MinneapolitanMusic

I just finished reading a fantastic article in the New York Times Magazine by Emily Gould, a New York blogger who used to write for gossip blog Gawker. The premise of the article is that Gould used to write extensively about her personal life on her blog, with disastrous real-life results. I found a couple of passages especially intriguing:

First, Gould explains how her urge to blog suddenly dried up, a fate I also faced a year or two ago when I began to find it increasingly difficult to write personally online.

The will to blog is a complicated thing, somewhere between inspiration and compulsion. It can feel almost like a biological impulse. You see something, or an idea occurs to you, and you have to share it with the Internet as soon as possible. What I didn’t realize was that those ideas and that urgency — and the sense of self-importance that made me think anyone would be interested in hearing what went on in my head — could just disappear.

I don't know that I ever fully recovered from my stupor; I certainly haven't started writing more frequently or more deeply in this forum. What I have learned, however, is that the more I realized that people actually read my blog, the harder it became to post with honesty. For a while, it stopped being just my dad and a handful of friends, and became a rising number of nameless, faceless readers. The thought of these anonymous skimmers finding out facts about my actual life was terrifying. Sure, my words will never reach an audience as large as Emily's, but I can identify with her feelings of uncertainty.

Which ties in nicely with this other excerpt:

But lately, online, I’ve found myself doing something unexpected: keeping the personal details of my current life to myself. This doesn’t make me feel stifled so much as it makes me feel protected, as if my thoughts might actually be worth honing rather than spewing.

It's true; rather than rushing to the keyboard every time something notable happens, I have found a joy in letting my thoughts simmer. Sometimes, I don't write about events in my life until months after they have actually happened, and even then I keep the writing to myself and spend time revising my work. Rather than having to respond to things instantaneously, I am given a chance to mull things over. More and more, I am preferring this method. Which isn't to say that I am done sharing things about my life; I am still producing just as much if not more writing than when I blogged every day, and eventually I will find a way to put some of it out there for consumption. But I'm not ready, quite yet.

Hi. Remember me? I used to blog here. Boy, those were the days. I mean, I've never been a terribly consistent blogger, but it's been downright pathetic lately.

Like any good slacker, though, I have an excuse!

My life is completely different than it was a month ago. Spring is in the air once again and I couldn't resist the temptation to turn everything upside down. Simply put, I've been going through a lot. New job at City Pages, new relationship status (getting a lot of mileage out of the "It's Complicated" setting on Facebook...), new outlook. Good-bye Reveille, freelancing, working at the Fetus, coming home to something stable. I blame Austin. Things haven't been the same since South by Southwest.

For the most part, it's ok. I love my job so far, and am finding the work easier than I expected. My office has a view of downtown Minneapolis and there is Diet Dr. Pepper in the vending machine downstairs. Life is good.

For a more eloquent reflection on these developments, see my farewell column at Reveille. And keep an eye out for my first column at CP, which debuts May 7.

A few things swimming around my head today:

• Writing things in sharpie marker on little slips of paper and attaching them to my bulletin board is surprisingly calming. Things I wrote and tacked today: How am I not myself? and my personal favorite, JUST WRITE.
• I am unexpectedly out of sorts after receiving the news of Heath Ledger's death.
• Working for 18 hours a day makes Andrea want to go out and play.
• Winter makes me depressed. It also makes me maniacally creative. Jury's still out on whether this is bad.
• My new favorite local band is called The Wars of 1812. They remind me of Spoon and Wilco (no pressure, guys...), are managed by the same record label that broke Bon Iver (again, sorry with the heavy-handed statements) and are some seriously nice folks.
• Transcribing is a bitch.
• Despite my previous post dissing year-end lists, these kind of self-fulfilling lists make me feel more coherent.
• I just found a picture of myself that I actually like. Thanks, Stace.
  

What is it about the new year that makes us all take a step back, contemplate on the year past and attempt to dumb everything down into arbitrary, bullet-pointed lists?

It's a question I've been contemplating for a few years now, ever since my foray into trial-by-fire music journalism. Every year around this time, music critics and friends all around me sit down to hash out ranked lists of their favorite albums of the year, and every year when I am invited to join them in this list-making rite I can't help but reel inside. For some reason, I have a strong aversion to this practice, and I am trying to figure out why.

I understand the inherent value of these lists. They give readers and less-obsessed music fans a chance to sort out the cream of the crop without having to purchase and listen to every album ever released, and they give music journalists and bloggers a chance to see what they might have missed. Sure, it's important to check each other's work once in a while and make sure that we aren't letting greatness slip through the cracks. But are that many people going to discover their new favorite band just because they saw the band's name written on some stupid list, with no explanation or further detail?

As both a listener and a writer, it has never been my goal to attempt to hear everything. In my mind, that would suck the fun out of everything I love about music. For me, musical discoveries are something that takes time, and the process usually includes seeing the artist live, listening to their album, and finding a deeper truth in at least some of their lyrics. I enjoy writing about music because it allows me to share my discoveries with the people around me, and explain in detail why I find a particular artist or band to be worth a listen.

The climate of music writing has changed dramatically, even in the three years I have been an active participant, and more and more I am feeling isolated in my approach. And while the internet has become an invaluable tool for learning about and listening to new music, I have a hard time relating to the way information is shared in the Holy Blogland. (I really, really did not want to say blogosphere, but you know what I mean.) I don't want to make this about gender, but I have noticed that a good majority of music blogs are authored by men, and I have also noticed that men like a more straightforward approach to disseminating information. This preference for simplification is exemplified beautifully in the movie and book High Fidelity, with all of the main male characters plagued by the "All time top five favorite" lists syndrome. It's a quick, easy way to prove your knowledge of all things musical, and it's just as much a pissing contest as it is a way to share the music that turns you on.

Let's consider the typical entry on the typical music blog: usually, the post begins with a picture of said band; followed by whatever information is being conveyed, be it a CD release or an upcoming show or what have you, paraphrased off of a press release; with links to the band's website and an mp3 to round it out. These types of posts mean nothing to me, and I usually skip over them in my blog reader. The blog author has taken very little time to pass on the facts that they believe their reader needs to know, and it's unclear whether or not the author even listened to the band's music. Blog authors compete with one another to be the first to unveil new tracks or leak news tips, but more often than not they are all paraphrasing the same press release sent out by the same publicist. In this way, the average music blog has become more an extension of a publicity office's hype machine than an independent source of music news, which is why it is so important to draw distinctions between armchair blog critics and the writers who take the time to interview and fact check their stories before running to hit publish. I fear for the future of music journalism in this regard, as print media becomes less and less relevant and online media advances with virtually no rules or standards.

