03.19.01

The Guthrie Theatre is the prize jewel in the cultural crown of the Twin Cities. A Minneapolis institution as old as both the Vikings and theTwins, and better known worldwide than either of them, it is more than just a roof and four walls housing a tremendous theatre company. It is a performance space nonpareil that has fueled the cultural fluorescence of our metropolis.

Thanks to the tremendous vision of Sir Tyrone Guthrie and the brilliant translation of that vision by Minnesota architect Ralph Rapson, it is as modern and artful today as the day it opened it's doors, and is just as functional. The theatre itself, an acoustical diamond, together with the thrust stage and 54 foot range of intimacy, has produced performances of the absolute highest order that aspire to, and achieve, everything that is great about the artistic experience. The theatre, along with the patrons who become participants in this aural act of "audio television," has witnessed a living history of great, important and powerful art. It's musical roster of performers (Bill Monroe, Elizabeth Cotten, Sun Ra, The Who, The Modern Jazz Quartet, and Townes Van Zandt to name but a few) over the last 40 years should be enough to qualify it for the National Historic Register. It is more than that, though. I say without overstatement that it is the Carnegie Hall of the Midwest, a shining example of what can be and what should be, and like Carnegie Hall, the Guthrie Theatre cannot be moved and should not be torn down.

Two friends and I drove from the Iron Range in a snowstorm to catch my first Guthrie show (Leo Kottke) in 1972. It would forever change my life. The theatre, then barely ten years old, had already entered the Minnesota mythology that includes names like Bronko Nagurski, Harmon Killebrew and Hubert Humphrey. We entered the multi-colored hall just as the lights were being lowered. At the behest of Kottke, polka legend Wally Pikal opened the show which culminated in him playing three trumpets while bouncing across the stage on a pogo stick - not exactly A Midsummer Night's Dream. Kottke took the stage to a hometown hero's welcome and strummed his twelve-string guitar. The sound is something I will always remember like it was yesterday, as if the heavens had parted and invited each of us to magically enter the sound hole of that guitar and become part of those notes - and no, I wasn't on drugs; the sound was just that good. It was like being invited to a private concert in the living room of some philanthropic hipster.

The proximity of the performer to the audience amplified the experience and as an audience member, you felt you were on the inside track and part of the creative expression of the evening. I decided to become a professional musician that night. That decision certainly didn't change the world, but I would bet my last Cabooze Bozo Buck that there have been literally tens of thousands of people whose lives have been duly enriched by performances at this uniquely Minnesotan venue. These are the things, my friends, that money just can't buy.

I do not begrudge Joe Dowling's desire to expand his space to create larger works for the theatre, but I do not believe he has the right to usurp Sir Guthrie's vision for this particular piece of Kenwood real estate. His statement that he would like to "recreate the ambience and size of the Guthrie in the new theatre" should really be filed, in these dubious economic times, in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" file. He himself admits, "it is a very powerful space." What we truly cannot afford is to throw the baby out with the bath water. If you pile the Guthrie on top of the Met Stadium, Memorial Stadium, Met Center and Nicollet Mall, we are five hundred miles closer to Omaha.

We are living in coarse, violent and mediocre times. Now is not the time to abandon and destroy what has become an irreplaceable and very real high church of artistic expression and experience. Art is the one area of human endeavor capable of serving as a beacon to illuminate what we are capable of as humans and as a society. Let us do the right thing for yesterday, today and tomorrow and preserve this sacred space.

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12.22.00

This is the story of a boy and his guitar. The kid was born in 1955, the year America went from black and white to color. He was born in a snowstorm on Halloween night the same year Einstein died, Elvis had his first hit, James Dean (America's first real teenager) took his last breath in a Spider convertible at 124 miles an hour after stopping at a wayside rest for an apple and a bottle of coke, Charlie Parker the be-bop messiah played his last 32nd note and passed away in a New York apartment after watching the Tommy Dorsey show, Chuck Berry had just changed the name of an old country song named Ida Red to Maybelline, Woody Guthrie was in his third year at the Brooklyn State Hospital, a small drive through hamburger stand in California was opened named McDonald's,  a Japanese fellow by the name of Sony had just opened up his first electrical shop on the other side of the world ten years after Hiroshima, an Arkansas dirt farmer had just entered Sun Studios in Memphis and recorded his first record under his god given name of Johnny Cash, the New York Yankees had just won their 16th world series, and Americans everywhere would soon be able to watch most of the history unfold before them, under soon to be Eisenhower skies of optimism, in their living rooms on a brand new twist on the 3-D radio called the color television. America was in the midst of another cultural fluorescence. In a century that began with the birth of Louis Armstrong in New Orleans and ended with either the death of Frank Sinatra or John Kennedy Jr. off the coast of Martha's Vineyard this year was a turning point from which America never looked back and maybe that's part of the problem- or part of the solution. Either way you look at it, it was a hell of a year.  

