W♥M

Wesley Stace's Cabinet of Wonders at the Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis (10/11/13)

Set Schedule Tour Dates 10/12 Iowa City, IA The Englert Theatre* 10/13 Grinnell, IA Bucksbaum Center * 10/18 New York, NY City Winery* 10/24 New York, NY City Winery† 11/07 Seattle, WA Triple Door† 11/09 Portland, OR Mississippi Studios† 11/11 San Francisco, CA Jewish Community* 11/13 Santa Barbara, CA Campbell Hall* 11/15 Santa Monica, CA McCabe’s Guitar Shop† 11/22 New York, NY City Winery* 01/06 Tampa, FL Univ. of Tampa† 01/25 Mamaroneck, NY Emelin Theatre* * Wesley Stace’s Cabinet of Wonders † Wesley Stace headlining performance Read More Wesley Stace Friday we have Wesley Stace (formerly known by his stage name, John Wesley Harding) at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. He'll probably be doing songs from his Self-Titled… The Long Winters Opening up for Coulton was extra bushy bearded John Roderick from the Long Winters, who took full advantage of the Shakespearean set piece (the background courtesy of Roman Holiday). … Todd Barry When Todd Barry took the stage he wasted no time playfully insulting "Alex Kroll, or Koll, whatever one that was” and moving right into a deadpan assessment of the visible audience for everyone’s amusement. … The Jayhawks The show was advertised as Gary Louris and Friends. For those that don't know Gary, he is one of the founding members of the Jayhawks. They have a new CD coming in September, which involves the reunion with Mark Olson. … Haley Bonar Talk to random people at the festival, most of them heard of Haley Bonar and was there to see her. Except they thought she should be one of the headliner, only she was early (3pm). … "May I present the cabinet: its contents, and its discontents," starts Wesley Stace's Cabinet of Wonders show at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis last night, October 11th. If you're not familiar with the Wesley Stace's Cabinet of Wonders show, this is not the typical rock concert, but more like a variety show. There's book readings, there's poetry, there's comedy, and, of course, there's music. Bottom line, the show is really an excuse for Wesley Stace (formerly John Wesley Harding) to gather his friends and colleagues on the stage! After a poetry introduction to all the players in the cabinet, Stace singled John Roderick to talk a little about being 'the last man [not] on the plane' and how he went over to the '400 Club' to realized it was now a converted Islamic mosque (the 400 Bar closed its door late December last year). Wesley Stace, with his live band The English UK, then kicked off his three-song set, starting with his Eleanor Friedberger collaborated song, "When I Knew". The latter two songs were from the latest album Self-Titled ("it's called Self-Titled, because it is…"). Stace explained that these new songs were all true, then quickly announced that 'Jane' in "Goodbye Jane" was not, in fact, 'Jane'. As for "A Canterbury Kiss", this was about the coolest girl he's ever met. The real moral of that song is that you should never send the subject their song until it's been recorded and published. Todd Boss was next, reading three love (one 'lust') poems from his books: "The Hush of the Very Good", "Constellation", and "Feast". Next was Marc Perlman, from the Jayhawks, played three covers, two of which were Moby Grape‎ songs ("It's A Beautiful Day Today" and "I Am Not Willing"). He explained that he never listened to Moby Grape when he was young, it's only recently that he's absolutely fell in love with them. Author Laurie Lindeen, formerly from Zuzu's Petals, read an excerpt from her forthcoming book called "My Boyfriend's Dead". It's not a zombie book, but about a 12-year-old girl growing up in the 70s. HALEY BONAR Haley Bonar did three songs, the first was "Heaven's Made For Two". She had more songs written for an upcoming album, but they're not quite ready yet. In the meantime, she did "Bad Reputation" and a cover of Melanie's "Brand New Key". The cover song, as explained by Stace, was possibly more famous for being re-made into "The Combine Harvester" by The Wurzels. The way Stace over-pronounced the band name, you can tell he had a distaste, if you'll forgive the pun, for this drinking novelty band. At one point, he even compared their same-songs to Chubby Checker's various "Twist" songs. You know what? I'm going hazard a guess that no one in America's heard of The Wurzels, but that didn't stop people from laughing. TODD BARRY Speaking of laughing, my personal highlight of the show was Todd Barry, mostly because of his quick-witted improvisation. Barry must have a habit of going over his set time, so a clock was brought on stage for him to reference (although he promised he was going over "10 seconds" because he loved us so much). As we previously mentioned, Barry is very deadpan in his deliveries. His material consisted of some crowd work (like when the audience had a second wave of laugh and a finicky cat), but also prepared jokes (if you can call it 'prepared'). WESLEY STACE AND JOHN RODERICK John Roderick, from the Long Winters, was last seen in Minneapolis with Jonathan Coulton. He actually seems like he could also do stand-up, telling us about that one time someone landed on his head (feet first) at the running of the bulls in Spain. Roderick did "Not Moving To Portland" and, I think, "Same Song". Roderick ended his three-song set with The Long Winters' "Scared Straight", a song that's ten years old now. After Wesley Stace read a random excerpt from his upcoming book Wonderkid, to be published February 2014 via Overlook Hardcover, Gary Louris, also from the Jayhawks, came on to sing three songs, ending with a The Jayhawks' "Tailspin". What made "Tailspin" so delightful was that it featured the other Jayhawks, Marc Perlman on mandolin, but Stace would medley in Bob Dylan's "My Back Pages" in the middle of the song. Stace and his band would then continue with a fitting John Wesley Harding song called "Making Love To Bob Dylan". Shortly afterwards, everybody on the bill came back on stage for Kevin Ayers' "Religious Experience" (aka "Singing a Song in the Morning") for a satisfying finish. Wesley Stace's Cabinet of Wonders show is currently on tour, I'm encouraging people to go to multiple shows, because I can tell that every show is entertaining and unique. Wesley Stace's Self-Titled is out now on Yep Roc Records. Wesley Stace's Cabinet of Wonders at the Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis (10/11/13) Left to right: Laurie Lindeen, Haley Bonar, Todd Barry, Gary Louris, Wesley Stace, Marc Perlman, and John Roderick (on keyboard) vu () ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ wesleystace.com

