FLASH - Surpise Golden Smog performance in Mpls!

"As if in a dream..."

Beloved Minneapolis "supergroup" Golden Smog performed a surprise "unplugged" performance Friday night in front of a clearly stunned audience at a local weekly acoustic "hootenanny" in the basement of a neighborhood coffee shop near Lake Harriet in South Minneapolis. The room was already packed beyond capacity for the last hoot of the season, but virtually everyone in the sweaty basement bunker was blown away by what transpired after the scheduled group of performers gave the stage over to "some other guys" (that's how they were matter-of-factly referred to at the beginning of the night when the schedule was being announced). Some guy behind me spent the first few songs of the set on his cell phone breathlessly calling everybody in his contact list with variations on, "dude, i'm at the hoot and you'll never f***ing believe who just came on stage..." We exchanged glances and knowing nods after the set and he had the undeniable look of sweet satisfaction on his face -- the look of somebody who had just witnessed something extraordinary.

Which, of course, he had.

What transpired was a brief but breathtakingly good performance by a group of old friends who are making some of the best music in their 2 decade "uncareer," a time span that not only covers the intertwined history of the 3 core Smog bands -- The Jayhawks, Soul Asylum and Run Westy Run -- but also represents a collective personal saga that encompasses an almost unimaginable array of events, ranging from the very good to the unspeakably bad. The Smog were always something of a cross between a rock group, extended family and a secret society; together they've travelled a lot of miles -- both physical and psychic -- over the years. But all the personal issues, career games, egos and back-stage dramas now seem to be relegated to historical footnotes; Job 1 now appears to be about making the best music possible.

Which, in a way, isn't all that far removed from how it all began 20 years ago in a variety of rehearsal spaces and basements. What started as a lark -- and a diversion from the pressures of their regular bands -- eventually transformed into a powerful musical force to be reckoned with, even though there have only been a handful of official releases (3 albums and 2 EPs) and live appearances (pretty serious touring in 96, 2 short tours in 98 and 06, a smattering of local and benefit shows) since the early 90s when the Smoggers first began to see themselves as something more than a jokey side project (the first few gigs were tribute shows, including an indescribably awful one featuring the music of the Eagles).

Deep in the bowels of Java Jacks in "sexy South Minneapolis," The Smog made their first appearance since a very brief tour ended last year in support of their excellent, almost universally misunderstood/underappreciated Another Fine Day album. Lost Highway just released a follow-up EP, Blood on the Slacks, a generally pleasing collection of outtakes from AFD that evokes fond memories -- everything from the inclusion of some cool covers to the punny title -- of the Smog's first release in 1993, On Golden Smog. If you want to consider this show as "support" for the new EP, they couldn't have picked a better setting -- an unannounced, unplugged gig in a "non-standard" venue.

To prep for their first show of 2007, the Smoggers and Smogettes had assembled at the Soul Asylum rehearsal space earlier on Friday to piece together a set for a show at a benefit gig the following day. Calls had been made earlier in the week to Hoot King Jim Walsh inquiring about the possiblity of doing something on Friday night. In typical Smog fashion, Walsh was initially unavailable so Marc Perlman asked Walsh's son Henry to pencil the Smog in! Things were later suitably firmed up and after several hours of rehearsal, the Smog were on their way to The Hoot.

The Smog have never been known for a rigid rehearsal ethic, buy they definitely needed one this time for an important reason: a new drummer, G Wiz, the latest in a long line of Smog tubthumpers dating back to Dave Pirner. Wiz is an enormously talented guy who also plays with Kraig as a member of Joseph Arthur's backing band, The Lonely Astronauts. We were kidding him after the show that hopefully he wouldn't encounter the "Spinal Tap Syndrome," a reference to the hapless collection of mythical drummers from Spinal Tap who always seemed to die in the most spectacular of manners. After just a few songs at The Hoot, it was clear that Wiz was more than up to the task presented to him; at both this Smog gig and the one the next day in Waseca he was never less than spectacular. At the Hoot he added a light but critical touch -- shaking some maracas, playing a de-snared snare drum with his hand or lightly playing the brushes. He also enhanced the vocal mix with some truly fine harmonies.

