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St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch 9/25/86
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Information from Trip Shakespeare |
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| Home | The Music | The Musicians | The Mystery | The Memory |
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Jim Walsh 9/22/86 |
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Ask Matt Wilson, Trip Shakespeare's singer/guitarist, what he wants, and he'll tell you exactly and deliberately. "I want it all," he says, as if he's said it to himself a million times. "Theres' no reward that you can get from music that I don't want. I want everything. That's just me. Music is the avenue I've chosen, and I'm gonna go up it." Music fans should be happy with Wilson's career decision, as he and the other members of Trip Shakespeare would very likely succeed at anything they put their minds to. Wilson, who drummed for locals E. Brown and The Panic, was in his third year at Harvard when he decided to leave school to form Trip Shakespeare. He recruited bio/anthro Harvard graduate Elaine Harris, who brought her classically trained percussion to The Cratchett Family, the last of Wilson's three Boston-based projects. Once in the Twin Cties, the duo teamed up with John Munson, a University of Minnesota Chinese/humanities senior who had played base with a number of Minnepaolis bands, including E. Brown. The trio has been recently joined by Matt's older brother Dan, gitarist, painter, cartoonist, and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard in environmental design. The result of this arts-academe copulation is one of the brightest and most refreshing pop bands this area's seen in years. Original, infectious, and visually delicious, Trip Shakespeare rides no coattails, and the bandwagon they've created is strictly their own. Their debut LP, Applehead Man (Gark Records), is proof positive and should be available in record stores this week. Recorded on an eight-track at Gark Studios, Applehead Man is a collection of meticulously crafted pop/jazz/funk songs that seduces the listener upon first listen. And though the band's oracle may be Will Shakespeare, Wilson's lyrics suggest more of a kinship with Edgar Allen Poe. Or Ed Gein. The phrases he writes have no beginnings or ends, just the festering images of one man's disturbed little world. with the exception of "Highway In The sun" and "Fangs," the material suggests a young man obsessed with the freedom of death. "Stop The Winter" showcases the musicianship, while "Pearl" is a charmingly grotesque love song, a Night Of The Living Dead version of Romeo and Juliet. "Beatle" may be the only tribute song that preserves the spirit of John Lennon, or simply a cyncal commentary on pop culture. With teh strains of "Ticket To ride" tumbling over "Taxman's" bass line, Wilson queries: "May I crawl behind your eyes/where your hair meets fruited earth/be now, bewitched, bewildered, bothered and wise/ I will be a Beatle in your mind..." Live, Trip Shakespeare is an audio/visual orgasm. A packed house at Lindsay's was spellbound by the group's final perfomance last June, prior to a China pilgrimage by Munson, forcing the group to take a summer vacation. An air of electricity shot throught the club as all eyes and ears were riveted to the stage. That night, Trip Shakespeare was a band fro Everyman. College students, rockers, writers, junkie wanna-be's, jocks, and barflies all gave the trio their undivided and unprecedented (for a local band) attention. Harris bopped gleefully away at her monster kit, a bass drum turned upside down, played as a tympani, while Munson hovered over his mike like a grizzly, creating the perfect foil for the cute-as-a bug Wilson and his Jimmy Finlayson wink. The bob haircut is gone, but the singer's spasms and physical embellishment of the music remains. What sets this band apart from the rest of the original music pack is its approach and unity. the quartet seems to be of one fecund mind, agreeing with and encouraging the process of stretching each individual's boundaries, but remaining whole. A Trip Shakespeare band meeting wouldn't likely consist of a bunch of guys sitting around drinking beer, whining, "Naaah, let's not do that, that sounds really stoopid--what would people think?!" Rather, single, double, and triple dares to see how far they can push each other, would top their agenda. "We consciously strive to present ourselves as a comprehensive unit," explains Wilson, "and it's in the back of all of our minds. Sometimes we talk about it like a basketball team. Would Bobby Knight(head coach, University of Indiana) ever tolerate it if one of his forwards was looking the other way, or if the center wasn't aware of where the ball was? That'd be unforgivable, and there's all these bands out there where each person is just performing their job, like a bunch of people in different rooms in an office." The point is, Trip Shakespeare makes decisions. Stage attire, fanzines, between-song-raps, flyers--things most bands at this level consider trivial --are attended to with as much care as the music. Calculating? Pretentious? Hardly. "There's a lot of pressure", says Wilson, "to remain real casual about it, and in a way, the casual approach can be as premeditated or somehow as understood as any approach. I mean you're walking on stage, and everything you put on is a decision . Everything you DO as a musician is a decision, and whether you decide to take the bull by the horns and maximize every decision is up to you." The ferocity of Trip Shakespeare's willingness to work it's voracious appetitie for creativity, and the uncanny maturity of the song-writing has made them heirs apparent to Minneapolis' rock 'n' roll throne. Or, as suggested to Wilson, "they're The Next Big Thing." "It may very well happen," he says, grinning. "I woldn't be doing this if I didn't intend to eventually be a "big thing." I fully intend to succeed. But that kind of phrase could underestimate what it takes. If you say that we're the next big thing, then you're not just betting on the music. You're also betting on our staying power." Already the band is working on the follow-up to Applehead Man and planning its first tour, along with local club dates --including Sunday, Sept. 28 at the Uptown Bar and a record release bash at the Cabooze Oct. 9. As for the road ahead, Wilson doesn't foresee a tortured and misunderstood artist's existence for the band, refusing to adopt the "us against the industry" stance. "How can a thousand cards be stacked against you?" he figures, "There's no collusion among the folks in power. No single person or group of 10 people can control whether you get a break and make it. I believe there's justice in the music business, because there's too many judges. You can go up to each one of them until you get the sentence you deserve." The verdict is in. Trouble is this foreman was too busy dancing to the defendants' new album to read it. |
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and Dispatch 9/25/86 |
