“You can imagine the scene in bars all over the United States when that one went in,” said a TV commentator from Brazil Monday evening, moments after Clint Dempsey’s goal put the United States up 1-0 over Ghana in both countries’ opening World Cup game. At Morrissey’s Irish Pub in Minneapolis, the scene was one of relief and jubilation, as a tensely packed house erupted at Dempsey’s historically fast shot, then gutted out the rest of the highs and lows with all eyes riveted on TV sets above the bar and booths.

Similar scenes took place all over the Twin Cities Monday and Tuesday, as World Cup fans gathered at their favorite futbol-friendly bars, coffee shops, restaurants, and community centers to eat, drink, and be crazy for soccer. Places like the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis, where I ran into this father-son team from Mexico City, taking in the Brazil-Mexico game Tuesday.

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

I didn’t get their names, but their love of Mexico, their team, family and soccer was a beautiful thing to hear softly spoken about, and the father was obviously thrilled to be introducing his son to the World Cup.

“I like watching the World Cup for the spirit, the passion,” one British fan told me Monday as we stood on the rooftop of busy-but-not-bad Brit’s Pub in downtown Minneapolis, a light rain falling on the couple hundred multi-colored Minnesotans watching the big game on the big outdoor screen. He’s not alone:

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Atusa Fathali, Burnsville, and Joseph Sewell, Minneapolis, at Brit’s Pub. “My parents are immigrants from Tehran, and I go there for three months every year,” said Fathali. “In Iran, soccer is on a different level and everyone plays since they were kids, and it brings everyone together. It’s not like worshipping [American] football here. We have a deeper meaning for it.”

“I’m from Costa Rica, and we just beat Uruguay on Sunday and that was really exciting,” said Sewell. “I don’t even know if there’s a word meaning, or a translation, for how good it feels when your team scores a goal in the World Cup.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Sunday Bassey, Minneapolis, at the Nomad World Pub.“I’m from Nigeria, and I’m going for Nigeria. The U.S. folks have the luxury of having baseball season, football season, basketball season. Where I’m from, it’s soccer season all year and I always say to these folks that you can be a Vikings fan or a Giants fan, but you don’t grasp the concept of your whole country being silent and getting hopeful when your national team plays. That in itself is mind-blowing. Sometimes at home you watch games at 4 a.m., and when we win, we bust out into the streets like it’s 9 a.m. Right in the middle of the night and everybody’s partying and jumping around. It’s crazy. I miss it, I do.” 

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Saeed Ghasemi, St. Paul, at the Sweetwater Grille & Bar. “I’m from Tehran, Iran, and I’ve been here for 32 years. I’ve owned the bar and restaurant since 2005. I don’t support Iran because of the government; I go for Germany since 1971 because my father traveled a lot to Germany and a couple times I went with him and just liked Germany. If Iran loses, I don’t care. If Germany loses, I get depressed.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Halgan Bedem, Minneapolis, at Bashaal Café. “We have different guys from Africa and different guys from other countries come and watch with us. It’s a really good mood when you’re watching the team that you like play, so it really has a lot of feelings, a lot of emotions. People are hyped up, just by watching the games. Right now we’ve got a lot of supporters for both Ghana and the United States, including me. I didn’t want to see them come face to face because I like them both. I’m from Somalia, and growing up Nigeria was my favorite team, but since then I changed because Nigeria is not that strong. I was watching them play, and they have no offense and no defense.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Sadinber Nijjar, Prab Nijjar, Kavi Nijjar, Annette Blösch. Minneapolis, at Brit’s Pub.“We’re from Punjab, India. We’re rooting for Germany. My wife and his mom is from Germany, and India is not in the World Cup, so, easy choice. Actually, my cousin texted me today and said that India [soccer] is ranked 156th in the world. But cricket, we are the world champions, and we’re very good in lawn tennis and hockey. Growing up in India, where soccer is not really a big game, we always watched the World Cup, and I think it is the most international sport and we always found a team to root for, even though we weren’t in it. And the same thing you can see here: people from everywhere, and there’s no other sport like that.” 

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Armando Callagran and Carlos Guzman, Minneapolis, at Taqueria Los Ocampo.“We work at Home Depot, we took our lunch to watch,” said Callagran. “Brazil is the best. Brazil won in ’94 and 2002 and [will] win 2014! Viva Brazil!”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Ashley Radcliff, Colin McGee, Ambrose Atu-Tetuh, Dan Foss, Minneapolis, at Brit’s Pub.“I’m from Cameroon, but Cameroon sucks,” said Atu-Tetuh. “I’m just excited for the World Cup – that’s why I’ve got a Brazilian jersey on. One thing I like about the World Cup is it brings people together, like these are my friends from high school. We all played soccer together at [Minneapolis] North, and I was the goalie.”   

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Richard Rodriguez, Minneapolis, at the Nomad World Pub.“I’m originally from Los Angeles, and I’m pulling for the USA. I played soccer growing up in Los Angeles, and it might not be the most popular sport here, but it’s an active sport, it’s an endurance sport, and I just fell in love with it. I fell in love with it even more once I got into the World Cup in ’98 and especially in ’02 when the USA made it to the semifinals.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Will Nimely, Minneapolis, at Brit’s Pub.“I’m from Liberia, I’ve been here since 2000. We have a team in Liberia, but we haven’t been very good since the ‘80s. It’s very tough, but if you really love the game of soccer, it doesn’t matter if your country’s in the World Cup. The platform that the World Cup presents is in the line of peace. It’s an opportunity to deal with so many discriminations that people endure playing sports. You can come to a place like this and see Iranians and Iraqis united to watch a common game of soccer, and you don’t see that so often in other ways and times.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Muna Abshir, St. Paul, Alicia Abshir, St. Paul, Shukri Omar, St. Paul, at Midtown Global Market. “We’re from Somalia. I like the World Cup because it shows the competition between countries in a friendly environment,” said Muna. “I’m rooting for Argentina and the USA. Go USA! [Alicia]’s favorite team is Spain, because [Colombian superstar singer] Shakira is married to [Spain superstar defender] Gerard Pique.” 

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Arazue Soroozan, St. Paul, at Brit’s Pub.“I’m rooting for Iran. My father’s from Iran, and he got me this shirt for Christmas. I played soccer in elementary school and high school, and I find the World Cup exciting because it’s a chance for countries to represent themselves and also get together. Like this whole game you can see the Nigerian team and the Iranian team kind of laughing and smiling at each other, so it’s a cool way to bring a lot of countries and communities together.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Nachiked Kale (far left), Minneapolis, and friends, Morrissey’s.“I’m from Mumbai, India. I’m rooting for Germany. I lived with a host family in Germany in 2005-2006 when the 2006 World Cup was going on, and ever since then it’s been Germany for me. The World Cup is amazing because it only happens every four years and all these guys play for different club teams and for the World Cup they don all the same jersey for the first time for their country, and I guess there is something to that, when all these 11 people who all play on different teams come and fight for their countries, or play for their countries, and that is what makes it really special. You really see that spirit come out; it’s for the ultimate trophy, so it’s fierce. It’s exciting.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Francisco Benavides (far right), Minneapolis, and friends, Midtown Global Market.“I’m for Mexico, and this [Brazil-Mexico match] is too intense to talk [over]. I always love the World Cup. It’s like everybody can exercise a healthy form of nationalism and take pride in their country and team, and not have it be about anything else but that, and the sport of it.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Jenny Newgard and Matt Wells, Minneapolis, Morrissey’s.“I’ve been watching World Cup since I was a teenager. I root for Liverpool in the Premiere League, and it’s the only sport that’s ever really excited me,” said Newgard.

“I grew up in a little town outside of Milwaukee, and my brothers and I all grew up playing soccer from the time we could walk,” said Wells. “We were one of those rare small-town American [families] who grew up in the ‘80s playing soccer. I played competitively until I was about 20, and I went to art school in Minneapolis and I’m an artist here now. I’m really excited about watching the Cup, and I’m gonna use this as a pulpit.

“It’s an interesting paradox, because I have no problem supporting the U.S. and other teams in the World Cup, even as I recognize a third of these stadiums are built by really poor communities, people who are probably protesting in the streets about the games but also probably poking their head around the corner to see who’s in the lead. That’s the sort of weird paradox I’m faced with as a comfortable American in Minneapolis, but those people are now faced with no running water in the middle of nowhere.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Sam Singh, Minneapolis, at Brit’s Pub.“I’m from India, but I’ve lived here almost 30 years. I’ve always rooted for England, and sometimes Italy. India never makes it to the World Cup, so you just sort of pick a team that you like. Most of all I like watching the World Cup for the spirit, the passion. If you grew up watching soccer, you just develop a passion for it. It’s interesting to see people from all over the world get together and I’m surprised because when I came here, Americans were not very much about soccer but now they are, and most people don’t realize that America was in the [inaugural] World Cup semifinals back in 1930.”

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David Khaukah, Minneapolis, at Brit’s Pub.“I’m from Uganda. I am going for Ghana, because it’s my homeland and I like the African countries, but overall I’m supporting Portugal because Cristiano Ronaldo is one of my favorite players. He’s the best – at everything. But this year I think Brazil will win, because they have the home advantage.”

When the U.S. Supreme Court decided that some employers have the right to deny health care based on religious beliefs last week, Lizz Winstead and her comrades in Lady Parts Justice were ready. The website’s official launch doesn’t happen until July 15, but Winstead’s Brooklyn-based crew posted this video, which went viral amid the initial outrage last Monday, and it hasn’t stopped reverberating yet:

“In 2014 alone, there’s been over 700 pieces of legislation proposed to curb some kind of reproductive health,” said Winstead from her home office in New York on the 4^th of July. “Thirty-one states, including Minnesota, allow a rapist to sue for custody if a pregnancy occurs from a rape. This is the world we live in. What discourages me is how much of this is coming down. What profoundly encourages me is when people find out about it they want to join up and they’re outraged and they really like using humor and using language that is raw and funny and not appropriate to get the message out.”

At the moment the message is that the War on Women is being lost, but that it has a fighting chance with thought leaders like Winstead, who has long championed women’s reproductive health rights, from her days supporting Rock For Choice benefits in her hometown of Minneapolis to the last two years of her life, which have been spent organizing and performing benefits for Planned Parenthood and independent clinics.

“Right now I’m the face, but I’m not a one-woman band,” she said. “There’s a team of people that has come together who understand the profundity of what’s happening and who can’t imagine doing anything else. No one is pushing the boundaries like we are, and I think it’s OK to make people mad. There’s people who think you should never enter humor into this arena, and then there’s people like me who say, ‘This arena is called health care. This arena is not called religion.’ And I don’t shy away from the word abortion, and I don’t fall on the shame sword because I had an abortion.

Photo by Michael Young

Lizz Winstead

“We’re just one little tiny organization trying to reinvent what it means to celebrate ourselves. We’re saying, ‘We’re cool, we’re awesome, we’re the ones who want to have super fun righteous sex and we don’t necessarily want to have your kid. How did we become the bad guys of the sexual revolution again?’ ”

The July 15 website launch is the first order of business for Lady Parts Justice, followed by the Sept. 27 planned call-to-arms “V To Shining V,” in which pro-choice people across the country are being asked to come together to organize and rabble-rouse about the state of women’s reproductive freedoms.

“What we really want people to do is not unlike what Minnesotans United for All Families did with their house parties,” said Winstead. “We’re encouraging a national day of house parties and block parties in bars or your house. Invite people over, drink, celebrate, talk about what’s happening. We’re going to send you a kit that has a game in it and tattoos and all this fun stuff. Parties will be throughout the day, with the focus being on talking about what’s on the ballot and reminding people what’s at stake in the midterms.

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the media tell me people aren’t going to be out to vote. Ten million more women than men voted in the last election, and we have to keep that momentum going. Sept. 27 is a day for people to get together and say, ‘You know, between now and the midterm elections, we’re going to make a pledge to get people out to vote and talk about how [screwed] up it is in the states.’”

Between now and then and however long it takes, Lady Parts Justice will be at the forefront of the fight.

“It feels really good,” said Winstead of her team’s most recent work. “We want to get people psyched. We’re all exhausted, but we feel like we’re doing work that matters and just the teaser videos that we’ve been putting out have been received very well. People have been loving it.”

Dear Jesse,

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A guy (you) walks into a bar, six days or six months or six years from now, and some leather-lunged former fan of yours hollers, “Hey Jesse! Good job at kicking that widow’s ass! Nice work beating a dead guy!”

No? Well, get ready, because that’s your legacy if you keep going with this lawsuit that matches two egomaniacal macho military men in a dispute over a bar fight that probably never happened but is now being drawn out in stunningly tedious fashion in a U.S. District courtroom in St. Paul, thanks to you and your need to be on stage and winning.

I’m sure you see it differently, that this is a fight to save your besmirched reputation and a blow for the truth, but from here it stinks of a low-rent wrestling card that nobody but you wants anything to do with:

In this corner, we have you, the Navy SEAL/wrestler/actor/conspiracy theorist and former governor of Minnesota. In that corner, we have Chris Kyle, who before he was murdered last year on a shooting range by a fellow gun enthusiast and former soldier, wrote a book called “American Sniper: The autobiography of the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history” and alleged that while at a bar in San Diego in 2006, he clocked a guy he nicknamed “Scruff Face” (you) for making disparaging remarks about America and the SEALS.

Who will prevail? Who is the biggest, truest SEAL? Who is the real American hero? Who will come out on top in Clint Eastwood’s forthcoming Kyle biopic? Who is the most patriotic patriot? Who has the biggest penis?

Who cares?

Governor, you and I both know enough about bars and bullies that some guys are always looking for a fight, in real life or in print, and the only thing you can do is not engage, walk away, and create something better. You said as much yourself in court Friday, when talking about how you avoided conflict during your wrestling days.

“You can avoid a lot of situations by not putting yourself in bad situations,” you told the jury, most of whom looked as bored as the judge, I, and the few gathered media/gallery members were. “It’s kind of like you’re going down a road and one road is well-lit and the other is dark and sinister and you’ve got to make a choice which road you’re gonna go down. If you’re smart, you’ll take the one that’s well-lit and not put yourself in a position where something could happen.”

Governor, listen to yourself. I did, Friday. I sat behind you in the front row, watching you spasmodically rock back and forth and listened to you talk about your life, career and accomplishments. “All of my books have been New York Times best sellers,” you said, three times. You recounted films you’ve starred in, talked about how you told a friend “can’t” isn’t in your vocabulary when he told you “you can’t win” the 1998 race for governor, recounted how you “shocked the world” by becoming governor, claimed how you teaching as a fellow at Harvard could happen “only in America,” and expounded on how your talk radio voice has consistently risen above the rest of the media jackals.

