The Annotated Beukemix 2011

Here are liner notes for this year's mix! As usual, the links are to mostly-representative versions of each song, which may not be the exact version in the mix. Be forewarned.

(HS = Horn section. TC = Twin Cities-based band or artist. HC = Hand claps.)

1. Infinity Guitars - Sleigh Bells
Shortly before the end of the year, Huge Theater's doors opened. On the original schedule was a weekly Fingergun show. Nels selected this song to be our run-up music. A college classmate of mine posted something online a while back, praising(?) Sleigh Bells for their dedication to the loudest, dumbest guitar riffs. That's true, but it's also effective: listen to this while you're trying to walk somewhere. You will get there 10% faster. (HC)

2. Omega Dog - The Dears
Upon hearing the chord at 2:38 (3:46 in the video), the Pink Floyd centers of my brain lit up like a Christmas tree in a way they haven't since hearing the coda of My Morning Jacket's "Off the Record." This song made me greatly anticipate the release of Degeneration Street in February. Too bad the rest of the album is nowhere near this good.

3. Love Debt - The Robinson Caruso Organization
(note: link is to a one-man demo version of the song on MySpace)
Yeah, so what? It's rare, the opportunity to put a song by the band you're in on a mix when you're a full-time engineer and have a kid. Anyway, this is a great piece of songwriting from Mr. Caruso / James Rone, and as the penultimate selection of most of our set lists, it's only gotten more anthemic over the few years we've been playing it. You should see us play it live. Also, buy our EP. And request us on the Current, often. I almost put this on last year's Beukemix, but the CD didn't quite make it out until after the first of the year.  (HS, TC)

4. Federal Funding - Cake
Cake's latest album hit #1 on the Billboard album chart this winter, and had the distinction of being the lowest-selling number-one album since SoundScan started tracking in 1991. Like the Sleigh Bells cut, this song makes me want to get shit done. If I still had the time to go to the gym, this would be in heavy rotation. (HS)

5. Burn It Down - Sims
Heard this on the Current on the way to work one morning, and made this face. For you non-Twin-Citians, Sims is part of Doomtree, local hip-hop collective. (HS, TC)

6. You Make Me Smile - Aloe Blacc
Memo to James Rone: we should play this. I want to play these horn parts. (Aloe Blacc also made the mix late last year for "Femme Fatale.") (HS)

7. Booty City - Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears
Melissa and I went to Austin, TX to visit her Aunt in January 2008, and saw Black Joe Lewis open for Big Sam's Funky Nation at the Continental Club. I really enjoyed their set, but I don't think they played this song, because I would have remembered it. (HS)

8. Make Some Noise - Beastie Boys
Nothing on the new Beastie record stands out the way "Ch-Check It Out" did on To the Five Burroughs in 2004, but it seems less uneven overall. The video is stupid, stupid fun, as is the full-half-hour version "Fight for Your Right Revisited," though that may be primarily as a spot-the-comic-actor-cameo exercise. By the way: in what universe is Danny McBride the young version of MCA?

9. Dixon's Girl - Dessa
Dessa makes two members of Doomtree on the mix this year. I've seen her perform live twice, though never as a musical act: I saw her win a poetry slam at Kieran's Irish Pub in 2003, and she did a spoken word appearance with Huge Theater back when they were still the Oldest Established Permanent Floating Improv Theater in Minneapolis (Incidentally, it turns out she and I overlapped at SWHS). Anyway, her 2010 album had this on it, and it's good, not least because it's the only hip-hop joint I know with a beat built around a bassoon. The video can best be described as something like The Shining taking a ride in the car from "Karma Police."(TC)

10. The Beautiful Ones - Prince and the Revolution
I've been listening to Purple Rain for years, but I didn't really notice how amazing the climax of this song is until finally watching the movie this Summer. You've got to get through some goofiness to get there, though. The talking part verges on self-parody, and seems like it belongs in a Flight of the Conchords number. But you get to the coda, and it seems like Prince is going to slip in his own guts that he just spilt on the stage. Gross. Awesome. (TC)

11. Queen of Tomorrow - The Twilight Hours
Matt Wilson and (the recently-discussed-on-this-blog) John Munson, both previously of Trip Shakespeare, reunite on an upbeat song about being the loser boyfriend that the successful rock chick left behind in Minneapolis. This almost made the list at the end of last year when it was on heavy rotation on The Current, but I got more into it when I paid more attention to the lyrics this summer. This has to be an exhausting one to sing live. (TC)


12. Big Sky - The Hotrats
One of many reasons I was excited for Dan Hetzel's return to town was that in the past, he'd steered me in the direction of some awesome music. He did not disappoint. Hotrats is a side project by two members of the now-defunct Supergrass, focused on covers. Their album is full of great stuff, exemplified by this cover of The Kinks.

