Sara Pajunen, Arto Järvelä and Jonathan Rundman at the Cedar - Photo by David de Young

Seeing Finland’s Arto Järvelä and Minnesota’s Kaivama perform together at The Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis Friday night made me feel downright happy. For a musical performance to be a success, happiness need not be either the intention or the result, but regardless, it’s a great bonus.

Arto Järvelä is a founding member of Finland’s best-known folk fiddle group JPP (originally Järvelän Pikkupelimannit, “the small fiddlers of Järvelä”). One of Finland’s premier folk musicians in his own right, Järvelä has appeared in concert in more than 30 countries around the world and has oft been called “the busiest man in Finnish folk music.”  (I hope you’ll take the time to enjoy a few samples of Järvelä’s music on his ReverbNation site.)

Friday night, Järvelä opened with “Maa on musta,” a track from his most recent recording, Arto Järvelä plays fiddle Vol. 2, Cross-tuned, a 16-track album recorded in his hometown of Ulvila, Finland.  From his first song, I jotted the word “mesmerizing” in my notebook.  “Maa on musta,” a ringdance from a collection of music compiled by Hasse Alatalo, was both haunting yet inviting. Järvelä had the room under his spell immediately.

Most songs in his set came from his new CD, a collection of songs all with open tunings, or scordatura (in the Italian). In his liner notes he explains “every tuning has a character of its own, and some tunes work better in open tunings.” On the back of the song booklet, Järvelä even includes a key as to how each of the 4 fiddle strings is tuned for each song.

Järvelä picked up the tempo with a medley of “Hanhen polska” (Goose’s polska) and “Starc 21,” and then “Alfred at Armhaala”, the album’s opening track, a waltz, dedicated to Alfred Niemisto, a fiddler and fiddle builder from Southern Ostrobothnia in Finland. Niemesto built a viola d’amore in 1905 which Järvelä had the opportunity to play a few years ago, and a short clip he recorded from that instrument into his mobile phone inspired him to write this song.

Other songs in this segment were the bouncy and fast dance medley “Prissatka & Melkutus,” and “Jarrupolska” (Brakepolska), a song he wrote in the winter of 2010 inspired by the sound of the brakes on the Parikkala Inter City train.  Both those songs can be heard on his ReverbNation page.

Järvelä announced he was 10 days into a tour with Kaivama and “it’s been a lot of fun.”

Kaivama then joined him onstage and they performed a wedding march as a trio, before segueing effortlessly into songs from Kaivama’s record.

Kaivama, who bill themselves as “Finnish-American Excavators,” say their name is based on the Finnish word “kaiva,” which means “to dig.” They are Sara Pajunen (fiddle) and Jonathan Rundman (guitar and pump organ), both of whom profess to be 75% Finnish. Early demos of their music have received radio play on YLE, Finland’s public broadcasting network.  Pajunen has degrees from the University of Minnesota as well as the Helsinki Conservatory in Finland. And multi-instrumentalist Rundman has garnered critical praise for his songwriting and performances across the United States and Europe. (See his recent solo album, Insomiaccomplishments.)

Before wrapping up the first half of the show, the three musicians played “Joutsen Polska” (Swan Polska) from Kaivama’s brand new debut self-titled CD.

After a short intermission, Kaivama dug into more of their record including “Sulo” (which means “grace” or “charm” in Finnish), then Pajunen’s haunting “Cross Country,” a melancholic piece that while sad still conveys a strong sense of forward motion.  Pajunen and Rundman traded off songs with Rundman’s “Edina Speedtrap” coming next.  “Speedtrap” has a surprising heavy metal influence (or at least attitude) towards the end even while remaining firmly a folk song.

Next was another Pajunen song, “Nonstop” (again, melancholic but spirited), then the “Pirun polska”, which Pajunen called “Devil’s polska.”

