How excited am I?

Super excited! Gogol Bordello is playing The Cabooze Outdoor Stage on Thursday, June 12. Yes my friends, my favorite Gypsies from the East are coming to the Midwest and I couldn't be happier about it. Come a raise a glass of Rakia with me and dance dance dance!

Foals @ 7th St Entry

After sleeping through not one, but two bands Monday night, I really, really hoped Foals would hit the Entry hard and give us all a good slap in the face. I went into the show feeling iffy about the band - aren't they Bloc Party with the good luck of an Antibalas horn section? Yes.

Front man Yannis Philippakis - half Christian Siriano, half Colin Ferrell - is a gifted hype man. He started the set by dancing in the crowd and they loved him for it - like Beatle mania love - like Michael Jackson in Japan love. The college students in the front row (including the girl dressed as AliRose) screamed, danced and nearly cried as Foals led them through their dance punk songbook (names of which I don't know and probably never will.) Yannis and bassist Walter Gervers talked to their admiring crowed quite a bit, and proved to be pretty funny - they mentioned a certain local radio personality whose accent they found confusing and called, "Inter-Atlantic" and "from somewhere near Greenland."

In between songs, they played metal (including one short but sweet Slayer cover) - and for the first time in their set, played loose and connected. They put on a show that everyone loved, but with the exception of their hard transitions, it might as well have been "Cassius" over and over again. I hope they get over dance punk and make a good hardcore album - just pray they don't look to The Blood Brothers as they did Bloc Party.

5 Questions with Muja Messiah

If you don’t know who Muja Messiah is, you’re missing out on a great experience. The energy in the room when he’s on the stage is bananas and everyone has the pleasure of relating to his rhymes. MMTC's Brandi Storm asked Muja Messiah a few questions at Bellanotte about the hip hop game.

B.S. Who or what inspired you to get into hip hop?
M.M. Rakim, Nas, the Micronauts and just seeing local cats do it.

B.S. What do you think about the sate of hip hop right now?
M.M. Beautiful because the powers in the artists hands now, the industry has failed us, I feel the internet has opened up doors for us. It’s all about cyber space baby.

B.S. When was the first time you preformed?
M.M. 8^th Grade Brooklyn Junior High School talent show and I killed it.

B.S. If you could do a track with anyone right now who would that be and why.
M.M. Amy Winehouse because she’s talented and she likes to have fun and the paparazzi loves her.

B.S. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
M.M. Trading stocks online, training and breeding my dog, doing yard work at my house.

*photo by: Rebecca B-Fresh McDonald

Dancing With The Stars

ok ok ok...I may be watching Dancing With the Stars right now. Recovering after staying out too late too many nights in a row. But seriously, Def Leppard was just on - which reminded me of my absolute favorite made for TV movie of ALL TIME.

Start watching about 7 mins in - I love the post-apocalyptic backdrop and the girlfriend stumbling in the distance... if only all hair bands had drama like this.

Reason #987 Why I should stop shopping at Urban Outfitters

I had a Brenda/Kelly Spring Dance moment at the Entry. To jog your memory:

Overheard at the Entry last night

Nick & I went to see Foals last night at 7th St. Two local bands opened for them - Ghost In The Water & North. This is how they made me feel:

This is how Ghost In The Water made others feel:

• Ghost In The Water is like driving through the streets of Tokyo with Mr Monopoly as your driver on ecstasy.
• ...falling into a diabetic coma.
• ...blowing bubbles with Jesus.
• ...spending the weekend in Mario 3.
• ...getting kicked in the nuts by Willy Wonka.
• ...eating your first Starburst.
• ...what it would feel like if Sufijan Stevens braided your hair.
• ...doing (something dirty) with the lead singer of Flock of Seagulls.
  

Hmmm. I don't think Ghost In The Water went over too well with the company I keep. Maybe if they didn't sound like a candy pop cross between The Faint and Go Sailor.

I've only got two words for North: Cold Play.

Check back for more about Foals and Hot Tranny Mess Yannis Philippakis.

-AliRose

James Apollo In-Studio

James Apollo stopped by the studio today and played a few songs. Thanks for coming!
"I've Got It Easy"

"Golden When It's Gone"

MC Hammer has a blog

Check it out here

5 Worst Biffys in MPLS Music

My body is the rock ‘n roll temple. That’s why I am born, raised and staying in Minneapolweird – I have many a pagoda to exercise my apparatus. However I, like most, often incorporate booze, dancing and skullduggery into my rock regimen, so often I must use lavatory facilities of many a club. Let’s just say raw power and peculiarity are not only found onstage. Here are the worst music venue bathrooms in Minneapolis:

5. The Nomad World Pub- A near-chest-high trough full of ice and seemingly sharpied plywood stall are packed into the gnarliest 8-square-feet on Cedar Ave.

4. First Avenue Mainroom- The staff does their best, but 70+ years spelling relief – some of that as a Greyhound Bus Depot! -- will wear any washroom weary (Negative points for a complete lack of toilet seats).

