The Drive to Connect

I have spent a lot of my life trying to connect with other people both as individuals, as fans of bands I play in, as listeners to radio stations. I also try to connect in smaller ways than that. I want to find consensus or understanding on great chicken wings, on under-appreciated songs from well known artists, I want to both have seen the same random thing on an episode of Blind Date from 23 years ago. I want to connect. I don’t pass out business cards to people while saying “let’s connect” because I’m not an asshole. But I do want to connect. I’ll be up front, I don’t want to necessarily connect on a completely even playing field. I can’t guarantee I want to read your blog, or listen to your CD, or tune into your radio station. The truth is I’ll usually give it a try, but if it’s not my cup of tea I’m not going to stay committed because we are connected. I want to connect and some of it is for ego related reasons. I feel great when people feel I’m great. That’s natural. And in general that drive has brought me to great places. A sense of pride in my performance, a sense of effort in creating a strong album knowing that some amount of people are actually going to check it out. When you try and do great things you often get to do a fair amount of pretty cool things along the way. Let’s have a quick sidebar:

Two nights ago I had the enviable task of listening to the test pressings of Heiruspecs’ A Tiger Dancing. It’s a record that turns twenty years old in ten days. Even though it feels awesome to listen to your own music on vinyl I was stressing in this particular situation. This is work that Heiruspecs recorded 21 years ago. It is no doubt the most commercially successful album I’ve ever been front and center on. I’m sure some of the records I’ve played bass on have sold some more copies, but A Tiger Dancing is likely the furthest reach I’ve ever had as a creative person. I was hoping that the master would be good, that the work would stand up to the test of time, that I could proudly endorse people spending some of their money to get a copy of this record. But before I even put the record on I had that happy/sad feeling that comes from being in your forties and feeling good about how you’ve spent the first half of your life but confused about how you’ll spend the second half. As I went to my little cubby to retrieve the records I just thought about test pressings in general. They are so fucking cool. The first time I ever got test pressings they were FedExed up to Bennington College at a cost of like $65 dollars because Heiruspecs was playing a show there and the record label needed our approval ASAP. WHAT? How cool is that? The records were so thick, felt like two 180 gram records glued together. They had the name of our manager on them. I still have em. They sounded great, I was so happy. I had to go find a turntable and give em a listen. I felt so. . .arrived, so optimistic about the trajectory. Hilariously I bet you that day I got those test pressings was maybe exactly 20 years ago from when I am writing.

I love the trappings of a life in music. I am not talking about the mountains of coke or the ability to treat women horribly and think you can get away with it because you are talented. Those are trappings I eschew. I am talking about the test pressings, the reviews of artwork, the printing of contracts for shows, the hanging of posters, the reading of magazines and the smoking of weed or cigarettes whilst a more talented person mixes your record. I sit and drink coffee with my best friend Martin most Sundays and whenever he says something like “just sent the masters in” or “I think we’ve landed on a good album cover” I remember how magical this pursuit is. But as I’m looking at these test pressings I remember how fleeting it is too. How many more test pressings do I get to pore over? How many more 9V batteries do I buy before I’m done playing gigs? It’s been a long run, but it’s still a fleeting run and when it ends is not purely up to me. It’s up to the family of musicians I play with. It’s up to the small but supportive audience different projects I’ve been in have been lucky enough to attract across the last twenty five years. It’s up to the needs of my kids, the needs of my own. It’s an honor to pursue a creative life, but it’s a tenuous honor.

Sidebar Done: I don’t think seeking out approval and connection is unhealthy. I think the healthiest form of this behavior is very flat hierarchically. It feels very good for my soul to pursue friendships with my neighbors, with my co-workers, with random ass people. I believe you’d agree with that for your life. Making friends, having friends, spending time together, these things make us healthier. Wanting that connection and pursuing it are pretty reasonable pursuits. I also believe that seeking out those connections in the manner that was available to me in the 1990s and early 2000s was relatively safe and beneficial. I want to connect with audiences so I pass out flyers, I send out press releases, I go to shows by other artists and try to connect, try to establish some community. I want to have friends so I get phone numbers, host parties, call people, remember people, explore new social settings. And as I pursue the lofty and praiseworthy goal of being connected I do cool things along the way: I listen to test pressings, I go to concerts, I put up posters, I work on mixing a record, I play basketball, I go camping with random people, I strike up a conversation with the weird pizza delivery guy at the coffeeshop. At every turn that I’m trying to fill my cup socially I am filling my cup in other ways. I’m filling my cup of knowledge. I’m filling my cup of new experiences. I’m filling my cup with good things. But now there is the shortcut of social media and as it has slowly built itself to invade almost anything you do. Are you playing basketball? Are you picking up extra players on social media? Are you going to a show? Better tell everyone you are going to a show! You are seeking out a worthwhile thing, connection and maybe receipt of connection, receipt of being bonded. But to pursue that you are letting social media to just pour onto every surface of your life. That’s well documented. But I don’t think you are getting the residual skills and experiences you want by trying to get that social connection off of social media. You aren’t playing basketball, you aren’t learning about movies, you aren’t starting a band. If you are using social media s a vehicle to launch real life magic, more power to you. It’s magical for that. Inside of social media is the greatest flyer passing out system in the world. But it is landlocked, surrounded with an infrastructure meant to make you hate yourself and buy someone else’s shit. You want connection and your are suffocated with insufficiency. You are suffocated with what you think is the news of the day including the dumb news your real life friends combine. But that’s just a shell. The feed is actually aiming to make you stuck there. The feed is designed to make you miss that pick up basketball game and to wallow.

