New Horsey Picture for Next Noem Ad

Just horsin' around: expect this photo to run in the next ad for equine-obsessed Congressional candidate Kristi Noem:

Vote for Kristi Noem
She likes horses, just like the Founding Fathers

That's not really Kristi. That's Vancouver BC singer Hannah Georgas. I heard her for the first time on CKUA today. Worth a listen!

Brookings Children's Museum: Bang! Splash!

Brookings enjoyed picture-perfect Sunday weather for the opening of its amazing new Children's Museum.

The Brookings Children's Museum is on the site of old Central Elementary, just one block east of downtown. Within a two-block radius of this remarkable facility, you can walk to the public library, the community arts center, the bike shop, Nick's Hamburgers, the used book store, and George's Pizza... assuming you can manage to get through all of the activities in the children's museum. Walk a couple more blocks, and you can catch a movie. All Brookings needs now to complete the downtown tourism picture is a nice downtown hotel.

Both of us think the hanging sculptures in the bright, sunny atrium are wonderful.

A big crowd hung around after the museum closed to hear Recycled Percussion give an outdoor concert. The musicians took a break from their gig at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas to open the museum with a bang. Several bangs, actually.

Among the crowd enjoying the museum and music: Brookings resident Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, who made time after the Habitat dedication to bring her son Zachary and dad Lars to the museum. Both Herseth gents report enjoying the water farm immensely.

M.O.B. Plays Masons Roof at Miracle Treat Day

So the Heidelbergers head downtown for Miracle Treat Day at Madison Dairy Queen. We knew there'd be music, but look where it's coming from:

That's M.O.B.—Michael Hope, David Christiansen, Paul Johnson, and Howard Hedger—playing Johnny Cash (and thinking U2) from the roof of the Masonic Temple.

Didn't expect that, did you?

Shelter Fest Brings Tonic Sol-fa, Su Fu Du to Madison

Shelter Fest 2010 was the nicest summer night of the year in Madison. Look at that sky—after Thursday night's soaker, not a cloud left. Look at those trees—standing straight instead of leaning at a 30-degree angle in another thundering, prairie-scouring gale.

Oh yeah, and look at that a cappella group:

Mark McGowan, Greg Bannwarth, Shaun Johnson, and Jared Dove—that's Tonic Sol-fa singing at Trojan Field, right here in Madison Friday night!

No instruments but the tambourine and the egg. No pyrotechnics or fancy stage pieces—just four men putting their voices to one of the finest uses possible.

Tight harmony, high energy, singing as if nothing in the world matters more than hitting that note... totally groovy.


Su Fu Du banged the drums and boogied to open the show.

The crowd was duly appreciative. Around 500 people—including (memo to Chamber!) visitors from Texas, Arizona, Kentucky, and Iowa—enjoyed the music and the opportunity to throw some money into the kitty to help Habitat for Humanity build houses. Great show!

T-Minus 24 Hours to Tonic Sol-fa -- Come to Madison!

24 hours from right now, The Su Fu Du Drumline will be rocking Trojan Field, warming up the crowd for Shelter Fest's headliner, a cappella superstars Tonic Sol-fa. If you haven't picked up your tickets yet, get down to Mochavino in downtown Madison and do so! $15 a pop for some really good music... plus you'll be helping the local Habitat for Humanity chapter put another family in a good, safe, sturdy home.

And if you're not in Madison, well, get here! Come tomorrow, buy your ticket at the gate, and come have a good time.

Madison weather forecast: raining right now, but breaking up in the west as I type. Tomorrow's forecast: wet in the wee hours, chance of t-storms through lunchtime, then, by showtime at 6:15 p.m., partly cloudy, 79°F, and east wind at a tickling 2 mph.

Shelter Fest! Get here! You'll love it!

Brookings Summer Arts Festival: Who Needs Parking?

I've mentioned my Madison neighbors' obsession with parking. Whenever I suggest some interesting public event or project, like turning the Masonic temple into a community cultural center, one of the first things Madisonians say is, "Oh, but what about parking? There isn't enough parking!"

