Blog — Page 9 of 285

Visual Learner, BlackDots, City Mouse, Couch Potato Massacre

Cloudland Theater

Minneapolis, MN

May 7, 2025

I’m embarrassed that I haven’t covered any shows at Cloudland for SPB previously. It’s a relatively new addition to the Minneapolis scene and a welcome addition that feels as much like a community space as a club. In other words, it’s clean instead of dingy, I guess. Anyway, last week I hit up the space to see two touring bands with sets sandwiched between two locals.
 
Couch Potato Massacre play poppy sloppy punk with a TV theme, raised on late night cable movies with low budgets. It’s fun and energetic and the band knows that, while the music matters, so do the vibes. It was a fun set and my first time seeing them in person

I know City Mouse aren’t a household name or anything, but I’m still mildly surprised they played second -- not that order of bands matters in any way unless you’re stuck in traffic. I’m not even sure how many times I’ve seen Miski and co. play, but this was the first non-festival set and it ripped and roared with the same urgency, but with that more personal element you get when the band knows you’re there for them, specifically (and they aren’t on a rigid set schedule). Even will a fill-in bassist, it was an emotional, evocative set lead by the dueling guitars of Miski and Davey Tiltwheel. While City Mouse has been a project for several years, there are only two full-lengths, and the set leaned into last year’s So Far Out but included a healthy dose of the near-decade old songs from Get Right too. Simply put, you can hear the passion in Miski’s voice on every note and, live, you can see it too. It’s been a while since I saw a band work up a good sweat on stage and that was definitely the case during City Mouse’s set – and continued for two more bands.

BlackDots are another band that doesn’t play in Minneapolis all that often (or maybe I’m out of the loop). They play poppy, somewhat minimal, straight-up punk. Or that’s what I’ve always thought on record. Live I get more of a country rhythm behind it, which makes sense as the band is from Denver and that Western lifestyle. It’s chill punk: smooth, cool and laid back instead of fierce and angry. What really struck me was how much the band smiles as they play. It’s infectious and it highlights how just a simple thing can manifest into a greater experience for the whole room. I’d complain that the set was too short, but the band really only has a couple albums’ worth of songs, mostly released via EPs, so that explains that. Besides, always leave ‘em wanting more, right?
 
Visual Learner popped only my radar last year. After three…how shall I word this?...after three “older” bands, Visual Learner brought more physical energy to the stage with constant movement and even more sweat. Their brand of noise-rock fueled punk rawk was a nice dissonant contrast to the melodic focus of the other bands and it built to a climactic mood of chaotic noise – even if the band were repeatedly joking (or not) about it being their bedtime as the early show wrapped up.

HORSE the Band are on the road celebrating the 20th anniversary of their sophomore album, The Mechanical Hand. Joining them for the first leg of the tour was Pomona locals, Othiel, Flake from Wichita, Kansas, and LA's "melodic crust" quartet, Lagrimas. It's an odd feeling to remember being at the record release show for this album back in 2005. I still remember when the band brought out a cake and handed out "pieces" to the crowd. I remember Erik taking the stage in his revealing Lord Gold outfit. I remember Nathan throwing up on stage a foot away from me, but most of all, I remember being youthful, full of life, and able to sing along to every song without getting winded. Now, I'm back in the front seeing Horse the Band for the first time in probably 16 or 17 years at The Glass House, and not much has changed. Nathan is still cracking jokes and bantering back and forth. The band is still hopping around like they're 25. Ed Edge is still the greatest triangle performer in "Nintendocore." You can check out a gallery of photos from the show below and be sure to catch the band on the second leg of The Mechanical Hand 20th Anniversary Tour this June when they hit up the Midwest and East Coast.

After spending the Summer playing stadiums opening for Green Day and The Rolling Stones, The Linda Lindas are out on the road supporting their new album, No Obligation. For their first major headlining tour since releasing their sophomore album last Fall, the young punk quartet brought along Garage-Punk veterans, Be Your Own Pet for the western leg of the tour and recruited somewhat locals, Chicano Mosh for their show at The Glass House in Pomona, CA.

Chicano Mosh are a blend of upbeat Pop-Punk and Garage-Rock built on Mexican pride. Their own band of followers made sure to come out and show their support for the up-and-comers, brandishing the Mexican flag and singing along.

Be Your Own Pet were next. The troupe rambled around the stage while courting the crowd with tracks from their 2023 release, Mommy -- their first album after breaking up in 2008 -- while throwing in numbers from their first 2 albums. Frontwoman, Jermina Pearl never let up with her nonstop dancing and whipping her head back and forth enough to give ME a sore neck.

It was time for The Linda Lindas. The four heralds of young punk walked out to the sound of Jawbreaker's "Boxcar." They opened with the title track of their sophomore album, No Obligation. The mix of kids and adults screamed along with bass player and vocalist, Eloise Wong while bandmate Lucia De La Garza stomped and hopped around the stage. The band continued on with tracks from No Obligation, eventually rounding out the entire album while sneaking covers of The Talking Heads and Los Prisioneros' "Tren Al Sur" in between.

