Thanksgiving weekend might have been fall’s last hurrah. Sunday was a gift, a 48 degree day near the end of November. A time to, say, clean one’s gutters before the deep freeze set in. I awoke the next day to the weatherman saying something about arctic air settling in for the rest of the week. So it has, with winds that not only rattled the windows of my 90 year house, but made them hum. The day-time temperatures should be in the teens and twenties this week.

So it seems time to announce the Best Winter Ever is here. Again. I’ve gotten a few questions about how the Best Winter Ever could happen again. Does that invalidate last winter’s BWE status? Should I change the website to Best Winter Yet? To these questions I say “No” and “No” and in general, “don’t hold my linear experience of time against me.”

Not that I am prepared exactly. My beard is still coming in and I won’t be doing too many wintery things this week. Instead I’ll be back in upstate New York where fall is still holding on and my step brother is getting married. But winter is winter and I can’t pretend it’s not here just because it doesn’t quite fit my schedule. That’s part of the fun of this whole thing anyway, finding ways to work with what you can’t control. To paraphrase Tom Waits, “You Can Never Hold Back Winter.” (You can hear the original at the Anti records website)

The Soliquinox will be observed February 8th.

It looks like comment spam-bots have been giving this endeavor more attention than I have recently. To fix this: the RUJ list is pretty up to date and I’ve added a page containing all known anthropological documents concerning The Solquinox. More information to follow soon!

The Solquinox - celebrate the passing winter and welcome the coming spring, at the midway point of the season.

My Place

8 PM and on

RUJ 1016.3 Shuvunda Party
A Shuvunda party is a white elephant party par exellence where you bring a gift that was given to you that is so awful it must be “shuvunda” the bed. Late notice thins the numbers some, but I got to unload the saccarine bear set made of rough, scouring plastic that I got at the Pope Table White Elephant party for a recipie book (someone got it with a magazine subscription) and candles of overweight, middle age tourists in hawaian shirts and bikinis (an actual gift someone received from a relative). All in all I got the better deal.

RUJ 1017 The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
A surreal, uncanny fable by the Quay brothers. Imagine if Guy Maddin, David Lynch and Tim Burton got together to make a film. Experimental, strange and wonderful

RUJ 1018 Anime Night 2
Our numbers increase by one and the series really hits it’s stride. “For Pete’s Sake”

RUJ 1019 Old Joy
An excellent, quiet film about 2 friends who go take a trip for the weekend to find a hot springs. Beautifully shot with great sound editing and nicely understated performances. Actually everything about this film is nicely understated. The film’s effects might be milieu specific, but I thought this was really good.

RUJ 1020 Burns’ Night
The faithful and available gather at Kierans for some Scotch, conversation and reading aloud. Fun time was had. We almost convinced the table next to us to join us, but got promises of next year.

RUJ 1021 Skoal Kodiak, Tim Glenn at 7th Street
Fridays are tough. I’m tired but still want to go out. Luckily I had not seen Skoal Kodiak for a while and they were in the middle of the bill. Showed up just in time to catch Tim Glenn’s (actually a 3 piece) set of dancy noise, a kind of no wave with pedals and nobs instead of guitars. The use of live drums helps, especially when the drummer starts off the set by kicking into a drum beat reminiscent of Bel Biv Devoe’s “Poison.” Skoal Kodiak rock the house after a few techinical difficulites. Their set was an odd meeting of cultures. All the biker art punks were dancing and all the more typical Entry types standing and watching. Me, I danced. Leave 2 songs into Impressive Force’s set. I like my hip hop a little less self conscious.

RUJ 1022 Pan’s Labrynth
Second good fable film in the past few weeks. Amazing visuals, Well paced, sufficiently gruesome, and it effectively balances both the Franco and fable plots. Tired to see it on Sat by the theater was full, got drinks and dessert at Barbette instead.

RUJ 1023 Anime Night 3

Hat’s off to Vic, who has the brilliant idea of showing up early so we can all eat a dinner of dumplings/pot stickers and other random foods before starting the episodes at 8. Shows continues to be good. Some even dare to suggest it is better than Cowboy Bebop. 

Switching up the chronology, RUJ 1016 comes before RUJ 1015.

Actually RUJ 1016 wasn’t going to get its own full number originally. After all, it was a tournament, you had to be on a team to play and your team had to get its bid in a while ago at that. It has a whole lot more in common with a party organized by someone else than your typical RUJ type thing.

But it was so much fun and uniquely winter that I feel it gets special treatment. First the tournament was in that most wintery of places, Duluth. I drove up there for an early morning game, so I got to see the sun rise. Normally I prefer to be a late riser, but watching the sun come up on a clear winter day is one of those little gifts that can make winter so amazing. The air is so dry the sky is a special color of blue and the sun’s angle is so severe, it’s like the “golden hour” on steroids. Plus I got to see an otherworldly microclimate as low hanging whispy clouds of steam from the Kloquet paper plant followed the St Louis river which itself was steaming. For a few hundred yards, I 94 was like a set out of an old Star Trek set (60s that is), only without looking dated.