Järvelä rejoined the musicians, this time on mandolin. This next segment of the show featured a polka from Turku, Finland (the country’s former capital), and then “Hoppavalssi” (Jump Waltz) a song Järvelä wrote with JPP for their 1999 album History.

The three musicians closed out the evening with one of my favorites, Järvelä’s 1997 song Røros, a song he wrote at Ørland Airport in Norway.  I am convinced someone should write and produce a film just so this beautiful song can be the theme song.  Kaivama’s version of this song is absolutely gorgeous.

Kaivama go back out on Tour on June 24^th across Michigan and eventually end up at several American Finnish festivals including FinnFest in San Diego August 11-14.  Jarvelo goes back to Finland, but will join Kaivama again on some of their Michigan tour dates.

Barbara Berlovitz as Joan Didion - Photo by Liz Neerland.

Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends. – Joan Didion

 

“It will happen to you,” author Joan Didion (played by Barbara Berlovitz) says in the opening scene of Didion’s own adaptation of her 2004 novel The Year of Magical Thinking (at nimbus theatre, 1517 Central Avenue NE, Minneapolis, through May 21st).  “The details will be different, but it will happen to you.”

These words, matter-of-factly delivered with a knowing air of wisdom, set the tone for a detailed story of loss– with an emphasis on the details. Over the course of 90 minutes Didion tells of the sudden death of first her husband, fellow writer John Gregory Dunne, and then, too soon afterwards, the death of her only daughter Quintana. (Those who have read the book will note the book deals only with John’s death and Quintana’s illness – Quintana died between the time Didion finished the book and its publication.)

Didion tells us her first instinct after her husband’s death was to try and master the event by mastering the facts around it. The concept of “magical thinking” relates to how she tried to keep him alive by thinking him alive.  If she just keeps his shoes, for example, then he can come back. Such feelings point to the temporary madness inherent in grief, and grief as temporary mental illness is just one of the themes at work here.

I had some apprehension when I first saw nimbus was tackling this show. I was excited because I’d enjoyed the book and felt it to be not only good but important (it’s a key piece of American grief literature), but concerned by the fact that it would be a one-woman show. I was assured, however, when I saw it would be Barbara Berlovitz (co-founder of the defunct Theatre del la Jeune Lune) in the starring role. As I had hoped, Berlovitz captures the detachment of Didion’s narrative with finesse while still keeping the audience’s attention focused on every word.  Director Liz Neerland, to her credit, says she had Berlovitz clearly in mind when she decided to do this play.

That this show is more than a dramatic reading, even if much of the dialogue is direct from the book, is made clear by a short scene late in the play where Berlovitz dons glasses, picks up a hardcover version of the book and reads. Being read to and being told something are different things, and this scene demonstrates the contrast. This production succeeds because you get a sense of direct, intimate sharing. The house was small the night I saw the show, so my feeling that Berlovitz was looking directly at me and speaking to me directly on occasion was probably not even my imagination.

Subtle scene differentiation in what is essentially one large single scene on the minimalistic set by Josh Cragun (I could even imagine this play working in a black box with just a stool and small table) is punctuated by music and sound effects by Jake Davis and extremely subtle lighting changes by Mitchell Frazier.

Not just a show for people who have experienced loss, The Year of Magical Thinking is for everyone, because everyone will experience loss in at some point. “It will happen to you.”

Recommended.

Doug Scholz-Carlson as American war photographer Peter Adamson Photo by V. Paul Virtucio

In the 1990s during the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, over 100,000 people were killed and more than 2 million people displaced in one of the most horrific set of human-inflicted tragedies since WWII. Heaven, a new work by Flying Foot Forum, directed by Joe Chvala with music by Chan Poling (The Suburbs, The New Standards) is an ambitious and heart-wrenching piece of dance theater about the impact of that conflict. This emotionally-charged, human story left me feeling as if I’d been punched in the gut. Never heavy-handed, it educates without descending into didacticism. And with the news of the struggles in Egypt and Libya on the news each evening, I wonder: is there a more timely and important work being performed on a Twin Cities stage right now?

