Author: rakemag

There is no shortage of theories regarding the fever dreams of David Lynch. We have our own: He’s a walking clinical study of high-functioning autism, a man who lives—quite literally, by all appearances—in a private world that turns the everyday back on us in grotesquely refracted ways. All of Lynch’s most emblematic works (this movie, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks) say the same thing: There is a world inside the world, more corrupt and more Byzantine than you can imagine. An ironic streak of puritanism colors Lynch’s notion of evil; you see it in the way he represents good (Laura Dern and Kyle McLachlan in Blue Velvet) and the glee he takes in brutality toward the unrighteous. But none of this even begins to explain the peculiar emotional force of these little dream-quests. As for Mulholland Drive, consider this Rakish Viewers’ Tip®: The plot isn’t tough to fathom if you take for granted that the first two hours are a dream dreamt by a character who doesn’t have a line until the last 20 minutes.

A writer—a pulp novelist, a man who’s betrayed his own talent and, by his reckoning, every important relationship he’s ever known—lies in a hospital bed, delirious from disease. He can’t grip a pen; he can’t move at all without excruciating pain. To keep from going mad, he sets out to rewrite in his head The Singing Detective, his now-ancient first novel. But the world intrudes at every turn. Characters from his childhood and his wrecked marriage start turning up in his imaginings and take the story away from him. The serial’s writer, Dennis Potter—who died eight years ago this month—is wholly unknown in America, but he was one of the finest playwrights of Britain’s post-war generation, a fact too little noticed because he did all his writing for television. Potter, you should know, suffered from the same disease as his singing detective, Philip Marlow, a periodically flairing condition known as psoriatic arthropathy. The disease defined a great deal about Potter’s life; from time to time he was prone to thinking it had a moral dimension, and that if he could solve the riddle of his own life it might purge his illness. The Singing Detective is his brilliant, desperate effort to do just that, and in the process it redeems every cliché about the healing power of art.

We’ve made Canada the brunt of a few good jokes over the years, but they know it’s all in good fun. Besides, we Minnesotans are about as close to the Canadians as any American can legally be without renouncing citizenship. The problem isn’t so much that Canada doesn’t have a national identity separate from America’s (we do cast a pretty broad shadow, after all), but that they don’t embrace the one they have. All their best artists invariably pull up stakes and move south—Alanis Morissette, Neil Young, Barenaked Ladies, heck, even Peter Jennings turned tail on the True North as soon as the siren call of superstardom beckoned him to the land of sin. In recent years, though, Canadians have begun to quietly nurture a hipster underground of punkers posing as traditional folk artists, especially among the celtic folk fiddlers and cloggers out on the Atlantic provinces. Sadly, this micro-movement was nearly capsized by that Nova Scotian nitwit Ashley MacIsaac. Now Great Big Sea promises to heal the wounds and further the cause. This Newfoundland quartet is, for want of a better comparison, a Gen-Y Canadian version of Boiled in Lead—which is to say a cleaner, less angry version with someone who sounds a lot like Gordon Lightfoot singing. (That’s a good thing! Just wait until next month’s Broken Clock.)

It’s hard to believe, but Emmylou has had a career as full of twists, turns, and total self-reinvention as Madonna. No, wait, she’s had way more—and she’s been a national treasure for twice as long. Only in recent years have more people come to the realization that this woman is all that. Thanks to the remarkable “Three Divas” series, we now have flashbacks that send us back to the mid-70s, when she sang backup on Bob Dylan’s Desire. Remember “One More Cup of Coffee?” How about “Joey?” Yup, that was Emmylou. She’s always shined her brightest as an equal partner in a duet or a trio, but we certainly wouldn’t miss this solo performance, where she’ll give us a taste of the bluegrass, pop, country, rock, and soul that fall out of her songbook like so many gilded petals.

We can’t be too emphatic about it: This Australian is one of the best and sturdiest singer/songwriters around (and, for all you Entertainment Tonight devotees—Russell Crowe’s favorite pop star!), even if he has never managed more than the most meager cult status here in the states. Kelly’s songs have a sneaky, brooding force that grows as you live with them. In a voice low and craggy and sometimes ineffably sweet, he snatches up incidental moments—passing memories of childhood, love, betrayal—and breathes life into them again. And his new record, Nothing But a Dream, is one of his finest. (See also: Post, Gossip, So Much Water So Close to Home.) If you don’t see Kelly you’ll kick yourself—or we’ll come over and do it for you.

We’re going out on a limb here and recommending you skip Opening Day (April 12) and go to the second home game Saturday night. The best reason is this: You get to avoid all the dorks who know nothing about baseball and make it hard to get to the concession stands to get a beer and to the bathrooms after you’ve had a beer. (Think of those fans as the reason why you get blaring electronic music on the over-amped Dome speaker system instead of a clever organist like they have in Chicago. You’ll hate them even more.) This Twins team is worth watching for those who know the game. Torii Hunter’s and Doug Mientkiewicz’s magic gloves, Cristian Guzman legging out a triple, Joe Mays’ sinker just off the corner—that’s baseball. Those of you who prefer the never-will-bes who play for the Saints just because they perform outdoors really don’t get it. Major League infielders are the greatest athletes in American sport, period. (For those who would dispute this, ask yourself why Michael Jordan plays basketball. Answer: because he couldn’t make the White Sox.) Let it be said here first, too, that because we decry the objectification of animals, we won’t be using any animal team names like Tigers, Cubs or Orioles in The Rake.