Instant soundtrack: “Mountains Made of Steam” A Silver Mount Zion
The tournament itself was a blast. We didn’t tear through the field, but we played pretty well for not having played together for several months and won the consolation bracket. I did alright despite pretty much not excercising at all since October.

But mostly it was just fun to hang out with TBA again and be reminded how much fun the team is. The tournament was structured so we had the entire afternoon off, which meant a lot of time to hang out. I nice large breakfast in the morning after our finals in which half the team discussed the philosophy and economics of eBay ended the tournament right.

A quiet week or so BWE wise, but apparently not so quiet that I can keep this thing up to date (extreme noise and winterizing the Anime Night viewing area have been claiming some time.)

RUJ 1012.misc New Years
The first real bit of snow kept most people off the roads this New Years which was fine by me. The parties were fun.

RUJ 1013 John Koener and Tony Glover at the 400 Bar
After living here on and off for almost 14 years (and way more on than off at that), I finally see these local legends. “Traditional american music, played in a style developed in bars, such as this one, in the 60s” was how John Koener described the evening. I’ve taken to borrowing Sideway’s “quaffable but not transcendent” line to describe things that are good, not great; things that are fine, but lack those qualities that make your heart race, or forget yourself, or whatever else marks a memorable experience. Usually this is a bit of a knock against whatever I’m describing. In this case I’d say something similar, but mean it as a complement. I don’t need profundity all the time, sometimes I just want to relax with a familiar sound or two and be reminded of why I liked it in the first place.

RUJ 1014 Birthday Boyz, The Assassinations, Centinel at the 720 Space
Perhaps the last hardcore show at the 720 Space? A shame, but that seems to be the nature of DIY show spaces. At least it was a good one.
Centinel were playing what they said was their second show, but they were incredibly tight. They played an updated version of the 90s post-hardcore sound, reflecting the hardcore scene’s trend towards more technical parts. Good, but it didn’t kick my ass like I expected it to.
Birthday Boyz, other than their name, were the reason I go to shows like this. A tight set (other than a few technical difficulties) of epic heartwrenching metallic emo hardcore, maybe like One Eyed God Prophesy crossed with mid period Envy. Nice down to earth folks to boot.
I was standing close to The Assassinations, so I was a bit better able to hear the music and I’ve decided they are a good band. I was a little too close; however, which meant I was within the range of the singer’s pseudo-Brechtian “attack the audience” antics. Specificly a gob of phelgm spit up in the air landed on me. Of course getting upset was out of the question, cause that was the reaction he was looking for, so I just wiped off my coat and threw the piece of paper aside. Only later did I figure out that what I should have done was hand him the piece of paper I was using to collect the phlegm and say “you dropped something.”
Got a flat on the way home. Bummer.

RUJ 1015 - Anime Night 1
Good turn out, watched 3 episodes. Crazy foreign snacks were in abundance. Seems like the show is starting to hit a stride and thankfully the “scratching” trick of the first episode has not been repeated in the later ones. Looking forward to next week.

We finally get snow on the last day of the year.  And not just any snow, but glorious wet, fluffy snow, perfect for a snow ball fight, RUJ 1012.

Josh was kind enough to take photos in between dodging snowy spheres of death.

RUJ 1008 - Fort Wilson Riot, Dance Band at Nomad
Finally some snow.
Dance band are entertaining but most of their set was missed in favor of the patio firepit (my coat still smells faintly of smoke 2 weeks later) and looking at the first accumilation of snow for the season.
Fort Wilson Riot played Idigaragua, an hour long epic song based on a short story that fell somewhere between Fiery Furnances, The Decemberists and Tom Waits. It was impressive and interesting and did get my head nodding and toes tapping at times, but I liked it more in terms of respect and appreciation than love.  It seems when bands shape their music to serve a larger narrative, it blunts some of its viceral, emotional appeal.  Perhaps I would feel different if I caught more of the plot. Anyway, it was still good and they are planning to record it soon, and I am curious to hear more. Oh and the encore cover of Talking Heads’ Road to Nowhere ruled.
Yer editor runs around wishing people a happy Solstice.

RUJ 1009 Liz’s Birthday Party
Normally quasi-private events organized by other people - such as birthday parties - would get a decimal number, but:

1. I’m still figuring this out
2. this was in a public place (The Chatterbox Pub)
3. giving it a number means visiting my folks and family for Christmas gets a nice round 1010

…so I’ll bend the rules some.  Yer editor, in a bout of foul-mouthed exuberance, refers to a certain beatified holy lady as “MF Teresa” while answering a trivial persuit question.  Yes it was that kind of night.

RUJ 1010 - Home for the Holidays.
A nice Christmas back east with the family. ‘Nuff said.

RUJ 1010.1 - White Elephant at the Pope Table
Yes, a White Elephant party at Buca’s infamous Pope Table where the visage of Pope Bennedict stares at you while you eat. What could be more American or representative of the True Spirit of Christmas?

RUJ 1010.2 - Laila’s Game Night
Yer editor’s Sorry! skills are shown to be just that; some pride is salvaged at Scrabble.