3. 7th Street Entry- It may be the closest thing we’ve got to CBGB, but tiptoe through the tourage – as it often serves as a backstage barnyard for some of indie music’s most up-and-coming/dangerously outlandish acts and personalities.

2. Triple Rock Social Club- If the tight quarters and rolling floorscapes don’t clinch the second spot, the decomposing food in the urinals will – I’d advise holding it until you get to the concert side, as they only serve liquids over there.

1. 400 Bar- I was in the bargaining stage of grief only two songs into Dax Rigg’s set, as the unvented tile coffin’s pre-show bleaching was overpowered by a smell that I can only describe as that of a zombie gorilla after a month long dirtnap.

*Honorable Mention: Downtown Parking Ramps- While not a traditional biffy, the hardest of pregamers hop out of the car instantly to send unsanitary streams trickling throughout the structures on any given Thursday-Saturday, giving my temple that much-needed warm up as I double-dutch my way to the show.

-Leif

Hot Chip's Next Wave Sound Sweeps up Sold Out First Ave

My first roommate in California plastered our dorm room with pictures of Jarvis Cocker. "A Different Class" played on a loop that year, and we took every opportunity to go dancing at a San Francisco disco that played Brit Pop for the underage. We had so much fun those Thursday nights, singing along with the eyelinered cool to the NME-coined "New Wave of New Wave". Nearly 10 years later, I really wished Vivien was with me last Friday at First Avenue.

The evening started with an interview with Felix Martin and dreamy Owen Clarke of Hot Chip. We played "pass the microphone with Leif and AliRose" after their sound check, and talked about sticky weather, wrestling and fitting into a genre. They were super nice. After some Jameson and Pad Thai, I looked forward to their set.

The duo Free Blood from Brooklyn, New York, opened the festivities. Madeline & John had been sitting two tables away from me at a Thai place downtown before the show, and my friends openly mocked John's sweet airbrushed Mexican wrestler sweatshirt. I thought it was awesome, but as I am realizing, Minnesota is slow to the irony. Thankfully, he chose to wear the sweatshirt onstage, which provided enough spectacle to keep me awake. They turned out to be one of those laptop bands that plug in and play a cross between Momus and Cannibal Corpse. The crowd, made up of a quarter aging singles, half American Appareled MCAD students, a quarter frat boys, and one Fox 9 investigator, liked them, but not enough to make the sold out First Avenue full of energy. Al Doyle from Hot Chip, who also plays with LCD Soundsystem, played his guitar on a couple of songs, breaking up the computer music, and leaving me to wonder how they got on the ticket.

The minute Hot Chip appeared onstage, all earlier noise melted away. Opening with "Shake a Fist", the entire club went Hot Chip crazy and for the next two hours, they had me and most everyone in their pocket. In a sharp white suit (half Don Johnson, half Kip Dynamite), Alexis Taylor coolly sang "And I Was a Boy from School", "Ready for the Floor", and "Wrestlers" as the audience mouthed the words and pardon the expression, shook their fists. They managed to sound improvisational with complicated rhythms, a dozen instruments, choreographed lighting and seamless song transitions. Hot Chip were very tight. As the set drew to a close, they gave a nod to First Avenue royalty and played a few bars of "Little Red Corvette" before closing their encore with "Nothing Compares To You", sweeping into their own "Made In The Dark". Hot Chip put on a show I won't forget.

About half way through the performance, I looked around the room and realized I was bopping and singing along with everyone. I guess Hot Chip is the New Wave of the New Wave of New Wave, and in that sweaty crowd, I had flashbacks to Viv and I bounding around PopScene belting out the lyrics to all songs we loved so dear. If I were 18 and an art student once again, I'm sure one if not all five would be pinups on my dorm room wall.

As the house lights went on, I waved to Owen and he smiled and waved back. At least I think he did.

-AliRose

ps - Here is a camera phone video I found on YouTube from the show:

Earth Day World Beater

It’s Earth Day, so let’s celebrate a bona fide WORLDBEATER. You surely know him, you’ve sang his songs, but you had no idea he was this talented. He has more talent in one of his almond, 100-yard gazing eyes than you do in that whole tackily follicled head of yours. Read the list, then click the link at the bottom to accept his greatness.

SITCOM THEMES WRITTEN WITH THEN-WIFE GLORIA LORING:

Diff'rent Strokes (1978)

The Facts of Life (1979)

Hello Larry (1979)

GAMESHOW THEMES WRITTEN:

Wheel of Fortune (1975) composed the theme song called "Big Wheels."

The Wizard of Odds (1973) composed and sang the theme song.

The Joker's Wild (1972), composed the closing theme song from 1974 to 1975 called "The Joker's Jive."

Celebrity Sweepstakes (1974) composed the second theme song called "The Stars Come Out."

Blank Check (1975) composed the theme song entitled "Hip Check" which was used on every episode except the pilot.

The Diamond Head Game (1975) composed the theme song entitled "Diamond Head."

Stumpers! (1976),

Whew! (1979),

Animal Crack-Ups (1987) sang the tune, but composed the music with his son Todd called "Animals Are Just Like People Too."

