Part 2: A spark is lit; the powder keg awaits.

As Middlebrook Hall President, my duty was to preside over building council meetings, set the agenda for them, and generally be a positive representative, among other things. I was also obligated to participate in the all-dorm council known as RHA. It consisted of its own executive board, along with all the other hall presidents and some other assorted individuals.

The very first RHA meeting I attended in early September 2005, I got news from the RHA Vice President that a band from Madison would be playing a show in my building on the 28th, which coincided with our very first "open house" meeting for the Middlebrook Hall Council. Cool, I thought. That should help get people to show up, though free pizza was usually the most effective way.

Wednesday, September 28th, 2005. That evening, four dudes rolled up in a van. I felt myself obligated to welcome the visitors, introduced myself as the hall president, and greeted them as they arrived. They were a band called The Profits.

I helped them load their gear in, though it would only be a few instruments as they'd be playing a low-key acoustic show in one of the common rooms. I made a crappy orange sign that read "The Profit$" and hung it up behind where they would be playing, and then lined up a bunch of their CDs on a table underneath it. We then set out on patrolling the building to get people to come downstairs and check out the free show.

People slowly showed up, and The Profits introduced themselves before playing a few acoustic tunes. I sat along the side of the room and snapped a few random photos with my crappy point-and-shoot while listening to this impressive but unknown (at least to me) band out of Madison. "Where did these guys come from?" They were so good but not like anything I would normally have been hearing anyway, as they likened themselves to "Jack Johnson meets John Mayer with vocal harmonies" at the time.



Afterwards, the band spent some time chatting with their many new fans, inviting them all to come out to their show at The Varsity Theater in Dinkytown in two days. I mostly hung back and helped them pack up their gear. Then, after most of the people had left, I chatted with the band some more and showed them a few of the photos I took.

Lucky for me, they thought I was a pretty cool dude too. They signed a flier for their upcoming show and even gave me a copy of their new album along with a spot on the guest list for the show on Friday. Sweet! I figured I'd better bring my camera with and snap a few photos at that as well.


(See another familiar name there?)

The true convincing of this band's greatness though didn't really sink in for me until after they left later that night. I popped their new album, Far From You and Your Everyday Noise, into my computer and was instantly blown away by their music. Sure I already had a positive opinion of the band to begin with, but their songs far exceeded my expectations of a group that I'd never heard of and wasn't any kind of a well-known or nationally-touring act.

To say the least, I was stoked to see them play again two days later.

September 30th, 2005. I biked over to The Varsity, ran into The Profits outside during the opener's set, then promptly realized I had forgotten my camera. I rushed back to my dorm and grabbed the camera before returning to The Varsity pretty much right as the opening act was finishing up. Who was that, do you ask? Why, a guy by the name of Ari Herstand.

I didn't actually see more than maybe a song or two from his set, but a friend who was also at the show that night told Ari to add me on Facebook. He did, and since then I've seen him play 59 times, second only to Roster McCabe at 89. (!) The girl who essentially first connected Ari and I though? Haven't seen her since then, strangely enough.

It was finally time for The Profits to take the stage though, so I positioned myself near the front stage-right and pulled out my camera. Here's a few of the better examples of what I got from the show:











Pretty crappy photos, eh? I was a no-talent nobody without a clue and a crappy point-and-shoot, but I had a lot of fun and thought they were pretty awesome pics at the time. One actually did turn out kinda cool though, and it was a photo I made a point to show the band after the show.



The band was blown away by this photo in particular, and I was amazed that they actually put up every photo I shot at the show on their website. But there was also one last moment that really sealed the deal and convinced me to keep checking out their shows in the future.

About halfway through the set, a pair of girls who I hadn't seen since the previous semester randomly wound up beside me in the crowd. We recognized each other and remarked on the fact that it'd been a while, something like 5 months I believe. They spent the rest of the show by me cause I told them I knew the band and I'd even introduce them afterwards.

Almost immediately after The Profits finished, I snuck the girls backstage at The Varsity and we ran into the band. They were a little bit shocked by this obviously, plus sweating a bit after their performance. I introduced the girls to them and they all obliged in a group photo.



It wasn't my first concert ever or anything like that, but it was my first experience in being at a small show, knowing the band, and thus being cool to some people as a result. To me, it was a very big deal and something I hoped to repeat. After all, I took some pictures that the band liked (and even used!), and also got to hang out with a pair of cute chicks who I hadn't seen in months. "Hey, I could get used to this."

Though I only got to see The Profits 11 times (they broke up about a year later; JP and Ben now continue on in We The Living while Mike and Scott play in Mike Droho & The Compass Rose), they left an indelible mark upon my life. To me, they were like The Beatles. A pair of dynamic singer-songwriters fronting a band with a unique and intertwining back-and-forth style to their music. The Profits never got to be bigger than a midwestern college buzz, but to me, they're where it all began and what prompted me to see more local shows.

(Sidebar: "Sex at Six", their song you will never hear live again, was a kind of college anthem that everyone knew and chanted at the band endlessly, even well after their breakup. I personally am partial to "Atlantic" as their best song though, as the back-and-forth between amazing vocal and lead guitar lines combined with epic lyrics was nothing short of perfect to me. And sorry guys, but WTL just can't do it as well as The Profits did. That first recording is untouchably brilliant.)

Now, exactly four years later, I'm still doing it, albeit a lot more and a heck of a lot better than when I first started obviously. Since 2007 I've been to 600+ concerts, spanning the entire gamut from dead local dive bars and acoustic private shows to being VIP at Lollapalooza and shooting the likes of Rage Against The Machine, Radiohead, and Nine Inch Nails. And all points in-between.

Yet all of this happened simply because a little unknown four-piece semi-acoustic act played a show at my dorm, I thought they were cool, and they thought I was too. Seems to be a bit of a stretch, but at the end of it all I'll know I can trace my roots in the Twin Cities music scene back to a single Madison band that is gone but will never be forgotten (and I'll remember every September 28th):

The Profits.

Part 1: The decision, and a life nearly completed before it even began

We last left off on a cliffhanger of a tale: What could possibly be such a life-changing decision for me? Is that even possible these days? Well, I'll tell you this... I'm not going to answer that just quite yet. Haha. Instead, I shall share with you a little more of my history to fully lay the rest of the groundwork.

Though I was the inadvertent outcast in high school, I discovered an "in" which tied in perfectly with my penchant for technology and computers. I became... a shutterbug.

During my junior year, I discovered that the front office had a bulky digital camera that, by today's standards, was basically like the glorified joke-of-a-camera on my cellphone. It could shoot about 30 640x480 pixel photos on a 3.5 inch floppy disk (remember those?), as the image compression was so strong that most images were about 40 KB in size. By comparison, a single jpg photo from my current camera, the Canon Digital Rebel XSi, takes up the equivalent of about 3 to 5 1.44 MB floppy disks.

Also that year, I took a class on HTML and wound up as the only person in the class who really cared about it. So much so that I pretty much took over the school's website and did about 8 times as much work on it as the rest of the class combined.

My newfound love for photography combined with the means to distribute it in the pre-Facebook era (remember life before then?) actually gave me a reason to interact with my classmates beyond simple and routine drudgery. Nice.

Anytime there was a sports event or something else happening at school and I cared enough to go, I'd grab the camera from the office as well and get a few random shots of the event and my classmates, both candid and posed. It gave people a reason to talk to me beyond simple and routine drudgery. Nice.

[Green Day's Dookie is my current soundtrack, and "Basket Case" came on right as I hit here. More cool timing.]

Fast-forward to college. Freshman year I didn't do much of anything with my camera, though I did take a black and white film class in the spring semester. Funny side story about that: I actually wound up befriending a girl who I inadvertently captured as she was passing by on her bike in a scenery picture I shot for class. It was pretty much a simple matter of later on running into her in the dorm and being like, "Where have I seen you before?"

Towards the end of freshman year I was presented with the opportunity to become a "U-Crew". Essentially like an assistant CA/RA with none of the perks, though you get to help out with floor events and essentially are a role model for incoming freshmen.

Also, largely on a whim, I ran for Hall President for the following year at my building, Middlebrook Hall. With a campaign centered around a picture of me as Tony Montana from Scarface (it's the only picture I've ever used on my MySpace), I won by only a few votes over a to-be junior who eventually wound up running for and winning the vice-presidency anyway.

Unfortunately, I couldn't be both a U-Crew and Hall President. Not just because the responsibility would have been too great when combined with my classes, but because the U-Crew position that was offered to me was in Bailey Hall on the St. Paul campus.

I was faced with quite a dilemma. Should I stay in Minneapolis in a building I know and be its president, or should I take the U-Crew position in St. Paul and be only minutes away from all my classes for the foreseeable future? I had just recently transferred out of Computer Science in the IT Honors department into Graphic Design in the College of Human Ecology, later known as the more-sensibly named College of Design. (IT Honors was a total fucking disaster; my first college semester's GPA was 1.556 because I basically bombed all my ridiculously hard honors classes, which I hated to begin with. My next semester, which wasn't in IT Honors and didn't suck? 3.5 GPA.)

It was a total coinflip situation, but one in which, had it gone the other way, almost none of you would know me right now. Most likely I wouldn't even exist to your knowledge, which is a strange thought considering that I'm about as inseparable from the Twin Cities music scene at the moment as peanut butter is from jelly. Sure you can take them apart, but it's just not right...

I chose to take the position as Middlebrook Hall President (which you knew or maybe at least had surmised by now) for the 2005-2006 school year and stewed at home in Albert Lea over the summer, eagerly waiting for September to come and my "good" life to begin again in the cities.