More than anything, you were on the stand to prove your love of country and SEALS. You spoke passionately about your parents’ service in World War II. You brought in five boxes of 100 Underwater Demolition Team SEALS T-shirts you’ve collected over the years, and unbuttoned your shirt to show your SEALS tattoo to a couple of reporters at the end of Friday’s proceedings before your attorneys corralled you.

“My service in the UDT SEALS is probably the most proudest thing I’ve ever done, even more so than becoming mayor and governor,” you told the jury. “Because that was something solely based upon me. Becoming mayor and governor, was based upon you. But going through BUDS (basic underwater demolition) and UDT SEALS training was only me. It defines me today, I carry it with pride today. It’s the thing I’m probably most proud of in my 63 years of existence of anything I’ve done.”

Brother, listen to yourself. Then do yourself a favor and walk away – not only from this endless stupid bar fight that left Kyle’s widow sobbing on the stand last week, but from the military industrial complex that brainwashed you into believing in fight not flight. Take those boxes of SEAL shirts and torch them in a massive purifying ceremony, then get on with the next part of your life, about which I’ve got a few ideas.

Look, we go way back. You saved my life when you were working as an ASIA security beast for the Rolling Stones/Peter Tosh concert at the St. Paul Civic Center on July 10, 1978. We were both in front of the stage, on other sides of the security barrier. The crush of thousands of Stones fans had cracked the wooden boards in front of me and the knife-planks were stabbing into my 19-year-old chest.

When I yelled for help you braced your back up against it, called for help, and duct-taped and roped the planks together. The Stones came on soon after and blew our minds.

I’ve thanked you for it before, the one time we had a phone conversation, and now I’m wondering: Where’s the Jesse who took in all the music that night? Where’s the fun, forgiveness, and true freedom, the kind that has nothing to do with America or the military’s narrow definition of it? Where’s the spiritual insight that you presumably glean from your annual six months “off the grid” you take in Mexico?

Well, I believe it’s in there, somewhere deep down, and just waiting to be tapped and unleashed. My brother, I saw you exchange a warm if uncomfortable grin with Mrs. Kyle in the courtroom Friday, which leads me to believe that all is not lost, and that you have an opportunity here. We live in crazy times in a crazy world, but you have a chance to do some real good. Instead of the emperor with no clothes you very much resembled on the stand Friday, you have a chance to, in one sweet moment, serve as an elder, a wise man, and become the face of anti-douchebag nation.

Just do it. Hold a press conference. Hug the widow. Have a good cry (the real kind, not the fake-actor kind that made headlines over the weekend), and become Jesse Ventura, new age man and leader of the feMENist movement who strikes a blow for compassion above all else. “I was wrong and he was wrong,” your prepared statement will read. “This whole thing has been gauche and ungentlemanly and unworthy of the SEALS. Chris was my SEAL brother, and out of respect for his memory, I’m putting this behind me. Mrs. Kyle, I’m sorry for your loss. We can do better. Love thy enemy. Let the healing begin!”

Since that’s not likely to happen anytime soon (say, like when you take the stand again today) and because you’re not about to listen to me, maybe you’ll listen to your friend and fellow SEAL Robert Leonard, who wearily said on the stand Friday, “[Jesse] doesn’t want to be here. We shouldn’t be here. As far as I’m concerned, Chris Kyle and [Jesse] should have figured this out between themselves.”

No kidding.

Walk away, governor, or the joke’s on you.

Paul McCartney and Minneapolis, a love affair in photos and portraits:

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Ryan Zoolie, Minneapolis; Jay Weber, Stillwater; Dietrich Wilke, New York; Nick Pooras, Stillwater; Paul Hoffman, Stillwater; Maddy Matre, Minneapolis.“This is generations of people coming together for one purpose, and people who don’t normally see eye-to-eye on certain topics can come together and see eye-to-eye in a musical sense,” said Weber. “We’ve been best friends forever. We used to listen to this stuff back in the day. Now that we’re getting older, things change, we don’t get to see each other, and this brings us back together.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Kurt and Tina Bauer, Houston.“This is our second time seeing Paul,” said Kurt. “Each of the four Beatles on their own are amazing, but for them to come together like that at one time with George Martin and Brian Epstein, it was just something in the cosmos came together, whirlwinding out of that little town of Liverpool and made this amazing stuff. We’re going to see Ringo in Houston in November and we’re going to the Hollywood Bowl at the end of August for the 50th anniversary of the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Damara and Liz Scheeler, St. Paul.“We saw him in Milwaukee last year and I cried the whole show and I’m pretty sure I’ll do the same thing [tonight],” said Damara. “The Beatles are by far my favorite musical artist. I did a history day performance of them when I was in ninth grade at Christ’s Household of Faith, a tiny private school in St. Paul, and we did it on how they changed the world and I’ve loved them ever since.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Amnesty International booth inside Target Field.

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Bob Fuchs, Minneapolis.“Before the show tonight, one of the radio stations was playing all McCartney and Beatles songs, and all these feelings came over me. I couldn’t believe how strong the connection was, to so many points of my life. I mean, I wouldn’t have guessed the connection would be that deep, but he just keeps hitting me with all these memories.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Scott, Caily, Cody, and Karen Webster, Minnetonka. “Nine years old, Ed Sullivan, had to watch, changed my life, Beatles wig the next day at Woolworth’s for 99 cents, changed my life. Did I mention that? Seriously,” said Scott. “And I play in a band, Skewed View, I play bass like Paul. We’re celebrating our 34^th wedding anniversary tonight and we walked down the aisle to ‘And I Love Her.’ This is our second time seeing Paul as a family. Next week when we play Beatles songs with the band, I’ll literally be tearing up.”

Target Field in full Sir Paul bloom.

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

John Shiner, North Oaks, and Lisa Michalski, Bay City, Michigan.“I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan,” said Shiner, “and ever since then I’ve followed them, and I’ve never seen one of them in concert and I wasn’t going to miss McCartney this time.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Chris Strouth, Minneapolis.“I love the Beatles, of course I love the Beatles. How can you not love the Beatles? Did you know that Osama bin Laden actually liked the Beatles? There was actually a quote from him somewhere, saying something like, ‘I hate all Western culture,’ but he liked the freaking Beatles.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Elizabeth Munger, Bill Callahan, Megan Callahan, Michelle Callahan, Eau Claire Wisconsin.“We’re sisters,” said Megan. “This is our dad. We grew up listening to the Beatles, because that’s just the way it was: Get in the car, put on the Beatles. Our dad is treating us today.” Said Bill, “I was listening to the Beatles when I was 5, in 1965. They shaped my life and made me who I am today. My goal has been to bring my entire family to see Paul, and we’re here today, all eight of us.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Lights up at the conclusion of “Hey Jude”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Jodi and Maddy Fidler, Minnetonka.“My entire family loves the Beatles,” said Maddy. “I’ve been listening to them since I was teeny tiny and I was 32 weeks pregnant with her when I saw Paul in Vegas,” said Jodi.

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Freebies on the way out of Target Field.

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Aidan and Bill Coy, Minneapolis.“The Beatles are great because they’re one of the few bands that everybody knows everybody’s name in the band and the music’s just great and they all have great voices,” said Aidan. “They’re probably my favorite band, along with Bruce Springsteen and Imagine Dragons.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Suki Dardarian and Peter Callaghan, Minneapolis.“We didn’t have tickets, but we’ve been here [outside the gate], listening,” said Dardarian. “I’m in my 50s and he’s been talking to me since I was in my teens. I live a few blocks from here and he was calling my name.”

Of all the many memorable moments from Saturday night’s magical Paul McCartney concert at Target Field, one of the funniest had to be the sight of an on-duty Minneapolis cop, patrolling the second deck concourse and momentarily busting out of his game face for a civilian skip and a singalong to “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, life goes on” – almost 50 years after his Bloomington partners in crime-fighting publicly hoped for McCartney and his hooligan daughter-preying band of brothers in The Beatles never to return, run outta town for good after their 1965 concert at Met Stadium.

Let it be stated for the record, then, that on Saturday night, Aug. 2, 2014, McCartney returned to an outdoor baseball stadium in Mill City and delivered a three-hour 40-song performance for the ages in front of a crowd of 40,000 that produced as many selfies as it did choruses of “It doesn’t get much better than this.”

This, of course, being a particular and particularly perfect moment or song, as well as the larger experience of four hours gathered in the pop life church to celebrate a live-and-in-person 72-year-old-going-on-Elf-master painting his masterpieces for we the yearning huddle masses on a canvas of clear skies on a perfect summer night on the prairie.

No, it doesn’t.

“Life is very short and there’s no time for fussing and fighting my friend,” sang McCartney, pointedly, and with the wisdom of a man who knows he has used his time on the planet to spread harmony, peace and love. Last night, those messages took wing on the humid Minnesota air and took flight, wafting out into the rest of the war- and hate-torn world with real momentum.

“This is great, this is cool. What a good vibration,” he said early on, and so it was. “Let It Be,” awash as it was in an ocean of alit raised smart phones and lighters, was catch-your-breath stunning and meaningful, as was the sight of one man hushing an entire baseball stadium with nothing but a song and a lightly plucked ukulele.

To be sure, in a world of bombings and b.s., trolls and troubles, McCartney’s music produced something close to mass euphoria in downtown Minneapolis Saturday night, and who knows how far and long that good vibration can go?

MinnPost photo by Steven Cohen

MinnPost photo by Steven Cohen

MinnPost photo by Steven Cohen

MinnPost photo by Steven Cohen

MinnPost photo by Steven Cohen

Dog days of summer, and the living is … drunk and dicey on the streets of downtown Minneapolis. With summer on the ropes, the clubs aflame with warm-weather-loving party people, and the Twins, Lynx and Vikings all playing home games, downtown Minneapolis this Saturday night past was rich in nightlife action, characters, and tension. A timeline, in words and pictures:

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

6 p.m., 9^th and Marquette.“Saturday nights are always busy,” says nursing student Rito Perez at the parking lot he’s worked at for two years. “You get to see all kinds of people; drunk people, beautiful women. I’ve seen people having sex in the cars here, people pooping over by the wall there, all kinds of crazy stuff.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

6:15 p.m., 9^th and Marquette.“I’m not a professional musician or anything, but this is really cool,” says Charlie Clinton, from Yorktown, Virginia, in Minneapolis visiting a friend and taking photos of the Schmitt Music building. “There’s music on a building. It makes the city seem alive.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

6:30 p.m., Nicollet Mall outside The Local.“I live downtown, right in the heart of the city,” says L.A. Nik, the self-described “Mayor Of Minneapolis After Dark.”“I still love downtown, but we have some issues that need to be handled. We keep lowering our standards in this city to accept our worst citizens. I’m downtown every night. I walk these streets all day and all night. We keep lowering our standards, going, ‘You know what? We’ll accept that,’ when we should be saying, ‘No, you can’t piss on our doorstep, go somewhere else.’ You can’t depend on city government to get it done, we need a village mentality in Minneapolis that says we will not accept that. We had nine people shot in a bar; it’s getting to where nobody wants to come downtown anymore. People think downtown is ‘too ghetto.’ That’s not going to help business. We’re losing the battle.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

6:45 p.m. Nicollet Mall.“I’m here every day, every night, skateboarding and charging my wheelchair,” says Steve “Legs” Reed.“I was in a car accident in Texas in ’91. The motor in my cousin’s car exploded. I lost my legs, arm, 90 percent of my body burned. I’ve been here for four months. I came up here to learn how to snowboard. I can skateboard, I can water board, and I want to add to all that snowboard. It’s my dream.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

7 p.m., Nicollet Mall. A parade of fluorescent-clad dancers invades the mall. “We’re dancing an entire mile for Free Arts Minnesota to help children have good mentors in school and to support arts programs,” say Danielle Gauthier (front right in sunglasses).

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

7:30 p.m., 9^th and Hennepin.“We came downtown to go to the Great Hamburger Experience place in the La Salle building,” says Michelle Corso, waiting for the bus with her husband, Mark Erickson. “We come to Candyland for the candy and popcorn. We’re celebrating our one-year anniversary tonight.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

7:45 p.m., 7^th and Hennepin, on the rooftop of Seven. “We went to high school together in Minot, North Dakota,” says Laura Thien, second from left with friends (left-to-right) Kara Murphy, Bec Brandenburg, and Nancy Kuehn. “We reconnect every couple years.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

8 p.m., Seven.“We’re just starting out here, loving some rooftops in my city,” said Danika Love, with friends Peony Hilbrich (left) and Aquilla Carlson. “Next, we’re heading Uptown and looking for an oxygen bar or a hookah bar.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

8:30 p.m., 6^th and Hennepin.“I just got married to this girl,” says Darcy Nelson Jones, a nurse from Hugo, putting her arms around her wife, Amy Nelson (nee Hmong Myong Soon) and taking a cigarette break with friends under the Mayo Clinic construction tunnel in front of the Shout House Rock ‘n’ Roll Dueling Pianos bar. “The challenge is that many people are not ready to accept gay marriage, and so even though we have come up against a lot of challenges with some of our family and our friends, we decided that love wins,” says Nelson. “So hurray, love wins. And God bless.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

9 p.m., outside Target Field. To commemorate the 37^th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, Jessie Aaron Wortman dressed as the King and his father, Doug, made like Twins manager Ron Gardenhire. The father-son team drove up from Grand Rapids, Michigan, to see the Twins beat the Royals 4-1.

“I thought there’d be a thousand Elvises here today, but it’s just been me,” says Jessie. “Oh, my gosh, I could barely walk around the stadium. People were stopping us, but only one or two people knew today is the actual day he died. I love Elvis, but my dad loves him a little more.” Says Doug-Ron, “I don’t think my son even knew up until a couple days ago that he was named Jessie after Elvis’s dead twin, and I gave him Elvis’s middle name, Aaron, too. We had a ball tonight. People in Minneapolis were just wonderful tonight.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

9:15, outside Target Center.Dez Chakolis (far right) and family celebrate the Lynx victory over Tulsa by running full-throttle ball-handling and shooting drills while waiting for their ride. Their message? “We love Maya Moore!”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

9:30 p.m., First Avenue. It’s Transmission night at the best club in the city, and DJ Jake Rudh is in his element. His pregnant wife, Mercedes, sits nearby in the deejay booth as he spins psychedelia, punk, pop and new wave dance hits by the likes of Wham!, Thompson Twins, Prince, Duran Duran, and Madonna. “I grew up in the Twin Cities, so this is a thrill for me,” he says between tracks. “I saw the Suburbs and all my heroes in this room, and to be able to play the same room as those guys and have Transmission headline this room is a lifelong dream come true. And to know it’s not even 10 o’clock yet and the room is filling up with people all around me gives me the warm fuzzies.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

10:15 p.m., 7^th Street. From his perch standing on the sidewalk outside the Depot in First Avenue, Perry Napue cheers as Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater leads the Vikings to a last-minute win: “Teddy Bridgewater’s our quarterback, he’s the best quarterback they’ve got of all of 'em. He’s the savviest, he’s the fittest, he’s the realest quarterback they’ve got. Like my shirt? Moby Dick’s! Look out, Minnesota, I’m bringing old-school Block E back!” 

