Music is where you find it. Often in a park, lakeside or side street, and/or its pavilion. Impromtu too. Often, again, in a place you would not normally think to look. So no need to buy tickets, swiftly, to something like Taylor. (Though she, too, is popping up everywhere, even at Target Center/US Bank Stadium in the Twin Cities, but sometimes a no-show in the end, and is obviously a very big sports fan, with her look-alikes also locally lauded. More on that in a future post.)
I saw, way back during the pandemic, a man in the downtown River Falls park, as the concert bar biz was on hiatus, down the way a bit from the mainly main drag, just shredding the old Jimi Hendrix (typed right this time unlike my colleague who also used the Skynyrd name with its convention spelling) classic jam on the Star Spangled Banner, with just a little of his own mix. This park was between main segments of buildings, with lots of benches for fans built in, near a Cripple Creek? Like so many times, over time, I expressed my appreciation. And like numerous of them, he thought it not to be anything special, just him doing his thing.
Now, a couple of years later … less speed. A guy seated at the side of the front of the Hudson dike road, as it traipsed to the back, was kicking a similar song — on a (this time unplugged) cello! Was it a Jimi redo, sitting by the rocks or dock of the bay? I just had to ask him. No intention prescribed by him, he said, but as is so often the case, the parallels were there, in the (more lightly humming though still complex) solos. His tip jar/hat/suitcase was active. Spread out on the squares of cement.
But again, not all of this musical beauty is parkside. You can, more and more, see it playing out on Second Street with its many musicians positioned in club-area doorways, even in the coldest of weather, (but not below zero, merely freezing we can do), to make a buck as best you can. With gloved hand(s) via the late Michael J. or locally, Kyle K. At Mr. Zs, Hudson form. Have not seen any bongos though.
Then come a cool September night. The guy was laid out in the midst of the downtown, at the far edge of the sidewalk, plugging and plucking away. Gear in cans, that includes bunches of soda before him. What song choices? I said that I, at times, sing Iron Maiden as a cameo with a band. He added that he too, but via his buddy as a trooper who was at a different given gig at the time, does such songs in some way, somehow, on acoustic guitar, minus of course the speedy virtuoso solos. Can the other dude do Dickinson?
But the real star of the show was his laid back dog, laid out next to a small speaker, and attracting attention from all-comers-by. I think his name was some form of Buck, not eye or shot, or Barfie, but it doesn’t matter. Hair of the dog? However not short-shorn, as the owner is a somewhat rocker.
But, we in recent times have seen the bad side of street living, sleeping out on these same downtown stoops because of nowhere else to go, several times over. Sometimes these are the same players, of music, after the show stops. (More on this later).
But back to the positive, via my new bud at a downtown retail store, and also like his wife a piano plinker, though cool, even at church, (don’t know if it was Gospel). At times he has trekked to the other end of St. Croix County for a quite big gig, bolting over there right after his shift would end on a Saturday night, and hit this show that while at an area club was impromptu all-comers-friendly. Could I pipe in on vocals? Common ground? We talked about this band and that, as my fave sound and what-I-know-the-words-to is a harder sound, but we broke bread, so to speak, on Ted Nugent. Motor City not a strangehold on mid-county. Not so pop-ish after all.