It’s Important to have Heroes
Being an afternoon radio host and music director for a jazz station is a weird job to actually have. I love it, I’m having some of the best professional years of my life right now. But you can spend some time speaking into a microphone thinking “what the hell am I doing?” “are people just going to just listen to Spotify” “do I even listen to the DJ when I’m driving around” “what’s the smartest thing to say about Bob Mintzer” “what will keep people listening”. It’s a lot. Early on in my career I was meeting with my friend Lindsay Kimball, who at the time was the Assistant Program Director at the Current. She was explaining that your average radio DJ has to be convinced that what they do on the mic will keep people listening for longer, enjoying more, donating more, connecting more than some other joe doing the same. That is to say: you have to have a pretty unjustifiable confidence in your own awesomeness. Ask my wife and she’ll tell you that I got that. But, realistically, I think I’m actually pretty well-grounded, not unjustifiably confident in my own awesomess. Nigh! (is that how you use nigh?) I am justifiably confident in my awesomeness. But an important way to bolster and interrogate that confidence is to engage with people in a similar craft who you think are wildly good at what they do. One reason I can envision the path to being great at DJing is by listening to people who I think are on that path and further along it than I. It lets you think in more external ways about how to be great, how to do excellent work as opposed to focusing internally with questions like “why aren’t I great?” “am I great” “this work is excellent right?” “do others think this work is excellent”.
You’re trying to be a great runner, you got to have a couple people who when you watch them run, you can’t believe it. In radio, it’s important have people where when you hear their work your mind reels from the creativity, the effort, the mastery. It’s good to have heroes who are working in a similar space to you. Today I got to spend some listening time with one of those heroes who I haven’t had the chance to listen to lately.
I took the day off from Jazz88 today. I hosted a Spelling Bee for Reading Partners instead. A day off is almost always a treat and I got to do some cool things, training session at the Y, cleaning session at the house, a long lunch of chicken wings with my best friend Martin Devaney and I got to pick up the kids from school and daycare, something that Rachel has to do 5 days a week because of my work schedule. That was all great, but I really big highlight was getting to have enough time to really listen to some radio. I listen to Jazz88, The Current, KMOJ, Radio K, WBGO, KEXP, WWOZ, KQRS and a handful of others. But, I need my ears for my job a lot. I’m listening to music at work. I often listen to podcasts on walks. Sometimes after a long ass shift of playing music I want to listen to something with more talking in it, like a podcast. So, I don’t get to listen to the amount of radio that I want to. But most notably, I don’t get to listen to Larry Mizell Jr. who does the Afternoon Show on KEXP. I pulled up his show from April 20 cause Larry does OG Thursdays and dives into a different record, I also want to see how weed-centric his Seattle broadcast would be. You can listen to this radio show (not forever, but for the next couple weeks) right here.
The show was an absolute joy. He was diving deep into “We Got it From Here. . .Thank You 4 Your Service” from A Tribe Called Quest. What I heard was a show full of preparation, full of audio from other interviews and radio shows (which radio people to seem to call “actualities” but I don’t hear that word used anywhere else). Larry pulled out the source material for a bunch of the songs from the album, told tales, casually snuck in a tremendous deep knowledge of A Tribe Called Quest and their tributaries and he played Keep it Thoro by Prodigy, one of the greatest hip-hop songs of all time. I loved the songs, I loved the conversation, I loved the company. When you hear a DJ liked Larry Mizell Jr. it’s laughable to think that our careers as DJs are in danger because of the advent of AI DJs. First off, if you love an AI DJ you’re a punk. Listen to songs, let the algorithm pick for you, cool. But ask the algorithm to say some shit in between songs? GTFO. But what Larry, and what all the best DJs on planet Earth are doing is imbuing a personal intimacy and companionship to something as breathtaking as the greatest music on planet Earth. To hear Larry bringing that music back into my ears, in a new format, with his touches, with his comments, with his preferences coming through loud and clear. A couple left turns along the way that seem to come strictly from his soul and his muse, not from market research on what sounds right next to an ATCQ deep dive. A long solo rendition of “Bennie and the Jets” by Elton John sitting next to “Super Rich Kids” by Frank Ocean which samples the famous rendition of “Bennie and the Jets”.
Today I got that thing that you need, to get pushed to go harder. Listening to Larry Mizell Jr.’s show today I thought about the hundreds of things I need to get going to keep on doing my job at a high level. It’s a powerful thing to get that jolt of energy. I want to deliver amazing radio, things people will remember, things that people will enjoy with their family and their friends. In my previous blog post I was just talking about a moment hearing De La Soul on KMOJ a solid 25 years ago, I remember it, I remember the energy. I remember where I was. I want to make those memories. Today I got rejuvenated on that journey by hearing a really stellar show from Larry Mizell Jr. Congrats to Larry and the show producer Sharlese. Find a hero, study them, enjoy it, and let it drive you to go harder.
Buhloone Mindstate is my favorite De La Record
I’ve been spending a lot of time with the De La Soul catalog since it became available on streaming in early March. I have only ever had two favorite De La records, Buhloone Mindstate and Stakes is High. Why not Three Feet High and Rising? I came late to that one. It never got the spins. Why not De La Soul is Dead? That was my brother’s record. I didn’t quite get it. I never fell in with the skits, I think I wasn’t ready for the artistry when I first tried it. By the time I came back to it, I was already in love with Buhloone Mindstate. When Stakes is High came out I was ready to give away Buhloone Mindstate. I was 100% in with Stakes is High when it came out. Stakes is High is arguably the greatest hip-hop song of all time, it’s for sure on my list, might be number one. The Bizness with Common is everything I want in a hip-hop song. I remember listening to KMOJ in high school while driving in Bill Caperton’s Ford Tempo and that song coming on and I’m hard pressed to remember a better feeling to Bill cranking up the volume and driving down Summit Ave. I mean it was great when my daughters were born, but have you heard the song “The Bizness” cut up on a legendary station, presumably by a legendary DJ like Brother Jules?? Let’s listen.
But Stakes is High is 68 minutes. Buhloone Mindstate is 48 minutes and those 20 minutes matter. There’s some meandering, there’s some mini-duds. There’s a couple major key synth jams that kind of blend together. It’s still incredible, it’s a joy to listen to. But Buhloone Mindstate has incredible pacing, even though there are fewer standalone gems to help it keep pace. This is one of those records where the sum is so good, you even love it in parts. It is also a record where Maseo, the DJ for De La, makes more of a difference. He works in cuts in masterful and pertinent ways. Also, the Buhloone Mindstate breathes, to me it’s a wildly organic sounding record. There’s a couple live musicians on it, shout out to Maceo Parker, Bill Stewart and Larry Goldings on this one. Two weird things about this album: I can’t tell you why but it seems like Trugoy talks A SHIT TON about Chatanooga. He calls himself the Chatanooga champ. I don’t know if he has some connection to that city or area that I don’t know about. Also, it seems that Posdnous talks all the time on the album about wearing a condom, about regretting not wearing a condom. There’s no songs where that is front and center but if he doesn’t work that shit into like 25% of the songs.
As you know, this website is very popular, you are on a popular blog. I’m writing about De La Soul because I think more people should listen to De La Soul. There is something so ARTISINAL about De La Soul. Everything sounds so. . .crafted. I love modern hip-hop, love it love it love it, but I’m not always hearing that craft hellbent on telling a story of collage. Collage of samples but also of voices, of references, of sonics. I always love that the Native Tongues would go to the trouble of getting someone from another crew to show up on a song just for a hook. It’s a lot of work to get someone in to the studio and not even deliver a verse. But to me it’s this proof that there was a willingness to seek out a distinct sonic edge for any single millisecond of the album. There’s a priority to bringing in the perfect voice, perfect snare hit, perfect scratch and budgets, sample clearances and engineer sanity be damned.
Go listen to De La Soul. Start with Buhloone Mindstate and tell me what you think.
