$8 advance / $10 at the door

9pm showtime

21+

Andy Cook:

As a child, Andy Cook was afraid to sing. After years dodging performances in school music classes, he decided it was time to face his fears. Yet 2017 EP In Space and 2018 follow-up Modern Man still bore traces of that childhood anxiety: vocals surrounded by reverb and delay, melting into swelling banks of guitar. This time around, Andy is determined to recognise his voice for the instrument it really is; putting it front and center on new record “I’ll Be Fine”, out this May on Good Eye Records. Recorded live to tape at Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, I’ll Be Fine bristles with a closeness not heard in earlier work. With co-production by Matthew Molnar (Sunflower Bean, Friends, Kissing is a Crime) and Jeremy Ylvisaker (Bon Iver, Alpha Consumer, Andrew Bird), the band is able to anchor a tighter sound with firmer, bolder foundations. This revamped sound bolsters appropriately direct lyricism, as befitting an artist finding a long-awaited confidence in the stories he chooses to tell. Even the album title I’ll Be Fine faces down the consumerist narratives that bombard us, challenging these ideas of what we should buy, how we should look, who we should like, and how we should talk—instead encouraging us to find a way to be more and more okay with ourselves, however that is. “Life doesn’t have to be about how many people like your Instagram photo, but it’s hard not to feel devalued when we always feel behind, not good enough,” Andy acknowledges. It’s exactly this pragmatism that makes Andy Cook an artist of note in 2020. His singular narratives have been refined with a close-knit team and released in the self-effacing knowledge that they have to compete for attention with the entire contents of Netflix… and yet Andy still chooses to put them out there.



VIAL:

VIAL is a Minneapolis-based band of students focused on activism in diversity and inclusion in the music scene. Their punk songs with pop prowesses explore the aspects of looming adulthood and gender dynamics.



Kansas Plates:

Instrumental music from Minneapolis, MN. “Operator" out now. Patrick Horigan, Zach Brose, Zack Warpinski, Kyle Berman, Cole Pulice. AM Radio.