Busy week at Ye Olde Armory this week. Kehlani is my pick of the lot, but I'm Gizzard-curious as well. I'll pass on Trump fans Sexxy Red and Kodak Black though.
Tuesday, September 3
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Geese @ Armory
International Reggae All-Stars @ Bunker's
St. Dominic's Trio @ Driftwood
Karaoke With On Call Entertainment @ Eagles 34
Anti-Sapien, Perpetual Warfare, Maniacal Force @ Eagles 34
Bill Simenson Orchestra @ Jazz Central
Red Planet @ Metronome Brewery
Bluewater Kings @ Minnesota Music Cafe
Grooves with DJ Jen-E @ Mortimer's
Taylor McCall with Luke Callen @ 7th St Entry
Artist Showcase @ Sociable Cider Werks
Industrial Strength with DJ Sin @ Terminal Bar
September Conspiracy Series featuring Triple Fiddle @ 331 Club
The New Havoline Supremes @ White Squirrel
Rachael G with Emily May, Bryn Battani, J-Mo On The Beat @ White Squirrel
Wednesday, September 4
- Kehlani with FLO + Anycia @ Armory—Emerging from Oakland about a decade ago, Kehlani was an early practitioner of the “vibes first” school of R&B that has made stars of SZA and Summer Walker. But her open-ended melodies never stray too far from songcraft, with elements of neosoul traditionalism providing some good strong bones. As with most of her peers, Kehlani’s main topic is sex and love, and she’s learned a little something about that subject over the years, enduring relationships with Kyrie Irving and Y.G. This year she followed up her fourth album, Crash, anchored by the club hit “After Hours,” with the mixtape, While We Wait 2. Kehlani has also been outspoken about the Israeli decimation of Gaza—and about how silent other performers as or more famous than her have been on the topic.
Foley Amundson, ASKSERPANT, and Sunken Wood Infinity @ Can Can Wonderland
Gershwin! With Arne Fogel @ Crooners
Adi Yeshaya Jazz Orchestra feat. Jennifer Grimm @ Dakota
Twin Cities Hot Club @ Eagles 34
Mississippi Hot Club @ Eagles 34
Open Mic with host Neal Dimick @ Ginkgo Coffee
After Hours After Care @ Green Room
Smiling Cowboys Band Open Jam @ Minnesota Music Cafe
Elour & Mortiholics (September Residency) @ Mortimer's
Karaoke Crime Scene @ Palmer's
Poppa John & the Poppetts @ Schooner Tavern
Poolboy (Album Release) with Yellow Ostrich, Harlow and Val Son @ 7th St Entry
Breaker's Paradise @ Terminal Bar
Alain Johannes with The Imaginaries @ Turf Club
Harold’s House Party on KFAI with Brian Blake @ 331 Club
Sir Lucius @ Underground Music Venue
The Second Stringers @ White Squirrel
Hunny Bear with The Ancient Waves & EFMI @ White Squirrel
Weezer with the Flaming Lips @ Xcel Energy Center
Thursday, September 5
Jaybee & the Routine @ Bunker's
The Tannahill Weavers @ Cedar Cultural Center
It Takes Two Baby with Ginger Commodore @ Crooners
A Smorgasbord of Folk Favorites with My Favorite Folk @ Crooners
BREAD - Everything I Own with Wayne Anthony @ Crooners
The Hits of Larry Carlton @ Dakota
LGBTQ+ Twin Cities Latin Dance @ Eagles 34
Karaoke With On-Call Entertainment @ Eagles 34
The Suicide Machines with HEY-SMITH, Kill Lincoln, and BAD OPERATION @ Fine Line
Natalie Fideler & ELOUR @ Hook and Ladder
Leigh Kammen Emerging Masters Night @ Jazz Central
Lowdown Dirty Fools @ Minnesota Music Cafe
Young Relics @ Minnesota Music Cafe
The Customers, Mind out of Time @ Schooner Tavern
Mars Red Sky with Howling Giant @ 7th St Entry
Northeast Invitational @ 331 Club
200 Stab Wounds with Balmora, Upon Stone and Stabbing @ Turf Club
32HEADSHOTS with Fate Defined, Entundra @ Uptown VFW
LUKDLX with Nyasia @ White Squirrel
Friday, September 6
Berhanu/Carpel/Goodroad @ Berlin
- Ear Coffee's 7 Year Party with Bugsy, Kate Malanaphy, Malamiko, and Melenerpes @ Cedar Cultural Center—What is Ear Coffee? That depends when you ask. Over the past seven years, EC has been “a blog, a radio show, a podcast, live sessions, a newsletter, and more,” according to founders Aly Muilenburg and Joe Keyport. But in each incarnation, Ear Coffee has been a resource for the local music curious, introducing DIY artists to a broader audience. As you might expect, the Ear Coffee folks’ well-tuned ears have led them to assemble an excellent (if m-heavy) lineup for their birthday bash, featuring Bugsy, Kate Malanaphy, Malamiko, and Melenerpes—all names that will be familiar to Ear Coffee fans (and to regular readers of Racket’s Playlists).
