patches and gretchen

Gretchen serves 'Pie'

Heretofore best known as Grammy-winning singer Aimee Mann's quirky sister, Gretchen Seichrist brazenly steps into her own light on her sophomore disc under the alias Patches & Gretchen, "Sugar Head Pie" -- and it's quite a searing, squint-inducing light at that. Imagine Chrissie Hynde if she were really into barbecue, or Patti Smith if she knew how to make hot dish, and you get an idea of the album's odd charm and meaty power.

Seichrist utilizes her Midwest-mom-of-two personality as an angsty punk-rock weapon while riding with an MVP platoon of local players, including Terry Eason, Rich Mattson, Jacques Wait and David Loy. Together, they cavort around wildly but thoughtfully from full-steam rockers such as "Time of the Lilacs" to the elegant twangathon "Blood Suitcase," and from the boozy Irish howler "I'm Tired of Chicken" (last line: "Die, bitch, die") to the hazy, warped 10-minute freakout finale "Everything Is Indian," which might actually leave you disturbed. - Chris Reimenschneider - Star Tribune

Tom Hallett

Patches And Gretchen
Sugar Head Pie
Sandpaper Tongue Records

On her second, Rich Mattson-produced outing, Sugar Head Pie, Minneapolis-based singer/songwriter Gretchen Seichrist drops a bevy of alternatingly bouncy and bittersweet musical bombshells. Kicking off with with the razor-sharp cut "Time Of The Lilacs," Seichrist plies her plucky, dusky pipes to her dazzling wordplay and positively smokin' band (featuring, this time 'round, the likes of Terry Eason, Derek Rolando, David Loy, Mattson himself, and more talented local artists than we have room here to list) with all the inherent chutzpah of some of her main influences- Patti Smith, Dylan, and "sister Golden Hair" Aimee Mann. Standout cuts here include the above-mentioned opener, the blazing punk gem "Crying States," the country-fried confessional "Big Things," the cut-n'-run classic-to-be title track, and the smoky opus "Sweet Wolves," but frankly, there's simply not a bad song in this batch. Seichrist champions the little beauties in life, laments the loss of humanity and compassion in a world growing ever colder, and celebrates the simple joys of family, friends, and community. Which leaves us with one burning question- who is Patches? I am. She is. Her ever-evolving band is. Her family and friends are. Most importantly, you are. Don't miss your chance to fill in your blank square this Thursday, March 11th, when Patches And Gretchen perform at The Varsity Theater. For more info and a taste of this sweet Sugar Pie, head on over to www.sugarheadpie.com or www.patchesandgretchen.com. - Round The Dial Magazine

Well before Patches & Gretchen started their set, the Varsity had filled up nicely with fans. Seichrist and band opened with a couple of songs played from a seated position including “Sunrise – Sunset” and “Everything is Indian” and then stood for the rest of the set which included most of the key tracks off Sugar Head Pie. Sugar Head Pie, Patches & Gretchen’s second album, has been getting much-deserved rave critical reviews from well-respected members of the Twin Cities press and music scene, including writer Jim Walsh, The Honeydog’s Adam Levy and MPR’s Chris Roberts. I, personally, have placed the album at the top of my list of the best albums to be released in Minnesota this year, and given its relevance, power and refreshing honesty, it’s not likely to slip from that spot.

Expanding on the groundwork she laid down on her debut The Big Pink, Sugar Head Pie makes it all the more evident that Seichrist’s artistic vision comes from living in a world that few of us ever even visit. (Some of us never go there, if we’re lucky, or unlucky as the case may be, as it’s a place of often beautiful, though often harsh realities.) As way of metaphor, I found myself relying on how Bill Burroughs described the title of his novel Naked Lunch, which came to him via Jack Kerouac: “A frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork.” Seichrist tells it like it is.

Seichrist rounded out her show with a Dylan cover (“Positively 4th Street”) and one of the more emotionally raw songs from Sugar Head Pie, “Tired of Chicken.” The post-show vibe I picked up was that of satisfaction all around, both on-stage and off. The crowd seemed to be made up almost entirely of people who really care about Seichrist, believe in this project, and are determined to get behind her as an artist. (If you hadn’t guessed already, I’m in that group.)

I hope Seichrist seriously considers taking this show on the road (worldwide, if possible) to get these songs in front of a wider audience. People need to hear these songs, and I think they will respond. - How was the show?