13. Golden Years - David Bowie
Another year, another Bowie cut. I definitely prefer early-70s Bowie to his Thin White Duke period, but Golden Years is a nice disco cut featuring some Bowie vocal acrobatics. Incidentally, in this Soul Train appearance, Bowie looks a bit like Eric Stoltz on Caprica. (HC)

14. Seven Days of the Week (I Never Go to Work) - They Might Be Giants
Now that there's a kidlet about, I felt it was time to finally look into the They Might Be Giants children's albums, and my brother was kind enough to hook me up for my birthday. This song is a standout from the Here Come the 123s! album, one that WILL be stuck in your head when you awaken in the night tonight, and for some days to come. Seriously, Melissa and I walked around singing this for the latter half of the summer. (HS)

15. Ballata Per Un Pistolero - Franco Micalizzi & Roberto Pregadio
I got the chance to work with Ferrari McSpeedy on their Fringe Festival show again this year, and it was "Once Upon a Time in the Suburbs," a timeless and mendacious story told by a grandfather to his grandson about the founding of an all-woman suburb in late-19th-Century Illinois. We used this bit of real spaghetti western score (gleaned from the Red Dead Revovler soundtrack) at the very end of the show. I really like the first half, but the second half becomes suddenly more earnest and optimistic for some reason. (HS)

16. Red Hot - Jurassic 5
Melissa and had a date night one evening in July when my parents took on Max for a few hours, and we spent part of our time having an impromptu dance party in the living room, scored by an old mix CD from our friend Jeanne. This song stood out. Sadly, a couple weeks later, Jeanne passed away in her sleep, apparently due to complications of her childhood-onset diabetes. She is deeply missed, but damn, she had good taste in party music.

17. Pavanne - Morton Gould
(note: video is a different performance from version on mix)
We played this back in Southwest High School wind ensemble my senior year. I loved the trumpet part, and to this day I play it almost every time I warm up on the horn. I've had a recording by Frederick Fennell and the Eastman Wind Ensemble for years, but really prefer this orchestral arrangement played on my mix by the Albany Symphony under David Alan Miller. It takes the piece slower (a minute longer than Fennell/Eastman!), which makes the whole thing seem more bittersweet, in keeping with the melancholy tone of the piece's B section. (HS)

18. Strange Apparition - Beck
I finally got another copy of Beck's The Information after having lost it several years back when I left my iPod on a plane. "Strange Apparition" sounds like a long-lost Rolling Stones cut, circa Exile on Main Street, if it had been re-engineered by Nigel Godrich 35 years later. The opening line and the piano in particular had me looking up the album notes to make sure it wasn't a Stones cover.

19. For 12 - Other Lives
This was a recent musical selection on the Filmspotting podcast (as were two Robinson Caruso songs, actually), to which you all should be listening. Host Adam Kempenaar explained that former co-host/current producer Sam Van Hallgren had submitted this song with the note that if Adam didn't like it, he would be 'dead to him". Sam is right: the song is really pretty.

