Mach Fox of Zwaremachine drops by the Back to the City duplex to discuss self-expression in their new “Be A Light” record and MidwestIndustrial, which will present a night of Industrial and EBM music also including C.Kostra, Depotek, and Grave Society on Friday, August 31st.
Back To The City
“LOVELY DARK” DEBUT NEW SONG “BLACKWELL” ON THE BACK TO THE CITY SESSIONS
Photo By: Tyler Newman
Today Back to the City is pleased to present this three-song session from Lovely Dark, who – back on Wednesday, June 20th – were one of two final bands to track in-studio sessions for season 4 of the Back to the City Sessions. At the end of this month, on Thursday August 30th, Back to the City will celebrate the beginning of its fifth season with an event involving the premiere of new in-studio music videos – recorded at The Grotto – from self-evident, theyself and more:
https://www.facebook.com/events/187148132151721/
Meanwhile, here is Lovely Dark’s three-song set featuring the premier of “Black Well,” as well as live performances of “The Wheel” from their “New Born” LP and the title track of “Into The Roil”:
“BACK TO THE CITY @ THE GROTTO” PRESENTS: SEABERG LIVE IN-STUDIO + SEABERG LIVE @ ICEHOUSE
Seaberg will be performing at the Thursday 8/30 launch party for “Back to the City @ the Grotto,” a new series of in-studio sessions which began with 26 BATS’ in-studio session last week and continues with Seaberg’s session at The Grotto today. This session was curated, filmed, and video-edited by Simon Calder and recorded and mixed by Jason Faye at The Grotto. Other upcoming Sessions at The Grotto include self-evident and theyself, videos from which will be premiered at the launch event at Mortimers on Thursday August 30th.
Seaberg performed thee songs in their session:
- Clarity
- Time Currency
- Fallin’
The Back to the City video crew also shot Seaberg’s entire set at this month’s “Femme Fatale” Icehouse show, which Back to the City curator and host Simon Calder briefly discusses with Taylor Seaberg in this one minute interview (a full-length, full band interview will be recorded and released in August):
Here’s “Medusa,” one of the songs shot by Back to the City and edited by Taylor Seaberg at the “Femme Fatale” show:
Seaberg’s next live performance will be at the launch party for “Back to the City @ The Grotto” – with Symone Smah It, OkNice and more TBA – on Thursday August 30th at Mortimer’s Bar. https://www.facebook.com/events/187148132151721/?ti=icl
TALKING ABOUT SINGING ABOUT DANCING WITH DEMONS with TACKY ANNIE: 7/26 BTTC BENEFIT SHOW INTERVIEW
Engaged couple Rachelle LaNae and Andrew Frederick are the song-writing nucleus of high-energy indie pop group Tacky Annie, who will be perform alongside 26 BATS!, Gabriel Rodreick’s Undoers, DJ Rowsheen, host Mark Mallman, and 10 regulars from J.T. Viele’s acclaimed OpenMic MPLS at Mortimer’s Benefit for Lauren Smythe on Thursday July 27th. In this video interview with Back to the City host and curator Simon Calder, Frederick and LaNae discuss how they first began performing LaNae’s singer-songwriter material in contexts like Viele’s OpenMic MPLS, where they first met fellow songwriter Lauren Smythe, for whom they are playing this benefit show. After the couple collaboratively composed “Renegade Energy,” a dance-inducing song about dancing, for a ballet company, Tacky Annie was born. To the soundtrack of their debut record, “The Little Album,” LaNae and Frederick recount the Tacky Annie story so far.
BACK TO THE CITY SPOTLIGHT: J.T. VIELE’S OPEN MIC MPLS
By Simon Calder
Every Tuesday night from 8pm JT Viele hosts a special event on the second floor of the moto-i sake brewery. It’s an Open Mic night, at which literally anyone could play literally tomorrow were they / you to text JT on 651-334-3433 any time today (Monday) requesting to perform within a particular hour, and yet it is also one of the best nights of free music one could hope to experience in one of the best music cities on the planet week in and week out. It holds a special place in the heart of Back to the City curator and host Simon Calder, since it happens to have been one of the primary gateways through which he first discovered the twin cities’ rich music scene/s. For instance, Simon fondly remembers many a performance there from one-time regular Thomas Abban, who joined Back to the City for a discussion about his debut LP “A Sheik’s Legacy” shortly before being nominated as the #1 “Picked to Click” act by City Pages’ music contributors at the end of last year:
Simon even had the pleasure of witnessing The Chalice (feat. Lizzo) perform an impromptu set there in early 2013, as discussed with Claire de Lune of tiny deaths (and formerly The Chalice) in one of the earliest episodes of Back to the City, back when it was a radio show on sianetradio.com :
More importantly, JT Viele’s weekly OpenMic MPLS remains a vibrant hub, attracting some of the cities’ most exciting new songwriters, from those who you could be among the first to recognize as the next big thing to Troubadour Wine Bar residency-holders Liam Gerard and Laura Hugo, who just exceeded her kickstarter goal by over $1,000 and who Back to the City expects to be making quite a splash with her debut LP next year:
Ten current regulars from moto-i’s weekly Open Mic will be kicking off this month’s Back the City Showcase with a series of 2-song sets in the 6-8pm Songwriters’ Showcase portion of that evening at Mortimer’s Bar on Thursday July 26th, both because they are some of our strongest new talents in the local music scene and because they wish to harness their talents to help another moto-i regular, songwriter Lauren Smythe, to whom all proceeds from that benefit show will go, for reasons explained on this facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/184787858862607/
This month Back to the City is building up a YouTube playlist spotlighting OpenMic MPLS at moto-i. At present that playlist includes recent performances from two regulars, Chuck Cannon and Ernest Rhodes, both of whom will be performing at Back to the City’s Benefit for Lauren Smythe at the end of this month..
Tomorrow’s OpenMic MPLS will be preceded by a special moto-i rooftop event “In Memory of Jake Allan,” following the tragic loss of songwriter and drummer Jake Allan (Buffalo Fuzz) at the end of last month: https://www.facebook.com/events/271384203597008
For more information about OpenMic MPLS visit openmicmpls.com
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