A half-dozen cool things in music, from two points of view:
Don Carr of Minneapolis:
1 Trip Shakespeare documentary. According to former lead singer Matt Wilson's email list, there's a Trip Shakespeare documentary in the works with a Chicago filmmaker. I can't think of a better band to chronicle than the quartet whose tightly crafted songs melded soaring vocal harmonies with baroque-local lyrics. Trip's blazing live shows knowingly walked the line between guitar god rock and a soft brick of Velveeta. I cannot look at the moon, put on pants, stand in the falling snow or drive through Brainerd without humming one of their indelible tunes.
2 Lucky Cat Records. The sign went up over the legendary Oar Folkjokeopus/Treehouse Records building on 26th Street and Lyndale Avenue in south Minneapolis and will open later this month. Building owner Mark Trehus said of Lucky Cat's majordomo Michele Swanson, "I'm excited that she wants to carry on the legacy of the building's importance in the history of Minneapolis record shops and its interrelationship with the music scene."
3 Waco Brothers. Those professional manure disturbers from Chicago will be playing songs from their 2023 album, "The Men That God Forgot," under a new lighting rig at the Cedar Cultural Center on July 6. The fresh songs are borderline militant, like the best of the Clash but filtered through the Waco's unique brand of insurgent country.
Jon Bream, Star Tribune critic:
1 Los Lobos, the ROC. Regular visitors to the Twin Cities over the past 50 years, singer/guitarist Cesar Rosas wondered where in the heck they were playing. Singer/guitarist David Hidalgo knew enough to dedicate the show to the late promoter Sue McLean, whose current staff was resourceful enough to discover a new outdoor venue. St. Louis Park's Recreation Outdoor Center (ROC) is a space for a hockey rink with a canopy. It didn't have the best acoustics for Latin-flavored Americana, but Los Lobos couldn't be denied. They were wonderful again, peaking with "Don't Worry Baby" and the Grateful Dead's "Bertha."
2 Jamecia Bennett and J Movement, the Dakota. In the fourth annual invite-only Celebration of Black Music organized by marketer Sharon Smith-Akinsanya, the Sounds of Blackness diva tore it up. Except for the Sounds' testifying "I Believe," it was a set of R&B covers of Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston and a Minneapolis Sound medley. Bennett was on fire when she visited the Chaka Khan catalog with "Tell Me Something Good" and "Ain't Nobody."
3 "Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon" by Joel Selvin. The San Francisco music critic offers the harrowing and deeply reported story of the Los Angeles drumming phenom who played on "Good Vibrations," "Classical Gas" and "You're So Vain" as well as with Joe Cocker and Derek & the Dominoes. But Gordon suffered from mental illness, knocking out then-girlfriend Rita Coolidge with a punch, being so unreliable he ended up gigging in a bar band for $30 a night and eventually bludgeoning his mother to death with a hammer in 1983 because her voice in his head told him to do it. He died in prison in 2023.
