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Ex Hex, Tweens, Pink Mink

Triple Rock Social Club

Minneapolis, MN

July 20, 2015

I go to a lot of shows. Sometimes it’s nice to be surprised, and that’s what Monday night entailed. I was at the show strictly for Tweens, whose debut I dug last year, and I didn’t bother to check out much Ex Hex in advance. I watched a YouTube clip or two, but it failed to mention some key marketing: feat. Mary Timony, ex-Wild Flag and lots of ‘90s influence. In other words, what I thought would be a minimally attended Monday night show was a pretty full room filled with a variety of ages. Actually, “variety” is pushing it. It was mostly people in the 40-50 range and they were clearly satisfied with the late night out.

Getting started, I only caught 2 songs from openers Pink Mink. They’re a solid local band I’ve already seen this month, so I took my time getting there before they talked back and forth on stage with some entertaining banter before ripping into a closing “Hidden Beach.” The audience was engaged but, knowing their material, I thought the sound was off. That was a recurring concept throughout the night, which is unusual at Triple Rock.

Cincinnati’s Tweens were next, a young three piece that includes members of Vacation. I point that out because that band is often overlooked, even if Bridget Battle is the front piece of Tweens, and the lone band member who does not play in Vacation. It was my first time seeing them, and it was a little surprising in that Tweens is a record I’ll call trash-pop, but live it was definitely more of a grunge vibe. Of course, Battle’s uncombed bleach-blond hair was a part of the mental influence, but everything from the screaming yet relatively mild-tempered movements on stage reminded me of that era and mix of rage and apathy. In fact, the first thing I put the notebook was “Live through This,” though I’m a bit embarrassed about that goofy note taking. The takeaway was that were the record is peppy, the live act is raging, coarser and less danceable. The sound was quite muddy to kick off their set and it really didn’t sound good but with a slow evolution at the board it picked up both in terms of quality and in audience reception, turning into a great set about halfway through. By the end, the band had the audience in hand, no small feat for a relative unknown opening for a band like Ex Hex, and it convinced me that Tweens was no fluke. There was a lot of presumably new material not off their debut, and the new record looks like it will carry less pep whenever that time comes.

The recurring theme of the night, besides women who rock, would be bands in Chuck Taylors—always a good sign, though I can’t articulate why. Shoes aside, Ex Hex carry some serious musician chops. The songs are guitar-happy and filled with big guitar moments that the band makes no hesitation in showing with posturing on stage. At first the posturing was amusing, but it did get a little tiresome over the course of the full set, with almost every song drifting at some point into a solo. The band take a big musical influence, ranging from 1970s arena rock to 1990s Lookout/Kill Rock Stars pop. At its best it’s poppy and clean with a bouncy, slightly unpredictable wave throughout. The three piece weren’t very energetic onstage, mostly remaining stationed by their mic stands and slowly moving the guitar/base up and down, Guitar Hero style, but seemingly wooden. It was almost a slow motion posturing. While I enjoyed their music well enough, my takeaway was that a CD from Ex Hex is probably better than the live show, which is not a typical feeling when heading home. They seem to be a solid band, but just not all that fun to watch.

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All photography by Loren Green.

Tex Perkins and the Dark Horses

Oxford Art Factory

Sydney, AUS

July 19, 2015

Pizzazz. Omph. Charisma.

If your music depends entirely on that, the dependency is too great.

Tex Perkins has been in the game for 27 years. He oozes the aforementioned qualities, yet his music stands for itself.

Almost three decades of versatility and effortlessly moving between a range of genres and incarnations.

The Dark Horses is one of them.

The country, moody, groovy, bluesy one, which he seems to have felt most at home with over the last five years.

Tunnel at the End of the Light is the fifth Dark Horses album.

A coherent concept album of sorts.

Musings on the need to be.

A slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of melancholy and slow smoldering songs, great and simple images in whose presence one's heart first opened and then got bruised.

