Honorable Mention Overlook

Here are 3 more bands that should have gone in my honorable mention. I've never seen any of them live so I glossed over them in my initial estimations, but they are terrific bands who will stand the test of time:

• Arcade Fire
• LCD Soundsystem
• Radiohead

Best Bands of All Time - #1 Guided By Voices

#1 - Guided By Voices

The decision between #1 and #2 came down to longevity and live show. Guided By Voices has been kicking ass since the late '80s and are still going strong today, currently touring with the "classic" lineup from the mid '90s. Essentially, GBV is Robert Pollard and His Band of Fools, a rotating collection of rockers out of Dayton, Ohio. 

The Club is Open

Charismatic frontman Pollard is a semi-famously former school teach who is among the most prolific songwriters of all time. His stream of consciousness lyrics paired with the brilliant rock guitar shreddings of Mitch Mitchell and Doug Gillard carved out a unique niche of songwriting unequaled for both the unfinished feeling brevity of some songs and the entrancing rock hooks of others.

As an example, here's a recent version of grey-haired Pollard rocking harder than almost every popular or semi-popular twentysomething band of today:

I actually think its quite sad that today's youth aren't inspired by current events to pen the kind of anthems that my distraught generation came up with. But that rant is for another post.

From 1992-1997 GBV put out 7 albums, at least 5 of them brilliant. The albums stood out because they'd contain 20-30 songs, many clocking in at under 2 minutes (or even under 1 minute). These short songs lent a terrific textural quality to the album that made it so much more than just a collection 10 pop songs (and that's important to someone like me who believes an album should be considered a piece of art like a painting, sculpture or novel).

Pollard wears his Who influence on his sleeve and oftentimes channels Roger Daltrey when on stage, what with the microphone windmilling and high kicks. The live shows are Springsteen-like in their energy and duration and I have found them well worth traveling for.

Unique songwriting, many amazing albums, kickass live show, longevity. These are the things of which Greatest Bands of All Time are made.

The Deets

Best lyric:  I never asked for the truth / but you owe that to me "Game of Pricks" from Alien Lanes

Best lyrics (entire song):   Disarm the settlers / the new drunk drivers / have hoisted the flag / we are with you in your anger / proud brothers / we do not fret / the bus will get you there yet / to carry us to the lake / the club is open  "A Salty Salute" from Alien Lanes
If you had to buy just one album: Alien Lanes (though you couldn't go wrong with Bee Thousand or Mag Earwhig, either)
If you could buy just one song from iTunes: "Exit Flagger" off of Propeller.

                 

Best Bands of All Time - #2 Uncle Tupelo

#2 - Uncle Tupelo

Uncle Tupelo was the first of these great bands that I really got into on the ground floor, just after their first album No Depression was released. I have a pretty vivid (though potentially wholly inaccurate) memory of Mikko bringing his vinyl copy over to my parents house one summer during college. I remember replaying the track "Whiskey Bottle" a few times on my bedroom turntable.

I think we'd already been introduced to the burgeoning alt-country scene via local college faves The Jayhawks and The Gear Daddies, but Uncle Tupelo took it to another level. The title track on their first record was a cover of an old Carter Family standard and they were the kind of band that best bridged that gap from 1930s Americana to 1990s indie rock.

Perhaps the most memorable Uncle Tupelo show I attended was July 25, 1992 at the Mower County Fairgrounds in Austin, MN. Also on that bill were Run Westy Run, The Jayhawks, The Gear Daddies and maybe Soul Asylum. It was a who's who of my favorite bands at the time, so the rain and mud didn't deter from my enjoyment of the show.

Here's a sample of some Uncle Tupelo where you can get a sense of their roots as well as their rock influences -- "The Long Cut" from their 4th and final album Anodyne, with Jeff Tweedy on vocals:

Uncle Tupelo had two terrific songwriters in Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy, and their breakup after only 4 albums was due mostly to the personality conflict between the two. Of course the good thing of only making 4 records is that they are all brilliant, not a weak spot to be found. They haven't reunited and both went on to form successful bands on their own -- Son Volt and Wilco, respectively. Son Volt's Trace is timeless and is still one of my favorite albums of all time.

Here's "Whiskey Bottle" the song I was drawn to right away. It's off of their first album, No Depression, and features Jay Farrar on vocals singing one of my favorite lyrics of all time:

I can't forget the sound / cuz it's here to stay / the sound of people chasing money / and money getting away 

Their lyrics are awfully mature for a couple guys in their low 20s.

If Uncle Tupelo never gets back together, I think it'll be for the best. Their legend remains untarnished and I'd love to see it stay that way. 

The Deets
If you could buy just one album: Start with their first one, No Depression, but get 'em all, there's only 4 of 'em.
Album that I listen to the most 15 years later: March 16-20, 1992.
Best lyric: "I can't forget the sound / cuz it's here to stay / the sound of people chasing money / and money getting away" from "Whiskey Bottle"
Best song that rocks to buy right now on iTunes: "Chickamauga" off of Anodyne
Best country song to buy right now on iTunes: "Moonshiner" off of March 16-20, 1992.