To which I say, nuts! Consider the wildly successful Brookings Summer Arts Festival. They expect over 75,000 people to come to Pioneer Park this weekend. There is most certainly not 75,000 visitors' worth of parking in Pioneer Park. Do the BSAF organizers scale back? Heck no! They figure if they offer a quality program, people will find a way to get there. And do visitors stay home?

Heck no!

They just park a half mile down both sides of both lanes of Highway 14 and hoof it. Or a block east of Main Street, which was the closest open spot I could find in town.

Or the free market (in the form of a guy with a cell phone and a four-foot stick) kicks in and offers a solution.

Or folks ride their bikes (a sight like this does my pedaling heart good!). Or they ride the shuttle bus.

As thousands of people will attest, the walk is worth it.

When there are bagpipes, you know you've got a good show.


My daughter liked the dancers.


I liked Sonic Screwdriver, as much for the quality of the music as the irony of a surf band from the prairie.

The Brookings Arts Council raised some money with its face-painting station.

This butterfly blue reflects the prairie sky, not this little one's spirits.

These big windchimes surely got a workout during last night's thunderstorm.

Art certainly doesn't have to be useful.


Ron Colbert does some interesting four-piecers (quadriptychs!).


"Simple Gifts" by Curtis and Loretta on mandocello and harp.


Ecuador Manta plays guitar and pipes. Drop some money in that jar!

The National Children's Study crew from SDSU hosted a craft booth where kids could make ladybug ornaments...

...or something generally resembling a ladybug. Far be it from us to stifle creativity. We also saw a glider towed and released overhead. Gliders fill us with disco fever.

Prairie, lake, elevator, buffalo....

No ugly mugs here!

Alexandra Burg's work may unlock some deep thoughts.


Morris Johnson, folk artist, just makes me laugh out loud... and that's a good thing! Go, crabs! (Note the political symbolism, escaping the red bucket for the cool blue waters of freedom and Democracy! Wahoo!)

Chicken or fish... admit it: there is some South Dakotan in your life who would absolutely love having one of these Morris Johnsons on his or her wall.

Art must always leave room for fun.

Be the happy mullet: dance for the sheer joy of being alive.


It's not a summer festival if someone doesn't start a hacky circle. And the ladies hack in! Set me!

You can always flush out some pheasants at a South Dakota arts festival...

...or more fish (a bit more naturalistic than the Morris Johnson works above)...

...or perhaps a goose in progress.

And then a mix of real and abstract from (I think!) Franklin Arts of Sioux Falls.

The Brookings Summer Arts Festival wraps up today (Sunday) at Pioneer Park in Brookings. Bring your walking shoes and sunblock, and enjoy a grand Sunday afternoon of ourdoor art and music.

Ain't That America...

Bonus! Compare this amazing acoustic rendition of the best American anthem from the 1980s. Mellencamp performed this song in his Cougar days on The New Show, a Lorne Michaels stab at Friday night variety programming. I saw it when I was... what, 13? I still remember that broadcast.

White Night in Madison Tonight!

This evening's forecast: south wind 20 mph, temp around 80°F, humid, but clear sky, no thunderstorms in sight. Be glad of that breeze: it'll keep the mosquitoes away at Madison's first White Night event tonight on South Egan at the Brickhouse!

The Madison Area Arts Council has lined up five musical acts to perform from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. There will be artists on the street creating art before your very eyes. (There is something magical about present at creation.) You can sit on the curb, walk by the railroad tracks (watch for trains!), and treat Main Street like your living room.

Come downtown tonight, enjoy a legal beverage, and watch midsummer twilight settle oh-so-slowly over our fair city.

Hottest Political Web Property in South Dakota: TheBjork.com!

