sunny weather, solid food, and The Cost of Musicianship

In the week since my last blog entry the weather really made a turnaround, baby Svea entered a new culinary phase, and I had some keyboard-related events. Here's the rundown:

WEATHER
Thank the Lord, I jumped on the multiple chances to get the heck out of the house this past week and enjoy our early Spring warmth. I put lots of miles on the double-stroller, wheeling Paavo and Svea everywhere. Some highlights included:
1) downtown Minneapolis Heritage Trail: featuring the dazzling Stone Arch Bridge, old St. Anthony Main Street, the newer Hennepin Ave Bridge, and the Western bank of the Mississippi River. Glorious. I walked it twice.
2) Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun: the proximity to these water bodies is a huge plus for my quality of life, and this week we hiked around Calhoun on a record-shattering warm day. Here's a shot of Paavo at the beach with the ice receding behind him. 60 minutes to circle it.
3) my house to 50th & France: this is the Times Square of Edina, and I can walk there in 25 minutes. Slighty annoying is the one block passage on busy, loud, and stinky France Avenue that allows the crossing of Minnehaha Creek.
4) my house to 50th & Xerxes: another big intersection with coffeehouses, UPS Store, etc. This takes 27 minutes, and the difficulty of the trip is a bit less.
SOLID FOOD
My daughter Svea became a solid-food eater last night with her first bowl of rice cereal. She wasn't overly shocked or delighted or disgusted by the experience. Just munched it down and continued with a normal evening. Today the ramifications were revealed as I changed her diaper. It's wonderful to see Svea getting more mature, but it's certainly more convenient to just feed her milk all day. Now I'm gonna have to once again put on the Chef's hat and whip up an ever increasing variety of baby food for my sweet little girl.

THE COST OF MUSICIANSHIP
Last Sunday Michael Morris resumed his musical weekly residency at the 400 Bar in Minneapolis, and I was pleased to be in the band. I'll be guesting the next two Sunday evenings (Palm Sunday and Easter) as well.
Here's a shot of Michael with band members Joanna James (violin...just back from playing SXSW in Austin, TX), and Haakon Nelson (mandolin). In the foreground you can see the cabinet of my 1968 Wurlitzer electric piano. I played mainly keyboards for the show, and chose to haul out the Wurly to a club gig for the first time in many many years. I think the last time I dragged the old monster out to a gig was in Chicago playing with Beki Hemingway back in 2000 or something like that. So here's the "cost" question I'm struggling with:

Is it worth it to haul a heavy, awkward, fragile, valuable, and moody Wurly to play at a club gig for only a few songs?

Of course, it sounds totally cool when you plug it in...there's nothing like the real thing when playing in a live-band situation. But the hassle of it all is pretty huge. I'm just so worried about dropping it, knocking it out of tune, etc., that next time I might just bring the fakey synth keyboard instead. If I had a van to haul it in, and I was playing big long shows, and I was confident in how the thing was running through the PA, then maybe I'd take her on the road, BUT, in this situation I think it might be best to keep the Wurlitzer safe, warm, and at home in the studio.

Finally, here's a "cost" issue that really worked out slick for the Rundman family. Our church sent out an email offering a free piano to the first person to claim it, and YAYHOO I was the first to respond! My friend Lloyd came over with his zippy little truck this week and we loaded up that piano and drove it home. The two of us were able to lift and wrestle it into my living room, and BOOM, we've got a family piano. This is the second piano I've scored in the past two months, but this baby was FREE. However, it had been sitting in a Child Care classroom for about 30 years or so and it's pretty banged up. The key-cover knobs were ripped off, and the prop-up music stand on the top of the instrument was snapped off. I went to Home Depot and spent $8 on a couple new knobs and a piece of scrap wood for a music stand, plus a couple new hinges, and got everything looking as good as new. I also pulled off all the panels on the instrument cabinet and cleaned out 30+ years of dust bunnies, filth, grunge, and other residuals. Since the piano sat in a kids' classroom, I found a crayon, a Hot Wheels car, four pennies, assorted paperclips, and other junk inside. The Child Care folks had used the piano mainly as an art-drying area so the entire exterior of the instrument was caked with Elmers glue, glitter, marker streaks, paint drops, and general filth. I took a straight-edge razor blade and scraped the thing clean, and used a cotton swab to scrub around every single key. Now it's squeaky-clean and ready to rock. Dawn broke out her Chopin Waltz sheet music and took it for a spin, and man, it's awesome to have an acoustic piano in our living room. Thanks ECLC for the free piano! This will probably be the instrument that Paavo and Svea will learn on!