Well, given his druthers, the kid wouldn't of or couldn't of had it any other way. He was born on the Iron Range in Minnesota, a stones throw away from kid from a 13 year old kid in the neighboring town of Hibbing, who spent his formative years listening to rock and roll radio stations from faraway places and watching Marlon Brando terrorize similar small towns on the Big Screen on a Harley Davidson. That kids name at the time was Bobby Zimmerman. Both baptized in the grand shadow of Elvis Presley and with the guitar as their guide ventured out onto the highways of a changing America. The 13 year old changed his name to Bob Dylan and became a big star. The other one kept his name and didn't. This is his story and he's sticking to it.

It is an American story and will be told as one. Bright lights and big cities, ghosts from the farm, the never ending jukebox, eastern European grandma's lullabies, the promise of Camelot, Jack Ruby's betrayal, Elvis on the big screen and the Beatles on the small one, Hank Williams smoke tavern backbeat, Stevie Wonder's harmonica, electric twelve strings, Mama's in the basement mixing up the medicine and Dad sells insurance, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band as Christmas presents for eleven year olds as if the British invasion without the Beatles wasn't enough, secret agent television, Tom Jones and some woman named Delilah, Peter Sellars on the left hand-Woody Allen on the right, Martin Luther King before April in Memphis, Sirhan Sirhan, Richard Speck, Vietnam, Woodstock and then Altamont, a man on the moon, and Charlie Manson, Surf City to Sin City, and the kid ain't even out of Junior High, LSD (can't this lead to marijuana), losing his virginity on mescaline the first day out of Junior High and Nixon is still in office, majorettes, strippers, the Holy Ghost, a '59 baby blue Cadillac and an electric guitar, Spiro Agnew and then Jerry Garcia, Damn Everything But the Circus and teenage immortality, Lenny Bruce, Ravi Shankar, 13 year old perfect masters, southern comfort and cold snowbanks, the velvet flesh of country girlfriends, and reading On the Road but not yet being able to be on it. That would come soon enough. A lifetime with the guitar. Dropping in but mostly out of college and spending the last twenty five years of his life in the fine skull orchards and blood buckets of this blessed and imperfect country, chasing the ghost of Elvis, ass kicked but soul somewhat intact. And that is part of the point, everything in America is probable if not possible, there is beauty in the struggle, it is easier being white than black, male than female, although these are both toss-ups until all the scars have healed. But it is about the story-the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And God helps but so does the occasional shot of whiskey. And so it will be told, in prose, street poetry, songs like postcards from a fading America, stolen verses from bathroom walls, erotic letters to bygone girlfriends, letters to the editors, essays from the damned, and smoke signal messages to the great beyond. A particular version of America. A story that goes from black and white to color. He got to meet most of his heroes, got a letter from the White House, spent a few days in the Big House, and got to spend time with everyone from Springsteen to G. Gordon Liddy, played guitar for Ken Kesey, would say he's smoked dope with Willie Nelson-but who hasn't, watched the sun come up with Jerry Garcia, heard Segovia and Bill Monroe and Dexter Gordon in the same week, almost got signed to a record deal by John Hammond got to sing his song "Jack Ruby" , to 40,000 Texans just five miles from Dealey Plaza, was too young to meet Woody Guthrie but got invited to play his Tribute at the Rock and Roll Hall of fame, put out eleven releases on his own label-most of which went linoleum (although one almost went double aluminum), and played 4,000 gigs, many of which he remembers. And tonight he'll take his guitar and go and do another gig and will play for some who will listen and some who won't. But that's not the point. The point is he is 45 years old (says he's 35) and is still making a living with his guitar. And like he says "The beauty of obscurity is you never go out of style."

Summer is half over or half under depending on whose glasses you are wearing. I've spent it in the company of fine strangers, fellow Americans, one guy from Palestine and the other from Hong Kong, windswept sailors, a well dressed lady in a dugout canoe, a postal worker who is going to have a problem passing his next piss test, many people from Wisconsin-some of whom I love and the others who will never grace the glass beads of my cabana, entranced by Red Violins, dreamt in spectra color,missed the highway for the byway, was saved miraculously on the shores of Burntside Lake by a true brother-comrade in arms, held no screaming baby's, formed a Sunday choir with three little black sisters (sister-sisters) at a BBQ gin mill, heard Johnny Cash sing through and reinvent Sherwin Linton, lent Dobie Gillis a fiver on the way downtown, went AWOL on a couple of guitar solo's-jumped through the pentatonic escape hatch more than once, seen the full moon take off its party dress, used a gallon of magenta paint, composed a lullaby and forgot to write it down, tried to heal the non-believers and overachievers and thought now would be a good time to say hello again to the true believers and sweet deceivers-and I always thought it was funny the middle word in believe is lie but I might be telling you something you already know. Off to see a hurricane ladies and gentlemen goodnight!

your good buddy,

5.21.00

   JUST ANOTHER NIGHT IN TINY TOWN- I was 44 years old, halfway between what the Mahavishnu Orchestra called "Between Nothingness and Eternity". I finally decided that I was more than just a musician: The fat guy in the red polyester playing second tuba in the Ringling Brothers Circus on Sunday for thousands of screaming kids and parents who should know better-now that's a musician. I was something else. Oh, I've been that guy...but I'm usually something else............

