You can also check out a story by  Kristin Tilitson in the Mpls StarTribune

I think it’s important to keep in perspective the whole idea of  “alternative” at the time it was big culture wise, but not like it is now; a time before your mom listened to NIN. Then it still had some cachet of being underground, you still had to work a little to find ironic t-shirts or the first Yo La Tengo record.  Unlike today where every mall has a Hot Topic –the Emo Superstore, and everything is accessible all the time, then scarcity was still a commodity. That era helped to make the Uptown an important clubhouse in the fraternal order of hipsterdom.

During that time I was the Director of A&P for the Twin/Tone Record Group, I liken it working for Sun or Chess records- but in the 60’s: still cool but past the era of earth shattering. We did make some phenomenal records, they where just lost in a sea of  other records. When the Replacements came out there were maybe2-3000 records released a year in the US, by the mid 90’s that number was more like a 100,000, Now with internet and digital releases that number is really incalculable.

We booked a lot of shows at both venues, but probably a bit fewer at the Uptown for one reason: Maggie the booker scarred the hell out of me.

Bar bookers tend to be a legendary breed, they always at the center of tales told by musicians and management in the wee hours: their kindness, their curmudgeony, and their pure unadulterated craziness.  It was a business run by characters and Maggie was most certainly a character. She wasn’t inhospitable or mean, rather imposing, I never had a call with her that I didn’t feel like I was wasting her time, even when we did shows that sold out the room. As intimidating as that was it’s also what made that room great. You could have Oasis there one night and Vinnie and the Stardüsters the next, and it didn’t seem incongruous- it just seemed like the Uptown.

My favorite stories of that place though are much less specific, just great slivers of memory: The plethora of Funseekers shows, almost all of which where Keith Patterson one of the greatest front men the Twin Towns have ever produced would at some point drop his pants- and it sort of made sense; granted the same action now would probably find him sued. The freighting and mildly dangerous backstage area. The ripped booths and cantankerous bartenders and sound system that was always les then ideal- it was if all the negatives added to a plus- a Minneapolis CBGB’s but cleaner and with French fries.

Some of my most important memories of the uptown don’t involve bands at all; rather breakfast there the day after. More meetings and planning were held there then I care to recall. It was Zine head quarters for both And She Said, and the Wrap Up. Mostly because of it’s proximity to Kinko’s (well that and the Bloody Mary’s) where we would sneak time on the computers and be made fun of by Peter Davis while he worked on the far bigger Your Flesh.

I negotiated more then one contract at those booths, and laid the ground for countless others, met girls, dated girls and broke up with girls all to a stompin’ 4/4 backbeat and the largest food ever envisioned by man and the most disgusting bathrooms short of a bus station in southern Alabama. In short it was a bar like any other bar, and unlike any other bar.

Once Maggie was gone, it just wasn’t the same. Not for me at least. It’s liked the spirit left the building and I found myself spending less and less time there. When I did go it was for reason of sentimentality, but what they say is true you can’t go home again. At least that home was more of a sense of time than a sense of place.

and the second one…

I had a tropical depression once, it was in Key West, I cured it by getting drunk at strip clubs…. of course that might not work in this case.

So

No Chenney
No Bush at least not in person,
Surprisingly little McCain

A lot of journalists with an overly tapped story,
A lot of protestors looking for something to protest.

You did get Fred Thompson, which was nice; He’s my favorite actor/ politician now that guy who played Gopher on the Love Boat is no longer in the game

And somewhere Sarah Palin is drooling of a map of the Alaskan oil preserve while a campaign worker cobbles away at her wikkipedia entry

Meanwhile the news media keeps talking about “Anarchists” and their secret cabal, and all their organizations, aren’t anarchists by definition going to have a problem with. You know organizing….

Since when did we fear anarchists anyway, it’s been at least 100 years since anarchists held any sort of serious social status, I always figure modern day anarchy to be like socialism was in the 80’s You did it for a week or two till you moved onto the next youth trend for me it was “Frankie Goes to Hollywood”.

Maybe if the called them aging hippies, and punk kids who work at Co-op’s they wouldn’t be so frightening, or then again maybe they would.

Thing is the anarchists are scared: they think their world is going to hell and they need to do something about it. So they make signs and chant, and some of them get out of hand and do something stupid

The cops are scared they think their world is going to hell and they need to do something about it so they work proactively to keep the peace and some of them get out of hand and do something stupid

The city is scared they think their world is going look bad on TV and they need to do something about it so they work extra hard to maintain order and some of them get out of hand and do something stupid

Joe public is scared they think their world is going to hell because they see anarchist antics, and   police fierceness and they don’t need to do anything about it because it will just work itself out so they watch “CSI Somethingorother” until the whole stupid thing is over.

It’s seems to me that fear is a lousy method of making choices.
It is all very divisive, but isn’t that the point. It’s hard to win when you have no one to be against.

Of course in life you can’t  “win” anything, the reward comes in the playing.

Sort of like slot machines, where statistically you’re guaranteed to lose 15%, yet people keep playing, absolutely convinced they are winning.

Guess it’s a matter of perspective.

Given that we live on a globe, left, eventually becomes right and vice-versa, perspective can be hard to attain or for that matter maintain.

Anyway I should go, CSI is starting in a minute,

Xo

c

Republicans, Democrats, Elks, Shriners, Dentists, a convention is a convention- a gathering for a large group to discuss their ideas, build strategies, and of course have sex with hookers, and generally make an ass of themselves.  The question I have to ask: is it news? If this was just a really big gathering of knights of Columbus would some 14,000 journalists be on our doorstep?

Think about it what is really getting accomplished here? At least in the “big story sense”, is the rousing speech from the head of the Idaho delegation, shouting his support for the candidate really news? Who is that going to surprise? I am sure newsworthy stories happen at both conventions- we just don’t hear about them till years after their prison sentences and pardons when they write the tell all biography for a high six figure deal from Random House.

