Tonight: The Evening Rig CD Release Party @ 7th Street Entry

The Mats disciples celebrate the release of their second full-length LP, Is Doin' Stuff tonight at the 7th Street Entry

The Evening Rig MySpace Page

(Jon Graef)

Tonight: Eyedea and Abilities @ 7th Street Entry

Tonight: Darker My Love @ 7th Street Entry

Tonight: Greycoats, These Modern Socks, Adam Svec @ 7th Street Entry

Tonight: The Spinto Band @ 7th Street Entry

Spinto Band Website
The Spinto Band MySpace Page
The Spinto Band Wiki Page

About a recent show, Culture Bully's Erik Thompson said that the "7th Street Entry is a venue built specifically, it seems, for loud, sweaty rock shows." The Spinto Band aren't a group that fits the loud part, but don't be surprised if you find yourself surrounded by dancing, sweating peers once Delaware-based blog-pop sextet The Spinto Band take the stage. The band exudes melodic effortlessness, and all of the songs off of its latest effort, Moonwink, are affable and upbeat. But for a band who's on their sixth studio album, the fact that the record sounds like a group is search of a musical identity (there's hints of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah in the vocals, and a more caberet Broken Social Scene in the music) is disconcerting. Still, expect at the very least an energetic show as the band plays the more danceable selections (i.e., the first couple song off of Moonwink).

Tonight: The Rumble Strips @ 7th Street Entry

18+
$10
Doors @ 8
Music @ 9

The Rumble Strips MySpace Page
The Rumble Strips Official Website
The Rumble Strips Wiki Page

Birdmonster MySpace Page
Birdmonster Website
Birdmonster Wiki Page

Marvelle MySpace Page

Sunday: Hand Over Fist CD Release Party @ 7th Street Entry

Chicago in Minneapolis: Casiotone For The Painfully Alone

Download: Casiotone For The Painfully Alone - "Young Shields"
Download: Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - "Graceland" (Paul Simon Cover)

Droll, lo-fi indie-tronica artist Casiotone For The Painfully Alone (aka Owen Ashworth) is playing a show tonight at the 7th Street Entry. Tickets are $8 for a 21+ show.

Though his last full-length LP Etiquette came out in 2006, CFTPA has been keeping plenty busy in the interim. In addition to numerous Daytrotter sessions, Ashworth has been releasing a plethora of singles and downloads through his website, as well as touring, touring, touring. If Ashworth keeps up his prodigious place, he may no longer be able to effectively convey the sense of mid-twenties ennui which saturates his bedroom-conceived brand of electronic pop-music that sound like little pocket symphonies for answering machines.

Etiquette broadened Ashworth's sonic palette by adding numerous other instruments and a warmer, more analog, sound; tracks like "New Year's Kiss" and "I Love Creedence" revel themselves to be wry observations about the overall banality of urban life. Which is a worldview that may not necessarily translate to a David Lee Roth-esque stage presence, but then, misery prefers company that doesn't really rock out with its cock out. But, based on the response to Ashworth's recorded output, it's not only the lonely who will commiserate with his grandly subdued songs.

CFTPA MySpace Page

(Jonathan Graef)

Tonight: The Raveonettes at the 7th Street

Download: The Raveonettes - "Aly, Walk With Me"
Download: The Raveonettes - "Dead Sound"

After nobly trying to expand their horizons via guest stars like Ronnie Spector and Moe Tucker, along with incorporating more diverse instrumentation, on 2005's Pretty In Black, the fact that The Raveonettes have returned to the fuzz-heavy drone of their earlier efforts on their third full-length album, Lust Lust Lust, might be viewed by some as a regression. However, the great Dane duo of Sharin Foo and Sune Rose Wagner improved their skills as songwriters tenfold by ditching the gimmicky premises and using simplicity to give their Ronnettes-cum-Velvet-Underground sound shades of color that previously weren't there. Songs like "Dead Sound" and "The Beat Dies" do not reinvent the wheel of girl-group harmonies and Berlin-Wall-of-Sound-and-fuzz, but they do perfect it. The result, in Lust Lust Lust is not only the Raveonettes best album, but one of the best records of the year.