Heaven follows American freelance photographer, Peter Adamson (a strong performance by Doug Scholz-Carlson) as he travels through Bosnia documenting the horrific events of the war, accompanied by his translator Faruk (another stand-out performance by Eric Webster) The play opens in a bar called Café Heaven in the early 1990s about the time the former Yugoslavian nation broke up. (We learn from the proprietor, perhaps not so coincidentally, that Café Heaven is just across the street from Café Hell.) The first full-ensemble street dance and song (“All Are Welcome”) set the tone for the entire production with choreography worthy of a West Side Story fight scene, and songs of Broadway caliber. (I heard one audience member wonder out loud after the show if a cast recording would be available. If one was, I’d buy it.)

Though I strained to hear the singers in the first few minutes after curtain, the mix got better as the evening wore on and I presume this will continue to improve as the run continues. There’s a lot to keep track of here, and for the most part it all went off without a hitch.

Director and choreographer Joe Chvala succeeds in uniting the show’s many winning elements. The versatile and attractive set by Joel Sass is a hit, music direction by Jake Endres (with help from Balkan music consultant Natalie Nowytski) is equally stunning, and there are too many memorable performances from the nearly two-dozen-strong ensemble to mention. To the credit of the entire cast (though the show is performed mainly in English) language consultant and translator Stele Osmancevic and dialect coach Joseph Papke had me totally taken in by the dialog (and even some complete songs!) in Serbo-Croatian.  (Subtitles provided during those sections were projected on the back wall of the theater.)

For a brand new show, Heaven is already a tight production that could benefit from only a few cuts; overall it’s well-constructed, with deft use of refrain and reprise. Chan Poling’s songs drive the action and are never irrelevant, and when I left the theater, I believe I had gotten one of the main points of the show. More of a question or challenge, really, posed by Adamson in one of his stints as narrator: “Do you keep your eyes open, or not?”  This is theater that grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you in your seat.

A woman near me sobbed through part of the second act.  This show is that powerful.  I can’t  help but direct you to the Dowling Studio to see it.

Heaven is at the Guthrie Theater’s Dowling Studio through April 10^th.

Special presentation: On Tuesday, March 29^th at 7PM World Without Genocide presents “Exhumations and Examinations – Rule of Law in Bosnia and Kosovo.” For tickets to that event, visit http://worldwithoutgenocide.org/registermarch29

L to R: Eric Ringham, Heidi Berg, Jeffrey Goodson. Photo by Josh Cragun

Kicking off its 10^th season, nimbus has christened a new permanent theater space at 1517 Central Avenue in Northeast Minneapolis with a spicy adaptation of Jean Genet’s controversial The Balcony (nimbus theater, February 11^th through March 6^th).

A sign posted at the entry to the house warns: “Please be aware this show contains cigar smoke, gunshots, loud explosions, vulgar language, adult situations, and whips.”  The Balcony delivers faithfully on each, and in nimbus artistic director Josh Cragun’s hands, it provides a delightful yet thought-provoking evening of entertainment.

The play, by French novelist, poet and activist Jean Genet, was first produced in London in 1957 and has been a favorite among directors ever since.  It won an Obie for Genet in 1960 after its American premiere in New York. The action plays out in an upscale brothel run by Madame Irma (a proud and business-like Heidi Berg).  As a bloody revolution rages outside, we are introduced  to power archetypes in the form of a bishop (Jeffery Goodson), a judge (Eric Ringham) and a general (Bud Prescott) who have come to Irma’s to play out their fantasies. But they are perhaps not surprisingly reluctant when the opportunity to play these same roles in the real world arises after their corresponding societal equivalents are killed in the revolution.

Key supporting roles in the well-matched cast are the brothel staff, including MaryLynn Mennicke, Brian Hesser, Kate Gunther, and Katherine Moeller. All bring memorable performances. Also of note is Mason Mahoney as the dashing cigar-chomping Chief of Police and Erin Denman as Chantal, a former prostitute who has left the brothel to become a sort of living icon of the revolution.