I try to build pathways around the algorithm. I hope when I mention my blog on my social media it pulls one or two people off of a place designed to maximize engagement and dollars into a place designed to maximize depth and connection. I want you to read this blog and do something more awesome with your day. Maybe it’s listen to a record. Maybe it’s go to a yoga class. Maybe it’s a concert. Maybe you cook a delicious ass recipe. I don’t need you to stay here forever.

My dad used to tell me that the planners had thought that Mall of America would create a huge network of other retail around the mall. But actually, the first stuff to sprout up by MOA was hotels cause they had all the retail covered! People needed to crash. When I heard about social media I rightfully thought it was going to make reaching people easier; you could remind your friend in Sioux Falls more easily that your band was coming through. But at some point it isn’t a network for the real world. . .it’s a network for itself. And it creates it’s own language, it’s own hierarchy, it’s own reward system. You came in to play basketball and you leave wondering why everyone hates you. And you didn’t even break a sweat. I think seeking out connection is wildly important. I think making those connections is even more important. And I think Facebook is a wildly easy tool for seeking out connection and is absolute garbage for delivering. It’s an easy tool for the wrong job.

My Deep And Awkward Love for the Juan Epstein Podcast

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                                  L to R: Peter Rosenberg, Cipha Sounds

Juan Epstein was the first hip-hop podcast ever. I got turned on to it by Medium Zach in maybe 2009 or 2010. Juan Epstein is a duo show consisting of Peter Rosenberg, a broadcaster in music and sports and Cipha Sounds, a broadcaster who also has a career as a comedian and to a lesser extent as a live DJ. I knew Cipha Sounds from him mixing the pre-release promo for Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek’s Reflection Eternal (I think he also gets shouted out on the record). I didn’t know much about podcasts but hearing these two radio personalities from NYC chop it up very casually and very behind the scenes was exactly what I needed in my life at that time. I was just getting into being on the radio myself and it was exactly what I wanted to hear: two of the morning show hosts cracking the mic at about 9:30am after finishing the morning show and just talking, complaining, gossiping with a rotating cast of other staff from the station (Hot 97).

I love a well-produced podcast with perfect sounders, transitions topics and a top-flight staff working behind the scenes as much as the next porky white guy in his forties who subscribes to the New Yorker but for me it does not beat that unscripted love and energy I have for a personality-driven podcast. I have now been with Juan Epstein’s ups and downs for 15 years. Although they both have admirable careers, they’ve spent more time nursing their wounds and wondering what could’ve been than celebrating what is working for them. But isn’t that human nature? I am drawn to understanding their struggles. Cipha Sounds was fired with very little notice some months after a really reprehensible joke at the expense of Haitians. It was stupid as shit but understanding the fallout and the career changes made for great radio. Cipha Sounds hasn’t attained the heights he envisioned for himself as a comedian and he feels like he can almost sniff the heights he could’ve reach as a music industry professional. Peter Rosenberg is uncomfortably over employed with multiple radio shifts a week but he still sees a level he hasn’t hit yet in what he can offer as a broadcaster or more. They both regret many choices they made at different forks in the road. Recently, they had a frank and still funny talk about Cipha Sounds’ struggles with overeating. Peter Rosenberg has sounded off about the knee jerk complaints from listeners who barely know his output but judge an out of place soundbite and he’s been forthright about his culpability in his divorce.

I struggle to recommend to the Juan Ep podcast to random people who aren’t familiar. There is so much history there. And so much of what I love about it is is my investment I’ve made in these personalities who are in a similar line of work to the one I’m in. The larger appeal for Juan Ep is no doubt their particular brand of hip-hop coverage. They bring in icons from earlier eras of the music and ask perfect questions. The questions are perfect because they blend nerdyness with the courage to ask a question that might be a feather-ruffler if it didn’t come from a duo who command so much respect inside of hip-hop. For me, it is the comparative filterlessness of the whole thing that is the biggest appeal. They seem to be genuinely frustrated with their “producer” a fair amount of the time. They seem to be genuinely frustrated with each other. In the last couple weeks the normally apolitical Cipha Sounds has been dipping his toe into the MAGA pool. I hate that cause it is not my politics but I love the conflict, the tension. I am amazed at how candidly these two speak about their misgivings at their dayjobs as radio hosts. And Peter Rosenberg tends to share a considerable amount about his life outside of work as well. It makes for moments of hard fought humor. Humor that relies upon pain, upon history and upon a shared love of hip-hop combined with a shared estrangement from it as Cipha, Rosenberg and myself all go deep into middle agedness.

I grew up with these men. Warts and all. I track my successes with theirs, I track my failures with theirs. I feel invested in their stories. Sometimes they get dumb-comment-people in their Patreon complaining about how far the show can stray from hip-hop from time to time. It’s the least of my worries because I am here for the hosts and their journey. Of course I love hip-hop and I am so glad it is at the center of this podcast, but what keeps me glued to the feed is the sloppiness, the humanness, the honesty and the humor. If you are already a fan and you want to talk about the show, I’d love to do that, to my knowledge the only people I know of in MN who listen are me, Medium Zach and Felix. But I’m sure there’s more. If you are looking for a new podcast and you are ready to take some time to get to know the hosts, I’d strongly recommend the reward of really diving in deep into the Juan Ep universe. I don’t think it can be easily enjoyed from time to time. It’s something to stay pretty focused on, that’s where you reap the reward of feeling like you really know these hosts. But if you do, you’ve just made two very real, very endearing, very annoying friends. It is truly beautiful.