20. Three More Days - Ray LaMontagne
My coworker Brian, who has been to a few Robinson Caruso Organization shows, recommended this and another Ray LaMontagne song to me as ones that reminded him of our style. I know LaMontagne is primarily known as a folk singer-songwriter type, but the stuff of his that I've really liked, like this song, is heavily influenced by 60s R&B. This one has a great horn part that sounds like a lot of fun to play. (HS)

21. Astronaut - Blitzen Trapper
This came on the radio one day recently while I was feeding Max lunch. So we danced.

22. Snow Days - The New Standards
John Munson strikes again, this time as part of jazz trio The New Standards, covering a Trip Shakespeare song (once again, please reference the previous post). Trip Shakespeare and Twilight Hours frontman Matt Wilson cameos to reprise the talking part. About a year ago, when Minneapolis was socked by Snowmageddon, Melissa's Aunt Tricia was visiting, and as we all looked at the feet of snow out the window that Saturday, we ate our pancakes, happy in the knowledge that we didn't have to go anywhere that day. The Current chose that moment to play the original recording of this song, and it was perfect. Sometime in the last year I watched this live version from last year's New Standards Holiday Show, and loved the addition of horns.  (HS, TC)

FINAL SCORES
Horn Sections: 10
Hand Claps: 2
Twin Cities Bands/Artists: 6

Infographic: John Munson, Center of the Universe

Figure 1. John Munson's Twitter Photo

Alright, it's been a while. Baby = busy. Facebook = easy place to put short posts and links to funny, interesting, or political stuff. Sorry. I do have some posts in mind for here, but in the meantime, it's time to get back to the intersection of culture and nerdery, where this thing started.

Pictured, right, is Twin Cities-based bassist John Munson. If you were listening to current pop music in 1998, you know his work because Semisonic's "Closing Time" reached #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in that year, and #1 on their Modern Rock Tracks chart. Or you might know him because you're from the Twin Cities and have listened to Rev 105 or The Zone or The Current. On one of these stations you might have heard music by Trip Shakespeare or The New Standards or Twilight Hours. Munson is in or has been in all. He is also the music director for John Moe's show "Wits" on MPR. He is a busy man who has made some awesome music.

I sat down to create a diagram for keeping track of the bands Munson has been in, and the personnel of each (according to Wikipedia). Here it is:

Figure 2. Not a Venn Diagram.

(Nota bene, nerds: this is not a Venn Diagram. A Venn diagram has to show intersections of each and every set in every combination. So there would have to be someone who had been in The Twilight Hours and Semisonic, but no other bands, and The New Standards and Trip Shakespeare and no others, etc. The inclusion of The Flops and The Suburbs as sets also fouls the Venn-ness of this diagram.)

I wish I'd had this chart in 2001, as it would have helped me keep the Wilson brothers straight. I was at Broder's Deli with some high school friends for lunch one day that summer, and we were seated next to a guy who looked a lot like the lead singer of Semisonic. He was chatting with a friend about upcoming projects, including spending some time in Iceland working with Björk's producer. Being familiar only somewhat with the lineups of Trip Shakespeare and Semisonic, I was pretty sure Matt Wilson was the front man of the latter. When he got up, I asked: "Are you Matt Wilson?" "No, I'm his brother, Dan." "Oh, ok. Nice to meet you." When I got home, I realized my error, and took this as a sign to finally pick up a copy of their new album.

Incidentally, if anyone wants to get me two tickets to The New Standards' holiday show at the Fitzgerald some year and provide a babysitter, that person would be my new hero.

Another "why I've been busy" post, this time with an especially good reason

Meet Max:

Ladies...

Maxwell David Beukema was born December 28, 2010, 11:56AM, 7lbs even, 20" long. He's awesome and adorable and we love him dearly. Now almost 2 months old, he's been visiting tiny chunks of the outside world and starting to try to get things into his mouth with his hands and eating lots and passing the 10-lb mark and staring at one of the cats and and learning to smile at his parents and getting his first cold which is tragic and heartbreaking and sleeping face down on his parents but otherwise on his back because that's how you keep babies alive.

Max LOVES the animals that hang over his changing table. So, so much.

Max has a pretty pony rattle that velcros around his wrist. I bet you don't have a pretty pony rattle that velcros around your wrist.

Remember to take a break if your arms go numb!

MPR's Bob Collins had a link that caught my eye on his News Cut Blog today:

4) THE FUN OF SNOW DAYS
A Rochester Post Bulletin columnist makes a great point today. Kids don't have the fun of snow days we used to have when technology was in its relative infancy.

