Author: rakemag

Enjoy the silence? Nah. Give us music anytime. On New Year’s Eve, the Bell Auditorium hosts Twin Cities acts Fog and Traditional Methods to respectively score the silent films The Naked Island and Tabu, A Story of the South Seas. Kaneto Shindo’s 1960 film The Naked Island follows the daily toils and trials of an island family in Southwest Japan, for which Fog’s minimalist keyboard and guitar should provide a resonant backdrop. Tabu, a Polynesian love story, won an Academy Award in 1931 for its gorgeous cinematography, and hip-hop act Traditional Methods ought to give this steamy vintage classic new edge and nuance.

David Letterman seldom interviews musicians when they perform on his show, and that might have something to do with the legacy of Tom Snyder, whose The Tomorrow Show aired on NBC from 1973 to 1982 before being replaced by Letterman’s own program. During his run, Snyder hosted a notorious slew of punk rockers, most of whom were studiously unprepared for their time on the talk show hot seat. Johnny Rotten was as easy to interview as a junkyard dog; the Ramones stared shyly at their feet, slouching and shuffling and buried in hair; and, perhaps most memorably, Wendy O. Williams blew up a vehicle onstage in an inspired performance Snyder was clearly not expecting. This DVD set uniquely documents the Tomorrow Show’s punk years with interviews and performances by PIL, the Ramones, Patti Smith, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, the Jam, the Plasmatics, and others. Raw, unrehearsed, and occasionally repellant, these stripped-down appearances captured punk rock as it was meant to be–loud, rude, and fun. Even after two decades of marketing-created musical “outlaws,” they still feel like a revelation.

For a woman who sometimes breaks down in tears during concerts and walks off stage (whether she’s a victim of pathological shyness or an art-rock-related behavioral disorder, we’re not sure), Chan Marshall is showing real guts. To record her new album, she recruited some of the greatest soul players around, including guitarist Mabon “Teenie” Hodges, who wrote “Take Me to the River,”his brother Leroy “Flick” Hodges, and drummer Steve Potts, who played with Booker T. and the MGs. What they made of the scrawny white girl with the mousy little voice is anyone’s guess, but one thing’s for sure: Good things happened in Memphis during the making of this newfangled old-fashioned soul album. Marshall, who grew up in the South, admirably gooses up her normally wavering and plaintive vocals to meet the demands of this sexy, funky brand of soul. The Greatest pays tribute to a great moment in music history without simply imitating it. This is still a Cat Power album, but with a louder heartbeat.

We’re not sure that people in, say, San Diego would get such a kick out of hearing a swingy jazz rendition of the Replacements’ “I Will Dare,” but in these parts, such a thing scores high in both the nostalgia and novelty categories, with extra points for being beautifully and creatively executed. This trio, made up of Semisonic’s John Munson, the Suburbs’ Chan Poling, and vibes-guy-about-town Steve Roehm, has remade local and national punk rock classics for its self-titled CD debut. Live, the three should shake up the super-cool environs of the Dakota Jazz Club in just the right way. 612-332-1010; www.dakotacooks.org

Stacia Rice long has been a fixture on local stages, though we became enamored of her last year when she starred in a blockbuster production of Tennessee Williams’ workhorse, A Streetcar Named Desire. Anyone so capable of unlocking the vintage desperation and fragility of Miss Blanche DuBois, American literature’s most famous coquette, deserves special attention and her own gaggle of groupies. So it’s with great interest that we note the founding of Rice’s new company, Torch Theater. Although her choice for an inaugural text–The Miracle Worker, an antiquated, saccharine-sweet 1959 play by William Gibson about Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan–might raise an eyebrow, Rice’s performance as Sullivan will no doubt be powerful enough to blow the dust right off any outmoded lines. 711 W. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis; 952-929-9097; www.torchtheater.com

In a stroke of great creativity (and, let’s face it, a move to bring in younger audiences), the SPCO is inviting families to come hear classical music with a slightly gross twist. This particular afternoon features songs inspired by the insect world: Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, Kenji Bunch’s “Arachnophobia,” Ervin Rouse’s “Orange Blossom Special,” and Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumble Bee.” Musicians include Gary Bordner, Steven Copes, Julia Bogorad-Kogan, and Kathryn Greenbank; in the lobby: bug-themed crafts by Creative Kidstuff. 651-224-4222; www.thespco.org

To many, Cesaria Evora’s swooningly romantic voice embodies the sound of Cape Verde, but at sixty, she may be the voice of its past. With more Cape Verdeans living outside the country than in it, the new sound of this West African island nation is one that captures both the traditional song styles and vocal nuances, which are a blend of African and colonial Portuguese influences, as well as the myriad traditions that flavor the new expatriate experience. Young Lisbon-born singer Lura comes from Cape Verdean parents, and holds the resonant memory of the land in her throat, but her bold and sensual songs tell the story of a new land in the making. 612-338-2674; www.thecedar.org

Some say M.F.A. programs are better at nurturing egos (for a price) than actual writing careers, but N.M. Kelby–with her Pushcart Prize nomination and M.F.A. from Hamline Universit–is here to tell you that’s not true. Kelby left the Twin Cities for Florida after collecting her degree, but we still have a claim on her. Her work includes plays staged at numerous local theaters, three complex, funny, and successful novels, and a fat pile of short stories, a couple of which have been picks for NPR’s Selected Shorts program. Kelby’s new book, Whale Season, is clearly not the work of a local writer. Ribald, adventuresome, and fast-paced, it’s more Carl Hiaasen than Robert Bly. Which is just fine by us.

A company known for working with composers, librettists, and musicians to compose new musicals and operas, Nautilus Music-Theater is trying its hand at an old standard. Man of La Mancha, a 1960s Broadway musical in which an imprisoned Cervantes enlists his fellow inmates to perform Don Quixote, is best known for a catchy reprise called “The Impossible Dream”; many will recall the 1972 film adaptation starring Sophia Loren and Peter O’Toole. Superstars such as Jacques Brel and Placido Domingo also have stepped into the Cervantes role; now a glamorous all-star troupe of local crooners chimes in, including Bradley Greenwald, Ann Michaels, and Brian Sostek. 1420 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-340-1725; www.southerntheater.org

Ron English has pulled off some impressive stunts over the years. His best-known involved illegally plastering over billboards in cities across the country with subversive messages. One, posted in Cleveland last March, featured a picture of a child in a pith helmet and read, “PLAYDATE IRAN.” Another, funnier offering included a black and white rendering of Charles Manson and urged, “THINK DIFFERENT.” Beyond that, English has painted Marilyn Monroe with matching Mickey Mouse boobs, kids dressed as clowns drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, and also all those eerie McDonald’s-related paintings featured in the movie Supersize Me. Now English himself is the featured subject of POPaganda: The Art and Crimes of Ron English, a documentary that aims to describe the man behind the antics, a self-described “modern day Robin Hood of Madison Avenue.” 10 Church St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-627-4430; www.bellmuseum.org