Thursday, March 8, 2012

Weekend What's What 3/8-3/11

THURSDAY, MARCH 8TH

Pony Trash + Dial Up + Robust Worlds

@ Turf Club
1601 University Avenue
St. Paul

9pm / 21+ / $6

Self-described "post-shoegaze" band Pony Trash bring their all-star lineup to the Turf Club stage for a night of noisy indie rock. Featuring members of the Chambermaids, Vampire Hands, Poliça, Heavy Deeds, Gospel Gossip and Private Dancer, this is a bona fide super group! The band takes from classic rock influences including Crazy Horse and Fleetwood Mac, mixed in with some My Bloody Valentine-inspired shoegaze and elements of surf rock for a sound that's unique yet very familiar. Filling out the lineup is Dial Up, which takes elements of indie pop, noise rock and experimental electronica, adding catchy melodies that creates an interesting psych pop package. Opening is Alex Rose (of Vampire Hands fame)'s one-man band Robust Worlds, a blend of synths, guitars, and sometimes beats into a psychedelic package that has been aptly described as "futuristic-folk rock." -Danielle Morris

Click HERE for the Facebook invite


THURSDAY, MARCH 8TH

Book It: The Party

@ James J. Hill Reference Library
80 W 4th Street
St. Pail

7–10pm / $15 ($10 Members)

Leave your library voices at home - James J. Hill Reference Library's "Book It: The Party" series is billed as “Loud at the Library,” so no matter what volume you choose to employ, you’re unlikely to receive a dirty look from the librarian or fellow patrons. The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library have leveraged the considerable charms of the gorgeous and historic James J. Hill space to create a brilliant convergence of local music, trivia and free beer! You read that right, the mere ownership of a library card will get you a free Summit at this event. Trivia from Books and Bars’ Jeff Kamin will test your musical knowledge and there will be prizes, so keep that in mind when you assemble your crew for the evening (in other words, bring nerds). The chance to hear local music in the great acoustics of this library is a unique feature of the book it parties, and local quartet We Became Actors are the headliners for this iteration. Their lively crowd-pleasing performance style is exciting to watch, and their bright anthemic indie pop-rock should fill the space nicely. The book it series is the kind of ingenious hybrid of the literary and the musical that works especially well here in the Twin Cities so come out and see what all the fuss is about. -Anthony Enright

Click HERE for the Friends of the St. Paul Library site


THURSDAY, MARCH 8TH

Sound Horizon: Julianna Barwick

@ Perlman Gallery at Walker Art Center
1750 Hennepin Avenue
Minneapolis

6, 7 & 8 p.m. / FREE

Growing up singing weekly in gospel choirs, it's no surprise that composer/vocalist, Julianna Barwick's soundscapes reflect layered choral elements that exhale a halcyon state and usher in the era of a one-woman choir. Manipulating and looping her vocals via effects pedals, sample machines and other modes of audio technology, Barwick creates a masterpiece of vocal experimentation and ambient harmonies that are both intimate and ephemeral and which Pitchfork dubbed “a digital update on sacred hymns.” Tonight, catch a special performance from Barwick live in the Walker's Perlman Gallery. As part of the Walker's on-going live sound + visual art series, Sound Horizon, Barwick will be performing three times (once at 6, at 7 and again at 8 p.m.) beneath Ernesto Neto's monumental large-scale installation otheranimal, a piece which premiered at 2004's Edinburgh Festival Theatre and features a translucent canvas of “suspended biomorphic forms.” While you're there, don't miss an opportunity to peep the Walker's current vivid 'fashion meets choreography' exhibition Dance Works II: Merce Cunningham/Ernesto Neto for a evening that will excite all of your senses. -Juleana Enright

Click HERE for the Walker Art Center site


THURSDAY, MARCH 8TH

Cum On Feel the Noize: Women of Hard Rock

@ Clubhouse Jäger
923 Washington Avenue N
Minneapolis

10 p.m. / 21+ / free

You know you belt them in the shower, those classic, head-bangin' 80's hair metal power ballads. You may even harbor a few heavy duty crushes on the hot dudes that made gender androgyny a rock “it” factor. That's why tonight is your night to shed the shame and join DJ Danielle Morris as she spins “macho hard rock” faves for your fist pumping and sing-a-long pleasure. This month celebrates the women of hard rock: bad ass chicks, slinging guitars, belting it out, and usually rocking leather. Expect tasty jams from the likes of the Runaways, Joan Jett, Crucial Taunt, Lita Ford, Pat Benatar and many more. Plus, sip down delish libations conjured up by the good lookin' Jäger barstaff and drink specials including $5 Jameson and $2.50 Miller High Life Tallboys. Girls rock yer boyz; boyz rock yer girls; girls rock yer girls; boyz rock yer boyz...You get the picture.

