Brian's song
Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival (MSPIFF) generally follow similar paths in art cinema programming. Now for the first time they're identical. Each organization is participating in a Twin Cities celebration of Bill Pohlad's career as a high-profile producer for directors including Steve McQueen, Terrence Malick, Robert Altman and Ang Lee, and his work as a filmmaker in his own right. Pohlad's second directorial effort in two decades,"Love & Mercy," will have its local premiere at the Walker April 24, followed the next night by an MSPIFF screening that will close this year's festival. The film, which debuted to warm reviews at the Toronto Film Festival last fall, dramatizes the life of pop genius Brian Wilson from his early days writing catchy surf-pop melodies for the Beach Boys, through his struggles with mental issues, to his later emergence as a solo artist. The film stars Paul Dano as the youthful Wilson and John Cusack as Wilson in the 1980s. The soundtrack features fragments of Beach Boys recordings as well as an original score by Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe winner Atticus Ross. Pohlad will attend both screenings.
Colin Covert
Vernon's an Indigo boy
Amid all the Spoons, Sufjans and other modern, hip indie-rock, folk and rap acts on the newly announced lineup for Justin Vernon's Eaux Claires Music & Arts Festival — scheduled July 17-18 in his native Eau Claire, Wis. — two veteran acts stand out from the cool kids. The first is Blind Boys of Alabama, whose 2013 album was produced by Vernon, a connection the Bon Iver bandleader gladly used to the festival's advantage. "When else are the Blind Boys going to play Eau Claire?" he deadpanned. The other is the Indigo Girls, who will perform 1994's "Swamp Ophelia" album in full at the event, per Vernon's request. "It's my favorite album of all time," he declared, flatly ignoring anyone who think it's not "fashionable" to like the folk duo. "I've never let up on them. I find them to still be highly under-appreciated."
CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER
Just the facts, Maureen
After the breakup of Babes in Toyland, Maureen Herman stowed her bass and worked as a music writer, doing stints at Musician magazine and Rolling Stone. She got used to taping interviews, recently recording her mother for a memoir due out in July 2016. Even when Herman's fingers are back on guitar strings rather than a laptop, she thinks like a journo. She clarified and elaborated when her bandmates didn't answer a Star Tribune reporter's questions articulately enough during a recent interview, and when it was over, she picked up his tape recorder, thinking it was hers.
JON BREAM
Spooning in style
The Twin Cities dining scene is now so chic that even glossy Architectural Digest, self-anointed as "The International Design Authority," is touting Gavin Kaysen's Spoon and Stable in its March issue. Sharing a page with a Jeanne Lanvin fashion retrospective in Paris, the Minneapolis restaurant is lauded for its "za'atar-spiced Atlantic cod with Tunisian couscous," and the snazzy modern decor and "soaring dining room" that Shea, the Minneapolis restaurant-design honchos, crafted from a former stable.
Mary Abbe
Arts architect steps up
Tim Carl, 51, the go-to architect for Twin Cities culture venues, has been promoted from design principal to CEO at HGA Architects and Engineers. A 17-year veteran at HGA, Carl follows Dan Avchen, who has run the firm since 1996 and will stay on to provide "strategic direction." Carl is best known in the Twin Cities for his smart renovation of the University of Minnesota's Northrop Auditorium, the expansion and renovation of General Mills' headquarters, a modernist addition to the American Swedish Institute's famous "castle," and the new Ordway Concert Hall opening this month in downtown St. Paul. M.A.
Keillor's his hobbit
Backstage at the Grammy Awards Sunday in Los Angeles, mandolin god Chris Thile was asked what it was like to host "A Prairie Home Companion" on Saturday. Thile said he grew up listening to it: "Some of my earliest musical memories are from that show." He called Garrison Keillor a master entertainer, and compared him to J.R.R. Tolkien as someone capable of creating his own universe.J.B.
Vote Northeast
USA Today has named the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District as one of 20 standouts in the country for one of its current "10 Best" readers' voting lists. As of this week, our own Northeast had garnered the most online votes, so keep 'em coming and let's kick Brooklyn, L.A.'s NoHo and San Francisco's Union Square to the curb. Vote by 11 a.m. March 2 at 10Best.com/awards/travel.
KRISTIN TILLOTSON
