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Jack Spencer

National Poetry Slam In St. Paul

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National Poetry Slam

The National Poetry Slam has been swarming all over downtown St. Paul this week, with preliminary events taking place at multiple venues, including the Artist’s Quarter, Fitzgerald Theater, Lowry Lab, POP!, and Roy Wilkins Auditorium. Qualifying slam teams from all over the country throw down their best pieces, competing in heated bouts against some truly impressive performers in a quest for the top spot.

There’s always one venue that sits somewhat outside of the main hub of big events like this, and Camp on Robert Street is a bit of a walk from the above mentioned locations. I’ve been volunteering at Camp, an intimate stage with great drink specials and amazing poets coming in and out to prove themselves. The local Minneapolis team held it down on Tuesday night against teams out of Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona, but team Nuba out of Denver took the propers for the evening, bringing the team’s diverse and powerful individuals together for a few insane group pieces that blew the roof off.

Slam poetry at its best

For those not familiar with Slam Poetry, now is the time to check it out. This is the best of the best and a great introduction to the style. Slam is loud, energetic, boistrous and engaging. It often deals with heavy subject matter, like racism, identity politics, sexuality, and violence, but the best poets also know how to approach lighter material (one of the best poems I saw at Camp on Wednesday was a duo piece about how being a comic supervillian is so much better than being a hero). To see so many progressive people all in the same building pouring their hearts and souls on stage in front of a live audience is some affecting stuff, so prepare to feel some intense energy if you decide to check out the semi-finals.

Each night, five judges picked randomly out of the audience decide whose poetry was the most powerful of the bunch. Tonight’s semi-finals, taking place at the Artist’s Quarter, Fitzgerald Theater, History Theatre and McNally Smith, round up the top scoring teams and pit them against each other to see who will make it to the finals, going down Saturday at Roy Wilkins. This is going to be epic.

Visit the official site for more info on the event.

“Smell The Glove” – A Tribute To Spinal Tap At CO Exhibitions

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The recently opened CO Exhibitions returned last night with another unorthodox art show, “Smell The Glove”, a tribute to the mockumentary Spinal Tap, curated by local illustrator and musician Michael Gaughan.  If you haven’t seen the classic film about the ficticious 80’s hair metal band Spinal Tap’s fall from grace, one of the classic scenes involves the band’s label censoring the controversial cover for the upcoming release “Smell The Glove”.  Originally intended to depict a woman on all fours wearing a dog collar and smelling a glove, the new cover is simply an all black LP.  (“How much more black could this be?  The answer is none.  None more black”)  The original cover is never actually seen in the movie, so Michael Gaughan decided he’d like to see what the cover would/should have looked like and offered an open call to artists to do their version of the cover in any media.

The show is a scattershot collection of everything from drawings, paintings, screenprints, and photgraphs, to crochet, video pieces, and soiled socks (um…)  Fans of metal art will be pleased by the artists who played it straight, fans of script-flipping will be happy to see the men in the band on their knees in some depictions, and and fans of quirky visual collections will be pleased by basically everything.  There’s a great range of pieces, from professional to less-studied, plain-faced to ironic, and many just plain weird. The show is labeled PG-13, and there are some naughty bits as one would expect.

Live Spinal Tap karaoke

As with last month’s Doomtree art show, the night culminated with live music.  The live Spinal Tap karaoke encouraged audience members to belt out their favorite Tap tunes, and some of these amateur performances were truly inspired.  The whole event was a lot of fun and a great place to catch art, people-watch, and revel in 80’s inspired schlock.

If you missed the opening, the show will be up for a few weeks. CO Exhibitions can be found at 1101 Stinson Blvd in NE Minneapolis.

Sauce Presents A Pair Of Great Music Events

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Sauce Spirits and Soundbar
Sauce Spirits and Soundbar in Uptown on Lyndale and Lake is on the rise as one of the hip places to be in Minneapolis. The relatively new nightlife spot has quickly become one of my favorite spots to see music, grab a cocktail, or just chill in the bar. The trendy bar has a couple of music events this week that are worth checking out:

Up In Here, Tuesday the 27th of June at Sauce

Local producer Big Cats! brings his rap crew The Tribe and Mally along with him to host Up In Here, a free hip-hop dance event going down Tuesday the 27th. The producer known for working with Guante and Sage Francis is on his way to becoming a well-known name locally, crafting introspective bangers for The Tribe’s mixtape and his own recent album of instrumentals, Loud That Shit!. His work has always displayed the drum machine rolls that shine light on a love for dirty rap, which there’s certain to be plenty of here. Come groove as Big Cats! and DJ Pete of The Tribe trade rowdy tunes all night, all with a happy hour til midnight.

Rhymesayers artist Toki Wright hosts the monthly Galactic Soul Lounge

The following night, Wednesday the 28th, Toki Wright brings back the monthly Galactic Soul Lounge, his established night of hip-hop, soul, R’n’B, jazz, reggae, and more. This night has a cover charge of $5, but offers a caliber of show that’s worth it. DJ Booka B is going to spin Earth, Wind and Fire tributes, while latin rappers Los Nativos, Twinkie Jiggles’ Heiruspecs jazz side-project Broken Orchestra, and up-and-coming rapper Yakub bring more noise with performances throughout the night.

