I Had an Excellent Sandwich Today
This is one of those days where a fair amount of people have the day off, and a fair amount of people are working. I took my kids to daycare with the other assholes and heroes who didn’t/couldn’t take the day off. I had a bunch of shopping to do for the house and I knew I would be at work late because we are doing a special live event. But, I had a little extra time for lunch and I went and had a beautiful sandwich. I love mock duck. I love Bánh mì. I like the ones from Lu’s on Nicollet. The bread is so good. So delicious. So cavernous. So containing. And that cilantro, that blast of flavor, the sliced jalapenos, not too hot, cilantro, cucumbers, carrots. The shit is perfect. Get the large, it’s a great ass lunch.
Heiruspecs’ Magical Block Party on August 19
For decades Heiruspecs has been on the bill on summer block party type shows. Almost always in Minneapolis, and about 23% of the time with Mark Mallman also on the bill. I remember doing the Barbette Bastille Day show in probably 2002. That’s 21 years ago. Mostly these have been beautiful shows. I feel all the energy of Irving and Lagoon, loading the gear. Seeing which band brought their tour van. Seeing Foxy Tann looking like a million and a half bucks guiding the crowds energy between sets and then hearing Heiruspecs get introduced. We start playing a loud loose slightly inebriated 55 minute set to a big ass crowd of people enjoying a great day of summer. After the show I’m trying to use my food tickets right as everything is closing up and hopefully trying to flirt with some women who just saw me looking all awesome up on stage. These are great memories, but these events are curated and risked on other people’s dime. Maybe it’s Kim Bartmann or Anne Saxton from the Barbette/BLB Universe, Corey from Pizza Luce, someone else launching one of these parties. No matter how cool someone else’s taste is, you don’t really have control over a situation unless you’re putting it together, taking the risk, making the event happen on your terms. I will happily cede some of that control over for the ease of just being told “here’s your load in time, send your stage plot, rock your show, here’s your money”. But as Heiruspecs makes the slow transition from working band to venerated institution we want to plant more seeds into events that we control, that we curate. We’ve got a good ass thing going with our Holiday Classic shows which goes down in December. We’ve been doing those since about 2003. (I can’t 100% confirm this but I actually think it was Patrick Costello from D4 who named those events Holiday Classic when he was booking at Triple Rock Social Club, if you see Patty, ask him about it). We control that, we book awesome bands and we have an amazing time. Wolf Lords, MaLLy, Carnage, Black Blondie, I-Self Devine, Guardians of Balance, DJ Dan Speak, Nakara Forje, Christian Fritz, Lady Midnight, Juice Lord, Hey Arlo - that’s just some of the artists who have played with us on these Holiday Classics. The joy I feel thinking about all the people who for years have been a part of these shows. It brings me joy.
Okay, I can talk for as long as I want cause this is my blog so here’s an aside. My overriding desire in my young twenties was to make a contribution to the world of music in the Twin Cities. To offer up songs, events, experiences that would be loved, remembered and celebrated. Walking in to a venue, saying hello to the sound person, making sure they have the stage plot, getting everyone paid, smoking a joint with the weed smokers in Heiruspecs plus our friends after the show around an unexplainable amount of shoe-boxes because everyone has to bring cool shoes for a winter show. It all feels special to me. I love our scene. I love the scene surrounding Heiruspecs in particular. And I love that we have put stamps on things, carved out spots for other great musicians, for great events. And the next chapter in that is the Summer Classic.
We started hunting around for a spot to bring the Summer Classic together right after the Holiday Classic. Peter Leggett, our drummer, cooked up the idea really simply and I started emailing around. It had to be in St. Paul. It had to be outside. First Ave didn’t have the capacity to take on an outdoor show. And let’s be clear, the economics of an outdoor show really work for significantly more popular acts. If you can get 3500 people to pay a serious ticket price, you can handle a lot of the infrastructure of an outdoor show. But we couldn’t get 3500 people to watch us if we paid THEM! But guess what? Free block party shows are the shit. You get folks who are iffy about your band but 100% in for a good time. You can spend your money on food and merch. You can take in that energy. There’s a certain pressure when you spend $50 on a show. . .”this better really be a good time”. It can choke the fun out of something.
There’s a dude in town who really gets Heiruspecs, gets our ethic, gets our music, gets the vibe. His name is Joe Alton, he booked us at a bunch of Beer Dabbler things back when he was a part of that organization, and he always treated us well. He went to Central, he understands the city, he knows everyone, he knows a lot about beer. And every time you see Joe Alton you’re glad you did. A couple winter meetings between Joe and Heiruspecs helped us sort out what might work for the event and he put is in contact with Clutch Brewing. Now I know Clutch, they’ve been using Trivia Mafia for a long time for their Thursday night trivia. But I don’t know them personally, I just know that if you choose to use Trivia Mafia, you’re probably an amazing brewery. But Joe put us together and we felt the good energy. The opportunity to put on something cool in Saint Paul. You shouldn’t have to leave Saint Paul to party during the day. These block parties shouldn’t all happen across the river.
