Complicated Fun (2017)

This nicely done oral history of the Minneapolis (and St. Paul) pop / punk / hardcore / alternative music scene really brought me back. I was only on the fringes for most of the '70s, even though a few of the bands breaking out of it included people I knew and was friendly with. As I learned here, a tremendous amount happened before I finally circled back in about 1979. It sounds like such great times, with the Suicide Commandos and Flamingo ruling the Longhorn nightclub that gave birth to so much of it. The Suburbs, the Wallets, NNB, the Hypstrz, and Curtiss A were not far behind, and it's arguable all that paved the way for Husker Du and the Replacements in the '80s. Cyn Collins has done a great job of figuring out who to talk to, and then of getting them to talk. Conspicuous in his absence is Prince, who was a respected but distant figure in all this. It was probably wise. The worlds of Prince and the axis of the Longhorn, Oar Folkjokeopus record store, and Twin/Tone indie label were always separate and distinct. The scope of Prince's talent quickly put him in another class entirely, with Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, and the world. The great pleasure of this oral history, as with most oral histories, is the mix of distinctive voices. It's full of great stories of things happening by chance, things going wrong, and things you almost can't imagine. It's best on the Suicide Commandos, Suburbs, and NNB, but that might be because I knew some of them and liked those bands best. It scrubs out a lot of ugly details—petty squabbles that became long-term fractures—which again is wise. Why raise old ghosts? By the '80s that's a little tougher to do because bands had ambitions and expectations by then that didn't always bear out, and it's harder to gloss over some ill feelings that are perhaps still operative. Nothing is heard from any of the principals of Husker Du or the Replacements, who have had their own biographies and memoirs in recent years, and there aren't as many stories about them here in general. I wished for a little more there but I know it is adequately documented elsewhere. But the period of 1974 to 1979—a New York Dolls performance at the Minnesota State Fair in 1974 is given as the figurative ground zero—has certainly been underrepresented until now. Complicated Fun is detailed, informative, always fun, and fleshes out the story of Twin Cities music in key ways. Essential, certainly if you grew up there at the time.

In case it's not at the library.