The Silos at 7th St Entry in Minneapolis

I've been to the Minneapolis rock club 7th St Entry twice in my life. Most recently was about an hour ago, and the previous time was in May of 1993. Both times it was to hear my favorite band The Silos. The venue looks exactly the way it looked fourteen years ago. But The Silos and the world and I have all changed a lot. Thought I'd give you, dear readers, a little compare-and-contrast:

FLASHBACK TO 1993: I was living in Eugene, Oregon, and had just begun my career as a solo touring musician. My debut album 28 Days in the Yellow Room was hot off the presses, and I was starting to get some national bookings. Somebody at Concordia College in St. Paul, MN, was an early fan of mine, and they booked me for a Spring outdoor music festival (I think it was called Lutherstock, or something like that). They flew me to Minnesota from Oregon for the show, and I threw together a band to play the gig with me...if I remember right, the band was: Me (guitar & bass), my cousin Bruce Rundman (guitar), Richard-Bruxvoort Colligan (guitar & bass), Joel Setterholm (keyboards), and Mike Rieck (drums). Only one photo ever surfaced from that performance and this is it...that's me with the long hair playing bass, and Bruce on acoustic...who knows why the framing of the photo is so weird...although that is a lovely tree.
Somebody did a lo-fi recording of that show and I remember some of the songs...we covered Prince's "Raspberry Beret," did the Bruce & Jonathan classic "Beige Slacks," and closed with a decent version of "No More Walls." The reason why I remember so much about this gig is because it was one of my first REAL bookings...the flight, a fee of some kind, a big stage, a real audience, etc. Pretty cool for a newbee.

ANYWAY, while I was in town I was surprised and thrilled to see that my favorite band The Silos was gonna do a show at 7th St Entry. Bruce and I got all excited to go! Now, I was only 22 years old, barely old enough to get into a bar, and I'd never really been to a rock club to see a show before. SO, since the paper said the show was 8PM, Bruce and I of course went really early to wait in line to buy tickets, assuming that the show would sell out. So we arrive at around 7PM, stand outside the club for an hour waiting for the doors to open...finally we get in, expecting to hear The Silos play at 8PM. Oh, we had a lot to learn about rock and roll! So we get in at 8PM, and sit there for 90 minutes with no performances. Then, it turns out there are TWO opening bands (one, I remember was The Sycamores, a successful alt-country band at the time), so by the time the Silos even get on stage, it's after MIDNIGHT. Of course, Bruce and I had been excited and standing around for five hours at this point, and when the Silos finally played we were psychologically fried and exhausted.

Now, all I knew about The Silos at this point were from their albums (which I had memorized). So I was ready to see Walter and Bob and Mary the violinist and the whole gang. Little did I know that in the previous couple years the band had radically evolved, and by the Spring of 1993 Walter Salas-Humara was out on tour with a new bassist (Tom Freund) and drummer (Darren Hess) and nobody else. Plus, this was of course at the height of Nirvanamania, so while I expected the acoustic strumming and twanging of the early Silos records, instead we got barraged by Walter and Tom and Darren turning in a distortion fueled punk-grunge version of the Silos. My young Yooper eyes and ears were shocked, to say the least.

But, I certainly remember that show. In fact, I remember that they opened with the first song from the first Silos album, "Shine it Down." And I remember that Martin Zellar (of the Gear Daddies) and Gary Louris (of The Jayhawks) were in the audience (my first brushes with rock stars in the crowd!) . And I remember how I felt when The Silos played their biggest radio hit called "I'm Over You" and the entire crowd sang along...I had thought that I might be the only person on earth who payed attention to The Silos, so imagine my surprise when I saw a room filled with strangers who also knew and loved them. A few days afterwards I wrote a song about that feeling, called "I thought you were mine" (this is a pretty decent song and it's never been recorded...I'm working on the definitive version for release some day...14 years in the making). Finally, when Bruce and I were so wiped out that we had to leave (I think we skipped out before the encores) I pulled a Silos poster off the wall and took it with me....and to this day that poster from 1993 is hanging in my basement studio.

Now, let's return to PRESENT DAY, specifically, yesterday, three hours ago.

Once again The Silos were playing a show at 7th St Entry. Tonight their opening act Jon Dee Graham was also sitting in with them on lead guitar, so I was excited to hear his contributions to the ensemble. Of course, the major difference between tonight's show and the show in 1993 is that now I actually know The Silos personally, and have even recorded one of my own CDs Public Library with them as the backup band, and Walter as my producer. And since 1993, I've probably seen them in concert about twenty times, with a variety of band members, and in about five states.

