Switchblade Comb

Prince: 1974, sophomore year at Central High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

40 rock & roll yearbook photos HERE AT ROLLING STONE

A weekly look at the Minnesota concert calendar from your friends at Switchblade Comb. The full list can be viewed HERE.

Minnesota Shows List:

01 – John Vanderslice + Tallest Man on Earth (Turf Club)
01 – Building Better Bombs (Eclipse Records)
01 – Girl In A Coma (7th St)
03 – Lucero + Chuck Ragan (Varsity)
03 – Jenny Lewis + The Sadies (First Ave)
04 – A Camp [Nina Persson of the Cardigans] (Fine Line)
04 – St. Vincent (First Ave)
04 – No Use For A Name + Only Crime (Triple Rock)
05 – U.S. Air Guitar Championships [MPLS Regional] (Varsity)
05 – Kid Dakota (Uptown Bar)
05 – Maria Isa [CD Release] + Muja Messiah + Kill The Vultures + I Self Devine (First Ave)
05 – Japandroids CANCELLED (TBA)
05 – Skeletonwitch (Triple Rock)
06 – Mr. Lif (Triple Rock)
06 – 1990s CANCELLED (Turf Club)
06 – Joseph Arthur + Jeremy Messersmith (ShamROCK Festival – Cabooze)
07 – Here We Go Magic + Grizzly Bear (Cedar Cultural Center)
07 – Charlie Parr (Turf Club)
07 – Crystal Method (First Ave)

On August 1st, 2009, Element will release MAKE IT COUNT – The Element Story.

The full length film will release for free on the Element site.

Nice to see some Harold Hunter footage in there.

For a new odd choice, here’s the experimental noise band MACH-1.67. Brilliant Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano (Ichi the Killer, Last Life in the Universe) formed this band in 1996 with groundbreaking Japanese film director Sogo Ishii (Burst City, Crazy Thunder Road), whose Electric Dragon 20,000V was largely inspired by (and whose soundtrack consists of) their music.

MACH-1.67 – “Shock DNA”

Rarely has a studio had the run of great films as Pixar has, with every one of their ten features being a work of fantastic quality. They single-handedly brought respect back to American animation, and while they have yet to push boundaries as far as I’d like to see (though WALL-E‘s first thirty minutes came close), they’ve developed a formula that, while familiar, remains perfectly charming and graceful much like the original Disney animated run of the 40s. Not only is UP no different, but it’s easily one of their greatest efforts.

In dealing with the death of a loved one and the void that follows, the film feels like Pixar’s most mature, and while early trailers gave off a Hayao Miyazaki vibe, the high-flying, jungle adventure story feels more akin to the 60s live-action Disney works like In Search of the Castaways. It’s this style that I’ve sorely missed in cinema over the years, and UP has it in droves, along with their most enjoyable cast of characters yet. Great work all around, but that’s to be expected.

UP – Trailer

Above is a photo of Switchblade Comb favorite H. Jon Benjamin as Master Shake in the upcoming live-action season finale of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. T-Pain will portray Frylock, contest winner Dave Long Jr. will be Carl, and Meatwad will be played by an exercise ball.

T-Pain, Jon Benjamin and Dave Long Jr. star in the first-ever live-action episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. All hell breaks loose when the animated Aqua Teens find out there’s fire in the water. As each member begins to burst into flames, the episode takes an abrupt turn when Master Shake’s live-action alter ego, Don Shake, can’t figure out how to finish the episode’s script.

Watch it this Sunday. Or don’t.

(via /Film)

Haruki Murakami‘s newest novel, 1Q84, was released in Japan yesterday to a massive frenzy, despite the marketing campaign of not revealing what it’s actually about. All that’s known is that he’s spent the last two years writing it, World War II is a theme, it’s 1000 pages long, written in third-person, split into two volumes, and may just be his ‘comprehensive novel.’

What Murakami has said -

“People have all sorts of concepts for the designation comprehensive novel, so it’s easy to be mistaken, but what I think of as a “comprehensive novel” is basically one that’s long . . . and heavy. And it’s a novel where all sorts of people, from remarkable people to normal people, appear one after the other, and many different perspectives are overlapped organically.”

HowToJapanese actually has a liveblog as they read, which I assume has minor spoilers. Unfortunately, a U.S. translation has yet to be confirmed, though I can’t imagine it will stay that way for long.

The Backyard Film Festival, my favorite Minnesota fest, is back this year on July 18. While it may be all the way out in Shoreview, I’ve never seen a more solid line-up than their 2008 showcase. Introduced by local filmmakers Eric Beaudry and Joe Lueben, the fest hosts live music before the show and everything – the admission, submission fee, food, soft drinks, and beer – is free.

Backyard Film Festival
Saturday, July 18
The Beaudry Backyard
Shoreview, MN
5 PM (bands) & Sundown (films) l FREE

You can find more information about submitting films or attending HERE.

Off of Two Suns, out now.

Dziga Vertov’s 1929 documentary Man with a Movie Camera, which I consider pretty much the defining work of pure cinema in the 20th century, will soon be screening at the Historic Mounds Theater.

Shot in many cities throughout the Soviet Union in the late 1920s, Man with a Movie Camera’s basic premise was to capture “life caught unawares,” a film grammar without intertitles, actors, and a defined narrative. Vertov sought the truth on the street, and rejected a cinema based on literature and the theater.

The result of this cinematic philosophy is a film that is at once an artistic masterpiece, a compelling film experience, and a historical record that gives us an intimate look at life in the early Soviet Union. There are no actors in Man with a Movie Camera, only real people going about their lives, be they exhilarating, tragic, or both. There is very little not captured in this film—from marriage to divorce, birth to death, total poverty to extravagant wealth, from the factories to the cinema house to the soccer field—Vertov’s omnipresent cameraman captures it all.

Man with a Movie Camera
June 5 & 6
Mounds Theater
St. Paul, MN
7:00 PM

Cinematic Orchestra – “Man with a Movie Camera”

The Trylon Screening Room, Minneapolis’ new film venue, has started to fill its summer schedule. Coming soon . . .

Free Sci-Fi
(films start @ 7:30 PM)

06.01 – Blade Runner
06.08 - Total Recall
06.15 – Minority Report

The Great Stone Face: Six From Buster Keaton
(Accompanied by the music of Dreamland Faces. Tickets $8)

The all-volunteer staff of Take-Up Productions has worked for three years to save enough money for our own theater. On July 17th, we’re opening The Trylon, located in south Minneapolis, a few blocks from the Lake Street LRT station. We though it fitting to open our theater with the film where Buster Keaton plays a projectionist who leaps into the movie.

07.17 – 18 – Sherlock Jr. & The Electric House
07.25 – 25 – The Navigator & The Ballonatic
07.31 – 08.01 – Seven Chances & The Goat

For more information, check HERE.

Air – “Sexy Boy” (Put to Sherlock Jr.)

It was in early 2002 that HowWasTheShow.com’s first review appeared, and founder David de Young registered the catchy domain name later that year. Since then, the site has published over 1,000 reviews of music and theater events, and dozens of podcasts, interviews and features.

HowWasTheShow celebrates 7 years as the Twin Cities incubator for new music and theater writers with a party at the Turf Club Friday, June 12th with a few of our favorite musical acts, Big Trouble, Communist Daughter, Aby Wolf and The Inwood Radio.