One might imagine the folk band Patches and Gretchen being a dynamic musical duo featuring a pretty, long-haired woman named Gretchen accompanied by a gritty overalls-clad, moonshine swigging, banjo strumming character named "Patches." But you would be wrong. In fact, Patches and Gretchen is but one woman named Gretchen Seichrist, who more than holds her own - both vocally and instrumentally. The 45-year-old mother of two just released her second album, Sugar Head Pie, and took a few minutes to chat with us before heading out to rehearsal.
- metro magazine

Patches & Gretchen (CD-Release)
Comments (0) By Andrea Swensson Wednesday, Mar 10 2010



Part train wreck, part artistic genius, Patches & Gretchen is a performative force that must be seen to be believed. Whether she's haphazardly digging through a suitcase of outrageous hats, swaggering her way through a line of forgotten lyrics, or singing deeply and passionately with a throaty moan, singer Gretchen Seichrist seems—almost accidentally—to channel the spirit and irreverence of so many late '60s and early '70s rock icons. Her sophomore album, Sugar Head Pie, is further proof that Seichrist is a talented and prolific songwriter, teetering expertly between mayhem and poignancy without an ounce of irony or pretentiousness. At a time when rock 'n' roll is trying to laugh its way back to something serious, Patches & Gretchen is the real deal, a welcome whiskey-breath of fresh air in a crowd of cheap knock-offs. - City Pages

It’s a tale of two sisters this week at the Dakota: Aimee Mann, the famous L.A. pop singer-songwriter, and Gretchen Seichrist, the up-from-the-underground Minneapolis poet who rocks.
On Monday’s opening night, I preferred Seichrist the artist over Mann the professional singer-songwriter. Seichrist seemed more invested in her music and better prepared (even with guest violinist Scarlet Rivera). On the first night of her acoustic tour, Mann and her two backup musicians seemed under-rehearsed and unfocused.
Dressed in a fancy thrift store gown, Seichrist, 45, was full of trembling intensity, all Dylanesque phrasing, nervous energy and kitchen-sink theatrics (she had the lyrics to one song taped to the inside of a frying pan). Rivera, Dylan’s violinist from the Rolling Thunder Revue in the mid-‘70s, added the perfect North Country accent on three tunes, including Dylan's "Oh Sister." After turning into Patti Smith’s little sister with some proto-feminist rock ‘n’ roll poetry, Seichrist explained, “I’m not just angry. I’m other things, too.”
Mann, 50, had similar concerns convincing a full house of fans that she’s nothing but depressing. When answering a request for “It’s Not” during her encore, she said, “It’s my most depressing song – and it’s a very large field.”
The problem was that her fans seemed to understand Mann’s material better than she did. The three songs that club-goers requested on napkins (as Mann asked them to do) – “Red Vines,” “Stupid Thing” and “It’s Not” -- featured more musical dynamics, dramatic emotion and vocal range than all the numbers she selected for her 87-minute set.
Mann offered a series of songs from her “Forgotten Arm” concept album (from 2005) that she is trying to transform into a musical, with the addition of a few new numbers. None of the tunes from this love story about a drug-addicted prize fighter and his gal who move from Virginia to Vegas sounded like the kind of bravura vocal numbers that Broadway and its fans demand. Her musical sounded like “Glee” being staged at the hip Largo club for L.A. singer-songwriters.
Between songs, Mann was very engaging and often humorous. But her songs suffered because not only were they mostly downbeat in message but they seemed more about craftsmanship than palpable emotion. Mann didn’t seem as committed to her words as her less experienced sister did.
They did not perform together, but Mann sat at the piano (which she admitted that she doesn’t know how to play) and performed 2008’s “Medicine Wheel,” featuring Seichrist lyrics (taken from a poem) for which Mann composed music. To hear Mann sing those vivid, penetrating words was a treat. Maybe the sisters can cook up another collaboration this week.
- Minneapolis Star Tribune by Jon Bream

January 8



It was Flannery O'Connor who said, "At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily."

The late, great Georgia–born author was speaking about the 1950s, that storied decade of repression and rebirth, but she could also have been talking about the here and now, as the ongoing popularity of everything from "Mad Men" to "Weeds" to "Revolutionary Road" attests.

For me, the best recent example of the searcher/discoverer busting out of her own domesticated despair and not going quietly into that dark night is one Gretchen Seichrist. Over the last 12 months, this single mother of two made Facebook her canvas, recording and posting middle-of-the-night/day/all hours videos of rambling, intense, poignant, funny, to-the-bone songs and stories.

A longtime fixture on the Minneapolis music milieu as a fan and behind-the-scenes artist, Seichrist (a.k.a. Patches and Gretchen; http://www.facebook.com/pages/patches-and-gretchen/20203775676) is now being discovered by a new audience thanks to the Internet. Last year she released her debut CD, "Music From Little Big Pink," and like her videos, her songs have a goofy desperation to them, borne of a punching-her-way-out-of-her-own-brown-paper-bag desire to communicate with the outside world by any means necessary. Along the way, she has created a small but budding community of fans, fellow musicians, artists, and kindred spirits in her Fuller neighborhood.

Writer Sari Gordon: "Gretchen is everything little girls and women want to be: unashamed. She's a mother who needs health care. She's an ex-wife who forgets her last husband's name. She's the first girl who wore homemade dresses and old man shoes. She's the one who looked all strung out and beautiful. She's the one who got tattoos that look like the doodles she did on the back of her notebook, waiting for her juvie officer to show up.

"She's that lady singing while she's hangs out her laundry, just making it up as she goes. She is completely nuts and smart enough to stay one step ahead of her mania. She's laughing and burning herself with the hot glue gun when she's sticking pastel-colored balls to an old hat and giving it to me as a gift and insisting I like it until I do. She's that best friend who wanted to go throw frogs over the neighbor's fence and break into the church to drink holy water."

I'm with all of that, but times being what they are, artists like Seichrist could use more. And this being the Southwest Journal's "Hopes and Dreams for the next four years" issue, I'd like to propose paying artists like Seichrist what they're worth. Surely, if the feds can bail out Wall Street and Detroit, there's got to be some money in the corporate kitty for a one-woman show whose art is so fierce and fecund it begs to be gathered, discussed, and celebrated. Surely, someone who provides others comfort by sharing the struggle-joys of parenthood, love, life, and smoking deserves respect and some dough.

But until the Great Artist Bailout of '09 happens, we're lucky to be able to dig into the collected works of Patches and Gretchen, which are already more impressive than many artists accrue in an entire career. Seichrist shares a certain distrust for men (a la her sister, singer/songwriter Aimee Mann), and that skepticism – of power, players, and posturing -- comes through loud and clear. But there is also much love and optimism in her postings, much genuine dissent (she recently made a promotional poster of her nude on the cross, barely blinking at what her family and friends might think), and from the looks of things, she's just getting started.

There's a musical in the works, and myriad songs, paintings, and ideas whose vision can be summed up by something she said to me this fall when I stopped by for a visit. I walked up the stairs of her smallish apartment, and expressed admiration for the two dozen or so paintings that blast off the corridor and living room walls.

"Oh, yeah," she scoffed. "None of those are finished." - Jim Walsh- Southwest Journal

Jim Walsh-Patches and Gretchen, "Why Don't You Break Down and Be a Fan of Patches and Gretchen?" (YouTube video) Warning: Gretchen Seichrist's songs and DIY videos can be so addicting, you might find yourself up late at night, clipping along in your life, and then, as is the case with all great artists, you can go down the rabbit hole of her sneaky raw genius and not be heard from for hours. Her debut CD, "Music From Little Big Pink" (produced by Rich Mattson) isn't for everyone. But for those with that undying scratchy-vinyl curiosity, a little bit o' soul-patience, and an ear for all the vagaries of the human condition ("Ant Farm" is an uplifter for the uplifting-suspicious), these basement tapes are a mirror of the you that got left behind in the corporate flood, and the work of the most original locally bred songwriter since Bon Iver. - Minn Post- Jim Walsh

FREAKOUT FOLK PUNK? YES PLEASE!

Patches and Gretchen : ‘Sugar Head Pie’ (Sandpaper Tongue Records)

Gretchen Seichrist's a new name to me and one I'll be following closely after hearing this excellent second album. Gretchen's from Minneapolis in the Midwest, and is Aimee Mann's sister, so I'm told - not that it’s relevant to the music here, which is plenty strong enough to stand on its own. I guess the immediate reference point in trying to describe her sound and influences/inspirations has to be Patti Smith - similar vocal style/stream-of-consciousness lyrics/classic 60's/early70's musical feel - with a strong element of Chrissie Hynde, in the singing and attitude. I'd throw PJ Harvey into the reference mix too - same freedom of approach and fiercely independent feel. Interestingly though', on her MySpace page, she cites Bob Dylan and Liza Minnelli as her main influences. There's also a first album - 2008's ‘Music from Little Big Pink’ - which I haven't heard but will be hunting for now.

