Trip Shakespeare was a Minneapolis-based alternative rock of the late 1980s/early 1990s. Nickname: City of Lakes Motto: En Avant Location in Hennepin County and the state of Minnesota. ... Alternative rock (also called alternative music[1] or simply alternative) is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s. ... -1... (Redirected from 1990s in music) 1990 in music International trends Barbadian artists like Gabby, Spice and Square One bring a new sound to Trinidadian soca Mari Boines Gula Gula, and its titular hit single, bring Sami joik-based folk to popular attention Paradise Lost emerges at the forefront of...

Origins

The band originated when Harvard University English major Matt Wilson (guitar/vocals) teamed up with Elaine Harris (drums), a Harvard grad student in biological anthropology, in the early 1980s. Harris had responded to a notice posted by Wilson seeking "wicked percussion hands".^[1] Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) , is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... In music a singer or vocalist is a type of musician who sings, i. ... For other kinds of drums, see drum (disambiguation). ... The 1980s refers to the years of 1980 to 1989. ...

In 1985, after a year of performing together in an experimental, percussion-heavy quartet called the Cratchett Family, Wilson convinced Harris to relocate to Minneapolis, Wilson's hometown, where they joined up with bass player John Munson, a Chinese language major at the University of Minnesota. Martin EB18 Bass Guitar in flight case. ... John Munson is a Minneapolis musician who is best known as the bass player for Semisonic. ... Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ... Washington Avenue Bridge at night The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, almost always abbreviated U of M, and sometimes referred to as The U by locals, is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system. ...

Wilson and Munson had played together in an earlier band, and Wilson had not been impressed by his bass playing, so he didn't want Munson to audition for the new band. "But he came over anyway and played, and he'd improved a lot," Wilson later recalled. "We ended up begging him to just give it a try and stay around."^[2]

Matt Wilson originally proposed that the band be named Kirk Shakespeare, after two of his heroes: James T. Kirk and William Shakespeare. "I think maybe John and Elaine didn't want to be in a band named after Matt's two heroes, so they changed Kirk to Trip," explained Dan Wilson, Matt's older brother, who joined the band later.^[3] James Tiberius Kirk (2233 - 2293/2371), played by William Shatner, is the leading character in the original Star Trek TV series and the films based on it. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Dan Wilson is a Minneapolis musician best known as the main guitarist/vocalist for the band Semisonic. ...

Applehead Man

In 1986, the trio self-released their debut album. "The first album, Applehead Man, we just put all the songs we knew on there," Matt Wilson later said.^[4] One of these was the title track, which described a head being carved from "the brightest fruit...furthest from the road on the apple farm".^[5]

Another was "Beatle", which foretold both the band's preoccupation with the British Invasion band, as well as Matt Wilson's morbid streak: "Let me crawl into your brain.... May I walk behind your eyes/Where you blood lies cold and white?"^[6] One of album's songs, a murder ballad titled "Pearle", would later be re-recorded for the band's major label debut. The Beatles were an English rock band from Liverpool whose members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. ... Murder ballads are a specific subgenre of the broadsheet ballad, a narrative poem that tells a tale of murder. ...

Shortly after Applehead Man came out, Matt's brother Dan joined the band. Like Matt and Elaine, Dan attended Harvard; unlike Matt, Dan left with a degree, in art. Dan brought another guitar to the band, as well as keyboards, and would play an increasing role in the band's songwriting.

Are You Shakespearienced?

With its lineup complete, the band released a follow-up album, Are You Shakespearienced?, on the Minneapolis-based independent label Twin/Tone Records in 1989. Recorded live in the studio without headsets,^[7] the album featured "Toolmaster of Brainerd", a song that "insanely links dairyland folklore with the enduring rock myth of guitar-hero supremacy."^[8] Hailing from "Brainerd where the children go to milking school", the Toolmaster Twin/Tone Records was a record label based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota that operated from 1977 until 1994 and helped several local groups receive national attention. ... Brainerd is a city located in Crow Wing County, Minnesota. ...

learned to play the Gibson that his dog had found

And he came to haunt the bars of Minneapolis town.^[9]

"Toolmaster", according to Minneapolis City Pages, "perfectly captured the tension between Minneapolis ambition and outstate resignation that pretty much informs life in the Land of 10,000 Lakes."^[10]

Other notable songs on the album include "Reception", about a man attending the wedding of the woman he loves, and "The Lake", about a Northern pike who witnesses the disintegration of a relationship. caught by an angler in the river Dráva, Hungary. ...