I put out the calls to try and lock down great artists for our first Summer Classic. AND WE DID! Some folks who would’ve been a great fit on the bill simply had to say no because of travel or other gigs et cetera. Some people said no cause people say no. But the groups that said yes. . . .are you kidding me? I’ve been loving Maria Isa since I saw her at the First Ave Mainroom for best new band nights with Leroy Smokes backing her up probably like 2002? I just remember being floored by everything about her. That night did I think she would be en route to being a State Representative? No, but I believed in her. Her old manager used to give out cards and say “we’re gonna change the world” and I absolutely believed her. And when I think about where Maria has gotten, that manager was right. Seeing someone like Maria still delivering the goods as an emcee (and one of the best freestylers in MN) and being involved in the political process. And not just involved. . .elected. It’s big. And I’ve never been disappointed by Maria Isa live because she gets live performance in a way that a lot of equally talented emcees don’t get. Live performance is a different muscle and Maria has those muscles. When I asked Unknown Prophets if they would entertain an offer for the show Big Jess basically said “no”. They got a new record out, but they haven’t blessed a stage in years. But I bet maybe seeing that it’s St. Paul, it’s outdoors, it’s with their brothers from Saint Paul, it all fit. I don’t know, I’m just touched that they would come back onto stage for our thing. Man, that’s amazing. They also still have it. The new music is the best they’ve made. They are actually more in their lane than they’ve been. They are such a fundamentally sound group. And then St. Paul Slim just tossed us the quick “yup” when we asked if he would host. We’ve known Slim since high school. We were all in the same program. To have him in the fold, it’s just perfect, it’s just the cherry. Seriously.
So at this moment on June 27 when the Star Tribune is saying nice things about our new record, the announce is out for our summer shows, it’s just a nice moment. I know there will be a million headaches, a million texts, a bunch of rehearsals, some weird trips to rental stores, a bunch of growing pains. But look, it takes work to do something magical. And it’s worth it. I’m really looking forward to this show, and to the show at Icehouse on Saturday July 22. I hope you come to both. I hope you drag your friends to the shows. I hope you make this summer magical. What is the other option? There isn’t one. Let’s just be magical.
Things You Don’t Want to Have to Clarify
There are certain things on planet earth where if I have to clarify that it’s not what you meant, you are probably already screwed. Yevgeny V. Prigozhin has done such a thing. When you are clarifying to the media that he wasn’t actually trying to storm Moscow and overthrow the government you are basically saying “I’ll be poisoned or thrown out of a window before the baseball season is over”. If you have to clarify that, contrary to appearances, you weren’t in fact trying to overthrow a sovereign state, you are in a shit ton of trouble.
Additionally, I’ve heard people claim that their sporting of blackface was “actually a tribute, like a celebration or an honor”. You’re an idiot one but two, you just need to shut up and take the hate. Because there is no one who was outraged at you for wearing blackface who now totally gets it, it was a tribute. That Venn diagram doesn’t overlap.
The Twin Cities Restaurant Graveyard
Q: Sean, in light of the tragic recent closing of Ethiopian food heaven Fasika, if you could bring five other out of business Twin Cities restaurants back to life which five would you choose.
A:
Sunny Side Up Cafe on Lyndale and 28th. Best French toast of my life easy. Best biscuits and gravy easy. Only cactus paddles. And just a great scene.
Figlio on Hennepin and Lake. Best calamari of my life. Best Bacon Cheeseburger of my life (they used this strachino cheese that was creamy like a mayonnaise spread, but it wasn’t mayonnaise). The bacon was insane. And they wrapped your to go food up into a tinfoil goose which at the time we thought was cool.
Original Little Tijuana’s on Nicollet and 26th - I like this place now, but it serves a different purpose. Little Tijuana’s was a no liquor license Mexican restaurant with an undying commitment to black olives, crayons and tatted up servers. But holy shit I liked that food. Including fish nachos. Loved it, loved it, loved it.
Porky’s - on Fairview and University - Best strawberry shake of my life, best onion rings of my life. Also was parked there once in the afternoon, was pretty high, was enjoying a milkshake, was listening to the Current long before I worked there and Mary Lucia was playing this Santana song with an incredibly long organ solo. I was sort of freaking out feeling like the world knew I was high cause why is there a ten minute organ solo on the Current at like 5:30 on a weekday. When Looch got back on the mic she said “don’t worry, that was a REALLY long organ solo”. It calmed me and weirded me out even more. It was one of the best radio experiences of my listening career.
Village Wok - Stadium Village - Iconic spot with late night Asian food that I used to go to and sit in the smoking section. Mountains of green tea, long arguments with Tasha Baron and Szechuan bean curd for the win. Miss it, want it. Stadium Village used to be a very different spot. Kids these days.