Todd Barry: The Crowd Work Tour

[2012] Super Crazy [2001] Medium Energy [2004] Falling off the Bone [2008] From Heaven Read More SF Sketchfest While liberal colleges try to talk about diversity, there is something even better about an inclusive show where there is a genuine diversity of gender, race and comedy genres …

      For those who do not frequent comedy shows (this is a music blog after all), crowd work is the often painful part of a comedy show, often prompted by an obnoxious heckler, but sometimes sparked by someone wearing the wrong thing in the front of the audience,  where the comedian asks the audience where they're from and what they do and then proceed to make fun of them mercilessly. Since Todd Barry is touring with a show of nothing but crowd work, opener Alex Koll delievered a show of almost everything but.

ALEX KOLL photograph by courtney

    Koll (not to be confused with Alex Kroll who is also performing at Sketchfest) started with a high energy set of jokes about the team names of the children's organized sports games he used to (professionally) photograph, the excitement of minor league baseball fireworks and the horrors of spending seven days in Vegas.  How high energy was he? Well, he's also a two-time winner of the San Francisco Regional Air Guitar Championship and a regular member of the The Business comedy group that performs every Wednesday in San Francisco.

   When Todd Barry took the stage he wasted no time playfully insulting "Alex Kroll, or Koll, whatever one that was” and moving right into a deadpan assessment of the visible audience for everyone’s amusement.

   As promised, the show was all crowd work, except for the first ten minutes of Barry recapping how he "killed" in every city so far on the tour. There was  no material, no characters, no "jokes"…just the chance for him to attack San Francisco residents with his droll observations.

   He wasn't completely cruel, I was sitting alone in a red jacket in the front row and wasn't noticed. (This is always when W♥Music gets an email from the artist about something I wrote isn't it?). San Franciscans make for easy targets, he barely had to look past the front row for material.

   Every other person Barry asked what they did answered "lawyer stuff" and he ripped into them about wanting all the benefits of being a lawyer while trying to sound like they weren't lawyers. If a music fan appreciates the cringe worthy inter-band stage banter of Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields, they’d be just at home hearing arry’s performance.

    Music fans in the audience were not immune to his attacks however. When one guest offered his occupation as a "hip hop and house party promoter", Barry said those were the kind of parties he left immediately. The numerous times Barry emphasized he listens to “indie rock” made me wonder just who he was baiting, and I think the IT guy who played guitar as a hobby took the bait, simply by mentioning easy to mock ideas like “none of my songs have titles”, “riffs” and “the Foo Fighters started as a studio band” as if he could win an argument with a record nerd like Barry that way.

    There was no winning against Todd Barry as a performer, there was hiding, and probably some confused attendees who were expecting something other than the obvious title of the performance, but he delivered exactly what he promised and I somehow avoided becoming a target.

Todd Barry at The Eureka Theatre, San Francisco (01/29/13) photograph by courtney

courtney ♥ toddbarry.com ♥ sfsketchfest.com