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| Where will the Big Wu be playing next? |
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[9/17/2010]
Des Moines, IA
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[9/18/2010]
Franklin, MN
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[10/30/2010]
Aberdeen, SD
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[10/31/2010]
Fargo, ND
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[11/25/2010]
Minneapolis, MN
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| Extra! Extra! Read all about the Big Wu's recent appearances. |
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[7/11/2009]
Geneva, MN
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[7/10/2009]
Geneva, MN
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[7/3/2009]
Minneapolis, MN
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[6/18/2009]
Minneapolis, MN
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[5/23/2009]
Geneva, MN
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Whenever the Big Wu is in the news, we try to track it down and post it here. However, this doesn't happen without help! If you know of an article we're missing, please let us know by sending us a note.
Music Just Sounds Better in the Mountains
5/4/2004
Read Article
Author: Reanna Feinberg
Author: Jambase.com
Michigan Mike knows how to put together a festival. Beyond a great jazz, world music line-up (Black Frames, The Motet, Garaj Mahal, Vinyl, Single Malt Band, The Big Wu, Tony Furtado & The American Gypsies, Noam Pikelny and Robert Walter's 20th Congress, to name a few), Nedfest is in a beautiful place nestled by the water in the mountains, 'tweener sets play all weekend on the front corner of the stage between main acts, the port-a-potties smell like fresh roasted coffee (smart vendor placement), the stage is powered partly by bio-diesel, folks from Indian Peaks Natural Spring Water supply everyone with free water all weekend, and local breweries, meaderies, music publications, and food vendors line the periphery of the field. This is a music festival though and all these fine amenities don't distract from some bad sound problems during a good chunk of Saturday. Sound problems aside, the weekend is an orgy of good music in a beautiful setting.
Saturday
High energy, reggae infused funk raps, accelerate on a wave of Wookiefoot's momentum to start Nedfest on Saturday August 2nd. A circus of dancers compete for attention with a stage full of colorful, over-sized, felt pants--not taking themselves too seriously, they share good energy.
Powerful energy continues, though I don't think I can call it good (and thank goodness, I imagine that would be among the greatest insults to Skerik and Black Frames I could offer). Psychotic, eerie, creative, maniacal energy may be more appropriate. I'd like to clarify that excavating the word "good" from my description in no way reflects quality--it implies my previous desire to twirl around on the grass in glitter and sunshine with Wookiefoot is squashed by awe watching these guys play something outside any lines where music presently exists. Calling it music is perhaps limiting; how about we call it their interpretation of dungeon torture cells creating music after a few beers? Skerik splits his time fairly evenly between saxes and pounding tunes on the marimba with Mike Dillon on vibes, marimba, tabla and percussion, and the drummer, Earl Harvin, grabbing some mallets and joining Skerik on the marimba and vibes at times. I've never seen musicians build this sort of powerful percussion explosion with mallets on xylophone-type instruments. It's like elementary school kids playing Christmas songs with bells and chimes while hooked to electric shock cables. "Where are we? What just happened? I don't know. What's he building in there?" Skerik asks in a coarse monotone smoky ghoulish narrator-of-horror-theatre tone, describing the music perfectly. A cymbal flies in slow motion circles before clamoring on the stage while Mike Dillon's already playing a new toy: rubbing the inside of a metal drum with his hand wrapped in his t-shirt like cleaning windows.
"Nedfest is all about The Motet," announces Michigan Mike as Dave Watts, on drums, and the rest play some eclectic South American, West African funk. A few of them dive into the audience with pieces of their dismantled drum sets to join Samba Dende in a roaming drum circle gathering dancers like the Pied Pipers of percussion. The Motet does this every year, but adds an additional mid-set samba while the sound problems are fixed; it cuts their time on stage considerably--an unfortunate thing for a band with their talent for creating and molding momentum. Their intoxicating rhythms lure festive dancers around the field and my legs join this moving amoeba as if it were pants they had lost. They'll surely continue out the gates and into the Rocky Mountains like a gypsy caravan pulling in unsuspecting passerby's with their infectious rhythms to step on the world as if it were made of marshmallows. I don't have warm enough clothes for that sort of exploration so I dive to the ground, dig my fingers into the soil and hold on as my feet kick and lurch toward the drums--they put up a good fight and eventually accept a promise of no shoes for a week i
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