The A.V. Club - Daily

Film: Local Newswire: The Hunger Games to create a deafening racket in malls across America

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:00:00 -0600

Utilizing the strategies of Twilight and Tiffany before them, the cast of The Hunger Games is going on a cross-country tour of America’s malls, hoping to build grassroots buzz for the forthcoming movie franchise based on the bestselling young-adult book series through sheer word-of-mouth. Various configurations of the film’s main ensemble will make themselves available for fans’ Hunger Games questions such as, “Do you feel as though Steven Soderbergh put a recognizable aesthetic stamp on his second-unit work?” and “SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!? Follow-up question: AAAAAAHHHH!!!!?” Hunger Games fans from Los Angeles, Atlanta, Phoenix, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, Minneapolis, or Seattle, can ...

City Life: Local Newswire: Stillwater City Council chops Lumberjack Days

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:10:00 -0600

For years, Stillwater’s Lumberjack Days Festival has played a vital role in celebrating the town’s lumbering history, while also giving an outlet to binge drinkers dressed in plaid shirts and denim cutoffs. In news that will no doubt disappoint those who’ve been practicing all year to avoid an embarrassing face-plant during the festival’s annual log rolling competition, Lumberjack Days are now over, sent down the St. Croix River with steamboats and last year’s vomit, never to return. Citing unpaid bills and rowdy drunken behavior (is there any other kind?) the Stillwater City Council voted unanimously ...

Theater: Recap: American Idiot makes it easy to make a pun about the type of person who would like this show

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:00:00 -0600

“This is my rage,” said one of the many disaffected youth near the end of American Idiot, the bloated musical not just of the same name as an album by Green Day, but actually formed with the help of Green Day and named after the aforementioned 2004 mega-record. The show’s 90-minute run inspires a similar feeling about the musical: “This is my rage.” In many ways, the production is a glorified rock concert, but with jazz hands and High School Musical-style theatrics. At one point, a woman dressed in a full burqa flies onto the stage—well, not ...

Video: Interview: Dan Huiting and five of his favorite music videos he’s made so far

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Behind every fantastic City Of Music video put out by MPLS.TV is a quiet guy with a knack for challenging himself and upping the ante, so to speak, on everything he does. His goal, really, is to avoid getting bored. What this ethos has borne is the current video-making powerhouse of Dan Huiting, a tall and unassuming guy who is often seen at shows hanging around with some of the Twin Cities’ coolest folks—many of them musicians he’s worked with before, or ones who want to work with him in the future. Huiting works hard, and the ...

Eat/Drink: Local Newswire: James Beard Foundation announces nominee short list, includes plenty of Minnesotans

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:35:00 -0600

The James Beard Foundation’s annual gala is basically the Oscars of the food world. (We know this because Padma Lakshmi said so on an episode of Top Chef once.) The James Beard Award is the type that’s so prestigious that it gets to preface its winners’ names for the entire remainders of their careers, which is sort of like how we all still have to say “Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino.” The nominee short list for the 2012 ceremony was announced today and, while the current batch of names will be whittled down once more in March before ...

Music: Music Review: Vague-à-bonde: Involution/Evolution

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Judging by the artwork for Vague-à-bonde’s debut album, Involution/Evolution, the eight-song LP should have a lot more icy, Nordic wobbling and maybe some creepy, Björk-style incantations. But, turns out, it’s just a weird picture. Because the wistful-eyed, hood-clad, anime character on the cover (singer-songwriter/producer Nicole Brenny) is sunnier, bawdier, and more apt to use a glockenspiel than implied by the picture’s frozen lake and distant ice houses. Last seen singing about French soap operas over discobeats for the Mark Mallman-anchored Waxx Maxx, Brenny goes solo here on a project she describes—perhaps ...

City Life: News Net: White Bear Lake is leaking, you guys

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:45:00 -0600

Since sifting through dull newspapers, hyperbolic blogs, and overflowing RSS feeds for meaningful news can be an arduous process, News Net catches and compiles both the amusing and the significant reports that were overlooked over the weekend. Here are some things to think about as the workweek begins. • Holy crap, there are real life Boy Scouts doing things that you only see Boy Scouts do in Boy Scout marketing campaigns. Case in point: A 10-year old North St. Paul boy rescued his friend from a river. Isn’t that just adorable/heroic? Can’t you just picture him in his ...

Eat/Drink: Local Newswire: Awful bar Drink to be replaced by awful Iowa chain bar

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:35:00 -0600

Back in November, word spewed that Drink’s Uptown location had somehow managed to screw up the seemingly endless revenue brought in by girls in Bebe dresses—enough that the bar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy while owing somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million to a handful of different creditors. While that location is still fighting with Cowboy Slim’s for Uptown’s reigning home for regrettable decision-making, the bar’s downtown sister site is now closed despite the fact that it was apparently unaffected by the brand’s financial troubles last year. That’s pretty horrible news if ...

Music: Recap: Dr. Dog at First Avenue

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:20:00 -0600

Dr. Dog stopped by for a sold-out show at First Avenue on Friday night on a tour promoting its newest album, Be The Void. Famous for its rough-around-the-edges sound, Dr. Dog cut its teeth as an opener for My Morning Jacket, so the band knows a thing or two about playing to a live audience. With its sing-along harmonies, hand claps, and stomping beats, Dr. Dog had the whole main room playing along. Fellow Philadelphians Purling Hiss opened the show with a solid hour of ear-blasting no-fi garage rock quelled up from every punk kid’s conception of what rock ...

Sports: Jock Itch: All-Star Wolves

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Everybody from ESPN to Jesse Eisenberg is raving about basketball’s version of Tebowmania, Linsanity. As Shaq puts it on Twitter, “Linderrella story of the year jeremy lin has lingle handedly played lensational lincredible I’m linpressed all he does is Lin Lin Lin gd jib.” With all of this going on, it’s no surprise that the announcement of the 2012 NBA All-Star selections has fallen by the wayside. As exciting as the week has been for the New York Knicks, Minnesota fans have much to delight in, with Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio, and Derrick Williams headed to All-Star ...

Eat/Drink: Local Newswire: Lee's Liquor Lounge is for sale, but only in theory

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:00:00 -0600

For more than 50 years, few places have been as synonymous with unpretentious Minneapolis cool as Lee’s Liquor Lounge. From its wood paneling and northern-themed tchotchkes to its rockabilly dance nights, Lee’s has a reputation for being a hole-in-the-wall treasure from a bygone era. It has become one of downtown’s most enduring institutions, regularly attracting an eclectic crowd that skews just as much toward VFW types as it does toward young urbanites. But the venue may have an unsettling future, as news comes this week that Lee’s longtime owner Louie Sirian is considering selling the bar ...

Music: Interview: Young The Giant’s Sameer Gadhia

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:00:00 -0600

Many music fans think of Young The Giant as an overnight sensation: A few months after its debut album hit stores, the band scored a massive radio hit with “My Body.” That impression couldn’t be further from the truth: While a recent name change—the act originally called itself The Jakes—clouds some of its history, the band’s been in the trenches in one form or another since 2004, when its members were high school students. The A.V. Club chatted with frontman Sameer Gadhia ahead of the band’s show on Monday, Feb. 20 at First Avenue ...

Music: Interview: The Pines

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Guitarists and songwriters Benson Ramsey and David Huckfelt both grew up in the Iowa folk scene, where Ramsey’s father Bo is a major figure. But they came into their own as musicians when they moved to Minneapolis and formed The Pines, recording four albums of understated but richly resonant indie-folk in the vein of Bon Iver, Calexico, and Mason Jennings, who they opened for on his recent national tour. Their latest, Dark So Gold, gets its release show Feb. 17 at the Cedar Cultural Center. Ramsey and Huckfelt talked to The A.V. Club about the beauty and hope ...

Eat/Drink: Local Newswire: Kieran Folliard and Jameson Irish Whiskey are feuding over a Big Ginger

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:00:00 -0600

Nobody ever said the whiskey business was easy but, while we’re sure Kieran Folliard isn’t loving the fact that he has to take the owner of Jameson Irish Whiskey to court over a trademark dispute, at least the two haven’t had to resort to breaking bottles and snapping barstools over each other’s heads. Although, there’s still plenty of time. Apparently not satisfied enough with a ringing endorsement for its products in that weird Rihanna track from last year, Jameson is being accused by Folliard of infringing on “The Big Ginger” name owned by Folliard’s ...

Music: Interview: Leslie of Leslie And The Ly's teaches us how to name sweaters, babies

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:40:00 -0600

Leslie Hall is good at a lot of things. Her band, Leslie And The Ly's, described as “deadpan hip-hop,” is girl pop meets Tim And Eric, with a sound kid-friendly enough to be invited on tour with Yo Gabba Gabba. Beyond that, she paints lovely pictures and actively speaks for the gem sweater cause. Her website features a gallery of the collection of mostly fan-sourced sweaters, which she names with a skill that should not go unnoticed: “Route To My Feelings,” “First Lady Manners,” “Cloud Grabber,” and “Flute Of The Virgin.” To tap into her thought process, we chatted ...

Music: Interview: Dr. Dog's Seth McMicken

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Over the past decade, Dr. Dog has evolved from a lo-fi novelty act into a theater-filling force of indie rock. Scott McMicken is the guitarist and one of the lead singers in the Philadelphia-based group. The A.V. Club sat down with McMicken to discuss different theories regarding the band’s infamous name, to geek out over The Beatles, and to contemplate the rise of neo-psychedelia. Released by Anti- Records Feb. 7, Be The Void is the band’s sixth full-length album. Dr. Dog headlines First Ave. on Feb. 17. The A.V. Club: Is this your biggest headlining tour ...

TV: Local Newswire: Michele Bachmann says no to Dancing With The Stars

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:35:00 -0600

Despite proving she can cut a major rug to the soulful stylings of Train, there will be no sequined ball gowns or flamboyant feather headdresses in Michele Bachmann’s future, as the one-time GOP candidate hopeful shot down rumors earlier today that she’d be participating on the upcoming season of ABC’s Dancing With The Stars. Apparently afraid she wouldn’t live up to the high standards set by the likes of Bristol Palin and Tom DeLay, Bachmann said in a statement that her “time and attention” would remain focused on her duties to Congress, which might be the ...

Music: Interview: Sage Francis

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

He’s a “lovable curmudgeon,” as his website will tell you—but that’s just a nice way of saying Sage Francis is not afraid to piss you off. An important staple of the hip-hop and spoken-word community since he barreled into the game, the Rhode Island-born MC has produced albums and mix-tapes aptly titled after the content of his unique and unflinching rhymes: sickness, death, waste, life, and healthy distrust. In the two years since his Epitaph-released album Li(f)e, Francis has been managing his label, Strange Famous Records; writing blog posts about how Lil’ Kim looks like ...

Theater: Recap: Ballad Of The Pale Fisherman is a low-budget show with a big payoff

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:00:00 -0600

There’s a nice surprise in store for anyone attending Illusion Theater’s Ballad Of A Pale Fisherman: it’s a charming mix of quirk, good humor, and earnestness that doesn't fall overboard into sad-sap category. It feels a lot like a production of Amélie, except set on the Irish Sea. This fish-out-of-water story is about a seal that becomes a woman after getting caught in a fisherman's net. And what do you do with a with a seal that turns into a woman before your eyes? Do you club her to death like you’ve ...

Music: Interview: Sharon Van Etten

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

There’s very little outwardly aggressive about Sharon Van Etten. Her voice expresses both outsized emotionalism and everyday intimacy; hearing her sing is like someone climbing into your head and reading your saddest diary entry. Her songs similarly deal in forlorn sighs and self-made promises to leave behind the past, no matter how tightly it grips. Her first two albums, 2009’s Because I Was In Love and 2010’s Epic, seem like the epitome of art that’s loved by small cults without ever making a greater impression. And yet Van Etten’s unassuming artistry has made a forceful ...