Category: Article

Last time we checked in with Brooklyn’s John Linnell and John Flansburgh, they were touring behind Bed Bed Bed, a charming CD and book for kids, but we’re very happy to hear them putting on their grownup rock ’n’ roll shoes for The Spine (available July 13), their tenth album and first full-length rock record since 2001’s Mink Car. True to form, it’s pleasantly zany, especially “Bastard Wants to Hit Me” and “Wearing a Raincoat.” Part of Spine’s charm is the juxtaposition of crazy lyrics and bland, almost forgettable music—so soothing, yet so jarring, and definitely delightful. In other news, TMBG’s popular Dial-a-Song service has made a comeback: (718) 387-6962. We called twice and got busy signals, but the third time netted a cheery ditty about the atom bomb. 701 1st Ave. N., (612) 332-1775, www.first-avenue.com

Forego your usual downtown happy hour and stroll over to Mill City Museum’s dramatic open-air Ruin Courtyard for a change of pace. They’re setting up Thursday nights with series of local-music showcases, old-favorites and up-and-comers alike, plus food from D’Amico Catering and extended museum hours. The lineup includes Adam Levy of the Honeydogs, Kraig Johnson of the Jayhawks and Iffy, solo artist Mark Mallman, and the Owls, who sound like a local reincarnation of the New Bohemians. Come for the music, stay for the history lesson… it’ll be a hoot! 704 S. 2nd St., Minneapolis; (612) 341-7555; www.millcitymuseum.org

Seeing Sonic Youth play at a VFW hall was one of our formative teenage rock experiences. We’ve since grown up, and SY have, well, grown—wavering at points, perhaps, but never getting watered down. Nurse is the band’s nineteenth album, which means that a whole new generation of appreciative indie kids is out there. We suppose this makes them not just a band for all ages, but a band for the ages. Bully for them! And for us—Nurse is the perfect recording to reinvigorate old fans who long ago got distracted by other stuff. It’s good—even great—enough to remind us why they were so mesmerizing in the first place. 110 N. 5th St., Minneapolis; (612) 338-3383; www.thequestclub.com

When the Polyphonic Spree named its latest disc Together We’re Heavy, they weren’t kidding—there are twenty-nine people in the band. Risen from the ashes of Dallas psychedelic-grunge group Tripping Daisy, the greatly expanded ensemble now takes the stage decked out in robes like they’re headed for a river baptism, whipping up a heady cross between the Flaming Lips, Abbey Road-era Beatles, and Godspell. As with PS’s previous work, Heavy—especially “Hold Me Now” and “Two Thousand Places”—is stunningly and unironically uplifting—though if you’re not in the right mood it’ll feel like being trapped in an elevator with Up With People. They’re co-headlining this tour with British combo Gomez, who unfortunately don’t bedazzle us the way their blues and retro-pop influences ought to.

Just when we’re realizing that our knowledge of the Middle East has grown far too reliant on CNN—thankfully, along comes Jawaahir’s summer show, devoted to the Arab world’s most popular diva, Um Kalthoum. We’ll take a stab at explaining her significance by saying that during the fifties and sixties, she was to Egypt and indigenous Arab culture what U2’s Bono now is to Africa and international debt. The Midwest’s only professional Middle Eastern dance company has imported the San Francisco-based Georges Lammam Ensemble to perform Kalthoum’s music; and they’re also hosting lectures on Egyptian culture and screenings of a documentary on Kalthoum, all the better to expand our horizons. 1420 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis; (612) 340-1725; www.southerntheater.org

Don’t you wonder some-ti-i-i-imes… ’bout sound and vision? Sure, David Bowie goes to fashion shows and produces Modern Painters magazine, but Christian Marclay has based much of his career on the deeper connections and intersections between the aural and the visual. He’s been working in residency at the Walker for the past few months, resurrecting artworks from the Fluxus art collection for Shake Rattle and Roll (fluxmix), a multimonitor installation in which he criss-crosses media by placing the visual objects in aural contexts. The exhibit also includes some of Marclay’s older work, such as Graffiti Composition, in which he took the public scrawlings on posters he’d put up all over Berlin and translated them into sound. Look for Marclay on stage in August, when he performs with the Fog’s Andrew Broder (August 21 at the Triple Rock Social Club), and at the Walker’s Loring Park movies and music series (August 23, before a screening of The Magnificent Seven). 1021 E. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis; (612) 872-7494; www.walkerart.org

If American history makes your mouth water and the James J. Hill House turns you on, then prepare for still more fantasies fulfilled at the MIA’s latest exhibit. Currents showcases about a hundred and fifty objets d’art, from paintings and photographs to furniture and silver, all hailing from Mississippi River regions in the 1850s. That was when the river was cresting in terms of productivity, with the milling industry clinging to its banks and river steamboats shouting their final hurrahs before railroad companies reoriented the nation east-to-west instead of north-to-south. The exhibit’s centerpiece is a 340-foot panorama of the Mississippi, an enormous moving theatrical display presented in the same way folks gazed upon it in the days when Longfellow was still working on his first draft of “Song of Hiawatha.” (612) 870-3131; www.artsmia.org

One of our favorite local galleries, MCP is moving from Uptown to a Northeast Minneapolis space that should be open by the end of August. But that hasn’t stopped it from mounting exhibitions—its latest is on view in guest quarters on the U of M West Bank (alongside an intriguing display of Japanese ironwork kettles). Tema Stauffer’s Heart Land plays with the multiple meanings of its title, moving from homey Midwestern landscapes that evoke a depopulated Norman Rockwell world to noirish police-beat scenes more akin to Weegee. Richard Copley’s CITY is New York, though London, Boston, San Francisco and Paris also make appearances. He’s a master at capturing small, quirky human moments framed and even engulfed by concrete-and-metal urban scenery. A small but worthwhile show. Katherine E. Nash Gallery, U of M Regis Center for Arts, 405 21st Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-624-7530; www.mncp.org

We’ve always thought Mary Pickford was quite a fabulous dame, and we were even more impressed to discover recently that she built her own personal mini-golf course inspired by the surrealist Max Ernst. Leave it to the Walker to reunite art and mini-golf eighty years later, as part of the consolation package for its year-long museum renovation. Area artists and architects, including some of the Walker’s own employees, have transformed part of the Sculpture Garden into a cute, crazy, and even enlightening ten-hole course for putt-putt fans. Until Labor Day, at least, art lovers and golf nuts have something they can team up on. 725 Vineland Place, Minneapolis; 612-375-7622; www.walkerart.org

Fact may be stranger than fiction, but fictionalized fact often makes for the best story. In The Dazzle, playwright Richard Greenberg (of Tony-winning Take Me Out fame) fictionalizes the already strange tale of the Collyer brothers, Depression-era America’s answer to Howard Hughes. Homer and Langley are the stuff of urban legend: As the family fortune dwindled, the brothers became increasingly eccentric, living alone in a broken-down mansion in once-fashionable Harlem. When New York police finally broke into the home in 1947, they found the brothers’ decaying bodies deep in a labyrinth of old newspapers and junk. (Which reminds us, it’s about time we cleaned our living room.) The Dazzle offers a compelling peek through boarded windows at the Collyers’ guarded existence and their enigmatic demise.