The Cherry on Top ...of 2008

No one really likes making "Top 10" lists, do they? I gave my team the option of making a list for 2008. Top 5, top 10, recommended, etc. and here's what we came up with. You'll notice there's not much overlap, and to me that's a good thing. We like variety. Hopefully you'll find something on these lists you haven't heard yet and can now go check out. It's not rocket science, and it doesn't count for much, but here are CakeIn15 staffer's top picks for the year that was (and is... for another 6 days anyway).

Staciaann

1.The Dodos, Visiter
Ridiculous trash can drums, excellent bleeding-finger guitars, and wonderful songs make this my top album of 2008. No matter how many times I put it on, I'm thrilled by the intricacies and emotion in this album.

2.Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
Fabulous vocals that bring me back to groups like The Tolkens, Four Freshman, and Jan & Dean. An album any age can enjoy. Also a memorable live show with haunting reminders of the past.

3.Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Fight
Continues my love of music from Scotland. Hell, I wrote about these guys back in June of 2007 here too. Since then they've only grown in their song-writing, and 2008 brought their best album yet. Well done boys.

4.Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend
You're lying if you say you don't like this album. It's summer wrapped up and rolled into a digital file.

5.Mates of State, Re-Arrange Us
Awesome harmonies from a husband and wife team who've only gotten better as they continue to create music. One of my favorite sing-a-long records of 2008.

6.Cloud Cult - Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-partying Through Tornadoes)
Fucking fantastic new stuff from one of my fav locals. Check out "Journey of the Featherless" or "Story of the Grandson of Jesus " if you don't believe me.

7.Caroline Smith & the Good Night Sleeps, Backyard Tent Set
My best new local music find this year. Old-timey without overdoing it. Every time I've played this at work, someone's picked up the album. No joke. Plus, her live show will pack them in and leave you sighing with pleasure.

8.Jeremy Messersmith - The Silver City
Messersmith again proves he's one of the better singer-songwriters out there. Put that together with super producer Dan Wilson, and you have one hell of an album about Minneapolis.

9.City On the Make - $1,000,000 EP
"Chicks on, chicks on, chicks on bikes" was my anthem for the summer as my girlfriends and I sang it repeatedly biking around the city. Lead poet Mike Massey is as fun to watch as he is to listen to, and with new bionic knees to keep him bouncing, I can't wait for the new material that's promised to come soon.

10.The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride
Admittedly, John Darnelle has a voice that only a mother could love. Ok, that's not 100% true, but it's close. You either love him or hate him, but you can't touch Darnelle's dark lyrics mixed with lovely guitar rhythms and the driving force of his will.

*Side Note: While I would definitely put Bon Iver into my top 10, I owned the album in 2007, and so can't put it in without feeling strange about doing it. Justin, I love ya, but last year was your year. xo

Dan O.

1.Cloud Cult, Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-partying Through Tornadoes)
Having returned to this album again and again, it's the rare album that never grows old - it always feels like you're listening to it for the third time (the time when you finally decided that you really really liked it.)

2.Of Montreal, Skeletal Lamping
Of Montreal's new album (as I reviewed previously) continues to confound me at times, but I re-visit it almost weekly - It's ambition and scope place it in my Top 10 this year.

3.Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend
I wasn't actually sure if this album was released in 2008 - something made me feel as though it had been released earlier, but the back of the CD credits it as a 2008 release, so here it is! The buzz has faded, but it's still an entirely interesting album - reminds me a lot of Paul Simon's Graceland.

4.Grand Archives, The Grand Archives
What first brought me to this album was its Band of Horses side-project status, but it's much much more - One of the most consistent and enjoyable pop albums of the year.

5. R.E.M., Accelerate
As any R.E.M. fan will attest - thank god they're back to making relevant music. So long as it's R.E.M. and even half-way decent, it'll get on my top 10.

6.The Magnetic Fields, Distortion
I have heard murmurings that there are those who didn't enjoy this album, but I find it to be the most listenable Magnetic Fields album yet - made up of equal parts shimmery distortion and odd-shorn lyrics, it's a perfect summer album for a winter morning.

7.Liam Finn, I'll Be Lightning
Son of Neil Finn (Crowded House), Liam's debut album is a sort of Beatles hybrid that occasionally sounds like Elliott Smith. It's raw and pretty at the time. More importantly, I bought it eight months ago and still listen to it - rare longevity for a shot in the dark.

8.Sigur Ros, Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust
Nothing different than before, but still - really frickin' pretty.