Best Bands of All Time - #3 Arcwelder

#3 - Arcwelder

Ahh, Arcwelder! A melodic, bombastic, wall of sound.

I think I first saw Arcwelder opening up for Soul Asylum in about 1991 at First Ave. and they've consistently been a favorite of mine ever since. I say "consistently" because they're still playing a couple shows a year and I just saw them over Christmas at the Turf Club in St. Paul.

Arcwelder was always the band that I wanted to become because they managed their terrific rock band while still holding down normal jobs. When I started playing in a band at age 29 I had a good job and wasn't prepared to sacrifice everything for the incessant touring required to make it professionally. Brothers Bill and Rob Graber (lead and bass guitar) always had a decent career and were still able to create phenomenal rock music, whilst only touring occasionally.

Here's an example, the instrumental "Cranberry Sauce":

Arcwelder grew up in that time before ubiquitous movie cameras and simple film software. Their early lo-fi videos are definitely of that time when indie rock bands had low budgets and homemade videos. This is "All Mixed Together" off of their 4th album, Xerxes:

A couple years ago a buddy and I flew from Minneapolis to Portland just to see Arcwelder. They're that kind of band that those now rare shows are essential.

The Deets
If you could buy just one album: Pull
Best lyric: Sing a little pop song / and everybody loves you (from "Remember to Forget")
Best iTunes track featuring singing drummer Scott Macdonald to sample: "What Did You Call It That For"
Best quote from 1990 press release announcing changing of band's name from "tiltawhirl": "It is the chance of the public associating 'tiltawhirl', the band, with 'Tilt-a-Whirl', the ride, that Sellner wishes to avoid. That is why the band's suggestions for new names such as 'Tilt', 'Tilted World', and 'Tiltagirl' were nixed by Sellner".

Long live Arcwelder!

Best Bands of All Time - #4 Run Westy Run

As mentioned in the previous post, this is going to be a Top Four list because no one other act really stands out for me as much as these.


#4 - Run Westy Run

I first got introduced to the Westies through my college roommate, Mikko. It was junior year of college ('90-'91) and Mikko had picked up a copy of Green Cat Island, the only RWR release still available aside from eBay and used record bins. I think Mikko saw them open up for Soul Asylum and that album (on compact disc!) was played regularly at high volume in our dorm room, much to the chagrin of roommate Kevin. I probably didn't entirely get it at first, either, but boy did it grow on me.

In the early '90s Soul Asylum ruled the roost in Minneapolis and the Westies were every bit their live show equal, if not superior. Alas, this type of guitar rock seems to be on hiatus.

Here's an example of their live show, this clip from First Ave. in Mpls. circa 1990:

Starlight

Goddamn. I'm not sure what words I can add to that video. Here's a Rule of Rock: if your singer isn't going to play a guitar, he better have some serious moves. Kirk Johnson was one of the best.

Mikko and I went and saw them as many times as possible until their demise around 1996. They'd graduated from the 7th St. Entry by the time I got into them, but I saw them a number of times at First Ave, The Uptown and maybe the 400 Bar, plus a few outdoor festival shows. As I sit here and listen to their albums while writing this, I'm asking myself why they aren't #1 on the list. And they could be. These top four are pretty interchangeable in order. Scouring the available YouTube videos transports me back to those days of flannel when Block E downtown Mpls was a parking lot where we'd leave our coats in the car and walk across the street in frigid winter temps to see the rock shows.

Alas, the Westies only put out three formal albums, one EP and a few singles. They were a little into the drugs at the time and that shortened the band's career. I'm fortunate enough to have the albums on vinyl and they're not easy to find in any other medium. The first two albums, Hardly Not Even (1986) and Run Westy Run (1988) and the EP Cockroach Park (1992) aren't even available for download.

Guitarist Kraig Johnson went on to play with Golden Smog and the Jayhawks, and some of the guys re-formed a few years later as the groovy, funky Iffy, a fantastic band in their own right.

The Deets
If you could only buy just one album:  Cockroach Park 
Best iTunes track to sample: "Johnny John"
Best lyric: And if I could have it / any way I'd surely take it / the bad guy way (from "Bad Guys" off of Run Westy Run)
Best song nobody knows: "Marcel" off the Squealer Presents...Shuffle This compilation. 88 seconds of absolute beauty.
Best quote about them from press kit accompanying Cockroach Park vinyl: "some sort of sick psycho-killer machine fueled by hard rock fast times and a smoke screen of stories where fact is inseparable from rumor" -- CREEM, September 1988


Here's to hoping there's a reunion somewhere down the line. I'd do whatever it takes to be there.

Favorite Bands of All Time - Honorable Mention

A few years ago I documented on here my Top 5 Albums of all time and now I'm going to do the same with bands (or musical acts, let's say, as I'm not discriminating against solo performers). What does it mean to be a favorite of all time? What does it take to stretch into the upper echelon of LoToMojo's admiration?