Friends-neighbors-sideways ventriloquists-fellow soldiers in the night, I just returned from playing the Heart and Soul Festival in dowtown Minneapolis. It was both inside and outside Bunker's Bar in Minneapolis on Washington Avenue- the same Washington Avenue where three truckers were killed by anti-union thugs in the infamous Truckers Strike of 1934. That strike led to the mobilization of union organizing the likes that had never been seen in Minnesota or the rest of the U.S.... Everytime someone bitches about Unions I just repeat what the bumperstickers says, "say Thanks to the folks that brought you the weekend."

I started the weekend with my Friday gig at Gabby's in NE Minneapolis on the shores of the Mighty Mississippi. Water rushes past on it's way to New Orleans and then the Gulf of Mexico (if it can make it out of the Big Easy in one piece.) Birds fly lazily overhead and tugboats with weather-beaten but wise captains navigate with computerized compasses and the grace of God on this oldest of Rivers. The next morning I played my fourth annual River clean-up sponsored by the Mississippi Corridor Neighborhood . It is spearheaded by a fellow by the name of Randy Kouri, a true River Rat and activist non-parallel. Kouri has had his phone lines mysteriously cut, paint splashed on his home, and threatening phone calls all because of his 23 year efforts on the behalf of a cleaner river. Hell, he started doing this back when the Brady Bunch and wide lapels seemed like a good idea. I played with two of my favorite musicians from anywhere, Bill Hinckly and Judy Larson. Bob Dylan used to open for them. He also scratched Judy's beautiful old Martin and she says still owes her $5. Bill is a master folk musician of the highest order. He knows more tunes than my main man Ward Dunkirk, the grand domo of the midweek piano bar seat at Nye's in Minneapolis (of course the Queen of the Ivories, Lou Snyder holds forth on the weekends.) And I don't know why I'm plugging Nye's where I played for almost four years (more on that later folks) but quit after the new owners cut my pay in half and worse, installed camera's throughout the bar. I find it both highly offensive and perhaps, even illegal, that cameras are even allowed to spy on customers in public establishments without notification (this is a serious privacy issue-more on that later) or they would ruin what was perhaps one of the last old-time bar getaways in the Twin Cities. Anyway, I played several tunes with Hinckly and was amazed with the fluidity as he switches styles. He's a genius, speaks fluent Chinese, and has Thelonious Monk on his answering machine.

Later that evening I played at the Frank Stone Gallery as part of the NE Mpls. Art-A-Whirl. It was an acoustic gig with my guitarist Arkady Yushin, a gentleman I met this summer at a guitar store (Twin Town Guitars-the hippest guitar shop in town at 34th and Lyndale-tell Jimmy-Metsa sent you.)We started the duo in February at a sports bar in Lakeville, which is like Petticoat Junction without a conscience. The crowd ignored us but we rehearsed about three sets of different stuff-lots of new originals, jazz, blues, Chet Atkins, and JJ Cale for good measure. Our set last night was for a real listening audience. We played really well and had some beautifully articulate moments. We placed a speaker outside and let the sound float through the city.

As I write this I am listening to Jaco Pastorious's first solo record. It is georgeous and sounds like it was recorded yesterday. And it reminds me of yesterday.

I also had the chance to hear a fella by the name of Monte Montgomery from Texas (of course.) He plays a revved up acoustic ( a man after my own heart) with a rockin' trio. Solid tunes, amazing solos (dexterous-magnifico), and soulful vocals. Then, one of my favorites, Chris Whitley, did a stunning solo set. Foot pounding on an amplified wood board, he soared while his girlfriend sat cross-legged in silent smoke filled rapture on the side of the stage. I heard him quite by accident.I was doing a gig at a place called the Speakeasy on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, NYC, in '86 or '87. I believe that night I was on with Nanci Griffith and John Gorka. Before that portion of the show there was an open stage. This skinny white cat with long hair came in and played three or four songs on a steel bodied National guitar. He absolutely blew my out and then vanished into the Gotham dusk. His sound and look stayed with me for quite some time. A few years later I was reading about this record called Big Sky Country featuring this skinny white cat playing a steel bodied National guitar. I went out and bought it (and it's been in the tape deck of my '89 Daytona most of this May) and sho' nuff-there he was-the vanished village minstrel! I should have been an A+R man ( although I am the president of my own record label and have seriously thought about rejecting some of my own records!) I had a nice chat with him at Heart and Soul and would encourage any of you to pick up any of his records (his last one Dirt Floor is solo and soulful.) He told me he has two new ones coming out soon (one with Medeski, Martin, and Wood.) He is the real goddamn deal!

My band, the Naughty Pines, rocked admirably and I was proud as a bandleader could be. My old compadre and fellow Finn, Al Oikari from the Big Wu joined us on Hammond B-3 and rocked like a Big Dog. Heart and Soul is a benefit concert (all musicians donate their time) and the proceeds go to Camp Heartland, a camp for kids with HIV and Aids. Please look them up on the internet and donate some dough to this fine and worthy cause. And that's is what music does best-helps people through times of crisis, fallen love, greeenback hardship,and times of physical trials and tribulations. God bless all those who helped out, rocked out, and came out.

Until next time-your captain signing off...........