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LIVE MUSIC AT THE UPTOWN BAR |
WEDNESDAY JULY 8
Digitata ALL NIGHT!
DIGITATA, DIGITATA, DIGITATA, DIGITATA
Local electro group Digitata will re-emerge to play a show and release an EP. The new nine-track album, called Art Work Pays, was recorded this spring at the home of Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, and will be a treat for fans of Digitata or lead singer Maggie Morrison's other project, Lookbook. Whereas Lookbook's down-tempo electro-pop gave Morrison a chance to develop a more reverb-heavy, sultry voice, Digitata's new release is a return to her previous form. On Art Work Pays, Morrison's voice jumps and yelps over up-tempo, punchy beats, at times sounding downright playful. -- Andrea Swensson, City Pages
21+ |
9pm | FREE
FRIDAY JULY 10
PICTURES OF THEN (CD Release), THE DEBUT, The Van Gobots, Red Daughters
August 4, 2009 will be a big day in Minneapolis and for many fans of Pictures Of Then around the US. On that day, Pictures Of Then will release their highly anticipated sophomore album And The Wicked Sea. Pictures Of Thens previous album, 2007s Crushed By Lights saw the band finding placement on MTVs The Real World and The Hills, and gaining such coveted festival spots as the Red Gorilla Music Fest, Midpoint Music Festival, NACA and the Crossroads Entertainment Conference. Pictures Of Then garnered airplay on 220 stations across the US and even toured as part of the MTV Choose or Lose Tour. With all of this behind them, Pictures Of Then look to take the next step with And The Wicked Sea.
(Pick up their CD before the national release date at their Minneapolis CD Release tonight!)
21+ |
9pm | $5
SATURDAY JULY 11
SASHA, Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo, SUNNYSMACK, Terrawatts
Sunnysmack are a Minneapolis duo (Jason Eddie Nowak and Joe Mabbott), who are fortunate enough to have a bunch of fellow musicians play on their third album, "The Mezzanine Girls", which is now out. Guests on the album include Slug from Atmosphere, Paul Jarmer from Buss, Bill Mike, Chan Poling from the Suburbs, Michael Rusteck from Arsonwelles, and many more. Expect an amazing show out of these two performers.
21+ |
9pm | $5
SUNDAY JULY 12
THE SLATS, She Swings, She Sways (from Ottumwa WA)
This Minneapolis trio [THE SLATS] serve up another dose of their mechanized, new wave-ish alterna-pop for their fifth album, pretty much picking up where 2004's Pick It Up left off. From the opening Ironman, which features a tongue-in-cheek Mark E. Smith-meets-David Bowie vocal, you never know what they'll throw at you. Distinguished by J. Hansen's lurching, distortion-tinged guitar and B. Cox's deadpan singing, they sometimes resemble Guided By Voices if Bob Pollard instead obsessed on the early 80's. Throughout, you'll hear splashes of The Cars, Talking Heads, solo Pete Shelley, Elvis Costello, Knack, Devo, Beastie Boys, Fall, and Wire. While The Slats playing might be somewhat limited for this all-embracing, multifaceted approach, they compensate with enthusiasm, intellect, swagger, and songwriting ability. The result is another respectable, satisfying album.
21+ |
9pm | FREE
WEDNESDAY JULY 15
GUZZLEMUG, HARDCORE CRAYONS, Barky (from New York NY), Capturing Virga
A STUDY IN ROCKING, the self-released debut from the New York instrumental rock oufit, Barky, is the kind of record that occupies challenging aesthetic territory. Not challenging for the listener, but for the artist. For all of its metric modulation, this record is supremely rocking, perhaps because each of the odd time signatures on the record is felt as a corruption or mutation of 4/4, a fact owing as much to drummer Brook Martinez and bassist Mike Lavalles understanding of movement and groove as to guitarist Scott Barkans compositional preoccupations. They dont play when they dont need to. Every note from the rhythm section is for the sake of groove and intensity, a kind of avant-conservatism. The melodies are extremely vocal (a breath of fresh air in the creative music scene). That vocality is the real genius of the record: what Felix Mendelssohn called songs without words. And as out as the improvisations get, they never do violence to the sweet simplicity of the tunes themselves, a fact which seems to define the bands aesthetic, specifically regarding the relationship between form and content. The sometimes complex and brainy compositions all grow from melodic and rhythmic material that is exceedingly intuitive and catchy. The first truly shining moment on the album occurs during the discordant improv section of Ladies and Gentlemen. At moments like these Barky can play with all the tension and expressive dissonance of Neil Young and Crazy Horse with the advantage of being a more sensitive group of improvisers. The strongest track on the album is Sweet, Sweet Maggie OFlannigan. The song is groovy and tuneful, and a strong showcase of Barkys compositional and technical prowess. -- Maureen Hart
21+ |
9pm | FREE
THURSDAY JULY 16
MOD-SUN
21+ |
9pm | FREE
MONDAY JULY 20
Switchbladecomb.com Presents: Record Party! All Vinyl DJ's
All Vinyl. Every Monday. No Eagles, No Phil Collins, No Bummers.
21+ |
9pm | FREE
WEDNESDAY JULY 22
PAD HANDLERS
Pad Handlers: featuring members of Mel Gibson and the Pants/Mystery Palace
21+ |
9pm | FREE
THURSDAY JULY 23
TO REINVENT, Gift Horse
21+ |
9pm | FREE
MONDAY JULY 27
Switchbladecomb.com Presents: Record Party! All Vinyl DJ's
All Vinyl. Every Monday. No Eagles, No Phil Collins, No Bummers.