[The new album by Muse, The Resistance, is now my soundtrack. It could make for some weird irony if I told you one of my strangest stories about being Middlebrook Hall President, but then again, maybe not. Either way, it kicks ass. Not as much as Black Holes and Revelations, but whatever, I just like good music.]

So how did being president of a dorm make me a rock and roll photographer? It didn't. But I met some people who essentially functioned as my first band-muse, of sorts. (Hey, there's some nice timing.)

Before I break into that story though, I have one last tale of preparation: The night I almost got on stage with Green Day. (It's different than when I saw Green Day for the 3rd time back in July this year, as I actually tweeted that entire show and have a much more tangible memory of it as a result.)

September 16th, 2005. Twelve days before my life changed forever, it already did, in a way.

I had a pair of tickets to see Green Day for the 2nd time that night. I had first seen them less than a year before at the Target Center, and this time around they would be at the Xcel Center.

[Sidebar: While digging through my computer files to find any previous write-ups I've done about this story which I've told many a time to many a person, I found some really emo bullshit I wrote way back when as well. Yikes.]

I brought a female classmate of mine from one of my sophomore design classes to the show and we arrived on the floor right as opener Jimmy Eat World started their opening set. They played all of their well-known stuff, though the only songs I knew were Pain and The Middle. Fun, and a much better warmup than Sugarcult and New Found Glory last time I saw Green Day, at least to me.

After they finished, the wait was on for a while, but as I expected, the infamous pink bunny (or rather, some guy in a costume) that tours with Green Day made an appearance on stage. He was chugging a few beers and tossing small stuffed bunny dolls to the crowd, all to their amusement.

The bunny departed and Green Day came on soon afterwards, opening with American Idiot (recall, this is back in 2005). Played it brilliantly as usual. They followed with Jesus of Suburbia, a great track to be a part of live. Then came Billie Joe's self-proclaimed giant "fuck you" to George W. Bush, Holiday. Estatic. A short interlude followed and they predictably continued into Are We The Waiting/St. Jimmy, smoothly going into Longview after that. Kick ass.

After Longview my mind grows fuzzy on what they played, but I know they did Hitchin' a Ride, Brain Stew & Jaded, King For A Day, 2000 Light Years Away (with a kickass solo that doesn't appear on the studio version), Maria, Minority, Wake Me Up When September Ends, Boulevard Of Broken Dreams, Basket Case, She, All By Myself, a cover of We Are The Champions, a cover of Shout, a cover of something I didn't know, and Good Riddance. Not all in that order though. Thrown in there somewhere was the most important song of the night for the fans though...

At the time, the song they always had people come up on stage to play with them was "Knowledge", a cover of an Operation Ivy song. It's literally only a D C G pattern of closed major chords. So simple that I could do it in my sleep... maybe.

So with my friend and I having successfully worked our way close to the front of the stage, I beckoned Billie Joe like the other 20,000 people in the arena to "PICK ME PICK ME!" to play when that song came up and they were searching for people to accompany them. He grabbed a drummer from the right edge of the T right away, then drifted over our way looking for a bass player.

Amazingly, Billie Joe Armstrong literally looked DIRECTLY AT ME, asked if I could play bass (obviously I responded with "YES!"), and then asked the same of someone next to me wearing a pink shirt and glasses. He spent a short while debating over whether to pick me or the guy next to me, but eventually picked Mr. Pink Shirt. Fuck.

Then he went back to the other side of the stage and got a 10 year-old kid up to play guitar. And as luck would have it, it was literally the kid's birthday that day. The first thing Billie Joe told the kid was something like "Hey kid, you're gonna get laid tonight cause you're playing with Green Day!" Hilarious.

So they went through the rest of the song, as usual, but then the bastard who got to play bass did what still continues to be the stupidest thing I have ever seen. HE SMASHED THE BASS GUITAR TO PIECES ON STAGE. Oh my god. The crowd was in shock for a moment until the dumbass got his ass beaten down by security and dragged off to deafening boos. Total idiot, and Billie Joe played him off as such without missing a beat. The drummer got to do the only stage dive of the night and the kid who played the guitar got to keep it, so long as he promised not to smash it of course...

Truth be told, had it been me up on stage playing with Green Day, I wouldn't have smashed the bass. No, I practically would've kissed Billie Joe and subsequently died a happy 19 year-old at the time.

But that's not what made me a rock photographer, though what did happened in the midst of a few huge shows for me. I already knew that it was a big deal I was getting to see 4 awesome national shows all within a few weeks of each other: Green Day, Franz Ferdinand, Foo Fighters/Weezer, & The Bravery. (None of which I had a camera at, go figure).

Boy, was I in for a (now-not-so-)little surprise though. One that set me on the path which has spiraled out of control to the point where there's no going back, no other choice, nothing I would rather do but live a life deeply connected to rock and/or roll through my photography and my passion for music. Keep on reading for the story of my birth... in the Twin Cities music scene.

Prologue: The unexpected preparations for 4 years of unimaginable experiences

Big words, but I speak of something of great importance for me, so it's justified.

As I sit here listening to Abbey Road reflecting on what the last four years of my life has brought me in photographing the Twin Cities music scene and beyond, I can't help but think about the things which inadvertently set me up for this wondrously insane life I've chosen. Then again, sometimes I'm almost certain that it chose me.

Let's lay down some basic groundwork on my past. I was born October 24th, 1985 (Sidebar: Guess what? My golden birthday is this year! Big plans in store, stay tuned.) and raised in a small town in southern Minnesota, Albert Lea. My parents first owned a bar called The Long Branch Saloon in Manchester, a tiny town of less than 70 a few miles out of town. I'm told that as an infant I would crawl about on the pool tables, and as a toddler I would imitate select bar patrons by hitting and cursing at the pinball machine. I call BS on that, mainly because I don't remember it. (Well duh.)

A few years later, my parents sold The Long Branch, bought an old bank building about a block away from the bar, and turned it into a bar/restaurant, the Main Street Bar & Grill. My only sibling, sister Melissa, was born around that time in 1989.

About 6-7 years go by and my parents decide to trade-up, selling the Main Street Bar & Grill in Manchester and purchasing a larger old restaurant in a slightly-larger town (about 650) called Alden, about 10 miles west of Albert Lea on I-90.

They still own & operate the Main Street Grill in Alden, though not without a strong desire to sell and finally get out of the restaurant business for good. It's not like they've just phoned it in though. You'll always find some of the best service and food at a fair price anywhere around down there. Plus I've got a few older prints of my concert photos hanging up on the wall there too.

Long story short: I was raised in the hospitality industry by parents who have toiled away in it pretty much all their lives. However, they've done it without having to work for "The Man", in so much as they own the place themselves. I think that's pretty awesome, and their kindness, generosity, and all-around rapport with the customers instilled a great sense of social openness in me as well.

However, I'm also the awkward type. I say weird, funny, amusing, random, obvious, or just plain dorky stuff at times. Other times, I say other things. Sometimes I'm witty with reflective/observational humor, and I also love puns. I also have a mind that spends a good deal of time in the gutter. I attribute most of that last bit to my dad's sense of humor, which I mostly share.

It's not like it's anything that out of the ordinary, but I think it's because I was actually a really smart kid way back when. Like top 2 or 3 in the class, and a total whiz at stuff like math, history, and vocabulary. (All the big words you find should make that last one obvious.) It put me in a weird position, because I wanted to be "normal" but didn't really feel like it in more ways than one. So to say the least, I never really fit in with any groups growing up.

I remember very little from elementary school, except for the fact that in 1st grade, I got 3rd place in the class spelling bee. I misspelled "better" as "beter". My first crush in 5th grade, Karen Leonard (who eventually got a 34 on the ACT and I always liked because she was one of the very few people I knew was smarter than me), got 2nd place and misspelled "empty". The kid who got 1st place? His name's Erik, and I think he wound up a huge stoner or something random like that. Funny how that works out, haha.

One thing that shaped a lot of my childhood outside of school was baseball, a sport which my dad loves and introduced me to at a young age. I actually wound up as the only kid (out of many dozens of other kids) my age in my town who played baseball every year from teeball at 6 to high school/summer town baseball at 18, so I guess I was the only one who stayed dedicated to it for good.

Never was a power hitter or anything flashy like that, just a scrappy kid with a lot of competition and drive in me. Baseball was something I knew I was average at but felt I had the ability to be more than just that if I kept working hard and hustling.

Unfortunately, not fitting in at school also translated to the baseball diamond, as I found myself regularly on the short end of the stick when it comes to the adolescent boy's need to prove their superiority while cutting down their peers. But that's just a fancy way of saying I wasn't popular.

Still never really figured out why I was the outcast growing up, but between being an outsider-looking-in at school and on the field, I eventually grew a pretty thick skin. Sure I was pretty thin-skinned at times, but these days I laugh off just about anything that you can throw at me in terms of ridiculous ridicule.

I suppose that also explains my knack for self-depreciating humor, which I always tinge with a strong dose of sarcasm (yet another family trait). Better for me to laugh at your ridicule than to let it bother me. It still sucked a lot though, being basically rejected by my peers as nerdy, unimportant, or anything else stupid they could make up in their heads.

Rejection still affects me like no other though. I suppose that's what's kept me a very timid person when it comes to the ladies. I'll befriend practically everybody (that's what happens when you're raised by parents in hospitality) but the overly gentlemanly chivalric code I live by keeps my hormones almost always in the off position when I'm out and about. Better not to be shot down 100 times by girls than succeed once is a weird way of thinking about it, but it's pretty much the story of my life, minus one.