9.Dosh, Wolves and Wishes
Andrew Bird didn't release an album in 2008, so I'll toss the orchestral sound-pop tiara to the handsomely bearded Dosh, whose album is always good to wind down to after work with a beer.

10. Spiritualized, Songs in A & E
Written during and after a death-defying bout with pneumonia, this album is a great for late nights and headphones - makes you feel happy to be alive.

Alexa

The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound
Chuck Ragan - Feast or Famine
I realize this came out in '07 but I didn't discover it until '08, have listened the sh*t out of it, so IT'S '08 FOR ME!
Langhorne Slim - Langhorne Slim
Parts & Labor - Receivers
Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal

c.a.s.
(In no particular order)

TV on the Radio, Dear Science
Sonically, I still hold that Return to Cookie Mountain is a better disc, and if you think "Wolf Like Me" isn't dance track, then you're not trying hard enough. But Dear Science does for dance-pop what OK Computer did for rock and roll- inverted, electrified and re-invigorated it. Give it up for the band with the big ideas and the adventuresome spirit to follow. Live review here.

The Hold Steady, Stay Positive
We will, and we get jams that, even though they leave our fair state and Craig Finn's familiar stomping ground, just get bigger and more brash. "Lord I'm Discouraged" is "How a Resurrection Really Feels" told from the other guy's perspective, and that's a great way to grow up without losing your edge. Bonus points for dirty jokes and double necked guitars. Live review here.

City On the Make, $1,000,000 EP
It's easy to fall for chicks on bikes, as the grinding opening jam proved this summer. But it's even better when we get into the disc- it is a million bucks, one hundred percent, and when he wails "Poor Mike Massey's got eyes for your daughter" and Mischa Kegan tears the licks down behind him, it might as well be a lament for Savannah girls in their Nehi skirts walkin' walkin' walkin' down the block. Ain't they got no respect? Live review here.

Jeremy Messersmith, The Silver City
An exquisite journey through the the pop sounds of days of yore, deftly produced by Dan Wilson. It twinkles and shimmers, the starlight sharper for the darker underpinnings of Messersmith's razor-sharp storytelling. This is a great disc to give to people when they ask you where you live and what it's like. Interview here.

Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit, A Larum
An out-of-left field surprise for me that has become one of my most-listened-to discs this year. Comforting Irish vox, pop-folk with some rock heft and strings, writing that is both sharp, funny and poignant. From "The Wrote & the Writ": "They're taking pictures of the man from God/let's hope his cassock's clean./The burden of being a holy fellow/is your halo better gleam, better gleam." Kick up your heels and reel in your friends.

Kristoff Krane, This Will Work For Now
The earnestness, the fierce drive to make art work for the artists, to make it function, the need to make it and survive. This disc burns with it. Sometimes it over-extends, but it is always true to the artist as necessary creator- the disc runs from braggadocio to doubt and sincerity. And radio-friendly tunes like "Paul Still Loves His Daughter" and "Miracle" are the stuff of silver screen soundtracks. Review here.

Cecil Otter, Rebel Yellow
The poised counterpoint to Krane's manic spin, this disc is just-as-if-not-more dark, introspective and driven. In a banner year for Doomtree, Cecil's produced and written some of the most professional, honest and polished material. Plus, he played the Clapperclaw Festival. So he's the shit.

The Dodos, Visiter
From start to finish, this is one of those records that long-play vinyl was made for. The manic drumming that keeps the base shifting, bending folk guitars layered on top of eachother to make them San Francisco punk, the duo of Meric Long and Logan Kroeber work their asses off to make one of the fastest moving, most satisfyingly layered discs of the year. Live review here.

Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
It is one of the continuing miracles of music that it always comes back around. Is it because of the moon, or the connection to orbiting planets? Or because sound is a wave, a sine and cosine along an axis that form perfect circles, whole, enveloping, harmonizing, sustaining circles? With the debut Sun Giant EP and the self-titled LP release in the same year, the Pacific Northwest bellows with beauty again.

Buena Vista Social Club, Buena Vista Social Club at Carnegie Hall
Nonesuch Records sent me back to my first concert with this disc, to a moment when the world opened up to pulsing sound, unstoppable rhythm and pure joy. I think that every other concert-going experience is measured by that yard-stick for me, and it's a tall order. When something measures up, it's worth it. These records and the concerts given by these performers this year (among others) have made it a great 2008. Thank you.

