GIGS A PLENTY NEXT WEEKEND
I know your life hasn’t been the same since I stopped playing a ton of shows around the Twin Cities. We are all recovering in our own ways. But next week I’m doing it, a show on Friday and a show on Saturday! Like a teenager! Awesome. I’m playing with Pavielle at Icehouse on Friday. Man, it has been fun getting inside of her music and running it down with her incredible band. Can’t wait for that one. Want a flyer? You got it!
So that’s gonna be great. And the next night Big Trouble is back at it at The White Squirrel. This is a monthly hang and it is such a joy to get comfortable in the room, get comfortable with the players and find out what the music feels like if you get to revisit it once a month. Plus, we’re going to put some new things under our fingers for this one. We had to miss last month so I’m really excited about this whole situation. Jaboom. A Flyer? My brother Steve made an awesome one.
My 5 Favorite Jazz Records Today
In honor of Record Store Day coming up on Saturday I’d like to list to you ten records that you will not regret owning on vinyl because they are amazing. Do I own them all? Not on vinyl. Do I love them all? Absolutely. Will I one day own them all on vinyl? Probably.
Hank Mobley/Soul Station - This is a perfect record. This also might be Art Blakey’s best recording. His high water mark is almost definitely the Jazz Messengers version of a Night in Tunisia, but I do think this recording session as a whole is an even better outing.
Cassandra Wilson/New Moon Daughter - If you own one Cassandra Wilson record, it’s this one. In fact. . .if you can only one jazz album from the 90s, this would be in the discussion. Weaving a record through with covers and originals is a near impossible feat. One set is almost pre-destined to feel out of place. But on this one Wilson’s deep personalization of other writer’s material combined with her soulful and powerful pen result in one of the most impressive albums from any genre. The Grammys also got it right on this one, it won the Grammy for the Best Jazz Vocal Performance.
Alice Coltrane/Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana - I’m lukewarm on side B, not gonna lie to you. I’ve listened through all the way once and from time to time I’ll give it a flip. But, side one. . .side one is some of the most breathtaking, inspired and uplifting music I have ever brought into my ears. It is such a joy.
Stanley Turrentine and the Three Sounds/The Blue Hour - At some point you will need a record to put on for a quiet moment in your life. You will need a record to soothe your nerves rather than to excite your senses. This is that record.
Brian Blade Fellowship/Perceptual - So much praise is rightfully heaped onto Brian Blade as a drummer that it can obscure his accomplishments as a writer and bandleader. To me, the sophomore album of the Brian Blade Fellowship is the high water mark for Blade as a writer and for the Fellowship as a group. The instrumentation, collaborative spirit and emotional content of this record makes it a joy to listen to with the patience and attention that vinyl often inspires.
My Yoga Enemy
You shouldn’t have a yoga enemy. You shouldn’t. But it’s fun to have one. I go to yoga every week. And probably 95% of the time there’s a lady who comes in who I just. . .take issue with. I don’t hate her. I’d love to know more about her. I’d love to know every detail of her weird ass life that has brought her to where her behaviors currently reside, which I would say is left of “that’s weird” and right of “what the f*ck are you on?”. I don’t know her name but I’m almost sure it’s Sandra based on vibe alone. Sandra gets to the Y around when I do and before working out is working on her laptop in the area in front of the pool. That’s cool. That’s normal. But it is a short window of working time. Class is at 8:15. We are both rolling in at 7:35. I’ve got time to lift some weights and maybe look at texts and do nothing about them. You’re doing a laptop session? Cool. But, Sandra, you come into class 5-8 minutes late most everyday. I know you aren’t late from the roads, you’ve been on that laptop. The time is up in the top right on a Mac. Don’t be late for the class Sandra. And then Sandra waltzes in and puts her laptop bag and all that shit in the back of the yoga studio (when will the Y add lockers??) and then grabs a mat in the loudest way possible. AND THEN SANDRA goes and finds a spot and sometimes asks a person to move their mat a little. SANDRA YOU’RE LATE. If you need to move something move the garbage can, I’m already doing my shoulder stretches FFS. Okay Sandra and you aren’t in yoga gear. Neither am I, but you’re wearing a cardigan, and professional pants. Sandra, I am in gym shorts here, you have jewelry on. And Sandra, when the teacher says “do whatever moves for your body feel good to do, take some water, and move to seated” is she quietly broadcasting to you “now you go ahead and stay standing and keep on picking at your cuticles”. I didn’t hear her say that Sandra. I didn’t hear that. AND THEN SANDRA YOU LEAVE EARLY SOMETIMES. “Got to get back to the old lippity laptop!”. So you are then walking back into the back of the studio and grabbing your bag, and loudly putting away your mat. And for awhile I thought you were rushing to get to the aquatics class, which is a forgivable offense. BUT YOU AREN’T. That lady I thought was you in the pool just looks like you Sandra. I don’t know what you’re doing, but if I pulled half of that sh*t once I would just feel so awful. Inconveniencing folks, showing up late, walking out early, picking at my hands while everyone else is in sun pose. But for Sandra it’s just another day at the Y/Office and I truly love it. Sandra, I do hope you keep coming cause I love having you as my fake enemy. I know I’m supposed to say that I’m sure if I met you I’d think you were a swell person. Sandra, I am not certain of that. I am not certain of the opposite, but you have some explaining to do. Until next yoga class!
A Fun Weekend Celebrating 2 Years at Jazz88 and General Good Energy
This weekend I finally got out there! I went and helped my friend Sarah Sandusky celebrate her 40th birthday at Grumpy’s NE and I had a grand old time and ran into some old high school friends as well. On Saturday I was at White Squirrel with the Como Ave Jug Band celebrating 2 years on the air at Jazz88. Thanks to everyone who came out, especially the awesome people I forgot to take pictures with! I’m overjoyed by the hang and the honor of being your Afternoon Cruise DJ.
Heiruspecs is Playing in Winona
It’s a fact. See you on May 11 in Winona with the Midwest Music Fest. I think we played this event the first year they ever had it so it’s awesome to be back!
Celebrating Two Years at Jazz88 March 30 by Reuniting a Jug Band
Believe it or not it’s been two years since I landed at Jazz88 after almost a decade at The Current (longer if you count weekly trivia. . .and I sort of do).
There I am on my first day, happy. Happy cause I was going to get to play world class music, DJ everyday and try my hand at being a Music Director. I wanted all those challenges and I’ve loved experiencing them. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve interviewed a jamillion people. I’ve “passed it to Bob Jurek in Roseville for traffic” 2800 times give or take 500. I’m so grateful not only to the team at Jazz88 and the listeners at Jazz88 but also to the folks who started checking out jazz radio for the first time because they were curious enough to follow me here. That’s really heartwarming. Also, for years I’ve been somewhat known to the jazz players in town but not intimately, I was a bass player who had a fascination with jazz, I was at a station that from time to time covered some jazz, I was setting up a trivia night to play after their trio gig. . .it was all tangential. But it’s deeper now and I think all the players in town but especially Chris Bates, Jeff Bailey, Omar Abdulkarim, JT Bates, LA Buckner, Zacc Harris, Jennifer Grimm, Tony Baluff and Michael Cain. . .artists who have been willing to teach me and to frequently come by the station and talk up one of their favorite artists and share their experience and perspective. On top of that I’ve worked with a staff that has dealt with me as I learn how to be a Music Director, how to really handle a daily shift, how to hit the posts and how to learn a bunch of stuff on the job. The team at Jazz88 past and present has been amazingly supportive of me and I’m very grateful for that. . .would'n’t have made it without that support. How lucky am I? Two Years! I am going to celebrate every year cause this job is a really special one for me.
