Escanaba Show Review

I'm blogging today from the 8th St Coffeehouse in downtown Escanaba, MI (the only place in town with free wireless internet access), where two nights ago I played a fun show with two of my long-time Yooper friends, John D. Beck and Jeff Krebs. Jeff, John, and I have played many a gig in this town over the years...as early as 1995, and other years, too (1997, 1999, 2001 I think). This is probably the best music venue in the U.P. these days, and we had a really good crowd...maybe 50 people, and some who drove all the way from Ishpeming and Negaunee to attend.

I've noticed in my recent commentary after each show that the reviews tend to go like this "awesome show," "one of my best performances," "a highlight of my musical life," etc. Well, the show from a couple nights ago is evidence that not every show is so flawless and lovely. Although Dawn told me it seemed to go well from the audience, I felt less-than-stellar about my portion of the gig. I guess it was okay, but I was certainly not "in the zone." Here are some reasons why I was unable to hit this one out of the park:
+ I chose to play while seated on a rickety bar stool (always a bad idea). I should stand up, or sit on a low chair, BUT never teeter atop a stool a-la Kenny Rogers: "On a warm summer's evening, on a train bound for nowhere..."
+ I hadn't played guitar in weeks, so my callouses were gone from my fingers, and I put on some nice new (and sharp) guitar strings before the show...my fingertips were in serious pain!
+ I had eaten two huge pieces of spinach lasagna (and a giant glass of milk) at my in-law's house right before the gig. Bad idea jeans. I always play MUCH better when I'm hungry.
+ I haven't played a solo-acoustic coffeehousey show in a LONG time. Been doing the band thing a lot this Fall, or the occasional solo church gig, but the solo coffeehouse format felt foreign to me. (funny, back in the mid-90s, this was the only kind of show I ever played!)
+ I'm coming off a week of Christmas festivities, so I was feeling particularly greasy and puffy and exhausted (staying up all night long with a 2-month-old does not lead to rock & roll glory).
So anyway, I did my best, but it was a tough night. I totally forgot the words to "Falling Down" (I always have trouble with that song, for some reason), and it took me awhile to get back on track. Here's a rough approximation of my set list:

747s
Falling Down
Tape
Smart Girls
Librarian
We're Creating Monsters
Every Town's The Same
Out Behind the Old Hotel
the Serious Kind
Gospel Verses

At the end of my set I brought up the other musicians for the evening, and our full band performances redeemed my weak solo set. I stayed on acoustic guitar, and joining me were Jeff Krebs (on banjo & guitar), John D. Beck (on bass), and my brother Tim (on drums). We wrapped up my portion of the show with a couple REALLY cool interpretations of some of my lesser-played songs:

Almost Never See
I Love You With All of My Mind

Then, after John and Jeff's excellent set, the audience demanded a jam session, so Tim and I jumped back on stage and we played a couple fun cover tunes to close the show:

Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones)
For The Birds (Bruce Cockburn)

Once again, having Jeff, John, and Tim play with me really gave me the psychological boost I needed, and we indeed rocked the house.

Here endeth my performances for the calendar year 2006. I've only got one gig on the schedule in January (at Dunn Bros in SW Minneapolis), and it'll be full-band, so it should go okay. That's about it for the new year, so it looks like I'll be lying low for awhile (which is okay with me). But the blog shall continue.

They hung Saddam (yes, of course he was an murderous dictator), but it seems like the world is taking a little too much pleasure in revenge. Hopefully the new year will bring more peace and less "dancing around the body."

Time to head back to the in-laws to help figure out how to operate the digital-photo-printer they got from Santa.

Ishpeming, and Best of 2006

Greetings from the Carnegie Public Library here in my hometown of Ishpeming, MI. It's been a wonderful Christmas holiday so far...today we opened gifts with the Rundman half of the family. I got some rockin' new winter gloves, some official Finnish sauna soap, a Leo Kottke CD (beautiful!), and some cash to spend on whatever I want. Thanks, Santa!

In the past I've created elaborate Top 10 lists of my favorite films and CDs of the preceding calendar year, but having children has drastically limited my moviegoing, so the film list has been discontinued. The CD list has become very difficult to complete 'cause in recent years I haven't been able to list 10 new CDs that I've been truly excited about. So maybe I'll try to just mention the one or two examples of "Best" that I can think of:

FILM:
Little Miss Sunshine: easily the best movie I've seen in 2006, and perhaps the best comedy I've seen in about 5 years.

MUSIC:
I haven't written down a list, but I'll try to do this from memory:
T-Bone Burnett: this year he put out a 30-year-retrospective as well as a new album, and they're both really really good.
Other than T-Bone, I really can't think of any new releases (I guess I liked the Raconteurs). However, there were some older releases that became HUGE faves of mine this year:

ROCKPILE: Seconds of Pleasure. This 1980 supergroup led by Nick Lowe has been life-altering for me.
MARSHALL CRENSHAW: I've been a fan since 1989, but this year his music really connected with me.
R.E.M.: I've been a fan since 1987, but with the release of their Best of the IRS Years album, I was reintroduced to a very important part of my musical f0undation.
BRUCE COCKBURN: purchasing his early-70s era folky albums in all their remastered glory has been a musical delight.
ASIA: I picked up the 2-disc set "Gold" featuring all their early-80s albums remastered together, and their blend of arena rock, prog, and pop just sounded perfect to my ears this year.

It's nice to hear that my own Protestant Rock Ethic album is turning up on some end of the year "Best of" lists! Check out this nice comment from Clint in Wisconsin.

If I may comment on another arm of the media, I spent about 10 hours on Christmas Eve watching cable television. I usually watch about 2 hours of TV per week (without cable), so watching 10 hours in one day was a real eye-opener. Of all that viewing only a couple hours were worth watching:

GOOD TV I SAW:
+ Dec 25th taping of Meet the Press: Tim Russert interviews Pastor Rick Warren and Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham (maybe?) about Christianity in America. Fascinating!
+ The Best of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog: 90 minutes of gut-busting laughter
+ some CNN show about the Future of the Internet: very interesting!

