Trip Shakespeare
Encyclopedia
Trip Shakespeare was a Minneapolis
-based alternative rock
band of the late 1980s/early 1990s
.
English student Matt Wilson
(guitar
/vocals
) teamed up with Elaine Harris (drums
), a Harvard grad student in biological anthropology, in the early 1980s. Harris had responded to a notice posted by Wilson seeking "wicked percussion hands."
In 1985, after a year of performing together in an experimental, percussion-heavy quartet called the Cratchett
Family, Wilson convinced Harris to relocate to Minneapolis, Wilson's hometown, where they joined up with bass
player John Munson
, a Chinese language
major at the University of Minnesota
.
Wilson and Munson had played together in an earlier band (E Brown), and Wilson had not been impressed by his bass playing, so he didn't want Munson to audition for the new band. "But he came over anyway and played, and he'd improved a lot," Wilson later recalled. "We ended up begging him to just give it a try and stay around."
Matt Wilson originally proposed that the band be named Kirk Shakespeare, after two of his heroes: James T. Kirk
and William Shakespeare
. "I think maybe John and Elaine didn't want to be in a band named after Matt's two heroes, so they changed Kirk to Trip," explained Dan Wilson
, Matt's older brother, who joined the band later.
Another was "Beatle," which foretold both the band's preoccupation with the British Invasion band
, as well as Matt Wilson's morbid streak: "Let me crawl into your brain.... May I walk behind your eyes/Where your blood lies cold and white?" One of the album's songs, a murder ballad
titled "Pearle," would later be re-recorded for the band's major label debut.
Shortly after Applehead Man came out, Matt's brother Dan joined the band. Like Matt and Elaine, Dan attended Harvard; unlike Matt, Dan left with a degree, in art. Dan brought another guitar to the band, as well as keyboards, and increasingly played a role in the band's songwriting.
in 1988. Recorded live in the studio without headsets, the album featured "Toolmaster of Brainerd," a song that "insanely links dairyland folklore with the enduring rock myth of guitar-hero supremacy." Hailing from "Brainerd
where the children go to milking school," the Toolmaster
"Toolmaster," according to Minneapolis City Pages," "perfectly captured the tension between Minneapolis ambition and outstate resignation that pretty much informs life in the Land of 10,000 Lakes."
Other notable songs on the album include "Reception," about a man attending the wedding of the woman he loves, and "The Lake," about a Northern pike
who witnesses the disintegration of a relationship.
. The label "really gave us a chance," Matt Wilson later said:
The band's first release on A&M was Across the Universe, released in 1990. The title's echo of a particularly trippy Beatles song
is not coincidental; as Matt Wilson later explained:
TrouserPress.com called Across the Universe a "too-rare example of an indie act benefiting musically from major-label treatment"--citing an "increased rock edge that doesn't detract from the gentle charm" of tracks like "Snow Days," "Gone, Gone, Gone" and "The Crane"--the latter being the closest thing the album had to a hit.
The band members were less satisfied with the results. "We did not succeed on Across the Universe, " Matt Wilson later said. "There was kind of a compromise between what the label wanted on there and what the band wanted." If anyone was satisfied by that compromise, it wasn't the record-buying public; Across the Universe sold a disappointing 33,000 copies.
The band succeeded, at least in the eyes of some critics—AllMusic.com called it a "melodically complex and romantic pop masterpiece," and "an album so steeped in worshipping beauty that no amount of criticism--positive or negative-—can mangle or tarnish its crystalline brilliance." But Lulu was another disappointment in terms of sales, moving an anemic 60,000 copies.
Trip Shakespeare's commercial failure has been attributed to the band's poor timing: "1991 was the great embrasure of the grunge
movement when Nirvana
's Nevermind
set the decade-long trend for the popular music charts," wrote AllMusic.com. "The release of a melodically complex and romantic pop masterpiece with lush vocals was entertained by neither the critics nor the masses."
Or as Wayne Isaak, the head of A&M's New York office, put it, "Trip Shakespeare is too pop to catch on as an
alternative band; the alternative scene is very cliquish."
," Matt Wilson said. "So, like
everybody around that time, politics and revolution and all the social questions about war and peace and 'What is our role now?' were on our minds. So that affected the song choice quite a bit."