My Five Step Guide to Hang City
I popped on Ezra Klein’s podcast to hear about the importance of “Hangin’ Out” and the loneliness epidemic. We, as a country, are getting lonelier. I, as a father am rallying against loneliness. This not only feels right to me, but it seems like science is starting to lineup behind me. Getting together with people, sharing conversations, some hijinks. It’s good for you. It’s good for your body, for your mind, for the planet. I struggle with plenty of things relating to my health. But I find my way to hanging out. It does take work, maybe not the same work as a gym, but work all the same. This podcast seemed to embrace a bit of that premise, making good hangs take effort. And that process takes so much more effort once you have children. Once you have children you are basically spending some kind of money, literal or transactional anytime you’re involved in a hang that doesn’t involve your children. Maybe it’s a babysitter, maybe it’s your spouse watching the kids, but somehow or another, the time you get to spend with your friends free of much of an agenda. . .it is limited, it is costly, it is protracted.
But I think the problem is that many of my agemates and fellow parents are toiling in the worst part of hang-out-valley. When you are valiantly trying to conjure each hang from fresh cloth, a new location, a new day of the week, a new set of variables —-you put in a lot of effort for something too elusive already. The way to curve “the hang” towards easy-to-execute is simple, just follow my five steps to hang city:
Cast a Wide Net - Dessa used to have a good line about the music business—it’s got a lot more in common with trapping than with hunting. Plant a bunch of seeds and see what comes to you. Instead of banking on that one friend who is a little flaky, fortify your crew with some ancillary invites. In the same way you’ll never know who exactly you’ll fall in love with, you don’t know exactly who you’ll fall in friend with. Your friend might not actually be the person you work with, it might be that person’s brother, it might be one more degree of separation from your friends. Cast that wide net, know that a bunch of the invites might get lip service but no real attendance, but if that net is wide, you’re still making those friends.
Limit the Variables - In mid-life friendship world you need to limit, not nullify, but limit the variables. If you and your friend like drinking coffee. . .drink coffee most everytime. Watching basketball? Grab the remote. Neighborhood walks? Lace the shoes. This doesn’t mean you can’t switch it up, but you have a NORM to deviate from. That’s the move.
Don’t be the Phoenix Suns of the Aughts - The going wisdom of hanging out is that no one actually wants to do it. Everyone is overwhelmed, they need to put some more work in on their dayjob tonight, the kids have games all day, the in-laws come soon and the spouse wants to stay home and clean the house. These excuses are all true, but the fundamental guess is wrong. Nobody can hang out and EVERYBODY wants to hang out. There are even podcasts about it. The Phoenix Suns had about 65% of the idea of the current era of basketball about six years early. They ran fast, they chucked up a “bunch of threes” and didn’t always have a big man. The problem is that the magic of the modern game actually reveals itself when you are doing closer to 100% of the idea. What used to pass for a bunch of threes from the Suns is paltry by today’s standards. Since the Phoenix Suns results of the D’Antoni/Nash experiment weren’t decisive, and they didn’t win any titles, it was easy to think that the problem was going too far with the run-and-gun style. The retrospective ruling by some basketball thinkers I respect is that it wasn’t going far enough. Your friends want to hang out. Everyone thinks it was better when we hung out more. Why do we always talk about those times? Why do we look back to the roommate era? To the “I’ll see somebody I know era”? To the “they’re playing again tomorrow, should we come back again?” era? WE ARE NOT GOING BACK TO THAT ERA. Can’t, can’t swing it, we legit do have kids, you really do have a dayjob. We aren’t going to watch an episode of First Date and roll 15 deep to Green Mill for their cold spinach dip in a cavern of chewy bread. But everyone wishes we were, so you aren’t weird for trying to bring in more of that. When you chuck up a bunch of threes you’re going to see that average dwindle. That’s okay, nothing wrong with that. Look at all the ones you’re making.
Put Yourself in the Other Person’s Position - Have you ever once gotten a text inviting you to a friend hang and thought “man, that guy is an asshole for sending that”??? No, you haven’t. Cause you are a person who likes hanging out, or at bare ass minimum doesn’t dislike being invited to hang out. You’re happy you got the invite, you’re bummed you can’t go, you hope you can make something happen soon. What you think is what everyone thinks. You aren’t risking much by asking, it’s not rude to ask. Let them say no, who really cares? You got this big ass net. Have you ever honestly gone to someone’s house and gone “holy shit I can’t believe they didn’t clean”?? Sure you have. You definitely would say that about my house but then if you are plugged in right you’d think, I’m cool, my kids are cool, let’s hang. Most people don’t have all the conditions required for a hang that you think they do. And when you find out the people who do have those conditions, pivot or cancel. Do you and do it well.
Be there when you’re there - Get off of your phone when the hang actually happens. Don’t just talk to your kid at the playdate, she doesn’t want to talk to you that much. Talk to the mommies and the daddys, find out what folks are in to. These folks miss their dumb years with roommates, with impromptu road trips to Duluth. . .and even though you won’t be able to get all of that back, it will actually sometimes be easier to find that youthful capriciousness with a new person in your life rather than the folks you actually cooked your 20s with.
Boom, that’s how you develop a healthy social life in five easy steps. No just kidding, there’s a lot more to it. I think the folks who are facing serious bouts of loneliness aren’t one cheeky blog post away from finding a different rhythm. But the thing is, we are all on continuums of loneliness. And if this little blog post hits you right and turns you from a hang once a month person into a three times a month person, you are probably helping bring one person who is more supremely lonely into the hang once a quarter person. You start spreading the hangs and it gets easier, and it makes your work easier, makes your weekends better. Slowly and also somehow suddenly, you aren’t as quite in the shit, you’ve found a little different rhythm, and you’re shining.
Bill Caperton is in Big Trouble and so am I and I am 42 soon
On the last Saturday of most months Big Trouble plays over at White Squirrel on W 7th in St. Paul. It’s proven to be a really exciting thing. Why is it exciting? Because playing music with friends is exciting. Because I think we are taking it the right amount of serious. What amount is that? It means that we are trying to add new songs, to face new challenges, but we aren’t biting off more than we can chew. And we can’t chew all that much, we are all busy people, and we have to find the venn diagram of music that excites us all some amount. As we keep this monthly residency we will definitely be sliding in some vocalists (and maybe instrumentalists some day?) to “be in Big Trouble”. We’ve had a lot of great singers and rappers from the Twin Cities be in Big Trouble and I’m really excited that Bill Caperton will be the first singer stepping in to the fold to sing with us since the Big Trouble renaissance of late 2022. Do you know Bill Caperton? He’s an amazing singer and songwriter. The song he wrote “I Don’t Know If It’s Helping” is the best song I’ve ever been a part of bringing to life.
So there’s that. At the time Ela was Bill Caperton, Peter Leggett and myself. It’s easily the best rock band I’ve ever been in. And I think it’s partially cause I’m probably a better Bill Caperton bassist than I am a rock bassist. I connect with rock music as a listener, connect with it as a writer, but I don’t always know where I fit in if I’m playing bass. But Bill and Peter were so good about letting each of us fit in in different spaces. To me Ela was our little version of The Police. We didn’t have the same reggae overtones, but there was something singular and imaginative about each song. I don’t think The Police had a blueprint and likewise, I don’t think Ela had a blueprint. What a beautiful thing.