While the snow fell outside, we would go to bed with our radios within arm's reach. In the morning, as soon as our groggy little eyes opened, we would snatch the radio and lay huddled in our beds waiting for our school to be announced. The moment we heard the name of our town, we would fly out of bed and get dressed faster than we ever would on a regular school day. At that point, we would race back to the radio to listen for the next round of announcements. We just had to hear it a second time before we could celebrate with certainty.

It's also what introduced generations of kids to the value of radio.

I had the same experience in upper elementary school through high school (late '80s through the mid '90s), waking up excitedly to find out from Steve Cochran whether I get to stay home to eat my Halloween candy and watch TV. I have fond memories of epic sledding expeditions with friends in the neighborhood (I think it was on a snow day that my brother found $42 in cash in an alley we were trudging through), often followed by sessions in front of the Nintendo in soggy snow pants.

I wonder how many kids just don't listen any more, even those who, unlike the Rochester writer's example, don't have access to the internet. Melissa is a Minneapolis high school teacher, and her school told the faculty that last Monday a couple dozen kids showed up for class. That's a couple dozen who were not in proximity to an operating locally-tuned radio that morning. In my day [holy crap what am I becoming?], the radio in general, and KDWB in particular, seemed inescapable in the schoolyard culture.

This is the kind of thing about which I'd love to do a study: ask the students who knew about the snow day how they found out about it. It should be a longitudinal study, collecting data at the same handful of schools every time there's a snow day over a matter of decades (starting three decades ago). When I become independently wealthy, this is the sort of thing I'll do with my time, as well as funding a serious linguistic study investigating the origins of "Duck Duck Gray Duck" and its unique isolation in this state.*

* Please note: comments that claim or imply the "correctness" or "superiority" of childrens' games with the word goose in their names will not be approved. This dictatorship is benevolent, but I have my limits. Please note that I previously approved a spam comment because it was in Japanese Kanji script, and I thought that was cool. So that's how much I value your opinion on Duck Duck Gray Duck: less than Japanese spam. Sensitive much? Yes.

So... dentists aren't people?

On the occasions that I walk through the St. Paul skyway to my car at the end of the work day, I pass by this dentist's office. The slogan (motto?) on the window always cracks me up when I read it or think of it. The ellipses here are the apex of comedic suggestion. Don't let your dentist get... too comfortable. Apologies for the blurriness:

The Annotated Beukemix 2010

This year's Beukemix progressed a little strangely: I had an unusual number of candidate tracks before 2009 was even out. By the 5th of January, I already had seven tracks on the list -- one third of a typical mix. Not all of those songs made it on here, but the first quarter of the year is quite well-represented.

Here are liner notes! As usual, the links are to mostly-representative versions of each song, which may not be the exact version in the mix. Be forewarned.

(HS = Horn section. There weren't enough hand claps to justify a count this year, sadly.)

1. Home – Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
I know, I know. It's played out. But it's such a good song. I intended to put this one at the end of the 2009 Beukemix, having first heard it on The Current on a morning commute, but I forgot it at compilation time last year. I will say this: I cannot handle watching video of the group performing this song. Too earnest. (HS)

2. Prisencolinensinainciusol – Adriano Celentano
Saw the hypnotic, almost disturbing video for this song late in December, was hooked. At the time, it was bouncing around the internet as "this is what American English sounds like to Italians." Seems that might not be true. Apparently, Celentano, a comedian, wrote the song in the 60s about the difficulty of modern communication. It's gibberish, but may not be intended as gibberenglish. The older, black & white video suggests a hellish Logans-Run-esque dystopia in which you must dance ... to live! (HS)

3. Take It In – Hot Chip
Speaking of vague menace, here comes this song. Heard it first on The Current.

4. Love and Happiness – Al Green
The Robinson Caruso Organization got this song ready for our January shows, and I fell in love with it. The post-chorus has my favorite horn part of any of the songs we play. Amazingly, the evening I set out to learn this song, I had NPR on, and they were replaying Fresh Air interviews with Al Green and producer Willie Mitchell on the occasion of the latter's death, and they played it. As I was putting the chart on the music stand. (HS)

