Location, Location, Locations
God damn it it’s important to be in places designed to be about the things you love. My 20s were parked firmly in the area where it was most efficient to go to where the shit you loved was. I love movies. Go to Home Video. I love instruments. Go to Willie’s American Guitars. I love recorded music. Go to a record store. I love making music. Go to your space and practice and write.
Now a lot of times you decide you love something and you search for a home for it on the web. Or you just hope that the thing you love comes across the identity-seeking graze of scrolling. I have gotten plenty of good experiences from that grazing, but no great ones. I fell back in love with things I used to love today by being in their physical presence.
I needed that affirmation of love. Staying creative, ambitious and enthusiastic about creative pursuits as futile as the ones I’m in requires recharging, requires fortification. When all you do is tell your dog “it” matters while you sit on your couch trying to finish up some piece of writing and you keep on dozing off I admit I get to wondering if it does actually matter. But today, I know “it” matters. The “it” is a life that is not a complete surrender to the algorithms, to the momentum towards doing what is easiest for your family and your immediate satisfaction. The “it” is purposely crafting a life that produces art, that fosters community, that helps things be better. I, like you, am surrounding by people who never gave a shit about “it”, stopped giving a shit about “it”, or harbor some bit of negative judgment for anyone who still cares about “it”. It’s a worthwhile fight.
This morning, after I made my signature pancakes and struggled through a walk with our rebellious pit bull foster Flex, the boys from Big Trouble came over for a rehearsal. Big Trouble plays once a month at White Squirrel (last Saturday of the month 6-8p). Big Trouble has been on a creative run that involves making new music almost every month. One rehearsal, one gig. New charts, charts we struggled with, songs we just want to revisit for whatever reason. Everyone sounds nice at rehearsal today. The guitars are brilliant, filled with clarity and tube warmth. Peter has his best snare on my house kit. The riveted secondary ride sounds beautiful. My bass amp hasn’t moved in years and it’s set up just perfect. I have new roundwounds on. There is an aesthetic joy in this band. There is a beauty to the sound. We dust off the Elliott Smith song Angeles. We finally find an arrangement that works for the bridge. We’ve been trying to make this song work for maybe a year and a half. Next up we work on a new original I wrote called 67 Ways to Leave Your Easel. Here’s the chart in case you want to play along at the next gig on January 24.
It turns out great. Tasty solos. Then we work on Waxahatchee’s Ruby Falls. This one has been a struggle spot. I transcribed the melody. My brother Steve got it more closer to the record. But me and my fingers were stuck in our ways and I struggled to make the transition. Her beautiful melody at times leaves some rhythmic uncertainty. Steve, who has been giving lessons and playing a bunch of music as of late, falls in and adjusts rapidly. Faster than I can. I figure it’s hopeless to make the decisions about the melody and firm them up in this one rehearsal. But here we are, getting it together. I love music and I am around fellow musicians. The room is filled with music, the room is filled with musicians. This is one of the ways I spend my life. This is one of the ways I fill my cup. This is one of the ways Peter, Steve and Josh also fill their cup. We wrap up the rehearsal and I rejoin my family.
My four year old N. took a risk on a toot in the tub and dropped a deuce. My wife Rachel is not super excited about the whole situation. I clean N. up while Rachel cleans the tub. A trade I’m happy to make. We play Mount Sean. It’s a game where N. steps across my spread out legs in a sitting position on her bed in order to “climb Mount Sean.” Then we head off to guitar lessons. I don’t want the guitar teacher to my house. I want to get guitar lessons at a spot where other kids get lessons. Location. Location. Locations. My seven year old S. drops down into a basement room filled with Beatles posters and peppered with Gary Clark Jr. posters and keeps on learning how to sight-read on the G, B and E strings. N. and I play upstairs, look at weird instruments, play around on the carpet and kill time. We join S. for the last ten minutes of her lesson and I love seeing her play with the teacher, laughing, learning. This is one of the ways we spend our Saturdays. During the lesson N. asks me to push my finger into her forehead. I am transported back to a video store from my childhood in Pownal, VT. I have one of the worst headaches of my life. My mom takes her hands and pushes my forehead and the back of my skull together. She then pushes the sides of my head together. I have never felt better. Better than Tylenol. Better than a cold glass of water on a hungover morning. I wonder if I am making N.’s head feel better than it ever will. I hope I am.
We drive to Caydence on the East Side of Saint Paul. Coffee, vinyl, live music. I am at a physical location for music lovers, for coffee lovers, for people who don’t want to do their things differently. S. looks at the impossible to sound out pastry kouign amann. You and me both. She orders one of those. N. gets a hot chocolate with whipped cream. Peter Goggin, Sophia Kaufmann, Nate Baker and some jazz musicians I don’t know are playing All of Me. No drummer. The percussion is a tap dancer. Rhythm is a dancer. Ashley Gonzalez.
I am in a city with jazz musicians who troop into the back of a record store and make beautiful music on a Saturday in January. I am here to consign records for Heiruspecs with my friend Niqui who I’ve known for years. She’s hung posters for Trivia Mafia. She’s been to a bunch of Heiruspecs shows. She’s worked hard for her community and she is a fixture here at Caydence. I drink a coffee, fill out consignment forms and put some records into the universe that I hope someone will buy and spend time with and enjoy and play for their friends.
I’m about to leave and I see Chris. I don’t know Chris’s last name. He played percussion in a band my friends were in in their early 20s called Latona’s Thirst. Chris is driving around putting up posters for his new band the Stone Arch Rivals. He is too old for this shit. I am too old for this shit. But we are here together, spending our Saturdays spreading the word about our art. Buying a coffee. Hanging a poster. Hearing a band. Browsing through records. Talking to a sax player. Fighting the algorithms. Visiting the locations. Filling our cup. The posters look good. They’re almost ready to put out a record. I return home, turn on Radio K. The genius DJ plays They Might Be Giants, Nirvana, Journey and Modest Mouse in one set. They rattle off all the famous Steve Smith’s in addition to Journey drummer Steve Smith. It is amazing radio. It is funny. Modest Mouse sounds amazing. My cup is brimming. I had to tell you about it.
Photo Dump
Photos of me holding containers of pancakes. Photos of my friends. Photos of jazz musicians. Photo of my old mailman. What a treat.
Scenes from the Holidays
Walking out of the Midway YMCA I saw an older man in a jacket struggling mightily with the big ass pole that holds up the big ass US flag that waves across the parking lot. I can tell he works for the Y; he’s wearing a big ass winter jacket but I can see the telltale signs of the YMCA blue polo by his neck and belt. All around the country and presumably beyond that, people of all ages are struggling with big ass poles bringing big ass US flags down to mark the death of Jimmy Carter. Grunts, mumbles and youtube videos being dialed up to pay tribute to a man who struggled as a President and flourished as a human. I only knew him as an ex-President. He had a spine and a moral compass which seemed to be his undoing and his doing. Is the man trying to half-mast the Ross thinking about Jimmy Carter or is he just thinking about the mechanics of the flag? I’m thinking about both.
——
Everything points to the reality that my friend Seth has blow-dried his testicles, perhaps in a locker room setting.
Years ago I used to go to LA Fitness. I say this with all of my heart: fuck LA Fitness. Ending my relationship with them was more complicated than breaking a lease with a dickhead landlord. But the sauna at the LA Fitness was good. My high school friend Bryan Jameson was in there sometimes and it was always hot. My guess is it’s 2017 and the sauna is full. You’ll have to remember, if you can, that as recently as 2017 earbuds were way less common. At that time people either just sat in the sauna or they held their iPhone in a plastic bag like a fucking idiot and scrolled a loud ass Facebook page sans headphones. But, on this particular evening a young man walked into the sauna with earbuds in and started his sweat. An old man managed to tap young guy on his shoulder and proceeded to give a weirdly calm tirade with the thesis “what the fuck is wrong with this young generation? Plugging in at every possible moment and never just enjoying the moment! Why don’t you take out those headphones and just chill in the sauna?”. The young guy basically just said “I don’t know what’s wrong with my generation, leave me alone, I’m listening to my music”.
Flash forward to ten minutes later I see the same old man 108% naked over by the rarely used counter with mirrors, stools and blow dryers. Old man has his left foot up on a stool and in his left hand he is blowing air with a vigorous focus upon his previously saunad testicles. For me this negates any validity his point about the “young generation” possessed previously. What’s weirder: sporting ear buds in a sauna or blasting your nuts with a public use CONAIR? Don’t answer that. I know you think the air bath for the family jewels is weirder. NOT SO FOR SETH.
I told this story at his family’s Hanukkah party (the kids were downstairs playing) and Seth real quietly, just to me, goes “was it a steam room or a sauna?” It was a sauna Seth, but the point stands. Seth speaks up, “just enjoy the sauna, you don’t need earbuds. And in a steam room I certainly wouldn’t wear earbuds.” Are we doing this Seth? Are we re-litigating the headphone thing or are we laughing about an old guy doing a dong dry? And Seth says “the blow dryer thing seems more reasonable.” Also, what problem are you solving by air drying the family cashews? I don’t blow dry but I think it’s to bring your hair quicker to its preferred appearance. Is that what we’re doing with your nuts Seth? Are you making sure the hair dries in your preferred part?