And celebrate I am! I’m throwing a little party at the White Squirrel in Saint Paul on Saturday March 30. Customarily, my band Big Trouble would be playing our monthly gig at this time, but we asked the Como Ave Jug Band to reunite for the gig since Big Trouble is short a couple members that evening. SO I AM ASKING YOU: will you come to the White Squirrel on Saturday March 30 from 6-10pm and help me celebrate my two year anniversary while enjoying the carnal pleasure that is a jug band in close quarters? I hope the answer is an emphatic yes.
If you have questions about this party you can email me at sean@triviamafia.com. But, it’s simple. Just come. It’s all ages and kid friendly until 8:30pm so bring your kiddos if that’s a fit for you! And they have great N/A and THC beverages if alcohol is not your thing!
Here’s a picture of the Como Ave Jug Band. I own a trivia company with the best looking guy in the band.
Are You Comfortable with Watching The Tiny Desk of Butcher Brown
Butcher Brown. What a treat. The drummer is such a joy. The way he plays his fills. The way he relates with the band. That would be Corey Fonville, he’s thoroughly enjoyable. Andy Randazzo, tasty solo that arrives at the very opening of a song. It’s refreshing. The guitar player, Morgan Burrs. Secret vibe weapon. Buttery tone. Great fancy guitar move arounds, and very patient. And when he repeats a part it sounds impassioned, not labored. DJ Harrison on keys is so solid, and so beautiful. Tennishu has a very Dave from De La Soul energy that feels excellent to me. His melodic sense whether singing or rapping is mesmerizing. The background singing is subtle, but absolutely essential. They can all be heard, singing just a little bit and it’s perfect. Shout out to the thousand people who told me I would love this band. You were right. Shout out Amy, who I think is writing something about them too.
Are You Wrong for The Moment?
There’s an art to great curating. It’s an art I’m aspiring to be great at and I fashion myself well on my way. I think in fancy writing situations people say it’s part science, part art. I think it’s a very small part science. Turns out, magic can’t be relegated to a set of time tested codes and research. Magic has to be magic. You have to practice science, study science and honor all of that research as you make your way towards being a good curator of something. . .but it’s all a wash if you can’t embrace the magic. The people I’ve had the worst chemistry with in the world of music performance and radio are the people who pretend that it is a knowable, explainable, measurable and quantifiable portion of the world. It simply is not. Music has a magic that refuses to be predictable and refuses to be fully explained by anything algorithm. This is not me eschewing algorithm. When Spotify hits me with Rhapsody right after Little Brother and then a late era De La Soul song, clearly that experience is algorithmically supported. But when Radio K hits me with a heavy haunting Boris jam at 8:06am right after the final kid is dropped off and the Jojo Siwa phone is disconnected, that is magic. I need it all.
But, I have me people who have good hearts but are plugged in wrong for the moment. These are people who want to play a comedy album when everyone is picking out songs at a cabin, people who randomly ask someone about their parents for the first time in months a mere matter of days after one of those parents died. These are people who think that trying their new Cantonese noodle recipe they just saw that morning in the NY Times is just the right dinner plan for the last night up North. There are right people, who are wrong for moments. They pick a weird movie, and not a fun weird movie, just a weird one. When they dial it up on a streaming service they tell you you’ll love it and you know you won’t. Pick a loud song when you need a quiet song. Pick a normal ass coffee shop when you need a weird one. Maybe this happens with wine too. But there’s people who can’t put their spirit and their drive into rhythm with the feel of the moment, with the immediate needs of the room. May God have mercy on those people. . .cause I won’t.
How Many Jobs Have You Had?
I’m part of a small little four person text crew with my brother Steve, Chuck from Trivia Mafia and my best friend Steve. Between this blog and that text chain, that’s why I feel alright being off of social media. Recently Steve asked how jobs each of us have had. I guessed about fifteen and I think I was right. I left out significant freelance stuff. . .like Heiruspecs, Dessa, Trivia Mafia. None of those things are in there. But all of those “jobs” served as my primary income for some years of my life. So those are off. I think the only freelance work I identified as a job was writing for City Pages. It felt a lot like a job, so I’m leaving it on there. So boom, here’s the 15 jobs I’ve worked.
babysitter for kids
sold baseball cards at the state fair
cheapo and applause
mass moca museum gift shop
dining hall at bennington college, focus on salads
toonerville trolley, record store, worked one day, couldn’t figure out the register quit
minnesota department of health, filed tests
400 bar, door guy
city pages delivery, i quit this job by leaving for tour with Martin Devaney on a Wednesday and not answering my phone
genesis (this was monitoring parents who had lost custodial rights)
creative care resources (working with people with autism)
mcnally smith
city pages writing
mpr
jazz88
Big Trouble Performs Instrumental Feats on Saturday at The White Squirrel
L to R: The Enforcer, Me, The Heartbreaker, The Dealmaker
As you decide what to do this Saturday you’ll want to give some big consideration to enjoying Big Trouble. A monthly show has been good for the musical constitution of the group and we’ve been stretching ourselves and exploring some more ideas for the group. But due to travel circumstances and the unrelenting shortness of February this week we haven’t done a rehearsal. So we are doubling down on our recent strides and playing the HITS. Does a band that has been together since 2007 and never released any music simply as a quartet have hits? NO, we don’t. But we are playing our hits, our jams. The ones that feel special to us. And as we all collectively navigate the strange vibes of this Mediterranean winter a nice little bit of instrumental music is just what the doctor ordered, if you could ask your doctor what they ordered without being charged $195. What a treat.
I Was the Coolest Guy in 55105 until Vincent Kartheiser Showed Up
Not good Bob.
You do know who Vincent Kartheiser is. He’s from Apple Valley, he was on Mad Men. He used to look like this.
Now he looks like this.
So Vincent Kartheiser was really good on Mad Men and your guess is as good as mine what he’s done since but presumably cool movie guy stuff. Juicing, expensive therapy, acting, impromptu trips to Las Vegas, hiking, farmer’s markets, hiking on rocks with women in yoga pants. I figure he's been doing everything all my friends who go to LA do. Bon voyage Vince, have an amazing life. You weathered a divorce last year, but that happens, I hope you’re on the up and up. But turns, out Vince has had a burning desire to get back to Minnesota ASAP. You can even see in the photo above that Vince-a-reeno is tearing off his lavalier mic and saying “get me on the next Sun Country to Terminal 2 folks”.
And you know what Mr. Kartheiser, Minnesota would be happy to have you back. Josh Hartnett lives here sometimes. Rent a loft in the North Loop and go to restaurants with names like “High Snap” and “Colton Twenty One”, find a spot where the average weight of a dog is nine pounds. ENJOY IT VINCENT. You worked for it. BUT NO. Kaptain Kartheiser is back in. . ..Saint Paul? Vincent, no movie stars live in Saint Paul. Josh Hartnett is from Saint Paul but I bet he lives in Minneapolis. And Vincent, if you want to live in Saint Paul, go to Lowertown, heck grab a condo fit for a duke on the West End of Grand Ave. But I believe the Kartheiser clan is shacked up in 55105 right by me. They’re going to name a Nook burger after him. He’s picking up poop from his dog on Randolph Avenue just like me. This is unacceptable.
