Dylan Hicks & Small Screens at Resource MPLS (July 24, 2026)

The further I get into the Twin Cities’ music scene, the more I realize how much there is here. Beyond the robust bar scene, past all of the independent venues, there is a whole other dimension of the confluence of music with other art genres. In retrospect, that is kind of an “of course” moment of realization, but it isn’t one that I had thought much about since starting to write for the site. Thankfully, we got a heads up to a full weekend of music and poetry happening over at Resource MPLS, with Dylan Hicks and Small Screens playing with a number of other musicians and poets. I was happy to make night one, featuring Kata Fried and poet Halee Kirkwood.

The venue is very unassuming both as a building (part of a much larger mixed commercial & residential building) and in a neighborhood tucked away that if you blinked, you absolutely would miss it. Settling in, we had a quick introduction from Hicks about thowmthimgs would go each of the three evenings. Starting things off was Kata Fried, a multi-disciplinary (musician, composer, poet and more) artist here in the Twin Cities. On as a duet with Fried on vocals/keyboards/cello and Dan Carpel on basses (both stand up and electric), with a lot of looping in of additional music and vocals. Fried started that first number (a take on a lullaby her mother sang) on keyboards, switched to cello when starting to sing, but was simultaneously playing those two instruments throughout the number. This was a jazzy, electric fueled folk rock. The looping in effect created a base set of harmony vocals and served as the foundation for Fried’s somewhat forlorn lyrics on the moon and Carpel’s improvised bass work. The range here was fun as we had a folk pop song that had Fried’s singing be the central star. A hissed “ch-ch” served as the new rhythm for an inspired cover of Peggy Lee’s Me and My Shadow. This was a fascinating set and I can see why Hicks had brought Fried into this weekend of music. We had some more of that Regina Spektor like music and then a change with Carpel on bass and Fried only on vocals for a number that started as a paean for The White Squirrel Bar that somehow turned out to be a love song. As they finished up, Kata Fried made a convincing case as a voice to be listening to. 

Poet Halee Kirkwood was up to give a reading. I thought it was clever that they had their first two poems be about sound, given the musical elements on either side. The Sound of a Poem got the mood set and Kirkwood had a solid cadence in their delivery. The third was read in Ojibwe and English, and it’s this kind of work that makes spoken poetry special. Dylan Hicks and Small Screens took their places and we now had improvised music behind the reading. The dark material led to very dissonant jazz backing work and it quickly fell into a good rhythm. Ending on The Pom Pom Crab, Halee Kirkwood had impressed in a short time and we’ll look forward to their debut book of poetry, To Think of a Match that will come out in March 2027.

Dylan Hicks and Small Screens took a few minutes to get ready, but the septet (vocals/keyboards, guitar, cello, saxophone, saxophone, bass, and drums) took the full length of wall opposite of the audience. Starting with the secular and quieter Christ Came Down a Stranger, Hicks went from a bit nervous in the spoken introduction to perfectly smooth in his keys and vocal work. That was a great number and really set the table for the mix of jazz-influenced pop rock. We got some songs from the upcoming album (likely out in 2027), and Orange Begonia was the first of them, with a lush jazz intro, but it slid into a rock adjacent feel, though the freeform jazz sections were always bubbling up. It was amusing as we had another biblically titled song, but was actually “about someone alone at the State Fair”, and this one blossomed both vocally and musically. It included a good guitar interlude that faded for Hicks’ native Texan (but sofentend) drawl. And to cap it off, a pair of sax solos really let all of the band members shine. Visible Concrete was a much longer number written in the wake of Renée Good’s murder and was by far the most improvisational jazz number of the evening. Photopsia was in a similar vein and we had landed in a nice zone of these vocal set ups from Hicks with good musical interludes. Our cello player got some great work here, but the band made this feel seamless throughout. The final “epic” was inspired by seeing a sign on the highway that said “this rest stop has no facilities”, and Rest Stop had a long drum intro before the rest of the band joined in a full swell. The first section ended and Carpel got an extended bass solo to the next section and this was a gargantuan piece. Dylan Hicks and Small Screens had created a very enjoyable evening, mixing music and poetry, and there’s two more chances this weekend to see them at work.