Show Review: Rock'n'roll ghosts : Birthday Suits and Strut and Shock at the Turf Club 9/4/08

I rarely cross the river to St. Paul to see bands. It's just too long and hilly a trek by cycle when Minneapolis offers such a smorgasbord of entertainment, all catered to your particular mood. (Only have five dollars and a couple lukewarm Tallboys? Go to the punk show. If it sucks, hang out by the bathroom where people always congregate and schmooze. Feel like sneering at some generic indie rock? Well that my friends, is what Uptown is for). Digressions aside, I will, however, ride in a car to St. Paul. So last night I happily clambered into Tall Bob's Ford F-something50, and with our little friend Emiwee squeezed into the middle seat, we set out to what Bob promised would be the premier event of the evening: Birthday Suits and Strut and Shock in the Clown Lounge of the Turf Club, and the presentation of an early 70s Canadian surf movie upstairs.

The Turf Club channels rock'n'roll spirit better than any bar in Minneapolis. That old raw-styled rock'n'roll. In Minneapolis the best we get is weird art rock, weird punk, and weird americana. Good Minneapolis shows are about dancing and singing along or soaking in the scene while listening to something unique, it's not always ruckus, but it's usually interesting. Maybe it's St. Paul's working-class style, but rock'n'roll still lives there, and people go out at night to specifically track it down.

What a strange juxtaposition for a Monday night: Upstairs a couple people watched a plotless Canadian surf film, or the Twins' massacre Seattle, while downstairs a lot of boys in plaid shirts and ladies with choppy haircuts drank beer and packed into the Turf's Clown Lounge.

We were sitting at a booth across from the infamous photo booth trying to stuff a pitcher of Premium, which Emiwee insisted she was upsold on, into our glasses, when we heard the echo of a band wind its way up the stairs. The vibrations of the bass drum shocking through the floor for the couple songs started to remind me of The Replacements, certainly not in actual sound, but in sloppy, exuberant aesthetic. After topping off our drinks we went downstairs, through the curtain, and into the lounge. Upstairs, on the main stage, the show would have seemed empty, but the Clown Lounge was comfortably packed, like a good house party or giant basement show.

Strut and Shock were playing, the room, never too empty, was comfortably filled with good-looking Turf regulars. Strut and Shock are a four piece with such respectable antecedents as the Selby Tigers, they play garage styled punk with some riot grrl and 90s influences. Every couple lines, the singer yelped in a garage-y scream, the best in the cities I'd say. The band rocketed along. The light in the basement was kind of orange, and the band smiled as they played, it reminded me of my first experiences seeing bands in the late 90s, the energy and excitement.

Then, Birthday Suits played. They feature former members of Sweet J.A.P, the high energy Minneapolis band of the mid-2000s. Birthday Suits is in the same vein, maybe the energy is even more packed in and frantic with only two members. Both caterwauled, guitaro slashed like a mixed-up THin Lizzy, drummer pounded away. Then guitaro howled and hopped on the table in a heavy sweat. It was rock'n'roll trance time, which works with their garage punk sound, but I always feel a little uncomfortable about the spectacle at first. Performing is always the part of rock'n'roll I have the most insecurities about, I like punk enough that I don't always feel comfortable just standing and watching. But the music was good, the energy was high. Why worry? No one really danced, but we watched. It was a good rock'n'roll show, at first straightforward, buttoned-up like St. Paul, as it got later it let loose into a ruckusy performance.

Afterward, we went outside while Bob smoked. We ran into some people we knew, then somehow got sidetracked down desolate University Avenue to Big V's. There were drunk barflys giving Emiwee the questionable and long-winded compliment that she is beautiful but that no one notices, there was a noisy improvisational jazz thing blaring away on stage with only the other band gathered around, there were shots of blueberry schnapps. Then a drive home, because, at 2 a.m., with a few beers and a couple shots of blueberry schnapps in your belly, and even after a night of rock'n'roll magic, no one wants to bike up all those stupid hills back to Minneapolis.