First, it needs to be a band that I was able to experience during their heyday, both live and on record. I could say the Ramones or Husker Du were my favorite band of all time, but I never saw them live and wasn't able to experience the true magic of their existence in their times. Each of the top bands I've identified I have seen live at least several times at different venues (mostly intimate, small rock clubs). We gain a far greater appreciation when we can relate to an artist in the context of their times, as well as when they prove they have staying power by producing music that also transcends their times.

So second is staying power. For 20 years I've been diligently digging and digging to find good music, for quality music is not delivered through commercial radio (they care about making money, not supporting quality artists). I'm not interested in flashes in the pan or bands who put out only one great album or a couple hit songs. The bands I've selected were both cutting edge in their time and carried a lasting artistry.

Third, they had to bring the rock and deliver those moments of pure listening elation, both live and on record. One thing all my top bands have in common is that I was introduced to them in my 20s, a time when I was most impressionable to music and art. They hit me where it counts, and because they have staying power they still elicit those same feelings in me. I recently realized that the combination of a little alcohol and some great music brings me some of my greatest joys. It just takes me to another level emotionally that I rarely reach.

Honorable Mention
The phenomenal bands that didn't quite make the cut

• Alejandro Escovedo - brilliant musician but I've only seen him a couple times (including a Top 5 show of all time, that for another post) and his albums aren't quite as consistently deep as I'd like.
• Buffalo Tom - kickass indie rock band, but I think I was a couple years behind the curve on them and I only saw them live once.
• Calexico - very close to making the cut, but I've only seen them live once and that was at an outdoor festival so it doesn't really count. Still need to travel to Tucson and see them in their element.
• Cows - groundbreaking noise rock band with amazing live show, but I don't really listen to their albums much anymore.
• Golden Smog - Mpls supergroup that provided many phenomenal live moments, but it's not really a serious effort so hard to bestow the golden ring upon them.
• Husker Du - extremely influential band but I never saw 'em live. I wasn't hip enough in high school.
• Johnny Cash - saw him live once and he's obviously a legend, but fails in the "fitting into my era" rule.
• Joy Division - I came to Joy Division very late when my band was asked to play a tribute show. I gained an appreciation for their genius but they'd broken up before I knew they existed.
• Neil Young - perhaps my #1 guitar hero of all time (another post) and a man with unequaled staying power.
• Old 97s - they turned too poppy for me but their early alt-country stuff is still terrific.
• Pavement - I was a little behind the curve and missed their sweet spot, though they hold up very well over the years. 
• The Replacements - again, I wasn't hip enough in high school to get into the local legends. 
• Soul Asylum - if I was a few years older or cooler in high school they'd have made the cut. But let's quit all this dwelling on dorky high school LoToMojo.
• Superchunk - the very definition of "indie rock".
• Supersuckers - a little too schticky, but I've now seen them live in 6 different cities (and not because I was following them, but because they're always on the road) and they're the self-proclaimed World's Greatest Rock 'n Roll Band.
• The Pogues - brilliant Celtic punk, but I think the only time I saw them live it may have been Shane MacGowan and the Popes.
• Whiskeytown - great, early alt-country act and another candidate for Top 5 show of all time
• Wilco - I pretty much gave up on seeing them live after they graduated from 1st Ave to theaters, but they continue to crank out great songs, if not consistently deep albums.
• Yo La Tengo - hey Tad: remember that awesome late night down-and-back road trip to see Yo La in Ames?

That's it for the honorable mention.

Next postings to count down the best of the best and, as you'll see, there are actually 4 that distinguish themselves by standing out from the rest. The fifth never clearly emerged from the above list so that's why at one time or another you could have heard me say any of the above bands were "a top 5 band of all time".

Albums of the Year 2011

As most years, 2011 was a great year for new music if you know where to look. For me it was a year in which I discovered more new music than I had in previous years, as I kept expanding my horizon beyond my indie guitar rock roots. Below is a list of my top 5 favorite albums that were released in 2011.

Best Albums of 2011

1.  Wild Flag Wild Flag - Carrie Brownstein had a helluva 2011 with her new rock band and the popularity of her TV show Portlandia. After too many years of female vocalists trying to channel 1920s jazz singers, it's great to hear a group of women who want to rock. Of course they come from the prior generation of music, but nowadays rock musicians don't need to burn out by 30 to prove themselves. Thank God for that.

2.  The Roots Undun - You may know them as the house band on Jimmy Fallon's TV show, but they've been around for almost 20 years and are kickin' out the jams better than ever. This is the way albums are supposed to be made, a true piece of art that also includes a bunch of kickass tunes.

3.  Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi Rome - A modern day spaghetti western soundtrack featuring vocalists Norah Jones and Jack White in the best work they've ever done. Great for road trips across the American West or for a mellow evening on the couch (not that I'd know anything about either of those).