BAD TV I SAW:
+ The E channel presents "O Starry Night:" Christmas Carols (religous ones!) played in the background while a montage of celebrity red carpet photos rolls. Look, it's Charlize Theron in a sequin dress as we listen to "Silent Night!" This was somewhere between annoying and blasphemous, but I can't figure out how to explain it.
+ CMT Country Music Videos: how can I watch 90 minutes of videos throughout the day and see the SAME stupid Keith Urban video THREE times? And why is Keith Urban a country artist? Obviously he's a great guitarist and good singer (and hot dude), but the songs were totally NOT-country, and otherwise totally forgettable. And what's with Toby Keith binding a hot chick to a chair in a basement and then threatening her? I felt like I had stubled onto a showing of "Saw 2" or something.
+ The Girls Next Door: a reality show about Hugh Hefner and his THREE girlfriends...the episode I saw featured Hugh and one of the girls celebrating their anniversary, with help from the other two. I'm wondering how this is not prostitution. He gets these chicks as his love slaves, in exchange for giving them room and board and probably some kind of financial stipend. Sounds like prostitution to me! The thing that made it so disturbing was how "safe" and "harmless" and "fun" the show seems on the surface. I was reminded of the Rainmakers' song "Good Sons and Daughters" where Bob Walkenhorst sings about "Hefner's sly hate."

Well, there's a snapshot of my media exposure of late. Hope y'all had a wonderful holiday! Back to my Mom's house now for lasagna!

Beating the Ice Storm in Thorpe, WI.

It was two years ago (on the return trip, post-Christmas) that my family took refuge at this AmericInn Hotel in Thorpe, WI during an ice storm. Now we're here again, two Christmases later, headed the other direction, at the same hotel, this time trying to stay ahead of the storm. We could've stayed in Minneapolis tonight and tried to leave tomorrow morning, but the weather looks grim for tomorrow, so at 10PM we headed out Eastbound across Wisconsin. It feels GREAT to get on the road, even though we're only two hours into an eight hour journey.

Tonight was one of those ideal road trip situations for me. My entire family asleep in the car, the highways pretty empty, mostly dry, and safe. I had the iPod rockin' and the shuffle feature was doing its job. Sometimes the iPod on shuffle is pure magic and tonight that's the way it was. Here are some songs I heard as I drove:

Travelin' Prayer - Billy Joel
Save The Planet - Tragically Hip
Spend it on Love - The Rainmakers
There's a Family - The Vulgar Boatmen
Mom Out Dancing - The Silos
Remember - Annie Lennox
Modern Love - David Bowie
Silver Wheels - Bruce Cockburn
Until the Next Time - Peter Case
Old Part of Town - James McMurtry

It was musically delicious.

I've really been enjoying blogging lately, and reading other blogs too (see my faves listed in the right hand margin). What do you readers think? Do you like this new page hosted by Blogger better than my old MySpace location? I read this week's issue of Time magazine cover to cover because the Time Magazine Person of the Year is ME. Well, you know, it's the people who create content on the Internet, of which I am one. Here's a great story about the power of blogs:

On November 22 I blogged about a sermon (over at the old MySpace site) my Pastor preached regarding the traditional Lutheran table prayer "Be Present at our table Lord" and how it has two possible endings: "may strengthened for thy service be" OR "may feast in paradise with thee." Well, yesterday I ran into Pastor Erik who told me he had received a phone call about me. The call was from a woman from the little town of Fertile, MN who had been debating a friend about the two endings of this prayer, and to settle the debate she Googled the words of the prayer. The Google search resulted in a link to my blog, which the woman then read. After discovering that I had heard a sermon about this prayer, the woman linked over to my congregation Edina Community Lutheran Church and got the phone number of the church, and called Pastor Erik. He, of course, had never met this woman (neither had I) but he was pleased to hear the word was out about his preaching, and he was able to email the entire text of that sermon directly to the woman! All because of blogging and Googling. So there's some validation for the Time Magazine cover story.

Okay, it's late. Time for bed, and when I wake up, Paavo and I can hit the pool and hot tub before getting back on the road.

Happy Winter Solstice to all!

Merry Christmas "Out Behind the Old Hotel"

OUT BEHIND THE OLD HOTEL

There's a convention in town...
Let's go out behind the old hotel

There were two young lovers...
They went out behind the old hotel

Them workers quit the graveyard shift...
They went out behind the old hotel


Built that new expressway...
Starting out behind the old hotel

Merry Christmas to all from the Rundman Quartet!
I wrote that "Old Hotel" Christmas tune back in early 2000 for inclusion on the Sound Theology album, and since then it's become one of my most recorded (and most covered) songs. Tonight I was pleased to find out that Minneapolis-based folk-pop band Fuller Still performed a version of the song at their recent Christmas concert, and you can listen to a recording of it at the Fuller Still MySpace page. My friend Richard Bruxvoort Colligan and his band The River's Voice also did an excellent cover of "Old Hotel" that appears on their Christmas album called Behold.

It's one of my most enjoyable tunes to perform, especially with my rhythm section Kerns & Troy backing me up. My favorite recording of "Old Hotel" appears on my newest album Protestant Rock Ethic, captured live in concert at Augsburg College back in 2003 with Kerns on bass, Troy on drums, and Joel Setterholm on organ. It rocks. In addition to the original version on Sound Theology: Disc One, there's a really nice duet version with Beki Hemingway that appears on the 2001 Christmas EP Present (currently available at the iTunes music store).

