10 Questions About…

Saturday, April 19 was Record Store Day. My favorite 10 year old and I made our second annual pilgrimage to as many shops as we could visit in St Paul and Minneapolis.

We started at Extreme Noise Records on Lake Street. We rushed to get there at noon to see Grant Hart. We got there a little late and heard a young hard core band instead. For better or for worse I learned from the very young gentlemen next to us that we hadn’t missed him; he hadn’t played yet. That being said these are the same two I overheard say, “I don’t think this is him,” while listening to the young woman on stage. I assured them it wasn’t him. I enjoyed the band; too loud for my 10 year old date.

Next on the agenda, Cheapo Records on Lake Street. This was more of a walk-by as we were headed to lunch at Stella’s. It was good to see the place full; Cheapo has been a tried and true place for recorded music for decades, although I’m much better acquainted with the St Paul location. Best album I ever got there? The Hawaiian Pups.

Moving off Lake Street, we made our third stop at Treehouse Records. My 10 year old spent most of her time rolling her eyes here as I said—I remember that show—at all of their posters. They do a good job stocking local bands. Although our highlight was the Shel Silverstein tribute album; not local obviously but a great record.

Just a few blocks away we made our fifth stop at Fifth Element Records. I am always impressed with how friendly they are there, despite the fact that we can’t be their target demographic. Along with recorded music, they stock a lot of Rhymesayers t-shirts and hoodies. They also have some toy break dancers like army-man-type figures. I’m putting that on my birthday list for June!

HiFi Records was number six on our tour. We came through the back alley and were welcomed by a band in that great back hall they have. It was comforting to hear The Replacements on in the shop and my date got a gluten-free, vegan donut from Totally Baked Donuts. Meeting the donut sop owner (aka Donut Fairy) was worth the price of admission. And I heard the donut was very good. Next year, I might make time to get my hair cut there as well. Talk about a one-stop-shop.

Number six and a half on our tour was a failed attempt to visit No Name Records. Turns out they moved and never told Google maps. Now it’s just a drug paraphernalia shop. We didn’t stay long.

Number seven was a total bonus; we passed Agharta Records on University headed to St Paul and popped in. It’s a great location. They have a fantastic collection of records. It looks like they had a few turntables for sale too. (They may have just been on display.)

Deeper into St Paul, by blocks, we visited Barley Brothers Records as number seven on our journey. It’s on Raymond. They had a band playing and folks were hanging out in back. The audience had clearly been hanging out in record shops for 20-30 years so folks were pretty comfortable. They had a nice collection of posters for upcoming shows, which I always like to see.

To get to number eight we hopped on 94 and raced to downtown St Paul to visit Eclipse. They also have a nice selection of records. We caught Pink Mink’s Christy Hunt as DJ. I was able to show off the favorite album of my youth, the Great Rock and Roll Swindle. My date was not impressed. She was, however, impressed with Eclipse’s neighbor, Candyland, where we stopped for some rock candy and gummi bears.

Number nine could also count as number eleven as at least one of us returned to the scene of the crime later but two of us visited Hymie’s Vintage Records just in time to catch Chastity Brown play a few songs. It was packed and she sounded great. Hymie’s always does a nice job setting up a whole block party for Record Store Day. The weather could not have been better. Hymie’s RSD block party might replace Grand Old Day for official first day of summer this year.

Finally our last stop was the Electric Fetus, one of our favorite music shops in town. We were just in time to see Erik Koskinen and Frankie Lee—both celebrating recent releases. We just missed They Might Be Giants, which clearly drew a big crowd. My date was sad when she realized TMBGs sang both the Malcolm in the Middle and Big Bang theme songs – but was consoled to see hometown favorites. We ended the day buying our third copy of Jeremy Messersmith’s Heart Murmurs (we over-listen and wear them out), a new release by Imelda May and received Koskinen’s CD as a fun present from a friend.

So there’s the tally: 10 shops around 2 cities in 5 hours. That’s two more than last year. Maybe we’ll get to a dozen in 2016!

Leonora Carrington was an artist and writer. Her art is like a mashup of Beatrice Potter and Hieronymus Bosch, intricate and complicated with the nursery rhyme sweetness of Potter and dark edge of Bosch. There’s something compelling that makes you look closer. Her life reads the same way.

Born in the UK, Leonora met fellow artist Max Ernst and moved to France until Ernst was arrested by the Nazis for “degenerate art.” After that she moved to Spain where she became increasingly anxious and had a breakdown. Eventually she moved to Mexico where she wrote about her psychotic experience in her novel Down Below.