Not just Björk; The Bjork! [Björk pic from here; The Bjork pic from here]

I just found the best political domain name in South Dakota, and it belongs to a candidate from right here in Madison. Who is it? Independent/Glenn Beck candidate for District 8 House Jason Lee Bjorklund is online with TheBjork.com (No umlaut, please). We can talk Bjorklund's politics later—right now, folks just want to go to the lake (typical human behaviour). Permit me, therefore, to restrict my comments to my entirely superficial admiration for Bjorklund's domain name choice. There's got to be some Google juice spillover the candidate will get from the queen of Icelandic surreal-pop, right? The marketing association catches the thoughtful hip who want to unravel cookie-cutter media messages from blow-dried talking heads. With a domain name like this, Bjorklund can shout to voters, "There's more to life than this! It's in our hands! Declare independence and vote for an army of me to shake up Pierre!" And on the off chance that Bjorklund could possibly, maybe lose in November, he still has a domain name with zip, verve, even big time sensuality, available for all sorts of other ventures, not some silly Web albatross like KarpenForPUC.com or KristiForCongress.com that's pretty useless once you lose the election. TheBjork.com could one day have some serious resale value, which could make Jason violently happy. Now if I could just get him to campaign in a swan dress. 100,000 Web hits per day, guaranteed.

Update 2022.06.26: Google Blogger unpublished this post 12 years later, claiming that it violated their malware and viruses policy. I  have not attempted to transmit any malware or viruses. The only thing I can speculate may be wrong is that TheBjork.com doesn't show any Bjorklund info any more (last I heard, Bjorklund ran for an SDGOP convention voting spot in Minnehaha County this year and got trounced by Rep. Chris Karr). I'll deactivate those links and see if that makes Google happy.

Yeehaw! Win Free Tix for Outlaw Country Fest

If the words Hillbilly Testosterone Outlaw Country Music get you hankerin' for a road trip, then sign up the big Madison Getaway. You can win two adult and two child tickets to the Motongator Joe Country Music Festival at Prairie Village June 25 through June 27.

The winners also get two free nights in the Americinn and free chow at the Second Street Diner. Of course, if the masterminds (Bulldog Media? Chamber? LAIC) behind this giveaway had really been on the ball, they'd have given away free RV rental for the weekend so the lucky winners could camp at Prairie Village and immerse themselves in the family fun of hillbilly outlaw testosterone.

Jayhawks' Olson and Louris Sing of Chamberlain

Why do I have to listen to a Canadian radio station to hear music about South Dakota? I'm listening to CKUA online, and I just heard for the first time "Chamberlain, South Dakota," a song from Ready for the Flood released last year by Jayhawks founders Mark Olson & Gary Louris.

Here are Olson and Louris in a Chicago 2009 performance:

From Garden Gnomes with Love: "Those Simple Things" by Right Said Fred

File under pop culture archaeology... or "What were we thinking?" A love song by Right Said Fred: "Those Simple Things," 1992:



Remember, these guys came from the culture that won the Cold War.

Lauren Pelon, Musical Historian, Performs at DSU Saturday

My friends at the Madison Area Arts Council are providing some free entertainment and education Saturday night. Lauren Pelon, musical historian, plays two millennia worth of musical instruments, from the archlute, cornamuse, hurdy-gurdy, pennywhistles, Kiowa courting flute, to the electric wind instrument and MIDI-pedalboard. (No word on whether she'll be adding laser harp to her repertoire... but she should!)

The Madison Area Arts Council is bringing Ms. Pelon over from Minnesota as part of its ongoing Chautauqua series to brighten and enlighten our lives. Saturday night, January 16, 7 p.m., Tunheim Building at DSU.

Marching in Madison: South Dakota Bands at DSU Homecoming Parade

It's a busy band day in South Dakota! Area bands, led by the mighty Spirit of Madison Marching Band, kicked off a big day of music by marching up Madison's Main Street in the Dakota State University Trojan Days homecoming parade.

Madison Bulldogs


Chester Flyers


Arlington Cardinals


Flandreau Public Fliers (thanks, Matt!)


Deuel Cardinals


Madison Middle School

Director Luke Sursely has these kids whipped into shape!

