The Wallets | |
|---|---|
 Steve Kramer and the Wallets at First Avenue c. 1982 | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Minneapolis, United States |
| Genres | Post-punk |
| Years active | Early 1980s–1988 |
| Labels | Twin/Tone |
| Past members | Steve Kramer Erik Anderson Jim Clifford Rod Gordon Max Ray |
The Wallets were a band from the Twin Cities, who recorded on the local Twin/Tone Records label in the 1980s.
The Wallets were founded as an experimental group by accordionist Steve Kramer and managed by Bob Hest. [1]
The Allen Toussaint-produced debut album Take It was released in 1986, described by Spin as urban soul and funk with "a Cajun smell to their work". [2] The album saw the band described as "art rockers who not only want to groove but know how to groove". [3]
Kramer decided to retire the band in spring 1988, but waited until their final album, Body Talk, was released late in the fall before announcing the split. [4] The Wallets performed their final show at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis on January 23, 1989. [5] [6]
Kramer and Hest later formed an advertising agency, currently known as Hest & Kramer, Van House Weber, [7] noted for its use of music in television ads for clients such as Target Stores, MTV, Time Warner, and Buick. [8] [9]
The Minneapolis Star Tribune summed the band's style up as a "mix of polka, rock, rhythm-and-blues, jazz and whimsy". [12]
The band received several Minnesota Music Awards ("Minnies"), with ten nominations in 1987. [13]
The Replacements were an American rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1979. Initially a punk band, they are one of the main pioneers of alternative rock. The band was composed of the guitarist and vocalist Paul Westerberg, guitarist Bob Stinson, bass guitarist Tommy Stinson, and drummer Chris Mars for most of its existence. After several acclaimed albums including Let It Be and Tim, Bob Stinson was kicked out of the band in 1986, and Slim Dunlap joined as lead guitarist. Steve Foley replaced Mars in 1990. Towards the end of the band's career, Westerberg exerted more control over its creative output. The group disbanded in 1991 and the members eventually found various projects. A reunion was announced on October 3, 2012. Fans affectionately refer to the band as the 'Mats, a nickname which originated as a truncation of "The Placemats".
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Information Society is an American band from Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minnesota, initially active from 1982 to 1997, primarily consisting of Kurt Harland Larson, Paul Robb, and James Cassidy; the latter two reconvened the band in 2006, initially with Christopher Anton as lead vocalist, then with Harland rejoining them as lead vocalist by 2008.
Cows were a noise rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota who formed in 1986 and disbanded in 1998. The band’s music mixed punk rock with surreal humour and copious amounts of noise played through distorted amplifiers and trumpet bleats, codifying them as a noise rock band. Throughout their career Cows released nine studio albums, all but one on the Minneapolis-based label Amphetamine Reptile Records. A star in honor of the Cows is on the outside mural of First Avenue.
The Suburbs are an alternative punk rock/funk/new wave band from Minneapolis, Minnesota that was popular in the late 1970s and 1980s. The band frequently headlined at Minneapolis's most influential music clubs, including Jay's Longhorn Bar and First Avenue.
Twin/Tone Records was an independent record label based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which operated from 1977 until 1994. It was the original home of influential Minnesota bands the Replacements and Soul Asylum and was instrumental in helping the Twin Cities music scene achieve national attention in the 1980s. Along with other independent American labels such as SST Records, Touch and Go Records, and Dischord, Twin/Tone helped to spearhead the nationwide network of underground bands that formed the pre-Nirvana indie-rock scene. These labels presided over the shift from the hardcore punk that then dominated the American underground scene to the more diverse styles of alternative rock that were emerging.
Trip Shakespeare was an American rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota and active from the mid 1980s to early 1990s. The band included Dan Wilson and John Munson, who would later go on to be founding members of Semisonic.
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Martin Lee Zellar is a Minnesota-based musician and songwriter. Martin Zellar is the brother of writer Brad Zellar.
Bob "Slim" Dunlap is an American rock musician. He is a Minnesota-based guitarist and singer-songwriter who is best known as a member of The Replacements from 1987 to 1991, replacing original lead guitarist Bob Stinson. Dunlap also recorded two solo albums in the mid-1990s.
Peter Ostroushko was an American violinist and mandolinist. He performed regularly on the radio program A Prairie Home Companion and with a variety of bands and orchestras in Minneapolis–Saint Paul and nationally. He won a regional Emmy Award for the soundtrack he composed for the documentary series Minnesota: A History of the Land (2005).
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Curtiss A is a musician and visual artist from Minneapolis. One of the original artists on the Twin/Tone Records label, he performs one of the most popular shows in the Twin Cities, an annual tribute to John Lennon held at First Avenue. He was the first musician to headline at First Avenue's sister club 7th Street Entry, and opened for Prince's first concert at First Avenue.
"Ma and Pa" is a song by American ska and funk metal band Fishbone. It was the second single released from the album Truth and Soul. The song only managed to chart in the UK, but remains a fan favorite and a staple of the band's live shows to the present day.
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Stephen T. McClellan is an American concert promoter and educator. For 30 years he worked at a series of nightclubs housed in a former bus depot at the corner of First Avenue and 7th Street in downtown Minneapolis, promoting the careers of local musicians and expanding the reach of talent from around the world. These clubs—beginning with The Depot, Uncle Sam's, and Sam's —eventually became the First Avenue & 7th St. Entry nightclub that buoyed the Minneapolis sound and contributed to the development of alternative rock and independent music.
Têtes Noires was a rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota, best known for their "casually mocking" feminist lyrics and for three- and sometimes up to six-part vocal harmonies. Founded by former Miss South Dakota Jennifer Holt, they gave concerts from 1983 until about 1987, and recorded three albums which received positive reviews nationally. As Susan Borey wrote for Spin, the name means "black heads" in French, which they used to describe their hair color.
Boiled in Lead is a rock/world-music band based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and founded in 1983. Tim Walters of MusicHound Folk called the group "the most important folk-rock band to appear since the 1970s." Influential record producer and musician Steve Albini called the band's self-titled first album "the most impressive debut record from a rock band I've heard all year." Their style, sometimes called "rock 'n' reel," is heavily influenced by Celtic music, folk, and punk rock, and has drawn them praise as one of the few American bands of the 1980s and 1990s to expand on Fairport Convention's rocked-up take on traditional folk. Folk Roots magazine noted that Boiled in Lead's "folk-punk" approach synthesized the idealistic and archival approach of 1960s folk music with the burgeoning American alternative-rock scene of the early 1980s typified by Hüsker Dü and R.E.M. The band also incorporates a plethora of international musical traditions, including Russian, Turkish, Bulgarian, Scottish, Vietnamese, Hungarian, African, klezmer, and gypsy music. Boiled in Lead has been hailed as a pioneering bridge between American rock and international music, and a precursor to Gogol Bordello and other gypsy-punk bands. While most heavily active in the 1980s and 1990s, the group is still performing today, including annual St. Patrick's Day concerts in Minneapolis. Over the course of its career, Boiled in Lead has released nearly a dozen albums and EPs, most recently 2012's The Well Below.
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