——
Humans are so obviously better than computers. As I’m shopping for food, for gifts, for books. As I’m giving my credit card I want to give it to a human. I want a human to lower the flagstaff. I want a human to dry his testicles at the LA Fitness in the Midway. I don’t want the robots to do everything. A couple days off from the radio job brings me to different businesses at different times. I see different humans doing different things, reading different things, laughing differently. Just in Saint Paul there are so many great people that I never want replaced by computers. I don’t want everything to be efficient. I want to buy my groceries from Michelle at Oxendale’s. I want to buy my records from Mike at Barely Brothers. I want to ask if Rainer re-dyed his hair while I buy my medium medium with room for cream. I don’t need convincing. I want humans.
——
I spent one fantastic New Year’s Eve in Duluth playing at the Norshor Theater with Heiruspecs. 2003 into 2004 I bet. Rest in peace to Rick Boo, the promoter who brought us there. He probably lost his shirt that night. There was a radio station doing announcements, there were bartenders, there were sound people. But there wasn’t really an audience. Maybe seventy five people? Maybe. The famous music writer Jessica Hopper was there. Big Quarters had traveled with us and I believed they opened the show. Heiruspecs drank heavily but we were in healthy playing shape and put on an awesome show to that small crowd. I remember having so much fun and thinking building the crowd wasn’t our problem, at least on the actual day of the show it wasn’t anymore. There was a party afterwards, primarily curated by a woman I had kissed a couple times when I was in Duluth. Never more than kissing and not much more than kissing that night. A really fun party. A lot of people. And her house, I think her mother’s house, was out on Park Point. Her backyard was Lake Superior and it was a pretty modest house. And it was New Year’s. Cold, windy and majestic beyond all imagination. We kissed a lot and I don’t know a classier way to say this, I felt on her booty a lot. A lot. Everything about the moment, very much including her butt, felt just like the greatest possible situation. I was glad for the small crowd. I was glad this famous writer Jessica Hopper had seen us perform. I was glad to party and I was glad to be kissing with a beautiful girl whose mother lived on the peninsula at the end of the world. Her bedroom was the top floor. The sun came in and it felt late even though I bet it was early. 2004 had started. The band went to Pizza Luce for brunch.
Something Else Works
We need a way to bring problems to a wider awareness without murder and terrorism. We are overloaded with information but that’s been true for a long time. We spend a lot of time on platforms that focus in on conflicts, on anger, on division. Social media might be supercharging that mission, but foregrounding tension and conflict has been part of the media landscape for a century plus.
I learned of the events of October 7 in Israel with a quickly sickening stomach. The purposeful slaughter of civilians sickens me. Young people, babies. Old people. Murdered. No good should come of it. These actions should be an absolute dead end. They are reprehensible. What did happen though is that the journalists I listen to and read starting covering Israel and Palestine with a focus and intensity I haven’t witnessed in the past decade. This focus and intensity brought me voices from many sides of the conflict. I learned of veterans of the IDF who believe Israel is on the absolute wrong path. I heard from centrist thinkers who critique Israel’s disproportionate response to Hamas inside of Gaza at the corners but generally support it. I heard from Palestinians, both from the West Bank, Gaza and from the larger diaspora who offered tragic first person narratives of their lives in war and also offered ideas for the future. Why do these conversations sprout from murder? Where was the appetite and offerings of these conversations beforehand? It existed. But I didn’t put my eyes on it. I didn’t hear about Jewish Currents, I didn’t see these episodes in my feed from the NYT, from Plain English, from The Gray Area. I didn’t read articles about Palestine in The Atlantic, NYT and the other places I read. My media diet is full of blind spots and it would be arrogant to simply say “the conversations started after October 7”. But it became impossible for me to ignore after October 7. I didn’t digest the Great March of Return protests happening in 2018-2019. What made the journalists I read and myself turn my head was October 7. I feel guilty about that. A reprehensible slaughter brought me to look at issues I had willfully ignored, issues I misunderstood, injustices I muted without realizing I had. The March of Return protests were largely peaceful. This news of peaceful protest didn’t reach my feeds. I am reminded of the folks in my Facebook feed 2013-2020 who seemed to think that the very first think any Black Lives Matters protesters decided to do was to block a highway, the Mall of America, the marathon. As someone who followed the developments of individual chapters of Black Lives Matter more closely I wanted to shout out “they’re trying all sorts of shit, this is not a one approach movement, it wasn’t a block the highways on day one situation. Read more! Learn more!”
It can’t be murder. Cause when it’s murder I can’t remove the cause or the righteousness from the murderous actions. And it can’t be murder cause someone else chose murder. Apartheid is repugnant. You can’t justify it. There isn’t a set of circumstances that will make me think “obviously you had to resort to apartheid, obviously you had to resort to 2,000 lb bombs in crowded areas with children, obviously you shouldn’t do everything in your power to feed starving people”. These go against my moral fiber. These are actions I won’t be forced into. These are actions that you must acknowledge weaken your moral fiber, weaken the potential for you to be regarded as a moral actor. And maybe being regarded as a moral actor doesn’t matter to you anymore. And if that’s the case you’ve lost already. And when you murder to push your agenda, when you murder indiscriminately and viciously, I can’t remove those actions from your cause. Your cause is stained.
Flash forward to Luigi Mangione presumably killing Brian Thompson from United Health Care. Thompson was a father, a husband, a human. He’s gone. The kids don’t have a daddy anymore. It’s reprehensible. It can’t be defended. But here I am again, hearing podcasts that haven’t said shit about healthcare in months dedicating multiple episodes to the topic. And they’re telling me about new ideas. Talking about ways in which health insurance companies might be the easiest entity to point a finger at, but not being the only party culpable for the horrendous health care offerings in the US. I’m hearing talk of solutions, of some of these companies changing their behavior, the government taking a more concerted effort to limit some of the BS these companies offer. Brian Thompson didn’t have to die for Derek Thompson from Plain English to have two health care economists on his podcast. Brian Thompson didn’t have to die for Ezra Klein to do the same. But, it’s clear that it is Brian Thompson’s killing that has put these issues on the front page. Murder is sticky, we look at it, we read about it. I contemplate a murder in a way I don’t contemplate a protest. The protests don’t rise to that level. They don’t stick.
It’s terrible. These murders are a stain, a tragedy, an act that hurts everyone, not just the murdered. But I stand back and wonder what else rises above? What can get the podcasters to not just talk about efficient work habits and micro-dosing and re-litigating our election? What can get us in our easily distracted world to not be distracted? To not keep on scrolling, to not let the status quo win. It can’t be murder. It won’t be murder. What will it be?
Day Off
I have the day off from Jazz88 and I always want the days off to be simple, joyous, fancy free. Occasionally they are. Mostly they are a parade of errands, fun and otherwise. I owe the United States Treasury a little bit of money. They wanted it by December 2. I am sending the check today hoping that they will call it even. (they will not). I finished the book my wife Rachel and I agreed to read this summer. It is Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones.
I want to read more books but I am pulled in every night to magazines and sometimes even to news on my phone though I’ve really cut down on that. Reading at nighttime is really no substitute for a long daytime session of reading. I imagine I probably get three long daytime sessions of reading in a good year. A flight, a vacation, maybe a long repair job at a mechanic where I elect to wait for some reason. As a person who has never been a truly capable sight-reader of music, I still imagine that the reading I do in the middle of the day is how it feels when the great readers in town sit in front of a piece of music. I know the characters, the references and the general outline. I predict what is coming, I navigate my feelings while the plot rolls on.
When I get the five or six odd pages in during a session of nighttime reading it is barely the same sensation. I am flipping back, I am remembering character names, I am feeling the left side of the book hit my nose as I am dozing off. It is altogether a different sensation to try to cram a little bit of the book into my head before I sleep. Maybe those sessions are better suited for magazine reading. Something digestible. Books are digestible too, but not on the same timetable. I will be digesting Salvage the Bones for a handful of days, a couple talks with Rachel, a couple moments of reflection.
A Farewell/Pause to the Performance Career of Haley
Minnesota-based singer-songwriter just announced her “last live performance for a while” and it hit me in a very intense way. I am an agemate of Haley’s and though we are far from close friends our careers have consistently crossed paths for over twenty years. For years I’ve thought of her as one of the great writers in our scene. I’ve probably really spoken to Haley maybe ten times in my life. But the amount of times I feel shoulder to shoulder with Haley in making music, in crafting a life, in pursuing a balance between family duties and music duties are countless. She’s made songs like Kismet Kill, Hometown and Last War that I think are some of the finest music to ever come out of the Twin Cities. She’s lived a beautiful life sharing music with her fans, eschewing much of the social media game (I onetime told her I said something nice about her online and she said “I will never see that ever”), and generally charting her own path. There’s a time where Haley moving to Portland got a fair amount of coverage in the Star Tribune, Vita.mn and City Pages. But we’re in a different era where the end of her performing career doesn’t come with big fanfare. When I heard an announcer mispronounce her name on the radio as “Hallie” I felt compelled to put down just how important Haley and her path are to me.
I remember hearing about Haley from Bill Caperton. He described a young woman signed to Low’s label Chairkickers Union and making waves in Duluth. She had moved to Duluth from her hometown of Rapid City. This was 2003 I bet. And then she starts working with Vickie Gilmer. Vickie is managing my band Heiruspecs at the time as well as her primary bread-winning client Mason Jennings. I’m barely 23 years old, shocked I am in a band that has a manager. Everything is new, everything is amazing. I see a tour poster for Haley (at the time performing as Haley Bonar) that says “Save a horse, ride a cowboy”. I hear her music around then and it’s just simply stunning. It seems patently obvious why Chairkickers would be involved with her. Her writing is pure and intimate. That’s kind of the Low formula but frankly Haley has always gone for the visceral in a more convincing way lyrically than Low has. There’s something sort of just straight forward about Haley. That straight forwardness brings her closer to the visceral than grand imagery or poetic statements can every get you. Her songs are amazing and she performs them well. She will toss off an absolutely amazing line into the third verse of a song where most writers are hiding their third-rate material.
