I’m pret­ty bad at keep­ing my online pres­ence updat­ed, and all too famil­iar with recap­ping a year’s worth of com­ings and goings in an apolo­getic post, but the best way I know how to sum up my music activ­i­ty of the last year is sim­ply that I most­ly quit doing it.

I’ve always thought music, as a career, was a pret­ty self­ish affair; we played music because we need­ed to, and if some­one out there was attuned to it we were lucky, and if some­one paid for it we were luck­i­er still. ​“It’s not self­ish at all, peo­ple need music,” peo­ple who need­ed music would say, and I’d try to accept some grace in that point of view; at least, until last year, when I stopped feel­ing lucky and instead felt angry.

It’s been a lit­tle over a year since the elec­tion, and while I wish hind­sight was out there prov­ing every­one wrong…here we are. Maybe now we’re just start­ing to learn how to nav­i­gate the debris of the new world order but a year ago things felt more uncer­tain. Music, of all things, felt com­plete­ly arbi­trary and unnec­es­sary. ​“Well, peo­ple need music,” peo­ple would say, and I couldn’t help but think that wasn’t entire­ly true; peo­ple need­ed enter­tain­ment, so they wouldn’t have to think about con­se­quence. And enter­tain­ment, to me, felt like the most use­less assign­ment, pro­vid­ing a dis­trac­tion from our­selves, who always seemed to ele­vate the worst of us.

For a good stretch of time, regard­less of grace, I didn’t want to offer enter­tain­ment to any­one. The only way I know how to break through a head­space like that is to step away from it for a while, and so I did.

* * * 

As far as sab­bat­i­cals go, this one was pret­ty well-timed — I don’t talk about my fam­i­ly much on the inter­net when I help it, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t men­tion spend­ing the entire­ty of last spring liv­ing in a pedi­atric trans­plant ward. My daugh­ter was born with beta tha­lassemia; for her, the only treat­ment was a life­long reliance on month­ly blood trans­fu­sions. That is, until last year, when we were blessed with an oppor­tu­ni­ty to receive a new and ground­break­ing genet­ic stem cell ther­a­py. There are hur­dles yet to clear but — a pret­ty great mark of progress — she had her port removed a week ago. There isn’t enough grat­i­tude avail­able for the team of doc­tors and nurs­es at both Children’s Min­neso­ta and MHealth Fairview who made this pos­si­ble, and not enough admi­ra­tion for our brave neigh­bors, the kids and their fam­i­lies in the BMT ward.

I tip­toed back into the music world at Bones & Wire; took on a bit of pro­duc­tion and record­ing and also wrapped up one of the more ambi­tious and fun projects I’ve been involved with, Jere­my Ylvisaker’s Break. What start­ed as sim­ple tunes with three or four gui­tar tracks record­ed with a bro­ken wrist straight into a com­put­er end­ed up as 24 tracks of ampli­fiers and room sounds mixed into the most immer­sive day­dream I could imag­ine. Take a lis­ten if this is some­thing you are into, which I think every­one should be every now and then.

I was dri­ving through the Pacif­ic North­west with my friend Erik Kosk­i­nen when we learned of ICE’s inva­sion and sub­se­quent occu­pa­tion of Min­neso­ta. We watched, as observers a thou­sand miles away, a bru­tal admin­is­tra­tion try their best to dec­i­mate our neigh­bor­hoods. I saw com­mu­ni­ties rise, protest­ing the demands of fas­cists. I saw them risk — and occa­sion­al­ly, lose — their lives for the safe­ty of our neigh­bors. We met new com­mu­ni­ties in the audi­ences we played for, who offered sol­i­dar­i­ty and hope and accept­ed both as well. Our first show back home in Min­neapo­lis, in the embrace of our exhaust­ed friends, felt not much short of spiritual.

I’m not sure I’ve yet absorbed how nec­es­sary these sorts of con­nec­tions are for all of us. I can’t be naïve enough to think any­thing I do as a musi­cian could mat­ter in this world, but for now I am will­ing to accept a lit­tle grace. Maybe, peo­ple out there need music. Maybe only I do. At the moment, that’s enough. 

I apol­o­gize to every drum cir­cle I’ve ever made fun of — turns out it’s total­ly cathar­tic to sub­di­vide a world that does­n’t make sense with 30 oth­er drum­mers and send the results hurtling across the Mis­sis­sip­pi River.

Min­neapo­lis has no lack of peo­ple need­ing resources late­ly, but copalmn​.org is a great place to start.

After a show, not that long ago, a man in the audi­ence came to me and said, ​“You guys were great. And thanks for leav­ing pol­i­tics out of it, every show has got­ten so polit­i­cal.” Leav­ing out the fact that I thought we were quite polit­i­cal, I haven’t been able to stop think­ing about this.