Plus: These Singles Rock
Esau Mwamwaya, "Tengazako"- I defy you not to dance, I defy you to not believe in the power of globalization.
Blitzen Trapper, "Furr"- Turns stock animal noises into proto-mythical creation stories, makes you sing along.
Vampire Weekend, "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa"- "Do you want to fuck/like I know you do?" I do.
Atmosphere, "You"- Performed on Letterman wearing an Obama shirt, mid-July. Bless.
Diplo, "Reckoner Remix"- Breaks it all apart, bends in Beirut, kicks it to the dancefloor. Thom Yorke should be proud.
Santogold, "L.E.S. Artistes"- Watch it, Santogold is out there and she is coming for your ass.
Plastic Chord, "Thang Goin' On"- A live staple put down for the groove-bustin' record.
Cloud Cult, "The Grandson of Jesus"- Because you could be one of those billion saviors.
Mates of State, "The Re-Arranger"- For you and your lover to mix it up and get down, indie-rock style.
The Black Keys, "Psychotic Girl"- Buzzing like the underwater universe of your broken head.
MGMT, "Time To Pretend"- Distills the hubris of youth to it's ebullient core.
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, "Buriedfed"- He's said if he had had his success at 19 instead of at 25, he'd be dead. It's good to be alive.

Western Fifth - CD review & interview

Listening to Western Fifth’s recent release Stand Like a Thief is a little like dancing that achingly fleeting slow dance with the girl (or guy, depending) that you almost but never quite asked out in high school. This is not to say by any means that the music itself evokes high school – it feels more like the late nights spent on porches across America at the end of a party where those remaining are a little too drunk to get home and so sit, smoke cigarettes and wait for sobriety or dawn, whichever comes first. Add those two (somewhat disparate) elements together and you’ll get a basic approximation of this encompassing and enjoyable debut offering.

When put onto I-Tunes, the Genre listed is “Country,” which lead me to wonder who makes the determination of the genre. Does the band get to decide what their genre is? If asked to pick a genre for Western Fifth, I’d probably offer up some strange hybrid like post-country shoe-gaze indie rock, which doesn’t fit in the genre box on I-Tunes, so it’s probably best that no one asked me. The band has an interesting and rewarding way of reminding the listener of a different band with every listening. Upon repeat visits, I have uncovered sounds and songs influenced or reminiscent of Wilco, The Walkmen (see below for why this isn’t an influence), Okkervil River, and surprisingly upon my most recent listen – a dose of early Jakob Dylan and the Wallflowers. Listen to the burst of organ on the their third track “In the End I Went Away” and see if you can disagree.

Cake in 15 was lucky enough to secure an exclusive email interview with Western Fifth’s singer/guitar player Ryan Holweger! While the fact that the questions are mostly longer than the answers might call into question my journalistic abilities, I will respond by saying that a) I’m a writer, not a journalist, and b) think of it as an interactive interview/review and you’ll be just fine. Enjoy!

Cake in 15: The first time I listened to the new album all the way through, I was driving between Chicago & Minneapolis, having dropped my fiancée off at the airport to fly off to New York, leaving me on my own for three long weeks. My Ipod got in a fight with the car stereo system and froze. I had brought the "Stand Like A Thief" album along to see how it felt on the road, and due to the sudden loss of Ipod (at 10 am, I might add - Two hours into a six hour drive) I put it in and sped through the Madison area. Would you consider this the best way to listen to the album? If you could chose, when & where would you recommend a listening party for maximum aesthetic & emotional impact?

Ryan Holweger: Although I think listening while driving is a good way to hear this record, it might be better suited for a dimly lit room, a couch, some liquor, and a good set of headphones. I think a good place for a listening party would be a small, cozy dive-bar, or maybe in the living room of an old house.

C15: Do you hate being compared to other bands? For instance, if I said that upon first listen I was instantly reminded of Okkervil River's *Down the River of Golden Dreams*, would you be annoyed or pleased? Would you rather be compared to The Walkmen?

RH: I’d be very pleased with a comparison to Okkervil River (one of my favorite bands). I’ve never heard the Walkmen, so I guess I’m not sure about that. I don’t think I’d ever be annoyed with comparisons to other bands, as long as it holds some merit. I feel that it’s a very effective way to give a reader a good idea on how a band might sound.

C15: Name one band you'd love to be mentioned in the same breath with, as well as one that you'd rather never be compared to again.