In the staging, I found use of platform shoes for the bishop, judge and to be a nicely twisted touch (costumes by Lisa Conley), as well as the tarot card archetypes incorporated into the set (set design by Zach Morgan).  Nimbus’s new theater also allowed for a dramatic scene change about halfway through the play which would not have been as readily accomplished in their old space.

I should caution that run time is on the high end at just over three hours with one intermission, but the moments my attention wavered were spread out in such a way that I still felt thoroughly engaged from end to end.

If you haven’t been to nimbus since their days at the Minneapolis Theater Garage, The Balcony presents a great opportunity to visit them again in their new, more versatile space.

Recommended.

Canasta - Photo by Meredith Westin

Wednesday’s bill at the 400 Bar featuring Portland, Oregon’s Black Prairie (members of the Decemberists and friends) and Chicago’s Canasta was more than enough to bring me out of music writer retirement. And I wasn’t disappointed. It turned out to be one of the most enjoyable weeknights of music I’ve seen anywhere in some time.

I must say Canasta’s first album in 5 years, 2010’s The Fakeout The Tease and the Breather is arguably my favorite album released so far this year. The remarkably well-crafted songs just plain make me happy, encouraging listen after listen, and their symphonic and intelligent Bell and Sebastian-like pop never crosses over into the realm of pretension.

Canasta opened with “An Apology” from 2005’s Broken Middle C release We Were Set Up (their first full-length), and the set for the most part alternated through tracks from that album and their new one, centrally featuring “Slow Down Chicago” which was dedicated to a sizable group of friends from The Windy City who were in attendance and sitting at a front table. (Since the band was last in town in January of 2006, that song was featured in the trailer of the 2008 film Diminished Capacity.)

The whole set was spot on, made even more impressive by the fact that they were first on the bill and actually done playing by 9:15 just as the club was really starting to fill up. Photographer Meredith Westin who was already enjoying the set was in heaven when the band covered “No Diggity” by Blackstreet. Singer Matt Priest showed he can really rap, but even more impressive to watch was violinist Elizabeth Lindau belting out the Queen Pen part of the song while holding a fiddle. Now that was somethin’.

Headlining Wednesday night’s show was Black Prairie on the first actual gig of their fall tour. Dobro player Chris Funk said the band had gotten to town the previous night and spent an enjoyable evening drinking (heavily, he noted) at Nye’s piano bar. As fun as I’m sure that was, it was pretty apparent the band and the attentive fans who had come to see them on this night had quite the time at the 400 as well.

Black Prairie - Photo by Meredith Westin

In addition to Funk, who is a long-time member of the Decemberists, Black Prairie features Decemberists’ bassist Nate Query and accordion player Jenny Conlee-Drizos. Rounding out the 5-piece ensemble (all fantastic musicians, I must add) are Jon Neufeld on archtop guitar and Analisa Tornfelt on vocals and violin (and at one point Stroh Violin..)

Opening with the first track from their Sugar Hill Records debut CD Feast of the Hunter’s Moon, “Across the Black Prairie” the band played through most of the songs on their new disc accompanied by wry humor from Funk. The album is a collection of 13 haunting original bluegrass and folk songs, with an undeniably southern feel to them, and a couple extremely well-chosen traditional songs. Funk commented on the fact that it was their first show of the tour and they weren’t yet sure what to play. Or even to wear, which led to an aside from bassist Query about how each year at SXSW thousands of guys stand in front of mirrors in Austin holding up a black shirt and a western shirt trying to decide which one to don for the show.
Black Prairie’s set Wednesday featured a song by the Carter Family and a cover of the Gram Parsons “Hickory Wind.” After an enrapturing 45 minutes or so it wound up with the band joining the audience on the floor of the 400 Bar for an intimate encore including a sing-along of Paul McCartney’s ukulele ditty “Ram On” led by Funk with the band singing along and the audience joining in as best we could.

