It wasn't just for show when Pete Christensen met me at the Music Box Theatre last week with his cell phone up to his ear, on hold for an important matter.
"It's about our liquor license," he said.
Christensen hasn't let the lack of beer and wine sales keep live music from the reinvented Music Box, nor would he let his latest phone call into the matter keep him from showing me around the historic Minneapolis theater.
The Music Box is one of those rough-gem performance palaces you may have driven past a hundred times but still can't pinpoint on a map. Built in 1920, it's at 1407 Nicollet Av. S., on the north end of Eat Street and/or the southwest end of downtown. It is taxed like it's part of downtown, Christensen complained.
Until last year, the Music Box was the full-time home of the offbeat comedy show "Triple Espresso," its tenant for 12 "highly caffeinated" years. Now that the "Espresso" team has refocused its energies on other cities and limited their Music Box dates to Nov. 13-Jan. 3, the building's landlord brought in Christensen to fill up the theater with a variety of genres, including more comedy, spoken-word and talent shows.
So far, though, music seems to be the thing that's really sticking -- local music, to be exact.
Tapes 'N Tapes' unplugged show there two weeks ago was warmly received, as were the Music Box installments of the Mad Ripple Hootenanny this summer. This weekend finds it filled up with two more promising gigs: Bella Koshka's tribute to the Rolling Stones' "Rock & Roll Circus" tonight, and the Hobo Nephews of Uncle Frank's CD party Saturday.
Christensen is careful not to call the Music Box a music venue -- too close to "nightclub," which won't help his case on the liquor license or other city issues -- but he is clearly excited about hosting more gigs there. He has enlisted rock photographer and Electric Fetus staffer Stacy Schwartz to help bring in bands. And he took me on a tour to show off its musical assets: pristine acoustics, cozy stage and relatively elaborate dressing room (but you have to walk through a dingy basement labyrinth to get to it).
One only need step foot in the Music Box to know it could never be a nightclub. Its 450 seats are sharply sloped and pressed up against the stage, with nary any room to dance.
"It's a listening room first and foremost," Christensen said, echoing comments I heard from members of Tapes 'N Tapes.
"You can whisper onstage and hear it in the last row," TNT singer Josh Grier boasted. Keyboardist Matt Kretzman described it as "a really sweet, intimate vibe. It kind of feels like a big group hug in there."
The Music Box definitely deserves an embrace from the city and the scene alike, before it's too late. Christensen said the financial scheme behind the place "is like one big math problem," since the upkeep of the building alone is a money pit. It's also in something of a struggling corner of the city, Christensen said, as he pointed to one neighboring restaurant that shut down a week earlier (Bali) and another that changed owners (India House). And never mind the challenge of paying staffers.
"I've worn out all my family and friends as volunteers," he said.
During our tour, Christensen hung up his phone call after about 15 minutes of waiting. At press time a few days later, he still wasn't sure when the Music Box could be selling beer and wine -- the most obvious way to try to solve its math problem.
Here's hoping the call gets through soon.
Circus acts & Hobos Tonight's tribute to the "Rock & Roll Circus" won't just feature songs from the 1968 movie/concert/ego-explosion, although it certainly sounds intriguing enough to hear organizers Bella Koshka put their strings-fueled twist on Stones, Who, John Lennon and maybe even Jethro Tull songs, as will Brian Jones-ian local troupe First Communion Afterparty and Los Angeles rockers Saint Motel.
The show is also reportedly going to feature some of the carnivalistic antics of the original show, including dancing ladies (Lili's Burlesque), jugglers, flame twirlers and more. Let's just hope this one doesn't go until 5 a.m. like the original.
Between their Duluth roots and their troubadour lifestyles, the Hobo Nephews of Uncle Frank -- brothers Teague and Ian Alexy, with drummer Paul Grill -- have already been called "Dylanesque" enough for one band's lifetime. But there's no avoiding the nods to Bob on their second disc, "Traveling Show," an ambitious disc partly recorded in New York with such guests as Ryan Adams' steel player Jon Graboff and jazz organist Marco Benevento (some of Trampled by Turtles also played on local sessions). This is Dylan-copping with feeling, though, and not just old-school style. Rollicking, bluesy cuts such as "It Happens All the Time" and "Silver Spoons" would fit in on "Together Through Life."
Killer stuff A few songs into her band's set last Saturday at Sauce, Kill to Kill frontwoman Sylvia Izabella -- her full Polish name is too hard to translate -- asked for more vocals in her monitor. Not satisfied with the results, she concluded, "I guess I'll just have to scream louder."
Get ready for a louder presence from Kill to Kill overall, as the young trio issues its debut for Guilt Ridden Records, "Fighter," at a release party Thursday at the Hexagon Bar with Gospel Gossip and Red Pens (10 p.m., free). The band famously eschews regular electric guitars. Izabella mostly plays bass, and lead picker Chad Weber plays a baritone-style guitar with low tunings. That's hardly their only interesting attribute. Tracks such as the wholly unsweet "Sugar Sugar" and "Hater" show Izabella to be a snarling, Kim Gordon-style howler, while the opener "Radical Flyer" shows how cleverly she and Weber intertwine their gutter-deep instruments.
Vibro revival The Vibro Champs went on hiatus in 2004 when co-leader Dave Wolfe relocated to Austin, Texas. But 1,200 miles didn't stop the rockabilly vets from recording a fiery new album called "Mr. International," out this week on Eclectone Records.
He and Al Subola get right back to the basics, trading off Duane Eddy/Gene Vincent-style guitar licks and lyrics about babes, hot rods and the men who love them equally. Those songs are fun, but the fierce, punky instrumental jams "Fluffer" and "Mr. Mofongo" are the highlights.
Wolfe is back in town to promote the disc tonight at O'Gara's Garage (9 p.m., $5).
Random mix Split singles/EPs are usually pure novelty, but not in the case of the "Lemon-Lime EP" with the Owls offshoot band the Starfolk and a new trip-hoppy act called Typsy Panthre. That's because Alison LaBonne's unmistakable Nico-esque vocals lead both acts. In the Starfolk, she and hubby Brian Tighe team with Jelloslave cellist Jacqueline Ultan for a more urgent spin on the Owls' ethereal folk. Typsy Panthre finds LaBonne collaborating with electronics wiz John Crozier for obvious Goldfrapp/Portishead comparisons. The Starfolk plays tonight with the Birds of Virginia at Cedar Cultural Center (7:30 p.m., $5). ...
Solid Gold, Lookbook and Mystery Palace have convinced me there's a future in dance/electronic-rock locally, but I don't hear it in Mercurial Rage the way many other people do. Susstones Records is issuing the quintet's debut with a "Sussedtacular" party Saturday at Sauce with Two Harbors and Mood Swings (9 p.m., $5). Titled "Cascade," it sounds to me like Depeche Mode covering Collective Soul. ...
City on the Make's gig Saturday at Palmer's is the band's second show with a new guitarist. Former guy Mischa Kegan stayed with the band while living in Chicago over the past year, but he won't be able make any gigs now that he is moving to South Korea. ... Coming to Epic nightclub Oct. 24, hip-hop legend KRS-One and his partner Buckshot dipped into our local talent pool for their new album: Slug guests on the track "We Made It." ...
Motion City Soundtrack just announced a three-night run Dec. 18-20 in Chicago at a new venue called Lincoln Hall, where the band will play all three of its records in their entirety. The gigs are part of the hype-building for the band's just-finished fourth album and first for Columbia Records, produced by Blink-182's Mark Hoppus and likely due next spring. Look for plenty of hometown activity by MCS in the coming months, too.
chrisr@startribune • 612-673-4658