The top Piano Man (or Men) in the Twin Cities, as the claim is made, takes you all the way over to Hudson and the first club over the river.
The rage got started some months ago by Tim Grady, and a substitute, Josh Quinn, soon would be shown to the piano at times, right in the midst of the lower-level gathering at Ziggy’s in Hudson a full four early-evenings a week. A third piano-playing compadre, positioned dead center in the downstairs next to a huge bannister, would eventually be added, when the others had either other gigs or a night off, as Ziggy’s had made its play in the downtown market as the only club with music virtually every day/or/night of the week. Even on the other end of the several-block district, The Smilin’ Moose and its managers had gently conceded such to Ziggy’s, but the Moose finally has on its loose bands back a time or two a month, heavy on country stalwart Tim Sigler, who had been a fixture there before moving on to Ziggy’s, and now being shown mostly in a return to The Moose.
Grady is remarkably solid on the grand and plays to the crowd between songs with ease and intellect — going beyond the usual Piano Man jokes that would jangle Joel — while with some others a bit more flair shows through, going past boogie woogie and jazz, into the realm of even relatively hard rock. And that third guy, even moreso when he’s part of the three-season solo acts on the patio(s) of the Smilin’ Moose, really ratchets up the tempo.
(And more on how that tempo, at Ziggy’s and zounds of other places, will be effected two-fold early this weekend, then waning by Christmas Day itself. See the Picks of the Week department).
— Gotta go Grinch for a moment.
The traffic was thick when well lit streets were partially blocked off and veering this way and that, and to and frow in a search for parking, for a large light-up night at Lake Front Park in downtown Hudson. So I would call this, as my tongue-in-cheek wish: “All I want for Christmas is two fronts of anarchy in the park.” And in another seasonal song, Santa Dio, as he was termed, showed that you can tell a lot about a musician and their theology by the songs they cover, in his case “God rest ye merry gentlemen,” which adds that “Christ was born on Christmas Day to save us all from Satan’s power as we had gone astray.” That’s an interesting choice for the late Ronnie James Dio, frontman for groups like Black Sabbath, for a heavy metal version of a hymn because he has said that although he grew up Catholic, he has problems with certain tenets of Christianity, especially that its messiah would have the audacity to make (or confirm?) the claim of being the Son of God, whether true or not. The line at question in the carol Dio picked says Christ, “was born in Bethlehem the Son of God by name.” So, pious after all? Or just full of Christmas cheer and thus forgiving? —
Quinn in black cowboy hat was a fill-in one of my first nights taking in all Ziggy’s has playing, (TGIF), as he noted the shorter-haired Grady was then on vacation on a far southern isle. The rub, as you might or might not guess, is that Grady was indeed On A Boat, like the rap act that appeared many a time on video screens of dance places just to the north in Hudson. Only blocks away, but not having the Black Keys?
You might even hear some Eminem, with a piano twist, of course, maybe by both. I heard one of his songs requested by the woman standing next to me — who bolted away from the conversation briefly with a couple of quick steps to make her suggestion. It was next-up, of course.
Then the Jen factor, (see some of her postings on this site soon). She wanted another such song you might not expect from a piano man, and Grady greatly fit it in soon after, despite having played it earlier, prior to our arrival. For us latecomers, he gave a fist-pump shoutout.
The way was paved with that Take On Me song from the ’70s, I think it was, which I approved of, and made it known, the treatment given this and some other ditties, creating a single but multifaceted stream of sound by plinking a combination of lines running concurrently, that I’ll call double-noting. And Quinn’s shifting and at times sultry vocal chops, while also pounding out the blues on the black and white, were well displayed in Tied To The Whipping Post — and linked at the hip with his piano. And yes that Allman Brother, of all people, has been known to show up at the front bar.
Back to Grady, who tackled metal mayhem’s vocalist Cory Taylor of Slipknot — known for both a variety of growls and melody and a history filled with inconceivable loss — by capturing all of Taylor’s pained poignance of missing a loved one in his song Snuff.
Throw in some older Supertramp and you’ve got a party that goes past just the lovers of keys. You’d be unlikely though, to go as far as hearing Keeper of the Seven Keys.
Ziggy’s has become the newer version of another main music club, also in Stillwater, that being the seasonal Pappy’s, so close to be actually on the river, but not baring boating attire. The ladies especially, are typically 30-ish but still stunners in a curvy way, and through all the fickleness of the pandemic fashion, their attire this summer remained steady in style. Long on mid-to-short-length dresses, many a bit thick with their fabric, and big clunky heels — a few times accentuated in opposing fashion by an open-toe look that has included pink nails — or at times spiked, to match. Plunging necklines amidst just a few rising hairlines. Less chance of bare midriff, although a select few of the women when they first got their ID, might have back in the ’90s … You know.
A bit of glitzy glamour, big glam jewelry, multiple colors and stripes or dots on dresses. And other style shifters, rebels many, to boot. Get on the dance floor, the size of a free throw lane in this Viking sports bar, right in front of the piano and spin.
At the other end of the room is a moderately sized stage, and you could even fit in a drummer, that earlier in the year featured someone who has played in that capacity for decades. His resurrected band, Thirsty Camel, resurfaced and had a number of early-weeknight gigs. Brad, featuring his Charley Watts-like drumming brand, could also be seen socializing before gigs and on off-nights, those more-and-more frequent piano excursions.
Another my man, or so I told him, looked like a younger Robert Plant. (What, which rock icon of that period, I was asked?) And the main owner, too, resembles both vocalist Plant and the aforementioned patron.
This venue, via its downstairs, got rocking to an even larger extent earlier this summer, filling up much faster than the other Hudson clubs at an early hour, not long after Grady, or Quinn, would start at 5 p.m. There was a bit of a lull come fall, but these days its back to an even fuller house on the lower level when the upperstairs band finishes setting up, and checking their set list twice.
So the tip jar never has to ring twice. As the piano playing is the fixture from 5-9 p.m. on the four weekdays that are the busiest nights each week at the bar. (I will resort to being like Google when its sidebar lists a lingo of its “open” hours for the business at hand, as in the various venues featured, and say the obvious, hours may be different because of holidays).