They finished the set with their viral "Racist, Sexist Boy" but not before Eloise used their platform to speak out, yelling to "Free Palestine," "Protect Trans Kids," and "Protect Immigrants." A declaration that seemed to deter at least one concertgoer. Someone who'd been filming most of the set decided to leave following the remarks. I can only hope The Linda Lindas continue to speak out and upset fascists.

The band came back for their encore that included a cover of Green Day's "When I Come Around" with an interlude of Jawbreaker's "Want" and their hit single "All In My Head." When it came time to close out the night, they invited Be Your Own Pet and Chicano Mosh back on stage for a dance party while they performed Bikini Kill's "Rebel Girl."

The Linda Lindas are ushering in a new generation of Punk rockers and their live shows are their soap boxes. The band are great performers and this was one of the best shows I've seen so far this year. They'll be heading to the Midwest and East Coast with Pinkshift for the second leg of their headlining tour. Check out a gallery of photos from the show below.

PJ Harvey 
Sydney Opera House Forecourt
13 March 2025
Sydney, Australia

Some artists perform. PJ Harvey transmutes. Like a figure walking between worlds, she never lingers too long in one place, never allows herself to fossilize into nostalgia. Instead, she reinvents - without ever severing the thread that binds her to her own mythos.

On the Sydney Opera House Forecourt, beneath a sky that hovered between dusk and ink, she did not simply return after eight years - she arrived, once again, as something new, yet deeply familiar. Clad in spectral white, she was part oracle, part wandering poet, part phantom slipping between centuries. The air itself seemed altered, thick with the kind of reverence reserved for artists who don’t just hold a career but a legacy.

This was no ordinary setlist. It was a weaving of past and present, tethered largely to I Inside the Old Year Dying- - an album that feels less like a collection of songs and more like a whispered transmission from some forgotten place. The album’s lexicon, built from fragments of archaic English and Dorset folklore, carried into the live experience like an old book brought to life.

She opened with Prayer at the Gate, her voice delicate yet commanding, as if summoning unseen forces. The stage - lit like a woodland clearing caught between twilight and dream - felt more like a passageway than a platform. Each note flickered like candlelight in the dark, and by Seem an I, she was no longer just singing - she was moving like something untethered, a shadow stepping out of time.

There was an unmistakable alchemy at play, a theatrical mysticism that recalled Kate Bush in her heyday. The way Bush once moved across the stage - part wraith, part storyteller, her voice floating between ethereal whispers and primal howls - found its echo in Harvey’s presence. But whereas Bush’s art was steeped in surreal romanticism, Harvey’s was raw, earthen, filled with the murmur of ghosts and the pull of ancient soil. If Bush conjured spirits from the attic, Harvey unearthed them from the roots.

The spectral atmosphere deepened with The Nether-Edge, its haunting drones stretching into the night air like tendrils of mist, while Lwonesome Tonight had the strange intimacy of a fireside confession. Her band - longtime alchemists of sound John Parish, James Johnston, Jean-Marc Butty, and Giovanni Ferrario - played not as backing musicians but as echoes, reverberations of whatever spectral landscape Harvey was painting.

Yet Harvey has never been a prisoner of her present. Some artists carve out eras like museum exhibits - pristine, preserved, untouched. But her past work does not sit still; it moves with her, reshaping itself. When 50ft Queenie erupted mid-set, it wasn’t nostalgia - it was time folding in on itself, the raw bite of 1993 crashing against the eerie hush of her latest work. The same could be said for The Glorious Land, its war-drummed refrain bleeding into The Words That Maketh Murder, as if history were circling itself, whispering the same warning.

And then there was Down by the Water - the song that first cast her as a gothic siren in the mid-'90s. Here, it felt even more haunted, istretching out like a cautionary lullaby sung at the edge of the abyss.

It was not the raucous, call-and-response climax some might expect from a closing number. But that has never been Harvey’s way. She does not bow to expectations - she dismantles them, rearranges them, leaves behind only what she chooses.

She spoke little, as she always does and then she was gone. No overexplanation. No indulgence.

PJ Harvey does not need to overstay. The weight of her presence lingers long after she exits, like ink drying on a final page. To witness her live is not simply to watch a concert - it is to glimpse an artist in a constant state of becoming, one who understands that the only way to remain true is to keep moving, always.

The Get Up Kids just finished the US leg of their 25th Anniversary Tour for their seminal album, Something To Write Home About with 2 nights at The Glass House in Pomona. Of course, I didn't wanna miss it. Following support from Indie-Rock band, Ozma -- who ran through tracks from their first three LPs, as well as a cover of the folk song "Korobeiniki" ( you might know it as the Tetris theme song), and Cheap Trick's "Surrender" -- The Get Up Kids came out to play through their sophomore classic from start to finish. To ensure the fans had a night not to forget, they pulled out fan favorites from Four Minute Mile like "Stay Gold, Ponyboy" and "Don't Hate Me", along with a few tracks from On A Wire and The Guilt Show. The band will continue the celebrations overseas in Europe and The UK this Summer. 

In the meantime, check out a gallery from their first Glass House show below: