Minnesota’s weighing heavy--sort of--at the Gothamist this week. Among this week’s picks is the TC’s own Andrew Bird--who made one of the best albums of the year, according to the NYC site, and is playing the Bowery Ballroom with Keren Ann Wednesday night. And Mali’s Tinariwen--playing a Walker-sponsored show at the Cedar in April--is touted as being “a real salmagundi of influences: the music of Bob Marley and Bob Dylan, Led Zepplin and John Lennon, the sounds of Morocco and London and America reverberate in their songs.” Of the Toureg band, which formed in the refugee camps of northeast Mali, Tofuhut writes:
Beyonce and Lil’ Wayne talk about being soldiers, but Tinariwen have lived it; many of the members of the group fought in Touareg rebellions. The legend has it that one of the performers survived multiple bullet wounds in a firefight during which he carried a guitar on his back. Tinariwen are, perhaps understandably, treated as royalty in their home country; they are liberators of a sound that might not otherwise ever have been heard.
Hear their 2004 WOMAD gig here, and two more tracks here.
So last week we held our annual press conference to announce the 2005-06 season. As always, it was a mad dash to the finish line, trying to confirm everything in time, but we made it by the skin of our teeth (will it ever change? methinks not.)
This year in particular was difficult, what with the opening of the expansion in April and a media schedule that seems to demand a shorter timeline each year. In particular, the music line-up was complicated, because many of the bands we were interested in come from (for lack of a better term at this moment, give me a day and I’ll come up with something pithily annoying. or not) the “semi-popular” music world, aka rock booking. It’s a little different than the standard performing arts booking (that is to say dance, theater, and performance works) because the tours tend to be longer and put together on much shorter notice. Most times we have a full season in place up to a year in advance, but in the world of “semi-pop“, a lot of bands don’t have a clue what they’ll be doing three months out, let alone a year. But the headaches, cajoling, and (dare I say it) haranguing - are worth it, because there’s a quite nice range of artists that are doing interesting work, many of whom have never played in the area. Worth the price of admission.
And what is that price, you may ask? I answer: $15 ($12 Walker members). I know, I know, it’s not exactly two bucks in a passed hat, but put in context, it’s not TOTALLY unreasonable. Maybe it sounds disingenous coming from the disembodied keypad of the beast that is Walker, but we thought long and hard (screamed and kicked stuff too) about how to make this accessible for a wide audience without completely bottoming out. I won’t go into the economics of it all, but suffice it to say, no one’s in this for the dough, that’s for sure.
I should also say that this is all rather new to me (other than as a reader of blogs), so forgive me if the tone seems stilted or the info irrelevant; hoping to find my legs with all this soon. To add to my previous post about the purpose of the blog, we hope to hear from readers/visitors to Walker about the performances they saw (both here and about town, around the world!?), what people thought, artists they’re following and bands they’re listening to. I’ll do the same.
For instance, Juana Molina is coming to play the McGuire on October 22 with Sam Prekop and Archer Prewitt opening. Discuss amongst yourselves.
Okay, so I got it a little backwards, post first and hello second. I’m Diana, I work here at the Walker in Performing Arts, and I’ll be your weblogger for a bit, until the powers that be see fit to remove. I’m hoping to post fairly regularly, about the department, about Walker, about the field, and, in particular, about music, which is primary in what I do here, but also in my civillian life. The aim (in my mind) of this blog is to desmystify a bit the process we engage in in presenting work to the Twin Cities, and to discuss transparently the wide range of considerations that contribute to not only the work of this department, but what makes live art so visceral, so engaging, and so critical to the culture of our times. Whoa.
Tonight I’m going to check out a show at Big V’s which comes highly recommended from a trusted source. Who is this mysterious Devillock? We shall see. Plus a dude from Double Leopards is gonna get up in it, so all in all it’ll probably be a good night for some tunes. Noise, what have you.
