MinneapolitanMusic

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!