Min­neso­ta win­ters have nev­er been, oh, say, pleas­ant, but this year has been a lit­tle rougher than nor­mal — record snow­fall, an extra-long sea­son, and our new friend the polar vor­tex. One thing that did make it a lit­tle more bear­able was a fun col­lab­o­ra­tion between artist Lexa Walsh and musi­cian John Mun­son called Fever Songs. A tiny cab­in was built in the atri­um of the Walk­er Art Cen­ter, turned into a record­ing stu­dio, and a night was spent record­ing impro­vised music to lyrics and inspi­ra­tion pro­vid­ed by patrons of the gallery. I engi­neered the ​“ses­sion,” then John and I took the tunes home to over­dub a few things and I mixed it all down lat­er. This was a real­ly chal­leng­ing and enjoy­able project.

Here’s anoth­er from the rehearsal room — live loop­ing and effects, lots of fun sounds, no real-world appli­ca­tions just yet.

I real­ize it’s been a long time since I’ve updat­ed the site with any sort of, say, rel­e­vant info. You know, ​“big gig com­ing up!” or, ​“just record­ed this amaz­ing album,” or even ​“I’m a proud father of a beau­ti­ful baby boy.” It’s kind of a shame, because all of those things hap­pened, some of them more than once.

I do keep things flow­ing a lit­tle more reg­u­lar­ly on Twit­ter, but like all things social, media includ­ed, I’m awk­ward at best. So here’s a super-quick recap of all sorts of fun things I nev­er took the time to write about and prob­a­bly should have:

A few days at the Pearl with the super-tal­ent­ed song­writer Chris Koza…a few nights at the James Hill Library for a num­ber of Real­phon­ic radio shows—includ­ing a ​“reunion” show with my good friend Ted­dy Mor­gan, in whose Bar­rio East stu­dio I record­ed a few songs with the beau­ti­ful (and also super-tal­ent­ed, can we just say every­one I’m writ­ing about is super-tal­ent­ed?) Lily Costner…a great album with Lucy Michelle, where I got to wit­ness first­hand the cre­ative whirl­wind of the John Munson/​Chan Pol­ing pro­duc­tion team, whose band the New Stan­dards I’ve been hav­ing fun play­ing with…the begin­nings of a new record with my friend Carl Broemel, who along with band­mate Bo Koster is all over Neko Case’s amaz­ing new record, who joined us over at Wits where we com­plete­ly shred­ded pub­lic radio with Iron Maiden’s ​“Num­ber of the Beast.”

There’s a lot more that I could write about, but to be hon­est it all gets a lit­tle hazy as the most amaz­ing thing that’s hap­pened to me recent­ly was the birth of my son sev­en months ago. Life as a father has been excit­ing, chal­leng­ing, exhaust­ing, and inspir­ing. (But most­ly exhausting.)

Fueled by New Haven’s finest piz­za, I played some drums and did var­i­ous percussion‑y things with my bud­dy Mike Sem­bos on his band’s newest album. It’s being released late Octo­ber, and like all things Back­yard Com­mit­tee you can lis­ten to it for free: 

As some of you know, I’ve been incred­i­bly for­tu­nate to join the cast and crew of Wits. Wits is a radio show, record­ed live at the beau­ti­ful Fitzger­ald The­ater in down­town St. Paul, MN. It’s in the tra­di­tion of Prairie Home Com­pan­ion, sort of, in that it’s a radio show with music, com­e­dy, and nos­tal­gia, although the nos­tal­gia is maybe less wist­ful Amer­i­cana and more geeky-hipsterish.

Any­way — the line­up for the spring sea­son has been announced, and it is ridicu­lous. RIDICULOUS:

³⁄₁₅ Paula Pound­stone with Robyn Hitch­cock
³⁄₂₉ W. Kamau Bell with Bren­dan Ben­son
⁴⁄₁₂ Kris­ten Schaal with Rufus Wain­wright
⁴⁄₁₉ Tig Notaro with Kath­leen Edwards
⁴⁄₂₅ Michael Ian Black with A.C. New­man
⁵⁄₃ Pat­ton Oswalt with Ben Lee
⁵⁄₁₀ Rob Delaney with Neko Case and Kel­ly Hogan
⁵⁄₃₁ Col­in Han­ks with Jason Isbell
⁶⁄₇ Han­ni­bal Buress with Open Mike Eagle
⁶⁄₁₄ David Koech­n­er with Metric

The biggest perk of being in the house band is I get to make music with most of these amaz­ing artists — need­less to say I’m pret­ty excit­ed. You can read more about the show and buy tick­ets here.

Well, hel­lo 2013. One of the irons I have in the fire for this year is a sort of elec­tron­ic-ish, drum-heavy, organ­ic mess of things. I’m still work­ing it out, but in my head it sounds awe­some. Here’s a sneak peek into the rehearsal room — this is a live head­phone feed of drums with but­tons and mashy things next to me. Not quite sure what I am doing yet but it’s very fun.

Last year, with some time to kill in a small stu­dio in New Haven, Eric Don­nel­ly and I record­ed a quick demo of his new song, ​“Rewind.” From the moment I heard it I was in love. We record­ed the ​“real” ver­sion at the Friend­ly For­est in Nashville last August; Andy Sny­der cap­tured the ses­sion on video. It’s a pow­er­ful tune and I’m real­ly proud to be on it.

I’m in Nashville for a few days, doing a lit­tle hang­ing and play­ing and record­ing and such, and I man­aged to squeeze in a quick jazz jam with one of my favorite piano play­ers (Lil­lie Claire Mor­gan, age 4).

I read this great review of No Octo­ber the oth­er day…lots of nice things being said about the record and the pro­duc­tion, but my favorite part had to be this:

Record­ed in a barn (seri­ous­ly) in Buf­fa­lo, Minn., with a ton of won­der­ful musi­cal friends assist­ing … The most impres­sive part of the deal is that Olson is nev­er buried by his friends. They sim­ply help to bring to life this inspired batch of songs.

… No Octo­ber is roots music at its best, as Olson com­bines an under­cur­rent of blues through­out the project and lay­ers coun­try and folk over that in an amal­gam that is wire-weld­ed airtight.

That empha­sis is mine. When Dave and I were round­ing up musi­cians for the project, the word ​“empa­thet­ic” came up more than once. It seems like kind of a pre­ten­tious word, but it tru­ly fits the tal­ents of every­one on this record — that is, almost every­thing they play makes oth­er peo­ple sound good.