21+ |
9pm | FREE
MONDAY AUGUST 3
Switchbladecomb.com Presents: Record Party! All Vinyl DJ's
All Vinyl. Every Monday. No Eagles, No Phil Collins, No Bummers.
21+ |
9pm | FREE
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 5
MUTE ERA, A PAPER CUP BAND, Sleeping In The Aviary (from Madison WI), Amo Joy (from Indianapolis IN)
After rounding out their membership with (what else) an accordionist/musical-saw player, Madison four-piece Sleeping in the Aviary have achieved a locomotive brand of amphetamined Americana. If Conor Oberst knew how to throw a party, this is the type of music that might break out before the sheriff shows up. Sometimes vocalist/guitarist Elliot Kozel sounds like hes trying to scream the memory of lost love out of his body . . . from the bathtub. - Boston Phoenix
21+ |
9pm | FREE
SATURDAY AUGUST 8
Luce Block After Party
MEL GIBSON & THE PANTS, MYSTERY PALACE
There's no guide or manual for what Mystery Palace does, no easy clockwork formula hidden in the Minneapolis-based trio's agenda. Sequenced electronics-plus-live instruments offer a tough enough row to hoe on their own; when the former come from a pair of heavily circuit-bent Yamaha mid-pro keyboards, opportunities for disaster multiply exponentially.
Luckily, so do opportunities for the sorts of disastrous successes the band enjoys regularly, largely thanks to founder Food Team's aptitude for riding his profusely toggle-switxhed brainchildren's outputs like a porn star. Granted, the artist sometimes still known as Ryan Olcott has had practice galore, having built and mastered the instruments with the sort of diligence usually enountered only in fantasy novels and large-scale government operations. Only after countless hours of woodshedding and a healthy slew of live dates did he enlist ex-Poor Line Condition bassist James Buckley and veteran Vertiform drummer Joey Van Phillips in what must have seemed like a very Quixotic endeavor at the time.
21+ |
9pm
MONDAY AUGUST 10
Switchbladecomb.com Presents: Record Party! All Vinyl DJ's
All Vinyl. Every Monday. No Eagles, No Phil Collins, NO Bummers.
21+ |
9pm | FREE
TUESDAY AUGUST 11
THE MULANIX STREET ORCHESTRA (from Kirksville MO), The Upper Cuts, Bitchalittle
The Mulanix Street Orchestra are an acoustic/indie band from Missouri. They met in October of 2008, and many songs quickly began to take shape. Since their birth, they've shared the stage with Dear & The Headlights (twice!), An Horse, Viva Voce, Telekinesis, Reubens Accomplice, Miniature Tigers, French Kicks, Cut Off Your Hands, and many more!
21+ |
9pm | FREE
FRIDAY AUGUST 14
LUSURFER (CD Release)
21+ |
9pm | FREE
MONDAY AUGUST 17
Switchbladecomb.com Presents: Record Party! All Vinyl DJ's
All Vinyl. Every Monday. No Eagles, No Phil Collins, No Bummers.
21+ |
9pm | FREE
SATURDAY AUGUST 22
THE MIGHTY MOFOS, 757s
21+ |
9pm | $5
MONDAY AUGUST 24
Switchbladecomb.com Presents: Record Party! All Vinyl DJ's
All Vinyl. Every Monday. No Eagles, No Phil Collins, No Bummers.
21+ |
9pm | FREE
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 26
BATTLEFIELDS (from Fargo ND), OVERMARS (from SAINT-HUBERT, Luxembourg)
21+ |
9pm | FREE
MONDAY AUGUST 31
Switchbladecomb.com Presents: Record Party! All Vinyl DJ's
All Vinyl. Every Monday. No Eagles, No Phil Collins, No Bummers.
21+ |
9pm | FREE
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 4
RichmondVA's 30th Birthday
Muja Messiah
21+ |
9pm
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 16
THE ALBERTANS (from Vancouver, BC/Brooklyn NY)
"The first single from the (upcoming) record, High Noon, is a sparsely told story of craft and sacrifice, commitment and resignation, richly orchestrated but deftly composed so that each instruments voice steps out of the way of the next. If you never saw them in 07 when they were performing as Sex with an Angel, its a great introduction to the bands storytelling style and the wistful bombast Joel Bravos lyricism inspires in the musicians. If you had seen them in a previous incarnation, youd hear this new recordings desperate edges in the loud guitar wash all the more sharply." - IMPOSE MAGAZINE, JAN 2009
21+ |
9pm | FREE
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 19
KILL THE VULTURES, THE BOOK OF RIGHT ON, Dada Trash Collage
"Kill the Vultures is a band hell bent on using beats and rhymes to sound like bent hell, flipping abrasive and dissonant punk and bop samples instead of the typical boom bap." Dave Hlubeck, Fader
"It's the best underground hip-hop I've heard this year" Salon.com
"Kill the Vultures sounds like an attack on the slickness of mainstream hip-hop: the brutally lean production style is almost lo-fi, and the rhymes echo the hectoring of Def Jux acts like Cannibal Ox and El-P." - Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader
21+ |
9pm
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Uptown Bar & Cafe 3018 Hennepin Ave South Minneapolis, MN 55408 Tel: 612.823.4719 |
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