Walter's current rhythm section Konrad Meissner (drums) and Drew Glackin (bass) have been the longest running Silos band members and their musicianship and rhythmic connection is an awe-inspiring sight to behold. Jon Dee rocked on guitar too...it was cool to see him sitting in with The Silos tonight....the last time I saw them was about a year ago at the 400 Bar and their guest-guitarist was Peter Buck of R.E.M. (amazing!), and the time before that at the Turf Club, their guest-guitarist was Slim Dunlap of The Replacements, so Jon Dee is in good company. It's always fun to reconnect and visit with the band, hear about their adventures last week at SXSW in Austin, TX, etc. Here was tonight's set list, as they performed in support of their new album Come on Like the Fast Lane:

The First Move
Come On Like The Fast Lane (containing the great lyric "Uncle James can see the future"...I don't know what that means, but I think it's cool)
Whistled a Slow Waltz
Keeping Score (another great lyric; "there is no bar room, there is no bed room)
Innocent
Miles Away (a very nice, quiet, riffy version, with Jon Dee soloing)
Tell Me You Love Me
Four On the Floor (Konrad's drumming blows the mind)
When The Telephone Rings
I'm Over You
People Are Right
Take A Hit
The Only Love (one of my all time faves)
Behind Me Now
++++
ENCORE ONE
Susan Across The Ocean
Let's Take Some Drugs and Drive Around (I prefer the original Michael Hall piano ballad to the Silos album version, but tonight's full-band interpretation was different, and I really liked it)
++++
ENCORE TWO
Tennessee Fire ("Oh Hi Oh....leavin' you behind, Ohio...." gives me chills)

So, just to put a nice bookend on my experience in 1993, when I left the club tonight I pulled a Silos poster off the wall and brought it home. If you would have told me fourteen years ago that in 2007 I'd be back at 7th St Entry seeing The Silos again, and living in the Twin Cities, and a parent of two kids, and having made a record with The Silos, I would've passed out. Strange strange strange how life unfolds. Thanks Walter, Drew, Konrad, and Jon Dee for a great night of music...safe travels to Milwaukee!

March Media Mania

This past weekend has allowed me some much-needed personal relaxation time, where I've sampled a wide range of media outlets, wonderful and lame. In addition to watching the boob-tube for the first time in weeks, I also skipped church in favor of doing my taxes...I guess I was "rendering unto Caesar." So anyway, here's some commentary on my past few days of media observation.

Charlie Rose hosts my favorite TV show. I remember the first time I ever saw the program...I had just moved to Chicago about 10 years ago, found the show on PBS, and Charlie had three guests: an expert on the Middle East, a priest who worked at the Vatican, and rock star Peter Gabriel. Charlie knew a lot about each guest and their issues, and every interview was fascinating, serious, and thrilling. I've watched him loyally ever since. It had been a few weeks since I'd seen Charlie lately, so on Friday I snuggled under a quilt and fired up the TV. It was awesome...his guests were:

Richard Stengel, the editor for Time Magazine. They talked about how the magazine is putting more and more content up online, and is focusing a lot on blogging, etc. Stengel is successfully reclaiming more subscribers to the magazine, and is trying to turn the ship around. I love learning about publishing, journalism, and the marketing of the news. I think if I had a parallel life after high school, I would've loved to be a writer/reporter/columnist. This blog will have to suffice. The current issue of Time arrived at my house on Saturday morning, and the cover story about the downslide of the American Conservative movement is very interesting (I must admit, I take some pleasure in their stumbling), and the image of Ronald Reagan crying is quite poignant (although, a bit too obviously Photoshopped).

Taryn Simon, a 34 year old world-renown photographer. Here's somebody who is passionate about her artwork. Man! As an artist, it's very inspiring to witness another freelancer who has such a clear vision for what she's doing. Simon, however, did seem just a touch tooooo obsessed with her work...I'm afraid she may be putting too many eggs in the "art" basket. But that's always been my problem as a musician, I think...I never feel like giving 110% to my music, because as a person of faith, my concern with the stewardship of my time and energy won't allow me to get THAT committed to my art. I wonder if that's why so many of the most brilliant and successful musicians and artists tend to be non-religious...they've put all their faith in art, and there's none left available for God, or something. This is a "vocation" issue, as we Lutherans say.