4.  Glenn Campbell Ghost on the Canvas - With a little help from Paul Westerberg and Bob Pollard on songwriting duties, Glenn Campbell records what feels like his farewell album. It's a beautiful, sad chronicle that makes one reflect on all the great music from the his era.

5. The Antlers Burst Apart - This is the one album on my list that best typifies the quality music being made in 2011 -- lush, beautiful, dense with falsetto vocals, keyboards and only a light touch of drums and guitar. It's what the kids are into and I appreciate it in doses. Here's a sample...

Honorable Mention

• Apparat Organ Quartet Polyfonia
• Of Monsters and Men Into the Woods
• 4onthefloor 4x4
• Weekend Red
• Colin Stetson New History of Warfare - Judges, Vol. 2

Broken Systems: Exhibit A

I'm seeing these signs next to road construction all over the great state of Montana:

The ratio of the 3 levels of government contributing is always basically the same:

• 90% paid by the federal government
• 10% paid by the state
• 0% paid "locally"

Of course, it really makes one think about the definition of "local". For if the federal government is paying for 90% of the project, that means that this particular piece of road construction is being paid for by people from outside the state of Montana, people from Alabama, Texas, California, New Jersey, et al.

This sounds awesome if you're an 8-year old.

But for those of us who completed grade school, we are left wondering who is paying for the similar 90% of road construction costs in Alabama, Texas, California and New Jersey. Surely it isn't us!

As I reflect back on my life in Minnesota, I can't help but remember the absolutely horrible condition of many of the roads in the Twin Cities. Highly traveled asphalt roads in the northern climes face extra challenges due to the extreme temperatures and freezing of water in cracks, the expansion of which exaggerates weaknesses and forms potholes. Quickly. In particular, the 5th street off-ramp from I-94 westbound in Mpls looks like Dresden circa 1945, and has for 2+ years. Despite the fact that it saw massive traffic every day there just weren't the funds to repair it. (See Strong Towns if you're interested in more elegant detail of how we're building our cities and why cities are going broke).

So who is really paying for the maintenance to our infrastructure? The feds? But wait a minute...aren't "the feds" simply American citizens just like me (but who don't live in my city/state) who are clearly charging me for the exact same things in their cities?

And why does our system work in such a way that we use "other people's money" to pay for our infrastructure? There's no way 90% of the people traveling on the above photographed road live and pay taxes outside the state of Montana.

For more perspective, read this Strong Towns story about the financial dealings of the newly proposed Stillwater bridge between Minnesota and Wisconsin. 

Bike Hack - Wine Bottle Water Bottle

There's been so much talk recently about the long-term side effects of plastics that every cyclist is looking for a better water bottle. Metal bottles are becoming popular, but many of them are lined with dangerous BPA and they cost $20 +$5 for the suckable lid adapter. So what's a healthy, thrifty cyclist to do?

It turns out that bottles of all sorts are actually already quite prevalent in our society, and that we don't necessarily need a unique bottle design for every different type of liquid we consume.

Glass recycling is limited in Bozeman -- you actually have to take bottles inside the local Target store where they collect and recycle them. With bottles piling up in my kitchen, I realized that perhaps there was an alternate use for them. After all, "reduce" and "reuse" come before "recycle", right?

I'll share with you my secrets of...

How To Make A Bicycle-Ready Water Bottle From A Wine Bottle

What you'll need:

* bottle of wine

* corkscrew

* receptacle in which to place the wine

* fingernails

* water

First, buy a cheap bottle of wine. This one cost me $3.99 at the co-op.

Next, we need to empty the wine from the bottle so it can be replaced with water. Take the corkscrew and remove the cork from the bottle. I choose to pour the wine into a wine glass and drink it, but you can do with it whatever you please. 

It'll actually take 3-4 glasses of wine to empty your bottle. Invite a friend, if you like, but sometimes I just like to keep it all to myself.

When the bottle is empty, rinse it out and remove the label. To do this, run warm (not too hot!) water over the outside of the bottle and use your fingernails to scrape off the label as if you were scraping them on a chalkboard. 

Now you have an empty bottle, into which can be placed virtually any liquid, including water! How exciting! 

Fill the bottle with water.

Finally, insert the full bottle into your water bottle holder. Notice how the neck extension naturally prevents spillage.

Voila! Enjoy your new BPA-free water bottle and watch the ladies' heads turn when you ride by in style.

Welcome, Winter

Winter has come to Bozeman (in the MT) so I decided it was time to seasonally update the blog background and title image. Whaddya think? Alas, I don't have a lot of great BZN winter images yet, so I'll have to get on top of that.

These ones are from a few weeks ago, though. I've been doing lots of winter bike riding and really liking it. Riding on the snow, especially at night, is so quiet and peaceful. I put studded tires on the bike and have been testing them out in different conditions, still not exactly sure how much to trust them. The helmet goes on my head 100% of rides in these conditions (I'd gotten away from using it during casual summertime rides around town). And a balaclava underneath is a must to keep the windchill out.