RH: I’m not sure if there is one single band I want to be compared to the most, but we are pleased with the different comparisons we’ve had so far (Wilco, Band of Horses, The Replacements, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Okkervil River, etc). As far as a band we’d never want to be compared to again, I’m not sure I can answer that. I suppose we’d have to be compared to a band that we don’t like before we can hope it never happens again. That being said, I hope no one ever compares us to The Eagles.

C15: The air of melancholia pervades the album - Seeps through the cracks, and many of the lyrics deal with death, love, defiance, or a combination of all three. As artists, do you find that writing in a certain mood helps to articulate your work?

RH: I find that for the most part, the mood definitely has an effect on the writing, in that I typically don’t write unless I’m in a certain mood. If I’m not in that certain mood, then the songwriting doesn’t happen. I rarely just decide to sit down and try write a song – it usually only happens after an idea comes first. That’s not always the case, but generally that’s the way it is.

C15: Do you seek to immerse your listener in the world that you've built, or is it enough to simply offer up a song for the listener to react to however he or she chooses?

RH: I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about like that. For the most part, we just hope the listener will take the time to enjoy the music, and hopefully get something out of it if they choose to – if they become immersed in the song, or the album as a whole, that is even better.

C15: What's next? Where can the Cake in 15 readers find Western Fifth in the near future?

RH: Well, we’ll be playing out around the Twin Cities as usual, hopefully getting some people interested in the new album. We’re also promoting it a bit in Europe and getting some airplay, so we hope to build on that as well, maybe sell some records over there. We’ll probably do another tour sometime next year. This past summer we hit a bunch of Midwestern & southern states (Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Kansas, Missouri) so hopefully we can go back to those places, and maybe to the East Coast, too.

C15: Thank you! Readers can access the band’s Myspace page here and the album is out and available and highly recommended.

Music as Discourse

My sophomore year at the U of M, I enrolled in an upper level Cultural Studies course called "Music as Discourse." We spent the large part of a winter digging deep into pieces of music - Laurie Anderson's O Superman, a version of Oh Danny Boy as sung by an Irish folk singer whose name has faded into the unreadable makeup of my memory, Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, even Sir Mix-a-lot. We discussed authenticity versus superficiality, and how two almost identical songs can leave the listener feeling wholly different based on a variety of almost indeterminate factors. I took a test, got a B+ (which I am legitimately proud of, as my CLA adviser was taking the same class and could only manage a C), and moved on with college life. I have not directly applied the skills I was taught in that class in life, but if there was ever a chance to do so, I give you the new Of Montreal album, Skeletal Lamping.

To start with the title - Kevin Barnes (who pretty much is Of Montreal, at least in the studio) says, "This record is my attempt to bring all of my puzzling, contradicting, disturbing, humorous...fantasies, ruminations and observations to the surface, so that I can better dissect and understand their reason for being in my head. Hence the title, Skeletal Lamping. Lamping is the name of a rather dreadful hunting technique where, hunters go into the forest at night, flood an area in light, then shoot, or capture, the animals as they panic and run from their hiding places."

All right, good! Even Kevin seems to understand that making puzzling, contradicting, disturbing music is, how does one say, not commercially viable. This unflinching chaos and confusion (sexual and otherwise) is this fully realized and difficult album's main strength, and perhaps, if you're not into non-linear post-gender meta-intellectual sex philosophy, you'll find it to be the biggest weakness as well. That, and the beautifully poppy hooks that emerge from the sea of Barnes only last about 30 seconds on average, before moving on to some darker place (al beit momentarily - the last track on the album is an undeniable runway romp, complete with the empty eyes and turns of the runway model.)

Simplicity and Challenge After the Jump
Lyrics from the track Women's Studies Victims:
They had painted her face like a man's mistake,
like a mental state gang banging
A sad return to the eagle-shaped mirror
I'm the kind of mannequin that cheats and
opens its eyes to the ladies of the spread.

She took me home and spit in my drink
She spoke of Jermaine Grier and freedom I don't know what to think
I took her standing in the kitchen ass against the sink
She draped me in a stole
(what kind?) I think Malaysian mink
She threw me out into the snow; I waited for the bus
Up come some values voters screaming, 'are you one of us'
I said of course man, can't you see I've got some text reconstruction?
(What does that mean?)
No clue
It must be an illicit pentagram
(What are you talking about?)
No clue


And if this doesn't make any sense out of context, some background. Midway through the last Of Montreal album, in the midst of a 12-minute long breakdown, Kevin Barnes allegedly becomes Georgie Fruit, a black man in his late forties who has been through multiple sex changes. Barnes has often taken on the Georgie Fruit stage persona (complete with cross-dressing and memorably captured last year by Pitchfork photographers in Vegas, full frontal nudity - showing us that Mr. Barnes, at least, has not himself undergone any outwardly evident gender shifts.) This album marks the first that he has written entirely in the voice of his alter ego. It's hard not to think of Ziggy Stardust in this context, but I think there's something more interesting going on here - Bowie and Barnes are quite different, both in sex appeal and personal background, and to simplify for the sake of simplifying would be a mistake.