The Raveonettes play a 21+ show tonight at the 7th Street Entry. Doors are at 8 p.m. and tickets are $15.

The Raveonettes MySpace Page

(Jonathan Graef)

Tonight: Travis Morrison Hellfighters at 7th Street Entry

Download: Travis Morrison Hellfighters - "Sixteen Types of People"
Download: Travis Morrison - "As We Proceed"
Download: Travis Morrison - "What's Your Fantasy?" (Ludacris cover)

Give Travis Morrison credit for getting out of bed, let alone keep making music, after the infamous 0.0 review that Pitchfork gave his first solo album Travistan. (I guess the 'Fork giveth and the 'Fork taketh away). Not only has the Virginian-born musician preserved after such setbacks as the aforementioned diatribe and the dissolution of his previous group, the justly beloved indie-funk gods The Dismemberment Plan, but papa got himself a brand new band called the Hellfighters, with whom Morrison put out his second solo album, All Y'All, last year. The album continues the eclectic, borderline-kitchen-sink approach to songwriting and music-making that Morrison took to Travistan, but with a greater focus to the erratic guitar lines, spastic electronic touches and groove-heavy beats.

Travis Morrison Hellfighters will bring their idiosyncratic muses to 7th Street Entry (no doubt the ideal venue for listeners to back der azzes up) for a 21+ show. Tickets cost $10 and can be bought at the venue.

Travis Morrison Hellfighters MySpace Page

(Jonathan Graef)

Tonight: First Communion Afterparty At The 7th Street Entry

Download: First Communion Afterparty - "The Mini Apple"
Download: First Communion Afterparty - "The Ebb"
Download: First Communion Afterparty - "Twenty Five"
Download: Tremble And Shake - "King Cobra"
Download: Cortez The Killer - "Brian Jones Haircut"


First Communion Afterparty, Minneapolis' young answer to The Brian Jonestown Massacre, are playing a show tonight at the 7th Street Entry. Doors are at 8 p.m. for a 21+ show that will set you back 8 bucks. The gig tonight is one of only three that the band has planed for January, but the spring should be much busier for FCAP. In March, the group will be appearing at South By Southwest, as well as the SMU Music Industry Show later in the month. So catch them now before they make every party a First Communion Afterparty!

Also playing are International Espionage, Tremble And Shake, and Cortez The Killer. Listen to MP3s of all the bands at the top of the post.

Buy tickets here.

First Communion Afterparty MySpace Page

(Jonathan Graef)

Saturday: Have Lunch With STNNNG And Signal To Trust, Then See Them Both At The Turf Club Later That Night

Download: STNNNG - "Manic Mechanic" (ZZ Top Cover, unreleased track from Fake Fake sessions)
Download: Signal To Trust - "Silver Coast"
Download: The Shadow Government - "Momo Eat The Tax Man"

This Saturday, the 17th, you can indulge in many forms of deliciousness. But specifically, the deliciousness at the 7th Street Entry on Saturday involves food and great music from your favorite Minneapolis bands.

The Fifth Annual Lunch Show, put on by STNNNG and Signal To Trust, is going to take place starting at noon tomorrow. For seven dollars, here's what you get at this ALL-AGES show: the bands feed you, play for you, give you a limited edition split 7", the contents of which are STNNNG and Signal To Trust doing renditions of each other's songs (check out the cover at the top of this post - pretty awesome, no?), will make available for you to buy a limited edition double LP pressing of STT's Golden Armour, will celebrate the release of labelmates The Shadow Government's The Black And White Album with you, trim your hedges, change your oil, walk your dog, test out your home security system, set up your internet connection, edit your final paper for senior sem, and last, but not least, shoot themselves out of a cannon for your own amusement.

I may have, may have, made those last parts up.

What isn't made up is that the lineup for this show will later play a 21+ gig at the Turf Club later on Saturday night, with doors at 9 pm. So if noon is too early for you (slacker), you can catch them later on at the TC.