I love the sound of snow, too --  that quiet squeak when you roll over it. The balaclava also covers my ears so it slightly muffles the sound, adding to the mellow pleasure of the experience.

This pic is from a ride around town about a month ago after our first snow...

These next 3 are from a trip to a nature preserve near Great Falls 2 weeks ago. I had the place to myself, riding along the 7-mile snow covered gravel road loop. I'd never seen a group (flock?) of 15+ pheasants at one time until that day.

Just me and the critters...rollin'.

Self-portrait.

A Bicycle Reborn

I had a lot of fun recently (and learned a thing or two) re-painting my Gary Fisher Mendota commuter bike. It was a pretty decent looking bike, grey in color and understated. But the graphics on it were kind of ugly and I've never been a fan of displaying logos. Plus, I'm curious about what it takes to paint a bike and if it was something I could handle or not.

BEFORE

First step was to take it all apart. This was a little daunting because I knew that it meant I'd have to put it  all back together, too.  I've done a fair amount of maintenance on this bike, but that was mostly making adjustments to the brakes and derailleurs. I'd never replaced cables or removed the crankset.  Dismantling went smoothly, though I did need help from the Bozeman Bike Kitchen because I did not have all the necessary tools. There's a special tool for virtually everything, ya know.

Once it was taken all apart, the next step is to sand down the frame to remove all the paint, right down to the bare aluminum frame. In this photo, you can see where I'd been sanding off the paint to get it down to the aluminum.

To sand it I purchased some metal brush-like attachments for my drill so I didn't have to use sandpaper and do it by hand.  It still took a little while, though.

Completely sanded and ready for primer

After sanding it's time for primer. I hung the frame up in the garage and taped as necessary.  Here it is with primer applied. 

Those old moving boxes that have been sitting in my garage for 3 months came in handy as a spray barrier.

I applied about 4 thin coats of primer, each 20 minutes apart, and then let it sit 24 hours before painting. The next day I repeated with white spray paint -- 4 or 5 thin coats.

It wasn't until I figured out a design that I liked for the frame that I took this plunge into painting. If I was going to paint it myself then I had to put a little of my personality into it. I am a simple man and would want my bicycle to reflect that. In fact, I really really hate now new bikes have such fancy paint jobs on them -- they really turn me off, trying to look all sleek and special. So I decided to keep it simple with what I consider a bit of an anti-logo: Bicycle.

So I messed around on Powerpoint, found a good font, Rockford, and took it to Kinko's to print out in navy blue on clear sticker paper. I'd thought about making a stencil and spray painting on the design text, but figured I'd probably struggle with drips and would have trouble getting the letters to look crisp. So I opted for the sticker route.

I think I maybe should have used a hairdryer or flambé blowtorch on the sticker after application to remove any air bubbles from underneath it, but didn't think of that until I'd already applied the first layer of clear coat finish. Next time maybe I'll give that a shot because if you look closely you can see the outline of the clear sticker paper on the frame. Not a big deal, but something I could maybe do better next time.

After painting I let it sit one full week to allow the paint and clear coat to fully set up before putting it back onto the rack to be reassembled.

Reassembly went better than I thought it would. I made another trip to the Bike Kitchen for tools to put the chain back together, and had to make a couple trips to the local bike shop for some parts that somehow disappeared since disassembly.

But look at her comin' together...

Ta daaaaa...!

AFTER

Note that I also removed the rear rack for panniers and added a fender in its place. The fenders are needed for wet travel because that rack, despite what it looks like, provided no protection from water splattering on my back during wet rides. Since this is my daily commuter bike for going to the grocery store (co-op), the library, and general errand running, I need wet weather protection. But I also need a place to carry groceries and library books.

So that's where I turned to Trash Bags to make me a custom designed messenger bag.

Now I've got a newly painted bike with fenders (still need to add on front) and a way to carry stuff.  Looks like I'm set.

SoDak, NoDak

My buddy Jay got married last weekend at Custer State Park in South Dakota. It was a beautiful place for an outdoor wedding and a fun excuse for a roadtrip into the Dakotas. I'd been thinking about exploring Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota for years so this was just the right opportunity.

Friday morning I left Bozeman and stopped at Little Bighorn National Monument, which is just off of I-90 in southeast Montana.

That was a sobering visit.

It is the famous site of Custer's Last Stand, where General Custer was overrun by a vastly superior number of Indians led by Sitting Bull. When I drove from St. Paul to Bozeman a couple months ago, multiple people of my parents generation asked me if I'd been to Little Bighorn or was planning on it. To children of the '50s and '60s, I think this was a touchstone historical event that they learned about through Western TV shows, cowboys & Indians, and action figures. I recall an older cousin of mine had a General Custer doll/action figure.

This first picture shows white markers where a couple American soldiers fell while trying to defend the hill in the background that has the larger memorial on it.

But what really got me was this -- the marker of a Cheyenne who died "while defending the Cheyenne way of life". I got a little teary-eyed, I must say.