I eventually grew weary of the mostly mean or less-than-caring adolescents in Albert Lea and open-enrolled at Alden-Conger High School in 8th grade. I'm not sure whether or not that was necessary, cause all I did was drop myself in a new environment that was already tight-knit with cliques with kids who had known each other since kindergarten at this K-12 school.

It was convenient having my parents' restaurant a block away from school for lunch, but that was about the only benefit of going to school in Alden. Ironically, the girls in Albert Lea turned out way hotter and the school I landed at was also full of a variety of outcasts such as myself. At the time I was there, Alden-Conger High School had the highest percentage of open-enrolled (out-of-district) students in the state, as something like 40% of the students were from other tiny towns nearby that they too were probably sick of.

It took a mountain of courage for me to even talk to girls back then, but most of the time it was me being a teenage dumbass and trying to be funny but too smart or them just shooting me down. I think I wore a lot of black classic rock T-shirts junior year, which I'm sure didn't make me look very attractive anyway.

[Just finished Abbey Road, now putting on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits. Music inspires me to keep going, obviously.]

Either way, I wound up as little more than a social nomad in high school, bouncing around between varying circles that all overlapped but still didn't find me interesting enough to include for more than just a moment here or there. I remember a moment senior year where I came back from lunch feeling sick and puked in my hand in the hallway. My sense of humor made me laugh and say "cool" (I watched a lot of Beavis & Butthead and own 120+ episodes on DVD, there's you're clue), but a girl freaked out on me and I found myself disappointed that she thought this random unfortunate happening couldn't just be a minor but amusing mishap not worth more than a minute's worry; cleaning it up.

[Currently running back through this entry and making changes & edits as "Positively 4th Street" plays on my iTunes right as I hit this spot. I love perfect timing.]

I suppose that ties in with my self-depreciating nature, in that I can brush stuff off like nothing. Sure comes in handy sometimes anyway. And though I'm sure I've exaggerated a lot about my experiences growing up, it's still basically true.

Anywho, after finally escaping the confused confines of high school, I moved on up to the north side (i.e., the Twin Cities) for college at the University of Minnesota. And out of my graduating class of 45 (a huge one for that school), I was the only one going to the U. Thus, I would be stepping into a brand-new situation without knowing a single soul.

One might think that with my past this was a recipe for disaster, but it turned out to be quite the contrary. Why? Because this time I wasn't the only one. I believe that the greatest advantage college offers teenagers is that everyone has to start over fresh, with no prior reputation and no past to distort your image in the eyes of a student body who is going through all the same crap you are too.

My good side (the one inspired by the hospitality industry) finally got to shine through in full at college, as I found myself making friends pretty much wherever I went. Freshman year was an enlightening experience in that I finally found like-minded people who were also open-minded and willing to make new friends too. Instead of a social outcast, I was now a social butterfly, bouncing around between varying groups of new acquaintances as needed while also establishing a few preliminary connections that eventually came to fruition in my later days in the music scene.

It really, really, REALLY hurt me on the inside to leave and return home that first summer after freshman year, but before then I was faced with what turned out to be literally one of the most life-changing decisions I've ever made. One that inadvertently made me who I am today. More on that... in my next blog entry.

Ooh, cliffhanger. I'm such a bastard. Luckily it won't be that long before the next post though cause I wanna post it today, the day of the 4th year of an important anniversary for me.

Finding relevance is a matter of timing.

My life is ridiculously cool right now. I get to shoot bands and shows and parties and all sorts of other crazy stuff while being surrounded by friends and music and pretty girls and fun. I maintain a sort of uncorruptability to my personal choices (it is insane how many people out there have wanted to get/see me drunk but I still stand by my personal choice not to touch the stuff) and I pretty much always try to be a kind, caring, sharing person. To be happy and to make other people happy with what I do is literally the only thing I want in life, and I'm insanely lucky in that I've found out what makes that goal a reality.

It's a sort of wonderful rut I've dug myself into, but a rut can wear itself down to nothing if it is overrun. Do I expect myself to walk away from a life so deeply ingrained in the Twin Cities music scene? I think not. It's still getting exponentially more interesting as time goes on, and good thing too.

But I want to take it to the next level. I want to rid myself of the chains that keep me from being "on top". Not for fame, or money, or anything like that. Just so I can say someday that I did exactly what I wanted to do with my life. What that is could completely change over time, though probably only in that it gets bigger, grander, more ambitious.

Every day I think about music, and bands, and cool people, and how I find myself in the middle of a perfect storm that should be a far bigger deal than it is. Personal biases aside, I think I know what the hell I'm talking about when I say that the music I find myself following most often is the best in town, bar none. Eat your heart out Twin Cities folkies, because rock and/or roll can never die.

I don't question my ability to do what I do because I'm confident enough to say I do it better and with more passion than anyone else here right now. It has nothing to do with quality or quantity; it has everything to do with the fact that I probably would cease to exist otherwise. I exist because everything that has ever happened in the past has created a present that must continue towards the future.

I remember having my mind completely blown the fuck out by the movie Almost Famous in about January 2008 when I saw it for the first time. It was almost too relevant, too eerily similar to the life I was living and was expecting in the near future. I just watched it for the second time earlier, and while it was still pretty freaky, it didn't have that same sort of total freakout first-time effect. But I picked up on new things, new understandings of my life and the people that surround me.

I ramble on and on and on and on with no real direction, delete sentences that don't make sense, rearrange paragraphs to try to create something that seems logical, try to keep this entry to a digestible size. You probably won't read all of this, and if you do, you probably won't get all of it anyway. But that's fine, because someone once said something along the lines of "Only one person needs to get something for it to make sense." I think he blew his fucking brains out from getting too famous though...

So much of the pressure in life is self-induced. I'm in a position where I could almost take over the world if I knew what the hell I was doing. Aren't they supposed to teach you life skills in school? If they did I sure didn't pay attention, and if they didn't then how the hell did everyone else figure it out? I'm so scatter-brained at times, it keeps my wheels spinning at 100 mph while never reaching the finish line.

I question the means to making the life I want a reality.

Do I really want to have to follow the same path as everyone else?

I feel like my mind is both my greatest asset and my biggest downfall.

It's bizarre how I feel like I'm always getting closer to one of my life's current goals yet it always stays a few feet out of reach, both literally and figuratively.

Does being a social nomad make me incredibly adaptable or incredibly outcast?

There's only so much that can be done with bands in one pair of cities, though I will probably never leave here permanently.

I don't want The American Dream, nor do I really know what it is or if it exists. I want my dream. If I have to be completely stubborn about one thing it's that I will not fail at succeeding. But does not failing also equal success? And who's to say that success even equals the happiness which I have already found?

It's all relative to what you think of you, me, we, us, them, everything, and everyone. Life is literally a relative experience. You are literally the center of the universe... but only to yourself. Your brain is the star that all planets orbit about. You will find personal relevance in literally anything if the timing is right.

Certain songs I've been enjoying for most (or maybe just a few months) of my life are now striking me in ways I could have never imagined because they're hitting me at a time where they're relevant. Lyrics are the primary form obviously, but when was the last time a melody or a rhythm pattern actually hit you in the gut and made you think, "Has someone been retroactively reading my mind?"

I'm William Miller. I'm not William Miller.

I am the everyman. I want nothing more than to be myself.

Is it possible to be two completely opposite things at the same time? I think so. Perhaps even more than you think.

This stream of consciousness brain dumping is brought to you by Mike Minehart at his most electrified hour, approximately 2-3 AM.

I have no ability to write without feeling incredibly awkward about it, even if I care and/or know what I'm talking about. Who's to say that what I say even matters?

I find that me writing vaguely makes things more personal and easy to understand because relevance is easier to derive for anyone. Not that I can't go into some juicy details, it's just that I spew so much specific stuff from my mind elsewhere that this random late-night rambling could not be satisfied with placing itself in one definitive category.

I think I was telling a story earlier but I completely derailed myself. I don't want to go back and change any of it because it's so raw and organic and I like having my grammar keep going on and on and on and on with run on sentences because it amuses me for reasons I don't know why.

Selective perfectionism is pretty much where it's at when it comes to something you're really nitpicky about but don't have the time to do the whole way through.

My desktop is ridiculously overloaded with photo folders.

If money were not such a powerful religion I would already have achieved my penultimate goal in life.

I like the fact that I lost 25 lbs. and got a fairly cool new look, but I don't like waiting for my day to arrive when I'm more than good enough for it to have been years in the past. Maybe that's a good thing though. Or maybe you don't know what the heck I'm talking about again. That's good though. I don't like advertising certain facts about myself unless it would seem to be beneficial in changing things for the better.

My life is ridiculously cool right now. My mind is not cooperating. My body is right where I want it to be. Something else is not. What, I both do and do not know at the same time.

I want to keep going but this blog has just about run out of relevance for me. Maybe it'll be relative again later...

A little 4 AM wonderment on the 4th

The "Captain Obvious" in me has already told you what you might already know about memories. But let's try (but probably fail) to get away from constant generalizing for a moment. Also, let's trade shoes. You'll need mine for this next paragraph.

What happens when you decide to break away from your usual pattern of capturing shows on a weekend night and decide to go out to the middle of nowhere and party at a lake cabin on the 4th of July? Surely some long-living memories should come out of it. They just might not be the ones you were hoping or planning for.

That's not to say I had any expectations going into a trip up to a buddy's cabin on the 4th. It's just that even though my life has followed a steady upward trend, I still feel completely naïve at times. Perhaps it's a lingering effect of my less-fulfilling past, a sense of things I have not accomplished, or my hopeful obliviousness to the future.

Long story short, I went to a party at a cabin on Sugar Lake, about 70 miles out of the cities. Made a few new friends, had a good time, watched some fireworks while on a boat, felt out of place on occasion, but still enjoyed myself for the most part. Almost a pretty cookie-cutter experience on the surface, but it's what lies beneath that makes our memories (in fact, all of us as people) unique and interesting.

