Let me begin by informing the reader that the Minneapolis quartet known as Trip Shakespeare has been my favorite band for many years. Sadly, few other than a rabid crew of cult fans own their records or have ever even heard them. A few pop fans may know them as the band which previously housed Dan Wilson and John Munson, the core members of MCA artists Semisonic. Even fewer know them as the band that was created by songwriter Matt Wilson who currently has a solo record out and briefly played drums for the band Polara. Why were they such a commercial failure? Were they marketed poorly or did their failure to chart a hit on either of their major label records cause them to be dropped from A&M Records? Probably both.
When the album Lulu was released in 1991, I was already a serious fan from the group's previous album Across the Universe. I was fourteen years old and had begun writing songs for one of my first bands. I remember listening to it in its entirety while sitting in the parlor of my parents' house. It was an instant pop classic with a dense intricate sound, and represented everything I love in pop music. Their harmonies were like a beam of July sunlight hitting your dusty record crate. The guitars were chimey and messy and they tugged at my spine and broke my heart. They made me want to be a songwriter... a pop songwriter.
Hearing their classic "Jill Can Drive" for the first time gave me a rush similar to what I imagine the first lucky listeners to hear "Good Vibrations" on the radio in the late 60's must have felt. The album was a huge impact on me. I listened to it, learned songs from it and loved the band like they were my friends. I shelved it boldly and proudly in my collection with some other landmark pop records of that era like Jellyfish's "Spilt Milk" and Julian Cope's "Peggy Suicide."
As I mentioned before, I was fourteen and naive. It took me several years and various introductions into the music business to realize that all of the records that were most influential to me during these wonder years were critically acclaimed commercial disasters. I'm in my own band now with an independent record out and it still hurts me to think that bands as wonderful as Trip Shakespeare are swallowed and spit out daily by this harsh and cruel industry.
Trip Shakespeare released one more record after Lulu. It was a short E.P. of covers called Volt on Minneapolis indie Clean Records. I bought it and loved it, but it sounded tired, beaten. It sounded like a band breaking up. I hate the cynicism I've reluctantly acquired with age and experience but to have hope in the record industry, you need to see what really happens and how to overcome it. Being in a band is hard. Being in a band of brilliant writers, singers and instrumentalists is near impossible and most likely won't last.
Trip Shakespeare was too romantic for the masses. Their tales of summer heartbreak, nostalgia and joy were too real... too honest. Through the years I've listened to all their records unfold and age gracefully with new discoveries for both listener and artist. Trip Shakespeare was like a brief relationship that was too passionate and drunk with the moment to last. They left some albums and were gone. Some people still cry about it.
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