For bet­ter or worse, we live in a world where omis­sion is an endorse­ment. So I feel the need to be per­fect­ly clear:

Last week I cast a vote, no sur­pris­es here, for Kamala Har­ris, who I feel is com­pe­tent and empa­thet­ic and a believ­er in val­ues I hold as an Amer­i­can. Your own polit­i­cal beliefs may not line up with mine, or hers, but I have to hold in my heart the idea that our val­ues align. Those val­ues lie in a world far beyond the political.

A vote for a man like Don­ald Trump for the pres­i­den­cy is a lot­tery tick­et; it’s a vague gam­ble where the price to be paid is an ero­sion of demo­c­ra­t­ic ideals and human rights. Even more, it’s a giant thumbs up that a man can

be hate­ful, 
and racist, 
and den­i­grate women, 
and break any law, 
and bla­tant­ly lie their way into pow­er

and it’s all jus­ti­fied as long as he’s on your side.

Your vote, more this year than ever, is absolute­ly beyond polit­i­cal. It’s an endorse­ment of a per­son who rep­re­sents you and your val­ues. Who rep­re­sents yours?

For bet­ter or worse, we live in a world where omis­sion is an endorse­ment. This isn’t a mat­ter of pol­i­tics or the polit­i­cal divide. Be vocal about the per­son you are and the per­son you choose to rep­re­sent your val­ues as a fuck­ing human being in a world we don’t deserve. And vote.

“BIG RICH!” is how George would greet me, in a great boom­ing voice that was the loud­est kind­ness I’ve heard, and then we’d hug, like a kid try­ing to hug an oak tree, or a bear, and we’d set up and play music.

The best way I know how to describe George’s kind­ness was when he talked about some one or thing he didn’t agree with. His face would scrunch up, and get quite seri­ous, and he’d put his meaty fore­fin­ger in the air and say, ​“well, you see, Rich…” and then show how care­ful­ly he thought about it before he decid­ed not to like something.

George was a blues musi­cian, in the deep­est tra­di­tions and respect although he loved when his friends would step out of the box and explore the places out­side those guides. He was the real deal in that world, some­thing peo­ple have said because he was a black man play­ing Black Amer­i­can music now main­tained by mid­dle-aged white musi­cians, but he was the real deal because he lived that live of hard work and respect and cel­e­bra­tion and he put it into words and music that lived that life as well.

A year or so ago I began work on a project to fea­ture musi­cians I want­ed more of the world to cel­e­brate with me. George and I made plans to record him per­form­ing a spo­ken-word piece he want­ed to do for years; I was thrilled to help him cre­ate it and share it to the world, say­ing, ​“this is my friend, Big George Jack­son, he is a life worth liv­ing and lis­ten­ing to.” Covid derailed that project like so many oth­er things.

At the end of every night he’d say, ​“You be care­ful on the way home tonight! You’ve seen the Wiz? I’m Evil­lene. I bet­ter not hear no bad news!” And I was always care­ful. I’ll miss you George.

It’s been sev­en months since my last post here — most of my day-to-day minu­tia I’d been plop­ping on Insta­gram until my dis­com­fort with Face­book took over — and it’s safe to say for a world at tem­po­rary rest there’s been a sur­pris­ing amount of life pass­ing by.

There are new and con­stant strug­gles of home/​distance school­ing, lack of day­care, lack of employ­ment, health scares, fam­i­ly crises, quar­an­tines, and social-dis­tanc­ing anx­i­ety. My city explod­ed with rage over the mur­der of George Floyd, one more black life lost in a long list of black lives lost. The U.S. elec­tion ten­sion is boil­ing over and among this politi­cians have cast aside their last pre­tense of decen­cy to advance agen­da. It’s…a lot to deal with.

It’s been a chal­lenge to pre­tend a musi­cian has any rel­e­vant space in this chaos. And yet — there have been shows, album ses­sions, video record­ing, demos and writ­ing. Some­where there is an exhaust­ed audi­ence ask­ing for a lit­tle glimpse of nor­mal­cy, and a gang of artists des­per­ate for cre­ative outlets.

Spo­radic work has been a com­bo of remote ses­sions (argh!), video record­ing (new and excit­ing!), and the occa­sion­al hon­est-to-good­ness record­ing ses­sion with actu­al peo­ple present (yay!). Thank you face masks, open win­dows, and shot­gun floor plans with tall ceil­ings. Live per­for­mances are for skele­ton crews of cam­era peo­ple in emp­ty venues, streamed to video. I’m thank­ful for those oppor­tu­ni­ties but can’t say they’re par­tic­u­lar­ly excit­ing to do. Hon­est­ly — I don’t miss the live aspect of per­form­ing as much as I do the casu­al abil­i­ty to make music with friends. It’s a strange world to navigate.

A few bright moments shined these last few months, though, includ­ing new releas­es of killer pop anthems by my friend Mary Bue and a delight­ful record about dis­ap­point­ment by the pair­ing of Dylan Hicks and John Mun­son. You can check those out and oth­ers here.