Michael Grady’s Pure

Announcer and media personality Michael Grady

Do you know about Michael Grady? He joined the Timberwolves broadcast team a couple years ago and improved the quality I’d comfortably say three fold which is in an unbelievable achievement in the broadcast world. I’m sure there are other ingredients in the recipe, but the man comes ready to do TV everyday. I steal that compliment from my guy Bill DeVille from the Current. He would always compliment Mark Wheat to me by saying “that guy walks in everyday ready to do a radio show”. And it’s a real ass compliment. Some people come in shaky, they come in half-hearted. I don’t care if we are playing the Charlotte Hornets at midnight in Liverpool, Michael Grady is ready to deliver. So before I actually start my whole connection to the man. . .thank you Michael. You have made my basketball fandom so much more enjoyable.

One thing Grady says when someone sinks a clean shot is simply “pure”. I don’t think it’s Grady’s most well-known tagline but it’s the one that sticks with me. Seeing Anthony Edwards go up almost unexpectedly for a long two and the ball just jumps into the basket like it’s a California King the ball’s been waiting to dive into all day and then Grady just says “pure”. It is part of the rhythm of the broadcast, of the game and now of my life. This image of purity to me feels aligned not with cleanliness or holiness but with clarity, with focus, with intention. As I walk through my life I struggle to stay focused on the pure things. I struggle to not fall for the distractions that pull me off my path. These distractions might be petty schoolyard gossip bullshit that I’ve always been too old for, reading far down on the Instagram feed only to feel less productive, attending to my own distracted mind instead of engaging with my kids. None of these actions feel great at the time, I am drawn to them for someone reason, but I am repulsed by them because they are not pure. Michael Grady is now part of the soundtrack of the good moments in my life, the moments where my actions are aligning with my intentions.

McPherson is up early to do his morning exercises and pack S.’s lunch before the rest of the family wakes up. Pure
Sean has scheduled the music for Jazz88 out to next Thursday and he’s now finally reviewing the charts to see what other stations are playing. From the logo, pure
McPherson is making time to clean his desk and set up the scene for the day before he makes his list. Pure
McPherson has again elected to turn on Diners, Dives and Drive-Ins on TV while primarily cycling between headlines on New York Times and scrolling Instagram. It Rims Out
McPherson addresses the hardest things on his list right out the gate and doesn’t leave them until after all the things he’s excited about. That’s pure Jim

As the Timberwolves season approaches I am legitimately giddy to spend eight months hanging out with the broadcast crew and already dreading the headache that it will be to get the games here at home thanks to the cluster that is Bally’s. I also want to give a shoutout to my co-worker Jedidiah Jones who handles the in-arena announcing for the Wolves. Though he recently stepped away from his full-time position at Jazz88 he’s still in the mix for special programs et cetera.

Right now I’m going to grab a shower and head in to work to share some new music with the morning show host and the program director. Pure

The Farewell To Summer: Big Trouble on Saturday at The White Squirrel

The school supplies will be feverishly purchased at 9:31pm at Target on Monday night, but the summer is almost over already. And on Saturday you rally against it. You party like it 2009. And you start your evening with a visit to the White Squirrel between 6 and 8pm to enjoy Big Trouble.

A Writer

I am, at my most fundamentally, a writer. It was the first identity I tried on and loved. I was told I was a boy, told I was a McPherson, told I was from Massachusetts, told I was white. But the first thing I told anyone was that I was a writer. I wrote a six page double spaced story in second grade called The Quest for Life and I sold it for ten cents a copy to the other kids. It was primarily the plot of a game called KingsQuest. I didn’t know I was a writer when I started writing it. I hadn’t written a one page story I was proud of. But something about putting my hands on WordPerfect every afternoon after school felt right. It didn’t feel easy, but it felt resonant.

My life has been about finding ways to “write” without being alone. Me and Brad Schroeter started Fungle Toxins when I was in sixth grade. A punk band with words to our songs but no singer. Me and Brad knew the words, but we agreed that neither of us were qualified to sing them. I played guitar, I wrote the words. We agreed on the words but we never sang them.

I came to music as a writer. I was more fascinated by creation than duplication. The first order of magic is in the song, not the band. I landed as a bass player. Rightfully so. I am, at my second most fundamentally, a bass player. Perhaps even moreso than a musician. I feel a kinship to the role of the instrument, to the spirit of the instrument, to the personality of the players. There is some sort of resolvable, welcome tension between being a writer and a bassist. Like being a gardener and a demolition worker. Bass is a blue collar instrument. And that goes for McCartney, Mingus, Pastorius, Pettiford, Weymouth, Barrett and every other great. We are supports, we are foundations, we are musical infrastructure. If we exhibit the highest forms of style, of decoration and of freedom while being the infrastructure we are golden gods and godesses. If we exhibit the highest forms of style, of decoration and of freedom while not contributing to the infrastructure we are trumpets.

I came to trivia as a writer. I was more fascinated by camaraderie than by facts. Trivia being questions that demand answers seemed like an ultimate complete protein. How many times have I heard artists say that the role of the artist is to “ask questions not provide answers”? Circa a bajillion. Part of me thinks and has always thought “what a half assed job you espresso drinking shitbag” when I hear that line. I appreciate the truth in the line, but it presumes that there is some other line of work where in their long interview sections they say “the job of the ice cream store clerk is to answer the questions that the espresso drinking shitbag artist has asked”. No, not true. You, artist, you are uniquely qualified to answer the question because you wrote the question. I don’t mean you are the only one qualified, I don’t even mean you are the best qualified. I mean you are uniquely qualified. And if you take that off your job description definitionally I think you are kind of a shit.

Let’s be fair. The great writers of the world don’t ask trivia questions. I am now envisioning Friedrich Nietzsche working bar trivia sucking down a couple weisses off of his $20 tab and saying “Round 2, Question 4: When you stare into the abyss, what does the abyss do? Again, question 2, round four. If you stare in the abyss, what does the abyss do?”

