While many of you huddled in your homes running the furnace, stove, and possibly an open fire in the living room to keep warm, there were many hardcore music fans who braved the bone-chilling temps to attend "The Best New Bands of 2007 Showcase" at First Avenue.

Any time someone says "Best Of..." anything, I always ask who sponsors the event. In this case, Radio-K and City Pages. Like last year, the lineup was diverse and non-offensive, with the exception of the name of one band; "Gay Witch Abortion" which is only fun to say because it should offend everyone. Anyway, here's my take on the bands:

To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie - Music to listen to as your overdose takes hold, and your life slips away from you. As they said in a recent interview: "We're more surprised by the number of people who get it than those who don't." I didn't. Maybe if they had played at a summer outdoor concert near running water, I would have enjoyed it more. Reminded me too much of Snowpony; dreary, sludgy soundscapes, drowning in reverb. They aren't untalented, though. Check out their video rolling around on the internet somewhere, it's hella cool.

A Night In the Box - Reminded me a bit of Scissor Sisters, minus the queer disco thing. (Um, I meant that as a compliment.) Violin, banjo(!), acoustic guitar and drums, with a whole lot of soul. Do yourself a favor, go over to their myspace and listen to "The Hustle" and see if you can avoid tapping your feet. Their myspace lists them as "Bluegrass / Folk Rock / Indie" but they forgot "Kick Ass".

Black Audience - Gospelish bluegrass with soul, although their myspace lists them as: "Zouk / A'cappella / Acoustic". Talented, and laid-back. Lots of band members playing in the half-round, including a banjo and one of those hand-drum-things you usually only see at Renn Fest.

M.Anifest - I'm probably the last person to ask whether a rapper is 'good' or not, but I can tell you this: M.anifest is quite the wordsmith, with a positive message. He isn't into "chick-slap-rap" or gangsta crap. His album "Manifestations" made 5th best in Star Tribune's Top Local Albums of 2007. His show relied on audience participation and call/answer which the crowd was too shy or chilled to deliver. M.Anifest had the energy and delivered the goods, but the crowd simply wasn't responsive.

Gospel Gossip - I will often get 'swept up' in a bands performance, but I can't remember the last time I got this pulled in, like a make-out session that goes farther than you wanted it to, but turns out to be an amazing experience... Sorry, I was drifting off there, but Gospel Gossip has a great live chemistry, sometimes pretty/shiny but not sugary, trippy but not really psychedelic, and much more energy than their myspace songs will tell. I have to see them again. Definitely the most "ON" of all the bands in the Showcase.

Mouthful of Bees - The drummer (Katelyn Farstad) was Really Really Fucking Impossibly Good. The songs...not so much.

Gay Witch Abortion - With a name like that, you better stand up, and you better stand out. They did. Its amazing to see two guys make so much noise. With only drums and a guitar that sounded like it was run through no less than six Superfuzz Bigmuff petals, they were by far the highlight of the evening for me. Imagine Prong with very few lyrics and a kind of freeform-style song structure. You cant. Thats why you should go see them live. Much like Vampire Hands from last year, I think this is a live band, and I wouldn't count on any recorded medium to capture their energy.

The bands that kicked all ass this year brought Energy to the stage. Gospel Gossip and A Night In The Box proved they didn't need to be loud or angry to do it. Gay Witch Abortion proved you don't even need a whole band or lyrics to do it. Good work, and another group of bands to catch live in 2008...

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Concert, Cool Event, Minneapolis Event, music reviews, Ubercool, year-in-review

2007 won't go down in the history books as a particularly memorable year, although with NO competition from the other 200x years, I would say 2007 wasn't that bad.

Things worth Raving about in 2007:


-jaggedspiral.com The website got a MAJOR overhaul, and I personally programmed every last line of HTML/CSS by hand using an esoteric combination of Notepad++ and Adobe GoLive. Thanks to James for the new, shiny band logo.

-Days From Evil the two-year long project finally released at the end of 2007 with one track released on the internet (FOR FREE) over the last 9 weeks of 2007. Click here and scroll down for the download links. Fans can use the "donate" buttons on the website to set any price on the album they like. Note that Radiohead took the same approach with their latest album, "In Rainbows".

-The Demonslayers Handbook - Is done. Finished in the middle of 2007, I set the book aside, and came back to it over the Christmas break, and read the whole thing, cover to cover. It is finished. Now, I'm ready to send copies out to those who are interested, and procure the help of an agent...

-Nine Inch Nails marketing genius. The Alternate Reality Game / Marketing behind the Nine Inch Nails release "Year Zero" was nothing short of genius. Trent Reznor remembered that an album is more than just an album, it's an experience. The more you can add to that experience for the fans, the better. In the case of Year Zero, the album is great on it's own, (and if you haven't heard "Capitol G", you're missing out) but the experience of the online phenomenon/pseudo-conspiracy pushed this album to the top for 2007, and showed the rest of the world how its done.

