Sioux Falls « Black Marks on Wood Pulp / by Corey Vilhauer

Category: Sioux Falls

Mason Jennings – 3.18.10 @ The Orpheum

March 18th, 2010

So there’s Bob Dylan, Minnesotan gone rogue, ran away to New York City in search of something his hometown couldn’t develop, something his talent couldn’t hide from, something his dreams seemed destined to encounter, like one of Aesop’s fables with a slurred and acoustic moral.

And on the other end, there’s Greg Brown, modern folk legend, calling Iowa his birthplace despite sounding more Minnesotan than any other modern singer, his voice reaching down to the cellars, frosting the Mason jars and breathing life into the beets and the tomatoes and the peppers.

Somewhere in the middle lies Mason Jennings, Hawaiian by birth, Pittsburgh-raised and transplanted to Minnesota, where he’s taken the mantle of introspection and used it to his advantage, humbly taking stage – thought not without confidence – as this generation’s voice of heartland prayer.

Love and children and religion and life and death and two guys fighting in the headlights of their trucks; Mason tells stories. Stories of girls and stories of war and stories of slides and the sun and really his mind never stops – it keeps going, one world after another, each character like some kind of hidden personality. But not hidden at all, really. They’re all right there, a part of him. And, through his music, a part of us.

It was with this honesty he stood before us tonight, just he and a couple of guitars, serenading the hundreds in attendance at The Orpheum, reminding me that nostalgia can be beautiful, that the happy pain that comes from loving someone too much can be thrilling, that the fun in mixing words together can be addictive, that change is as natural as living and dying – and that all you can do with it is sing about it and remember how much it affected you.

So it’s really no surprise that, when chosen as the voice behind one of Dylan’s personas in I’m Not There, he was given free reign to recreate “The Times They Are a Changin’,” and in true form he not only did it with honesty but with an unknowing nod to Greg Brown, taking lyrics meant for world change and turning them into something that could be planted in the fields, sprouting anew once the rains of time had washed over them.

His song was truth, because it came from stories of those who came before him. And it’s those stories that make him a natural extension of their legend.

Comments: 1

Issues Considered: Concerts, Music, Sioux Falls

The big event

December 23rd, 2009

South Dakota doesn’t have much in terms of professional sports. We have semi-professional sports, which can often be difficult to follow, thanks to the vagabond nature of minor league athletes. But we don’t have anything that can fill up a sports page, creating trends in conversation, a common ground among everyone.

Instead, we have the weather.

Which explains the local news’ insistence on covering an upcoming winter storm with the same pomp and gusto as a team of ex-athletes hyping the Super Bowl or the Olympics.

Our most popular local celebrity is a weatherperson, after all.

Willard Scott would be so proud.

On replacement

November 28th, 2009

When I used to work at the mall, we were always assured that, no matter what, great coffee could be found just down the wing at Great Plains Coffee. This was a decade ago, and though I didn’t drink coffee at the time, I still appreciated it being there – right between Orange Julius and DEB, out in the seemingly abandoned Sears wing, where high rents didn’t quite live up to their promised traffic flow.

It was an oasis of local business amid a great sea of chains; a respite for the weary shopper, almost like a mirage. Even when a Caribou Coffee showed up, Great Plains Coffee continued strong.

But, it couldn’t last forever. Whether it was because rents reached a tipping point, or traffic slowed to a crawl, or the owners simply stopped feeling at home inside the expanses of The Empire Mall, Great Plains Coffee moved to a location further down the road. It’s since been replaced with a DirectTV retailer, the stall’s once warm interior swapped for the cold comfort of pegboard and molded plastic.

Frankly, I can’t think of anything else that better sums up the state of what malls have become.

The frustratingly meager state of local publishing

October 1st, 2009

There’s a vicious circle that plagues a handful of local publications: You start a new publication with little money and few supporters. First, you ask for free or donated content. The free or donated content is placed under the publication’s name. The publication uses this free or donated content to sell advertising space.

(Full disclosure. I was once one of these free/donated content providers; I wrote a book column for a now defunct men’s magazine.)

The problem: the advertising space is hard to sell because the free or donated content isn’t the same quality you’d find in a publication that pays for its content. You get a lot of first-time columnists. You get a lot of basement designers. You get a laxness of deadlines, and editors who aren’t paying attention to details.

It looks rough. And more advertisers hold back.