Twin Cities band I Was in Vancouver held down the middle slot.

See more of Meredith Westin’s photos from this show in the gallery below:

Eclipsed publicity photo by Tony Nelson - Left to right Sha Cage, Hope Cervantes and Yeuka Mudzi

Eclipsed, the 2009 play by Obie Award-winning playwright Danai Gurira tells the story of an unlikely sisterhood of five women in civil war-torn Liberia. Frank Theatre’s regional premier of the work opened Friday at the Playwrights’ Center (2301 East Franklin Ave.) in Minneapolis.

In Frank Artistic Director Wendy Knox’s hands, the production is intense, but never heavy-handed. A strong, well-matched cast brings to life the play’s humanity and occasional comedy, which make themes of loss of identity amidst the horrors of war less emotionally-draining than you might expect without lessening the power of its message.

Frank favorite Shá Cage brings dignity and depth to the role of Helena, who we come to know in the play as Number One. Like the other female characters she is referred to by her rank in the pecking order of concubines (euphemistically, “wives”) of “the CO”, a warload in Liberia’s most recent civil war. Hope Cervantes is Bessie (Number Two), a wannabe Diana Ross-lookalike always on the look out for fancy clothes and a new wig.  Yeukai Mudzi plays “The Girl” (aka Number Four), the most recent addition to the CO’s harem, with a perfect combination of naïveté and strength.

Nisreen Dawan is Maima, (once known as Number Two in the compound), now a tough, rifle-toting soldier with a penchant for designer clothes made in America (we see her first in a Tommy Girl shirt).  The cast is rounded out by Signe Harriday as Rita, a peacemaker who has come to help put the lives of the country’s women back together, though she herself has lost everything.

Eclipsed is as much defined by what you don’t see as what you do. Men are talked about, but never seen. The CO, in relation to whom the female characters have chosen their very names, is made known only by a door that eerily drifts open whenever he calls for whichever concubine he fancies at the moment. The war itself, news of which we get only second-hand or on a cheap boom box which can’t seem to hold its radio signal, defines (or eclipses) everything. Helena, at one point reflects in her West African-accented English dialect in which the entire play is presented, “I don’t know who I is outside this war.”

Bringing some of the humor to the production is the appearance of a recent American president’s autobiography, from which Number Four reads to the other women.  Also lightening the mood is Bessie’s penchant for wigs – at one point she laments her wig has fallen off even as she’s dragged off kicking and screaming to the midwife to give birth.

Michael Croswell’s set gives us a multi-functional indoor/outdoor room at the CO’s compound where the women sleep on the floor in squalor. Other scenes take place just outside and on the front line of the war where Maima teaches Number Four – after she recruits her as a freedom fighter – how to use her rifle and “fire” (or kill) the enemy.

There are many reasons to see this play. It is perhaps one of Frank’s most thought-provoking productions of the past couple years, and if nothing else, it’ll give you a good excuse to brush up on your Liberian history, something Americans in particular might benefit from given the country’s political origins. Bit don’t let the contemporary political framework keep you away.  Eclipsed is melded to its subject matter in such a way that the themes are relevant and universal even as it tells an important story of a specific war.

Eclipsed runs through October 10^th.

(Take a behind the scenes look at Eclipsed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=sxL7Uw_yEPA)

Peter Pisano of Peter Wolf Crier - Photo by Jenn Barnett

Who would have thought a re-release party could be so much fun? Peter Wolf Crier, the duo of former Wars of 1812‘s frontman Peter Pisano and drummer Brian Moen, released their debut CD Inter-Be locally more than six months ago to considerable local acclaim. Nonetheless, that same CD being picked up by Jagjaguar records for international release on vinyl and CD May 25th is a pretty big deal for the band and their fans.

