Dead at the Fair

My profile of heavy metal impresario Earl Root, "I Wanna F*&% All Night and F*&%  Every Day," (kudos to Maerz on the headline) runs in this week's City Pages. For those too lazy to read the story, here's the quick nut on Root. He's hosted the "Root of All Evil" metal show from 1 to 6 a.m. Sunday mornings on KFAI for sixteen-plus years now. He's also the owner of Root Cellar Records, in St. Paul, and the Root of All Evil record label. This Sunday, First Avenue will be hosting the "Six, Six, Sixteenth Anniversary Party," featuring 18 different metal bands, including Root's own outfits God-Awful and Aesma Daeva.

Here's one Root anecdote that I couldn't manage to fit into the piece.

Every year, while the Minnesota State Fair is underway, Root and his chief cohort, engineer Tim Honebrink, broadcast their special "Dead at the Fair" shows. Honebrink goes out to the fairgrounds and tapes some audio: screaming kids, barking corndog vendors, merry-go-round music, etc. They then use that as a sonic backdrop for the show and pretend to be broadcasting from the actual event--just like Paul Magers, Jason Nagel and all the other media bigwigs. Root and Honebrink further entice listeners by insisting that they're surrounded by hot, naked chicks and are giving away bags of money.

During a "Dead at the Fair" broadcast some years back, Root got a call from the Roseville Police Department. They'd picked up a couple of teenagers inside the fairgrounds who claimed to be searching for the Root of All Evil booth. "They jumped the fence and were wandering around the fair trying to find us," Root laughs. 

He's not certain what the Roseville police decided to do with the trespassing, mentally-challenged metalheads. "I think they let 'em go. I hope they let 'em go."