Blind Melon are My Most Over-Indexed Band
I co-own a trivia company. Chuck, the other guy I own it with introduced the term “over-indexed” too me. He says that Trivia Mafia over indexes on rivers. You grab 1500 trivia question from some other joe-schmo trivia company and maybe they’ll have four questions about rivers. We’ll have seventeen. We love rivers. And I’m the same way with Blind Melon. You ask for my top five bands, it looks a lot like yours. But Blind Melon is on there, and I bet they’re not on your list. Here’s some things:
Blind Melon combine the groove of southern rock like The Allman Brothers and the Band with the lyrical content of Sylvia Plath. I listened to Blind Melon a lot in middle school. I remember listening to Blind Melon on a Walkman while my Dad was driving my brother to a guitar lesson in Albany, New York. ‘Bout an hour drive each way for Steve to get a guitar lesson and for me to look at a bunch of Champion sweatshirts in the store next door. But, I never wore headphones on that drive. I wanted to hear what my brother was playing and picking to put on the stereo. But there was time’s where I just needed Blind Melon. I remember holding that Walkman like I was afraid it was going to leave me. I needed those words, I needed that spirit. I felt out of place so much in middle school. I felt artsy, ambitious and humorous in a school that counted all those as strikes. I knew there was a world of music. . .but it wasn’t where I was. Remember, we were driving an hour just to get a guitar lesson from a musician who was really out there gigging. In that first album from Blind Melon I found a kindred spirit in Shannon Hoon. He hit me in a way my other potential heroes, Vedder and Cobain, just didn’t. In Shannon Hoon’s lyrics I found this self-assuredness against a harsh, unforgiving environment. It comforted me. Throw on the song “Change” by Blind Melon.
I found something in this song.
I don't feel the sun's comin' out today
It's stayin' in, it's gonna find another way, yeah
As I sit here in this misery
I don't think I'll ever know, Lord
See the sun from here
And oh, as I fade away
They'll all look at me and say
And they'll say, "Hey, look at him"
"I'll never live that way"
And that's ok, they're just afraid to change
When you feel life ain't worth living
You've got to stand up
Take a look around, look up way to the sky,
And when your deepest thoughts are broken
Keep on dreamin' boy, 'cause when you stop dreamin' it's time to die
And as we all play parts of tomorrow, Lord no
Some ways we'll work, and other ways we'll play, yeah
But I know we can't all stay here forever
So I wanna write my words on the face of today
And then they'll paint it
And oh, as I fade away
They'll all look at me and say
They'll say, "Hey look at him"
"And where he is these days?"
When life is hard, you have to change
When life is hard, you have to change, mmm
This song is both about the validity and durability of your own way of doing things, and the fact that you’ll have to pivot from those values. What helped me in the tune was that combination: trust yourself, change is constant.
I also was really connected to the Blind Melon song “Drive”. This was a rare 90s song for me that was basically a third person story. It’s a song about a lovable guy who is slipping away into the dark side of the drug life. It’s harder still to know that just a handful of years later it’s drugs that would kill Shannon himself.
But the music actually having a Southern groove to it, so important. The band is mostly from Mississippi with Shannon Hoon coming from Indiana. Brad Smith and Glen Graham are a hell of a rhythm section. Glen Graham gives me strong LeVon Helm vibes all over this record. And I’ve never loved the Rock with a Capital R experience. I’m not falling hard for The Foo Fighters or Aerosmith. But rock with some syncopation, some sass and some focus on prioritizing groove over bombast. . .I’m in. Man, just writing Aerosmith reminds me how much I don’t enjoy Aerosmith.
That music that you get at the beginning of your journey. . .I’ve spent so much time with this record, with these drum fills, with these grooves. Take some time with Blind Melon today and see what you find.
The Who Are Less Than the Sum of their Parts
I’ve been spending a bit more time with local singer-songwriter Trevor McSpadden as of late. We have similar dispositions, music business feels and strangely similar wives in regards to demographics and to some extent vibe. But man, we are different about The Who. He really likes the Who, a lot. It runs in the family for him. And I kind of like the Who. But the Who are better on paper than on record and that is no way to be a great rock band. The Who is a band that in their original lineup that had arguably the best bassist, drummer and vocalist of their generation in England. There’s competition, but Entwistle, Moon and Daltrey are in that conversation to be certain. And there is a strong argument that Entwistle, Moon and Daltrey are the weakest link compared to Townsend. Pete Townsend is a visionary, a guitar master and a dreamer who saw angles for how to deliver rock music that were absolutely groundbreaking. And guess what, the catalog doesn’t live up to THAT. It doesn’t live up to bananas talented individuals with a visionary at the helm who can write a hell of a song. The Who are better than 96.5% of rock bands in the history of rock. BUT they get treated like the cream of the crop when they are more the milk of the crop. I’ll toss off a couple half baked ideas for why and then wait to get roasted by the WhoHive.
Tommy is a great rock opera, but it creates a difficult high water mark in their recording career. Tommy rules. The record rules. The 1975 movie rules. I saw it on Broadway as a kid, it rocked my world. But I think it makes some of their post Tommy efforts anticlimactic. And if you tell me Quadrophenia is better I know you’re trying too hard. I am having slightly the same issue with Beyonce’s “Lemonade”. Beyonce has made albums since Lemonade, but I’m stuck on Lemonade. The album was such a masterpiece that I have a hard time believing she’ll top it and I don’t think Renaissance did.
I Don't Believe the Who. I like a messy band. Some fights, some tensions, some issues. But I also like a band with a code, with a shared and argued over vision. I like the fights to matter, to materialize and revolve around the music. I like Rage Against the Machine. They seem torn beyond comprehension for where they are heading as a group. But, they seem to have some sort of moral compass that pulls them in many directions. The Who seem to be drawn in one direction. . .straight to the fucking bank! It just seems like a cash grab with a record every 11.5 years to grab another big pile of cash. They’ve denigrated their legacy for the vast majority of their career. This is doubly vexing to me because I feel like Pete Townsend might have a code, but it’s hard to decipher it for me.