I've gone off on a tangent, but here's my point: when I sit down to make a year-end list, I feel like a prick. Who am I to proclaim these ten CDs the best, with no room for explanation? I certainly haven't heard everything there is to hear, and anyone aching to know what I found to be particularly great this year would do better reading my archives on Reveille and Pulse (RIP) than scanning my list.

So in the spirit of looking back, here are some local musicians I was especially fond of this year, linked to the stories I wrote about them. In no particular order, of course. If you are a list person, read it as a list; if you want more, click away.

• Abzorbr: Teetering over the abyss
• White Light Riot
• City on the Make
• Roma di Luna: Bare Essentials
• Fort Wilson Riot: Idigaragua
• Dan Wilson: Sweet Release
• Stook: They're Just Songs
• Dan Israel: Just Want to Leave a Mark
• Eliza Blue: Mother Earth
• Ben Glaros: Lovesong Roulette
  

Winter has definitely set into my bones. All of my writings these days stay hidden in journals and randomly numbered text files on my hard drive, and the days are slipping by so fast I have trouble keeping up. Yay, seasonal affection!

I have recently become obsessed with an online drama called Quarterlife. It's perfect for someone like me; the characters are all 25 years old and have overlapping love interests that result in myriad dramatic misunderstandings, and the main character is an introspective videoblogger aspiring to be a professional writer. Think My So Called Life with blogs and twentysomethings instead of flannel and dreamy, dreamy Jordan Catalano. Anyway, the main character, Dylan, poses all of these great twentysomething dilemma-like questions to the camera, and one that really got me was:

"What is the life of a writer, and am I living it?"

It's a great question, and a simple question on the surface. But I think so many people my age who strive to be creative feel the need to craft these intricate, artistic lives. Like, if we end up working at an office for a summer (or a year, or two or three) it means that we have lost our souls and have failed in our attempt to be truly creative people. It probably seems silly to anyone outside this specific demographic, but it is something that haunts me constantly. If I stay at home to watch Degrassi on DVD instead of going to a coffeeshop to write and pine poetically out the window, am I straying from my artistic purpose?

I am going to go ponder this some more, perhaps at a bistro somewhere while etching abstract drawings in a Moleskine. Or maybe I will take a pensive walk around the lake in a peacoat whilst eating granola from the co-op out of my pocket. Or maybe I will continue living my real life, in its strange artistic grandeur, sitting on my unmade bed in a sweatshirt watching the special features on my new Once DVD and playing spider solitaire. C'est la vie!

My novel and I aren't speaking to each other right now.

I am all over the place today. I planned to spend all day writing, but instead I ended up dying my hair red and watching Mitch Hedberg videos on YouTube. Which isn't entirely bad, but I am so distracted.

I've felt a burst of creative energy lately, but it's been hell trying to contain it and focus it toward any one thing. I want to spend all my free time going to rock concerts and watching people interact with art and music and talking to my friends until 3 in the morning. That's normal, right?

This is probably insane, given my already sort of crazy life, but I'm going to do it. National Novel Writing Month starts now.

I'm at 1865.

Updates, bitching, screaming, ranting and pleas for encouragement to come at irregular intervals for the rest of the month.

A few new discoveries...

1. Taking Prednisone makes me extremely productive. My room is clean for the first time since I have lived in my new apartment.
2. Working one job is much easier than working two jobs.
3. I have managed to mention Ani DiFranco in my past three consecutive blog entries. I think this means I am heavy into another "Ani phase."
4. Getting sick and healing forces me to have a "what does it all mean?" moment and helps to refocus my life.
5. Cats and ice cream make everything feel better.
7. It might be time I finally quit smoking.


And, while we're doing lists, here are some songs that have been rocking/shattering my world lately:

1. A Fine Frenzy, "Almost Lover"
2. Feist, "1234" (Have you seen this video??!! I know I am behind on this one, but man it's worth watching again.)
3. Ani DiFranco, "You Had Time"
4. Stook, "Lovesick Firecracker"
5. Mason Jennings, "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" from the "I'm Not There" soundtrack


Sorry to be so fragmented with my thoughts today. One more question for the faithful few who read this: I am thinking of doing NaNoWriMo again this year, which would mean starting to draft my novel in two days. I have been trying to eke out a memoir-type story about music and boys and life for a few months now, and I think this might be a good kick in the ass to get some things down on paper. Good idea? Bad idea?

I feel like I am constantly climbing out of holes, but I suppose that is ok. I get a little better at it each time.

Last weekend was the sickest I have been in a long time, and one of the only times in my adult life that I had to be admitted into the emergency room. I still don't know exactly what happened; something about a respiratory reaction to a virus in my lungs. All I know is that for almost 24 hours I couldn't breath without forcing myself to suck air into my lungs, and by the time I finally gave up and went to the doctor (I hate admitting I am not ok) my body was ravaged and it took three nebulizers, an IV, steroids and my mother-in-law holding my hand and my hair out of my face until I felt like I was going to be safe again.

Saturday night I came home from the hospital and all my roommates went out to a Halloween party. I sat at home alone, stunned. I laid out a row of survival tools on the coffee table in front of me: inhaler, kleenex, cough drops, water, tea, chocolate ice cream, journal. I sat on the couch alone, watched an Ani DVD, cried and wrote poetry. It was one of the saddest and most fulfilling evenings I have had in a long time.

I missed a lot this weekend, and am still trying to process the insane amount of live music I saw before my downfall. I need to write it all down before it leaves me, but for now I am concentrating on getting better. Climbing out of holes, resting and reflecting. Another day in the mind of the girl who thinks too much.

Maybe you know what happened already, maybe you don't. But I've been in the middle of a big old mess for the past week and it has been eating away at me, so I would like to spew this out at you and move on. I hesitate even writing some of this down because it feels a little too personal, but I have been publicly and personally attacked this week and feel like there are some things that need discussing.

Earlier this year, one of my main outlets for my music writing, Pulse of the Twin Cities, shut down, and I approached a few of my writing friends to start a magazine. We had lots of big ideas and brainstorms and drinking sessions, and after a few months of pushing and prodding and laboring, Reveille Magazine was born. It is like my baby, in a way (with lots of baby daddies), and without coming off as a cheeseball, I poured my entire heart into this project because I wanted it to be as good as it could be.

We hand-picked the writers we wanted to have contribute, explained to each of them that we were going to figure things out as we went, and asked them for patience and kindness as we felt out the beginnings of this big, scary thing. For the most part, people were amazing. I have been lucky enough to have one of my writing role models and friends, Jim Walsh, on board to write a weekly column, and my fellow review writers have been nothing but inspiring and motivating to me personally. Unfortunately, there was an odd man out.

I had trouble dealing with Tom Hallett from the beginning, mostly as a result of him living 3,000 miles away. Whereas most of our writers handed in articles that required barely any editing, Tom's columns required upwards of 3 hours of my time to edit and publish, and most were submitted way past deadline. Without going into too much detail, it made my life more difficult than it needed to be, and it put a damper on what was otherwise an effortless work situation.