CLICK HERE AND BOW DOWN!

-Leif

Tapes n' Tapes Put a Hex On It

It was so relieving to see Tapes n' Tapes play First Ave's mainroom last night with a fervor unseen since Lollapalooza 2007.

The local-boys-gone-national seemed road weary and jaded after being thrust to the top of the indie heap after releasing "The Loon."

For those who don't know, it's named after their favorite MPLS bar, and they took the stage like it was Saturday night and Grape Apes were on 2fers.
Unleashing new material from "Walk It Off" intertwined with "Loon" faves, they showed their true mastery of the crescendo - starting soft and subtle, lullling the crowd into a trance before unleasing a melodic assault. Don’t believe me? See “10 Gallon Ascots,” which was a part of the well-played encore.

The promising new material and first-hand knowledge of advancing road aging should keep our hometown heroes in tact through their sophomore trek.

I know this after witnessing them rocket into their first-ever single “Just Drums,” Tapes pounded it out like it was their first show at the Hexagon.

Fare thee well until next time TNT, in the word’s of Dee Snyder: Stay Hungry!

-Leif

The Black Keys Burn Rubber in First Ave's Mainroom

I was in my ’93 Chevy Lumina the first time I heard the hard-chargin’ 1969 Chevelle that is the Black Keys. From the first bending bombast of electric blues that is “Thickfreakness” I was at full attention, staring at my AM/FM-cassette car stereo – daring it to tell me more. 

As the vocals kicked in, I wondered how I’d never heard of these 50-year-old electric bluesmen – and waited for the underpaid college DJ to list off the last few songs he played.

“The Black Keys,” he said. I pushed the pedal in my family sedan to the floor and my obsessive-journalistic side took over. No way would have my ear missed such a stellar sound – and I was right. These cats were brand new – and my age.

These near-23-year-olds bounced up out of Akron, Ohio and polished their road skills on a tiny club tour. Months later, they came to the First Avenue Mainroom stage, which they adorned with a few stacks of used tires – a big up to their “Rubber City” origins.

The few hundred in attendance were treated to an epic, skid mark-leaving torrent that left the keys with “no songs left” to play. So for a third encore, they played The Stooges “No Fun.” Appropriate, as the show was a display of raw power by two young men with old souls – ready to take on all comers.

In the Mainroom appearances since, they had seemed weary and worn. They lacked the torque they displayed in ’03, and showed some rust spots. Six years and endless road miles after that epic show, they returned.

Fresh off a tune-up and tricking-out via uber producer Danger Mouse -- who tweaked their strict guitar-drums sound by adding strings, keys, blips and bloops --  the keys appeared a rebuilt machine.

Their stage featuring a 20-foot inflatable tire, through which the Akronites nodded to their humble beginnings while winking at things to come.

Confidently igniting into their triumphant return with a track off the new “Attack and Release” album, Frontman Dan Auerbach popped a piston – I mean string – on his guitar and went scrambling to tune one of two others leaning on stage while drummer Patrick Carney held the beat down.

Within two minutes the false start was forgiven, and they keys spanned their catalog in classic form, mixing in a few new tracks without the mouse trappings – they even pulled a trick out of the leavin’ trunk with a whiskeyed Captain Beefheart cover.

In the 14-some song showcase, the Black Keys proved that despite the high mileage and pimped-out new sound, they’ve got plenty of gas left in the ride.

-Leif

Vampire Weekend Charm the Room at Triple Rock

When the average indie kid hears Vampire Weekend, they become giddy and codoned, like a girl scout on oxycontin wafers.

The question is…Why? These Columbia-learned Ivy Leaguers aren’t dangerous, threatening, even impolite for that matter.

They don’t play some new amalgam of Ziggy Stardust and the Rolling Stones that you are the first blogger to know about. But they do sound like Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel had a Bowie/Jagger boy party and abandoned their Blue Blood baby in downtown Johannesburg.
So I guess that is a new sound no one knew about but their gently playful fathers – and it’s so amiable and alluring that every club in the U.S. and abroad is inviting them over to their stage.
The Minneapolis mid-level Triple Rock Social Club was lucky enough to get some face time with VW Thursday, and 21-year-old former girl scouts as well as 50-year-old longhairs were swooned by this month’s hottest boys in the band.

Some indie-elitists claim the sound is too derivative of Simon and Gabriel to be pure genius, but by the third song of the set even the most cynical of the tight trousered crowd was gushing. With the audience at their beck and call, the Vamps invited them to “dance a little.” Oblige they did, as the band – in the face of such hype – shrugged off the challenge, not missing a note through the call and response of “One (Blake’s Got a New Face)” to the skanky jitter of “A-Punk.”

The boys tried a taste of danger as they punkily snarled out “Oxford Comma” – but came off absolutely sober and charming.

A great album, a great effort on stage, a great tour – so what can Vampire Weekend possibly do next to win the blogs and minds of indie kids?

“We’re working on a new album, but it’s hard re-recording Tom Petty’s Greatest Hits," quipped frontman Ezra Koenig.

-Leif