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.