My over-thinking mind finally got a chance to just let loose around 2 AM though. By then, everyone had basically headed in for the night, while I remained ever-awake and restless. (I was up till 5 AM at another party the night before, hence the need to do something.)

With no one left to talk to, I walked out to the end of the dock and sat down on the bench, gazing across the water at the few specks of campfire light that still dotted the edge of the lake. A boat would occasionally rev in the distance, and one of the passer-by crafts proudly blasted the aforementioned "I'm on a Boat" song as it tore around the lake in the wee hours of July 5th.


(This is from the daytime, but it's a view of straight across the lake from the bench, which faces west.)

But for the most part, it was a calm, undisturbed moment for me to sit and ponder in. I looked to my left and saw the (almost) full moon shining in its glory, and remarked at how amazing it was to think that it could make the night seem bright, yet serene. To my slight-right was the northwest, and beyond the trees I saw the faint glow of what was probably St. Cloud far off in the distance. Above it was the Big Dipper, and when the water was completely calm you could actually see it reflected in the lake as well.

I was all alone at the lake, but strangely I knew that someone else was watching all of this with me too. I texted a friend who I was reminded of and I knew had to be experiencing the same thing I was at that moment of serenity.

I stared at the lake until I grew chilly, then grabbed a jacket and went back out to the bench. After some more gazing around the lake I decided to lay down and stare straight up at the stars, something I don't think I had really done in years.

A million thoughts continued to flow through my mind as the moon began to yellow and finally disappeared below the trees around 3:45 AM, leaving nothing but the stars to light the night momentarily. And for a moment, for the first time since I don't remember when, everything seemed to stop.

Alone, with nothing but the stars. This... was... peace. A fleeting feeling, but one that shouldn't have to happen but once in a great while.

I sat back up and pondered what to do next. There was no reason for me to go to sleep, but I didn't want to sit around for another 5 hours until people started waking up. So I decided to leave the lake at 4:30 AM and drive back to the cities, with no destination in mind.

Whenever I make an extended trip, I always pop in an album or two to accompany the journey. On a whim, I chose to start with the new album from The Alarmists, The Overhead Left. Instantly my mind was blown (what I like to call a "mindfuck", in that it fucks with your mind) by the immediate relevance of the opening lines on "Flutter and Fly".

A summer day, but you feel cold... cold
Another day that you grow old... old

And I forget, the things I'm told...
Well you know time will take it's toll...

So simple, yet a near-verbatim summary of a lot of what I was experiencing on that dock only minutes before. Once I reached the 694/494 loop via I-94 at about 5:15 AM, I chose to go down the less-traveled (for me) 494 and popped in Solid Gold's Bodies of Water. For some reason, it made perfect sense to listen to it at the crack of dawn, and I jumped off 494 to MN 55, cutting east towards downtown Minneapolis.

The morning mist was pretty cool on parts of I-94 & 494, but once I got into Golden Valley on MN 55 it really started to make me geek out at how amazing it was going down misty roads I had never been on, seeing things like the downtown skyline from a new perspective, and just being awake with literally no one else on the roads at this beautiful hour.

I meandered around downtown for a while, making a point of it to pass by The Music Box Theatre on 14th and Nicollet where exciting things may be happening soon (I had never knowingly seen it before), and eventually decided to cut over to the U of M campus. It was time for a new album when I got there, so I put the self-titled album from This World Fair.

Another mindfuck hit me with the This is not my destination / It's only where I'm used to standing line that opens the first track, "Can't Stop Falling". I went to the U for the better part of 5 years, and while it did help make me who I am today, it's definitely not something I foresee being really that important to my future. It's just that I still can't seem to get away from it either...

I decided to head towards St. Paul, and took University Avenue the whole way from campus all the way past I-35E. I was intrigued by all that I saw on the parts of University that I don't frequent east of the Midway area, plus the fact that it runs right behind the State Capitol is pretty sweet too. I continued east, deciding that it would be cool to check out different parts of roads that I knew but hadn't seen beyond certain points.

By this point, I was nearing the end of the album. The final track of TWF's self-titled album, "Count To Ten", includes a powerful repeating line during the outro:

This isn't what we wanted
We're back to where we started

This particular line gave me chills down my spine one time while driving back the day after the Cake/Ari Herstand show at Concordia College in Moorhead back in April 2007. But at about 6:30 AM on this trip, I found myself passing by the house of a close friend's place, which was where I had started my day on the 4th, literally right as the line kicked in. Total mindfuck once again.

I was amazed to actually find someone still awake at the place this early the day after the 4th of July, and hung out for a bit before leaving to drive back to Albert Lea. My wide-eyed curiosity then finally began to fade into sleep-deprivation, which is definitely not a good thing when you've still got over an hour left to go on a drive. Slammed a Dr. Pepper at a rest stop and finally made it back home around 9:30 AM, right in time to crash until about 5 PM. Though I had only been awake for about 21 hours, it felt like I had experienced twice that between all the driving around and time spent at the cabin.

Life is about making memories that last until better ones come along. And in this case, I expect this one to last for quite a while...

Life is about making memories that last until better ones come along.

I'm struck by this strange thought that I just had, and I feel inspired to poke around the inside of my head (via blog post) until something more tangible comes out.

For one, memories are fleeting. We find it harder and harder to remember things the further into the past they occur. The more unique, unexpected, or profound the memory is, the stronger we retain the ability to remember it. And while technology gives us the ability to add tangibility to our memories (I'm a photographer, guess what a lot of my memories are made of?), it's not like we can always treat these things as eternal.

In this regard, I am quite grateful. My life has followed a fairly consistent and steadily-increasing level of "happiness" for years, so much so that I have a difficult time remembering much of anything about high school and beforehand. That's how much more "fun" life has been for me these past few years.

I mean c'mon, how could you not have fun when your passion involves spending a lot of time with a diverse cast of characters in a realm of creative bliss? That's what photographing the music scene is like for me. Sure I don't make any money at it (at least not yet), but I'll be damned if it isn't what I want to do for a long, long time.

I've made so many incredible memories through shooting music and being at shows, but as time goes on I find that most of my older photos just don't carry the same weight they used to. There will always be a few photos that never die, but who's to say that I won't someday capture something that tops even the epic-ness of that or other photos I tout as amazing?

Perhaps that is what drives me to always be at shows, looking to outdo even my own best work. But this is the kind of mentality that has killed many a person (Michael Jackson comes to mind in a sense) when really all I want in life is to be happy and make other people happy with what I do.

If it were possible to truly separate the need for constant self-improvement from happiness, perhaps we'd all be living as Buddhist monks. But this is where the memory factor comes in. As time goes on, that which is "now" becomes then. "Then" becomes older, less tangible, further alienated from the life we live in the "new" now, even if our level of contentment remains. We inevitably either long for a better "now" or for it to be more like "then". (Is this where the liberal/conservative line separates?)

Truly, competition is the enemy of contentment. Time itself has become a competition of sorts. It's like we're asked to play a game... it's called "Fulfill all of your ever-changing dreams as fast as you can before you die." Has anyone ever won? Perhaps, but were we granted immorality we'd inevitably raise the bar into infinity over the course of eternity.

On the bright side, raising the bar is largely a sign of progress. And as our standards rise, that which falls by the wayside doesn't remain as ever-present in our memory. But we also find ourselves locked into a need to reach that next level, which only begins the cycle anew.

I'm going to abruptly cut off this blog entry and begin working on a relevant follow-up regarding the 4th of July. Why? Because if I keep going on this one you're never going to be able to read it all. Shame on me for writing novels I suppose, but those who truly know me know I always have a lot on my mind. I just want to make it easier for you (and I) to digest...

The 3-year anniversary of the most rock 'n' roll thing I have witnessed thus far

Ah, old memories and the lanes which they create. Let us take a walk (or rather, blog) down said memory lane. (I will be pulling out some especially old photography in this, so please bear with me...)

It happened on a Friday night all the way back in the summer of '06. Though it would be another 8 months before I finally purchased my first "real" SLR camera, I was still snap snap snapping away at shows with my comparably crappy little Olympus 8 megapixel point-and-shoot camera.

I found myself at The Varsity on June 9th, 2006 for The Alarmists debut EP release show for A Detail of Soldiers. I had only seen the band once before (at The Varsity about a month prior when they played with This World Fair at The TV Sound CD release show also at The Varsity) but I already knew I had found something special in them.

Supporting The Alarmists at their debut EP release was Low Lustre, a band that would soon move to New York, and White Light Riot, their BBFF's (best band friends forever). WLR had first caught my ear and my eye two months earlier when they played with TWF at some fashion show at Myth Nightclub, so they too were new on my list of bands worth checking out more often.

(Side note: That first encounter with WLR in April 2006 involved frontman Mike Schwandt telling me they sounded kinda like Fall Out Boy. Bullcrap. They're way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way wayyyyyyyyyyy better and sound nothing like them in my opinion, in that WLR is actually good.)

Getting back on track, I witnessed something so incredible at The Varsity that night that it may never be repeated the same way without someone intentionally doing it themselves. But I don't think anyone is really crazy enough to tempt fate in such a way that they also cheat death itself...

I'm speaking, of course, of what Mike Schwandt from White Light Riot did during about the 3rd song of their set. During the solo, the band rocked out all over the stage, with Mike swerving back and forth between guitarist Joe Christenson and bassist Dan Larsen on either side of him with drummer Mark Schwandt keeping it all together in-time in the background.