So Bill’s picked out a couple cover tunes and he’s going to sing them on Saturday April 29 between 6-8p. I was already excited to play with Bill but I got to see him sing recently on a solo afternoon gig at the White Squirrel alongside Martin Devaney. It was so rewarding. Bill Caperton has incredible taste in music (it’s between him and my brother for first place in giving me the best music recommendations in my life). Getting to spend an afternoon away from my kids watching Bill deliver these tunes that he was so clearly stretching to play. He wasn’t playing it safe. He had all sorts of lyric sheets, was taking his time to flip the sheets and get the music right. But his people were there. I was there. Rob Skoro was there, Knol Tate was there. We are dads, we don’t come out for much. But if Bill Caperton and Martin Devaney are going to bring some solo energy, we shall be there. It was a reminder that if you’re really about this music thing, you’re going to keep on exploring, keep on challenging, keep on pushing. Bill’s a dad, Bill’s a licensed therapist, Bill’s got a lot going on, but he’s a student of this music thing, he’s a student of it, and I’m really excited to explore these songs with him. The joy of these Big Trouble gigs is that it’s a time for exploration, it’s a laboratory gig, try some things, play some things safe, go get chicken wings afterwards.
And I’m turning 42 on that Friday night (April 28). In many ways it feels like yesterday that I was turning 25 and chatting on stage at The Whole with JG Everest. (this is kind of an arbitrary moment, but I remember thinking “my god I’m old I’m twenty-five). I’ve had so much consistency in life. I met a woman years ago when Heiruspecs played at Grinnell. She was in college. I was in Heiruspecs. Then she was a photographer, and I was in Heiruspecs. Then she was in law school, and I played with Dessa. Then she was some kind of fancy lawyer, and I worked at a radio station. I haven’t spun my gears, I’ve advanced, I’ve adjusted, I’ve pivoted, but I’ve been a music guy for my whole life. Snap shot from twenty-five to now? Seventeen years? I think I have the same tuner. I think I’m the same and I know I’m different. I have children? A wife? I work at a radio station? I’m the music director there? I started a trivia company that is now the biggest in the Midwest and growing? I am still incredibly great friends with Martin Devaney and Kevin Hunt? You and your brother play music together? Your mom passed away? You owned a tricycle? You struggle with shame both giving and receiving? You live in St. Paul? You don’t tour anymore? Your family is Jewish? You cook all the time? Plenty has changed, but there’s some kind of continuum for me. I’ve had pain, I’ve had trying years. But I’ve been on a mission, not a single focus mission, but a mission to make awesome things, to be a part of awesome things. I don’t have the lost years. I haven’t been off that mission for any significant amount of time. That mission to make music that satisfies me, that brings joy to others. To help start event companies like Trivia Mafia to bring people special things to do that improve their life. To be amazing company for people who love amazing music on the radio. To be a loving husband, a caring father, a good neighbor, to have enjoyable hours of time with my family, uninterrupted by work, by music, by stress. To make fat people feel more comfortable, to make me comfortable, to help me love myself. To enjoy my time here. I’m trying to sort and filter out the activities that don’t check any of those boxes. I have a path, I have a code, I know what I like, I am learning what I don’t like. As I round towards 42 I’m largely happy, I love my family, family life is hard, we have a six year old and a three year old, but it’s our family and we’ll get through it. I love my career, I love my job. It’s not perfect, never will be, but I feel like I use the grand majority of the skills I have to do what I do at work. It’s not everyone who can say that. I’m addressing the things I struggle with, I’m not resigning myself to anything terrible, I’m trying to find my way to the great things. Our couples therapist one time critiqued me but I thought she was complimenting me. . .she said “you seem to curate your life to avoid any conflict”. At the time I didn’t see the downside of this. Now I do; if you avoid any conflict you are bound to also avoid tons of joy, tons of connection, tons of intimacy. Conflict is a condition of so many wonderful things. But, for many activities I try to point myself towards the things I love and try to do them well. And I love playing with Bill Caperton.
One of the Greatest Things Martin Devaney Has Ever Done
My best friend is Martin Devaney. He’s a musician, songwriter, a writer, a Minnesota music enthusiast. He’s done a lot of incredible things in his life but I got one from you from his senior/my junior in high school at St. Paul Central. Martin Devaney was applying to go the University of Minnesota and there was a scholarship available with an absolutely genius writing prompt:
Write page 89 of your autobiography
My man, my best friend, my hero Martin Devaney just did something beautiful with this. He opened the essay something like this:
which was fine with me cause I love donuts.
I always just marvel at the creativity of a great opening. And to me, that’s one of the all time greats. I believe the rest of the story was about sitting in with a blues band, maybe even envisioned as a blues band I was a member of. I don’t recall the details, but that’s a hell of an opener.
I’ve been thinking about that lately cause Martin has started writing and editing for the local arts bi-weekly DISPATCH. I’m excited for him, I’m excited for DISPATCH, I’m excited to read the work. The man knows how to do an opening. Congrats on the new gig, I owe you a donut.
There’s a Me
there’s a me before shame
and I don’t know him
don’t know if he plays bass
don’t know if he watches basketball
there’s a me before shame
1981-1986, got a diaper change in the trunk of a Nova,
saw the filament in the light bulb shining,
middle of the day, side of the highway, so sunny
but even an open trunk is dark, and a lightbulb’s job is to shine
there’s a me before shame
I confess i know him in glimpses
I talk to him, cause he’s in here;
The me with shame, the me with children, the me with a job,
the me who plays bass, who watches basketball.
there’s a me after shame
1986-2023, been to every state but Alaska,
asks amazing and only seemingly random questions of every person he meets,
runs through the circle of fourths when he’s trying to focus on something,
loves podcasts, hates harmonica.
there’s a me.
In Defense of the O-Ring and the Restaurant Gig
Hey drummers, remember these?
Man. I haven’t seen an O-ring in forever but they were a big part of the first I’ll say fifteen years of my gigging life. You throw one on a snare and it just tightens things up. Do I know why? Hell no. But whenever I would sit down to a well prepared drum kit to rush off my awkward 16th notes while the drummer grimaced about me borrowing the sticks and messing up the hi-hat clutch I would encounter a well-placed O-ring. Well I went to a gig on Saturday night at Ngon Bistro in St. Paul and the drummer, Eron Woods, was rocking an o-ring and it warmed by heart. It also re-connected me with that world of restaurant gigs. Now restaurant gigs come in many shapes and sizes, this series at Ngon, it’s clearly pretty artist-centric, I didn’t see a maître'd making the round asking the guitarist to turn down to a whisper, that’s for sure. But there’s a majesty to a restaurant gig. No stage, you’re generally just cooking up some instrumental music and it’s for people to enjoy while also enjoying other things: light conversation, food, a laugh with their server, a cocktail after a long day. I remember walking into a restaurant in my hometown of Williamstown to see a jazz quartet playing and I thought it was the coolest thing on Earth. First time seeing a set of vibraphones outside of the band room at Mount Greylock, and seeing these musicians navigate these songs without having discussed every detail. . .it was captivating and harrowing. And I bet that dude had an o-ring back when I saw that. An o-ring is the significant detail of a good restaurant gig.
What is significant detail you ask blog reader? WELL. . .I recently spent some time with my friend Brandon Wimberly. He’s a gifted rapper and producer who has been making his way in the Twin Cities for a decade and change. I had the honor of being his teacher for a handful of semesters at McNally Smith College of Music. We just had some breakfast together and talked significant detail. When I talk to writers I often end up talking about significant detail. It’s that magic when a writer can include some credentializing detail into a fiction or non-fiction piece that tells the reader that the writer has either lived it or has done their homework to the extent that they might as well have read it. Generally writers fail at significant detail by being too on the nose with their description. If you’re going to write a short story about a band on a restaurant gig, don’t write about the maitre’d telling the guitar player to turn down. Write about the drummer grabbing an o-ring, about him asking what the drink ticket is good for every week even though it never changes, write about the guitarist who doesn’t even think about using the restroom til after you’re holding your bass for set two, write about having to tell the manager that the check for the band is under the money tray, write about the speaker stand legs gingerly jutting into the foot space for the table next to the band, write about helping move the heavy ass table so you have room to play, write about borrowing the rug from the entrance cause the drummer forgot one.
