Describing what Martin Dosh does and how it sounds is no simple matter. He's been in more than a dozen bands and shared the studio and stage with a dozen more. He draws on a vast field of musical touchstones. Want the full Dosh experience? We've created something of an online museum of Dosh. You'll find nothing like it anywhere else.
Read the rest here.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Dosh's World
In a booth at a neighborhood pub in south Minneapolis, a slumped and bearded Martin Dosh is staring into his beer, tapping his fingers on the table, and talking about a coming performance at the Walker Art Center. It's an evening devoted entirely to his music. The May 3 event has a title, "The World of Dosh," and he's effectively been asked by the museum to curate a tribute to himself, with special appearances by past and current collaborators like whistling indie-rock song-master Andrew Bird and underground hip-hop phenomenon Jel.
"Trying to map it all out is fucking with me," says Dosh, shaking his head. "I'll need a stage manager or something."
Probably he won't. Dosh's art is multitasking.
Onstage and in the studio he makes his music, often alone, in what can best be understood as a cockpit. In the center is a swiveling drummer's stool, and with a push from one foot, he can turn to face a drum set, his vintage electric piano, or a small table with a tangle of cables, effects machines, and a synthesizer.
The catalog of Dosh's stage and studio collaborations reads like a record-store clerk's year-end best list: Andrew Bird, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Tapes 'n Tapes, Devendra Banhart, Peanut Butter Wolf, Happy Apple, the Bad Plus, the Jayhawks, Atmosphere—it goes on and on.
"He's been this enigmatic, brilliant figure in the background," says Philip Bither, curator for performing arts at the Walker. "He's somewhere between the worlds of experimental music and pop." Bither lists the genres Dosh's music and collaborations have inhabited: contemporary classical, electronic, improvisational jazz, hip hop, and rock. "He's somebody who can find links between all of those styles and do something fresh and intelligent," says Bither, "and that's rare."
Slowly, Dosh has been stepping to the fore. His next full-length under the Dosh moniker, Wolves and Wishes, is his fourth, but there is a sense—as his recordings and his performances evolve into ever more accomplished and complex endeavors—that he is just beginning.
Read the rest here.
"Trying to map it all out is fucking with me," says Dosh, shaking his head. "I'll need a stage manager or something."
Probably he won't. Dosh's art is multitasking.
Onstage and in the studio he makes his music, often alone, in what can best be understood as a cockpit. In the center is a swiveling drummer's stool, and with a push from one foot, he can turn to face a drum set, his vintage electric piano, or a small table with a tangle of cables, effects machines, and a synthesizer.
The catalog of Dosh's stage and studio collaborations reads like a record-store clerk's year-end best list: Andrew Bird, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Tapes 'n Tapes, Devendra Banhart, Peanut Butter Wolf, Happy Apple, the Bad Plus, the Jayhawks, Atmosphere—it goes on and on.
"He's been this enigmatic, brilliant figure in the background," says Philip Bither, curator for performing arts at the Walker. "He's somewhere between the worlds of experimental music and pop." Bither lists the genres Dosh's music and collaborations have inhabited: contemporary classical, electronic, improvisational jazz, hip hop, and rock. "He's somebody who can find links between all of those styles and do something fresh and intelligent," says Bither, "and that's rare."
Slowly, Dosh has been stepping to the fore. His next full-length under the Dosh moniker, Wolves and Wishes, is his fourth, but there is a sense—as his recordings and his performances evolve into ever more accomplished and complex endeavors—that he is just beginning.
Read the rest here.
Do-It-Yourself Perdition
It was a headline that only an old-school Catholic could love: "Minnesota Woman Will Excommunicate Herself, Says Bishop."
Next week, Kathy Redig, a Catholic chaplain in a Winona hospital, will take part in an unsanctioned ordination ceremony—she's becoming a priest. Her bishop, Bernard Harrington, complained to the Catholic News Agency that in doing so, Redig is causing "more confusion than good."
But there is good news for the good bishop: Once Redig has finished her ordination ceremony, she is as good as gone from his tribe. Harrington need file no excommunication paperwork—by violating ancient church thinking on women in the priesthood, he said, she has "excommunicated herself," adding snidely: "It makes my job easier."
Next week, Kathy Redig, a Catholic chaplain in a Winona hospital, will take part in an unsanctioned ordination ceremony—she's becoming a priest. Her bishop, Bernard Harrington, complained to the Catholic News Agency that in doing so, Redig is causing "more confusion than good."
But there is good news for the good bishop: Once Redig has finished her ordination ceremony, she is as good as gone from his tribe. Harrington need file no excommunication paperwork—by violating ancient church thinking on women in the priesthood, he said, she has "excommunicated herself," adding snidely: "It makes my job easier."
