Music Calendars

I was just saying to my cube mate that tonight would be an awesome night to hit the town with a sober driver and a couple hundred bucks because there are so many shows tonight that you could keep yourself busy from happy hour right through to the wee hours. Some of the places I'd like to stop tonight include Lee's for X Ray Hip, the Triple Rock for the Belles of Skin City, The 331 for the Art-a-Whirl-y-ness all up and down 13th Street, Mario's for a boot (since I'd be in the neighborhood), Mango Jam at the Cabooze just to relive my college days for a minute, The Vibrochamps at the Uptown, and then maybe the Turf Club since it's on my way home!! Anyone want to join me? I'd say I'd be lucky if I manged to make it to half of those places. I continually feel fortunate to live a in city that affords me so many live music opportunities. I find that the nightclub calendar that the Citypages provides on thier website is usually pretty comprehensive, but you do have to know what you're looking for... I often take recommendations from The Current, Radio K, KFAI and KVSC as well as friends, of course. This guy I know, Scott, used to keep an extensive list of Twin Cities live music http://www.tcshowslist.com/ but it's been down for awhile. And I sure so miss it.

Yeah, i really miss the TCshows list too. It was a good one-stop glance at the twin cities and beyond for concerts.

I'll be at the Turf Club for The Danforths and Vaz tonight. It will be awesome.

Interesting, I hadn't thought about this.

"When you're looking for live music, where do you go?"
I generally ask the people in the immediate vicinity of my desk, as they're cooler than I am. Oddly enough, I find that ticketing company spam is highly effective for me. If a boxoffice has my email address and lets me know someone I've already seen is coming to town or booked new shows, I can't resist checking it out. I know! I'm the girl who makes the spam work! I'm sorry, okay?!

"And, are you planning on going to any shows this weekend?"
Nope :( I missed out.

Sorta on topic, sorta not: I'd love to see a recommendations calendar, not just random listings.

Seems like it would be easy enough with all this social networking stuff; you put in your musical favorites, if there were some dedicated programmers out there, maybe they could match upcoming dates with your own personalized music tastes. File that under "to do when i have more time" ;)

I really miss the tcshowslist, too. That was a great one-stop-shop for keeping up. Now I have a regular rotation of online/on air calendars I investigate. Venue sites: First Ave, Triple Rock, Turf Club, Big Vs and Hexagon Bar. I also watch for posts and events on my MySpace account -- most of the local bands I'm fans of I've asked to be my MySpace friends, so I keep up that way. I glance at Radio K's homepage calendar just for kicks, but there are frequent errors on it. I also listen closely to local Friday afternoon radio shows -- Mary Lucia on The Current and Radio K's Off the Record. That usually keeps me up to speed. Also, I check out the A-List in City Pages on Wednesdays and Chris Riemenschneider's Star Tribune column on Fridays. The hunt continues...

Reading your post Brett, I heard "The Six-Million Dollar Man" intro in my head:

We have the technology.

But you're right about that pesky time thing. Does anyone know if time constraints affected tcshowlistScott?

I'm sure time was a constraint; how could it not be? But for right now, I think he's looking for some help with Database structures; if anyone knows MS Access, i'm sure he'd welcome the help. http://tcshowslist.com/byvenue.html

Hey Brett,
How was the Vaz/Danforths show? What is the story with Vaz now? Where are they living? There was about a three month period back in '97 where I went to almost every show Vaz played in these parts. I liked them okay, but the dude I was dating liked them more. No, I should say he liked to "make the scene" at Vaz shows -- and there was plenty of scene then because the Vaz/Hammerhead thing was still a big deal in these parts.
So speaking of "the scene," what was it like at the Turf last Friday? Did any young kids come out or was it an AmRep nostalgia trip?
And who are the Danforths? I love the Blind Shake.

The Vaz show was pretty huge--you could totally tell there were a bunch of people from the amrep days reliving past glories. And well they should; Vaz sounded awesome. I'm pretty sure they're in NYC now.

The Danforths originally came from Fargo/Moorhead too--but are now in the Twin Cities. Their new album "Lookout for the Wolves" is tight--happens to be my new listening obsession, actually.

Soooo, when are you going to share this mind-blowing piece of music with your colleague? Hmm?

Why, i thought you'd never ask. "I Saw Nathan Dancing" by The Danforths (real audio), from the Local Show with Chris Roberts on April 9, 2006.

I checked out the Danforths. My first thought: Here's music made by intellectual friends who party late into the night, start making strange and pleasing noises until someone hits the record button on their four track. And once in awhile, they get together in the afternoon, sober, and create a couple of straightforward rock songs. It's an acquired taste, in my opinion, and you need to really focus in order to get it. But I did like it, although I can't imagine what they did for their live performance. Was it boring or cool? So what happened? What did the folks at the Turf Club waiting to see Vaz -- high energy and volume -- do during the Danforths' set, especially during the "ambient" moments? Did they revolt or were they entertained?

I can see it being an acquired taste for sure. I can't really speak to their songwriting methods though. Their live set is mostly guitar-driven rock, but they have a sequencer or synthesizer or something and they play some of the more abstract bits on that.

As far as i could tell, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves... no revolts in sight.

This is something to check out for getting timely info on favorite bands . . . you can also see listings by venue. Might be helpful. http://twincities.tourfilter.com/

Hey Tommy-- Thanks for that. I really lke Tourfilter from what i've seen.