Weekly Release Spotlight: Private Dancer
Posted on 10/19/2008
Private Dancer
Trouble Eyes
[Learning Curve]
When "TBA" lingered on the Triple Rock Social Club's web site as the local opener for the much-anticipated Jay Reatard and Cheap Time show this summer, folks started getting anxious. What lucky Twin Cities punks would get to kick off this bill made in heaven, featuring the trash guitar demigod whose rabid cult following expanded one hundred fold with his recent signing to Matador Records? Finally, the name "Private Dancer" appeared online. Many remained suspicious until members of Falcon Crest, STNNNG, Heroine Sheiks, and Hockey Night took the stage and quelled all nerves.
With such fine and indisputable pedigree aboard, it's no wonder that it took the St. Paul supergroup only six months to grab this much-desired gig as well as attain the number five spot on City Pages' annual Picked to Click list. Their brand of angsty yet playful retro garage-pop (whether it recalls the 1960s or the 1990s is debatable) backs up their swift achievements too. If their mastery seems a bit cursory, it's because all of the aforementioned bands from which they sprang also severely rocked, and with a similarly distinctly quirky attitude that our fine cities have laid particular claim to over the years (see the success of Craig Finn, Tapes 'n Tapes, and even Old Man Westerberg). It's spilled over into Private Dancer, a new band with a new sound, but old reliable feelings.
Trouble Eyes may even just fall in line as one of the most promising debuts of a Minnesotan artist this year. It's brisk like the group's formation, with a track list of just eight songs, but there is arguably no filler whatsoever. Every track wails into the next, yet allows time for quasi-instrumental respites ("1000 Year Wave" and "A Horse Named Reverb"). But even these tunes grab the ears with steady and satisfying climbs to climaxes with multiple noisy polyphonic guitar licks driving each along the way. And the vocally-oriented numbers are, simply put, just the best kind of party: opener "I See Trouble" and "She's A Company Man" pummel with brash sing-along moments while the penultimate "Ain't Leavin' No More" is a closing time anti-theme, guilelessly proclaiming that they will not go away. Let's hope not -- this is a local band we don't want to see disintegrate prematurely.
Stream: Private Dancer - I See Trouble
Written by Chris Polley, Radio K volunteer and host of Now Like Photographs.