Long story short, we all sat down and decided that things weren't working out, and we tried to discretely and polite tell Tom that we felt he would be a better fit at a different publication (most likely, one with the time and money to give his column the attention it needs to be ready for publishing).

Next thing I knew, Tom, who I once thought to be a kind and compassionate person, decided to let loose and flame me on the internet. He dragged my name through the mud, shot insults at me, tried to claim "censorship" and threw a big ol' verbal temper tantrum. In other words, he handled the situation very, very poorly.

I don't know why, but I let his words get to me. For the past week, I haven't been able to write. I tried to write two separate CD reviews and never got past the first paragraph, his nasty words and attitude ringing in my ears. I've never been the kind of person who worries what other people think about me, but the fact that he tried to shit all over all of my hard work and passion made me sick to my stomach. He was disrespectful, immature, and mean; the exact qualities of people whom I normally avoid.

Needless to say, I think we made the right decision removing him from Reveille. It's pretty clear that he cares more about tearing other people down and propping up his own ego than he does about the music he claims to love, and it's unfortunate that his column has spiraled into a name-calling bitchfest.

So I'm moving on. I've got a lot on my plate and I don't have time to deal with the naysayers anymore. Life is too short for bullshit, right?

Besides, I'm seeing Ani DiFranco in Chicago this weekend (a show that I am looking forward to more than I have looked forward to anything in a very long time), and tomorrow I get to jump in the car, put on my favorite CDs, sail down to Chicago and see the two cutest babies in the universe: my niece and nephew. Life is good!

Party on!

This song is keeping me alive today. In the spirit of letting it all roll off the back, keeping one's chin up, etcetera, a little Ani goes a long way.

joyful girl
ani difranco

i do it for the joy it brings
because i'm a joyful girl
because the world owes me nothing
and we owe each other the world
i do it because it's the least i can do
i do it because i learned it from you
i do it just because i want to
because I want to

everything i do is judged
and they mostly get it wrong
but oh well
'cuz the bathroom mirror has not budged
and the woman who lives there can tell
the truth from the stuff that they say
and she looks me in the eye
and says would you prefer the easy way?
no, well o.k. then
don't cry

and i wonder if everything i do
i do instead
of something i want to do more
the question fills my head
i know that there's no grand plan here
this is just the way it goes
and when everything else seems unclear
i guess at least i know

i do it for the joy it brings...

I've been in sort of a weird funk lately, and it has made writing difficult. Which isn't to say that I have stopped writing, because I don't think I could ever do that, it just felt sort of mechanical for a while.

Last week I had the chance to sit down with the folks from Fort Wilson Riot to talk about their new indie rock opera, Idigaragua, which is opening tonight (see article here), and our conversation somehow single-handedly jump-started my passion for all things musical. Thank you, Fort Wilson Riot, for your ridiculous, wild ambition and energy toward art and life.

To celebrate my late summer reawakening, I decided to make a list of all of the things I love at the moment.

1. Idigaragua. Plain and simple, one of the coolest things to happen to local music this year.
2. The new Joe Henry album, Civilians, which comes out this Tuesday.
3. The smell of the Electric Fetus, which now reminds me of counting down my till in the incense storage room at the end of the night. God, I really do love my new job.
4. My insanely talented friends.
5. Listening to records until 3 a.m.
6. Having writing parties with Jen, who is finding her own voice as a writer and continuing to inspire me.
7. Quentin Tarentino. Yeah, I don't know exactly why he made the list, but he did.
   
8. Mentors. The ones who know they are mentoring me, and the ones who do it without knowing just by being amazing.
9. The opening scene of High Fidelity, where the 13th Floor Elevators song fades into his headphones as the camera follows the chord from the stereo up to his head.
10. The fact that I get to wear sweaters again soon.
11. Riding "Ye Old Mill" at the State Fair with Dad and Husband. My two favorite guys.
    
12. The internet.
13. The love between Channy and Alexei of Roma di Luna, and how amazing it is that they can create beautiful art together.
14. The hootenanny, which returns October 5!

That's all for now. What's rocking your world?

I had an amazing, emotional, and completely fulfilling weekend filled with live music and friends. It's no secret that I am a huge, glaring Jayhawks fan, and the last two days were overflowing with Jayhawks-related shows and experiences.

Saturday was the Mark Olson in-store performance, and as a newly-minted Electric Fetus employee I made it a point to volunteer myself to help fill in as needed during the performance. Mark showed up with his entire band and played four songs to a small crowd, and much to my dismay I spent most of the time helping a non-Jayhawks fan find some jazz records in the back corner of the store. Even though I couldn't devote my full attention to Mark, it was still fun to be in the store and hear him play tracks off of his new record, which has been one of my favorites for the past few weeks.

When Mark wrapped up his set, fans flooded the front counters and I debated whether or not to go grab my copy of the record from my purse downstairs and have him sign it. (For some reason, asking musicians to autograph CDs always makes me feel a little awkward.) After hemming and hawing over it, I finally decided to run down and grab my CD, and on my way through the store I happened to spot Gary Louris ambling through the front door. Yes, that Gary Louris. He walked in calmly, like he just happened to be in the neighborhood, and started shopping around. Needless to say, I freaked out.

I made the mistake (or happy accident, I can't quite tell) of gushing to my boss how much I loved Gary and the Jayhawks, and within minutes my boss was over talking to Gary and pointing in my general direction. Oh god, I thought to myself, Gary is about to learn what a freaky fan-girl I actually am. As I pretended to act normal and continue to ring up customers, Gary walked up to my till and introduced himself. He purchased two used records, the titles of which I don't remember because I was too freaked out and nervous, and proceeded to tell me that my boss had told him I run a magazine and that I was a fan. As if that wasn't enough, I proceeded to gush about how much I loved his music and that I had been at the hootenanny when he had played with Golden Smog, and he casually noted, "Oh yeah, you were in the front row." He remembered me. I almost died. Sigh.

So anyway. That experience was enough to blow my mind, coupled with the fact that my boss rushed over to take a picture of Gary and I (in which, as a side note, I look like a midget because he is so freaking tall).

Later that night, I went to the 400 Bar for the Mark Olson CD release party, and had my mind blown once again as he proceeded to play flawless renditions of his new songs and invite Gary up on stage to sing a few old Jayhawks tunes. It was a breathtaking show, full of "you should have been there" moments that I will proceed to rub in your face through a review on Reveille... I'm sorry. But seriously, you should have been there.