She's working here with a really impressive group, who are versatile enough to make the most of the variety of songs and moods. So step forward Terry Eason and David Loy (guitars), Derek Rolandoi (drums), and Al Schroeter (bass). Many of the songs feature a lovely balance of electric and acoustic guitar (like the Stones c ‘Beggar's Banquet’), great arrangements played and recorded well. At times the guitar sound evokes the dense, skuzzy music of something like ‘Exile on Main Street’, at others it’s more the intense sonic meltdown of Minneapolis forebears Husker Du that comes to mind. The sound's been described as ‘freakout folk punk’, which fits the bill pretty well.

Sleazy guitars and semi-sung, semi-spoken lyrics kick the album off with ‘Time of the Lilacs’, drawing us into Gretchen's free-styling vocals, reminding me a bit of Patti Smith songs like ‘Ask the Angels’. But don't fixate too much on Patti Smith - there's much more going on here. The next track, ‘Crying States’, keeps the ‘Exile’ feel going with guitars that buzz and sting like hornets on bourbon.

Things slow down a bit with the third track, ‘Blood Suitcase’, which evokes Chrissie Hynde/the Pretenders in ‘Talk of the Town’ mode, with an additional subtle country feel, provided by some sharp guitar picking and interplay between guitar and banjo/mandolin. As with quite a few songs here, I'd love to spend longer getting into the lyrics of the next track, ‘Big Things’ - once again employing a cool electric/acoustic tension. As Dylan said, “There's something happening here...”, and indeed, like Mr. Jones, I don't know quite what it is yet, but it sounds good

Title track ‘Sugar Head Pie’ takes us in another direction, with some gorgeously quirky, almost feline vocals and complex lyrics. Henry VIII's in there somewhere, along with some pigeons, and much more. There's also some great violin playing, like Scarlett Rivera in the Rolling Thunder/’Blood on the Tracks’ days. This song really combines her influences - Dylan's lyrics, and having the courage to step outside rock music to get more of a show-tune type of feel a la Liza Minnelli.

‘Black Market’ brings us back to the fuzzy skuzzy guitar sound they do so well, like the awesome hardcore storm kicked by Husker Du back in the day. ‘Sweet Wolves’ relaxes the atmosphere, with its slow and tender feel. Guitars echo in the background as the lyrics go seriously dreamtime: ‘Indians run away/ Fight forest fires/ Leave the church and all its desires/ Sweet fires...’ At a guess, the lyrics on ‘Ghosts I Love’ inhabit a more personal space, and lead to a really poignant, pained ending.

‘Tired of Chicken’ has a lighter, more boisterous feel to it, and adds a nice bit of variety to the album. Again, there's more than a little twist-of-lemon /‘Cabaret’ feeling here. Its a bit like a more light-hearted take on ‘Blood Suitcase’, with back-porch style picking enhancing the singalong/showtune feel, before culminating in a final fade-out snarl of “Die you bitch, die”.

At just over two minutes, that's the shortest track here and sets up the conclusion of the album, with the two longest tracks, ‘Take the Gauze off’ (6 mins) and ‘Everything is Indian’ (nearly 10 mins). ‘Take the Gauze off’ stretches out in a joyful tangle of guitars, like the Stones, Velvet Underground and Espers having an unlikely jam session. It really shows the power of their sound, and how Gretchen's voice has the strength and individual character not to get lost in the mix. The final track's clearly a crucial track to Gretchen. A lot of work and thought are evident in the lyrics and music, maybe evocative of some of the spacier songs the Patti Smith Group were getting into around the ‘Easter’ album There's a much more experimental feel here, and this stretching out really works well after the tight, rocky focus of the other songs. Its really all about atmosphere - in this case, a really beguiling, hypnotic feel created by some distant, resonating percussion sounds mingled with delicate guitar interplay (is there a dulcimer in there too?) - as some languid, personal lyrics “blood spots on the t-shirt you wore” unfold into something stranger, taking us back to the Indian world evoked in ‘Sweet Wolves’, mumbled thoughts of “Broken Indian jaw/Broken Indian nose” leading to the final gasp of “After loving you, everything is Indian”.

This is a terrific record, and hopefully the varied approach - musically and lyrically - will give it a broad appeal. Apart from the entry-point Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde references, there's a wealth of things to enjoy here - a really tight, flexible and imaginative group of musicians giving their all to some thoughtful and intense songs. There's generally a raw punky energy to the faster tracks, combined with a hint of the more decadent end of early 70's rock, and this works really well with the slower, acoustic feel of other songs. I bet Gretchen and Patches are great live too - but for now I'll have to content myself with this and looking for that first album...

www.patchesandgretchen.com
www.myspace.com/patchesandgretchen
www.facebook.com/SugarHeadPie
www.sugarheadpie.com

Buy Sugar Head Pie from iTunes

Review by Den 19.03.10 - UK Mudkiss Magazine