The 8 song set Golden Smog performed was the finest evocation of the original "Smog Spirit" I'd witnessed since the old days of last-minute pseudonymous appearances in the last 80s/early 90s at the original 400 Bar and local house parties. Just a bunch of cats sittin' around, whoopin' it up and laying down some great music. In keeping with the spirit of the Friday Night Hoots, everything was "unplugged." There was even some predictable Smog-ish confusion -- keyboardist Fil Krohnengold, who has sat in with them a few times in recent years and was called on again for the Waseca benefit show, forgot a power cord at the rehearsal space so his keyboard sat unused next to the stage, in the process becoming the first "air keyboardist" in Golden Smog history, a fitting "instrument" for a band whose press releases once featured an imaginary discography.

The set included some old Smog chestnuts as well as a powerful closer of Louris' stunning AFD elegy, "Listen Joe." Relatively new Smog friend Janey Winterbauer sang on one of my very fave AFD tracks, "Cure For This" -- the lush beauty of her voice singing Marc Perlman's words combined with the band's spot-on arrangement hit the already enraptured crowd with an almost unearthly impact.

Perlman and Winterbaur also provided a nice bit of synchronicity for the Hoot -- they appeared (as the folk duo "Marc and Janey") at the very first Hoot seven months ago in front a crowd a mere fraction of the size of the multitudes jammed into Java Jacks on Friday.

"Yesterday Cried" -- one of Johnson's finest compositions that never seems to get played enough -- was also a big winner, the unplugged arrangement transforming the songs delicate beauty in ways no electric setting ever could. I think i've probably loved every single performance of this song that i've been fortunate enough to hear over the years and this reading could've have been the most moving of them all. And what was so cool about hearing it at The Hoot was that it apparently was a fluke. After a rousing rendition of "Until You Came Along" -- the Smog at their Face-ish best -- everybody turned to Danny for the next song, but he suddenly whispered to Kraig, "how 'bout 'Yesterday'," which implied that they weren't planning on playing it. Considering that the next song after "Yesterday" was indeed one of Danny's, this turned out to be a wonderfully unselfish display of comraderie and a devotion to making the most out of the moment -- in other words, a decidedly "Smog-ish" moment and another illustration of why they have the ability to be better than 99% of the bands out there, even when it's by accident.

The most memorable meshing of The Smog with The Hoot occured during Roger Miller's "Dang Me," a classic Smog cover that Kraig always seems to perform with great relish. He sang it this time to his mom, who was sitting directly in front of him. The song's sing-songy chorus and corny narrative was tailor-made for a 21st century hootenanny.

In a flash, it was all over except for the sweat and the fond memories. For most of the audience -- certainly for any of them that were big GS fans -- this was an extraordinarly special event that will likely be talked about for years. Who woulda thunk that a last-minute surprise peformance by a group that barely even exists could be so satisfying? Such is the magic of The Golden Smog...creating sheer excellence in the unlikeliest of settings when you least expect it.

More pictures, including some from the gig the next day, are here.

Youtube footage from The Hoot here, here and here.


Golden Smog
June 8, 2007
Friday Night Hootenanny @ Java Jacks - Minneapolis, MN

Gary Louris - acoustic gtr, harmonica & vox
Marc Perlman - electric bass
Kraig Johnson - acoustic gtr & vox
Dan Murphy - acoustic gtr & vox

with special guests:
G Wiz - percussion & vox
Janey Winterbauer - vox
Fil Krohnengold - "air keyboards"


1. If I Only Had a Car
2. Until You Came Along
3. Yesterday Cried
4. Ill-Fated
5. Starman
6. Cure For This (GL - Omnichord, JW - vocals, KJJ - bass, MP - ac gtr)
7. Dang Me
8. Listen Joe (GL & Wiz only)

"Friday Night Hoot" @ Java Jacks - first season recap

(photo courtesy of Steven Cohen)

The "Friday Night Hoot" at Java Jacks coffeehouse in "sexy South Minneapolis" just completed its first season the other night with an upbeat, celebratory, marathon evening featuring virtually everything that has made this series so enormously popular over the last seven months -- superb music, fetching stories, raw emotion, good juju and a communal bond between the participants that is almost corny in its power and authenticity. The lineup included some of the more notable performers from the series as well as a earthquake that still has people tittering.

The big surprise was an unannounced appearance by local legends Golden Smog, a "booking" that may seem like an enormous coup for this underground -- in almost every sense of the word -- event. However, anybody who's attended even a few of these things knows that almost anything is possible at "The Hoot." Indeed, one of the series' biggest thrills has been the joy of experiencing something you weren't expecting -- certainly not early on a Friday evening hidden away in a room that evokes a shotgun wedding of a bomb shelter and a basement rec room held in a speakeasy.

