Month: May 2005

Openers Harp and Finial were a collision of country bar-rock, angular post-punk, and less-than-half ironic shredding and associated guitar histronics. Made me happy music started an hour late, and I caught the first act. Closer Kid Dakota was sparse and moving, with Darren unexpectedly precise on guitar; fantastic, as expected. I said hello after the show, picking up a ten-bone copy of So Pretty (which is always about $17 at Cheapo) and giving him a MFR button.

But it’s Dosh that has become a Twin Cities favorite of mine. Sometime during my first week in Minneapolis, I caught a morning-drive interview with Martin Dosh on Radio K; it didn’t include any actual music, but hearing people talk about Dosh’s music made me need to hear it.

Which didn’t happen until January, and Radio K’s “Local Music Day.” At home I recorded Olympic Hopefuls’ live in-studio performance, along with some others throughout the afternoon, and Dosh was one of them. To hear the sounds he could make, and know it was just one guy, was a beautiful mystery, a magic trick that made me feel eight years old in a good way. Dosh’s live songs start with little, click-y loops over which he layers electric piano and drums in imaginative, jazzy, hip-hoppy, childish ways. The tracks I’ve downloaded from his studio albums are good, and seeing his show Saturday night was very good, but it’s those radio performances that I love best (Dosh has an EP available of his set for KLAX in Los Angeles). Knowing it’s only him making sound from moment to moment, but being unable to see what’s coming next; something wonderful without a name happens in that space.

My first real karaoke experience began at “KJ” Sexy Chocolate fired up the Godfather of Soul and proceeded to shake and spin better than he sang; apparently, he felt good (ba-da ba-da ba-da bap – he knew that he would). Chester rocked New Jersey-style (“Wanted Dead or Alive”), we couldn’t talk CJ or Sarah & Natalie into anything, and I alternately killed Boyz II Men’s “On Bended Knee” (melismas + Nebraska boy = noooo!) and gave a straight, if inspired, take on “Say It Ain’t So.”

But the evening’s gems were the potential social research master’s theses just lying around the club, waiting for someone to pick them up and run:

“Achieving Status and a Reputation for Humility Simultaneously Through Human Spectacle” – What is the nature of the dual attraction we universally feel towards live microphones, and its associated nervous fear obeserved when possession of a mic is obtained?

“Towards a Unified Model of the Repression of Awareness of Irony” – In the subgroup of people who take karaoke seriously, how is this inherently unstable worldview maintained? (It would seem to collapse either into postmodern detachment and amusement, or the realization that karaoke is not a credible venue for serious, non-ironic artists – yet the phenomena of taking karaoke seriously endures in some individuals).

“Juxtaposition of Culturally-Defined Opposites as a Source of Meaning” – Combining sociology with aesthetics, how does the re-introduction of humanness (imperfection) into the object of pop music contribute to the value of a karaoke performance? Case studies: Young bartender barking Alanis Morrisette’s “You Oughta Know” as a passable hardcore song. Asian woman covering “Hotel California” respectably. First-year seminary student absorbing crowd with a performance of “Immigrant Song.”

Credit to Tina for the better half of these. If you actually write the paper, promise to send us a link!

13 May: Deephaven, MN –> Crete, NE

Foo Fighters / The Colour and The Shape
Blame the Game / EP and Acoustic at the Solid Ground (both unreleased)
Cursive / The Ugly Organ
John Vanderslice / Cellar Door
Melodious Owl* / Transition EP
Dosh* / Live on KALX
Heiruspecs* / A Tiger Dancing
Astronaut Wife* / Flying Saucer

16 May: Crete, NE –> Wayzata, MN

The Plastic Constellations* / Mazatlan
Olympic Hopefuls* / Radio Sessions (recorded at home from The Current and Radio K)
Idlewild / 100 Broken Windows
Poison The Well / You Come Before You
Halloween, Alaska* / Halloween, Alaska
Dave Matthews Band / Listeners Supported
Rage Against The Machine / Rage Against The Machine

Trending towards: Self-titled albums, Twin Cities bands (*), music I got into in high school (Dave Matthews Band, Rage Against The Machine, Foo Fighters).
Album I Was Most Into: Cellar Door.
Song That Stuck In My Head The Stickiest: (tie) Cursive, “A Gentleman Caller” and Halloween, Alaska, “Des Moines.”