Simply put, the better writers will hold out for the paycheck. And until a magazine can pay for quality content, they won’t get the better writers. But they can’t afford the better writers without – you guessed it! – the advertising dollars.

Maybe you can find people who are willing to help out – who are willing to offer services at a reduced rate, or a rate based on publication numbers. Maybe you can find a collective who are more focused on putting out great content, regardless of the advertising costs involved. Maybe you have to take out a loan in the beginning and pay quality writers in the beginning, hoping you’ll break even eventually.

Until then, though, you have a handful of publications, sitting on racks across the city, that pale when looked at critically. They’re frustratingly meager, living down to their promise.

How do you get good content without breaking the bank? Good question. I’ve got no idea, which is why I’m not a publisher.

But someone’s got to have the answer. I mean, content’s still king, people.

Or did I miss the memo that said otherwise?

Weather or not

June 8th, 2009

Weather, by nature, changes. It is constantly changing. Even in areas where the weather seems stable and constant, it’s not – it’s simply in a range that is more comfortable, staying clear of the extremes that we can’t help but notice.

Weather, by nature, is also unpredictable – especially in a city like Sioux Falls, where we experience nose-hair freezing lows and egg-boiling highs. It’s not uncommon to see snow in early May, or to be hit with a sudden heat wave in November.

Which brings me to wonder how, after a week of beautiful days, the collective mind of Sioux Falls can explode over the idea of rain.

It’s enough to send Kerrie into a frantic search for earmuffs. She hears it doubly – as the average age of a workplace grows, I suspect the percentage of weather-based conversation grows proportionately.

It works like this. When there’s space to fill, you talk about the weather. And when the weather is anything less than perfect – which is always, despite everyone’s understanding that weather is fluid and constantly changing – you complain about the weather.

Today, even though the rain has gone, people still complain.

From my window, I can tell it’s not a bright sunny day. I know it’s not 80 degrees.

But it’s not raining anymore. It’s actually kind of a nice day.

We don’t live in Siberia, or the deserts of Africa. Hell, we don’t even live in St. Cloud, where winter lasts 8 months. We get the best of both worlds, with the understanding that we also get the worst of both.

So can we stop complaining about the weather?

Please?

Comments: 1

Issues Considered: Annoyances, Sioux Falls

At 5:30 am

April 24th, 2009

At 5:30 in the morning, even the biggest city seems like a ghost town.

It’s dark enough that, through the blurred vision of early morning sleepiness, you could mistake it for evening. Traffic lights blink red and yellow. Buildings continue to sleep, their internal lights barely making enough light to illuminate the offerings inside. Every intersection is a graveyard, your vehicle the only remaining entity left as you patiently look both ways and proceed.

It’s not completely abandoned, though. Other people like me – still half-asleep, trudging into work to make up time or clock in for an early day – slowly cruise the streets, their headlights creeping along the pavement.

They, like me, are experiencing the new day before most others. By the time Kerrie wakes up, today being her day off, the morning will have been touched by thousands, a seemingly fresh awakening already feeling the effect of civilization’s restlessness.

Because last night was warm, I roll down the windows. I turn up my radio. I turn onto Minnesota Avenue and continue on my way, wondering what the day will bring, enjoying a band I had long forgotten, excited to be alive and, for the moment, alone in a ghost town.

Comments: 2

Issues Considered: On..., Sioux Falls

Peter F’n Frampton

April 2nd, 2009

[ROB GORDON walks up to a bar. From the entrance he can hear MARIE DE SALLE singing “Baby I Love Your Way.”]

ROB: [Pauses, incredulously] “Is that Peter fucking Frampton?!”

Far be it from me to comment on boring local news – I’ll leave that to the dude who runs SD Watch – but Kerrie pointed out that the Sioux Empire Fair will be featuring Alice Cooper, Big and Rich and some cowboy rapper. All acts that I’m sure will sell out.

Oh. And Peter Frampton.

Which gives the two of us ample reason to live out one of the best lines in movie history. Or, at least, one of the best lines in High Fidelity.

That’s all. I’ll end the Hornby/Cusack lovefest now.

P.S.

My favorite line of the article: “The fair said it still is negotiating for a hot rock act.” I can’t wait to see who THAT’S going to be. What, is Hoobastank still around?

Oh, god. They are.

Comments: 2

Issues Considered: Movies, Music, Sioux Falls