Montrose Irish

Director Justin Whitcomb is a Madison band alumnus. Looking sharp!

Dell Rapids St. Mary Cardinals

The Dell Rapids corps was marching right behind the Dennis Daugaard for Governor campaign vehicle, the only political entrant in today's parade. The Munsterman campaign must have been too busy making up better ad hominem attacks. Isn't there some old campaign saw about catching more votes throwing candy than throwing mud?

Oldham-Ramona-Rutland Raiders

We've been waiting for some cowbell! (Sorry about the battery, kids!)

Howard Tigers

Mitchell Bidding for LifeLight; Madison Misses Mission from God

Madison! I told you guys you needed to get on the stick on bidding for LifeLight. And do you listen? No... but the Mitchell Convention & Visitors Bureau does:

"They bring in great concerts, they bring in large crowds. We would love to see it in Mitchell next year," Director of Mitchell Convention & Visitors Bureau Hannah Walters said.

Walters says the bureau has contacted LifeLight about bringing the festival to Mitchell, which she says has plenty of acreage and businesses, to support the crowds [Brian Kushida, "Mitchell Interested in Relocating LifeLight," KELOLand.com, 2009.09.04].

Would hosting a couple hundred thousand muddy, merry holy rock-and-rollers be a challenge? Sure! Could Lake County do it? Heck yeah, but not if we never try! Besides, the Lord would help, right?

Just when will the Madison Chamber of Commerce start thinking big? Hmmm... maybe there's another post brewing. Stay tuned!

Musical Interlude: The Airborne Toxic Event

The State of South Dakota grants Hyperion its air pollution permit, and all I can do is talk about music?

When I discovered radio in seventh grade, I was enthralled. All through junior high, I danced in my room and drove imagined masses to ecstasy with rollicking tennis racket air-guitar solos. I memorized and transcribed lyrics and mimicked the vocal stylings of everyone from Men Without Hats and David Bowie to Cyndi Lauper and Madonna. And Journey. And Van Halen. I lived and died by the triumphant ascent and agonizing fall of my favorites on the Rick Dees Weekly Top 40. Most importantly, in every lyrical twist and guitar solo, I sought and often found some cosmic significance, assurance from ethereal voices that, Tina Turner be damned, love is heroic, forever, a battlefield, whatever.

I was weird. Everyone is weird in junior high.

In high school I started broadening my musical tastes with South Dakota Public Radio ("your sound alternative, broadcasting on these translator stations..."). Our dynamic high school choir director Miss Edwards revealed to me the wonder of Schubert's Mass in G and voices raised in Latin. At university, SDSU's newborn KSDJ helped pull me away from top 40 radio. Then Alberta's amazing CKUA ruined me, turning me away for good from cookie-cutter pop stations broadcasting focus-grouped playlists and sterile non-local DJ chatter.

Up against the like of CKUA, Jazz Nightly, and the World Café (the Rock Garden Tour is still proving itself), South Dakota's top 40 stations just can't compete.

But every now and then I spin the dial, and once in a rare while, I hear something new on pop radio that makes me feel that junior-high vibe, that crazy sense that the whole world turns on one song.

Such was the song I heard coming out of the radio from B93.7 a couple weeks ago. Then I heard it again last week, driving through North Dakota at high noon on Prairie Public Radio.



"Sometime Around Midnight," by The Toxic Airborne Event. A poetic, plaintive rock crescendo packed with angst and verbal gems tied just right to the music:

...the piano's this melancholy soundtrack
to her smile..

...she's laughing, she's turning,
she's holding her tonic like a crux...

...the curl of your bodies
like two perfect circles entwined...

...but she makes sure you saw her
as she looks right at you and bolts
as she walks out the door,
your blood boiling, your stomach in ropes
and your friends say what is it
you look like you've seen a ghost...

...and all the poetry goes to emotional hell in one pounding, animal cry: "You just have to see her, you just have to see her, YOU JUST HAVE TO SEE HER...."