I have been more rewarded in life asking questions there are answers to. Trivia, interviews, random would-you-rather questions. Building a conversation has been more rewarding than fashioning myself a star. Ultimately, as an artist I don’t believe my role is to ask questions. My role is to make art that asks questions. But I don’t feel the clear clarion call of an artist. In the journey that has to do with work I feel the push and pull of an entertainer, a host, a bass player, a songwriter, a curator. But, below all of these, deeper than most anything in me, I am a writer. And as I willfully pushed down my writing ambitions in junior high to make room for music, to write songs at home and play songs in Jon Baker’s basement in Lanesboro, I thought it might bubble up again, later. Maybe I didn’t think it would bubble up sitting on the second floor of paradise at First and Rittenhouse in Bayfield, Wisconsin on my seventh straight summer vacationing on this corner. But it has. And I am in Paradise a fifty-yard dash from Lake Superior. I am a writer.

You are what you do everyday. That means that there are many things we all might moonlight as doing but we haven’t actually “stuck our dick in”. It’s a crass way of saying it, but it’s the way I’ve heard the work described for decades by creators of all stripes and all genders. I’ve done the music work everyday. I spent a time doing the songwriting work everyday but I regret to say that some of my early successes as a songwriter clouded my ability to believe the work ethic had to tighten up. I’ve done the trivia work everyday. I’ve done the radio work everyday. And by virtue of this blog I’ve started to do the writing work everyday. But I’m ready to tighten shit up.

This summer I worked with a student intern at Jazz88 from South High named Laelah and she is a gifted writer and a tremendously gifted young person. She wrote a bunch of small reviews for Jazz88 and I was sad that I couldn’t line edit her writing. I couldn’t give her the sentence structure guidance I bet she’s getting from her teachers at South. I took it to my awesome writer committee of Chuck Terhark, Martin Devaney and my brother Steve McPherson. These men are all awesome writers and we spend some of the downtime of our life in a long text conversation talking about all sorts of miscellany. They pointed out that there is no better activity for learning to write than reading. I simultaneously agreed and rolled my eyes. I read a lot. But I had stopped reading like a writer. I had stopped looking at the handiwork of a writer with the reverence that I use when I listen to a bass player, when I play another company’s trivia night. But on this vacation, here in Bayfield, Wisconsin in the quasi-wicker deck chair I sit in now I engaged in some ancient-to-me process I remember doing as a kid. I saw a sentence, and I put my thumb near it. I worked it over in my head. I said it out loud with my mouth closed. I looked at a how it felt and I let it burn into my memory, into my writing muscles, into my craft. The writer is Jessamyn Ward and I’m reading her because Rachel and I agreed to pick off some of the fiction from the New York Times list of Greatest Books of the 21st Century that we haven’t gotten to. I don’t know much about this woman but the book is amazing so far. It’s called Salvage the Bones. Here’s the sentence:

By the time the meat is done cooking, has turned brown and small with as many hard edges as a jewel, the boys have come.

I don’t know how to explain it’s excellence, but I’m not sure you need me to. You know it’s excellent. And I know I’m a writer.

The Country Cabin Crapper Companion

I made an awesome magazine. The Country Cabin Crapper Companion. Artwork by @stephtupper, Best of Twin Cities by me, The Best Record Released Every Year between 1959-2009 by me, Power Loon article by @kylematteson, awesome recipes, 100 Cabin Questions and playful interviews with @charlie.parr, @_omgigi_ , @abywolf, @laplantica, @derushaj, @mmyykkvibes @useful_noise. I'm really proud of this here magazine and I hope you pick up a copy and enjoy it. I wanted to sell it right here on Squarespace, but they want me to pay more for the website to do that. I already pay like $117 a year and I don’t want to pay more. So for now, I’m going to be mainly giving them away if I see you. If you really want one venmo @twinkiejiggles $10 and then email me (s@heiruspecs.com) your mailing address and I’ll send it it you. If you live outside of the US venmo me a bit more.

I’ll also have them at the merch table at the Heiruspecs Summer Classic on Saturday August 17. $5 on their own. Free if you buy Heiruspecs merch.

I Appeared on the Brian Oake Show

Got to connect with a long time radio friend Brian Oake and join his podcast. Thanks for having me back. We talked about my new zine (more on that later when I have shipping supplies), the Heiruspecs Summer Classic, my radio journey to Jazz88 and more. Give it a listen and thanks to Brian and Sean for having me and for connecting with local musicians and hosting these conversations.

Three Views of a Secret

2024

——

I have spent, charitably, 50 hours of my life in a tent. Maybe 95% of those hours, in blissful campy sleep. I’ve spent very few waking hours in a tent. Just those waking hours you spend in a tent wondering if you really want to get up and pee in the morning. This weekend we were in the storms in cabin country Wisconsin. Saturday night, Solon Springs. The rain starts up around 5:30pm. We are finishing up a lightly stressful pizza dinner at the town bar in anticipation of a rainy night. I pull up the car to spare the kids the rain only for the kids to take for-fucking-ever to actually get into the car. Back to the cabin.

Our two kids are watching an ipad on a porch. The 15 or so neighbors from Saint Paul we are with are mostly gathered in a small cabin room with couples tag teaming one another to handle the start of children’s bedtimes. Our kids go to bed later than most. Rachel goes into the tent for a little break that I know will be a long break. The storm’s going. I am sitting in the couch next to my kids and I’m listening to “Bad Luck Blue Eyes Goodbye” by the Black Crowes in my headphones trying to decide if the drinks I had at the town bar are having any impact and also trying to decide if this is the greatest Black Crowes song of all time. I am also thinking about those artists, movies and other offerings of culture that played a disproportionately big role in my upbringing compared to other families. The Black Crowes. The movie Liar Liar. The TV show Twin Peaks. The Allman Brothers. Two rock bands you have never heard of I guarantee it: The Hatters and Reef. I am now encouraging you to listen to “Bad Luck Blue Eyes Goodbye” by the Black Crowes.