At one point, Mike did some kind of spinning swing with his guitar, thrusting it upwards as he was leaning forwards and inadvertently whacking himself in the forehead with the head of his guitar. But he didn't go down or even really miss a beat. I'm told that when he stumbled over towards Dan, Mike said something along the lines of "Am I alright?" before heading back towards to the mic at the end of the solo.



But when Mike turned around to finally face the crowd and get back on the mic though, I heard some in the crowd let out a collective "Gasp!" in utter shock of what they were seeing.


(Click image for bigger version)

Mike was gushing a huge stream of blood from right above his eye! Luckily for me, I was in the right place at the right time with the flash turned on, which resulted me in capturing that photo. The band finished the song and then briefly stopped their set as a few people from The Varsity came around the stage with towels and began tending to the self-wounded WLR frontman.

Nobody knew if WLR would be able to keep playing with how incredible the injury was to Mike. But in true rock 'n' roll fashion, the band carried on and finished their set with Mike continuing to bleed all over himself. Sure he'd towel off after songs, but the wound would quickly re-grow into another big stream of blood that would run down the side of his face. Joe Kuefler from The Alarmists even made a cameo on stage on tambourine, which was later reciprocated by Mark from WLR during the headlining set.



Mike actually had to go to the hospital and get stitches after WLR's set. He missed the headlining performance from The Alarmists (which proved to be even more incredible if that was even possible at this point) but not the afterparty, which was probably the stuff of legend as well. I wasn't there, but then again, I (and 3/4 of WLR) wasn't even 21 at the time. Amazing to think that that's how long ago it was now...

So yes, that is what happened 3 years ago on this very day. Mike's clumsiness and penchant for self-injury created one of the most insanely awesome moments I've witnessed thus far. And even though WLR is not on the bill for the latest CD release show by The Alarmists for The Overhead Left this Friday at The Varsity, you can bet your bottom dollar that the band will be there. Heck, you're already guaranteed to see at least one member of WLR anyway, cause Mark is also drumming for The Alarmists now as well.

But know this: On what is only a few days after the 3-year anniversary of that memorable moment in Minneapolis rock history, The Alarmists will bring it all full-circle for their second full-length release. Between the band bringing original keyboardist Joe Kuefler back into the mix and playing at my favorite venue, I'd say this show will inevitably be one of the biggest and best of the year for the local scene. So be there, and be ready to rock. You know I will be.



The Alarmists CD Release Show for The Overhead Left
Friday, June 12th at The Varsity Theater
With The 757's, The Championship, and Coach Said Not To
8 PM doors, $8 advance/$10 at the door, 21+

Coming eventually: The Mike Minehart: Rock Photographer US Tour

Preemptive summary for those who don't like reading a lot:

I want to put together a photography "tour" from MN to Los Angeles and back. My goal is to shoot shows, bands, and any other interested persons in many new locations en route to a brief stay in LA before returning home and shooting some more while on the way back.

I wouldn't mind discovering some sweet new music while on the road, and I think great out-of-town bands trading shows with awesome Minneapolis bands that I know would be a pretty nice thing to see more of. Plus you'd obviously be getting some great photos from one of the best concert photographers in the Twin Cities.

So if you live anywhere west of the Mississippi River or know any bands or persons who may be interested in hiring me for around the cost of gas, food, and a place for me to crash in your town, I'm down for it if it all links up into a tour!

----------

And now, story time for those of you who like to read:

I spent much of my Sunday during Memorial Day weekend at a grad party for Pony from The Melismatics. She had just finished up school for massage therapy, and there were plenty of her family and friends over at the relatively chill but enjoyable party.

In the evening, Charles and Christy from Ouija Radio arrived, and eventually Christy and I struck up a conversation about her time spent with The Von Bondies on their recent European tour. She joined the band a little over a year ago as a full-time member and they had just recently released their new album, so The Von Bondies have been out pushing hard with touring and such.

There were many highs and lows for The Von Bondies on the month-long European tour, one that left the band exhausted from a constant schedule of appearances and shows with little to no sleep. But one of the things that really struck me was how Christy approached her occasional free time after shows and during visits to cities in Europe.

Christy made a point of it to have the locals guide her to some of the best local shows around town, and then soaked in all of the atmosphere of the scene that she could. Basically, she discovered some great bands that may have otherwise never crossed paths with her or The Von Bondies.

It may not seem like that complicated of an idea, but making a point of it to get out and see bands is what got me to where I am today. In 3 1/2+ years of capturing the Minneapolis/St. Paul music scene, I have shot hundreds of bands and developed a portfolio the likes of which makes me probably one of the best concert photographers around town. And I've discovered a plethora of great Twin Cities bands and other people I'm proud to call friends of mine.

But that's just here in the Twin Cities. Though I constantly tout our local music scene and its wide array of awesome bands, Christy made me realize that there's probably hundreds of great local bands scattered throughout dozens of music scenes waiting to be discovered by people outside of their town.

I have seen my fair share of smaller out-of-town acts, but that's usually because they're playing here in the Twin Cities. What about the bands who are still floating under the radar and haven't gone more than 100 (or even 10) miles beyond their city limits yet? I'm almost wondering if those are actually the really good rock and roll acts too, because — for example — even though probably a majority of the bands I've seen from Chicago were pretty lame, all of them were touring acts. So there's clearly potential to find untapped, unknown bands in new places.

You might ask, "Why not just read some stuff online and learn about music that way?" Because that's not how I approach discovering new music. I'm a see-it-to-believe-it kind of guy, and more often than not I like to be completely oblivious to a band's sound and style before I see them for the first time so I can get a "pure" first exposure. If you have a bad night, tough luck, but you should know that the best bands can still make their off nights look and sound pretty damn good.

This is the photographer in me speaking, but I want overt emotion, excitement, and awesomeness in any band I see. Subtlety and a reserved attitude is fine in small doses, but if you're putting me to sleep by your third song you're probably not the right band for me to begin with. That's not to say that bands like that are bad, but if you know my top 16 favorite Twin Cities acts (in alphabetical order)...

Ari Herstand
Catchpenny
Charlz Newman
Lynhurst
MC/VL
ReadyGoes
Roster McCabe
Sick of Sarah
So It Goes
The Alarmists
The Debut
The Invincible Kids
The Melismatics
The Wannabe Hasbeens
This World Fair
White Light Riot

...you'll realize that they all know how to completely rock your face off when necessary. Awesome bands make for awesome photography, and when the music and lighting is good, I'll shoot at a break-neck pace all night.

Anyways, what I'm getting at here is, I want to see and shoot some new music. New faces in new places. I want a taste of the local music scenes elsewhere so that I can bring that knowledge back to Minneapolis and spread it around. I want to find bands that might be perfect to have trade shows with a band like The Debut or ReadyGoes, for example. And I want to capture some kickass photography in great out-of-town local venues that I've never even heard of.

Money's not my motivation with this, cause all I'd need to get from doing this is traveling money and a place to crash at to cover my costs. Rather, I want to create mutual benefits in that I'll gain exposure in your town and vice versa. After all, if great bands can tour, then why not a great photographer?

My route would ideally follow a logical path from MN to LA and back. Whether it involves hitting up the Pacific northwest, heading down into the southern states, or just cutting straight through the Plains and the Rockies, I'm fine with taking any reasonable path in or out. Heck, if I really want to make my dad jealous, the route to LA could involve a significant amount of time on good ol' Route 66 if that'd work out for it.

I have no time frame on this yet, as I'm still waiting to hear any offers obviously. But spread the word around: Mike Minehart wants to go on a photography tour. I've even made a poster for you to show to people. How convenient!



If that isn't one of the cheesiest things I've ever created, then I don't know what is. Then again, strange things do tend to happen at... 5 AM?! Wow, I guess I really lost track of time while working on that...

The Unveiling

Tonight (5/23) at England Swings at The Fineline. No hints, spoilers, or details whatsoever. You gotta see it to believe it.

What's a Borangutan?

Today I'm glad to announce to the world that I've joined a brand-new Twin Cities music blog called Borangutan. I'll be contributing photography to the site for a new weekly series called Seein' The Scene and might even throw a few other things up there from time to time. My first entry just went up a little bit ago, so check it out and be sure to keep reading about music on one of the best new websites in the Twin Cities!

Coming soon: The new and improved mikeminehart.com

These past few weeks, I've been digging through my archive of photography unrelated to live shows with the goal of creating a brand-new section for my website. Obviously everyone knows me for my concert photography, but when I think about it, the very essence of what I love doing is people photography.

It's always been that way for me ever since I first started shooting back in high school. The office had a digital camera to check out, and I found myself regularly bringing it to sporting events and whatnot. I liked capturing the atmosphere of life in high school, and funny/candid photo opportunities were plentiful. I didn't shoot as much right after high school, but when I finally discovered the Twin Cities music scene during my sophomore year of college, that reignited my love for people photography and subsequently propelled me to where I am today.

Though since 2007 I've averaged seeing over 200 shows per year, I've still found time to be creative and shoot things other than just music on occasion. And that's a side of me you're going to get to see soon when I eventually unveil a new "People" section (featuring band promos and other portraits) on www.mikeminehart.com.

Here's a little sample of what's to come with the new People section, for which I also have a new logo to accompany those photos with. These past two weekends I had shoots with my friends Lindsay and Kristin, and we definitely captured some pretty great photos. I'm not nearly as good yet at shooting portraits as I am at shooting live music, but with time and experience, who knows? I was a no-clue nobody when I first started shooting music, but I now feel that having that experience and being able to apply that style of shooting to portraits makes my work more than just your run-of-the-mill kind of photography.