Those songs were hardly the classic-rock crowd-pleasers the label may have expected; they included Big Star's "Ballad of El Goodo", Thunderclap Newman
's
"Something in the Air
", and Hüsker Dü
's "Dead Set on Destruction", along with Neil Young
's "Helpless
",
Nick Lowe
's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding
", and The Zombies
'
"Time of the Season
".
After the songs had been "Trip Shakespearized," A&M played it for their promotions department, whose response was, "What do we do with this?" according to Munson. The label then dropped the band; the covers album was released by Twin/Tone as Volt in 1992.
, which later found the commercial success that had eluded Trip Shakespeare under the name Semisonic
and nominated for the Grammy Award
for Best Rock Song in 1999 for writing the hit "Closing Time
."
Dan Wilson went on to co-write a number of songs with the Dixie Chicks
' for their 2006 album Taking the Long Way
, including "Not Ready to Make Nice
," for which he won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year along with the Dixie Chicks.
Dan Wilson has produced two albums for Mike Doughty
: Haughty Melodic from 2005 and Golden Delicious released in 2008. Dan Wilson's own solo CD, Free Life, was released on October 16, 2007, the eponymous title track of that album being featured in a number of American television programs.
The Wilson brothers and Munson continue to play together in various projects. Munson and Matt Wilson performed as The Flops
, later renamed The Twilight Hours
; Matt Wilson contributed some vocals and synthesizer work to Semisonic's All About Chemistry album; Matt Wilson joined Semisonic on December 12 and 13, 2003 to play a set of Trip Shakespeare favorites for sold-out crowds at First Avenue in Minneapolis. Elaine Harris has not been involved in any of these post-Trip Shakespeare events.
Near the end of the band's run, Matt Wilson said that the band's goal was "to be a part of that one or two nights that everybody has in their life when the music is ridiculously good and the people around you are laughing their heads off and losing their minds.... We don't get it every night because you can't carry that kind of ecstasy around with you in a bucket. All we do is try to find that delirious point."
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
-based alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band of the late 1980s/early 1990s
1990s in music
For music from a year in the 1990s, go to 90 | 91 | 92 | 93 | 94 | 95 | 96 | 97 | 98 | 99This article includes trends in popular music in the 1990s....
.
Origins
The band originated when Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
English student Matt Wilson
Matt Wilson (musician)
Matt Wilson is a singer/songwriter who is best known as the not overly serious lead of the band Trip Shakespeare. While Matt was an English concentrator at Harvard he met John Munson and Elaine Harris and formed the band Trip Shakespeare. After the breakup he was a drummer for a Minneapolis band...
(guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
/vocals
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
) teamed up with Elaine Harris (drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
), a Harvard grad student in biological anthropology, in the early 1980s. Harris had responded to a notice posted by Wilson seeking "wicked percussion hands."
In 1985, after a year of performing together in an experimental, percussion-heavy quartet called the Cratchett
Family, Wilson convinced Harris to relocate to Minneapolis, Wilson's hometown, where they joined up with bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
player John Munson
John Munson
John Munson is a Minneapolis musician who is best known as the bass player for Semisonic. He was also a member of Trip Shakespeare during the late 1980s and early 1990s.-Trip Shakespeare:...
, a Chinese language
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
major at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
.
Wilson and Munson had played together in an earlier band (E Brown), and Wilson had not been impressed by his bass playing, so he didn't want Munson to audition for the new band. "But he came over anyway and played, and he'd improved a lot," Wilson later recalled. "We ended up begging him to just give it a try and stay around."
Matt Wilson originally proposed that the band be named Kirk Shakespeare, after two of his heroes: James T. Kirk
James T. Kirk
James Tiberius "Jim" Kirk is a character in the Star Trek media franchise. Kirk was first played by William Shatner as the principal lead character in the original Star Trek series. Shatner voiced Kirk in the animated Star Trek series and appeared in the first seven Star Trek movies...
and William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
. "I think maybe John and Elaine didn't want to be in a band named after Matt's two heroes, so they changed Kirk to Trip," explained Dan Wilson
Dan Wilson (musician)
Daniel Dodd "Dan" Wilson is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, Grammy-winning songwriter and producer...
, Matt's older brother, who joined the band later.
