MIKE NICOLAI

Links

MP3s

Atomage - Mike Nicolai (w/ Jimmy on Bass) 02.99 - Stubb's (Mike Nicolai)
Come Back to Us Barbara Lewis.. - 07.26.00 Mike Nicolai -Kev and Friends - Flips (Prine)
Fall Guy Theme Song - 07.26.00 Flips - (Lee Majors)
Far Away Eyes - 06.02.00 Jimmy and Mike Nicolai (Stones)
Jones Oh Jones - 07.26.00 Jimmy, Mike and Kevin - Flipnotics - Austin (Blind Blake)
Homicide - 02.11.01 Hole in the Wall - Mike Nicolai and Other Men Confess
My Uncle Used to Love Me But She Died - 07.26.00 Mike Nicolai - K&F Flips (R. Miller)
Rattling My Cage 07.26.00 w/ Kev and Friends Flips (Nicolai)
Shine on Me - 07.26.00 Kev and Friends (Nicolai on harmony & guitar) (Ernest Phipps)
Signs Following - 07.26.00 Jimmy, Mike , Kev, Rob Bernard and Flips on Harmony (Max)
Space99 - by Mike's old band The Draghounds
Wabash Cannonball - 07.26.00 Kev and Friends (Jim, Nicolai, R. Bernard) - Flips (Acuff)
Well Respected Man - 06.02.00 Mike Nicolai & Jimmy (R. Davies)

Albums

Mike Nicolai (1997)
Balloon Race EP (1998)
Woody Allen Stunt Footage (2001)

Bio

I-35 is ideal for militia trainees (Killeen, Waco, Dallas, and Oklahoma City!), but by linking Austin and Minneapolis, Conspiracy Corridor is becoming Highway 61 revisited for the No Depression set. No other two cities are so culturally attuned yet geographically far apart; shoot, even our Prince tribute nights do well, and everybody knows what big Mats fans we are down here. Plus, we're the ones with the hockey team. So when Mike Nicolai relocated here from Gopherland, it couldn't have been that much of a switch. Judging by his album, it wasn't. He recorded most of the songs in Minnesota, but that doesn't stop the Gourds from showing up behind Nicolai on "Half Right" and "Rattling My Cage" (the Damnations' Deborah Kelly also pops up on "Rattling"). Otherwise, Nicolai focuses his keen eye and nasal Midwestern drawl on spectacle ("The Last Great Balloon Race"), happiness ("Too Damn Good"), penny-arcade religion ("Dreams of Christ"), co-dependency ("There's a Hole in You"), and bureaucracy ("Heartache Trust Local #40"), but his shining moment is "Awkward Love," a bit of wordplay that would make fellow Man From the North Country, Bob Dylan -- and probably postmodern hip-hop lyric freak Dr. Octagon -- proud: "I missed you at the party/All the boys and girls were swingin'/Cupid got so loaded that he barfed all over the kitchen/These glasses couldn't be thicker/'Cause this love can't hold its liquor/It's like a drunken headless chicken wearing two left-handed gloves/This is all very awkward, love." Encore. And, uh, go Twins! ~ Christopher Gray

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