Events - Filter:
« June 13, 2008 - September 11, 2008 »
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06 / 13
Music Starts:8:00 pm
 Billy BraggIt’s been a quarter century since Billy Bragg took the stage for his first solo gig at North London Polytechnic, a concert advertising him under the first name Billy so his family wouldn’t spot his new career move. Since then our Billy has traveled the world and spoken to everybody twice. Billy Bragg has recorded hit singles, composed Top Ten albums, penned political anthems sung at rallies, kept alive traditional English folk songs, put his own spin on America’s greatest folk catalog and sung his heart out doing so. He has appeared on both MTV and late night highbrow chat shows, singing his mind on the first and speaking his mind on the latter. The Bard Of Barking has written essays for many daily newspapers of record and several notable weekly journals of comment. Perhaps his most memorable and eloquent journalism essay was his emphatic A Genuine Expression of the Will of the People, which was but one firm voice in the greater public campaign for the reform of the House of Lords.
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06 / 14
Music Starts:8:00 pm
 Roma di Luna
In an amazing, freewheeling show back in September, acoustic duo Roma di Luna not only kicked off The Cedar's eighteenth season, but also celebrated the release of their second studio album. Now it is time to celebrate anew, with the release of the group's third studio recording Casting the Bones! Casting the Bones is as much an
exploration into the group’s sound as it is a total reinvention of the
aesthetics and boundaries their previous records have established.
‘Casting the Bones’ refers to fortune telling methods of old, gambling
games, and can also be interpreted as a common technique for healing a
broken bone. All of these definitions fit comfortably with this
collection of songs that are at once familiar, intriguing, ambitious,
and possess a healing quality for both listener and songwriter alike.
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06 / 15
Music Starts:7:30 pm
 Pop WagnerDoes dear old Dad really deserve another gaudy tie/car-cleaning kit/bottle of aftershave/nose-hair clippers? Why not surprise and delight the father in your life with the gift of music and a family outing, from three of the greatest musical Dads around?
Pop Wagner sings, picks, fiddles, twiddles lassos, writes poetry and is a downright funny guy.He appeared quite frequently on Public Radio's A Prairie Home Companion during the show's formative years and for the last four decades he has worked his cowboy magic throughout 44 states and ten countries.His cowboy anthems crackle with the warmth of a prairie campfire and his old time fiddle tunes set toes a-tappin' while he serves up spellbinding rope tricks and tall stories -- all with a good dose of friendly humor.
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06 / 16
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06 / 17
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06 / 18
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06 / 19
Music Starts:7:30 pm
 Yid ViciousYid Vicious takes an innovative approach to klezmer through its incorporation of elements as diverse as bossa nova and ska, homages to the likes of Johnny Cash and George Gershwin, and even occasional solos. With seven members of Yid Vicious, and a musical arsenal consisting of clarinets, saxophones, fiddle, horn, vocals, guitar, bass, mandolin, prima, drums and theremin, the potential is almost limitless, and audiences are guaranteed an entertaining evening.
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06 / 20
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06 / 21
Music Starts:8:00 pm
 Bill Frisell Rudy RoystonThe Cedar regrets to advise that due to a serious family emergency, the Bill Frisell concert scheduled for Sat June 21 has been cancelled. Patrons holding tickets are advised to follow the instructions here for a refund. A rare opportunity to hear guitar maven (and Grammy winner) Bill Frisell in the intimate space of The Cedar. Tonight he will be complemented by the incredibly sympathetic playing of Greg Leisz (lap and pedal steel guitar), Rudy Royston (drums), and Tony Scherr (bass).
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06 / 22
Music Starts:7:30 pm
Due to circumstances beyond our control this show has been cancelled. We sincerely regret any inconvenience this may have caused.
 Nina Nastasia
Nina Nastasia's rare gift of a voice is an intimate, winged presence that is able to either freeze or melt your heart, that can powerfully soar and twist, or brush ultra-gently against you, suddenly summoning goose bumps. Mojo commented on its ability to "suck the air out of the room". Picking over themes of love, longing and loss, childhood, dreams and human dramas, her beautifully concise, hook-laden songwriting and the spare arrangements of her band have a certain gritty, rustic charm and intensity. Simultaneously tough and fragile, her songs crackle and smolder with an intimate emotional honesty and a dark undertow.
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06 / 23
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06 / 24
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06 / 25
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06 / 26
Music Starts:7:30 pm
 The Lovell SistersThree young sisters blend in heavenly harmony and play mandolin, fiddle and dobro. They are joined by talented collaborators on guitar and bass. The music has roots deep in bluegrass Appalachia, and branches growing ever upward and outward, towards parts as yet unknown. The Lovell Sisters Band has arrived and is making its presence felt.