Down Below or The Womb of the World is also a shadow opera playing at Bedlam Theater; it presents vignettes from her life and work based specifically on three stories, The Hearing Trumpet, The Stone Door and The Oval Lady. It is a collaboration of puppeteer Erik Ruin, musicians Spires That in the Sunset Rise (Kathleen Baird and Taralie Peterson), puppeteer Liz Schachterle and percussionist Kevin Cosgrove.

The work is compelling like her life. There are scenes that are like a nursery rhyme, where the character walks through the village to the town. There are scenes with a darker edge, like when the young Leonora meets the old Leonora, who says I thought you’d never get here. Old Leonora persuades the young Leonora to jump into a boiling cauldron and then proceeds to make a boat from the bones of the young Leonora to escape to find the stone door.

The music and sound are chilling. But again there there’s a dichotomy of children’s tale and nightmare. Peterson has a voice like Little Red Riding Hood; where Baird sounds like a wolf. The music is otherworldly. It helps suspend belief, and helps draw the audience into a shadow puppet world, which by its nature is not realistic like a movie and yet somehow can conjure the same empathy.

I saw the story with my favorite 10 year old date. The show isn’t for every 10 year old; it’s a little scary and you have to be able to follow a story with deep edges and blurry lines. But seeing it with a kid means the drive home is going to be like an English Literature test. We discussed the motif of the stone door. And we compared the show to the kid’s book by Debra Fraiser, On the Day You Were Born.

There’s a scene in the show where the character is half dead and half born. We decided that was the limbo stage of reincarnation. Fraiser’s book has always seemed like a picture of that same limbo – only much closer to being born. We also discussed the boat of bones, which was disturbing to my date until I pointed out that maybe this was another allegory that really represented the idea that she was able to draw from inner strength to move forward.

Again a compelling show – more Hieronymus Bosch than Beatrice Potter.

The night began with a solo by Paul Metzger; we are big fans. Most shows start with a musical act. Sunday will be good with the International Novelty Gamelan.

I love the idea of mashing up visual art, music and dance. Just last month I enjoyed a similar show (Stripe Tease) at the Walker. So I was thrilled to get walk-up tickets to the first of the Final Performances of In Which ____ and Others Discover the End Performance. I brought my favorite 10-year old date.

There were things we liked about the show, things we didn’t like as much and things that confused us. But we talked about it the whole way home and I think that’s a win for a gallery that “encourages work that challenges the status quo in contemporary art.”

We liked the art. There was just enough splash of color and the geometric shapes led to a big discussion of CNC machining. The make-do stage and hanging art left a feel like we were in another world or planet. Something almost retro and Twilight Zone about it. And the music. Admittedly participation from Brute Heart was what got me through the door. The music was very subtle and very much in the background but a huge component.

There is a Beckettian theme through the show, it starts when two performers discuss the body and the impact of a computer job on the body. It’s a circular discussion punctuated by accents, silly voices and the slowing of the bodies on stage. At one point the questioner asks how the interrogated knows she has a body. Because you said I did, was the exasperated answer. They could have been waiting for Godot. It was funny and poignant; something even my date has experienced—the giving over of power to the computer and experiencing the unintended consequence of disembodied feelings.

Then there was a story of a spring break in Italy and ghosts that may have been ghosts or may have been a figment of lucid dreams. Again very funny and involved more performers. In that segment the story and the movement really complimented each other.

Then there were some segments where the microscope lifted too high for me. Commentary on climate change, insurance and health care seemed like too much preach without the nuance of art. Now that being said, we enjoyed the movement and the dance throughout. My date liked the repetition of movement and the proximity of the dancers.

I liked the performers’ use of eyes. Weird in a dance to focus on something that by definition isn’t going to be moving much but there was a scary amount of passion in most of the eyes on stage. It draws you in and keeps you on point, like a good teacher. Added to that intensity is the knowledge that the show is interactive. (My date was asked to read a few lines.) When you command that much attention you depend on nuance and subtlety.

The show ended with a final speech that harked back to Beckett about “I’m good at this, I love this,” which I think speaks to the idea that we do what we can when we can. The rest isn’t indifference but detachment   based I assume on capacity.

Final Performances of In Which ____ and Others Discover the End Performance is showing March 28, 29, April 2, 3 and 4. The free shows are sold out but some spaces are reserved for walk-up audience members. We arrived at 7:00 and had no trouble getting in.