After a very low-key launch in the first week of November 2006, the weekly gatherings soon became known as "The Friday Night Hoot." The Hoot is the brainchild of The Mad Ripple (aka Mpls scribe/author/musician Jim Walsh). These performances started with the most modest of intentions. Before long, however, they became something of must-see event for insiders, hipsters and neighborhood locals. By almost any estimation, the hoots evolved into a tremendous success; the sum total of great music featured over the months has been staggering. Aside from the music, a key component of the hoots is the unique vibe, a strange brew of coffeehouse intimacy, underground chic, speakeasy naughtiness and rec room bonhomie. The lines between performer and listener were compellingly shattered every week -- audience participation was encouraged if not demanded, evoking dusty memories of the days when folk music existed in a world of its own, long before the 60s musical revolution when previously disparate genres started cross-breeding like kissin' cousins.

Devotees often refer to "The Hoot" in quasi-mystical terms -- and they're usually only half-joking. In a short time it's acquired many of the characteristics of organized religion or even a cult: a mythology, a set of rituals, a self-referencing internal logic -- everything short of a secret handshake, although regular attendees greet each other with knowing familiarity even if they've never taken the effort to formally introduce themselves.

The performers featured during The Hoot's first season ran the gamut in almost every respect -- from Grammy award winners to undiscovered hopefuls vying to be the next Bob Dylan. Or Conor Oberest. After just a few weeks, it became apparent that this event had tapped into an abundant reservoir of talent in these twin towns, talent that frequently was flying under the radar and/or bore little resemblance to what's going on out in Pitchfork/Indie-world. While it's always fun to see someone doing an acoustic turn when it's not their usual bag, the hoots have also proudly displayed a plethora of talent who woulda been right at home back in the golden days long before "Hootenanny" became known as the name of a Replacements record.

And if the consistently good music at the hoots didn't draw ya in, the abundant good spirits present every week would. Stories and tall tales spilled forth from the stage faster than you can say "Jamesons Irish Whisky," tons of kids had free reign to run around and go nuts, total strangers became fast friends in the span of a coupla songs as they bonded in a way that's far more difficult in the prickly confines of Clubland.

Recent months have seen The Hoots becoming almost too successful and perhaps even suffering some growing pains. The comfort level has inevitably declined due to the runaway success -- an issue that will be difficult to deal with since the venue itself is so much a part of the appeal. There's also a perception by some that the event itself is becoming as big an attraction as the music on display, a seeming paradox since the initial impetus for the event was almost strictly musical in nature. There's also a certain "insider" vibe perceived by some that may initially turn some newbies off. A sizable percentage of the audience is made up of people who attend frequently; a similar situation exists with some of the performers, many of whom ended up playing several times during the series, even on nights when they weren't scheduled. The convivial nature of the Hoot only exacerbated this clubby vibe -- in jokes, frequent first name shout-outs and references to hoots past were the order of the day at every Hoot I attended. Finally, the format of the Hoot simply isn't everyone's cup of tea. While i personally have liked nearly all the music i've heard over the months and have no problem with the "let it all hang out" philosophy that is on display, there's little doubt that some people weren't as thrilled with the lack of structure, occasionally awkward pacing and wildly varying musical styles. The very things that some attendees found so attractive, if not addictive, may well be the same things that others found off-putting. Such is the nature of The Hoot, for better or worse.

So, after a Hoot finale that found the ol' Ripple pulling off something that will be hard to ever top, let's all hoist a big "Irish Coffee" to him and all of the performers and attendees who helped to create one of the coolest things to hit the local music scene in a long while. Cheers everyone -- here's to a successful second season that will kick off next fall sometime.

Not bad for a hair-brained idea that was only supposed to last a month. :-)

Marc Perlman Goes Underground

At the last minute last Friday i decided to go see Marc Perlman play an early evening "solo" gig at a coffee shop in South Minneapolis. This was literally going to be an underground show, since the venue was down in the basement of said coffee shop, a charming little neighborhood place called Java Jacks. It was the inaugural gig in a series of Friday night acoustic hootenannies at Java Jacks organized by The Mad Ripple, the musical alter-ego of noted local music scribe Jim Walsh, who just happens to live a few doors away. As for the "off the radar" vibe of the show, well, it's apparently all part of a plot by members of the Jayhawks to play to as few people as possible in their home town, if they play at all! :-) Thankfully, Tim O'Reagan's upcoming show at the 400 in December – an honest to god proper rock show – is an encouraging sign that maybe that streak is changing. Can a North American Gary Louris show be in the future somewhere?

