W♥M (Archive)

Twin Cities Venue Guide: The Woman's Club of Minneapolis

Hi guys, just wanted to let you know that I’m working on a Minneapolis/St Paul venue guide: Twin Cities Venue Guide.

We haven’t had a lot of time to work on this, but it’s something I wanted to do for myself. I often have to look up venue’s capacity or need links and additional information.

Photo from Vu Read More The Woman's Club Colin Meloy and Eleanor Friedberger just finished their little two-week Fall 2013 tour at the Woman's Club in Minneapolis last night. …

IRREGULAR: THE WOMAN’S CLUB OF MINNEAPOLIS
AKA: Woman’s Club, Assembly of the Woman’s Club, The Woman’s Club Assembly
Capacity: 630
Years active: 1928 - Present
Website: womansclub.org
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 612-813-5300
Address: 410 Oak Grove St, Minneapolis, MN 55403

The Woman’s Club was founded in 1907, and the building was created in 1928. This historic club rarely book music concerts, but when they do, it’s usually in support for women musicians.

As of this writing, there are no upcoming music concerts.

They have a dining service (closed on Monday, Brunch Buffet only on Sunday), which requires reservation.

Currently, the Woman’s Club is focusing on granting scholarship to benefit women and children:

Today, our original mission of “educational, civic, and social services, study and friendly association” continues. In addition to our many outreach activities, The Club each year gives scholarship monies and grants that benefit women and children; over the years we have given over five million dollars. In 2015, we gave scholarship monies to the MCTC Foundation -- a 30-plus year tradition -- and gave grants to ten nonprofit organizations.

Education is another of our deep commitments. We continue to operate the historic Ard Godfrey House in Chute Square, which was our bicentennial gift to the city. We have a robust education program, including a circulating library and stimulating talks for our members and guests on a broad variety of topics and issues.

We are many things to our members and guests -- a friend, a respite, a force for good, a place for belonging. The Woman's Club of Minneapolis welcomes you, women and men. Come join us.

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Colin Meloy with Eleanor Friedberger at the Woman's Club, Minneapolis (11/13/13)

Colin Meloy Setlist The Singer Addresses His Audience July, July! Hank, Eat Your Oatmeal Calamity Song The Soldiering Life Oceanside Do You Remember Walter? June Hymn Won't Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga) Engine Driver On the Bus Mall Philomena Lake Song January Hymn Skyway The Apology Song Bandit Queen Encore: The Crane Wife 1 & 2 The Crane Wife 3 Eleanor Friedberger Setlist I'll Never Be Happy Again Other Boys Tomorrow Tomorrow My Own World Evergreen I Am the Past When I Knew Echo or Encore Singing Time Stare at the Sun My Mistakes Tour Dates 01/16/14 Los Angeles, CA Fonda 01/17/14 San Francisco, CA Fillmore 01/21/14 Portland, OR McMenamins 01/22/14 Seattle, WA The Neptune Read More Colin Meloy Colin Meloy, as you probably know, is the lead singer of the much-beloved The Decemberists. The band is currently on a break, but in the meantime, you can catch … Eleanor Friedberger We like The Fiery Furnaces' Eleanor Friedberger, having caught her in Minneapolis a few times (in June and in September). She's returning here on the last date of the Colin Meloy …

Colin Meloy and Eleanor Friedberger just finished their little two-week Fall 2013 tour at the Woman's Club in Minneapolis last night. The tour was really a great match, as both musicians are generally known for their heady lyrics and little storytelling songs.

ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER

Eleanor Friedberger, in her artsy video gamey/Egyptian dress, started her set with the rather depressing song, "I'll Never Be Happy Again". The song is about meeting someone so perfect that afterward, she'll never be happy again. That song, as well as the majority on her set, was taken from her latest album Personal Record, out now on Merge Records.

Friedberger is noticeably by herself, the last two times we saw her in Minneapolis, since June, she is usually accompanied by a full backing band. Still, despite the absent of her band, Friedberger seem incredibly comfortably sitting and playing her electric guitar for us.

Highlight from her set was a The Fiery Furnaces song, "Evergreen", which was unexpected since it's not from Personal Record. I also thought "Echo or Encore" was also good, although, based on its lyrics, could have been the finale ("I adore you as before, your echo or your encore"). Instead, the last song was "My Mistakes", which she played over a sax pre-recording.

Colin Meloy described his solo shows as a campfire shows. Eight years ago, he decided he was going to release these themed cover EPs, starting with Morrissey. His latest cover EP is devoted to The Kinks, although, surprisingly only one Kinks cover was done for last night's show ("Do You Remember Walter?").