Chris Rock, comedian and film director. Rock was on to promote his new movie "I Think I Love My Wife," but the best part of the interview involved his comments on other artists/actors/comics who inspire him the most. He talked about the mind-boggling work ethic of David Letterman and Tom Hanks, who work harder and longer than anyone else at their craft, and that's why they're the best in the world at what they do. Again, like Taryn Simon, it's a commitment and drive to be the BEST at your art that results in success. And again, I was left thinking "well, that's impressive and everything, but in the end, wouldn't it be better to have spent more time enjoying your family, the quiet details of everyday life, and to exist at a slower pace?" I feel the same way when I watch the Olympics..."Uhhh...nice dive...do you realize you blew your entire childhood and young adulthood on those past 5 seconds?"

So, once again, it was a wonderful and thought provoking hour with my friend Charlie. Last night (Saturday), however, was a TV viewing wasteland. The TV show Law & Order has been on since I was in high school (I think), and it's hugely successful with many spin-off shows, but I can honestly say I'd never watched it until last night. The only thing I knew about Law & Order was a Saturday Night Live sketch from a couple weeks ago, where Amy Poehler and Jake Gyllenhaal played amateur actors training to be extras on Law & Order...it was a funny piece. Now that I've seen the real show, I must congratulate the SNL writers for getting it perfect. Saturday's Law & Order featured a cheese-ball plot about a YouTube-style video blogger who gets attacked on camera, and the stern NYC cops sniff around the city trying to solve the crime. The acting was lame, the characters were worse, PLUS it featured graphic violence in prime time! We got to see a masked kidnapper take a straight razor and cut the ear off a hostage, and wave the severed bloody ear at the camera! I couldn't believe it. How does this low-grade Silence of the Lambs crap get so popular? Everything else on the other 5 channels that I get on my TV was equally lame, and the best I could do was watch a funny-haired religious talk show on the Seventh Day Adventist TV Network. Now, I don't really know anything about Seventh Day Adventists and their theology (other than that they go to church on Saturday instead of Sunday, darn it!), but it made me think, man, there should be a Lutheran TV network. We're not all that sexy either, but our denomination is loaded with cool, smart, and interesting people. Maybe that's my future career...TV producer at a Lutheran TV network.

This morning I got up and caught the entire broadcast of Meet The Press with Tim Russert. I enjoy this show, but rarely watch it. This morning featured Democrats Tom Andrews and Joe Sestack, and Bush buddies Tom DeLay and Richard Perle. Of course, the debate was on what to do about the situation in Iraq, and it was a very interesting discussion. I tried to detect a blatant "liberal media" bias, but to me, it seemed like all sides had a equal chance to vent. There's a big pro-war argument that all the conservatives throw around that annoys me profusely, which is: "if we withdraw troops from Iraq, the terrorists will be happy and emboldened." Well, sure, but isn't it possible that that negative effect could be outweighed by mountains of positive effects in our favor? Here's what I'd like some democrat to communicate:
WHICH IS BETTER:
OPTION ONE:
we withdraw, terrorists are happy/emboldened: AND our troops are safer, and the Iraqi people are safer, and we can focus on the real causes of 9/11 and terrorism with the help of the global community
OR
OPTION TWO:
we stay there, terrorists are mad/desperate: AND our troops are in danger, and the Iraqi people are in danger, and we are unable to focus on the real causes of 9/11 and terrorism, and the whole world is against us

I like OPTION ONE better, and there are plenty of brilliant military and foreign policy experts who think so, too. I'd rather have some happy terrorists to fight on the real frontlines of this conflict than some mad/desperate terrorists keeping us bogged down in a civil war in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

Well, that was my first bloggy rant about the Iraq war. I was gonna apologize for "going there," but oh well, if Tom DeLay can speak publicly about it, so can I. Dear God, help us all.

Two more bits of media commentary before bed. Tonight after the rugrats went to bed I zipped over to Borders to blow a few gift certificates that I had. I picked up Bob Dylan's book Chronicles in the bargain bin...it's supposed to be one of the finest rock memoirs ever written. I'm excited to check it out.