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

10:45 p.m., 8^th and Hennepin.“We’re best friends, we went to high school in Roseville. We never go out, we’re single moms, I’m from Forest Lake, I just called her and said ‘I’m dressed up and I want to go out,’” says Michelle Stems (right) with Kristina Lepel, as three muscular half-naked male dancers writhe away at the Saloon. “We didn’t know where to go, so we asked a couple guys on the road and they brought us in here. I’m kind of in shock. I’m very, very modest, and this is very out of my comfort zone. But I’m liking it.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

11:00 p.m., 9^th and Hennepin.“The Saloon is wonderful,” says Bri Crank (second from the end, far left), a realtor from Burnsville and co-host of her friend Becky’s bachelorette party, one of several hitting the streets tonight. “Those are the best bodies I’ve ever seen in my life,” she says, as three pedi-cabs blast by in a Ben Hur-style race down Hennepin. “Reggie the bartender is very helpful, and that guy with the thong thing, he was hot. Smokin’ hot. We were there for two hours, now we’re looking for rooftops. “

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

11:30 p.m., 5^th and Hennepin.Sabrina Johnson (far right) and friends negotiate their way into Augie’s strip club, overjoyed to hang downtown because, “it’s crackin’, and it’s fun, I can feel like myself ... ." Her wingwoman Seyara (no last name, far left), says, “I love that the people here are really nice most of the time. I live in Virginia, right? It’s hella black people in Virginia, right?... it’s so interracial here, it’s not just one group of selected people. I like that we can just go out and everybody can have fun as humans and it’s not just like a group of folks. Here you can go to the black bars, you can go to the white bars. There’s not really bars that are like, together [in Virginia]. You can go to any bar here, and it’s so interracial that it’s more of an experience for you, because you can see white people turning up, Somali, Hmong, everybody. I love that.”

“Well she just about stole what I was going to say,” adds Tiana Greene, a nursing student from St. Paul who’s also feeling the downtown love. “Honestly, I like coming to downtown Minneapolis to meet cool white people like you,” she says. “I’m gonna be straight honest with you, I like black people like she was saying, but sometimes black people get a little too obnoxious. And I’m obnoxious myself, but… It’s cool to be around other people, and it’s cool to relate to other-skinned people ... . So I like to be able to relate to people like you and enjoy myself with people like you and introduce myself to people like you.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

11:45 p.m. 5th St. between N. 1^st Ave. and Hennepin. Right after I took this photo, my camera was stolen by a drunk black kid who told me he’d been strangled by the Minneapolis cops earlier in the night. At the end of the interview, he said he wouldn’t give me his name and didn’t want his photo taken. I told him no worries, thanks for his time. We shook hands and I kept walking around, talking to people, and taking photos of 5^th Street, the epicenter-powder keg of downtown Saturday night. Thinking I’d been taking photos of him, the kid and four of his friends surrounded me, grabbed the camera and passed it around, all of them disappearing into the night at various times over the following 15 minutes. I protested to the dude, hung around, looked him in the eye and appealed to the moment of trust we’d first shared. He gave me the camera back. We shook hands and he apologized, saying, “all this Ferguson shit has me crazy” or something. I gave him my card and told him to call me if he wants to tell someone his story.

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Midnight, Lumber Exchange Building.“I’m the host of a party bus,” says Bill Brolickman (front, center), outside the Pourhouse as L.A. Nik gladhands the bouncer into free admission at the door. “Tonight I have 21 bachelorettes for a bachelorette party from Shakopee. The Pourhouse Party Bus is the only company that has the concierge, host and driver. We get 'em in all the clubs, no waiting in line, VIP entrance, otherwise there’s an hour wait up front. They’re treated like rock stars, from Sushi Seven, Tangiers, Pourhouse, W, Union, the casino, Applebee’s, wherever they want to go. At the end of the night, we give ‘em a text 10 or 15 minutes before we’re ready to go. Then I go in and make sure I get ‘em all out, and give it a 10- or 15 minute leeway to account for if they’re in the bathroom, or they met someone, there’s some drama, whatever.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

1 a.m., 5^th& Hennepin.“I’m CeCe McDonald,” says CeCe McDonald outside one of the oldest and most durable nightclubs in the state, the Gay ‘90s. “I’m just doing what CeCe does: Loving everybody, and being a diva.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

2 a.m. As Jake Rudh plays “Purple Rain” to wrap up his Transmission set at First Avenue, Dave Johnson of White Bear Lake waits in line at the packed-out Seville Club down the street: “I don’t have a very good story about tonight, but here’s a good [downtown Minneapolis] story about another night. I was at a Pink Floyd tribute band at the State Theater one night. And it gets done and my friend who invited me is nowhere to be found, so it’s me and his friend, a dude I’ve never met before, just hanging out. And we decided to get in a dance-off with the street drummers. I challenged this black girl, who was our rickshaw driver, to a dance-off, and she refused. So I had to go alone and I gotta say, I impressed myself.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

2:15 a.m., 5^th and N. 1^st Ave.“I’ve been driving this [pedicab] for two years,” says Kayneisha “K.O.” Owens. “Tonight’s been pretty good. It gets really busy on Saturdays, because that’s when people come out to party. There’s been a couple fights tonight, and drunk people screaming all night, but nothing too bad. I’ve still got about a half an hour left, so we’ll see …

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

2:30 a.m., 5^th and N. 1^st Ave. Four cops on horseback herd club-goers off the street. One agitated white cop wielding an aerosol can shouts down at a large buff black guy on the sidewalk, who shouts back up at him. The horses are huge, the clomping hooves intimidating. The lead cop on horseback yells angrily at the cop with the aerosol can, “Come on!” and the four proceed slowly down the sidewalk.

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Out of nowhere pulls up a white armored truck with the words “Minneapolis Police” on the side. “What’s the paddy wagon doing here?” says one kid to his friend. “Run!” says another. People hustle to get out of the way of the horses and cops, who suddenly seem to be everywhere – on foot, bicycle and in various souped-up machines. “Go home, go home, go home!” yell the cops, as the crowd disperses. “Do that, do that, show what it’s like in the United States of America right now,” says one kid over my shoulder as I quickly snap blurry photos of the horses flushing people out of downtown.

A commotion erupts in the middle of 5th Street and a black kid is collared, thrown up against the side of the paddy wagon, handcuffed and subdued by four white cops. “No probable cause! No probable cause!” yell his friends from the sidewalk, dutifully making sure to stay out of the street, lest they join their friend in the paddy wagon.

Train riders, cabbies, pedicabs and other rubberneckers tool by, curiously regarding the sight of another black man’s face squished up against the side of a police truck on this, just another Saturday night in downtown Minneapolis.

What to wear to the Fair, and why? Some thoughts, in words and photos.

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Jordan Fields-Long, St. Paul.“The Fair is a big event, and I had to bring out what I call ‘swag’ to the Fair, that’s why I chose this shirt today. There’s always going to be negative people coming towards you, and you just have to ignore it and keep living your life positive.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Jake Pittman, Hudson, and Derek Lund, Minneapolis.“Like the shirt says, we’re mascot security,” said Pittman. “We are here for your and others' protection. Sometimes the Gophers have a little too much cotton candy and they get out of control and you have to step in and calm 'em down a bit. The Gophers do not like being called anything but gophers. They don’t like having their tails pulled, either.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Julia and Isabella [no last name], St. Paul.“We love Dr. Who and this is my favorite dress and it’s easy to throw on,” said Isabella. “We’ve had a lot of compliments and a lot of people looking at us.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

David Alexander, Minneapolis (far left). “I’m wearing a NORML shirt; that’s the national organization for the reformation of marijuana laws, in part to help start a discussion about understanding marijuana. The United States government has used neologism to confuse the American public about what hemp is and lied about the most utilitarian plant in the world. It’s a great recreational substance, but this shirt and all the clothes that we’re wearing can all be made with hemp. So basically I’m wearing it to get people to think about it and end the prohibition.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Brad Place, Glencoe.“I got this in Tombstone, Arizona, about a month ago and I had to have it. I love beer, and it’s something different that nobody else has.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Salina Shooter, Twin Falls, Idaho.“I wore my ‘Free Hugs’ tank today because I just wanted to see how many people would hug me. We’ve been here an hour and I’ve gotten five hugs.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Caron Mahn, Long Lake and Mark Will, Eden Prairie.“I’m the regional director of Complete Nutrition and we customize supplement programs to help people gain weight, lose weight, or just maintain a healthy lifestyle,” said Will. [The T-shirt is] ‘one hundred percent in.’ Health is something you shouldn’t straddle the fence on, you should be one hundred percent in, because life is just more enjoyable that way. My advice [for gluttonous Fair-goers]? Balance. We’re all human, were all gonna succumb to this, just keep some sort of control, restraint, drink plenty of water, and exercise afterwards and you’ll be good to go. Just don’t let it take over your life.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Corey Siwek Sr., Minneapolis.“I wore this shirt because I’m Catholic, and only God can judge me. I wanted to wear it today to tell people that God is a good person and that he’s always looking out for you.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

R.J. Sauvageau, Isanti.“I am a Jesus Freak, and I’m proud of it, and I figure if people can walk around the Fair with the ‘F’ word and every other thing, then I can walk around representing Jesus. I’ve seen some people today who are probably Christians but are ashamed of it, and maybe they see my shirt and it encourages them to be a little bit more bold about their faith.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

James Masten and crew, Edina.“This is what I wear every day. The T-shirt is [the logo of] Anton Lavey, the father of modern Satanism. I’m not a Satanist, per se, but I like the message and I think it’s good to make people think. I’m pretty anti-religious and a lot of modern Satanism is anti-religion. I was raised as an evangelical Christian, and this is the complete opposite of "follow a lot of rules or else you’re going to perish and burn in hell forever." Satanism’s message is ‘do your own thing and don’t hurt people.’”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Kelly Flanders, Minneapolis.“I’m with the Minnesota Honey Company, and I wear this when I volunteer every year here at the Minnesota Honey Producers booth, which sells honey from beekeepers from all over the state. There’s a real problem with bees and pollinators of all kinds right now. Bees pollinate so much of the food crop, and the fact that they’re having trouble all over the world is a big concern.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Cassandra Cooper and Devin Finhold, St. Paul.“I’m more of like the goth-style and I need a lot of pockets and these pants have a lot of pockets.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Stephen Katzenberger, Forest Lake.“Have you ever worn a kilt? It’s really comfy, because it lets you get breezes where shorts don’t let you get breezes, and I like that.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Rachel, Ben, and Cassidy Scott, Coon Rapids.“Just about any chance I get I’ll wear a Grateful Dead shirt,” said Ben. “You know, you wear your normal clothes during the week and when you get a day off, you gotta show your colors – quite literally.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Sam Nylund, Cloquet, sporting the only Kevin Love T-shirt spotted at the Fair. “He’s my favorite Timberwolf,” said Sam as he was having his picture taken. “We were at the game and he had his shirt autographed by Ricky Rubio and [Nikola Pekovic] and they were friendly, but Kevin Love walked right by us without a word and wouldn’t even stop,” said Mom. “Wave goodbye to Kevin, Sam, wave goodbye,” said Dad.

Tuesday night just before midnight in Minneapolis, the remade Replacements delivered a time-stopping version of “Alex Chilton” on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

I watched on the TV above the front bar at Nye’s Polonaise Room with a roomful of friends, strangers, and several area musicians who’ve been inspired by the ‘Mats music. The low-burn scene served as a delicious appetizer for Saturday’s much-anticipated Replacements reunion concert at Midway Stadium in St. Paul.

Knocked out by the performance, I retreated outside to a rainy Hennepin Avenue to savor the moment until a friend came up. Shaking her head incredulously,  she said, “Why do I feel like I just got done watching the great Russian gymnasts score a perfect 10, and the Russian judges are giving them an 8?”

For the uninitiated, that may say everything you need to know about the Replacements and the town from which they hail. I actually heard no nay-saying firsthand Tuesday, but my friend’s comment illustrates something important: that, along with having inspired a few generations of uncommonly passionate fans, the Replacements come from the land of sky blue waters — from the warm and loving embrace of uneasily impressed passive-aggressive smart-asses who don’t want their hometown heroes getting too big for their britches.

Including, it would seem, the band itself. Led by singer/guitarist Paul Westerberg and singer/bassist Tommy Stinson, their original heyday (1979-1991) was spent shooting themselves in both feet as they “climbed” the ladder of rock success. Along the way, founding guitarist Bob Stinson and founding drummer Chris Mars were replaced by guitarist Bob “Slim” Dunlap and drummer Steve Foley, and after plenty of critical acclaim but middling commercial success, the band ceased operations in 1991 (the elder Stinson died in 1995; Foley died in 2008, and Dunlap suffered a massive stroke two years ago).

Inspired by the rotten hand dealt to their old gunslinger pal, last year Westerberg and Tommy Stinson rebooted the ‘Mats with drummer Josh Freese, guitarist Dave Minehan, and Green Day guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong. The 13,000 tickets to Saturday’s homecoming show sold out in ten minutes.

So why, beyond their rich-beyond-its-years catalog and the fact that they remain one of rock’s flat-out greatest bands, does so much excitement surround this show? Part of the answer lies in the fact that everyone’s getting older. Life feels more precious and fragile, and for so many people who discovered it 33 years or three months ago, the Replacements’ music is an extremely intense experience for very personal reasons.

I’ve written two books about the ‘Mats, “All Over But The Shouting: An Oral History” (Voyager Press, 2007) and, with Dennis Pernu, “Waxed Up Hair and Painted Shoes: The Photographic History” (Voyageur Press, 2013), but because the band has never been more popular than they are at this moment, and because their history rewrites itself with every passing week since their reformation last August, I’m looking forward to Bob Mehr’s official bio on the band, “Trouble Boys,” slated to hit next summer.

I’m hoping to make more sense out of the story of these guys, whom I literally grew up with in the Catholic ghetto of south Minneapolis, a wild and innocent place of lakes, creeks and the Mississippi River that, for me, has always had a mystical hand in penning Westerberg’s (and many other’s) eternal fire-in-the-belly songs. Like the Delta blues or Appalachian mountain music, the ‘Mats ferocious rock feels rooted in the Minnesota soil and extreme seasons, and has proven historically to be as defining to this area as the polka and purple funk of yore.

And now here we are, on the cusp of what’s sure to be a special moment in the ‘Mats story. My own Replacements week started Monday on Hennepin Avenue in Uptown. I ran over to Magers & Quinn bookstore to fetch a silent auction-bound copy of “Waxed Up Hair” to run down to Hi Fi Hair & Records, whose owner, Jon Clifford, curated tonight’s Slim Dunlap benefit at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis. (In classic Replacements-esque fashion, the store was out of stock, though I was assured “14 copies” are on order.)