Applehead Man
In 1986, the trio self-released their debut album. "The first album, Applehead Man, we just put all the songs we knew on there," Matt Wilson later said. One of these was the title track, which described a head being carved from "the brightest fruit...furthest from the road on the apple farm."Another was "Beatle," which foretold both the band's preoccupation with the British Invasion band
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, as well as Matt Wilson's morbid streak: "Let me crawl into your brain.... May I walk behind your eyes/Where your blood lies cold and white?" One of the album's songs, a murder ballad
Murder ballad
Murder ballads are a sub-genre of the traditional ballad form, the lyrics of which form a narrative describing the events of a murder, often including the lead-up and/or aftermath...
titled "Pearle," would later be re-recorded for the band's major label debut.
Shortly after Applehead Man came out, Matt's brother Dan joined the band. Like Matt and Elaine, Dan attended Harvard; unlike Matt, Dan left with a degree, in art. Dan brought another guitar to the band, as well as keyboards, and increasingly played a role in the band's songwriting.
Tracklist
- Fangs
- Rose
- Stop the Winter
- Necklace
- Applehead Man
- Washington Bridge
- Pearle
- Fireball
- Highway in the Sun
- Beatle
Are You Shakespearienced?
With its lineup complete, the band released a follow-up album, Are You Shakespearienced?, on the Minneapolis-based independent label Twin/Tone RecordsTwin/Tone Records
Twin/Tone Records was a record label based in Minneapolis, Minnesota that operated from 1977 until 1994 and helped several local groups receive national attention. The label was born from the Minneapolis punk rock music scene, which included venues like Jay's Longhorn Bar. The label was begun by...
in 1988. Recorded live in the studio without headsets, the album featured "Toolmaster of Brainerd," a song that "insanely links dairyland folklore with the enduring rock myth of guitar-hero supremacy." Hailing from "Brainerd
Brainerd, Minnesota
Brainerd is a city in Crow Wing County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 13,590 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Crow Wing County and one of the largest cities in Central Minnesota...
where the children go to milking school," the Toolmaster
- learned to play the GibsonGibson Guitar CorporationThe Gibson Guitar Corporation, formerly of Kalamazoo, Michigan and currently of Nashville, Tennessee, manufactures guitars and other instruments which sell under a variety of brand names...
that his dog had found - And he came to haunt the bars of Minneapolis town.
"Toolmaster," according to Minneapolis City Pages," "perfectly captured the tension between Minneapolis ambition and outstate resignation that pretty much informs life in the Land of 10,000 Lakes."
Other notable songs on the album include "Reception," about a man attending the wedding of the woman he loves, and "The Lake," about a Northern pike
Northern Pike
The northern pike , is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus Esox...
who witnesses the disintegration of a relationship.
Across the Universe
The next year they signed with A&M RecordsA&M Records
A&M Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that operates under the mantle of its Interscope-Geffen-A&M division.-Beginnings:...
. The label "really gave us a chance," Matt Wilson later said:
- They spent a lot of money on us making the records. A lot of people at the label genuinely seemed to love the band. The president of the label showed up at our gigs and got all psyched up and said this was not a vanity project on the part of the label. They really thought that we could sell some records. They really thought they could mass market Trip Shakespeare.
The band's first release on A&M was Across the Universe, released in 1990. The title's echo of a particularly trippy Beatles song
Across the Universe
"Across the Universe" is a song by the English group The Beatles. It was written by John Lennon, and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song first appeared on the various artists charity compilation album No One's Gonna Change Our World in December 1969, and later, in different form, on Let It Be,...
is not coincidental; as Matt Wilson later explained:
- There's a part of us that's plainly trying to make epic, gorgeous music that can be admired on at least a couple of levels. And there's another part of us that's embarrassed about that, because there are people who will say: "Rock 'n' roll is supposed to be simple, three-chord stuff like Keith RichardsKeith RichardsKeith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
plays." But when you get right down to it, I guess we find ourselves more in the Beatles' school than in the Rolling StonesThe Rolling StonesThe Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
'.
TrouserPress.com called Across the Universe a "too-rare example of an indie act benefiting musically from major-label treatment"--citing an "increased rock edge that doesn't detract from the gentle charm" of tracks like "Snow Days," "Gone, Gone, Gone" and "The Crane"--the latter being the closest thing the album had to a hit.
The band members were less satisfied with the results. "We did not succeed on Across the Universe, " Matt Wilson later said. "There was kind of a compromise between what the label wanted on there and what the band wanted." If anyone was satisfied by that compromise, it wasn't the record-buying public; Across the Universe sold a disappointing 33,000 copies.
Lulu
Trip Shakespeare's next—and, as it turned out, last—major release was 1991's Lulu. Upon its release, Matt Wilson declared: "On Lulu, we finally got it right. We got the order of songs down, and spent a lot of time honing it and making it an emotional journey. We wanted the listener to be completely moved and left breathless by the music." In another interview, he called it "the first record where we actually had our heads together well enough--and a had a sense of who we were, enough--to try to control it."The band succeeded, at least in the eyes of some critics—AllMusic.com called it a "melodically complex and romantic pop masterpiece," and "an album so steeped in worshipping beauty that no amount of criticism--positive or negative-—can mangle or tarnish its crystalline brilliance." But Lulu was another disappointment in terms of sales, moving an anemic 60,000 copies.
Trip Shakespeare's commercial failure has been attributed to the band's poor timing: "1991 was the great embrasure of the grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
movement when Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
's Nevermind
Nevermind
Nevermind is the second studio album by the American rock band Nirvana, released on September 24, 1991. Produced by Butch Vig, Nevermind was the group's first release on DGC Records...
set the decade-long trend for the popular music charts," wrote AllMusic.com. "The release of a melodically complex and romantic pop masterpiece with lush vocals was entertained by neither the critics nor the masses."
Or as Wayne Isaak, the head of A&M's New York office, put it, "Trip Shakespeare is too pop to catch on as an
alternative band; the alternative scene is very cliquish."
Volt
Even after two disappointing outings, A&M was willing to give Trip Shakespeare another chance, showing some excitement about the band's idea of an album of covers. "We made the record right after the L.A. riots1992 Los Angeles riots
The 1992 Los Angeles Riots or South Central Riots, also known as the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest were sparked on April 29, 1992, when a jury acquitted three white and one hispanic Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King following a...
," Matt Wilson said. "So, like
everybody around that time, politics and revolution and all the social questions about war and peace and 'What is our role now?' were on our minds. So that affected the song choice quite a bit."
Those songs were hardly the classic-rock crowd-pleasers the label may have expected; they included Big Star's "Ballad of El Goodo", Thunderclap Newman
Thunderclap Newman
Thunderclap Newman were a British one-hit wonder band that Pete Townshend of The Who and Kit Lambert had formed circa December 1968 - January 1969 in a bid to showcase the talents of John "Speedy" Keen, Andy "Thunderclap" Newman and Jimmy McCulloch....
's
"Something in the Air
Something In The Air (song)
"Something in the Air" is a song recorded by Thunderclap Newman, a band created by Pete Townshend for The Who's former roadie John 'Speedy' Keen who wrote and sang the song, from their only album Hollywood Dream. It was a UK #1 single for three weeks in July 1969...
", and Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü was an American rock band formed in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1979. The band's continual members were guitarist Bob Mould, bassist Greg Norton, and drummer Grant Hart....
's "Dead Set on Destruction", along with Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
's "Helpless
Helpless (song)
"Helpless" is a song written by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young, most famously recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young on their 1970 album Déjà Vu....
",
Nick Lowe
Nick Lowe
Nicholas Drain "Nick" Lowe , is an English singer-songwriter, musician and producer.A pivotal figure in UK pub rock, punk rock and new wave, Lowe has recorded a string of well-reviewed solo albums. Along with vocals, Lowe plays guitar, bass guitar, piano and harmonica...
's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding
(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding
" Peace, Love, and Understanding" is a 1970s song written by English musician Nick Lowe and recorded in the best-known version by Elvis Costello....
", and The Zombies
The Zombies
The Zombies are an English rock band, formed in 1961 in St Albans and led by Rod Argent, on piano and keyboards, and vocalist Colin Blunstone. The group scored a UK and US hit in 1964 with "She's Not There"...
'
"Time of the Season
Time of the Season
"Time of the Season" is a song by The Zombies, featured on their 1968 album Odessey and Oracle. It was written by keyboard player Rod Argent and recorded at Abbey Road Studios in August 1967.-Song information:...
".
