History Won’t be Written by the Winners
When they said history is written by the winners that was before podcasts. This is a beautiful thing, the platforms might be of a different size, but committing stories to the record is no longer the sole domain of the dominant player in each situation and conflict.
3:33⅓ - Vinyl from Lou Donaldson on Occasion of His Birthday
Applause Music was the Jazz/Classical side of Cheapo when they basically owned both sides of the block over at Snelling and Saratoga. I worked at Applause for a holiday season with an absolute jazz snob who taught me so much and only made me feel slightly like an idiot for not knowing everything yet by the time I was 17 years old. I bought a Lou Donaldson record during my run there and I fell in love with it. It was funky, it was easier to enjoy than some of the stuff I was trying to turn myself on to. It was exciting, it was enthralling and it was the first time I realized a non-vocalist, non-rhythm section member could themselves be funky. Today is his 96th birthday and he’s still with us. Thanks for showing me more sides of the funk Lou!
Otis Spann album cover.
The Worst Spices
1. Bay leaf - you don’t do anything besides for slow me down
2. Tarragon - you do almost nothing
3. Thyme - I don’t like what you do very much
4. Anise - never liked ya
5. Fennel - see number 7 but more
6. Celery Seed - no one has ever ran out of celery seed
7. Not Smoked Paprika - what are we doing here, does your smoker work?
8. Cumin seed - why don’t you just grind it for me, thanks bye!
3:33⅓ - Vinyl from Otis Spann - Happy Halloween
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins takes up a lot of the bluesy real estate for Halloween offerings but that’s not all there is in the genre. Grabbed a tune “It Must Have Been the Devil” from Otis Spann. Otis Spann is my favorite blues piano player of all time and he is really under-appreciated as a vocalist. Enjoy!
Otis Spann album cover.
The best you get
The best it gets in this world
is a couple days with your children next to the lake
A couple miles with the music too loud to shout out the directions
A few times in a sauna where you fall asleep awake
Life is long, life is short, the good times aren’t distributed evenly, but you never know when another good time will sneak up on you.
A couple scenes from movies you can remember line for line
A couple records that sound so good you just start them again when they finish.
Go See Big Trouble
I play in a spectacular instrumental band. We are called Big Trouble. Here’s our most recent bio:
Big TRouble Blurb: Big Trouble is the instrumental arm of the mighty Heiruspecs crew. Featuring Josh Peterson, Sean McPherson and Peter Leggett from Heiruspecs alongside Steve McPherson, the group specializes in intriguing covers of songs you know, in ways you never imagined them. There's a lot of groove, some spectacular moments of beauty and every thirty-five gigs, there's even a drum solo. Have they been together for 15 years? Yes. Do they have a record? That’s a no.
This Saturday we’re playing at the White Squirrel in Saint Paul. The show is from 6-8pm, great hours to have some fun, take in some music and still have it together when your kids wake up at 6:44am on Sunday morning. So come enjoy the show on Saturday!
Stay Optimistic
I listened to a podcast from Vox today that asked some questions about what an experience like the pandemic is doing for all of us mentally. TLDR: Bad things mostly!
The pandemic has brought a lot of terrible things into my life. So many close friends lost family members, a lot of my friends have gotten really sick. It turned one Heiruspecs record into a five year email chain (new album coming soon!). It derailed one of the company’s I own. It exposed so much that is wrong and that is right about the world. The pandemic has let us sometimes find out the truth about each other and it has often been terrible. Somebody’s got a big sign in their window on Randolph that reads “We’ll All Get Through This Together” and sometimes it rings so empty to me. We have cheated each other out of money, we’ve stolen food out of hungry kids mouths, we’ve killed each other at startling rates, we’ve screamed down school board members doing their best in a difficult situation. I think it’s possible the pandemic has pushed the country beyond the brink. You hear people decry all the time how divided our country is now. And folks point out that Republicans and Democrats used to be so much more civil. I don’t hear as often the clarification that there is not much civil in what many leaders aspire to do. Am I supposed to remain civil to white supremacists because they share a name with a party from fifty years ago? That’s a joke. That’s a taunt. I will be civil towards people who are civil.
Terrible things are going to keep on happening, sometimes they won’t for a couple days, but right now we seem to be in a cycle of school shootings, horrendous news from Iran and the war in Ukraine, a tremendous loss of reproductive freedoms for women across our country. I don’t let these things pass me by. I read Washington Post on my iphone when I poop just like you. But I don’t resign myself to a world where these things keep happening. I aspire to make incremental changes for the good both as an employee, a human, a citizen and more. I fooled myself into thinking that I didn’t have time to contribute my time to a lot of “make the world” better efforts but I think that’s wrong. I thought I could send a check. For a long time I fooled myself into thinking that all the cool benefit shows that Heiruspecs played and donated our time to functioned as my service in the world of volunteering. And just to be clear, we did a bunch of benefits and when it works for us, we continue to do that. We’ve been a part of raising money for the Philando Castile Scholarship, we run our own scholarship and in our young days we got behind a lot of causes. But we don’t play as often anymore, and we don’t play nearly as many benefits. I find myself really busy being a positive part of my family, doing a kick ass job at Jazz88, supporting Trivia Mafia and running the still active parts of my musical career. It’s a good laundry list.
A year ago I thought that if COVID came down and plucked me from the Earth I would feel really good about what I did on this earth. Now I feel a different responsibility. This country has been a democracy for such a criminally short period of it’s history. We aren’t a democracy until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. If you are old like me your parents might’ve voted at a time when black people were strategically kept from voting. We still live in a time where the potency of the black vote is willfully and openly diluted. I believe in our life time there is going to be a white supremacist candidate for President who will say “this is the last election where the outcome will be decided in any significant way by the white vote. Vote for me and I’ll make sure that white votes keep on making the difference in who is elected, pluralities be damned.” That is truly not far off from the rhetoric we hear currently. And I believe that that campaign would gather steam. I can’t sit on my hands until that happens. I need to work from my position, from my privilege, from my pseudo-level of influence to point out how lazy, bankrupt and corrupt that point of view is. But beyond just sending checks and writing blogs I need for myself and my family to see me set aside our most valuable asset, our time, to fight against this and to fight for the opposite, a healthy democracy where votes are trusted and we live not just up to the best ambitions of the founders but beyond them.
