some great live music lately

The last few days have been full of some great live inspiration here in the Cities. On Thursday night I ambled over to The Artists' Quarter in Saint Paul to watch the Dave Karr Quartet play some amazing jazz. It was way better than my last trip to the AQ because, frankly, it wasn't completely over my heard this time. And, on top of that, their namesake saxophone player turned 80 the very next day.

















I hope to hell that I'm still as good as this guy is at half that age. He was absolutely incredible...to say nothing of the other 3 guys on stage who took some pretty amazing solos themselves.

Last night I went to the Triple Rock Social Club near Cedar and Riverside to see some local acts. It was a pretty packed bill with four bands (I missed the first one) playing until around 1:45am or so. But completely worth it.

The Sunny Era took the stage about 20 minutes after I got there and was easily one of the more interesting experiences I've ever had at a rock club. Imagine something akin to rock and roll gypsy music (they used violin, accordion and clarinet alongside the traditional guitar and drum set) that pours over and over itself in all of its harmonic minor splendor and, at one point, incorporates a theremin(!). There were a couple of really transcendent moments where they suddenly switched into major in the middle of a song. I really want to learn how to do that because, whenever I've screwed around with something like that in the past, it just came off as trite.















Then you've got the Eau Claire, Wisconsin art rock quartet, Laarks. They were anchored with a keyboard but their lead guitarist (who I had a great, nerdy discussion with after their set) threw in all sorts of great "noise" throughout. The drummer in this band is, by far, the coolest thing to watch on stage. He rocked so hard that I thought he was going to pass out at some point or, at the very least, bite off his tongue. During their set he broke both a bass drum pedal and a drumstick (but didn't take stock in order to regroup and, instead, just kept kicking ass with a broken stick in one hand). I had already thrown the money I brought to buy an album at The Sunny Era otherwise I would have walked out with their CD.
















The Small Cities finished out the evening and, even though a lot of people had left by the time their set rolled around, they rocked really hard. The last time I saw a guitarist use a Rickenbacker in concert was when I saw Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers a few years ago so it was nice to see one on stage again.

All in all, not a bad time was had at all. Back to work.