The Indians had won and may have thought they still had a chance. Later on I'd read on another memorial quotes from the likes of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse 30 years later. The quotes said, effectively, that even though the Indians had lost the war, that at least now they were friends with the American government. This really struck me as sad, because I don't believe that the American government has ever shown friendship to the Native Americans. 120 years later it sure doesn't look like the American government had anyone's interest in mind other than the advancement of their own agenda.

So then it was slightly uplifting, at least, to go to the Crazy Horse Memorial on Saturday.

I last visited this site in about 1982 on the classic Midwest family road trip to the Black Hills. At that time I remember being awed by the vision and determination of sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski who, at that time, had already removed something like 100 times as much rock as was removed to create Mount Rushmore (he started in 1948). Today you can see Crazy Horse's face in the mountain, but in 1982 all you could see was that hold underneath his arm. I spent $10 of my own lawn mowing money to purchase a small plaster replica of the monument and remember being proud to support such an endeavor.

Ziolkowski's family is doing this work entirely on their own and twice has turned down $10 million from the U.S. government. So the $10 kicked in by little kids really does matter.

Mount Rushmore still looks the same as 1982. Mike, George, Sandy and I went there on Sunday and though the park is small (I was hoping for some legitimate hiking), it is nicely put together and an enjoyable 0.6 mile walk gets you fairly close to the base where this photo was taken.

Jay & Bridgette's wedding was a lot of fun on Sunday evening, but I wasn't snapping photos. I really enjoyed it because they didn't do everything exactly by the book like people do when they get married in their 20s. It was a relaxed affair in a gorgeous setting with friend Dan presiding and no rehearsal or walk through prior to the ceremony. A bunch of old college friends were there and it's always fun to see the Dales, Holstines & Brandts.

Monday I drove up to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota. I'd always been intrigued about this park since first hearing about it around 10 years ago. A national park in ND!? Who knew?

There aren't any bad national parks and this one gets relatively low traffic. It features a combination of badlands and grasslands elements, with bison and prairie dogs the most common wildlife.

I brought my mountain bike along and took these shots behind bars on the Buffalo Gap trail which is within the National Grasslands just outside of TRNP. It was a fantastic bike ride on singletrack through rolling hills on a windy trail.

Parts of it were a little hairier than others...

And at times there were some ornery customers blocking my path. Here the trail actually fords this little stream and continues up the hill on the other side of those fierce looking guardians.

After a long standoff and a punishing battle, they turned out to be no match for my mad kung-fu skillz and I survived to bring you this tale. Thanks for reading.

I Pick Huckleberries

A question that I hear from people in most conversations when I tell them I recently moved to Bozeman is: "What do you do there?" or "What are you doing?".

I know what they're getting at. They want to know what I'm doing for work.  But I hate that phrasing of the question because it's supporting that American cultural norm of being defined by one's career. I am a Systems Analyst or I am a Marketing Manager. I don't particularly care for that use of language so I like to mess with 'em a bit.

So when people ask me "What do you do in Bozeman?" I always respond by saying "Hiking, biking, enjoying the mountains. I can't wait for ski season." It's my way of trying to expand their horizons.

Saturday morning I went out on a hike picking huckleberries. Huckleberries are the popular local berry around here and one I'd never interacted with. They look like small blueberries but are more tart.

So the next time someone asks me what I do I'll be able to respond: "I pick huckleberries".

Recycle Cycle

Bozeman does not have curbside recycling pickup and its a little sad for me to see how reliant I'd become on that convenience. There's no glass recycling to speak of (though I think there is a place you can take it where it'll be hauled to a different county or something) and everything else needs to be completely separated -- plastics from cans and paper from cardboard.

There are two levels to this inconvenience. First, I now need a whole bunch of separate bins at home where I've gotten used to only having two. Second, I need to transport these items myself to one of the several recycling centers around town, mostly located in the parking lots of big box stores.

Today I made my first recycling run. Since I've cut back on soda in the past year I've been drinking lots of La Croix sparkling water in cans -- two or three per day. So I had 6 weeks of crushed cans to recycle and, as you may know, I'm not a fan of driving my car. That means that I'd take the cans by bike.

Fortunately I recently purchased a kickass handmade messenger bag from Andy at Trash Messenger Bags and it was up to the task. First I crushed all the cans down small so I could fit 'em all in the bag. Here's a picture of my bike and my custom designed Trash messenger bag filled with recyclables.

And here's the same photo but with the can bag out of the messenger bag. The messenger bag has a great volume.

I only had to bike about a mile to get to the recycling bins, so that's not too bad. The bigger challenge for me is that I need to set up more recycling receptacles in my house. I don't exactly have a convenient space for them so these multiple inconveniences are causing me some delay in getting a new system setup. But I'm making progress and should get it all together soon enough.

This massive pile of cardboard boxes left over from my move might require more than a bicycle, however. Or at least I'll have to borrow a trailer.

