Zaq Baker's Very Unspectacular Book Release Party w/ Dylan Hicks + Halle Hanson

Sat, Jan 25

6PM DOORS 8PM MUSIC Full Food & Beverage Menu is available for the entire show. If you reserved a table, the table is yours for the night. $15 ADVANCE (+taxes/fees) $20 AT THE DOOR (+taxes) ABOUT ZAQ BAKER Zaq Baker’s original music is featured in 2024 film How to Break a World Record (Apple TV, Amazon Prime). This summer he shared the keynote speaking and performing role at Youth Mental Health Day, a 730-attendee weeklong nonprofit symposium; captained Zaq Baker Team at Art-a-Whirl’s Liquid Zoo; and was musical guest on longstanding talk show Minnesota Tonight! Most importantly, his Instagram stories have been re-shared by Boy Meets Girl, U-Haul, La Croix, Grainbelt, The Academy Is..., Marigold, and Owamni. Ranging from the quirky to the desperately serious, Zaq Baker examines love and mental illness while jumping around from pop-punk to synth-rock to modern pop to musical theatre. His albums include If It’s Not Zaq Baker Live at the Green Room, I’m Not Going; Solarbaby; This Time It’s Personal; Maddie’s Delivery Service; Cardio; Getting Younger; and Housewarming. His additional standalone singles — including four 2024 synthpop songs — are streaming everywhere, too. Zaq’s music videos include “Get the Message” and “Someone to Believe In.” In addition to work under his own name, Zaq is a member of pop-rock quintet Maria and the Coins; synth-punk sextet Toilet Rats; indie vocalist pop outfit Corzine; Nina Luna’s live band; and more. Zaq frequently co-writes with other artists, serves as a Music Director, and contributes piano and keyboards to albums, performances and videos as a freelance session musician. Zaq has been co-writing a musical, Hometown, since 2022. Unspectacular is his first novel. ABOUT BACK JACKET Mae Strand, twenty, is a compulsive liar and budding but reluctant Chicago vocalist whose mother’s mysterious prior life is starting to loom dangerously large over her own. Coerced into recording a studio album by entertainment lawyer Robert Koenid, Mae is forced to choose between a small shot at fame or music’s intrinsic value, all while she crests adulthood with her independence at stake. A few blocks away, Ajay Chadhana is offered a rare opportunity: Skip a step in the software career he’s been building since he decamped from the cricket pitches of Eastern India to Illinois... at the cost of severely hardening his heart. As he races toward thirty, Ajay must draw a line between the advantages of corporate life and his harried nights as a session drummer — a crisis of ambition and self-care. ABOUT DYLAN HICKS Musician and writer Dylan Hicks was born in Austin, Texas, in 1970. With Dylan Hicks & Small Screens, he plays exploratory pop with literary ambitions and far-flung musical influences including jazz, R&B, freely improvised music, and various song traditions. The group’s latest album, Modern Flora, is a set of songs and instrumentals collaboratively arranged for nonet. This set will feature a differently configured Small Screensish sextet: Christopher Thomson and Bryan Murray on tenor saxophones; Michelle Kinney and Jacqueline Ultan on cellos; Dan Carpel on upright bass; and Hicks on piano, guitar, and vocals. ABOUT HALLE HANSON Halle Hanson is a singer-songwriter from the greater Minneapolis area. She grew up in a musical family and starting really diving in on her own during her teen years. Her music has been described as “sad girl with a smile” exploring themes of heartbreak and longing woven together with melancholic melodies.