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Creationists block blogger, ignore top scientist
At a private screening hosted at the Mall of America theater last week, Mark Mathis, producer of a new documentary starring comedian Ben Stein that targets critics of intelligent design, resorted to drastic measures to keep critics of the film away: He enlisted mall security.
And it worked—sort of.
"I'm blogging this from the Apple Store at the Mall of America, because I'm too amused to wait," wrote University of Minnesota biology professor PZ Myers, a notorious and outspoken enemy of creationists everywhere. Myers appears in Mathis's film, and is thanked in the credits—but he was ejected at the theater door.
According to Myers, he was waiting in line with family and colleagues, having registered to attend the screening, when a security guard pulled him from the line and informed him that Mathis had instructed the theater not to allow Myers in.
The popular blogger and defender of evolutionary theory obliged, and headed straight for the nearest internet connection where he got right to blogging. It was not enough that he had been booted from a film he appeared in (and which is called...wait for it...Expelled), there was also this: "They didn't notice my guest. They let him go in escorted by my wife and daughter. I guess they didn't recognize him."
The guest was perhaps the world's best-known living evolutionary biologist: Richard Dawkins.
"He's in the theater right now, watching their movie," Myers wrote. "Tell me, are you laughing as hard as I am?"
And it worked—sort of.
"I'm blogging this from the Apple Store at the Mall of America, because I'm too amused to wait," wrote University of Minnesota biology professor PZ Myers, a notorious and outspoken enemy of creationists everywhere. Myers appears in Mathis's film, and is thanked in the credits—but he was ejected at the theater door.
According to Myers, he was waiting in line with family and colleagues, having registered to attend the screening, when a security guard pulled him from the line and informed him that Mathis had instructed the theater not to allow Myers in.
The popular blogger and defender of evolutionary theory obliged, and headed straight for the nearest internet connection where he got right to blogging. It was not enough that he had been booted from a film he appeared in (and which is called...wait for it...Expelled), there was also this: "They didn't notice my guest. They let him go in escorted by my wife and daughter. I guess they didn't recognize him."
The guest was perhaps the world's best-known living evolutionary biologist: Richard Dawkins.
"He's in the theater right now, watching their movie," Myers wrote. "Tell me, are you laughing as hard as I am?"
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Sprayer Haters
Rush City citizens challenged their City Council last week to defend them from cats in heat.
Feral, sex-starved felines have been spraying everything in town. "My house smells like the neighborhood litter box," protested one local.
The sprayer-haters suggested the city call in the Animal Ark Neuter Commuter—a mobile feline de-sexing unit that will roll into town if you trap at least 50 offenders.
Start trapping, Rush City—winner gets to drive the Neuter scooter!
Feral, sex-starved felines have been spraying everything in town. "My house smells like the neighborhood litter box," protested one local.
The sprayer-haters suggested the city call in the Animal Ark Neuter Commuter—a mobile feline de-sexing unit that will roll into town if you trap at least 50 offenders.
Start trapping, Rush City—winner gets to drive the Neuter scooter!
Clubbing! Show ads from a hairier era...
We've gone deep into the City pages vault and emerged with a handsome collection of ads from the big Twin Cities metal clubs of the '80s.
We've got a rich archive here at City Pages headquarters, and we'll be mining them from time to time for a series of posts we're calling Unearthed. For the Sex, Drugs, & Awesome Hair story, I pulled dozens of issues from the '80s and scanned ads from the big clubs of the day. These images go along with our vintage slideshow of the bands. Here they are, see you at the show!
Read the rest here.
We've got a rich archive here at City Pages headquarters, and we'll be mining them from time to time for a series of posts we're calling Unearthed. For the Sex, Drugs, & Awesome Hair story, I pulled dozens of issues from the '80s and scanned ads from the big clubs of the day. These images go along with our vintage slideshow of the bands. Here they are, see you at the show!
Read the rest here.
The glamtacular history of 1980s heavy metal in the Twin Cities
ON MAINSTREET in Hopkins, a bar called Decoy's shares the street with an antiques mall and a bead store. On a subzero night in March, a middle-aged woman with bleached blond hair, skyward bangs, and a winter coat covering a jean jacket is on the sidewalk in front of the bar on her phone, arranging a rendezvous with a friend. "Irregardless," she says, "I'll be on the floor dancing."
Inside, Hairball, a band that bills itself as "a tribute to '80s hard rock," is setting up two walls of amps on a cramped corner stage.
The bass player, a 37-year-old who goes by "Sports" and looks more Danzig than David Lee Roth, is standing on the empty dance floor in front of the stage, plucking through Metallica's "Enter Sandman" with eyes fixed on a corner television screen broadcasting a high school hockey tournament at a St. Paul arena—the kind of place for which Hairball's gear might be better suited (the lighting trusses, drum riser, and pyrotechnics wouldn't fit on the Hopkins stage). The band is a sort of time-machine act, using costumes and staging to evoke a lost era when drug- and sex-saturated rock stars wore spandex and long hair and played heavy metal on arena stages. It was also an era when countless Twin Cities bands emulated these heavy metal stars, angling for record deals, tour buses, and enough fans to fill their own arena concerts.
Off to one side of the Decoy's stage, Hairball has hung a black curtain, creating a tiny staging area for an evening of elaborate costume changes. There are two singers. One will do two songs as Dee Snider from Twisted Sister while the other is preparing his Ozzy Osbourne costume in the improvised dressing room.
When the lights go down, somebody somewhere cues the intro music and the singer called "Rockstar Bob," who is wearing spandex, a sleeveless tee, a blond wig, and dark aviator glasses, peeks out from the black sheet and signals a crew member with frantic hands. He is signaling for the fog—lots of it, his hands say in circles. Everywhere. The band rolls in with the fog. The guitar player, known as "Happy," is wearing ripped, flesh-hugging pants with fishnet patching and is a veteran of Twin Cities metal bands from the era he now spoofs. Happy strikes a chord and Rockstar Bob issues a proclamation: "This is a Hairball party!"
Really, it's a class reunion. Onstage and on the dance floor (which is packed) are the same people who haunted the stages and dance floors of Twin Cities rock clubs two decades ago. They were clubs like the Iron Horse, Ryan's, the Payne Reliever, Muldoon's, and the beloved Mr. Nibs, which had walls covered with glossy black-and-white promotional photos of the local bands that played there—bands with big hair, tight pants, bare chests, and expressions that alternated between come-hither pouts and defiant grimaces. The bands had names like Dare Force, Obsession, Paradox, Slave Raider, Brass Kitten, Mad Atchu, Wonderland, and the Blondes.
In those days, the critical affections of the local press were spent on bands like Hüsker Dü, the Suburbs, Prince, and the Replacements. Heavy metal was the scene the critics didn't want to touch. When they did, they were not often kind.
Read the rest here.
Inside, Hairball, a band that bills itself as "a tribute to '80s hard rock," is setting up two walls of amps on a cramped corner stage.
The bass player, a 37-year-old who goes by "Sports" and looks more Danzig than David Lee Roth, is standing on the empty dance floor in front of the stage, plucking through Metallica's "Enter Sandman" with eyes fixed on a corner television screen broadcasting a high school hockey tournament at a St. Paul arena—the kind of place for which Hairball's gear might be better suited (the lighting trusses, drum riser, and pyrotechnics wouldn't fit on the Hopkins stage). The band is a sort of time-machine act, using costumes and staging to evoke a lost era when drug- and sex-saturated rock stars wore spandex and long hair and played heavy metal on arena stages. It was also an era when countless Twin Cities bands emulated these heavy metal stars, angling for record deals, tour buses, and enough fans to fill their own arena concerts.
Off to one side of the Decoy's stage, Hairball has hung a black curtain, creating a tiny staging area for an evening of elaborate costume changes. There are two singers. One will do two songs as Dee Snider from Twisted Sister while the other is preparing his Ozzy Osbourne costume in the improvised dressing room.
When the lights go down, somebody somewhere cues the intro music and the singer called "Rockstar Bob," who is wearing spandex, a sleeveless tee, a blond wig, and dark aviator glasses, peeks out from the black sheet and signals a crew member with frantic hands. He is signaling for the fog—lots of it, his hands say in circles. Everywhere. The band rolls in with the fog. The guitar player, known as "Happy," is wearing ripped, flesh-hugging pants with fishnet patching and is a veteran of Twin Cities metal bands from the era he now spoofs. Happy strikes a chord and Rockstar Bob issues a proclamation: "This is a Hairball party!"
Really, it's a class reunion. Onstage and on the dance floor (which is packed) are the same people who haunted the stages and dance floors of Twin Cities rock clubs two decades ago. They were clubs like the Iron Horse, Ryan's, the Payne Reliever, Muldoon's, and the beloved Mr. Nibs, which had walls covered with glossy black-and-white promotional photos of the local bands that played there—bands with big hair, tight pants, bare chests, and expressions that alternated between come-hither pouts and defiant grimaces. The bands had names like Dare Force, Obsession, Paradox, Slave Raider, Brass Kitten, Mad Atchu, Wonderland, and the Blondes.
In those days, the critical affections of the local press were spent on bands like Hüsker Dü, the Suburbs, Prince, and the Replacements. Heavy metal was the scene the critics didn't want to touch. When they did, they were not often kind.
Read the rest here.
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