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Unusual new band stretches definitions of rock One thing is certain about Trip Shakespeare, the four-piece band with the inscrutable name, two Harvard graduates, one Harvard dropout and a student of Chinese language: They have definitely arrived in the busy Twin Cities music scene with the kind of live performance and debut album that drives local rock cognoscenti to make notes and mark their calendars.The band will appear Sunday at the Uptown ar in Minneapolis on the eve of the scheduled release of their independently produced album for Gark Records, "Applehead Man." The LP is a sumptuous mixture of imaginative, post-punk rock and personal vision. Matt Wilson, lead singer, songwriter and guitarist, zeroes in on a number of unexpected themes for songs and blends brainy guitar figures with a rhythm section that yields funky, erudite beats and rhythmic support. On record, Wilson's songs range in shape from simple, celebratory sketches of the Washington Avenue Bridge with its "red, north water" to the poignant lyricism of the title track. In between lie songs that have what his brother and fellow guitarist Dan Wilson calls " a rural feeling," country-rock numbers such as "Pearle" (a folkish tale of murder) and "Withering Rose." One knowing, homagelike cut, "Beatle," manages to coalesce choice musical parts of several Beatles songs- Birthday, Taxman Ticket to Ride and the obscure Hey Bulldog - into what might readily pass as an image-filled, John Lennon commentary on that legendary foursome. On stage, Trip Shakespeare exudes a warmth and enthusiasm derived from a live performance that is as contagious as it is spontaneous. What immediately catches your eye is the unorthodox drum kit presided over by the band's standing drummer, Elaine Harris. Instead of the traditional bass drum centered on the floor and encircled by the snare, high hat and tom toms, Harris's Kit features the bass on her far right side, facing upward like a tom tom. The arrangement gives the classically trained percussionist greater freedom of movement. Harris' unique timekeeping chores allow for any number of smartly modified beats and buttressing rhythms. "Completely odd" is how the Brockton, Mass. native defends her approach. "I don't even think of it as rock drumming. I'm dealing more with two hands rather than feet; that way, I get more independent rhythms. In the usual rock -and -jazz-oriented drum sets, I felt too limited at the ankles." "A lack of constrictions" is a phrase band members are fond of using to explain recently how they approach their music, theoretically and practically. The philosophy has merit. What immediately catches your ear is how unusually tight and intense Trip Shakesperae sounds in a live setting. With bassist John Munson, Harris shares a rhythmic acumen that magically merges with the Wilson brothers color-filled guitar lines and leads - Matt Wilson solos that the other band members say remind them of the expressionistic guitar playing of Tom Verlaine, (Verlaine is the critically championed guitarist who led the group Television before it broke up some years ago.) "We think a lot, "Matt Wilson said, talking about the band. A look at their individual resumes proves Wilson's quote is rife with understatement. The 25-year old guitarist first played with Harris while both were studying at Harvard. Wilson dropped out of his English studies, three years into a bachelor of arts program, simply because he was enjoying his rock work more than his homework. Harris completed her major, by obtaining a degree in Biological Anthropology. Listening to her discuss animal management philosophy is as fascinating as watching her effortlessly manage the rhytmic changes on drums. The other Wilson brother, Dan, graduated from Harvard with an art degre, which he has applied in San Francisco, where he did graphics work and his own oil paintings. The oldest of the group, Dan Wilson is also its newest member. He moved back to Minnesota to play in the band just three weeks ago, and will continue his other art, exploring the relationship between memory and painting, while he searches to find "where I fit into the group" Munson, who band members teasingly say has " a Harvard complex," played locally in the band E. Brown with Matt (who then played drums). Last summer, Trip Shakespeare took a seasonal hiatus while Munson made a trip to the city of Tianjin, China, where he studied Chinese and the classical two-string violin, the erhu. This fall, he'll pursue his degree in Chinese at the University of Minnesota while the band chases a major label record contract. But for all of their collective higher education, they are rockers, and two new tunes, attatched at the funnybone, not the cranium, illustrate that fact. Using the jaggy riff from 'Tequila" "Fourwheeler" like "Toolmaster" of Brainerd" - about a guy who "played guitar like a natural disaster" builds instant rapport with an audience. Both songs are certain to play as well in Harvard Yard as they did recently on the Cabooze dance floor. "Applehead Man" is not a pop album; it was fashioned for the independent, underground market, "Matt Wilson pointed out. Yet people find it extremely melodious, very catchy. To which his brother added, "We could never imagine playing into a sound and having it lead to fame, that's just not the way our creative ideas go. "But we want hits, our hits make our own way, " he continued. "It seems like there's only two ways to go being a musician. You can be like Prince and succeed by being unpredictable, or you can be like Duran Duran and be predictable, fall back on formula to succeed. But if you want to be an artist and popular, you should be unpredictable.For the rare and refreshing elements at work in Trip Shakespeare, success is about the most certain thing one could predict for them. |
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Twin Cities Reader Cover Story 11/12/86 |
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Portland, Maine Seth Berner 12/17 86 |
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I have been squirming in my seat since I first received an advance tape from the Minneapolis quartet. Guitarist Matt Wilson told me that it would be vinylized, but I wanted to wait to make sure. Not that I mistrusted Matt. On the contrary, his telephone account of life, liberty and the pursuit of Trip Shakespeare gave me every reason to believe that what he wanted to accomplish would be accomplished. It's just that things have ways of going wrong, and I didn't want to be in the embarrassing position of telling you that the album you had to buy was unbuyable. Now that it is buyable, buy it. My love for the Minneapolis scene is well known to regular readers, yet as much as I love almost everything coming out of the Twin cities, only Husker Du and Soul Asylum grabbed me at first listen the way Trip Shakespeare has. What the first two bands are to power rock, these newcomers are to rock and roll. The 10 tracks on Applehead Man are intelligent pop without a southern feel. Matt Wilson's writing incorporates unpredictable yet appropriate chord and rhythm changes which the band plays smoothly and passionately. It isn't immediately obvious that Elaine Harris stands up to drum; only after repeated listens is the absence of bass drum and high hat discernible.Though John Munson slaps his bass strings, the music is not funky. Rather, the driving force is the melodic guitar work of Matt and brother Dan Wilson. If there is a weakness to Applehead Man, it is in the lyrics. The obscurity and lack of apparent logical or poetic coherency is puzzling and distracting. More specifically, the album suffers from a severe overuse of the adjective "pretty." Though I prefer obscurity to triteness, I do wish I knew what they were singing about. This won't keep Applehead Man off my year's best list. Trip Shakespeare is the new band to watch for from the city to watch, which makes them, and their album, one of the finest new developments of 1986. |
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| Musician
Magazine
Moira McCormick 5/87 |
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glance, Minneapolis-based Trip Shakespeare seems to be one of those zany
oddball art bands that pop up now and then; but on closer inspection these
birds don't deserve such facile taxonomy. For instance, at a recent gig
singer/guitarist Matt Wilso as a satyr and flanked by the black-robed,
winged figures of his guitarist brother Dan and bassist John Munson, while
drummer Elaine Harris pounded her standup kit wearing an elaborate beaded
wig. However, they dress up only when the fancy strikes them. "We don't
want to be forced to outdo ourselves every time, "Dan Wilson explains.