I don’t know the ins and outs but Haley didn’t work with Vickie for long. But Haley seemed to keep on getting the right calls and opportunities. Opening tours, opening sets. Everyone else in the world of music was older and Haley was my age. We weren’t friends, I can’t even remember necessarily “meeting” her during these years, but we were on a lot of bills together. She was friends with Martin Devaney and Joanna James and I was playing music with both of them at the time. We ended up together at a small apartment party on Grand Ave and I learned that Haley is absolutely hilarious. She made one of the funniest jokes I ever heard that night. I still probably think about it once or twice a week.
At this time Haley is the talk of the town in a way that seemed mega significant to me at the time. Shows are full. City Pages is writing about her. She’s opening for bands. The best players in town are playing with her. And her records keep on getting better and better. I feel this kindredness with her at these moments, not cause the same things are happening for my band, but because we are in the same universe, pursuing what I think are the same goals. And every time I hear her music I think, what an amazingly great song. Even if I don’t like the guitar tone, or the drum part, or the mix. . .the song is always bulletproof. Haley signs with Afternoon Records, which at the time seemed like a really big deal. The rumor was that Afternoon footed a 10k bill for big deal guy Tchad Blake to mix her record. I don’t know if it’s true but holy shit that record sounds great. It’s shortly after that that Haley moves to Portland for a time and I was wildly confused. Haley! How could you leave this? People come to your shows! You’re writing amazing songs! Everything must be perfect right?
I saw Haley when she came back from Portland at a great short-lived restaurant in Saint Paul called the Strip Club. I was there with my now wife Rachel and Haley was there with a couple people and a. . .BABY! I didn’t know many people with babies at the time. I didn’t know many musicians with babies. I think I knew no women musicians with babies in my age cohort. I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t understand how she could do it. Live the life maybe we’re both still aiming at and having this beautiful child to care for at the same time. I didn’t know how brunch with a kid was supposed to work. I still sort of don’t. We talked as long as you can really talk when someone is holding a baby and everyone is trying to have a brunch.
The records kept on coming and they kept on being amazing. Seemed like a miracle to me given how much the music business is designed to kick everyone who isn’t a single, white 17-25 year old male out of the fame. Some friends of mine joined her band and they seemed to be doing these things that I knew were hard to navigate period, and harder still to navigate while raising a child. I was so impressed. More than impressed I was in utter belief of Haley. She means this. She means this music and she will do what it takes to share it.
Haley came back from Portland quick and I ran into her again at a Duluth show with Gramma’s Boyfriend (her awesome sideproject), P.O.S, Heiruspecs and maybe one other act. This might’ve been the mid 2010s. We talked backstage and she said something that always stuck with me. She said “I heard that Peter (Heiruspecs’ drummer) is working for the city or something?” (Peter was and still is working for Mayor Carter’s office). I confirmed that yes and Haley just said “and here the rest of us are, just still doing the same stupid music stuff.” It stuck with me cause I know, and she knows, the music stuff isn’t stupid. The music stuff is magical. The times I’ve seen her on stage or heard her on record and it’s changed me. And I’m not the only one. When she announced she was taking a break the fans came out of the woodwork to celebrate her and her music. It’s great music. It’s hit me. It’s struck me. That isn’t stupid. But the world thinks it’s stupid if you aren’t famous enough to be widely recognized.
Maybe in 2019 or so Jade from the Current had Haley on for an interview. I do not know exactly what they were talking about. But I was struck by how absolutely real and transparent Haley was. Haley told a story about getting in a bad fender bender on her way to a show at the Walker and what hit me was how much she sounded like a human talking to another human about a little car accident. No artifice. No returning it to talk of her album, no shoehorning in references to her upcoming shows. Just talking. It was so refreshing.
And when I thumbed across Haley saying she was stepping back from playing just a couple weeks ago I couldn’t help but think about how well she has lived her life. The big record never hit for Haley but she has fans, sells records, makes an impact and has given countless people mountains of joy, hours of music to deploy for the hard times. I think it’s easy to wonder what the hell you’re doing if your career is music. I am pretty confident Haley knows she hasn’t done “stupid music stuff” for her professional life. But I just had to type it into existence that Haley is one of the greats from our town, and she decided to press pause on a portion of her career on a random Wednesday in November at the Dakota. And more power to her, but she’s spectacular, I appreciate her and I hope you’ll take some time to listen to her work today.
Maybe You Should Play Rapscallion
I struggle to play with my kids. Do you?
Sometimes play is boring to me. Sometimes Legos are small. I want to do the dishes. I want to talk to Rachel. I want to look at my stupid phone and read about another terrible act of violence that has happened in the Twin Cities metro area. I do play with the kids. But I struggle to play, I struggle to stay in it. But across maybe the last two and a half years a very elaborate game has evolved between me and my two daughters called Rapscallion. I love it. And you’ll love it too. And you can play it. BUT, there are tons of rules.
HISTORY: One time my oldest daughter, who at the time was probably five, grabbed my hat and I told her she was a rapscallion. I tried to get the hat back and she refused. We wrestled. This was on the couch downstairs. We laughed and I’d get the hat back and she’d take it back. Then she started adding “freeze” to the lexicon. She would freeze me and position me like I was picking my nose. I started to complain that she was not only a rapscallion but the largest rapscallion in North America by quite a fair clip. She would then permit me to call different dignitaries by using her foot as a phone. I frequently called Joe Biden, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan and many others. I would say “hello Joe Biden, I’m Sean McPherson in the 55105 zip code and I have the largest rapscallion in human history here in my home and I need your help”. My daughter would then go “SQUAWK! I can’t hear you, I’m with my chickens.” I would then go “President Biden, can you please step away from the chickens?” My daughter would say “SQUAWK, SQUAWK, I can’t hear you, it’s the chickens.” At one point at a family get together I probably put eight different feet to my ear and pretended to talk to the sitting President Joe Biden.
My younger daughter soon wanted in on the game nightly and we started having spirited rounds of rapscallion. A couple firm hits to the couch during the rough-housing inspired us to decamp to my bed upstairs and things have been much safer since then. We’ve still had accidents, kids fall off the bed, hit something, but the main playing field is soft and comfortable.
THE PROCESS: Rapscallion starts with my two daughters on the bed, the oldest usually wielding a pillow. Once I am armed with a pillow she is then able to hit me with the pillow. I work my way down to the bed while taking body blows from the pillow wielder and making sure to not fall on top of the youngest. From there we enter into a set of loose rituals as part of rapscallion:
Snack Time - This is where the girls eat at my fingers and wrists. They understand I hate this. But me hating it is an important aspect of the game. If I resign myself to getting my hands licked and surrender they say “daddy, you hate this right?”
Mrs. Whobewubba - For Mrs. Whobewubba I lay on my back and my oldest daughter sits on me down by the small of my back. Then my younger daughter sits on my shoulders and they refer to her as Mrs. Whobewubba. The oldest is known as the safety belt and the safety belt holds Mrs. Whobewubba in place. They then ask me start driving and I start moving. My eldest smacks my side and says “does this thing go any faster??” Then my youngest hits my side and says “yeah! does this thing go any faster??” After I pick up speed the oldest tells the youngest “don’t you dare say this is the life.” After a second long pause the youngest says “this is the life.”
Secret Weapon - My youngest’s secret weapon in her reckoning is her ability to jump from one side of me to the other. She asks to use her secret weapon and we clear out so she can execute a couple jumps. My oldest is disqualified from jumping across me cause if she falls on me it cracks my back and hurts like hell and I have to say “oh fuck, fuck me oh my god” and I try not to talk like that in front of my kids.
Balance of Power and Secret Alliances - In this game my kids are the rapscallions and as someone trying to destroy the rapscallions I am referred to as a rapscallander. But frequently my youngest will start as a rapscallender. She will hide under a blanket and hand me different “powers” that she has. When she gives me her final power, the strongest power which contains all other powers within it, she then joins forces with my other daughter and becomes a rapscallion.
THE OFFICIAL RIDES: After our period of loose playing I then inform the girls as to whether they get one ride a piece or two rides a piece on this particular night. They then pick from an ever-expanding set of games.
Volcano - the kids lay on top of me and say “I hope this volcano doesn’t eru. . .” and as they say erupt I jump up and start imitating a volcano and trying to knock them off me.
Pizza Pie - I grab my oldest daughter and hold her upside down. I say “upside down pizza pie, she’s a pizza pie, but she’s upside down.” I then turn her right side up and in a very faux Italian accent I say “Tony, Giuseppe, grab the sausage, grab the spinach, grab the Mozzarella we’ve got a pizza pie” and then I throw her on the bed.
Laundry - I remove all the laundry from a full laundry basket and then my youngest climbs into to the laundry basket. I return all the clothes to the basket. I pick up the basket and say “this is so heavy, why is this clothes basket so heavy?” My daughter says “it’s Momma’s winter clothes.” I then empty all the clothes in the basket and when I get to my daughter I say “this isn’t a shirt, this is a whole person, what are you doing in here?” and she says “I’m a laundry person!”