I remember when I wrote the song, I was unsure about how to record it. I was inspired by Bruce Cockburn and Peter Case who frequently de-tune the low strings on their acoustic guitars and play bluesy riffs beneath their songs, so I came up with a guitar part that I liked in that style. But I was torn between a groovy shuffle or a peppy rockabilly thingy. I had done an initial rough take in the rockabilly fashion, when then I heard that Peter Case himself was gonna play a free in-store acoustic show at Val's Halla Records in Oak Park, IL (where I was living back then)! I thought, "What if I could get Peter Case to sing harmony or something on my recording?" so I threw my 4-track, headphones, and a mic in the trunk of my car and drove down to his in-store concert. I had some crazy idea that if he agreed to sing on the song that I'd whip out the 4-track right there in the store, plug it in, and have him do his vocals right there on the spot (a stupid idea in retrospect!). His performance at the record store was awesome and inspiring as usual, and afterwards he warmly greeted and visited the few of us that were there to listen. I never did work up the nerve to whip out the 4-track, but I did ask him what it would take to have him sing on one of my recordings, and he said to call his manager and send him a demo of the recording. A nice response, considering what a HUGE geek I almost was, and I left thinking "Whew, I'm glad I didn't propose the instant-4-track idea or he might have called the cops!" Thanks, Peter, for being nice to your fans, and for tolerating my idol worship of you.

So that scrapped the rockabilly version of the song. Thankfully I was able to capture a killer shuffling drum loop played by my drumming genius friend Lowell Michelson, and that loop became the foundation of the "Old Hotel" recording that appears on Sound Theology.

One of the greatest honors a songwriter can receive is to have an original song covered by another band, so thanks to Fuller Still, River's Voice, Beki Hemingway, Spirit Garage, and whoever else has been playing "Old Hotel" over the years! That's a great Christmas gift to me!

Another great show with Michael Morris tonight

Just got home from the 400 Bar when once again I sat in with Michael Morris and band for their Tuesday night residency. Man, Michael's got some wonderful and classic-sounding songs, and a good good band to back him up. I was busy tonight: played accordion, melodica, harmonica, 6-string banjo, and here's some pix of me playing mandolin with him. Those of you folks in the Twin Cites, go to Michael Morris' MySpace Page and check out his performance schedule...you've gotta see this guy now so you can say you saw him in the early days before he got HUGE.

Why has is been five years since I played in somebody else's band? It's SO FUN to do this kind of gig. I always enjoyed being Beki Hemingway's keyboard/mandolin guy, and it's great to be back in that role for a couple gigs. I guess I haven't really heard anybody whose music I have felt strongly enough about to want to back 'em up, but Mr. Morris is the real deal. It's exciting to see the wave he's catching, and it's impressive to see how forward-thinking and intentional he's being about his art AND his business.

Watching Michael start so strong right out of the gate gives me all sorts of weird ideas. Like, what if I changed my name, or started a band with a "band name," wrote all-new songs, totally reinvented myself, and started over from zero knowing what I know now about songwriting/showbiz, etc.? Last month after I show I went back to my hotel room and watched a VH1 special about the country band Sugarland. Interesting story...that's what they did: a bunch of singer/songwriters (including Kristian Bush, who I listened to ten years ago in his first band Billy Pilgrim) get together, start a new band with a new name, write all new songs, and totally reinvent themselves. BOOM. An effective way to kick some new life into their careers.

As I've spent the past few months assembling this forthcoming "Best of the 20th Century" CD (for release in early 2007, I hope) I've been realizing that this music career I'm conducting is really the exact same track that I've been on since I was 16 years old. I've always done what I've done the entire time. That's pretty rare in this business, methinks. Well, no plans for reinvention at this stage in the game. Soldier on as always!

Low Rise Jeans and Rundman's Hierarchy of Trouser-related Needs

After a wince-inducing week of unintentional voyeurism, I'd just like to say to global society: ENOUGH OF THE LOW RISE JEANS. Please. For the love of civilization. The first time I really noticed the onslaught of this ridiculous fashion movement was at a high school youth gathering in the Poconos back in the year 2ooo. I was sitting in the rear (no pun intended) of a hotel ballroom, up on the soundboard riser, watching the stage on the opposite side of the room and the hundreds of people standing up and dancing to the band. There, for the world to see was a portly teenage girl completely losing her pants to the pull of gravity, and inadvertantly showing everyone behind her some THONG underwear. Aaaagh! Little did I know that this trouser-trend would only increase in the coming years, so that now the problem is omnipresent. This past Summer my wife and I attended a big backyard bar-b-que picnic with 100-plus guests. We witnessed the sad scene of a retired gentleman trying to eat his potato salad while sitting directly behind a woman, cross-legged on the ground, half-mooning anyone who looked her way. Dawn and I felt simulaneously embarassed for the woman and embarassed for the old man forced to see the crack, all the while trying to contain fits of laughter. These anecdotes bring me up to the present day, as I reflect upon this past week where I was forced to cope with the bottom-baring of multiple offenders.

FIRST: while at a public event, people were fawning over my new baby daughter Svea who was sitting in her car seat. Someone wanted to hold the baby, and they came over to the car seat and bent down to pick her up, sticking their hind-end directly where I was sitting, displaying cheeks and thong. Please, make it stop. Please.

SECOND: during one of the many musical performances I saw this week, one of the women on stage was sporting low-rise jeans with a high-rise tshirt, and let's just say that up there in the stage lights she came really close to recreating the cover image from the Black Crowes' "Amorica" album, if you know what I mean. And when she needed to bend over to reach her drink or her equipment she almost lost her jeans. In between each song was an awkward dance of waist-hiking, pants-tugging, and squirming. So much for being able to pay attention to the MUSIC. Hey, I'm all for being beautiful and alluring on stage, but this was just pitiful.

THIRD: during one of the parent groups I attend with my kids during the week, it never fails that one of the other adults at the group wears some low-risers, and sure enough, anytime we sit down for stories or circle-time it's crack crack crack for everyone. How can pants-wearers let this happen to themselves?