Which brings us back to the album again! There is no simplification here - how amazing, in this day and age of sound bites and 3 minute hits, is that? There is no condescension present either, which for me is the key to this album's success. What makes this an authentic experience? Is it arbitrary? For me, it's the intense focus and darkness present throughout the album that keeps it from treading over the line of indulgence. The moment you might get a whiff of Mr. Barnes being "clever," or making music like an "asshole," would be the moment you might turn off to the album. In my opinion (certainly not shared by all), this moment of turn-off does not happen. I've listened to it over and over, first on headphones on an Amtrak train, watching the trees and buildings flash by in hypnotic fashion, listening the album and remaining vulnerable and open to it even after two straight minutes of stomach turning repetitious "CD Skipping" guitar riffs. There's a narrative somewhere, and the beautiful moments that you try so hard to hold onto the first few listens become somehow larger and warmer and more humanistic in repeat visits to the album.

If I had a thesis due, I'd pick this album to write about.
If I want to be transported and introspectively uncomfortable, I'll listen to this album.
If I want to make my guests comfortable at a party, I would probably NOT play this album.

Still - if you haven't listened to it yet, come on over and we'll have a listening party. It's well worth the hour of your time, even if you end up hating it. Challenge is good. Difficulty is good. Yes we can.

miniStories Reading at the Ritz

miniStories is a juried short story competition hosted by mnartists and coordinated by Electric Arc Radio's Geoff Herbach. Stories are selected, judged, and finalists get a reading that's open to the public before the final selections are published in access + ENGAGE.

Cake In 15 is proud to announce that contributor Dan O. is one of the selected finalists, and since he is out of town this coming Monday, Cake in 15 boyfriend c.a.s. is headed down to the Ritz to read his short story Al Gore's Island. You should come down too, and catch some of the funny, off-beat literature happening in your backyard. (And check out access + ENGAGE too - the format is terrible, but the content can be great.)

miniStories Reading
Ritz Theater
343 13th Ave NE
7pm, Monday 10/27/2008

(*The image above is the first Google Image search result for "Al Gore's Island". Go figure.)

Shameless Self Promotion

Theater company Lamb Lays with Lion is holding a staged reading of a new play 10/14, written by CakeIn15 contributor Dan O. and featuring CakeIn15 boyfriend c.a.s. We're proud of it, it's ours, we'd like it to be yours.

Dates: ONE NIGHT ONLY- Tuesday October 14, 8pm
Tickets: Free Admission, $5-20 suggested donation at door
Theater Information: Cedar-Riverside People's Center Theater- 425 20th Ave S, Mpls 55454

The New UnCool

The first time I heard Ben Folds Five was on the radio – Back when kids used to listen to the radio and Top 40 was at least two years away from taking over along with its Clear Channel poison. The song was “Battle of Who Could Care Less,” and within a few days I had ordered the album through BMG. A little later, “Brick” hit the airways and wouldn’t go away, but I had already memorized the album and it hardly mattered that it had an overplayed single. That, plus I made out for the FIRST TIME with a girl named Sarah from Warroad, MN with Ben Folds Five playing in the background. I was fourteen years old and it was beautiful. Six years later, Sarah would be a lesbian (no joke!), and Ben Folds Five would be simply “Ben Folds,” already on the long slide down into hipster hatedom.

On September 11th – You know, thee September 11th, I had pre-existing plans of going to buy Ben’s new album “Rocking the Suburbs.” Classes were cancelled by noon, and after a few hours of watching smoking remnants and frenzied newscasters in New York, I wandered across campus to (the former) No Name Records only to find that they had sold out all the albums in stock, and due to the fact that no planes were being allowed to fly anywhere in America, would not have a new stock in until things got less “crazy” in the world. I went to four record stores that day, on foot, walking across a quiet shocked Minneapolis in search of the album, which I finally found and purchased at CD Warehouse… a place I rarely went due to lack of selection and over-all cheerlessness. That, plus they charge too much.

