Avenpitch article in Distortion Music Magazine:
The following is an Avenpitch article taken from Distortion Music Magazine.
Baggage or, an Evening with Avenpitch
By Kevin Anthony Kautzman, Photos (see link) by Zak Metz
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I’m driving over the transition between 35W North and 36E which will be familiar to anyone who knows Minneapolis and its northern suburbs. It’s a Friday in the early afternoon, sunny and surprisingly warm for a late February day in the Twin Cities. I’ve just come from a presentation at Augsburg College, a Lutheran institution on the West Bank right by the University of Minnesota, on behalf of the company I consult for and which pays my bills (www.Teachers-Teachers.com).
I had spent ten quick minutes in front of a group of graduating student teachers...
“I want to thank you all for choosing the vocation you’ve chosen: to be teachers. It’s a very important part of the puzzle.”
They had even applauded, I thought genuinely. So, driving down the highway and jamming the headset of my phone into an ear like an obscene but small snake desperate to chew on the interior of my ear but equally able to control my mind and move my hand so it has access, I called Andrea Metz, Zak Metz’ (the editor of Distortion) wife and expecting for the first time. There will soon be another Metz.
On the phone with Andrea, the first section of the call when something like this...
“Andrea, this is Kevin.”
“Hey, Kevin.”
“Are we still on for the show?” I’m talking about Avenpitch at Club Underground in Minneapolis. They’re having CD release show for their new album Butterfly Radio. February 24th, 2006.
“Yes, yeah...”
“Oh, hey. How’s the...”
And here’s where things break down in a fashion that would make Larry David pleased. I’m going to preemptively defend myself: I am a young man and the oldest child in my family. I have not had much experience in speaking candidly with pregnant women approximately my own age. Obviously this will change, and what day it’s entirely possible I will be married to a woman and will have to consider all kinds of nuances presently beyond my linguistic scope. But what goes through my head here on the phone with Andrea is... should I call it the baby? It’s a baby, but it’s still inside, so it’s technically a fetus, right? But do I want to say “how’s the fetus?” No, that’s terrible. That’s so clinical. I’ll say something else. I’ll say something funny.
Of course at this point I have already uttered the first part of the word “Baby.” Trusting my instinct, I convert the word into something that seems innocuous.
“... baggage?”
Baggage?!
Christ Lord Jesus... I called her unborn child “baggage,” like your ex girlfriend’s night terrors are “baggage” or your history of clinical depression is “baggage” or, literally, luggage. I’ve called this new person inside my friend a piece of luggage. The terror of it strikes me, bricklike.
There is a pause in the conversation. Then I laugh like a crazy street person might. Andrea laughs as well, but not like a crazy person, and tells me that everything’s going fine. The connection we have is bad, so I hang up and call her back later from off the road, and we discuss the evening’s plans, which involve Andrea dropping Zak off at my place prior to the show and her taking a two or three hour jewelry-making class before picking us up again to attend.
No mention of luggage is further made.
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MARCH!!! MARCH!!! MARCH!!!
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On Avenpitch’s first album there’s a song called “Satellites” which is catchy as hell. I’m wrapping up my workweek and thinking about how loudly I’ll shout to that song when they play it. I like to scream at shows and am hoping the crowd at Club Underground is abundant enough for me to be able to do so from somewhere in the back without seeming like a demon to the throng of scenesters and hangers-ons who will no-doubt make up the audience tonight. Avenpitch is a part of the “electropunk” scene in the Twin Cities, and as such... well... it’s a scene, and so... five years from now people will go: remember that? The scene’s fashion aesthetic is more of a combination of goth and early-nineties industrial than it is traditional punk. There’s not much punk to it aside from the pace of the music. You’ll see more black at the shows than anything else. A scene does, in fact, mean baggage (in the proper sense of that term). We can only speculate at the evolving litany of complaints, relationships, seductions, confusions, animosities, hopes, and regrets will branch off from who knew whom and when and how we met and what happened anyway to all those people? We’ll be around, I’m sure, but things will have changed. Think on that... 2011. Disturbing.
But now it’s 2006, and I’m done with work, and Zak is on his way with his lovely wife.
