Friday Night Lights: Shining a Light on MN Musicians

Join some Minnesota bands for an eclectic mix of music. This concert is PERFECT for people who love music of all kinds Featuring The Following Bands: james case, Her Crooked Heart and King Pari.

KING PARI

King Pari is an almost accidental project. Cameron Kinghorn and DJ Stepmom didn’t even set out to start a band. When Joe (DJ Stepmom) texted Cameron some jams whipped up on his tape machine, Cameron hit him back with “what is this? I want in”. Ten minutes before they first linked up, Joe built the loop for their first single, ‘Sunshine,’ which they then wrote on the spot in a flurry on collective inspiration. The rest of their forthcoming ‘MARY EP’ grew from recording sessions in Joe’s Northeast Minneapolis bedroom, a guest house in New Orleans and a cabin in rural Wisconsin. Minneapolis left an obvious mark — the influence of Prince and the Minneapolis Sound, approached from a fresh psychedelic angle. It’s been called stonersoul, lo-fi R&B, dub meets 80’s electro with a heavy dose of funk.

With these new songs in hand, the group played their first public show on the historic First Avenue Mainroom stage in Minneapolis, opening for the incomparable Kamasi Washington in August 2019, and charming the full house that night.

The music is dancey and funky, but often dreamy. It’s a distillation of every group and side project they’ve played in before - even a 90s R&B cover band. Nothing is forced; it all just falls into place like a Rube Goldberg machine of chill-ass vibes. More than anything, King Pari is having a good time, and they want you to get on their level.

HER CROOKED HEART

With To Love To Leave To Live, Minneapolis-based Her Crooked Heart presents a debut record unique in form, made up of cyclical narratives and intertwining histories, each informing the next. The result is a transformative song cycle, led by a charismatic personality, wholly indifferent to expectations of genre and instrumentation. Rachel Ries, the writer, multi-instrumentalist and producer behind Her Crooked Heart, demonstrates immense vulnerability and multifaceted musical craftsmanship to deliver a personal and profound musical soliloquy on love, leaving and the life that follows after burning it all down.

In 2013, after two and a half years of marriage, Ries found herself touring a record around the world, accompanied by a stack of divorce papers in a pocket of her suitcase. She had left her marriage and a good man in New York City and leapt into the untethered unknown. What transpired was in turns euphoria and despondence; old lessons learned in new ways. The songs on To Love To Leave To Live are a compassionate and at times wry catalogue of those tumultuous years. With co-producer Shane Leonard, she enlisted several collaborators whom she’d met on the road; some while touring with Anaïs Mitchell: Brian Joseph (Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, Paul Simon), Rob Moose (yMusic, Alabama Shakes), Mike Lewis (Bon Iver, Happy Apple), Alec Spiegelman (Cuddle Magic), Pat Keen, John DeHaven and Ben Lester (Tallest Man on Earth, S. Carey).

To bring these songs and this record to the stage, Ries has enlisted a powerful group of women; women who can, in their way, take on the feminine, humanist mantle of Her Crooked Heart and make it their own. The quartet blends classical and electric guitar; piano and vintage synths; cello, woodwinds and drum triggers. This merging of acoustic and synthetic sounds is all in service of the voice: four part vocal harmonies that shift from ethereal to an elemental wail, but always tell a story of transformation.

Rachel is a 2018 Rauschenberg 3Arts Fellow and a recipient of two 2019 Minnesota State Arts Board Grants: Arts Initiative and Arts on Tour. 

james case

Jimmy Peterson and Casey Gooby.

This country-folk acoustic duo just finished recording another album and will debut some of their new work on the TLHD stage! Soulful and insightful. Sophisticated music yet a laid back vibe.