The Memory Lane to Winona
Heiruspecs is the longest relationship I’ve ever been in. The ups and downs of a band are not evenly distributed. The ups for Heiruspecs have been very high. In fact while sharing a delicious sandwich with Felix and DeVon from Heiruspecs this weekend we recalled playing for probably 4,000 people when we were opening for Cake at Universal Amphitheater. That was pretty great. An up. We’ve had downs. I remember sitting in front of the old J&S Coffee shop that was on Hamline and Minnehaha certain we were going to break up. Nowadays the ups are smaller, the downs are smaller. But they are still there. Like so many relationships, Heiruspecs has moved online to some extent. We are a “work from home” band. A lot more emails than rehearsals, a lot more texts than meetings. That can weigh a band down. I don’t think anyone is their best online. And if you are your best online you are the worst.
But, the music. The joy of standing in front of monitors playing the awesome music your group wrote back to you while an audience is there taking it in and enjoying it. That’s the stuff. That’s why you tolerate the emails. The ratios can get hard though, we just don’t get to play that often anymore. But the stars aligned and we got to head back to Winona to play the Mid West Music Fest. I did a little digging and I think the first time we played the festival was in 2011, the second year of the festival’s existence. We may have even done it before that too, every once in awhile I do delete some emails. Winona is a cool two hours away from the Twin Cities and I’ve always liked it. I’ve only ever gone there to play gigs or do radio work and every time it’s felt mellow, agreeable and a little on the hippie side. BUT JUST A LITTLE ON THE HIPPIE SIDE. This isn’t Stockholm, Wisconsin.
Long before Heiruspecs ever played in Winona this was a regular stop for the Martin Devaney touring ensemble. We would play at venues called “Acoustic Cafe” that are peppered in smallish cities all around the area: Northfield, Menomonie, Winona et cetera. Just walking towards the Acoustic Cafe I remember it all. Martin would load in one mic stand and then leave the rest of the loading to us while he wrote the set list down on hilariously small pieces of paper. Me and the drummer would go buy a pack of Camel Lights from the porn shop that was in the alley across the street and watch whatever porn was showing for an awkward eight minutes. And then we’d mostly cram onto this little ass stage, with our own PA in tow and play a show. It was on that very stage that I learned that you can’t leave a silenced cell phone on top of your bass amp because when it rings the amp will blast out all sort of electrical noise. I still remember my sky blue Nokia ruining the ballad we were playing.
I think the pay for the band was maybe $50, free sandwiches and two pounds of coffee. I don’t think I ever got any of that coffee.
I drove down to Winona with our keyboard player DeVon and it was wonderful to spend real life time with him. No texts. No misconstrued jokes left to hang cause it’s on email. Just good company and catching up. When we got into town we stopped by to see Felix from Heiruspecs finish up a panel on collaboration with a couple other folks from the festival. The brotherhood and sisterhood of the Minnesota music scene is beautiful. Everyone is trying to deliver good music and support each other and the “big names” are still small. The panel was largely populated with bandmembers of the panelists. There was also budding radio folks from the college station KAQL doing the questions. Awesome.
DeVon, Felix, Kit, Bug, Bill
After the panel, the sandwiches, then the load in, the stand around and the gig. Ran in to a couple friends. Got to see Landon Conrath play. Got to see the power go out and come back on. Mellow, positive. Power comes back on and Heiruspecs gets to do what we came to do.
Okay, the coffeeshop is closing. Might not be more to this story but happy to share. Happy to go to Winona. Happy to play with Heiruspecs.