A list of notable music and other things in 2016.

For all the big shitty things that occurred this year, there were a whole lot of good things that happened, too. Let us not lose sight of the positive small moments of 2016. Here's a list of a bunch of stuff that I liked this year. There's probably a lot of stuff I'm forgetting, and these aren't in any particular order. But let's get positive!

• Piñata Records put out three new and very good records. Red Daughters' LP Dealer came out on 180g vinyl (our first dalliance with "audiophile grade" media). Lutheran Heat released their stellar debut LP Louder From the Other Side. And Southside Desire sneakily put out a 7" of their spooky live staples "Suck Me Dry" and "Party in Postmortem." 

• Ahem's EP Just Wanna Be is more wonderful pop-rock. I got to see them live last weekend at Southside Desire's 7" release party and they were excellent.
• Real Numbers' LP Wordless Wonder. The Nums have been making great Flying Nun-esque records for years, and their new one is their best yet. 
• Trevor and I are in a new band called Private Interests with Johnny Eggerman (from Mystery Date) and Cameron Soojian. We're a loud fast rock band with often harmonizing guitars a la Thin Lizzy, and it's a lot of fun to play. We've played a lot of shows this year in the Twin Cities and will be heading out of town more and more in 2017. We have an upcoming split 7" with MAMA, an incredible and often sleeveless rock band from Chicago, coming out soon on Piñata. Our first release, a cassette EP called Only For a Moment, came out via our distinguished local colleagues Forged Artifacts.  

• I had a wonderful weekend with our new Irish friends DOTT. I've been a fan of their brilliant Weezer x Shirelles pop-rock for a few years and Southside Desire got to book a show with them and Lutheran Heat on a scorching evening in June at a Minneapolis DIY space. I'm definitely eager to go visit them in Galway sooner than later.

• A Tribe Called Quest released a new album on the Friday after the shitty shitty election and it made me feel a little better. Phife sounds great, Jarobi raps and does it well, and Q-Tip runs the show with more panache and cool hats than I ever expected he would in 2016. It's probably my fave album of the year.
• I got a new dog. A black lab named Floyd. I love him.
  
  
• My wife Jessica's mobile metal-casting business Pedal to the Metal is really taking off! She brings a small foundry around town, often on her cargo bike, and does small-scale artistic casting, often with public participation. She's done a lot of really cool projects, and I'm really excited for her.
• The Franklin Avenue bridge re-opened, along with the nearby stretch of West River Road which had been blocked by a landslide. There are new bike lanes, which is nice.
• Bernie Sanders inspired a whole lot of young and youngish people to take democratic socialism seriously, and to think about how government and policy can change to help more people and alleviate inequality.
• The Black Lives Matter movement raised awareness of not just police brutality, but systemic racism built into everyday life that often isn't visible to people privileged enough not to experience it. More and more people are becoming "woke", which will be needed in the ideological battles ahead, and also simply to empathize with our common people.
• My two kids are hilarious and cute and learning so much all the time.
• So Cow's Lisa Marie Airplane Tour.  More genius out of Galway. Nervous one-man band indie rock from Brian Kelly. His "release party" for this album consisted of picking people up in his car and driving them around listening to the album, which I think is brilliant.
• I got a basketball hoop in my driveway.
• Local journalists David Brauer and Britt Robson started a podcast about two of my favorite subjects to hear people talk about: liberal politics and Minnesota Timberwolves basketball. They've had a lot to complain about in recent weeks.
• Afro Deli on the West Bank was going to close... but then they moved to the East Bank, which is closer to my work. Yum!
• Jessica and I took two terrific trips to New Orleans and New York. We filled our nights with music and our days with cheap and delicious food, and met a lot of great people and saw a lot of good friends. 

I hope that you've also had plenty of moments of excitement and growth throughout your year. Thanks for supporting the label, which continues to be a fun endeavor. I love that Trevor and his two-year old son Julian are a common sight at record stores as they keep us in stock around town. I'm looking forward to all the new good little things that will help maintain balance and keep us all going into whatever the new year brings.

Cheers!
damien

A Love Letter to Lutheran Heat

Dear Garth, Sara, Matt and Justin,

This is Damien from Piñata. This is a little bit awkward, but I just have to get these feelings out, and this is the way I chose to do it. I'm in love with your music, and also with you. It all began in 2014 when I read about your single for Shoot Into the Sun on Hymie's blog. As soon as I got off work, I raced over to Hymie's and bought the record. I listened to it over and over, and told my friends and loved ones about my favorite new band.

An Interview with Anna McCarthy of DOTT

Anna and Evan are currently DOTT. Photo by Sinead Axworthy

One of the biggest thrills of putting out a record is to have someone across the world hear it and become a fan. I 'll always remember when someone in Tel Aviv ordered a Southside Desire record, and how Mystery Date's 7" was a surprise big seller in Japan. Convincing friends to buy your record or go to your shows is relatively easy, but it's really cool when strangers from strange lands embrace your music. I'm often curious about how that person found us.

DOTT are a pop-rock band with meticulous female vocal harmonies, constant innovative drum fills and really cool dual guitar interplay. They are based out of Galway, Ireland and have three excellent releases with Graveface Records in Savannah, Georgia. They toured the United States in 2014 and did multiple showcases at South by Southwest and CMJ. Recently, principal songwriter, singer and guitarist Anna McCarthy and guitarist Evan O'Connor married and relocated to Toronto, which has led to a new two-piece incarnation of DOTT, with programmed beats and woozy double guitars.

Getting back to the point that began this post, DOTT was introduced to me by my friend Carlos in 2013 via Google chat. If he hadn't told me about them, I likely never would have heard about them and become a fan. Here's the unedited transcript of that G-chat:

Carlos: I’m enjoying pop music from a group called DOTT, and i think you might too.
http://dottmusic.bandcamp.com/

Damien: ye syes this rocks!
no no don't stop a-rockin!