Costuming is, in fact, a new development in the saga of these twisted-romantic electric minstrels. the and started at Harvard University, where English Major Matt Wilson met biological anthropology grad Harris when she answered his poster ad for "wicked percussion hands." The two performed for a year in an experimental combo, then relocated to Wilson's home town of Minneapolis in June 1985. There they met Munson, a Chinese language major at the University of Minnesota. Trip Shakespeare (one of those go-figure names) released an indie LP, Applehead Man, in October, and shortly thereafter expanded to include Dan Wilson, a Harvard (where else?) grad painter and Matt's elder sibling. Trip Shakespeare inevitably invites comparisons to R.E.M., due to songwriter Matt Wilson's admitted penchant for Byrdsy guitars. Their music has also been likened to early Jefferson Airplane and Talking Heads- but Wilson's loosely-wound melodies and fanciful yet disturbing poetic imagery have no obvious antecedents. Songs like the creepy folktale "Pearle" and the ravishing jazz-splashed hymn "Stop the Winter," he says, "tend to go for timeless things--not because I'm aiming for any medieval harking back, but because real life weighs down the flight of the images." |
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6/30/87 Trudy Burtis |
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The entertainment, a rock 'n' roll band called Trip Shakespeare, may not have been perfect, but it was pretty darn good. Many very new, very young bands have a rough, uncultuted sound, and tend to concentrate on only one aspect of their music, such as the lyrics, or one of the instrument sections. Such groups are imitative, trying to build success by copying the style of bands they admire. They don't seem to achieve an individulal style for five years or 50,000 miles, whichever comes first. The four memebers of Trip Shakespeare have been together for lesss than two years, said Matt Wilson, lead singer and guitaris. For a gorup hthat has been together for such a short amount of time, Trip has a remarkabley well-balnanced sound, style and show. The fact that the group was named Underground Band of teh Year attests to the members' cumulative skills. The performance Friday night was comprised mainly of original music from the groups' frist album, "Applehead Man", Wilson shared the vocals throughout the concert with his brother, Dan Wilson, on keyboard and guitar, and John Munsun, bass guitarist. These three guys obviously did not decide to get together and begin screaming into microphones in order to be a rock band. The fourth member of the combo is the drummer, Elaine Harris, who performed with control and obvious skill. One of the things which made the concert so enjoyable was the band's interaction with the audience, particularly through matt, who did most of the talking. His song introductions were always a little more than the asic "this song is dedicated to..." At one point, Matt asked everyone who ever lifted a box to earn a living to raise their hands. For the introduction to "Reception," he asked the audience to imagine receiving an invitation from the parents o "your one-time true love", the one you call "Sweetpea, " inviting you to celebrate her wedding." When a woman in the audience began heckling, matt invited her to the stage...for punishment, "Want a spanking? Elaine's got the hickory sticks." It was obvious from the start that one of the band's strenghths is the unique lyrics. In addition to the standard rock "ode to the opposite sex" sort of song, Trip included two particularly unusual songs in the concert. The first was, appropriately, in the first set. matt introduced the song, "This song focuses on the life of the lonely northern Pike , a fish that dwells deep in the waters of the Minnesota lakes." The fish swims to the edge of the lake and observes two humans in a meadow, and soulfully, with the help of the band, pours out his thoughts. The group's last song, encore notwithstanding, was also highly imaginative. the song had two parts.......... (sorry, that's all of the article that I have.....) |
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Renaldo Migaldi 7/31/87 |
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Matt Wilson, a former English major at Harvard, said, "the band is constantly spouting musical ideas. I grab some of that and put lyrics to it." It's difficult to describe Trip Shakespeare's music. They've been compared to everyone from early Talking Heads to The Byrds. Wide appeal earned them the 1987 Minnesota Music Award for Best New Band in both the pop/rock and underground categories. Trip Shakespeare has received glowing reviews from critics across the country and are widely hailed as "The Next Big Thing." "That could work against us if we followed a formula, but we stretch ourselves and try to test people's patience," Matt Wilson said. A live Trip Shakespeare performance is as original as the music. Wilson said, "It never fails, the first time we play in a new place people just stare at us. The second time they sing along, and the third time they start dancing." The approach they take places the emphasis on ideas rather than technique. Wilson said he lets his head lead the way rather than his fingers. Trip Shakespeare recently secured a seven-record deal with A&M Records. They settled with A&M because, Wilson said, "They had the best feel. they were the most enthusiastic- we went where we were wanted the most." They will record their first A&M album in the late spring and have hopes of Todd Rundgren producing. Wilson said the band plans to continue living in Minneapolis. "Winters here keep the imagination fresh," he said. Don't miss your chance to see Trip Shakespeare live! It won't be long until the rest of the country is Shakespearienced. The Crowd, a local band, will open the show at 9:00. Tickets are $1.00 at the door and ID is required. |
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HIGHLY UNUSUAL GOINGS-ON The songs brought to the studios were: Jill Can Drive, Gone, Gone, Gone, Late perarle, Drummer like Me, Today your Move, Snow Days, Bacheloretee, Turtledove, Unlucky lady, We'll Lie Alone, the Nail, The Crane honey Tree, Look At The Lady. Several of these are very new. The album will probably include between ten and twelve songs. Trip Shakespeare went into the studio with producer Fred Maher, whom you might know from the latest Lou Reed album, New York, (He co-produced and played drums, ) or Information Society's Pure Energy, which Fred produced. During the recording project, Fred lived in downtown Minnepolis , a far cry from his native city, quaint and cudly New York. He could not believe at first that our fair state's last call occurs at 12:45 am. At midnight in Manhattan, the funseeker's evening might have just begun. Not so in the Twin Towns. As fate would have it , nightlfly Maher got back into Minneapolis from Paisley every night at about 1:00am, just in time to dodge the drunken drivers on the freeway. Engineer for the record has been Duquinan Jim Rondinellie,
who produced the recent Jayhawks and Magnolias records and recorded Miracle
Legion and the Bodeans latest album. Although Jim is working with the band
for other good reasons, Dan believes that having an Italian name on the
"recorded by" credit adds great mystique to an album jacket.
ELAINE UNHARMED Until recently, Elaine has managed to stay out of trouble
in the studio, quietly winning the "Bernadette Beef-o-ghetti Award" for
her earthshaking drumming. But one late night last week, druing a mystical
crystal-powered rendition of "Honey Tree," Elaine's luck ran out. That
night, the only illumination in the studio was a single candle near her
drums, dimly lighting the hadndprinted lyric sheets and Runic dictionaries
that she keeps with her at all times. As the musiciains played on, deep
in a trance, no one was aware that the candle had burned almost to the
table-top, dangerously close to these papers. What John at first perceived
as a glow of inspiration around the young drummer was soon actual flames,
and she was forced to abbandon the take in favor of saving her own life
(or at least her hair.) Dave Friedlander, second engineer and volunteer
firmean, raced to the spot with a jugful of water, saving Prince's purple
palace from sure destruction anf our musical heroes from four fiery graves.
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Matt and John were
innocently stopped on highway 5 behind some laggard who either didn't see
the green light or was merely taking a much -needed break from the hubub
of morning traffic, when another driver slammed into them from behind.
The stopped driver fled the scene, leaving Matt and John to explain to
the county sherrif's boys what they were doing stopped on Highway 5 at
a green light. The other driver who had hit them did not have such untidy
hair as the suspicious-looking rockers. he also did not have a sinister
goatee reminiscent of Mr. Spock's in the "parallel universe" episode of
Star Trek. But Matt at the time did. So, of course, our friends were severely
interrogated. How the other driver could miss seeing them sitting in the
middle of the road was not explained.