Which brings us to tonight. It was Revival night at the Turf, which was splendid (and featured yet another Jayhawk! My favorite, darling Tim). It was a great evening filled with friends and music and cheap beers. On the way home, I took University due to the 94 closures, stopped off at McDonald's for some late-night McNuggets, and then made the dumb mistake of trying to get on 35W south. Which, it so happens, is right where the bridge collapsed. Though I have been trying to figure out a way to see the bridge for weeks now, I was completely caught off guard by the sight of the road jutting up into the midnight sky, spotlights shining into the great emptiness below. I caught my breath on its way out my lungs, took a deep sigh, and started to bawl. As I maneuvered my car around the exit lane and back down University, I could feel the tears rushing down my cheeks, and my car stereo ironically and somewhat cruelly played Mark Olson's "Clifton Bridge." God, kill me know. "Some people come here to die, we came here to live/there's a hope in our hearts, there's a future in our soul," Mark sang as I sobbed and drove.

Turning onto the Washington bridge, I caught another glimpse of the spot-lit bridge falling into the water, chunks of metal and concrete jutting out at severe angles. It was more intense than I ever imagined. The thought of people trapped, some still today, underneath the wreckage, was enough to send me into an emotional panic. It felt more real, more significant, more dangerous than it had before. It, in the most real of ways, hit home.

I know people die every day, in strange and sometimes very cruel ways. I know there are soldiers dying in Iraq and Minnesotans dying in floods and people everywhere, every day, dying from terrible, preventable things. But the magnitude of this disaster is palpable, and I can't help but cry for the lives lost and damage inflicted.

I wish nothing but peace for the people affected by the collapse, and I just wanted to share the fact that I am feeling it, deeply. I know I can be a sap sometimes, but I am still working my way through this one.

Two year wedding anniversaries are good excuses for getting the hell out of town. The husband and I were planning on having a fairly traditional, eat something fancy and drink a vat of champagne type extravaganza, but all of a sudden we felt the urge to leave. To get away from it all: the apartment, the bridge, the television. So we did.

Most things that we do together are a bit slapdash and spontaneous, this trip being no exception, and it was delightful. We pulled out a map of Minnesota and found a state park that looked far enough away, stopping on the way to sample wines in Cannon Falls and buying a few bottles for the road. We grabbed a few necessary supplies from the grocery store, including the requisite s'mores ingredients, and made our way to the park.

"Would you like rustic camping?," an elder woman in a creased brown park ranger shirt asked me when we arrived.

"Oh, yes. Definitely," I replied, relishing in the idea of being away, alone.

We loaded up on firewood and dragged our supplies into the camp site, and it was exactly what we wanted. Trees surrounded us on all sides, and we could hear little critters skittering around us as we set up our tent. The wood was a little damp from the previous day's rain, but we eventually got a fire going and cooked our bratwursts and had a nice, quiet lunch.

In fact, we didn't do a whole lot of talking once we were there. We went for a hike after lunch, holding hands and listening to the sounds of the woods. Every 50 yards or so I would make Husband stop so I could take pictures of the flowers, of the creek, and sometimes, when he wasn't looking, of Husband himself. At one point, we saw a deer walking ahead of us in the woods, and we just stopped and stood still on the path for a few minutes, communing with the peace of the wild silence.

Back at he camp site we cracked open a bottle of wine and somehow finished off a half pound of Havarti cheese between the two of us. We hadn't gotten enough firewood to last us into the late hours, so by about 1o 'o clock the fire was dying down and the darkness was setting in.

Without light, there wasn't much to do besides go in our tent and let the wine mix in with our blood, so we packed up the food and made our way to bed. We weren't really tired yet, so we lay there talking, backs flat on the hard ground and sides pressed together for warmth.

"I can't stop thinking about the bridge," I confessed, feeling guilty about it for some reason. "I keep dreaming about it, about things crashing down."

"Me, too," he said.

"It's just so real. Something like that could happen to any one of us at any time."

"Yeah."

It wasn't a deep conversation, but it made me feel better somehow. I don't know anyone that was involved in the collapse and wasn't directly affected in any way, but it has haunted me for the past week. It feels silly, in a way, to grieve something that is so distant from me personally, but I can't help it. I am deeply saddened.

I rolled over and hugged him, and for a moment I felt at peace. As the wine slowed its pace in my veins and the cold crept up through the ground beneath us, I clung to my husband, took a deep breath, and took comfort in the fact that we were together, warm, and alive.

OMG flurry of activity!

Ever since Reveille went live we have been workin' it nonstop. Lots of nice people said lots of nice things about us, and I am so appreciative of the overwhelming support that has been pouring out of all corners of the local scene. I love Minneapolis so much, I can hardly stand it.

Saturday was our kickoff party at the Nomad, which was probably the first time that the entire in-town staff has been in the same room at the same time. I continue to be star-struck by every psuedo-celebrity that I meet around town, as witnessed by meeting Ant, watching silently as he bought me a drink at the bar and then giggling uncontrollably for 15 minutes.

Speaking of local hip hop stars, I got a job working part-time at the Fetus (just wait, this will all make sense soon) a week or so ago. As I was training in, my new boss gave me a very serious look and explained to me that he only had one spare key left, and that he was going to entrust it to me. The key, he explained, used to belong to a previous employee of his named SLUG. Oh yeah, that Slug. Again with the uncontrollable giggling, I assured him that I was not only going to take excellent care of this key, but that I would protect it with my life and limb because I happen to be a huge, drooling Atmosphere fan. (Remember when I met Slug in person? Ugh. Embarrassing.)

My new boss laughed and said, "he's just a normal guy, you know." Sigh. I know. I will never be cool.

Speaking of which, I am off to work again. Busy Andrea = Happy Andrea!

I've been working on a new project for the last two months or so, and it finally went live today!

ReveilleMag.com

Hooray!

And yes, this does mean that I will start blogging regularly again. Things are smooth sailing over at Reveille and I will have lots more time to focus on why I wanted to start a magazine in the first place -- my music writing.

Also, come to this show:

More soon, I promise!

I wrote a song.

The entire process was surreal. I spend a lot of time talking to people about songwriting and singing and craft, all the while keeping myself at a distance from the musicians I love by not understanding, first hand, what it is exactly that they do. Which is not to say that I don't understand where music comes from or why it can be moving, I was just... Distant.

Blog readers and friends know that for eight months, I almost religiously attended Jim Walsh's Friday night Hootenannies. It was the perfect ending to each work week, the perfect beginning to each blissful weekend, and a way to connect with other writers, thinkers, lovers, doers. It was an elixir, and I was its grateful consumer.

A few months ago, post-hoot, Jim graciously invited the entire audience over to his house to eat pizza and drink beers and stretch out the hootenanny for a few more hours, and my friends and heroes passed around a guitar and we all sang our hearts out. Afterwards, I couldn't let myself come down from the rush of it all, so I went over to a friend's house and played records and sang a little more and talked until the early hours of the next day. I went to bed, slept hard for a few hours, and woke up buzzing.