My wife and I are reading the book “Bowling Alone”. The book establishes a decline in civic participation in the 1970s. I’ve already received some gems from the book and I’m just about half way through. But I am starting to believe that though I am busy everyday, I am not seeing some of the pockets of time that I could dedicate to my community, to community involvement. I wonder if some of that energy will come with me being more closely connected with the Temple we are members of. I’m not Jewish but the rest of my family is and I’ve been really impressed with Temple Israel in almost every capacity since we became members over there and I believe getting involved in there might check a lot of boxes for what I’m looking for. In the parlance of “Bowling Alone” I am more of a schmoozer than a macher. I like having people over, I am unafraid to initiate a conversation with a stranger, I reach out, I start events, I make fun things happen. But I haven’t done a lot in my personal life to organize for the greater good or to harness my schmoozosity into a concerted effort to improve the world I live in.
But I’m not giving up. I’m not positive that society is terminally screwed. We face horrible facts, milestones and stories every single day. My impression being born white and upper middle class in 1981 was that the worst of it was behind us. Part of my college degree was in African-American studies and I graduated right around 2007, I read most of the material about the Civil Rights era with the underlying spirit that the worst of it was behind us. This was short-sighted on my part. At age 25, one wants to think that the world is on a straight path towards being a spectacular place. I’ve grown to understand that we are living in turbulent times where drastic measures are on the table from the good guys and the bad guys. The bad times are behind us, ahead of us and they are right now. We are living in the moment where we can make thirty years of change in five years. And if it doesn’t work I want to die trying, I don’t want to die resigned to think that stuff is shit. Even when I go to a hotel for a two day stay I empty my whole bag into the dressers. I stick my foot into things and I go the whole way. I want to know that between the things that bring me joy, the things that bring me money and the duties I have to my family I contributed to helping the world, to helping my community. I’m optimistic about all of this. I think we can all find some of that optimism. I know a lot of people already have. The pandemic changed to me what I think success can look like, the pandemic made me value the people most immediately in my life more. The pandemic made me realize that I need to enjoy where I am more, but I am responsible to make where I am better. I have had a really beautiful life so far, I get paid a living wage for playing jazz music. My backup plan to being a bassist was being a radio host. These are pipe dreams and I get to do that. And I am the co-owner of a beautiful company called Trivia Mafia*. I have amazing children, an amazing wife. I have so much to be thankful for and so much reason to hope that more people can have things to be thankful for. I have so much reason to hope that people can keep the freedoms, the joys, the pleasures they are thankful for. We are in turbulent times, but I am not standing by. I am optimistic and I know that amazing things come out of hard times.
*In fact I was lucky to have a meeting with one of our employees this morning and unsolicited she said that it was a great company to work for, like truly great. She is not one to give out praise willy-nilly, I knew she meant that shit and it made me very happy. I can’t claim much credit for the current Trivia Mafia culture, but I helped plant the seeds when I was working the day to day so I’ll take it!
3:33⅓ - Vinyl from Leo Nocentelli
I’ve never pre-ordered a record faster than when I saw that there was a recently discovered record by Leo Nocentelli from the 1970s. What an absolute treat. The record is gold, the music is gold, the vibe is excellent. Enjoyed it and it gets a lot of spins back home.
3:33⅓ - Vinyl from Deodato
Dropped a little Deodato on the turntable but I didn’t got to a tried and true one from the record, pulled out his Debussy cover of “Prelude to An Afternoon of a Faun”. Enjoyed it.
3:33⅓ - Vinyl from Kings Go Forth
Long live Milwaukee. I saw this group put on a great show at The Cedar back maybe 2011, 2012. It was an early date with my now wife then girlfriend Rachel. What a treat. This one of the first non-hip hop records I purchased. I just wanted to hear it at home and on vinyl.
3:33⅓ - Vinyl from The Three Sounds
I’m realizing some folks read this blog and also don’t want to get involved in social media more than they have to. So I’m going to share the vinyl I’m playing at Jazz88 right here.
Sean’s Unsolicited Advice for Doing Excellent Radio
I find it funny when people who I don’t think are seasoned and world-class at their craft provide advice or input on how to be excellent at something. But here’s the thing, I think I am quite excellent at being on the radio. I’m not seasoned (I believe in there being a ten year full time “seasoning” mark in most professional pursuits. I’ll explain in the bottom paragraph as a pseudo footnote.) But I also feel that if you have some skills, you should impart it. Do you ever think about the angels who make videos explaining shit on YouTube? Maybe that one video made them $425 dollars. But honestly, they did it because everyone should know how to spackle a hole in the ceiling or replace a garbage disposal. That’s beautiful, that’s generous. And there are very few things I feel I know well enough to provide advice for. But, as far as doing some good work on the radio, particularly in the music format, I have some advice that I think is helpful and not obvious.
No Audience Will Complain About You Talking Too Little
One time a fellow bass player talked about showing up a half hour late to a bar gig but "makig up for it” by adding some pretty “long bass solos”. My friend should’ve been fired that night. That’s a strike one, strike two situation. You shouldn’t show up late for a gig, but if you do, you shouldn’t overcompensate by dropping big bass solos. Moving that to a radio space: you shouldn’t show up late for gigs, you should avoid making mistakes, but there is no mistake you can cover up for by offering up more of your mouth opening and closing. We don’t get paid per word and the best in our business are generally the most efficient. Even if some of the best are long winded, they are still efficient. Their art is fitting an article into three paragraphs. But that is the rare breed in radio. for most broadcasters the art should be fitting a paragraph into a sentence, a sentence into a word, a word into a pause.
Be an Iceberg
Have you taken one of those diversity training events where they' show you the iceberg graphic? Here it is.