MANILOW ALIENATED A small group of record company executives arrived at
Paisley Park y limousine one day in late September, seeking an audience
with Trip Shakesperae. The band was polite enough to make them wait several
hours, just a fraction of the usual time Trip Shakespeare spends in their
lobbies. The record company executives were very curious to see how their
money was being spent. The group proudly brought them to the studios's
collection of arcade games and showed them John's and Fred's impressive
scores on "Arkanoid" and "Monte Carlo."
Trip Shakespeare Calendar Dec. 7 Gabe's
Oasis
Iowa City, IA
Many who returned the last communique checked the box which indicated interest in getting a copy of Trip Shakespeare's first LP, Applehead Man. Good news for everybody, an independent record label, Clean Records, picked up the band's first two records and will be pressing them up. Are You Shakespearienced? will be available in all formats for the first time. Only cassettes and LP's of Applehead Man for now. The Shakespearicon announced the availability of AHM a bit prematurely in The Village Voice a few months back (apologies to all those who responded), but it seems now that barring a major catastrophe the album will be in record stores in November. Use this form if you don't want to go to the record store. |
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Keith Goetzman 4/10/90 |
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Onstage, Trip Shakespeare is indeed an uncommon spectacle - three necklace-draped young men gather around a micropone, collaborating in a strange and beautiful vocal harmony, while behind them a woman drummer cooly stirs up a rhythm like a demure sorceress. They sing a tale about a machinist-turned-musician from Brainerd as if it were the story of Job -reverent, deep, with a hint of Gregorian counterpoint from the ancient past. You might call their enterprise pop music, but that would imply somtheing less magical, less transcendente than what you hear. You see, Trip Shakesperare is engaged in a ventrue more challenging than mere mass appeal. They're attempting to fly, and they want to take you with them. "We try to take the audience up within their mind- to take them from the green ocean bottom, lift them up, and kind of fly out to the stars that are at the edge of their brain, right on the rim, " says Matt, whose lucid imagery colors his conversations as well as his songwiting, " We try to take them druing the course of a show- and they have always agreed to fly with us." It's hard to fefuse the invitaiton. After all, how many rock bands would make such an audacious offer, let alone have enough creative thrust to pull it off? It's this sort of starry-eyed ambition that has made the 5-year old Trip Shakespeaere a local favorite, and which landed the band a contract with big A&M Records. On April 17, even more people will hear the Trip Shakespeeare call, when the new album Aross the Universe is released. Across the Universe has all the Trip Shakesperare hallmarks; dream-like story scenes, a rich three-part male chorus, tasteful pop arrangements, measures of whimsy, wonder , and danger, and the sort of magic they conjure onstage. The latter is no accident, says bassist, John Munson. We set up the songs on the record like a show. We tried to build it up like that." "It has songs that are full of earth and oars, and are heavy with matter," says Matt, cupping his hands to demonstrate its substance. " And there are other songs on the record that exist in a place that's above the sun. That's where we want to go - we are travelers in that respect. We step out, and that's why the songs vary- cause the night varies." The album's opening, "Turtledove," with it's high-pitched, expansive chorus, establishes the tone for a new version of "Pearle, " the pop gem that shone brightest on Trip's first album. This "Pearle is fuller and stronger, with a more fluid guitar line and the feel of praciced hands. "Snow Days" captures all the wonder of a school-closing blizzard, its piano keys tinkling like airborne flakes as Matt addresses the protagonist: "Go home, Mrs. Briantree, for ther'es a blessing on the ground." Matt claims this song has special meteorological powers: "When we travel to other states, and even to warmer places, when we play that song, snow comes to the town the next day. Mark my words." "And there's no school or work," adds Dan Wilson, matt's rother and fellow guitarist/keyboardist. "The Slacks" is Trip's siliest song to date, "Toolmaster of Brainerd" notwithstanding. In it, Matt, Dan and John argue over a one-eyed French lass, all claiming to have won her hand by wearing a pair of magic pants. The one-upmanship escalates into heated dialogue, while the underlying groove continues unabated. It's bound to incite laughter, an underground dance craze, or both. Obviously, Trip Shakespeare is willing to play the jester, to e just a it ridiuculous. Matt acknowledges that hamminess is an irrepressile part of the and; "If we had a grate donw over part of who we are, we'd e ill and we'd limp." This sense of the absurd manifests itself even more blatantly onstage, when Matt is likely to reak into a comical rhyming narrative in mid-song. As the music settles down and his tale threatens to stumle into nonsensical free verse, he repeatedly reins it in with some outlandish couplet. He'swinging it, but he's got the salty panache to pull it off. "None of it is uried as deeply as my leeves, " claims Matt. "The acutal stories are formed very near to my mouth, right efore they come out-right around the tip of my tongue. Years of lampshade-wearing and driving people out of keggers at 3 o"clock in the mornign y eing out of control have left me well-trained to mumble on." "Matt's mouth and tongue are formidale weapons," says Dan, "and what people see onstage is justa tiny fraction of their firepower." As Trip Shakespeare's frontman and lyricist, the greagarious Matt has considerable influence on the and's character. His lyrics are laden with fanciful and imaginative imagery: and out-of -work drummer accused of "living in the '700's"; planet's falling in line as a man falls in love. some of the scenes are disconcerting and fascinating at once: the apparent roadside burial of "one pretty Pearle"; "The Crane" pulling a man from an auto's wreckage. His verse has led the band to e called both poetic and pretentious. Across the Universe displays a more linear, ut no less creative, bent than past work. "The words come to me in the form of memeories of a time that actually never happened," explains Matt. "They come to me fully formed as the song, and they descrie events that seem like a dream ut didn't occur while sleeping, and which seem like history but aren't actually from the past." To ask him for elaboration seems pointless: "But are the clocks made of rubber, Mr. DAli?"" A rose is a what, Ms. Stein?" The Human voice is the most permanent instrument in Trip Shakespeare's ensembel. While neither Joh, Dan, nor Matt are trained vocally, they have fashioned a three-part male chorus that could rival many a arershop quartet - if not for techincal precision, then for sheer spirit. Matt says they got "pretty hot under the collar" when they discovered they could harmonize. " A lot of our vocal training comes from trying to keep up with John, " says Dan. "Once he started sinignig four and five times as loud, pretty much everyone had to follow, including the guitars and drums." Jonn says his volume was born out of necessity: "When we were getting strated on the road, a lot of the ars that we would play would have really crapped-out PA systems. Often there would e only two monitors, and I was only sisnging a little it, so usually I would surrender the monitors to Dan and Matt." When not engaged in harmony, the singers each exhiit a distinctive tone. On Across the Universe, Dan's controlled style complements the melancholy "Gone , Gone, Gone," Matt holds forth with a shakier emotive cronn in Unlucky