Rock Garden Tour

Last Thursday Night's Show Was Dirty.

We talked vermi-composting with South Dakota worm farmer and director of the Sioux Falls Green Project Joe Bartmann. It could go down as the most informative show we ever produce. The topic of discussion inspired a playlist that included the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and the like. Stay tuned for the podcast and keep it rural. Here's the playlist from last Thursday night's show.

Love - 7 and 7 is

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - I've Been Lookin**

Eels - Rotten World Blues**

The White Stripes - Hand Springs

The Dirtbombs - Your Love Belongs Under A Rock**

Levon Helm - Feelin' Good**

Joy Division - Disorder

The Zombies - Friends Of Mine**

Les Savy Sav - Pots And Pans

Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Don't Take Everyone To Be Your Friend**

Ike Reilly - The Ballad Of Jack And Haley

Strange Boys - Be Brave

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Fishin' In The Dark**

John Hiatt - Go Down Swingin'

Black Francis - Garbage Heap**

The Mountain Goats - Grendel's Mother

Tonic - Flowerman

** Compost inspired tunes. The Levon Helm tune came from his Old Dirt Farmer album. The Zombies tune is about raising worms, as is the Sister Rosetta Tharpe tune, at least we're almost positive. And yes, we played 2 tracks by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. If they're good enough for Earl Scruggs they're good enough for us.

The revolution will be as normal as blueberry Pop-Tarts.

Nellie McKay has an inexplicable way of annoying critics. It’s even more curious considering they usually give her pretty high marks.

After gritting their teeth about being “gratingly cute” (debut – Keep Away From Me) and a “brat” (Pretty Little Head), the reviewers usually get around to begrudgingly offering kudos toward McKay’s sunny, pre-rock n’ roll fantasia mixed with tart, clever lyrics. It seems they don’t want to be outsmarted by a blonde girl-next-door, who behind the jazzy coos and pastel petticoats, might be hiding a chainsaw. They don’t know if she seriously loved Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera (in which she appeared on stage in 2007) or if all this vintage songwriting and cutesy tap-dancing was some sort of ironic flash dance.

So, on last fall’s charming Doris Day-tribute, “Normal As Blueberry Pie,” one wonders whether McKay just decided to save everyone the tut-tut-tuts and take the spotlight off her and put it solely on Day—which she does convincingly all throughout the album chronicling both hits and rarities from the iconic star of screen and song. From the sparse, artistic arrangements (a piano line here, a ukulele there) to her rosy, full-bodied vocals which can both bounce with whimsy and mesmerize like a swinging incandescent lanterns on a summer’s night, McKay exudes affection for Day, a patron for the New York City-based McKay, who (like Day) is a passionate animal rights activist.

In terms of sharing the stage, McKay never steals the show—which actually makes her the star. By creating both an intimate tribute as well as a record that couldn’t have been produced before the 21st Century, McKay becomes the captivating supporting actress you search on IMBD.com when you get home.

Rock Garden Tour fans, however, will delight most in her cover of Day’s “Black Hills of Dakota,” which first appeared in 1953’s film “Calamity Jane,” starring Day as everyone’s favorite eponymous gun-toting badgirl. It’s unclear how much McKay knows of Calamity Jane (after all, the focus is on Day here) but the two share the agony of putting together a persona the public (or at least some) refuse to believe is real. With McKay, there are the critics who have in the past insisted her wink-and-grin version of mid-century jazz standards is a double-dogging put-on. Similarly, Calamity Jane had to endure posthumous taunts that her gun-slinging tomboyishness was greatly over-exaggerated, and then there’s that whole being-buried-next-to-Wild-Bill thing…

But, the biographical details aside, McKay’s “Black Hills of Dakota” is likely the album’s strongest track (next to opener “The Very Thought of You” and closer “I Remember You”). What’s most intriguing on this tune is McKay’s intricate, even dissonant arrangement—which includes a backing of tom toms and flutes. It’s hard not to feel a hokey “pow wow” feel coming on. But McKay’s introverted, even solemn vocal (there’s just her, no three-part chorus-line harmonies) gives this version a wary-eyed nostalgia not present in the rousing original—an all-sing aboard a wagon train. At once, McKay has made “Black Hills of Dakota” feel more heartbreaking in terms of its honesty and beauty than the original.