Across the Universe

Main article: Across the Universe (album)

The next year they signed with A&M Records. The label "really gave us a chance," Matt Wilson later said: Across the Universe is an album released by Trip Shakespeare in 1990. ... A&M Records is a record label formed in 1962 by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. ...

They spent a lot of money on us making the records. A lot of people at the label genuinely seemed to love the band. The president of the label showed up at our gigs and got all psyched up and said this was not a vanity project on the part of the label. They really thought that we could sell some records. They really thought they could mass market Trip Shakespeare.^[11]

The band's first release on A&M was Across the Universe, released in 1990. The title's echo of a particularly trippy Beatles song is not coincidental; as Matt Wilson later explained: Across the Universe is a song by The Beatles that first appeared as a charity single release in December 1969, and later, in modified form, became a standout track on their May 1970 album, Let It Be. ...

There's a part of us that's plainly trying to make epic, gorgeous music that can be admired on at least a couple of levels. And there's another part of us that's embarrassed about that, because there are people who will say: "Rock 'n' roll is supposed to be simple, three-chord stuff like Keith Richards plays." But when you get right down to it, I guess we find ourselves more in the Beatles' school than in the Rolling Stones'.

TrouserPress.com called Across the Universe a "too-rare example of an indie act benefiting musically from major-label treatment"--citing the an "increased rock edge that doesn't detract from the gentle charm" of tracks like "Snow Days", "Gone, Gone, Gone" and "The Crane"--the latter being the closest thing the album had to a hit.^[12] Rock and roll - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... Keith Richards (a. ... -1...

The band members were less satisfied with the results. "We did not succeed on Across the Universe," Matt Wilson later said.^[13] "There was kind of a compromise between what the label wanted on there and what the band wanted."^[14] If anyone was satisfied by that compromise, it wasn't the record-buying public; Across the Universe sold a disappointing 33,000 copies.^[15]

Lulu

Main article: Lulu (album)

Trip Shakespeare's next--and, as it turned out, last--major release was 1991's Lulu. Upon its release, Matt Wilson declared: "On Lulu, we finally got it right. We got the order of songs down, and spent a lot of time honing it and making it an emotional journey. We wanted the listener to be completely moved and left breathless by the music."^[16] In another interview, he called it "the first record where we actually had our heads together well enough--and a had a sense of who we were, enough--to try to control it."^[17] Lulu is a 1991 album by the Minneapolis-based rock band Trip Shakespeare. ... Lulu is a 1991 album by the Minneapolis-based rock band Trip Shakespeare. ...

The band succeeded, at least in the eyes of some critics--AllMusic.com called it a "melodically complex and romantic pop masterpiece", and "an album so steeped in worshiping beauty that no amount of criticism--positive or negative-—can mangle or tarnish its crystalline brilliance."^[18] But Lulu was another disappointment in terms of sales, moving an anemic 60,000 copies.^[19]

Trip Shakespeare's commercial failure has been attributed to the band's poor timing: "1991 was the great embrasure of the grunge movement when Nirvana's Nevermind set the decade-long trend for the popular music charts," wrote AllMusic.com. "The release of a melodically complex and romantic pop masterpiece with lush vocals was entertained by neither the critics nor the masses."^[20] Grunge music (sometimes also referred to as the Seattle Sound) is an independent-rooted music genre that became a commercially successful offshoot of hardcore punk, thrash metal, and alternative rock in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ... Nirvana was a popular American rock band originating from Aberdeen, Washington. ... Nevermind is the highly influential second studio album from the American grunge band, Nirvana. ...

Or as Wayne Isaak, the head of A&M's New York office, put it, "Trip Shakespeare is too pop to catch on as an alternative band; the alternative scene is very cliquish." ^[21]

Volt

Even after two disappointing outings, A&M was willing to give Trip Shakespeare another chance, showing some excitement about the band's idea of an album of covers. "We made the record right after the L.A. riots," Matt Wilson said. "So, like everybody around that time, politics and revolution and all the social questions about war and peace and 'What is our role now?' were on our minds. So that affected the song choice quite a bit." The 1992 Los Angeles riots, also known as the Rodney King uprising or the Rodney King riots, were sparked on April 29, 1992 when a mostly white jury acquitted four police officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King, after he fled from police. ...

Those songs were hardly the classic-rock crowd-pleasers the label may have expected; they included Big Star's "Ballad of El Goodo", Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air", and Hüsker Dü's "Dead Set on Destruction", along with Neil Young's "Helpless", Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding", and The Zombies' "Time of the Season". Big Star was an American rock and roll band of the early 1970s whose work is often cited as a prime example of power pop. ... Thunderclap Newman is a late 1960s one-hit wonder from the United Kingdom (UK). ... Something In The Air was a UK #1 single for three weeks in July 1969 for Thunderclap Newman. ... Hüsker Dü was an influential rock music group from Minneapolis-St. ... Neil Percival Young OM (born November 12, 1945, Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist and film director who grew up during his teen years in Winnipeg, Manitoba. ... Helpless is a song by Neil Young first performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young on their 1970 album Déjà Vu. ... Bowi EP sleeve (1977). ... The original U.S. release by Brinsley Schwarz. ... The Zombies, formed in 1961 in St. ... Time of the Season is a song by The Zombies, featured on the 1968 album Odessey and Oracle. ...

After the songs had been "Trip Shakespearized", A&M played it for their promotions department, whose response was, "What do we do with this?" according to Munson.^[22] The label then dropped the band; the covers album was released by Twin/Tone as Volt in 1992.

Breakup

Without a record contract, the band members drifted to other projects; Matt Wilson pursued a solo career, while Harris played with a band called Buddha Bunny. Dan Wilson and Munson formed a trio called Pleasure with Jacob Slichter, which later found the commercial success that had eluded Trip Shakespeare under the name Semisonic. Semisonic is an alternative rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Band members are Dan Wilson (guitar/vocals), John Munson (bass), and Jacob Slichter (drums). ...

Near the end of the band's run, Matt Wilson said that the band's goal was "to be a part of that one or two nights that everybody has in their life when the music is ridiculously good and the people around you are laughing their heads off and losing their minds.... We don't get it every night because you can't carry that kind of ecstasy around with you in a bucket. All we do is try to find that delirious point."^[23]

Discography

Albums

• Applehead Man - 1986 - Self-Release (Re-released in 1988 by Clean/Twin Tone)
• Are You Shakespearienced? - 1989 - Clean/Twin Tone
• Across the Universe - 1990 - A&M
• Lulu - 1991 - A&M
• Volt (EP) - 1992 - Clean/Twin Tone

Across the Universe is an album released by Trip Shakespeare in 1990. ... Lulu is a 1991 album by the Minneapolis-based rock band Trip Shakespeare. ...

Notes

1. ^ AllMusic.com
2. ^ Craig MacInnis, "Behold Pop's Extravagant Toolmasters", Toronto Star, October 18, 1991, p. D3.
3. ^ "What About That Name?", Trip Shakespeare: The Mystery
4. ^ MacInnis, p. D3.
5. ^ Matt Wilson, Applehead Man.
6. ^ Matt Wilson, "Beatle", Applehead Man.
7. ^ David Surkamp, "Trip Shakespeare", St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 10, 1991, p. 8 (Calendar).
8. ^ MacInnis, p. D3.
9. ^ Favorite Lyrics, Vegan Represent.
10. ^ G.R. Anderson Jr. et al., "Minnesota's Fifty Greatest Hits", Minneapolis City Pages, June 8, 2005.
11. ^ Jon Bream, "Will All the World Be a Stage for Trip Shakespeare?", Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 4, 1993, p. 3F.
12. ^ Scott Schinder, "Trip Shakespeare", TrouserPress.com.
13. ^ Surkamp, p. 8 (Calendar).
14. ^ MacInnis, p. D3.
15. ^ Bream, November 22, 1991.
16. ^ Surkamp, p. 8 (Calendar).
17. ^ MacInnis, p. D3.
18. ^ Gregory McIntosh, "Lulu", AllMusic.com.
19. ^ Bream, April 4, 1993, p. 3F.
20. ^ Gregory McIntosh, "Lulu", AllMusic.com.
21. ^ Jon Bream, "Local Rockers Trip Shakespeare Still Waiting for National Splash", Minneapolis Star Tribune, November 22, 1991, p. 1E.
22. ^ Bream, April 4, 1993, p. 3F.
23. ^ Bream, November 22, 1991, p. 1E.

External links

• Minnesota Music Encyclopedia entry on Trip Shakespeare
• Homepage and live archive of Trip Shakespeare