April brought mrfuriousrecords.com to new height for bandwidth use; 700 megabytes of music transmitted out into the world.

Notably, the record was set in a month where only one new song was released; echoes’ live cut of “I Don’t Even Know How Right This Sounds” on Furious Instance #3, on the 25th of the month. Which tells us that new listeners continue to discover Mr. Furious Records and releases by Beach-Puppy, Bike, and echoes. The Furious Instance regularly generates traffic beyond anyone’s expectations; I, for one, anticipated that those tracks would generally interest hardcore MFR listeners. Maybe it’s the pink links? Whatever the reasons, we love it.

The numbers:
700.91 mb of .m4a data (songs only – total bandwidth use was nearly 1 Gb)
Average song file size = 3.4 mb
700.91 / 3.4 = 206.15

Meaning that roughly 206 songs were downloaded directly from mrfuriousrecords.com in April. This breaks previous high of 592 mb in Dec 04 (Bike’s How Is That Possible was released that month). As always, we have no way to track burning (our own and yours) and file sharing/trading, which we encourage wholeheartedly. Thanks for giving us a great month. We thought it was worth a pause to celebrate, before we get back to giving you music; GILMO’s new Points of Parallax EP released today!

“Title” / Artist / Album / # of hits

1. “Rose Colored Glasses” / Beach-Puppy / Creepy Eepy / 29

2. “Was I In Bon Jovi For A Second?” / howie&scott / Furious Instance / 21

3. “I Don’t Even Know How Right This Sounds (live)” / echoes / Furious Instance / 20*

4. “Lunch By Yourself” / Gilby / Furious Instance / 18

5. “Taking A Break” / Beach-Puppy / Creepy Eepy / 16
-. “Save Your Breath” / Beach-Puppy / Creepy Eepy / 16

* posted April 25

Blacklight Sunshine, Math and Science, “Examined by Ghana Customs”, Baltimore Orioles, Weezer (Blue Album), Weezer (Green Album), Weezer (Maladroit), North Mississippi Allstars, “(Proud to) Be A (Nebra)Ska (Democ)Rat”, votenader.org, “Amandala!” album, Blackalicious, Fiction Plane, Music For The Last Day Of Your Life, Airwalk, Doug Martsch “Now You Know”, 101.9 The Edge (defunct Lincoln alt-rock station), Sonic Youth, NERD, The Mediums, Moth, Atmosphere, Tricky “Blowback”, Jimmy Eat World “Bleed American”, Simon Says, Life In General “Flowers”, various custom-painted jet fighters, Nullset, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Reel Big Fish, Kidney Thieves, Ozomatli, Rustic Overtones, Apple, lower case i, rocker-guy with moustache & broken guitar (Zwan), Black Eyed Peas, My Hotel Year, “CH” European driving decal, “Sock It To Me!” (with a sock), Jackson Hole Wyoming (moose), Before Braille, WoVen, Life In General “lig”, 36 Crazyfists, Sugarcult, a smirking pumpkin, The Music, Ben Harper (live), Dilated Peoples, I (heart) NY, “Fragile” Ghana Airways, Starsailor, Wayne, Bryan Farrish Radio Promotion “Air-Play!”, tiger paw, Hot 96.3 FM WHHHoosier, “Music Making Means Unity, Healing, & Strength” flag, Doane College, Tiger Country 101 FM KIXC, “WOW!”, Monster Magnet, purple fight-breast-cancer ribbon, 89.7 The River, Chemical Brothers.