An Iceberg
So, the basic thing is that beneath the observable person you are interacting with there are layers of diversity, uniqueness and variety that you simply can’t ascertain from the bit of the iceberg that is poking out. This is a clunky analogy, but I believe a good broadcaster should know more than they let on. Let different tips of the iceberg come out each day, on different topics, at different times. If you want to say two smart things about an artist who you know very little about. . .you should learn nine things about that artist. I believe it is noticeable if someone is rattling off the entire contents of their knowledge about The Smashing Pumpkins, or Clifford Brown in twenty-two seconds. It rings a certain way and if one is just an inch deep about any topic, one is very prone to mistakes. Plus, you’re going to play this artist again, if you always spit out the same two facts, it’s tired, it’s not rewarding. Now, the ultimate goal should be to take those nine facts and establish something beyond any single fact about that artist. Perhaps a thesis, an opinion, a new thought about said artist. This does not have to be deep, but I think hosts who provide no context for the music they’re playing, I don’t know, I can’t understand that as acceptable. I believe that an intrinsic value add to radio listening is having a trusted narrator ushering listeners between hopefully somewhat disparate elements. . .a connective tissue that lets me know that even if I don’t love this song, I might love the next one. That connective tissue involves a lot more than just music criticism, it includes humanity, relatability et cetera but honestly. . .if you have no ability to metabolize the music and offer a through line with your presentation, I don’t know what you’re doing. I simply don’t think charming is enough, no matter how charming.
Have Utter Respect for the Time and Intelligence of Your Listener
If you don’t care about the people listening, I think you are just drawing a paycheck, and generally not a very big one. The honor in doing radio is in being the listener-in-chief. You should love what is happening on the station you work at and you should be humbled to get to toss in a couple comments in between to make it even better. You should believe that listening to this station is a gift even without your silky voice, and you should believe that the folks tuned in care about what is happening on the station. NOTE: This might not be true. But you should believe it. I understand that many people don’t care about who is talking on their favorite radio station unless they decide they don’t like that person. I understand that many people who are tuned into a radio station aren’t choosing to be tuned in, they are listening passively, maybe they have to listen to this cause it is on at their job. But, I believe in the philosophy of the customer is always right. And I don’t necessarily think of listeners like customers, but I think of them as always being right. Also, you’ll never meet the monstrous majority of the people who listen to the radio, if you’ve made an unfounded decision that they are unintelligent, what does that say about you? Seriously.
If You Win, You Lose
I had a conversation a long time back with Ant, the producer for the hip-hop group Atmosphere about his production style. In short he said that if a listener checks out Atmosphere and remembers the beat/production as opposed to Slug, the lyricist, they had both lost. The north star of most music is the vocals. That’s facts. The north star of music radio is music. In ratios it’s not even close right? The music you pick or present has a much bigger on your presentation than your witty banter. Now, you may be in a situation where you pick very little or none of the music you play. . .but. . .it’s still part of your presentation. If your presentation is not in service of the music it will not measure up to snuff. You can’t fight with music and win. Music is magical and humans are not. Music is otherworldly and spoken voice is not. We are lucky that there is some small way that human voices can enhance the joy of listening to music, something that can be added to the joy by your presence, but if you don’t respect the hierarchy I don’t think you’ll ever do your job properly.
Don’t Try to Out Alexa Alexa
If you asked a human being what the weather was like and they said “47 degrees with moderate winds coming in from the NW winds, blowing at 3.7 miles per cubic bionomineter” you would lose your shit right then and there and kill the robot infidel. We have robots in our house and people still turn on the radio. Most people turn on the radio not for another robot, but for another person. So tell them the weather like you would tell another person. NOW LOOK: it’s very possible if my wife asks me what the weather is I’d say “It’s cold as shit, I just froze my toes off putting something in the compost bin on the porch”. DON’T SAY ALL THAT ON THE RADIO. But, I think a little humanness, a little “probably a good day for layers” or “this is a bundle up situation” “I expect to see a lot of cargo shorts on the patios” to be completely legit, to be welcome. AGAIN, we have robots in our house, don’t be a robot on the radio.
Don’t Be The Same and Don’t Be Dumb Different
Don’t manufacture ways to be zany, but also don’t manufacture ways to be predictable and lame. You generally greet people a handful of ways, adjusting for things like the time of day, your mood, the location and some totally wild card combination of variables. Permit some of those variables to factor into your presentation, let Monday be a little different than Friday, let 5:15pm be a little more magical than 9:22am. Again, robots are readily available for our jobs, give them a reason to keep hiring us by staying human. BUT DON’T overdo it. People come to radio for some consistency, some reliability and if you fritter all of that way in just being a hot mess of unpredictability. . .who wants to bring that in to their house. So be consistent in a human way, with all the variabilities that that entails.
Slap Bass is Great
You should do everything within your power to get great at everything you can get great at. There are some “cheesy” radio skills that I think some of the high-minded hoity-toits that I’ve brushed shoulders with eschew, whether that be ramping a song (talking over the intro), talking over beds of music, editing promos or whatever. But it reminds me of a thing my very first bass teacher said. . . QUICK ASIDE: my very first bass teacher is the very successful very famous Sean Hurley who plays with John Mayer and others but when I knew him he was just a great bassist out of Massachusetts. He said “I used to think slap bass was lame so I didn’t work on it, until I realized that I wanted someone who called me for any opportunity to be glad they called me”. That stuck with me. If you can get your array of skills up to the point where they don’t have much reason to call somebody else, you’ll be all set to keep on getting those calls.
Don’t Confuse Success with Talent, Don’t Confuse Talent with Success
I am trying to sharpen my skills as a radio host with a different outlook than I approached my music making and most significantly bass playing in the earlier years of my life. I was by no means a child prodigy in anything, but I got the music stuff cooking professionally on the young side. I was playing legitimate gigs with bands that I was booking to audiences of 300-1200 by the time I was 21. There are all sorts of caveats to this. . .many of the gigs were opening for bigger bands, some of these gigs were definitely glorified high school parties that I had talked venues into having. . .but the record stands. My shit didn’t stink and you couldn’t tell me otherwise. The nucleus of my success during those years was Heiruspecs. Heiruspecs was (and is) filled with musicians and emcees who are more talented than me. This has been a wonderful thing for the band musically, but it has been intimidating to me. I am part of a bullet-proof band without being a bullet-proof instrumentalist myself. Instead of tending to my shortcomings, working on them, finding new paths, I wanted to stay doing what I knew I was great at. Even when I was practicing a lot, I wasn’t practicing the right shit, I wasn’t looking at where I was lacking and fixing it. I was just running down the lines I was already comfortable with in different keys. If my band wasn’t doing well. . .I would’ve known I needed to get better at bass. But instead, I took the success of a thing I was a part of and assumed I was as successful individually as I was as a part of that group. It was wishful thinking, it was foolish. I’m not being wishful or foolish in the radio chapter of my career. Some of the early stuff I got going on in radio was big, big time to me at least. Big radio station, positive comments, good feelings all around. But that didn’t mean I didn’t need to fill in things, if there was something I was bad at, I remained bad at it even if I had a desk at a cool radio station. If I couldn’t handle this or that element of the work, my profile didn’t matter, it didn’t matter that my neighbor thought it was cool she heard me on the radio.