Now, no one knows if McKay’s been to the Hills—if not, we now have a lovely opportunity for her to visit. I hear the Charlie Utter Theatre has got great acoustics. But, then again, judging by the multiple “South Dakota Rejects Animal Rights Activists” billboards, it may be best if she flies into the Rapid City airport.

The revolution will be as normal as blueberry Pop-Tarts.

Cousin Christopher teaches college kids how to write. He also plays keyboard in the Rock Garden Tour Family Band and eats at the Spink Cafe.

Anti Gravity Tater Tot Hot Dish!

Huge show last night, big time, though I can't remember much about it now. We talked about anti gravity gardening and other popular garden variety trends of 2009. I also seem to recall some witty banter about the EU ban on wonky fruit, the Sioux Falls Canaries, Hub City dinner theater, and wonky tater tot hot dish. And then somehow, again I can't remember how, but we brought all back around to gardening, and it was classic. At least thats the way I remember it. One thing I do remember about last night's show is the free range rock and roll. Have a look at the play list and keep it rural.

Nugget - Made For Chickens By Robots

Galactic - Friends Of Science

Drive By Truckers - Gravity's Gone*

Mumford And Sons - Little Lion Man

Modest Mouse - Gravity Rides Everything*

Surfer Blood - Floating Vibes*

Pavement - Gold Sounds

Horse Feathers - Hardwood Pews

Richard Thompson - 1952 Vincent Black Lightning***

Frightened Rabbit - Floating In The Forth*

Lifter Puller - The Langelos

Randy Newman - The Natural**

The Kinks - Village Green Preservation Society

Young Fresh Fellows - Rock And Roll Pest Control

Dr. Dog - Hang On*

The Mountain Goats - Island Garden Song

Steve Martin - Late For School

Tonic - Flowerman

* Tunes inspired by anti gravity gardening trends

** Tunes by the guy that discovered gravity in the fist place

*** Awesome tunes about fast motorcycles

The Revolution Will Not Pass Out On The Lawn

News from Pierre informed me this past weekend it had been 48 hours since his last cup of coffee out at Marlin’s. Asked to explain the hiatus, he simply said, “It’s overwhelming.”

Overwhelming? What in the Bijou Hills was he referring to? The caffeine? Doubtful. The man likes his mud. The Olympic coverage spanning every cable news channel? Laughable. C-Span runs 24 hours a day.

No, News from Pierre was talking about the cold. The Deep Freeze Nasty. It’s not annoying or unseasonable. It’s overwhelming. No fancy hyperbole or linguistic puffery needed here. This winter is winning.

In the Tavern Belt, you can do two things when winter descends: try to hold up your local convenience store with a plastic shovel as your leverage, or put on some fight-the-hibernation, cabin fever-busting pop music. Like catnip to the senses, a straightshot of pop music cuts through the icy veneer of our souls.

Every winter, inevitably, I find myself coming across some brave band, one dependable, power-pop Pez-dispensing melody maker to depend upon to keep from delving into a sad reenactment of The Shining.

This winter, folks, it’s Benji Hughes and “Love Extreme.” Hughes actually released this album the fall of 2008. But the man delivers a California-flavored nerve injection of lush, harmonic, sun-glistening pop music. Plus, it’s moody enough that it won’t jar you out of your winter lull—instead it will gently and good-naturedly rustle you awake, like a fluffy dog licking your face in the morning when you’ve slept in too long.

Certainly, it’s tempting to put on Bon Iver’s “For Emma, For Ever Ago” on the iPod and wander aimlessly through the streets, the lonely crooning echoing the crunching of your feet on the packed snow. But, by now, we’re past semantics. We need a chance. And with weather reports promising more snow and wind and desperation for the next week at least, we can’t take any chances with subtlety.