5. You Keep Me Hanging On – Diana Ross and the Supremes
In January I caught up with Pitchfork's Top 200 songs of the 1960s, which is a great list. This was one of several Supremes cuts on the list, and it inspired me and Melissa to an impromptu dance party in our garage upon our return from a Super Bowl party. Holland, Dozier & Holland do good work. Instrumentally, it's terrific, especially the opening guitar chatter,  which reminds me of a less disco-y 3-2-1 Contact. I also love that Ross' vocals are double-tracked, and the two takes they used are slightly different, and don't always line up (perhaps in suggestion of the used woman's mental anguish). (HS)

6. This Will Be Our Year (Mono version) – The Zombies
Also on the Pitchfork list. I was previously unfamiliar with it, but I thought it was a sweet and beautiful and hopeful message. And the song was right. It was our year. [Note: upon final compilation, I discovered that there were supposed to be horns in this song. During the 1997 stereo mixing of the album (Odyssey & Oracle)—the recording I had—they did not include the horn parts. WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT? So I found the mono version. Enjoy.] (HS)

7. Sixteen – The Heavy
Heard this first on the Current, and wondered why Screamin' Jay Hawkins was getting so much rotation. (HS -- sax choirs count)

8. Perfect Day – Lou Reed
Produced by Bowie! I heard a lot of this in February because of this commercial featuring US snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler that aired repeatedly during the Winter Olympics. It's the prettiest song that's maybe about heroin that you'll ever hear. (HS -- it's subtle)

9. Tightrope – Janelle Monae
2010's Number One Summer Jam first came to me by way of my college friend Robin. Accept no versions of the song that do not include the Classy Brass, the Funkiest Horn Section in Metropolis. As my brother notes, this is the first time his and my year-end mixes have overlapped. (HS)

10. Birdhouse in Your Soul – They Might Be Giants ft. Doc Severinsen and the Tonight Show Band
A clip of this was in the TMBG documentary "Gigantic (a Tale of Two Johns)." For years I've wanted a recording. Thanks to the rippability of Youtube videos, now I have one! I can only imagine how incredibly mind-blowing this must have been to fans of the band in 1990. I carefully edited Jay Leno out of the copy on this mix. You're welcome. (HS)

11. Oh My God – Ida Maria
I love how, at the song's climax, the singer barely has control of her voice, and then finally lets go in a primal yell. Somebody in the liberal political blogosphere (ah, it was Matthew Yglesias) linked to this song in 2009, and I liked it. I next heard it this year upon the announcement of the track list for Rock Band 3. It took some effort to get a version without Iggy Pop clumsily shoehorned into it.

12. Strangers – The Kinks
On the 2007 Beukemix, I included the Kinks song from the Darjeeling Limited soundtrack that had most grabbed my attention, "Powerman." My attention has a short span, I guess, because "Strangers" really is the best of them. I was too blinkered to notice this error until Wye Oak covered the song for The AV Club's "Undercover" project this summer. This song is beautiful, especially the tom-tom heartbeat that is finally left, naked and alone, at the end.

13. Superfast Jellyfish – Gorillaz
Originally I was going to put "Stylo" on the mix, but I was a bit underwhelmed by it.*  I got a copy of Plastic Beach, and was hopeful for something that would grab me like "Clint Eastwood," "Rock the House," or "Feel Good, Inc." Melissa and I were driving from Pismo Beach to Monterey, listening to the album, and when this one came on, I decided we had a winner. Still, every time De La Soul do a Gorillaz track, I miss Del. [*That said, do check out the wonderful and ridiculous video for Stylo.]

14. Never My Love – The Association
The Association are underrated; I offer the bass line of this sweet, gorgeous song as proof.

15. Bang Bang Bang – Mark Ronson & The Business Int'l ft. Q-Tip & MNDR
Every year there's at least one song that drops my jaw moments into the first time I hear it. This year, this is that song. The synthesizers remind me in a weird way of Alvin & The Chipmunks in the 80s. Q-Tip does a typically great job of making other people's songs awesome.

16. Georgia – Cee Lo Green
"Fuck You" is a great song, but it the internet's overenthusiasm made short work of its shelf life. Hilarious Grammy nomination aside, it's kind of a gimmick. I heard this one about the same time, and preferred it greatly. Soaring horns, a message of hometown gratitude, and Cee Lo singing his guts out.  (HS)

17. Femme Fatale – Aloe Blacc
Robinson Caruso frontman James Rone linked to this one on Facebook a few months back. I was sold. (HS)

18. You're a Cad – The Bird & The Bee
Heard this in a California Pizza Kitchen where Melissa and I were having lunch and planning our baby shower after seeing The Social Network. Jotted down enough of the lyrics to google, and discovered that The Bird & The Bee would be making their return to the Beukemix.

