December 2009
2 posts
happiness is a warm gun
what a great experience it is to play one of the weirdest songs in beatle history. i’m an out and out paul man. but this song is working for me.
November 2009
1 post
Big Trouble Restaurant Tour!
So it’s a Friday night and you didn’t get tickets to the Ali show. Boo-hoo. Come on down to Cafe Maude and enjoy the sounds of Southwest Minneapolis drizzled on by St. Paul’s finest, the Big Trouble gang. And on Sunday after you have had half of a good weekend complete the picture with a banging trip out the see the good homies Big Trouble at the Red Stag tomorrow night!
October 2009
2 posts
Unbelievable Dakota Show
Dear the Dakota,
We are so surprised you let our mongrel hip-hop rock distortion pedal dirty t-shirt broken cymbal martini pbr chaser jazz cigarette felonious skunk bad chord chart parallel 5th fuck a breath mint can’t sight read octave pedal weird jokes western massachusetts blues licks bass solos in the wrong key 6/8 always shaky b sections always verbally announced. But guess what, we...
We can't wait to play Beatles tonight
the beatles are the best band in the world. here are the basslines that I’m most likely to fuck up at the big Beatles show tonight.
1 - Something - I think when George Harrison wrote songs Paul McCartney thought…hey I get to mess around on this one and just do whatever I want. What the hell is George going to say about it? 16 note fancy ass fills all over a quasi ass ballad? Done....
August 2009
8 posts
see you this thursday with peter sieve
this thursday at the red stag with peter sieve! enjoy it, enjoy it.
a lazy photo gallery
i did some google searching for folks, and this is what I found. what do you think? these finds were all in the first two lines of google image search. enjoy!
The City Pages Love For Our Red Stag Thursdays...
City Pages had more nice words to say about our upcoming month of Thursday night shows.
Music lends insight into our personalities as Sean’s bass is described at arousing while my guitar is tranquil. Also, I think possibly the “b” in bass was a typo.
See you tonight!
jp
Big Trouble's iPods Hijacked by City Pages!
In advance of our month long Thursday night residency at the Red Stag in August, City Pages decided it’d be fun to check out what makes us tick musically. Check out their always fantastic Gimme Noise blog for the top ten most played songs on each of our respective iPods, along with dreamy photos and Sean Penn’s Sean penned bios of each of us.
We’re at the Red Stag every...
May 2009
1 post
Big Trouble at the 331 this Friday
we are playing at the 331 on friday night. we are a band called big trouble. is that enough for you? isn’t that great? we’re practicing first, you know what the means, good songs? new songs? yup!
this is my bass stuff. felix from heiruspecs took a picture of it. I appreciate that. See how I wrote my name on the tuner? that’s important. you have to do that. Steve Murray taught...
April 2009
58 posts
More Pearl Jam (but a short one)
Sean, I appreciate your fire. You’re right that too much rock journalism is divorced from the heart of what music does for us, and in that spirit, I’m going to try and give a succinct, impassioned defense of Yield as my favorite Pearl Jam record.
First of all, I quite literally mean it as favorite and not best. Here’s what Yield meant to me when it came out in 1998: that the...
11 tags
and the top 5 hip-hop songs to play for people...
Toki, our guest DJ for tonight is balling out of control and is signed to Rhymesayers. We both hold down dayjobs at McNally Smith College of Music. Toki is the director of the new hip-hop diploma program. I also keep it pretty rap up here, I run summer camps, answer phones and make people happy by getting things done for em. But, I know I spend a lot of time trying to explain and explore the...
why do people hate on the great pearl jam jamz?
it’s such a shame. even ranking yield as the first record is way to “professional journalist” for me. For shame, you professional journalist and brother. Granted, Yield showed real maturity, Yield had a song with measures of 13/8 (Low Light) and it generally was a fantastic record. Who cares? Ornette Coleman, makes great records that I enjoy listening to. But Pearl Jam made me...
Ranking Pearl Jam records
We almost got into this last night during dinner, and Josh posited the controversial position that Ten is the worst Pearl Jam record, which is garbage. So I’m putting them down in order here and I encourage Big Trouble members who have a betting interest in doing the same.
1. Yield 2. Ten 3. Vitalogy 4. No Code 5. Vs. 6. Pearl Jam (avocado cover) 7. Binaural 8. Riot Act
Also, for all...
Played
Here is what I played tonight:
Bloodthirsty Lovers, “Telepathic” Happy Apple, “This Is Your Ghost Train (Euclidean Solution)” Cepia, “The Marina, The Bank and The Eels” Autechre, “Lowride” - Mocean Worker, “That’s What’s Happenin’ Tonight” The Nonce, “Mix Tapes” X-Clan, “Verbal Milk” J. Live,...