Comprised of accomplished musicians with each having a career in their own right, spearheaded by Charlie Owen, one of Australia's most revered guitarists and accomplished multi-instrumentalists, the melange and collective sound of the Dark Horses is bigger than the mere sum of its constituents.

Refined, laid back entertainment for a Sydney Sunday winter evening.

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Photo by T.

Picture this: You’re looking at the front of a stage. Above you a man in a suit made entirely of muscles walks on in a shroud of fog. From far away his eyes seem to take up half of his face and his straggly salt and pepper hair spurts off in every direction imaginable. He’s smiling and making gestures with his arms. Following the man is a twelve-foot bee, an anthropomorphized mushroom, and a rainbow. Following the twelve-foot bee, the anthropomorphized mushroom, and the rainbow are some people with instruments. They politely say hello, thank you for coming, and start to make music.

What you’re seeing is not a drug induced hallucination (though it kind of feels that way) or the imminent invasion of benevolent space creatures (though it kind of feels that way). What you’re seeing is the beginning of a Flaming Lips concert.

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Because I am notoriously late to the party, the first time I saw The Flaming Lips was headlining last years Riot Fest (coverage found here). At that time my only point of reference for the band was a dude-bro I had met at Frosh week years earlier. That guy loved The Flaming Lip. He constantly had their tunes blaring from his dorm room and talked about their shows like a religious experience. The same guy also used the word Namaste in casual conversation and had white-man dread locks. As such I instantly dismissed The Flaming Lips as hippie nonsense alongside other ridiculous things like patchouli oil and environmentalism.

Nevertheless I was there to cover the show. Thousands had come out to see the band and I figured that I’d watch their set for a half an hour before bailing to write a scathing and sardonic review accompanied by blurry photos from far away.

Instead the Flaming Lips opened the show by raining confetti onto the crowd and for the next hour or I bore witness to a truly amazing live act. The band used puppets, and projections, and LED lights to bring you into their world. And the Flaming Lips world doesn’t really feel like our world. It feels like something much, much, bigger. The pageantry is part of it, sure, and I wouldn’t discredit the pot smoke mixing with the fog machine, but the duration of their set front man Wayne Coyne and his backers created a dream like atmosphere where nothing really made sense and anything could happen. It was like a manufactured sort of transcendence. Not an easy thing to pull off. The experience was mesmerizing. I wrote a nice review. (here)

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Last Sunday The Flaming Lips played a free show at Toronto’s city hall as a part of the festivities for the PAN AM games. For the week leading up to the show I hyped the concert to anyone who would listen and talked about the band as though I had something personally invested the performance. There are plenty of bands that I love that I couldn’t recommend to other people, in the case of those artists that’s probably part of their appeal, but I feel like a Flaming Lips’ gig is something everyone could experience and enjoy. It’s an acceptable level of weirdness and a nice gate way to some of the art-rock and theatre shit that is inherently under appreciated in our broader society. My biggest selling point was that during the performance the lead singer walks on top of the crowd in a giant hamster ball. People were really excited about the giant hamster ball.

A few friends did end up making it out to the show and talking to them afterwards they seemed just as enamored as I was. For my own part the thrill of the spectacle hadn’t worn off the second time around. As I watched the band perform from the side of the stage Coyne radiated positivity, defying the rumors of his offstage persona. Dressed like a homeless version of aqua man, complete with various rubber ducks sewn onto his shirt, the singer beamed from the stage, and toward the end of the set led thousands of people in a repeated chant on LOVE/LOVE/LOVE. It was some weird stuff but it felt warm and I’m glad that people can make stuff that feels that weird and that warm on the big a level. 

Graham is a writer living in Toronto. Follow him on twitter @presgang

Babes in Toyland

Rock the Garden

Minneapolis, MN

June 21, 2015

It’s difficult for me to write about Babes in Toyland without sounding at least a little bit gushy. Like other local-ish acts from their same era that made waves beyond the confines of the Twin Cities (Bob Mould, Soul Asylum, The ‘Mats) Babes had a lore about them that was intriguing and important to a north woods-dwelling punk rock-craving youngster like myself. There was Lollapalooza in the Civic Center in 1993, the uncountable suicide runs to see them play First Avenue—down from Bemidji and back up again in the same night, just in time to make it to class the next day—and the last local reunion back in 2001. And then there was the birthday message from drummer Lori Barbero that I saved on my phone for so long that it was eventually deleted when it exceeded the allowed number of days. To say I was excited to see them play again for the first time in 14 years would be a bit of an understatement.