This song shouldn't grab me. It doesn't speak to my daily life. My days of feeling "hopeless and homeless" as I crash through unsuccessful love affairs are long gone. Every time the girl I love looks right at me and bolts, she generally returns a few hours later with groceries, and we go happily on chasing our three year old and laughing with Jon Stewart together.

Starships aren't part of daily life, either, yet Star Trek can still move me. The Toxic Airborne Event pulls off a similar feat, crafting a literary and emotional work of art that pulls us out of our everyday experience (come on: nobody experiences heartbreak like that every day) and gives us a healthy dose of desperation and catharsis. They resurrect the thrill I felt when I first discovered good music on the radio.

And they know how to use a string section.

The Toxic Airborne Event plays Boulder, Omaha, and Des Moines in September. South Dakota fans will have to settle for Hyperion's refinery.

--------------------------------------
September's coming soon... so get out and enjoy the weekend!

Lottery Winner Neal Wanless Immortalized in Song

Among the burdens of wealth and fame: you end up in People Magazine next to all those bikini ladies, and crazy musicians from New York City start writing songs about you.

Neal Wanless, who took possession of his $88.5 million in Powerball winnings this week, earns this musical shout-out from Jaime Garamella and his Brooklyn-based band The Spanish Channel. "The Biggest Loser" doesn't pretend to be biographical, just some passable poetry and good guitar-pickin' about irony and luck. Enjoy.

DSU Axes Concert and Jazz Band, Replaces with Pay-for-Play Pep Band

The arts suffer another blow in Madison. I noticed Monday that DSU is canceling five sections of music classes. The same day, citing declining enrollment in the band program, DSU president Douglas Knowlton announced that DSU is eliminating its concert and jazz band programs. Students will still get to play their horns and drums... in the pep band. President Knowlton says focusing on the pep band will give musicians a chance to play before larger audiences—i.e., the assembled crowds at football and basketball games. The university even plans to shake some money loose for students who play at games. (Curious: will we start paying athletes who play at games, too?)

Band member Kris Back finds the plan, well, ludicrous:

Perfect way to kill a program that has up to 35 active members. Students want to play in a concert setting, not pep band. Believe me, we have tried to get more involved in athletic events such as homecoming but honestly I would rather watch a game (football, basketball, vollyball) then have a horn stuck to my face. Why should we become cheerleaders for the athletic department? [Kris Beck, "DSU Changes Focus of Instrumental Band Program," Kris' Blog, 2009.06.16]

Beck posts open letters to both Dr. Knowlton and DSU music leaders Barb and Dennis Hegg. Whoops—better make that former leader for Dennis: he tells MDL that he is "no longer affiliated with the program" and declines to offer any comment to support his former students.

I recognize the practical realities DSU faces in offering any kind of music program. With our narrow focus on information systems and education, we have no music major and few spare resources to direct toward such activities. The choir students (who haven't been axed down to a pep choir yet) don't even have a dedicated rehearsal space; too often they end up practicing in the lobby of the Dakota Prairie Playhouse, with lots of cross-traffic distractions.

But the promises of "larger audiences" and pay-for-play seem misguided. Playing your horn at a basketball game doesn't give you a bigger audience; it makes you subservient to another organization. People come to see the game, not to hear your music. A pep band's performance has only instrumental value; a concert or jazz band performing its own show has intrinsic value. Students who play for that intrinsic value are the real music lovers, the devotés who form the heart of a good music program. Music lovers don't need pay (though if the university offers money and they take it, I can't blame them); they would benefit more from the university diverting any stipend to normal funding of the music program to pay, as Beck suggests, for instrument repair, sheet music, and other operating expenses.

Alas, the liberal arts have faced hard times at DSU since the mission change to computers back in the 1980s. It's not enough to just play good music or think big thoughts: any humanities program here must prove its instrumental value to other institutional priorities.

Cutting the concert and jazz bands may be a practical reality. Offering musicians a pep band may be the best DSU can do. But this move also reduces the opportunities DSU students have to make themselves well-rounded university graduates.