And then I picked up the new album Influence by Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades, two of my favorite rock singer/songwriters. The thing is, this is an all-cover-song album...they do their own versions of classic rock hits like "For What it's Worth," "Lucky Man," and "California Dreamin'." Rock journalists always say that the big signs that any band is washed-up and lame are 1) live albums, 2) "best of" albums, and 3) covers albums. There have been a glut of covers albums in recent years from a wide variety of artists like Def Leppard, Styx (Tommy Shaw's other band...two covers albums in two years...yikes!), Lyle Lovett, Rick Springfield, Shawn Colvin, Mandy Moore (her covers album is quite awesome, I must say), and even local Minneapolis folkies Storyhill. I like the idea of a covers album, but I've got too much other stuff to work on before I reach that point (does the Styx Tribute album count? I guess not, 'cause I only did one song). Since I've already got a live album, and a newly released Best Of album, I guess I'm quickly on the road to being a crappy has-been rocker. Oh well...here's what I'd do for a my own covers CD:

JONATHAN RUNDMAN: The Not-Yet-Existing Cover Song Album

1. "Shrapnel in my Heart" written by Jeff Krebs
2. "Thursday Morning" written by Bruce Rundman
3. "Picture of Helen" written by Walter Salas-Humara/The Silos
4. "No Romance" written by Bob Walkenhorst/The Rainmakers
5. "Three of us come True" written by Nate Houge
6. "Mary Alice" written by Beki Hemingway
7. "I Shook His Hand" written by Peter Case
8. "Runs in the Family" written by Moe Berg/The Pursuit of Happiness
9. "You Know Me So Well" written by Todd Miller & Lloyd Garrelts/Echelon
10. "Slip Sliding Away" written by Paul Simon
11. "Hold On" written by Kerry Livgren/Kansas

There are more tunes that I'd include, but my brain is fried. Good night to all.

"...always take the weather with you"

Here's a picture taken this afternoon on the Stone Arch Bridge in downtown Minneapolis in the midst of this 60+ degree day. Paavo and I certainly enjoyed the fresh air and the lovely weather, and Svea took the picture...well, actually she napped as the camera did the work on auto-pilot. This is precisely the atmospheric situation I've been waiting for these past few months: warm afternoons so I can get me and the kiddos out of the house and out into the natural world. This bridge is my favorite place downtown...the views are spectacular, everybody around is smiling, happy, friendly, and active, and it's humbling to stand above the roaring of the Mississippi River. To think what this river means to my town, my country, my planet...it's quite staggering. The music alone...from Paul Westerberg throwing the master tapes of The Replacements in the water here in the Twin Cities, to Chuck Berry in St. Louis, Elvis and Johnny Cash in Memphis, and finally New Orleans. And me, I proposed to Dawn along this river on November 8, 1991, downstream in Davenport, IA, and after she said "yes" and accepted my ring, I threw the empty jewelry box into the Mississippi. I wonder where that snap-shut little felt box is these days? Maybe deep in the riverbed below the mud, or maybe downstream in Memphis, or maybe somebody found it floating and wondered about its origins. Hmm...

Living in Minnesota is good for my soul. I need proximity to water. After growing up mere miles from Lake Superior, and spending all my youth on the shores of various lakes, it's a necessary part of my preferred environment. A couple times in the past weeks I've loaded up the stroller and taken Paavo and Svea for a push around Lake Harriet here in Minneapolis. Having two lovely lakes to hike around, now only minutes from our new house, is a major quality-of-life factor that I treasure. Now that the snow is melting and the temps are rising, I look forward to spending a lot of my daytimes around the lakes with my kids. In less than three months, Paavo and I will be able to resume our swimming at Lake Harriet South Beach...I can't wait for the day!

Since Springtime is starting to finally show its face, I've been humming "everywhere you go, always take the weather with you." These lyrics are from a brilliant song by one of my all-time favorite bands, Crowded House. They broke up a decade ago, and have recently announced a reunion. Tonight I finished watching "Farewell to the World," a double-disc concert/documentary DVD by Crowded House, that is probably the finest concert video I've ever seen. Filmed 10-years ago at their farewell performance, the DVD features 2 hours of excellent concert footage, some of the finest and most advanced pop/rock songwriting of all time, inspired musicianship, and the pure joy of music, plus personal reflections by the band members in various interviews. A DVD to watch for anybody who plays in a rock band, or seeks inspiration for songwriting. When I was learning to play guitar as a high schooler one of the first songs I would play and sing was "Something So Strong" by Crowded House. Then in Chicago when I played keyboards in Beki Hemingway's band we'd frequently cover the Crowded House hit "Don't Dream It's Over" and I got to play the glorious organ solo that Mitchell Froom played on the original album. (Legend has it that the band Sixpence None The Richer once heard Beki perform "Don't Dream It's Over" and told her "hey, that's a great cover song!" A few years later Sixpence showed up on the pop charts with a Top 10 Hit cover version of, you guessed it, "Don't Dream It's Over." Coincidence?) I even released my own cover of a Crowded House song, "It's Only Natural," sung in a duet with Beki on my own live album Field Recordings. Thanks to Neil Finn and company for so much wonderful music, and I'll be thrilled to hear what their comeback album will sound like!