I have spent, charitably, until August 3, 2024, zero hours in a tent during a rainstorm. The family uses a green Coleman Skydome. It was selected for its ease of assembly and goddammit the satisfaction I derive from setting up the tent even though it is easy to assemble. I was not on a “yeah I can set up a tent” path in life and having shoved myself onto that path I smile from ear to bug-bitten ear admiring the cover I have created for my children in the rugged wilderness of the mowed grass next to Silus and Kelly’s cabin. I did not know that as rain hits a tent the beads of rain dance and move in orchestrated improvisation much like they would on my parent’s Chevy Nova on rides home from Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The rainfly and the tent in a taut bounce to keep the rain away from the people. The rain shakes the tent gently, the wind shakes the tent violently. My two daughters barter, cajole and acquiesce their way to an understanding of who gets what glow-sticks. With the exchange complete between the two of them I imagine some part of their attention also goes to the beating Mondrian painting that dances above our eyes. The sleep slowly rolls over both of them largely in rhythm with the storm rolling past us. Their bodies move less, their breaths more rhythmic, their glowsticks lazily sliding out of their loosened fists now shining inside their sleeping bags.

———-

2012

In my experience the tense conversations on tours never happen during the hours of easy driving between major and minor population centers. The conversations about publishing percentages, about who needs to help more with merch, about whether we can play an encore when only fourteen people come to our shows. . .those all happen amidst turns, the fighting happening in tandem with Siri reading take a right on Douglas, then continue straight on Douglas. One such argument came up in the Dessa band in regards to the ownership of sounds. The ownership of patches that Dustin, our amazing guitar player and keyboard player used in the studio and on stage. He played a tremendous role in both imitating sounds that had been acquired by other means on Dessa records and on creating his own sounds for new Dessa material.

So that’s the question. If Dustin subs out a gig, if Dustin quits, if Dustin gets fired. . .does the schmo who replaces him get those files? Does he get those patches or is the new schmo at square one? Dustin rightfully feels a level of ownership and identity over these patches. For some of the songs, it might be the hardest, most impactful work any of us in the band had done on the song. On the other hand, what about the Three Musketeersiness of all of this? If Dustin has to go play another gig or go to a wedding, isn’t the classy thing to send the patches over to schmo one so that they don’t have to spend hours crafting them for one sub gig? Continue straight to go on Hwy 12, then, stay in the right lane. But, how Three Musketeersy is the band at this point? Dessa’s making music with other producers, Dessa’s making music on her synthesizer, she’s restless. The writing is not on the wall, but the pen is out and the wall is there. Are we hired hands or are we in it for the long haul? Once they are shared with the schmo, what prevents you from saving them and using them after you fire me? Silence. Not even Siri is talking.

I want to be the peace keeper but there isn’t a needed peace to find. The argument is largely hypothetical. I don’t believe there is a gig we are subbing Dustin out for. I am a side person in the Dessa band. But I have been a bandleader a lot longer. My allegiance is to the advancement of the music with little patience for increasing the difficulty of advancing the music due to concerns of intellectual property. But I am not stupid enough to think that I am right, I just know where my allegiance lies. I say to Dustin “I haven’t been in the position to have a sound I felt strongly enough about to want compensation for it or to keep it for myself”. Without malice and without pause Dustin says “that’s right, cause you haven’t worked hard enough on a sound to feel ownership of it”. He’s right and it hurts. It hurts because when people say “you haven’t worked hard enough” it strikes a resonance in me, a harmony with the 24/7 screaming soundtrack of “you haven’t worked hard enough” already blasting through my head. I eat, sleep, work hard and think I don’t work hard enough. Those are my activities. Dustin just did the out loud on it. And it hurts. But I don’t have that perspective and I don’t have that experience. He’s right and fuck it hurts.

I didn’t understand, given Dustin’s level of sweat equity dumped into these patches, what his bargaining position could be. Dustin was right, I can’t speak as somebody who has put in that time. I can speak from my position, but it isn’t Dustin’s. I am working this story from 2012 into my campaign to not go back to one on one therapy. I had a strong year of therapy, I got through a lot of shit. I replaced it with yoga. I want to stay with yoga. But I feel under-appreciated in the grand majority of my relationships and Rachel and the couple’s counselor think there is work to be done there. Work to address my chronic feelings of not being appreciated enough. I don’t feel that Rachel sees what I do to keep our family thriving, especially in these years where she is stretched thin with grad school. I don’t feel that Heiruspecs understands how much work remains for me even if we don’t play that many shows. Rachel doesn’t know what it is to be me in this family. The gentlemen in Heiruspecs don’t know what it is to be me in our family. And I don’t know what it is to be them. I don’t know what Rachel or Peter or DeVon feels unappreciated about. I know my struggle. I know my pain points. I know the sweat equity I put in. I am not in charge of making the people I love understand it. We aren’t always in this together. It’s not three musketeers. It’s six guys. It sucks. It’s a marriage where your contributions feel invisible, feel ephemeral, feel negotiable. Why do I need to have someone else validate it? Dustin knew he had busted his ass to make these sounds, he was willing to hold his sounds hostage to have things work on his terms. Am I a leader or just a worker bee? Do I lead others in a meaningful way or do I just eat the shit others won’t? Am I one musketeer? Does that sound fun to you?

