Year: 2005

Have you packed up your cool city life to move the fam to the suburbs? Does it still sting a little? One way to keep both your giant foyer and your urban cred is to patronize 318. This one-time Excelsior coffee shop has morphed into a cozy live-music cafe under the ownership of two veteran Minneapolis music heads. The food–pear and chevre pizza, a hot roasted El Camino sandwich with veggies and Gruyre–is fresh and simple. Better still, you can order up a nicely priced bottle of wine and settle in for an intimate performance by the kind of singers and musicians who play bigger venues inside the 494 loop–all while sticking close to home. 318 Water St., Excelsior; 952-401-7902

Some Girls was the last good Stones record. It was 1979, Mick and Keith were still under forty, Charlie hadn’t had cancer yet, and they didn’t let Ron Wood play out loud so he couldn’t remind everyone what was lost when Mick Taylor quit the band. Maybe it was us, maybe it was them, but all that banty rooster stuff just didn’t play well as the band passed into genuine middle age. So, twenty-six years later, what do they do? Put out a kick-ass rock and blues CD. At their St. Paul show last month, they seemed supremely at ease with themselves–even Mick struts with a sense that things are somehow different now. On A Bigger Bang, that quality plays out in flat-out rockers like “Rough Justice” and ‘Oh No Not You Again,” and also blues gems like “Let Me Down Slow” and “It WonÕt Take Long.” Is this the same band that sang “Under My Thumb” so long ago? Yes, but it seems the women are on top now–and we’re all okay with that.

It took us a long time to warm up to Dar Williams. She seemed like a better groomed, more temperate Ani DiFranco, or a Nanci Griffith without the twang–a little boring, a little forgettable. However, her new album, My Better Self, is a revelation. These catchy urban folk songs display a wry sense of humor and a gift for narrative songwriting. The highlight, “Teen for God,” is a funny, frightening, and dead-on character study. Two covers, Neil Young’s “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,” with guest Marshall Crenshaw, and Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” a duet with Ms. DiFranco, highlight a thread of political commentary; on the whole, this collection comes up first as fun to listen to, and second, as unexpectedly thought-provoking.

The stranger the artist, the more faithful the fans; isn’t that the standard equation when it comes to music? Case in point: Fiona Apple’s followers waited six long years for this album, and when it reportedly was scrapped by its label for lack of “an obvious single,” outraged fans mailed thousands of real and faux apples to Sony CEO Andrew Lack in protest. (Just imagine the fruit flies in his office.) Then someone leaked eleven of the album’s twelve songs on the Internet. Remember, “fan” is just the root of “fanatic.” But on hearing some of those songs, we remembered, too, that what Apple lacks in fat cells, she makes up for with a sexy, rhythmic, and uncommercial sort of genius. This recording shows she’s grown up, but not out of that.

Count on music folks to ignore all that flapdoodle over “freedom fries” and the pouring of French vintages down the commode. Here in the Twin Cities, a musical partnership has been growing since 2000, when French reed player Michel Portal and record producer Jean Rochard visited and recorded Minneapolis with the help of several local musicians. Since then, a talent exchange has bloomed between the two countries, culminating in this festival, which brings together French and Minnesotan artists for jazz, rock, folk, Celtic, and hip-hop performances. Highlights include “gypsy jazz” guitarist Dorado Schmitt, British saxophonist Evan Parker, and Ursus Minor (pictured here), a collective that includes American jazz players and French rappers.www.surseine.com

Here’s your chance to hobnob with royalty. Norway’s Crown Prince Haaken Magnus will be in the audience on opening night of this performance of Peer Gynt, featuring the Norwegian National Opera and VocalEssence. Henrik Ibsen’s classic tale of an adventuring scoundrel destined to a fate worse than hell is both disturbing and highly amusing, partly because it’s only after the anti-hero has “disgraced” scores of ladies around the world, including a troll’s daughter, that he learns his deeds have won him an unhappy afterlife. The full 120-piece VocalEssence Chorus and orchestra, conducted by Philip Brunelle, sings Edvard Grieg’s haunting opera score; the inclusion of dancers, soloists, and a hardanger fiddle promises to make this performance entertainment fit for a king. 651-224-4222; www.ordway.org

As stage personalities go, Jay Farrar tends to be a bit of a mute, but his shows are still iAs stage personalities go, Jay Farrar tends to be a bit of a mute, but his shows are still inspired occasions, because his evocative, road-weary songs are that much more powerful when he’s actually on the road. Having reformed Son Volt after a seven-year hiatus, Farrar’s returning to a bigger rock sound on Okemah and the Melody of Riot. Its songs call on vast literary and American roots influences, and veer between introspective folk stylings and driving storms of guitar. It’s good to see Farrar collaborating again; he seems to enjoy his fellow musicians more than he enjoys his audiences. And that’s okay by us; Farrar’s shaken voice, which seems to revive Carter Family ghosts, has won us over more than any stage banter could. 612-332-1775; www.first-avenue.com