I am incredibly excited about this. As TVBC fanboy #1, getting to play a show with The Band That Changed My Young Life is exciting enough, but getting to play that show in a gorgeous theatre setting with yet another band I also love makes this an occasion I will remember forever. Hopefully some of you will as well.
Come down and see the first appearance of this legendary trio since they played Heliotrope 1!
Paul Metzger on guitar, Freddy Votel on drums, Adam Linz on bass.
New Thunderbolt Pagoda set, too.
A couple of classic TVBC pieces here:
http://tvbc.tv/mp3/Gandhi.mp3
http://tvbc.tv/mp3/Sepulchre.mp3
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Loring Theatre
1407 Nicollet Ave
10:00 TVBC
9:00 Thunderbolt Pagoda
8:00 Seawhores
Admission is $13.00, but there will be a 48-hour window (TBA) where tickets will be available online for $10.00.
This place is beautiful. This reunion is momentous. Well worth it if you ask me.
Press blatherings below:
Younger enthusiasts of underground music probably know Paul Metzger for his inventive solo works on 23-string banjo and modified guitar, or perhaps for his collaborations with improvisational powerhouses like Milo Fine and Davu Seru. They are likely also familiar with drummer Freddy Votel via his work with Skoal Kodiak, Seawhores, Cows, Marijuana Deathsquads and a host of others. Older aficionados remember them both from their genre-defying and eardrum-punishing work with the exploratory St. Paul power trio TVBC, which originally existed from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s (yielding the LPs "Ex Cathedra" and "The Blues," in addition to the posthumously-released CD "Gone") with a short resurrection in the early part of the millennium, which resulted in their recording of their own original soundtrack to the Russian film "Man With A Movie Camera."
TVBC were both anomalous and complementary in the punk- and postpunk environment of their inception; they had a capacity for speed (and stamina) that could match any challengers, especially coupled with their instrumental prowess and
the group's maximalist, volume-intensive sound. The song
structures of their early days eventually progressed into lengthier instrumental work and
jazzist improvisation on their complex thematic ideas, but most arresting was the heavy influence of Indian raga
stylings in an avant-rock power-trio context. Their improvisational approach made it imperative to see them every time, since the variations would inevitably prove interesting and new (and sometimes detrimental to
Metzger's poor Danelectro, which was repeatedly karate-chopped, beaten, and dragged down walls), rewarding die-hards and making many a wide-eyed new fan. Truly visionary, utterly unique and ahead of its time (not to mention baffling given the musical climate of the Twin Cities at that time and the isolation of the region in general). It would be quite a few years before there was much evidence of other groups incorporating these kinds of ideas into heavy rock. Even still, no group really sounds like this, now or then. They truly forged their own territory, and their music continues to influence and inspire in ways no one could have expected.
For this special performance at the Loring Theatre, Paul and Freddy will be joined by Adam Linz on bass. It will be their first appearance playing this music since TVBC played at the first Heliotrope festival in 2003. Thunderbolt Pagoda and Seawhores will open the evening with their own brands of grandiose bombast, and Emily Kaplan will be projecting live video montage throughout the event.