Hi Curlfriends! We have a handful of shows coming up we’d like ya to know about ! They’re all in the Twin Cities area, but hang tight, out-of-state fans, I’m a-comin’ your way this year… (Midwest, Southwest, Northwest, Rockies West, maybe… I’m lookin’ at y’all).
SATURDAY, June 26 at 7pm the full band takes the stage for theUptown Pride Block Party!! We’re so excited to play a daytime, all-ages set that’ll go right over the young ones heads (and please let us field any unending lines of innocent questions)! We’re up from 7pm – 7:30pm and this show is TOTALLY FREE! YAY! You don’t gotta buy this cow!!
AAAAAAANNNNNNNDDDD we have been invited back to Convergence a mere two years after our full-band debut… FRIDAY, JULY 3 at 10pm at HarmCon during Convergence at DoubleTree Bloomington! We’re psyched and honored to be back, AND we’re bringing Alicia Kay of The Changeups – featuring on guitar and backup vocals! YEAH!
Thanks for tuning in, Curlfriends. Knowing about our upcoming shows is important for your survival and I’ll try my best to get you to know about stuff, but sometimes I’m just coming out of a fog and forget to tell you about FANTASTIC SHOWS like the XTC Tribute we did a week ago. Senses Working Overtime 3was the second year in a row for me participating in this amazing event. I sung “Generals & Majors,” and I had a freakin’ blast. I promise, next time I will remember to tell you about these things so that you don’t miss outfits like this:
Curlfriends, it’s Lacey’s birthday!!! Help us celebrate by tweeting at her at @Laceylaceyanne, mkay?
Lacey is the newest Curl, and the newest momma Curl too. Words to describe her: genuine, sexy, sensual, spiritual, sweet, compassionate, gorgeous, funny, easy-going, adventurous, free-spirited. She’s just so freakin’ rad. We’re really lucky to have her, and her boobs, in our band.
(And – OOPS! I forgot to wish Cherry Mae a happy birthday on hers, April 7. GO HERE for a retro-active celebration!)
Welcome to our first time-traveling post. I’m writing this feverishly on May 27, 2015 and I’m going to hand it over to the internet gods to post it to this blog on April 7, 2015, CHERRY MAE’S BIRTHDAY! (Because I forgot to post that day).
EDIT: Alas, changing the date to the past doesn’t work in WordPress, I guess. Well… better late than never.
We are glad you weren’t aborted, Cherry Mae!
Well, I’m pretty sure she had a great one, so don’t worry.
Words to describe Cherry Mae: empathetic, mischievous, conscientious, fun, gifted, sharp, loving, loyal, and giving. We’re glad she’s back, and we’re glad she never went away.
Hey Curlfriends! We’re going to be traversing across the Mississippi a couple of times on Friday, Feb. 13th AND Saturday, Feb. 14th for FOUR SHOWS in 2 days! The good news is, it’s the same thing both nights, so your FOMO will be somewhat tempered.
First the full band will be at Amsterdam Bar & Hall for Le Cirque Rouge Burlesque’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” Valentine’s Day Show. Doors at 7pm, Show starts at 8pm. Our set is slated to be around 9:30pm, in case you can’t make it on time. There are TWO links for tickets, one for each night: Get Friday‘s tickets here. Get Saturday‘s tickets here.
Curlfriends – can you believe we’re already A WHOLE MONTH into the new year? Ugh. It was just over a month ago that Bill died and it was Gus’ memorial. I’M SORRY TO START ON SUCH A SAD NOTE, but that’s been my frame of reference lately. Death. But FUCK THAT! 2014 was about more than that, and we have a TON to be grateful for. Here’s our 2014 highlights in photos. Because words are boring.
JANUARY! We went to Duluth and played the Red Star Lounge:
Veldie and I are skinny enough to fit into this XXXL shirt. Totally not photoshopped either, bitches!
With our buddy & bill-mate Martin Devaney. We’re having brunch at the rotating restaurant. I forget what it’s called. It’s been a year!
Beneath The Crow opened up for us!
Kevin & Veldie are great supporters of supporting bands.