I-[fill in the blank] "I" is the new "E". Pretty much anything that started with "I" in 2007 was something you shoulda bought stock in. I-Pod, I-Tunes, I-Phone... And as much as I railed against the horrific, poisonous, anti-consumeristic atrocity that is DRM, you simply can't stop what the consumers want. The battle isn't over yet, but it's obvious that people want music, and they want to get it through the internet and not over the counter; badly enough to put up with DRM. The only thing holding up the works are the record companies who simply DO NOT understand the new system and keep trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

Things worth Ranting about in 2007:

-DRM = Dumb RIAA Morons I railed on DRM in 2007. A Lot. I'll let up once its dead, along with those who supported it.

-35W Bridge Collapse. I was surprised at the reaction of many Americans to this disaster, specifically those NOT involved. If someone in Minnesota gets hit by lightning, you generally don't have people calling in from other states to see if you are alright, or bloggers posting announcements that they and their families are OK, and everyone running to twitter.com to update their status as "Uninjured". Strangely, if you talk to anyone in Minnesota (Except myself and Xtina) they will tell you they JUST drove over the bridge, moments before it collapsed. That's about 4,919,477 people, which pretty much explains *why* it collapsed.

Things to look forward to in 2008:

The End of ze world. Well, if we assume that Nostradomus made some kind of mathematical error...

-Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Not that I want to get my hopes up too much, but hey, it's too late. 22 May 2008 Baby!

-Guitars, not DJs. DJs are dead. Good riddance. Long live guitars!

-Jagged Spiral LIVE Look out world! Jagged Spiral is coming to a town near you! (...as long as you live near Minneapolis.) The band already held court at a private party back in October, and the first official public performance at Stasiu's on December 11th. Look out for two upcoming shows, at Club Underground on Thursday 31 Jan 2008 , and a Battle of the Bands at the Dinkytowner on 10 Feb 2008! Check out the band blog for more details, pix, and future concert updates...

-The Death of Emo

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: year-in-review

It's the end of the year, and the poor-old internet gets loaded down with ten-thousand lists of things people think were the "best of" as though 2006 had the best of anything at all.

Emo music hit its Godforsaken Peak this year, and hopefully, 2007 will find everyone involved with this travisty of music will die a slow painful death involving internal hemmoraging. Doubly so for Metal Emo bands. [Special note to the band known as Hinder: Does your name rhyme with Binder? As in Be-Hinder? It should. Your music rhymes with ASS. Your song "Lips of an Angel" is a mockery of music. Your label, A&R rep, band manager, roadies, fans, and any business which perpetuated this Shit-Rock should have the choice of being burned at the stake or exiled to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Your choice. Right after Dashboard Confessional, of course.]

DRM also hit it's peak, thanks to I-Tunes and all the I-Diots who bought an I-Pod. Did NONE of you investigate the other options? If you can't name three other mp3 player brands, you shouldn't be allowed to buy one. If you don't know what DRM is, you shouldn't be allowed to buy one. Sheep, sheep, sheep. When you do find out what you really bought, listen for the sound of me laughing at you...

Thankfully, Citypages reports that 2006 was the year that Superstar DJ's died, This assumes that there actually were such things. But if it's true, then I guess 2006 wasn't all bad. Citypages has lots of year-end lists, esp for music, but I find myself turning more towards Vita.MN as my Minneapolis To-Do Resource.



For myself, I'm glad 2006 is over. I will look back on 2006 as a year that was high-maintenance, low-payoff. As far as what I did this year, (besides bitching here on my blog...)

-Although the score for Pray For Daylight (also known as 'The Vampire Movie') was done ages ago, we have yet to see a final version release. To all of you who keep asking to see it, I assure you that it will eventually see the light of day (pun intended, and I promise no more bad puns. This year, anyways.)

-I finished German and graduated from the University of MN with a Bachelors of Philosophy Degree. Hopefully it will soon be supplemented with a Computer Science second major, which should qualify me to work at a Burger King instead of just the Philosophy Major, which qualifies me to debate on the ethics of eating there.

-I worked on The Demonslayers Handbook a lot this year. (also known as "The Book", and not to be confused with "The Good Book") I'm taking a short break from that now, to focus on audio recording, and will attack the DSH again in January.

-"Days From Evil" the Jagged Spiral project creeps towards completion, and the third single, 'Forced Entry' has been entered into the Rift Magazine Compilation CD 2 Contest. My 6-week sore throat and chest cold, and a lovely rebound of congestion is not helping to get this project completed soon. But we are proclaiming 2007 to be The Year of the Spiral.

-The Jagged Spiral website progresses in short bursts of manic creativity, we will release an official announcement once we have some real content. In the meantime, you can catch some audio clips on our myspace page. www.myspace.com/jaggedspiral

-I did not watch any television this year. None. It isn't worth my time.

-I don't drink, smoke or weigh any more or less than I did last year.

Hopefully, 2007 will be more of a payoff for all the work I did in 2006.

Hope you all have a safe, happy, and unboring New Year's Eve. Hopefully, tonight finds you doing something interesting. Probably Not this.

Don't forget, 2007:The Year of the Spiral!

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: anti, Dashboard Confessional Sucks, DRM Sucks, Emo Sucks, Jagged Spiral, year-in-review