B
This is where I talk about my daughter, because that’s what (relatively) new parents do, and because I’m rather unclear on what else I should be writing about here.
Her name is Bernadette. She is not quite 11 months old. You might think Bernadette is a lot of name for a small person, and you might be right. Here are some of her nicknames—quit rolling your eyes and just deal with it.
...
The Zombies
Dear Big Trouble,
Thank you for playing a Zombies cover. Well done. I’d prefer to hear a totally abstracted “The Way I Feel Inside,” but that’s probably hard to pull off before midnight on a Thursday. Anyway, check out how they put out a record called Odessey and Oracle. Typo notwithstanding, that should have been a Yes record. Or Charles Mingus. Or both. Go figure.
...
66.666666666% Essential
This is where I offer Josh a mighty thank you for the kind words in his previous post about some favorite Love-cars tunes, only to throw roughly a third of them right over my shoulder. While it’s completely within bounds for folks to presume that “the singer” is responsible for “the lyrics,” it just so happens that L-c is the kind of deeply collaborative group that...
The Essential James Diers
You may know James Diers him from the soon-to-blow-up-behind-their-new-and-awesome-if-the-four-tracks-on-their-website-are-an-accurate-indication-album Halloween, Alaska. Or, if you’re cooler and/or older and/or electro-phobic-er, you may know him from the solidly-appreciated-but-still-wildly-underappreciated Love-Cars. Or you may not know him from anything. This is ok. Until Thursday night. ...
The Live Broadcast
Well, I recorded part of the live broadcast last night, but the sound is mega-distorted. Note for next week: Bring headphones so I can make sure it’s broadcasting clean. Other than that problem, it looks like it recorded and everything, so here’s to hoping we can get an even better result at next week’s show! —Steve
The end
The show is done and the sound man is eager to go home and play with new and exiting sound equipment. Mr. Minneapolis is packing and Sean is being a social butterfly. What a wonderful world…. - Felix
Sushi Chef's like BT
My homey YO Hasegawa is here digging the noise…. Beautiful!
DVRG just walked in and made a path to the bar immediately. I bet he drinks something cooler than I had! My Glenlivet was fun….
- Felix
Blues Bro's.
We got both kinds…… Country AND Western
For just a second I thought I saw the easter bear! - Eboun
n-n-n-n-n-n-NOW Approaching MIDNIIIIIGHT!!!
The night draws to an end and some people are leaving but others are on their way in the door. I think the disco ball has people comin’ in off the street. Ebouns long nails…. Josh’s guitar pick - similar? I don’t know.
More good music coming. Steve’s computer was broadcasting live until about 5 minutes ago eating up all our bandwidth but now we’re back...
Twin Peaks!
I love this song!
- Felix
Audio?
Steve is trying to get some audio recorded as they go. If it works out, I’ll try to post it…
Coming right up!
DJ Krush
Curtis Mayfield
Busta Rhymes/Janet Jackson
Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley
- Felix
Missed it?
No they’re not done yet… you still have time to come visit!
Steve is wearing a flanel shirt and jeans - his keys are hanging off one of his back belt loops.
Josh is sitting down in a black button up playing with his pedals.
Sean has his sleeves rolled up
Peter is wearing a sweater over a collared shirt like it isn’t gonna get warm.
What a classy bunch!
Blumming - Blogging & Drumming
It isn’t working thus far. Peter seemed game for a second….
“These guys are pretty good for a bunch of guys in a random spot.”
– Overheard in conversation behind me. - Felix
?
I want to take more pictures but the boys all wore dark clothing into this dark room and my phone has no flash-o-la. What’s a guy to do?
Peter is getting his brush on like whoa!
-Felix
Sean' Broccoli
Very tasty with a subtlle hint of garbage.
-DJ Givin’ It To They Ass
10:23pm
Human Behavior is in Big Trouble.
Just saw Ashley Gold walk in. OMG!!!
Love this place.
-Felix
Welcome to the Red Stag son!
DJ Felix here. I am a little bit drinky right now but I can tell you one thing. I am good at loading in drums and that instrumental Alicia Keys song I just played made the sound guy nervous. PERFECT!
Alicia Keys
K-Os
N.E.R.D
Chromeo
So much more fun to come…. Quiet all, Big Trouble is about to hit the stage!
This is a Steve-made demo of a new song that Big...
Top 4 Breakfasts in the Twin Cities, Top 4 Places...
Okay, I am going to try to have somebody open a topic every week that makes our DJs and our band eager to talk about. I know that Felix likes breakfast, I know I do too. I know that we disagree about some details. So, this seems great. And you may ask, shoplifting? But some of these places are so annoying, so attitude filled that even if you have money in your pocket it’d be nice to steal...