Both events are 21+ with doors opening at 9:30 PM. Sauce Soundbar is located at 3001 Lyndale Ave S.

Friday At First Avenue: Bassgasm 2

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The first Bassgasm

Back in February, First Avenue was taken over by the insane dance extravaganza known as Bassgasm: The historic downtown nightclub opened up all 5 of its stages to big name DJs like Derrick Carter, DJ Dieselboy and DJ Vaski, along with countless others in a range of genres, blasting hard and heavy club beats out of the 52 speaker wall. Fans of dubstep, psytrance, minimal dance, techno and dance music in general were treated to an all night party in one of the best concert venues in town.

That was only 5 months ago, but already Bassgasm rolls through for a second go this Friday. Last year’s event was packed to the walls with beautiful people in every room, and the “Wall Of Bass” sound system was so intense that parts of the ceiling started to fall. If that sounds like your kind of party, First Avenue is the place to be tomorrow night. The $20 ticket price ($15 for advance tickets) might seem steep, but for the amount of DJs you’ll see and the craziness of the event, it’s well worth it.

The Bassgasm dancers

The night promises to be one to remember, a full nine hours of dance mayhem unlike anything else except the first time around. This year brings out folks like Brooklyn’s Tommie Sunshine, the master of the house remix, Los Angeles’ Heavygrinde, spinning West Coast electro, Hulk bringing the live dubstep intensity, and local boy Soviet Panda, behind the popular hipster dance night Too Much Love – and countless others. Click here for the full list of performers:

Courtney Love Returns To Minneapolis, Bicycle Film Festival Hits Town

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Courtney Love of Hole (photo by Hedi Slimane

When Hole played First Avenue last night, frontwoman Courtney Love made sure everyone knew of her past in MInneapolis. Love considers Minneapolis her adopted hometown, and was breifly a part of the famed local girl-punk group Babes In Toyland, before being kicked out due to problems with lead singer Kat Bjelland. According to the Star Tribune, she went into funny details about her time in the city back in the late 80’s, talking about sexual encounters in First Ave’s backstage area and having an alter-ego that hailed from Edina. Dropping references to Grain Belt and the CC Club, and even making an attempt at covering The Replacements’ “Unsatisfied” (which she later apologised for botching on her Twitter), Love made it clear she has a very personal connection here. Many of her well-known Hole songs from early on her career were written in Minneapolis. The show seemed to go off better than her recent DC disaster, probably because she felt more of a personal connection to the place and the people. Good to know we can bring out the best in her.

Bicylce Film Festival invaded Minneapolis this weekend

This weekend also saw the 10th Annual Bicycle Film Festival in town, showcasing some impressive films promoting the awesomeness of bikes. You can check out the movies on the festivals website, including Benny Zenga & Lucas Brunelle’s intense Line Of Sight, a helmet-view depiction of a day in the life of a courier. Dipping and weaving between cars and riding at insane speeds, the cyclists in the movies are inches away from being daredevil riders, and the first-hand position gives the whole thing a personal sort of experience.

Beer, Bikes, Basilica

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Mucca Pazza play the Tour De Fat this Saturday

New Belgium. the brewing company behind Fat Tire beer, are once again bringing the Tour De Fat by Minneapolis this weekend. The free bike-centric extravaganza is a parade, concert, and overall celebration of all things bicycle. The website details the 10 Commandments of the Tour De Fat, encouraging participation in the parade and costumes, highlighting the event’s non-profit orientation (all proceeds go to biking and environmental charities), and reminding you to get there early. The event begins in Loring Park at 9 am with a parade, with circus acts and music interspersed throughout, culminating in the symbolic gesture of changing attitudes towards transportation: One person will be awarded a brand new Fat Tire bike in exchange for the deed to their car. Chicago’s Mucca Pazza (pictured above) will be performing afterward: The 30 piece “circus punk marching band” are amazing live, putting on boisterous performances that makes you wish your high school marching band was anywhere near as awesome.

Weezer headlines the Basilica Block Party this weekend
Since the Tour De Fat is absolutely free, that should free up some money for you to attend the Basilica Block Party later in the evening. This annual event, now in its 16th year, is always something to look forward to, when Cities 97 brings big name national acts to come play in front of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. Alt-rock heavyweights like Weezer, Spoon, Barenaked Ladies and Guster are all on the bill this year, plus several other local and regional acts, filling three stages over the course of two days. The theme this year is “musical confessions”: The Block Party website invites you to confess your music-themed sins, such as wanting to date the Backstreet Boys when you were a preteen or knowing all the lyrics to Mr. Roboto. Absolve yourself by supporting great music, a sense of community, and contributing to the Basilica, with part of the proceeds going towards ongoing renovations. Tickets are $45 for a single night, $80 for both Friday and Saturday; the band schedules can be found here.