So, after all this, I've had enough. Stop it. It looks stupid. And of course for those of you who are not exactly skinny, REALLY, it's not working for you. But, guess what: if you're thin and fit and gorgeous....low-rise jeans look dumb on you, too! I don't care if you're Heidi Klum....all that pants-hiking and crack-bearing is not sexy and beautiful, and I don't want to see your freaking pelvic bones sticking up above your waist.

Mostly, this is a women's fashion issue, but let me say that I've been impacted as a male pants-wearer myself. I love the Swedish clothing store H&M (I've picked up some great stuff there on past trips to Scandinavia) and so I was thrilled to hear that an H&M store was opening here in Minnesota at the Mall of America. So I went to the store to try on some clothes, and found a TON of really cool-looking and well-made funky hipster pants. BUT, when I went to the fitting room to try on the stuff, I was dismayed to find out that nearly all these pants were cut with a low-rise waist! Sadly, I was unable to buy these pants, because my number one goal of pants-wearing is to insure full coverage.

Thinking about the idiocy of low-rise jeans has reminded me of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I'd like to offer the world Rundman's Hierarchy of Trouser-related Needs, just so we can be clear about what the job of our pants really is.
SAFETY: In my hierarchy, this is the basic need that pants provide. Warmth, if needed, and ultimately protection of our parts down-there. This is a sensitive and essential area of the body, and it should be safe from potential environmental hazards.
COMMUNITY: the next most-important level helps us preserve and enhance relationships. We wear pants so as not to embarrass ourselves or the folks around us, and to insure we keep our common living space clean and sanitary.
FUNCTION: once the really important needs are met, then we can focus on the lesser needs. When I say "function" I mean that pants need to retain some structural integrity: they can't be too tight or too loose...they have to fit our specific body type, and they need to stay up and on, etc. They have to have enough fabric and coverage to qualify as pants, rather than being a belt, or anklet, or legwarmers, etc. There needs to be an agreed-upon definition of pants, so that the word "pants" actually means something when we use it.
COMFORT: once we know that our pants are doing their core trouserly duty, we can ask some more surface-level questions, like "Are these jeans comfortable?" Of course, we could wear very functional and legitimate pants that are UNcomfortable, but eventually as you progress up the hierarchy, one has the luxury to demand comfort.
FASHION: the top of this hierarchical triangle is the least-important job of pants. Now, I love fashion and personal expression as much (and maybe more) than the next person, but I get concerned when this place in the hierarchy takes precedent over COMFORT and FUNCTION and COMMUNITY and, heaven-forbid, SAFETY. Low-rise jeans laugh in the face of this hierarchy and puts fashion above all other pantly goals. My friends, if you're using your pants to send a message to the world and you're willing to sacrifice your own bodily coverage and comfort for your fashion-expression, then you've got bigger problems than that drafty breeze down your backside.

I hope this is helpful for America and the world. Like I said before, I love fashion, and I love when people look beautiful and sexy, and I particularly love denim jeans on myself and everybody else, but PLEASE, LET THE LOW-RISE ERA COME TO AN END.

Played Micah Taylor's CD release show tonight.

Here's a photo of me from this past Summer, singing backup vocals for the new album "Built to Suit" by Minneapolis-based songwriter Micah Taylor. Tonight was Micah's CD release show for that album, and it was a great way for him to launch this long-awaited recording!

Micah is mostly active as a behind-the-scenes musician: producer, engineer, session instrumentalist, songwriter, etc. He's backed up numerous local bands, and has filled in at shows with me a few times over the years...most recently back in the Spring he played keyboards and organ along with me at a show I did at Luther Seminary in St. Paul.

But Micah is also a performer in his own right, so it's good for him to finally have a great-sounding full-length solo record available. The songs are vaguely Southern-influenced folk and gospel tunes, but he really hit it out of the park with a few bluegrassy tracks on this new album. Tonight I played mandolin on a great song called "Levee" (also recorded by Rachel Kurtz on her newest album), and my other two faves were "Boat on Windom Road" and his closing song "The Road Home." There were a ton of other guest musicians tonight, including two of my favorite collaborators: Nate Houge (who co-wrote the song "By Grace" with me on my new "Protestant Rock Ethic" album) and Matt Patrick (a certifiable musical genius who mixed most of my forthcoming "Best of the 20th Century" album). A pleasure to play with these guys, as always. Also, for those of you who missed it, a couple years ago I did a week-long tour to South Dakota and back along with Matt, Nate, and Micah, billed as The Monsters of Folk. We even have a webpage detailing our adventures.

'Twas a pretty ideal situation for a CD release show, too. About 100 people in the audience, as we played in a cozy black-box theater space at Concordia University in St. Paul. Way to go, Micah! Congrats on the new album, and thanks for having me sing on it, AND and inviting me to play at the big launch party!

Played the Acadia Cafe in Minneapolis tonight.

Just got home from a full-band gig at the Acadia Cafe in Minneapolis. 'Twas a show I'd been planning to do for a while...a split bill with the acoustic prog duo called Flincho, featuring Mark LaForest (formerly of Ishpeming, MI) who I played trombone with in 7th Grade Band.

The Acadia is a great place to play. Beautiful theater atmosphere, good food, nice vibe. But every time I play there the crowd is small small small. Like, maybe 10 people. We had about 10 in the audience tonight. BUT, it was still VERY worth doing, thanks to the fine musicianship of my rhythm section Troy and Kerns. What a show! We were really synched up and inspired, and we did some unexpected songs with lovely spontaneous arrangements.

