When my original plan for live music fell through unexpectedly, I was thrown off a little. But one of the joys of the Twin Cities music scene is that there are always choices available. I settled on a mid-afternoon set of Pretty Boy Thorson and Pals over at the Cloudland Theater, with a heavy emphasis on the “pals”, as Thorson had gotten a group of songwriting friends together to perform.

Our first player Annie Sparrows (solo on guitar, a common theme for the show) wasn’t quite prepared with a set list and we had a highly amusing moment of the sound guy turning the background music back on. Having gone “completely blank on any of my songs”,” had Thorson help her out by supplying the name Victoria. We got an instant start and she bloomed on that number, with a haunting closing chorus. She’s the One was a good rock closer and the set up of three songs per “pal” was established. It was a little genre whiplash as our next singer Jeffrey Robert Larson was pure country, with a song perfectly depressing song about a hangover. We were in Patsy Cline territory with broken hearts and two step rhythms. This was a perfect Sunday afternoon feel, and the change over to the next singer Jeff Gribble was more in the folk rock feel, playing on a pretty striking white guitar (turns out to be Thorson’s). Heartache may have been the perfect connector between our first two performers, with those darker themed lyrics, but a more rocking vocals. That last number was ostensibly about a couch, but was about a toxic ex.

With our next singer Nato Coles, we got guitar and harmonica, with the first song Strangers’ Backyards a clever take that while driving a car has you seeing people’s arranged front yards, the train often gets you a view of the clutter of people’s actual lives. We got two unreleased numbers and the lively rock tempo on Behind the Lines had Coles pressing forward. I highly enjoyed the quick pace and with the next singer Dan Johnson we got a indie alt sound with some ethereal sounding backing music (no idea how that was being produced). It was a pair of capos on the guitar (an audience member called out “that’s witchcraft!”) and the resulting guitar sound was pretty magical at that. That number’s chorus of “do you want to dance” tied the imagery of the song very well. Those capos were almost the downfall for the last song, but a call out from Thorson led to a quick tuning and saved the moment, as our host and organizer showed his skill in keeping things on track while keeping the vibe relaxed. We got a shake up in the proceedings with two performers, half of the band Ditchweed, on stage at the same time. Both were on guitar and singing and we had Americana country, and after a quick joke (“I guess we’re all singing songs about death tonight”), the dual harmonies on the lyrics “don’t dig me no grave” of Feed Me to the Earth were pretty great. We got even more of a country drawl on the next one, and the solo singer on verses always moving back to harmonies was a sweet sound.

Will Olsen was the next artist and mentioned the really dark songs that had preceded and quipped, “I’ll lighten the mood with a break up song”, and was off with even tempo guitar and vocals even with the material’s theme. This was solid work and Clever Medicine flowed very well. Luke Lechler came to stage with a faster blues rock, and his opener The Conspiracy Blues was brilliantly satirical on the times and his harmonica work was perfectly placed in the wild song. As Lechler set up the next one (back to the break up songs), his humor had the crowd in stitches. Lechler killed it with his mix of literary humor and bluesy rock. Dylan Ritchie was playing a straight indie rock and when he mentioned his first song he was playing had been written in a song writing class taught by Ryan Smith, it made perfect sense. We got some quick and complicated guitar as the first part of three vignettes, and he finished with the guitar part of a song written by a friend, “but I don’t really remember the words”. We finished up with Pretty Boy Thorson, the performance name for our organizer, Jesse Swan Thorson. He’s quite the presence and his southern tinged vocals was charming and hilarious and were booming. This rock and roll was infectious and his second number had all of those other songwriters singing along at one point. If the Drinking Don’t Kill Me, Then I’ll Think of Something Else from the 2006 album Ain’t It Funny was an excellent capstone and summary of the set and Thorson’s thanks to Brad Lokkesmoe and Maren Macosko, the owners and operators of Cloudland, was personal and meaningful (“give them a lot money before you go!”). Coles and Lechler played a song Thorson called the “punk national anthem”, and the early evening was complete.