The scene at Ngon was great. They’re doing it every Saturday, they have the world’s greatest chicken pho (i refer to the chicken as loose chicken but I feel like that isn’t a description anyone understands, but eat it and tell me you don’t get what I’m saying). I had absolutely amazing egg rolls there on Saturday. I had a great non-alcoholic Negroni and a great alcoholic Summit Winter Ale. And Joel Shapira, Tom Lewis and Eron Woods were playing beautifully, supportively, restaurantively. And that o-ring sounded spectacular. (full disclosure: Ngon has been sponsoring the Radio Happy Hour I’ve been doing at Jazz88). (fuller disclosure: I’ve been supportive of that pho for a lot longer than our relationship together).
Shout out to Adam Booker’s artwork in the back.
You want to talk about some all star moments in significant detail writing? Me too.
Bad Diary Days from Pedro The Lion.
Barely ever fight
She knows that I love her
At first we made it every night
But I don't want to bug her bout it
She just has a funny way of loving me
Pair of ticket stubs in her desk
A movie I'd never seen
I probably shouldn't ask
It sounds so accusing
She must have forgotten to mention girls' night out
The breakfast cereal talked more than we did all day long
I asked her for a walk but she had to be on her way
So I told her I knew she'd been stepping out
She swore that it would not happen again
She swore that she could explain
We both knew her words were in vain
It’s that line, “pair of ticket stubs in her desk”, it just has the vulnerable, anxious, nosy energy of a young man worrying about the distance between him and his girlfriend. It hits so perfect. It tells me so much more about their relationship than the salad of adjectives most writers push off when trying to describe jealousy.
All That I Got Is You from Ghostface Killah
(just the first verse for brevity)
Yo, dwellin' in the past, flashbacks when I was young
Whoever thought that I'd have a baby girl and three sons
I'm goin' through this difficult stage I find it hard to believe
Why my old Earth had so many seeds
But she's an old woman, and due to me I respect that
I saw life for what it's really worth and took a step back
Family ain't family no more, we used to play ball
Eggs after school, eat grits cause we was poor
Grab the pliers for the channel, fix the hanger on the TV
Rockin' each others pants to school wasn't easy
We survived winters, snotty nosed with no coats
We kept it real, but the older brother still had jokes
Sadly, daddy left me at the age of six
I didn't know nothin' but mommy neatly packed his shit
She cried, and grandma held the family down
I guess mommy wasn't strong enough, she just went down
Check it, fifteen of us in a three bedroom apartment
Roaches everywhere, cousins and aunts was there
Four in the bed, two at the foot, two at the head
I didn't like to sleep with Jon-Jon he peed the bed
Seven o'clock, pluckin' roaches out the cereal box
Some shared the same spoon, watchi'n Saturday cartoons
Sugar water was our thing, every meal was no thrill
In the summer, free lunch held us down like steel
And there was days I had to go to Tex house with a note
Stating "Gloria can I borrow some food I'm dead broke"
So embarrasin' I couldn't stand to knock on they door
My friends might be laughin', I spent stamps in stores
Mommy where's the toilet paper, use the newspaper
Look Ms. Rose gave us a couch, she's the neighbor
Things was deep, my whole youth was sharper than cleats
Two brothers with muscular dystrophy, it killed me
But I remember this, mom's would lick her finger tips
To wipe the cold out my eye before school wit her spit
Case worker had her runnin' back to face to face
I caught a case, housin' tried to throw us out of our place
Sometimes I look up at the stars and analyze the sky
And ask myself was I meant to be here, why?
I had to bold up the grab the pliers for the TV line before the pants line, but for me it’s the fact that Ghostface chose to say “wasn’t easy” as opposed to “was hard”. You might act like it makes no difference, but it does. One maintains some pride in the phrase “wasn’t easy”, it’s not quite the confession of hardship that “was hard” was. And even though this entire song is a confession of hardship, it is an anthem of pride, an anthem to loyalty to the people close to you in the face of trying circumstances and those details come through loud and clear.
What a treat. Do you have some favorite significant details? Go f yourself! Just kidding, I actually would like to hear about them, I just thought it would be funny to tell you to go f yourself. My email is s@heiruspecs.com there’s also a “contact me” page on this website and it’s pretty fun cause you have to pick out your favorite kind of chicken to reach me. Give it a try.
An Absolutely Unnecessary Unmasking of Binky Dad from the Kia Ad
You probably watched the Super Bowl. I watched some. Did you see the Binky Dad ad for KIA? I did. Here it is.
Did you see it a couple weeks later while watching the Slam Dunk contest with your wife and your dad and thinking, fuck god dammit I know that actor from somewhere. And all you can think is of the dude kind of standing weird and looking serious. You can’t remember where you know him from but it’s somewhere. You are now ignoring the conversation that your wife and dad are having cause all you can think about is that you have to figure out who the hell that guy is. Than you figure it out. He was that guy that made that hilarious video making fun of a lot of the NPR hosts that went around a couple years ago. Here’s that video.
I feel like mainly I just take and take from the internet and don’t give anything back. How to drill a hole in the wall. How tall is Laura Dern. Is baby corn made from real corn or is it just a clever name? But today, I believe I am sharing a new discovery that I haven’t seen on a website. Let’s call it even internet.
Don’t Maximize Your Rap Album
Years ago I was spending some time with DJ Abilities and Eyedea when they were working on making their record E&A (humble brag). One thing Abilities said during the hang was “one thing I can tell you, there will never be four bars on the record that are the exact same as the four bars right before it. Even if it’s just a little shaker or an extra clap, they’ll be something special”. At the time I half thought it was cool, and half thought was a dumb rule to enforce for a record. What if the perfect thing to have happen in the next four bars of music is exactly the fuck what happened in the four bars prior? All music is built on repetition. Black music is uniquely connected to the magic of repetition. I remember really early in my college career reading this statement about African music which I will now paraphrase: the fourth time a pattern happens is different from the fifth time that pattern happens. Repeating is as much a development as a variation is. It stuck with me. Repeating can be the wrong choice, but it’s a choice, it’s a valid choice. It’s frequently the best choice. A record that arbitrarily decides to add something unique to every four bars is unlikely to be an enjoyable listen. Now actually, that E&A record must have some moments where the beat just rides, and a lot of the record is really enjoyable. Especially this one.
But I think too much of that micro-producing impulse can absolutely derail a project, it can absolutely derail a band, hell, I think it can absolutely derail a scene/genre. And that brings me to what I’m really here to talk about: EARTHGANG.
I bought all the Earthgang stock back in 2018. On March 18, 2018 went to the Entry to see J.I.D. while also catching Vince Staples at the Mainroom (that’s one of the best two for one show hits in Minnesota history). I walked into the Entry during Earthgang’s set and I had no idea who they were (I hadn’t done the necessary homework to realize they were on one of my favorite J.I.D. songs). But anyway, the energy they exuded on stage was absolutely amazing. They were full of energy but not shoving their shit down your throat. They weren’t sacrificing their delivery to be energetic. And suddenly I found myself doing shit I hadn’t done for a band in a long time, I was looking at their website everyday. I was going down the deepest of rabbit holes with them. I was loving their music. I knew they were down with J. Cole who I also loved, but I was getting something from Earthgang in particular that I wasn’t getting from any other rap group. Their newest release in 2018 was an EP called Royalty. This is an amazing EP. This EP seems to relish in the fun of making music. This is some major projecting but I think that Earthgang knew that the big moments of stardom were coming. Soon they’d be signed to Interscope, soon they’d be out on the road opening for Billie Eilish. Soon every song would be an investment, a board meeting, something that required visuals, something where the beat changes every four bars. What I hear on Royalty is the tangible joy of creation without micromanagement. Ever since I started rooting for Earthgang, I started getting disappointed by their output. They are still an incredibly talented crew, but I don’t rock with them like I did. Nowadays on an Earthgang album everything that can be sung is harmonized, every reference is underlined, none of the ad-libs are actually ad-libbed. It all just feels so. . .efficient. I can’t rock with it. I can rock with Royalty and I fear that some of rap is losing that angle. I know my group, Heiruspecs, can easily lose that angle. When we had the most riding on our success, when this band was our livelihood, we still put a song on our record where the outro was ME singing “I am Willy Wonka from the Chocolate Factory, would you like a piece of chocolate taste from me”. (listen at 2:58). There’s something about being young and trying to make each other laugh, trying to make everyone in the studio smile. That’s a good metric, that’s a good way to make magic. You’ll make some stupid shit, but it’s that beautiful inefficiency of lightly produced music. We don’t need to explain every decision, we don’t need to belabor every drum fill. With a comedian, I want to see them take EVERY SINGLE angle of a joke, drain every bit of juice from that fruit. I want the opposite in rap; leave it vague, hint at it, let the potential float there. The undisputed kings of unmaximized rap is De La Soul. And I know that’s wild to say, because it’s well documented how hard Prince Paul and De La worked on those first handful of records. But what stands out to me is a willingness to allow things that are unexplainably dope to make the final cut even though there’s no way to explain their greatness individually, they are just collectively the chunks of a masterpiece. Listen to the song Eye Patch. Let’s do that together.