Then the actual living, breathing Vice President Joseph Biden came and ate at The Bachelor Farmer, a foodie restaurant in downtown Minneapolis. So, of course I went down there to attempt to sing “Hey, Joe Biden!” straight to his sexy face.
Veldie joined me later. We just ended up serenading the cops, really.
Court went to New York City to play some shows and visit some friends and Sun Country temporarily lost her luggage, including Ernie, her banjo. Everything was found and returned on time for performances. And everyone at Sun Country was SUPER helpful.
Veldie, Lacey, Anna, Cristi. Being awesome. As per usual.
Anna coaches Cristi and Court through spider swinging.
And then we finally made our first full-length CD, “This One’s For Dad” (yes, listen on Spotify or on iTunes or you can buy the physical CD on Bandcamp!)
Sexy cover art! Banjo as vagina! We invented a music genre and a metaphor, people. Where’s my Nobel Peace Prize.
Check out Court’s veiny wrist, but also that sexy art design by Ian Rans.
We finally made a *proper* vagina tip jar.
Court and her friend Marta crafted this vagina tip jar. “Just the tip.” GET IT?!?!
NO SERIOUSLY DO YOU GET IT
We sang Murica’s National Anthem at a St. Paul Saints Game! OH HELL YES.
We had to sneak Veldie in, so we shrunk her down to pocket-size. She preferred to ride in Court’s mane.
And, of course, we did the Fringe. “The Sex (Ed) Show!” sold out every night, including our encore sixth performance. It was nothing short of a goddamn blast.
“Mom I’d Like to (make me) Fudge”
POSTCARDS, y’all!
Rehearsal at Bedlam Design Center
What. We’re just sleeping. (photo shoot for postcard)
Court’s birthday show was on August 9th with those crazies The Drug Budget and her new favorite Californian, Kirsten Opstad. If you weren’t there, you don’t have the mental image of Courtney “break-dancing” on Lee’s checkered dance floor.
It’s a cool font.
Minnesota Fringe Encore night, August 10:
We were pretty honored to be in this group of Audience Choice Shows. I KNOW, RIGHT?!?
Then I went to the Arts Midwest Conference again to wonder “why am I here?” while everyone else is like, “clean up your act!”
Too obvious NOT to do.
Marketing. Merrrrrrrrrrrrrr
And then we played the 10,000 Laughs Festival after a Pundamonium show. Veldie’s last show! Boo hoo.
Anna & Veldie in the green room at Comedy Corner Underground during the 10,000 Laughs Comedy Festival.
Photo by our dearly departed Bill Young.
Six nights later, I’m with the other half of the band at Memory Lanes… and it’s Chris’ first show with us!!
Madoo, Court, and Lacey: bringin’ the balls to Ballerween.
ANNA GOT MARRIED!!!
That’s Tom & Anna up there on stage. It was gorgeous and fun and there was so much love.
Lacey N Court: POWDERED DONUTS
Kevin & Veldie’s conversations are amazing, you guys. They have a really awesome kismet. I miss ’em!
SO MANY CURLS! Clockwise from upper left: Cherry Mae, Lacey, Anna, Kevin, Veldie, Anna Pop, and Court’s in the middle.
It’s been hard to fully enjoy everything next to the tragedy that’s been hitting close to home lately (and there’s more that isn’t here… there’s always more). But I know I speak for all of us when I say thank you so much for a phenomenal year. Here’s to 2015 being a winner and Happy New Year to ya.
Probably the cutest picture of Anna, Lacey, and Court EVER!
Word up, Curlfriends! Happy Wednesday morning to you. This past weekend, Anna and Lacey and I escaped up Nort’ to the Santa Barbara to our Los Angeles: Duluth! We were invited to perform “The Sex (Ed) Show!” at Teatro Zuccone, as a part of a Minnesota Fringe “Sampler Pack” of shows that stretched out over the Saturdays in January. Our night was this past Saturday, shared with the always-enchanting Sandbox Theatre in the first hour of the evening.
“New” merch suitcase, banjo, and vagina tip jar. You know.
