Big Ditch Road EP Release Show at Hexagon Bar on 10/21/06

By: Bob Longmore
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The Hexagon Bar in South Minneapolis showed what it’s made of, some Mohawks and some mohair, some Vikings hoodies and black T-shirts. A diverse crowd for sure. Opener Chris Koza, just back from tour, played a low-key set of material mostly by himself, but sometimes joined by guitarist, Peter Sieve. Koza plugged the headliners by saying, “They have a lot of instruments, so they are going to be good.” Dressed in sport coats and looking like university professors, Romantic...

Charcoal with Evan Parker at Zeitgeist Theater on 10/21/06

By: Rod Johnson
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The Zeitgeist Theatre hosted two concerts featuring Evan Parker for the Minnesota sur Seine Festival. I missed the first concert, a duo with Tony Hymas on Friday, but was lucky enough to attend the concert on Saturday afternoon. The Zeitgeist Theatre is a small room in an old building in Lowertown. Parking is not a problem as there is plenty of on-road parking nearby. There were no refreshments available, but most people arrived clutching a cup of coffee from the Black Dog Café nea...

Ursus Minor with Brother Ali and Umar Bin Hassan with Pablo Cueco at Fine Line Music Café on 10/19/06

By: Andrea Myers
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The sur Seine festival provides Minnesotans with the unique opportunity to watch cross-continental musical collaborations happen on the fly, and Thursday night’s show also gave the crowd an opportunity to see two generations of talented hip-hop artists perform and improvise. “We all belong to something else,” explained sur Seine collaborator Jean Rochard in an interview last week, referring to Thursday’s show and the fact that local hip-hop phenomenon Brother Ali...

Martin Devaney CD Release Show at The Turf Club on 10/7/06

By: David Rachac
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Martin Devaney with Jake Hyer - Photo by David de Young (click for larger) A Saturday night at the Turf Club is always a good time, but then you throw Martin Devaney celebrating the release of his new CD Letters Never Sent on top of that, and then you throw Big Trouble and Mike Gunther and His Restless Souls warming ...

The Big Event at Wall Amphitheatre on 10/7/06

By: Jen Paulson
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Mason Jennings - Photo by Zach Nagle (click for set) I visited the University of Wisconsin in River Falls for The Big Event, a concert put on by their chapter of the Student Global AIDS Campaign. They were raising money and awareness for BuildingTomorrow.org, an organization whose main goal is to build schools for th...

The Bad Plus at Ted Mann Concert Hall on 10/4/06

By: Joe Lang
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After a week of recording here in Minneapolis for their next album, The Bad Plus triumphantly took the stage at the Ted Mann Concert Hall to prove yet again why they might be the most important band in jazz. The audience was buzzing and unready when the announcement was made, the lights dimmed and the members took their respective instrument in their typical garb: Ethan Iverson in suit (strangely enough, adorned with a fisherman’s cap), Reid Anderson in hip shirt and jeans, and Dave King ...

DJ Fujun at Nochee on 9/30/06

By: Billy Graves
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Last Friday night, I re-discovered why I love live music.  Because my girlfriend and I are relatively new to the city, we went out Friday night and decided to enter the first bar we saw: an expensive looking bar called Nochee.  With the feel of a Block E bar (dim but aggressive neon lighting, austere décor, installation art) and a $10 cover at the door, we were about to turn around, when the woman working the door said something I never would have expected; she said the...

Atmosphere at First Avenue on 9/29/06

By: Andrea Myers
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Crescent Moon and Slug - Photo by Andrea Myers A funny thing happens to people when they walk into an Atmosphere show.  They become hip.  Rushing up to the front of the stage, throwing their hands up in the air and forgetting, just for a second, how white they really are does something to the psyche.  I call it the Elixir of Atmosphere. Some people find these kinds ...

Aviette CD Release Show at 400 Bar on 9/29/06

By: David Rachac
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Holly Muñoz of Aviette - Photo by David Rachac A couple of hours before I was set to head out for the evening, I was sitting in my office, playing Aviette’s excellent Until We Hear From Dave loudly, when my son asked if he could shut the door. I knew that the music was probably interfering with his ability to hear the PlayStation, but I decided to mess wi...

Superhopper, The Chambermaids, Rank Strangers, and Landspeeder at 7th Street Entry on 9/29/06

By: Pat O'Brien
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The Chambermaids - Photo by Greg Schaal When a band is almost willfully messy on stage, it usually immediately turns me off. Which is why I was surprised to find myself really getting into Landspeeder about halfway into their first song. They were drinking shots of whiskey right there on stage and it looked like it might get worse but I found, firstly, their music end...