Adele

I saw Adele perform at the Theatre de la Jeune Lune (my new fav theatre in the minne) last night. For a 20 year old, her voice has amazing depth and personality. Think Amy Winehouse with neither the craziness nor drugs. It's the sort of voice that makes older men reminisce about their teenage years, and young girls giddy about the cute boy sitting next to them.

In other words, definitely check her out. (and don't forget to check out her MPR in-studio performance, which should be updated soon)

St Vincent

Last night a few of us saw St Vincent both rock out and woo the audience at the Cedar Cultural Center. As St Vincent walked past us off the stage, my friend Jeff summed the evening up best: "she's adorable".

AND, she can play one mean guitar.

But don't take my word for it; see what my African sister across the pond listed as her top album of 2007.

Music Madness

What's stranger than the name Electric Fetus? How about seeing Talib Kweli perform a free full-set show at the 'Fetus. I thought for sure the show would be out in the parking lot. So I was a little surprised to find out upon arrival that people were simply packing themselves in between the racks and racks of CDs.

I also recently went to the Alarmists show at Mill City Live. The Alarmists rock, and are now competing with Mason Jennings and Stuart Davis for my favorite local band. Definitely check them out.

And last but not least, this past Friday I went to my favorite venue in Minneapolis, The Varsity, to see Vicious Vicious rock out to a crowd excited for their CD release show.

September looks like another busy music month. Gotta love that Minneapolis Music Scene.

Voxtrot

Went to see Voxtrot at the Triple Rock Social Club last night with a few members of the music club. Au Revoir Simone and Sound Team opened for them. Voxtrot (from Austin, TX) put on a solid show even though they're really young. I have a feeling they won't be playing in venues like the Triple Rock (a small bar) for long.

Oddly enough, the best part of the night was standing at the back of the bar and watching the members of Au Revoir Simone and Sound Team dance their brains out to Voxtrot -- it really added an extra element to the show.

The absolute highlight however came when a random guy in the crowd went over to the bassist from Sound Team and, without any warning or communication, picked him up and passed him to his friend, as if a passing a crying baby off to its mother. Talk about extreme confusion. One minute the bassist was dancing some sort of indie-music inspired jig, the next he was being passed around as if he were a rag doll.

I guess you had to be there...typing it out doesn't capture the pure randomness and hilarity of the event. I literally could not stop laughing.

A Prairie Home Companion Weekend

My parents visited this past weekend for what turned out to be a very productive (notice the recent theme?), tasty, and fun weekend.

Productive: major yard work. It's never looked so good. I think my parents should open up a landscaping / garden consulting / sweet corn operation when they retire.

Tasty: good food. We ate at my favorite restaurant in the Cities, 128 Cafe. We also checked out Cafe Lurcat. Lurcat was just ok in my opinion. I got the feeling that they were trying too hard to be a high class establishment. And they seriously need to fix their acoustic issues. We weren't in the bar. And it's not a club -- it's a restaurant. Why am I shouting? You hear me Lurcat? No? That's right -- fix your acoustics. We finished the high-calorie weekend at Edina Creamery and Yum! (appropriately named if you ask me).

Fun: Everything was fun, but the topper was seeing Prairie Home Companion (click the link for audio clips and pictures from the show), with special guest Wilco. The show overall was great. Wilco was awesome.

For those of you unfamiliar with the show, about halfway through it Garrison will read off various "greetings". They range from "Happy 90th birthday Francis", to "Congratulations Franky on getting your drivers license. Don't crash my car." Upon entering the theater, they provide you with scrap paper and pencil, and you have a minute to come up with a sentence that will hopefully be creative enough or sentimental enough to reach Garrison's hands.

In my haste, I believe I wrote, "Hello to [my parents], who after 30 years of marriage still sleep next to each other." We rushed to our seats, and upon sitting down I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I realized I had written down the wrong anniversary number. I considered running back downstairs to change it, but figured it would be nearly impossible to find my slip of paper amongst the hundreds of others. And besides, what are the chances that Garrison would read my note?