The Silent Treatment, Sunken Planes, Field Hospitals @ Cloudland
Follow The Firefly: Chamber Pop to Drive Away the Darkness @ Crooners
Ben Sidran Presents "Rainmaker" @ Crooners
Maggie's Afterglow: Arne Fogel and Rick Carlson @ Crooners
About to Run: All in Phish/Tab/Trey @ Day Block Brewing
Funky Mystik, If Eye May @ Eagles 34
Katia & The Upswing @ Eagles 34
The Teardowns, FINICK @ 50th & France
JOSEPH with Becca Mancari @ First Avenue
Carrie Gerendasy @ Ginkgo Coffee
Terrell X, Socktopus, Photoyouth, One Egg Wonder @ Green Room
MN String Gathering @ Hook and Ladder
Benda, Focuss, Sora @ The Loft
Johnnie Brown @ Minnesota Music Cafe
Couch Potato Massacre, Mary Jam, Dingus, Ray Gun Youth, Cheap Bouquet, and Toilet Rats @ Palmer's
Ms. Dorothy & the Sky's the Limit @ Papa Legba
Greazy Groove @ Schooner Tavern
Austin Williams with Monique Smaz @ 7th St Entry
- Outlaw Festival with Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Southern Avenue @ Somerset Amphitheater—Let’s start by making this extremely relatable to, oh, maybe 5% of our readership, including the author: Tonight’s Outlaw Music Festival—featuring Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Southern Avenue—presents a major Sophie’s choice for mega-fans of Dylan and the Green Bay Packers. On one hand, you’ve got the 83-year-old bard of Hibbing, whose current chapter of the Never Ending Tour (perhaps the last?!) is drawing rave reviews. Oh, and the great Willie, whose age of 91 means any show could be his last. On the other hand, you’ve got the Green Bay Packers opening their Super Bowl-gunning 2024 campaign in Brazil against the Philadelphia Eagles, which you’d really like to watch with your family. I’ve made my decision—telling two buddies I’m skipping out on Somerset in favor of the Pack—and I truly don’t know if it’s the right one. Here’s hoping Bob’s tour lives up to its name, but if this is the last localish stop, hard to imagine better conditions for it.—Jay Boller
Chad Erickson & the Untimely @ Studio B
Wish Wash, Zero Place, Modern Wildlife @ 331 Club
90 Proof Blues Collective, Paul Cerar, 1947 @ Terminal Bar
Ian McConnell with The Back Alley @ Turf Club
haute carl presents vinyl + vibes @ Uptown VFW
Juni, Betty & Hibah Hassan @ Utepils Brewing
Praire Clamor with Microbes Mostly, Virginia's Basement @ White Squirrel
Saturday, September 7
Sexxy Red with Kodak Black, Hunxho, Loe Shimmy, and BlakeIANA @ Armory
Trish Hurd-Paczkowski & Graydon Peterson @ Berlin
Strictly R&B: The Summer SZN Patio Finale @ Cabooze
Pullstring, Motherwind, John Forrest and the Model Citizens @ Can Can Wonderland
Ben Sidran Presents "Rainmaker" @ Crooners
Maggie's Afterglow: Arne Fogel with Rick Carlson @ Crooners
Kurt Elling with Joey Calderazzo @ Dakota
Cult Vibes, Big Chomp, Blood Cookie @ Dusty's
The Meshes, whenthedustsettles, Interrupting Sophie @ Eagles 34
- Brigitte Calls Me Baby with League Two @ Fine Line— Wes Leavins's full-voiced yearning is the supposed attraction here. If your soul thrills to the sound of Orbison without the doom or Morrissey without the wit—and I'm bending over as far backwards to be generous as my aged lumbar will allow—then maybe these naive romantics who think style died before they were born (and have the haircuts to prove it) are the arch retro janglers of your sepia-toned reveries. Not that Leavins and his pals are bright enough to conceptualize any of that. Instead you get banalities like "If everything was as it seemed/Memories would feel like dreams" and lies like "I wanna die in your four-car garage," which might actually be forgivable if not for the rhyme "send in the entourage." It's not often that a hyped new band is as annoying as its name, so... congrats on that, I guess,
Muscadine Bloodline with Lance Roark @ First Avenue
Barefoot & Sunshine @ Gambit Brewing
Afrobeats to the World @ Green Room
A Giant Dog, Bermuda Squares, Michael Gay and His Dang Band, TV for Dogs @ Grumpy's