It’s easier than ever to love movies, yet harder than ever to prove yourself a bona fide movie-lover. When home theaters have displaced pool tables as the most prevalent rec-room fixture, and the guys on KFAN are just as likely to jaw about box office figures as T-wolves stats, it takes a certain amount of dedication and genuine curiosity to set yourself apart from the multiplex masses. In that spirit, your office Oscar-pool winnings are well-spent on a pass to this year’s MSPIFF, and not just for an all-you-can-watch value that rivals anything in your Happenings coupon book. Now in its 20th year, the region’s biggest and best film fest makes the Independent Film Channel look like the WB, boasting more than 100 films from all over the planet (browse the full schedule at www.ufilm.org). Director and consummate film geek Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show) headlines the opening night kickoff at the State Theatre, appearing in the flesh to introduce The Cat’s Meow, his new movie starring Kirsten Dunst and Eddie Izzard (cast as a Prohibition-era hottie and Charlie Chaplin, respectively); promising series include roundups of Chinese and children’s films. Homegrown highlights include the premiere of the locally shot Wooly Boys (featuring Peter Fonda and Kris Kristofferson) and a revival of 2000’s hilarious I Hate Babysitting! from local filmmaker Tara Spartz. But there’s nothing provincial about this globe-spanning, genre-swirling event. Our butts are already aching in sublime anticipation!

The folks at Island Records assured us we’d be on the guest list for last month’s Ryan Adams show at the Orpheum. We weren’t. Bent on revenge (we paid for parking and everything!), we threw a dart at the label’s spring release calendar and vowed to publish a ruthless slag of whichever forthcoming album met its menacing steel tip. Lucky for them, the would-be victim turned out to be Elvis Costello, who’s way too cool to be swept up in our petty little grudges. In his own words, Elvis’ When I Was Cruel is “a rowdy rhythm record,” marking a full recovery from his recent bout of balladeering alongside the likes of Burt Bacharach and Anne Sofie von Otter. Good timing, El—that whole retro-lounge thing was, like, so 90s. Distorted guitars abound on the new album, as do the tactile and literate phrasings that earned Britain’s most fiercely human rock star his rep. He doesn’t get name-checked as often as Nick Drake these days, but Costello’s influence is manifest; post-post-punk comers from Ben Folds to Phantom Planet owe him big, and Rhino’s recent reissue of This Year’s Model is just one piece of material evidence. It’s about time a four-eyed 40-something other than Spike Lee got us pumped up for summer.

We can’t speak to the current whereabouts of Bubbles the Chimpanzee, but among the rest of Michael Jackson’s former sidekicks, Sheryl Crow (an ex-backup singer for his freaky pop Highness) seems to enjoy the most far-reaching success. The sunny pop-rock of her long—awaited new record may not rewrite the rule book on Top 40 escapism, but at least this fetching singer-songsmith knows her way around a guitar. C’mon, C’mon even delivers the best musical tribute to an actor (“Steve McQueen”) since what’s-her-name did that “David Duchovny” song. Indeed, if Madonna ever manages to curb her tendency toward Jacko-like self-absorption, she’ll do well to follow Crow’s example by letting her own personality come through in her music again. In Sheryl’s case, that means knocking out a thoroughly believable mix of humor and hurt, even spinning a few golden threads in a duet with fellow VH1 mainstay Don Henley (“It’s So Easy”). Go on, girl. Speaking of duets, that’s Liz Phair singing backups on a Jolly Rancher of a single, “Soak Up the Sun,” lending credence to our suspicion that the two may be related.

In the rock world, cover bands are too often dismissed as cop-outs who either can’t or won’t be bothered to come up with their own original repertoire. There’s more tolerance for such cribbing in the jazz realm, where so much of the genre’s best music still cries out for spontaneous reworking. Still, it’s a rare recording artist who’ll cover the Monkees without so much as a wink, let alone a jazz singer as competent and captivating as Cassandra Wilson. Proven as a fearless, well-rounded interpreter of familiar standards and unlikely selections from the pop, rock, and blues canons, the Mississippi-born and Manhattan-transplanted Wilson consistently surprises. Belly of the Sun—her first new album since 1999’s Miles Davis tribute Traveling Miles—falls right in that same beautifully crooked line, offering emotive twists on songs like the Band’s “The Weight” and Glen Campbell’s classic “Wichita Lineman.” We’d be tempted to write off this brand of calculated spontaneity as novelty. But she’s got killer pipes, spellbinding presence, some lovely originals, and genuinely eclectic musical ideals to back it up. Great taste in the studio, too, but the live stage is where this lady shines.