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2024

Today is my mother’s birthday. She’s been dead seventeen years. My relationship with her has gotten worse since her death. And it’s gotten worse in the last three years. The therapy I have done has been largely focused on my childhood years. Am I on my one musketeer program in adulthood because that was the comfortable way to get love from my family? I remember my parents rejoicing when I learned how to make them coffee in the morning, when I learned how to do laundry in the sixth grade, when I told my Dad I would happily be part of a book he wanted to write about how great our relationship was. The youngest child. I’ll play rhythm guitar Steve, no problem! Oh, you’re playing rhythm guitar? I’ll buy a bass! I’m just along for the ride and I’m also the road. One musketeer.

When I say my relationship with my mom has gotten worse I mean it’s gotten thicker, it’s gotten realer. There is more to it. There is more there. I understand our relationship differently. I was 25 when she died. I wasn’t really grown. I certainly wasn’t looking back much at the time. I wasn’t a dad. I wasn’t a grown man. I wasn’t a work in progress. I wasn’t working. I was a young man living. And now the good times we had are tainted, the always bad times look worse. Today I went to the bench they have for my Mom at Macalester, where my Dad was the President during one of the happiest stretches of her life. I sat at the bench and felt my body vibrate a little. I slowed down. I almost fell asleep. I wanted a security guard to walk up and ask me what I was doing here and I wanted to tell him that this is my Mom’s bench and I wanted him to read the plaque. The plaque for my mom said she had a genuine curiosity in everyone she met. That’s very correct Mr. Plaque writer. I know she loved me. I don’t believe she knew how to raise me. I don’t believe she knew how to care for me and how to give me the structure I needed to thrive. I don’t think she had that in her quiver, or if she did I don’t think she had the energy to call it up.

I leave the bench and walk to the President’s Mansion, the first place I lived in Minnesota. 1750 Summit Ave. Big ass khaki brick house. I drive past it sometimes just in regular life. But today I approach it on foot. I look at the alley. Just really one memory from the alley. A phone argument with DeVon from Heiruspecs as he was telling me he was going to miss the rehearsal the rest of us were all set up for. DeVon said “now if I understand correctly, you got laid last night, so I really don’t want you to be an asshole after I tell you this. I am not running late, I am not coming at all.” One musketeer.

I walk past the house up and down but don’t want to linger there, lest I scare the folks who live there now. The little driveway. I pulled the first Heiruspecs trailer up that driveway full of our gear all on my own after our first tour but I shit my pants about halfway up the incline. We had driven basically straight from Cleveland and I thought I’d wheel up about 700 pounds before hitting the commode. So instead of triumphantly walking in to the house and bragging about our week and a half long tour I frantically ran downstairs and tried to get the shit all cleaned off before I saw my parents and my aunt.

I then walk back to my car but I do the walk on Summit, not Grand. A couple steps in I realize I’ll go to a place I’ve never revisited before on foot. The Macalester Alumni House on Grand. It’s right near Great River Junior High which used to be called Ramsey. It was there, as my Dad was doing a round of meetings for his new job and Mom and I were shopping for high schools that she proposes that she and I get a divorce. I’m in ninth grade, we are fighting, and she says that we can’t seem to get along and we should just stay out of each other’s way. Worst moment of my life. We had watched Apollo 13 in the Alumni House the night before. I loved it, but even at the time I could feel the movie melting in with my memory of Mom suggesting that we would be well-served to stay out of each other’s way. Tonight I look out on the little extra parking strip of Summit where it happened, sitting in a rental car. Is that the worst thing that has ever happened on this little square of planet earth? Maybe somebody starved there in an unforgiving winter in 1837. Maybe someone got shot and died right there. I don’t have the data, but it’s possible a Mom proposing a divorce with her ninth grade son is the worst thing to happen in the parking space right outside of the Macalester alumni house. I turn the corner, great memories. Heiruspecs did the Battle of the Bands right here at Grand Old Day probably 1997 or 1998. Kicked ass, got second place. I think Curious Yellow got first. I remember walking around here, dreaming about kissing Christina Gosling on the mouth, thinking the high placement in the Battle of the Bands was bound to help my odds. I am back to Grand. I unnecessarily unlock my car from across Grand. I look at the bench. I’ve done the circle. 17 years you’ve been gone Mom. And I love you. I see you differently, I have lived so much life. I understand how much life you were robbed of. 60 seems so old to somebody whose 25. Today you’d be 77. A different person. I don’t know what we would have worked out. I don’t know what would have stayed unaddressed. You always had an appetite to talk. I’ll always wonder how you remember those times? Does your soul still negotiate with them? Are you at rest? The family that are still here aren’t really talkers like you and I are. When it’s in the rearview it’s gone. You and I are different from them and we are different from each other. I don’t think I’ll ever get to know who you are, cause I didn’t know who I was when you died. I am one musketeer. And I am your baby. And I can love you. And I can forgive you. And I don’t want a divorce.

I Appeared on the Show Some Kinda Fun

I had the honor of appearing on “Some Kinda Fun” recently. It can be an uphill battle covering a local music scene. At times it can feel like you’ll get more attention for your small handful of mistakes than you’ll get for your bushel full of slam dunks. Well, in my humble opinion Some Kinda Fun does it right and I’m glad they shared their platform so I could talk about the upcoming Heiruspecs Summer Classic and more. Check it out (my interview is at 33 minutes FYI)!