My Career (Chutes &) Ladder

Sometimes your life leads you down a path that you didn't entirely plan, but that, in retrospect, was leading you to the place you wanted to be all along. This is a story about a career path not towards more money and more prestige, but toward more freedom.

When I graduated from college, like many young bucks I wanted to climb some corporate ladder and make a name for myself in the business world.  Work downtown in a skyscraper. Carry a briefcase. Make a lot of money. Own a cabin and a boat. Because that's what the generations before us wanted, right? That's what we were brought up to believe was "success".

Times were tough after college so I was happy to get a job at Lutheran Brotherhood, due, in part, to a friendly family connection with the Chairman of the Board. I made $18,000 and immediately bought a new car for $12,000 because that's what rising young businessmen did. The new car is often the first big status symbol Americans purchase to let their friends and family know that they're making it. I worked my tail off those first 3 years, getting promoted up 3 more rungs and displaying my talents for all to see.

But then something changed. I was 26.

Truthfully, what I remember most about the shift in my focus are two things. The first is this John Denver lyric from "Rocky Mountain High":

He was born in the summer of his 27th year

coming home to a place he'd never been before

I used to come home from work and play that record on the turntable with my roommate Steve and we'd talk about how we should just up and move to the mountains and ski. The foundation had been set by my mom and aunt & uncle who all nourished the skier in me, and it would soon be the summer of my 27th year. Yet here I was, sitting in tan-colored cubicles in some office building downtown Minneapolis.

The second thing I vividly recall is the picture of the obese women in the Claims Department who did the same job day after day, year after year, sitting in their lifeless cubicles and never experiencing the full wonders of the world. The vision still makes me shiver.

So I moved to Utah with buddy Steve and skied my heart out for two years. And when I had had enough, I found myself back in Minneapolis working for the same company, which was terrific. I got a nice signing bonus because it was 1998 and I had a math degree.  Remember 1998 and Y2K hysteria? It paid to be thought of as someone who might be able to learn how to program computers to try to fend off the pending doom.

I spent 5 or 6 years programming computers and then was struck by the realization that the daily tasks of all the IT leadership I saw really turned me off. If I was going to keep climbing the corporate ladder I'd need to do it in a different part of the organization. So for the first time in my career I made a thoughtful and strategic lateral move to a job that would let me work with management from all over the company. This would give me a better chance to really understand the organization and find a place where I felt I would fit.

After 2 years in the audit shop I'd worked with enough V.P.s to know that I did not want to become one of them. We were simply cut from a different cloth and though I respect them I knew I had no interest in doing their job.

Strategic move #2: An opportunity opened up in a cool new department that was on the cutting edge, trying to develop new social businesses to make life better financially for the mass market of average Americans out there. I took a pay grade cut for this move, but it was getting closer to the sort of job that I now knew was best for me. The V.P. of this area was really open-minded and much more flexible on corporate structure than other places I'd worked.

I've been working in that area for that V.P. for about 5 years now and the tone that he sets in the workplace helped me be able to move to Bozeman and continue my same job.

My career path has not been one of moving up, but of moving out. I don't make as much money or wield as much power as I could if I had kept moving up, but I'm in a position of relatively low stress and I'm experiencing a new part of the world at the same time.

It's a different way to think of a career ladder. What's at the top of yours?

There Are No Words

I've been listening to a lot of instrumental music lately. Perhaps its a new habit reflecting the fact that I'm working from home and lyrics tend to distract me a bit. But even before that I discovered a couple newish instrumental acts that I've been enjoying for some months now. Have any good instrumental recommendations to share?

Maserati - "Pyramid of the Sun" came out late in 2010 and I must've heard about it through a critic's Best of 2010 list. Electronic-y, but with galloping beats that make for better driving music than dance music.
Fuck Buttons - It's a horrible band name, but this was a big step for me into dancey, electronic mash music. And I like it a lot. I've been listening to the album "Tarot Sport".
The Alps -A little more mellow and neither danceable nor driving, but beautiful music nonetheless.
Glenn Kotche - The Wilco drummer is quite the talented percussionist. I don't normally go for pure percussion, but his album "Mobile" pushes the boundaries quite a bit and gets pretty creative.
Explosions in the Sky - These guys are a guitar rock band who make brilliant soundscape rock songs that sound as their name suggests (as long as you include the beginning of the explosion and also that lingering effect). The album I have is "The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place".

Behind Bars in Montana

This past weekend was spent exploring the 2 closest scenic Montana drives in a scenic byways book I recently bought. I brought my bicycle along to further explore and I'm officially in love with the Montana landscape.

There's something that just puts a smile on my face being out in the vast open spaces of this land. The green and yellow and gold colors of the grasses are ever changing and fairly new to me, so that helps make it fresh and exciting. There's virtually no automobile (read: pick-'em-up truck) traffic so its terrific for biking.