Vincent, until you got here I was undefeated the coolest person in 55105 unless Marlon James was teaching a class that day at Macalester. Vincent, I am not that cool. But 55105 is really not that cool. Or at least it is not that kind of cool. The neighborhood is full of people walking their dogs, catching the bus, mowing their lawn, finishing their day with a nice old TV watch. Not everyone is cord-cutters. A lot of folks in the 55105 haven’t tried macrobiotic. Awesome people, not cool people. The average weight of a dog is 27 pounds. Restaurants have names like a restaurant name in a story written by a tenth grader would have: Carmelo’s, The Groveland Tap, The Italian Pie Shoppe. Delicious restaurants, but no random numbers, no unexplainable nouns. Vincent, I don’t think we can give you what you need. A person who has been in cool TV shows should eat at a place where you can say something like “and how is the seabass?”. It’s not happening in 55105. The only thing that is happening in 55105 is. . .well. . .me. I’m cool. I’m on the radio, I play in a band, we even rehearse in the 55105. We’re cool right? Well I felt really cool until you showed up Vincent. You outcool me and it’s rough. Your options are as follows:
1) not give a shit about this blog post
Nope, that’s it. You do you Vincent, me and Marlon James will get over it.
The Most Iconic Breakfast in Minnesota
Maria’s Cachapas Venezolanas, 2 cakes with Cotija cheese. $10.25 for the cakes, $2.25 for the must have Cotija Cheese
Summer of 2000 my girlfriend at the time moved into a house at 15th and Franklin meaning that by a long shot the closest breakfast to her house was Maria’s. She went there before I did and she told me about these corn pancakes and as a breakfast enthusiast I was vaguely enthused. Sunny Side Up was my breakfast North star in the Twin Cities. I’ve never been a deep pancake person as an adult. I needed a reason to step away from savory breakfast. But when my gf Anna mentioned that these were corn pancakes with cheese I became more interested. Not too long after hearing about these pancakes I finally got to dig in and it was astounding. IT’S SO MUCH CORN. And the corn tastes so good and it mixes with the rest of the batter to create this very satisfying sweet corn situation. Have you ever been at a Thanksgiving where a mom serves “corn pie” or something similar. I’ve only gotten it in New England with Conor’s mom. It’s delicious and this has a little corn pie situation going on plus this acidy cheese. I do get some maple syrup involved. Not as much as I would on a standard issue pancake, but some. Partially for lubrication, partially for flavor, partially out of deference to the fact that you put syrup on a pancake.
I’ve gone here many times across the years and if I have someone in from out of town I try to get them here. They usually don’t order the Cachapas Venezolanas. I tell them to. They look at it. They just have a bite of mine. They’re stupid. Get these pancakes. I haven’t seen them on the menu anywhere else in my stateside travels. They’re delicious. This place is a gem. The coffee is great. The hang is great. The staff is great. The pancakes are better. The pancakes are better than us all. I’ve been eating them for 24 years and look at me, I’m on the radio, I have a blog. I credit the pancakes exclusively. Dig in.
The Ballad of DJ Horsegirl, DJ Horsegirl, Krista Waxx and Jill Riley
L to R: DJ Horsegirl, Jill Riley, DJ Horsegirl, Krista Waxx
For the purposes of this story, call me DJ Horsegirl.
Best New Bands Night at First Ave is a special ritual. Generally it’s held the second weekend in the new year and it celebrates some of the most promising bands to sprout in the past 12 months from the Twin Cities scene. Have some of the bands been around for significantly more than a year you ask? Always. But in general, the spirit is to take up and coming artists and put them on the big stage in First Ave’s Main Room. I’ve been to maybe five or six of these across the years and it’s an amazing opportunity to see a large volume of awesome new bands efficiently. Usually there are six acts, they get to play a proper thirty minute set and you can get a real picture for what is happening in a subset of Minnesota music. Most years the hosting duties fall to a couple folks representing Radio K, The Current and KFAI. Most of my memories involve Andrea Swensson representing for the Current. Regardless, I was honored this year when I got asked to host and represent Jazz88. First off, always fun to host a cool event. Second off, cool to see Jazz88 representing for the show cause I don’t think that’s happened before. This year it was Grace from Radio K (she goes by DJ Horsegirl on air), Me (I went by DJ Horsegirl that night), Krista Waxx from Radio K and Jill Riley from the Current.
OMFFFFFFFFG it was cold that day. My wife asked me really casually if I could walk the dog before I left because she would be tight for time. Totally okay to ask that Rach, absolutely. But let’s be clear, this is not like asking me to throw on a windbreaker and take our dog Warren for an autumn jaunt. This is multiple layers, shield the dog in every stupid dog coat Rachel has ever bought him and pray to Jesus Christ himself that my fingers don’t freeze whilst gathering his poopy doops. But, I realized at that point that I should definitely continue to wear all the clothes I have on right now because guess what. . .First Ave can stay cold for a long ass time. Especially if it is not going to be an asses to elbows sell out. So, wrapped in a basketball jersey, white t, long john shirt, fancy logo shirt and yellow “Thank God For Music” hoodie plus my jacket I navigated out to First Ave. (you can see the little corner of the basketball jersey if you look at the photo up there). What a treat. Not bad traffic. Had to get there by 5:30. The Wolves are playing the not mighty Portland Trailblazers. I’m gonna guess not a sell out to see the ghost of Damien Lillard. There wasn’t much of a rush hour to speak of.
You need to know something about being a radio personality introducing bands at a live show. . .it mostly does not matter. You can do it really badly if you don’t try at all. You might be remembered if you do it really badly: butcher a name, talk away from your mic, say something strange and incorrect about the band. BUT IN GENERAL: it just doesn’t matter. Before I was a radio host I was exclusively a musician. Probably total maybe 75 times in my playing career before I began working radio, a radio or local writer type introduced a band I was in. I remember basically nothing about any of these introductions. They serve multiple purposes, but if you don’t do anything memorably bad, those things are forgotten ASAP. I remember Jim Walsh introducing Heiruspecs at a Movies and Music thing for the Walker. I remember talking to the woman who was going to introduce Dessa at the Montreal Jazz Fest. I remember Jim Walsh because he was the first guy who ever wrote about Heiruspecs in one of the daily papers. . .and I’m mildly embarrassed to say that I remember the woman from Montreal cause she was wild hot. My bad. She was la renard. So, again, I think the job of radio host is really awesome and quite difficult. Hosting live shows is part of that job. . .but it’s only an awesome part, not a difficult part. Do some homework, print out the set times, listen to pronunciations, listen to the music of the band, get familiar with the names of other band members, introduce yourself and act like it’s awesome when you’re up there. Because it is.
When I tell you that this night was magical I mean it sincerely. I had awesome real conversations with many excellent people. I’m not talking about “hey how’s it going, everything good?” conversations but actual touch base reflection conversations. Amazing stuff. I felt comfortable. I loved hanging with the other radio hosts. I loved the bands. I had a great time. That’s why the hell I’m blogging about it. Even before I got to see a band I got to talk to Eric Mayson who was playing with Barlow. He told me that some of the folks from Caroline Smith’s band had been saying nice things about my work when they were playing at First Ave a couple weeks earlier. Does anything warm your heart more than hearing that when you aren’t around people aren’t talking shit about you. . .but rather, they’re being positive? Unbelievable.
I got to have a brief dinner at the Depot hang with Grace from Radio K and Krista from KFAI. It set a nice tone so that we could be more comfortable around each other the rest of the night and when Jill did make it to the show (she was stuck at work) I got to actually really catch up with her one on one. I started doing radio with Jill when I knew nothing about how to do radio. If you are talking about actual fundamentals of radio. . .I learned 90% of what I know from Jill. And I learned a lot from Jill about performance and philosophy not only from her explaining things, but also just from being over her shoulder watching her run the morning show. Jill and I also spent 255 hours together on ZOOM calls trying to get the Current their first Union contract. Jill has seen me in parts of my house I haven’t sat in since the pandemic has receded. Sometimes when you stop being a co-worker with somebody you stop having the intimacy it takes to really catch up, but this evening I fell right in with Jill and I was grateful for it.
