Month: July 2006

  • Spoonriver

    As the menu at Café Brenda has long made clear, Brenda Langton was one of the first Twin Cities chefs to recognize the value of local food producers. Her newest venture, Spoonriver, is a stylish, next-generation expression of those ideals. Brunch after the farmers market might consist of tea-poached eggs or a garden leek omelette,…

  • Carmen

    Capping off the populist Sommerfest series is the catchiest darn opera ever written. Taking the role of the titular seductress in this semi-staged production is the smoky-eyed American mezzo-soprano Angela Horn (pictured on next page), a New York-based singer who’s regarded nationwide as one of the finest interpreters of the sultry Carmen character. In fact,…

  • The Flaming Lips with Sonic Youth

    The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne would make a fine old-time carnival barker, beckoning us into a world of wonder and weirdness, dressed in his white suit and flanked by people dressed like stuffed animals. So it is not ironic at all that the Lips are playing the State Fair. Their latest, At War With the…

  • Kaki King

    When name-checking guitar gods, technical show-offs like Michael Hedges, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Preston Reed, and Joe Satriani come to mind. But one would be hard-pressed to find a young lady among their ranks, someone who spent her formative years noodling away in string-based obsession. Until Kaki King came along, that is. This twenty-five-year-old is that…

  • Crooked Still

    Just when it seemed like the bluegrass revival was about to expire, Boston-based Crooked Still unpacked the cello. This young quartet plays bluegrass with traditional spirit, but they also bring unconventional stylings—and unconventional strings—to their songs. What’s more, the band’s silvery-voiced singer, Aoife O’Donovan, even sounds like a less formal Alison Krauss. But their darker,…

  • Ween

    Those who don’t know any better think of Dean and Gene Ween as those stoners who refuse to outgrow their adolescent stage antics. But the fact is—all sweat, grease, and fart noises aside—Ween is as innovative as Radiohead, as tuneful as the Beatles, and as complex as Mozart. Over more than two decades, this duo…