RUJ 1011 - Building Better Bombs, Assassinations, Ladyslipper, Shoe Shiners, Tarantula Skull at Big Vs
Tarantula Skull sneak onto the bill and play interesting minimal dancy stuff with keyboards, rhythm generator, effects, guitar and vocal chanting. Pretty good.
Shoe Shiners are adorable. Emo/indie rock in a post-Get Up Kids sort of way. Now this is where I usually get off the emo train, but they have 2 saving graces: they are pretty good at it and they look like they are in high school. I believe this is what hip hop heads refer to as “realness”.
Ladyslipper’s early 90s chicago sound is the kind of thing that should of had me at hello (or more accurately jangly, but tortured and in-your-face chord) but for some reason they didn’t. Towards the end of the set I was most interested in the slowed-down Big Bird samples they fed into the PA while they tuned and watching the older guy in the crowd who was twitching at them like a menacing tourette’s sufferer.
The Assassinations play what I consider emo, but most probably wouldn’t. Noisy guitars with twitchy rhythms, like early Rye Coalition (before they went all AC/DC on us) covering early Drive Like Jehu. Pretty good and they gets point for setting up on the floor.
Building Better Bombs left me a little flat. They played hardcore (good) with some spazzy emo (good) and hardrock (eh? depend on how I feel) influences, but I think I liked them better when I saw them 5 years ago with a drum machine. (Yes, I realize that is a very ‘net/pretentious music geek thing to say, but its true in this case).

If my aided calcuations are correct, the solstice comes at 6:20 PM for those of us in the central time zone. Hello, light!

RUJ 1003 - Joanna Newsom at the 400 Bar.

Still on a roll. For the second night in a row I leave a concert not wanting to hear any other music. The new songs with live band arrangements are great. The band gives her more room to breathe than on the strings on the album, while still adding the right things in the right places. She plays just the right songs off of the first album. Who would have though a harp would sound more immediate in a rock club than recorded by Steve Albini? Like few other performers. She even managed to shut up often chatty 400 Bar crowd.

For no apparent reason, we concert-goers had to wait outside for a really long time to get in. I showed up around 10:15 for a 10 PM door and was outside for at least a half an hour. WTF? Mild temperature and gregarious people in line make situation enjoyable in true BWE/old Brit fashion.
RUJ 1004 - The Fountain.

After some family stuff and running holiday errands for most of the day I decided to take it easy in the evening and catch The Fountain. I’m a pretty big fan of Aronofsky’s other films but this one has gotten pretty mixed reviews. I enjoyed it, probably for many of the reasons the reviews have not. The meditative, circular approach that has been called monotonous I found interesting. I also think its the best way to tackle such ambititous topics as death, disease and grieving. I need time and space to let the ideas unfold. A more straightforward film would have felt brittle and hectoring. Interesting film with amazing visuals, which is enough to satisfy me these days. Again I left the venue under the spell of the experience.

RUJ 1004 - Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple

Interesting documentary about Jim Jones and People’s Temple with lots of interviews with survivors and ex members. There is also a lot of footage and tape recordings of when everything bad which is remarkable in and of itself. Besides being compelling (if ghoulish) drama, the complicated place the People’s Temple holds for its ex members is interesting. They seem to have a hard time reconciling the progressive aspects of the church and the strong sense of community with the horrible parts of its history. One constantly shades the other. There are no simple explanations here: idealism, desire for community, egotism, paranoia all mix in a compelling portrait of both a particular group of people and a 70s culture at odds with itself.

RUJ 1005 - Gogol Bordello at First Avenue

Still clicking along. I’m not sure if I’m getting lucky or if framing everything in terms of the Best Winter Ever gives everything the luster of greater significance. GB are full of energy, life, and theater with frontman Eugene Hutz serving as ringmaster and holy fool. (Plus he gets props for the Finnish flag on his guitar.) The recordings I’ve heard were good, but this was way better.

RUJ 1006a - Know Name Records Death Party (afternoon)

First stumble. The Dinkytown branch of Know Name records was having a going out of business party/concert with 8 or so bands, 2 of which I really wanted to see. Not really wanting to spend the entire day there, I tried to stop by when I thought the groups I wanted to see woud go on.

I guessed wrong in the afternoon, completely missing Dreamland Faces. Whatever band I saw was fine, but not the bliss that can only come from signing saw and accordian duets.

RUJ 1006b - Know Name Records’ Death Party (evening)

Almost missed it again. This time around I was trying to see Vampire Hands. I got there too early and was starting to wonder if I had messed up again, but persistance paid off. Great PiL/Cure-ish post punk, with heavy use of percussion, especially Toms, that carries the minimal tonal accompaniment along.

RUJ 1007.1 - British Advertising Awards at the Walker
This is a big event every year at the Walker but I’ve never gone before. BWE is for doing those winter things you never do. Wacky, and sometimes touching, commerce. I’m curmudgeonely Modernist enough that I find the whole thing a little troubling, but I am honest enough to admit it was interesting.

RUJ 1007.2 Joe and Janna’s Housewarming

A wonderful home and a good time. Congratulations and thanks!

RUJ 1007.4 Movie Night 226