Claire Doyle’s up first and holy shit awesome country situation. And I’m up front just really enjoying it and not doing the thing of pretending like I’m too cool to just shut up and listen to the music. I check out the songs, I dig into the band. I don’t realize that I’m watching Dan Lowinger on guitar but I am and he is just one of the most compelling country guitar players I’ve seen in town. The other compelling country guitar guy is that guy who worked at Willie’s and played with Molly Maher for forever. He is also unbelievable. Seeing someone play country guitar well is like seeing someone prepare a deer for processing. It is so technically exacting and so emotionally impacting. During the set Martin Devaney and Lincoln Scully showed up. Martin’s my best friend but these two are both classic “awesome to see you at this show” all stars. Loved it. I loved it so much I’m taking a picture cause at this point I’m thinking this is a pretty classic night already.
L to R: Lincoln Scully, Jill Riley, Martin Devaney, DJ Horsegirl
I also ran into this guy who I run into every 7 years. We worked on a project the first time I went to the U in maybe the year 2000. We worked on a project with my then girlfriend and still friend Anna about prostitution in the 1910 and 20s in Minneapolis. I think his name is Chris. I see the professor of that class sometimes fully in the buff at the Midway YMCA locker room. What a world.
L to R: Chris Maybe?, DJ Horsegirl
The magic just continues. The bands are excellent. The hang backstage is excellent. Something is bubbling up for these groups. They all have fans there. She’s Green knows exactly how to do the shoegaze thing and sound compelling and inspiring. Laamar has a tight band with an awesome idea and his songs are on point. Ber is already streaming millions and there’s something very real to back it up. She’s commanding. Everyone who was talking during Barlow’s show had to stop talking because he’s taking up everyone’s mental real estate with his awesome sounds. Reiki is simply a star. The crowd loves it. The band is loud as fuck. Too loud for me to hang with the whole time but the audience is all there. And LA Buckner and his band’s set is just simply filthy. Jazz88 is supportive of LA Buckner. I am supportive of LA Buckner. I haven’t seen him in some time with Ethan Yeshaya on bass. The band is so energetic. And this is not wasted energy of nerves or of pure youthful optimism. This is the energy of career musicians playing the best music they get to play in the best unit they play with. Every hit just jumps out at you. THEY EVEN PLAYED HALLELUJAH a song I am 100% done with. But turns out I wasn’t all the way done with it because Big Homie delivered something new and special and the guest vocalist was on fire. Wow. I took a video of one of the instrumentals cause it was too good.
LA Buckner and Big HomiE killing it.
I ran into Keith Harris from Racket. He’s been an amazing force in my life. He was supportive of Heiruspecs early on and beyond that he is someone whose taste and knowledge about music has had a huge impact in my path as a musician and as a listener. What a treat to see him. I ran into Maria Isa and had a real talk with her. Maria Isa is in a perpetual state of movement for good reason. She’s running a movement, she’s a politician, she’s a rapper. But even we found five minutes to catch up. I’ve known Maria since maybe 2007 and this was still one the biggest touch bases I’ve ever had with her. Also, she debuted some new music at the Timberwolves game which is awesome, shout out to Mad Mardigan for doing things like that. I don’t know why but Sonia Grover from First Ave told me I had to meet Dayna Frank, the owner of First Ave, so I did and we talked for a couple minutes. I don’t know what about. I doubt she had a clue who I am. (do I have a clue who I am?). But it was still a good feeling to actually pause and talk to someone. And to top it all off while I was finishing my night at the Depot I ran into an awesome photographer from town named Nick Greseth. He is an awesome young man and when he was like 9, I think really like 9 years old, he was a big Heiruspecs fan and he came to all our shows. I shit you not we one time did a chat live stream before we released a record in 2014 and it was just everyone from Heiruspecs in a room at McNally Smith and than little Nick Greseth was the only one watching. Legendary. Here’s a pic of Grown Greseth.
That’s Nick Greseth. Photo Credit DJ Horsegirl.
This is just one of those nights I’m pretty sure I’ll remember for forever. But instead of letting those memories live in a Mark Zuckerberg hard drive I wanted to put them on ‘ye old blog and make it happen on my own format. What an adventure in the cold ass weeks of January.
Big Trouble Back at It on Saturday With an Exciting Amount of New Songs
I’m in a forward thinking, backward looking instrumental quartet called Big Trouble. We are a side project that started while George W. Bush was President and we’re still going today. Spicy. And frankly, we are hitting a nice pace. We play once a monthat at the White Squirrel and we are staying true to bringing new sounds to the stage every month. We aren’t sitting on our non-existent laurels. The busiest writer in our band is my brother Steve who plays guitar. He gives lessons, he consumes a bunch of music and he has a really good sense of what popular songs can be a point of departure for a longer exploration. Very thankful for that. It was cool to see our other guitar player, Josh Peterson, drop some ideas into the email chain. Josh is full of ideas, but he isn’t frequently an idea starter. But he brought in an absolutely thrilling Lookbook tune called “My Darkness”. I adored Lookbook. Minnesota duo, rising stars circa 2008 but I think had fizzled by 2010. Spectacular writing from Grant Cutler and Maggie Morrison and magical, enthralling vocals from Maggie Morrison. One of those voices that is so full of amazing power and technique but also so honest and pure, never sounds music schooly. Unbelievable. We are doing some cool shit with that tune. Josh also threw us a left curve and suggested “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” from Marvin Gaye. I didn’t expect that one, but we found some good stuff in it. Swing through, enjoy some instrumental music this fine weekend! This Saturday 6-8p!
My Body Your Rules
A special thing happened to me at the Erykah Badu concert on June 30. Frankly, a lot of special things happened to me, including making the decision that Erykah is one of those artists I am going to see every time she comes through town. The way that Badu and her team utilize technology to make their show more intimate, more memorable, more human is the gold standard. But I’m not hear to talk about the musical side of Erykah Badu. My wife and I got to the show on the early side, lest we miss Yasiin Bey aka Mos Def. The seats next to me were unfilled but I figured that would change at some point. When the seats next to me did get filled the woman who sat next to me was a tall, thick not mega thick, younger black woman. I didn’t register anything but positive energy from her but I still said to her “I’ll switch seats with my wife” gesturing vaguely towards my smaller wife sitting next to me to offer her a more comfortable experience. Very quickly, very sweetly the woman looked at me and simply said “you’re fine”. If I remember correctly she gave a smile that was far from flirty, but very humane. I felt seen, I felt welcome, my body felt welcome. Her voice had love and sweetness in it but frankly also just practicality. I don’t think she had an issue with sitting next to me, nor an issue with some of the very incidental contact she would have sitting right next to a fat guy. At this moment I felt very comfortable. Comfortable in a way I rarely feel trying to be in a seat at a big ass event. A seat that’s too small for me, and a seat that frankly is often too small for a lot of folks whose weight is closer to average than mine is. That woman’s comments set a beautiful tone for me for what went on to be a beautiful show. Me and everyone else in the venue spent a lot of time standing up, enjoying ourselves and seeing some of the greatest to ever do it doing it right in front of our eyes.
This all stands in pretty broad contrast to the way I feel a lot of times trying to just sit and be comfortable at events. Ticketed events are big business. The seats are not big. America’s getting bigger, the seats aren’t always moving at the same pace. American business is not always answering the need for larger spaces with the brutal speed one might expect a capitalist venture to move with. Racism, sexism, religious persecution, fatphobia. . .these are part of the relatively small list of things that can go head to head with capitalist impulses and win. At the same time scientists are learning so much about drugs that are helping many people lower their body weight, society is learning so much about what is wrong about our disposition toward fat people. A larger portion of society is looking at the data for weight loss and weight gain and the comparative futility of sustained weight loss over an extended period of time. Less doctors are white knuckling it through with the conviction that another year of telling fat people they’re lazy is the best course of action for helping this societal ill. And a lot of people, some fat, some not, are putting shots in their butts once a week and shedding large percentages of their bodyweight.
Somehow I feel the need to credential my experiences as a fat person in some way that will let you know that my experience with medical professionals has been a profound shit show for my entire life. No one has done better work in this space than the podcast “Weight for It”. This episode should make you cry pretty reliably. I went to a nutritionist with my Dad maybe fourth, fifth, sixth grade. Nutritionist was a young man, hiker biker type, had a beard, I believe his name was Tim. I don’t know the exact impulse for our visit, but the undergirding fact was I was fat and fat people, fat kids, fat everybodys went to nutritionists. Tim had some type of height, age, growth chart laid out on his desk. Tim, speaking to my Dad, not to me, pointed at some spot on the chart and said “here’s where most kids his age are”. Then Tim went ahead and cleared away his coffee cup, probably some cup of pencils, maybe a paper weight, maybe a little plaque with his name on it and then pointed to close to the very top of his desk, many inches away from the actual chart he was referring to and said “here’s where your son is”. My dad is a chart guy, an economist by trade and he and Tim seemed to both be looking at this soberly, some trackable deviation from the norm resulting in a grown man pointing out to another grown man in the presence of a boy how abnormal, how problematic, how poisoned this boy’s life is. Later in the meeting Dr. Tim suggested that I not run because of the certainty I would break my ankles under my own weight. At my best every time I finish a run I imagine the final step being upon Dr. Tim’s throat as the last breath of his little shithead life ends and his Sauconys shake with a soft death rattle.
After some years of working with a nutritionist who actually treats me like a human, some years of therapy, weekly yoga and weekly appointments with a trainer I am happy with how I live. I sleep well. I don’t drink a ton. I have multiple groups of friends I love deeply. I can cook delicious food for myself and my family. I have the agency to deal with the doctors even if it breaks my soul and my family’s bank account to do so. I have all these wonderful things. I do all these wonderful things. I am wonderful. But, I don’t know where I stand with these medications. These medications will change our bodies. These medications will change bodies that don’t need changing. Does mine? Does yours? What I wished I could change was my relationship with my body and I did change it. What a success story. What I wish I could change is your relationship with fat people. Can you look at a fat person and think of someone who has a good night sleep, who exercises, who eats well, who cooks well, who spends his life well? I know that for years I couldn’t. I couldn’t because I always felt like the boy off the charts, the boy who’d break his ankles if he dared to jog. The boy whose existence was a problem. And now that my existence isn’t a problem to me, there’s a solution that just requires a prescription. But is there a problem? The solution we really need we could never give to ourselves, that solution would be love and understanding. That solution would be giving the person next to you humanity, respect and love. A young woman gave me a little bit of that at that Erykah Badu concert and it did a lot for me, maybe more than these medications ever will.
Large Talk
The other night my wife and I made it out to a birthday party. Neighbors on the other block, close to em but not too close, forty years old! A spread! A band! A birthday party at a venue!
I ran into an old co-worker from MPR and discovered that her husband was a professor at Macalester. That level of connection to my life (my dad was the president of Macalester from the mid 90s to the early 2000s) is a pretty well-worn lane at this point. Me and said employee of Macalester go through a pretty normal dance “how is your dad? what is he doing? I heard about your mom? Did you go to Macalester?”. A fun dance but one with predictable moves. But turning on one fact made this particular interaction quite different. The professor, let’s call him Jack, partially because I think that’s actually his first name, was also the son of a college president. I didn’t think of this as a uniquely unifying experience to be perfectly honest with you. But perhaps that’s because I’ve never had the opportunity to talk to someone in that position.
It brought up lots of feelings I had about moving across the country and being the son of a president at age 15. I believe there are a couple outrageously positive things about one of your parents becoming a college president that need to be said straight out. First off, unless your parents really mess it up, you should be moving up a couple tax brackets. It was a high paying job then, it’s even higher paying now. Money gives you a lot in this society and I have benefitted greatly from my dad locking down a job in the low six figures before Y2K. Nice job literally dad. Second, living in a mansion was largely an amazing experience for my family. We paid ZERO dollars to live on Summit and Fairview in St. Paul. I threw concerts in high school for my bands and others that could comfortably accommodate 100 stinky high school kids in the basement. I rehearsed with seven piece bands for hours in the evening while making somewhat minimal impact on my parents’ area. We drank budget impacting levels of Schweppes Lemon Sour and Maraschino cherries seemingly with no one noticing. When my mom did the think the sound from the rehearsals was too much she had someone from Macalester come in and install sound proofing that I’m going to guess would cost maybe $3500 in today dollars. I had once forgotten to write/learn a bassline for a recording session for OddJobs in my early college years. As I was very stressed out and trying to rush to learn something I decided I would save time by dropping a banana peel into the toilet after I peed to shave the handful of seconds it would’ve taken to visit the garbage can. Turns out that’s a stupid idea. Stupider still is to not tell anyone smarter than me right away about putting a banana peel into the toilet. Days later I realized that that the toilet isn’t doing the old flushy-poo routine it’s designed to do, instead the banana peel has become some sort of feces condom capturing well, the feces. A plumber came and took care of that idiocy with an implement called a snake that all my plunging couldn’t have matched. If I could find the man who had to plunge a banana out of a toilet because the president’s kid dropped a banana in a toilet I would treat him to a night on the town at a watering hole of his choice. These are all perks: Money, mansion, music and free plumbing. But there are a lot of non-perks to be perfectly honest with and that’s what me and Jack honed in on. Not negative, but not perks. Neutral and negative elements of having your family be a public adjacent private family at a higher education institution.
My dad got the job when I was in tenth grade and I hadn’t been conditioned for what being the son of a president is like. I don’t know how you do get conditioned to that, but my dad didn’t live a president-in-waiting type of life before becoming a president. He was the Dean of Faculty but I never went to any ‘Dinners with a Capital D’. I don’t know that he did either. Dinner at the McPherson household was largely a fend for yourself affair. I usually had dinner with Mama Celeste on the pizza box staring back at me and that was about it. When my parents told me we’d be having “a lot of Dinners” in Saint Paul I legitimately thought I would be a part of all them. I mean why not? I need dinner too. One of the first “Dinners” happened before I had even started at St. Paul Central High School. My parents informed me I wasn’t invited to the dinner, I’d go down to the kitchen and get a plate from the caterers who would be working in the kitchen and I’d eat it upstairs in my bedroom. I wouldn’t even be with Mama Celeste anymore. Just so lonely. Don’t know anyone for hundreds of miles besides for my parents and can’t have dinner with them.
I communicated my calibration of what “Dinners” meant with Professor Jack over the din of the band at this party and he understood. His daddy had become president of a University after Jack was already in college. He came home to a mansion but he wasn’t living there. He told me that what it did show him was that the whole affair/charade: the fancy talks, the passed hor dourves, the clinking of glasses - it was all a sham. Or if not a sham, it was a lane that Jack wanted none of in his professional life. At this particular soiree it was wildly apparent to me that Jack was telling the truth. He didn’t look like one of those men who loved parties and pretended to hate them. He looked like a man who was happy to be out with his wife, but might be even happier to be at home with her.
I like parties, they energize me. I like spinning a yarn. I like hearing a joke, I like introducing people. I like finding out that people listen to me on the radio, or play Trivia Mafia or have seen Heiruspecs a couple of times. If you see me at a party I don’t look like a guy who would be just as happy being at home with his wife. But I have been involved with a lot of the fancier parties both with my dad and with being a musician/radio host. I’m talking about parties where Kofi Annan uses your first floor bathroom or where Amy Klobuchar cuts in front of you to get a carrot. I’ve had fun at these parties, but generally the further I am from the center of the party the better. Run a little trivia for the fancies, play in a jazz trio, set up the Dessa band for a fancy MPR fundraiser on lake parkway in Minneapolis. I think I played a party for August Wilson at Saint Paul Hotel in the mid 90s with Walker-West Music Academy. Great stuff all around. But holding court with the famous, with the money people, I enjoy it if I can do it on my terms, if it’s on someone else’s terms, stressful.
I told Professor Jack another success story from my years being the son of the president of Macalester and now I’ll tell you: I was a pretty observant kid, kind of saw how stuff generally went for the parties at the house. Caterers and some event staff show up two hours before. Ovens get going, little weird go-karts in the back by the garage. Lights get turned on in parts of the house we never use. Smells start coming out that smell like catering cooking, not like us cooking. Then maybe one hour before the liquor people show up. Different go-kart. Ice noises. Bottles. A couple workers have a cigarette outside. Lots of white button downs over t-shirts. Someone yells out “WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL OF THOSE MARASCHINO CHERRIES???? SARA DRIVE BACK TO 1600!”. Anywho, some random Sunday I’m hanging around the house like a teenager and I know there is supposed to be an event at our house that afternoon, some post conference gathering. But I notice that it’s only the liquor people around. One go-kart. No smells. Less cigarettes. I decide to call up this lady Erlene who was the big boss in charge of all the fancifulness that happened around Macalester. I’m proud I did that, things felt a little off and I wanted to help. Being a president is a family business, I’m sure my home girl Chelsea Clinton would’ve done the same for Slick Willy. As the phone is ringing I don’t realize that Erlene is about to perform for me a sound that we all know well in adulthood but didn’t know yet in our teenage years. I tell Erlene that the liquor people are here for an event but I don’t see her and I don’t see food. Erlene then says nothing, opens a calendar and then silently says “shit”. I just hear the “shit” in the back of her throat like she has a banana condom on, capturing all the shits that usually come out. She then tells me to get dressed and that she needs my help, she forgot to book the caterers. She pulls up in the back alley and drives the seven hundred feet to the Whole Foods at the end of the block and we race through and buy I don’t know maybe $250 worth of all sorts of foods I have never heard of, including dolmata. I will forever think of Erlene when I eat dolmata. I don’t know if Erlene really needed my help. If you give me the option right now of buying $250 worth of food in a big ass hurry without or without little Jimmy, the imaginary current son of the President of Macalester, that’s a hard pass on Jimmy’s help. But I don’t know, Erlene took my help and I felt spectacular for it. We put the food on plates. She showed me that karate chop with your hand move to make the napkins look nice (the Internet doesn’t know about what I’m talking about, maybe it’s a secret beteween just me and Erlene).
I told Professor Jack all of that over the din of the band and we reached an easy impasse. I clearly had a lot rawer feelings about my time as a son of a president than he did. I maybe not so clearly had also had a THC edible before I came to the party and I wasn’t sure if we had been talking for seven minutes (acceptable) or over fifteen minutes (a little too long to talk to rando professor plus one at a gathering). We found our way back to our spouses but I felt really engaged, really activated. Maybe my next step is to talk to more children of college presidents, find out what it was for them, what they felt like. Maybe we have something in common and I hadn’t even considered it. Strange, but beautiful, an inspiring talk with a kindred spirit that recharged me in many ways.
Inviting you to see Big Trouble on Saturday
Big trouble is “back at it” on Saturday at white squirrel. Your friends are coming the drinks are legit. Have a blast and live your best life while we play our best songs. What an idea.
The show is on Saturday at white squirrel in Saint Paul from 6-8pm it’s free it’s all ages and Chris pours the best Shirley temples in all of MN - also the grown up cocktails are great
School Photos
My wife has a good policy: don’t say your kids full names on this here blog or on your social media. She has guided me away from sharing some photos. These are good policies. I follow these policies and I might have arrived at them on my own because it just makes sense. I aspire to share my life with a lot of people I don’t know, on this blog, also on the radio, in the songs I write, in the person I am. But I can’t make that choice for my daughters and I work to not make it for them. My wife Rachel is a good guide for this. We are figuring it out on the fly, we will make mistakes, but our heart is in the right place.
But if I could show you one photo it would be S’s first grade school photo. There is an unbridled courage in this photo that I am glad I will fail to put in to words. She wears glasses but not that often at home, needs them for screen, needs for reading. And like all glasses on a six year old, they are comically large even though the good people at Target optometry say they’re the right size. I have some bond with the glass-wearers of the world. Both my parents wore glasses. My wife wears glasses. My people wear glasses. I was close to 20/20 during the “do you need glasses” years so it never hit for me, but I’ve always felt a kinship with the bespectacled. These glasses are perfect on her. They are perfect on her in their “a little too bigness”, they are perfect on her in a way where it still looks like she borrowed her mom’s glasses for a laugh around the dining room table.
When you see a portrait photo of an adult part of what you wonder on is that conversation between the photographer and the subject. Was it warm? Adversarial? Did it aspire for a level of intimacy the actual photo couldn’t match? But in this photo the parameters of the conversation feel clear, simple and resolved. I presume S was brought in to the room they do the photos in. She’s smiling ear to ear, she likes cameras. They tell her “smile” cause they tell everyone to smile, she tries to paste an additional smile upon her pre-existing resting smile face and the results are in the photo. She has her necklaces just right. Her hair is looking good. Maybe the teacher helped her out before she went in. And her shoulders stand steady, not so prominent that they look unnatural, but with none of the world-weary curve that has bent second graders and older however infinitesimally toward the ground. In the photo I see what I see when I interact with S: a fascination with the world as it is and a open mind toward making it better. I see a visual representation of “yes and”. I see that ability to explain some event in the world completely illogically, absolutely incorrect and be absolutely certain in the answer. I see exuberance and I love it. I want it bottled. I want it protected, but I know an overprotected exuberance is a squandered exuberance. As her shoulders inevitably bend a couple quarters of a degree towards the Earth I want the compromises, the disappointments and the heartbreaks to be epic, to be beneficial, to be shaping, to be restorative. And I want to hold this photo and I want the progression of her growth, of her maturation, to be welcomed, and I want the innocence of her first grade photo to be documented.
The Rainy Christmas Folder
It’s Christmas Eve Eve and it’s rainy. There’s no precedent for that. I don’t remember a rainy Christmas. Or if I do, it’s raining on a snowy surface. This 2023 sitch is rainy like an early November is supposed to be. It’s disorienting. It pushes all your Christmas feelings into a carnival mirror. Christmas sits in a strange place for me. It looms large in my world, my family doesn’t celebrate it, and growing up it was all done with a wink by my areligious parents. It was sort of “let’s go pick out a tree” with a big wink “this is bullshit, corporatization bullshit”. We were like the people throwing their hands in the air for the first three beats/first two measures tops before returning them down to our sides as if the action was out of our control.