Mark's band Flincho played first, and wowed me with their structures and lightning-fingers on the fretboards. Their final song was a cover of "One Night in the Month of May," a song I co-wrote and recorded with The Muckrakers about 10 years ago, so I got to jump on stage and play harmonica and sing harmony on a song that nobody (besides Flincho) had ever performed before!
My own trio got set up and organized in a new way tonight...Troy played a stripped-down tom-less drum kit, and Kerns played bass AND lap steel (sometimes simultaneously!). And I tried a new guitar rig: my 1950s-era National resophonic guitar run through a 1980s-era solid-state keyboard amp. A weird little system, but that guitar sounded great, and I tried my best to channel Chris Whitley all night long. Here's an approximation of our set list:

Falling Down
Tape
Are You Speaking Thru the Radio
If I Ever Get There (with Kerns on lead vocals!)
Come Thou Long Expected Jesus
The Prophetstown Tornado
List of Things to Do
Bright Funeral
Cold But I Don't Mind
Second Language
Local Road
The Princess Wants to Spend Her Time with Me

+ and a final set with Flincho joining us on stage for a Farm-Aid jam session +

The World is Changing Every Day (great tune written by Arlo Leach)
Almost Never See
Helvetica (another Muckrakers cover tune)

There was something really magical about our musical connectedness tonight. Some factors that might have added to the great atmosphere:
+ we all played sitting down
+ we were playing relatively quietly
+ we were all trying new or altered instruments/setups
+ we experiemented with rare songs (no "Smart Girls," "Librarian," "Committee," or "Serious Kind" tonight)
+ our audience, though they were small, were REALLY attentive and positive

We made $25 in tips, and everybody told me to take it, so I did. So I got paid $25 to have a BLAST making music for a cozy room of interested people. Sweet deal, man.

Another minor epiphany from tonight: Back in the Summer I bought the newest Lisa Germano album "In the Maybe world" on the day it was released 'cause I'm a big huge Lisa fan. I listened to the album a few times after I bought it, but it was all wrong...it was a quiet, dark, keyboard-based album and I was listening to it in the daytime on hot, sweltering Summer afternoons, with Paavo in the car with me...the album couldn't reach my brain. But, from past experience, I know that Lisa Germano records ALWAYS connect with me eventually, even if it takes a while. So Lisa's CD has been sitting by my computer for the past 5 months or so waiting to reach out to me. Tonight on the way to the gig I put the CD into the player in the car, and BOOM I had a connection. It was dark, rainy, chilly, I was alone, I was relaxed, I had the car stereo up LOUD, and her new album finally made sense. Sometimes you've got to wait a while to "get" certain music. Thanks Lisa, you're worth the wait! It was one of those great moments where the driving and the weather and the mood just synched up beautifully with the music playing in the car.

Played with Michael Morris and Band tonight

Just got home from a fun and reinvigorating night of performing at Minneapolis' legendary 400 Bar. This evening I sat in as a guest musician with Michael Morris and his band. They're doing a month-long residency at the 400 Bar playing every Tuesday, and tonight was the first show of the series.
I've only known Michael for a few months, but I feel really supportive in him and his excellent music. We met at church, of all places...I was sitting in with the church bluegrass band one Sunday and we played Dylan's "I Shall Be Released," and Michael came up to talk to us after the service. Turns out we have a lot of stuff in common: proud Midwesterners, spent time as Lutheran youth group leaders, attended ELCA colleges, did brief stints in the Pacific Northwest, returned to the Midwest to settle in Minneapolis. In other ways, though, our experiences are VERY different: he didn't start playing guitar or writing songs until relatively late his young adult life. His songwriting has emerged fully-formed and mature...he didn't have to "grow into" his role as songwriter. His career, too, is really rocketing. He's only been doing his music for a year or two, but he's already generating a lot of interest in the local scene, and he's getting AMAZING gigs, like opening for Soul Asylum at First Avenue, and headlining a residency at the 400 Bar, etc. It's really exciting to watch somebody so new at this stuff come flying out of the gate and really catching a nice wave. (How's that for mixed metaphors?) He's getting opportunities that it took me over a decade to get (and some I haven't reached myself).

Michael has surrounded himself with really talented people from the start, and I had a BLAST playing along with his band tonight. It was a big group, Michael singing and playing acoustic guitar, backed by piano, mandolin, pedal steel, drums, and bass. I was in side-man heaven, switching between harmonica, melodica (just like Eric Bazilian!), and my Grandpa's vintage accordion. The last time I played a show like this was WAY back in 2002 at Schuba's in Chicago, during the Beki Hemingway CD release party for her album "Words for Loss for Words." I loved being in the Beki band 'cause I didn't have to talk, or organize anyone, or be in charge...I just enjoyed the great songs and switched around on whatever instruments were needed. That's what tonight was like...step up to the mic, rock out to the chorus, sneak away, sneak back in and play little riffs during the verse, trade solos with the pedal steel player, etc. I LOVE this kind of role in a band, and I'm so glad I got invited to do it tonight. I'll be sitting in with them next Tuesday as well....stop by to hear us if you live in the Twin Cities!

Aside from the obvious fun of playing in a good band, I must say that Michael has some seriously great songs to draw from. Super melodic, classic-sounding changes, but fresh and original too. Very heartfelt and personal lyrics, but delivered with a really credible earnest-ness. Michael is often grouped with bands like Bright Eyes, Sufjan Stevens, etc....I don't know, is that "emo?" Maybe it's emo. Whatever it is, it's personal and emotional, but not cheesy or pretentious or whatever. And like I said, the songs have a vibe like they've been around for 40 years or something....a timeless quality. I kept thinking of old Dylan songs like "Don't think twice, it's alright." It'll be fun to see the impact Michael Morris makes on the local/national music scene once he gets a full-length album recorded (there's a 2-song CD single available already, if you're interested).

