Full Description
This is a musician's tale: the story of a boy growing up on the Iron Range, playing his guitar at family gatherings, coming of age in the psychedelic seventies, and honing his craft as a pro in Minneapolis, ground zero of American popular music in the mid-eighties. "There is a drop of blood behind every note I play and every word I write," Paul Metsa says. And it's easy to believe, as he conducts us on a musical journey across time and country, navigating switchbacks, detours, dead ends, and providing us the occasional glimpse of the promised land on the blue guitar highway.
His account captures the thrill of the Twin Cities when acts like the Replacements, Husker DÜ, and Prince were remaking pop music. It takes us right onto the stages he shared with stars like Billy Bragg, Pete Seeger, and Bruce Springsteen. And it gives us a close-up, dizzying view of the roller-coaster ride that is the professional musician's life, played out against the polarizing politics and intimate history of the past few decades of American culture. Written with a songwriter's sense of detail and ear for poetry, Paul Metsa's book conveys all the sweet absurdity, dry humor, and passion for the language of music that has made his story sing.
Contents
Contents
Foreword by David Carr
Guitar Fools
A Boy and His Guitar
Buckshot in Short Pants
The Cry of the Muskrat
Cats Under the Stars
Vaseline Machine Gun
One More Saturday Night
Franklin Avenue
Electric High Heels
Party to a Crime
Robots on Death Row
House of Cards
Whistling Past the Graveyard
Ferris Wheels on the Farm
City of the Angels
Mississippi Farewell
No Money Down
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Ghosts of Woody Guthrie
Martini Gulch
White Boys Lost in the Blues
From Russia with Love
Key to the Highway
Sisu
Texas in the Twilight Zone
Slings and Arrows
Barbeque and Blues
Iko-Iko
Slow Justice
Stars Over the Prairie
Fireworks on the 4th of July
Acknowledgments
Discography
Concert Appearances