I went home to the dorms and devoured the album, playing it over and over again – Those opening power chords of “Zak and Sara” still make me feel that everything (regardless of what everything might be) will be, eventually, all right.

Subsequent albums were somewhat of a let-down in the face of the immediacy of “Rocking the Suburbs,” and so it was with a bit of reluctance that I stopped by the Electric Fetus to buy his brand-new Way To Normal yesterday afternoon and listened to it while I cooked gnocchi (the freeze-dried easy to prepare kind) and waiting for Katie Rose to come home from work. I wasn’t sure if it was cool to like Ben Folds anymore… No one looked at me weird at the Fetus when I bought it, but usually I get comments on ‘what a great album’ it is when I buy new junk, and this one was met with stolid silence. I wondered momentarily if this is what happened to Elton John fans in the ‘80’s. Elton was rockin’ too, remember that? Then he got chubby and elegiac.

I am pleased to report, however, that the new Ben Folds album is pretty good. It’s not great, it’s not even close to perfect, but it has enough sparkly piano and upbeat irony-clad sentiment that I look forward to going home tonight and spinning it again, bouncing around the room to that big-production synth-n-string backed power pop. It’s probably very un-cool, but I’m okay with that. It makes things seem retrospectively “all right.”

Stream Way to Normal via Spinner here.

Theater Review: The Irresistible Rise of Big Daddy Ubu

The Irresistible Rise of Big Daddy Ubu, a Nimbus theater production which opened this weekend at the Theater Garage, throws a whole lot of elements into the mix. I'm almost certainly missing a few, but here's a laundry list: Brecht, Jarry, the Chicago mafia, penis jokes, Monty Python, various pop culture icons including Enya, Guy Noir, Donald Rumsfeld, free market politics, corporate greed & aggression, National Public Radio, organic vegetable references, buffoonery, meta-theatrical devices, and lots and lots of text. It is then perhaps strange that, upon the culmination of all this, it felt as though they hadn't pushed it far enough. Buoyed by the inspired and present performance of Mark Rehani as Dogsburough, a brilliantly executed take on the detective & lawyer Casey (Scot Moore), and a solid performance from Joe Herman in the title role, the play does manage to get from beginning to end fairly intact, although I couldn't shake the feeling that they were stuck somewhere between second and third gear most of the time.

To reduce the plot down to its basic elements, Big Daddy Ubu is a big fat gangster who shoots, intimidates, and farts his way through a corrupt Chicago food industry, ultimately putting his ill-used conscience on trial & attempting to murder his even fatter wife along the way. It's a grotesque comedy that seeks to expose the big-wigs for who they really are and, I suspect, make a basic mockery of corporate industry that threatens to monopolize even our grocery stores. The trouble is that the composition almost immediately overwhelms the whole, and the characters, while occasionally coming into focus, are burdened with so much expository dialogue that we never really get a sense of why any of it matters. The pop culture jokes mostly fall flat, either because they're three or four years old, or because they just don't really fit in with the rest of the action (although there is an Enya joke that I very much appreciated.)

Full review after the jump

It's easy to sit back and critique, and there's enough here to recommend that you take a look. Near the end of the program, Nimbus includes a section which calls for conversation, an exploration of the exchange between audience & the work presented on stage. Taking that challenge, I'd like to start a conversation regarding the (smaller) Twin Cities theater community. There is clearly abundant talent among the ranks, and we all understand that putting on a fully realized production is no small task. It takes weeks of rehearsal, thousands of dollars mostly raised from private individuals, and a huge commitment from a team of actors, designers, and creative minds to even get the show onto a stage. Given so much energy and effort, why is it so difficult to end up with a product that transcends the ordinary? I don't think it makes me overly optimistic to hope & expect for something new, something visionary, a piece that teaches me about the craft, every time I attend a piece of Twin Cities theater. I have no desire to be a cynic - I understand the challenges at hand. But I also refuse to accept mediocre theater as the status quo. There are too many theater degrees (at a cost of what, $20,000 in tuition each?), too many clear & present issues to tackle, and frankly, too much at stake for so many shows to grind it out from beginning to finish, achieving adequacy but rarely transcending or challenging the medium in which they operate.

Somewhere in the middle of Big Daddy Ubu, Ubu is on the floor having pummeled the character who plays his conscience into a dizzy mess. He holds out his hand to be helped up by his wife. They are both immensely fat, and yet, she takes his hand and pulls him up with no effort what-so-ever, and the play goes on. It was in that moment that I lost the belief that I was watching Ubu in this world. I was instead watching a group of actors gamely work their way through a somewhat over-wordy adaptation of Alfred Jarry, and that was that.

