So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star
Chapter One
Chapter I
Jump Start
It's never snowed in Minnesota during the month of July. The boundary waters up north, however, have tasted light accumulations in August and June, and as for the months in between, keep those winter boots handy. From autumn to spring, Minnesota is a frozen soundscape of snowplows, snow shovels, windshield scrapers, and auto ignitions laboring to turn over. Once, to get into my ice-entombed car, I needed a rubber mallet, seventy-five feet of extension cord, and a blow dryer. The long brutal winters, however, are sometimes credited with fostering Minneapolis's vital music scene. Without such horrible weather keeping them inside with their guitars, the theory goes, the world might never have heard of Bob Dylan, Prince, the Suburbs, the Replacements, Husker Du, Babes in Toyland, the Time, Soul Asylum, or the Jayhawks.
It takes more than blizzards and musicians to sustain this thriving scene. It takes fans, and the fans in the Twin Cities are famous for pushing their cars out of snowdrifts, driving down to Minneapolis's prized rock club, First Avenue, and lining up around the block in subzero temperature ... read full excerpt from So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star ebook