You’re Always Auditioning
This is a Ray Browner. He’s the world’s best upright bass player of all time. I got to see him live once and I got to see him in clinic twice. He pointed out that “you’re always auditioning”. We’re sitting in Bandana Square in St. Paul at 4:15pm on a Tuesday and Ray’s in front of max 25 high school students and he said “look I don’t know if the guy walking in to deliver the mail right now is a cousin of Quincy Jones. . .you are always auditioning and you can always be judged”. I know some baller ass people listen to radio stations, sometimes I’ll meet amazing, unbelievably lettered people and they say they hear me on the radio. I never know who is listening, and I never know when they’re listening, if I’m working a shift on low sleep and handling the 1am hour. . .that still could be the one time when someone who could really change my life is listening. It’s just a fact with radio, you don’t know who is listening, so you can’t phone it in cause you think it’s bullshit. Today is the first day someone is hearing Miles Davis, and one of those packages sitting on my desk might contain the next artist to change the art form as much as Miles. You are always auditioning.
It Still Beats Work
I think being great at radio is quite a demanding job, I mean that in the amount of hours it takes to become talented, and I think it' also takes a lot of time to stay good, to stay pertinent, to be centered on that. But, you frequently receive health insurance, a steady pay check and a job you can explain to your in-laws more easily than playing bass or running a trivia company simply to try to communicate around music and the news of the day. If that doesn’t feel magical to you, you should step aside and let the people who it feels magical to keep on working. Music is a gift, it’s a magical gift. The job of radio isn’t magical, but it’s next to magic, so if you do it truly right, with true passion uninterrupted by distraction, you are in the magic. Sound like it.
TEN YEAR SEASONING: At the top of this blog I mentioned by idea that ten years is proper seasoning time for many creative pursuits. I believe that primarily because of a personal experience. In 2011 I played a show at the Southern Theater called the Southern Songbook with a bunch of great players. DeVon from Heiruspecs was handling the leadership alongside Adam Levy & Lily Troila. The band was the Heiruspecs band. And I remember just knocking the shit out of the park on that show. Well-rehearsed but not over rehearsed, excellent impassioned performances and the question marks we had during rehearsals were all about the actual needs of the songs, not a lot of getting mired in chord changes, tempo issues. The things we were trying to resolve were artistic and required expertise. And I don’t think you can really get that seasoned vibe until the technical side stops eluding you. Once you can make quick work of the fundamentals you can give more time to the things that distinguish between good and great. I remember Martin Devaney started to work with some more premier musicians a little bit into his career and I asked him if they required him to provide chord charts. He said “no, those guys can get the chords the first time I play it, they are asking questions about the themes, the nuances, what colors the song connotes”.* I remember thinking that those musicians had arrived at a higher level of craft than I had. I feel the sky is the limit for my potential as a broadcaster to be perfectly honest, but I know that a lot of my issues are still technical, they are still the equivalent of chord change type problems, not nuance type problems.
*Footnote to a footnote: I spelled connote correctly with no need for spell-check.
Saturdays Are In Big Trouble
Round about 2006/2007 I helped put together an instrumental group with my brother Steve and Josh and Peter from Heiruspecs. This lark of a band was built for two reasons: to make music with world class rapper and poet Alexei Casselle and get booked at restaurants and quieter spots to play long sets like my brother and I used to in the Berkshires. Through the past fifteen years the group has become like that warm hoodie that feels better than any garment of clothing in your house. And sort of, you don’t actually care how it looks, you love how it feels. . .but it really does look pretty good. We recently played a birthday party for our good friend and superfan Brenda at the White Squirrel and the vibe was right. I love close by, the room sounds awesome, Trivia Mafia’s office is upstairs in case I need a secure spot for a number 2. It checks all the boxes. So the booking person there, and a dear friend of mine, Laura, agreed to put us down for a couple Saturday gigs this year. WE WANT TO KEEP ON DOING THIS NEXT YEAR TOO. BUT I NEED THE OLD PEOPLE OF THE TWIN CITIES (and by old I mean 32-58) to come out, drink drinks, talk with friends and enjoy music from 6-8pm.
Listen, get your dinner going a little bit late, take in a set of music, have an adult cocktail or a hop water or something else off their awesome cocktail list. Whatever you do just come down and enjoy Big Trouble. We sound great, we are a band where you can dive in and listen to every note, you can also chill out, touch base with your friends and tune in from time to time and guess which pedal Steve is using. We have high energy jams, we have introspective jams. We dive in and deliver the goods, with no pesky singing. What an experience. Roll through and enjoy us. Come on Saturday October 29 from 6-8pm at White Squirrel.
A flyer for Big Trouble. Saturday October 29 and Saturday November 29 - 6-8pm, at White Squirrel.
Only Ten Dinners for the Rest of Your Life
You have been thrown into a terrible world where you can only have ten entrees for dinner. This doesn’t mean ten exact dishes, this means you can only order ten things in the universe of food for your dining after 5:30pm for the rest of your life. There is no money exchanged here, so you still have to cook if you don’t have restaurant money at the time, so you can’t pick a bunch of stuff you can’t eat. Here’s what I go with:
Spaghetti and meatballs
Cheeseburger and Fries
White Chicken Chili
Thai Green Curry w/ Tofu
Steak with predictable sides
Cobb Salad
Vegetarian Greek Dinner with Tempeh (this is a delicious workhorse dinner innovated by my wife Rachel)
Enchiladas
Salmon with Predictable Sides
Sushi Dinner
That’s it! I could live with that. I would agree to eat only those items for dinner for a one time payment of $75,000.