Weird things about this song:
There’s a chorus but it only happens at the beginning
They just take a nice two measure breather between Posdnous and Dave’s first two verses
Posdnous opens his second verse with a dotted half note of just saying “mmmmmm”
It’s so CRAFTY. So capricious. So inefficient, so unique. So singular. Let’s not lose that shit. For me, Earthgang has lost that, there’s nothing tossed off, there’s nothing improvisatory. It’s all too serious. But let me know play you some of my favorite Earthgang jams.
Weird Things About This Song:
This song features a handful of lyricists trying to explain what factors will go into their decisions regarding purchasing a vehicle.
The intro patiently develops and when the lyrics start, an amazing new guitar part is introduced, unexpected magic
Johnny Venus refers to his house getting robbed in this line “came home, only thing they left us was the ceilings” what a way to say that
I also love the image of selling waters for a dollar and being embarrassed about the prospect of your family finding out
Doctor Dot’s verse is perfection. His exploration about buying a car involves wanting to measure up better against compared to one of his relatives. It’s a simple feeling, it’s relatable, but he delivers it with so much specificity and craftiness.
Weird things about this song:
It’s just one thing, it’s the space Doctur Dot spans across two short verses. It comes off as so loose, so stream of consciousness. Clearly this is a very talented rapper but this sounds like someone who has developed the technical facility to make it sound like it’s second nature. In verse two he is cataloging a set of anonymous sexual adventures with women on the road and then just juts over to a tale of a close friend dying in a hospital. It doesn’t work on paper. But listen, it works. It can’t be edited, it can’t be double tracked, it can’t be workshopped. It just must be.
Weird Things About this Song:
What the hell is happening with the keyboard? It sounds like the keyboard is the sound of someone writing a keyboard part in real time. That’s what makes it so amazing, it sounds so curious and responsive. I don’t believe it ever really loops up, I believe it’s mostly performed live, with such a great interplay to the lyrics.
The first verse from Doctur Dot is utter joy, the bouncing of the lyrics with the reference to J.I.D. and Weezy. It’s that friendly reminder that rapping over a beat can be unimaginably fun. And to close a verse with this “hands free, don’t say shit to me about the penmanship, had the backwoods rolled before I finished this, still it’s this”
Also a great “how bout we put the bassline through a flanger before the outro cause why not”
Closing thoughts: Don’t let rap get perfect! Don’t let rap get micromanaged! Keep the slack, keep the skits, make the masterpieces, don’t utilize every opportunity, throw in some surprises, throw in something that doesn’t make sense until it does, let a groove loop for a long ass time sometimes.
Celebrating My One Year at Jazz88
It’s hard to believe that just a year ago I came into the studios of Jazz88 to start hosting the Afternoon Cruise and being the Music Director. It’s been a really rewarding year, I’ve really dug into the work. That work includes trying to be a really engaging, curious and gracious host every afternoon. I also have been trying to make connections with Minnesota musicians and celebrate the incredible work that is happening here already. I also want to make authentic connections with national artists, both well-known artists and up-and-comers. From my years as a professional musician, I know what it means for a radio station to stick their neck out and get behind a young artist. I know what it means for audience connection, ticket sales, record sales. It can lay down the foundation for a metro area to be an important part of your strategy. Also, as a listener I know what it’s like when you hear a radio station just lean into an artist, support ‘em, develop ‘em, believe in ‘em. It’s all magical and I want to be a part of that. This year I’m going to give myself the letter grade of an A. That’s certainly not because I’ve done everything perfectly, far from it. There was a day where we played Stacey Kent pretty much every hour cause I didn’t know how to program music. I’ve struggled left and right, but across the year I can hear improvements in my own DJing and in the programming of the station. There are plenty of metrics to measure success in any profession, and in radio ratings are certainly part of that equation. Ratings are fickle, and ratings are often too blunt of a measurement to give a station vital information for what is working. BUT, all that aside, WE HAD AN ABSOLUTELY BANNER MONTH AT JAZZ88. Our station is at a record high 2.9. You can read more about it here from our Program Director, Travis Ryder. You can check the public ratings here. It’s really inspiring. More people are listening. People who do listen are listening for longer. And the feedback I get from listeners, from musicians, from randos at the grocery store: it’s positive, it’s enthusiastic, it drives me to keep going. Great radio makes a difference, busting your ass to make a cool sounding afternoon can make a difference. It’s awesome. I’m really happy to be here, and I’m really happy we’re thriving. I’m going to raise a glass tonight and smile with my friends. It’s a good night. Happy Friday.
The sexy author, March 24, 2022.
The sexier author, now the Music Director of the highest rated Jazz Station in America, March 24, 2023.
Embrace the Majesty of Big Trouble’s Instrumental Stylings
Enjoy your Saturday with world class instrumental music in the heart of St. Paul. I said it, world class. I’m the bass player in Big Trouble and we sound excellent. Don’t believe me? Come out and check. It’s Free99 to find out. Let’s do this. Swing by between 6 and 8pm this Saturday.
It’s a guitar, but with a flyer on it.
How Topless Volleyball’s Failure Was the Music Scene’s Win
Hands down the best blog title I will ever write.
So listen, I was sitting with a dude named Brad Davies who is a booster for the Blues Saloon on Rice. Brad knows a lot about the history of blues and live music in general in the Twin Cities. He remembers the era of the Blues Saloon on Western with national name talent rolling through damn near every weekend. I bet Brad has a couple dog-eared copies of the Twin Cities Blues News. I bet Brad would shit a brick to know that I auditioned but didn’t get the gig to play with Renee Austin back when I was a young buck in high school.
But anywho, on set break at Blues Saloon Brad is spinning yarns about blues of yesteryear and he drops a couple unverified facts on me that blow my entire brain all the way off. First off, he points out that some portion of the Blues Saloon (aka Club Cancun) is just two train cars put together. This is actually kind of common, but I had never noticed it before at this particular venue. From there the conversation got wildly juicy.
SEAN: Alright Brad, traincars turned into bars, you’ve got my attention. What’s next?
BRAD: Well Sean - this place, and many other bars expanded in the early 1980s in order to make room for an indoor volleyball court.
SEAN: WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT BRAD?
BRAD: Back in the day St. Paul used to be chock full of strip clubs, do you remember any of that?
SEAN: Yeah, the Payne Reliever, the Lamplighter, I remember these names from high school.
BRAD: In the late 70s it was even more and somehow a bunch of bar owners convinced the city to give the blessing to greenlight topless volleyball as a way to drum up more business for the bars.
SEAN: Shut your mouth Brad this is absolutely insane, are you messing with me?
BRAD: Hand to God, topless volleyball.
SEAN:
BRAD: So anyway, the city changes their mind very close to the launch date. Like these bars had poured concrete, built walls, built viewing areas. (Brad motions up towards what I now realize is a volleyball sized dance floor and shows the viewing areas on the higher floors). They flail for awhile, they get the green light for wet t-shirt volleyball but it’s not drawing crowds. At least not the way they thought topless volleyball was gonna.