Today it’s non-stop errands all morning and a slow afternoon. Tried Home Alone 2, not a good fit for the six year old, too much stressful stuff. Went with A Muppet Christmas Carol at my wife’s suggestion. Gold star. And we have neighbors who with real enthusiasm endeavor to have Arby’s every December 23rd of the year. We joined. Shakes for the kids. Just a sandwich for me cause I had fries at lunch. My wife voluntarily gets crinkle fries when curly fries are available. Yes, it’s vexing.
I’ve got clearance to leave my family at 7:30 to see my brother play guitar at The Fine Line. The Fine Line, I played there in 1997. New band night. Amazing, why doesn’t new band night exist*? But man, new band night? Classic. 4 bands. NO LISTENERS. Comp tickets flooded out to hundreds to attract the 27 people who will come see a show on Monday. But somehow, you always learned something. Tonight Mae Simpson is leading a Festivus concert and my brother’s 90s alternative cover band 120 Minutes is the first set. It boggles my mind to think about the random, scattershot list of artists I’ve seen at the Fine Line. Finding out who you’ve seen at the Fine Line is somewhat a way of asking “what artists did you follow on their way up and which ones did you follow on their way back down”. Here’s my list: Lisa Loeb, Keb’ Mo, Tortoise, Atmosphere, Boogie Wonderland, Angie Stone, Run The Jewels, Makaya McCraven and presumably a lot more. Played there a lot with Jessy Greene. Always kind of epic nights. Played their with Dessa. Heiruspecs never opted to play our own shows there, but we still played there a lot. Before Fine Line was a First Avenue property I did a lot of just hanging at the Fine Line. Knew the manager. Sat in the back, got some drinks, loved the shit out of it. The Fine Line is a blank slate to some extent, bring a fun show it’s fun, you bring totally meh! energy and the room let’s that meh! energy sit in a pile. I don’t think the Fine Line ever had pool tables. Why not? Maybe there was no real location for them. Miss pool table life.
Well my brother Steve is an excellent guitar player and has always been a student of the alternative side of 90s rock and more widely, a fan of the alternative side of music. I’ve only ever seen Steve listen to records that could reasonably expected to be played on the stereo at the Electric Fetus. Almost no better place to hear a new record than while shopping for records and these records are almost always. . .alternative. To some extent, if a record store employee is confident enough to play an album on the speakers, that album can fairly be described as alternative.
I’ve spent a lot more time thinking about the nature of alternative music in the past month. If you listen to the Open Mike Eagle podcast “What Had Happened Was” you are aware that he is doing a season length interview of Questlove. It is abundantly clear that Questlove is aware of an monstrously huge swath of the music world and able to communicate a hands on, building blocks level of music better than anyone else, and he is also capable of intellectualizing it. Of placing his group (The Roots) into a cultural space that plays against the major jiggy stars of their coming up era and connects them with the likeminded artists of Jill Scott, Badu, Mos Def and more. This very forward awareness of the music his community was crafting as alternative music was really awesome to me. I think I’ve taken alternative music as being the center of the music universe for granted, and a lot of the reason was that my musical universe was Steve, and his universe was alternative. I didn’t have a counter factual of someone equally into music who enjoyed The Eagles, Garth Brooks, En Vogue and Bon Jovi. I understood those groups as vital, as worthy of study, as worthy of spins. But I understood them to not be the groups you would argue over for three hours at 2am explaining a nuance of production of that you are very aware the creator of the song also belabored in different proportions. So Steve holds my hand as my older brother and plays me Helmet, Pearl Jam, David Bowie, The Foo Fighters, Justice System, The Roots, Charles Mingus, Autechre, Andrew Hill, LaMonte Young, Boards of Canada, The Pharcyde, Albert Collins, Feist, Amy Winehouse, DJ Shadow and so many more. And in our life together music was the language we shared. I learned music so I could speak the same language as him. So to see him up there, on a stage we played on in 1997, was to see a history of our time as musicians. Our way up, our way down, our ways of staying on, our ways of moving on. Noah Pastor was on the drums: I remember some magic nights with Noah. I remember sharing maybe a cigarette, maybe a joint, outside of Pizza Luce Duluth, 2005, 06 sometime. And talking, and laughing and visiting a friend’s house. I remember just the constant joking. Joking was the only language permitted in that circle. If you wanted to pull over to pee you had to say it with humor, with an angle, with something to make your request memorable. It was exhausting and hilarious. Now he is back behind his kit playing so beautifully. Faithful to the originals, but not annoyingly so. He is breathing an energy into the drums that is appropriate. The singer is the sleeper hit, effective and tasteful vocal reverbs, delays and more deployed from his own pedal board. Nice guitar work too but always supportive, my brother Steve is taking lead and singy mcsingsomethingson is handling the rhythm work. IT’S REALLY NICE. The bass player is the bartender over at the White Squirrel. Believe it or not I saw him driving into work 9 and a half hours before when my wife and my daughters and I were at the White Squirrel getting stickers and t-shirts out of the Trivia Mafia office that sits above The White Squirrel. Told you we did a lot of errands today.
I’m in the audience with Chuck from Trivia Mafia and Justus and Emily, both Jazz88 albumni. It’s fun, there’s a parameter setting with cover bands that is more compressed than original bands. Like the best cover band you’ve ever seen is going to be SIGNIFICANTLY less enjoyable than the 10th best original band you’ve seen. But that cover band is going to be many times over more enjoyable than the worst original music you’ve heard. The band is pulling out shit from Blur, Pearl Jam, Depeche Mode and more. The band sounds great, steve is all over the guitar stuff. He sounds practiced but loose, and inventive and committed. It is thoroughly enjoyable, it is disorienting to really get to see Steve’s awesomeness from a fan POV, usually were’ just living and sharing the stage. It was great. I have desires to see Mae Simpson. We play her music on Jazz88. She and her band are no joke. Win over crowds. Work crowds into a frenzy. Developing a thing. She’s got the great players in town on her side and she can sing. I want to see Mae Simpson. I also want to celebrate my brother kicking ass and I want to sit down cause I am old and cause yes I do.
But we don’t sit down and then a man named Dru gets up there and starts doing some hosting plus stand up comedy. At first I don’t realize he’s doing stand up comedy. The stakes are at a completely different portion of the scale for stand up comedy. The worst stand up comedy you’ve ever seen is the worst shit you have seen in your life, eclipsing the worse band you’ve seen by MILES. But the most transcendent comedy you’ll ever see might surpass all but the best musical acts in my opinion. I remember seeing Hannibal Buress defended the easiness of confusing the words Asheville and Nashville during a show in Asheville. An audience member yells “it’s easy to say the right one” and he snapped back “obviously it’s hard, I just said the wrong one. You’re theory is disproved”. I still laugh about that. Dru’s got a terrible batting average but he says a couple downright funny things. And he frames it all as his “airing of grievances”. That’s classic. That shows hard work and a willingness to meet the moment. He’s not just up there doing his regular set. He wrote for the occasion. I had seen this coming on the schedule, but I knew there would be Seinfeld trivia. I’m there with Chuck. We own the biggest trivia company in the upper Midwest and the best one in the entire fucking world (Trivia Mafia). Once the trivia question starts this feels like a scene from Rounders. I get one, Chuck gets one, Steve hands me one answer now that he is in the crowd with us. We’re doing old mechanic shit, stuff we’d never try in the city, Teddy KGB would have us thrown out. But I’m ambling over to Dylan from First Ave and writing my name down for a prize and then sending Chuck to write his address down for the second one. People are saying “shouldn’t you bow out of this?” semi-playfully cause they know who we are. But, like, it’s not our trivia. We aren’t in charge of all trivia. You think I raced home to catch the 6:00pm Seinfeld between 1998-2005 to not fucking run the board at Festivus trivia in 2023? Get thee fuck, out of here. Emily wants to smoke a cigarette and the crew moves outside. It’s a fun outside. Quiet. Rainy. We are sewing new rainy Christmas memories into our heads for the first time. They are towing all varieties of car off of 1st Avenue. We are instinctively vomiting up our different towing/parking sign debacle stories as one is legally mandated to do in such situations. We have a number of them within the group, of course we do. I think now when I have guests in the studio to check their mic instead of asking them what they had for breakfast I’ll ask them for a story where their car got towed. Wouldn’t you listen to that podcast? Joshua Redman on when his car got towed. The winter Zacc Harris’s car got towed not one, not two but three count em three times podcast? You’d smash that like button so hard.