Read an interview about the genesis of the lunch show at Reveille Magazine.

STNNNG MySpace Page
Signal To Trust MySpace Page
The Shadow Government MySpace Page
Weather Is Happening MySpace Page

(Jonathan Graef)

Tonight: Stars Of Track And Field at the 7th Street

Download: Stars of Track and Field - "Centuries".

Tonight at the 7th Street. The band is touring behind its last album, Centuries Before Love And War. The show is 21+ and doors open at 8 p.m.

Stars Of Track And Field MySpace Page

(Jonathan Graef)

Oakley Hall w/The 1900s: Tonight At 7th Street

(Oakley Hall)



(The 1900s)



(The Magic Castles)

Download: Oakley Hall - "Living In Sin"
Download: Oakley Hall - "Landlord"
Download: The 1900s - "Bring The Good Boys Home"

Just a friendly little reminder (as opposed to a hostile one?) that Oakley Hall will be playing the 7th Street Entry tonight. Doors open at 8 p.m. and the show is at 9 p.m. Opening for Oakley Hall? This little band called The 1900s. We may have mentioned them once or twice.

A band we haven't mentioned before is The Magic Castles, an unsigned band from the Twin Cities. They too will be opening for Oakley Hall. I took a listen to a few of their demos posted on their MySpace Page (they have the coolest Music Player, by the way) and I liked what I heard. The best song on there is "Golden Bird". It sounds like a more psychedelic version of "Cinnamon Girl", as sung by a male version of Nico. The other tracks are quite good as well, but are obviously indebted to The Velvet Underground.

Buy tickets to the show here for eight dollars, or get them for 10 at the door.

Oakley Hall Website
Oakley Hall MySpace

The 1900s Website
The 1900s MySpace

The Magic Castles MySpace

Read our feature on The 1900s here

(Jonathan Graef)

St. Vincent Live Tomorrow At The 7th Street Entry

Download: St. Vincent - "These Days" (Jackson Brown/Nico cover)
Download: St. Vincent - "Jesus Saves, I Spend"
Download: St. Vincent - "Bang Bang" (Live In Georgia)"

Many of you who have read this blog know how much I raved about St. Vincent's Marry Me a couple of weeks back. As it stands right now, the veteran of Sufjan Stevens's touring band/The Polyphonic Spree's debut solo album is in a Mexican standoff with Boxer and Hissing Fauna for album of the year.

I first heard of St. Vincent by watching her open for the Arcade Fire back in April. Since then, I've eagerly anticipated seeing her again in a smaller, more intimate, venue. I got that chance last night at Chicago's Empty Bottle and, wow, what a show. I will have a more formal review up either tomorrow or Wednesday, but let me just say that it was an amazingly awesome show. Annie Clark is insanely talented and has a sweet, darling charisma as a live performer. She, as well as her backing band, aren't afraid to re-arrange her barely existent catalog. One particular highlight was a lo-fi (of sorts) rendition of "Your Lips Are Red" that eventually evolved into a blend of prog-rock instrumental skills and post-punk groove.

But the best, absolutely incredible, part of the show was her encore, which was a cover of "These Days." She performed with the venue lights turned off. It was pitch black and was the most incredible thing to watch.

You really need to see St. Vincent live.

St. Vincent's show is tomorrow night at 7th Street Entry (701 First Avenue North) and the show is 21+. Doors open at eight and the opener is Scout Niblett. Buy tickets here.

This will be an incredible show, I promise.

(Jonathan Graef)

Headlights/Page France at the 7th St. Entry

Headlights played at the 7th St. Entry last night and I was fortunate to catch it. All of the excessive touring Headlights has been doing has definitely paid off. They own their instruments and their performance - their live act has definitely become something bigger than just playing to sound like their record.

I was also super impressed by Page France. The Maryland-natives really caught me by surprise - expect a review in the near future.

Headlights - "Put Us Back Together"
Page France - "Mr. Violin and Dancing Bear"

Headlights - MySpace Page



Page France - MySpace Page


(Ian Anderson, photos too!)