I’m Supposed to like the Who. Your cool drug dealer likes the Who. The guy with the motorcycle likes the Who. Your guitar teacher likes the Who but he likes the Kinks even more. The Who has always seemed like the hipster contrarian favorite. That’s why Trevor McSpadden’s deep love of The Who was confusing to me. McSpadden comes off as the people’s champ, the crowd pleaser cheer leader. So what’s with the Who.
The Who are Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut has great ideas, their pizza kind sucks sometimes. Stuffed crust? Great. The Big New Yorker? Great. Everything you all did with misspelling calzones and getting more cheese into that doughy pocket. . .well done. But once ya’ll innovate I’ll go eat the fruits of your labor elsewhere. If pizza had the copyright laws that music did. . .we’d all be eating at Pizza Hut. But we aren’t. We are eating Pizza Huts ideas elsewhere. The Who, you are a great idea factory. Rock opera, good point. Synthesizers and sequencers on rocking ass songs, check again. Drums that double as an earthquake, massive. But you are Pizza Hut. I think there are other groups that have eclipsed those.
My Dad Didn’t Seem to Really Like the Who. I’ve given you all my high falooting fancy blog ideas about this but fundamentally, my dad made it clear to me when I was real young that we weren’t a “The Who” family. We had Live at Leeds. We listened to Tommy a bunch. When Pearl Jam started playing Baba O’Riley we definitely got some assigned listening. But I always held the Who at a distance.
I’m going to try to listen to the Who with some fresh ears, with an adult attitude about seeing where the band is at. But, I had to get my misgivings off the proverbial chest.
Heiruspecs is back at it
Most everything musical and professional in my life starts with my journey with Heiruspecs. So when we are back doing something it’s a ray of light in my life. We are back at it with a show at Icehouse on Saturday July 22. I can think of no better way to celebrate Kevin Hunt, Josh Herbst and Jenna Weisser’s birthday one day early. Come on out to Icehouse and help us celebrate the vinyl release of our new album! We’re with MaLLy and Ms. Lakesha. Buy tickets here.
Some Highlights from the Pilot
An amazing Wednesday was had by all on June 7, 2023. A magical day turned into a magical night. Magical times share a unique ratio of mandatory and leisurely. The greatest nights of my life were not 100% free form. Those days where it’s just friends all day, there’s no friction, there’s no story of minor hardship. A day of moving an apartment is usually a subpar experience. Too much sweat, not enough laughs. The day where it’s one hour of moving one mixing board, a ping pong table. That’s a good ratio. And sometimes just having a plan . . .like we have to pick someone up at the airport at a slightly inconvenient time like 10:50pm on a Tuesday. It’s a simple action, but it gives the night a contour. And the contour of the night counts.
For Wednesday the fun started early. Business meeting with Chuck for a trivia thing at 10:00am. Haven’t done a business meeting with Chuck in months. There’s a “just like old times” vibe for Chuck and I. Chuck and I have done a fair amount of meetings with a lot of the “PEOPLE” in this town. Event people, media people, private party people, political people. What I’m saying is Chuck and I have been “forgot to bring business cards” cowboys for about fifteen years. But this level of cool is very subjective. There is a small sliver of this town who knows that “I met with Alexis on the Sexes at Northeast Social” is Minneapolis lingo for “I’m over thirty five”. So a memory lane vibe. I like owning a company with Chuck, some great times making Trivia Mafia really go. That’s big to me.
I got to a hang out with an old co-worker who had also left the radio station. Shop talk. When’d you last see him? Did you hear? Do you think that’s why? Is that what they said? Had two Cavas. One coffee. You have to take the day off to have two Cavas before Jeopardy airs, but it’s fun when you can. One coffee refill. So sunny that day that no one even offers to move if you put your face all the way over your face to shade someone. If I move over there, it’s the same, the sun is still right there. Sitting outside, construction all over. Goodbyes.
Time for a fish sandwich you’ve known about for years but have never had. When people say “first you eat with your eyes” I have to say, for folks with young kids. . .you eat with your ears for years before your eyes have a taste. People will say “we have to visit that bakery again with the sour cream glazed donuts” and I’ll hear that three times at three different parties across two years before I so as much see a to go bag from this place. I’ll follow the whole story of a restaurant that was open for two years that I never, once, never once (sic) went to. I can say things like: “and that’s when they tried to go mostly vegetarian right” even though I don’t even know what color their toilets are. I just know the place from all the words my friends said about them and the plates of the food that I would see on Instagram.
Anyway, World Street Kitchen has a beautiful Tofu Yum Yum Rice Bowl. And it so alluring and so rare for me to get over there for a meal that I end up always going back to that Tofu bowl. I just want it again. But I love a fish sandwich. I know I’m kind of on the rare side. If you tell your friend “we have to go to my favorite fish sandwich spot . . .”, your friends might come but at best one of those guys is getting the fish sandwich.
That’s right, that’s not photoshop, those sesame seeds tasted amazing and they look even better. Love a tasty fillet, quote me on that shit. Quote me on any of this.