Benji Hughes, particularly on “If,” may not melt the snow. But he’ll turn your cabin fever into disco fever. Or at least make life bearable for the foreseeable extended forecast.

 
The revolution will not pass out on the lawn.

Cousin Christopher teaches college in Minnesota, plays the keys for the Golden Bubbles and the Rock Garden Tour Family Band, he also writes about rock and roll.

Less talk, more witty banter about olympic male figure skating glory.

Last night when we dropped in I had know idea that we'd be talking about Scott Hamilton for the next 2 hours, but thats how these things go. The show was supposed to be about high brow gardening, and we did our best. We talked about classical music and how it affects plant growth. I interviewed Telly of the ColtCockers about his experience at the South Dakota Symphony. It looked great on paper, but paper doesn't win gold medals. At least the music kicked like a fightin' canary, we spun everything from Joe Pug to Exploding Seagulls. Take a look at the playlist and keep it rural.

Faron Young - Live Fast Die Young

The Thermals - Now We Can See

Golden Shoulders - A Short And Fleeting Feeling

Mumford And Sons - Little Lion Man

Nneka - Walking

Joe Pug - Unsophisticated Heart

Beach Fossils - Desert Sand

Willie Nelson And Leon Russel - Don't Fence Me In

Christian Kiefer - Joh Adams: Armed Only With The Wit And Vigor Of The US Navy*

Los Chijuas - Changing The Colors Of Life

Pearl Jam - The Fixer

War On Drugs - Taking The Farm

David Bazan - Curse Your Branches

Chuck Prophet - Let's All Help The Cowboys Sing The Blues*

Exploding Seagulls - Johnny Runs For Paregonic

Noah And The Whale - Death By Numbers

The Mountain Goats - Alpha Double Negative: Going To Catalina*

Alborosie - One Sound (feat. Gramps Morgan)

Tonic - Flowerman

* Worth while tunes that have long titles

Less talk, more witty banter about hallucenogens.

Last night's live show on KCFS 94.5 began with a rant from Flowerman about The Who and how their performance at the Superbowl was nothing short of legend, the show ended with a rant from Oil Can about hallucenogenic Jimsonweed, and I can't really remember what happened in between. We'll just have to wait for the podcast I guess. We can discover the middle of last night's show together. Last night's show featured some intense free range rock and roll, that is something that I can remember. Have a look at the playlist from last night's show and keep it rural.

The Kinks - Introduction*

Wesley Willis - Feel The Power Of Rock And Roll*

Gil Scott Heron - I'm New Here

Malachai - Snowflake

The Various Artists - Original Mixed Up Kid

Joanna Newsom - Peach, Plum, Pear

Bob Wills And The Texas Playboys - Big Balls In Cow Town*

Electric Guitars - Work

Port O'Brien - My Will Is Good

Magnetic Fields - We Are Having A Hootenanny Now*

The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Family Band - Tell All The World John

Gil Scott Heron - New York Is Killing Me

Beach Fossils - Desert Sand

Coconut Records - West Coast

Fleshtones - American Beat*

JJ - Let Go

The Mountain Goats - Distant Stations*

Steve Martin - Pretty Flowers

Tonic - Flowerman

* Artists that I'd love to see play the Superbowl Half-Time Show, even though some of them are dead now.

  

Kidney Bean Theft In Ipswich South Dakota

On last Thursday night's Rock Garden Tour on KCFS we talked herbal legends, some of the most popular ones, like the one about the kid that goes to Ipswich South Dakota on spring break and ends up naked in a bathtub full of ice without any kidney beans. I'd tell you more but its just easier if you wait for the podcast. In addition to the legends, we jammed some most righteous free range rock and roll. Take a look at the playlist and keep it rural.