The Other Problem With Cancelled Musicians
Before I get to my main point: I disagree with the popular term “cancelled”. We often use the term cancelled for things we loved that were terminated by a faceless force like network TV, like Freaks and Geeks. You can’t cancel a person. And when we hear about a show being cancelled we think of it as outside of the control of the creators of the show. Freaks and Geeks got cancelled from on high by NBC. The musicians who got cancelled, they got cancelled not by NBC but by sexting 17 year olds, or by jumping out of closets naked with their hands on their junk. NBC wasn’t involved in your manual stimulation. The behaviors that caused them to be publicly reprimanded were not manufactured out of thin air. There may be details the musicians disagree with, there may be inaccurate statements, but I haven’t seen someone called out for absolutely nothing. My last bit on my soapbox: contrary to what the cancelled say, there is totally levels to this. People act like everyone is painted with the same brush. Are you serious? Some folks come out of serious allegations with a serious knock to their fame, to their respect, to their standing. Some folks get called out, but still navigate their way back into the conversation. And some people have done things that are horrendous, but they convincingly apologize, seek to repair the situation, take the allegations seriously. It is not one size fits all and if you think that I bet it is because that conclusion favors you and your situation.
But here’s the main thing. The biggest issue with terrible behavior of a sexual nature by musicians is that it has severely negatively impacted a fellow human’s life. Many, thought not all, of these victims are women. They have been violated and treated poorly, often by someone they formerly thought was a stand up, decent person. The accusations are almost never singular. They are almost always a part of a pattern. You can not believe in a lot of things, but I bet you believe in patterns. If you always get sick from eating the chili at Wendy’s you stop eating the chili at Wendy’s. If your friend says they went to Wendy’s once and they got sick off the chili it probably doesn’t change your chili outlook all that much. But six people got sick from the same chili? Fuck that chili. You really think 10 women got together to lie on you. . .to besmirch your semi-good name? Nope, I believe in patterns. Five women talking the same behavior, that behavior has some truth to it. And when I know it’s a pattern, I know it’s a part of your life. And here’s why after I hear these stories I have a hard time coming back to your music. . .you aren’t putting the you I now know about into your music. And you weren’t putting the you I now have to confront into the records I listened to before. If something that is part of your daily routine is sliding into DMs thousands of times with women decades younger than you, or hopping out of closets with your business in your hand. . .that never made it into a chorus? A bridge? An outro? No, you can’t engage your art with these behaviors. And everyone presents a different version of themselves on stage than the one as they truly are. But this is a gaping wide hole. This means that your presentation of your self is really selective. You don’t go deep into yourself. And the truth is, if you did, you’d be in even more trouble. But I’ve built up these expectations for my favorite artists: if you go through a divorce, I’m anticipating a divorce album. If you have a baby, baby album. Sober, sober album. Trading pills for sexual favors. . .probably gonna sing about something else. Forcing yourself on woman backstage. . .the songs will be about romantic love. I like to think with the really talented writers, I’m getting some takes on what is central to them, I’m getting songs that get to their core. And that’s what makes this triply scary. . .what if behaviors like this are things you do and it doesn’t even hit you in your soul? What if pouncing on an inebriated woman backstage is just another god damn Tuesday for you? It’s just a thing you do like buying a toothbrush when you need a new one. . .I don’t expect to hear a song about your toothbrush. But your abuses are so workaday. . .so quixotic that they won’t jump onto the page for you?
There is an honesty, rawness and an ability to share oneself that I expect from the writers in our world. I don’t love the folks who are pure craft. I love the folks who put themselves into their music, they grapple with their life in parts of their work. And when I think about these seismic accusations, these clarifying pieces of information about someone’s personal life. I then realize that all the records are going to come up short after this. You’re not going to talk about the behaviors, you’re not going to talk about the accusations. You’re not going to defend yourself, and you’re not going to condemn yourself. You’re going to ask everyone to believe that these patterns, these stories, believe that they’re cooked up, materialized out of thin air, that these patterns that last years, that span area codes, they’re bogus. You want to keep on writing the same kind of songs about the same kind of relationships you don’t seem to actually be having. There’s a disconnect. There’s a pattern. You’re not cancelled, you’re out in the light and you look worrisome. Worrisome.
Great Food in St. Paul
There’s a new food writer at the Pioneer Press and Jess Fleming asked readers to tell Jared where to eat in St. Paul. Bloggin’ to the rescue Jared, I got you.
Best Sandwich
The best sandwich in St. Paul is the surprise sandwich at the St. Paul Cheese Shop. It costs $10. If you want to get it on baguette it’s another $2. Don’t do it. The baguette actually isn’t spectacular. But they basically put together a couple sandwiches that generally contain a creamy cheese, a courageously fruitty jam and some delicious meat. There are minor variations and they almost never go wrong. If you also have a Jewish wife at home who doesn’t eat pork at home you can ask for it without pork. Not only it is a great sandwich, it’s a great conversation. For years I would pick up three of these to kick off the Trivia Mafia Monday lunch meetings. You could trade half sandwiches, you could discuss the spice level. It’s a conversation starter in a way that a sandwich that is described on a menu never could be.
Best Cup of Coffee
The best cup of coffee in St. Paul is at J&S at Randolph and Saratoga. I love a coffee shop with knick knacks, that has music every once in awhile but not all the time, that has big colorful mugs. I guess what I’m saying is I like a 90s coffee shop. And coffee shops were one of the things I missed the most during the throws of the pandemic. The bit of conversation with the barista, the ability to sequester yourself in a spot where suddenly your book, your taxes, your friend, your cafe are all easier to focus on than they are at your own home. And I do believe that a medium coffee is one of the perfect things on this earth. It’s the right size, it’s the right feel in your hand. You take one of those coffees outside and sit down and do ONE THING for 40 minutes, maybe it’s talk, maybe it’s read, maybe it’s write, but it’s something and you do it and you do it with your friend the coffee. Nothing better.
Best Ethiopian Food
This one isn’t even close to me. I just think Fasika makes the best Ethiopian food I’ve ever had anywhere. If you are going there with two hungry adults who both eat meat, get the Zilzil Tibs and the Veggie sampler. Share it all, eat it all. Love it. If you are going with someone who doesn’t like eating with their hands. . .consider going with someone else. . .but if you can’t. . .get the chicken tibs with rice, still legit amazing and less heavy than the veggie sampler or the Zilzil Tibs.
Best Cocktail
The Sazerac from Meritage is unfuckwithable. It is a delicious cocktail in an amazing environment. If you are sitting good financially I recommend buying a shrimp cocktail because honestly, you deserve it and you love shrimp. But that Sazerac does everything a cocktail is supposed to. You feel a little buzzed just sniffing it, and then you feel intrigued by the flavors, and then you feel like everything is simpler in your life for a couple minutes. And then you get another. And then you don’t feel so bad about spending $40 on shrimp.