If you are from Saint Paul and you have elected to raise your kids in St. Paul you have also resigned yourself to see your former classmates as co-parents. You will be talking to someone at a full backyard elementary school gathering with food trucks and be thinking “did we see each in Winona when you were a senior at college and you came to a Heiruspecs show”? Now just imagine if the response is “I’m from Portland, I moved here in 2018, what is Iron specs? I don’t understand what you’re saying”. But mostly it’s just meeting people and trying to remember what class you had together. I went to class, but my memories are all outside of class. I don’t always remember the people that I had a particular class with. Especially with science. I never did anything in science class. Or rather I did the bare minimum and made sure it was known to my teacher and my group that I would be doing the recording of results for the experiments thank you very much. But we are at one of these gatherings and it’s great, you meet a couple people, eat Kowalski’s deli food. Which, by the way, is nor worth every penny, but it is still, pretty honestly nice for a little outdoor situation. There’s always the weird overlap that very few people can follow due to siblings, where a mom will say “your oldest was in the summer program with my oldest as the counselor and the youngest as a camper” . . . “no, again, I never went to Winona”.
A walk home from the school brings us to the babysitter connecting with our kids while Rachel and I disappear to take in the Saints game in under the CHS lights. This night is vaguely a “Trivia Mafia” night. There was a ticket code. We are running trivia on our app. There are some reasonable amount of Trivia Mafia enthusiasts, like maybe seventy. This is absolutely insane when you take it in. I’m not involved in the company in any day to day way, but damn if I miss a cool event we are a part of. I got into this for holiday parties and gatherings. That refills my cup. There’s also a moment when I realize that it’s just a perfect amount of people you kind of know. I walk around and just talk it up, or grab a pretzel for the wife. But at some point I decide to just do a walk around the field. That’s an undertaking at a Twins or a Timberwolves game but here, it’s just nice walking, not too long. And today I had rekindled my love with the Pusha T album “Daytona”. I popped the song “The Games We Play” and hit the loge. Don’t they call it the loge? I don’t know what they call it. I ran into a couple folks who listen to Jazz88. It warms my heart, I feel like we spend quality time together. We listen to great music, a nice variety, hear the news together, get through the afternoon together. I love being the Captain of the Afternoon Cruise. Had a medium length hang with Christopher Proczko and my new fast friend Trevor McSpadden. Trevor and Mary Cutrufello run a happy hour weekly at the White Squirrel which has turned into one of those weekly that asks you about: “have you been to the White Squirrel on a Tuesday”? McSpadden has his kids, Girls maybe 11, 6 and 3. Whatever kind of night we’re having, they’re having twenty times that right? Little helmets filled with soft serve, the first time you see the unique light of a minor league baseball game. The inside jokes. Seeing your daddy playing guitar outside for the people as they’re walking into the ballpark. That sibling energy. The snacks. The short ride home taking turns picking out songs on the phone. It’s after this moment that I might be having one of the great nights of my life. My wife is making time with the Trivia Mafia set, I’m walking the outfield, with doses of Pusha T, McSpadden and some solid base hits. I don’t think the Cubs ever had much a lead but it was a close game with excitement. I am very thankful for the culture Trivia Mafia has created. I am grateful for our employees, I believe we are good employers and we are receptive to suggestions for how we can be better. We try to look at things that are patently stupid at other companies and not do them. We try to make the experience of working for us reasonable, fun and kind of hilarious. I love that all. I feel it all. A woman who works basically full time for Trivia Mafia laid this compliment on me about Trivia Mafia: “everyone cares the right amount”. Damn, isn’t that what you want at a job? And on the flip side. I think we provide a beyond solid service for our customers. Our hosts are the best. Our questions are the best. Our ideas about how to solve your needs for events are the best. When we can crack a joke we will crack it. Guaranteed. And I ran into this “on every stage in town” player named David Feily. This man gets all the calls, plays all the guitar and bass and delivers the goods with a scary efficiency and enthusiasm. And turns out the dude is in on Trivia Mafia and his lady friend and her friend is in on an even bigger way. And Feily tells me that him and his crew can feel the love from what we’re doing over at Jazz88. That they see the spins, the interviews and the enthusiasm. It feels really good. Trying to make this as awesome a town as possible to be a musician in. And some of what we are doing is being felt by some fine players.
Had one of those great things. My lady says “we gotta get going and head home, we only have the babysitter til 9:30”. But you point out that for this one you started a half hour later and then hit that with a 10pm end time. It rings a bell and she realizes we got that nice extra 23 minutes to be comfortable. Perfect. Wrapping the farewells. A couple folks clearly diving into the baseball side of things. Chuck and this guy David Cava can actually talk about the players on our team. They are active Twins, they’ve been in Target Field this season, they’ll be back in there. It’s great conversation, I can follow almost none of it. But I’m in, just enjoying the cadence, if you can’t appreciate two folks talking just a little baseball, I don’t know what to tell you.
When we get home I make a beeline for that neighborhood happy hour. Since the pandemic, like so many people, the neighbors are the backbone in a way that feels really good. Actual friends, actual trips, not lip service. So a small version of a happy hour crew with one wild card is assembled on the porch of the cross the streeters. We are basically a dorm of forty year olds. And the wild card is a visiting friend of Silas. And you get to bounce new ideas off the wild card. You toss one wild card in a conversation of constants and you still arrive totally different places than you would without the new guy. And at some point, we get into the business about neighbors exploring polyamory, long ass sex sessions, ethical non-monogamy. These ideas are no longer laughed out of the hang and that’s for the better. Online dating has changed shit. There’s going to be this line in the sand in my opinion between the “we met online” generations and the “we met through a place in the real world” generation. A thick line. I know the young people are having less sex than they did 20 years ago. But, man, the single folks my age are ruining the curve. In the best way. Get those cheeks. Live that life and get out there. Why not? Why not? Have some more fun, feel some more things. But there’s laughing, there’s hypotheticals, there’s asides, there’s that exploratory porch evening energy. The night ends with the short steps across the street to the home at the very late Wednesday hour of 1:13am. It’s all just a little bit more special tonight. The whiskey went a little higher in the dram tonight. The doubles became triples for the Saints. The world lifted up a little like it is wont to do on a Wednesday in early June when you least expect but most appreciate it.
