Category: Blog Post

The music filled the room. Emanating from a trio of guitars, chords resonated with chords and dispersed throughout the Turf Club on Wednesday night, thick and palpable as the fog that periodically came out from the fog machines. Steady percussion from bass and drums crept under the noise to make it danceable (or at least head-nod-able). Though many were sitting stoic at the bar or in the venue’s booths, no one could ignore it: The Warlocks were playing.

The band is touring this summer, often in tandem with The Black Angels, to promote their latest album, Heavy Deavy Skull Lover. The release is darker than their previous outputs, but as one astute concertgoer quipped, "You don’t have to be a depressed teenager to like it."

A sizable group of fans, most of them tattooed and/or flannel’d and/or bandanna’d, huddled near the stage, alternately swaying, grooving, and jamming. Though the vocals were somewhat blurred (intentionally), many were able to sing along with vocalist Bobby Hecksher’s lyrics.

Hecksher himself, more so than any of the other band members, had a commanding presence on stage. It really appeared as if the music were entering him through some aural version of osmosis. Despite the loud-but-mellow tone of the group, he rocked out as if covering only the loudest of Metallica’s canon.

At times it seemed the group was not creating music so much as creating atmosphere, because the layering of distortion and ambient quality defined each song. Yet each song demanded attention, too. The result being that The Warlocks were at once in the foreground and the background of everyone’s ears. Which is kind of a strange sensation – at a concert, one can usually either keep an interior monologue going independent of what’s on stage, or else let the music serve merely as a backdrop for conversation, as jukebox music might. But at the Turf Club, there was no escape, no reprieve. Like drinking water in a swimming pool.

The most common description I’ve seen of their music has been, ‘neo-psychedelic.’ I’m not sure I quite know what this means, but at the same time it feels like a very apt description. The music is reminiscent of The Doors, if one were to elongate and slur every note of a given Doors song. Maybe think of a hard rock group playing as loud as they possibly can in a tunnel that produces lots of echoes, and hearing the music from outside that tunnel.

The downside was that there was a uniform feeling to the performance. While every song was no doubt engaging, about midway through the show, it began to feel repetitive. Each piece might have started out differently – now with a drumbeat, now with a solo guitar riff – but once all the instruments were inevitably added into the mix, homogeneity took over. While The Warlocks have an incredibly distinct style, their sound from song to song remained somewhat the same.

Nevertheless, it was an appealing show. The Warlocks kept dialogue to a minimum between songs (I think Hecksher said, "Thanks for coming out," once, and that’s it), letting the music stand for itself. And even if the set sometimes sounded like one long piece, their style is original enough that one can listen to it for a straight hour or so, and it still does really seem fresh – most bands can’t keep that up for more than four minutes.

Very
occasionally, this critic can get it all wrong. Looking at the
bespectacled electronic trio (black rectangular frames, black
rectangular frames, and ’80s nerd chic frames) with their unobtrusive
fashion (jeans, jeans, and khakis), I drew a few conclusions. Later, I
asked keyboardist Ryan Olcott whether I had Mystery Palace figured out.

Erin Roof: Are you vegans?

Ryan Olcott: No. We’re conscientious about what we eat, but no.

ER: Do you drive hybrid cars?

RO:
I wish we did. That’s a good goal. But, unfortunately not. I’m driving
a mini van right now, and it gets OK mileage, but its a far cry from
anything economically and environmentally sound.

ER: Do you appreciate Moby for his technique?

RO:
I hope Moby doesn’t read this. I respect him, but I’m not a fan of Moby’s
music. We were labelmates for a little bit, but no… I have a loose
affiliation with Moby, very loose, he wouldn’t know who I am.

In
other words, no. I struck out. Then again, it’s difficult to fit
Mystery Palace into the neatly manicured categories music writers love
to use. The laid back electronica sounds a lot like Hot Chip if they
took a night off from the club hits. The music blurs the line between
ambient techno and pop, yet it’s not either. With live drums, a
keyboard, and a bass, it’s an odd conglomeration to tack any label onto.

"We’re
kind of in between this experimental faction and pop," Olcott explains.
"We’re just treading this fine line of what our audience is."

This
is the biggest problem, he says. Music lovers tend to like one genre or
another. For a hybrid band like Mystery Palace, it can be difficult to
find its footing.

"[Our
audience are] the experimental electronic kids that appreciate a pop
song and really like it," Olcott says. "But for the most part, those
kids don’t. They want to hear atonalities and dissonance and what not.
Even though that’s where we come from, we’ve kind of alienated that
crowd almost because we’re kind of a pop band. But the pop scene is
still warming up to us because we’re not like a guitar band."

If
the band had to drag around a genre, it would be that catch all phrase
"indie" because, as Olcott happily espouses, Mystery Palace has its
main component: a lack of technique.

"A
key thing in indie music is that element of innocence I think that
really connects with the indie crowd," he says. "That charming sense of
‘We’re just having a good time, but don’t know what the hell we’re
doing.’ That’s the endearing quality of indie music. Me, personally, I
lack a lot of keyboard technique. Ask me to sit down behind a piano and
play an A tune and I’ll be like, ‘What?’ We lack the element of
technique, but we also have a great amount of technique. I have a
technique as a producer to create a sound, to envision a sound. As far
as, like, playing, performance technique, I’m about as indie as it gets."

One
aspect that does define Mystery Palace is its penchant for
experimentation. Olcott employs a method called circuit bending, which
he describes as "the art of the creative malfunction." Much like
classical composer John Cage plucked piano strings and discovered
methods of playing instruments outside their intended uses, Olcott uses
a rewired keyboard to elicit the strange "clicks and bleeps" that
anchor his music. While Mystery Palace’s songs may be bleeping, they
are not bleating. It’s music that could accompany listeners throughout
the day– happy to be the soundtrack to morning cups of coffee,
commutes, and lingering moments before sleep. It’s about enhancing life
through layers of stark emotion. It’s not flashy, but it’s not to be
ignored.

