Uptown Bar & Cafe

Uptown Bar & Cafe, which is soon to be torn down, was open one last night this past Sunday.  The final night complimented Uptown Bar’s presence over the years well, “In the end, the Uptown Bar’s last hurrah was a lot like any other night there, which seemed fitting for a bar that was never all that flashy. Its best trait may have been the feeling that it had always been there.” said general manager Dennis Willey.  The bands that performed throughout the evening presented a wide variety: poppy wordsmiths Twilight Hours, jazz trio Happy Apple, and the lync-sinching Hawaii Show.  As the night closed, the kegs were tapped and whiskey was drank dry one last time as locals said goodbye to a memorable venue.  Frequent attenders of the bar spoke of the unique crowd the bar brought, “all the other bars around here now cater to the same narrow demographic, but here you had diversity.”  Though, the closing of the bar is obviously sad to many, there is a lot of chatter about it reopening – “talk of reopening the bar in a nearby site remained strong Sunday, especially after Mayor R.T. Rybak showed up for Friday’s sold-out show and pledged his support.”  The new location would be just down the street, and the owners have ever intention of upholding the bar’s charm that kept the local following strong for so many years.

(star trib)

Volcano Choir

So, you may have heard about this Justin Vernon guy, his months of solitaire in the northwoods, and the hauntingly beautiful album that had resulted from it.  (Have you not? Get your hands on the “For Emma Forever Ago” album immediately and listen to it for weeks straight)  Vernon had previous band efforts, Deyarmond Edison and solo work, but his Bon Iver project has been without question – the most successful.  With that success still in process (Bon Iver is currently in the studio again), Vernon has come up with another musical mesh of bands, Volcano Choir.  Volcano Choir is the mergence of Collections of Colonies of Bees (housed under jajaguwar records as well) and Vernon.

On September 22nd, their first album, “Unmap”, was released.  Anthony Lombardi reviewed the album and described it best when he said, “this is Tom Waits and Brian Eno feverishly concocting a dense and spacey mélange by an icy campfire in the dead of winter. There is a compelling meeting between the junkie and the ambient here, bouncing off of each other and creating something otherworldly while still retaining an earthy quality.”  As a feverish Vernon fan, I think this album has a lot of potential.  Listener beware: it definitely takes a few listens. The songs retain the familiar high sopranos that Vernon is now known for, but the instrumentation is much more experimental, a dynamic batch of aural wilderness to get lost in. So wander on.

Check out Island, IS from Unmap here.

(jagjaguwar, popmatters)