Anywho, back to the basement of Java Jacks, a large former storage room that can best be described as a cross between a bomb shelter and a suburban rec room. Nuthin' fancy – a nice little stage and an assortment of cast-off furniture; very comfortable, very "homey." A wide array of (very good) coffee drinks and light food was available from upstairs. Since there's no liquor permit, the gig was "BYOF" – Bring Your Own Flask. It was like a frickin' Speakeasy down there – haven't seen that many pocket flasks full of libations since the last "dry" wedding reception I attended. There was also a full bottle of Perly's favorite Irish whisky on stage that the performers were using for courage and inspiration. I noticed that after a while the bottle had made its way into the audience for the requisite "Irish Coffees." Nothing like a little speedball action early on a Friday night…

The performers included Mr. Ripple, Phil Bayer (a fantastic solo musician, late of Hank and Ruth, a cool roots combo, and before that, The Modern Day Saints) and our hero, accompanied by the lovely, abundantly talented Janey Winterbauer. Janey sings with Astronaut Wife (Susstones' uber-cool electro-pop band) and also performed with Perly last year at the Polara "Guest Session Sundays" extravaganza at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. I'm rather biased since she's a close friend of ours, but Janey is as good a singer as this town has – she's the real deal. She's also currently in the studio with Marc working on his long overdue solo debut but, shhhh, you didn't hear that from me.

The general set-up for the night was basically a "round robin" hootenanny. Each songwriter did a song and then passed the mic down the line. Oh wait, there was no mic. The whole shebang was done up old school – no amplification save for that provided by God, Gibson and the room's acoustics. With the natural sound, comfy couches, community booze and kids buzzing about (including some of the performers young 'uns), it really was like being at somebody's house…

In a little over 2 hours of playing, The Ripple, Bayer and Perlman/Winterbauer got to play a half dozen or so songs each. The evening flowed amazingly well and the time went by super fast. Everybody sounded great, the intimate setting providing a rare opportunity to "get under the hood" of a whole batch of wonderful songs. There was plenty of time for comments and long intros, as well as lots of chatty interaction with the audience as the java and juice took effect. When the performers weren't doing one of their songs, they stayed on stage, checking out the sounds of their stage mates, sometimes even tossing in a lick or two. Just like a real hootenanny.

Marc and Janey – how's that for an authentic-sounding folk name? -- made for an oh-so compelling duo: she sang, softly with her eyes closed, like an angel while he expertly worked the wood like the old pro he is, occasionally chiming in with some harmonies or an exquisite solo. Perlman's songs were – surprise -- mostly sad and melancholy, real heart-tugging stuff. After getting lost in the music while listening to another patented Perly heartbreaker, Bayer made a comment about the author's general demeanor. Marc mounted a vigorous defense about his personality not being the same as his songs. Judging from the resulting silence, the crowd didn't seem to be buying it. After a moment or two, the man who wrote "Trouble" finally said, "I'm actually a happy guy," which was met a few ticks later by a comment from the audience, "no you're not," which cracked everybody up. Anybody who's met Perly before has some idea at how classic a moment this was.

As good as the new Perlman songs were, there were two bona fide bone-chilling moments, courtesy of the Golden Smog catalog. "Cure For This," one of the highlights from Another Fine Day, was offered up early on and blew everybody away. Janey was recruited for vocal duties on this song when the Smog played at First Avenue this last summer and she sounded even better down in the bunker. Then, on the next round, came a Golden Smog cast-off, "Beautiful Day," which Marc and Janey debuted at the aforementioned Fitzgerald gig almost exactly a year ago, in a venue as far removed as humanly possible from the cozy concrete confines of Java Jacks. This song is so painfully good – and, yes, beautiful – that it hurts.

Before long the gig was winding down and I was making my way to my car, feeling strangely jacked-up and buzzed from an intoxicating mixture of caffeine, alcohol, good company and fantastic music. Then I looked at my watch and it was barely 9pm, and I still had two shows to attend. At that point I felt oddly down. Part of me wanted to turn around; the alluring confines of the basement i had just left were calling me like an old friend. Strangely, the thought of heading out into "Clubland" didn't seem quite as attractive as it normally does on a weekend night.