I had a weird flash back to the start of my music-life tonight. After we soundchecked at the 400 Bar I drove to the Northern 'burbs to do a little Christmas shopping. For dinner I went by myself to Chipotle, the newish-quick-casual Mexican place. As I sat there eating a burrito, I reflected on how many times I'd driven in that Chipotle parking lot...although it was before Chipotle was there. Back in 1989 when I was 18 I started my life as a performer, volunteering for a couple of years as a singer/instrumentalist in traveling bands sponsored by Lutheran Youth Encounter (LYE). The LYE offices were in an old office building on that same plot of land, and for two years my band(s) would pull into that parking lot in our touring van (or bus) to meet with our bookers and friends, pick up our mail, pick up new sound equipment, pick up tapes and Tshirts for sale at concerts, etc. Since I lived full-time in a van for those years, that parking lot was the closest thing I had to a home. A few years ago LYE moved their office over to St. Paul, and the old office building was torn down to make room for new upscale shops and restaurants, and BOOM, now it's a Chipotle, and a Wal-Mart, and an Applebees. So, way back 16 years ago I was driving around that spot on the globe, doing concerts (in churches) and playing my Grandpa's accordion. Now I'm 35 years old, with 2 kids, but still driving around that exact same spot on the globe and doing a concert (at the 400 Bar), playing the same accordion. Weird weird weird. Not "bad" weird. Just neutral weird. Although I have no regrets about my past, you couldn't pay me to go back to 1989!

One more thing: the opening act tonight was an 18-year-old singer/songwriter from Northern Minnesota who had just moved to Minneapolis. Her name is Caroline Smith, and she was one of the BEST songwriter/performers I've seen in a LONG time. Wow. Great voice, killer guitar playing, amazing riffs, wonderful lyrics, fabulous melodies. Imagine Juliana Hatfield, with a little Lisa Loeb, and a little Liz Phair. Sheesh, if she's this good at 18, imagine where she could go in the next decade (or more!). I want to play a show with her again sometime. Play on, Caroline. There is hope for the future of rock.

Thanks to Michael Morris and friends for including me on your awesome gig. We'll do it again in a week.

Last night's Christmas Show, etc.

Although I've had a bit of the Holiday Season Blues for the past week or so, I'm pleased to say that my mood has received a positive boost these last two days due to the magic of Christmas carols. Despite my recent bouts of annoyance and weariness caused by the seemingly insurmountable dysfunction within the global religious climate, there's something about the simple beauty of seasonal music that reminds me of the reason we all bother with the challenges of faith in the modern world.

Last night I played perhaps my first officially-billed "Christmas Show." A Twin Cities-area congregation sponsored the gig, and set it up as a benefit for Lutheran World Hunger and a local food pantry. I gathered my trusty rhythm section (John Kerns on bass, Troy Alexander on drums) and my long-time friend and keyboard whiz Joel Setterholm (piano) for an evening of Advent and Christmas music, plus some of my own original yuletide tunes.

We met at the church to set up and soundcheck in the mid-afternoon, and once we got the band rockin' thru the church's built-in retro 3-channel PA system (whew!) I challenged my band to tackle some of the holiday genre's most obscure and twisty musical selections. I love playing with Troy, Kerns, and Joel 'cause they're all pretty fearless, and they are excellent music-theorists as well...I stick the old hymnal in front of them and they can instantly sightread the bass and treble clef. A rare and powerful skill in the rock&roll realm, indeed.

Before the gig we cruised over to the nearby retail strip, and I whipped up an evening setlist as we enjoyed a quick dinner at a locally-operated Mexican fast food place. I was planning on including many of my typical ecclesiastical-rock tunes such as "Workin' My Committee" and "Hey Hey Samuel," but when we got back to the church and I saw that my audience was 90% senior citizens, I crossed off all the loud, screamy rock tunes and filled the set list with quiet acoustic numbers instead. Even though the evening turned out mellower than I initially expected, the show went very well, the audience was glued, the band was freeflowing and tasty, and I felt like I really got to communicate...the low volume level and polite attention from the crowd created a really nice Christmassy intimacy. This was the set list we played after I edited out all the raucous songs:

Gospel Verses (one of my most favorite tunes to play off the new album...very Buddy Miller!)
Glory in the Highest
Comfort Comfort Now My People (in alternating 5/4 and 6/4 time...nice work, band!)
Come Thou Long Expected Jesus (Sound Theology version, with singing)
Four Candles (one of the best versions of this one EVER, with Joel's awesome piano playing)
Cold, but I Don't Mind (a rare one that I really love to play)
Cold December Flies Away (a Catalonian Carol...I learned that Catalonia is in Spain)
Out Behind the Old Hotel
Bethlehem Tonight (Xmas song from my new album...played with a drum-loopy groove)
The Serious Kind
Librarian (John Kerns amazing harmony vocals, as usual!)
Smart Girls
Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming (solo acoustic bluegrass version)
Wake Awake for Night is Flying (solo acoustic...this is a crazy, trippy, beautiful lost Xmas gem)
Narthex (always one of my personal faves...thanks, audience, for the comments on this one!)
Canticle for Departure (from the new album, and another of my personal faves)
Go Tell it on the Mountain

So that was the gig. Around forty folks in the audience...probably 30 senior citizens, 2 boomers, 6 GenX-ers, plus a few toddlers and babies. Everybody was way into it, and I was thankful for the opportunity to play. A lovely, quiet evening, and we all felt the good vibe.

To cap off this weekend, this evening my family went over to the home of our own congregation's music director for a Christmas Carol party. Paul Andress is a brilliant musician, great party host, and cool guy, and a few dozen folks from Edina Community Lutheran Church gathered for an evening of food and songs. After we ate we all gathered in a large family room with a couple guitars, bass, and banjo (I played accordion) and the whole group sang some classic Holiday songs. We did all the big hits like "White Christmas" and "Rudolph" and it was so wonderful to hear our voices rising up. I watched my baby daughter sleeping in someone's arms during the singing and I imagined all those neurons connecting in her young brain: chords, melodies, harmonies, dynamics, rhythms, etc. And my son Paavo was especially excited to sing "Frosty the Snowman." How rare it is these days for families to gather in a private home and sing and play music together...it was like a glimpse into community life from 100 years ago, pre-radio, pre-internet, pre-Desperate Housewives. Thanks to Paul and friends for a simple, wonderful, and simply wonderful evening of music, food, and friendship. Ahh, the Christmas spirit.