Is it acceptable to want more? Go see it, and decide for yourself.

The Irresistible Rise of Big Daddy Ubu plays at the Minneapolis Theater Garage, September 5-28. For tickets, call 651-229-3122 or www.nimbustheatre.com

Theater for Foodies

I’ve watched the occasional cooking show on Bravo or the Food Network, but never had I found myself amid such experts until last Thursday, in attendance at a rehearsal for The Cooking Show Con Karimi and Comrades. Revolutionary Chef Mero Cocinero Karimi is here in town to perform his roving cooking show at the Bedlam Theater, and I had the pleasure of being ever so briefly exposed to the many secrets the show contains. These secrets, being secret, cannot be divulged - Mero Cocinero Karimi speaks tersely of the CIA and possible infiltration, and so you must go see the show and discover them for yourself.

Rest assured, however, that you will witness something special. The three comrades in question are Mero Cocinero Karimi, special guest Comrade Katie Rose McLaughlin, and the stage manager Comrade Tsai. Working in a mode that mixes clowning, improvisation and good old-fashioned story telling, they sing, dance, and chop their way through a cooking spectacle that will top anything you’ve ever seen on television, and probably (if you’re like me) anything you’ve ever seen on stage as well. And there’s FOOD! You get to try some! Free tastes!

The Cooking Show also functions as a clever and functional political treatise. Never preachy, the comrades display a lightness of touch & understanding of the deep history behind the dishes they prepare and the stories they tell. By the end of the night, be you Blue, Red, or “Other,” you just might find yourself feeling part of the larger community at whole - One that comes together to experience good art, and leaves with a full mind and satisfied palate.

Go here for the website: merococinero.com

It’s at Bedlam Theater (1501 S. 6th Street, Mpls, MN)
August 28-30 & September 5-7.
All shows @ 8 pm, doors open at 7:30 pm.
Tickets only $20, with discounts for masses, elders, & youth.
B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Bowl.)

Buy tickets @ 612-341-1038 or merococinero.com

Acceleration (a review of recent history & R.E.M.)

Ed. Note - This is an introductory post, originally written right after R.E.M's newest album was released. I'm not really this far behind.

Yesterday morning my coffee maker broke. A dull click indicated that it would not, despite the fresh grounds and ten cups of water inside, make any productive use of them.
It sat, unnoticed in its disobedience for a time. I returned for a cup of coffee to find it silent & sullen. My eyes narrowed. I unplugged it and plugged it back in again.

I ruminated on how interesting it would be if I could exercise a similar treatment upon myself.

The coffee machine still did not work.

Also, last night I lost Boggle. Not “loss” within the game itself—I physically lost the entire game. Last I can remember it had settled underneath our dining room table, having been opened and played once, and then left to gather dust and as a constant reminder that I really ought to straighten up the damn apartment. Sickness & business descended, the long process of opening and closing a show, and on one rather sunny day at home, I spent a hurried morning cleaning the apartment. I picked up Boggle and placed it in some other place. Some unknown place. Some hidden corner.

Suffice to say, it’s beyond me. I turned the whole apartment sideways, but the bright yellow and red box eluded me. We played Uno instead.

And so to the point—My favorite band of all, R.E.M., has released their new album recently, called Accelerate. I was too busy to rush out and buy it right away, and Katie Rose managed to get to it before me, leaving it fresh and new and still plastic-wrapped on the table when I arrived home from work one day. I put it in for a spin the next morning, and the whole thing rushed by before I was even ready to listen to it. I’ve returned to it again and again, but haven’t really PLACED it yet. It’s somewhere between the coffee machine and the Boggle game, and I don’t know where that is exactly, if only because the coffee machine doesn’t work and the Boggle game is missing.

More after the jump...

Perhaps it’s unfair, this expectation of automatic placement. Do you know what I mean by that? Automatic placement?

I’m nineteen years old, alone in Minneapolis a little less than a week after school has ended. All my sort-of friends have gone home for the summer and I have only just started my new (first in the cities) job at a painter for Twin Cities Student Painters. I applied for the job, met the boss, and he hired me, after which I said, “I don’t have a car, you know.” And he said “oh.” And looked at me long and hard and then said “I like you. Let me find you a team that you can car-pool with.”

