A Tiger Dancing at 20 with Two Whiskey Diet Cokes

Tomorrow marks 20 years from a truly momentous and memorable Tuesday. Tuesday is when records used to come out and September 28, 2004 marked the release of Heiruspecs’ A Tiger Dancing. I’m the bass player in Heiruspecs. I’ve been in Heiruspecs since I started it with Felix in 1997. The band has been the guiding force in my life for the entirety of my adult life.
Felix and I recently connected with Jay and Keith from Racket to discuss the history of the album. I also recently sat down and listened to the record in its entirety on vinyl which was an exhilarating experience. I can’t tell you the last time I pressed play on the record and I bet you the last time I listened to the whole thing was 20 years ago. I heard all the youthful optimism, brazen confidence, jocular humor, musical and lyrical virtuosity. And I could almost smell the Camel Lights I bought at the gas station that used to be called Old Colony but everyone called it HoneyBee at Washington and just a little south of Broadway. Pick up cigarettes, a coffee and take $20 out of the ATM every two days. That was the routine for a week in September of 2023 when we recorded. This was the only record I ever made with a job like schedule. Multiple days (I bet 4 days of tracking?). Show up the same time everyday. Do what needed doing that day. Started making a friendship with Joe Mabbott (engineer) that remains so strong to this day. We were working so hard but having so much fun. Such fond memories.

The narrative of Heiruspecs in general and of A Tiger Dancing in particular has to at some level be narrative of a beautiful failure. A group that at a young age sat briefly on the precipice of dare I say likely national level acclaim but never realized it. If I wasn’t in Heiruspecs that is the narrative that I would understand and accept. And I think in a journalistic way I have to agree that that is the sturdiest explanation. In that narrative there is still room for silver linings, for beautiful successes, for proud moments and for praiseworthy community building.

But let me know tell you about the two whiskey diet cokes at the Leaning Tower of Pizza with chicken wings, the Twins turning it around in the sixth against the Marlins and a gorgeous tall woman with big hips and mom jeans next to me drinking a Heineken poured into a glass with a straw and a pineapple juice on the side: we fucking won. This band served as a launching pad for other semi-failures! We helped get Dessa on the road! Remember Ela? (don’t answer that unless your answer is yes). Heiruspecs paid Trivia Mafia’s payroll for the first 10 months before we could get a bank to give Trivia Mafia checks! Big Trouble is an instrumental band that is the opposite of a juggernaut! Before they were Hippo Campus they were called Whistle Kid and they opened for us! These are small things. But you could be fooled while Willi Castro goes up to bat and the bartender tells another customer about Stevie Ray Vaughan crediting cocaine for his speed on the fretboard that everything is right in the world. You could tell 23 year old me driving down Hennepin that Tuesday after playing a packed in-store performance at Fifth Element and then hearing the album coming out of Wren Aigiki-Lander’s* car that in twenty years I’d have a wife, two beautiful children, a daily radio show, a hit trivia company and lift weights and do yoga. I’d have follow up questions for sure. I would be distressed by many of those follow up answers. But while I listen to Nipsey Hussle’s song “More or Less” driving up Grand Ave over at Fairview and there’s still a daytimey glow cause it’s early fall I’m sure that everything worked out. Sean you were right to buy those big merch bins before your show at Stone’s Throw in oEau Claire at Home Depot and try to make everything real professional about this A Tiger Dancing Tour which was categorically not professional. This band and this album matter to you and the people in your world and Nipsey matters to more people and he matters to you and Saint Paul is beautiful and you’ve spent your life driving between these two cities.

And Brian Oake once said he wished he had wanted to do more than just talk between songs on the radio but it was the only thing he ever really loved professionally and for him it works. And you think about just wanting to play shows, and talk between songs and pass out flyers. You think about Avon Barksdale on the Wire saying he’s just a gangster who wants his corners and if you turn Nipsey up loud enough you think you are too. You aren’t. And you turn it down when you turn off of Pascal onto your street because what if the babysitter and the kids are outside even though they should be starting bedtime. You brought the greatest cheesebread in Minnesota home from Leaning Tower of Pizza to bring to the neighbors across the street. In moments you’ll use the new roller you just bought at the Loon Smoke Shop which used to be the Loon Convenience store where a young Mike Mictlan filmed part of one of his only music videos.

And yes these things were all 20 years ago and I don’t really care what happened to John Munson forty years ago but I kinda do. And I sure hope that Kavyesh Kaviraj, Ricki Monique and Obi Original don’t care about this but maybe we all have to be stewards of our own legacies. Maybe you have to call it a failure, and maybe I can’t. Maybe I can’t call it a failure cause I turn up Nipsey a little bit louder once I realize the kids have started bedtime. And I walk out of the car that I drive cause my daddy had the same kind when I was in high school and shout out to the neighbors assembled on the porch that I’ve brought them the best cheesebread in Minnesota and let’s start the festivities.

*I’ll have you know that Wren was 27 years old at the time which was at the time the oldest cool hot person I had ever met.