John Lee Hooker - Roll 'n' Roll*

Hurray For The Riff Raff - Slow Walk*

Surfer Blood - Catholic Pagan

Serge Gainsbourg - Le Claqueur De Doigts*

The Whitefield Brothers - Safari Strut*

Bruce Springsteen - Jesse James

Blitzen Trapper - Big Black Bird

Sea Wolf - You're A Wolf*

Magnetic Fields - We Are Having A Hootenanny*

Exploding Seaguls - Johnny Runs For Paregoric

Devo - Gut Feeling

Beach Fossils - Desert Sand*

The Stingrays - Exceptions

Art Objects - Hard Objects

Rock Garden Tour Family Band - Hip Hip Murdo (Live In Deadwood, SD)

Hanoi Janes - Skeleton Girl

The Mountain Goats - Pure Sound

The National - Fake Empire

Tonic - Flowerman

* Instant herbal legends, these tunes are so good that I'm not sure they even exist

The Revolution Will Not Be iPadded.

“Local music” is one of those euphemisms, like “farm-raised salmon” and “retirement community,” that sensible people learn to distrust. The other night I was at the Sauce Bar in Minneapolis and I watched carefully as after-hours Office look-alikes partied onward as the bar transitioned from background music to live bands. I predicted to a friend: “Two songs. No more.” Sure enough, by the crunchy guitar growl of the third song, the wingtips and stiff blouses exited the scene. No hard feelings here, they almost seemed to say as they left. It’s just, well, you know, this is “local” music.

Now, there certainly is an element of Darwinism that plays into mainstream perceptions of “local music.” Let’s just say I have seen an inordinate number of cat-themed punk rock bands and power trios dedicate songs to trousers. Who am I kidding, I’ve played in them. In these instances, the road less traveled is—as Seinfeld said—less traveled for a reason.
But, often, you have a local music scene that—thanks to a music industry in the tank—is often more creative, engaging, and relevant than what you will hear from the DJ, the jukebox or the cover band. I know this may sound like the kind of argument that is recycled every 4-6 years, but let me give you some specifics.

Last Friday night I rolled into downtown Sioux Falls around 6 p.m. Note: I did not intentionally seek out music. But, it found me—a whole sonic spectrum. At Touch of Europe, I struck up a conversation with one of the jazz musicians who moonlights in Queen City’s own alt-country rockers Snakebeard. Then he handed me a business card and told me he was a professional “luthier,” which is a fancy word for stringed instrument repairman. I spied another local musician in the band, the talented keyboardist for Sioux Falls-based funk and blues hybrid Solution. It may be a scene where everyone plays in everyone else’s band in dimly lit root-cellars, but the collective musical output is ill-proportionately diverse and electric.

Walking down the street back to the car, I passed by a piano troubadour inside some smoky bar on Phillips—the air was frigid but the warm glaze of the chords was like an artificial space heater. At Latitude 44, another Sioux Falls piano balladeer—Janae Sturma—played a score of originals and clever covers to an intimate and deeply appreciate crowd. As the train rumbled past as she closed her set, however, one couldn’t help but wonder how many people were filling out song requests at some oily karaoke bar instead of filling her tip jar. It’s not for the musician’s sake that I lament this fact; most have long ago given up on this gig making any money.

No, it’s for the audiences who miss out on a genuine, original, even sometimes powerful music experience.
Past midnight, we retired to Monk’s House of Ale Repute, where a member of We All Have Hooks for Hands told me about sleeping in a rest stop for four days while on tour on the East Coast. He wasn’t in the least bit fazed. This is part of the “business.” And musicians won’t complain. They love the gigs. Even if the bar does date your check for a month later. But, there really is quite a significant music scene right under the nose of a lot of people, not just in Sioux Falls, but in a lot of communities across the Tavern Belt and beyond. And it’s really worth listening to.

Of course, we ended the night by listening to Hall and Oates’ “Rich Girl” three times on repeat in the car. But, that’s because the song is less than three minutes long, and because no one cooks up a blue-eyed soul hook like Daryl Hall and John Oates. Not even in the Queen City. Maybe Rowena.

The revolution will not be iPadded.

Cousin Christopher writes about rock and roll for the Rock Garden Tour. He also plays keyboard in the family band.

I spilt coffee on my crotch, while passing through Java, SD.