Weights - With my youngest daughter who I can still easily pick up this involves doing ten chest presses. Sometimes while lifting her up she kicks her feet out and attempts to leave. Those ones are called escape weights and she’s only allowed to do a couple of those. With my oldest daughter she sits on top of me and we hold each others hands. I try to push her up off of my chest and for 14 reps she lets me do this. On the fifteenth she pushes back incredibly hard and I suffer and grumble. She then says “daddy, was the fifteenth one harder than all the others put together” and I say yes.
Rocket - I hold my oldest daughter in my arms and then launch her like a rocket onto the bed.
X - In this game one daughter gets on top of me horizontal and the other one vertical and then they hit me and say “does this thing go any faster?” Sometimes the youngest says slow down but I only listen to whoever picked “X” for their ride.
Hit Daddy - This is a theoretical game because when they say they want to play “hit daddy” I say no.
Fight - This is a real game that is effectively just hit daddy but for some reason I let it happen.
CONCLUSION: I think that just covers it. I hope you’ll consider getting a black belt in rapscallion with your kids. It’s truly changed my life to have a game I love to play with my kids.
Big Trouble Is Playing Saturday at the White Squirrel YES it’s TRUE
Big Trouble is back at it. As we get closer to the end of 2024 I realize that Big Trouble is one of the favorite things happening in my life right now. We get in a rehearsal once a month almost like clockwork. We play the monthly at White Squirrel. People like us and Peter, our drummer, was commenting that he’s pretty sure there are some people coming out repeatedly who we don’t know personally. The technical term for that is a fan. . .but Big Trouble has never really been a big fan group. We’ve more been a spot for a couple degrees of separations of friends and family to join together. But I think our 15 years of medium work has finally paid off. We’ve got some people who like us. I like us. You’d like us. I’m sure of it. 6-8pm this Saturday at White Squirrel. Flyer by my brother Steve McPherson.
I’m Presenting at the Minneapolis Music Census Report Launch
I'll be involved and presenting at the Minneapolis Music Census reports launch at the Women's Club of Minneapolis. Come on down if your schedule permits. I care about the scene here and I hope to share some meaningful insights and to get info from my fellow panelists.
Here’s a huge photo of me I bet that’s helpful.
The End of Shortcuts - Directions to a MaLLy Show
There’s no shortcuts in the Twin Cities anymore. Google Maps ruined that. Maybe social media ruined it too. No shortcuts, just secret paths. Last night I had the opportunity to take two iconic secret path routes on my way to and from the best rap show I’ve seen this year. If you live in the Twin Cities and you have a soul and a working set of ears you’ve been rooting for MaLLy for years. He’s a beyond proficient rapper with an immense dedication to professional presentation. He’s made many solid LPs, some which I’ve played bass on. But none of them stuck to my ribs. I would put them on when they came out, admire the craft and rarely revisit. His new record “The Sweetest of It All” is different and the release party for that album was really special. There’s no shortcuts in the Twin Cities and every inch of MaLLy’s journey is essential to this release.
One of MaLLy’s lyrics-turned-tagline is “unapologetically nappy”. There’s nothing Minnesota seems to love more than the apologetically nappy. Being unambiguously Black is far from career suicide here, but it wrongly closes twice as many doors as it may open. There’s no shortcuts, but there’s a secret path. MaLLy has his email list out at all his shows even the low key ones. He played with Heiruspecs two summers ago at Icehouse. ‘Twas a vinyl release for Heiruspecs, a decidedly low-key affair. But he had that email list out and I shit you not the morning after the show, before I had even flipped the pancakes for my up-bright-and-early daughters, he texted me asking for me to decipher one of the email addresses he got in case I recognized it. Hard work is embodied in the details. I love a master stroke, I love brilliance, but the infrastructure to share your brilliance relies on your dedication to your email list and to your craft. Especially if you are in a city where the coverage is limited and skews hipster.
If you can talk to directly to your fans, if you can talk directly from your life, if you tell your stories on your terms than the idea of being apologetic is just theater. MaLLy is Black and he had an email list full of people bouncing at Icehouse last night. One of the most dance positive fans was a portly white dude named Doug who was the entirety of the front row. He had an unfathomable wingspan. One lopsided dance move would bring him from stage left to stage right in a nanosecond. Nobody seemed more surprised by this wingspan than Doug himself. How do I know his name is Doug? He came up to me real close and said “my name is Doug”. I said “nice to meet you Doug” but did not volunteer my name. Doug stood there for a moment as we both wondered if there was a next step and if so what it was.
There are no shortcuts in the Twin Cities anymore and last night I didn’t need any. Before MaLLy’s show I went to a rehearsal dinner in Saint Paul for a wedding I’m officiating. After the mother of the groom poured out the last third of the Lagunitas IPA I had been drinking cause it was sitting on a random table while I used the bathroom, I sucked down two thirds of a Coors Light in a weird futuristic milk bottle and pointed towards Icehouse from Saint Paul. When coming off 94 West at the Hennepin/Lyndale exit and favoring Hennepin North I see no serious benefit time-wise to taking that first turn onto Dell Place and then on to Groveland off of the exit but it’s what I’ve done for twenty years if I’m going to Nicollet. And I’m in no hurry to get to Icehouse. One flyer says doors at 8. The ticket says 9. It’s 8:51. I’ve got plenty of time. But when I turn on Groveland it’s a wealth of shortcut memories. My girlfriend Anna taught me the shortcut in high school when she did all the driving. It was the cool way to get to Little T’s. It was so cool I’d use it inefficiently to get to the Electric Fetus. Take Groveland and I’ll go past the only church I’ve ever played a funeral it, I go past the therapist I went to briefly before she unannouncedly raised her prices and only told me after the session was done, what the fuck, past DeVon and Seana’s weird ass apartment I used to wait in front of for half hours at a time waiting for D for gigs. Past Andrea Swensson’s house where the staff of the Current started to understand that it would be necessary to unionize on account of a variety of fuckeries happening at the station. Past the place called Big E’s that Heiruspecs played a very strange show at in 2003. Past Nicollet Franklin. That’s where Acadia used to be. I saw a production of Glengarry Glen Ross there. Now it’s a Cajun Boiling. Sidebar: It’s wild to think about Acadia. Moved out of Nicollet Franklin. Moved to the West Bank. Regrouped. A city bus runs into it and busts the whole thing up. Elite veggie burger at Acadia.
Back to Franklin/Nicollet. There used to be a Superamerica where there also used to be a CVS. And there used to be a Starbucks across the street. I drive past the old Twin/Tone building at 25th and Nicollet. I always hope that in some wildly deep game of six degrees of Twin Cities music scene separation it would come in handy that my very first day of work for No Alternative records in the winter of 2000 was helping Kim Randall move out of Twin/Tone. The place was empty, a shell of what it was in the 80s, but it had been the nerve center of a very important chapter in underground American music.
There’s no shortcuts in the Twin Cities. I learned how to write press releases and keep good relationships with the press from Kim Randall’s apartment in Uptown that I helped her move her office into. The secret path was being able to iron out a press release before a lot of my peers. But, a press release’s potential is still limited by the press’s appetite for a given artist or event. We live in a city that will spill more ink on Dessa having a new line of alfalfa sprouted tortillas than on MaLLy having a new record. They both have nice press releases. I love them both deeply. If there was a knob I could turn that skewed the coverage more towards new records and less towards alfalfa sprouted tortillas I would. Sometimes I think when I’m doing the best at my life’s work I am very much turning that knob. Let’s be real. There’s no knob. There’s no shortcuts. But there is a secret path. I’m in a basketball-centric text group with some friends, one of the members is a bonafide 25-years-in-the-game-career-performer-artist and he said “I know good journalism when I see it”. I can’t recall a piece of writing about artist curated alfalfa sprouted tortillas that stuck with me, that stuck to my ribs. But I remember interviews, podcast episodes, reviews and yes even blurbs that hit me, that were worthy of discussion, that mattered in the discourse. The secret path is doing the work, listening to the record, going to the show and not copy and pasting someone else’s hard work. I know good music coverage when I see it, and I know good music coverage when I do it, and I’m trying to do it.
Even with my questionably efficient shortcut I have arrived at the MaLLy show profoundly earlier than I’d like to. There’s no shortcuts to an old person rap show. I’m in line at Icehouse and the two women in front of me are discussing planter fasciitis and the number it did on their running routine. The first conversation I have in the venue is with Terrell from Radio Pocho on KFAI and he confirmed my scheduling mistakes: DJ just Nine just started his set. I could’ve drank that whole metal milk bottle Coors at the rehearsal dinner party. But actually, getting to an old person rap show early is part of the program. Part of the experience. Part of the routine is the hilariously inaccurate set times. Your feet should be a little sore the next day. The ad hoc hosting should be provided by the performers. It is a wildly more communal vibe than the jazz, rock or classical things I see. The performers of next week are the attendees of this week. Medium Zach is on stage and he shouts out a couple of his people who are in the crowd. I am with my people. I don’t want to be with them just for 110 minutes while MaLLy performs. I want to be with them for the changeovers, the “hey remember when we” stories. I talk To Elliot Looney and a different man named Doug who has been a merchandising icon for years. Probably eighty people in the building at this point and two are named Doug. We are at a 2% Doug rating which seems very high. I would also like to seem very high so I go outside and smoke. Back with Elliot and Doug. Sharing stories. Some of the big national artists that Doug works for will sell 80,000 of a single t-shirt design on a tour. I can’t even understand that. How many t-shirts has Heiruspecs ever sold? Is it two thousand? I think it could be two thousand. I have no idea. It’s not 80,000.
