Painted Saints w. Doug Pahl

Art in the cafe...

Laurel Statz


"The Spectator"


December 2025



Laurel Statz is a painter and Madison area native. Her work, while figurative, is influenced by abstraction and minimalism. The paintings often have a quick and instinctual nature, capturing just what’s needed. While she often times herself to eliminate extra details and over-precision, she has ventured into more detailed works as well. Laurel does not attach narrative to her pieces. Rather, she thinks of them like a journaling process for her scatter-brained psyche. The figures in the pieces are meant to be processing tools for the artist and the viewer. She hopes that seeing these figures helps the...
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Friday, March 31, 2006

Painted Saints hail from Denver, Colorado and subscribe themselves to a spaghetti western/gypsy/chamber country/sad bastard school of music. They write tin can and twine romances in a color of rust with backdrops of long wind swept open roads framed by tangled barbed wire and naked telephone poles. Their songs are of ashtray broken hearts and lansdscapes of beauty and sorrow borrowing harmonies from old eastern europe, the desert southwest and the sentiments of working class rust belt americana.

Paul plays a solo show making use of guitars, clarinet, bandoneon squeezebox, viola, a fair share of whistling all aided by fancy looping pedals and he even sings.

After growing up in the wilds of Wellington Colorado, Paul went to the University of Colorado to get degrees in music and philosophy (aka the unemployment special) and then decided to play many instruments and make a career out of being a touring instrumentalist with folks like Jim White, Woven Hand (16 horsepower), Devotchka, Denver Gentlemen and Reverend Glasseye.

Over the last few years, Paul has had the pleasure of playing a former nazi bomb factory in Hamburg, an 18th century canon factory/hippie commune in Copenhagen, a hockey arena in Belgium, New York's Central Park Summerstage, a bar in Montana guaranteed to have at least one convicted murderer in attendance at any given time and Royal Albert Hall along with live broadcasts on Swedish National Radio and NPR's world cafe. After shaking hands with lots of namedroppable folks, Paul decided to sing his own songs.

A Madison Native, Doug Pahl was born to a tire store owner and a financial director. He picked up a guitar when he was nine years old and never tired of it.

He played bass in a now disassembled Milwaukee band, ---Annie Hall--- and in his toddler years, he was in a High School Band called ---Space Junk.--- They played at The Loft many times.

About his own music, Doug says, ---Nowadays, call it whatever you want, I play Indiefolkishpop. Some influences for the music I perform are The Decemberists, Andrew Bird, Tom Waits, and some I can---t figure out. I---m sure someone from a magazine could describe it better than I can.---