Best Fish Situation
Not all Brasas are created equal. That’s just a fact. And the only Brasa you can get catfish at is on Grand Ave. It’s incredible. The sauce that comes with is incredible. And even though catfish isn’t kosher my wife lets me eat it at our house. Thank you Rachel. Catfish responds to breading in a very interesting way and it creates lots of different surfaces and crevices of salty fishy delishiosios. Plus it comes with a red sauce that has a bit of creamy and a bit of spice to it. And you might think. . .catfish. . .great, that’s enough, I don’t need dessert. Naw, you need dessert. I think pudding is mostly gross (I don’t want WET desserts, that’s why tiramisu can die slow). But, that butterscotch pudding? This particular pudding, spectacular. Killing it.
Best Appetizer
Italian fries can mean a lot of things. Many of those things suck. A pile of fries with oregano and parmesan tossed on top is not an upcharge I’m willing to deal with. BUT, the Italian fries at Italian Pie Shoppe are killing it. Spectacular. When I was in high school it was my favorite food on earth. But I’ve grown. Now it’s just my favorite appetizer in St. Paul, and I get em with broccoli and a touch of cheddar. These have nothing to do with potatoes. This is just pizza crust folded around mozzarella with a reasonable dusting of Italian seasoning. You step it up a bit going with the brocchi, like I said they sneak in a touch of cheddar and some finely chopped up broccoli. Get that shit.
Best Curry Dish
I love arguing about what the best Thai food in St. Paul is. Great. Awesome conversation, happy to have it. I’ll even listen to your suggestions. And I’ll even respect the new Thai places that just shot up in the last couple years. But I won’t entertain discussions about the best Green Curry. Because that matter is settled. It’s going down at Ruam Mit in downtown St. Paul! How’s the buffet at Ruam Mit? unlabeled and it feels risky! How’s the ambience? Kinda basic! It’s not that bad, but it’s not Instagrammable if that’s what you’re asking. But the team who runs the place is awesome. And the food off the menu is incredible. They raise they prices maybe every month and a half but I’ll be honest, I’m gonna keep going. That green curry is absolutely out of control. So delicious. The broccoli is perfect and plentiful. The tofu is crispy and then just a touch of creamy. The basil, the creamy sauce. I want it right now, and I had close to identical green curry from somewhere else tonight. But still, I’m in. If someone walked up to my house right now at 10:38 at night and said “give me a hundred dollars and I’ll give you this green curry” I would be asking if they accepted Paypal.
The Opposite of Black Lives Matter is Black Lives Don’t Matter
One year after trying to sue the Lakeville School District and failing, some residents are again suing the school district for distributing posters that share the slogan “Black Lives Matter” on them. The request from one taxpayer in the district was for “alternative ideological viewpoints” to be presented alongside the “Black Lives Matter” post. To some quite small extent, I can understand this request. I do believe that Black Lives Matter is a political statement, and it is a political statement I agree with. If this person asked for political statements to not be included in any school printed materials, perhaps there would be credence to their request. But, the request was to include “alternative ideological viewpoints”. The viewpoints suggested include “All Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter”. I find both of these “viewpoints” to be not reprehensible in a vacuum, but reprehensible as a counter-statement to “Black Lives Matter”. How are these alternatives? These are supplementary, right? Am I not able to believe that “All Lives Matter” while simultaneously believing that “Black Lives Matter”? Of course I am. I believe Black Lives Matter and I believe that that sentiment deserves proverbial highlighter right now. I believe it deserves highlighter in a way that “All Lives” do not. I do not believe that our country has an utter disregard for all human life. I do not believe that “All Lives Matter” is a justifiable rallying cry independent of the rallying cry it is a kneejerk reaction to. I also believe it is clear in many ways that police officers’ lives are valued, are revered, are treasured. I believe that if someone feels the need to demand respect for police officers’ lives as a reaction to people demanding respect for Black lives, it is a very telling kneejerk response.
The name of the taxpayer is Bob Cajune, he pays taxes in Lakeville and he and others want a say in what those tax dollars are doing. Has Bob Cajune complained that the Susan J. Kommen Race for the Cure should also fund research into other cancers? I would guess that he has not. Because focusing funding on a particular form of cancer does not cause the same jealousy, fear and illogical thinking that focusing attention on Black people does. It is laughably reactionary to believe that yelling “Blue Lives Matter” is some “alternative ideology” to “Black Lives Matter”. It’s just a thing people want to scream who believe that if you care about the lives of Black people you are committed to not caring about the lives of police officers. I believe the basic request by Mr. Cajune and the others plaintiffs is “don’t use my taxpayer to buy ink that spells the words black lives matter without reminding the babies that all lives matter”. What is so threatening about the term “Black Lives Matter”? What is so divisive about it? What is the resistance to the idea that Black Lives Matter? Humanity and reverence for the loss of life are not zero sum qualities. I can be concerned about Black people being killed by fellow civilians, be the assailants Black or not. I can be concerned about Black people being killed at disproportionate rates by police officers. If you believe that being concerned with the safety of police officers and being concerned with the safety of Black people are mutually exclusive or alternatives to one another, I sincerely hope you are not a police officer, and I sincerely hope you have an answer for why you think they are opposite sides of one coin.
Join Me Whilst I DJ at The Macanda HiFi Record Bar
Well friends, your prayers have been answered. This Sunday you get to witness the fun of a Sean McPherson DJ set. I stepped my game up to play a wedding earlier this summer and I’ve been jonesin’ to get back on the turntables in public, though it is an honor to serenade my dog Warren in my basement. But this Sunday I’m bringing the records out to Wayzata, I’ll be focusing on the groove side of my record collection and I’ve beefed that up in the past couple months. Prepare for some great jams off the turntables and enjoy a spot that is already building a great reputation in the Twin Cities dining scene.
I love the feeling of playing records for people and exploring how the songs sound in a new space. I hope you’ll come through if you’re free on Sunday.
A Thank You To Stage One
photo of Stage One, by Ben Kressel
This is a Thank You to a Twin Cities Hip-Hop Icon, Stage One, who will be on hand to see a series of photos he curated throughout the past decade inducted into the Minnesota Historical Society on Friday September 9, 2022 at 1pm.