Body Piercing, Borat, and Blind Boys

This past week has thrown me some potholes in the road of my faith journey. In recent years I've been in a fairly positive and and un-disturbed phase of my religious life, and the recent birth of my daughter Svea was a beautiful and obvious reminder of the power of love and life over the power of fear and death. However there have been a few events in recent days that have caused me to wince and cringe and struggle with frustration in my life-of-faith.

FIRST: I finished reading the book "Body Piercing Saved My Life" by rock journalist Andrew Beaujon. It's an outsider's investigation of the hugely-popular but weirdly-isolated Christian Rock Music Industry (Beaujon is an agnostic, previously unfamiliar with this particular music community and scene). The book is very entertaining, funny, insightful, fun to read, spin-free, honest, and fair in its descriptions of the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) parallel universe.
In my own music career, I've occasionally been invited "behind the curtain" of CCM to play shows at festivals, events, clubs, etc., and I've shared the bill with a lot of the bands Beaujon writes about in the book, such as Half Handed Cloud, Sarah Masen, Switchfoot, OC Supertones, and Bill Mallonee.
Although I really enjoyed the book, after I was done I couldn't shake a subtle, nauseating, creeped-out feeling...and that's the same feeling I always get after a visit behind-the-scenes of the CCM world. Beaujon writes about the never-resolving struggles of Christian Rock bands: are we a Christian Band or a Band comprised of Christians? How are we viewed in the media? How can we maintain serious rock & roll credibilty without alienating the Conservative Church audience which primarily finances our lives on the Rock Star Express? Even I have had to wrestle with these issues occasionally (even though I've never been adopted by the CCM industry or audience), and I'm stuck in that place in my own life even now due to my newest album Protestant Rock Ethic...the question being: By publicizing my new album of liturgical music and youth-gathering songs do I risk ruining the nice momentum of credibility I've enjoyed since the release of my previous CD Public Library? In addition to these age-old conundrums, I was reminded of the profoundly yukky back-stage environment I've seen at these Christian events: musicians with collosal egos; youth and adults drooling at the feet of their favorite artists; hair, makeup, designer clothing, teeth whitener, and sexed-up singers that could give Britney and Gwen a run for their money; bands arriving in black BMWs and served by an army of adoring slave-volunteers all day long; back-stage prayer sessions led by young people with the weirdest manipulative and paranoid language you could imagine. I could rant and rant.

So this book stirred up in me a bunch of the negative baggage I've got regarding the Christian Music realm, and it made me want to run screaming from the entire thing. I was having thoughts like "Maybe I should never play music at a church again." The whole thing just seems so goofed up and creepy. At least when I play the 400 Bar for no money I know that I can play music for the joy of music, and not have any implied eternal significance or weird psychological manipulation going on. Just turn up the amp, play the songs, enjoy it, say thanks, and go home to bed happy. Of course nothing is that simple, but it's how I felt after reading the book.

SECOND: I went out by myself on Friday night and saw the movie Borat. The hype for this film is huge, as you probably know, so there's no way it could live up to the hype, and it didn't. But I still enjoyed it quite a bit, and there were moments (the fight scene, the rodeo) where I laughed that great cathartic kind of laughter. But right near the last part of the film I got another slap to my spiritual life. Borat goes to church. He shows up at a big Southern Pentacostal Conservative mega-church and attends a worship service. And this is part of the non-scripted part of the film...it's like a documentary or reality TV show where the actor interacts with real people on camera. And the folks in this church are really hitting all the stereotypical marks...the shouting and shaking and freaking out and speaking in tongues. And Borat goes up for the altar call and the minister attempts to "save his soul" and it's a total freak show. And I'm feeling really weird at this point 'cause I'm simultaneously laughing, but embarrassed, and angry, and disappointed, and sorry. And Borat effortlessly uncovers the truth about a huge part of American Christianity, and the truth is ugly, and psychotic, and ridiculous, and foolish, and abusive, and sad. And again, as I left the theater I felt like, man, I just need to distance myself from the church for awhile, before I get sick.

So, those were the moments that gave me a real shaking. But tonight there was a bit of redemption for me. My friend Steve invited me to go to a concert by the Blind Boys of Alabama at the brand new and gorgeous Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. The Blind Boys have been a band for SIXTY years. Yes, the number 60! They sing old-school gospel music, backed by a tight little rock/blues band, and in recent years they've won 4 Grammy awards for their albums. The place was packed, mostly with white baby-boomers, but also a sizable crowd of African-Americans. Well, the Blind Boys totally rocked. And there was a palpable Spiritual vibe going on in that theater...the band leader Jimmie Carter spoke of the trouble in the world...Iraq, North Korea, etc., and reminded the crowd that whatever happens "God is in control." And the crowd went wild. And they sang to us about "all you need is faith to hear the diesels humming," and "God has been so good to me," and "I believe," and "Jesus was born in the last month of the year," and "there's a light," and "this may be the last time we pray together." And it was cool and loving and serious and joyous and the way it should be. I've had similar moments at "rock concerts," like singing "I'll Fly Away" with the crowd at a Gillian Welch show, or hearing "I'm Gonna Wait" at a Lyle Lovett show, or hearing "infinity always gives me vertigo" at a Bruce Cockburn show, or hearing "Vertigo" at a U2 show.

So anyway, it's been a weird week. As we move now through the first week of Advent I pray I can learn from the wisdom of those old Blind Boys, and know how to process Body Piercing and Borat.