A line several dozen people deep was waiting for me in front of the Turf Club when I arrived shortly before openers Kill the Vultures took the stage at 10 p.m.  Publicity from local radio and the print media (as well as significant general buzz) for the show had bought in a few fans evidently not steeped enough in local music to be familiar with the openers. Which was unfortunate.  A few attendees told me they had dismissed the internationally-known indie hip hop group as “rap” and “not my style” and retired to the Clown Lounge for their set.

Too bad for them. Kill the Vultures put on a great show.  Alexei Casselle (aka Crescent Moon) commented on the 3-4 foot no man’s land in front of the stage and engaged the crowd, which was shoulder to shoulder all the way to the back of the club, once dropping the mic entirely and performing without amplification for the lucky fans close enough to hear.  (It didn’t quite quiet the chatty crowd, but it did make those paying attention lean in even closer and add another layer of intensity to the set.)

I won’t say much more about KTV as we quite recently reviewed the band’s Walker Art Center performance here.  But I will reiterate that I’ve always found Alexi Casselle’s lyrics and delivery beautifully disturbing, and I think it’s important that an audience be made uneasy sometimes.  KTV’s set was cut a little short, the band clearly eager to play at least one more song but getting a negatory shaking of the head from the sound man. (Set times had the entire show over by 12:05 a.m., which would seem to have left plenty of time for a few more songs. Instead the band left the stage looking a little disappointed about 10:50 p.m.)

Crescent Moon of Kill the Vultures - Photo by Jenn Barnett

The act of the night was Peter Wolf Crier, whom I’ve seen live only a handful of times in their relatively short history, but never from this close before, watching the show from a prime spot five feet away in the crowded club. Friday night the duo performed with a fervor akin to Pisano’s former band’s final show at the Cedar last year, one of the most intense local shows I saw in all of 2009. Together, Pisano and Moen with just guitar, drums, a few assorted pedals and their ethereal harmonies create an aural experience that is eerie, intimate and always rhythmically engaging. Peter Wolf Crier is already exhibiting the charisma of a national act (they played SXSW this past March) and I predict they will be very well received on their upcoming tour (with Fat Possum‘s Heartless Bastards, no less) coming up in June and July. (Check tour dates here.)  Pisano remarked during an extended batch of thank you’s Friday night that he felt pretty comfortable up there (he looked it) and that his parents now probably think people react with adoration every time he climbs onto a stage (he’d better get used to it.)

The band played all 11 songs of the album in order, and I heard elements of  Neil Young to the Grateful Dead (the latter, I recently learned Pisano is a big fan of after he now famously played an entire Grateful Dead show – Winterland, ’77 – as his “DJ set” at Kings Wine Bar this past Tuesday).  When the band finally left the stage, people called out for “one more.” They came back for a single encore, launching into a taut and much-adapted version of Nick Drake‘s “Place to Be,” which laid bare the furious yearning on the inside of a song that in Drake’s hands always seemed fragile and delicate.  It was just one of the highlights of what was already a nearly impeccably executed set.

See also, Jenn Barnett’s slideshow of photos from this show.

Metamorphosis - Publicity photo by Tony Nelson

“Delightful” and “fun” aren’t the first two words that come to mind when one seeks to describe the literary legacy left by Franz Kafka.  But Frank Theatre’s narratively-faithful rendering of  the Bohemian writer’s 1915 novella The Metamorphosis — which opened Friday at Open Eye Figure Theater – is a snappy, impeccably-acted, funny, yet human telling of this well-known tale of alienation. The original script was developed by Frank Artistic Director Wendy Knox (who also directs the production) and the company actors.

Most western literature students are familiar with at least the opening line of The Metamorphosis: “One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.” When that’s where you’re starting out, you know it’s not going to be a good day. (And it’s downhill from there.)