Good Citizen Journalism: Hudson Covers KAUR Broadcast Shutdown

Hat tip to South Dacola!

Sioux Falls blogger Scott Hudson provides something no other area media have: a full, detailed account of why Augustana radio station KAUR is shutting down its broadcast signal and switching entirely online operations. Hudson has a passion for good music and the local music scene. He was also a DJ for KAUR for 18 years and even enjoyed a stint as its music director back in the 1980s.

Disappointed with the thin coverage the matter received in the professional press, Hudson goes to KAUR general manager Tom Prochazka to get the straight poop. Hudson provides a lengthy interview transcript that tells how the decision was announced to the staff and gives the reasons cited by Augie Dean Mark Braun for the station's mission change:

1. low student listenership and preference for online radio
2. lack of student DJs
3. no fit for KAUR in the curriculum
4. physical space
5. worries the FCC could fine Augie into bankruptcy for one naughty word
6. possibility of leasing the frequency to MPR or the Catholic Diocese

Prochazka tells Hudson that the move online results in a serious reduction of potential listeners:

The drawback with streaming is the royalty and licensing fee schedule. In order to stay within our budget, we would have to limit subscriptions to an average maximum of 212. There is some wiggle room here but the math works out that 212 people listening 24 hours a day would be just under a consumption level requiring a higher fee. 213 people would put us into the next category. So, access to over 300,000 potential listeners by broadcast or access to under 300 listeners via stream? Why not 300,300+ by both? [Tom Prochazka, interviewed by Scott Hudson, "Augie's Bonehead Decision Regarding KAUR," Rant-A-Bit, 2009.05.19]

Yikes—I didn't realize the added complication of calculating royalties online. I'd like to think that, as portable Web-enabled devices become more common, we could all listen to KAUR and other radio stations online just as easily as we can listen to the standard AM and FM broadcasts on our radios (and think about this: what do you have in your backpack or pocket more often, a cell phone or a radio?). But online broadcasts just can't reach as many people at once as a good radio signal.

Hudson offers his own commentary, noting the importance of a broadcast signal for catching new listeners and introducing them to new music. After all, it's a lot easier for a casual Sioux Falls listener to scan the entire radio dial and discover KAUR than it is to scan the entire Internet. Hudson notes that a campus radio station is a great learning experience, regardless of whether it fits in a specific academic program. Hudson also points out that KAUR is one of Augie's best community outreach efforts.

I do look forward to being able to listen to KAUR here at Lake Herman, right alongside my favorite online radio station for new non-top-40 music, Alberta's CKUA. But Mr. Hudson is right: Augustana College and Sioux Falls are losing a good cultural resource in KAUR's over-the-air broadcasts. Let's hope that Augie can at least find a broadcaster like MPR to lease the station and fill the gap with some good music.

And let's hope Mr. Hudson keeps up the good citizen journalism.

LifeLight: Let the Bidding Begin!

Don't tell me I never come up with positive ideas....

Big Jesus-music-fest LifeLight is looking for new digs. Wild Water West wants to expand, chewing up LifeLight's current plot. Greener pastures will take lots of green—a couple hundred acres in Minnehaha County could cost a million bucks, money co-founder Alan Greene says God hasn't dropped into LifeLight's coffers yet.

Madison, do I smell opportunity? You bet! Look around Lake County, and I'll bet we could find some lovely half-section plots of pasture just itching for a music festival and 320,000 well-behaved, God-fearing visitors coming to town for pizza and root beer. Let's bid! Find a willing landowner, kick in a subsidy from the LAIC to cut the land price in half, and call LifeLight!

Think of it this way: suppose the LAIC puts up half a million to subsidize the land purchase. LifeLight brings a third of a million people to town, and they spend ten bucks a pop. That's three million bucks in the local economy... a sixfold return on investment in year one. Plus, bringing some good Christian music to town would nicely counterbalance the image of Madison as home to six-pack-slingin' outlaw country militia music.

Madison! The Lord is speaking! So's your pocketbook! Let's get LifeLight!