Books, Bicycling, and Beers 2023: Metronome [and...Wabasha...sort of]

6/1/2023 - Metronome Brewing in downtown St. Paul, near CHS Field.  Are you getting the impression I'm spending a little bit too much time at breweries? I am.  I think I'll be slowing this down a little and targeting something breweries further out.  It's weird to spend so much time bicycling and having a mid-ride beer that I'm deeply behind in blogging about where I went.

Rained on me on the way to Metronome.  Not too bad.  A few spots on the way had obviously barely missed me, but when I got into downtown at the bridges it drizzled on me.  Fortunately I carry dry shorts and bike jerseys dry fast.  I picked Metronome for 6/1 because they were donating part of their beer sales to the Pride celebration/activities for Pride month. I had a lot of options, but Metronome seemed optimal because Sarah Morris was playing at Mears, and I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone.

The bartender there talked bicycles with me for quite a while.  Great guy.  That's a fun brewery.  I'm reading Fordlandia about Ford's company owned rubber town in Brazil.  Crazy book.

I sent this photo to Aeryn.  They played oboe before bassoon.  They still hate it when we say that bassoons are simply big oboes.

If you get a chance to go there, seems like there's constant live music [a group was setting up while I was there] and the mosaic on their wall is amazing.  The bartender said that there had been another brewery there previously that had tile art on the wall, so they hired the same artist to come in and tile over his own work.

After Metronome, I headed over to Mears Park to see Sarah.  And have some mini corndogs, an ice cream cone, and another beer from Wabasha Brewing.  So I'm going to add them, even though I wasn't reading anything different.  But the ad hoc nature of getting a Wabasha beer from so close to their brewery during live music....I'll call it a tacit check in the box.

Sarah's funny.  She was wandering around the park during the previous act eating a big salad out of a tupperware bowl, moving from place to place.  I believe she's setting up merch here.  Her mom or grandmother was her official merch rep for the event.

I had a great spot, but when I went to get a beer a woman and her boyfriend sat down AND MOVED MY HELMET TO TAKE MY SPOT.  Asshats. I sat nearby, but my other spot was better/shadier.  The boyfriend kept hitting his elbow on my bicycle that was leaning against the rock.  He'd glower at me, but I'm absolutely certain if you steal a cyclists spot while s/he's getting a beer, you deserve to be hoisted on your own petard.

Great music.  Great venue.  HUGE turnout.  The park was packed.

Sarah and the Whiskey Glasses

Sarah Morris has an album launch coming up and unfortunately we are not going to be around.  So I figured if I wasn't buying tickets, I could support her by purchasing a few albums and the handmade whiskey glasses from her launch.

What I didn't expect was that she'd bring them to the house herself.  I panicked for a moment because I heard a small person knock at the door and, at the time, I was picking on the cat - Pollo - because she wouldn't stop whining about wanting to go outside.  So there was an eight hour video of angry YouTube cat sounds playing.  To be fair, Pollo didn't care at all.  All she cared about was that I'd locked her inside.

I should have taken a photo of the Du Nord whiskey with the glasses - that's what's in the one on the right.  Local booze in local glassware for the album launch of a local artist.

Here's one with the custom coaster visible.

Sarah at the Aster

Doh, gotta put the BR at the end.  I can cheat and use /sizes/z by default.  And the height/width has to be on the IMG not the A HREF because duh, links got no sizes, but images do.  Sigh.  Iteration on the code.  Go figure.

I found out almost last minute that Sarah Morris was going to be part of a Women's History Month lineup at the Aster.  I was dubious I'd get a table.  I knew I'd be leaving my wife behind as she already had a conflict.  But I rolled the dice and scored a table for two.  So my kid went with me.  Weirdly, despite all the Sarah events I've been to, Aeryn's never seen her live.  I really should have made it happen at Hell's Kitchen over breakfast, as that's a favorite venue of hers.  Hers as in Sarah.  Although it's a favorite venue of Aeryn as well.  Amusingly, Aeryn had no problem picking her out.  She's basically half the size of Aeryn.  At one point someone else singing noted that Sarah is the shortest, but has the tallest personality.

If you like local music, I suggest checking out the folks on this list.  The whole event was great.  They all did one cover and one original.  Almost more guitars in the audience than humans [I joke, the place was PACKED, but ten guitars / pianos / coulda-been-a-harp too take up a lot of space].

That's Katy Tessman and her son. I believe she did a lot to coordinate this thing.  Gave up performing for a while, but now her son is old enough to perform with her so she's back on the circuit.  Nikki Lemire closed it out and she does piano and harp locally.  Hell of a performance.

Sarah Morris

Last Friday Jen and I went to see Sarah Morris at the 318 Cafe in Excelsior.  We've been to see Sarah a bunch of times.  At the State Fair Heritage stage.  At the State Fair by the BOB FM stage [sooooo brutally hot, particularly after a bike ride up there from Eagan].  At the Aster this last Christmas.  I'm sure I'm missing one or two.  Yeah....definitely.  Because I remember working on my bicycle under the entryway to the house while streaming her concert during the deepest Covid.  Ah...and at the Hook and Ladder for the Christmas concert with the Sometimes Elves - can't forget that one; it was wonderful and there's a poster of her on the boardgame shelf in the dining room.  And we backed her Kickstarter back in 2016 and Patreon her musical lifestyle.  Well....I think my wife would say I backed her even though it's our family Kickstarter account, because she didn't know who Sarah was until I hauled her to stage at the Fair.

You can catch her music over on her Youtube channel.  I recommend checking out some of her "Toilet Tunes" as well as her official videos.  That's the series she started while on Covid lockdown.  Lots of local artists.  By the book, country [she was on the BOB stage after all].  Realistically...a bit more folk, and lounge and variety than just country.  You'll find some toilet tunes that channels Janis Joplin and more. If you go into a show thinking she'll just be country and that means you'll be disappointed, you'll find yourself pleasantly surprised.  My sister in law seemed to be.  She lives in that area so we invited her and her husband to join us.  My brother in law was busy, but she showed up and seemed to have a really good time.  Smart lyrics.  Transcendent voice.  And she really is that small.

The 318 Cafe was a double gig.  She was there with Becky Schlegel. For a while they were doing songs about states that were warmer than Minnesota [it was the night it was like -16F by the time we got out], but transitioned into warm places they'd written songs and some warm thoughts about songs Becky had written on request for anniversaries and birthdays.  Pretty cool to have your own song.

I did enjoy that the library behind them lit up a little while into the show as a pair of janitors started evening cleaning.  It was like one of the coffee shop screensavers my wife plays on Youtube while reading.  A couple of guys coming and going from shelves of books as they dusted and vacuumed, all set to music.

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