captainawesome

Death to James Taylor

Ok, heres the deal. If by some fucked up chance you read this and feel i'm just being an idiot or a scenester or an old bitchy man with crabs... tell me. Comment on it, email me, do what ever. I'm just curious. now on to the rant...

Where the fuck did the minneapolis music scene go? Seriously, i damn near expect to see a picture of the foxfire on the back of a milk carton one day saying "Missing: Local Scene. If good music found call the authorities."

Did we seriously fucking peak in the early 90's?! I hope to god not but let's take a look at the situation real quick. WAAAAAAAAAAAAY back in the day, Bob Dylan, a local MN man finally put us on the map. If you are still in high school there is the minute chance that you may be asking yourself "who the fuck is bob dylan?" to which i will reply "don't waste my fuckin time. go ask your dad."

So where do we go from Dylan? Well the gods smiled on our city a few decades later and VIOLA we have the purple one himself, Prince, to sooth us with the bat dance and tell us just what it sounds like when doves cry... ok.

But then something amazing happened. A truely original rock scene came to minneapolis. Just taking a look at Twin Tone's roster shows you how amazing of a time the late 80s/ early 90s were. Here we had Soul Asylum, The Replacements, Husker Du, Zuzu's Petals. IT DOESN'T GET BETTER THAN THAT. here we had bands that were the fuckin epitome of rock n roll,the epitome of drinking (unlike The information society and other inxs rip off bull shit). the epitome of the three chord rock song that influenced all those shit heads today that really rather suck a big one... but i digress.

Can anyone really deny the power the Replacements had. I mean the unpredictability. The Loud rock songs. The soft ballads that didn't suck unlike the ones from the 80s (although patience and every rose does have a small place in my heart). And there are the stories. I will only treat you to a few. When their lable wanted to transfer the 'mats records on to CD, the band drank some whisky, grabbed every master copy they could find, and tossed them into the mississippi.They hoped one day, the masters would float down the rivier, end up on the bank of Prince's back yard, and they would influence him to switch genres. After all, we are talking about the band that Lorne Michaels banned from SNL because they showed up trashed and said "fuck" on live TV. God i miss the Replacements.

The late 90s were ok at best. I mean as far as Ska goes... god should i even go into it? Ok so we had some decent pop acts like Animal chin but in comparassion to the above bands they just seem as lame as FDR's legs. For the math rock lovers we had what Killsadie evolved into. I still think Experiments in expectations was one of the most underrated albums of...99? 2000? the exact year escapes me. Albeit we did get D4 and Atmosphere around that time and they seem to be doing a pretty damn good job carrying the tourch but we need more.

POS i think is probably the best damn MC out there, and Ipecac Neat is one of the most under rated albums of 2004. The doom tree crew might actually put MN on the map as the new underground hip hop sprt with the help of Slug from Atmosphere. And we do have Thunder in the Valley to bring back that good ol' whisky dancin rock. Let's not forget The Cardnal Sin, featuring ex members of the Crush and Song of Zarathustra (ironically, at the triple rock's annual haloween show where bands pretend to be defuncts bands, Cardinal Sin showed up as the Replacements. Have things come full circle?).

The Foxfire was a breeding ground for this state. I truely think that had it been around for another 10 years, Minneapolis could have been the next seattle. We could have been what we were in the 80's. What do we have now? Lets see what we should be straying away from:

-every song does not need to be in drop D
- your drummer should learn to use a double kick before attempting a live show
-avoid band names with seasons in them
-don't draw Xs on your hands, by the time you're 22 YOU WILL BE AN ALCOHOLIC!
- your singer should be able to "scream" in key.
- a record goes on a turntable NOT in a fucking art museum (ok yeah so some velvet
underground albums are in the walker but thats besides the point)
- if you are a rap group with more than 3 white rappers, please just give up

You know, most of you may be too young to rememeber a time in Minneapolis when bands helped each other out. Believe it or not, that was like 5 years ago (when most of you were in the 6th grade) We need to go back to that. and goddamn it the world already has Korn, Minor Threat, and Bane. Do you really need to sound like these bands?

A glimmer of hope came to recently. A new radio station came out of the blue: 89.3, the current. It's as though 770 Radio K had a baby with REV 105. Mary Lucia and Mark Wheat are back in town to do the DJ thing, and for the first time in years i feel as though i can listen to the radio again.

As i sit listening to the most recent Paul Westerberg Album (which really sounds bob dylan ish to me) I can't help but wonder where our music has gone. Ironically, it seems hard to find some of the best MN music here. I often find myself at Wreckless Records or Hi Fi records in chicago, picking up a replacements or soul asylum album on vinyl, finding that lost Husker Du 7 inch, or a Paul Westerberg bootleg DVD. I have to make a 6 hour drive for good local music?

This has become stale.

this rant was brought to you by an ex scenester. take it with a grain of salt.... i was in a ska band