Andrea drops her husband and father of her baggage off and vanishes to her jewelry making class. Zak comes around with a dark tarot deck in tow. The deck’s Fool card is a shot of a person from the back with his or her (I think a he, but I’m not sure) hands bound by handcuffs. There’s some deep strangeness in that deck, which I only explored briefly and won’t say anything more about right now. Zak would know what the deck’s called, in case you’re at all interested in a Giegeresque, bondage-themed tarot deck where the wands are symbolized by guns. [The Savage Tarot by MichelleX, www.savage-desire.com -ed]
Zak has brew: Samuel Adams (patriot... brew-master... symbol of American transition). Dan Wilde returns from a hard week’s work. The three of us conceal our beverages in coffee containers, drink, and hot tub (in whatever order the condo board will approve), and Zak and I sit down like mature connoisseurs of the cinema to watch Akira Kurosawa’s Rashoman. Watching Rashoman makes it clear to both Zak and me that our attention spans have been completely ravaged by the pace of contemporary media. Even the music we cover for Distortion is a part of this rapid pace, and in this pace there is simply no room for four-minute shots of a guy running through the forest (whatever the metaphor). That said we got through the movie after some conversational interludes. Obviously it’s a great work that explores the human soul and the struggle for understanding and acceptance in the face of chaos... our meager attempts to create order in the chaos and assure ourselves that rightness is possible. But wow... it’s slow.
Andrea picks us both up from her class, and I have to make light of my earlier comment. So I do.
“I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“That’s okay. I could tell right away you were like... what the hell did I just say?...” Andrea says.
Zak’s in the back of the SUV laughing now. I’m up front so I can give directions.
“It’s like a Seinfeld episode,” I say. “It’s Seinfeldesque,” I repeat myself, in love with the sound of my own voice after a few beers and liking how “esque” sounds after anybody’s name.
It’s Metzesque. It’s Toddesque. It’s Andreaesque.
It’s pleasant... esque.
“Mulva,” Zak says.
Mulvaesque!
We’re laughing, and we’re on our way to the show with the help of the Metz’ front-window mounted directional device. This thing literally talks to you, telling you when you need to take a left turn and how far you have to go until you’ll be there. Zak, obviously a veteran at this sort of thing, had earlier in the day plotted both my residence and Club Underground into the system. We are well taken care of.
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The Minnesota Public Radio Connection
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At Club Underground, the night’s opening act Thosquanta haven’t yet taken the stage, and so it is fairly quiet. I’m sitting on some couches in the back of the club, which is really just the basement of this sub-par sports bar in northeast Minneapolis. Beside me is Andrea, beaming happily and just enjoying herself, and Todd Millenacker from Avenpitch. We’re continuing a makeshift interview from just a few minutes earlier, introductions having been made.
We’ve already had some conversation, and the point has been made by Todd concerning the origin of the new album’s title Butterfly Radio (also the name of a song). I’ve reviewed the album for the magazine here already, so I won’t tell you more about it here except what I found out in the impromptu interview.
“Where’d the name for the new record come from?”
“Actually I listen to MPR (Minnesota Public Radio), and they had this piece on about these kids in these villages in India who make radios out of scrap materials. They’re called Butterfly Radios.”
Zak, Andrea, and I agreed that this revelation was most excellent and appreciable, and it does put an extra little touch to the album, knowing that background.
Some more points about the album: “Jack the Idiot Dance” was named after a song of similar title by the Kinks, whom Todd enjoys, called “Jack the Idiot Dunce.”
Another point of interest concerning the new album – which will be apparent to anyone who hears it – is its origin: Avenpitch crafted Butterfly Radio during practices and around working on the live versions of material from their first self-titled record. The first record was written on keyboard and Butterfly Radio on guitar.
The first opening act starts to play. I speak with Andrea about her experience of bearing a child for the first time and trying to tell the difference between a stomach’s gurgle and the movements of the child. She’s really enjoying herself with it, and her pregnancy, she says, has been great, especially compared to some of her friends who, she says, were sick through theirs. I’m certain the child will be a fun person. Certainly he or she will rock and rock hard at an early age, exposed as she or he will be to the Metz’ eclectic musical skullduggery. Andrea speculates she or he will become a Republican to rebel against her and her husband’s rebelling, but I’m sure everything will be okay...
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The Openers
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Thosquanta
Thosquanta is a band with a weird name which has never been properly explained to me and which I will very likely never understand. The group consists of Dave Erickson, Nic Heidt, of Adam Powell, and Jen whose last name remains unknown. They opened first, followed by the Mystechs. Without going into too much detail, I’ll say the inclusion of Nic Heidt into Thosquanta on lead guitar adds a piquant flavor to Thosquanta’s electronic-rock sludgery. They are slow, deliberate, depressing... throbbing... dark... dark... obsessively dark music. After the show I watched strange girls (as in strangers, not that they were strange) approach Nic, and two of them. They seemed to like him and one definitely claimed to like the music. I was pleased to see this development and expect to see much more of this kind of thing in the future.
Musicians are devious creatures. They horrify and appall me, but I can’t get enough.
The Mystechs
The Mystechs have a name that’s less weird than Thosquanta’s, but they are a stranger act. It wouldn’t even be right to call them a “band” really. They’re two guys hailing from Chicago in baseball uniforms with a laptop containing backing tracks who sing about huffing glue, make fun of Football America, and remind us how much fun Mel Gibson had in Thunderdome. They are accompanied by Lolly Pop on that track, and the effect is surreal and entertaining. The duo run around the club with wireless microphones, stand on chairs, shout in people’s faces... basically run amok and enjoy themselves while yelling about Mecha-Jesus. The set is highly, highly entertaining, and if you have the opportunity to see these guys I suggest you do so not for the music but for the humor and the show.
The two guys in this group are respectively named Emil Hyde (an original member) and Derek Dziak (the new guy). I ask Emil before their set...
“What’s the secret?”
“Hmm?”
“I mean. What’s the secret?”
I’m getting stared at.
“Hi, my name’s Kevin. I write for Distortion.”
“Oh, I know that. Yeah. I’ve been there.”
“Yeah, I saw you at the Kitty Cat Klub. Very funny. Hilarious. I enjoyed it. What... what caused this act to happen?”
“I tried to create a trip hop album, but I couldn’t keep myself from using Aerosmith riffs. It degenerated from there.”
High Blue Star
High Blue Star’s name actually consists of three Oxford English words you can find in the dictionary. High is an adjective or an adverb. A person can be high. A shelf can be high. You can jump high. Blue is a color and some people’s favorite. You know what a star is.
The band includes Brian Green, Laurie Reade, and Cristoph Hall. Brian composes and plays guitar, Laurie sings, and Christoph drums.
I’m guessing they’re referencing Sirius the Dog Star with the name, but I have no proof. They have a bit of an occult-y (that’s a fun word you won’t find at Oxford: occult-y) bent, displaying a taste for images students of the hidden sciences will appreciate. They have songs called “Alien” and “Dragonsaw,” which may help further clarify... They sing about the subtle body, for those of you who know you have one (all of you?).
Though technically not an opener (they played after Avenpitch), a group called High Blue Star play after Avenpitch. They herald back to the vocal styles of Switchblade Symphony and the gothic-industrial sounds of the era when that band was producing albums. They have background visuals to accompany their set... occult images, Masonic symbols and the ilk floating in space. They’re music is thrumming, erotic and quite a different animal than the other acts. They craft erotic temptress gothic-industrial rock? The label escapes me, but I remain committed to the attempt. They manifest the closest thing to that elusive and highly-sought “trip-hop” sound from the evening’s players. It calls back to and supplements all the female-fronted music you used to hear from the Cleopatra label way back when rolled into one.
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The Main Attraction
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After the Mystechs slither off the stage in their pink baseball uniforms (nice, ladies... very nice), Avenpitch takes the stage. It’s fair to say that of the four acts Avenpitch are the hardest rockers. That is, they rock the hardest. I don’t mean this in the sense that they have the most gold stars on their musical book report – I mean that they are the band with the most energy consistently associated with “rocking.” They have a live drummer on a traditional kit supported by backing tracks (High Blue Star uses electronic drums, and Thosquanta and the Mystechs just have backing drums). When Avenpitch tear into “Satellites,” I’m standing in the back of the room with a pleasant sway on... feeling somehow suddenly full of rage... and I join in screaming, “March!!! March!!! March!!!” as previously fantasized.
Despite a few technical misses, the Avenpitch set entertains and is the peak of the evening’s energy. Anyone heading to an Avenpitch show can expect hardened versions of their recorded tracks: sped up, enthused, wild three minute bursts into the electropunk / electropop landscape. If you like the studio albums, you won’t be disappointed.
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The Conclusion: Mom and Dad and Avenpitch
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Zak and Andrea are about to drop me off after the night’s reveries. The last thing they’re talking about in the car, after I made mention of a certain behavior I’m fond of (and they agreed to the quality thereof), is the period of pregnancy in which Andrea currently is. According to Andrea’s sources they’re well into the range where their baby can recognize the sound of its mother and its father’s voices and distinguish those sounds from the voices of others. It’s a beautiful realization, to know that the child inside our friend Zak’s wife knows and recognizes Dad’s and Mom’s voices before it can even itself speak – a testament to the importance of listening. Somewhere in this child’s far recollections, two dozen years from now in 2030 when the Twin Cities electropunk scene is a distant memory, there will rest the sounds it heard at this show: Avenpitch and company distinguished from the well-known, soothing sounds of Mom and Dad’s tones. It’s a good thought, sweet as it is weird.
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