As you may or may not have heard (maybe out-of-staters aren’t up to speed on local Minnesota news; that’s cool), Governor Dayton just signed marriage for EVERYONE into law yesterday. And a great, big bunch of us are just so happy we finally have caught up to the rest of the progressive states. I personally hate that we even VOTE on marriage, but as there is the civil side to it, we do and we won.
Last year, I did a house fundraiser for Minnesota United for All Families. Of course I played “Gay For You,” but I also wrote a little ditty about love and everyone’s right to have who they want in their life to love and sometimes, want to smother with a pillow. C’mon, you’ve never wanted to make your loved one STFU already? I mean, that’s what love is all about. Your soulmate will do or say something that is so infuriating you get a flash of homicidal tendency, but because you love them more than life itself, you get over it. At least, that is my wish for you. So, the song is about whomever is singing it and how they knew the subject of the song was the One and they just want to have all the same rights to love them like anyone else. Enjoy!
We are so proud of Minnesota for making marriage available for all its citizens!
Hi Curlfriends. I’ve been horrible at keeping up this blog. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve said that on a blog, I’d have, like, 65 cents.
Veldie, me, and Kevs at Town Hall in Chicago, IL!
First off, tonight? Veldie, Kevin, and I (Court) (quite possibly also with Lacey!) play The Motherfucking Cabooze tonight with Diet Folk and The Bitterroot Band. Here’s the Facebook invite if you choose to let us know you’re coming out. It’s going to be straight-up banjo baller action, y’alls.
Second, we’ve got a LOT of great shows coming up. I’ve been a very typical lazy creative lately by not posting our upcoming shows. But, you like us on Facebook, right? Because I update that way more often. But just slightly more often after today. I PROMISE YOU THIS CURLFRIENDS! This blog will be kickin’ by the end of next week. AW YEAH. But seriously: here’s some upcoming shows.
And, well, we’re going to be playing a big Minnesota event in early July. If you guess what it is, you win the knowledge that you are intuitive and a good guesser. But the official schedule hasn’t been released, so we’re not sure if we can talk about it yet. But yes, it’s that. We’re playing that big thing.
And thirdly, we are putting out a record. A full-length CD of new recordings of all your favorites (or most of them). It won’t be new music, but you will have a quality aural version of the Curls for your very own. More details on this too, later, because nothing’s been signed yet. But it’s happening for sure, so stay tuned.
But let me tell you something… great stuff is a’brewin’. See you tomorrow! Hopefully I won’t have to recap the Cabooze show because you’ll have been there.
McClean may have actually gone gay at this moment. Photo by DZ Photography
That, Curlfriends, is Queenie Von Curves, one of my very favorite burlesque dancers in the Twin C — make that anywhere! She guested on the Rockstar Storyteller Erotica show last night with a striptease to “I Would Go Gay For You!” We played it live while she rubbed up on us and stuff. It was pretty awesome. I guess all you’re missing then is the overwhelming jealousy of not being me. Ha!
So. To make sure you don’t ever miss this sort of sauciness again, please head on over to our Upcoming Shows page, and burn that shit in your calendar of stone!!
Raging Heart Boners: that is the best way we have found to describe what Weggs, Veldie, Zach, Chris, Cahak, and I felt for each other by New Year’s Eve. We had just spent the past 5 days together in a big-ass cargo van traveling to just as many cities in the Upper Midwest on our lil’ comedy tour.
We have always considered Valley Meadows (comics Zach Coulter and Chris Knutson as MC Tom Johnson and Gary Schinscynshozzlkdaoindga;ldkdinagldskj, Mr. S, respectively) our brother band. So when they asked us to join them on this tour, of course we were like, “You guys payin’?” Jk. We were all, “OMG YES YES YES A HUNDRED ZILLION TIMES YES!!”
So we did it. From Thursday, Dec. 27 till Dec. 31, we shuttled ourselves across a lil’ part of this magnificent tundra, sharing our gospel of “groove and guffaw” (I just made that up; we would never agree on something so awful). And it was… amazing. Fucking fun as unicorn poop cookies. Hence, there will more tours. I promise to let you know AHEAD of time about them.