I am at an old persons’ hip hop show definitively. One breakdancer is at the corner of the stage dressed like a business casual breakdancer. Medium Zach’s opening set is more Tortoise than Z-Trip this go-round. The breakdancer is attempting to get started but Zach has taken a slow tempo groove and pushed some of the instruments so far behind the beat I am questioning where the one is. So is Zach. So is the breakdancer. When I take a break I learn from the manager of Icehouse that said breakdancer is a high powered downtown Minneapolis attorney. The breakdancer is an attorney. I am at an old person’s hip-hop show.
The important part of the night isn’t the funny part. The important part doesn’t make a fit for the essay I’m writing. The important part is that after seeing every shortcut measured and announced on Google maps I saw an artist on stage who is allergic to shortcuts. I saw an artist who is many LPs deep into a career that has come with equal parts ups and downs and yet at this comparatively late stage in his career he is making the best work of his career. It’s not what I expected. After an artist has made 3-4 albums it is unlikely for them to move 15% or more towards better or worse. MaLLy’s new record is full of great decisions, small nuances, inspired production. My favorite song is Summers on the Southside. Production by Last Word. Two, count ‘em two, great guitar solos from Jeremy Yvilsaker.
It’s a painting. It’s a portrait. I wouldn’t change a thing. I wouldn’t skip a step, I wouldn’t trim a hi-hat. I’d never take a shortcut when the secret path brings me here.
10 Year Anniversary of “Too Big To Fail” by the Twinkie Jiggles Broken Orchestra
I’m Twinkie Jiggles. I don’t use the moniker as much anymore but I spent a few blissful years of my life where I was almost equally likely to be called Twinkie rather than Sean. A long time ago the dude who did the booking at Barrio in Lowertown wanted to book my group Big Trouble but none of the dudes wanted to do it so I started my own band. I called it the Twinkie Jiggles Broken Orchestra and we set off playing a tremendous amount of lightly attended restauranty type gigs for $150-$250. Barbette, Red Stag, Sauce, Barrio (just the once, weren’t a big hit) et cetera. I was doing this in the midst of one of the biggest estuaries in my life: heavy responsibilities for Trivia Mafia, a receding role at McNally Smith but still working there, Heiruspecs is active, Dessa is crazy active, my first live-in girlfriend relationship is ending, my relationship with my now wife is starting, radio is just starting for me with me dipping my toes in at the Current. It’s all happening and I don’t know what is really going to stick. A bunch of things that feel settled in my life at 43 do not feel resolved at 33. And I’m spending a lot of time trying to make this happen while sitting in a van with the Dessa band careening across the country with questionable access to the internet.
A lot of time to think, a lot of time to stress, a lot of time to write and the inspiration of being around young writers out of McNally who are kicking ass, seeing the work that Dessa and Dustin are putting in surrounding Dessa’s albums, wanting to be involved, not knowing how to get involved. I believe the music that is dominating my life is Dawes, Frank Ocean, Aesop Rock, Future Islands, Bahamas, Joni Mitchell. These are all sort of guesses but my head is full with the idea that dense lyrics can be sung, not by me, but they can be sung. For a short period of time I live in a condo that has a piano in it. It’s right next to my bedroom. I wake up and play it and as a I play it more, more songs come out. And I start to be drawn to the piano. When I’m at Rachel’s parents house in Fargo I sat down and wrote “Hi, My Name is Ana” while the family was out of the house for I don’t know. . .one hour? Two? My fingers never felt better on a piano but those couple months. I don’t know how to get it back. I’ve got a piano now but it’s in the playroom. It’s covered in papers, paints, receipts, dolls, bath toys. It isn’t calling my name.
The Twinkie Jiggles Broken Orchestra gigs started feeling great. Joey Van Phillips on drums, DeVon Gray on keyboard, Ashley Gold on vocals. That’s the nucleus. It’s great when Chastity sang with, great when Linnea sang, when McGlone played drums, when Patrick played guitar and keyboards. But the nucleus is Joey, DeVon and Ashley. I think we had fun times. No one really came. We ate dinner, We played these songs and we started going into studios and recording. I at some point convinced myself that this record I’m talking about broke even, but it’s hard for me to believe that. Right now I’m listening to the song “Sister’s Wine”. DeVon on keys. Graham O’Brien on drums and Chastity on vocals. I’m on bass. Scott Agster played trombone, can’t remember the name of the beautiful man who played saxophone. I think it’s Bobby playing guitar. I think this song is great. I don’t need to be humble if I think the shit stands up to me.
At the writing level I wasn’t trying to make sense out of my life, I was trying to make it into a superhero’s story. It’s what inspired me to call it “Too Big to Fail”. It’s what inspired me to be rather awkwardly sex forward. If I put my professor glasses on I’ll say I wanted to assert my full humanity as a fat man who could be heartbroken, arrogant, fragile, confident, fictional, realistic and everything in between. The way it makes more sense to me is I wanted to write the stories where even where I’m the loser I’m still the hero. I wrote a bunch of songs about my struggles with my ex (Perfectly Enamored, Free Change, Easy Enough). I wrote largely fictional songs that still kind of sounded alcohol fueled and edgy (Fat Jodie, Cigarettes, Sister’s Wine). I covered a Sleater-Kinney song I used to play with my first serious girlfriend. I would play drums and she would sing and play guitar. Some of the funnest moments of my life. Play Sleater-Kinney, listen to Sade, go to Lifetime Fitness and eat at Pizza Luce. God damn it that was great.
I’m proud of this record. Some days I think about getting the band back out of retirement to play them. It would be different. It might not be worth dusting off. But I wanted to at least write about it, and remember the remembering. When the anniversaries come up for these releases in my life I both want to remember the album and also remember what I thought about them years later.
The release party was great, did it at the Icehouse. I remember being gassed up because Lizzo came out. 1000% guarantee that her and her coterie hung in the back and were far from hanging on every note we played, but still felt good that the jam was cool enough that the coolest person at that moment in the scene decided to hold court in the back of that particular room. We debuted the song Achilles at the show which I still feel is the best song that I’ve been exclusively responsible for writing.
In the end it was radio and trivia that came to dominate my working life. Still plenty of music, but a different relationship, a different angle. But I listen to this record and I want to liberate that piano from the playroom detritus and find out what’s under my fingers now.
The Music Tells You - There’s No Freedom In Freedom
I went to Bennington College my freshman year. I had a great year but I was ready to get Heiruspecs going so I left after that first year. Dorm advisor at Fells Hall freshman year was named Bryn Mooser. From Maine. He’s turned out to live kind of a Hollywood life but back in the year 2000 he was a very attractive alto sax player who had the misfortune of knowing he was very attractive. He was an incredibly fun dude to be around as an eighteen year old. I played in his junior concert which was called. . .wait for it. . .get ready. . .you can’t make this shit up. . .America. I think there was maybe five chords in the whole show. Plenty of headbands and wardrobe discussions. Lots of drummers. A lot of TVs playing art school shit. It was ambitious, and frankly more enthralling than seeing a more talented musician play it safe over eight songs from the Real Book. I was an impressionable sponge and Bryn was full of ideas, advice, album recommendations, and more. I’m grateful for that year I got to be around him. He turned me on to a movie from 1992 from Branford Marsalis called “The Music Tells You”. Watching that video I was so fascinated with Branford Marsalis. Honest to a fault, arrogant to a T, and seemed earnestly excited about making music and disillusioned with the things surrounding making music.
We watched the movie together and I was stuck on the scene, clipped above, where he says “the music tells you” when explaining the stricture of improvising, the stricture of writing and of collaborating. Artistic expression to me is about limiting potential choices and then finding remarkable opportunities within those choices. Practice in the largest sense of the word is cultivating a vast arsenal of skills to deploy when a potential choice that requires one of those skills is available. ProTools, the most advanced multitrack recording software in the world, is a creative godsend but it clouds some into thinking that limiting potential choices isn’t part of artistic expression. Spotify’s business practices and the major labels’ complicity in obscuring them is a cancer on the music industry, but it also clouds people into believing that any song can go after another song. That every song looks the same. That every song is best measured by the amount of people who have listened to it since the dawning of streaming.
I prefer thinking of music like a war of inches in trench warfare with groundbreaking artists forging yards ahead and permitting others to benefit from those gains and fill in the missing pieces. The music told Ornette Coleman and Charlie Haden that something else was available when improvising after a melody. There was more that could be up for grabs in real-time. But I do believe the music told them that. I believe that the music called for a larger canvas and they painted on it. In breaking old rules they made new rules. Same year that Bryn Mooser from paragraph one showed me the Branford Marsalis documentary I took counterpoint from a composer named Stephen Siegel. The king of counterpoint was a writer named Palestrina from the Renaissance. What’s counterpoint? Take a melody and with a set of pretty demanding rules navigate an additional three independently moving voices to supplement the melody. I hemmed and hawed my way to what would’ve been a C if I hadn’t gone to Bennington where they didn’t have grades but I gained a lot. I do believe the music told Palestrina something. He formalized these rules and I do believe in the hands of many teachers the rules are taught like unmoving policies bound for eternal truth. I don’t believe that’s what music tells you. Music is not black and white, but it’s not a free for all. Even “free” music is not a free-for-all. Free-for-alls are terrible. Terrible. The music tells me that your free-for-all is just a jerk fest for your three favorite scales. Or it tells me that it has become too demanding or rote to listen to the rules inside of music; it has become more expedient to pretend that there are no rules even though you know it to not be true. And if someone is following Palestrina’s rules from a cool half a millennium ago with no innovation then I have doubts that you are letting the music tell you anything, you are just painting within the lines. There is a merit to learning counterpoint that I barely appreciated as a freshman in college. There is a merit to transcribing solos and melodies that I am finally embracing, far too late for it to have an appreciable impact on my career, but blissfully early for it to have an impact on my musicality and my soul.