I don't know what came over me, but it just happened. I made a cup of tea and sat down at my piano (after clearing it of the piles of books and magazines piled on top of the bench and top; I hadn't actually played for months). I started playing a few arpeggios, plunking around. I was searching for something, but I wasn't sure what. A few chords sounded agreeable as a progression, and pretty soon I was humming and playing and riding one of the biggest creative waves of my life. Words fell out of my mouth. The hoot was still ringing in my ears. It. Just. Happened.

Then, a few weeks ago, I got up the nerve to tell Jim about the song, and he invited me onto the hoot stage in front of all of those same friends and heroes, and I played my little song.

"I'm not actually a songwriter, and I don't play guitar," I prefaced, and everyone laughed warmly.

"You wrote a song," Jim's brother, Terry, chimed in. "You are a songwriter."

Well, shit, I thought. Here goes nothing.

I was shaky. I was freaked out. A few minutes earlier the Cates had played a time-stopping version of their song "Daybreak My Heart." Erin's little girl started crying and jumped up into her arms as she sang, and within seconds Erin and half of the audience was tearing up. Stacy and I held hands and sobbed onto each other's shoulders. It was transcendent, and heartbreaking, and beautiful. I barely had time to recover before jumping up on stage.

I think my voice quivered a little. I made it through the song just fine, and Terry even helped play some of the chords and back me up. I felt so much love and gratitude and acceptance from everyone in the room, and all of the nights I had spent listening quietly and intently to the players on the hoot stage came around full circle. It was one of the best nights of my life.

Anyway, here are the words. Stacy took the photograph below.

Thank you, Jim. Thank you, every last hoot attendee. These past eight months of sharing and listening changed my life.


Friday Night

I think I'll go to a party
I think I'll bring you with
Let's go to a party
Smoke and drink and talk all night
Let's have a hootennany
'Cause it's Friday night

You can wear your new shirt
I'll wear my favorite shoes
You can get real deep on politics and doom
While I fall in love with half the songwriters in the room

Let's go to a party
I wanna bring you with
Let's go to a party
Smoke and drink and talk all night
Let's have a hootennany
'Cause it's Friday night

'Cause life is hard
And working's hard
Sometimes just smiling is hard

I think I'll go to a party
I think I'll bring you with
Let's go to a party
Smoke and drink and talk all night
Let's have a hootennany
'Cause it's Friday night

You can wear your new shirt
I'll wear my favorite shoes
You can get real deep on politics and doom
While I fall in love with everybody in the room

Last night I was invited to help judge the Radio K Battle of the Underage Underground at First Avenue, and the whole experience kind of blew my mind.

When I arrived and first received my ballot, I scanned around the room for a shadow to lurk in and ended up striking up a conversation with Lori Barbero, drummer for the recently-defunct Koalas and the legendary Babes in Toyland. I'd seen Lori play before but had never talked to her in person, and she ended up being of the sweetest and most friendly people I had ever met at a show. We hung together all night and shot the shit between bands, trading notes and jokes and snarky comments over the music.

The first act, Saluting the Rockies, took off like a cannon and blasted their way through their fifteen minutes of fame on the gigantic stage. The songs themselves weren't particularly remarkable and the vocals were a little scary/shaky at times, but they played with such severe intensity that they didn't even stop playing between songs -- one ending would flow into the next opening riff while the four young guys grinned huge, goofy grins and reveled in the energy of the young crowd. Toward the end of their set they surprised me with a no-holds-barred rock out moment that built into a frenetic, thumping crescendo, and I'm fairly certain all four of them were playing harder and better at the moment than they ever had in their life.

Between songs we watched clips from the Puppy Bowl (is it just me or is that constantly playing on the First Ave flat screens?) and Lori and I laughed about the similarities between the young puppies told to run around on the little plastic football field and the young pups on stage playing their first big show for a crowd.

There was an electricity pulsating through the room by the time Angel Darcourt started her set, and judging by the way the the room swelled full and then drained out afterward, Angel brought her own fanatic following. In an introduction by hosts Brother and Sister, Katie Gaughan beamed as she announced that "Angel wanted us to tell you one thing before she starts: her hype man is not a man." A bouncing Angel took the stage accompanied by a slender young woman with an attitude, and proceded to smack us in the face with a smooth-flowing spoken word piece about social justice. Her words flowed naturally and the meaning sunk in deep as she moved on to rap over beats (which I later learned were crafted by locals Benzilla and the St. Paul Kings). The entire floor seemed to be waving and yelling along with the music, and her talent was obvious to everyone in attendance.

Unfortunately, a rumor whipped through the room shortly after Angel's set that the rising star already had a management team in place to help her out, which I think was what ended up throwing her out of the first place spot in the judge's minds, since the first place spot was a recording contract with Say Rah Records and it was meant for amateur musicians. Like I said, unfortunate.

Milk Automat played a sort of meandering, electronic, vocal-less set that featured a lanky guy on synthesizers and a pretty blond girl on bass guitar. The band had the potential to do some really interesting live electronica, but their young age and inexperience playing live made it a little awkward to watch.

Just when the show started to drag a bit The Soviet Machines came out and stirred things up with a nice set of Britpop-style anthemic rock. Lead singer Jack Swagger channeled a bit of Bowie and a lot of Billy Idol as he hopped around the stage in a black long-sleeved shirt and white belt, and the band really kicked it into high gear by throwing a huge blow-up turtle into the audience for the kids to toss around while they danced.

Nap Nap played a set of electronic spaz-attack music that was a bit hard to follow, but entertaining nonetheless. The four boys in the band switched instruments between each song, and at one point two of them both ended up on drums and created this great jungle booming echo throughout the club. I have a feeling Nap Nap might be a lot better on record than they were live, simply because they would be forced to find a direction once they sat down in a studio.

A quiet set by Little Boxes made for another lull in the night, though I found Emma Turnquist's vocals to be captivating. With just a piano and drums, Little Boxes plays songs that are painfully simple, similar to the stylings of local chanteuse Haley Bonar, but at times Turnquist's voice gave out and lost pitch a bit, making it hard to hold the audience's attention. Of all of the bands in the contest, I thought Little Boxes had the most potential for success in the future, I just think it may take them a bit to come into their own sound.

As the boys in Rivet started setting up their instruments, Lori and I peeked over the railing from the front of the second level and spotted four boys that looked as if they had been teleported straight out the audience of a Metallica concert in 1993. "That one looks like Matt Dillon!" Lori said, pointing to the drummer, and I had to agree with her that he looked exactly like the long-haired Matt Dillon in Singles. So far, the band looked the most interesting of the night, so we made our way downstairs to stand in front of the stage for their set. For comparison:

Matt Dillon, circa 1992:










Caleb from Rivet:

















Rivet, to put it bluntly, stole the fucking show. From the first chord it was clear that this band was pure musical talent, and though their sound was derivative of plenty of other thrash metal bands, especially the aforementioned Metallica, the boys played with such weight and ferocity that they blew every other band out of the water. Lori and I laughed, jumped up and down and made devil horns, and for a moment I forgot I was even at a battle because Rivet made it feel like a real, full-blown First Avenue show, and they more than deserved their first place win in the contest.