The plot of Frank’s Metamorphosis proceeds as does Kafka’s novella, and the play runs about as long – 90 minutes – as does a sit down reading of the book. Five actors perform all roles and provide the collective voice of the narrator. As with Kafka’s admired original, there are no moments that even resemble a lull. (There’s no intermission, and you don’t need one.)  I was practically on the edge of my seat as things went from bad to worse in the Samsa household – my companion describing the early action like one big anxiety attack – until Gregor’s eventual demise opens up a new (potentially brighter?) chapter of life for his family, a family whose dreams had all but stalled due to their complacent dependence on his income as a travelling salesman.

All performances meet if not exceed the high standard I’ve come to expect from Frank Theater, though the role of Gregor (played by John Catron) should be singled out. Despite no especially vermin-like makeup or costuming, Catron manages to exude insect-like qualities while still retaining unquestionable humanity. Also outstanding is Christopher Kehoe as the office manager who shows up at the Samsa household to inquire about why Gregor hasn’t shown up to work. Kehoe is also top notch in additional roles including all three gentlemen lodgers (which he performs simultaneously with the help of two puppets), and the charwoman. Tessa Flynn is delightful as Gregor’s naïve, but well-meaning sister Grete, and Maria Asp and Patrick Bailey solidly anchor the remainder of the cast as Samsa’s initially timid but ultimately stoic mother and father.

The relatively small Open Eye is perfectly suited to this production and brings an intimacy which would not be possible in a larger theater. Set designer John Bueche makes efficient and effective use of the small space, the entire production playing out on a set with Gregor’s bedroom in the rear and the family’s living and dining quarters in front.

Michael Croswell’s music and sound effects are also noteworthy, at times almost becoming a sixth actor in the production. The incidental music makes one appropriately uneasy, and key effects like the slamming and locking of Gregor’s bedroom door each time it’s opened and shut and the downright disgusting chomping and sawing sounds that accompany the other characters’ eating all contribute to a Kafkaesque (I had to slip that in somewhere) experience that – when all is said and done – makes for a wonderful evening of entertainment I can recommend without equivocation.

Metamorphosis runs through May 1^st.

Photo by Pamela Diedrich

Though a sizable chunk of Twin Cities indie rock fans were packed into the sold-out Spoon show up the block at First Avenue Friday night, Communist Daughter didn’t have any trouble assembling an exceedingly healthy team of fans at The Fine Line to help them celebrate the release of their debut album, Soundtrack to the End.

It didn’t hurt that the local support bill was top notch, including the tight and catchy Brit-pop machine The Arms Akimbo and hook-laden Idle Hands. In between sets, local dance duo Estate spun tracks, so the energy never let up.

For Communist Daughter, this was a bit of a coming out party, despite the fact that in various configurations the band has been playing many these songs around town for nearly two years. In my opinion, Soundtrack to the End contains many of the best songs band leader John Solomon has ever written, and the disc has garnered well-deserved local and national attention in the weeks leading up to its released on Grain Belt Records, a label which also counts Red Pens and Brad Senne on its roster.

Many of the songs on the record can a bit of a downer when you listen closely to the evocative lyrics, but they’re the kind of downer that is ultimately uplifting as the stories they tell are those of a man who has seen the bottom of the well but is aware he has the strength to climb out of it. “Not the Kid,” and “Oceans,” to name just two, are darkish, reflective pop gems that will get stuck in your head all day and still be there in the morning when you wake up.

Friday night, in addition to the tracks from the new record, the band managed to weave the Hold Steady song, “Knuckles” seamlessly into their set. (Fans of Solomon’s previous band, Friends Like These, will recall the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn contributed vocals to the band’s memorable single, “7^th Street Queen”.)

HowWasTheShow photographer Pamela Goetzke Diedrich was in the front row at the Fine Line CD Release show and got this close-up of John Solomon during one of the band’s moodier numbers. You can check out Pamela’s photo set of the entire show here.

[Mining the HowWasTheShow archives, it’s interesting to note that John Solomon was HowWasTheShow’s Photo of the Week once before, the very first POTW more than six years ago, on January 31st, 2004 at the 400 Bar with Friends Like These.)