Autumn In Minnesota - Living In Color

I just got back from a sorely needed hit of the refresh button back home in Minnesota. I hadn't been back for Autumn in years, as I usually go back for Christmas, so the motherland in all its blazing fall glory was really something special. People were laughing at me and how hard I was tripping on it all, but I didn't care. It was so pretty, it all almost looked fake. 

When you don't live somewhere you try to pack in all you can while you're there. I never have time to really get out into the country when I'm back home, so that was a priority this time. From my beloved Wood Lake Nature Center right in the middle of the city, to the North shores of Lake Superior almost at the Canadian border, Minnesota was really showing off.

I'm not a professional photographer, but you didn't have to be, it was super easy to take an awesome photo just by hitting a button on your phone. It was like you felt more fully alive just looking at the beauty all around you. Even the people that live there were like "Wow!" - because sometimes you don't get out and take advantage of what's right there in front of you.

I was there also to attend the Prince Tribute show at the XCel Energy Center, and that was great to finally have that celebration and kind of closure together with all of my hometown folks. The entire city was lit up in purple again, and it felt wonderful to be there ... true Minnesota pride was in full effect.

There was more of that when the news came out that our other hometown hero, Bob Dylan, had won the Nobel Prize for Literature - the first time such a reward has ever been given to a musician. That was so cool, and the pride for that is shown many stories high in downtown Minneapolis in an excellent mural. There was also the first episode of the new edition of Prairie Home Companion when I was there, and I think the show is in good hands with new host, Chris Thile.

If you're in Minnesota in the fall, you have to go to the apple orchard and you have to go to the pumpkin patch.

We actually hit a few, and I'm fully craving more apple cider donuts and fresh cider right now. And maybe those apple bratwursts too. Yum.

The weather was so gorgeous, everyone seemed to be in a good mood the whole time too. You really couldn't help it.

Only one day had inclement weather, and I welcomed it as we haven't had any rain to speak of in California all year. The grey skies over the Mississippi didn't even do much to dampen the brilliant colors and high spirits. One guy was out painting in the rain, and we walked through it all without a care.

The trees were so pretty in town that I was wondering what it was like up north and down south. One day we did the drive to Lake Pepin (where the Mississippi is so wide they call it a lake, and it's where waterskiing was invented) and Red Wing. The drive was sunny and glorious, but the leaves were just kind of golden ... pretty, but I think too early.

I was looking up the fall color sites every day and one day we decided to just go for it and see what the far North would have to offer. It was a drive well rewarded.

We started out at Gooseberry Falls, where I was so proud of my Mom for climbing up that whole hike.

 It was postcard perfect everywhere you looked, and the only thing we had to worry about was losing our sunlight and views!

We would take breaks on little benches and sit and just look out at all the wonder. It's such a relief to get out into real nature and recognize that it's still there - and that we have to protect it!

I hadn't seen Split Rock Lighthouse since I was a little kid, and though it's not as big as I remembered, it is as beautiful.

The climb to the top of the lighthouse is rewarded with stunning views of the Lake Superior shoreline, and from there you could really see the oranges and yellow in full flame.

It's so lovely up there that you just want to keep going, certain that around the next corner must be the best view of them all. I got really deep into the woods at one point on my own, and when I yelled back for my Mom, she couldn't hear me. Then I thought I heard a thump and a rustling of leaves very close by, and I took off ... I had seen The Revenant just the night before, so  ... Peace.

We hiked and sight saw until the last streak of light had left the sky, and then began to look for Northern Lights. They told us they'd seen them all Summer long up there, but on this Autumn night it was just a whole bunch of stars. After a proper Walleye meal, we got back on the road to the city, as there was more to do the next day.

Home is always about my lifelong friends too. I went to the football game at Richfield High School, where I don't think I'd been since I graduated. It's always so great to see the old friends and know that we have those solid roots in common.

My home friends are solid. I get so much strength from just knowing that they're still out there in the world for me, but when we get to be together (in the Minnesota Wild locker room), it's even better. I'm so lucky.

Time flew and before I knew it it was time to return to Venice and real life. I'm sharing a whole bunch of postcards of my time back home here so that you might think about getting out there yourself. It doesn't have to be Minnesota, although you can see why that might be nice. Just get out there and breathe in the fresh air deeply, and know how lucky we are that places like this still exists. And you get to take that with you in your memories, for whenever you need to pull out that feeling again.

I'm doing it right now ...

THANK YOU!!! to everyone I saw, and every leaf that turned. I feel all of you now.

Steve Earle - Mardi Gras At The Grammy Museum

I got a kind and last minute invitation to see Steve Earle play and speak last night at the Grammy Museum's "The Drop" series, and I jumped at the chance. I've long admired Earle's gift for storytelling and picking on that guitar, and this Americana Music Association event was on the release day of his new album, Terraplane. It was also Mardi Gras, and as Earle starred on Treme, I felt he'd be a good guy to spend the occasion with.

I was right. We sat there and listened to Earle spin yarns in that "I don't give a fuck" way of his (which he did also utter several times, and is one of the things I dig about him the most) in the silent Clive Davis theater, full of true Earle scholars, as is often the case at Grammy Museum events. It's for the hard core appreciators of the given evening's music, that is always clear. You always feel like you leave with an education, and Earle is a great professor precisely because he is also a scholar of music. Especially the blues.

The talk began with the Grammy Foundation's Scott Goldman asking Earle why a blues album now, to which Earle simply replied, "I had the blues." He's blunt like that, a plain talker. I appreciate that. He's also extra-prolific, with novels, plays, acting roles, and you name it also going on. It's evident and much written about that Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark were Earle's mentors, and he "debriefed them fucking constantly". "Their influences were Lightning Hopkins and Robert Frost, and I don't want to hang with people who don't get that." Me neither.

In discussing the new album, Earle said, "There is only the Chicago Shuffle and the Texas Shuffle. There is no L.A. shuffle, no offense." The album, as he described it, is one part Howlin' Wolf and Chess Records, one part Canned Heat, and one part ZZ Topp (whose Billy Gibbons was repeatedly brought up by Earle as a badass blues man). If that sounds good on paper, trust that it sounds even better on the stereo, and definitely sounds great in person. He added that, even with all those icons of the genre, "All the blues goes back to one Robert Johnson song."

As it was Mardi Gras, Earle gave a little insight to the day, having learned much during his time spent in New Orleans while acting on Treme. Mardi Gras is really about the Mardi Gras Indians (who were originally street gangs protecting their turf) out to settle scores before the next day that begins Lent. He also mentioned that there will most likely be a New Orleans style album from him one day. About the release date, Earle shrugged, "Records come out on Tuesdays, but I think it's auspicious."

Earle also spoke of his upcoming memoir that will be "Less Keith, more Patti." It's about his mentors, Townes and Guy, about the street people that helped him, and about his Grandfather, who began 12 Step meetings in Texas ... "So, it's a book about recovery." I expect there will be many readers. When asked why a memoir now, Earle said, "I have a son with autism and his school is expensive. The publisher said memoirs pay more."

The Grammy nights are great because they just kind of let the performer go, and let it flow where they want the conversation to go. Earle told us he's recording an album with Shawn Colvin in November. He told us about his Camp Copperhead in the Catskills, where he holds an intensive four day songwriting (his job, after all) workshop. He told us that he's playing Letterman for the last time on Monday night. He told us that his tour starts April 15th, and he'll be playing the Stagecoach Festival out here. He told us he's a better performer now because of his acting. He told of how he saw Bruce Springsteen (who he thinks is THE best performer in rock) play an arena like it was a coffee house, and he went home and wrote Guitar Town the very next day.

Of Guitar Town, he said that a lot of songwriters (even Garth Brooks) tell him that they came to Nashville because of that record. "And I apologize." He said Nashville isn't really a town for singer/songwriters (which Earle often called his "job"), they just churn out from the machine. He came to Nashville himself in 1974, "and we all came because of Kris (Kristofferson, of course), but he was already gone being a movie star by then."

"I write chick songs so my audience doesn't get hairier and uglier, but they're not about the girl, they're still about me." That got a laugh, but I also got it. All songs are about the writer's experience and feelings. Earle explained, "I've got to keep myself interested if I'm gonna keep an audience interested. I'm not Andy Kaufman, an audience makes a difference. What I have in common with my audience matters more than how I'm different. And it keeps me in a job." Well, this audience loved that.

Speaking of Van Zandt and Clark, Earle gratefully said, "I was the beneficiary of a real life, old fashioned apprenticeship, which doesn't happen much anymore." True. "Songwriting as an art form is the job that Dylan invented ... it happened because Lennon wanted to be Dylan, and Dylan wanted to be Lennon."This is a man who knows his music history.

I've always enjoyed Earle's rebel streak, and his line of the night for me was when he said, "I loved corporate money. I love to take their money and write a song about Revolution." Yes. YES!