P.S. - Yes, I am available for hire for shoots starting at $50. You can reach me via FaceSpace, E-mail, cellphone, face-to-face conversation, or even the Bat-signal if you work it right.

The newest Trifecta of rock in Minneapolis

As you may already know, I am a bit of a statistics geek. So after these first four months of 2009, I decided to look back over the list of shows I've seen so far this year again. I was intrigued to realize that there are three bands in particular that are leading the way in terms of the number of shows I've seen from them compared to everyone else.

So far this year, I've seen 9 shows by ReadyGoes, 8 by The Invincible Kids, and 7 by The Wannabe Hasbeens. (Plus after this weekend is finished I'll be able to tally on another 1 for WBHB and 2 for TIK.) Nobody else is above 4 (Joey Ryan & The Inks, Sick of Sarah, The Soviet Machines) and everyone else I've ever seen is at 3 or less so far in 2009.

The most intriguing thing I noticed is that there have literally been only two weeks, as in Sunday-to-Saturday, in which I did not see a show by any of those three bands so far this year. Observe:

Dec 28-Jan 3: TIK
Jan 4-10: TIK
Jan 11-17: RG
Jan 18-24:
Jan 25-31: RG+TIK
Feb 1-7: TIK+WBHB
Feb 8-14: RG (x2)
Feb 15-21: RG+TIK
Feb 22-28: WBHB
Mar 1-7: TIK
Mar 8-14:
Mar 15-21: WBHB (x2)
Mar 22-28: WBHB, RG
Mar 29-Apr 4: WBHB+TIK
Apr 5-11: TIK
Apr 12-18: RG, WBHB
Apr 19-25: RG
Apr 26-May 2: RG, WBHB+TIK, TIK

So not only are these three bands seeming to play the most often in town these days, they also seem to do it exactly when I'm able to make it to their shows. Even more convenient is when at least two of these bands share a bill with one another, which has happened 4 times (5 after this weekend).

This inter-band unity is the kind of stuff that made 2007-2008 one of the most amazing periods of musical renaissance in the Twin Cities music scene. Unfortunately, some of the bands that helped to make for that amazing time period rarely play in town (or just rarely play period) anymore. Everyone's still friends with everyone obviously, it's just that I don't get to see all of the same great bands as often as I used to.

But ReadyGoes, The Invincible Kids, and The Wannabe Hasbeens — both individually and collectively — offer another shining example of what happens when great music gets together. The bands are all friends with each other obviously, plus Mo plays in both ReadyGoes and The Wannabe Hasbeens anyway. When one of these bands has a show, I know it'll probably be great; but when two or more of them get together, there's serious potential for band crossover insanity as well.

So, just like another great Minneapolis Trifecta before them, (White Light Riot-The Alarmists-The Debut, which played a series of 4 amazing shows all together in 2007) RG-TIK-WBHB is one hell of a show that I would love to see happen more than once this year, or anytime soon. Let's make it happen dudes.

Perennially living under the radar? Perhaps.

But it doesn't have to be that way forever.

I've always felt like what I do doesn't reach the kind of audience that it probably could (or should). I still garner a fairly small number of per-day hits on my website (with occasional spikes like right when the recent Campus Glitter Ball photos went up), and have a Facebook group dedicated to my photography sized only in the lower 100's after 2 years of existence and 800+ photos uploaded to the group.

It's not like my photography goes completely unnoticed outside of my friends and bands I know though. In fact, I would say I get random people who I don't even know coming up to me at shows almost every few weeks. They tend to say something like they've seen my work and like it, and/or they've seen me out at tons of shows. I'm still amazed every time it happens, but I guess it's a good sign because that means that more people are finally starting to see and enjoy my photography.

Experience is a huge factor in what I do. About every six months or so, I'll look back on photos I shot about six months before. And every time I'm blown away by how much better my more recent work is. Whether it's a better camera, a better understanding of my camera, or just plain being better at shooting, I've been consistently improving my craft to the point that it probably should be garnering some more attention these days.

While hanging out at Transmission earlier for the So It Goes EP listening party/video release, a few friends of mine offered suggestions as to how I could go about getting my work out to a larger audience and possibly work towards actually make a living off of it as well. One suggested that I do another gallery show, which is something that I am all for and have always intended on doing again at some point. Though the Give the Gift of Rock benefit show at The Varsity back in December was a great success and raised money for a good cause (The Paul Green School of Rock's scholarship fund), I don't feel like I did as much as I could have for promoting myself as a photographer. Or maybe I did, it's just that I didn't really gain any momentum from it outside of becoming a strong believer in the School of Rock.

So for one, I want to do another gallery showing of my work, and not just as a one-day deal either. Whether it's a restaurant or some other fine establishment(s) around town, I would love to have my work on display where people can enjoy it besides just seeing it online.

Another friend also had the idea of me putting together a book, which is yet another thing I've really been meaning to do. The one thing that's held me back from really pursuing it (besides a lack of funding obviously) is the fact that, compared to national and more prominent local acts, very few people know about the bands I really love to shoot.

Matter of fact, if it wasn't for me shooting amazing-but-unknown-to-most bands like The Debut or Charlz Newman, there would literally be almost no good photos of them. Not because I'm the only good photographer who shoots them regularly, but because I am the only photographer who ever tends to be at their shows regularly. To me they're almost like the "Rodney Dangerfield" bands of the scene, in a sense.

Yet those are just two of the bands I love to shoot in this town. Right now, there are 15 local bands I would say I am completely loyal to, in that if they're playing a show nearby and I can make it, I will almost certainly be there. There are probably another dozen or so bands on top of that I also enjoy and try to see regularly, and I'm constantly discovering new bands through the ones I already like.

Though I've been musically branching out even more lately by seeing more national acts at The Varsity and elsewhere, it's just not my main objective to go out and shoot all the bands that everyone knows, or to try and only shoot the "hip" up-and-coming acts. I believe that when it comes to great photography, it doesn't really matter how prominent a band is or how big the room is that they're playing. What really matters is the material you get, and if your best work comes from bands that people don't really know about, then so be it. I'd much rather see a hundred awesome photos of a hundred unknown bands over a mediocre photo of a huge band any day of the week. And I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels that way either.

If I were to do a book on my photography, it would most likely focus on local bands and probably involve some in-depth interviews and insight from the bands, myself, and other people around town talking about what they've meant to me and the Twin Cities music scene. Or who knows what it might be about? I'm keeping all my options open at this point.

So, long story short:

-I take really good photos.
-I want more people to see them.
-I have ideas on ways to maybe do that, like a gallery showing or a book.
-But I want more than just my own ideas involved in this, because I am not a beacon for creativity.

So I ask you, people of the land of the Internets, what should I do, and who would like to help me out on this? All ideas, suggestions, connections, and offers to fund my pursuits are welcome.

Two years!

Today is the 2-year anniversary of my Facebook group, Mike Minehart: Rock Photographer. In that time I've uploaded over 800 photos to the group with a new photo (or two) going up almost every day.

In the past year the size of the group has doubled, and I thank everyone that has invited and joined over these past two years. But come next April 7th, let's see if we can double (or even triple) the size that it's at now. Invite your friends and spread the word that if you like to see some great music photography to join this group.

On top of that, I also have a website where you can check out full show galleries.

http://www.mikeminehart.com/

And like most everyone else these days, I have a few more social networking pages set up for updates on my photography and whatnot.

http://twitter.com/mikeminehart
http://mikeminehart.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/minehartbreaker

So encourage your friends to check out my work and also to join my Facebook group, because it's the only place on the Internet where you're guaranteed to see a new photo from me quite literally almost every day.

Updated band tree: An 8th derivative?! Plus the future...

Now that we're a quarter of the way through 2009, I went through and updated my "band tree" (What the hell is a band tree?) and realized that I now have a pair of 8th-derivative bands.



On top of that, I've already seen 51 (!) new or new-to-me bands so far this year through 58 (also worthy of an ! because that puts me on pace for a personal record-shattering 232) shows. I guess that would almost have to be the case when a lot of my older favorite acts that I got into in the "early days" of 2005-2006 are either playing less (TWF/WLR/The Alarmists) or are on tour more (Catchpenny/Roster McCabe/Ari Herstand).

The fact that I still go to as many (if not more) shows than I do in the past is great, but it does feel weird to think about how everything has evolved over time. Back in the day (which according to Dane Cook, by the way, was a Wednesday) I would only go to shows if a band I had already seen and was totally into was already on the bill. That's why when you look at the "originals" column in 2007 it looks so sparse.

Then again, back then there was little need to "branch out", because shows by my favorite bands were frequent and plentiful. Now, with many of those early bands taking a step back or a step away, I find myself following newer bands more often, reaching a little bit deeper into the scene to find shows when nothing obvious is happening, or even just taking a blind stab by seeing bands I have little or no connection to at my favorite venue (The Varsity, of course).

2009 has been a fun year so far, but now things get a little bit complicated. Why? Because I need to find a new job, as my old college job working at the U of M Law School is now complete. I'm really sad to leave the Law School (they were awesome to me and it was actually pretty cool), but now I need to find something post-college.

Something in graphic design and/or photography would be nice, though music photography is obviously my forté. My only worry is that, were I to go with the music photography route, would I have to move to New York or LA to be able to do it viably? I love the Twin Cities music scene and all my friends here, but my current knowledge and ability to "make it" as a self-employed person is limited at best. So I'd probably have to jump on with some publication, label, or whatever to be able to shoot bands and make a living. But is there anywhere in the Twin Cities that I could do that? At this point, I'm not entirely sure.