After the songs had been "Trip Shakespearized," A&M played it for their promotions department, whose response was, "What do we do with this?" according to Munson. The label then dropped the band; the covers album was released by Twin/Tone as Volt in 1992.
Breakup
Without a record contract, the band members drifted to other projects; Matt Wilson pursued a solo career, while Harris played with a band called Buddha Bunny. Dan Wilson and Munson formed a trio called Pleasure with Jacob SlichterJacob Slichter
Jacob Slichter is an American musician. He graduated from Harvard with a degree in African American studies and history...
, which later found the commercial success that had eluded Trip Shakespeare under the name Semisonic
Semisonic
Semisonic is an American alternative rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1995. The band consisted of three members: Dan Wilson , John Munson , and Jacob Slichter...
and nominated for the Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Best Rock Song in 1999 for writing the hit "Closing Time
Closing Time (Semisonic song)
"Closing Time" is the title of a song by American alternative rock band Semisonic. It was released in March 1998 as the lead single from their album Feeling Strangely Fine. One of the band's most popular songs, it was written by Dan Wilson and produced by Nick Launay. The song was nominated for the...
."
Dan Wilson went on to co-write a number of songs with the Dixie Chicks
Dixie Chicks
The Dixie Chicks are an American country band which has also successfully crossed over into other genres. The band is composed of founding members Martie Erwin Maguire and Emily Erwin Robison, and lead singer Natalie Maines...
' for their 2006 album Taking the Long Way
Taking the Long Way
-Public reception:On May 31, 2006, the album took three number one spots on the charts of Billboard magazine. It was number one on the Hot Country Albums, Top Digital Albums, and on the Billboard 200 chart, going Gold in its first week with 526,000 units sold....
, including "Not Ready to Make Nice
Not Ready to Make Nice
"Not Ready to Make Nice" is a country pop song co-written and performed by the American all-female band Dixie Chicks for their seventh studio album Taking the Long Way...
," for which he won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year along with the Dixie Chicks.
Dan Wilson has produced two albums for Mike Doughty
Mike Doughty
Mike Doughty is an American indie and alternative rock singer-songwriter. He led the band Soul Coughing in the 1990s, and in the 2000s, became a solo artist...
: Haughty Melodic from 2005 and Golden Delicious released in 2008. Dan Wilson's own solo CD, Free Life, was released on October 16, 2007, the eponymous title track of that album being featured in a number of American television programs.
The Wilson brothers and Munson continue to play together in various projects. Munson and Matt Wilson performed as The Flops
The Flops
The Flops were a collaboration of John Munson and Matt Wilson .They played several shows between 2001 and 2005. They covered material from the Trip Shakespeare days, Matt's solo efforts and some new tunes as well...
, later renamed The Twilight Hours
The Twilight Hours
The Twilight Hours were formed by Matt Wilson and John Munson .-Background:...
; Matt Wilson contributed some vocals and synthesizer work to Semisonic's All About Chemistry album; Matt Wilson joined Semisonic on December 12 and 13, 2003 to play a set of Trip Shakespeare favorites for sold-out crowds at First Avenue in Minneapolis. Elaine Harris has not been involved in any of these post-Trip Shakespeare events.
Near the end of the band's run, Matt Wilson said that the band's goal was "to be a part of that one or two nights that everybody has in their life when the music is ridiculously good and the people around you are laughing their heads off and losing their minds.... We don't get it every night because you can't carry that kind of ecstasy around with you in a bucket. All we do is try to find that delirious point."
Albums
- Applehead Man - 1986 - Self-Release (Re-released in 1988 by Clean/Twin Tone)
- Are You Shakespearienced? - 1989 - Clean/Twin Tone
- Across the UniverseAcross the Universe (album)Across The Universe is an album released by Trip Shakespeare in 1990. It was the band's first release on A&M Records, the major label that they had signed with earlier in the year.- Title :...
- 1990 - A&M - Lulu - 1991 - A&M
- Volt (EP) - 1992 - Clean/Twin Tone
External links
- Minnesota Music Encyclopedia entry on Trip Shakespeare
- Homepage and live archive of Trip Shakespeare
- Information on and "custom burned" copies of their out of print Twin/Tone CDs
- Trip Shakespeare's Dan Wilson on creativity and the creative process, an interview with about-creativity.com November 1, 2007