Lacey & I met at Anna’s house for rehearsal and chatty times and because Anna kindly drove us. If you ever go on a road trip with Anna, you do not have to worry about a thing because girl knows how to trip. She came prepared with a huge bag of delicious donuts from The Baker’s Wife and an equally ginormous bag of pretzels. Lacey had the forethought to the hotel after-party (our Curls’ sleepover) to bring a 12-pack of tasty IPA (Summit True Brit. Yay for Summit employee discount!). I brought my slippers, but forgot them in the trunk on the way up. Oh well.
Actual picture of the 35 North to Duluth! Probably will be an album cover of a live show in Duluth or something.
We arrived at Zuccone just before our tech rehearsal time at 5pm, but of course, things were running a tad behind (as they are wont to do), so Lacey & Anna checked in at the hotel while I decompressed in the dressing room. Once we got on stage for tech, our board op, the fabulous …. (oh CRAP I can’t remember his name) got us up and running with a quick cue-to-cue (yeah, he rocked it. John? Jason? Tim? Matt? No, not Matt.). This time we had wing space and a backstage crossover, but a much smaller playing space.
Back in the dressing room, we hung with the Sandbox crew: Derek, Amber, Heather, Megan, and Theo (about whom Anna said, “they’re all very nice!”). Colleen, our ambassador from Zeitgeist, took good care of us, delivering our dinners to the dressing room (fancy!), which we had picked out 20 minutes earlier and were on the house. I had a Coconut Curry Rice thing with seared ahi, motherfuckers. It was delicious!!! I would recommend Zeitgeist Arts Cafe next time you’re in Duluth, okay? Dinner and a show. Perfect.
After watching Sandbox perform “Marie-Jeanne Valet, who defeated La Bete of Gevaudan” (Anna & Lacey for the first time!) and a short intermission, we hopefully charmed the pants off a small Duluth crowd. It wasn’t the energy ball that the Fringe run was, but we had fun. I don’t know how, but I totally forgot to take any pictures backstage or of the space or even the scrolling marquee on the outside that displayed “The Sex (Ed) Show!” Wah wah. However, I got tons of pictures of our hotel room and our fun.
gymnastics + sass = GYMSASSTICS
After the show, a fan I met my first night of tour at The Red Herring (and you’ll probably meet her in the tour movie!) took me on a drive to enjoy a joint and a lovely night view of Duluth from a church parking lot. Then she gave me two bottles of wine to enjoy with the girls! We were stocked and set.
The sexy pool we did not go in.
It took me a while to get back to the hotel room, but by the time I did, the deluxe rollaway bed arrived and Anna and Lacey had cracked open a couple of brewskies. We attempted a game of “Never Have I Ever” and FaceTimed Lacey’s kid Lila and husband John. We ordered a pizza with cheese bread and cinnamon sticks from Pizza Hut and watched what we later realized was JackAss The Movie (I remember falling asleep to Anna vocalizing this realization). And I learned that Anna LOVES JackAss! Which made me open my heart to it and realize it’s just dudes bein’ dudes and that’s cool.
Anna knits a love letter to Johnny What’s-His-Butt from JackAss
We awoke the next morning to be disappointed by The Sheraton’s lack of continental breakfast. Can you even call yourself a hotel without some kind of free breakfast? The staff did give us a free corkscrew, at least.
The view from our hotel room! Yes, it was a gray day, but who cares. Lake Superior is like an ocean!
Curlfriends of Duluth (and others willing to travel)! We are so honored to have been asked to remount our 2014 Minnesota Fringe Festival smizash “The Sex (Ed) Show!” at Teatro Zuccone through Zeitgeist Arts in Duluth! We’ll be there on Jan. 24th, as part of a double bill with Sandbox Theatre’s “Marie-Jeanne Valet Who Defeated La Bete Du Gevudan.”
BONUS: Although these two shows are very different, I saw Sandbox Theatre’s “La Bete” during the Fringe, and as you would expect from Sandbox, it was captivating, scary, and enchanting. We are extremely honored to be on such a dynamic and entertaining bill!
I haven’t written about my friend Bill Young’s death yet due to a few things happening in, well, life. And, I just couldn’t yet. I couldn’t process another friend dying. Another comedian.