Money does not motivate me, but being able to make a living doing what I love (music photography) would certainly be nice. And if I can do it in the Twin Cities, that's freaking awesome. The last thing I want to do right now is start over in another town, but if someone from NY/LA were to come calling with an offer I couldn't refuse, you know I'd probably have to take it. There's no reason why I wouldn't want to have a job doing what I love if it keeps me from having to work at a job I want nothing to do with just to pay the bills.

In the end, I believe that the most important thing in life to is to be happy and make other people happy with what you do. And I've been lucky to realize, with a strong level of certainty, what exactly that is for me. Heck, I've already been doing it for the better part of 3 1/2 years. Now I just need to figure out how to pay the bills that way too...

Two nights after getting hit by a cab...

I'm feeling a bit more soreness in my shoulder and back on my left side where I landed. I think my ass is a bit better, which is good because I need it for sitting. And that is necessary for the oh-so grueling task of editing photos on a computer. Yesterday I was sitting on a pillow because the desk chair I use at my computer was a bit too hard, but now I don't think I need it.

But an hour ago I started feeling some new rib pain and now I'm seeing a bruise there too. Nothing was bothering me enough to warrant medication before, but now I think I need some ibuprofen. There doesn't appear to be any ibuprofen in my apartment right now though. Crap crappity crap crap crap. Getting hit by a car might seem badass, but feeling sore afterwards is a pretty lame side-effect if you ask me...

I haven't gotten to work out since it happened, which sucks because I had been making a point of it to work out almost every day since I started again back in February. I'm going to a clinic first thing tomorrow to get this checked out. I'll be pissed if I've broken a rib or anything, because I've never broken a bone nor had to have surgery in my life. If anything like that happens, there goes my lifelong streak of being both young and unbreakable. Bah.

On top of that, I was even sick last week. Though I'm pretty much recovered from whatever it was that was bothering me, my voice has been shot for like two days and it makes me sound like I'm back in puberty or something. I doubt it has anything to do with getting nailed by a cab, but with these injuries still bothering me who knows?

My hope is that I'll be back to 100% sooner rather than later. It's probably not as bad as I'm making it sound, but not being able to work out sucks, and I find that some kinds of bending or lifting with my left side is not a very good idea right now.

Sigh. I'm blogging and Twittering (two of the stupidest words I've ever heard, but whatever) about this mainly to establish a record of what my body has been feeling like since it happened for safety's sake should anything have to happen with a court case or whatever. But I'll be darned if I also couldn't use a little love every once in a while, so go ahead and pour it on. :p Send some love to my friend Cecilia as well, because she was walking a little behind me when it happened and also got dinged up a bit.

Well, I'm off to a 24-hour Cub to find some ibuprofen I guess. More on this story as it develops. Back to you, rest of the world.

So I got hit by a car.

Yet for some reason it made me feel like a total badass...

Let's recap. Last night I went to The Entry for a stellar lineup featuring The Melismatics, Sick of Sarah, Maudlin, and Boom Booms For Everyone. Great show, tons of pics, etc., etc. Got pretty much everything that I was expecting from the show basically.

During load-out (around 1:30 AM) afterwards, The Melismatics asked me to drive their van for safety's sake. Cecilia (tour manager) and I headed out of The Entry towards the garage and began crossing 1st Ave, as we had the walk signal.

About halfway across the street, out of nowhere I suddenly find myself hit on my back-right side and flying into the air. As I'm airborne, I see a headlight or something careening down the street. I spin and land mostly on my left side and wonder, "What the hell just happened?" A few people on the street rushed over to Cecilia and I and started asking if we were alright because we had just freaking been hit by a cab.

The adrenaline rush was insane. Remember the scene from Pulp Fiction where they resuscitate Uma Thurman's character by injecting adrenaline directly into her heart? It felt kinda like that, minus the screaming.


The police and EMTs were on the scene in a minute or less, which was nice. I was standing up but my leg was still shaking a bit from the shock, and I walked over to the curb to sit down and try to relax as they checked me for any injuries. Immediately my first thought was, "I should call my dad," which I did, but not before posting a message on Twitter that I had just been hit by a cab. (In retrospect, that was pretty nerdy, even if it is a good idea to keep a record that way...)

The cab driver was still on the scene, and police talked to him, Cecilia, the witnesses, and I as the adrenaline continued to pump through me as if I had just finished an hour-long workout. At that point the only thing I noticed was a little bit of soreness on the left side of my ass from landing on it and some minor scrapes on my left hand. Didn't hit my head or anything like that thankfully. Filed a report and went to hang with some friends after the show as originally intended, though I had a brand-new story to share with everyone obviously...

Today I find myself with a sore shoulder blade and ass, but with a sense that it could have been way worse and I'll probably be fine again in no time. I'll know for sure on that tomorrow anyway. And though it might just be my personality, again, for some reason getting hit by a car and walking away mostly unscathed makes me feel like a total badass.

My only regret is that nobody got it on tape apparently. There goes my shot at being the star of Jackass if they ever brought it back I guess...

Bracketastic.

Every year around the Ides of March, I find myself going mad. Not because I fear being assassinated in a conspiracy by Brutus and Cassius, but because of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Gotta love having a case of March Madness baby.

The first year I ever made picks for the event, I won my dad $200 in a pool he was in. It was a round-by-round format for picking, but still, I called some pretty important upsets and basically guided him to make most of the right picks that year.

I highly doubt that my bracket is going to do anything but completely implode this year, but I figure it's always worth a shot. Here's my full bracket via the ESPN challenge site:



Here's a quick rundown of a few of the more "interesting" picks...

Midwest Region

1st Round: (14) NDSU over (3) Kansas

Kansas is young and inexperienced; definitely prone to make mistakes. They went down to Baylor in the Big 12 tourney, which is pretty lame if you ask me. You can't really factor in last year's title run to this year's squad. Plus with Albert Lea (my hometown) native Ben Woodside scoring mad points for NDSU, anything is possible for this Cinderella candidate. I'd say the odds of an upset are really only about 20%, but that's good enough for me to at least take a shot at picking it.

(6) West Virginia in the Elite 8

If Kansas does go down to NDSU, West Virignia's 1-3-1 defense only needs to get past Michigan State in the Sweet 16. However, Tom Izzo is a great tournament coach and might be able to get around that 1-3-1. Then again, do I trust the "best" team from the overrated Big Ten when they couldn't even win their conference tourney? Then again, many other top teams went out early in their conference tourneys this year, so everything is kinda up in the air on seeding and such. Michigan State probably should've been put in Kansas's 3 seed spot anyway, and vice versa.

West Region

1st/2nd Round: (13) Miss St over (4) Washington and (5) Purdue

I have no East or West coast bias in me (Midwest represent!), but I can't really trust that the Pac 10 was that special this year. Neither was the SEC (probably even worse), but Mississippi State is a hot team that won their tourney. Purdue won the conference tourney in a grossly-overrated conference (my Big Ten) and isn't really that interesting anyway. Besides, I've gotta go with the hot team in this case, and a hot 13-seed taking down a 4 and a 5 doesn't seem like that big of a stretch anyway.

1st/2nd Round: (11) Utah St over (6) Marquette and (3) Missouri

I feel like Utah St could've been a 7 or 8 seed considering their record and RPI. Sure the WAC might've been down a bit, but winning 30 games in any conference is a huge confidence boost for a team. However, taking down a team from the best conference (Big East) and the Big 12 tourney champion (albeit they only had to beat Baylor in the final) is a pretty tall order. Just keeping my fingers crossed to say the least.

East Region

Nothing too fancy here, mainly just chalk and a easy-to-pick upset of (6) UCLA by (11) VCU. My (10) Minnesota Golden Gophers better damn well win at least one game by beating (7) Texas anyway...

South Region

1st Round: (12) Western Kentucky over (5) Illinois

The ever-popular 12-5 upset only appears once in my bracket. Western Kentucky took down top tournament seed Louisville by 14, and that's all I need to pick them over another team from the over-represented Big Ten.

(4) Gonzaga in the Final Four

I've known about this team ever since they beat my Gophers and made the Elite 8 as a Cinderella back in 1999. Since then, we stole (and fired) their coach and they got really, really good. Though they've been somewhat underachieving in the tournament with nothing beyond a Sweet 16 appearance since then, I believe this is their year to finally break through to the Final Four. If UNC's Ty Lawson and his toe aren't 100% (which is very likely at this point) I think the Zags could take them down, and (3) Syracuse will probably be out of gas (6 overtimes?!) by the Elite 8 after squeaking by (2) Oklahoma.

(11) Temple over (6) Arizona St

I picked three 11-6 upsets, though this one was basically on a whim. Temple won the A-10 tourney, and that's good enough for me.

Final Four

(2) Memphis over (1) Louisville

Memphis takes down their in-state rivals in an epic battle.

(1) Pittsburgh over (4) Gonzaga

As much as I love the Zags and their style, their run ends here.

National Championship

(2) Memphis 76, (1) Pittsburgh 69

Memphis returns to the title game and wins it this time, ending the year with a 31-game winning streak dating back to before Christmas.

New RSS feed for photo galleries

I've just created an RSS feed for my photos. So if you'd like to automatically receive updates whenever I add a new gallery to my website, simply add http://www.mikeminehart.com/photofeed.xml to whatever you use to get RSS updates.

You can also find the feed along the right-hand side of this blog. Also, if you use Safari, you'll see an "RSS" box in your URL bar that you can click on whenever you're on my website. I would assume it's about the same on other browsers as well, though I'm still trying to work out the kinks on it with those anyway.

Too many new photos...