The music tells you on the radio too. I believe a good radio person should be in the business of stretching and breaking those rules only if they are also a student of those rules. I believe that the path to creating great radio involves listening to great radio. In fact, I believe it involves listening to the radio period. Different shows, different formats. Different hosts. Different cities. There are plenty of Palestrinas in the radio industry clinging unexplainably to a set of rules that don’t make sense or that fortify and codify things that are best left in the past. I’ve been in radio just over ten years and I’ve heard of program directors talking about not playing two black artists in a row, not playing more than three songs from women fronted projects in an hour. These ideas are immediately reprehensible but they are also outdated. It is a disrespect to your current audience and your potential audience. It is enshrining a hierarchy that throttles the digestible output of talented artists who aren’t white men. The music didn’t tell those programmers that. I don’t even think their gut told them that. It’s a play-it-safe strategy that perpetuates our worsts. Our AI, our legacy media and our habits enshrine the long-established hierarchies in our world. Through practice, through listening, through imagination I aspire to cultivate an arsenal of skills that will make decisions from what is available. And I know great radio is available that adheres to none of the stupid rules. And the more I practice, the more is available.
My brother Steve, fellow musician and writer, has been firing on all cylinders in Big Trouble, the band we play in together. He’s been writing, practicing, videotaping, designing and doing it with an enthusiasm I am amazed he has mustered this deep into his years. The big record isn’t coming. The honeymoon is over. But he’s reaching out to schedule a rehearsal and sending around the flyer. He added a keyboard/sampler/synthesizer into his rig in the past handful of practices and gigs and it’s been a mixed bag by his own accounting. I have a distrust of gadgets that is LOUDLY amplified in my feelings about Steve having gadgets. Steve has been a gadget guy since he was born and I’ve been a “fuck it, I’ll make it work with your hand-me-downs let me try it” guy since just as long. So I look at these new technologies under a different light than if another bandmate might do it. But after the gig we talked about the need to try, to expand, to push. It doesn’t have to be gadgetry, but without a push from somewhere we’d miss out on so much musical expression. Years ago Steve bought a pitch shifter pedal and I will still jokingly point to that pedal and say “that’s the pedal that broke up Big Trouble”. We’d be playing restaurant gigs with tentative support at best from the booking person that a two guitar quartet could cater to the dinner and cocktail crowd that might be coming in. Steve soundchecking the pitch shifter through the VOX AC30 at above full volume forty minutes before downbeat wasn’t making my booking job any easier. But, we do need these new technologies to push us to see what we can do with the music. We need to be pushed into finding out what of this new technology can be used while always letting the music tell us.
No one person gets to be the arbiter of what it means to let the music tell you. I think with the new sampler/syth/keyboard doo-dad Steve is listening to the music, sorting out how to work it into the web of Palestrina-like rules that Big Trouble has concocted throughout the years. Where is their room to expand? What is available? What expands and what diminishes? In these musical pursuits I am on the conservative side and I need to be surrounded by a spectrum of perspectives on innovation. What could a more-mature-me do enthusiastically with the potential of Steve having a pitch shifter? I’m not certain, but I think I could’ve done a lot better than bellyaching about the volume during soundcheck.
In radio I don’t know where I land on the conservative/liberal continuum. I believe radio stations have a unique responsibility and freedom that comes from pursuing experiences 24 hours a day. A peer in radio talks about “the promise”. What is “the promise” when you turn on that station? Is the promise genre specific? Is the promise an ethos towards music that floats above genre? Is the promise an ethos towards presentation? Is the promise no promise at all? Is the promise that it’s a dice toss every ten minutes? I’m writing this four days before Halloween and “the promise” is such a strange combination of strong and weak around Halloween. I can accept the Monster Mash being played on almost every radio station on planet earth this week. But what is “the promise” surrounding Monster Mash? Is it the promise of being seasonally appropriate? Is it the promise of what sits next to the Monster Mash on the playlist?
I’d like to answer a question I can see a reader asking at this point:
—-
Dear Blowhard Bennington Sean,
Is it really all this complicated? Just play the music! So Steve got a pedal! Figure out what songs it sounds good on. Share your opinion and keep it moving. Stop acting like there are massive rule books lining the walls of every practice room and radio studio in the world. It’s music and you’re ruining it.
A Concerned Blog Reader
——
Thanks for writing ACBR. It is this complicated. It ends up being simple. At the best it sounds simple, but the people I respect think that under the hood can’t be pure simplicity. There is history, there are precedents. There are rules to break and rules to honor and a beautiful life with beautiful offerings for the world in caring a ton about this stuff and working it over in your head. There’ is a difference between someone who plays a D chord because it’s the only thing in their arsenal and a person who picked a D chord out of fifteen different options because it was ultimately the best option.
—-
What does a radio station promise on Halloween? Does it promise a detour? Does it promise a sincere seasonality that Spotify’s “Ghoulish Grooves” with an AI ghost and a turntable graphic simply can’t? What does a bluetooth speaker offer at a Halloween party? At the neighbor’s Halloween party on Saturday I had already clocked in a beautiful discussion about creative responsibilities with my brother post-gig and futilely fumed in the car at a radio station for not satisfying “the Halloween promise” as I wanted them to. I was tasked with bringing over a bluetooth speaker after the other one had run out of juice. I tried to dial in what might work for the group of assembled neighbors on Halloween. Queens of the Stone Age, Soundgarden, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Monster Mash, Whodini, Blue Öyster Cult (but I did Burnin’ for You for a little flex). I was ready to get some suggestions from others and to pepper in some more. I was letting the music tell me. I was following the spirit and trying to let the music help the great time. I HAD TO TAKE THE DOG AROUND ONE SINGLE CITY BLOCK BECAUSE HE WAS BEING AN ASSHOLE AND I RETURNED TO A LOSS OF CONTROL OF THE SPEAKER. My neighbor Blake ceded it to a man who listens to a Wall Street Journal podcast in the shower every morning. It was atrocious. He was starting podcast episodes. He was picking songs to purposely pick fights with certain people who he knew hated certain songs. He’s drunk, leaning back, an evil wizard who was both picking shit songs and then getting lost in emails/texts/facebook and not even tracking what is coming out of his cranked JBL. And when other attendees would discreetly turn down the speaker he’d indiscreetly turn that bad boy back up. The music tells you Andy! You aren’t listening but the music is telling you. It’s sacred. It’s sacred to share music. It’s sacred in a bluetooth speaker, it’s sacred on a stage, it’s sacred in your own playlist, it’s sacred in a booth at a radio station. It is not reserved for professionals; it greatly benefits from youthful indiscretion. It greatly benefits from seasoned veterans who have been making these choices for years. It greatly benefits from a drunk guy having a fun time in his garage, but you got to try and have fun. But if you don’t think it matters, if you don’t think it’s a gift, if you don’t think it’s a miracle you don’t belong to it, you aren’t Palestrina, you aren’t Ornette Coleman, you aren’t bending or breaking rules, you are out of the mix. I don’t think you’re listening to yourself. The music tells you. Listen. Even if the music tells you to play some wild off the wall shit that Bennington Sean McPherson turns his nose up at. . .listen to the music and I’ll believe you. I’m bringing a bigger speaker next year.
I Just Believe in Courtney Williams
I don’t believe in wrong or right,
I just believe in Courtney Williams.
I don’t believe in linear time,
I just believe in Courtney Williams.
I don’t believe in Loch Ness Monsters,
I just believe in Courtney Williams.
I don’t believe in Courtney Williams and other things,
I just believe in Courtney Williams.
I don’t believe in the importance of sleep,
I just believe in Courtney Williams.
I don’t believe you need to wait 45 minutes after you eat before you swim,
I just believe in Courtney Williams.
I don’t believe it’s important to be able to drive a manual transmission,
I just believe in Courtney Williams.
Shoulder Season
My brother Steve and I know something about driving between the Midwest and the East Coast. We were raised in Massachusetts but my Dad’s from Milwaukee, Mom’s from Chicago. Plenty of childhood roadtrips. And since we’ve been in Minnesota, lots of miles logged. Steve says when you pass Ashtabula, OH on your way towards PA the whole vibe changes from Midwest to East Coast immediately. Even with the limited amount of actual region-specific shit you see from I-90, there’s something very East Coast about the minute you enter Pennsylvania. The road signs, the age of the houses, the names of things, the proportion of house size to street size. There are close to intangible differences between the East Coast and the Midwest and a lot of it can just be sensed, if you know what to be looking for.
Just yesterday, Saturday October 5, 2024 in Minnesota, I got to see it change from summer to fall in about an hour’s time. It’s member drive at my workplace, Jazz88, so I spent 1p-4p sitting in my dark basement answering phone calls for donations. I walked out, still summer. Silus and Kelly from across the street were playing with their kids, Vikings jerseys on but still a summer feeling temperature. The sky looked summer. There wasn’t much wind to speak of. I drove over to pick up my kids who had been hanging at a friend’s house while I answered the phones. Stand out on the porch. Take the remainder of the snacks I brought over and chat for a minute. Still summer. Some extra glow to the world, felt almost artificial to be honest, but summer glow. The next stop was JS Coffee for a coffee for me and hot chocolates for the girls. Outside of the coffee shop I knew the season was changing. I both felt hot and felt like it was a mistake the girls didn’t have jackets on. It was kind of electric. The glow was there. The wind was blowing. Transitory.
