How Was The Show reviews Lucky Jeremy opening for The Rapture

2003 review of Lucky Jeremy & The New Minneapolis opening for The Rapture at First Avenue, shortly after the release of Call It What You Want... But This City Is Mine.

City Pages: Getting Lucky

Melissa Maerz's 2003 interview and review of Lucky Jeremy & The New Minneapolis' Call It What You Want... But This City Is Mine.

Mike Gunther featured in City Pages' "Rock Stars in their Natural Habitat"

Mike Gunther was featured in Melissa Maerz's piece on local musicians at their favorite hangouts.













photo by Tema Stauffer

City Pages: Bad Religion

Michael Metzger's great 2003 City Pages feature on Mike Gunther and his debut album Every Dream That's Dropped and Died.













photo by Daniel Corrigan

Mike Gunther "Best Songwriter" in City Pages Best of Twin Cities 2003

BEST SONGWRITER

Mike Gunther

"Our little town is no Jerusalem," hisses Mike Gunther on Every Dream That's Dropped and Died (Heart of a Champion). And the way the words scratch his tongue like a dusky swig of paper-bagged whiskey, you aren't sure whether the line is a warning or an exaltation of all bad things to come. After all, this is a guy whose idea of a holy city is a place where truck-stop Romeos cower in their backseats, fortunetellers see lost men in their crystal balls, and God carries a shotgun in his overcoat. But even as Gunther's apocalyptic audio novellas recall the foreboding lyricism of Nick Cave's "(I'll Love You) Til the End of the World" or Tom Waits's "Down, Down, Down," you get the sense that his downturned mouth sometimes speaks the surreal and sadistic humor of Nabokov or T. Coraghessan Boyle. On the twangy Americana track "Heart Hearted," Gunther's voice changes from the Saturday-night drunk of previous songs to a Sunday-morning church camp leader, crooning sweetly about the one who cut up his body into deli-sliced pieces. "I know that you want me, 'cuz I go well with a beer," he insists hopefully. Leave it to the darkly punchy songsmith to find a bright side to dismemberment: If your life ain't a bowl of cherries, just serve yourself some flesh chunks in a dish. Only thing is, unless you're gonna swallow that logic whole, you'd better hope your bite is as sharp as Gunther's.