First iced coffee of the day
June 4. Grand Old Day at J&S Coffee with Martin Devaney after a vigorous Pickleball morning.
Observations About Podcasts
What’s with all the marimbas?
I hate the joking about the script variety of promos for podcasts. The new New York Times podcast “Matter of Opinion” is decent, but the promo is absolute trash. All the promos involve fake laughter and flubbed lines and strange pauses. I just imagine a Pepperdine grad working as a producer just saying “keep it fresh! just have fun, they said this one is not journalism with a capital J. Have fun, seriously!” But honestly, if Ross Douthat is the funniest person on your podcast, you’re way screwed.
Don’t act like it’s a radio show. It’s not a radio show. I promise you I’ll remember what we were talking about thirty seconds ago before the Air BnB ad. It was thirty seconds ago.
Stop telling your guest you want to have them back again. You don’t. Even if it was great. Even if you do have them back again.
There are so many topics that people say they could do “two hours on that”. NO YOU FUCKING COULDN’T. I wish I could go fact check em. Hey Domonique Foxworth, you said you could do two hours on the difference between NBA lockerrooms and NFL lockerrooms? Two hours? You got some gas in the tank on it. But two hours?
Ezra Klein, do you remember when you derailed your podcast for eight months because you basically asked every guest some variety of the question, “does this involve polarization?”. That was shit.
Ezra Klein, you’re not as funny as Ross Douthat, but you make a vastly superior better podcast.
I didn’t like Jane Coaston doing “The Argument”. You ready for my take? You never had takes, you never had insight that opened my mind. You knew the shit, but you didn’t know YOUR shit. With minor exceptions I felt like you didn’t go deep enough on the topics, and the format didn’t permit you to bounce off someone else.
I don’t mind long episodes, there’s a pause button. I’m good, keep going.
Can we make a word for that thing where a podcaster does an open where they tell a little dumb story about their week before they jump in? I love that.
Derek Thompson is doing it. You respect your listeners time. Your guests almost always sound right. It’s those little things. For a podcast you never have to “fill time”. Just keep it going or play some spectacular music and reach out.
I’m in the You’re Not Alone Business
I’m not as personally afraid of our AI overlords as you are. I don’t have an amazing imagination. I am very creative, but I do believe those are different qualities. Creative means ideas, imagination means possibilities. I don’t do a great job of imagining possibilities. The first time someone described to me the possibility of a “stream the entire history of music from your phone” reality to me I thought that dude was crazy. His name was Ron Sobel, a semi-big wig in LA. I believe he might have signed the first publishing deal for Alice in Chains. Anywho, this is maybe 2009 and I still couldn’t fathom the idea of all of music being available to you while you’re sitting on the beach with your lady, which was the future he was envisioning.
So, couldn’t picture Spotify in 2009 and in 2023 my imagination doesn’t permit me imagine a dystopian or utopian AI future in enough detail to shock me. I can read the stories but I can’t metabolize it into the fear that I likely should. But there’s another thing. The big offer from AI of course is right in the name. . .intelligence. I’m not afraid of being outgunned by intelligence. Or rather, I’m inured to being outgunned by intelligence. (boy am I fucking proud of using the word inured, yes I did look it up to make sure I was using it right). From the day I was born, I was next to someone with more than intelligence than me. There’s not a test I’ve seen that my brother couldn’t outscore me on. Ditto for sports. Ditto for trivia. Ditto for music theory. And my Dad is right in the same space, maybe not so much music wise, but he’s a smart motherfucker. My mom, a little more down to Earth as far as book smarts, she was someone who found ways to give to the world that didn’t involve raw intellectual horsepower. My parents made the mistake of assuming I was smart cause I was related to many smart people. They also made the mistake of thinking I’m smart cause I am pretty smart. But that doesn’t mean that’s me, that doesn’t mean that that is my lane. My mom used to say actual shit like “put a helmet on your head, cause you’re not gonna get paid for your looks”. Guess what Mom, fuck off. Maybe I am gonna get paid for my looks. Maybe there’s nothing going on up here, I motion to my brain. The thesis statement of my family was “we’re smart, that’s a substitute for hard work”. My thesis statement is “I’m brave, dedicated and I have an amazing heart”. When our AI overlords really let their nuts hang, they will be smarter than us. But they don’t have an amazing heart. My distinguishing qualities have always been distinct from my intelligence: I’ll say something true on a page, or to a person, or into a microphone that will sting, that will penetrate, that will help you and me feel something we couldn’t apart. It took practice, skill, lessons, studying, reading to get here. But I’m here, I can deliver the goods when I communicate. I’m about to get META. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .that’s why you’re here. You’re reading me cause you hear me when you read me. And when you hear me you hear a human, a scarred human, a hilarious human, a loving human and yes an intelligent human, but I’m not putting that first on my job application. The heart, the spirit, the creativity, that’s been the bread and butter in my professional life.