Following a spirted set by Seun Kuti—son of revered Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti, and brother of Femi Kuti—who, playing alongside his father’s old backing band Egypt 80, performed the best hour plus of music Rock the Garden had to offer up until this point (rivaled only by the previous night’s headliner Belle and Sebastian) the trio took to the stage to an eagerly awaiting audience.

Things got off to a jittery start with “Bruise Violet” when the three sort of fumbled over each other. It wouldn’t be the last misstep of the evening, but that mattered little, as every time they were able to laugh it off and get right back into things without must disruption. And if a lyric was missed, and there were a few, the crowd filled in for them.

Barbero took to the mic early to express her gratitude. “Minneapolis is the place to be today. I promised I wouldn’t cry.” Then with a slight tremble, “But that’s going to be really hard.”

Following along the Fontanelle tracklist, they played an inspired version “Right Now”, which had some of the elders abandoning their positions near the front of the stage; amidst a cloud of dust they turned and headed for more stable ground further up the hill.

And then it was singer-guitarist Kat Bjelland’s turn to speak. “It’s nice to be here. We missed you. Our kids are here.” She paused to point out bass player Maureen Herman’s daughter and her own son (who could be seen headbanging stage-side throughout most of the set) before stating, “I’m really happy.”

They pounded through a lengthy set that drew heavily upon the three releases that this “classic” lineup of Babes recorded: Fontanelle, the Painkillers EP, and Nemesisters. Seeing them play songs like “Handsome and Gretel” and “Sweet ‘69” in the blazing hot sun conjured fond memories of the alt/punk festival boom of the ‘90s that Babes in Toyland frequented.

During “Spit to See the Shine”, one of two tracks in set from the To Mother EP, Bjelland really let go with her signature wails, showing her vocal capabilities haven’t lost any steam over the years. It’s awesome to see the song that inspired a 2006 retrospective collection of Twin Cities bands featuring women (Spit To See The Shine: Twin Cities Women Who Rocked 1987 – 1998) take such a prominent role in the set.

Despite their outwardly bombastic sensory assault Babes in Toyland were always sneakily groovy. In the live setting songs like “Drivin’”, the lone track featuring Lori on vocals, and “Vomit Heart”, from their debut album Spanking Machine, Herman and Barbero’s pulsing rhythm section is fully realized. The first crowd surfer of the evening appeared during the latter.

It was heartwarming to see all the young people, especially the young women, making moves to get near the front. Even more so to see adults making the necessary room for them rather than posturing with the whole “I was here first” thing that happens all too often amongst the arms-folded crowd. Babes in Toyland were a fierce favorite amongst young people and catalyst for female empowerment the first time around. There’s no reason they shouldn’t be some 20 plus years later. Perhaps even more so now, given the things each of these women have experienced in the time that’s passed since then.

They wrapped up their set with “Dust Cake Boy” and came to the front to take a sheepish bow. Barbero, always the gracious one, hung back to take photos of the audience with her giant pink-cased cell phone. And the only smile that was bigger than Lori’s was my own.

Photos and complete setlist below...