By the by, this post has a LOT of pictures (yay!), but you can see the bulk of everyone’s pics on Instagram HERE!
Thursday afternoon I met Weggs, Cahak and Chris at a gas station, loaded into the van and we were on our way to meet Veldie and Zach, who were already in Fargo for family Christmastime.
K-Nuts’ dreamy eyes in the rearview.
It’s really cold outside which is why Weggs looks so chill. WAH WAH
Cahak texts… or Instagrams… or Facebooks… or writes a joke…
We pulled up to Big D’s in Fargo (their phone number is 241-4FUN, btw… it’s no lie) to their huge flashing marquee which said this:
photo by Cahak on Instagram. @andrewcahak, yo.
BOO YAH! We are so big time. At least, Valley Meadows is. Our name wasn’t on the marquee, but we didn’t care! Same show! So fucking awesome!!
After meeting Veldie (and her adorable mom) and Zach (with his lady, the incredible Amber Preston, in tow), The Curls donned their matching sequin dresses and we set up our merch tables. The club tables were filling up… we were about to have our first show on tour and it was already getting hot inside from all the sexy North Dakotan bodies ready for some comedy music!
Valley Meadows at their merch.
Andrew hosted the show and got the nice, big crowd riled up for the first act: our new best comedy music buddies, The Kamikaze Snowmen.
The Kamikaze Snowmen!!
What a treat these guys are! They’re hilarious and musically talented. Please do check them out (and come see them when they play The Sauce Comedy Show in Minneapolis on February 3!) and subscribe to their podcast! You shall be thoroughly entertained. Like you may be with this TOTALLY IMPROVISED song about Back To The Future we played with them.
RIGHT? McClean used to be a HUGE Michael J. Fox fan when she was a wee lass, so, yeah, she knows a lot about the movie. Thankfully this was just about the first movie as she’s only seen the second one once and never seen #3. I know, sacrelige. Sacreligue? Sacre bleu. Anyway, this jam was tons of fun as you can see.
Then we Curls took the stage and charmed the pants off the Great White North with our usual fare…
Photo by @andrewcahak. Curls at Big D’s!
Then, the moment everyone was waiting for (thanks to the big ass marquee)… Valley Meadows! And of course they rocked our faces.
MC Tom is so chill when setting up the Auto Tune.
Valley Meadows can do no wrong.
The show was an absolute BLAST and totally set the bar WAY high for tour, which was only met afterwards by the aforementioned raging heart boners that grew for one another. Not that the other shows sucked – far from it – but Big D’s definitely was the best show of the tour, IMHO.
Afterwards, we hung out in the bar and recorded a podcast episode with The Snowmen. But before recording (in which Weggs states “I have my coat on!” which means she was ready to GO), we got some drinkies and met the locals. One of which was Amber Preston’s little sister Hilary and her boyfriend, Josh, who played for the New Orleans’ Saints before he was injured. He was a super sweet dude… and mighty handsome too. Meow, football players!
Josh Gatlin of the NO Saints!! WHO DAT???
McClean also got to meet Tarynn_Christine, who has over 10,000 followers on Instagram! What the what? Go check out her photos though; they’re all pretty beautiful. As was she! And she bought Court, like, three drinks, so McClean was well on her way to slosh-ville. Thank goodness K-Nuts was driving!
We arrived at our classy Super 8 motel room (or was it Motel 6? who knows. At any rate, there was NO INDOOR POOL. boo!) and everyone but Zach crashed (he stayed with Amber for one more night at the Preston homestead). All the while, we heard people coming and going through the unlocked side door of the hotel ALL NIGHT! Hookers, anyone? I can’t blame them; it’s the tundra. Sometimes you need a loose pussy to keep you warm. Speaking of loose pussies, Veldie and I shared a bed and Cahak and K-Nuts shared the other one. Weggs was well-prepared with her camping gear and dozed off on a mat and sleeping bag on the floor. What a trooper!
The next day, we got up bright and early to make what would be our longest trek of the tour: Fargo to Cedar Rapids, Iowa! Of course, what was meant to be a 7-hour trip turned into 10 hours with pit-stops n stuff. We drove through Minneapolis too, which felt weird because we were on TOUR!