Sometimes when influential people get something wrong about you, but still remember you, it still warms your heart. Chali 2na from Jurassic5 thinks I’m the drummer in Heiruspecs, I’m actually the bassist. And Aesop Rock thinks my own name is Heiruspecs, it’s actually Sean. Here’s video of us (Tasha, Peter, Josh, moi) playing together 20 years ago! You can find us at 19:22.
And for a time the Twin Cities icon and Sure Shot Brother Stage One thought my name was Heiruspecs, and I had zero complaints cause he was always a hero to me.
About 2001 I was part of a backing band that supported a bi-weekly open mic at the Dinkytowner hosted by Truth Maze and Stage One holding it down as the DJ. I think it was put together by MNSWA and E.G. Bailey and Sha Cage in particular. Before I had ever met him, I knew that Stage was a very important part of the story of Twin Cities hip-hop. I knew that from Felix in Heiruspecs, from Slug in Atmosphere, from New MC in Kanser. It was known that Stage’s homes throughout the years had been the epicenter for some great freestyling sessions, that Stage was on the turntables at some of the best events in the Twin Cities and that he was well-respected for his time as a graffiti writer as well. I had seen him DJ a handful of times before we worked together and I knew he was elite. When I did get to share a bill with him I was in awe of his presence and all I really got to know was his presence. The turntables were strangely far away from the stage at the Dinkytowner. Stage was quiet and I was scared as shit to bother him. He was older than me, he was a legend. But his support and respect was inspiring to me. He would tastefully join in just a bit on the turntables when our band was playing, adding a bit, commenting through his scratches on what we were doing. When we would deliver a well-known groove he would give us that knowing look that he saw what we were doing and he approved. Weeks of the gig went by before he just said “hey Heiruspecs” to just me as I was walking up those Dinkytowner stairs probably to have a cigarette. This greeting let me know that Stage was aware enough of what Heiruspecs was doing in town to know what our name was. I was absolutely elated. I had zero interest in correcting him and mentioning that my name was Sean or god forbid trying to explain to a grown ass DJ that my stage name was Twinkie Jiggles. I was just excited that this OG that I held in high regard knew the name Heiruspecs. The weeks went by and the open mic got real good. Imagine the firepower you have when Truth Maze is hosting, Stage One is DJing. . .and the band was nice?? We had a lot of fun. Poets pushing us to new heights, us doing the same. Known poets who were big on the scene making sure they got to our event. And Stage was the glue, chiming in during set breaks with full sets of incredible music but also making himself part of the open mic element as well. It was a magical run and I can’t really remember why we stopped.
This is a long way of saying that I’ve known Stage for a long time and I’ve had respect for him for even longer than that. Stage, like so many talented artists from the Twin Cities shipped off for Atlanta for an extended period of time. I didn’t have much opportunity to connect with Stage during that time but after he moved back to Minnesota he kept me informed of what was happening for him and his musical compatriots. By this time he knew my name was Sean and I was elated that he was eager to share his knowledge with me. He was connected with artists from the Twin Cities that weren’t on my radar and through our discussions I was able to feature them on the Current, celebrate their music and document the Twin Cities music scene more completely. And sadly, sometimes when I interviewed Stage during my tenure at the Current it was to cover a death of an icon from the Twin Cities. We spoke when the legend Disco T died here. Stage knew it was his duty to share insight about people from his world who passed, but he did it with a heavy heart, I knew it took a lot out of him to share his stories with me, and I appreciated him doing it. On a happier note, we worked it out to get some of Stage’s mixes on the air in the summer of 2021 and it was one of my proudest moments to hear his mixes blaring in my car on an FM dial. It was an honor to have a closer connection with him. He was always quick to talk about the younger and the older artists he cared about in the scene, he always pushed the spotlight off of himself and onto US, onto the Twin Cities hip-hop scene. It was clear he felt a sense of duty to try to lay the history down correctly. The man wrote a book about his life growing up in the Twin Cities and his connection to the Twin Cities hip-hop scene. Documenting this scene is part of his mission.
And a big part of that mission to celebrate and document Minnesota hip-hop has been his series of “A Great Day in Minnesota Hip-Hop” photos. Since 2010 Stage has placed open calls to graffiti writers, DJs, B-boys and girls, MCs and more to come together for a photo to document the scene. I say document as opposed to celebrate because I know it isn’t always simply a celebration. There are parts of the Twin Cities hip-hop scene that don’t deserve a celebration; they deserve accountability, they deserve contrition. But, in my opinion, the scene deserves documentation, and through years of effort we are seeing these photos get the treatment they deserve. I got out to the photo shoot for the 2021 picture but my four year old was on a departure schedule that didn’t line up with me being there for the actual photo. But frankly, it was enough for me just to see old friends meeting up after years, some visiting non-family members for the first time since the start of the pandemic. It was a beautiful morning in Minneapolis and to see Stage organizing, conversing and navigating the laundry list of issues that come up during a significant undertaking like a large scale portrait left me glowing.
On Friday September 9 at 1pm a handful of these portraits are going to go into the collection at the Minnesota Historical Society. I imagine this is a big moment for Stage, but really it’s a big moment for so many people. It’s a moment for every hip-hop artist who thought that their work, their sacrifices and their visions might never be saved for posterity. There are so many efforts to tamp down on black expression and there might be even more to tamp down on letting those documents of black expression share space in the hallowed halls of institutions like the Minnesota Historical Society. For decades now Stage One has been placing his thumb and his entire body weight on the opposite side, using his voice and his knowledge to document black expression by celebrating hip-hop, by being a mouthpiece for parts of the scene that are too often brushed over or dismissed and for making sure everybody gets in the frame. Thank you Stage.
Found Something to Do on Labor Day
I have a magical friend in Duluth named Steph who lives in a magical house. Every house she has ever lived in has been magical. I met Steph when she was a server at the Green Mill in St. Paul for a handful of months in 2006 maybe? Somehow a couple hangs turned into a lifelong friendship. She’s an artist. She’s an interior designer. She has a reverence and fascination with the world that constantly inspires me. You know how people mention a great singer and say “I could listen to that singer sing the phonebook!”? I have a similar thing with Steph, I could read the phonebook with her and we’d discover something together, something magical about it. She brings magic with her, to everything.
