It's hard to feel sorry for either Martin Dosh or Frankie Lee when they talk about finding a cure for the winter blues.
The former just finished a string of tour gigs with My Brightest Diamond before the holidays and is often on the road during the coldest months of the year. The latter spent last January rambling between Texas and California and humbly bragged, "I haven't stayed home in Minnesota for a winter in over 10 years."
This January is going to be different for each musician, though, and they came up with very similar ways to stay active while staying in town: Both have booked a January residency gig at the Turf Club with alternating guests lined up each week.
"If I was gonna stay around town, I wanted to have a place to play," explained Lee, the sandy-voiced Americana/country stalwart, who will perform every Sunday through Jan. 25 in the Clown Lounge, located underneath the Turf's main room.
"Instead of hanging out alone in a basement somewhere in northeast Minneapolis, I figured why not hang out in the basement of the Turf Club and play music with my friends?"
After his "Middle West" EP came out in 2013 to local acclaim, Lee put together a regular backing band that is irregularly stacked with talent, including drummer JT Bates, bassist Mike Lewis and guitarists Jeremy Ylvisaker and Michael Rossetto. However, those guys are just some of the many people he is inviting to play with him this month.
"The idea is that whoever shows up and whenever they show up, we will get them up," Lee said. "If you've seen me play, you know the band can go from two to 10 players, and any and all of them can play two or three instruments — some at the same time. So, we will have plenty of players and options to explore each week."
Dosh, the drummer and keyboardist who has been performing his one-man hypno-groove/electro-loop shows for 13 years now, is following a similar no-holds-barred mold for his Tuesday gigs upstairs — and he'll even have some of the same players as Lee.