Photo of Setlist

As you can see from the setlist, the majority of the songs are the Decemberists songs, which is just perfect for fans in the audience. Meloy knows his audience well, often egging fans to finish singing the songs for him.

A few new songs, possibly for a future Decemberists album, included the intro song, "The Singer Addresses His Audience", "Philomena" and "Lake Song".

Meloy must benefit from hearing someone call out "Free Bird" every night, because without a beat, he answered, "Are you trying to troll me, sir?" He then stated that he's a board member of the MACOF, the Musician Against Calling Out Freebird.

There was a surprising moment when Meloy started playing The Replacements' "Skyway". Clearly he wanted to play that song for Minneapolis, but based on the loose play style, he may have not had the time to rehearse. Still, it sounded pretty dang good for an unrehearsed effort.

Also, worth noting for any Morrissey fans, is that the "Apology Song" was not about Morrissey (the line in the song, "I'm really sorry Steven, but your bicycle's been stolen" was often speculated about Steven Patrick Morrissey and his "punctured bicycle"), but about a stolen red Schwinn bicycle. The song was actually never meant to be recorded, according to Meloy on stage.

Anyway, at the end of the campfire journey, Meloy asked his audience to imagine floating into space and landing in New Mexico and hearing a cow herder singing "Bandit Queen" and doing a terrible whistling effort.

Encore was an epic rendition of all three parts of "The Crane Wife".

With the final night of the tour, Colin Meloy will be returning home to his "farm", while Eleanor Friedberger will be playing a number of East Coast shows in December (Great Scott in Massachusetts, Port City Music Hall in Maine, and The Space in Connecticut.)

Colin Meloy at the Woman's Club, Minneapolis (11/13/13)

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Laura Marling at The Assembly at the Woman's Club, Minneapolis (08/14/13)

Tour Dates 08/15/13 - Milwaukee - Pabst Theater 08/28/13 - Louisville - Big Four Bridge Lawn 08/30/13 - Philadelphia - Prince Music Theatre 09/01/13 - Vineyard Haven - Martha's Vineyard 09/03/13 - Somerville - Somerville Theatre 09/04/13 - Washington - Lincoln Theatre 09/06/13 - Woodstock - Bearsville Theater 09/08/13 - Brooklyn - Music Hall of Williamsburg 09/09/13 - Brooklyn - Music Hall of Williamsburg Read More Laura Marling As you know, we've been writing about Laura Marling since 2007. We obviously love her and will jump at any opportunity to talk about her. …

Laura Marling just started her U.S. Summer 2013 tour for her latest album Once I Was An Eagle last night at the sold-out Assembly at the Woman's Club show in Minneapolis.

PAUL METZGER

Opening up for Marling was Minneapolis' Paul Metzger, who started his set with a humorous observation: what a better way to open up for a young lovely woman, than an old man with a banjo. The most interesting thing about Metzger is that his banjo, is in fact, unique to Metzger, as he modified the instrument to serve his needs. The neck's a little longer, there's extra strings, etc. As you watch him masterfully play his set, you realized that he's probably the only person that can play this banjo.

"Punctual" Laura Marling came on stage at 9:30 and started her set with an epic 16-minute song, combining "Take The Night Off", "I Was An Eagle" and "You Know". After her official second song, ""Master Hunter", she apologized for making us sit through the extra-long opening song. No one minded, of course.

Marling's quite funny, a nervous kind of funny, on stage. For instance, she admitted that after touring solo, that her shows are now 20% more tuning. Of course, she does what all musicians do when they tune, they prepare for onstage banters. It's not as easy as it look, because often there's more stories than there are actual tuning.

My favorite tuning story was about paying $5 to park at the Science Museum, only to spend about 20 minutes at the gift shop to purchase a photo of "The Great American rocks" and metal container that gets ride of garlic smell.

As to be expected, Marling played songs from Once I Was An Eagle, including the opening tracks and her last couple of tracks, "Once" and "Saved These Words". She doesn't do encores, so for encore fans, she suggested they think of "Once" as the last song.

Making up the rest of her set, including her favorites, "Rambling Man", "I Speak Because I Can", "What He Wrote" and "Sophia". But perhaps the most interesting choice was her cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "Kathy's Song", a song that she confessed that she wished she'd written.

Laura Marling is currently on tour for Once I Was An Eagle. The album is out now on Ribbon Records.

Laura Marling at The Assembly at the Woman's Club, Minneapolis (08/14/13)

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