On my way in, just across the street from where it all started at the Uptown Bar — where some of the first ‘Mats shows took place and where the Stinson brothers’ mother, Anita, worked for years and which is now an Apple Store — I ran into an old songwriter friend of mine who asked if I was going to the Midway show. I told him I was, and he, a first-timer, wondered what to expect.

I told him I’d seen them in Chicago this time around, and that the main thing I was struck by is how there’s no preparing for the two-hour rush of emotion that happens while you’re hearing all those songs you’ve been listening alone to for so many years, but suddenly they’re unfurling in the open air with thousands of other like-minded and super-solitary souls whose creativity and very lives have been shaped by this great band.

It’s a big anti-tribe, singing along and doing the “let’s be different … together” boogie, and, well, dates to church like that don’t come down the pike every day.

“I never thought of that,” he said. Then his eyes lit up, imagining that, and as we headed opposite ways down Hennepin, we jinxed each other.

“See ya Saturday.”

Music blasted from vehicle upon vehicle, grills were fired up, beer was ingested, cigars were smoked. Replacements fans came from far and wide to Midway Stadium Saturday night, and quickly figured out the art of tailgating. Talking about the passion, in words and photos:

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Katie Seavy, Cleveland, Ohio, and Dylan Gonzalez, Bedlam Park, New Jersey, took in the pre-show party Friday night at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis. “It’s my second time seeing them, my first time was in Toronto at Riotfest,” said Seavy. “I had to see them after 22 years of not being able to. The lyrics touch me in a certain way, like ‘Bastards of Young’ is like, ‘Yeah, we’re the underappreciated generation,’ and it makes me feel a little bit better about my station in life, I suppose.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Caryn Rose, Brooklyn, New York, was first in line at Midway Saturday afternoon. “I got here at 11:45 this morning, gates open at 6. I had to be here. They were just like us. They were just normal guys and they somehow pulled it together and it was either magic or it was garbage or sometimes it was a little of both, so there was a lot of faith in going to see them, faith in sticking with them, and it sort of rewarded itself. And the songs have never gotten old for me.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Rhett Arens, Stillwater, Kii Arens, Los Angeles, and Tom Sonick, North St. Paul.“I got to do a video for Glen Campbell for a song Paul Westerberg wrote, called ‘Ghost on a Canvas,’ ” said Kii Arens, who designed the official gig poster of Tommy Stinson and Paul Westerberg cartoonized as the Minnesota Twins shown on Sonick’s shirt. “I decided to continue where the ‘Bastards of Young’ video left off to reveal that Paul was actually just listening to Glen Campbell records, and in the process of working with him I think I kind of gained his trust a little bit and got in contact with Darren [Hill], who manages Paul and the Replacements, and he had a great idea to riff off – and rip off – the Twins logo. I just thought that was hilarious. I had to add the Twin/Tone logo on there, because I used to work at Twin/Tone in about ’94. I saw them at Coachella and I just think it’s amazing that their music doesn’t sound dated at all. By the time these five hundred cars leave this parking lot tonight, it’s gonna be the biggest singalong you’ve ever heard in your life.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Kris Head, South Hampton, England.“This is my third visit to Minneapolis in under two years. I love the music, I love the history of the music [scene] in the Twin Cities. Please try and find me another city that has created as many influential bands that haven’t gotten credit as this place has. The Replacements music speaks to me more than any other band; the first time I heard ‘Unsatisfied,’ I thought, ‘This is a person who’s saying something that I completely understand.’ I had to get here for this show and this weekend.” 

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Ann Kellogg and Chris Begg, Owatonna.“I’m a Replacements fan due to my wife’s family,” said Begg. “She grew up with the Replacements, and today we were the 15th car waiting along Energy Park Drive to get into the parking lot, so we’ve got pole position here.” Said Kellogg, “In my family, we listened to the Replacements all the time – from getting ready for high school dances to blasting it on the way over here.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Autry and Peter Jesperson, Los Angeles.“I think it’s about time these songs are being heard by a larger group of people than perhaps heard them in the past,” said Peter, the Replacements former manager and producer, now an executive with New West Records. “I think it’s the songs that have carried it this far, and it’s the songs that will carry it a lot further.” Said Autry, 12, “They’re awesome, I saw them in Denver. [I expect] nothing but the best. I’m sort of overwhelmed right now.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Richard Doss, Minneapolis.“This is the show of all shows. We’re here to see the greatest band in the world prove once again that they’re the greatest live American rock & roll band in the world. We’re here to celebrate (famed Memphis producer) Jim Dickinson and the ‘Pleased to Meet Me’ legacy and the greatness that comes with it.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Arin Sheahan and Glinda Askegaard, West St. Paul, were playing “Replacements four square” in the parking lot and attending their second Replacements concert. “I grew up with them,” said Askegaard. “I’m from Fargo, and followed them when I was in Fargo through the ’80s and ’90s. I love ’em and I’m so glad to be living down here and being able to see them today. I like them because they were rebels, and I love that.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Rick Olsen, Hastings.“We’ve just opened up the martini kit to make Manhattans, because the last time I saw the Replacements was in Manhattan in 1986 at the Beacon Theater. I wish my kids could understand the teen angst that I had from the Replacements, because now they’re 12 and 14. I’ve bought them shirts tonight; I hope they get it, but I’m losing hope because they’re still listening to a lot of Disturbed and country [music], but I hope they someday understand the Replacements can get them through their teen years.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Don and Doug Bratland, Northfield.“By the end of the night it felt like history was being rewritten, and they really were as huge a band as we always wanted them to be for all these years, and it seemed like everyone everywhere finally knew it,” said Don after the show.

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Eric Lindbom, Los Angeles.“Come on, they did everything!” enthused Lindbom, who covered the Replacements in the early ’80s for the Twin Cities Reader. “I thought the show was tremendous. It was blowing my mind. I just thought it was great, I thought it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen ‘em do. This was like a legacy-cementing show.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Trey Coudret, Northfield, waiting for the parking lot to clear after the show. “I’m 13. I love the Replacements, and when my dad got tickets I asked him if I could go and he said yes. I thought tonight’s show was very good and I had a lot of fun. I took a lot of pictures. I liked the part when they put on the [St. Paul Saints] jerseys and I liked [‘Androgynous’] and ‘Unsatisfied’ a lot. It was pretty crazy, and I liked that they kept coming back out to play more songs.” 

The fact is, I’d had “Can’t Hardly Wait” ringing in my head and heart all week, and I know I wasn’t alone, so it was pretty perfect that, at the remade Replacements reunion show at Midway Stadium Saturday night, I ended up under the left field scoreboard in a mosh pit with a smattering of friends, family and strangers, and getting elbowed in solidarity with a chain-smoking whiskey-sipping dude who sang along to Paul Westerberg’s cry for a soul mate in the wilderness with a knowing bloody howl and who, like seemingly everybody else in the whole damn place, knew all the words, every syllable, every scar.

At one point he was thrusting his cigarette at the stage in time to the big beat; the next, just before the chorus, I looked down and found him on all fours barfing in the dark, and, with the bright stars of St. Paul shining down on his back, finally passing out and I know I speak for everyone in our little corner of the world who got splashed by his chunks, thanks to the large man who picked up Mr. Whirly and carried him off to safety.

Anyway, “Can’t Hardly Wait” might be the ultimate expression of “this urge that is the Replacements,” as one fan described it to me Saturday night, for sure an anthem of great joy and desire and anticipation, and by the time the remade ’Mats hit the stage around 9 p.m. at Midway, the excitement and mass hypnosis of rock and roll hoochie-coo was in full effect to the point where, when the band offered up touchstones by the Jackson Five, Jimmy Reed, and Jimi Hendrix – not to mention their ode to Big Star founder “Alex Chilton” – the entire baseball stadium was catapulted back to the free and freaky ’70s, when smiley faces, AM pop radio, disco, glam, and punk rock and partying with the Minnesota Kicks at Met Stadium was all the rage.  

Or maybe that was just me.

At the very least, Saturday night was nothing short of a cultural moment, and a blow struck for rock & roll as one of mankind’s most enduring cries of freedom and fun. Speaking of which, before heading into the show, I came upon this scene by the railroad tracks abutting the Midway parking lot, which most of the late afternoon and early evening turned into something of a low-burn Burning ’Mats tailgating orgy, albeit with long port-a-potty lines. “If I don’t get a ticket to the show,” said a buddy, “I’m gonna sit by the railroad tracks and drink some cheap wine with [the ghost of] Bobby Stinson.” Consider these dudes in on the salute, seeking relief not long before the Replacements took the stage:

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Maybe the best testament to the lasting effects of Saturday night’s concert came Sunday, when fans all over the metro area could be spotted sporting freshly purchased ’Mats swag. On a pole in the Midway parking lot Saturday night before the show, someone had hoisted a black and red lumberjack shirt – flying the flannel – and that was the drill all day Sunday, as T-shirt-clad denizens of Replacements nation gave one another a nod, a quick review, and posed the question that was on everyone’s mind, and likely will be for a long time to come:

Were you there?

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Flying the flannel at Midway.

If you were, you felt it – the tremor of all those feelings conjured by all those songs in all those souls for the first time en masse.  If I heard it once I heard it a hundred times Saturday and Sunday, the one about how lives were changed by the show, performance, by one song or another, or just the whole of this singular and singularly moving 80-minute concert. Which is to say for many it was a heady – if not exactly intimate – experience to bear witness to this great band coming back to life, beyond the recordings and Youtube videos that have kept their legacy and catalog alive all these years.

Incredibly enough, Replacements Saturday kicked off with the news that a thoroughbred racehorse named after the band’s founding drummer, Chris Mars  (who has not taken part in the recent reunion shows), won the fifth race at Canterbury Park that afternoon.

A few hours later, the accomplished painter and filmmaker’s former bandmates, after 23 years in mothballs, won a race against time and hit homerun after homerun in a doomed minor league baseball stadium on a gorgeous autumn night. As my mother likes to say, will wonders never cease?

MinnPost photo by Jay Walsh

The Daily Racing Form program from Sept. 13, 2014. Chris Mars, the horse, a 3-1 favorite, won the 5th race at Canterbury Park Saturday and paid $8.40 to win.

At the end of a week that brought to the Twin Cities jubilant concerts by first wave punks Paul Weller and the Buzzcocks, the remade Replacements took the stage looking like a forever-plaid hybrid of the New York Dolls and Bay City Rollers, and ripped through a muscular set of rock & roll that had 14,000 people digging up the dirt infield and outfield for souvenirs.

That’s my review, but the fact is that in this case, words fail. Other than to say it’s no exaggeration to say that Saturday’s triumph of so many spirits is a testament to all sorts of mysteries and mysterious forces, and proves, perhaps more so than ever, that the cauldron of live music and memory can make for a profound, illuminating, inspiring and combustible energy exchange.

Photo by David Tanner

Tony Glover joined the Replacements on stage to play harmonica on Jimmy Reed's "Going to New York."

The fuse for this explosion was lit 23 years ago, the last time anything called the Replacements performed live locally, and that alone fueled the fun, the time machine, the mass catharsis. Highlights abounded, including the brotherly love obviously on display between Tommy and Paul, a couple of pals grateful to have refound each other; Tony “Little Sun” Glover joining the band on harmonica and the songs – “Favorite Thing,” “I’ll Be You,” “Takin’ a Ride,” “Androgynous,” “I Will Dare,” etc. — being played with such a massive engine and over a PA befitting Olympus.

Chill after chill came with various songs, most memorably “Bastards of Young,” “Unsatisfied,” “If Only You Were Lonely,” “Valentine,” “Kiss Me on the Bus,” and the singalongs for “Androgynous” and “Swingin’ Party.” My knees went weak when the opening chords to “Left of the Dial” rang out across the big sky and Westerberg sang to a throng made up of thousands of people who came of age on independent music, media and art, “Read about your band in some local page, didn’t mention my name,” like he was still ticked off about it.

The wistful lyric disappeared into the drums, guitars and night, and so eventually, too, did the Replacements – but not the memories of what they’ve given us all these years, especially of that Saturday night in September, when the swingin’ party down the line never felt more powerful or relevant. Long may we hang.

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Replacements leave the stage, fans leave Midway Stadium for the last time.

At one point during Eric Robel’s excellent and essential new documentary “The Color of Noise,” Tom Hazelmyer tries to explain what makes the pushing-50 noise rock pioneer tick: “I have this propensity for, if I really like something and nothing’s happening around it, I feel a need to make something happen.”

Therein lies the simple infectious bug behind Hazelmyer, the ex-Marine and punk band leader who, in the '80s and '90s in Seattle and Minneapolis, built from the ground up a label (Amphetamine Reptile Records), bar (Grumpy’s), music scene, poster art scene, and an enduring aesthetic by making flipping the bird into a fast, furious, funny form of entertainment, expression, and real rock & roll rebellion  – all of which is crucially captured by Robel and crew in “Noise,” which gets its one-night-only area premiere Wednesday at the Riverview Theater (9 p.m., with a Q&A with Robel to follow).

See it. Like Haze himself, the doc is smart, passionate, irreverent, and a historic snapshot of an all-but-lost slice of the pre-Internet American punk rock underground. With Hazelmyer at the helm, AmRep brought together some of the freest and freakiest outsider artists of our time, and created a hilariously hooligan community whose raison d’etre is more in line with Groucho Marx’s “I’m Against It” than any political party. If that sounds like a hippie dream come true, rest assured that the musicians and artists in the film give each other as much grief as they do their fearless leader and skewer the idea of “music community” even as it blossoms around their puritanical punk rock lives (“What is this, a commune?” accuses Rich Kronfeld, aka the notorious Dr. Sphincter, during a tour of the old AmRep headquarters). 

“The Color of Noise” captures all that – along with Hazelmyer’s uncanny penchant for finding undiscovered talent that jibes with his exacting and eternally curious tastes – in all its loud, politically incorrect glory and fury. The live footage of the Cows and interviews with the band members alone is worth the price of admission, bringing back as it does a Jagermeister-fueled time when the Cows’ incendiary shows at the Uptown Bar and 7^th St. Entry upped the ante for every band in town.

“I visited Minneapolis while drumming with Shannon Selberg and his band the Heroine Sheiks, and that’s when I met Tom,” says Robel by email from his home in Baltimore. “I kept looking around his restaurant, the posters, the vinyl, then out back to the OXOP gallery. The different artists that showed there, the toys, the stock room and posters, I thought, ‘I can’t believe no one has made a film about this man.

“A few years later I was looking to do a film project and then heard about the AmRep 25^th anniversary show. I wrote to Haze and told him I wanted to shoot all the bands every day and night with five guys. He agreed and when I saw him that weekend, I gave him a multipage presentation with the whole film outlined, and with every person listed I wanted to interview. I did my homework, and had an art angle to the story so that is what he liked about it. It wasn’t just going to be about the bands, but about the art as well.”

Hell if “The Color of Noise” doesn’t feel like a refreshing blast of true alternative rock, which was festering in the AmRep grooves before, after, and when Nirvana hit the mainstream. But more than fame or anything else, over the course of the film’s two hours it becomes clear that the single common denominator shared among all the AmRep bands is a Ramones-like simplicity and a free-jazz-like penchant for sonic experimentation and improvisation, and an all-consuming desire to play as loud as is humanly possible towards self-entertainment and putrid poetry and the pushing of every envelope available. Or, as Today’s The Day singer Steve Austin told Robel, “This [stuff] was enough to make any redneck want to kill you.”

More highlights abound: We learn that Hazelmyer discovered Helmet, the New York noise boys who inspired a post-Nirvana major label bidding war, via Twin/Tone Records’ Jill Fonaas, who heard the band’s demo tape and passed it along to Hazelmyer. God Bullies singer Mike Hard comes off like a jacked-up pulp fiction writer and preacher gone to hell and back and back again. The footage of Hazelmyer’s band Halo of Flies performing their last show in Europe is invaluable, as are the interviews with the many musicians who talk candidly and angrily about the heroin abuse that permeated the punk and grunge subcultures of the day and claimed the lives of AmRep artists Kristen Pfaff (Janitor Joe) and Sean McDonnell (Surgery). 

Then there’s the music, and a helluva lot of screaming, from the likes of Boss Hog, the Melvins, Helmet, Hammerhead, Unsane, Supernova, Nashville Pussy, Calvin Krime (whose singer/keyboardist, Sean Tillman, went on to star on the worldwide stage as Har Mar Superstar), and a glorious round-up of the most unusual suspects from the noise scene, including Hazelmyer’s partners in AmRep crime Pat Dwyer and Mike Wolfe; his wife, Lisa Premick, and their hilarious art- , rock- and comic books-loving kids; Neglecters/Cows/Jayhawks drummer Norm Rogers; First Avenue photographer Daniel Corrigan, and Your Flesh editor/publisher Peter Davis.

The last half of the film is devoted to illustrating, in glorious punk art-rock color, how Hazelmyer commissioned artists like Frank Kozik, Chris Mars, Coop, Sheperd Fairey, and others for vinyl, CD and poster artwork, and in doing so helped launch a resurgence of the concert poster as a serious art form. As Cleveland booker and record storeowner Derek Hess told Robel, “It’s two different art forms, feeding off each other. It’s kind of like the Impressionists, who were different but there was a common thread. The ideas expanded together and became a special time and place in history.”

To be sure, as “The Color of Noise” attests time and time again, it’s no stretch to see that what Hazelmyer has created could have a similarly lasting impact. Just listen to Kozik, Fairey and Coop tell Robel, who discovered AmRep records as a young vinyl-collecting musichead growing up in Baltimore, what Hazelmyer has meant to their careers.

Kozik: “Peter [Davis] did an article about my stuff in his magazine, and I started doing stuff for either [Davis’s] Creature Booking bands or Amphetamine Reptile. If I had never gotten the articles in Your Flesh, if I had never done all the posters for Tom’s bands, I would never have achieved a certain level of credibility.”

Fairey, whose AmRep work predates his “Obey” and “Obama Hope” empire by a decade: “Frank Kozik was doing posters for bands I liked, like Mudhoney and the Beastie Boys and the Melvins, especially. He had also done posters for some other bands on a label called Amphetamine Reptile Records, and it was the perfect fusion of subversive pop art, psychedelic art, and punk rock. I think the first one I saw was a Helio’s Creed poster with Lee Harvey Oswald being shot, but holding a microphone. Frank Kozik made something like 200 posters in a year, and I thought, ‘Man, I’ve gotta get off my ass.’”

Chris Coop, whose smoking Satan lighter launched Hazelmyer’s sleek collectible Zippo line: “In ‘91 I started doing giant full color posters in all kinds of styles. My whole ethos when I was doing those posters was, I wanted to do the biggest nicest poster ever made for like, the smallest bands. To find someone in the music business, somebody who has any sort of decent character, it’s so … rare. And the fact that [Hazelmyer] also has good taste in the music he puts out, and the way that he presents the label – he designed all that product, he’s kind of underrated in that respect because I think all the AmRep product is as good or better than the SubPop stuff and I don’t think he’s ever gotten any props for that. “

“The Color of Noise” goes a long way toward giving Hazelmyer his due as an innovator, artist, and more. A good chunk of the last part of the film is dedicated to friends and collaborators singing the praises of Hazelmyer as a friend, father, husband, musician, artist and inspiration. As Hazelmyer’s best friend and bar business partner Pat Dwyer sums up AmRep’s two-decade run, “Things dissolve, things go out of business, but the big lesson for me is, did you do it right? Hazelmyer did it right. He informed everybody.”

Which is what “The Color of Noise” gets at so well – not that its subject matter takes too much of it too seriously.

“It’s just trying to break out of the norm,” says Hazelmyer early in the film. “To present art shows and rock shows in a different way just to change it up, to make people look at it in a different way. I wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel, just make it wobbly so it’s interesting.”

“It’s a good day to be indigenous in Minneapolis,” said teacher/attorney/activist Carly Bad Heart Bull to a crowd of about 500 Monday evening at the Minneapolis American Indian Center, where people of all ethnicities and backgrounds came to bury Columbus Day and celebrate the first Indigenous Peoples Day, as voted on by the Minneapolis City Council and recently lampooned by the likes of Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver (“Columbus Day: How Is That Still A Thing?”) and comedian Chris Rock, who cracked, “Nobody celebrates Columbus Day. Nobody puts three ships in their front yard. First of all Columbus discovered the West Indies and second of all, the land he discovered had occupants on it. That’s like discovering someone’s backyard.”  

Columbus Day started in 1892, became a federal holiday in 1934, and Berkeley, California was the first American city to reject it and embrace Indigenous Peoples Day. Today, 16 states don’t recognize Columbus Day; Minneapolis and Seattle are the biggest cities in the United States to adopt the change, and in her address to the chatty crowd, Bad Heart Bull wryly noted that St. Paul “still celebrates Columbus Day.”

In Minneapolis, Monday’s program made for a cautiously joyous event (“It’s a joyous day, but it’s a time of remembrance of what really happened,” longtime native rights activist and American Indian Movement co-founder Clyde Bellecourt told Minnpost Monday) that included food, dancing, and speeches by mayor Betsy Hodges, Rep. Keith Ellison and Sen. Al Franken, and native elders Bellecourt and Winona LaDuke, who gave impassioned quasi-victory speeches that mapped out ongoing injustices in the native community, from the unimpeded rape of the land and water by oil companies in Minnesota and beyond, to the blatant racism of the Washington football team's name and logo.  

All told, it was a reserved celebration compared to what future Indigenous Peoples Day celebrations surely promise, though the simmering optimism and electricity over this small but big win in the culture wars in a cozy gym and community center on Franklin Avenue yesterday was palpable, and made for an historic, if long overdue, moment of sweet revolution. In words and photos:

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Emmanuel Ortiz, Minneapolis, sporting local designer Ashleigh Fairbanks’ “Racists Redskins” T-shirt. “It’s a symbolic victory, but it’s a victory nonetheless. Today is a recapturing of history, which has been so wrongly told, particularly in a city like Minneapolis, which has such a large native population. I think it’s a real morale booster and a real power shift. People actually feel like they can be heard.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Deanna Beaulieu, Eloise Funmaker, Kaina Martinez, Minneapolis.“In years past (on Columbus Day) I thought, ‘He did not discover America, we were already here,’ and I never celebrated it. Whenever that day came around, I just thought about every wrong thing that he’s done and other people have done to the native people. Today is just a great day,” said Funmaker. “We always thought he didn’t discover anything, and why don’t we have our own day? Today is a great day,” said Martinez. “Today is a day to celebrate our heritage and culture and take the name back and celebrate the positives instead of the negatives that are part of the native community,” said Beaulieu.

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Clyde Bellecourt, Minneapolis:“Today we start rewriting history and the truth of what Columbus was: the greatest pirate that ever lived. Since he landed here, virtually millions have lost their lives. Whole tribes have been totally decimated, and there’s nothing in the school history books about that. Perhaps with the designation of Indigenous Peoples Day they’ll start rewriting that history. Indian people are more than what they’ve been made out to be, heathens and savages. It’s time to rewrite that history.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Winona LaDuke, White Earth.“I feel liberated. I mean, I always feel pretty liberated, let’s go with that, but it’s like this is an acknowledgement that we’re liberated here [in Minneapolis]. It’s funny, because I just came from Colorado, and those cats legalized hemp, legalized marijuana, ride around on their bikes, have all these microbreweries and organic food, and they still have that effin’ Columbus Day. Columbus is a really heavy thing to carry around for 500 years. Time to let it go. Our resistance, our resilience, and the fact that 500 years later empire is no longer sustainable means it’s time to come into the next plan. We’re good.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Faye Crowghost, Minneapolis.“I’m enrolled in the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North and South Dakota and I’ve lived here for the last 14 years and I’m very proud to say that today is one of the biggest celebrations of my life. 2014 is a very great year for us, starting right here in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I’m very proud of that. I have a 7-year-old son and I’m happy that he’s going to recognize that in the future. He and all his generation have a lot to look forward to.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

David Huckfelt and Michael Rossetto, Minneapolis.“I’ve been a resident in Minneapolis for 10 years, and I’ve lived in this neighborhood for the last three or four years, and I fully support changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day,” said Huckfelt. “Minneapolis has a got an incredibly unique history with the founding of the American Indian Movement here, and I’m glad it started here and it’s catching on with other cities and states. Getting a little older and reading Howard Zinn and asking questions, it doesn’t take too long to find out that there’s something amiss about what happened when Columbus landed on this continent.”  

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

George McCauley, South St. Paul.“I belong to the Omaha tribe of Nebraska. It’s an historic day because the truth is finally being told and people are finally knowing what they read in the history books is all made up. People are finally seeing what is real and the Indian people are still here, and still proud, and still surviving. What I would like to see for future generations and for today is to see Indian people as human beings. We are not mascots. Our children, my grandchildren, are people who come from a proud race and nation and they need to know and hear that this is what we are, not the Washington Redskins and not the Atlanta Braves. We’re true Native American people, indigenous of this time.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Mary Anne Quiroz, St. Paul (far left, with baby), with theKalpulli Yaocenoxtli dance group.  “Our group represents the Mexica-Azteca nation of Mexico, and we’re here in support of our northern brothers and sisters, trying to honor this day with a dance we call ‘Tletl,’ which is the fire dance.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Gwe Gasco, Margaret Campbell, Will Sayers, White Earth.“I started my day by picking up the sons of my boss at Honor The Earth (Winona LaDuke), who are being home-schooled, because in the Detroit Lakes public school system, where they were going, today the curriculum would have been learning about Columbus and how Columbus discovered America,” said Campbell. “And for them to speak their truth as 14-year-old Ojibwe men, that’s a moment of growing up, when you’re confronting your teachers and authority figures who won’t hear you out. That’s what they didn’t experience today, because that’s what they’ve experienced every day in public school. They’re here today to finish off their home school assignment, which is to experience the first-ever Indigenous Peoples Day and hear speakers talking about the importance and responsibility that comes with being indigenous and fighting the people who want to put pipelines through the wild rice beds of Northern Minnesota.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Charlie Thayer, Minneapolis and White Earth.“Today is a celebration of who we are as people, and we haven’t had the opportunity to have a day specifically for that celebration of native people. It’s important for us, today, and for the next seven generations – who we look out for, who we as native people are responsible for – to have this day as a day to celebrate.” 

The recent passing of Leigh Kamman served as a poignant reminder of how much a single voice sharing what he singularly loves over the radio can mean to so many. He wasn’t the only one.

To be sure, we live in a time of rare airwaves in the Twin Cities, where the abundance of riches on the music dial is regularly augmented by a bevy of independent voices, personalities that can be heard blowing past the predictable talk radio dross and programmed music backwash of the day and toward a real connection with listeners via ye olde standbys of great radio, taste and true personality. 

As an avid radio listener/dial puncher, I’m an avowed fan of the deejay as artist; the type of obsessive who creates his or her own playlists — you can just hear it; the kind where it’s clear that the set is being guided not by the evil empire but by a lot of care, thought, experience, improvisation, and a vast personal record collection. On this end, it makes for a truly intimate listen (which is why my favorite radio show on the planet is the syndicated UnderCurrents).

For all of us lucky enough to live within earshot of the Twin Cities, it turns out there’s good reason to tune into one specialty show or another every day of the week. Here’s my totally subjective guide:

FRIDAY
Mary and Aaron	“Off The Record” (3-6 p.m., Radio K)
I always say there’s nothing quite like hearing a friend’s band or song on the radio, and to that end, we’re in high clover these days. Local music has never enjoyed a bigger presence on the airwaves (or, most prominently, on the web, at the 24-7 wonder that is Local Current). This is one of the original local music shows, originating in part from the Kevin Cole-, Peter Jesperson-, and Roy Freedom-led “Real Rock & Roll Radio” show of the early ‘80s on KUOM. Like that pioneer, this three-hour tour of all things Gopher State flies by the seat of its pants with interviews, oddities, in-studio performances and loose and lively college radio the-way-it-oughta-be — straight outta Rarig Hall.
Lolly Obeda	“The Sugar Shop” (4-6 p.m., KFAI)
All hail the queen of the blues. For more than 25 years, Obeda’s cheerful, loving, and supremely heartfelt voice has provided a beautiful balm to the end of the working week. How many times have I cooked dinner or run errands to the sounds of Lolly’s vintage vinyl picks, encyclopedic blues expertise, and charming guest cameo spots from her daughter, Miss Lily? Not enough, that’s how many. Long may she and this under-recognized labor of love run.
Kevin Barnes	“Bluesville” (9-11 p.m., KBEM)
As close as the twin towns will get to the earthy vibe of Undercurrents or the everyday miracle that is KUMD in Duluth, “Bluesville” finds the amiable Barnes playing what he obviously loves and whatever he wants, from classic R&B and blues to all-but forgotten blues-based indie rock. Worth going fetal to on a Friday night, alone or with someone you love.
Mary Lucia	“Rock and Roll Radio” (10-11 p.m., The Current)
Courtesy of Mary Lucia Mary Lucia All hail the queen of the rawk. The wildly beloved Monday-Friday voice of the Current’s afternoon airwaves is always inviting, real, sharp, and funny as hell, but this one-hour blast is pure Lucia Unchained. Roaring guitars, screaming dudes, insane energy, glammy hand-claps, and Looch’s passion for rock history past and present make the 60 minutes fly by, to the point where, come 11 o’clock, you want to flick your Bic and beg for more. All in all, the perfect soundtrack for gearing up to go out on the city that rocks.
Ron Gerber	“Crap From The Past” (10:30-midnight, KFAI)
Here it must be said that all the deejays and stations featured in this guide are bravely engaging in what can only be heard as some seriously sly acts of subversion. In an otherwise namby-pamby media environment — where too much local news takes too few chances or expresses any sense of risk-taking or originality — these anti-talking heads up the establishment on a regular basis by filling the airwaves with revolutionary ideas you can sing along to. Gerber’s is among the weirdest trips going; I always imagine an R. Crumb character come to life, rifling through his dungeon in the middle of the night in search of something from the archives that speaks to him, only him.  And as the night descends late Friday nights, I sometimes wonder if there’s a more bizarre show to be found on the radio dial anywhere.