Carlos: yeah, right? their song “Tefl” has shades of your band.

Damien: I'm only on track 1 so far

Carlos: well, enjoy!

Damien: where they from, Los?

Carlos: the Irish land

Damien: Just like Thin Lizzy!

Carlos: something called “Galway”

Damien: that's a nice town
-END TRANSMISSION-

Here's that album, called Swoon.

Shortly thereafter, I bought their record, played it for all my friends, and I've been looking forward to DOTT visiting the Twin Cities since then. On June 18th, they will be at the Turf Club with Graveface labelmates Stardeath and White Dwarfs and Casket Girls. This was the last show on DOTT's tour, so I asked if they'd be interested in spending an extra day in Minneapolis for a second show. So on June 19th, they're playing with Southside Desire (who haven't played a show since last August) and garage-poppers Lutheran Heat at a DIY venue called Coming Soon in South Minneapolis (here's the Facebook event with more info).

Anna was kind enough to answer a few of my questions about DOTT's past, present and future.

What was DOTT's first practice like, and how long was it before you played your first concert?
A little awkward but fun. I'm pretty weird to jam with, I have really specific ideas for how I want the parts of songs to sound like but am really bad at communicating it. It usually involves me making ridiculous sounds to mimic drums, bass and guitars. But we get there in the end. We had a couple rehearsals with friends and it was a bit stop/start for a few weeks but then Tony joined us on drums and we played our first show and recorded the EP within a month.

Graveface Records in Savannah Georgia put out your first few releases in the U.S. How did they find DOTT?
I'm still not entirely sure... I got an email from [Graveface founder] Ryan out of the blue and completely forgot about it for about 6 months. By the time I came across the email again I had gotten really into one of the bands he had recently released. Then I checked out some of the other bands on the label and realized how awesome Graveface was. I finally mailed back and it was the start of a beautiful relationship with the beautiful Ryan and his label. :-) We managed to squeeze in a show in the Graveface Record Store in Savannah last year which was the stuff dreams are made of.

DOTT- the four-piece band.

What prompted the move to Toronto from Galway?
We've always wanted to spend a year living in North America. Visas were impossible to get for the US and they were practically giving them away for Canada. Toronto seemed to have a really fun music scene so we chose there.

How has it been going from a four-piece to a two-piece band? Do you see it as a permanent change?
No, it's definitely not a permanent change but we've really enjoyed it for a different chapter in the Dott story. We originally planned to find new members to fill in for the half of the band who couldn't come to Toronto. But then I started writing and recording song ideas using drum loops and fell in love with how it sounded. The new EP (Beverly Baldwin which will be out on Mirror Universe Records, NY on July 26) is a document of the songs we wrote and recorded in the months we holed up in Toronto waiting for the long winter to pass.

What are two things you really like about living in Toronto?
The amount of amazing shows to go to any night of the week. The fact that there's actually a summer here and you can go outside and enjoy the outdoors without needing to pack for the Autumn and Winter just in case, as you do in Ireland. A drawback is there's no ocean to swim in, which kills me.

How's the new album coming along? Is your recent cover of David Bowie's "Heroes" indicative of the new sound?
It's still coming along nicely, but we've decided to release the EP this summer and continue working on the album when we get home to Ireland. We really wanted to do something to mark our time here in Toronto and we recorded all of the songs ourselves in our small but lovely apartment wedged between Chinatown and Kensington Market. Learning how to record ourselves has allowed us to create the sounds we've always wanted to create. We're definitely not experts and we're still figuring out what we're doing but I'm really proud of how the new EP is sounding and can't wait for everyone to hear it.

DOTT had a busy South By Southwest and CMJ a few years ago. What makes those kinds of showcases worthwhile for you?
It's a great chance to play to audiences who might never find you otherwise and they're a hell of a lot of fun, especially when you love the people in your band and get to play with amazing bands. The flip side is it costs the band an insane amount of money to get there. But luckily in Ireland there is an organisation called Culture Ireland who provide funding for bands who get selected for these showcases. It lessens the dent in our bank accounts but doesn't come close to covering what it really costs. But if we were only making music to make money I think there's a lot more than that that we'd be doing differently. We love doing it so we are happy to work and make money to spend on having an amazing time playing music with our buds.

This is Minneapolis, so what's your favorite Prince song and why?
"Nothing Compares 2 U" because it launched Sinead O'Connor who is obviously amazing, but that's kind of a cheat answer... "When Doves Cry", because I was obsessed with the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack when I was a young'un. As I grew up I continued to listen to it and the vocal performance and lyrics took on new meanings and I fell even more in love with it.

What would go on DOTT's ideal tour rider?
Rosé Wine, PBR, pizza and puppies.

\\\\\----/////

Dott play...
June 16 at MOTR (Cincinnati)
June 17 at Subterranean (Chicago)

June 18 at Turf Club

and

June 19 at Coming Soon.

Red Daughters' Dealer LP and the Value of an Appropriate Medium

First, the important things. Red Daughters' album Dealer is coming out on big fat 180 gram vinyl via Piñata Records on June 10 in Minneapolis, and June 24 worldwide. There will be a release party on June 10th at the James Ballentine VFW in Uptown. Please come, and/or buy the album!

Listen to the album and buy it here:

The details for the release party are as follows:

Friday June 10

Uptown VFW (2916 Lyndale Ave S)

with Black Market Brass and Ruben

9 PM / 21+ / $8

Facebook Event: www.facebook.com/events/1243870268964614/

Now, we'll discuss the fact that we are re-issuing an album that came out in late 2014.