Bill died in the wee hours of the morning on Dec. 12. Just hours after many of us went to go see Gus one more time, lying in his coffin. The next morning, I was having a work date at a coffee shop with some girlfriends when I got the news from a friend via Facebook IM. I stumbled down Lyndale Avenue sobbing and screaming. Literally. I’m sure I scared some natives.
Just at the very beginning moment of our community accepting that Gus Lynch was gone, we lost Bill Young.
Bill’s memorial Facebook profile photo for Gus. And now a bunch of us have it in our houses, thanks to our friend Andrea, who gave out a framed version at Bill’s memorial.
Bill Young, by the way, said about Gus after his passing, “Gus Lynch was a contentious motherfucker.” Not untrue, bless our Gus. But that’s definitely not something you can say about Bill. As it was made clear by the… couple hundred people? at Bill’s memorial last Thursday (I was a mess just thinking about how I had seen so many of the same people just a week earlier in the same situation for a different person), Bill was deeply loved and admired and will be greatly missed. Here’s the perfect tribute to Bill from his best friend, fellow comedian Mike Brody.
I feel like I got to know Bill best through social media and his fantastic blog, Young Notions. It is a really wonderful example of how freaking funny Bill Young was. My very favorite entry was this one about flossing. Warning: it ends with Bill being “dead,” if that’s something you’re sensitive to, but it’s seriously so fucking funny.
For a little while, I lived down the street from Bill and my friend/his wife Jena (they divorced earlier this year), so I would stop by and say hi once in a blue moon for whiskey lemonades and a chat. Sometimes I’d be out front on the stoop at my place, and Bill would be on a walk during his endeavors to be healthier, and he’d stop and chat with me for a moment. And I’d inevitably invite him in for a smoke. He accepted once or twice.
One time he made me cookies too. That was a few years ago. And he drunkenly tried to kiss me after I gave him a ride home one night. It was funny and sweet, though he was pretty embarrassed. It was one of those “we’re hugging goodbye, but we’re not on the same page re: hug release.”
Bill was an amazingly talented comedian and he was a kind, kind soul. I remember him having my back on a few occasions, whether on Facebook, or when I needed a ride somewhere.
Watching the funniest assholes I know cry is heartbreaking. Through the deaths of these two friends, I am growing closer to my comedy friends, and our relationships are growing deeper. I will be forever thankful for that. I wish it could have happened without the sacrifice of these two pillars of the Twin Cities comedy community.
Travel safe, Bill!! You did, in fact, save us all.
I think this is the only picture of me and Bill Young (also Alvin Irby and Sid Oxborough!)
The first time I met Gus Lynch, in 2009?, he looked like an over-sized leprechan. I may have been influenced by the fact that he approached me in front of Kieran’s Irish Pub. He also had a big red beard at the time. And I think he was carrying a pot of gold.
Me and Gus at the Akumal Comedy Festival, 2013
ANYWAY, he asked me about the Rockstar Storyteller open mic we had started a couple months earlier and had just finished for the evening. I don’t remember our exact conversation, but I remember being excited about meeting this new performer who made me feel like I was a part of something great with his warm inquisitiveness about how to become involved.
Gus doing stand-up comedy at Siberia in New Orleans. Gus was a great stand-up comic and actor, as well as a husband and father.
We learned that Gus died yesterday. I say “died” and not “passed away,” because I had the pleasure of getting to eventually call Gus Lynch my friend, and I know he would probably just prefer I tell it straight.
He fell off a pyramid in Mexico while vacationing with his family. He broke several bones, punctured a lung, and did not make it through surgery. *EDIT: he did make it through surgery, but died of a cardiac arrest the next day.
Gus Lynch was a huge force. I am not unfamiliar with what that’s like, though I don’t think Gus and I share similar brain chemistries, or if we did, he hid it way better. But Gus was large, physically and meta-physically, and he was loud and he was misunderstood, I think, by me. But he fell off a pyramid. I feel like, for what I know of Gus, that was the way that would sell the most tickets to the great playwright in the sky’s blockbuster movie about Gus Lynch, hilarious, gruff, lovable and tough action star. He fell off a fucking pyramid. In Mexico.
At this year’s 10000 Laughs Festival, at Bedlam Lowertown. Taken right after Gus gave me a rightfully hard time about taking pictures of the shows and not cutting out the empty tables.
Gus, there were moments I was scared of you. You were instant business the moment you felt like you weren’t being respected or taken seriously, and due to my past experiences with loud, brash men, you automatically had a one-up on my power, and I was a little fearful of you. But you always, always respected my boundaries. (I should make it clear in case this sounds weird: Gus and I were friends, collaborators, and contemporaries. That’s it.) And you were such a champion of my work. Thank you for believing in me over and over again.
In the days we didn’t know were Gus’ last, he and I had a very short back-and-forth on the ole Facebook. It doesn’t really matter what it was about, but it was a personal turning point for me, oddly enough, in what I felt was standing up for myself and picking battles. And I felt like it was enough for me to send him a message telling him no matter what our differing opinions, I still love him. The message was also thanking him for getting me on The Hell Yes Festival in New Orleans… something I had neglected to do till that moment.
I never heard back from him, so he may have died annoyed with me. But I know it would have been a temporary thing; I am a fiery lady and he’s a fiery dude and I know that he liked, respected, and appreciated that about me, or was learning to, as I was learning to about him.
In New Orleans, with Brittany O. and Adam Quesnell
BUT, a couple weeks before, one of the last times I saw him, we sat next to each other at a Hell Yes show at Siberia in New Orleans, and I don’t even know what we talked about, but I remember having that lovely heart-to-heart friendship connection spark with him, an earnest moment where I didn’t feel the need to have my guard up, which I do around intimidating men, and he was a big ole teddy bear. I am super grateful for experiencing that moment with Gus. We’ve had a lot of really fun times, most especially in Akumal, Mexico for the Akumal Comedy Festival, and Gus has been a champion of mine for years, since the START of the Dirty Curls he’s been a fan, no matter what (even through the 2010 Rape Joke Thing!). Gus has taken care of me comedically and socially and probably even bought me a drink or two. Ha! That reminds me of the time he asked if I had my Akumal coin (I’ll tell you later), and I didn’t. An hour later, he whips his out with 3 other comics at the bar, and I had to pay for the round. Sonofabitch.
I thought I knew Gus until that moment in New Orleans a few weeks ago. It just felt like a moment of vulnerability that I had never seen in him. We were both drunk or inebriated in some fashion, of course, but you know what inebriates do. You can’t drive, but you can see much better, at least during part. I really regret not getting to know Gus better, I feel like he would have been one of the people to really push me through this tissue I refuse to break (I’m experiencing a lot of creative resistance right now, ugh, boring). But perhaps this is what it took. The imagining of the future of our friendship due to his death, because as scary as Gus was to me, and I feel like, based on the testimonies of our mutual friends I love and trust, Gus would have been a little hurt to know that he freaked me out a bit. But I think he would have put his arm around my shoulder and said something like, “Boy Named Sue,” a cryptic way of telling me that he did it for my own good.
Oh, Gus. You are in the hammock on the beach in the sky, my brother. Party on.
Gus in party form. This is a photo of a photo by Scott Brown.
What do you get when you take The Dirty Curls, hack ’em up with a little Fuzzy Machete, feed them to some Trendy, Trendy Space Vegans, and allow them to shit all over some Valley Meadows?
Court – what in the hell are you trying to say?
This:
I am STOKED to be playing this show with some of my favorite people in the whole world, including the City Pages’ Best Local Comedian, Mr. Chris “Madoo” “The Ole Mad Dogger” Maddock. No, Madoo isn’t doing standup comedy; he’ll be playing BASS for the Curls! Tomorrow night will be Madoo, Lacey, and McClean repping the Curls and if last night’s rehearsal was any indication, we’re going to tear you a new one with how fast and furious we’re playing. I might have to add some songs to the set list. Hope to see you there tomorrow night! FREE SHOW! Wear a sexy costume.
Courtney McClean & The Dirty Curls 