19. Musica di Uscita (Per un Film) – Spaghetti Western String Company
This summer, Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls put together an EP of her ukulele covers of Radiohead. Exit Music (For a Film) jumped out at me, and I went back to the original, which I'd always liked, but now found emotionally devastating upon review. I planned to put that version on here. Then, the SWSC covered this at their final concert, bringing this already operatic song into opera's home language. I was going to put a rip of that live performance on here, but the band graciously put it on their farewall album (Farewell Verse), so here's a Minnesotan alt-bluegrass band covering Radiohead in Italian.

20. Palaces of Montezuma – Grinderman
I find this song very sweet, and enjoy the weird collection of literary and cultural allusions.

21. Whole Lotta Love – Tina Turner
The Current did a Thanksgiving Time Machine Weekend, and mistakenly lumped this cover in with 1969, the year of Zeppelin's original (a longtime favorite of mine). It's actually from 1975, but I forgive The Current, because they informed me of the existence of a cover of Whole Lotta Love by Tina Turner.

FINAL SCORES
Horn Sections: 11 - a majority. Motion carries.
Accordions: 2
Clarinet: 1
Ukulele: 1

References to JFK's spinal cord: 1
Songs in Italian: 1
Songs in Italian gibberish: 1
Covers: 2
Songs whose choruses accuse you of keeping me hanging on: 2

Kind of a Huge deal

Minneapolis now has its first dedicated long-form improvisation theater. Today will be a day long remembered. Huge Theater was founded in 2005 by five of the Twin Cities' most prolific improvisers as "an artist-led company dedicated to supporting the Twin Cities improv community through performance and education." Since then, they've produced dozens of shows including their own showcase "Huge Wednesdays," annual improvised monster movie "Creature Feature," "Overheard in Minneapolis," based on the website of the same name, and the Twin Cities Improv Festival. Coupled with all of this excellent output was a desire to create a home base for the artform in the city.

For about the past decade, as the improv community here has grown, there have been theatrical institutions that feature improvisation: Stevie Ray's and ComedySportz largely showcase short-form improv games, like you'd find on Who's Line Is It Anyway?, and the Brave New Workshop features improvised scenes and stories, typically as a chaser to their scripted satirical sketch comedy. If you were producing an improv show, you rented space, either from one of these theaters, or the Bryant-Lake Bowl, Intermedia Arts, The Varsity Theater, or something more exotic like a café with a performance space like the Acadia, or some weird café-gift-shop-theater hybrid like the Old Arizona. Huge and the members thereof produced shows at all of these locations in the past. Now, they have a place to call their own: 3037 Lyndale Avenue South (above), in the space formerly occupied by the Lava Lounge. From overpriced clothing to affordable, quality entertainment; definitely a major improvement to the neighborhood.

Huge started their lease at the beginning of September. Following a flurry of renovation, the theater opened its doors last night for its first performance, appropriately the Improv a-Go-Go (4 groups, one dollar, every week — beat that). They've got a full schedule, with seven shows, six days a week, all cheap and all good. So, go check out some shows and share in my congratulations to Nels, Jill and Butch (pictured) on this momentous occasion. I look forward to playing in the space myself. Thankfully, I don't have long to wait, as tonight is Show X, featuring these three, plus up to nine more of the city's best improvisers. We go on at 8, and the show is only five dollars.

That being said, I really want to plug the hell out of the show that happens on Wednesdays (8PM, $5). Fingergun's style, developed over a decade of work, has been described as "controlled chaos." Will we gang up on each other in scenes of reprisal and belittlement? Will there be an orphan boy dreaming of a better life? Will there be scenes about cops? Probably. We hope you'll come find out. Also, get yourself over to Fingergun's Facebook page and Like us. We're currently at 154 followers. If we get to 500 by the end of Christmas Day, we will release another photo like this one:

You're welcome in advance.