So, good music and good weather collaborate to cheer me up after a dreary winter. My lovely wife Dawn is doing a fine job of cheering me up as well...she's orchestrating our collective Spring de-tox, and she's got us measuring out our food portions, and trying a whole range of new-to-us menu options. We had tasty fish last night, and shrimp for dinner this evening. And tonight my evening snack was 16 chocolate chips, counted out into a tiny cup. It sounds lame written down, but it's kinda fun. And my innards will thank me. I was to the point where if you took a scalpel and cut into my leg, you might find half-eaten cheeseburgers jamming my arteries. We're turning the physical ship around, and I've now got 2 cups of mixed greens scraping through my system and cleaning out the pipes. Bring it on, Nurse Dawn!

"Cautious Springtime Blues," and I love Avril Lavigne

Here are the song lyrics from "Cautious Springtime Blues," a song I wrote back in the mid-90s that appears on the 2000-released album Sound Theology.

CAUTIOUS SPRINGTIME BLUES

someday all my money will be guaranteed
someday all my money will be sure
someday all my money will come back to me
and there will be no more of these
cautious springtime blues

someday my sweet baby will be guaranteed
someday my sweet baby will be sure
someday my sweet baby will come back to me
and there will be no more of these
cautious springtime blues

i think i need some air
i think i need some air
i need to step outside

someday all my daydreams will be guaranteed
someday all my daydreams will be sure
someday all my daydreams
will come back to me
and there will be no more of these
cautious springtime blues

It seems like throughout my entire adult life I get a bad case of The Blues in March or April. I don't know if it's seasonal affective disorder or something, but it's like clockwork in my brain. This particular Winter/Spring has been extra weird and difficult...ever since my daughter Svea's birth last October, and especially since we got back from Christmas vacation, I've been struggling with some low-grade depression. I even booked a few sessions with a counselor, which I'd never done before (that was helpful, and very good for perspective, and the counselor told me he thought I didn't need to come in anymore if I didn't want to, so that's done).

Here's the tricky thing: I've got a few things that really re-charge my mental and spiritual batteries, and they are 1) quality time with Dawn, 2) private time alone, and 3) time to spend writing/recording music. Since the birth of lovely baby S., and since I spend my days caring for both Svea and Paavo, there's really no way for me to enjoy any of the three things that re-fuel me the most. It's no big surprise, and it happens in some way to everybody who has children, I guess, but all that combined with bad weather and freezing temps, it's really given me a rough few months.

Thankfully, I feel like Springtime is starting to fight through the gloom. Temps will be in the 60s this week (yayhoo!) so I can get the kiddos out in the stroller and walk around the lakes! FrugaLent is going well (especially for Dawn), and I'm excited to make these last few weeks of the Lenten journey even more meaningful. Plus, Dawn and I are gonna take on some physical spring-cleaning that should hopefully help me bust out of my slug-like winter hibernation. Hopefully a de-tox of my toxified flesh will help de-tox my mind and soul as well.

Little did I know when I wrote "Cautious Springtime Blues" as Dawn finished her PhD ("someday my sweet baby will be guaranteed") that it would still matter to me a decade later. I put it on the Sound Theology album during the season of Lent, mostly because it had "Springtime" in the song's title. I wasn't thinking of any spiritual impact when I wrote the song, but since it came out on that album, lots and lots of folks have had the song as part of their Lenten journey. Zion Lutheran in Des Moines, IA is spending the season going through the Lenten songs from the Sound Theology album, and they recently listened to "Cautious Springtime Blues" all together...you can read about it at their blog. It's a huge honor for me as the songwriter to think that these community of folks who I don't even know are using one of my songs as a spiritual springboard. And now I can totally see the faith-connection in the song...the longing for resolution, the hope for relief, the "someday" that we've heard from the Psalms to the African-American Spirituals ("some bright morning, when this life is over, I'll fly away").

Plus, in addition to the lyrics and theme, I totally love the recording of that song. Drums and bass on the album are played by Matt Thobe and Mike Bradburn (who I've blogged about before), an amazing rhythm section from the Chicago-based band Dolly Varden (who just so happen to have a brand new album out!). I'm also fond of the guitar parts...the electric guitar was recorded live with the drums, but later I overdubbed the second guitar part in a way I'd never done before: in my little 4th floor condo in Chicago, I ran Mike Bradburn's tiny old Gibson acoustic guitar through its pickup into my Fender Champ tube amp and cranked it up...I had to put a huge blanket over the amp and mic so I wouldn't infuriate my downstairs neighbors (more than they already were, probably). Something about that old acoustic guitar pumping through a tiny amp really sounded great and unusual...maybe like a hollowbody electric or something. Darn it, it's a good recording...and done a 4-track to boot!