It’s non-confrontational, just like the band’s approach to its performance.

"I’m
never the guy on stage who’s hyping the crowd or getting in people’s
face. I’m just not into that. It’s cheesy," Olcott says. "I try to be
as mellow as I possibly can on stage. The way I write is pretty abstract
lyrically and musically, so any emotion I would portray on stage would
definitely have an influence on how people connect to the music. I
don’t want to do that. I want the music to kind of like evoke a
response on a personal level. So the way I act on stage, the way we all
act on stage, we downplay it all because we don’t want any of that to
misrepresent the sound."

Whatever genre-bending style Mystery Palace plays, it’s the music that matters.

Giving a sharp sword to a hyper-ass eight-year-old boy goes against all parental logic. But
that’s exactly what happened at the "Knight for a Day Camp," a place
where kids are whole-heartedly encouraged to go completely medieval.

The
"Knight for a Day" summer camp was put on by The Oakeshott Institute, a
Twin Cities foundation that promotes the interest of ancient arms,
armor, and legends, through hands-on education. The Oakeshott Institute, nestled in a remodeled 1880s church, is a virtual Hogwarts Academy right in the middle of Dinkytown. Ever
since Harry Potter rode in on his magic broomstick, whipping up a wand-waving fever, children of all ages have been looking for
mythical activities to partake in. To accommodate all
these eager Muggles, the Oakeshott faculty has put together a Viking
and chivalry summer course as an alternative to the usual park-board fodder of hula hoops and endless games of tag-you’re-it.

On
a recent Friday morning, I watched weapons instructor Galan Poor, a
wiry young man with a huge thicket of hair so wild it looked like it
might come alive and talk, stand before a captivated classroom of
children and teach them the art of war.

"Get me a sword!" Mr. Poor told his assistant. A
college intern then raced to a glass case housing a treasure chest
of ancient killing devices that included a sword used in the First
Crusade. Amongst the axes, spears, and daggers, a rusted Viking sword was chosen and handed to Mr. Poor. He
demonstrated to the class how the Vikings used a chopping and hacking
motion, and not the sharp-pointed fencing-style attack that has been
made popular in movies. In long elaborate swoops, Poor gently brought the blade down on a dummy’s neck and wrists.

"Hack here to cut off his hand!" explained Poor. "Hack it like a piece of tough meat. And swoop down to cut off his foot!"

The blade made a slight ting as he connected with the metal rings of the chain mail draped over the dummy. The
class sat still as crows on a wire, anxiously awaiting their turn to
engage each other and pretend to have their own limbs hacked off. It wasn’t exactly a game of kickball.

Mr. Poor then moved to a dry erase board, where he gave a detailed NFL style play-by-play of Friday’s lesson: The Shield Wall. The
kids were going to reenact the legendary 1066 Battle of Hastings, where
the Anglo-Saxons held off an entire Norman army by standing atop a hill
and forming a tight barrier with their shields. The kids learned all about the war for England’s crown, the ancient art of defense, and the physics of the Shield Wall: If
the shields were lined up correctly, even these little runts would be
able to withstand the mightiest of blows (in this case, rubber dodge
balls.) A dozen boys were so enthralled in the lesson
about flaming arrows and knights on horseback that there was no mention
of boobies, wieners, or farts, which is the holy trinity of discussion
amongst pubescent boys.

The
campers had spent the entire week building helmets, shields, and chain
mail and were finally ready to use their wares in action. Today was battle day.

With
the boom-boom base of low riders bumping down Como Avenue as a
backdrop, Van Cleve Park near the University of Minnesota campus became
the battleground for the thrown of England. On a small grassy knoll, the kids formed a Shield Wall using wooden replica shields that had authentic paint and art design. A tiny kid, who resembled Chicken Little in every way but the beak, pounded his shield and howled with rage. A big lunker of a ten year old stood in the middle and smirked, "This is soooooooo Brave Heart."

Rubber balls flew through across the park and tagged the Shield Wall, filling the air with a sharp slapping sound. The
inner city tuffs playing pick-up ball on the basketball court adjacent
to the fields stopped their game to watch the mayhem exploding all
around the children. A camper with shaggy, summer-streaked hair bent his knees and deflected the balls being thrown at him from the camp councilors. He yelled out in delight as the balls ricocheted off him and back down the hill. The big kid in the middle shouted out, "Hold the wall! Hold the wall!"

After twenty minutes, the kids were spent and Battle of Hastings turned into a glorious massacre. The
runts stationed at the corners of the Shield Wall grew tired and were
picked off. The wall loosened and all the kids were bombarded with
rubber balls. The history lesson was lost as one solitary Velcro shoe was shot into the summer sky as a sign for peace. The kids crumbled to the grass in theatrical mock death.

But a lone girl kept the battle alive. She stood amongst the wiggling bodies of her fallen comrades and tried her best to soldier on. Seven balls came at her and she was comically peppered in the head, stomach, and leg. She wailed with sheer joy.

"She
would’ve cried for days if I had sent her to soccer camp like the rest
of the kids," Maggie Swanson’s mom said about her courageous daughter. "But she loves this."

The beleaguered campers took a break and sat in a shady grove of trees. Then
a burly instructor laid out spears with tennis balls on the tips and
boasted with a great Hail Caesar flair, "Let the Children play with
spears!"

The kids sprang up, grabbed spears, and bolted through the park. A gangly boy, who couldn’t throw a ball to save his life, chucked a spear and hit a target dead on. Congratulatory cheers rang out as chivalry was brought back to the Twin Cities.