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06 / 27
Music Starts:8:00 pm
 HaydenCombining elements of both rock and folk music, along with disturbingly personal sentiments, dark humor, and a voice able to channel both the falsetto highs of Neil Young and the wavering raspy low tones of Leonard Cohen, Toronto's Hayden Desser has spent the last 15 years creating uniquely affecting music. Hayden, who is currently finishing up a four week US tour with Feist, will be heading out next month on a full band tour to the US, and making a return visit to The Cedar on June 27, along with a handful of other premium venues around the country. These shows will mark the first time Hayden has toured with a full band in over 3 years and comes on the heels of his new album 'In Field & Town' via his new home at the legendary Fat Possum Records.
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06 / 28
Music Starts:11:00 am
 Farmer Jason
TICKET UPDATE 6/27: GOOD SUPPLY OF TICKETS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE AT THE DOOR--PLENTY OF ROOM FOR EVERYONE TO HAVE FUN! When internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter Jason Ringenberg created his children’s music character FARMER JASON in 2003, he had no idea he was launching what would prove to be the most commercially successful creation of his storied career. With JASON AND THE SCORCHERS, he pioneered the fusion of punk rock and country that turned the music world on its ear in the mid-1980s. Their first record, LOST AND FOUND, still shows up on critics’ “best of the 1980s” lists, and there is an exhibit of them in the COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME. When Jason went solo in 1999, the LONDON TIMES called him “one of the most dynamic live performers of his generation.” Jason could rest easily, assured that his place in rock’n’roll history was secure. However, with two sweet, beautiful, preschool daughters missing Daddy Jason during his 200 dates a year touring schedule, Jason wanted to make a CD that his kids could listen to while he was out globetrotting. Since they lived on a small farm near Bon Aqua, Tennessee, and Jason grew up on an Illinois hog farm, he reckoned that a roots oriented CD about farming and farm animals was just the ticket. Hence the first Farmer Jason CD, A DAY AT THE FARM WITH FARMER JASON, was born. He released it “purely for fun” in the fall of 2003, delighted to hear his daughters singing along to songs like THE TRACTOR GOES CHUG CHUG CHUG and A GUITAR PICKIN’ CHICKEN. That was the peak of his ambition for it. To his surprise, soon lots of other daughters and little sons were singing along as well. Disney’s magazine FAMILY FUN called it “one of the Top 5 kids’ CDs of 2003.”
Music Starts:8:00 pm
 Boiled in LeadIn the midst of their 25th year of performing their unique blend of Celtic rock'n'reel, Boiled In Lead have retained a freshness and vitality that escapes far younger bands. The current BiL lineup of Todd Menton (vocals / guitar / mandolin / bodhran / whistle), Drew Miller (bass), Dean Magraw (guitar), David Stenshoel (fiddle) and Robin "Adnan" Anders (drums / percussion) features uniformly great musicians who each bring a lifetime of far-flung musical exploration to the Boil.
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06 / 29
Music Starts:7:00 pm
 SiYAYA: Photo by Kurt MosesSouth African townships are overflowing with talented young people - singers, dancers and musicians. Poverty, the lack of opportunities and HIV/AIDS often results in all of this talent going undiscovered. Rev. Spiwo Xapile, director of the Zwane Community Centre in Guguletu, South Africa and Bongani Magatyana are determined to change this. Bongani Magatyana, an accomplished musician and composer, has formed SiYAYA - a performing group made up of 12 musicians who live in the townships surrounding Cape Town. In January of 2004 Magatyana held auditions and within a month the newly formed group was rehearsing daily at the Zwane Centre. Very quickly, word got out about this exciting new group and offers began coming in for SiYAYA to perform throughout South Africa, including an invitation to perform at Cape Town's prestigious jazz festival. Within a year, SiYAYA had recorded their first CD. In May of 2005, SiYAYA made their U.S. debut in Minneapolis. The Open Arms community was overwhelmed by their talent and the wonderful response from people.
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06 / 30
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07 / 11
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07 / 13
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07 / 15
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07 / 16
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07 / 17
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07 / 18
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07 / 19
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07 / 20
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07 / 21
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07 / 22
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07 / 24
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07 / 25
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07 / 26
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07 / 27
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07 / 28
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07 / 29
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07 / 30
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07 / 31
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08 / 1
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08 / 2
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08 / 3
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08 / 4
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08 / 5
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08 / 6
Music Starts:7:30 pm
 Habib Koité: Photo by Dirk LeunisThe must-see world music show of the summer, and a great kickoff to Twin Cities Pan African Festival! Malian guitarist and singer Habib Koité is one of Africa's most beloved and popular musicians. Featured in last year's Acoustic Africa tour along with Vusi Mahlasela and Dobet Gnahore, this show will be a whole evening's worth of Habib's high-energy, infectious rhythms, and sheer exuberance. His band Bamada features traditional instruments such polyphonic hunter's horns, alongside balafón (wooden xylophone), and n'goni (a Malian lute), and is the perfect complement for Habib's fluid kora-inspired guitar and earthy vocals. Lots of room for dancing!