One thing that's been helping me conquer the Cautious Springtime Blues is sharing music with my 3-year-old son, Paavo. Lately he's been into Crowded House and Semisonic, but far and away, his favorite artist is Avril Lavigne. I recently picked up Avril's 2004 album Under My Skin via www.lala.com, and it's become one of my own personal faves too. Oh, the rock, Oh the pop! I didn't know much about Avril, other than she was grouped into the teenybopper genre, so I wasn't interested. But, I learned about her a bit more, and found out that one of my heroes Butch Walker had co-written and produced some of her stuff, so I requested the CD from lala. Much to my delight, this is one of the most consistently rocking and hooky and energetic and smart and FUN albums I've heard in years! Some things I love about the Avril album:
+ fun, innovative, and youthful lyrics with cool snotty attitude
+ really distinctive and tasty vocal tricks, vowel sounds, cadences, etc...she's Canadian, right?
+ GREAT rock band production, featuring some of my faves (Butch, Kenny Aronoff, Patrick Warren, etc)
+ super-huge mult-multi quadruple-stacked harmony vocals with enough suspensions and neighbor-notes to make Crosby, Stills, and Nash get teary eyed
+ melodic acrobatics
+ head-spinning, head-banging drum fills
Then I got to thinking, "Well, it's a great album, but she's probably really lame in concert, probably can't really play or sing," etc. Thanks to YouTube, I have been proven wrong. Check out this awesome acoustic version of her big hit (which I totally love, and was co-written with Butch), and see how really lovely and powerful and rockstar her vocals are. You go, girl! (Hey, I tried to post the YouTube image itself using their "post to blog" feature, but it didn't work...how lame! Oh well, you can link there...)

U2 Tribute Show, music theory nerd party

A couple nights ago I coordinated U2 tribute concert, held at Edina Community Lutheran Church in Edina, MN. Five acts each played a U2 cover tune as a prelude to the evening's main event, a lecture by Dr. Christian Scharen from Yale Divinity School who did a presentation on theology and the music of U2. At the end of the musical portion of the evening, all the bands jumped on stage and played a very rocking and slightly honkeytonk version of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Here's a picture of the big Farm-Aid jam session on that song:

(from left to right)
Gail Brecht (keyboards), me (electric guitar), Justin Rimbo (bass), Michael Morris (mandolin), Troy Alexander (drums), Micah Taylor (laptop noise), Nate Houge (electric guitar), Graham Peterson (percussion), Josh Brecht (acoustic guitar), and somewhere on stage or in the audience was John Kerns (guitar or vocals or something).

Here's the order of the songs we played:

Jonathan Rundman "God Part 2"
Michael Morris "One"
Nate Houge & Welaware "I Will Follow"
John Kerns "Until the End of the World"
Fuller Still "40"
GRAND FINALE: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"

It was quite a fun evening, and Dr. Scharen's talk afterwards was very thought provoking. I had finished reading his book One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God the previous week, so it was cool to meet the author a few days later. I like U2, but I'm not the hugest fan in the world, so I had a lot to learn about the history of the band. We watched a jarring and kind of disturbing video summary of the 1992 Zoo TV tour and we discussed the band's use of satire and irony in order to speak out against materialism, media overload, etc. And we watched a performance of the song "Sunday Bloody Sunday" taken from the recent Vertigo tour of 2005-06 where Bono addresses the current tensions between Christians, Jews, and Muslims around the world. It's really incredible what these four musicians are able to achieve when they perform in concert...it's a kind of community-building that can only be described as church-like in the best and most profound sense of the word. Scharen pointed out oodles of Christian imagery and messages throughout U2's career...I had no idea just how much faith-based information, quotes, and references there are in their history and in their songs.

For example, I didn't realize that on the album cover photo for their 2001 CD All That You Can't Leave Behind, the "flight number J 33-3" listed behind the band is a reference to the Bible verse Jeremiah 33:3 which reads: "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." I think I'll always hear their songs with new ears and new appreciation from now on. And it certainly was an encouragement to me as I plug away at being a performing singer/songwriter who's interested in addressing ecclesiastical and spiritual themes in my own songs. U2 is truly a model of how to do it right, with artistic credibility and sound theology.