Anywho, Steph said that Rachel and I could bring the kids up to Duluth for part of the weekend cause she’d be out of town. It was just the invitation we needed because:
1) Have you tried to book a hotel in Duluth? It’s impossible.
2) There’s a reason! Duluth is amazing and we were very excited to get there
I’m sure I’m cursing it, but traveling with the kids is getting just slightly easier. My oldest is five, she doesn’t have absolute nonsense tantrums anymore. Her tantrums exist, they’re rare, and while not logical. . .they are explainable. For the two year old, they are still random and unexplainable, but they are getting a bit shorter and a bit more directable.
We got to Duluth in high spirits and enjoyed a visit to Lake Superior where despite the sixty degree weather and the frigid water my daughters adventured in with their toes, lost many of Steph’s cooking utensils we had taken for sand time and generally had the biggest smiles on their faces on planet Earth.
In the same way that I spent years programming myself for how to take some lived experience and force it into the size of a tweet, the size of a facebook post, the size of an instagram post I now have something healthier but it still synthesizing real life into communication. I breathe in my moments slower, I think about how I’ll talk about it on this blog, I’ll think about how I’ll remember it for myself. This moment from Saturday September 3rd 2022: we are at the Lift Bridge Beach in Duluth, a woman is spending 40 seconds trying to get her cigarette lit against the will of the winds coming off of Lake Superior. Parents are standing by the water, kids are dipping toes in. T-shirts are getting wet. Kids are getting cold. Young men in wet suits are leaving with the pride that comes from surviving something difficult. Dogs are on leashes. And Rachel, Sadie, Naomi and I are having a beautiful time. I’m making sure Sadie and Naomi are safe, but they are being safe. Rachel is also making sure the kids are safe. And we are spending a kind of simple time together that can’t be found without a body of water.
We made our way back up to Pizza Luce Duluth after that. I have a very intimate relationship with Pizza Luce Duluth which I know is a strange thing to say about a pizza place. But that room is the place where I felt the closest to being a rock star. Heiruspecs played there before there was a stage. And we built our crowd there from nothing, to a guaranteed sell-out. I signed a woman’s breast in that bar. That’s not a big thumbs up 2022 approved moment, but it’s a part of my story and at the time I thought it was the most amazing thing on planet Earth. Beyond any Sharpie/cleavage moments what I really felt about Duluth was that when Heiruspecs came to town it was exciting for Duluth. Heiruspecs would get recognized at restaurants, we’d get love walking into the Electric Fetus across the street. Luce would give us free dinner, free drinks and then give us free brunch the next day. The shows were legendary, at least to me and Duluth. We were in our element and the crowd was with us. I remember us playing the first weekend of UMD one year and I’m sure they turned away at least 250 people, it was just absolutely packed. The first person who brought Heiruspecs up there, long before they were doing much music at all is no longer with us. His name is Scott and he was a truly amazing dude. We then worked with Maria Hickey who was also an incredible leader at Luce. That probably all wrapped up by 2004 and every show we’ve done there since was booked by Paige Doty who is actually still there. I thought I would have no chance of seeing her there because generally if someone has worked at a spot for twenty years they are probably getting Labor Day Weekend off. Not Paige! So I got to see her which was magical.
Me McPherson Left, Paige Doty Right
My feelings with Pizza Luce Duluth are deep because at one point in my musical career I thought a spot liked Pizza Luce was a stop along the way to super stardom. The way it was for Trampled By Turtles. I thought I’d be back years later as a wildly successful critically acclaimed musician. I’d be sharing an artichoke dip with Al Sparhawk from Low discussing who should produce my next record. And the truth is, that’s not where I or Heiruspecs wound up. Heiruspecs is a part of the story of Minnesota music. There’s years where we were delivering the best live shows in the state. There’s years where we were delivering some of the best live shows in the country. We aren’t a household name. Next time I can talk five other men in their late thirties to drive two hours, stay up til one in the morning, split a pizza and make $150 a piece we’ll play to a reasonably full but not sold out Pizza Luce. I’ll love it, I’ll stay at Steph’s house, I’ll stay out too late, we’ll listen to a Leonard Cohen record in the morning, drink the greatest coffee I’ve ever tasted and I’ll feel all the complicated feelings I have about my life, my path and Duluth. And I’ll also feel all the pure feelings I have about a friend like Steph, about a band like Heiruspecs, about a city like Duluth. I’ve found something more sustainable and more rewarding both financially and emotionally than being a bass player. I am a part of beautiful music everyday. I am a part of a lot of people’s afternoons every day. I love it. But when I step back into Pizza Luce I’m reminded of the trajectory I thought I was on for a handful of years, and I’m reminded of the fact that Duluth thought I was on that trajectory too.
The next morning we got breakfast at the greatest restaurant with a name so awkward it makes Ruth Chris’s Steakhouse seem normal. It’s “At Sarah’s Table Chester Creek Cafe”. It’s a great spot to eat. To my St. Paul tastebuds it’s “Day by Day Cafe” combined with the “Birchwood Cafe”. The next stop was the most magical though. Felix from Heiruspecs told me about a spot way past Canal Park that has an amazing beach. I believe I have only been past Canal Park once in my life to drop a friend off at her house. HOLY SHIT! That is beautiful. And the beach we got to was amazing. Again, ignoring the mother-nature-supplied cues of temperature my children demanded entry into their semi wet swimsuits for another go round. But today the play was even more inspired. The sun was shining. Rachel and I sat far apart for much of the time. Rachel got some time to catch her breath and collect her thoughts. . .leaving a friend’s house in working condition while also getting hungry kids into the car is quite the feat. If you stay at a hotel you can just leave the place in a burning pyre behind you Keyser Soze style, but can’t do that with Steph’s house.
That time let me really hone in on the kid’s playing together. Watching Sadie explore new spaces is unbelievable. It’s as if she has this choreographed yet improvised spirit that I simply can’t take my eyes off. It looks like she knows exactly what she’s doing and has no idea what she’s going to do next. It’s this music of chance that is so inspired and so pure. It’s different than when she was two, it’s for sure different than what she’ll be as an adult. It’s a magic time of childhood, in a magical city, in Minnesota. I captured a totally “taken on an iphone” quality photo of her. It’s incredible. Duluth, thank you.