Lady," and John displays remarkale range and depth on "Late," They all meld together in the languid glow of "Honey Tree", the albums gentle closing tune. "There's a eauty to human voices harmonizing together, " says John. "We love doing it, and we'll keep doing it" The song "Drummer Like Me" rings us to the fourth and, to hear the men tell it, the most vital memer of Trip Shakespeaere- Elaine Harris. She's a woman of few wordsw (she declined to e interviewed) and apparenly infinite inspiration. "How could we fit, except in the roughest way, into any category, when we have this drummer who just doesn't play like any other drummer?" says Dan. "She plays in a style-not een a style, in a mode-that is so alien to much of what you hear on the radio that the and has to follow her. We are what wer are a lot ecause Elaine just doesn't sound like anybody else." Adds Matt: "Drumming aside, she exists in a separtate realm from other ands, fro u, from everyone in this room. Where she's coming from is some kind of -it's a place that we can't see, exactly. John is more forthfight: "She comes from Saturn." It's not that Elaine's drumming is avante-garde or quierky- it's just unusual. She plays stainging up, with no kick drum or high-hat. Instead of the usual cymbal -crashing, testosterone-fueled thumpa a thumping, Trip Shakespeare is driven by a more moderate, measured rhythm. At a recent show, Matt referred to Elaine as a "monument to womanhood." "Her presecne doesn't allow us to settle down near other music," he says. "In order to e with her, we have to be away -we have to e in orbit." In concocting Across the Universe, Trip Shakespeare had at its disposal the accourtrements of a state-of-tthe-art studios (Paisley Park) and the talents of a big-time producer (Fred Maher, whose recent projects include Lou Reed, Lloyd Cole, and Information Socitety). And they didnt' even have to uproot themselves. "Part of what was really important to us was doing it in Minneapolis,"says John, "and we worked to get that to happen-to get Fred esxcited about coming here, to get the label excited about not being able to be there observing us. And all of that stuff worked out pretty much the way that we wanted it to." Dan says Maher was excited by what he'd heard of their music, and he gave them room to operate. This meant a lot to Trip Shakespeare, a rather meticulous and willful bunch of artists. "A lot of the time our methods are kind of puzzling to other people, and he was no exception," says Dan. "Sometimes he just stood there and had a befuddled smile on his face. "Fred, I think is more interested in forming the sounds. He wanted to use these cool microphones and these hrorrible guitar amps that he rought along that made really scary sounds. And as far as what we played or the way we did it, he just said, "Go for it". He was pretty low-key in that way. In fact, he had another alum that he had to work on that he had already been committed to--and we, having rought in all these songs, went over schedule. So Fred left before ieverything ws finished, and we got seeral weeks on our own to play in the studio, to do crazy orchestrations and blow up some of the stuff." "Like the most expensive guitar amp from the most expensive guitar rental service in the world, "adds Matt. For a band that recoreded its firts two albums, Applehead Man and Are You Shakespearienced? on a poor and's budget and equipment, Prince's palace was a playground. It had all the materials they needed to make their craft fly. "just imagine if Dan went to Saturn," posits Matt, "where the craters are orange and blue, and the sky has rings running across it, and there's a mulicolored vegetation-its unexplainable. Then he comes back to earth, and it's Dan's job to show the world what Saturn looks like with his paintings. If he was just to give tyou the plain old craters and show the rings going across the sky, it probably wouldn't capture for the world what it was zactually like to e on Saturn and to smell the Saturn air. Dan might have to make the painting unreal in order to really give the impression of what it's like to have a Saturn wind lowing through your hair. "And in the same way, when the and tries to take its live performances into the studios, we have to ring on a few extra barking dogs and unicylcles and machinery to get the circus across on a record." "The Nail," a dense, busy and rather foreboding song that John sings in an ominous baritone, took even more bizarre gadgetry, if Matt is to be elieved. "We had to get out our crate of bells and whistles, open it up, and find the colored xylophone, that made that one work. We had to get out the extra wind-lowing machines and the thunderclappers. When Matt speaks of becoming a musician, as he and Elaine decided to do after exiting a prestigious Ivy Leaue college, he closes his eyes and descries a tranformation akin to a religious experience. his real self slipped into his body, he says, "and that's when I completely flew away.....There weren't any quesitons anymore about how to write lyrics or what should be in songs. The answers just came." The songs came, too, and they're still coming. You'll probably never see Trip Shakespeare play someone else's composition onstage- it just wouldn't be right, says Matt."There is an overpopulaiton of Trip Shakepseare songs, and they are all begging to be fed, They all want to get onstage and be, and they all want to fight their way into the grooves of recoreds. We have to look after our own songs, keep themhoused and clothed. "We are now going to be putting out records at a faster rate," explains John. "Even with all our patience, we have a lot of songs, and we want to give them their life. Two hyears etween recoreds is too long, for me. I want to make them fsater. more! Better! Now that papers have been signed, usiness relationships extablished, and a project completed, the members of Trip Shakespeare are free to practice their craft= to be song finders," as matt calls them. They have been relieved of their more utilitarian duties. "We hadn't really set out on this journey to become a mini-recored company," says Dan. "So having these people that just do that all day log is really great for us." "We can operate now," adds Matt, 'and they let us operat,e too-I'll say that for them. They haven't tried to tie our legs to the operation table, chain us down to the Frankenstein anti-matter transmogrifier. "The nightmare stories seem to be unfounded. So far they'r warnings. We're in this Trip Shakespeare world, a world of snow and nature, and we're operating. And they have thier kind of icycle-pump world, with gears and cogs and things. And I think that they realize, as they gaze into the distance and tehy see the Trip Shakespeare galaxy, that there's nothing that they cn aadd or take away that would even affect the way we operate. They know that we don't have to toudche each other to work together. "The bandkers and teh lawayers and that whole side of music has just become like a building that's way in teh ack of our whole lot, and it jsut churns black smoke, and fire comes out of it. The only way we can be rewarded, now that the whole is gurgling awya is to face the audience and try to fly away with them." |
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| Trip
Shakespeare is exactly what its name suggests: a bohemian fusion
of psychedelic instincts and high-art aspirations. Once only known to Midwest
club-goers, the Minneapolis-based band's ear-shagging melodies and slightly
askew lyricism are winning them a growing national fandom. The group is
currently on tour supporting their latest A&M release, Lulu, making
a stop at The Maintenance Shop in Ames March 21. The Trip Shakespeare sound
has roots in early 70's AM radio, which mesmerized brothers Matt and Dan
Wilson and pal John Munson while growing up in the Twin Cities. The Wilsons
played in a host of bands as teenagers, but eventually both left home.
Dan, older by two years, headed to San Francisco to pursue a painting career.