So to recap, the winners of the night were:

1. Rivet, winning a $2,000 recording contract with Say Rah Records and a live performance on Radio K.
2. Angel, who won $500 worth of CDs and packaging materials from Copy Cats Media.
3. Nap Nap, who in my opinion got the best prize of all, a photo shoot with the legendary Daniel Corrigan (who was profiled in this week's Downtown Journal).

Yes, I know, I haven't blogged in ages. Shame on me. Life has been crazy and busy and wonderful, and I have been moving and trying to earn money despite the fact I have no regular job. It's been strange, and liberating, and terrifying.

In my blogging absence, my online spirit has been present on other sites. Here is a rundown of things I have contributed to lately:

• Chris Roberts attended a hootenanny two weeks ago and interviewed Stacy, Pete and I about our collective hoot love. You can stream Chris's piece that he put together for All Things Considered and look at a few pictures on the MPR website.


• Southwest Journal and Downtown Journal writer Mary O'Regan put together a nice piece on local bloggers, in which she profiled yours truly as a token "music junkie." I love it.


• I contributed to a discussion for the First Crack Podcast, hosted by Garrick Van Buren, about finding local music.


• And last but not least, we put together a new podcast for Minneapoliscast.com. This month features tracks by all of the bands we have scheduled to play the HowWasTheShow 5th Anniversary Party this Saturday at the Turf Club!
  

Money's been tight these days and I have been practicing my best starving artist moves lately, so it was a good day today when I went into Half Price Books and discovered an entire section of vinyl on clearance for 50 cents a piece. I had come in to sell some old books, and I took the five dollars I made from cleaning out the bookcase and bought a handful of old records, none of which I own on CD or have downloaded in mp3s.

Driving home, I couldn't help but smile as I thought about what a haul I made, and it got me thinking about the value we place on our music. If I had gone to the used CD section of the store and picked up the same titles, I would have no doubt owed 15 to 20 more dollars, and if I had downloaded each track off iTunes or Rhapsody it would have been considerably more. What are we paying for, exactly, when we buy music? Is it the convenience of being able to pull it up on our iPods at any moment? The convenience of popping the CD into the car stereo instead of waiting to et home and put a record on the turntable?

I know I'm probably alone, or nearly alone in my newfound obsession of buying mass quantities of music on vinyl, but it just hit me as ridiculous today to think that we get up in arms about making sure people don't illegally download music, that artists get their financial due, and so on, while there are boxes and boxes of old records out there available for almost nothing. It seems to say a lot about our need for convenience, accessibility, and up-to-the-minute art. It makes sense a la the whole supply and demand side of economics, but it just struck me as odd.

Anyway... back to being extremely employable.

These days...

More often than not, it seems, these days people are starting their sentences with these two words. These days are strange. These days are filled with doubt. These days it's hard to tell up from down. These days it's getting harder to be a writer or a publisher or a dreamer.

But there's a different aspect of these days that is fresh and full of life. Can you feel it? Especially in Minneapolis, where dreamers and writers and doers seem to outnumber those who would rather sit still, there is a sort of electric spark hanging in the air that gets a little more audible every day. Go to the hootenanny, go to any show in a small club on a weeknight, go sit at one of the parks around one of the lakes, and tell me you can't smell it, feel it. It's there. A feeling of community brewing, people gathering together, preparing for something. What? I don't know exactly. Something good.

Everytime something dies, it gives way for new life. As each newspaper cuts down, lays off or calls it quits all together, it gives a little more space for the birth of something fresh. Instead of being sad, let's get excited. Let's band together in these weird days, these days of uncertainty and find a place where we can start talking about music again, instead of where and how and why and if it will happen.

All it takes is a spark to start a fire. And I've got a whole book of matches just waiting to be lit.

These days I'm feeling more and more alive. Can you feel it?

You know those scenes in movies and commercials where they show a women buried deep in the recesses of her closet, back to the camera, flinging everything out onto the floor in an act of unadulterated spiritual/clothes cleansing? I have sort of been doing that with my whole life lately. And man, it feels great.

March was a terrible, fitful, restless month and by the end of it I wanted to light my whole life on fire, but I didn't; instead I waited it out and told myself that if things were really that bad, I could fix them in April. I listened to a lot of brilliantly sad music and drank a lot, medicating myself the only way I know how. And by the end, it turns out some of the things that were upsetting me really weren't so bad.

Others, however, needed to go.

So this has been a week for cleansing. I quit my full-time job, a relief I can't even describe in words other than to say it literally put a bounce in my step, and took a freelance copyediting job part-time instead. I rededicated myself to my writing and planned out not one, but three cover stories to write over the summer. I actually showed my novel to a group of people and revitalized my passion for finally finishing the damn thing. I wrote a song - me! a song! - for the first time ever. And I started going to shows regularly again.

Weeeee!

It's spring, it's spring, it's spring!

I'm cranking up the happy music this week, since I have been practically living on Elvis Perkins and Ani DiFranco and the song "Telephone Line" by ELO for the past month. No more sad bastard records for me, I want sunshine and power chords and ridiculously bright harmonies. Instead of singing "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," I wanna sing "Don't Be Careful With Your Love." La la-la la-la la-la.

What's your best spring fling soundtrack?

Quote of the week:

"Support independent businesses. Trade in your old records with us. Do something to support the revolution. Work to get rid of these career criminals in The White House, the Senate and Congress and replace them with people who actually give a damn about mankind. And don’t forget to write your mother."

--Mark Trehus, owner of Treehouse Records, from this interview conducted by Dave Rachac on HowWasTheShow.com.

Ooh! Also, more fun with photos of celebrities who look like people I know!

Craig Finn:




Husband:



Weeeiiirrrd.

Yeah, I know I am being a lazy blogger. What are you gonna do about it?

My life has been waffling between boring and excrutiating lately and sharing my feelings with the void has been less than advisable these past few weeks. Luckily, we are approaching the end of the once seemingly endless gray (and March, historically my worst month for mental health, is OVER), so I am gonna try this whole blogging thing again.

I went to the Twins home opener last night and was reminded of how much I actually enjoy watching baseball. This is a relatively new development; last year the Husband convinced me to go to a couple Twins games and got the bright idea to teach me how to score the game, and I ended up totally falling for it. I love keeping track of which guy did what and who is on which base. As Husband said yesterday, keeping score seems to "fulfill something" for me, which might be the most polite way anyone has ever told me that I am neurotic.