SEAN: Did they try foxy boxing?
BRAD:
BRAD: Foxy what?
SEAN: Nothing. Go on.
BRAD: So anyway, a couple spots, The Blues Saloon and Saint Paul Music Cafe most notably, make a pivot, they decide on bringing in music, they got to do something with the space.
SEAN: Are you messing with me?
BRAD: Hand to God, had to do something with the space.
SEAN: So you’re telling me that two primary music venues in St. Paul exist because of the downfall of topless volleyball.
BRAD: That is what I’m saying.
This is unbelievable. I can’t tell you this is 100% true, if you know anything about this, please email, I am so unbelievably curious to find out about this topless chapter in my city’s history.
What Are Your Values?
You think you had a bad day? I clogged my therapist’s toilet at 8:33am, our appointment was at 8:30. This was a water flooding all over the bathroom situation. This was a “it’s leaking in the basement” situation. Did they have a mop? No. Did we use a roll of paper towel? Yes. Did we use most of another role of paper towel? Yes. Do I like my therapist? Yes. But that was some stressful shit for all of us. Also, let the record show, as per usual, the culprit was the toilet paper, the main event went down just fine. Do I think it’s reasonable to have a therapist and her client tear through two rolls of bounty and move Ikea furniture to dry land together only to have her ask. . .”so how are you doing?”. No, I don’t. I feel like she should’ve asked “are you gonna get another therapist on the side to deal with this whole situation”.
Okay, I got my jokes off. Frankly, it wasn’t all that stressful, I can laugh about it. My work in therapy and with my nutritionist right now is trying to remove shame from page one of my values and techniques for understanding the world. I don’t know why shame has been so big to me. I know it has to do with my childhood. I know it has to do with shame that my parents put on themselves and escorted right down into my brain. I thought shame was what kept me from being an utter bag of shit. Like I thought that three months ago, or even two months ago. I thought it was shame that had me practice before a show, I thought it would be shame that would help the musicians in my sphere play better. I have doled out shame to every girlfriend, every bandmate and most every friend in my life. And I’ve given myself more shame than anyone else. I thought fame was the only thing that would do the trick, it was the voice of reason against my indulgent, lazy, hedonistic punk ass self. There is really no connection between these feelings and my reality. But, reality is not the only measure. These feelings aren’t the only option I have to go through life. Some years ago I realized I wouldn’t wish shame on anyone else, and with MAJOR exceptions I stopped putting that shame shit onto other people. But I kept it for myself, I kept it inside cause I thought it was the only thing keeping me on the straight and narrow.
Now I’m in the process of accepting that I might just be alright. Accepting that I might mostly do the right things, eat the right things, say the right things to friends, treat my kids good, be a good bandmate, be a good husband, be good at exercise. That I might not need to wagging finger of self-shame to scare me away from the allure of being a gaping asshole. With my nutritionist a lot of this involves working on intuitive eating. Intuitive eating involves trusting you and your body to seek out what is best for it. This was challenging for me to believe in, I’m a person who believes in rules. But I don’t believe that 35 years of being told I was eating the wrong thing by professionals, by society and sometimes by my family have been good for me. My mom didn’t herself to eat right, and she definitely didn’t trust me to do so. And I lived up to that. But maybe I never got to listen. I never opened that channel of communication about what my body needed before it got polluted with the thoughts of others.
Today we worked on writing down the values that mattered to me. I wrote down 17. I had to slowly cross them off until I was left with four. It was stressful, but it was illuminating. What is really at my core? What do I value? My therapist thinks that ranking, naming and referencing my values will help me. And I agree. It’s exciting and stressful to do this work. It’s also hard to do this work. Doing external homework is one thing: learn this chart, complete this form. It’s different when the work is looking inward, but it’s pretty amazing. I try to share a little bit about my therapy journey on this blog so that folks who are therapy curious might find their way to some therapy. If that’s you, awesome. If that’s not you, I hope you enjoy hearing about my journey.
Playing a Blues Gig on Friday OMFG
The first music I really played was blues. My brother was into blues. He was in a blues band. Ergo, I played the blues. BUT I LOVED IT. I loved the rhythm of it, the combination of observable forms with improvisation on top of it. I loved the sassiness, the braggadocio, the vulnerability. Blues is a wildly dynamic music, with all the emotions of life being pulled into the stew. And the lyrics often exude a specificity and accuracy that is only trumped by the specificity and accuracy of hip-hop lyrics. BUT, we don’t have to choose. We can love hip-hop and we can love the blues. So I knew that when I moved on from the Current and started to have my Saturday nights free I’d start to try to get more connected with the blues community. I also knew that would be a good idea for my work at Jazz88. We have 12 Hours of the Blues and we would be well-suited to be more connected to the incredible community of blues players in Minnesota. We have a good scene here, but it is sorely under-celebrated by non-blues enthusiasts. TACK ON TO ALL OF THAT the fact that my friend Erick Anderson, Afrokeys, has been sitting in on the regular jam session over at the Blues Saloon on Tuesdays. TLDR: I’m trying to get into the blues scene here in Minnesota.
To that end, I have the opportunity to play some blues on Friday night over at the Blues Saloon and I’m overjoyed with the opportunity. I’m working with a bunch of great vocalists and players who I didn’t know too well at all before the gig. I have been supportive of Annie Mack’s music in the past, and I’m connected a bit with Bambi Alexander, but other than that, I hadn’t met any of them. That’s a friendly reminder that this scene is full of world class players that you happen to not know. You might be shopping for groceries next to Robert King, the drummer. Robert can bury the kick and snare inside of 16th note hi-hats in this 70s Al Green recordings way that I’ve never played with before. OMFG, it felt great. And Andrew Guerin, the guitar player, monster talent. He did a thing on the Betty Lavette tune where he kept a drone going on every note of his solo. It sounded like a record. (by having your own blog you can basically review your own bands, what an idea). So, come on down and watch me play some blues on Friday, it’s going to be great.
I Had the Best Muffin of My Life
I used to live across from the Minnesota Historical Society and I used to enjoy drinking on weekdays. This would often result in me booking ass to my gig at McNally Smith on foot bright and early in the morning. But I didn’t feel bright and I certainly wasn’t early. I was a man in need of a muffin. The muffin of choice was at the Minnesota Historical Society. The pistachio muffin was crusty, nutty, with actual pistachios involved, and the coffee was stellar. Get one of those going while you hit the steps by St. Joe’s hospital and by the time I got to McNally I was ready to work on promoting Heiruspecs at my desk! What a treat.
But that has given me a lifelong affair with pistachio muffins. After Minnesota Historical Society switched food vendors I had to scratch my issue with only okay pistachio muffins from Dunn Brothers. They’re green, they taste a bit like pistachios and they’re usually available. But they have no actual pistachio action, and they are kind of disproportionate. You get a lot of muffin bottom and not much muffin top. Solid, but a B at best.
Flash forward to late 2022. I start filing away the CDs for Jazz88 in a storage area of North High in Minneapolis. The radio station had already located to St. Louis Park, so I’m sneaking out of our studios usually once every two weeks to put in 3-4 hours of filing. Generally I was getting through about three letters of the alphabet a time. And pretty much every time I finished up a shift I’d stop at Cuppa Java in Bryn Mawr for a god damn pistachio muffin. Love a coffee shop reward after a job done decently. Also shout out to Alexei Casselle aka Crescent Moon. Whenever I am in Bryn Mawr I think of him, he’s basically the only person I know from there, and his childhood home is maybe three hundred steps from this soon to be discovered majestic muffin. Now listen, I didn’t expect there to be pistachio muffins there, this coffee shop is basically just exactly halfway between North High and iHeart where we currently have our offices. Now once or twice they didn’t have pistachio muffins, and once I wanted an egg salad sandwich. But I’ve probably gotten 5 of these muffins. What makes them good? They are moist with pistachio oil or some other kind of oil thing. But it’s not overbearing. So these muffins have all been excellent. Thank you Cuppa Java. But, I’m in line the other day in need of true muffin satisfaction. Probably 11:20 on a Wednesday, the food I’ve got with me is to be eaten circa 4pm during my afternoon shift. I needed that muffin satisfaction. Waiting in line on this particular day I didn’t see the subtle green tint emanating from any of the pastries they were hawking. But when I got to the front I sheepishly asked if they had pistachio muffins already starting to tell myself that the egg salad sandwich would suffice. When this tall “I bought a coffee shop in my forties” looking man sauntered back and brought out a muffin I could already tell it was hot. Just the way he was holding it. He asked “do you want a bag” to which I wanted to say “I am going to eat in the alley and then probably tear the wrapping into small pieces and try and digest it”. Instead I said, “no”. This was the best muffin of my life. It’s all down here from here and I’m totally okay with that.
Actual Fat People in Ads for Large Clothes, Excellent Choice Universe
Growing up they didn’t even let fat people model clothes designed exclusively for fat people. The Big and Tall catalog always leaned real heavy on the “Tall” part of that equation. It’s not that way anymore. I had to buy some new gym shorts and swim trunks after some poorly executed gym runs and the gentlemen in my feed are all legit big, not big boned, but fat. And they are looking good. And they are selling me clothes. I also buy clothes monthly from a place called Winston Box and I get nice gear that I like and my wife likes too. Sometimes it’s important for fat people to see fat people looking fucking awesome. It’s not the same, but it comes from the same family of the joy I hear Black people talk about when they see Black people looking great, living their best life and being excellent on social media or elsewhere. And if you need a feed of fat people looking great, check out this list my nutritionist gave me. I’ve definitely stolen some fashion choices from this crew. I hope that the pseudo fat people that used to be in my ads can go sell clothes to pseudo fat customers.
2pm on a Wednesday and Check Your Ratios
You have to decide how awesome your job is at some point. I’m coming up on a one year anniversary here at Jazz88 and I’m feeling pretty darn good about how things are doing. I’ve basically only had cool jobs in my life. Even my jobs that weren’t “cool” taught me a ton. Let’s go over them. Babysitter, sold baseball cards at the State Fair, sold CDs at Applause and Cheapo, played bass at blues clubs, entered data for Minnesota Department of Health, gift shop employee at Mass MoCa, made salads at Bennington College cafeteria*, worked the door at the 400 Bar, played bass and ran the band Heiruspecs, worked at group homes for boys and men with autism, did observed parenting sessions for parents with limited custodial rights, worked for a lady who wrote ad copy for awhile, Executive Assistant to the President of McNally Smith College of Music, taught at McNally, ran a Trivia company (still co-own it), played bass for Dessa, hosted at the Current, hosted and music directed at Jazz88. I’m sure I missed plenty of things that I made some money at, but I think that is most of my jobs. Here are some ways to measure how cool your job is:
Wednesday at 2pm test
Don’t think about how you describe your job at fancy dinner parties, think about what you’re doing at 2pm on a Wednesday. That’s one of the ways in which I feel I currently have the best job of my career. At 2pm most Wednesdays I am preparing music for future days on Jazz88 by programming music into our database, selecting music from that database or researching music to determine if it will be added into our database. All that work is amazing. Being a touring musician is great, the hours on stage are some of the greatest hours I will ever have in my entire life. But at 2pm sometimes you are staring at the back of your leader’s head in a van with one speaker, but that speaker isn’t even turned on, because your leader is having a long ass conversation with someone from her management team about something that might impact the next 6 months of your life schedule and money wise but you have to pretend like you aren’t listening cause it would be eavesdropping. So make sure your 2pm on a Wednesday or another spot check time is legit.
The Ratio
This dovetails right next into my new rubric for determining how cool a job is. How about you rate how cool what you are doing is across the hours of your job and figure out what the sum total of that across a week is. I feel that every hour I am on the air, sharing amazing music, communicating with an audience about jazz, the worst that can be on a scale of 1-10 is a 6. I’ve never never felt worse than a 6 while getting to be live on the radio. Running a trivia company sounds cool, but a huge amount of the hours I was feverishly trying to find people to run trivia that night, trying to get punk ass bar owners to pay their bills, trying to come up with another question about a word that rhymed with a state. It was a lot. And it was often solitary. I did a lot of work from home or from places that were empty. I am an office guy, I like to see people at work, I couldn’t take a work from home gig. I don’t even think I could take a work from home two days a week job. I like coming into work and shooting the shit. I’d say any hour at the office that isn’t in a meeting, can’t be lower than maybe a 3. Like I’ve never been sitting at my desk at an office or a radio station thinking “this is the absolute worst plane of existence”. Naw. Never that. Touring, what a strange ratio. A couple of the hours on tour are the absolute greatest hours of your life. I remember being in California, lightly drunk, driving in Doomtree’s van, listening to Frank Ocean’s “Swim Good” for the first time and believing we were all going to be famous and also believing that we kind of already were. I remember looking around the van and seeing that everyone was feeling some kind of similar feeling, Ander, who was selling merch was just moving his body in such rhythm, with such confidence, and Dessa, who spent SO MUCH TIME WORKING AND SCHEMING was in the moment, rolling her head back into the sound of the music in a way I never saw her do in the van. And Joey laughing, Dustin listening and driving I believe. On a scale of 1-10 that’s a 200, I haven’t felt that good at a job for years. The only time I get and exceed joy like that is by bodies of water with my children. But I don’t get paid for that. But so many hours on tour are terrible. And sometimes the playing music part is horrible. Sometimes you can hear nothing on stage, so you are just hoping the band sounds good. I remember once loading out of a club in Boise, ID completely by myself, the band had all connected with fun locals, drinking, hanging, selling stuff. I somehow felt we had to load out then and there so I carried all the shit out. It was horrible. I felt like I had been personally wronged in this situation, but at this point, I can’t quite tell why I didn’t just wait for everyone to be ready to load out. Made sense to me at the time. But, can’t really make sense of it right now. I also think small potatoes touring is just a better fit for younger people. There’s a thing about going to New York City at age 25 when you think no one in that city gives a shit about you that feels romantic. It feels completely different to go there at age 40 and wonder why you are skipping out on your kid’s bedtime to serenade 47 paid at the Mercury Lounge. I can think of a lot of 1s and a lot of 10s on the road. And on top of that I think the average rating of being in a van with other people for multiple hours is probably about a 6. It can’t easily get up to an 8, can easily get down to a 1 pretty fast. So check your ratio my friends. Pick a job that is awesome to you!
*The greatest good coldness I ever felt was submerging my hands deep into a HUUUUUUGE pot to clean an industrial amount of lettuce. My arm felt so cold on that hot spring day and I think about it all the time.
Rest in Peace to Sean Kopp-Reddy
I had heard in the past couple months about difficult health news for a former co-worker from McNally Smith College of Music. I ran summer programs over at McNally for a number of years and I had the honor to hire and work with a lot of students at McNally. Sean Kopp-Reddy was one such students and he was always game to pick up shifts and always had great chemistry with the high school students that came to the programs. I will always remember Sean ambling into a room, sporting the Doomtree No Kings hat that rarely came off his head and very casually saying hello. He always said hello to me like we were two musicians, he never greeted me like I was his boss (I was). He was an accountable, dedicated employee but he always treated me like a friend in the best possible way. We talked a little bit about records, about upcoming shows et cetera. It was clear Sean cared deeply about music and loved making music with his bands. Now that Sean has passed at a criminally young age (I believe he was in his early 30s) I’m not going to pretend that he was a close friend. We worked together, we said hi to each other when we ran into each other at the 331 Club. I cared for him.
I have one little memory about Sean that reminded me about the cycle of life in the Twin Cities music world, something I seem to be thinking about as of late. STAY WITH ME.
Probably around 2000 a gentleman named Allen Estevez was in charge of booking the Bryant-Lake Bowl in Uptown. My band Heiruspecs and related projects had been drawing pretty good crowds for maybe about a year at the venue. Allen called me and said something to the effect “I’ve got a hell of an opportunity for you Sean and I’m not sure if you’re ready for it but it’s yours if you want it. . .The Fourth of July is a really good bar night, everybody’s out, looking to have some fun, take in a show, keep the summer energy going. . .and I think Heiruspecs would be the perfect act to play that night over at BLB. Folks will be out, plus you’ll bring your people, we’ll have a great show, it’s a big opportunity”.
Now I’ll translate that speech into what Allen was actually thinking:
“Hey 20 year old sucker, the boss just told me they want entertainment on the Fourth of July even though the staff told em they should just close because let’s be honest the 4th. . .it’s one of the shittiest bar nights on the calendar. Everyone is sun burnt and drunk by 3pm and the only people who do want to see music on the Fourth probably don’t want to go get a hummus plate from Bryant-Lake Bowl and take in your forward thinking hip hop project. But, you, dumbass, don’t know the rules of the game yet and I’m going to get you to take this gig for a door deal and my boss will be happy that the 35 hardcore Heiruspecs fans who would come to see you on Christmas morning all came and that the 15 of em that are over 21 bought one beer a piece”.
It was like three years later that I was working the door over at the 400 Bar and the head bartender said “Fourth of July is a terrible bar night, nobody comes out” and it was then that I realized I had gotten screwed.
Flash forward to the summer of probably 2010 I’m working over at McNally Smith and Sean Kopp-Reddy tosses me a flyer for a show at the 400 Bar on the Fourth of July. I took the flyer and I said, “cool you got a gig coming up” and I shit you not Sean said “yeah, the booking guy called me and told me that the Fourth of July is a great bar night. . .built in crowds, people just want to be out and enjoy the music”. I didn’t tell Sean he was kind of getting scammed, cause he was only lightly getting scammed, and I had only gotten lightly scammed some ten years ago. Some people came to my show and he said plenty of folks came out to his show. But it was just that cycle, that circle of young musicians filling up an old booker’s calendar. And because Sean died too early, way too early, he won’t get the chance to take a flyer from some young student of his at the School of Rock and find out that they’re playing at the Midway Saloon on the Fourth of July to complete the circle. But Sean will be remembered and honored by his friends, a musician and friend who was making his way through the Twin Cities music scene. Sean, I’m thankful to have shared some time on Earth with you, I appreciate you and I hope you are in a better place, still wearing that Doomtree hat surely.
Moveable Feast - Legends to Us
Moveable Feast L-R Tommy Barbarella, Peter Vircks, Kevin Washington, Jeff Bailey
I decided to postpone doing my taxes even more! Who needs a 1099 anyway?? And instead I went to go see the Jazz Residency at Icehouse. In February Kavyesh Kaviraj was holding court and for his final night and he tapped the artists he was inspired by to close the night. That includes this group Moveable Feast that was an absolute fixture of my early musical journey in the Twin Cities. Tommy Barbarella, Peter Vircks, Jeff Bailey and Kevin Washington. All heroes, all a handful of years older than me. In February of 2000 Heiruspecs put out our first CD. We had released a cassette a handful of years earlier, but the CD was a big step. The release show was at Foxfire Coffee Lounge. Opening up the show would be Abstract Pack and Moveable Feast. Primarily because everyone in Abstract Pack and Moveable Feast was old enough to drink we thought they were the coolest guys on the planet. But the reality is, these men from Abstract Pack, from Moveable Feast and from countless other groups that invited us onto their stages and vice versa became our family. Musical icons, teachers, lesson givers, they welcomed Heiruspecs into the fold, into the scene, into the brotherhood and sisterhood of Minnesota music. It meant and means the world to be. I had been taught how to write a press release by a woman named Kim Randall who ran a record label called No Alernative that I was interning for. That press release helped get some coverage for the CD. Including a write up from Jim Walsh in the Pioneer Press. Including Kim bringing a young Keith Harris to the show. Probably the lessons I learned between fall of 1999 and fall of 2000 gave me more foundation for my career than anything afterwards and maybe anything before. I had the groundwork from my work at St. Paul Central High School, but those first couple lessons from Kim Randall and from booking Heiruspecs directly into nightclubs around the Twin Cities was an education. And seeing Moveable Feast was part of that education.
I loved Moveable Feast, I listened to their records, I remember going to one particularly amazing show at the old Dakota in Bandana Square. Tommy Barbarella walked in to the venue about ten minutes before taking the stage looking like he was the hottest motherfucker on planet Earth, a stunningly beautiful female on his arm, his hair effortlessly and unexplainably wet, his keyboards somehow shinier than any surface on Earth. I remember thinking, “this is a cool thing to play music and hang with amazingly attractive women and walk into already sold out clubs and rip amazing solos in strange time signatures”. I still think that’s cool. And then I got to see what these men did to make it work, they practiced, they taught, they promoted, they networked, they listened to music. In something like music it helps immensely to just see people doing it. My first bass teacher was Sean Hurley, who is now a well-known LA bassist for big ass artists. But I got to accompany Sean to gigs, watch him set up his amp, he’d let me sit in on a tune. God bless the rest of Moveable Feast, but I’ve probably spent the most time around Kevin Washington and he embodies this spirit of passing it on. In the set before Moveable Feast he even brought up one of current high school age students to play on two tunes. That spirit of bringing musicians into the fold, moving this music thing forward into the next generation. It’s so strong, it’s so moving. Yesterday I saw just about everyone I know in the Twin Cities cool music scene in the audience: Kenne Thomas, LA Buckner, Brian Ziemniak, Omar Abdulkarim, Jordan Carlson, Zacc Harris, Brandon Commodore, Greg Schutte, The Lioness, Andrew Gillespie, Tanner Montague, Lucia Sarmiento, Erik Jacobson and I’m forgetting about a million other people. We were all there to see this band that in one way or another welcomed us into Minnesota music. The room felt so warm, so many memories rebubbling. And then they started playing. . .still wow. How are they remembering these songs? They were navigating these athletic jumps with unisons passages and intriguing textures lined up for each solo and they looked like they were a working band that would do it all again the next night. I left feeling so warm and connected and happy. And thankful. The path I saw these gentlemen starting on some 23 years ago. . .I took that path, I chose it so long ago I can’t see the other tines of the fork. Was it everything I thought it would be? Fuck no! I struggle in strange time signatures, I am not where I want to be as a bass player and I don’t know if I’ll find the time to get there. I have been so thoroughly disappointed in the Twin Cities music scene so many times. Disappointed by how we act, by who and why we anoint to higher ground. But everything I do, how I carry myself professionally, how I am able to communicate information, passion and humor surrounding the world of music it starts in the late 90s in a world laid out by Moveable Feast, Abstract Pack, Rhymesayers, Lifter Puller, Truth Maze, Mint Condition, The SPMC, Bellwether, Mason Jennings, Happy Apple. Some of these names mean something to you, some of them might not. It’s not a perfect foundation, far from it, but it’s my foundation, these were the people I would study to do what I do. And seeing Moveable Feast on stage last night, it just got me, it reminded me of this journey, my life’s work, their life’s work, the ups, the downs, the off nights, the on-nights, the days not even your tuner works properly and the days where you feel you could do anything imaginable on your instrument.
The journey isn’t done, but I’ll be honest with you, it’s half over by a lot of measures. I’ve made a lot of the records I’m going to make, I’ve done all the touring I care to do besides for when I can finally get that Pizza Luce Heiruspecs gig up in Duluth and I can go with my whole family. The journey continues but at this way station of Moveable Feast reuniting I glow, this is my world, this is my community and these are some of my big brothers. Thanks for doing it again last night.
