By: Nancy Jane Meyer
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Jessy Greene performs recently at the Turf Club in a photo from her website
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Country blues singer/songwriter Lonesome Dan Kase once confided in me that he felt Mario's Keller Bar (he and his Crush Collision trio had a regular weekly gig there last summer) must have been built on an Indian burial ground. "It's just a weird place," he said, attempting to articulate the strange, inexplicable, bone-rattling feeling he got when he was playing there. "Either that, or it's a front for the German mafia." And nobody gets the name—what's a "Keller bar" anyway? Misplaced punctuation? Anyone?
A venue replete with contradictions: a great PA system, alert and helpful sound engineer, clean, spacious room, 2-1 well drinks, huge steins of lovely amber German beer—versus cranky bartenders and inept bouncers, bland, predictable German food, no door on the women's bathroom for months, arcane payout procedures to musicians; loud, drunken swarms of frat boy types who appear like locusts just when the music starts, armed with giant glass boots filled with Paulaner. When the room is set up properly, with tables up front near the low stage, it's easier to ignore the shortcomings; however, when this simple procedure has been neglected, it leaves a wide gulf between the performers and the audience, inevitably filled by Frat Boy Swarm and female counterpart, Slut Girl Herd, blocking the view of the stage from anywhere else in the bar. T/W nights, live bands, Saturdays, polka music, Th/Fri, random, closed on Mondays and sometimes Sundays and on most holidays—delightfully inconsistent and inconvenient!
I concur with Kase's assessment, and then I struggle to explain why so many of my precious blue nocturnal hours were spent there this past summer—it's true: some of the least recognized, truly authentic, unpretentious musical moments may have occurred at this eerie, karmic conundrum of a German bar/restaurant in NE. Item: the Spout Press First Annual Covers Contest, judged "American Idols" style by Jessy Greene, Matt Wilson, and Kii Arens, and featuring First Prize winner and high school viola virtuoso Annie Rossi singing/channeling Radiohead's "Creep"—the audience was gobsmacked, broken down to an awed, tomblike silence. Mike Gunther's howlcowling "Like a Virgin" coupled with Venus de Mars' "Ziggy Stardust" preceded by Dan Israel (and yours truly) on Fastball's "The Way" (the night after the actual lead singer of Fastball played it himself, solo, on the very same stage in front of four people, including the clueless bartender who was heard to say, "That guy sounds just like the guy in the video.") Grant Hart, Dana Thompson, Randy Casey, and twenty or so others performed, and the show, shamefully, got almost zero local press.
The night was such a smashing success that folks clamored for another contest, sooner rather than later. The sly booking talent of Craig Grossman also brought us a below-the-radar Minnesota Music tribute, featuring members of The Rakes, and Dan Israel and the Cultivators-and Mike Gunther's "Kiss" Prince tribute caused unspeakable acts of unrepentant, though simulated, face fornication in an otherwise reserved Minnesotan audience…oh, the sweet lip-sucking rapture of it all…
It may be that after a long history of seemingly random, inconsistent musical programming at Mario's, the haunted root cellar beneath the Gasthof zur Gemutlichkeit may have been exorcized by Mr. Grossman of Vamp Music Source, which books the Hang-Ups, Big Ditch Road, Dana Thompson, the Melismatics, The Rakes, Like Hell, and the Honeydogs, among other local notables. Will this magic continue? Dare it so?
It was with some trepidation that I returned to Mario's after many months to check out Jessy Greene and Mike Gunther perform together. Would the tables be set up? The bathroom door returned to its appropriate location? Would anyone even be there? Frat Boy Swarm the night before Thanksgiving? No, yes (sort of-no door, but at least there was a lock) yes, and YES—let the boot glugging commence forthwith!
Unfortunately, I missed Bob McCreedy, of Dana Thompson's Almost Canadians, but caught the end of Jimmy Peterson's (also of the ACs) set-and even though I would have loved to hear him on the slide guitar, his singer/songwriter skills are certainly worthy of attention, a little bit country crooner, authentic and solid songs. Mr. Gunther, City Pages "Best Songwriter 2003" opened with a few tracks from his "Every Dream That's Dropped and Died" CD—and from the backstage shadows slid the dark, luminous Jessy Greene, on violin—low, resonant tones that shaped Gunther's growling, epiphanic vocals on "Sara" like a fog swirls around a mass of hunting hounds, bounding through the early morning mist, mad yelps echoing. Watching Gunther perform is something like the feeling you got as a Catholic growing up, knowing that you're supposed to go to confession, knowing that the priest is going to call your parents when you don't show up, but you get on the bus at HarMar mall anyway and end up in Dinkytown at the record store, and you hear Tom Waits doing a Kurt Weil song over the sound system—sin, yes—absolution without repentance, please? All part of the elusive, unsolvable Mario's Keller Bar mystery.
Jessy Greene's set featured some new tunes that will be on her upcoming CD; she told me that she has been in a sort of creative growth spurt as of late, with new material just gushing forth-if Wednesday night was any indication, the new CD could trump her debut "Blue Sky" and debunk the "sophomore slump" curse of so many an artist, with songs like "Choking Fish," a personal, passionate musical elegy sure to become one of the "hit singles," in addition to the glorious, potent rocker "Timebomb." Also in her set: "Sad Paradise"—a vampy, sexy tribute to lust gone rusty and spent; "She's Her Own Girl Now," a trippy pop gem with cool, airy looped backing vocals. Playing solo frees Greene from her band, and gives her license to focus more intently on the moment, though the accompanying computerized loops can be tricky to coordinate, especially given the high noise level at Mario's.
Mike Gunther joined her on guitar for the title track (and crowd favorite) "Blue Sky" from her first CD, and contributed some rhythmic backing vocals to "Choking Fish." It was a provocative, if embryonic-stage collaboration of two distinctly individual artists, and if they carry it forward with future shows, could result in some unexpected chemical reactions as they delve into the other's stylistic paradigm. Greene has arrived in Nashville to play a show as I write this, and is planning another Mario's performance later this month.
Location Info:
Mario's Keller Bar
Artist Info: Jessy Greene, Jimmy Peterson, Mike Gunther, Robert McCreedy
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