If you live in the Minneapolis / St. Paul area, there's a handful of names you-you-you outta know, even if you aren't involved with the local music scene. Mark Mallman is one of them.

Imagine you are at a great show, and the band reaches the crescendo at the end of the night; the penultimate build-up to the penultimate climax, and you swear the energy being conjured is so intense that even the walls of First Avenue couldn't possibly contain it...

...That's how Mark Mallman starts the show, and the energy goes up from there.

Make sure to check out his Wikipedia entry. to find out about the Marathon 26.2 Hour and 52.4 Hour SONGS he did. And if you ask me, he was robbed for not getting into the Guinness Book of World Records for the "Longest Pop Song". Trust me though, Mark is able to take that 52.4 hours of energy and squish it all into a half hour show.

The shows are part musical live performance and part...something else. Ever seen someone ride their keyboard like a horse, twirling a microphone cord over his head like a lasso? Ever seen an enactment of a keyboardist approaching his keyboard in the wild, using a chair to fend off it's attacks while he plugs it in? Ever see a keyboardist hold his keyboard out to the bass player so she can kick it to make some improv musical effects?

If you haven't, then you haven't seen Mark Mallman live. And you-you-you really outta.

Musically, Mark Mallman mixes Pop Rocks with Orange Fanta and shakes the hell out of it. In other words, a sweet, sticky colorful mess that will haunt you for days. But check it out yourself: you can hear his latest work "Between the Devil and Middle C" on his website http://www.mallman.com/, (check out his blog while you're there...) and you can buy it directly from the (Mall)man himself: http://www.tradebit.com/download.php/826791.

And finally, this message from the Man of Mall himself:





Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: music reviews, Praise