I've been on an absolute photo-editing bender as of late. Check out these numerous brand-new galleries from this February:


2-22-09 Mike Droho and The Compass Rose at High Noon Saloon in Madison, WI with Green River Ordinance and Danielle Brittany


2-14-09 MC/VL at Turf Club


2-14-09 The Blend and 2 Tone Runts at Triple Rock Social Club


2-12-09 Lovedrug at The Varsity with ReadyGoes and The Battle Royale


2-10-09 Pantown and Postina at The Fineline


2-6-09 The Notties at Scott Herold's


2-5-09 The Invincible Kids, The Wannabe Hasbeens, Vienna, and Mo at 7th Street Entry

That's not all either. Here are some new "old" photos from 2008 that I had yet to post on my website or anywhere for that matter:


11-4-08 The Von Bondies at Turf Club with The Shys and First Communion Afterparty


7-5-08 Summerfest in Milwaukee, WI with Roster McCabe, White Light Riot, The Alarmists, Ari Herstand, and more


6-7-08 Mercurial Rage CD Release at The Fineline with The Alarmists, White Light Riot, and The Mood Swings

Enjoy!

The 2000s: Rise of Indie Rock and the New New Wave

This is something I've been pondering for quite some time, and now that it's 2009 I feel like I can really talk about what rock music has meant for me in this decade.

The local Twin Cities music scene is undoubtedly one of the best (if not the best) place to find good rock and roll these days. But before I ever got started with the local scene halfway through this decade, I was listening to national acts like Green Day, Metallica, Rage Against The Machine, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and The Offspring. Those five bands defined the early part of the 2000s for me, though mostly with music that came out in the 80's and 90's that I hadn't actually gotten into until then.

It wasn't until my senior year of high school in 2004 that I began to really branch out and discover new music that originated in the 2000s. The first "new" band I really got into was The Strokes. My high school art teacher would play all sorts of random music during class, and about the only CD I found myself really into was Room on Fire by The Strokes, which had just come out about a year ago at the time.

I was instantly grabbed by the catchy twin guitar work, drum hooks, and lo-fi garage rock sound that harkened back to The Rolling Stones and other great 60's rock that I was raised on by my dad. I went out and bought both of the first two albums from The Strokes and proceeded to listen to them incessantly, with glee.

Songs like Reptilia and The Modern Age proved to be neck-snappingly good, in that I would rock out in such a fashion that if I listened to both albums back-to-back while driving I might have a sore neck afterwards from quickly snap-nodding my head so much. You'll get it if you listen to Is This It? (the whole album), believe me.

The Strokes are clearly one of the primary reasons of why Indie Rock came to be popular in the 2000s, as their infectiously-catchy brand of rock music has permeated to more than a few other bands that I know and love, whether national or just local. They may not have been the first for you, but I'll be damned if they aren't the best example of what pure Indie Rock has meant to me.

After graduating high school, I spent some quality time that summer of 2004 playing baseball, as was the case for pretty much my entire youth. But I was also watching MTV2 for Beavis & Butthead, Jackass, and the occasional rock music video countdown show that they used to do on MTV2, which they also used to do on MTV way back when...

One video that was getting pretty heavy rotation at the time was Mr. Brightside by The Killers. I didn't really pay too much attention to it at first, as I probably just sorted muted it and watched a little bit as I was doing something else on the computer. But it was on just so much at the time, so I was eventually intrigued enough to listen as well.

The song was insane, and the melody's instantaneous hook got me from the very beginning every time. To this day I will tell you that I believe that Mr. Brightside is arguably one of the greatest songs of this millennium (so far), because almost every second of it blows my mind. Sure Brandon Flowers has a tendency to write some of the stupidest lyrics these days (Human is the obvious example), but Mr. Brightside was a tour-de-force the likes of which almost no artist in the 2000s has come close to matching in my mind.

I finally bought Hot Fuss by The Killers in April of 2005 but only listened to it moderately. While Mr. Brightside, All These Things I've Done, and Jenny Was a Friend of Mine remain heavily-played amazing songs, there isn't too much else on the album I'm still into these days. And The Killers still lack enough focus (or songwriting) to really make a "complete" album in my opinion.

But The Killers aren't really Indie Rock, and they weren't really like anything else I was listening to at the time in 2005. It was synth-heavy pseudo-dance rock. It wasn't until I discovered another similar-but-unique band for me to be able to start formulating a "new" genre for this kind of music in my mind.

I spent the summer of 2005 at home doing mostly the same things again, as in baseball and MTV2. With no cable at college I wasn't able to follow much of anything new music-wise, and I had still yet to discover the local Twin Cities music scene. But there was one band in particular that was getting their videos played quite frequently on MTV2 that I found myself getting instantly fascinated by whenever one came on.

That band was The Bravery, the second quintessential quintet out of New York. (The Strokes are the first one obviously.) Their videos for An Honest Mistake and Fearless repeatedly blew my mind that summer, so much so that I finally borrowed their debut self-titled album from my sister. After one listen I was more-than-convinced that I needed to own it, so I bought The Bravery and proceeded to give it the Is This It?/Room on Fire treatment by playing it incessantly, with glee.

This was almost everything that The Killers weren't to me, in that every song was great yet still maintained an 80's rock and dance-like feel to them. It's funny that Brandon Flowers (of The Killers) had to go and pick a fight with the band, accusing them of coattail-riding with their success while being on the same label and all, because The Killers just can't match The Bravery in my opinion.

The Bravery's self-titled debut still gets heavy rotation on my iTunes, and it is up there with Stadium Arcadium by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and American Idiot by Green Day as my absolute favorite albums of this decade. There's at least one more album that I include in that group, but I'm saving that particular band for later...

With The Bravery firmly secured as one of my true-favorite bands and The Killers as another enjoyable band I was also into, I decided to call this particular genre the New New Wave. This synth-rock music called up such obvious 80's New Wave influences as Duran Duran, but the 80's New Wave band I was most into growing up was The Cars. And I heard a lot of The Cars in these two bands, albeit with a new and different kind of spin to it with the strong dance infusion.

So with Indie Rock (The Strokes, The Hives, The White Stripes) growing out of 60's rock and garage and the New New Wave (The Bravery and The Killers) rising from 80's rock and New Wave, I've covered all of the great bands I love in those two genres, right? Well, almost...

There is one band, by far one of my true favorites, that actually may have crossed over. Their debut album was catchy guitar-driven Indie Rock, yet their latest release is more synth-heavy New New Wave. Who could this be do you ask? Well, as they might say, four guys from Glasgow who started a band together. Franz Ferdinand.

My first real exposure to Franz Ferdinand was from playing Madden 2005, the last Madden game I ever bought. (When you're getting basically the same thing year-in and year-out it's not really worth buying anymore.) Franz Ferdinand's epic single Take Me Out was on the soundtrack and proved to be one of the best songs by far. I couldn't help but rock out to it every time it came on.

A few months later I finally saw the video for This Fire, yet another hugely catchy guitar-driven winner for me. I had to buy their self-titled debut album and I did, and it may very well be the greatest album of the 2000s for me.

Quite literally every single song on Franz Ferdinand's self-titled debut is mind-blowing to me. Yet I was actually scared the very first time I listened to it when Jacqueline's acoustic opening made me wonder what this band was up to for about the first 45 seconds. But then the song kicked it and I really got into it, dance-rocking my way through Tell Her Tonight, Take Me Out, and The Dark Of The Matinée.

And then there was Auf Achse. A hauntingly dark intro brought the mood down yet still stayed really catchy. And then the lyrics, oh the lyrics... they were literally like a knife through the heart for me at the time. And I'm not even an emo!

You see her, you can't touch her
You hear her, you can't hold her
You want her, you can't have her
You want to, but she won't let you
You see her, you can't touch her
You hear her, you can't hold her
You want her, you can't have her
You want to, but she won't let you

I found myself frozen after that song, amazed at how powerful and true it was for me on so many levels. But Cheating On You brought the mood back up to dance-alicoius right in time for This Fire and Darts of Pleasure. But then it got a little scary again...

Michael. What am I supposed to think about a song with my name (and nothing else) attached to it? Sure it's probably one of the most common names in the world, but it's still mine. The homo-erotic lyrics weirded me out at first but I was too caught up in how catchy the song was to even care.

This album literally didn't miss a beat for me on its very first play-through, as Come On Home and 40' closed it all out in style. The fact that I can still recall the first time I ever heard the album is a testament to how awesome it was for me back then, and it still is to this day. Matter of fact, Franz Ferdinand is the only album in my iTunes with literally every track over 100 plays, and nobody else is even close to achieving that yet.

So yes, Franz Ferdinand. Amazingly mind-blowing Indie Rock band, right? Well, that would be only half-right now. Their new album, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand actually draws more heavily on the kind of synth sound that I associate with the New New Wave. Franz Ferdinand (2004) was a guitar-driven album, Tonight (2009) is a synth-driven album. But it still totally kicks ass! Go listen to the full near-8-minute version of Lucid Dreams and tell me what your mind went through when you get back.

But I don't think that Franz Ferdinand has flip-flopped Kerry-style from Indie Rock to New New Wave. Actually, I think that they're pushing themselves to be the middle ground connecting the two genres. The Beatles come to mind on this matter. Who else could go from I Wanna Hold Your Hand to Strawberry Fields Forever in five years or less? Franz Ferdinand is doing something similar in my opinion, albeit on not quite as drastic of a level.

In the end, when I look back on the music of this decade and think of the great new bands which really broke out in the 2000s, I can divide them into two distinct (but overlapping) genres: Indie Rock, led by The Strokes, and the New New Wave, led by The Bravery. Two bands who I hope and pray continue to make music for a long time, and also to influence future bands as well. We're really living in a 60's/80's era of sonic revival, which is great in that it's given us such amazing music with strong influences. I look forward to the 2010s though, cause I can't wait to hear the next Led Zeppelin...