I’m in the you’re not alone business. You should join me. Business is good.
Music - I am the leader of Heiruspecs. The magic of that group is the togetherness that a band can bring to a genre that doesn’t always have the supportive sound of a live band. And beyond being a live band, we’re a band with multiple voices. When you hear Heiruspecs you hear a group, you can be together with that group. When you listen to us, you aren’t peering straight into the journal of one person, you’re peering into a rehearsal, a meeting, a function. You aren’t alone, you’re at the party. And the bread and butter of what I’ve done in music is the live stuff, that’s the center of me and what I offer.
Trivia - Trivia Mafia is killing it, I’m not involved in it anymore besides for owning half of the company and counting my tens of dollars every quarter. But business is good. The reason it’s good is because it’s a together place at a time when those are falling by the wayside. I bet you a solid 30% of our players are work from home all stars. We create an environment where with minimal outlay you can be connected with your friends in a meaningful way on a weeknight. You aren’t alone with Trivia Mafia and the business of bringing people together. . .business is good.
Radio - This is the one, this is the one I think about cause the bigwigs are creating technology designed to take DJs out of the equation, to take music curation out of the equation, to take locally programmed stations out of the equation. But listen, there are enough people on planet earth right now who want the adventure that is radio. . .where are the songs falling? What are the news stories? What happened in the DJs day? What events are coming up this weekend? What’s the weather like? It’s new music next to random chat, it’s classic music next to a brand new story. It’s surprise within structure. It’s safe adventure. It’s company. It’s you’re not alone while you gotta be alone for work or another obligation. If you do it right you’re drawing people closer to something than they could get all on their own. I had to walk a long ass way today to get my car back and I rocked a funk playlist from Spotify. The songs I knew, I enjoyed. The songs I didn’t know, well Spotify isn’t going to offer those ones to me. I knew all the songs, I enjoyed em, but I was alone. I was alone on my walk until I got some radio going. I’ve always wanted to be around people. And now in some sense I spend half my work day physically alone in hopes of actually sharing my time with more people thanks to the broadcast.
You’re not replacing two people having a conversation with AI. There is a navigation between two souls that I don’t think a computer will muster (caveat, I have a bad imagination). You’re not replacing the adventure of people who are animals, who shit, who poop, who ejaculate, who steal swans and eat them. Why am I better than a robot? can a robot make shit come out of his anus? The answer is no? A robot can’t. I can. Ergo I’m better.
Find a job, find a life that isn’t all about intelligence. You’re about to be outgunned by intelligence. . .like. . .soon. Soonish. Four years? Eight years? And even when you first get outgunned, you’ll stay employed, you’ll stay relevant, but soon. . .you’ll be outgunned. You’ll grow inured to it. You’ll find your heart. And you won’t be alone.
Some Blues for YaYa
About six months ago Rachel and I started fostering an older dog named YaYa. They just put her down a couple days ago and even though we just had six months with her, I’ll still miss YaYa. We have our steady dog, Warren. Warren started out as a rescue, but we adopted him years ago. We knew that this new dog YaYa was probably not getting adopted by another family. She was older and she looked old. Dogs who are old just have little tags that grow on them, little chunks of their body that are just kind of wrong shaped. This dog looked like she had seen some shit. And she had. When she was found and rescued she was covered in blue house paint. All I can hope is that people who covered beautiful YaYa in paint was a bunch of young kids. Kids who didn’t know better. Kids who don’t know how many chemicals are in house paint. Because if some grown up or group of grown ups covered a dog in blue paint you just have to know those humans are the worst, lower than low. Vermin. But it was probably kids.
But YaYa rolled with the punches, I don’t know everything about her life. But I think she had gotten a lot of punches. By the time we started to take care of her she was deaf, she was tired, and she was really overweight. Rachel worked on getting her on a better set of food and getting her more comfortable taking some walks longer than a block. What came out kind of quickly was that LaLa was awesome. She pooped when she wanted to. Exactly when she wanted to. She was house trained. But if I was late with that walk, she dumped where she was. Dogs are usually somewhat choosy about where she would poop. Not YaYa. Sidewalk, great. Some pile of wood that was in her path. Now it’s poopwood. She liked to chill a lot. She liked to sleep. She liked to eat. She liked to eat food she wasn’t supposed to eat. She liked to bark when Warren barked. I don’t think she generated much barking energy herself. But she channeled the energy and zest for life into just being a good dog. She liked to watch TV. She liked to chill. She slept a lot.
I hope for the last couple months, she was enjoying her home. I hope she was feeling good, she got along with Warren, she laughed with us. She knew the neighborhood. In the end she started struggling to breathe. They figured out that it was this huge mass in her throat. Too huge. They couldn’t remove, it would kill her. They offered to wake her up, so we could say goodbye. And maybe if we had known her longer, maybe if our kids were a different age. But what are you going to do, wake her up, remind her that she’s in pain. Look her in the eyes, tell her we love her. It was better to just let her stay asleep, she was down, and then she was gone. I don’t know everything about her life. I don’t know about her previous owners. I don’t what was at the center of her life. But I am thankful for the last couple months I got to spend with her. Maybe some cruel humans poured paint on this beautiful creature at some point. But my kids treated her nice. My other dog treated Yaya nice. I sing some blues for you Yaya, cause you are gone to us, and you were incredible. And you are gone. I love you Yaya.