SATURDAY
Jacqui Fuller	“Teenage Kicks” (8–10 a.m., The Current)
Like a shot of spiked espresso or a continuation of her rock and roll soul-sister Mary Lucia’s Friday night delights, Fuller rips it up with punk, pop, new wave, and an endless loop of, “Did I really just hear the Jam’s ‘Town Called Malice’ and The Damned’s ‘Neat Neat Neat’ blasting forth amidst the farm and weather reports?” Yes, please. Highly recommended for hung-over sports parents with good earbuds and bad sideline social skills.
Ken Hippler	“Good ‘N’ Country” (4-6 p.m., KFAI)
Always an education, this hardcore honky-tonk salute is the ideal shotgun-riding partner for a lazy Saturday afternoon of running errands, record/thrift store shopping, or chores. Warning: The fiddles, crooners, harmonicas, and pedal steel guitars come out of the dashboard like a modern-day reincarnation of Hank Williams’ Health & Happiness Show, and Hippler’s penchant for playing songs you’ve never heard before and know you’ll never hear again can stop time, along with any well-laid raking plans.
Paul Metsa	“Wall Of Power” (6-7 p.m., AM 950 KTNF, replay Sunday at noon)
Metsa is a great storyteller and listener, and his experience as one of our most–traveled troubadours lends weight to his interviews and off-the-cuff asides. The last two shows have featured a lengthy chat with Shawn Phillips, and a trip to Rich Mattson’s Sparta Sound studios. Good stuff, all fueled by Iron Range native Metsa’s seemingly infinite curiosity and boundless love for Minnesota.
Arne Fogel	“The Bing Shift” (7-8 p.m., KBEM)
Courtesy of Arne Fogel Arne Fogel Sandwiched between the wonderful “Sinatra & Friends” and “The Big Band Scene,” Fogel’s weekly tribute to Bing Crosby (or, as he regularly refers to the Binger, “the most popular recording artist in American history”) is not to be missed. Stories and songs blend as one, as the mellifluously voiced Fogel, who moonlights as a nightclub torch singer and band leader, creates one of the most romantic date nights-slash-classrooms of the week. (Catch it while you can, as the “Shift” shifts to Sundays next month.)
David Campbell	“Radio Free Current” (7-10 p.m., The Current)
Speaking of romantic, dude-about-town Campbell’s sexy/friendly voice is especially chill during this ever-effervescent dose of freedom rock. (Here it must be noted that I miss Cities 97’s Brian Oake’s playlists and philosophical musings on his old Sunday night staple, “Freedom Rock,” recently shelved due to Oake’s move to the morning shift). Campbell is similarly attuned to his hungry club-crawling audience, playing requests and personal faves, and the fun he’s having spinning for pals and strangers alike is obvious. When he’s in his groove, the show positively crackles and brings the town together.
Simon Husbands	“True Brit!” (midnight-2:00 a.m., KFAI)
Husbands is a storyteller, songwriter, musician, and native of the UK’s Nottingham. Like his hometown’s hero Robin Hood, every week he leads his band of merry people by chatting pop and politics with fellow British expats and spinning tunes from the motherland. This summer’s pre-World Cup highlight was the debut of “The Footy Song (One For All For England),” a parody of British drinking songs that deserves widespread play across the pond.

SUNDAY
Bill DeVille	“United States Of Americana” (8-10 a.m., The Current)
Church is in session at this ungodly hour of the morning, as the affable DeVille takes to his record collection in what amounts to bringing to life an issue of No Depression or the Oxford American’s music issue. Nowhere else around these parts can you hear the likes of Bob Dylan and Neil Young chewing tobacco with the likes of Erik Koskinen, Uncle Tupelo, Merle Haggard, Lucinda Williams, and other dashboard saviors, and great care is obviously taken in both song choices and segues. DeVille recently attended the influential Americana Music Festival and Conference in Nashville, and to hear the low-burn excitement in his voice as he spun new finds upon his return made for some truly enlightening radio, and undoubtedly inspired a multitude of trips to the record store.
John Allen and Mara The Death	“Root Of All Evil” (1-6 a.m., KFAI)
Any God-fearing listener stumbling upon this metal mainstay (launched in 1987 by the late, great Earl Root) in the middle of the night might well be convinced that they’ve tuned into the decline of western civilization and/or hell on earth. The sounds are brutal, the songs Satanic, and the fact that it goes for five uninterrupted hours gives me faith in the cathartic power of guitars turned up to 11 and the dark side of community radio.
David Campbell	“The Local Show” (6-8 p.m., The Current)
Courtesy of David Campbell David Campbell Campbell picks up where former host and show founder Chris Roberts left off a few years ago, and this two-hour party remains the town’s most essential radio resource for anyone interested in staying up to date on the vast and wiggly homegrown music scene. Campbell’s love for his homies comes through in interviews and theme shows, and provides a symbiotic lead-up to Jason Nagel’s kindred-spirited “MN Music” show later the same night (9-10 p.m., KTWIN).

TUESDAY
DJ Izzy and Liberty Finch	“The Pop Shop” (midnight-2 a.m., KFAI)
Two hours of wholly unironic love for ’60s and ’70s bubblegum, glam, funk, rock, psychedelia, and whitebread singer/songwriters make up this reliably entertaining slice of massive cheesy fun. Whenever these two pop culture vultures dive into their 45s from the Beatles, Monkees, Kinks, Archies, Cowsills and obscure would-be AM radio hits, you’d swear you were just Time-Tunneled back to one of Elvis’s clambakes or an Austin Powers movie set on the West Bank.
Cyn Collins	“Spin With Cyn” (10 a.m.-12:30 p.m., KFAI)
Courtesy of Cyn Collins Cyn Collins Another true flame-keeper of the Twin Cities scene, Collins rocks hard with mostly local playlists, and her passion for oral history and radio documentary-making (check out her early Minneapolis rock doc here) informs each show. As a genuinely interested journalist and music fan, she asks good questions and shines a light on the little-heards and up-and-comers of the underground punk, rock, blues, and folk scenes.
Ellen Stanley	“Womenfolk” (2-4 p.m., KFAI)
Courtesy of Ellen Stanley Ellen Stanley The title says it all. Musician/songwriter/publicist Stanley’s show is one of my weekly won’t-miss staples, focusing as it does on acoustic/folk music by female singer/songwriters. I always hear something new, old, and inspiring, from the likes of Jillian Rae, Eliza Gilkyson, Iris DeMent, Lucy Michelle, Rosanne Cash, the Roches, Danille Ate The Sandwich, and many more. Stanley — aka Mother Banjo if you’re nasty — knows her stuff, is well-connected to the various folk scenes, labels, and women’s music festivals around the country, and she’s passionate about sharing her knowledge, a gift that is taken for granted at our peril.

WEDNESDAY
Jackson Buck	“Freewheelin’” (2-4 p.m., KFAI)
Courtesy of Jackson Buck Jackson Buck One of the biggest champions of homegrown music around, Buck’s easygoing nature flows out of the speakers and into the heart of the local music community. His show, dedicated to roots music of all stripes, from Americana to blues to zydeco, is a treasure, a gem, a midweek shot of midday love, and a tireless public service announcement that often highlights the best of the week’s live music docket.
Grandpa Joe	“Basement Vinyls” (8-10 p.m., Radio K)
Speaking of a vast personal record collection, this warm and wacky 120 minutes is like hanging out with a favorite record hound who holds court and plays whatever timeless, true, or kitschy blast from the past he likes. The uncompressed sound of needle on vinyl is particularly transporting, though — as any vinyl junkie can attest — a two-hour set barely scratches the surface of what can be had during a good record-bin bender, so “Basement Vinyls” can work as a delicious appetizer to your own all-night feast.

Moments after the photo below was taken of Martina Jesperson and her family protesting the Washington football team's nickname in front of TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis Sunday, a 20-something white man in a Randy Moss Vikings jersey walked by, stagger-stopped in order to survey the group and said, “Yeah, but you catch all our fish for us.”

“Classy,” shot back Jesperson, as if she’d heard a lot worse.

The man was pursued by MinnPost for further comment but when reached he declined, and, like several other annoyed NFL fans who muttered racist comments under their breath and off the record on their way into the game, retreated into the anonymity of the crowd. But before gorging on the Vikings victory on the field, fans were at least grudgingly grazed by the 3,000-strong protest, which organizers hoped would be the largest demonstration against the team nickname to date.

Held on the heels of the first Indigenous People’s Day in Minneapolis,  the march from Northrop Auditorium and rally at TCF Bank Stadium made for a sometimes tense and often inspiring gathering of ideas, expressions, and histories that included drum circles, prayers, dances, and speakers like Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, who led the crowd in a chant of “Change the name!” and former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, who bellowed, “[Washington owner] Dan Snyder, you’re a rich white guy. What the hell do you know about Indians?!”

More from the protest, in words and photos:

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Annie Jesperson, Bill Rusk, Bryan Buckley, Tracy Harjo, John Jesperson, and Martina Jesperson, East Glacier Park, Montana.“I’m a native person and I have a granddaughter on the way and I’m here for her," said Martina Jesperson. "She doesn’t know it yet but this world is a bad world right now in 2014. But we hope that it’s changing. We really do. We hope the times they are a-changing.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Howard Lathe, Mark Lathe, Robey Lathe, Lindstrom.“I’m from [the state of] Virginia, that’s all Redskins territory up there,” said Howard. “The name was not intended to be a slur. It was intended for the Native Americans as far as pride and the solidarity; they were brave warriors. Over 90 percent of the Native Americans now support the Redskins in the United States. Granted, there’s a minority that’s offended, and if they feel it’s offensive to them, myself I don’t have a problem if they change it. If they had to change it, then change it to something like the Washington Warriors. I don’t have a problem with that.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Joan and Ananae May Capitaine, Cass Lake.“I’m with the Leech Lake tribe. We are a family affected by historical trauma, and that name really hurts us,” said Joan. “Not only is it my family, it’s our people. We have to live with that name out there. How are we supposed to overcome and come back to where we once were if they use this derogatory name? People just don’t know how much it hurts all of us. It’s like a slap in the face to us whenever we see it.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Lindy Friend and Steve Parks, Fort Francis, Ontario.“We’re Canadian Oji-Cree, but in Canada it’s derogatory to be called an ‘Indian’ so we go by ‘First Nation people,’ ” said Friend. “I’ve been a Redskins fan since I was 13, I’m 44 now,” said Parks. “I’m native, myself. She’s native, herself. I don’t think the name is racist at all. It’s nothing. I’m here as a fan. A Redskins fan. A football fan. I’m a fan, I’m not making this a racial thing.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Broderick Dressen, Minneapolis.“No matter the root of the word ‘redskin’ it’s what comes out of the fans and the mascot that creates it to be racist. The people who represent this name are not representing the hundreds of tribes out there. It’s racist.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Ogiichinaa Be’o and Waabanang Be’o, White Earth.“My name means ‘spirit seeker.’ [Indigenous people] in America are so different when it comes to religion and education,” said Ogiichinaa. “There are so many programs that shut down the real truth of who we are, and we’re trying to wake up America with what we’re doing here today, because this earth is our spirituality, so we come here to teach. Did you know that if you were to go up in the air and look at the earth, the dirt is the same color as our skin?” “We need to make our presence known,” said Waabanang, “and let people know that we’re still here. How we live, it isn’t a culture, it isn’t a religion, it’s a way of life. We wake up every morning and pray to our creator because we choose to, not because we have to. We gather here today to stand strong as a people because there are people who forget we’re still here.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Aviv and Daniel Ettedgui, Minneapolis.“There’s a tradition in having the name, but in language, academics meet every year to add new words to the English language, and so things evolve,” said Daniel. “Attitudes evolve, and what may have at one time been acceptable, today is not. There’s a saying: ‘Life and death are in the power of the tongue,’ and I think that’s true. It’s also true that hurtful words impact people in a very deep way. You can’t always see it on the outside, but people carry it with them on a daily basis. I think it’s time they change the name.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Darren Cobenais, Minneapolis.“My tribe is Red Lake. I don’t want to disrespect [Dan Snyder], but the name has to be changed because ‘redskins’ is a term for back in the day when there was a bounty and the white men would kill Native Americans, like ‘I got three red skins today,’ and that would be three Native Americans dead and they had no limitations, either: women, children, elders, babies. ‘Washington Redskins’ is as bad as ‘Minneapolis Niggers’ or ‘New York Spics’ or ‘Wisconsin Crackers’ or something, and they don’t see that.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Kevin Nance, Elsa Erickson, Anton Konieczny, and Nick Greatens, Minneapolis.“We’re with Students for a Democratic Society,” said Greatens. “I believe we should stand against racism as a society and a university. I believe the Washington team name is absolutely racist and needs to go. We need to respect Native American culture instead of appropriating their names.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Ron Dixon, Kansas City, and Tom Hadley, Minneapolis. Dixon: “I’m from Washington, D.C., originally. We’ve been best friends for 37 years. We’re both retired military.” Hadley: “It is very important that they change their name to anything other than ‘Redskins.’ If a group of people is offended – and I am offended by it – why not change it?” Dixon: “This is my best friend, but I disagree with him 100 percent. The Redskins have been named that for 80 years, they obviously did not name them the ‘Redskins’ to be offensive to anybody. It’s a name that honors Native Americans, in my opinion. I’m gonna leave it at this: We can make a word mean whatever we want it to mean. I’m going to use an example of ‘marriage.’ ‘Marriage’ used to mean a union between a man and a woman, but now slowly but surely across our country, it means marrying whoever you want to marry. The meaning has changed. If in fact it was offensive in the past, it was not meant to be offensive. A name can mean whatever you want it to mean.” Hadley: “I’m gonna go buy a scalper’s ticket. I’m not sitting next to you today.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Fancy Ray McCloney, Minneapolis.“I am here in solidarity with Clyde Bellecourt and all the rest. Let’s give the Washington football team the name it deserves, one that includes everybody and expresses love, joy, and happiness. How about ‘The Washington Fancy Rays?’ If we could make that happen, my my my …”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Beth Solle, Minneapolis.“I feel the use of the word ‘redskin’ is just as much of a racial and ethnic slur against a community of people as the word ‘kike’ or ‘nigger’ is, and it should be considered inappropriate in the same way. I am Jewish, and I know that members of my family have been called [‘kike’] and it used to result in lot of fistfights up on the Northside. You feel degraded and you want to defend yourself.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Alex “Anonymous,” Fridley.“I’ve consumed a little bit of alcohol. [The Redskins name] is a tradition. It doesn’t affect me anyway. I’m Lebanese and white. Does it affect you? Are you offended by it? Do you think you have a voice to change an NFL football team? Honestly? Do you have an effectiveness? Did it affect you five years ago? It does now because of the media. How I feel is probably the same questions I’m asking you.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Matt Latterell, Minneapolis.“I actually feel like the gathering of people is really beautiful and it feels really important. My friends are drinking at Stub and Herb’s right now, and I chose to come here just to experience it. Agreeing with the sentiments is obvious. I’ve heard some discouraging things in response to some children dancing that I just thought were ridiculous. The comment was, ‘We can’t have prayer in school, but we can have this, here.’ They also said, ‘Next we’ll have PETA complaining we can’t use animals as mascots.’ You know, that was literally their response to children dancing. Then another guy said, ‘Actually, I’m offended.’ Oh, it’s so hard being a white guy, isn’t it?’ ”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Desiree Ortiz, San Antonio, Texas.“I’m a member of the American Indian Movement, Central Texas chapter. We need to get this name changed. It’s time. No other race would stand for it, and if it was any other name, it would’ve been gone already. But because our voices aren’t heard, this is what we have to do. This is about justice.” 

