Besides publishing a magazine, I have played in a few bands, recorded some songs and put out a CD. It has been almost 10 years since that CD was released to the world. The band I was in sold about 150 or so, of 1,000 made. After that band, I toyed with the idea of joining other bands and I did record some more songs on my own. I made about 50 copies of that CD and gave it mostly to friends and family. It is sort of a “bug” making music and it seems like many people here in Minnesota have the same strain.

Even right now as I run a local music magazine, I can’t even keep track of all the bands, musicians, CDs and music events that go on. I know of about 100 CDs that were locally released because I have been trying to catalog all of them that come in for review. This doesn’t include all the demos that people throw together and send out. I have to guess about 300-500 CDs come out locally each year. I might even be a little low with that number.

Then you have to classify if these releases are really local. Does a release of an out of town band released by a local record company count, or not? Tina Schlieske just released an album and she has been living in California for about five years. Is she still local? There are many musicians who aren’t originally from here that now call Minnesota their home. Is there a certain amount of time they have to live here to call them local? I like to give them all the benefit of the doubt, and as long as they either have an address here or established themselves here, it seems like they should be considered local. Martin Zellar and Bob Mould, they are local musicians.

This criteria makes Minnesota look like a music wonderland. Not that we have experienced a music feeding frenzy like L.A. did with glam metal or Seattle did with grunge. We did have our golden years with Soul Asylum, Husker Du, The Replacements and then a little bit of an aftermath with Semisonic.

What about now, what does it take and who is doing it? You don’t get too many chances to sign to a label these days. There are only a handful of local bands that are and even a smaller handful that could sell out First Avenue or something comparable. It is hard work with the amount of shows, bands and all the CDs that come out.

There are many different genres of music, subgenres and some music that you can’t even classify. It is the insanity and the excitement of having a local music magazine where I just can’t keep up with everything that is local music.

I don’t think we can worry about if anyone cares. It is just there and we’ll do it anyway. The lesser musician will give up when no one cares and the real musician will keep that clear vision and wait for everyone else to come around. I, on the other hand, didn’t wait around; I gave up. And when musicians give up, they either can become a cynic or publish a magazine.

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