Red Hot Art 2010

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Red Hot Art festival at Stevens Square in Minneapolis every year. Biking into the area, it look really well-organized, complete with porta-potties, clearly marked signs, area parking and police-ordered free parking zones. So, if you're driving, there are plenty of free and open parking.

Attendance looks pretty good, although, because there wasn't a whole lot for you do besides from buying art, people didn't stay that long.

♥ Cardboard Guitars

The food was reasonably priced, but limited to tamales, Greek food, and ice cream. You can also get chips (crisps) and soda/water from the organizer's booth for 75 cents (but most people donate the quarter to the organization). As for the handcrafted stuff, artwork, and other hand-made items, they seem really expensive. I know these are one-of-a-kind items, but $50 for a handbag, $35 for a keychain, or $40 for a cardboard guitar seems pricey to me.

As for the music, they were divided into two area: the upper stage (main) and the lower stage. The reasoning behind this seems obvious to me: since the music are kept on a very tight schedule, especially with the limited 30 minute sets, that they are for setup/cleanup reasons. What resulted seems pretty flawless as soon as one band finish, the other on the opposite stage continues on.

I'll quickly mention the bands I saw, starting at 2pm with The Absent Arch. They were a large Americana-type band, with usual musical saw and banjos. Samwell Rowan, when played live, is an all-instrumental band. National Bird, if I recall correctly, were true rocknrollers. They were late to the gig, they were loud, and I suspect they just woke up (3pm). Haha, love them.

Cadillac Kolstad were the highlight of the show for me. They are normally a full band, but at this appearance, it's just Kostad and snare-guy. They were dressed up in 50s outfits and sounds like New Orleans swampy blues. Their last song was "All The Fun", which sounds like a commercial for Palmer's Bar. Also, guess what? They drive around in a Cadillac.

Mr. Dietr (of Prozac Rat) was acoustic solo. He seems shouty. Nomia were an all-instrumental band, only doing three songs. After 14 minutes and they hadn't finish the first song, you can see why it's just three. Buildings were metal-ish? They were loud. Unicorn Dream Attack was just a guy and his gameboy. The only thing cooler than his stage name is that he's really into clicking buttons and stuff. F**k Knights looks like a proper rock band. The dancing guy/number one fan was as much fun to watch as the actual band.

I met this guy (named Guy) at the event who was there for Vicious Violet. He tried to describe them to me as "goth metal". He's pretty much right. By the time 6 o'clock rolled around, all these fans in leather and black outfits started appearing. It was kind of a sight to behold because the sun was still out. I did not stay for the full show because I had to bike elsewhere that night*, but they did start it off proper with an Alice Cooper cover song, "Billion Dollar Babies".

♥ Cadillac Kolstad

♥ F**k Knights

♥ Vicious Violet

If you want to check out more local bands, the Red Hot Art continues on August 1^st. Here's the schedule:

Sunday, August 1st: 11:00 – Sir Gregory F Knight 11:30 – Marlone 12:00 – Tyler Blanski 12:30 – The Blood Orange 1:00 – Switzerlind

1:30 – Phantom Tails 2:00 – Goondas 2:30 – Fort Wilson Riot 3:00 – Hastings 3000 3:30 – Andy Elwell 4:00 – I Like You

Stars - This Charming Man

* PS, I got a warning from a police officer last night about bicycling in the dark without proper lights. I told him that I didn't know it was the law (and that actually I wasn't plan on biking at 1am, it just happened). So today, I'm going to Walmart and picking up some flashy bike lights.

PPS, also, again, since I don't have music from these bands, here's another oldie but goodie.

 08/01/2010 12:38:28 ♥ vu () ♥ redhotart.org