Category Archives: My Music

Kari Tauring’s Nordic Kickstarter

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I’ve been playing music with Kari Tauring for some five years now. We live about 10 blocks from each other in South Minneapolis and have collaborated on two recordings and a number of live performances, ranging from simple acoustic duo concerts to multi-instrumental electronic excursions through centuries of Nordic Roots music. She’s a brilliant improviser, and brings a storyteller’s skill to traditional ballads sung in ancient Norwegian dialects that most Norwegians no longer speak. We’re finishing up a new studio recording called The Nykken and The Bear and have set up a Kickstarter campaign to fund it. Working with longtime collaborators Scott Nieman (Felonious Bosch) and David Stenshoel (Boiled In Lead) this record is two suites of songs and spoken word pieces about the nykken (mischievous water spirits) and the bear (fearsome shape-shifter) mixing new arrangements and adaptations of traditional songs with spoken word pieces. The cover art is a painting by Aneesa Adams. On the project, I’ve been playing acoustic and electric bass, as well as an eerie siren-tone on a heavily-effected e-bowed electric dulcimer (we shot some in-studio video rolling a glass slide up and down the strings, but the video was lost; you can hear it on the song “Heiemo” starting at about 3 mins 10 sec in the preview video.)     I shot and edited this piece with Apple’s Final Cut and the amazing Zoom Q3HD camera. We also were pleased to get quick permission to use a few clips from the Norwegian reality show Alt For Norge where Kari was a first-season contestant. While I don’t like to promise (or even discuss) projects before they’re 99% finished, it’s looking very good that we’ll have the entire album completed by the time the Kickstarter finishes up on Monday February 25th. This week Kari and I are developing the package layout, as we watch the project gain support to approach (and hopefully exceed) its modest goal. Kickstarter staff have highlighted the project by putting it on their “Staff Picks” page; I hope you’ll check out the project and consider backing it. We’ll be shipping out the discs as the days get longer and the snow begins to melt. To finish off, here’s a live performance “Huldre” video from 2009 at The Capri Theater in North Minneapolis. “Drømte” dates to around 1300 and is the oldest known secular song in the Nordic tradition. (For many years, the melody was played between programs on the national radio service in Denmark.) Every time we play it, this epic journey takes a different course.   … Continue reading →

Phenomena related to le morte d’Bosch

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Felonious Bosch has finished its 8-year run playing “music from the new dark ages” in the Twin Cities and beyond. The project finished on a high note with the release of a final album called Phenomena. Listen: The graphic design side of the project took some twists along the way, but I was saved by the Internet (again). Originally I had thought we were going to make a compilation of these new recordings with the band’s cassette-only studio improv release The Bent Slinky Session. That tape used a David Stenshoel watercolor-enhanced version of a Durer woodcut (at right) which had never been properly printed. But democracy intervened. Instead of dumping out everything, the band decided to focus on our last set of eight songs; three covers and five originals. So the music was all done, but there was absolutely zero in the way of a graphic design. As a desperate joke, I whipped up an homage to The Beatles’ White Album (we would have been #37 to do this). Could have been cool to print this on really nice paper, but… meh.       It was getting late. So I put the album title “phenomena” into Google. Within a few pages of image searching, I found these amazing photographs of “entoptic phenomena” by William Hundley (originally from MN, now living in TX). A few quick emails, and we’d established a license agreement for three enigmatic images to illustrate the package. These are from the “digital booklet” format to go with the downloads. So thee Bosch is over, and it’s been a good run. Hope you enjoy these final phenomena. Available on compact disc from Hearful and Amazon, with the five original songs up on iTunes. … Continue reading →

Felonious Bosch and The Brass Messengers

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Pure music, and a cross-post as well. I recently launched a makeover on the Felonious Bosch website (using WP Weaver with a rotating header graphic of art by Albrecht Durer, colorized by David Stenshoel), and the band have a concert coming up tomorrow July 20 with The Brass Messengers in Saint Paul at the Amsterdam Bar And Hall. Opening the show at 9:30 pm are a violin / cello / drum kit trio called Clocks & Clouds.         Whittney Streeter made a lovely piece of poster art (at right) and earlier this week, FnB and tBM rehearsed the Scott Nieman tune “Chania” together. Here’s a brief brasstastic excerpt:     … Continue reading →

The Langers Ball new site and Kickstarter project

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Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been playing bass with The Langers Ball from St. Paul MN. I worked on a couple of package designs with Michael Sturm and Hannah Rediske in the past; when they asked me to play bass with them in a new “full band” it was an easy decision. The music is fast and fun; I need to use two distortion pedals when we play live. The set is a mix of speedy “trad. arranged” Irish songs plus Michael’s originals, with a few slower ones thrown in to give you time to refill your glass (including a beautiful cover of Greg Brown’s “Little Vagabond.”) Most of them are about one of my favorite subjects: whiskey. The trad. material is given a good working-over; for example the famine/emigration ballad “Fields Of Athenry” sounds more like U2 than The Dubliners. In the studio with engineer John Wright (folk-rockers Lehto & Wright, also worked on the last two Boiled In Lead releases), maniacal drummer Derek Jaimes (ex-Wild Colonial Bhoys) and I knocked out all the basics in a three-day session. Michael and Hannah are finishing up their overdubs this week, and then Trevor Jurgens will be in to add some rockabilly twang with his hollowbody Gretsch. We’ll finish the recording with backing vocals, re-amping the bass for extra sludge, and perhaps a guest or two. The album package is going to be shot at a high level, too – we’ve already done two retro-futurist photo sessions with Steve Wolf / Other Side Images. Yesterday, Michael came over to the office and we put together a new band site in just a few hours (yes, another WordPress site using Weaver). It’s early days yet for the site, but the Kickstarter project to fund production of the band’s new album The Devil Or The Barrel has just a few days remaining; we’re within reach of the goal and hope you’ll consider funding it. Here’s video from my first Langers gig at The Wild Tymes in Saint Paul; stay tuned as the project goes forward: … Continue reading →

Felonious Bosch digital single

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Felonious Bosch have two new songs for the winter season: I Think of You backed with Shimmer. The first song is an original by Katy Thomasberg with a ripping e-fiddle solo by David Stenshoel. The second is based on a Sephardic piece called Sa Da Wi, with new lyrics by Katy. Nemo brought the tune to thee Bosch after an earlier version by Seven Thieves. We recorded and mixed these two at dubNemo in North Minneapolis. Artwork borrowed from Pieter Brueghel’s “Hunters In The Snow” from 1565. Listen above (via SoundCloud); buy them on Here’s the “original” of Sa Da Wi (great tune with a black screen): Also created a postcard for FnBosch performances Nov. 2nd, 2011 at Sample Night and Dec 9th at the Black Dog (Quark Xpress + Adobe CS).   … Continue reading →