Setlist:

Bruise Violet

Right Now

Swamp Pussy

Won’t Tell

Ripe

Spit to See the Shine

He’s My Thing

Bluebell

Drivin’

Spun

Ariel

Oh Yeah

Handsome and Gretel

Vomit Heart

Sweet ’69

Dust Cake Boy

Follow Nathan on Twitter: @OMG_NOB

All photos courtesy of Michael Speake: www.MichaelSpeake.com

Belle and Sebastian

Rock the Garden

Minneapolis, MN

June 20th, 2015

As a hot and humid day began its turn towards much needed cooler temperatures, Scotland’s baroque pop sweethearts Belle and Sebastian took the stage to close out the first day of this year’s Rock the Garden: an annual weekend of music hosted by the Walker Art Center and 89.3 The Current.  Stuart Murdock, draped in his signature black and white striped longlseeve, and company started things off with “Nobody’s Empire”, a single from this year’s Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance. Pausing for a brief acknowledgment from the crowd, they transitioned effortlessly into “I’m A Cuckoo” from 2003’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress, which had even the most worn out folks up and dancing.

Murdock took a moment to address the audience, stating, “This is my kind of party. I do like a garden party. It’s very civilized.” And that couldn’t be any truer. For an event that’s taken some heat from critics in the past for playing it too safe (known by its detractors as “the yawn on the lawn”), this year’s first day lineup—including thestandard4rd, Lucius, Courtney Barnett, and Conor Oberst—wasn’t exactly a raucous one. (Fret not punkers, Babes in Toyland reunited for a co-headlining slot on Sunday.)

The crowd really started heating up by the time they played “The Party Line,” the disco-ish track from their latest album, which was followed by “Another Sunny Day” from 2006’s The Life Pursuit. Security took it upon themselves to douse the welcoming front row with cold water. Recognizing that they now had the audience in their palms the band took to the mic to share some crowd-popping anecdotes. “I went swimming in Cedar Lake today,” said guitarist Stevie Davis. Murdoch followed up with a quip about the (rumored) longstanding Minnesota tradition of “cornholing.”

While it was all teens and twentysomethings up front, when taking a look around the vast amount of people populating the hill the generational gap became more apparent. It's hard not describe the older contingency without using the tired “aging hipsters” axiom because by and large, that’s who it was. (Present company included.) Salt ‘n’ pepper bearded rad dads in faded Twin Tone Records tees and selvage denim, women in colorful printed slouch necks, large-brimmed hats, and Egyptian-style sandals. And then there’s their children: sporting oversized protective earmuffs while hanging in dad's BabyBjörns or playfully prancing around on Aztec-print blanket with mom. Rock the Garden, like many of Twin Cities events of similar ilk, is a people-watching goldmine. And if you were looking close enough you'd have spotted Woody Harrelson making his way down the hill mid-set. (He's in town filming a movie.)

The band, which had swelled in size to include local orchestra accompaniment, played a trio of songs that included two new ones and an older crowd favorite. “The Model” (Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant, 2000) was sandwiched between “Cat with the Cream” and “Perfect Couples.” During the latter Davis retooled some lyrics to give them a local albeit clichéd flavor. “He was from Minneapolis; she was from St. Paul. He liked Prince; she liked the Replacements. But they both had an affinity for Spider John Koerner!”

The rest of the set included songs that spanned their catalog, with a focus on recent works, but the most magical moment of the evening came during the second to last song. It was the perfect convergence of sensory awareness, as day had given way to night completely, and the lighted backdrop of our beloved Minneapolis shone bright: the Basilica and downtown skyscrapers to the right; a crescent moon and three bright stars to the left. A large group of fans were invited to the stage to boogie alongside the band as they performed a stunningly beautiful rendition of “The Boy With the Arab Strap.”

They played one more and the day wrapped up as most festivals in Minnesota do at the end of the night: with everyone scrambling to cash in those remaining tickets on footlong corndogs. Civilized indeed.

Photos and complete setlist below...

Setlist:

Nobody’s Empire

I’m a Cuckoo

The Party Line

Another Sunny Day

Cat with the Cream

The Model

Perfect Couples

Piazza, New York Catcher

The Everlasting Muse

Jonathan David

The Wrong Girl

Dog on Wheels

Dirty Dream #2

The Boy with the Arab Strap

I Didn’t See it Coming

Follow Nathan G. O'Brien on Twitter: @OMG_NOB

All photos courtesy of Michael Speake: www.MichaelSpeake.com