People talk about conventions like they change the world, but no one has ever explained how. They whoop and holler in the most expensive pep rally in the world.  Sure it brings in tens of millions for the local economy and that’s great, but what if instead of using it as the prize in a financial lottery we used it to say…help wipe out Aids in Africa, or use it so subsidize wind fueled power generators. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good party, it just seems like we could do something better then hiring Sammy Hagar to sing loudly that ”he can’t drive 55”

The argument is that all the various party elite can get together to discuss things, but they have a place to do that already, it’s called congress. If they can’t get it together there does anyone really think that talking it over a piece of pie at Mickey’s will foster a better dialogue?

At the end of the day it seems Shakespeare said it best,”: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

My name is Chris Strouth, I am a citizen of these United States, and I approve this message.

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

For the duration of the RNC i will be blogging out of UnConvention.tv This is the program I have ben working on most of August , dealing with all the various and sundry  of the Unconvention.
its a pretty gool program, but it’s the unfun side of the world, I keep reading about various indy types going to parties and having a lot of fun- ,e been in a basement fotr about 2 days trying to make a deadline.

The shows are  going to be on MTN in Mpls, SPNN in St. Paul, viewed in Peavy Plazza Sunday, MOnday and Tuesday at 9.  Please watch- no  one enjoys media in a vacuum!

Yeah, i have been in absentia here for a bit, I have spent a good chunk of the last several months building this place Miyagi. It’s a hair salon that I opened with the Missus, it’s also home to my new offices, that is once I can get in an actual internet connection. In between that been dealing with the never ending pilot, that is ready to be dropped off next week (well keeping my fingers crossed on that one).

Lot’s going on, but not a ton I feel like I can share, I know I am selfish bastard keeping my drama to myself, but sometimes thats how it goes.

One note about the dead video above- I am in no way shape or form a Dead head, In my Rifle Sport days I described them as the music of the enemy, the poster children of the former counter culture Hippies who became the dread 80′s republican sell outs- but kept the soundtrack. As I have gotten older I have learned to see bands shouldn’t be blamed for their fans. In any case this suits my mood at this moment more then just about anything.

Well and this one too, i bought this record when it came out, what can I say the video kinda got me, But I kept it hidden in my collection- not nearly punk rock enough, and not ironic enough either to merit being in my collection. Maybe being forty is an age where you can accept all the little secret truths, because good bad and indifferent ; thats who you are.

As it happens, oh dear and gentle reader, I found myself in sort of a day job jamboree. Part of what I do for living, the part that I can talk about publicly is I am a producer.  Unlike a lot of producers I don’t function in one medium. Which makes me an oddball amongst the odd balls. I move freely from music to TV, to film, theater, and the odd corporate spectacle. Though as of late I tend to avoid theater, mostly because it is too fleeting- I have been enjoying art that is more permanent, and that provides an ongoing revenue stream.

You would think that I would take these valuable pixels to hype these various and sundry projects, but not so much.  For the most part I have to many other topics to cover here. However in case your curious over the past year I have: produced a pilot for TV called Conversation-set to air in the fall, God and various and sundry executives willing, Produced a record for the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble (out in May on Cuneiform)(with Brian Jacoby), produced a record by the Vibro Champs (out in July on Sideshow records)(with Adam Krinski), Halfway through a Holy Roman Empire record (that’s just me), Did soundtracks for the St. Paul Winter Carnival, the Bakery on Grand, composed some Hair Show music. Finished the four-year odyssey that is M-80 the movie, and consulted on a dozen or so other projects. This is in between publishing a few things here and there, a day gig (@IPR) and opening a salon with my wife (which opens sometime this summer). The funny thing is I would think of this as one of my less active years.

In any case I say this not to boast about my skills as a day laborer, rather to set up the thing that didn’t happen. Part of producing is spending a lot of pre prep time on a project that might not happen. I spent part of the last year pitching, prepping, and planning a movie that died on the vine two weeks before the shoot date, that my friends are heart breaking.

The whoseits an whatsits are unimportant, sometimes things just fall apart, this cause of this one is nothing to do with artistry personality, or technology really if you wanted to blame something blame insurance. These things happen; really this just serves to justify my absence from regular contribution here. In the beginning I didn’t have time, as I franticly prepared for the biggest shoot of my life. The last week or so I have been too bummed to want to really communicate with anyone- the reality is this would have been the “big movie” guaranteed to get on cable, the one where I didn’t have to explain who the artists were and why this had value.  Which is a valuable consideration coming from the land of cult favorites (read as good but unpopular). For all the kajillions of projects I have worked on, nothing has sold more then 25,000. Which in the indy realm is pretty good, but it’s not gold.

I know that wanting a gold record is petty and vein, but I don’t recall ever saying I wasn’t petty or vein. The reality is I want one, not to be showy, but because I think it would be neat. Its not that it changes your career, hell I have known a guy who had multiple gold records and worked the French fry machine at the MacDonald’s in Golden Valley. I know other guys with rooms full of them and it doesn’t make them happy; though truth be told I do think they rather enjoy the royalties.

The gold is nice, but its only a trinket- really, it is just a symbol, the fact that you were a part of a thing that effected a lot of peoples lives. That’s the cool part, the award that’s just a certificate of completion. Yet still, I want it. Every ball player wants a bigger crowd, and even when you get the biggest, is it enough? You have to play ball because you love the game, and whatever team your on is the greatest, all that said you still want to play in the World Series.

More then just my personal stabs at glory; I just wish the film were being made. It isn’t. So you take a deep breath, possibly get drunk for a night, and then you start over. Like Sonny and Cher said ”the Beat goes on”…