Saturday I drove less than an hour west of Bozeman and drove a 110-mile loop along the Madison River (some of the world's best fly fishing) and the Tobacco Root mountains. This picture is on the 6-mile spur road from Harrison, MT to Pony, MT after an early lunch at a little diner that was just what you'd hope for out here(note to self: they stop serving breakfast at 11). The bike ride was gradually uphill the entire way to Pony, which made for a super fun 6-mile downhill coming back.

On a short, lunch time ride last Friday just on the outskirts of Bozeman. Those are the Bridger mountains.

Sunday I drove the amazing Beartooth Highway from Red Lodge, MT down toward Yellowstone Nat'l Park (but didn't go all the way to the park).  The Beartooth is one of those that's been called the most beautiful drive in America. It's full of switchbacks with dramatic views and southern tourists ogling at the still visible roadside snow pack. The bike ride I took was a hilly little number strewn with wildflowers between cattle pastures. If you expand this picture you should be able to see the cows hanging out in the grass straight ahead of me on the inside of the road's loop.

I hadn't been through Red Lodge since high school when we took a ski trip out there with the church youth group. I didn't go check out the mountain on Sunday, perhaps turned off by the overly touristy main drag through town.

But I did have a fun dirt road drive through Luther and Roscoe on the way home and ended up having a very nice filet mignon at the Grizzly Bar in Roscoe. My spontaneous detour was driven by seeing a sign for a town named Luther just down the road a piece. I had to check it out. The town turned out to be a zero, but the drive at sunset for 15 miles on dirt roads through Luther to Roscoe was amazingly beautiful, especially how the sun shimmering off the grasses causes about a hundred different shades of green and yellow beneath the backdrop of snowy mountain peaks.

It was my first weekend of exploration via car and bike. In the next couple days my new used touring bike should show up and then hopefully soon an upcoming dispatch like this will be an overnight on bicycle.

Vote 'em Out

The Minnesota legislature just ended a 20-day state government shutdown by agreeing to a collection of bills that none of the participating politicians like -- and they all admit it.

The people cannot stand for this and our (er...you're) only recourse is to vote 'em out of office.  All of 'em. How else will politicians get the message that it's not acceptable for them to not work together?

The problem is that, though an historically high percentage of Minnesotans may be out of work, most of the other 91% are too content with their big screen TV, their pets and their video games to get angry.  It was certainly interesting to see the surprising effects of the shutdown, like beer shortages and vandalizing of state parks.  But in the end, I'm not sure people care enough yet to take action.

One of the challenges of a democracy is that, to work as its supposed to, it requires the voting public to have a really good understanding of whats going on in their government. And as we know with all the political spin and personal facts out there these days, its nigh impossible for the people to achieve that. Instead we rely on politicians who have a personal conflict of interest because they're trying to get re-elected.

That's why I propose one-term limits everywhere. We can lengthen the term a bit, like maybe 6 years for a President and Governor. But you only get one term. There are plenty of qualified people to be in government so I won't buy the argument that "Strom Thurmond is doing such a fantastic job for the great state of South Carolina that nobody else could possibly replace his leadership", for instance.

/rant

Song of the Day by Built to Spill

This album, There Is No Enemy, came out a couple years ago and I purchased half of it and have tended to forget about it. But every time I listen to it I end up putting those 5 songs on repeat over and over again. Built to Spill has been around since the early '90s and has a great blend of indie rock and spacey psychadelia.

Built to Spill doesn't write radio-ready hit songs, but I think they're a tough band to not appreciate.

So check out Good ol' Boredom...

I just realized it's been 2 years since I've done one of these Song of the Day posts, which makes me also realize that this blog has been going for 4 years. Crazy.

Previously (and still) recommended songs:

• Dinosaur Jr. - Over It
• Damien Jurado - Go First
• The Beta Band - Dry the Rain
• Weezer - Pork and Beans
• Mission of Burma - Academy Fight Song
• The Hold Steady - Slapped Actress
• David Byrne & Brian Eno - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (album)
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - We Call Upon the Author
• Pavement - Shady Lane plus more
• New Pornographers - The Slow Descent into Alcoholism
• Afghan Whigs - Debonair
• Okkervil River - Okkervil River Song
• Elf Power - Spiral Stairs
• Sons and Daughters - Johnny Cash
• Tom Waits - Ol' 55
• Uncle Tupelo - Moonshiner
• Spoon - The Underdog
• Alpha Consumer - Unicorn Uniform
• Replacements - I Will Dare

House Tour

Three weeks after picking my stuff up in St. Paul, the moving truck showed up in Bozeman on Sunday morning. The whole moving truck experience probably merits an entire blog post on its own, but lets just say that my clairvoyant (some might say pessimistic) anticipation of challenges and zen-like ability to face them made it not nearly as bad as it could have been. Moving is a stressful enough experience without being slapped with hidden costs, long (yet small print contractually legal) delays and a truck driver on the back end who insisted on playing for me his cliched solo acoustic guitar songs of despair.

The truck just unloaded yesterday morning and I'm about 90% organized, so that feels pretty good. Here's a video tour: