First let’s kick this thing off with the ultimate kick-ass soundtrack from Earth, Wind & Fire. Crank it and read on:
To say that September has been a busy month is as much of an understatement as saying that Simon Cowell could really benefit from a regular cream rinse regimen. I’m playing so much that I’ve had to change my acoustic guitar’s strings TWICE so far this month. That’s twice as much as I changed them for most of 2009 and 2010 combined.
A few weeks ago I was transported via airplane (not spaceship) out to my good ol’ hometown of Minneapolis, MN to play for local architecture firm MS&R’s 30th anniversary at Mill City Museum. My acoustic tunes were used in a really cool documentary about the company’s history put together by Mind Of Klein. The full version will be available for public consumption on the internets someday soon but until then a sneak preview is available for a short time here. Neat stuff. I found it amusing that although I worked right across the river from Mill City Museum and walked past it almost every day on my lunch break for 4 years I never really saw it or knew it was there! It’s kind of hard to miss if you take a look at the skyline from where I used to walk. As I was playing the event on the 8th floor of the Mill City building in MS&R’s office overlooking the river I could see where I used to work. That was really, really weird (in a very good way, of course). Mill City Museum is a pretty fascinating place; I highly suggest stopping by and checking it out if you’re in the area.
My old lunchtime walk. Note the lack of dirt and/or humans.
It was a total trip going across the Hennepin Avenue Bridge again on the way to the Mill City building. It’s one of the two bridges I walked across daily on my aforementioned lunch break. The last time I was on it was right before we moved to New York. I clearly remember my last walk across it. It occurred to me that not only was this my last walk across it as a Minnesotan, but this would be one of the last bridges I’d be walking across for a long time that had wide, clean sidewalks. Sidewalks so sparsely populated that I could usually ride my bike across the whole bridge a pretty decent clip without having to worry about pedestrian interference. The last few walks across it were accompanied by a tornado of thoughts in my head: What if we get to New York and we don’t land jobs? What if savings runs out? Why did I just quit my awesome job at an awesome place that paid me quite well? When will be the next time I’ll be on this bridge? Will it be weird? Is there Chipotle in New York? How in the Hell are we going to get the cats there in one piece? Holy bawls was that ever an exhausting move but it was well worth it. Brooklyn has been incredibly kind to us so far considering how things could have gone.
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My favorite beer in the whole wide world.
It was awesome to be back in MN as always. I hope to see Iced Ink royal alumni Joe and Barry and my best buddy Troy next time I’m in town. I think the secret is to rent a car and be there for more than 48 hours. NEXT TIME. I got to spend a brief amount of time with family which was toadilly awesome as always. My cute lil Grandma Alice requested to see my guitar which resulted in playing a few tunes at the dinner table accompanied by my brother Chuck on violin. He adds a really cool vibe to the Finnegan songs. We WILL do a CD together. I also swilled a bottle of Surly 5 which knocked my socks off. MAN I miss the Surly line of beers Furiously (pun intended). East Coast beer is good but Surly Furious is where it’s at for this fella. I guess the one good thing about not having access to it is I’m not drinking it all of the time. That’s a good thing, right? I’d love to see them make a brew called Laverne and Surly someday. It would be fine with me if it tasted just like Furious and they provided me with a lifetime supply for coming up with such an awesome name. Seriously though – you beer peeps who haven’t been to the Midwest and experienced the wrath of Surly don’t know what you’re missing.
Along with the MS&R trip and my weekly engagement at Townhouse Art Gallery back in Brooklyn I was fortunate enough to play at artist Serge Strosberg’s inaugural brunch in his Soho studio this past Sunday. The lovely Angela Workman (former Ray Charles backup singer) performed and there was also some really phenomenal poetry and modern dance. Paintings and photographs are like music in that you simply can’t get the full effect from ingesting it via the internet. You’ve got to go see it in person. Serge’s work is pretty amazing and I’m looking forward to returning to future events there.
Friday it’s back to Greenpoint Gallery for a set and the rest of the month I’m working on a new conceptual acoustic CD of sorts. My fingers are happy.
Damn, this entry had more links than a busy sausage factory.