It was a challenge to interpret a U2 song for the musical portion of the night. They're one of the toughest rock bands to cover because their songs are so grand, and depend so much on a specific guitar riff or vocal performance. You can't really sit around the campfire and strum along on the song "Vertigo" or "Pride (In the Name of Love)." I picked their song "God Part 2" (from Rattle And Hum, my favorite U2 album...I bought it right when it came out back when I was in high school) because it's one of their most basic traditional rock songs...it's just 12-bar-blues with some super heavy drumming.

My favorite lyric from the U2 song "God Part 2" is "I heard a singer on the radio late last night / he said he's gonna kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight." The singer Bono is referring to is one my all-time musical heroes, Bruce Cockburn (he's one of Bono's heroes, too), and the quote is from the excellent song "Lovers in a Dangerous Time." (On a side note, there was a recent blog posting from drummer Pat Tomek who reported that his cat Beanie stepped on his computer keyboard and turned on iTunes, which proceeded to play a song by ME, followed by a song by Bruce Cockburn!).

The one arrangement choice that I just couldn't NOT use was singing the verses in different octaves. The album version starts with Bono singing low over bass and drums, and once the guitars come in loud, he sings the next verse an entire octave above. It's a really cool trick, and I knew that to deliver this song effectively I'd have to do the same thing. The problem is, you've got to choose a key signature where the early verses are high enough so that they can be sung with strength and accuracy, BUT they have to be low enough so that you've got enough room in your vocal range to take the whole thing up an octave for the later verses, without trashing your voice or missing the notes. I played the song in the key of E and it worked great...when I jumped up to the high verses it was at the very top of my vocal range...I had to hit a G above middle C without using falsetto, and I can only do that when I'm really screaming my head off, so it worked well for that particular song. Okay here's the amazing part....U2 does the song in A! So Bono is able to sing those high verses four steps HIGHER then I did...it's really amazing...he's hitting a C above middle C. He's a truly gifted singer...and I remember how impressive his vocals were while seeing them in concert.

Performing that vocal part on "God Part 2" was a reality check for me. Lately I've been realizing the way a true vocalist will arrange music, compared to a non-vocalist. I've done a lot of playing in Beki Hemingway and Michael Morris' bands, and these two performers are true SINGERS. They write the song, and then move the key signature around (and usually, the capo on the guitar) until they find a key that is optimal for their vocal performance. They want to find a key signature where the high notes, and long notes, and important notes have a special resonance...it's a sonic space where they can best emotionally connect with the song. That's why I spend my time in Beki's and Michael's bands playing in keys like B, and C#, and F, and Ab. The vocal range decides the song's key.

But me, I'm a crappy singer. Always have been, and I don't have any grand schemes to be a great vocalist. And I never think like a singer. I think like an instrumentalist...specifically a guitarist or keyboardist. That means, I'm always writing songs and arranging them around keys that are friendly to guitar and piano...keys like A (my favorite), C, D, G, and E. I'm always considering "How can I make this song work best for the band members?" And if it's not great for my singing, oh well, tough luck. Like "Librarian" for example...this song has a guitar part that works great in the key of B, allowing certain open strings to ring, and allowing the bounce of the low E string on certain riffs. So, the song is recorded and played in B, even though it's technically too low for me to sing. Ideally, I'd sing the song in D or something, but then I'd lose that lovely guitar riff, and it's just too cool to capo, so I leave it in B. That's why if you see me in concert, I'll almost always play "Librarian" very early in the show, 'cause if I do it too late in the concert by then I've lost my low vocal range and will be unable to sing it.

The first time I ever composed music with a specific concern for vocal range was when I wrote the songs for A Heartland Liturgy. Those pieces were written and recorded for normal people to sing on their own, so I had to put my own instrumental and vocal preferences aside in favor of writing songs for Joe Public to sing. It was tough...here's an example: I really wanted the song "Holy Holy Holy" to be based around the Am chord 'cause I had this really great guitar riff built around that chord voicing, but it was way too high for the average citizen to sing (especially men, who are really lousy at singing high, and basically lousy at singing in general), so much to my dismay I had to re-arrange the song around an Em chord instead. Thankfully I figured out a way to approximate the riff while using the Em voicing. The song really needed to come down half an octave for the sake of group participation.

So anyway, maybe as I write a new set of songs sometime in the future, I can experiment with constructing them around my voice rather than my guitar, and I can try to lock in to an emotional vibe with the vocal range, rather than a technically-convenient key for the band members. Look out Kerns, we might start playing in Db and F#.