The car-pooling was still in process though, and I was painting with a temporary team during my “training” period, and the locations spanned the wide unknown city in which I had only lived for 6 months. The first day of my new job our location was in Minnetonka. Living as I was in a garden-level studio apartment right behind Hard Times Café while the actual owner traversed Amsterdam, I had no access to the internet or computers unless I trekked onto campus and logged on at the Wilson Library. Instead, I utilized the call-service feature of Metro Transit in order to plan my bussing routes to the various different painting locations. The phone system neglected to point out that the route it recommended was an express—The bus would only leave once, at 7:35 am. Thinking I could catch a slightly later version of the route, I waited downtown for an hour before realizing my error. My eyes burned as they tried to fill with tears. I rejected the “crying on the street corner” approach, and resorted to kicking the curb instead.

Full of humiliated frustration, I found a pay phone and called Leigh, one of the only people I knew in the entire city. Remarkably, she picked up. Even more remarkably, she agreed to get out of bed, put some pajamas on, and give me a ride from the corner of Hennepin and 4th Street to the far reaches of some boulevard in Minnetonka. I did not lose the job, despite being nearly two hours late. The crew chief gave me a ride home that night, through sweltering rush hour traffic, covered in paint and grime and exhaustion.

I was broke—I had spent the last of my money celebrating the end of the semester by going out to eat a few times, and giving the owner of the apartment in which I was living her share of the rent, some $300. This seems remarkably inexpensive now, I suppose, but then, it left me quite literally with $8 in my checking account and nothing in savings what-so-ever. The painting job would not pay for two weeks. Until then, it was up to me to scrounge for every penny so that I could buy Totinos pizzas at the West Bank Grocery and a loaf of bread for toast in the morning.

My first day of work was on a Monday. The next day R.E.M would release Reveal, their first studio album since Up, which to this day still gets fairly regular playing time along with all my current flavors of the month. Cheapo was holding a MIDNIGHT SALE!, which meant that I could go at closing time and stand in a long line to buy the brand-new CD. I think that Dave Matthews Band had a new album coming out on the same day, as did some other band that was much cooler than R.E.M. at the time… Most of the midnight hipsters were there to buy some other record, but I was there for my favorite band. I had, two hours prior, collected up all the CD’s in my collection that seemed like they might have some retail value and that weren’t essential copies, and brought them in to sell. Cheapo had given my something like $22 for the lot, the only album receiving more than two dollars in exchange being some early Michael Jackson 2-disc set featuring his work mostly in Jackson 5. I had listened to it twice in vague befuddlement, having expected something inarticulately different. Relegated to the back end of my collection, it saved me that night. Without the $6 it fetched, I would not have had sufficient funds to purchase both the new R.E.M. and the loaf of bread that would feed me for the next two days.

I bought the record, and got some promotional stuff along with it free… a poster, which up until my last move hung on my closet door, and some post-cards that I still have in a box somewhere. And of course, the album, which I hungrily tore open and listened to twice that night alone.

Every song felt right—The rain poured around me, bubbled down the drain-pipes and rushed by at eye level, as I stared out at the street from underground darkness. Five of the songs had the word “rain” in them, and they resonated up to this day. I was utterly alone, utterly broke and almost starving, but for the first week every night in the rainy early summer/late spring of Minneapolis in 2001, I listened to that record every night before falling asleep.

I still feel there when I listen to it now. The songs, now so familiar and ingrained and anticipated, were once new and sustaining. The critics don’t agree. Reveal was mostly panned in the states (Although SPIN magazine gave it a perfect 10/10), and faded into obscurity. For me though, it was nothing less than a security blanket. It was absolutely specific, 100 % accurate, and indicated my exact global and emotional position to myself. There was no separation of self and music—We melded, and were the rain, the chord changes, the chipping paint, the missed busses, the incomprehensible loneliness and uncertainly of being alone in a new & unknown city. It all streamed together as one living organism, and when the CD ended I slept.

This is what I mean. It’s a round-about story to get back to my point, but here it is, just the same, in case someone is still reading: I want this new album, Accelerate, to feel like just that. The broken coffee machine and missing board game are a small substitute for the immediacy and desperation of my younger self. Each event that occurs now can be inspected.

“Is this it? Will this be what this record will feel like and mean to me?”

Maybe I’m too old—Maybe you can’t make those connections forever. But each R.E.M. album prior has been indicated, has meant something specific, transcended all the music around it to define a moment in my life.

I’m still waiting for this one to hit me.