Johnny Thunders is probably the biggest reason why I can’t stomach Garth Brooks.

Brooks, in town for a record-setting multinight stand at the Target Center, is by all reports a good guy, a hugely successful corporate partner and citizen, and a careful God-loving politician who plays to his all-American fan base with the same broad strokes brushed by Kentucky senator and likely minority leader Mitch McConnell, who on election night took to his victory podium accompanied by, incredibly enough, Toby Keith’s jingoistic anthem “Made in America” (which promptly catapulted me to John Prine’s “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Any More”).

Ugh, and sigh. “I wish I was like you/easily amused,” sang Kurt Cobain not long before he killed himself, summing up lo these many years later how it still feels to be “outside of society” per Patti Smith, and perpetually at odds with mainstream entertainment, inundated as we are by the sort of suffocating feel-goodery embodied by the likes of Garth, Cracker Barrel, strip malls, and all the other soul-sucking but easily understood and easily digested entities built for ultimate blandness and mass consumption.

Thankfully, there’s a so-called dark side to the human experience that artists like Thunders have been tapping into and expressing since the beginning of time, and we’re all the richer for it.  

To be sure, a dumbed-down world that lambastes Bruce Springsteen for playing “Born in the U.S.A.” and “Fortunate Son” at a Veterans Day concert is to account for play-it-safe pabulum like Garth, the king of normcore and crowd-pleasing who will be yee-hawing it up at Target Center when Danny Garcia’s sadly beautiful “Looking for Johnny: The Legend of Johnny Thunders” makes its Minneapolis debut tonight (9:15) at the Trylon Microcinema as part of the 15^th annual Sound Unseen movies and music festival. UPDATE: A second showing has been added; it will be at 9 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 16, at the Trylon.

Apples and oranges, perhaps, but I couldn’t get the week’s giddy Brooks coverage out of my head as I watched “Looking For Johnny,” knowing full well that Thunders and his bands – especially the trans-dressing New York Dolls – would’ve been booed off stage by the Garth faithful. It also probably says something about me, a normally pretty open-minded music lover who would rather sit in a dark room and watch the story of a junkie guitar player whose life ended pathetically in 1991 at age 38 than go see a live-and-in-person aw-shucks family man and savior of the recording industry, but there you go.

“Gimme danger,” sang Iggy Pop, who turned Thunders on to heroin, and make no mistake, danger or the suggestion of danger – not safety or comfort food – is what the best rock & roll has always flirted with, if not outright embraced. The artist’s journey and job has always been to go as far out as possible, then return with the mystical goods and share. Thunders did that every time he got high and wrote a song, every time he danced with “The Beast,” as Peter Perrett of the Only Ones dubbed heroin, and who appears briefly in “Looking for Johnny” as a latter-day Thunders co-conspirator who bore witness to the Sex Pistols’ Sid Vicious’ hero-worship of Johnny.

“[Heroin] helps me get through all the slush you gotta go through to get on stage, but it doesn’t help me write or perform,” said Thunders, who temporarily cleaned up at Hazelden in the ‘80s. “You can’t run a rock and roll band and be a drug addict.”

Music and hallucinogens have a long and stormy marriage, and Thunders remains one of the oeuvre’s patron saints; an angelic waiflike tough kid who loved the girl groups of the day, '50s rock, and stimulants. The live footage of Thunders and his bands (Jerry and the Jaywalkers, the New York Dolls, the Heartbreakers, the Living Dead, Gang War) is electrifying, though the film itself occasionally falls as flat as Thunders’ dope-deadened eyes and gets weighed down by drug-addled rock clichés.  

“He had a magnetic quality, he was passionate, he was intuitive,” Perrett and Thunders biographer Nina Antonia told Garcia of Thunders, while Dolls guitarist Sylvain Sylvain claimed Bob Dylan said he wished he’d written the Thunders classic, “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory.”

Most important, in terms of a lasting legacy and influence on today’s punk bands, “Looking for Johnny” makes the case that it was the simple tinny sound of Thunders’ guitar that launched the Dolls and a New York punk scene that spawned the Ramones, Television, Blondie, and Thunders’ first post-Dolls band The Heartbreakers.

“By the early ‘70s,” the Only Ones’ guitarist and writer John Perry told Garcia, “when John starts playing, those single pick-up Les Paul juniors with that P-90 pick-up, you could find one for $90 in a junk shop. It was an unfashionable instrument, with a really distinctive sound.”

“For me, that’s one of the best rock and roll guitars you can get,” said guitarist Steve Hooker. “It’s so simple, it’s one pick-up, tone and volume [knobs], wrap-around bridge, really easy to re-string and tune up.”

Perry: “You stick that through a Twin Reverb (amp) and you just turn everything up to 10, including the reverb, and you get this unholy noise, which is Thunders.”

The sound signaled a return to rock’s raw roots, and the beginning of an underground American rock scene that was seeded a few years earlier by the Velvet Underground and the Modern Lovers. “Somewhere in the early 70s,” Patti Smith guitarist and rock journalist/producer Lenny Kaye told Garcia, “I was working as a record clerk at Village Oldies on Bleecker Street, and I saw a sign on the wall and it said ‘The New York Dolls at the Mercer Street Arts Center.’ I love local bands, and though it’s hard to believe, at that time there was no local band scene.”

Like Will Hermes’ excellent “Love Goes to Buildings on Fire,” “Looking for Johnny” is a slice of New York City at one of its most fertile moments. At the heart of it is the glammy, drunken, drugged-out and debauched Dolls, about whom former Dolls manager and Sex Pistols mastermind Malcolm Mclaren told Garcia, “I never realized you could be so good at being bad, and that made me follow them.”

“So good at being bad.” That about sums up the appeal of Thunders, just as “Looking for Johnny” celebrates the importance of the very human antihero in a world gone Garth.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2000 Sparta, Minnesota was a town of 814 people (247 families) living in 311 households.

Fourteen years later, it’s down to a handful of hangers-on — including singer/songwriters and recording artists Rich Mattson and Germaine Gemberling, who own the former church-turned-recording studio Sparta Sound, which is suddenly one of the few buildings in town left standing.

“Sparta was mostly built on mine property; they own the rights to the land, and they’re not renewing the leases to tenants,” said Mattson by phone, while building a fire to warm the house. “So everybody is moving out, trashing their houses on the way out and burning everything they don’t want to take with them. Fortunately, yes, we are staying. Our house and Sparta Sound is not on the leased land. But it’s been a wild ride for this little haven. From what I’ve heard, the premises must be vacated by March.”

Inspired by the sheer weirdness of the fast exodus, Mattson wrote and recorded a new song, “This Town (Ghost Town),” with his band the Northstars. While it’s not a political take on the area’s mining and environmental wars, the song does get at how corporations affect the land and its people: 

"This town was built upon some precious minerals/And they’re coming to dig them up/Not tomorrow and it’s not today/I think I’ll stay/And wait and see/What happens to this ghost town, ghost town, ghost town…"

“It’s not like they’re drilling for oil,” said Mattson, leader of beloved Minnesota bands Ol’ Yeller, the Tisdales, the Glenrustles, and, with Gemberling, Junkboat. “It’s open-pit mining, so it’s not as harmful to the environment as copper mining. They’re gonna start mining for precious metals up at Ely, and that’s kind of upsetting because it could really mess up the water and everything. The open-pit method is basically just digging up dirt, and after it’s all dug up they let it go back to nature but it’s all scarred.

“I don’t know if they plan to mine this neighborhood or what; my guess is that they’re not going to do anything with it for a long time. It’s just going to sit here. We’re close enough to the main road or something, and I guess where we’re at, maybe they found the vein of iron oar doesn’t come anywhere near our house. Most of the people that are moving out grew up here, and these are 60- and 70-year-old people. One day we walked around with a video camera through all these abandoned houses and took video. We’ll stitch ‘em all together for the song, eventually.”

Mattson grew up in West Eveleth and, after immersing himself in the Twin Cities music scene for a couple decades, moved to Sparta in 2005. Since opening Sparta Sound, he has recorded numerous timeless-sounding recordings with some of Minnesota’s best rock, folk, and alt-country musicians, including Gemberling, Martin Devaney, Jennifer Markey, Trampled By Turtles, the Belfast Cowboys, and Dan Israel. Many Twin Cities musicians make the trek up north, lured as they are by a creative solitude that’s about to get even quieter. 

“It was really vibrant when I first moved here, there was a grocery store, a church, a skating rink. It’s just kind of wild to see everything going away before my eyes,” said Mattson. “The fire department burns down [abandoned] houses and puts ‘em out for training. They’ve dug up most of downtown Sparta, but there’s this old lady on the edge of town and she keeps up her lawn and garden and everything and she just seems oblivious to the whole thing. Right across the street from her, these people tore down their perfectly nice garage and house, because if they don’t tear it down they’ll get charged for it, and she’s just living her life just like nothing’s happening.

“It’s us and about four or five neighbors that are staying. On the other side of the railroad tracks, there’s Ely Lake and that’s part of Sparta, too. But Sparta’s gone, it’s history. It’s really not uncommon for people on the Iron Range to get uprooted and have to leave their homestead. A lot of these areas are leased land. Where I grew up, in West Eveleth, the neighboring town is Leonidas, and they had a school and everything — that’s where my mom went to grade school — and they kicked everybody out of there, too. I remember as crazy kids we’d run around in the abandoned school house; I’ve always had this fascination with abandoned buildings, and now it’s happening where I live, here in Sparta.”

The flipside to “This Town (Ghost Town),” is Gemberling’s “Points North,” an ode to the natural wonders of the Iron Range that she and Mattson won’t forsake anytime soon. While former neighbors flee, Mattson plans ski trails in their new big backyard, and Gemberling continues to write songs and sing to the great expanse.  

“Living up here has been a very inspiring place to be, with all the natural surroundings of trees, rivers, lakes, and beyond,” said Gemberling, who grew up in the Twin Cities.

“[The song] is our tribute to the Iron Range and all the things going on here – not only the obvious things with the mining and all the political stuff, but just the beauty of the simple life and living where we do and drawing energy from the natural surroundings.

“We haven’t had TV in 17 years, and now I just don’t know when I’d have time for it, because we’re so busy. We have to walk the dog, go get firewood… I always say this, but I like who I am better up here. Taking a walk in the woods is my version of church.” 

Courtesy of John Trudell

John Trudell: “One thing I am encouraged by, which is a big change from a long time ago to now, is that there are more young Native artists and they’re raising their voices in the culture and the arts, and I think that’s a really really good thing.”

For indigenous people in Minnesota and, indeed, all members of the human race, we have a few table scraps of progress to be thankful for this Thanksgiving week:  

In October, Minneapolis ended years of Columbus Day rule and celebrated its first Indigenous Peoples Day.

Three weeks ago, Minneapolis hosted one of the biggest anti-racism protests in the nation’s history, outside TCF Stadium before the Vikings-Washington game.

Last week, the Senate narrowly voted down the Keystone XL pipeline, the length of which in April Winona LaDuke, a member of the Anishinaabe nation from the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota, road on horseback in successful protest “against the current of the oil.”

That combination of watershed moments is the backdrop to two concerts this weekend at the Cedar Cultural Center on the West Bank, including Minneapolis rapper Tall Paul’s third annual “Cold Flows For Warm Clothes: A Hip Hop Benefit For American Indian Youth” Sunday, and Saturday’s collaboration between acoustic wizards The Pines and poet/songwriter John Trudell, the one-time Minneapolis resident and member of the American Indian Movement.  

“It feels to me like Minneapolis has been Ground Zero for the resistance, and for the [Indigenous People] civil rights movement,” said David Huckfelt, co-founder of The Pines.

“Lately, as especially a lot of the problems we have having to do with the climate and climate change, people who have been trying to be stewards of the land for generations have a position of authority in that debate. They’ve been fighting it for a long time, all through the years, so I think that the fact that AIM has reinvigorated itself and that there’s leaders like Winona LaDuke and Clyde [Bellecourt], it makes perfect sense that in these times in Minneapolis, things would stir back up again.

“There’s also support from people like [Rep.] Keith Ellison and [Mayor] Betsy Hodges; there’s a lot of pitching-in and collaborating with what’s going on. It’s not reserved for anybody; if you want to get on board, there’s room for everybody to move something forward.”

That was the impetus for Huckfelt and his partner-in-Pines Benson Ramsey to team with Trudell, who served as chairman of AIM in the ‘70s and lived in the Little Earth neighborhood of Minneapolis and toured with the Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt-led “No Nukes” tour around the same time. The Pines-Trudell collaboration was hatched eight years ago, when Huckfelt took in a Trudell poetry reading at Birchbark Books, the Lake of the Isles haven owned by author Louise Erdrich.  

Courtesy of The Pines

The Pines

“It’s going to be very special,” said Huckfelt, of Trudell’s first Minneapolis appearance in nearly a decade. “We’re going to do a couple of his songs and we’ll collaborate with him on another song.”

“First of all, [the confluence of activity in Minneapolis] shows that whatever we started out back in the '70s and '60s is still very valid; it’s just taken different shapes and put on different masks,” said Trudell by phone from his home in San Francisco. “We’re still dealing with, for lack of a better work, the ignorance and the desensitization of the American public towards the reality of Native people as being human beings, and it manifests it the mascot issue, the land-water issues, and all of it.