Hola, Minneapolis!
To Cedar Rapids! With Love!
Icy north Minnesota roads!
And it was on this second day of tour that a dangerous trend took place… taking pictures of ourselves while making boom boom! I.E., taking a poo. And then texting them to each other.
McClean, on the toilet in a Flying J or something.
Hi everyone! Veldie here. Court’s magnificent Metaphysical Vagina installation to the Curls blog has inspired me to put a little bit of myself out there for the blog as well. Also, I’ve got a few glasses of wine in me, so I can let the verbage flow. Boom.
I’m not gonna lie. I had to google the word “Metaphysical” to find out what it meant. Upon reading the definition, I didn’t feel so bad for not knowing anything about it. It’s obscurity at its best and since I’ve never taken a philosophy course, I’m ok with feeling a bit removed from the trancendental ideas that Court is implementing. Plus, I’m a realist. I’m grounded. I can really relate to what we physical experience on this physical earth.
So that leaves me to blog about one very obvious thing in response to Court’s brilliant Metaphysical Vagina installation: my very own birth.
First of all, think about this: We’ve all touched a vagina unless we were torn from our mother’s uterus by a latex glovened doctor. (Please let “glovened” be a word) For those of us who were lucky enough to be pushed out of the birth canal, we’ve all got something in common. And even those of us who were removed surgical-style were very well on our way down the vagina path before modern medicine intervened. Vaginas are the highway to life.
My life in particular began during a perilous snowstorm that pop-culture writer Chuck Klosterman profiled in his fictional book Downtown Owl. If you look through the first pages of the book, you’ll find a copy of an article from the Fargo Forum dated February 5th, 1984; my birthday. The article summarizes a freak snowstorm that ended up killing four people on Fargo’s 19th Avenue. Four people isn’t much as far as fatalities go, but I was born at home on a table cloth because of that shit.
I happen to be at an age now where friends are having babies and I’m learning the real deal about what childbirth entails. For my entire life I’ve known that I was born on the comfort of a waterbed. What I didn’t know was that when women give birth to babies, there are gallons of fluid that escape their bodies during the process. There is tearing. There are breadbags that need to be filled with snow to control the bleeding…
In the end, I took the Vagina Highway and burst into this world as naturally as one could burst. In the years since, I’ve heard countless stories of the day I was born; not necessarily because I was entering unto a new life, but because of the circumstances under which I entered. While it hasn’t inspired a song yet, the storm was enough to cause Chuck to write a book based in its setting. As the newest Dirty Curl, I can only hope that it can inspire some great tunes about the courage my mom and so many others have had to push an eight pound piece of flesh out of her life-giving vagina.
So that’s my realist approach to the Metaphysical Vagina; we all came into this world in a similar way, but we each have our own story that is influenced by circumstance. Mine is a freak snow storm. What’s yours?
You GUYS. I love calling you “you guys,” even if you’re not technically “guys.” But “guys” means “people” now, not just men. What? I digress.
THE LOVE SHOW! EP IS HERE!
IT IS FREE!
WE WANT YOU TO LISTEN! NOW!
okay, I will stop yelling now. But, for a lot of you, this is brand new Dirty Curls music. For a lot of you in the Twin Cities… well, the 666 of you that saw the show (I KNOW! Six Hundred and Sixty Six people came to see “The Love Show!” It couldn’t be more perfect, honestly), for a lot of you, I am sure the wait has been AGONIZING!
For those fans outside the Twin Cities that may have not either been paying attention during August or whatever the case, lemme give you a little backstory:
The Curls applied for the Minnesota Fringe Festival, our lil’ annual performing arts festival here in the Twin Cities, and decided to do a show about love that would be suitable for younger people. We probably only hit the PG-13 and above crowds, but the show was a lot more Fringe-friendly than we anticipated: we got the Audience Choice performance – the highest-selling show in each venue gets a bonus 6th show – and we stayed at a glorious 5-star (out of 5) average throughout the fest AND we landed as the 7th-highest reviewed show of the festival (“TBD” doesn’t count – it’s a fake show). It was easily my most successful Fringe show… just read what people were saying!
“Everyone should see this show because the more people who see it, the better the world will be. I went in full of piss and vinegar and walked out full of joy and love – wanting to sing to my cat while growing out my pubic hair.” – Twin Cities actor extraordinaire, John Middleton.
“An incredible concept executed with grace and honesty. These ladies are onto something with tremendous potential. They need an agent and a record contract. Now. Men and women alike will want to be balls deep in dirty curls by the end of the show. See ‘em now before they hit the big time!” – Audience review
“Rarely do I laugh this hard, for this long. A wonderfully crafted show, with high energy and enough quirk for weeks. It started strong and delivered on the promise. A banjo, guitar and ukelele: that’s love!! I may have peed myself (just a little) during the baby rap. So worth it!” - Audience Review
Whatever. Just start listening to the EP. You will love it, we know it. And if you were one of the 666 people that got to see the show, THANK YOU!
Share this with your friends! It certainly is yours for the taking – FREE – if you want it. If you feel like giving us a little dough, that’s okay too. We *are* going on tour at the end of December and could use some funds for that, but there is no obligation whatsoever!! I sound like Sally Struthers or some shit. Just download it already.
It’s Thanksgiving morning, y’all, and I, Courtney McClean, am up quite early for a holiday with no presents under a tree. It’s a beautiful fall morning here in Minnesota; I’m now outside in the backyard typing this up in my pjs. Don’t you wish you had a picture.
I personally have a lot to be grateful for this year, especially around this band. Ever since Ray Ray and Anna Dubs joined me just under a year after the old incarnation of the Curls broke up, things have been gliding upwards into the heavens. Being surrounded by the talent of those two, and then Anna Pop and Cherry Mae, and now Veldie… it’s magical. I love all these ladies so much. Their contributions to this project are invaluable and immeasurable and I am forever indebted to all of them. Thank you so much, Curls.
A big thank you to our guests too – Charlie, who filled in on guitar for a couple shows on the summer, who was so young and sweet and picked everything up really quickly, thank you.
To Kevin, our guest bassist who will be making more appearances come the new year, your talent, ingenuity, and low notes give us a strong backbone when you join us. Thank you!
To Marne & Nicole, who’s sweet harmonies and musicality helped launch this thing into gorgeous bluegrass outer space.
Thank you to my other ex-bandmates… without that experience, I would not know what I need in a band and the kind of people I want to work with. It’s all invaluable lessons every time you pop up in my life. I am grateful for that time because it has helped to make this band what it is today.
And finally, thank you so much to all our friends and fans who come to the shows, read our posts, listen to our music, watch our videos, comment and share our stuff with others; thank you for helping to spread the gospel and laughing and singing along at our shows. You seriously make this ridiculously amazing thing even more amazing.
2013 is going to hold some incredible stuff for all of us, Curls and Curlfriends! We will be releasing a new album in the spring. Our January residency at Amsterdam Bar & Hall is going to be off the hook. We’re touring with Valley Meadows for a few days at the end of December, so hopefully that means we’ll garner Curlfriends in nearby states and can really get the ball rolling on our “low-level national fame,” which is my immediate goal for this group. Well, after just making y’all laugh first.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Make it a great day with friends and/or family. Remember that no matter what hardships you’re going through, there is always the other side which you will come out on if you keep your eyes on the prize. I have. And this other side is simply spectacular. Much love to you all.
So, I finally got the girls (or 3/5 of us… it was last minute and late!) to record this song for all the world to watch us play because, doy, it’s TOPICAL! Hope you love it; a lot of people seem to! Which means you are a freak of nature if you don’t love it.
Y’alls! Apparently… well, read the title of this post.
We have the inside scoop and so we wanted to give you Curlfriends and McLeaniacs a little heads-up. Click here to get your $15 tickets online.
Yes, there will still be $20 tickets available at the door. But if we sell 150 pre-sale tickets (almost there!), the show gets the WHOLE of Amsterdam Bar & Hall, not just the Hall. Like, the wall comes down and we get to pack the place full with people that love pasties and dirty lyrics just as much as you. Plus, it’s $5 savings. Which means that’s a whole rail drink and tip (whether you buy it for a Dirty Curl or not is your choice, but what a lovely gift, eh?).