We decide to decamp to Pizza Luce which feels so 2004 it hurts. The hang is joyous. The large spinach salad no protein is a wildly underappreciated. I’ve also tired of your Pizza Luce slander, Twin Cities. It’s a great menu and when you want a champagne and a salad after a downtown gig wherein the hell are you going? We watch the Timberwolves coast toward a win easily, then briefly difficultly, then they clinch it against the Kings. We are watching the Wolves win games they always lose. We are watching them press the ignition in ways that are firmly un-Wolves like. Why don’t the busses read “Go Wolves” right now? They are doing great. Get those signs up kings of mass transit. It feels like the non-basketball fan population of the city hasn’t quite realized that the world’s, or one of the world’s greatest basketball team might practice right down the street. Wild.
The conversation flows between alternative music, basketball, radio stories, Luce menu items. This is a beautiful spread of topics. It is raining, it’s Christmastime. I’m making my first great raining Christmas memories. I’ll be able to go back to the memory bank and see my brother nailing these guitar parts, really putting it all in and then having spinach salad and focaccia katerina and talking it out. No one I’d rather have in the mix than Chuck from Trivia Mafia. For me we’ve hit some kind of world class balance. We’ve built something amazing together, we started Trivia Mafia. You don’t have a friend if you don’t have struggle. Starting a business is a struggle. Playing in a band is a struggle. Your friends that you’ve been through it with. Like, I’ve been through a lot with the members of Heiruspecs. But we’re still going through it. If I’m sitting with Felix or deVon or Peter or any of them, we’re still on a journey together. Chuck and I own Trivia Mafia but I’m silent now, I collect my money or my no money every quarter and I cheer him on in how he runs the business with our amazing team. So we have real history, real conflict, but now we are mainly friends. He’s in the weeds but I can stand back and admire the thing we’ve built. This morning me and the kids went to the Trivia Mafia office. There’s t-shirts, there’s computers we bought with company money, there’s posters, there’s a coffee maker. I OWN A COMPANY THAT OWNS A COFFEE MAKER. I have a coffee maker that can be distributed for outstanding debts. It’s magical, it’s amazing and it started with me and Chuck. It grows without me. Beautiful. But I’m in that bitch. I tell this to Chuck, when I go to restaurants I have flashbacks to the years of building this thing. My family gets seated and I look around and think, “that’s probably where the host plugs in the mic”. I look around and see a manager at a table with a laptop out, a cell phone, a coffee, a pile of bills. I think about all the meetings I had with that guy. That walk in. “Sean hi, welcome, you want anything?”. “I’m good, I guess coffee if you have it” “so let’s talk trivia, I tried to go see one, couldn’t make it, but I think I get it, I talked to the bartender at the Old Chicago, says it’s good, is it good?” “it’s good, are you talking about Michael, the bartenders tell the truth right. They see it firsthand, they see the crowds. See that they come back, see that they tip, see how it builds”. “right, I’m thinking Sundays, do you have Sundays? What else do you do on Sundays? Maybe afternoon. But we want some special ways to make it ours. Do you know we have all the sports here, couple screens too, do you ever do sports trivia”. I’m having this whole conversation in my head. My family is looking at the menu, my daughters are losing their shit. My wife is losing her shit that my daughters are losing their shit and I’m not doing shit but in my end I’m pulling out the contract and the one sheet and explaining that the prizes need to be consistent week to week. “It’s more important that they’re consistent than it is important exactly what they are”. But now I can just laugh with Chuck, talk about Depeche Mode. Talk about drum fills.
It’s your first rainy Christmas and your memory file will start here next time it calls upon the rainy Christmas folder.
*Bbecause in many ways it can be figured out if you’re shit without making you load in all your gear.
Have You Ever Dated an Asshole?
The moon in St. Paul tonight looks like one of those candies that is supposed to look like a lime. That candy is supposed to look like a lime, it fails at that. The moon is not supposed to look like said candy, it exceeds expectations tonight. The earbuds are starting a Eva Walker on KEXP. New host of Early. She opens with the Balanescu Quartet covering Computer Love and when it starts it is as revelatory as something can get on a two block walk in 17 degree weather. I would say that environment is. . .pretty revelatory friendly all things considered.
Have you ever dated a true asshole? I ask because while gathered around a group of high school classmates at the Heiruspecs show we happened upon the question: have any of you dated an honest to goodness asshole? I believe that based on my consumption of social media we all have. Correct? You agree right? If you just scroll there’s always a story “he didn’t even call to explain, I’m stuck, I can’t believe it happened” or some variety of that. Or there’s just someone saying “I’ve dated some real assholes”. This group of three men, four women. . .we all said we had never dated a real asshole. And two of the people had been through divorces. But a divorce doesn’t mean you think the other person is a real asshole. But, I must say I still kind of default to thinking that you must at some level think the person you divorced is an asshole, because, you divorced them. I know people change and grow apart, but that’s a big strong grow apart. I find it easier to believe that you are still friends with your ex than to believe that you don’t think your ex is an asshole.
2023. We are all young forties. I think at twenty five maybe more of us would’ve said we had dated assholes.
A) because you want to substantiate that you have dated plenty of people you reason that just by pure stats one of them must be an asshole.
B) things are raw, I know I hated a lot more people at age 25, I have mellowed. Maybe we have all mellowed.
There was one woman there who I didn’t recognize until I asked another friend who she was after the show. We had been in a sauna at the Y together either super late 2019 or early 2020. She looked completely different now. On Saturday, I looked in her eyes, but I didn’t place her. I looked for awhile cause I was confused, I recognized her but it wasn’t just a forgot your name. . .I had forgotten the connection. And to be fair, I had not looked in her eyes or real much towards her in the sauna at all back a couple years ago. I figure she’s in a swimsuit and happy to see someone she was friend’s with in high school, but probably doesn’t need my eyes running over her and I feel the same about me and my swimsuit world. So instead of strong constant eye contact I opted for kind of the way you look away when one of your friends is changing pants. Plus, saunas are kind of dark. Anyway, I didn’t recognize her last night. But she had recently gotten a divorce, but her ex wasn’t an asshole.
When I think in my head I think of two women who might say they dated an asshole and be thinking about me. I would love if it was zero. Do assholes know they are assholes? There are people walking around thinking, “everyone who has dated me has by definition dated an asshole”. I don’t identify as an asshole. But if one of those women said to me, “Sean I think you’re a real asshole” I would have to say “I understand that”. This blog entry will likely feature more uses of the word asshole than any blog entry going forward or backward.