If you tuned in to KCFS 94.5 at 7:55 last night, you probably heard the sound of a radio producer spilling coffee on his crotch area. Not the best way to kick off a 2 hour broadcast, but we made do by sharing some useful tips, skills and step by step instructions for the new American gardener. We also jammed some most righteous free range rock and roll. Take a look at the playlist from last night's show and keep it rural.

Simon & Garfunkel - 59th Street Bridge Song

The Whitefield Brothers - Safari Strut*

Sea Wolf - You're A Wolf*

The Soft Pack - C'Mon

Jeff Mangum - Sign The Dotted Line

Neko Case - I'm An Animal

Basia Bulat - Gold Rush*

The Replacements - Tommy Gets His Tonils Out

The Band Of Blacky Ranchette - Mope-A-Long Rides Again

The Mickey Finn - Garden Of My Mind**

Surfer Blood - Floating Vibes*

Beach House - Walk In The House*

Say Hi - Maurine

We All Have Hooks For Hands - Made Up Of Tiny Lights*

The Gourds - Country Love

Lifter Puller - Sherman City**

The Mountain Goats - This Year

Headlights - Secrets

Tonic - Flowerman

* Newish tunes that kick like a rented mule.

** Older tunes that kick like a rented mule.

Resiliency, my friends...

The Revolution Was Stunned: Quick, The Seedy Seeds to the Rescue

Any proficient rock gardener knows even though the soil is buried under 10,000 leagues of snow, you should not stop preparing for the thawing season. Whether that means combing the racks of a local record store for the perfect anthem to the sun’s return or whetting your trusty till, preparation for the spring cannot lapse solely because the winter has defeated your will to live (and it probably has by now if you’re within frequency of this show’s broadcast).

Resiliency, my friends, is what you need. Certainly, local druggists may carry chemical cocktails or high-powered heat lamps you can stare into for hours a day. But this seems expensive or time-consuming or a bit eccentric for the rock gardener. No, friends, resiliency actually comes to us in the form of a Cincinnati-based band called The Seedy Seeds.

The band’s name conjures up some misfit Sesame Street character who never saw the light of day, but the music is anything but puerile. On 2009’s "Count the Days," TSS fly across the wintry void like banjo-strapped superheros, spreading polyphonic cheer and gyrating, glitchy folk wisdom that sounds like the kind of music Pete Seeger would play had he traded licks with a supercomputer containing the algorithm to Joan Osborne’s soul. There is a simplicity about their sound that can come only from a musician approaching their instrument after a long void, or doing so for the first time. In TSS’s case, it is the latter. They formed the band as an experiment in which they’d learn to play instruments they owned but didn’t yet know how to play. The pleasing result is in old-fashioned, collective jouissance.

Opener “Winter 04” is actually a tidy foyer, hinting at the marriage between electro-footing and backwoodsy Appalachian folk that carries throughout the album. The seatbelts really come off, however, on “The Push,” which rockets up your spine like a the sudden, isolating recollection that you really are still, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, a decent, human being. It’s like an old friend calling, or better yet, showing up at your door. With more of your friends. Do NOT listen to this song before sleep. You will stay awake for at least an hour. It’s that good.

Rock gardeners may be most interested in “My Roots Go Down,” a quasi-hymnal that turns into a boot-stomping disco. I loathe to do this, but for all you Avatar fans who found the intersection of spirituality and electromagnetic science in the Navi’s big old tree will find a similar meshing of synthetic and organic worlds when female vocalist Margaret cantors “My roots go down to the earth” over a fuzzy sea of gospel-shouting exigency.

It’s a mesmerizing tonic for winter blues that TSS has concocted. Although it likely holds up just as well in May or August. The winter will stay with us for a while. In a few weeks that futile groundhog will emerge to sub-zero temperatures and return to his subterranean hideaway. But, at least, with TSS, you know have some fortification—in addition to antifreeze and heavy anti-depressants.

The rural revolution goes down to the earth.

Cousin Christopher writes about music and plays the keys for the Rock Garden Tour Family Band.