Matt traveled east where he enrolled in Harvard and met percussionist Elaine
Harris. Three years into the curriculum, he realized that music was more
important than Harvard, and quit. Matt urged Elaine to head home with him.
Around this time, Matt and Elaine devised the unorthodox drum setup that
Trip still uses --every drum, including the bass drum, on stands--no pedals.
Elaine stands up, Maureen Tucker-style, and lets her hands do the work.
Matt explained in a recent interview with Musician magazine: "If
you get on a regular drum set, it asks you to do certain things. But change
the ground rules, and that forces different solutions. It's no use just
putting a little whipped cream on something that's already been cooked.
If it sounds regular, then we want to twist it to say something new. Elaine
is the biggest proponent of that approach in the band."
"The
new setup was really hard those first few gigs," Elaine confesses. "I could
barely keep the basic patterns going. I had to stop leading with my right
hand. I am close to being ambidextrous now, though."
The tactic
worked. Lulu is Shakespeare's best by far. Doing exactly what they want
has made for inventive music and even more outrageous live performances.
Dan confessed they've had to tone down their live shows because of
travel restrictions. "When we were in Minneapolis most of the time and
traveled only short distances, we would make large foam-rubber wings and
various amazing objects for us to wear," he said. "We had some really great
dorsal fins that we wore one night. We also had a bubble machine that was
really nice. "But since we've been crammed into this tiny van for a couple
of years, driving around the whole country, we just haven't had room to
bring the dorsal fins and the angel wings--or the antlers," he continued.
"If we had inflatable stuff, we'd bring it along, but nothing fits into
the van anymore."
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Patrick Beach, Register Staff Writer |
| Trip
Shakespeare is extremely close to finding real fame with humor, brains
and attitude. On paper, Trip Shakespeare begs to be written off. Do we
really need another deliberately groovy, loopy, un-selfconsciously semi-psychedelic
band? As it turns out, we do need at least one more. Trip Shakespeare,
a deceptively wise Minneapolis quartet that's been teetering on the vertiginous
precipe of impending fame for a couple of years now, has the humor, smarts
and chops to embrace the bell bottom ethic without wallowing in it. They
are members of that ever-endangered species, smart hippies.
Their second A&M record, last year's "Lulu," is a sort of concept-free concept album: seques, environmental sound, nice harmonies and plenty of volume make for a remarkably cohesive package with a number of disparate cultural reference points: Lounge lizard cool. Black light posters. Beatles pop. Children's literature. Lumberjacks. '70's radio. Trendy '80's cynicism. It sounds as if it's an easy recipe for dissonance, but Trip Shakespeare makes it work. As tricky as the recorded sound is to describe, things get even stickier when discussing their shows. Live, they're as good or better than anybody else out there. Tunes take unexpected hairpin turns, bridges turn into opportunities for funny, meandering spoken-word monologues and instruments are played with that rare mix of spontaneity and precision that makes the hair on your arms stand up. If you
have tickets to Trip's show at the Maintenance Shop in Ames Saturday, you'll
soon know what we're talking about. If you don't have tickets, you're probably
out of luck. Tickets for both shows at 8 and 11 p.m were all but sold out
as of the time of this writing.
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Kaye Koerper Marquette Tribune 9/10/87 |
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| With a new sound
and style that's both funky and intelligent, Trip Shakespeare, and exciting
new band from Minneapolis, will be playing Friday at 4 p.m. in the Central
Mall. Critics and audiences are raving about this group's performances.
Martin Keller of the Twin Cities Reader wrote, "The sight of Elaine Harris
playing imaginative beats and rhythms on her unusual 'standing' drumkit
acts as the foursome's audio-visual metaphor: unique, unorthodox and refreshingly
intense."
Harris and the three other memers of the band (John Munson and brothers Matt and Dan Wilson) have been together for two years now and have produced a very successful album, "Applehead Man." The sell-out of the 2,000 copies released gained the band prominence among Minneapolis's original grojups. The album will be availale in Milwaukee in late September or early October. In the 1987 Minneapolis Music Award, Trip Shakespeare was awarded Best New Band. The future looks good for the group, but Matt Wilson realistic. "We still have a long way to go," he said. They play only original music and have been described as having a natural sound with a romantic twang and a heavy, underlying funk beat. "The music is twisted; it has the effect of being played through a kaleidoscope," Matt Wilson said. Trip Shakespeare has often been compared to REM and the early Talking Heads. Greg Hack of the Kansas City Times wrote, "The vocals are high and breezy and , along with the jangling guitars, account for the and's fresh sound." Their songs often tell stories, some funny some of lost loves, and all of them ring with a kind of bizarre twist. "Applehead Man" the title cut, is about an apple. After being carved into a head and shrunken, this apple takes on its own character and tells of how it wants to be back on the tree. The song ends in an Adam and Eve philosophy. Touring the Midwest, Trip Shakespeare has found Milwaukee's reputation of being a "tough city" to be true, but not hindering. The band plans to move to New York because of its "adventuresome taste and the excitement toward change in the arts, " Matt Wilson said. |
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Bob Ashenmacher Duluth News Tribune 10/2/87 |
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| Trip
Shakespeare's performance at Mr. Pete's bar in Duluth last Friday night
was the finest Duluth rock show of this decade. Better than Husker Du,
better than Huey Lewis, and better than everyody in between. The quartet
didn't egin playing until 10:55pm, inexcusably late. Chalk it up to the
arrogance that sometimes infects Twin Cities bands playing up here. But
the sheer brillinace and power of their first three numbers blew away all
bad feelings. Leader Matt Wilson finally eased up into a slow number and
we could all catch our breath. But the night's dazzle was only beginning.
Throughout the next two hours, Shakespeare offered original songs rich in melody, humor, imaginative harmonies-some rendered a capella - and pneumatic drumming from Elaine Harris. It was like catching Talking Heads in '76 at a New york club, it was like - no, it wasn't, it was like only a Trip Shakespeare performance. |
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This
Minnesota group--making its major-label debut after several independent
efforts--can sound like a folk band. It also can sound like a thoughtful
alternative rock band, whose melodies outline sad and curious curves; a
band with luminous pop vocal harmony; and, most enticingly, a band that
might power any or all of its other styles with a propulsive R & B
beat.