My wife taught me the term shoulder season. It’s old folks farmer’s almanac talk for the period of time when a season is changing over to another season. And wow, I got to experience a short ass shoulder season across maybe thirty forty minutes sitting outside of JS. A strange breeze, a strangely quiet crowd of people, that strange feeling when things are out of sync and you know no writer has ever tried to describe this scene. No novel set in one of those 79 degree early October Saturdays just before the running of the marathon. It’s an undocumented eerie. Nothing amiss. Just nothing the opposite of amiss. . .nothing on point, nothing to a tee.
The girls consume their hot chocolates whipped cream first. The drink was out of season when we ordered it. It was even maybe out of season when S. spilled the entirety of hers on the pavement outside and Katie the barista was nice enough to make her another one no charge. Sidebar: I don’t love the term barista. But as this shoulder turns and the wind announces itself, it gusts instead of blows, the hot chocolates are becoming reasonable. Becoming downright fitting. There are hats I can start to wear again. Soups I can start to make again. Records that will sound better like Ghostface Killah’s Supreme Clientele, Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter and Cannonball Adderley’s Somethin’ Else. I can text Peter Solomon and invite him to this year’s Thanksgiving without him saying “it’s still summer shitbird”. Fall has arrived in seconds flat. The green leaves numbering their days, the tabs on my car asking me to make sure they are renewed on time for the first time in years, the warm cup of coffee laughing that I might’ve considered getting it iced just minutes ago. I will lose track of my gym shorts. I will find track of my gloves. I will find $6, a lighter, the end of a filtered joint and an over folded flyer in my jacket. I will watch the next chapter of the Timberwolves reach the Western Conference finals and beyond. If you know what you’re looking for you couldn’t miss it for a minute, it’s the Midwest and it’s fall.
Big Trouble at White Squirrel Saturday October 26 6-8
The boys are back in town and also never left town. Big Trouble is gracing the stage of The White Squirrel with our winning spirit and instrumental jams. I hope by October 26 you won’t be wishing we were playing outside. I’ve got too many nice sweaters for it to stay this warm. Since I’m putting it in my blog I know it’ll happen. . .I’m making a chart for the Waxahatchee song “Ruby Falls”.
Universal Truths
Here are little-known universal truths.
If someone starts a speech with “I’m going to keep this brief” they are not.
If you are an adult at a zoo without children you are high.
If you still have a set of CDs in your driver side visor in your car and a colorful, fuzzy steering wheel cover you are a dynamo in the sack.
If your favorite apple is a Golden Delicious you are an AI who has been sent to kill someone, probably Senor Honeycrisp.
You have clogged a toilet before, everyone has.
From time to time you do snore a little.
Drum solos are better than bass solos.
Maxwell sounds better when played in New York City.
Low sounds better when played in Duluth.
Vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate ice cream.
Mobb Deep sounds better in cold weather and best in a hoodie in weather so cold you should be wearing a jacket too but you aren’t.
Vinyl doesn’t sound that much better, but it feels unbelievably better.
When you are a little “off” you will always feel at least slightly better after a glass of water.
The Summer Olympics are better than the Winter Olympics.
The guitar player should turn down a little.
Chaka Khan.
Cable was better when you had to remember what number the different channels were.
We’re all impressed you change your own oil but you don’t really save that much money Joe.
A trumpet is better than a saxophone. Saxophones are better than trumpets.
Generally the best seasons of all shows is the third and fourth season.
The best sausage pizza is better than the best pepperoni pizza, but if the worst sausage pizza is much worse than the worst pepperoni pizza.
Many people sing better after two drinks than stone sober. No one sings better after a six pack*.
Whenever somebody on foot says “it’s like four blocks away” it’s definitely at least six blocks away.
The intro to your song is too long, the outro is not long enough.
*credit to excellent producer Knol Tate on this take.
A Tiger Dancing at 20 with Two Whiskey Diet Cokes
Tomorrow marks 20 years from a truly momentous and memorable Tuesday. Tuesday is when records used to come out and September 28, 2004 marked the release of Heiruspecs’ A Tiger Dancing. I’m the bass player in Heiruspecs. I’ve been in Heiruspecs since I started it with Felix in 1997. The band has been the guiding force in my life for the entirety of my adult life.
Felix and I recently connected with Jay and Keith from Racket to discuss the history of the album. I also recently sat down and listened to the record in its entirety on vinyl which was an exhilarating experience. I can’t tell you the last time I pressed play on the record and I bet you the last time I listened to the whole thing was 20 years ago. I heard all the youthful optimism, brazen confidence, jocular humor, musical and lyrical virtuosity. And I could almost smell the Camel Lights I bought at the gas station that used to be called Old Colony but everyone called it HoneyBee at Washington and just a little south of Broadway. Pick up cigarettes, a coffee and take $20 out of the ATM every two days. That was the routine for a week in September of 2023 when we recorded. This was the only record I ever made with a job like schedule. Multiple days (I bet 4 days of tracking?). Show up the same time everyday. Do what needed doing that day. Started making a friendship with Joe Mabbott (engineer) that remains so strong to this day. We were working so hard but having so much fun. Such fond memories.
The narrative of Heiruspecs in general and of A Tiger Dancing in particular has to at some level be narrative of a beautiful failure. A group that at a young age sat briefly on the precipice of dare I say likely national level acclaim but never realized it. If I wasn’t in Heiruspecs that is the narrative that I would understand and accept. And I think in a journalistic way I have to agree that that is the sturdiest explanation. In that narrative there is still room for silver linings, for beautiful successes, for proud moments and for praiseworthy community building.
But let me know tell you about the two whiskey diet cokes at the Leaning Tower of Pizza with chicken wings, the Twins turning it around in the sixth against the Marlins and a gorgeous tall woman with big hips and mom jeans next to me drinking a Heineken poured into a glass with a straw and a pineapple juice on the side: we fucking won. This band served as a launching pad for other semi-failures! We helped get Dessa on the road! Remember Ela? (don’t answer that unless your answer is yes). Heiruspecs paid Trivia Mafia’s payroll for the first 10 months before we could get a bank to give Trivia Mafia checks! Big Trouble is an instrumental band that is the opposite of a juggernaut! Before they were Hippo Campus they were called Whistle Kid and they opened for us! These are small things. But you could be fooled while Willi Castro goes up to bat and the bartender tells another customer about Stevie Ray Vaughan crediting cocaine for his speed on the fretboard that everything is right in the world. You could tell 23 year old me driving down Hennepin that Tuesday after playing a packed in-store performance at Fifth Element and then hearing the album coming out of Wren Aigiki-Lander’s* car that in twenty years I’d have a wife, two beautiful children, a daily radio show, a hit trivia company and lift weights and do yoga. I’d have follow up questions for sure. I would be distressed by many of those follow up answers. But while I listen to Nipsey Hussle’s song “More or Less” driving up Grand Ave over at Fairview and there’s still a daytimey glow cause it’s early fall I’m sure that everything worked out. Sean you were right to buy those big merch bins before your show at Stone’s Throw in oEau Claire at Home Depot and try to make everything real professional about this A Tiger Dancing Tour which was categorically not professional. This band and this album matter to you and the people in your world and Nipsey matters to more people and he matters to you and Saint Paul is beautiful and you’ve spent your life driving between these two cities.
And Brian Oake once said he wished he had wanted to do more than just talk between songs on the radio but it was the only thing he ever really loved professionally and for him it works. And you think about just wanting to play shows, and talk between songs and pass out flyers. You think about Avon Barksdale on the Wire saying he’s just a gangster who wants his corners and if you turn Nipsey up loud enough you think you are too. You aren’t. And you turn it down when you turn off of Pascal onto your street because what if the babysitter and the kids are outside even though they should be starting bedtime. You brought the greatest cheesebread in Minnesota home from Leaning Tower of Pizza to bring to the neighbors across the street. In moments you’ll use the new roller you just bought at the Loon Smoke Shop which used to be the Loon Convenience store where a young Mike Mictlan filmed part of one of his only music videos.
And yes these things were all 20 years ago and I don’t really care what happened to John Munson forty years ago but I kinda do. And I sure hope that Kavyesh Kaviraj, Ricki Monique and Obi Original don’t care about this but maybe we all have to be stewards of our own legacies. Maybe you have to call it a failure, and maybe I can’t. Maybe I can’t call it a failure cause I turn up Nipsey a little bit louder once I realize the kids have started bedtime. And I walk out of the car that I drive cause my daddy had the same kind when I was in high school and shout out to the neighbors assembled on the porch that I’ve brought them the best cheesebread in Minnesota and let’s start the festivities.
*I’ll have you know that Wren was 27 years old at the time which was at the time the oldest cool hot person I had ever met.
Big Trouble at White Squirrel this Weekend
Autumn is here and Big Trouble is back inside. We are playing from 6-8 on Saturday. We have new songs, I have new bass strings and I think Big Trouble has never been clearer on who we are. I also promised I’d slap the bass on at least one song, which he will certainly regret by the fourth ballad I slap on. Also, on any song I don’t slap on. . .I’m slapping during his solo guaranteed. And thank you Steve, he helped me replace my bass strings which I was having an incredibly hard time doing. I hope you’ll come out to the show on Saturday!