Click HERE for the Facebook event


FRIDAY, MARCH 9TH

"Black & White: The Absence of Color"

To most visual artists, living and creating sans color would be like a death sentence, but the artists involved in Mpls Photo Center's latest exhibit see a black and white palette as a tool that exudes life and calls attention to the simplistic details often missed. Using a range of 35mm, wet plates, iPhone and digitally crafted photography, the artists in "Black and White" pay homage to the classic art of photojournalism and portrait storytelling with modern twists and deconstruction, these pieces gorgeously “oscillate between bright whites, deep blacks and rich shades of gray.” Definitely not to be missed. -Juleana Enright

Click HERE for the Mpls Photo Center site

Photo: Donna Pinckley

FRIDAY, MARCH 9TH

Saint Motel + Empires + Still Pacific + Lady Parts DJs

@ 7th St. Entry
701 First Avenue
Minneapolis

8pm / 18+ / $8

Los Angeles foursome Saint Motel brings their brand of angular power pop to the 7th St Entry. With rousing, cheerful melodies, accompanied by sunny guitars and cheeky, sometimes biting lyrics, the band is easy on the ears (and the eyes). This California band also has local ties, as singer AJ Jackson grew up right here in Minneapolis. Nylon Magazine is a fan, calling their new song "Honest Feedback" "an ode to the truth, kickstarting things with an impressive guitar riff and then quickly sliding into the quartet's retro-inflected, happy-go-lucky sound. The track is an instant party crammed into a three-minute package." We couldn't agree more. Chicago hard rockers Empires and Minneapolis’ own dark pop band Still Pacific open, with Lady Parts DJs between sets to keep the party moving all night. -Danielle Morris

Click HERE for the First Avenue site


FRIDAY, MARCH 9TH

Transmission 11 Year Anniversary

@ First Avenue
701 First Avenue N
Minneapolis

8 ppm / 18+ / $8 door, $6 adv

If you want to get down tonight, then get downtown. DJ Jake Rudh is presenting the 11th anniversary celebrating Transmission, his weekly night of dance including a medley of genres tangled in tempo. To celebrate, he's bringing in Chan Poling of Twin Cities new wave legends the Suburbs for a guest set, as well as throwing in a Suburbs tribute set. Rudh's talent for taste includes songs from the '70s and '80s, loved especially by the ones who have a soft spot for Hall & Oates, the Smiths, and Duran Duran. Rudh holds a weekly spot on the Current and has a wall-to-wall CD collection worth envying, and tonight you'll be able to hear his picks from the worlds of new wave, post-punk, Britpop and more. Rudh has lived up to his Mad Men-era-loving reputation by his commitment to transforming past to present - a present for you. While you're there, pick up your own take-home present: the brand-new, official Transmission t-shirts designed by Caroline Royce for a cool $15. -Meg Junkermeier

Click HERE for the First Avenue site.


FRIDAY, MARCH 9TH

Private Stock

@ Clubhouse Jäger
923 Washington Avenue N
Minneapolis

9 pm / 21+ / FREE

This Friday, the Disco Devils present another segment of Craig Lambert aka DJ Focus during Private Stock at Warehouse District watering hole Clubhouse Jäger. To kick the weekend off right, the longtime vinyl veteran will play club classics from decades of long ago - we’re talkin’ '70s, '80s, and '90s, all in good old-fashioned vinyl form, and mixed to perfection. Come drink, dance and experience what DJ Focus calls “an eclectic blend of classic club, lounge and bedroom grooves.” -Stefani Arden