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May 2, 1990 Fordham University |
And yet another place known for its loudness:
God knows what Husker Du thinks, but Minneapolis has just unleashed another hot band to define itself. The band is called Trip Shakespeare, and released a debut LP in March of this year. On a promotional 12" from A&M, they often sound like a cross between a poetry reading and a concert, with vocalist Matt Wilson's voice who has one of those clear, no-style voices, riding above tight and polished melodies. The band has an ear for perfect songs and tracks such as "The Crane" and "Toolmaster of Brainerd" eschews the band's influences but doesn't rip them off. The treatment of the lyrics take the mundane and make them seem otherworldly ("The Crane", seems to be about an engine overhaul, but the lines are written so cleverly that it sounds much higher above) The band plays flawlessly, and the drums (by Elaine Harris, reportadly stands up while kicking that beat) are a fine focal point. Let this band make a home in your head. |
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LA Times Syndicate AcrossThe Universe , Trip Shakespeare A&M Records, A&M 7502 |
Latest Arrivals from the rich Minneapolis music scene which has produced a broad range of artists from Prince to the Replacements is an unusual quartet that draws its inspiration from an unlikely cross-reeding of country rock and neo-psychedelia. The group's wide-open sound fueled by drummer Elaine Harris and bassist John Munson makes use of piano and guitars in a broad sweep of styles. Live, the group has been known to don large fins, horns, hooves and wings, but on record, it's all about music. Although Trip Shakespeare released two earlier and hard-to-find self-produced albums, "Across The Universe" marks their introduction to the national audience. Although marred by bombast, the A&M debut is the work of an engaging and inquisitive band. Particularly noteworthy tracks include "Drummer Like Me" and "Turtledove". |
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Friday, May 4, 1990 |
Trip
Shakespeare Carves It's Own Niche
Honest romanticism and winking hipness aren't supposed to work together. So how do you explain the LA debut of Trip Shakespeare at Club Lingerie on Wednesday? How a simple fairy tale turned into a novelty dance called the slacks, how a twisted comic-book adventure became a hilarious rhyming farmland epic of, well, near-Shakespearean proportions? And, most important, how youthful irreverence did nothing to diminish the bare sentimentality of a closing ballad, or vice versa? The Minneapolis quartet is obviously a band that's willing and able to carve out its own distinct and rewarding niche. Maybe if LA's wacky metal parodists Redd Kross had been weaned on Neil Young and the Bnad instead of Kiss and the Partrige Family, they might sound something like this. The harmonies and emotions are heartland-pure and plain, but the attitude is television-generation-hip. The trick of the Trip is that it's never snide--an accomplishment that has eluded virutally all who have tried for this chemistry (not that many have tried). And, not incidentally, the band writes great hooks, and it rocks. Maybe the name says it all. Steve Hochman |
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From Trip Shakespeare About Lulu |
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| Heres
some information from the band on how we made this epic fantasy album Lulu.
The record was produced by us and a guy named Justin Niebank, from Nashville.
Trip Shakespeare always prefers to record the instruments all at the same
time, in one room, with everybodys gear just pointed at everybody else.
That way you dont have to wear headphones, and you can really feel the
volume of the amps. Engineers generally gripe about recording in this manner,
but Justin had already recorded many blues records in this way for the
Alligator label. He smiled and adjusted the knobs and microphones as we
smiled and filled reel after reel of expensive tape with feedback orgies,
a phenomenon that occurs naturally whenever a band is allowed to set up
and play loudly in one room. Justin was a dream. Sometimes as we played
we actually glimpsed him dancing around the control room.
Lulu was recorded at Pachyderm Discs, which is hidden way out in the remote Minnesotan wilderness. Due to the beauty of the woods, the band was in heaven. The spell cast by nature's chirping and gurgling led us to the unadorned sounds you hear. Being so far from our landlords and all the responsible parties at the record label, the project spontaneously evolved into a grand concept album. Factors like the song order, the segues, and the transporter-beam edits started to seem vitally important to us, as the songs began to melt together into one radioactive mass. We tried to make the album into a single musical experience. The and selfishly requests that everybody listen to the whole thing without interruption. Whenever we could, we used the sounds of the woods. We set the vocal mics up in front of an enormous window, and stared at the fluorescent green moss as we sang. We also spliced in pieces of music recorded in our basement and pieces taken from live shows. John discovered a way to make eerie harmonies on his bass, using cymbals, bows, and mallets. The room was crowded with percussion instruments, extra drumsets and a bugle which were left miked up all the time. A lot of happy hours were wasted on these instruments. At night we would drive home from the countryside, past the fire-belching refinery on 52 and into the city to sleep amid the usual gunshots and begging. On the front of the record you see the band in the woods of Cannon Falls. On the back the city looms. You can hear both places in the music of Lulu. |
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February 1992 By Mac Randall |
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Playing like a natural disaster Our genre of music is sweat rock, says Matt. We sweat more per town than any and,It's ridiculous, adds bassist John Munson. We were playing First Avenue in Minneapolis recently, and the level of my bass started going down. I had this incredibly powerful amp turned up to 10... and I still had trouble hearing it. I put on another guitar, and whoa, way too much level. So I turned the amp down, and slowly the pickups got filled with sweat and the same thing happened. All the sodium chloride in the works could be avoided if the band didn,t rock out so intensely, so athletically. But Matt isn't going to stop just for the sake of a pick-up. Though it's 20 degrees out side, he's sweating more than ever, careenring around the stage, playing solos in a precarious, bent-backwards, splay-legged position. And his audience loves it. They've packed the Cubby Bear three nights in a row, drawn by the showmanship and the music it serves: crafty, guitar-driven, hook-laden pop, heard to best advantage on 1991's Lulu. The Trip Shakespeare sound has roots in early 70's AM radio, which mesmerized brothers Matt and Dan Wilson and pal John Munson growing up in the Twin Cities, Matt comments, ' When you're a 12-year old , the music that's slaying you is the same stuff that 25-year olds listen to and say, "Oh man, the radio is covered with filth. ' '' The future members of Trip Shakespeare existed for the trashy hits of the time, and they remain unashamed (though if you stick with them long enough, you'll also hear paeans sung to Mingus, Beefheart and Ronald Shannon Jackson). Dan and Matt started playing around the same time; Dan, older by two years, stuck to guitar and piano, while Matt, originally a drummer, moved to guitar only when the songwriting bug hit. The Wilson's played in Minneapolis bands as teenagers, but eventually both left home. Dan headed to San Francisco to pursue a painting career, supporting himself with the occasional carpentry job. "I'd gotten sick of the heartbreak of music," he says. "But I still brought my guitar along." Matt traveled east, to Cambridge, Mass. Where he enrolled in Harvard and met percussionist Elaine Harris. Three years into the curriculum, he realized that music was more important than Harvard, and quit. He'd also sussed that the Boston music scene was less than ideal. "Things were very conservative, lots of mimics- The Cars had just about finished it off. Scenes have to die out completely, and all the scouts have to go away before things happen. That' when cool bands come out, when no one's watching. No one had a hope of being seen in Minneapolis," This being the case, Matt urged Elaine to head home with him. Around this time, Matt and Elaine devised the unorthodox drum setup that Trip still uses. Every drum , including the bass drum, on stands, no pedals. Elaine stands up,. Maureen Tucker-style, and lets her hands do the work. Matt