PWAAB and the Magic of City Billiards

City Billiards had shirts that said “Shoot Pool Not People”. You could smoke in their cause it was the 90s and the 2000s. It was downtown right by First Avenue and 4th Street. It was an amazing hang. When I was in high school me, my dad and Steve would go down there. My dad’s default activity with kids was to play pool. I played so much pool as an elementary school kid. As a junior high kid. As a high school kid. I suck at pool but I love it. If you have a pool table, I want to play it. I’m friends with a neighbor who has a pool table and he has never really invited me over to play pool with him and it breaks my soul.

The last months of City Billiards existence were probably in 2003/2004 something around there. Grant Cutler, who is now quite the musician and composer was the fuck-this-job and fuck-this-place all star because he knew the place was closing and he knew his checks were gonna bounce so he was just giving away mountains of drinks. I’d get six drinks, the bill would be $7. It was that stuff every time he worked. And between ten and thirty of us would show up for every shift and drink. Pool wasn’t the preferred game. The preferred game was darts. Me and Kevin played a lot of darts. I suck at darts. If you play darts you mostly play cricket. “It’s a game that rewards you for hitting certain parts of the dart board.” - Captain Obvious

Cricket is wild because you are competing both to finish hitting all the assigned spots but you are also accruing points by hitting spots you have completed and your competitor hasn’t. Kevin is good at darts. He would get all his stuff covered well before me, and then he’d just try to hit that bullseye. That bullseye was elusive. But as Kevin aimed for the bullseye, he made tons of points just by hitting the stuff I hadn’t yet. He called it PWAAB. Points while aiming at bullseye.

I think about PWAAB all the time in indie music. You ever met someone who has no business knowing how to fix a car but they had to learn to fix the van when they were touring on a shoestring budget. They were aiming at bullseye but they became an amateur mechanic. The only bullseyes I’ve really aimed at are being a musician, being a trivia business man and being a radio personality. I’ve hit some bullseyes but holy shit, have I scored a lot of points while aiming at those bullseyes. If you need to make something happen you work hard to cover what you need to. I learned how to book gigs. I learned how to set up and fix little shitty PAs. I learned how to edit audio. Interpersonal management. Trying to persuade people vastly more talented than you to follow your lead for a brief minute cause you have the vision. Aiming at that bullseye but learning stuff that helps me inside and outside of the dart game.

Sometimes when I come into regular job situations I feel so ahead of the game because of how ambitious the bullseye I’ve been aiming at has been. If you don’t want magical, spectacular, unimaginably cool shit it is harder to justify tolerating exhausting, futile, dangerous experiences. But if you are really about getting to some spot you want to find, you make a way, you work towards it. And I’ve worked towards it. I’m thankful. I’m exhausted, I’m happy. I could go for six drinks for $7 and a game of 9-ball.

Photos of Big Trouble Playing at White Squirrel

Had a great time playing outdoors at White Squirrel in June and we are back at it this Saturday! These photos were taken by Trevor McSpadden. Enjoy and catch us this Saturday for more Big Trouble action. 6-8pm at White Squirrel in Saint Paul.

Video of Big Trouble Playing at White Squirrel

My brother Steve, guitarist in Big Trouble, foodie and hair product enthusiast went to the trouble of capturing some video of Big Trouble’s latest show at White Squirrel. Check it out right here. We are doing “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles which is quite a tune.

There’s more where that came from bad boy. Join us on Saturday July 27 for more jams like this on a beautiful Saint Paul Saturday.

Heiruspecs Summer Classic

The Heiruspecs Summer Classic is back on Saturday August 17. We are playing with Greg Grease, Rabeca and DJ sounds from EmilyNayNay from the Cutthroat DJs. The event is happening at JJ Hill House. It’s free. It will always be free. But we have VIP tickets available for $40 that includes access to interior restrooms, private bar and balcony views. That’s nice. I recently just Number Two’d in a port a potty and I woulda paid at least $15 dollars to not have to. . .and I certainly didn’t get balcony views of hip-hop icons Heiruspecs. That’s for sure. I look forward to seeing you on August 17.

It’s just a Shame To Fall Without Aim

The soundtrack is Waxahatchee and the red herring was Lilacs. I wanted to learn Lilacs to slowly get to a cover of it with Big trouble. I gave that a lot of spins. It’s verse chorus. It’s a lyric song and the journey is the words. And it’s also beautiful in its little tricks. Its flourishes. It’s pieces of flair. And that doesn’t translate great into reading a song. Reading a song deep enough to only acknowledge the broad brush strokes because you have the essence.

But that brought me to Ruby Falls. And what I hear in Ruby Falls is something slightly smokier. Slightly more sinister but equally even handed. Equally invested. The story is sewn into the music. The words are there when the words aren’t there. It’s a gift in a giftsclothing.

When We Were Carried on Chairs at Our Wedding

I was just reminded of the fact that our friends and family carried Rachel and I around at our wedding lo the many years ago. Great memories.

A Great Feeling While Watching Jazz at Taste of MN

I spent all day on Saturday at Taste of MN. I am a DJ at Jazz88 at we sponsor the Jazz88 stage and this year we had a great lineup which I had a fair amount to do with. Steve Heckler did the calling, scheduling and advancing but a lot of the artists that played were artists I recommended and artists that I have fostered relationships with like BZ3 Organ Trio, Jennifer Grimm, HeyArlo, LA Buckner and Big Homie, MPLS String Project and more. What an honor to get to see these bands play a stage at a major free festival in Minnesota. I believe we need more free festivals in Minnesota. NOTE: I don’t mean musicians should play for free. . .I mean the economics of the event should be such that the event can turn a profit without making audience members come out of pocket for a ticket. It isn’t the only model, but it should be part of the offerings.

This particular Saturday was perfect even if it was demanding. Due to scheduling needs for my wife I brought my two heroic daughters to Taste bright and early circa 10:40. Because I’m a dumb dumb and forgot to do something at the studio I had to roll out to St. Louis Park before that, stuff them with vending machine candy and then take the bus into downtown. But I’ll be honest, I love the bus. We love the bus. When my seven year old sees the 74 on Randolph she rolls down the window and says “thanks for taking us to most of the places we go”.

From jump the vibe was great. Some shade. Not painfully hot. Trees. Food. Got my kid a seven dollar vegan cupcake that she stored upside down on the pavement below the table for safekeeping. Got my other kid a refill it yourself sno-cone situation and I’m certain that no one after her got anything but a sousant of root beer. As Jack Brass started off the festivities I was reminded that music is magic and it can turn a strange gathering into the most reasonable thing on Earth. Before they had played a note the vibe at Taste of MN was just. . .anticipatory. What am I doing here? I should have gone to the cabin. Holy crap, $7 for a cupcake with no cream in it? But then suddenly the music plays and I am more human, we are more human, we are together, there is art. There are speakers. There’s a tuba. Fuck that cabin. $7? A bargain? How bout a sno-cone?? About halfway in to the first band my wife came to pick up the kids and serve them something vaguely more healthy than I had offered so far that morning.

The day progressed. The crowds grew. The good vibes grew. A many with a classy ponytail said he loves “setting sail” with me every afternoon at three. I am grinning from ear to ear. HeyArlo sounds better than they ever have. The drums sound like someone is playing a record from 1978 on speakers from 1986. It’s spectacular. And the night ends with LA Buckner and Big Homie. I look out at the crowd. Young. Old. Black. White. Asian. Native. Latino. Nobody is looking at their phones and tolerating the music. Nobody is just tolerating the music to finish up the food they didn’t want to stand up for. The crowd is full of enthusiastic people who at this moment are connected with Mr. Buckner and his cast of incredible musicians. I also think some of the folks are there because they connect with Jazz88, they like what we have going, it’s what makes sense to them. It’s what works for their radio. I’m with Patty Peterson and Johnny. We are working the tent, we are working the area. Davide from Jazz88 is recording. And it’s a big ass crowd. I think it might be 850 people actively watching. More just breezing by. The band is the winner. The music always wins. The radio never wins. But radio and music have to work together and that night we did. Beautiful sounds. Some of which were broadcast on our airways. An amazing night filled with a music and a scene that I have played some role in cultivating. Grinning from ear to ear as something cool happens in the Twin Cities. It’s almost enough to go lick that cupcake frosting off the pavement, but it’s root beer flavored by now because my daughter spilled the sno-cone too.

Dispatch Denver

Let’s make that a large coffee. Let’s make it a double of the local whiskey my brother in-law bought. Because four year olds are the enemy. Because you sired the enemy. Because you love the enemy. Because you hate yourself. Because the coffee tastes better when it’s too late in the day to have coffee. Because vacations with young children are meant to remind you there is no release. Work is your escape from family. Family is your respite from work. Everything else costs money. Nothing else works. Your moments with your friends with your neighbors do not balance. These moments fill your cup with Phoenix’s rainwater. I was at a children’s museum today. Loud noises. Balls flying through the rooms. A woman having a long phone conversation. Said she had been seeing a man she liked, had taken him to her favorite Indian restaurant twice. He worked in a factory near downtown. It was great to hear that snippet. Great to have a favorite Indian restaurant. We should all be so lucky.

I got to see the four year old the enemy the angel my heartbeat my heartache send balls up into pneumatic tubes. I got to see her, the enemy the future the laugh track the villain, race around the room, gather the orange balls and find different spots to try them out. She comes to me and speaks: pretend we are construction workers. You’re the daddy construction worker. I’m the baby construction worker. What building are we working on?

I start to talk but an orange ball rolls past and the project is lost. The blueprints sit lonely while she shoots the orange balls into the tubes of the now past future into the walls of a Denver Children’s Museum. An hour later she will scream at me for thirty minutes straight to unbuckle her and let her into the coffee shop that she refused to go into ten minutes prior. I will choke back tears and a shockingly long and detailed litany of swear words and hand gestures while the four year old, the enemy the sunshine the moral center the tyrant, holds me and the seven year old hostage. The rental car A/C blasting while my wife buys coffee drinks. I was on Colfax Avenue near here September 23, 2003. Peter bought Speakerboxx/The Love Below. I bought Bazooka Tooth from Aesop Rock. Denver one of the only places where Heiruspecs felt kind of popular. Denver Duluth Chicago and home. And today 21 years later I drive us to our AirBNB. my wife handles the kid and I start crying in the bathroom. The enemy has won and I have won and we both grow. I turn on Waxahatchee and take a shower largely cause I’m committed to trying to regain the commitment to a good smelling crotch I had in my twenties. I open the window and look out at Denver from the second floor. I wash my whole body twice. I cry. I put on a white shirt and red underwear. I write this. I tell my wife I would eat spinach garlic feta pizza tonight. I will listen to Arkadelphia one more time, I will drink a lot of whiskey and I will be a dad. But a dad with a great smelling crotch.

HEIRUSPECS SUMMER CLASSIC NUMBER 2

It’s happening again! Heiruspecs Summer Classic. Shout out to Joe, Gibson, Felix and everyone helping us get this thing together.

BIG TROUBLE OUTDOOR STAGE AT WHITE SQUIRREL

We are moving it to the outdoor stage for a sassy explosion of instrumental joy. Going down Saturday June 29. You’ve made a great choice when you come.

Artwork photo

Taking in the backyard scene, SMINO right now musically. Mowed the lawn recently. Pulled out the cushions today.