Click HERE for the Facebook invite


FRIDAY, MARCH 9TH

WAK LYF presents: Cybersex Party

@ Kitty Kat Club
315 14th Avenue SE
Minneapolis

10pm / 21+ / $1

Local DJ collective WAK LYF bring sexy back (did it ever really leave?) to the Kitty Kat Club with an evening of virtual grinding, web-based booty shaking and pixilated hip thrusts. Their Cybersex Party will have your avatar working up a sweat as the WAK LYF DJs spin face melting dance tunes. Special guest local producer and DJ Triple Six Sound Club brings his unique blend of future house, acid, techno, gangsta rap, and UK bass for a set that’s sure to ooze sex appeal. Don’t worry about the morning after; it’s Cybersex so it’s 100% safe! -Anthony Enright

Click HERE for the Facebook invite


FRIDAY, MARCH 9TH (THROUGH SUNDAY, MARCH 11TH)

“Wild Strawberries”

@ Trylon Microcinema
3258 Minnehaha Avenue
Minneapolis

7pm & 9pm Friday & Saturday, 5pm & 7pm Sunday / $8

Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 breakthrough is about the illusion of time, linking youth to old age (and back again to deepest youth), with a budding filmmaker’s vision being tied to one of his primary influences, Victor Sjöström, who is cast as Bergman’s widowed and elderly scientific dignitary, Isak Borg. On a trip to receive an academic honor, Borg’s collisions with other people carry reverberations of his past, which are bittersweet and tragic in how the old man confronts not only failure and regret, but the mortality he must accept. His yearning is collective: “Remember me.” Bergman creates a cosmos of the interior self, bridging his own youthfulness to an old man of his own creation, perhaps the elder he imagined he would become. The reality of death is not in a cloak as with The Seventh Seal, but in the nature of memory and dreaming, the hidden capacious world where an individual is safe from all others but his own self. The final product, tempered by Sjöström’s moving performance, is unsettling just as it is radiant. Wild Strawberries epitomizes Bergman’s talent in making movie-going an active encounter with one’s own sense of an eternity confined within individual experience. -Niles Schwartz

Click HERE for the Take-Up Productions site


SATURDAY, MARCH 10TH

"Insolvent"

@ Big Table Studio
375 Wabasha Street N
St. Paul

Let the allure of printmaking draw you in for the opening night of "Insolvent," a collaboration of the work of 12 artists exploring today's economic hardships. The work cleverly approaches the meaning of hard times and pinching pennies through the perspectives of national and international artists. Prints of faux run-down business signs and silly coupons offering air are only a couple prints among the witty bunch. Look for erratic prints by Jonathan McFadden and dark, mysterious prints by Faye Passow. Solvency, an issue among printmakers trying to avoid potentially lethal products, is also described among the work, bringing attention to their effects on those passionate for their results. Motörik Arts promoter Erik Farseth teamed up with Big Table Studio to create this three-week exhibition, beginning at today's opening from 7 to 10 p.m. with music from Jim and the French Vanilla. -Meg Junkermeier

Click HERE for the Facebook event.


SATURDAY, MARCH 10TH

Rosalux Gallery: 10th Anniversary Exhibition

@ Rosalux Gallery
1400 Van Buren Street NE, #195
Minneapolis

7–11 pm / Free

Typically anniversaries are a time to celebrate and reflect on the past, but not for always forward thinking and progressive Rosalux Gallery. Never content to rest on their laurels, Rosalux instead is spending their ten-year anniversary looking toward the future with an exhibition highlighting compelling work from the current line-up of Rosalux artists. Originally founded in 2002 as a collective focused on giving local artists greater visibility without onerous commercial limitations, ten years later the gallery is still going strong. This month’s wide ranging group show highlights artwork by 20 collective artist members including founding members Terrence Payne and Shawn McNulty, as well as Amelia Biewald, Valerie Jenkins, Elaine Rutherford, Laura Stack, and Bart Vargas. With a wide range of media and stylistic diversity, the painting, drawing, sculpture, mixed media and photography on exhibit show the vibrancy of the collective’s work and the broad range of artistic practices the gallery supports. A Happy Anniversary Rosalux; here’s to another decade of great local art! -Anthony Enright

Click HERE for the Rosalux Gallery site.