“So I think what people are doing is necessary. Protecting the fire of life, so to speak, and it’s not happening in a lot of places. The younger generation of protesters are doing what needs to be done. They’re generating energy that needs to be generated. The predator reality is that they use their energy for fracking and promoting racism; that’s energy that’s accounting for that, and for us as human beings and people who don’t like that, we need to generate energy to put that out there, too. Because that’s what raises consciousness and keeps that flame going, and I think that’s really really good.” 

Count Huckfelt, a former theology student, among the flame-keepers. He was forever changed upon discovering Trudell’s poem “Crazy Horse,” and as Saturday’s showcase draws near, his reverence for Trudell’s wisdom is obvious.   

“For me, personally, the John Trudell message was the antidote [to theology school]; it was the cold, hard, true other side of the story,” said Huckfelt. “There’s nothing fluffy about it, there’s no happy ending to it. In his worldview, we’re welcome on this planet spiritually but in a physical way, there’s any number of atrocities that we’re going to commit upon each other, and when it’s done by institutions it’s gonna be said it’s good for you and it’s what you need. But [Trudell’s work has been about] keeping a spirit, and making sure there’s a place for that.

“We met at Birchbark, but I had seen him speak at Pine Ridge back in 2003 in an event that was commemorating some members of AIM, and he blew my mind by just basically coming out and flat-out saying there’s really no institution in America that you can trust to take care of your spirit, or your children’s spirit. There’s no place you can put your faith in and lay it down and say, all right, this college, school, this business, or government or anything is going to look out for my best interests. You know, it doesn’t exist.”

At 69, Trudell has long been wary of his own government, due in no small part to a suspicious 1979 fire that took the lives of his wife, three children, his unborn child, and his mother-in-law. Shortly thereafter, he began writing and recording – and inspiring future generations to hold sacred the spirit of the earth that too often gets bulldozed in America.

“One thing I am encouraged by, which is a big change from a long time ago to now, is that there are more young Native artists and they’re raising their voices in the culture and the arts, and I think that’s a really really good thing,” said Trudell. “They’re able to express the reality of who we are. You can’t express the reality of who we are through politics, because the political reality is all an illusion.”

Members of the Minnesota State High School League are scheduled to vote today on the rights of transgender students to play sports. Update: The MSHSL approved its transgender policy after about an hour of discussion Thursday morning.

A group opposing the league's draft policy called the Minnesota Child Protection League has sent out mailers and taken out two full-page ads in the Star Tribune and newspapers across the state in attempts to sway the vote, and an entity called the North Star Law and Policy Center created an elaborate graphic toward the same end.

Jazz Jennings, a 14-year-old trans athlete, faced a similar battle for her rights to participate in sports in her home outside of Minnesota, the location of which she and her family will not disclose so as to maintain her safety. Jazz, who was born a boy, ultimately won the right to play sports, and is now a member of her high school’s soccer, tennis, and track teams.

Jazz has written a picture book, “I Am Jazz,” been the subject of a full-length documentary,  appeared in People magazine and on "60 Minutes," and took time out after school Wednesday to answer a few questions from MinnPost via email.

MinnPost: The Minnesota State High School League is voting on its Trans Athletic Policy Thursday. I've contacted you because you've become something of a voice for trans high-school students everywhere. In Minnesota, none of the trans kids who want to play sports will speak publicly due in large part to the hate that has been stirred up by ads that have been taken out in the local daily newspaper here, with conservative groups trying to sway the MSHSL into voting against trans high school sports participants. What would you say to all involved, in defense of allowing trans kids to play high school sports?

Jazz Jennings: First of all, I am a girl, and need to be treated just like all other female athletes. I love to play sports. I’ve been an active athlete for as long as I can remember. Like other transgender kids, I face enough discrimination and just want peace and the right to participate in sports on the team that matches my affirmed gender identity, and it is harmful to our health and well-being to keep us from doing so. Close to half of trans youth will try to commit suicide before they are 21. Denying them the right to play the sports they love will only result in perpetuating this horrific statistic. Allowing kids to play on teams in their affirmed gender is the right thing to do. It will help so many kids who are already faced with so many challenges. All kids deserve to be happy, and enjoy themselves recreationally and socially. For me, sports are a big part of this happiness.  

MP: Tell me about your experience in your state. How did it feel when you took up the fight, what happened, and how does it feel now?

Jazz Jennings

JJ: I was very lucky. I’m still in middle school, but since I go to a K-12 school, I’m allowed to play on varsity teams. My parents and I were pleased to find out that our state high school league has a trans-inclusive policy for athletes. However, when I was only 8, I was banned from playing girls’ travel soccer. My family and I had to fight for over two years to gain the right for me to play. It was horrible. I was told I could compete in games with the boys' team, or practice with the girls and sit on the bench for the girls' games. These were very difficult times. I tried playing with the boys, but it was a disaster, it made me feel depressed and I couldn’t enjoy the game I love. I didn’t want to quit soccer, so for the next year I decided to practice with the girls and face the injustice of being forced to sit out the games. I felt like I was being bullied. It was terrible and painful. Finally, when I was 11, the United States Soccer Federation listened and created a trans-inclusive policy for all soccer players of all ages. My family and I celebrated! It was great to be back on the field playing with my friends as the girl that I am.  

MP: Have you been inspired by anyone else's stories, or people who have been faced with overcoming similar struggles?

JJ: I love Kye Allums.

He was the first openly transgender NCAA Division 1 college athlete. He is a true hero. He stood up for what he felt was right. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Kye a few times, and consider him a friend and role model for trans youth.

MP: What have been the highlights of your high school sports career? 

JJ: My happiest day was when I found out that I was allowed to play varsity girls' tennis (or any other high school sport) because my state had a trans-inclusive policy. There was a process involved, but it worked with very little delay. It was a much better experience than having to fight to create a policy, as we did with soccer. I lost most of my tennis matches, because it was my first year, but I still loved playing with the team and my friends. 

MP: Have you been faced with the kind of ignorance the Minnesota Child Protection League is spreading, from other players, coaches, parents, or elsewhere?

JJ: Yes, I have faced blatant discrimination. However, almost all of my current teammates, their parents and my coaches are all very supportive. It's upsetting to know that there are still so many prejudiced people who don't accept others or who are ignorant and quickly jump to conclusions before educating themselves. This is why I share my story in the media. I want to help make sure that other kids won't have to ever experience all that I've had to endure. 

MP: How have you handled it? 

JJ: It's been very difficult, but I've learned to stay strong. Discrimination motivates me to advocate and stand up for trans-rights. 

MP: According to a recent Pew poll, only 8 percent of Americans know someone who is trans. What advice would you give to Minnesota trans kids who want to play sports, but have been afraid to come out?

JJ: Don't be scared to step out of your shadows and fight for what you believe in. Remember it's important to be your true and authentic selves, and always know that you are not alone. You deserve to be happy, and have fun on the playing fields with your friends. Don't let others get to you, or worry about what "people" say. My favorite quote by Dr. Seuss really sums this up: "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

On a weekend when Wisconsin and Minnesota came in first and second, respectively, in a ranking of the Worst States For Black Americans, approximately 500 people took part in the Million March MN rally in the People’s Park outside the Hennepin County Government Center Saturday afternoon. The protest was part of a nationwide Day of Resistance that inspired similar – if better-attended – gatherings across the country, including Boston, Houston, New York City and Washington, D.C.

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

“This is not a New York issue, this is not a Ferguson issue, this is a countrywide issue,” Michael McDowell, of the recently formed grassroots organization Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, told the crowd, a mix of all races and ages that marched up 5th Street from the Federal Reserve building to the government center. McDonald then led the crowd in a call-and-response verse: “It’s our duty to fight for freedom/It’s our duty to win/We must love each other and support each other/We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Much like the Trayvon Martin and Terrance Franklin protests at the government center in July of last year, an uneasy history repeated itself with Saturday’s rally, which came in the wake of the Eric Garner and Michael Brown grand jury verdicts, and on the heels of #pointergate and protests that shut down 35W earlier this month.  

Co-organized by Neighborhoods Organizing for Change and Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, the rally was infused with an artistic sensibility by another grassroots organization, the Million Artist Movement. One artist, Minneapolis-based singer/teacher Jayanthi Kyle, came dressed in an elegant red dress and the American flag; the Black Lady Liberty if you will. “When I was here over a year ago, [Bob] Collins from MPR said I was disrespecting the flag,” Kyle told the crowd. “And I have to say, the flag has disrespected me.” 

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

The crowd cheered in solidarity, Kyle led the throng in song and afterward commented to MinnPost, “What I thought was so wrong about it was that I was mourning a murder of a child, and that didn’t matter. It made me so upset; it made me not want to not respect the flag but now I have to override him because [screw] you, that flag is mine. This country is born and built on the backs of my people, being slaves, and brutalities and outlandish, disgusting, behavior. And that has to change. We can still rebuild and recover.” 

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

A faulty public-address system proved insufficient, so speakers took to getting the message out via bullhorn. Neighborhoods Organizing for Change’s Signe Harriday led the crowd in calls-and-responses of, “Speak what?”/”Truth to power!” and “We are the power!/We are the change!” and implored, “We have hope, we have inspiration. We want to end the militarization of our police system. We want an end to police brutality. Full employment for our people. Freedom from mass incarceration. Be with us today, communities, to build the movement together.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Homemade signs abounded, emblazoned with missives such as “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!”; “I Can’t Breathe”; “Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr. White Plains New York, November 2012”; “Demilitarize Our Police”; “The justice system isn’t broken, it was built this way”; “Stop Killing Unarmed Black People”; “Protect and Serve, Don’t Shoot”; “Stand Rise Build With Us”; and “ 'In the end, what we will remember is not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends'– Martin Luther King, Jr.” St. Louis Park resident Annie Clark came downtown with her family, Steve Grapentine and adopted children Hezkiel and Fikru “to support all black people having equal rights and justice. I’m here for these two, born in Ethiopia, and millions of others.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

The rally concluded with freshly penned protest songs and protesters lying down on the cold, damp concrete of People’s Park in a “die-in” show of solidarity with victims of police brutality. Many said they were looking forward to tentative plans for a Dec. 20 protest at the Mall of America, and tonight’s [Dec. 15] Communities United Against Police Brutality-organized panel discussion “Getting Away With Murder: How Police Kill With Impunity.”  

“I feel great about what’s happening,” Black Lives Matter Minneapolis’ Michael McDowell told MinnPost. “Today just shows that this is a movement that’s not going away.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Correction: This version corrects the spelling of Michael McDowell's name.

Kari Tauring is an expert in ancient and modern Nordic culture and a go-to spiritual counselor from Minneapolis who reads runes and sings like a high priestess and chants like a banshee and was on a reality TV show in Norway and has spent most of her life considering the hygge-like benefits of darkness of both the soul and the season.

So you can trust her when she says we’re dealing with the bleakness of winter and doing the happy happy joy joy thing of the holidays all wrong. “We’re just told, ‘Everything’s going to be fine, and if you feel empty, just buy more stuff and if you don’t feel good after the holidays it’s because you have to shop better next year,’” said Tauring. “But this time of year is an opportunity to, from an ancient Nordic mindset, explore the origins of your own darkness.”

To be sure, force-feeding our souls a bright and shiny version of joy that doesn’t fully consider the complexities of the human animal and life itself seems counter to the inner growth that the season primordially calls for. You can just feel it: With the cold months comes a slowing down, and, so too with the darkness, comes a hunkering-down time of essential solitude and soul hibernation.

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Nordic cultures have always embraced the darkness of their homelands and made it a profound part of life that doesn’t gloss over pain or the past, consistently going for something deeper than a sugar high. Tauring’s version of it all can be found Monday night at the Bryant-Lake Bowl in “Winter Solstice in the Northlands,” a reprise of an annual show she staged for years but which has been in mothballs since 2006. In terms of holiday theater fare, it’s not exactly “A Christmas Carol.”

“I started doing winter solstice shows in 1999, about discovering origins and building traditions. They were family-oriented with choirs and puppets at the Cedar [Cultural Center] and Patrick’s [Cabaret] with caroling,” she said. “I started doing them because of the lack of alternatives for people during the season, and this particular one is the first one that’s not geared towards being family-friendly. My kids are 20 and 18 now, and I wanted to shift it from the community-building to something more intense, because it’s been a really intense year with a lot of darkness in it.

“So for this show I’m saying, ‘Let’s just plunge into it one more time and let’s get into the dark piece because there’s a potency to that darkness that we need to make use of.’ It’s not going to be all doom and gloom, but it also helps people to say, ‘It’s okay if you’re not happy at this time of year, because this is the height of seasonal effective disorder, this is the height of not being in a happy place, and it’s okay and here are some tools.’”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

It’s an ambitious spiritual journey to attempt to take theatergoers on, mounted as it is during the year’s most mystical month. What does Tauring hope people take away from the show?

“I hope people walk away from it feeling like they’ve been purged, or that they’ve had a chance to purge a little bit of their darkness and depression,” she said. “I hope that people can sense their dark pieces in a more tangible way, so that they can carry with them a sense that these darknesses are part of the process: Hopefully they don’t walk away thinking, ‘OK, that was uplifting, why don’t I feel great?’”

With help from friends Carol Sersland, Rachel Halvorson, Lynette Reini-Grandell, Morrey Nellis, Drew Miller, and Christopher Powers,  “Winter Solstice in the Northlands” is a two-part production of dance, chant, prayer, poetry, staff-stomping, horn-blowing, and silent film that concludes with a Lithuanian sun goddess chant. A visitor to Thursday’s rehearsal suggested it felt like a gathering of witches from another time. 

“Well, they’re us, they’re our grandmothers, they’re the ones that carry the oorlog, the threads of the web of weird that connects everyone,” said Tauring. “Oorlog is the Norse word for kind of like karma, or DNA; everything that came before us. Everything that came before you was spawned by your parents, your grandparents, your great grandparents, all the way back to the first humans. And this is the oorlog, and everyone’s is unique and connected.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh

Describing the production, Tauring admits she’s attempting to get to our “deepest root” and tap into a pre-Christianity spirituality that’s more in line with the Eye Of Horus metaphysical shop that sits a couple doors down from the BLB on Lake Street than what’s practiced at any area church or synagogue.

“It’s going to be kind of intense,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to explore the origins of your own darkness, and there will be some lightheartedness, as well. A lot of this show weaves runes in and out that stem from 300 A.D. These tools belong to all of the Northern peoples, and without them we have more issues than we need to have. One is to not fill the void with activity and shopping and false light that doesn’t come from our own being.

“I want people to have a more permanent solution to darkness, because it’s likely to occur again next year. Modern Scandinavian culture, they work it into their social fabric: People take several weeks off during the winter to deal with the kind of sadness and depressions and things that naturally occur. They don’t try and say, ‘Everybody should fight this and stay at your desks.’ They say, ‘No, this is part of what happens with our natural flow,’ and their society itself has structured itself around the embracing of that piece.”

MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh