THE WYMAN WEEKLY

Unemployed. Unattached. Unimpressed.

Issue 5 March 6,1996

 

 

 

Five is my lucky number and I hope this issue brings luck to all of you out there in the grown-up working world. Due to my trip to Milwaukee to watch Bucky Badger win (probably, and then I’ll stop doing this to go write, edit and publish the Daubenspeck Daily) their eleventh WCHA playoff title, this is going out a little early.

 

BEER / BARS

 

Stopped into the Uptown last week in celebration of weekly number four going out. Was enjoying some Leiny taps and minding my own business, but got distracted by the youngsters next to me who were making fun of the band. The band was Coup de Grace, a speed metal outfit who have been around for a few years. These kids were poking fun at the Coup for being “metal” and I was confused because punk is just metal sped up, but then speed metal is metal chords combined with punk energy. The first two songs on Nevermind were metal plus on Incesticide they had a tune titled something like “Aero Zeppelin”, yet Nirvana was called punk. The ‘Mats were “hardcore” when Let It Be came out and that had “Cat Scratch Fever” with different lyrics and a decidedly non-camp cover of a Kiss song. Guns ‘n Roses last album was almost all punk covers, yet they threw in “Hair of the Dog” like metal and punk were the same thing. I got so confused thinking of all of this stuff that I pounded my beer down, left my tip and waved bye to the bartender. Hopefully, next time I go there I won’t think so much.   

 

Went to the CC the other night to enjoy a little dinner and some Summit taps and ended up next to a table with about ten really loud people. Hey, it’s a bar and you’re supposed to loosen up right? Well, no problem except one of the guys was from France and he was making fun of some guy’s Minnesota accent. Naked, blind prejudice in my own local watering hole! I felt like going over there and laying my untainted northern bumfuck accent on him by saying “Dis dat and Nord Dahkohhhta”, but I kept my mouth shut.

 

COFFEE

 

Being a proud member of the post-boomer generation and a genuine slacker, I figured it was my duty and obligation to hang out in coffee shops. Yeah, I can drink coffee at home, but in these shops you can check out cute alternachicks (alternative chicks) and also sit around and practice looking alienated and disillusioned, which is something better done in public. But I come to tell you that this coffee shop thing is overrated. Like I went to Dunn Brothers on Hennepin one afternoon and I found a nice table right by the window so when all my hip Uptown friends would walk by they’d see me and say hey there’s Wyman reading his book let’s go in and say hi. But I don’t really know anybody in my neighborhood and certainly have no friends here. And the music they were playing was some jazz piano music and I kept tryin’ to think of those Chuck Berry words from “Rock ‘n Roll Music” about jazz sounding like a symphony. The coffee came in some big mug and they gave me a saucer and the combination of the angle of the handle on the coffee mug and the angle of the edge of the saucer made picking up the coffee difficult and it was too hot to hold comfortably and they were temporarily out of French Roast so I got something else that wasn’t that great. I couldn’t concentrate too good on my book but it felt good to look out the window and just think, except that jazz music would hedge in on my thoughts and I realized I should have just walked down to the Uptown or to William’s and grabbed a booth and sat in the dark and read my book because you don’t have to worry about a beer glass not fitting your hand right and it takes a lot longer for a beer to get warm then it does for coffee to get cold.

 

MUSIC

 

Heard the new single “Leaving Here” by Pearl Jam? Finally, these guys cut a genuinely fun song. I think it’s a cover of an old Motown song but its sound (raspy vocals, yelled back-up singing, trashy guitars, even trashier solos) harkens back to those almost-forgotten mid-sixties punk (as in garage, not Sid Vicious) classics like “Dirty Water” and “Psychotic Reaction.” Plus, it’s on the new compilation Home Alive, whose proceeds will be going to an organization committed to the way cool cause of trying to prevent violence against women. I haven’t bought the album yet as I’m waiting for Warren Moon to buy me one.

 

Lately I’ve been listening to Wilco and Sun Volt, the bands born in the wake of Uncle Tupelo’s breakup. I saw Uncle Tupelo back in 1990 at the Cabooze and they were always out there somewhere on the fringes of my popular culture intake, popping up every so often - all I had to do was reach out. Back in ‘94 they broke up before their next single would be played on the Rev and they came back to First Avenue. Blessed with two quality songwriters who apparently couldn’t get along, Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar, Uncle Tupelo called it quits. They fell victim to the classic band break-up disease, “artistic differences.” Jeff Tweedy went on to form Wilco, who put out the album A.M. back in spring of 1995. Combining the country twang of his old band with some Stonesy raunch and witty songwriting, Wilco was viewed upon as near-saviours in the field of roots rock. And just when we all were saying that Wilco was our next Flying Burrito Brothers, Jay Farrar and Sun Volt came out. With tasty acoustic numbers, lots of steel guitar and ragged electric rave-ups, Trace is more fragile and has more of an air of despair than the radio-friendly Wilco. Sun Volt is the beer in the dark corner booth to Wilco’s happy hour cocktail. If you miss the Geardaddies and the Jayhawks, these two bands will more than fill the void.

 

Note: here’s some advice on writing about rock ‘n roll. Use these tips in your writing or conversations and you are guaranteed to have your friends asking you about what the latest scoop in music is. First of all, note how I mentioned I saw Uncle Tupelo back in ‘90? Well, that’s the only time I saw them but by dropping that early date and the name of a bar smaller than First Avenue, the implication is that I was into them before anyone else was. The fact that I never bought any of their albums becomes irrelevant. Next, use a name of a past band that never sold much but was hailed by critics. Here I used the Flying Burrito Brothers. Other good ones are Big Star and the Velvet Underground. This shows that if you would have been born twenty-five years sooner, you still would have been hip to the scene. Last but not least, references to drink or drugs always help. It beats revealing your emotions. Good luck!

 

MISCELLANY

 

I’m beginning to notice that I’m jinxing myself with the “In Future Issues” section. I’ll say I’ll be going to see a band like Golden Smog and then I don’t. (But that turned out okay as I went to a Greil Marcus reading in St. Paul.) Or like I thought I’d be going to my cousin’s wedding dance and drinking beer with my uncles Art and Stan and they weren’t even there. I ended up talking to some cousins, enjoying the free beer and then leaving the dance. I gave two of my not-yet-driving-age cousins a ride home and they razzed me the whole time. An old guy who loses battles of wits to teenage girls, that’s me.

 

A big problem with being out of work is that when I’m at family gatherings and people ask me why I’m not married I don’t know what the fuck to say. I used to always say “I’m married to my work” and it’d stump ‘em.

 

IN FUTURE ISSUES

 

Warren Zevon? ... Space cruise, anyone? ... Which SuperAmerica is better? The SA on the southeast corner of 40th and Lyndale or the SA on the southwest corner of 40th and Lyndale?