Grrrl Scout: 90s Party @ Hook and Ladder
10th Annual Singer/Songwriter Summer Showcase @ Metronome Brewing
The Original Westside Band @ Minnesota Music Cafe
DJ Alexis Rose @ Modist Brewing
Chairman Chair & The Chairmen + Cat Tales + Bryn Battani @ Mortimer's
Say It Ain't Faux @ Padraigs Brewing
13 Howell, the Heavy Sixers @ Schooner Tavern
LowDown Brass Band with Beneath Green and Autopilot @ 7th St Entry
Switching Fields, Prey For Reign @ Terminal Bar
Jared McCloud (Album Release) @ 331 Club
Goatwhore with Vitriol and Necrofier @ Turf Club
Nurses Night Out @ Underground Music Cafe
Music Heals Us 2: Mary Bue, Venus DeMars, Larry Wish @ Uptown VFW
Venus DeMars & ATPH Present Der Blaue Engel feat. ATPH, Ice Climber + DJ Sci-Fi @ Uptown VFW
Paperchain with Splash @ White Squirrel
Hellseher with Son/Boy, Witch Tree @ White Squirrel
Ultimate Fakebook, Rad Owl, & Linus @ Zhora Darling
Sunday, September 8
Linus, Modern Day Wasteland, & Underground ‘Til Sundown @ Amsterdam
Swing Brunch with Patty & the Buttons @ Aster Cafe
- Andrew Broder & PEOPLE (feat. Nona Invie & DJ Amy Pickett) @ Berlin—Does anyone in the Twin Cities music community have better taste than Andrew Broder? Sure, his projects are often great, but he's just as vital as a catalyst, bringing together unexpected collaborators, and this monthlong Berlin residency will showcase that gift. Most unexpected collaborator of all? Sports/music writer Britt Robson, who will talk hoops with Broder and then make his debut as a DJ on September 22.
Windfall & Marimba Matt @ Can Can Wonderland
Duff Thompson, Steph Green, Lake Davi @ Cloudland
Rondo '56: Remembering St. Paul's Black Main Street @ Crooners
Katia Cardenas & The Ladyrock Band @ Crooners
Willie Wisely & Tommy Barbarella Organ Combo @ Dakota
Phine Friends, Shotgun Ragtime @ Driftwood
Twin Cities Ramblers @ Eagles 34
Karaoke with Reina Starr @ Eagles 34
Twin Cities Country Dancers @ Eagles 34
The Lox with Tony Moxberg @ First Avenue
Murphy Smith, Lasalle @ Green Room
Alex Meffert Quartet @ Metronome
Jen BB & Friends Sing George Michael @ Metronome
The R Factor: Remembering Erick Ballard @ Minnesota Music Cafe
MC Homeless with DJ Halo + Coolzey + Moodie Black + Drug League + Butter Boys @ Mortimer's
Church of Cornbread @ Palmer's
West Bank Social Club @ Palmer's
Dylan Hicks & Small Screens (Album Release) @ Parkway
Morgan St. Jean with Ella Red @ 7th St Entry
Emmy Woods & the Pine City Ramblers @ 331 Club
Microbes Mostly @ Underground Music Venue
ECHOBASS MPLS @ White Squirrel
Monday, September 9
Shady Baby's Open Mic @ Acadia
Naturally 7 @ The Movies @ Dakota
Tango Desperados Practilonga @ Eagles 34
Twin Cities Queer Contra Dancing @ Eagles 34
- Shaboozey @ First Avenue—With a profile boost from Beyonce after he appeared on two Cowboy Carter tracks, this longtime Virginia country journeyman scored a No. 1 hit with "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" this year, and his full-length, Where I've Been, Isn't Where I'm Going, is pretty solid. But what's fascinating to me about Shaboozey (other than the fact that his stage name is adapted from his Nigerian surname, Chibueze) is that so many of his fans on YouTube are 1) over 60 and 2) want you to know that. "I am 80 and this song sets my cells and brains on fire," says @janestewart3902. Even better is this anecdote from @user-ng7gg9ti7g: "I'm a 77 year old Great gram, had surgery 6/4, this song was played when team was setting up, my fave song! Wish they'd played it again as it was ending when I arrived at OR ❤️." So don't be surprised if you see some senios at the club gettin' tipsy Monday night.
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings @ Fitzgerald Theater
September Mondays with Eli Awada @ Icehouse
MN Hard Bop Collective @ Metronome
Auto-Tune Karaoke @ Mortimer’s
Brothertiger with Plastik Boxes @ 7th St Entry
Lori Dokken, Emily Rubbelke, & Tristana Ward @ Woman's Club of Minneapolis