Art by Terrence Payne

SATURDAY, MARCH 10TH

Nyteowl Album Release Show

@ Hexagon Bar
2600 27th Avenue S
Minneapolis

9pm / 21+ / FREE

Head to the Hexagon Bar this Saturday and catch the release of Minneapolis electro artists Nyteowl's latest, Love of Mine on 7" and 12" vinyl. This new release from UK's Juno Records features an electronic, '80s, star-studded string of new tunes that’ll surely blow your mind. Don’t miss opening performances by Littlefoot, Bollywood, Food Pyramid and a DJ set from Comanche, plus remixes from Mighty Mouse, Boy 8-Bit, Brassica and Hyboid. Minor disclaimer to all you skeptics out there: it’s kind of hard not to dance to the addictive, eclectic, feel good, electro pop that this group is throwin’ down. -Stefani Arden

Click HERE for the Facebook invite


SATURDAY, MARCH 10TH


International Womyn's Fest 2012

@ secret location

7pm / All ages / $5

Described as a "sort of belated celebration in honor of International Woman's Day," the International Womyn's Fest celebrates the Twin Cities' talented artists of the female persuasion. The all-inclusive event welcomes womyn of all backgrounds, natural born and self-identified alike. The musical lineup includes Lisa McGrath, performing music on homemade instruments; "harder than diamonds" all-girl punk band the Burglars; Diva 93, a new "dark diva" project from Jess Buns; and vinyl-slinger DJ Gold Star (AKA Kiera Coonan of the Velveteens and Goddamn Doo Wop Band). Stick around for performance art from the body-contorting Body Troupe and a feminist film by Feemeward Lens. Best of all, 100% of proceeds will go toward the struggle to free African-America trans woman CeCe McDonald, who has been charged with two counts of “second degree murder” after an incident that began when she was violently assaulted because of her gender and race. -Jahna Peloquin

Email bunwaldy@gmail.com for more info.


SATURDAY, MARCH 10TH

Brute Heart 7" Release

@ Kitty Cat Klub
315 14th Avenue SE
Minneapolis

9:30 pm / 21+ / $5

We've always thought Brute Heart's hauntingly repetitive sounds would be the perfect soundtrack to a Jodorowsky film. Why, simply put on Lonely Hunter and you're practically transported into trippy cult western world of dwarfs and mutants like in El Topo - except instead of dwarfs and mutants, you have a lovely trio of gypsy-esque lady art rockers. Join the Minneapolis band known for their psychedelic art-rock, viola-wielding live shows and Middle Eastern-inspired flair tonight as they celebrate the release of their latest musical contribution, the 7" Fever b/w In Limbo on M'lady's Records. Plus, catch live sets from dark orchestral folk rockers Painted Saints and motronic grime rock from locals Les Ourses. -Juleana Enright

Click HERE for the Facebook invite


SUNDAY, MARCH 11TH

North Star Bartender’s Guild presents "The Imbibes of March"

@ XYandZ Gallery
3858 Minnehaha
Minneapolis

8pm–1am / $50

We have been pouring over our copy of the North Star Bartender’s Guild’s bartending guide North Star Cocktails for months, and we must admit our obsession has been more aspirational than practical. All those bitters and tinctures and drams make our heads spin, and we find we need a nice bourbon on the rocks to calm our jangled nerves. No, not all of us were cut out to be mixologists, but the bartenders who make up the NSBG are blessed with the ability to imbue a lowly cocktails with that extra something that renders it art. As none of us civilians are likely to reach that lofty level anytime soon, why not leave all the fussing to the professionals and treat yourself to a great time! NSBG’s "Imbibes of March" party will benefit Minneapolis homeless shelter People Serving People so while $50 tickets may seem a bit steep, bear in mind that admission includes eight different mini craft cocktails, light appetizers and a raffle, with all proceeds going to a very worthy cause. Live music by Sound System Sabotage and DJ Richy Rivera will keep the party going through the evening and XYandZ’s intimate space will give you a front row view of the masters in action. NSBG’s first party was a pile of cocktail soaked awesomeness, so do yourself a favor and don’t miss this one! You can always finish making those home-brewed bitters next weekend… -Anthony Enright

Click HERE for the Facebook invite


Editor in Chief: Jahna Peloquin / Contributors: Juleana Enright, Jahna Peloquin, Stefani Arden, Anthony Enright, Niles Schwartz, Danielle Morris, Meg Junkermeier

No comments: