Makes No Sense At All captures the visions, ramblings, and memories of Chris Strouth, a Twin Cities-bred master of music, film, and everything else.

I taught college for about seven years, and yes, I also find this fact surprising. The main class I taught was, more often than not, the first class a student would take. It started as a production economics class, but really it was an introduction to the arts and entertainment industry. Every new quarter, I would start by coming in blaring the Velvet Underground's "We're Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together" and writing in large, nearly illegible lettering, "We are all idiots."

Arguably it's a bit of hard swallow to an 18-year-old on his first day of college, but then that's sort of the point. Seriously, had someone on my first day of college told me that I would screw up, and screw up often, I don't know that I would have worried about it so much. Then came a rather long explanation of what exactly my scrawling meant. Only by realizing that we know nothing can we begin to learn anything.

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Artwork by Chris Strouth

Makes No Sense At All captures the visions, ramblings, and memories of Chris Strouth, a Twin Cities-bred master of music, film, and everything else.

The Catholic Church figured out something during the Middle Ages: If you build a church to look like a castle, the serfs will feel safe in its massive shadows. So churches moved from modest affairs to great sprialing towers so that the people would feel as comforted within the structure as they did with the royal overseers.

We hang out in shadows today still, but they tend to be more personal. Now, it's the shadow of the Longhorn Bar, of Hüsker Dü, and of the Replacements -- really, of the the generation that came before. We stay close enough to these artifacts to duck in if we're ever attacked by a new generation filled with ambivalence for our legacy.

What makes the Replacements difficult for me is that in the '90s I worked for the label that launched them: Twin/Tone, or as it was known, the TRG (Twin/Tone Records Group). I was there during the non-famous years: post-Suburbs, post-Soul Asylum, post-Babes in Toyland, and of course post-Replacements.

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Artwork by Chris Strouth

Makes No Sense At All captures the visions, ramblings, and memories of Chris Strouth, a Twin Cities-bred master of music, film, and everything else.

My creative life has featured a strong thread of discovering music. The first time I saw MTV, I was overcome with all the happiness and joy expected with an introduction to Martha Quinn. Today though, I want to tell you a story about the week before I saw MTV. Everyone has a story. You know, the key stories retold at gatherings wide and small, all but guaranteed to be part of the amusing anecdote roundup that follows us through birthdays, weddings, the big promotion, the retirement party, and of course the funeral. In a lot of ways this story covers all of those categories.

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Artwork by Chris Strouth

Makes No Sense At All captures the visions, ramblings, and memories of Chris Strouth, a Twin Cities-bred master of music, film, and everything else.

There is a quote from the actor Cary Grant about what's it like to be him: "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant." That has to be pretty true for David Bowie. You have to think that the hardest part of being a "living legend" is the living part. It's hard to think of Bowie as just a guy, because he's got a unique place in the hipster cool rock guy idiom.

He is an artist, and that isn't meant in a pretentious way. Rather, he functions more like an artist did before the era of the rock star. However, this next statement is pretentious, so bear it out. You can't really compare Bowie to most musicians; what he does is about so much more than the music itself, it's persona and image. His work is more like Picasso or Cocteau than Springsteen or Dylan. They don't reinvent, they evolve, and while the songwriting is always good, it never strays that far from the point of origin.

The Next Day is his first record in ten years. Its appearance had listeners more excited than they had been in decades for one of his records. When last we saw him it was with the record Hours, which didn't receive the greatest of critical reception. See, that's the problem of being "David Bowie" -- good can't really be good enough.

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Stryper had a God complex, of sorts

Makes No Sense At All captures the visions, ramblings, and memories of Chris Strouth, a Twin Cities-bred master of music, film, and everything else.

When asked about my religion, my go-to joke has always been "I am a recovering Catholic;  got my ten-year wafer even." I grew up Catholic -- which, in itself, is a phrase used as a starter in many a comedy routine. My great-grandparents on both sides were deeply Catholic and big drinkers, their children were pretty Catholic and pretty big drinkers, and my parents were kinda Catholic. (And, not surprisingly, big drinkers.) Not saying that Catholicism and alcoholism go hand in hand but there might be something in the wine... besides, it's the Blood of Christ.

When I was in ninth grade, my parents transferred me out of the living hell that was Fridley Jr. High -- yes, Fridley Patch, I feel the angry stares coming my way -- and into the Catholic Prep School wonderland that is Totino Grace. It was sort of easy to be there and be not particularly Catholic.  Sure, there were masses and classes but as long as you didn't mind the fact that you occasionally smelled like frankincense and would perpetually have to sing "On Eagles Wings" it wasn't a bad gig. It's worth noting though, that there was a big difference between Catholic and Christian -- in particular, born again Christian.

In the early '80s, the born again movement was hitting its stride. It was a movement that seemed to be everywhere -- even in popular music. Born again didn't have the same connotations that it does now, although the perspective is a lot different through a sophomore's eyes. That year was when my friend Archibald Walrus* came to school.See Also:
How I burned the guys who wanted me to burn my KISS records
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Art by Chris Strouth

Makes No Sense At All captures the visions, ramblings, and memories of Chris Strouth, a Twin Cities-bred master of music, film, and everything else.

Coming of age in the '80s had a lot of complexities. Parachute pants made us look ridiculous, puberty hit right as Time magazine was running weekly stories on AIDS, and an almost manic hysteria launched regarding backwards masking with secret pro-Satan sloganeering. The record burnings for Jesus rivaled the amount of disco records smashed at anti-disco parties. Given that this is ostensibly a column about music, it only makes sense to talk about guys who burned records.

My friend Jon Hunt recently wrote a piece titled We Will Rock You: Jesus Made Me Smash My KISS Records. It details him growing up in a devout born-again Christian household and having to destroy these evil albums per the advice of the Twin Cities anti-rock crusaders the Peters Brothers (pictured above). In his story, he recounts some folks who raised a ruckus at his first encounter with the Peters. Spoiler alert: The primary raiser of said ruckus was me.

See Also:
I loved Buddy Holly too much to become a goth Justin Bieber
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Artwork by Chris Strouth

Makes No Sense At All captures the visions, ramblings, and memories of Chris Strouth, a Twin Cities-bred master of music, film, and everything else.

In countless ways, youth has bypassed baseball as our national pastime. You see evidence of this fetish everywhere -- even in otherwise "normal" people who are suddenly being stricken with Bieber Fever, Taylor Swiftitis, or what could only be described as paranoid delusions of One Direction. (The main symptom of the last one is deluding oneself that One Direction has any artistic value other than being pretty.)

Celebrity doesn't cut it anymore -- it's gotta be celebrity that is 27 and under. If you can't have youth, implied youth is almost as good a choice. Just ask Nate Ruess, the man behind the YOLO anthem "We Are Young." He just turned 31 on Tuesday. You know who else is 31? Britney Spears. Kind of mind-blowing, I know. That means Justin Bieber was four when Britney asked us to hit her "...Baby One More Time." Spoiler alert: I secretly adore her. 

See Also:
Why Muzak, as a concept at least, will never die

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A visual representation of Paul Westerberg, Muzak-style.

Makes No Sense At All captures the visions, ramblings, and memories of Chris Strouth, a Twin Cities-bred master of music, film, and everything else.

Muzak just joined the ranks of words like aspirin, brassiere, cellophane, escalator, granola, kerosene, linoleum, trampoline, yo-yo, & zipper. These were brands that became the colloquialism for the thing itself, and the word lives on well after the brand itself has gone to that great Piggly Wiggly in the sky.

As of February 5 of this year, Muzak is no more. It has now been absorbed into its newest parent company Mood (formerly Mood Media). While a lot of people have taken the time to make terribly clever headlines like "The Death of Muzak," or "The Day the Muzak Died," it really isn't dead. You can breathe a sigh of relief that next time you call your cable providor -- your half-an-hour wait can still be a jazzy, super-schmaltzy trip on the A Train.
See Also:
My Bloody Valentine's comeback, mbv, wasn't worth the loveless wait
How I lost my record store virginity at Northern Lights
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Art by Chris Strouth

Makes No Sense At All captures the visions, ramblings, and memories of Chris Strouth, a Twin Cities-bred master of music, film, and everything else.

Genius is a hard thing to live up to; once someone bestows you with its thorny crown, it's a crippling burden that can sometimes make you even more the stuff of legend.  My Bloody Valentine is that stuff of legend.

1991 was a time both namby and pamby, with New Jack swinging in one corner and Bryan Adams trying very hard to sound earnest in another. The radio had become a stagnant pool of dullsville dilapidation. What was once cutting-edge was now being played in popular discos, and the guy from Depeche Mode became the self appointed personal Jesus for a generation of aesthetic atheists. The just-burgeoning techno culture began having mainstream chart success and everything that once seemed razor-sharp seemed a little bit softer, a little bit safer. 

That is until My Bloody Valentine released Loveless.

See Also by Chris Strouth:
How I lost my record store virginity at Northern Lights
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My first purchase at Northern Lights.

Makes No Sense At All captures the visions, ramblings, and memories of Chris Strouth, a Twin Cities-bred master of music, film, and everything else.

My first record-buying experience at Northern Lights was a bit like losing my virginity. It was a little awkward, a tad messy, a whole lot of embarrassment, but overall a pretty good time.

Being from Fridley is about a continent away from cool. In the 8th grade, my only option for purchasing music at first was the Musicland at Northtown Mall, which was better than nothing and on a bus route. Still, there were only so many Police and Oingo Boingo records you could buy. By this time I knew that the Dead Kennedys and Black Flag existed, but I hadn't heard them. It's the downside of living in a vacuum; well, that and all the whirring sounds and the occasional bits of debris hitting your face.

With all of this in mind, Northern Lights, on E Block in downtown Minneapolis, was the apex of cool. It was an area of downtown that my mother forbade me to go to, so it was perfection.

See Also by Chris Strouth:
My Bloody Valentine's comeback, mbv, wasn't worth the loveless wait

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