Music: From 'Alcatraz' to 'Silver City'

At first, it sounds like a love letter to the Twin Cities. But when you hear singer/songwriter Jeremy Messersmith talk about the problems he has endured and the personal journey he's been on since living here, you realize that his new album, "The Silver City," is a bit more complicated.

Messersmith and his wife, Vanessa -- both graduates of the Minneapolis Christian college North Central University -- used to live in the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis and loved it, but their house got broken into a couple times. Fed up, they relocated to the Lowertown area of downtown St. Paul. Then they found themselves spending too much time commuting back to Minneapolis.

"It's definitely not a straight-ahead love letter, although there are things I love about living here," Messersmith, 28, explained last week at his new place in Uptown, where the couple had just moved about a week earlier.

"It's more about the experiences I've had living in the Twin Cities, but I never actually say Minneapolis or St. Paul. They might be experiences of anybody my age in any city."

Yes, "The Silver City" has universal themes about life as a young, mass-transit-riding, cubicle-working, job-temping urbanite. But some of the songs should ring specific bells for Twin Cities residents.

Songs like "Franklin Avenue," about a personal crossroads Messersmith faced, and "Light Rail" have an obvious Minneapolis connection. There's as much fine detail in more generically titled tunes such as "The Commuter" and "Welcome to Suburbia," written from a city-dweller's perspective of a big home in a cul-de-sac as a (mythical?) nirvana. Even the record's one cover, the Replacements' "Skyway," wisely fits the mold.

"The Silver City" -- which Messersmith and his two-piece band will promote with a release party Thursday at the Varsity Theater -- was produced by Dan Wilson, Semisonic's frontman (or at least he is again this weekend, thanks to the McNally Smith River Rocks Festival). Clearly a kindred spirit for Messersmith's softly sung, sophisticated pop and hip balladry, Wilson got one of the 500 or so homemade CDs that Messersmith gave out around town prior to the release of his first album, "The Alcatraz Kid," in 2006.

With its surprisingly highbrow albeit lo-fi production (lightly laced with strings and horns), "The Alcatraz Kid" immediately made Messersmith a kid to watch. It landed on our year-end Twin Cities Critics Tally in 2006, and it earned him a songwriter nod in City Pages' "Best of the Twin Cities."

The debut record also garnered a heap of comparisons to collegiate indie-rock star Sufjan Stevens, whose soft, sweet voice and use of strings and horns are akin to Messersmith's -- whether Messersmith knows it or not.

"I honestly have never really listened to him, but I've heard a few songs now and have read up on him," Messersmith said of Stevens, who is famously a devout Christian. "I guess there's a similar wholesome Christian earnestness there. I'd be curious to meet him, because I think we share a lot of the same background."

Messersmith's youth was defined by a trinity of unusual circumstances: He was raised in a Christian fundamentalist home; he was home-schooled through high school; and the part of Washington State where he's from, the Tri Cities area, was a center for building atomic bombs.

"It's like a big toxic-waste dump now, basically," he said, comparing it to Springfield, home of TV's Simpson family. "My dad actually had Homer's job at the nuclear plant, as a safety inspector."

"One of the reasons I went to a Christian college was to kind of hear Christian apologetics and their answers to the questions of life that everybody has," he said. "They didn't really answer to my satisfaction."

A music major, he picked up songwriting via a class at North Central. While he worked a series of jobs as a temp and a self-proclaimed "computer geek" after school -- fodder for another of the excellent new songs, "Dead End Job" -- he started testing his own tunes at the Acadia Cafe and other coffeehouses around town.

With ample radio play right now on the Current (89.3 FM) and plans to tour in the fall, Messersmith said the idea of playing music full-time "would be very fitting."

"A lot of my songs are about that really awkward period after college when you're faced with finding your place in the world, figuring out where you fit," he said.

He didn't say it, but it sounds as though Messersmith has figured out his place.

Another big Minne-centric album that was supposed to be out this month, the Gary Louris and Mark Olson duo album, "Ready for the Flood," has been picked up for release by New West Records from the punier Hacktone label. The release date has thus been moved back to early next year. In the meantime, fans can get a fix by browsing YouTube footage from the full-fledged Jayhawks reunion (with Olson!) at the Azkena Festival in Spain two weekends ago.

Still shocking Since it's uncool for critics to seek autographs, the only signed album I actually own is Impaler's blood-soaked cover of "Rise of the Mutants." I got it at an in-store at the old Northern Lights record store on White Bear Avenue in St. Paul when I was 13 and flush with paper-route money, a story I recount to demonstrate how long the "hard-gore" metal band has been around. Gwar was still using ketchup for a prop when Impaler started spewing its fake blood and fireworks across the Twin Cities. It's been so long that frontman Bill Lindsey's son Zac is now a part of the band/freakshow.

Look for Impaler members past and present to reunite at the 25th anniversary show at 4th Street Station, formerly Ryan's, in downtown St. Paul, where the band got its start (10 p.m. Sat., $5).

Good cause, bad price What's with these $150 ticket prices? After the Time's reunion show carried that price tag last weekend, Soul Asylum is performing another charity fundraiser with that steep cover charge Saturday at Epic nightclub. The show is for a great cause, though: Faith's Lodge, a Ronald McDonald House-affiliated retreat center. Rock fans of more meager means can show their support by buying the new 15-track all-local CD, "Hope Rocks! Vol. 1," featuring songs by Cloud Cult, Romantica, Tim Mahoney, the Honeydogs, Alarmists, Chris Koza and more (www.faithslodge.org).

Random mix A more affordable benefit gig: Dan Israel, Raven, So It Goes, Little Man, the Abdomen and more perform Sunday at the Fine Line to raise money for yet another hard-working musician without decent health insurance, guitarist Glenn Graham, who has non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (7:30 p.m., $11-$13.). ...

After years of reading innumerable critics' accounts of the demise of Hüsker Dü and his experiences as a gay rock 'n' roller, Bob Mould is going to give us his versions. Mould has committed to write an autobiography for Little, Brown & Co., slated to publish in the fall of 2010. ... Prince's photo book, "21 Nights," based on his 21-night run at London's 02 Arena last year, will be on shelves by the end of this month. No word if it's being sold with leftover bottles of 3121 perfume.