Fiction: The Corkscrew
Out there, that far out, they didn’t get shit. No entertainment beyond what you can conjure up on a laptop screen on iffy internet. If you’re in the Kabul green zone, there’s basically a cineplex. There’s amenities. There’s USO sanctioned events. Third Eye Blind came. Some woman who won The Voice came. Comedians come. The Airmen of Note came twice. But out there, Khost Province. Nothing. Maybe a visit from a dignitary, a photo opp. But nothing that requires loudspeakers, requires a backline, requires real production. You’re just not bringing all of that equipment there. There’s safety concerns sure. But there’s also optics concerns. It’s a lot of equipment to bring to entertain a pretty small amount of troops. The place I helicoptered to that I want to tell you about, there’s maybe tops seventy-five enlisted there. Is Third Eye Blind gonna play to 75 people? Maybe in the UAE if someone in the audience is a prince. But not in Afghanistan. No. It isn’t even enough bodies for a great photo opp. But one time, they definitely got entertainment. More than Uncle Sam budgeted for if you ask me.
I’m a helicopter pilot. We transport the higher ups, the visitors, the specialized medics, the fancy folks to where they need to be in a timely fashion. If I do my job right, and I do, I’m not noticed. The general doesn’t step off the helicopter and do the just off the helicopter raised voice barking out “how bout that perky pilot, what a gem!!!!!”. The general just reads their papers, keeps their earplugs in and makes the meeting with time to spare. I’m not part of the conversation. I keep us as safe as can be and I get them where they need to go. I’ve had famous people, people you see on CNN, in my helicopter. I’ve exchanged a kind word with a dignitary a time or two but mostly. . .mostly just point A point B stuff.
The difference all happened at Point B, Khost. Point A, Kabul, was normal. The itinerary said we were taking the Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleading Squad by helicopter to the Khost province. Weird, right? Weird enough that I looked twice. It’s a small outpost to send a whole ass squad of any kind out there. Let alone a dance group that’s supposed to have thirty five people in total. That’s a production. Granted, no backline, no drumset, no bass amp. They don’t have a band, they don’t even really have a DJ. They’ve got some speakers and they’ve got some outfits. They have a DJ but he has one of those names where you know he’s not really a DJ, he’s with the squad and they let him DJ a bit. DJ Mitch I think. A guy who goes by DJ Mitch never fed his family just spinning records. DJ Mitch probably handled the cheerleaders outfits and sweet talked his way into bringing his laptop. He asked if he could add “show dj” to his e-signature and his boss said “absolutely not”. So it’s a full trip but it’s not like bringing One Eye Blind out there, let alone three. It’s cheerleaders, and I love to be crass, the most valuable asset is filling up those little bucket seats in the helicopter quite nicely.
They’ve got a clipboard lady. Most groups do. The clipboard lady is details oriented. You see a lady with a clipboard and I’d trust her to remember my social security number before I got to the dash. The clipboard lady is not the boss, but she can get you fired. The clipboard lady is not the boss, but she does tell the boss what to do. The clipboard lady from the Philadelphia Eagles cheerleading squad introduced herself and then the whole squad came into the helicopter. I don’t remember the clipboard lady’s name but I remember it felt like a serious name, like Madison or Cynthia or something. DJ Mitch, some random people in sweats and then about twenty-five fine ass cheerleaders nearly tripling the amount of makeup currently on the base. When the cheerleaders come in it is just an absolute parade of a level of physical attractiveness, perfume odors and kind-spiritedness that I had frankly forgotten existed. Sure they are jet-lagged. They are still fine as hell. All of ‘em. Watching a football game back home I might’ve said. . .hmm, I like that one in the third row with the brown hair and the big earrings. No choosing now. No favorites. Just glad to be on a helicopter with a squad of professional cheerleaders. It beats literally everything else I do.
During the load in to the helicopter I hear someone else from the US Military tell clipboard lady that it’s going to be quite a production to get to Khost from Kabul. He doesn’t sugarcoat it. He’s trying to tell clipboard lady that this is not like a domestic flight from Philadelphia to Cleveland. The ride won’t always be smooth. But most importantly, he’s trying to throw all the highlighter he can muster onto the fact that the landing is going to be like nothing these cheerleaders have experienced before.
In a war zone helicopters have to land in a corkscrew. If a helicopter just lands all regular going straight down it’s an easy target. So instead we land in such a way that you are almost guaranteed to live and pretty close to guaranteed you are going to vomit out whatever came in last on your maiden corkscrew. Now look, there’s no amount of coaching for clipboard lady that is going to prevent her from puking when the helicopter starts the corkscrew. She pukes or she doesn’t. Same goes for all these gorgeous smelling cheerleaders. But there is some moral obligation to tell someone they’re almost definitely going to puke in a matter of hours. And of course there is preparation. If you think you’re going to puke you’ll grab a towel, a bag, maybe take off your show clothes. I say this all now to say that the US Military gave these cheerleaders some opportunity to be really prepared to puke. They didn’t take it. Was that poor training, poor communication? Perhaps it was an abiding sense that the entire squad of Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders couldn’t all blow chunks in Afghanistan because it seems too bad to be true.
The real kicker was it proved to be a really peaceful trip. I’m not saying you’d mistake the conditions for business clas on Delta, but it was comparatively mellow. Not choppy. I think that lured clipboard lady and her charges into a false sense of security. A lot of headphones. A lot of selfies. A lot of small talk. A lot of reapplying makeup. Is it really going to turn into the Pie-Eating-Contest from Stand By Me when we approach the site? Not likely. So, yes, my co-pilot warns them: “we are heading into a corkscrew for our landing, be prepared for serious turbulence but don’t worry”. They didn’t worry. They didn’t steel themselves. They didn’t brace themselves. They kept on talking.
I know how to do a corkscrew. I’m not going to put any extra English on it for these cheerleaders. I do what I’m supposed to do and I do it right. This was a textbook corkscrew. Simple as that. And the first swings go well. Even with the cockpit dividing us I can hear the moment when the cheerleaders realize this is going to be a unique experience. It’s the sigh/scream/hold breath combo that perfectly communicates “oh fuck”. The next swing is a bit worse. From my vantage point I just hear the distant hum of confused and irritated people. The next swing is worse still. And then a pause. I can’t corkscrew quite yet, don’t have the angle. They think it’s over. And maybe that’s on me. Maybe that eased them into a false sense of security. That sense did not last long. They were quickly ushered into a very real sense of sickness. I heard polite moaning. It’s not a noise I bet you hear that often. But as a helicopter pilot you can hear people who are both thinking their entire intestine is about to pour out of their throat and thinking that they don’t want to be rude.
Polite moaning is always followed by discreet coughing and then about 65% of the time large vomming. The vomiting wasn’t unanimous. A solid two thirds of the cheerleaders were just fine. DJ Mitch was fine, headphones already balancing atop his shitty haircut ready to wow the very small assembled crowd at Khost. DJ Mitch and his steel constitution were ready to go. But that one third of the Philadelphia Eagles and clipboard lady were puking enough for everyone else. Not good. The kind of puking where you don’t see the reason in cleaning up anything until it’s all over. The cabin is getting hosed down. There are things that will be thrown away. The cabin will be hosed down ASAP. The cabin will be hosed down before DJ Mitch plugs his $900 laptop into the speakers they brought. I should not be laughing. I am laughing. My co-pilot is laughing. It’s quiet laughing, it’s looking at each other and trying not to laugh. But it’s just so much vomit. And when the actual skin turns gray the makeup looks all wrong. The crew is passing tissues, towels, waters. Clipboard lady has ceded any role of leadership. She’s in vom city and she won’t be managing a god damn thing until she’s a little cleaned up. Some ladies look like zombies, some look like cheerleaders who just puked.
Outside of the helicopter it’s a small crowd out there. Maybe 55 guys. A couple of them have brought Eagles jerseys with them. The odds of that all working out are hard to fathom. The odds of an Eagles jersey soon having vomit on it seem quite probable though. Tissues, bottled waters. Everyone is apologizing to everyone. I’m not. I flew the corkscrew. I followed orders. If that spells a gastrointestinal disaster for a squad of entertainers from the NFC that’s beyond me. DJ Mitch is the most show-most-go-on motherfucker I have ever witnessed. Talks to the staff, finds the electricity, is setting everything up in rapid speed. He’s passing out business cards like any cares about DJ Mitch. Hey Mitch? It’s gonna take these ladies a little while to get ready. You don’t have to do all that. The team in Khost gets the ladies to a latrine area. They clean up. They apologize. The sergeant from Khost apologizes. I don’t apologize. I flew the corkscrew. What exactly am I supposed to apologize about?
Me and the co-pilot and a couple of the other crew hose down the cabin. It’s easy. Ultimately it sounded worse than it was. But it did sound like death. It sounded like some Black Plague b-roll. But, we get the helicopter in working order. I look over at the stage. DJ Mitch has been playing jock jams for the last twenty minutes trying to get a group of soldiers who want to see cheerleaders to get excited about the latest single from Rick Ross. It isn’t working. DJ Mitch is the opposite of the MVP. I silently implore Mitch to read the room.
The clipboard lady walks out on the stage. She’s not holding the clipboard anymore and frankly she cleaned up well. She doesn’t look like she just threw up but she sure did. Mitch doesn’t even fade the music down right. It’s hard to hear her at first and then I just hear “Hello, hello, sorry for the delay soldiers! Do ya’ll know what a corkscrew landing is?”