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08 / 7
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08 / 8
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08 / 9
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08 / 10
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08 / 11
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08 / 12
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08 / 13
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08 / 14
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08 / 15
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08 / 16
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08 / 17
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08 / 18
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08 / 20
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08 / 21
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08 / 22
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08 / 24
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08 / 25
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08 / 26
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08 / 27
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08 / 28
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08 / 29
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08 / 30
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08 / 31
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09 / 1
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09 / 3
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09 / 4
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09 / 5
Music Starts:8:00 pm
 Punch BrothersPunch, brothers! punch with care!
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!
So goes the annoying jingle from Mark Twain’s amusing story of an early ear worm that spawned the name for virtuoso mandolinist/composer/singer and Grammy winning Nickel Creek-er Chris Thile’s latest project: Punch Brothers (formerly the How to Grow a Woman from the Ground Band), where Thile on mandolin and vocals is joined by Greg Garrison (Leftover Salmon, Ron Miles, Tony Trischka) on bass, Gabe Witcher (Willie Nelson, Randy Newman, Beck, Jerry Douglas) on fiddle, Chris Eldridge (Infamous Stringdusters, and son of the Seldom Scene’s Ben Eldredge) on guitar and Noam Pickelny (Leftover Salmon) on banjo. The project is an ambitious one, with the group’s debut release Punch (Nonesuch) a song cycle featuring at it’s core a 40-minute four-movement chamber bluegrass suite called The Blind Leaving the Blind, chronicling the story of Thile’s marital breakup and its aftermath through impressionistic lyrics that fall somewhere between a confession (directed, variously, to his listeners, to his ex, and to God), and an impassioned, late night, barstool soliloquy. Together, these performers helped Thile to realize the most conceptually daring, emotionally cathartic work of an already impressive career. Bluegrass, jazz, chamber and pop—all come together in a complex, but highly rewarding work that lead the New York Times to proclaim “expands the frontier of an emerging style of what might be called American country-classical chamber music.”
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09 / 6
Music Starts:8:00 pm
 Damien DempseyPart Van, part Bono, part Christy, and at times part Bob (Dylan or Marley, take your pick), powerhouse vocalist Dubliner Damien Dempsey puts a ton of energy into his passionate songs, and represents the undisputed new roots voice of Ireland. Damien has previously provided all-too-brief opening sets in Minneapolis for Sinead O'Connor and The Swell Season; this is his richly deserved local debut as a headliner. Openers tonight will be local Irish roots band Sweet Colleens, creating a doubly sweet opening weekend spectacular.
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09 / 7
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09 / 8
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09 / 9
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09 / 10
Music Starts:7:30 pm
 Plastic People of the UniversePrague's Plastic People of the Universe, and the band they later became, Pulnoc, remain one of rock & roll's great stories of triumph and how great music can be produced and survive even in the most hostile of environments. The band was founded in 1968 soon after 500,000 Soviet troops invaded Czechoslovakia. With the Kremlin not being particularly fond of Western-style rock that wasn't sanctioned by the state, the Plastic People, to paraphrase the Jefferson Airplane, quickly became outlaws in the eyes of Moscow (and the ruling Soviet government in Prague). From 1970 until the "Velvet Revolution" of 1989 that ended Soviet domination, the Plastic People lived a mostly illegal existence, with two of their members, Ivan Jirous and Jaroslav Vozniak, doing lengthy stretches in prison. Influenced by Zappa, English progressive rock/radical politicos Henry Cow, Captain Beefheart, and the Velvet Underground, the Plastic People appropriated the avant-garde leanings and anti-authoritarian outrage of these bands while working in their own sense of dread and desperation. (John Dougan, All Music Guide)
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09 / 11
Music Starts:7:30 pm
 One of Hungary’s most popular contemporary bands, Little Cow was conceived by László Kollár-Klemencz and his creative partner Igor Lazin in order to provide songs for their ‘Little yellow cow’ animations. From that auspicious beginning, the band in its current line-up began in 2005, brought to prominence by the incredible success of their song Szájbergyerek (Cyber boy). Although the video clip was not broadcast by any commercial channels, it became wide-known and popular via the internet. The song become a huge hit in the Hungarian music industry and was chosen as the ‘Song of the year in Hungary’ in the Fonogram Awards.
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