
To close out the weekend at the Turf Club, the stage will feature a variety of local rockers such as Blackwater and The Courtney Yasmineh Band as well as local rock and rap lyricist, Buddakao. For the emerging artist Courtney Yasmineh, whether it’s in her cogent body of work over four albums, or in her bewildering back story that continues to inform Yasmineh’s convincing amalgam of alternative rock, folk, pop and soul. It’s a deep, poisoned well she urgently draws from, filled with hard reflection, brutal honesty, bittersweet inspiration, brief flights of sexual fantasy and blistering romance, and saving graces. Live onstage, she’s sexy, smart and somehow simultaneously shy and brazen. As a teenager whose family life in late ’70s Chicago suddenly cratered around her, she fled to the great north woods of Minnesota that Bob Dylan once facetiously claimed he ran away from. It had something to do with her father, a freaked-out mother, broken brother, the law and insider trading. That glimpse into her saga is told, in part, in the redeemingly funny and ironic “Married to Bob,” a fanciful tune from her six-song EP, Early Days, pretending herself hitched to Hibbing, Minnesota’s most famous native son. Lyricist Mike Athorn had known of songwriter Tom Dub in high school when they both played in the South High School orchestra. Since then, they have sought their own musical avenues: Mike has released two albums under his rap moniker ‘Buddakao’ with various local producers while Tom has performed his sample-based compositions for theater, dance and the rock group Just Foes. After Mike graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in Journalism and Tom with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking, they reacquainted while working at the Eat Street Social. Mike invited Tom to add live instrumentation for the CD release show of his second solo album, Save a Place for Me. The collaboration was such a success that Tom composed original instrumentals with his co-writer Alex Kim, which eventually lead to their newest release, Hand Over Hand.
MONDAY: Kid Dakota
Kid Dakota is the musical moniker of Darren Jackson. He started performing as “Kid Dakota and the Tumbleweeds” in 1998 while living in Providence, Rhode Island. The name was chosen in homage to his home state of South Dakota and also as a parody of Kid Rock. In the summer of 1999, Darren recorded the five songs that would appear on the So Pretty EP with long-time friend and producer, Alex Oana, at City Cabin (formerly Blackberry Way). Darren moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota that winter and self-released the So Pretty EP in the spring of 2000. The EP caught the attention of Alan Sparhawk, singer and guitarist for the seminal slow-core band, Low and he offered to release the EP on his label, Chairkickers’ Union under the condition that it be expanded into a full-length LP. The LP version of So Pretty was released in the spring of 2002 with three additional songs. In 2004 his second album, The West is the Future, was also released by Chairkickers. It was recorded live at Seedy Underbelly in Minneapolis, MN by Alex Oana and featured Zak Sally, the bassist from Low. A Winner’s Shadow, was released on March 11, 2008 on Graveface Records, who would release Kid Dakota’s next album, Listen to the Crows as They Take Flight, in October 2011.
Assembled in 2011, Minneapolis rock quartet Sleep Study has lived up to high expectations set by their dedicated followers and the media. “Coupled with strong chemistry within the band and an updated ’70s aesthetic as heard on their first single ‘Flower Girl,’ the group has been making waves since their formation last summer.” (NPR – 89.3 The Current). The band has tackled the near impossible task of being relevant while nodding to heroes of rock’s past. After being discovered by Michael Simon, President of The Harry Fox Agency, Sleep Study’s debut album Nothing Can Destroy was officially released August 2012 on Simon Recordings and immediately noted by Star Tribune writer Chris Riemenschneider as an album expected to “be on many local critics’ year-end lists” Starting off the night at the Turf will be Buffalo Sleeper, a five piece band from Minneapolis, MN, consisting of Don Diez, Chuck Miller, Heath Henjum, Neil Pederson and Eva Moe.
Sounds Like: The Microphones, Mount Eerie, Candy Claws
Blog by Kevin Clancy