I’ll leave you for now with a beau­ti­ful ren­der­ing of a beau­ti­ful song by my beau­ti­ful pal Mol­ly Maher, a ver­sion of ​“Find the Shep­herd” I filmed and record­ed at my stu­dio, Bones & Wire:

I’ve kept this web­site for years. It’s an anachro­nism in the age of social media, but it’s my anachro­nism and I’m pret­ty fond of it. I was hop­ing my first post of 2020 would be chock full of fun things — albums I’ve been work­ing on, gra­tu­itous releas­es of per­son­al music, record­ing stu­dio updates, maybe even the last install­ment of the Able­ton Live series I’ve been work­ing on for years (not like­ly) — but here we are in March, and my first stretch of free time for the year is thanks to a glob­al coro­n­avirus pandemic.

Being a musi­cian is hard enough, but now that the world is shun­ning trav­el and social gath­er­ing the chal­lenges are feel­ing a lit­tle insur­mount­able. Over the last three days I’ve dropped over thir­ty shows and ses­sions from my cal­en­dar. The artists and venues that haven’t yet can­celed are run­ning on fumes of fool­ish opti­mism. (Maybe ​“cap­i­tal­ism” is a bet­ter choice of word.) They rely on an audi­ence to make a liv­ing, and musi­cians rely on venues, and I, pri­mar­i­ly a side­man, rely on oth­er musi­cians. It’s a chain of sur­vival that’s melt­ing down sur­pris­ing­ly quick.

What to do in the mean­time? Well, I do have my stu­dio, Bones & Wire, where I’ll be hun­ker­ing down after a thor­ough dis­in­fect­ing and mak­ing as much music as I can with what resources I have avail­able. Some of the projects I’ve been work­ing on over the last year will be com­ing out soon — with­out album release shows or tour­ing as an option to pro­mote them it’s still up in the air how they’ll be pre­sent­ed. I’ll be spend­ing a lit­tle more time than usu­al research­ing how to earn mon­ey from the music I usu­al­ly write for fun in my spare time. Most of my time will be spent home with my fam­i­ly, enter­tain­ing kids out of school and day­care and catch­ing up on house chores while the life­lines of music I’ve grown accus­tomed to are put on indef­i­nite hia­tus. I real­ize, of course, I’m luck­i­er than many.

It’s a top­sy-turvy world out there, who knows for how long, but hope­ful­ly you’re read­ing this from a safe and sane place and hang­ing here with me spir­i­tu­al­ly until life is as close to nor­mal as we need it to be.

I found a half-fin­ished ver­sion of this video from a few years ago while start­ing anoth­er project the oth­er night, and fig­ured a sol­id minute of end times set to drums was worth final­ly wrap­ping up. The music track is one SM57 send­ing my drums through a slew of Able­ton effects.

…is what I call the trick weeks of late March in Min­neapo­lis, when the snow starts melt­ing and the sun makes more dra­mat­ic appear­ances and the tem­per­a­ture slinks out of the news. But, every year — at least since I moved here in 2008 — win­ter peeks in for one last ​“hey, for­got my things, just want­ed to drop back to say bye to some friends,” and the entire town gets impa­tient for win­ter to just be done and go home for the year. But — DAMN! — does­n’t fake spring still feel great as any­thing ever has.

Most of my fall and win­ter was spent in record­ing stu­dios with decent cli­mate con­trol, so rather than feel­ing bummed about the cold I stayed busy mak­ing fun records with old friends, Chris Koza and Dylan Hicks; and new ones, Mary Bue and Ellis. Lots of the usu­al demo/​single ses­sions that nev­er seem to see the light of day, and more time than usu­al pro­gram­ming my com­put­er to coop­er­ate with me, musically.

The most inter­est­ing move for me this win­ter — lit­er­al­ly, as I hauled fur­ni­ture and record­ing gear at 11pm dur­ing the polar vor­tex — was into the old stu­dio space of my pal John Mun­son. It’s not quite a stu­dio (although we did cut Lucy Michelle’s Attack of the Heart here) but it’s been fun set­ting up a con­sis­tent area to record new music. I try to make a habit out of cre­at­ing some­thing tan­gi­ble with my learn­ing process — if you’re inter­est­ed in fol­low­ing along, check out the stream over at Bones & Wire.

Well, hot damn — look who got his new work­ing space set up with micro­phones and a Mellotron.

I was try­ing to find video of me play­ing drums to explain to my daugh­ter what it is I do for a ​“liv­ing” and after a trip down the rab­bit hole I found this, which she watched six hun­dred times. It’s a fun clip of Erik Kosk­i­nen and band clos­ing out a night at Mears Park with ​“Boom­town.” (This show was the first music I played after return­ing home with my daugh­ter this sum­mer.) Video by Gina Smith.