Funny how things work out.

About halfway through the greetings he read my message. My jaw dropped, and my parents looked at me in startled confusion, asking was that their name he just read over live radio to his millions of faithful listeners. Yep. Funny how things work out.

Easter Weekend = Lots of Fun

• Friday night - Pieta Brown at The Cedar, followed by a stop into Palmers
• Saturday morning - 5th bed delivery attempt. It was finally delivered correctly (almost)
• Saturday day - worked outside in the cold, finished our backyard fence (almost)
• Saturday night - Neko Case at First Avenue
• Sunday morning - service at a Danish Lutheran Church over by Minnehaha Academy
• Sunday noon - Easter lunch and egg decorating
• Sunday afternoon - Sunny but chilly jog
• Sunday night - "Heavy drinking" with Anders' family

iTunes + Local Concert Listings = iConcertCal

I recently found out about iConcertCal, a super cool plug-in for iTunes. According to their website, "iConcertCal is a free iTunes plug-in that monitors your music library and generates a personalized calendar of upcoming concerts in your city."

I haven't installed it yet, but definitely plan to. I will try to remember to give a recap about how accurate/useful it is after a few weeks of use.

Tis the Season...

Tis the season to be back-logged with to-do lists. Heck, even one of my to-dos is to take the time to write down a to-do list.

Christmas was great this year, although a little quiet and sort of empty feeling since my brother and sister couldn't make it. I'll upload some pictures shortly from the festivities when I get the chance (another item on my to-do list).

And speaking of Christmas, I was contemplating what I wanted to write about it the other day. Turns out that the first thing that came to my mind was the word "tradition". I hope Jesus doesn't take offense -- but it's hard to not instantly think of family, my grandma's house, lutefisk, stockings full of presents that would make a dentist proud, laughing, and of course, Cool Whip.

Then I laughed to myself at the irony of thinking of and humming the melody to Tradition -- a great song from the musical Fiddler on the Roof. For those of you out there that are unfamiliar with Fiddler on the Roof, it is a Broadway musical about a Jewish family and its hardships living in Russia.

Let's bring back some learnings from elementary school:
If A = B and B = C, then A = C.
So it sounds like Christmas makes me think of Jewish fiddlers.
Go figure.

Musical Weekend

Lots of music this past weekend.

• Imogen Heap at First Avenue (Sweet!)
• Robin and Linda Williams at Fitzgerald Theater (Where were you mom and dad?)
• Received a book of "easy" piano songs (excellent Christmas present)
• Poor Lauren's chorus of coughs, sneezes, hacks, and ahh-ahh-chews! (Dr. Seus would have been jealous)
  

Fun Weekend

Addie's birthday and Lauren's visit made for a fun weekend. The highlight was seeing Hot Chip and Jamie Lidell at 1st Avenue. Personally, I thought Hot Chip stole the show. You can't go wrong with 5 keyboards/synthesizers and a lot of British energy.

But don't get me wrong, Jamie Lidell was fun too. He would beat-box, record it, loop it, and sing on top of it, all with a lot of soul. He has been described as, "a 21st century reincarnation of Little Richard".

The Bad Plus

Last night Brad and I saw The Bad Plus perform at Ted Mann Auditorium. It was a great show, thanks in part to the group being so "telepathically tight". Their drummer, David King, put on possibly the best drum performance I've ever seen live.

For me, the highlight of the night was when they rocked out to their own version of Tom Sawyer, by Rush. Certain people in the crowd were visibly over-excited once this happened. It's not too common to see fist pumps during a jazz performance, but I guess The Bad Plus is not your average jazz band. I have a feeling Big MO would have followed suit...

Studio C

Robbie won tickets to see the Barenaked Ladies play at Cities 97 Studio C (actually KCCO in downtown Minneapolis) today, and I was fortunate enough to tag along. It was a small acoustic set -- around 5 songs, but totally cool. I was happy when they played Brian Wilson, probably my favorite song of theirs.