There is something about being in the Metrodome for a sold-out Twins game that gives me basically the same level of satisfaction as seeing a great show; the way the crowd jumps to their feet together, screams for good plays and boos at bad ones in one sweeping, seamless, 40,000 person movement gives me the same chills as a standing ovation at the end of a great show. When the MVP guy stepped up to bat for the first time that night and effortlessly knocked the ball right out of the field and into the crowd, it was not unlike watching Prince pick up his guitar and wail through a killer solo. The intensity is there in both situations, and it surprised me that I could ever feel anything other than boredom about something that gets recapped at 10:30 pm on ESPN.

So it was great to wake up this morning and find this video of Craig Finn singing his own Twins praises. Dressed in a blue jersey and Twins cap and singing "Take Me Out to the Twins Game," I had a newfound appreciation for both Finn—who I'd always kind of kept at an arm's length distance because of all of the crazy press hoopla surrounding the Hold Steady—and this whole being a sports fan thing. I think I like it.

In other news, this Alanis Morrissette "My Humps" video has been making the blog rounds today and I thought I had better ask: did anyone else notice that My Humps Morrissette (pictured, left) bears a striking resemblance to the Twin Cities' own Alexis (pictured, right)? Hott.

Um, yeah.

Yours truly featured on CuteOverload.com. (Not for being cute, though...)

I did this thing for Glamour mag a while back and tewtally (as the CO peeps would say) forgot about it until now. I know my goal for 2007 was to be printed on glossy paper, but somehow I don't think this is quite what I meant... Either way, sort of random and thought I should share!

In order to counteract the depressing style of my last post, here are some super fun awesome things for you to check out! Yay!

The staff at HowWasTheShow.com got the chance to sit down and record a CD review podcast for Minneapoliscast.com. Hear five of the best local tracks from this year so far and a bit of banter between yours truly and her beloved writers.

Download the podcast here.

In related news, Chris over at Culture Bully is putting together a new series of interviews with music people around town called Twin Personas, and Bob Longmore and I were some of the first to be interviewed.

Check it out here.

OMG crazy cool fun time hooray!

I am terribly sorry for the random, heavy and introspective post. I figured it would be better to write something than to write nothing at all. This is where I am at right now, and I don't feel like I can be normal and proceed with blogging until I get this out.

It's March, and I am officially restless. Nothing feels right. I want to tear apart the pieces of my life that are driving me insane and put it all back together in a way that makes sense. Ever have one of those months? Fuck March.

ANYWAY, it's easy to let fear and all of these sick, trickling demon doubts get in the way of creating something new, and I've been thinking lately about ways that I can exorcise my demons. My simultaneously favorite and least favorite part about being Minnesotan is that I go through this cycle every year and fail to learn from it: the winter comes in and quiets me down, reigns me in, breaks me a little. I always climb back out of it by the end of April, but it's difficult to get there without having it totally ruin my life.

When I first met my husband, I explained to him that no boyfriend of mine had ever made it through the late winter months and into spring with me. I told him that if he made it through March without either being so completely terrified of me amidst my throes of depression that he had to leave or getting dumped due to said throes, that I would have no choice but to marry him. We had our first date in March; I had just dumped my boyfriend for no particular reason and I had serious doubts that our love would last a full 12-month cycle. Somehow, it did. Before I knew it, it was already the next April and we were engaged and I was happy. In just one year we had moved in together, adopted a pet (Sam the promise cat), and seen each other through sickness, and when March came I quit my job instead of quitting him. I decided to put both feet in the relationship, and for only the second time in my life, allow myself to love someone completely.

Getting married changed my life. That may sound like a completely obvious and pointless statement, but I was surprised at how much it shifted my psyche. It made me feel like I needed to become a new person: new name, new hair, new job, new me. I took a position as a receptionist and started spending my entire workdays writing. In one month I drafted the first version of what is becoming a pretty decent novel, started writing show reviews and started this blog. I bought new grown-up clothes and tried to start wearing makeup (that part only lasted a week). I reinvented myself.

It occurred to me lately that I have kept everything exactly the same since then. Almost every detail of my life is a direct result of that monumental shift. I have taken on the persona of the wife, the nighttime music critic, the bored receptionist. But where did the unmarried parts of me go? When I became Mrs. Myers, did Andrea Swensson completely disappear? Where is she? What is she like?

How am I not myself?

I am in the process of getting back to my most basic self. Digging through old belongings and albums, looking at old pictures, trying to find the place where I started. I got my heart broken about six years ago, and there is a big part of me that never healed from that. There is an old sore deep inside that I am finally get ready to prod at, gently. It's going to take some time and a lot of old sad bastard music, but eventually, and without fail, this wretched month of March will come to an end and we can all go outside and dance in the glorious April sun.

My new friend, a talented young writer named Margaret Campbell, put together a short piece on an event coming up this weekend that will raise money for Darfur, Sudan. Check it out:

On Saturday, March 10, Dallas Johnson, a Jazz/Soul musician from the Twin Cities, will be hosting a benefit for Darfur at Dashen, an Eritrean managed Ethiopian restaurant.

“The best African musicians in Minneapolis will be performing, unplugged,” said Johnson. All of the artists are volunteers. “You’d never see all these musicians in one show, except at this benefit.”

Festivities will include a silent auction, food and international musicians such as Innocent from the International Reggae All-Stars, Van from the Maroons, Serge Akou, Brian Ziminak, Ray Rivera and many more.

“If I don’t raise money, it’s out of my pocket. I’m doing this out of faith,” said Johnson.

The $10 entry fee and $5 raffle ticket proceeds will go directly to the people of Darfur through the International Rescue Committee. The IRC is one of the few remaining humanitarian groups in Sudan and of those groups it is the most efficient at getting money to the people of Darfur.

“Ninety cents of every dollar goes to a variety of programs in Darfur, most towards education of children, clean water and sanitation. Seven cents goes to administration and 3 cents to fundraising,” said a representative at IRC.

“I feel that everybody are brothers and sisters. The situation in Sudan is an emergency. I can’t watch and do nothing,” said Johnson, who planned the benefit on her birthday.

Raffle tickets are available for a number of prizes including iPods, framed sketches and prints from local artists Barbara Porwit and Charlotte Ghiorse, tickets and backstage passes to the May performance of Champions on Ice, clothes from locally based Vandalism Designs, Twins memorabilia, and a variety of gift certificates and other prizes.

“Left to ourselves people will flourish and be happy, music can demonstrate that fact, and it can represent what humanity can do,” said Johnson. "People talk about Rwanda and the Holocaust as genocide, well genocide is happening right now… they must feel like the world forgot them.”

Musicians from Minnesota, Tanzania, Congo, Cameron, Ghana, the Ivy Coast and elsewhere will perform in the benefit.

“I decided, let me do everything I can and see what happens,” Johnson said.

