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Jun/10 · The Blue Stones – Metro North America ‘25
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Jul/23 · of Montreal
Jul/25 · Loving
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Sep/19 · INIKO – Awakening The Empire North American Tour
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Sep/23 · Skinshape
Sep/24 · The Bones of J.R. Jones
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Oct/5 · DUCKWRTH – All American Freak Show Tour
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Oct/25 · Kneecap
Oct/29 · Night Moves
Nov/2 · The New Mastersounds – Ta-Ta For Now Tour
Nov/18 · Lucius
Nov/29 · J-Fell and Nite Wave Present: The Cure, Depeche Mode & New Order Tribute Night

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Monqui Presents

with special guest Meltt

Tuesday, June 10
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$35.28

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
NPR Presents

with special guest J. Graves

Monday, June 16
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$35.28

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Mammoth NW Presents
Tuesday, June 17
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$41.97

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

With special guest Ringdown

Wednesday, June 18
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$39.91

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

With special guest Sam MacPherson

Thursday, July 10
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$33.22

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Holocene Presents

With special guest Heather Wolf

Sunday, July 20
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$38.37

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

With special guest Bijoux Cone and B|_ank

Wednesday, July 23
Doors : 6:30pm, Show : 7:30pm
all ages
$35.28

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Friday, July 25
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$32.19

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

With special guest The Ophelias

Sunday, August 10
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$10.04 to $35.28

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

With special guest whine

Friday, August 29
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$30.13

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Friday, September 5
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$36.05 to $58.97

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

with sobs

Saturday, September 6
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$35.02 to $57.94

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

Saturday, September 13
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$35.02 to $57.94

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Monday, September 15
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$41.97 to $65.15

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

Tuesday, September 16
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$43 to $62.57

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Wednesday, September 17
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$40.43 to $52.02

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

Thursday, September 18
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$29.10

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

With special guest Evolution Of The Revolution

Friday, September 19
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$38.37 to $397.27

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Saturday, September 20
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$27.04 to $111

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Sunday, September 21
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$51.50 to $199.18

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

with special guest Renny Conti

Monday, September 22
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$36.05 to $88.43

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

with Sons of Sevilla

Tuesday, September 23
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
$34.25

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Wednesday, September 24
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
ages 21 +
$35.02

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

Saturday, September 27
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$37.60 to $143.69

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Sunday, September 28
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$27.04 to $397.84

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Wednesday, October 1
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$35.02 to $52.02

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Friday, October 3
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$46.35 to $69.27

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

Sunday, October 5
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$35.02 to $147.86

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Monday, October 6
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$35.28

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Saturday, October 11
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$35.02 to $57.94

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

Sunday, October 12
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$35.02 to $52.02

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Monday, October 13
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$44.55

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Wednesday, October 15
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$27.04 to $114.38

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

Sunday, October 19
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$33.22 to $56.14

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

With special guest Bricknxsty

Saturday, October 25
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$34.76

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

With special guest Sam Blasucci

Wednesday, October 29
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$28.84

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Sunday, November 2
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$38.88 to $62.57

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents
Tuesday, November 18
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$52.53 to $150.12

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

 
 
 
J-Fell and Nite Wave Present
Saturday, November 29
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$35.02

About Night Moves:

Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so it’s now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves’ fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate?

But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had “borrowed” the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves’ country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, “Daytona.” As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he opens the final verse. “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again.” There’s irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly there’s acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone else’s difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.

That is the spirit that animates and enlivens Double Life, a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. There was the unexpected death of a father-in-law, then a drummer whose skin sloughed off during recording due to contact dermatitis. There were friends arrested for making mistakes in troubled times and assorted pals struggling with sobriety and sanity. And there was, once again, the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, Panda Bear and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it, anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Those travails were, turns out, worth it. Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. Witness, for instance, “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by that death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Ring My Bell” is its musical and emotional counterpart, with Pelant extending an invitation to be asked for help whenever times get inevitably tough, all above the spring-loaded rhythm of drummer Mark Hanson and bassist Micky Alfano. “You’ve got a sadness hanging in your eyes,” Pelant sings, slipping into a bridge that Steely Dan would have loved. “Well, I just wish that I could change your mind.” This song, at least, offers a fighting chance to do just that.

Night Moves has a repeated joke when they’re on the road, driving from town to town in their bruised van: “I can’t believe I have to do this again,” they say, a reference to the surrealist repetition of shows, parties, hangovers, and long hauls that define touring. That line shows up during “This Time Tomorrow,” a could-have-been Petty hit updated with the malaise and wanderlust of modern life. “I can’t believe I have to do this again, oh this again, this time tomorrow,” Pelant sings alongside Charles Murlowski’s mocking riff. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life.” It can feel that way for all of us sometimes, right? But on Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.