explains, "If you get on a regular drum set, it asks you to do certain things. But change the ground rules, and that forces different solutions. It's no use just putting a little whipped cream on something that's already been cooked. If it sounds regular, then we want to twist it to say something new. Elaine is the biggest proponent of that approach in the band. The new setup was really hard those first few gigs, Elaine confesses. "I could barely keep the basic patterns going. I had to stop leading with my right hand, I am close to being ambidextrous now, though." After auditioning countless artists, Wilson and Harris decided on old friend John Munson, and Trip Shakespeare was born. A few local gigs ensued, followed y the release of the trio's debut album, 1986's Applehead Man featured the concert staple Fireball and the ingenious Beatle, which incorporates quotes from Taxman,Ticket to Ride, Lucy in the Skyand other Fabs classics. Matt had been sending tapes regularly to Dan in San Francisco begging him to join up: the first record finally convinced the elder Wilson. When Dan came back, we flowered, Matt says, before, we'd been long on concept and long on bass player, but that was about it. Trip became a quartet, and toured relentlessly, We bought a van and went to Kansas City over and over again, explains John. The schedule was broken up only by sessions for the next album. Are You Shakespearienced? A marked improvement over the first. In 1990 , A&M signed the band and released Across the Universe, signaling another rise in the quality of Trip's playing and writing. For their next record, the band took a different tack. We wanted it to sound like the live band we'd become over the years of touring, says Dan. A crucial feature of that band is spontaneous improvisation. ( We get compared with the Dead just because we jam, Elaine remarks, mystified. I guess it's something that stands out because so few bands attempt to do it.) All Lulu's basic tracks were recorded live with everyone in the same room: even the intricate vocal harmonies were done without overdubs, sometimes using only one mike, Dan explains, Our engineer, Justin Niebank, just laughed and said, Leakage is our friend. The tactic worked: Lulu is Trip Shakespeare's best by far. |
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Music That Saves the Day -Rosemary Sheola (Wendell, MA) |
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first waltzed into the strange and wondrous world of Trip Shakespeare last
March after seeing their press release photo hanging in the doorway of
a local café and becoming at once intrigued by their bardic stance
and beguiling name. But what does Shakespeare have to do with these modern,
madcap minstrels, anyway? Well, they do recite some spontaneous poetry,
but their spoken and lyrical verse is closer to a collage between Frank
Zappa and Tom Rapp than the great literary legacy. However with vocals
of the gods and a stage performance to die for,as Jordie, proprietor of
the Iron Horse Music Hall so enthusiastically describes them, I guess they
can call themselves whatever they like and keep the crowds coming for more.
The Minneapolis based psychedelic pop quartet is undeniably a hill of funand their fluid spontaneity and contagious exuberance pulled me hook, line, and sinker into their irresistible realm of riveting revelry. Their innovative musical style combines bittersweet mini-ballads with quirky surrealistic mindscapes merging feisty funkadelic jams with jingly sounding pop tunes. Mix this all together and you definitely have what bassist John Munson describes as wild stew! The Trip Shakespeare mythology continues to evolve through the collaboration of brothers Matt and Dan Wilson (guitar and keyboards), John Munson (fretless bass), and the potent percussion of Elaine Harris who astonishes audiences through her ability to keep together the driving beat of the band while simultaneously staying on her feet the entire evening. I met with John and Matt before their concert at the Iron Horse where they graciously chatted with me between munching minestrone soup and slurping salad. So lets start with a little history, how did you all meet and decide to embark on this adventure together? John: We came together back in 86 and played within the Minneapolis circuit for awhile but our real origins are in Massachusetts. Elaine is from Mass. And Matt and her had an experimental band called The Crotchet Family which eventually evolved into Trip Shakespeare. Matt and Dan are originally from Minneapolis, which was a burgeoning, bubbling cauldron of music at the time and Matt and Elaine decided they wanted to do it for real and take the music into bigger venues. They were looking for a bass player and I was amazed by Elaine's totally newfangled, wild style of playing drums and hooked by Matt's songwriting. Most of the songs for the first album were basically written and we just had to figure out how to pull it all together. Dan came on board after we already achieved great fame and status in our hometown. You have a busy touring schedule. Has this given you further inspiration for new material or are you growing weary of the road? John: It has gotten to where we can create on the road and find cracks in time where we can make new songs and do all that we need to do to be a band. We anticipate being on the road for a long time and we're trying to cross that bridge where we're as accomplished in the studio as we are on the road. We'd like to go into the studio with enough confidence to make the records that are the dreams in our heads. You seemed to succeed in capturing the live spark on you last album. John: That was the goal with our last record. Lulu was recorded by just turning up the mics in the room, turning up the amps, and even the singing and drumming was done with us just bashing away at it. We feel Lulu represents a realization of things we've been trying to achieve in the studios for a long time. Finally, we have an engineer (Justin Niebank), who is totally empathic to our goals. He knew what we wanted to achieve and he facilitated our needs. Now we're at the beginning of a new phase where we want to use the studio as an artistic tool more. You've been given quite the rave up, with your songwriting being described as taking up where Sgt. Pepper leaves off. Is this kind of response the norm? Matt:
Well, we didn't shake the world but I've never felt better about the band
and more stronger as a songwriter.
John: Great. That's what we want and then when the waves come crashing back up on stage from the audience, that's when it can really turn into a wonderful storm of energy. A lot of care goes into your harmonies. Is the music arranged with this in mind or does this just organically evolve as you work the pieces out? John:The songs kind of take on shapes in all different ways. But the thing we have to work really hard at is instrumental arrangements. Once we get the instrumental thing then we'll start layering the vocals, which tend to happen more spontaneously. Matt: The harmonies are always the last piece to come together. A lot of times we'll just sing through a bunch of bad harmonies until we finally come upon a good one. Dan has a particularly good ear for that. Your lyrics and music are so versatile with romantic themes like Today You Move going into quirky, surreal, more psychedelic pieces like Your Mouth, and I was wondering if this is reflective of the range of musical styles prevalent within the band? John: Yeah, we have an interest in an incredibly wide variety of music. Matt: The last two records were conscious attempts to be more diverse. We tried to mix a whole world of emotions and grooves on Lulu for better or worse and hoped that somehow the personality of the band would hold it all together. Do you share a lot of the same musical inspirations as well? Matt: The things that have influenced me the most are kind of embarrassing. You know how its not really the great things that get to you when you're six years old, but it's more like whatever the hot thing on the radio is;like remember the song Happy Together by the Turtles? Well, that floored me for years. I just thought it was the happiest, saddest song ever and of course the Beatles. So those things just stuck with you all these years? Matt: Yeah, they're still with me. John: I feel that the thing we want the music to do is to bring people together to share all the different feelings music can truly evoke. Mostly, we're just trying to do something beautiful and great. We're trying to make music that speaks our hearts. Matt: It's constantly shifting, but I guess just to make recordings that are really moving;like those songs you hear at exactly the right time and they save your day. Yeah, we want to make the kind of music that saves the day. |
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