The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Related Content

• A Paper Cup Band
• The Look of Love: A Lookbook Interview
• Endgame
• David Foster Wallace's Last Novel
• Billie Holiday - An Illustrated Life

The Midwest has relocated to New York City. Or, at least, a few of its native musicians have. In October of 2007, Jones Street Station - a band of cornstalk state transplants -released their debut album, Overcome, full of rootsy (if not downright 'roots')-style songs, and are primed to release their sophomore effort early this year. Right now they're circling back across the country on tour, and will soon hook up with Ben Kweller for a run of shows. Tomorrow night they'll be playing The Nomad.

Fans of Dan Wilson's 2007 album Free Life (see: Semisonic) and other incarnations of Minnesota rock will be drawn to JSS's Overcome. The lyrics are slightly separated from the mundane details that constitute Real Life - these are not, for the most part, songs about evocative stains on your ex-girlfriend's turquoise turtleneck sweater or cracks in the walls of cheaply sheet-rocked apartments. Rather, Jones Street Station tackles the slightly bigger, slightly more ethereal subjects of love, loneliness, and home.

But the music isn't pared-down enough to constitute being called 'roots,' I don't think. It's a little bit cleaner-sounding, with a little studio gloss making for some very pretty vocals, especially on songs like "Tall Buildings," which deconstructs into an unexpected a cappella. Maybe this mixture of simplicity with sheen is just what happens when Midwesterners move to New York.

Vocalists Danny Erker and Jonathan Hull - from St. Louis and Chicago, respectively - met in the city in 2002, and quickly set about forming a bluegrass group. And while Jones Street Station (their second project) doesn't always twang, certainly the music retains a high level of folksiness (perhaps, in this instance, a form of acoustic homesickness). On "Evergreen" the group sings in rounds, turning the line 'walk with me beneath the pine trees' from simple and sweet into something almost angry, as if the invitation is actually an imperative for survival. "Flyover State" in particular, with its rollicking banjo melody and invocations of 'back yards and great lakes,' seems to draw from distinctly midwestern influences.

And in fact, four of the five band members are defined by their native flyover states (Jonathan Benedict on keys is the only native coaster, from Princeton, NJ). This includes local, or formerly local, percussionist Sam Rockwell, who spent a good amount of time in Minneapolis' music and dance scene(s), tutored along the way by JT Bates (Fat Kid Wednesdays). Rockwell's been back in Minneapolis a couple times in the last year with his other band, The XYZ Affair, who recently headlined the Clapperclaw festival. As drummers are wont to do, for Jones Street Station he provides the steadying hand, keeping the songs from flying away amid of airy synth and vocals.

Check 'em out, Saturday night.
$5 Show starts at 8pm.
Playing with A Mighty Fairly, The Feed, and Mouth Babies.