The SPCO hits the road for a three-week tour of the Twin Cities, celebrating the works of that cranky genius Beethoven, a man whose love life was a series of trysts with one married lady after another. Commitment phobic or just unlucky in love? Either way, he died single after channeling his romantic energy into … Read more
Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards, CD available November 21 This is what we want for Christmas, even if the leathery, Beetlegeuse-ish Waits is more a Halloween kind of guy, and even if we probably can’t wait that long. A career retrospective (not a greatest-hits collection), this three-disc set compiles twenty-four rarities and thirty new songs … Read more
It’s one thing to buy a band’s album; it’s another thing entirely to buy them new instruments. (Isn’t that what parents are for?) But something in the Decemberists, a sort of homely ensemble of indie balladeers from Portland, Oregon, must bring out the inner nurturer in their followers. When the band’s tour van and gear … Read more
Charity comes in strange packages: Dr. John is raising some cash to aid New Orleans reconstruction efforts by selling his underwear. However, it should be noted that the good Doctor’s briefs are brand new, and emblazoned with a snazzy souvenir New Orleans logo. (He wears size large, by the way.) The Crescent City legend has … Read more
My neighborhood is solidly Democrat. As I walked through it one autumn day two years ago, I made a point of counting lawn signs. On one half-hour walk, I saw eighteen Kerry signs and only one for Bush. I made virtually the same walk the other day, for the same purpose, but with a different … Read more
Norman Andersen flipped a switch on the side of a contraption that looks like a combination of a pipe organ and a china cabinet, albeit with a bright red Scandinavian door harp perched like a cherry on top. “This is called Valkommen!,” Andersen said. The thing began to wheeze and hum, then the pipes moaned … Read more
On a recent Thursday evening, Courtney Tucker—a tall, blonde twenty-two-year-old art major at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse—stood behind a twenty-four-channel effects console in the school’s darkened planetarium, her face reflecting colored shadows from a baffling array of buttons and knobs. She tapped several of the buttons, and shooting stars showered down from the white … Read more
Max Marti’s bus ride home from Capitol Hill Gifted and Talented Magnet School in St. Paul is typically kind of boring—especially for a kid like Max, a budding rock guitarist who loves run-and-gun computer games and ValleyFair thrill rides. On September 15, the lanky fourteen-year-old was among about forty first- through eighth-graders aboard the bus. … Read more
Around these parts—north of the Mason-Dixon and east of the Mississippi—rodeo seems like a romantic and quaintly exotic pastime, like bull-running in Spain or céilí dancing in Ireland. “Cowboy” is a costume you wore for Halloween or the role a Hollywood stud pursues to establish his hotness. Yet on a recent autumn afternoon, the University … Read more
Nancy Nelson was a blur as she readied her new shop, Our Little Secret, for its grand opening a few weeks ago. She had lots of help transforming the storefront, which is across the street from the former Lyndale Garden Center in Richfield. Aged relatives stuck price tags on bric-a-brac. Daughter Susan and grandchildren Sarah … Read more