Blah blah blah

RECITAL album 10-year-anniversary

Ten years ago this week I began recording what would become my third solo album, Recital. It was the end a hugely prolific time for me as a songwriter and I had piles of 4-track demos that were candidates for re-recording. I had just moved to Chicago. My long-time musical collaborator David Casimir joined me in my 1991 Mazda Protege (the car that inspired a few songs on the album) and we journeyed up through Milwaukee, across Wisconsin, over the Mississippi River at LaCrosse, across Southern Minnesota, and down into the lakes region of Iowa to record at This Here Studio (pictured here) with engineer Richard Bruxvoort Colligan.
At the time, it was the most hi-tech recording experience I had had. 16 tracks on an ADAT machine! Drummer Lowell Michelson met us at the studio for those first sessions, as did keyboardist Joel Setterholm. Lowell had a brand new Isuzu Trooper, and while driving to dinner one night we hit and killed a deer on the road, trashing his brand new truck. Not a happy moment. But in general, we all had a blast and made some fine music. I would return to the studio alone in January 1997 to finish vocals and work on mixdown, but most of the album was knocked out during that freezing week in December ten years ago. A few tracks hold up very well to this day, in particular, "Janesville," "Nothing Old Nothing New," and "Tell Me Where You Want To Go."
The Recital album was released in the Spring of 1997 and it was the project that introduced me to the music scene in my new hometown of Chicago. The songs served me very well in those days...I had just become a full-time touring musician and I was playing coffeehouses, small clubs, and weird gigs all over the country. The musical workhorses from the record were "Only If," "Meeting Nixon," and "Tape." An excellent rhythm section played with me back in the late-90s (thanks Benji Derrick and Andy Deitrich!) and we even tackled some of the weirder tunes on the record like "Worse For You" and "When Rising From The Bed of Death." After pushing this album really hard for three years it sold out sometime around 2000 or 2001, and I chose not to manufacture any more CDs (I had shifted into a whole different kind of music career thanks to my 2000 album Sound Theology). The album went out-of-print and that was that.
In honor of the 10-year-anniversary of the Recital album, I'm very pleased to release an exclusive remix of the album's title track. The song "Recital" never connected to audiences on the CD, or in the rare occasions when I'd perform it in concert, but it always had a special place in my heart...the lyrics are a true story from my early days of dating Dawn, and I get a kick out of the guitar riff, bass line, and guitar solo, which were highly influenced by Liz Phair's arrangements on her Exile in Guyville album. Thanks to modern remixing technology, I was able to address some timing problems and groove issues in my original guitar parts that dragged down the original version of the song, so now "Recital" rocks tighter and cooler than ever before. Listen to the "Recital" 10 year anniversary remix here and let me know what you think!

Finalizing my "Best of the 20th Century"

Here's a promotional poster I was using back in 1993 for the release of my debut solo album. The songs from that era have been pumping through my head. Tonight I spent an hour laying (lying?) on the floor with headphones on approving the final mastered version of my forthcoming "Best of the 20th Century" album. 20 songs written between 1988 (when I was a Junior in High School) and 1999. It's one of the most exciting times of creating a new album...hearing all the songs sequenced properly, levels and EQs all correct, the way it'll be preserved forever!

I put out four releases during those days: "28 Days..." in 1992, The Chandlers "Seven Summers" (me and my cousin Bruce) in 1994, "Wherever" in 1994, and "Recital" in 1997. All those albums have been out-of-print and unavailable for years...I think the last time I had them all in stock was in 2000. Rather than reprinting those old albums, I collected the best tunes off of them all (determined by an on-line poll of my listeners a few years ago, which some of you may have participated in) and compiled them all on one CD.

It's something I've been scheming and dreaming about ever since the early albums went out of print 5+ years ago. The initial steps I took towards the goal were immediately after the release of Sound Theology in 2000. That August I returned to my hometown in Upper Michigan, set up my digital 4-track in my parents' house and recorded a ton of drums/guitar rhythm tracks with my brother Tim for future use on just such a "Best of" CD. Our performance of my 1996-era song "Continental Divide" was rec0rded in those sessions, and appears on this new project. Then in 2002, when I was producing the album "Something Different" for the duo Lost And Found, I took a break from recording the Lost And Found drums, and had my brilliant drumming friend Lowell Michelson play the parts for some of my own songs, such as "Read the Signs" and "My Helen." These songs, too, will appear on the "Best of." So, this album has been quite a project...the songs themselves date as far back as 1988, some of the recordings go as far back as 1991, and the compiling of them all goes back to 2000. And tonight I heard the final results for the first time!

Next on the schedule is to finalize the artwork, which is being created by design-monster Jim Ward Morris who you may know from his work with Cracker and Jay Farrar. Then it's off to manufacturing for a few weeks. I hope to have this baby ready for public consumption by January or February 2007.

It's weird to spend so much time and energy on old material. However, I haven't been very interested in writing new songs lately, and I HAVE been very excited to archive my creative history, so I have only positive vibes regarding this project. As a music fan, I really love to hear early and obscure recordings from my favorite bands. In recent weeks I've picked up the CD reissue of the Rainmakers' indie debut album "Steve Bob & Rich: Balls," and on my newly acquired Bruce Cockburn reissue "High Winds White Sky" there are two amazing previously-unheard acoustic coffeehouse recordings of Bruce performing as a 20-year-old. I think it's a thrill to hear established musicians in their formative stages. In fact, just today I received a CD in trade from www.lala.com (by the way, I'm addicted to LaLa...check out my "CD want list" by scrolling down to the bottom of this blog) Matthew Sweet's early-years compilation "To Understand: The Early Recordings." My son Paavo and I rocked out to it this afternoon when I was washing dishes. These early tunes are so inspiring to me! I hope that'll be true for the folks who hear my own "Best of the 20th Century" album.

I'll keep y'all updated on the progress. Time for bed.