Saturday, March 10, 2007
8:30pm – 11:30pm
Dashen Ethiopian Restaurant
2713 E Lake St, Minneapolis
612.724.8868
$10 entry fee
Parking in US Bank lot (3800 E Lake-1 block East & across from Dashen)

MARGARET CAMPBELL

I tried to revamp my blog. I spent all afternoon tweaking a fabulous new design that featured this totally artsy and introspective photo of a deserted park bench in the dead of winter, proceeded to somehow delete everything, and then stumbled on the file with my old design.

Old blog, I missed yous!

If you read this blog often, you know that I spend a lot of time talking about the effect that music has on our psyches and where it can take us. So it's no surprise that today, thanks to a link I found on Perfect Porridge, that allows you to stream the entire Romeo and Juliet soundtrack, I am spending my afternoon in 7th grade, carefully cutting out pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio from my teen magazines and taping them to my bedroom mirror.

It's been awhile since I've thought about that tumultuous time in my life, and while I am grateful to have 10 years between me and my painfully awkward adolescent self, there are a lot of parts of me that are essentially the same. I remember lying on my bed listening to Des'ree (what ever happened to Des'ree, anyway?) sing "Kissing You" and imagining what being kissed would feel like, hoping that it would be as drawn out and significant as in the movies. I learned how to play "Kissing You" on the piano and I would spend hours in the practice room at school playing it over and over again, hoping that a boy passing by in the hall would be so struck by the beauty of the song that he would have no choice but to swoop in and plant one on me.

I still have the tendency to expect too much out of life, to imagine scenes playing out in exaggerated ways like they do in film. I blame the music. All of my favorite scenes in movies are inevitable accompanied by great songs: "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" as William Miller runs down the streets of New York toward an overdosing Penny Lane; "Needle in the Hay" as the Luke Wilson Tenenbaum brother shaves his head and slits his wrists; "You Can't Always Get What You Want" as the funeral scene unfolds in the beginning of The Big Chill. (Why are all of my favorite movie scenes related to death? Something to ask the shrink.)

A meaningful moment in a movie practically requires a perfectly planned song, and it may help to explain why music takes us places as well—it helps us to explain the feeling of an exact moment in a more precise way than words and even pictures can, and used in the right way a song can be used to say something truly profound.

What's your favorite movie soundtrack or moment?

Something surreal happened to me about a week ago, and I've been thinking about it and turning it over in my mind ever since. As usual, I left work Friday and headed down to South Minneapolis for my weekly cleansing ritual, the Hootenanny, and was especially excited for this particular hoot since it was being hosted by my pal Stook. (Stooksenanny!) I wanted to get a good spot so I got there early, grabbed a cup of coffee and parked it near the front of the stage.

Just before the festivities began, Jim hinted that he wanted me to come up and sing "Homebodies" (my favorite Mad Ripple track) with him that evening. Shit, I thought to myself. I told him I would sing with him sometime, but I was totally tipsy when I said that! Sure enough, three songs into the night and with not a drop of liquor in my gut, Jim calls me up on stage and the whole thing played out like a big fuzzy dream.

I watch and listen to people sing every day. I study their moves, their facial expressions, and the tiniest nuances of their voices, listening for things that might make me fall in love with them. It never occurred to me that I never actually get up and do the same thing myself, save for one time with my husband when I had a lot of wine and decided to play piano for him in the middle of the night. And I had especially never sang in front of a room full of people, most of whom I knew.

It's not like I blew anybody's mind with my singing abilities, since I'm not particularly sure that I have any, but I stayed on key and sang my "la la las" and tried not to fidget too much. I'd say I did ok. The thing that shocked me the most was how exhilirating it was to do something that I'm NOT good at. I have a tendency to judge everything I do pretty harshly, especially any kind of art, and it was so refreshing to get up and do something just for the fun of it. No excuses, no beating myself up over the imperfections, no judgment; just me, on a stage, grinning like a fool and singing as loud as I could.

As Stook would say/sing:

Sing out loud, sing out loud, sing out loud
Won't you dance, won't you dance, won't you dance?
'Cause you and me, babe, we know it all to well
And those who laugh at us can all go to hell

A song is more than just a song

And a hootenanny is more than just a hootenanny. See you tonight.

I'll be the first to admit that when I fall in love, I fall fast and hard. And whether it is people, places, or music, you're going to hear about it. I don't like wasting a lot of breath on things that I don't like or care about, but man could I talk for hours about the stuff that turns me on.

So for Valentine's Day, here are some local musicians who have really jazzed me up lately. Consider it a love note to new local music. Complete with PICTURES (oooooh).

I saw The Cates last weekend at the Mad Ripple Hootenanny and I haven't been able to get them out of my mind since. Comprised of sweethearts Erin Kate and Caitlyn Smith, the Cates (gee, wonder where they came up with the name?) sing acoustic guitar-driven harmonies, and their voices collide with and compliment each other so well that it is difficult to tell which girl is singing what.

Both women have gorgeous and plush voices that seem to flow out of them effortlessly, and while I am sure each could be lovely solo artists, it's their powers combined that make them a unique act. My favorite song so far is "Day Break My Heart," a song that somehow stretches between optimism and utter despair with lines like "If this is war, please declare it/And if you'd like, I will turn the other cheek for you," and "There is no guard at my door." That's the thing about the Cates—just when they've broken your heart with the saddest song you've ever heard, you realize that these are two strong, independent women who are going to do just fine no matter what happens down the road. Maybe it's a feminist thing, I don't know, but that kind of organic, subtle girl power makes me go all soft inside.

When you go to their MySpace page, be sure to listen to their wrenching cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." And then go see the Cates play live, next Wednesday, February 21 at Cafe 318 in Excelsior or Friday the 23 in St. Paul at Ginkgo.

A few weeks ago I went to the Varsity to check out a bunch of bands. I didn't end up clicking with most of them, but I was completely blown away by Abzorbr. And in one fowl swoop I am going to jinx their whole career. Ready? Ok. Listening to Abzorbr reminds me of the first time I heard Atmosphere. Sorry guys, but it's true.

So here's what I like about these guys.

Vocalist Kristoff Krane (pictured, left) is the first rapper that I have seen in person that makes me want to use the verb "spits," because that's what he does: he raps quickly and urgently, as if he can't help but spit it all out in the open before his feelings change or go away all together. A lot of local rap groups that I have seen seem to come to the stage with a lot of pretenses and/or faked gravitas, and for the most part I get turned off by that kind of pomposity. Krane took the stage humbly—not meekly, mind you, but earnestly—and the aggressiveness of his phrasing seemed motivated more by the passion that he felt for what he was saying than any kind of magolomania. In other words, this guy's the real deal.

Brothers Graham and Casey O'Brien play drums and bass, respectively, and lay down a heavy funk during live performances. On their album, the musicians play