a brief morning story

It was about a year ago that my friends and I headed from Minot, ND to the cities. It was winter then and you know how the snow gets. Piles of it. That's most of what I remember, down on Lake street jumping in and out of snow. To and from the car. So our vinyl junkie kicked in and we ended up at Treehouse Records.

It's a great place, if you haven't been.

Well, we're just kids. From a small town. We were looking at Elvis pressings when we heard an argument from the front of the store. A clerk and two older men, embroiled in debate. The subject:

Green Day

The clerk seemed only to be playing moderator in a lax fashion. Interjecting, "Whoahs!" and "Ooo.K.s!" when appropriate. The man in front of the counter on the left towered over his arguing counterpart while the clerk looked on. The man on the right was of slight build with a scraggled home-bum look. There were years behind those features, which was what initially drew us into the conversation - although - it IS a small place and they WERE very loud.

The man on the left: "They were in WINNIPEG. I was up there recording - they put one of MY songs on their first album and couldn't say, 'Hi?'"

"Doesn't mean they're SELLOUTS!"

"Whoah!"

Then, that age old chicken-and-egg question regarding sellout or not reared its ugly twin heads and it all got a bit crazy. We didn't realize they were talking about Green Day until a little bit after that first part, so you can imagine our situation. Crazy! Minneapolis: where the older cats are also the wiser cats.

You could imagine the rest: we watched. It ended. We went our way with some choice Bob Wills 45's...only...that...DIDN'T happen...

Instead, the tiny scraggle-faced home bum got exasperated.

"I'm GOING! I've got to catch my BUS!"

The taller man:

"You get that bus. It'll take you farther than GREEN DAY will!"

We roared in the back. The taller man said his goodbyes to the unexcited clerk. I went to the counter...confused about what had happened, here, in the CITY.

"What was that all about?"

"Oh, well - it happens all the time."

"Who WAS that? Some crazies, right? I mean - he said Green Day played one of his songs..."

"Oh," he laughed a bit now, "that was Grant Hart from..."

"Husker Du!" we cried!

Of course - Minneapolis!

Well...we'd only been a minute at the counter. I left my finds at the counter and three of us ran out into the snow. There he was...

Grant Hart!

We talked for a minute with the legend. Told him I book concerts from time to time in Minot. "That's on the Empire Builder!" Why, yes, Mr. Hart. It is.

He said we should make this happen and gave us each a copy of Good News for Modern Man...