Then it was time for some of those songs we'd been talking about. Earle began strumming his guitar and releasing a huge sigh, almost of relief that the talking part was done and he could get down to his job now. He opened with "Ain't Nobody's Daddy Now" off the new album. And it ruled, as you knew it would.

"This is as close as there is to a chick song on the record," said Earle by way of introducing "You're The Best Lover That I Ever Had." It was great, and steamy and these chicks appreciated it. "Gamblin' Blues" was more for the dudes (and Lightning Hopkins), and they dug it too.

"King Of The Blues" had heads bobbing and toes tapping, and after hearing those stories, really having a grasp on where it came from, rounding out the song's experience beautifully. He told his oft-told tale of Van Zandt riding a horse in a snowstorm (which he fully intends to replicate) as an intro to his great ballad, "Fort Worth Blues", so visual and literary both. Earle ended with the crowd favorite and classic, "Copperhead Road." At song's end, the audience (that matters!) leapt to their collective feet and applauded until Goldman broke it up to say Earle would be signing his cd in the lobby.

As I watched the long line of people waiting to meet Earle and share their Earle stories, I remembered that Earle had said during the show that people always asked him if Van Zandt was Pancho or Lefty. Earle laughingly answers, "He was both." Observing Earle the performer and Earle the person with his fans, I suspect that like the King of The Blues Earle sings about ... Earle too is both.

What a great evening of music ... that didn't end there! We high-tailed it back to Venice to catch Lacey Kay Cowden and Matt Ellis at The Townhouse, and listening to their songs ... you might think that Earle is now a mentor himself. Beautiful, literary, cinematically visual songs that might break your heart, might teach you something about yourself, but for sure will cure any blues you thought you had.

Fait les bon temps rouler!

*Steve Earle & The Dukes great new Terraplane album is available now. Everywhere.

*Lacey Kay Cowden's Townhouse residency continues next Tuesday!

The Fine Art Of Justin Herber

Justin Herber is one of my very favorite artists - and friends. I first wrote about his art when he had a show up at The Other Room back in 2010 - when it was the highlight of that year's Art Walk for me (though not officially a part of it, as is often the case). His wood stain pieces depicting celebrated musicians lined the walls, one cooler than the next. The one I loved the most was Bob Dylan (Minnesota), and I've dreamed of it ever since.

Well, guess what?! Justin hand delivered that Dylan piece to my house the very day of my Glögg Fest in December! I own an original Herber! I'll never get over it. As every person who has visited my pad since has stood in front of it with their mouths agape, I wanted to put out a public - and ecstatic! - thank you note to Justin, so others can know about (and acquire) their own piece of awesomeness.

 

Herber is from West Texas, and spent a big chunk of his childhood very sick - like in a bubble sick. That led him to drawing, not only as self-entertainment, but as a means of survival. He overcame his illness 100%, but never lost his passion for drawing and painting - which led to his attending Pepperdine University's art program out here in Malibu.

 

Since then, Herber's life has been all about art, story and travel. Currently the Creative Consultant for Tom's Shoes, Herber handles all of those aspects within one job - living the dream. He also worked with National Geographic, traveling the world to tell our stories through art and a vision of working together for a more positive world.

His wood stain pieces came out of his love of street art and stencils, but his family's Texas farm background led him to try working with more natural, organic materials ... and his style was born. I think that's also why I love them - I wouldn't be into some big hero-worship style photo (and I pretty much revile our celebrity culture, especially here in L.A.), but the woodsy elements appeal to my own background in Minnesota, and I absolutely love these works. Every one of them.

Painting icons can be tricky, but the warm elements of the wood make it all the more approachable, and somehow you feel more of a connection with the work - and the person - because of it. Like a giant photograph of Dylan somehow wouldn't be as cool, you know?

With all of Herber's travels and other projects taking up a lot of his time lately, he hasn't had as many shows for these fantastic images to be seen, but he's in talks to reproduce some of them as a line of prints, and maybe a cool line of cards.

He will also do works on commission (I feel like there needs to be a Herber Bob Marley and probably a Joe Strummer in the world ... etc.), but not of your baby. Yet. Icons.
I'm so happy there's such good, quality people in this world, that are also such world-class talents. It's always the best (and increasingly rare) when they're both, and Justin Herber surely is.

To discuss your own never-ending conversation piece, you may contact the artist at JustinHerber@mac.com.

Eternal thanks, Justin! - from this Girl From The North Country.