A Fragment
I remember telling you I was going all the way to Chicago and across to California and coming back on 90 and all you wanted was a brown lighter from Kum & Go.
The First Cool Person I Ever Met
I’ve tried this conversation out on my friends and enemies a couple times now and it always falls flat. But of course, I blame them, not the conversation itself. Maybe I just divide the world up differently than them; I feel like finding out about the existence of actual cool people in your real, non-media consumption life was a very important part of my development as a human being. I grew up in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It’s a town of 8,000, the center of the economy is a mercilessly preppy college that my dad taught at called Williams College. It’s super famous but not everyone has heard of it. It wasn’t a place where you were supposed to be at if you were cool. If you were cool and you grew in Williamstown, especially back then, you moved somewhere: Northampton, NYC, Boston, Pittsfield if you must. But you didn’t stay around there. I grew up with parents who had cool tendencies but by the time they’d popped two kids out, gave up smoking pot cause they couldn’t find a dealer in Massachusetts and started hanging out with the other professors from the Economics department they’d washed a lot of that cool person dust off. So, through their record collection, through MTV, through magazines I got the sense that there was a cool world somewhere far away from my world. In my world there was just kids and parents. Neither group is cool in the way that unimpeachably cool people I saw on my TV were. And this wasn’t necessarily because the people on my TV were famous, this was sort of a guilt by geographic association: if you were hanging out in Berkshire County, Massachusetts in the very early ‘90s you were definitionally not cool. . .if you were cool you would leave.
But at some point, you’re going to meet a person in real life who is cool the way people on the TV are, doing something cool with their life, living their life in a slightly unconventional way, and the first one I saw had a huge impact on me, even though I did not realize it it at the time. It was the town photographer from the local paper, the North Adams Transcript. Her name is Gillian Jones, I just found her online. Go take a look at her and read her bio, she is still cool and she looks cool.
I never knew Gillian’s name until fifteen seconds ago when I searched for her online. But when you grow up in a small town before the internet some lady from the paper would come take your photo maybe once every two years for some reason or another. I think Gillian first took my picture when my second grade class planted a tree in front of our school. She came and took the picture of our swim team when I was in middle school. And every time I saw her I knew she was cool in ways that my parents absolutely were not. She wore a scarf when it was warm out. She kept her scarf on while she was taking a picture of the YMCA swim team inside our hot ass pool area. IT WAS A DECORATIVE SCARF. It was a fashion scarf. She had fashion things. Brown hair, zero hairspray, which was a statement in the Berkshires in the early 90s. I think just a simple ponytail while she was taking pictures. She had a cool bag for her camera. It was canvas. She wore long, loose dresses that went to her ankles. And more significant than any of that in my opinion. . .it looked like she cared immensely about the quality of her work. I remember her valiantly trying to rearrange Mrs. Sullivan’s second grade class around this little sapling to try to actually show all the kid’s faces and show the tree. She had an assignment and she delivered. She was the town photographer. It was noble work. She did it well, she did it with pride and she was fucking cool. Now reading her biography I feel like I see it all, born in ‘69 in Queens, grew up in Long Island until moving with her parents to Berkshire County in 1982. Probably wasn’t too psyched about coming to Berkshire County in her middle school years. . .duking it out with O’Bannion Dazed and Confused types while graduating from Mount Greylock in the mid 80s. I’m guessing she wasn’t an out and out supporter of the move. . .but she found something. And really just a handful of years later, she’s running around the county with one of three cool jobs into the entire 413 area code.
Gillian, when I was a young boy, just trying to figure out what it was to be cool and how far away I’d have to move away to be cool.
I saw you and I saw a window into a life filled with clove cigarettes, jazz records, films with subtitles, long instrumental breaks before obtuse lyrics, travel by train, arguments about divinity, un-bankable college majors, backstages, skinny dipping, girlfriends who can roll a joint while driving a car, brunches, people crashing on couches, idiosyncratic tattoos, patchouli incense, jewelry that told a story, red wine at a gallery opening, herbal tea, zines, cyphers with amazing rappers, road trips to see bands you’ve never heard of, records that sell 4,000 copies but everyone in your world knows about them. I looked hard for that window Gillian because my life was full of people who didn’t seem to love art, who loved Snapple and mountain bikes, who loved dipping tobacco, making varsity. and making fun of me. I needed that window and your spirit, your energy, your scarf, your asking me to move slightly to the left so you could get the picture just right. . .you were the window to where I wanted to be and I can say I got there cause I saw you. I live in a cool city. I’m one of the cool motherfuckers in this city. I play in an amazing band, I’m the music director and afternoon host on a jazz radio station. I’ve played on all sorts of great stages. My friends are even more amazing. I love the cool world I live in. Gillian, I found the life I wanted and the first time I saw it was when you took my picture.
Big Trouble Show Cancelled Today
Due to unforeseen circumstances we have to cancel today’s Big Trouble show. I’m still celebrating my 42 birthday over at White Squirrel. If you’re free, come through.
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.