So It Goes has gotten audiences dancing to their brand of new-punk-wave dance rock from Minneapolis all the way out to New York for the past 5 years. On Friday, December 4th at The Fineline, they will be playing their final show. I sat down with the band before one of their final rehearsals and they told me stories of past shows, influences, and even a local band who they originally wanted to beat the shit out of! But before you alert the local tabloids, these two bands are actually the best of friends. Read on.

Mike: Tell me about the origins of So It Goes and bringing the band together towards the current lineup.

Adam: The origin of So It Goes dates back to circa 2003/2004 when Travis and I got together. We were writing songs separately, I dunno, I think I invited him over to my place and said “Hey, let’s just bang out some songs together.” We did that for a while. We didn’t have a bassist, we didn’t know anybody, we didn’t even know how to play our instruments. (background laughter) It was basically just a good time, then we realized we were writing some really good songs. So we decided, we should try to form a band. And we found a guitarist, his name was Mike Karpen, converted him to a bassist… and then, we auditioned some drummers, and, it wasn’t going very well, we were getting very frustrated. This is about now 3 or 4 months into Travis and I getting together. One day I was sitting with Mike Karpen at Rapid Park where Travis and Mike worked together and I said, “Mike, gimme that fucking City Pages over there.” Because we vowed never to look at the City Pages—no offense to City Pages (background laughter)—for musicians, because it says “Musicians available” and always for drummer, it’s like: “Drummer for hire, will travel, influences: Charlie Daniels Band, and Metallica…” and then you call them and it turns out they’re 53 years old. Well in this case, I just happened to open up and I looked and it said: “Drummer. Influences: Strokes, Libertines,” I think it said, The Vines, right? …And I dialed Micah, and he wasn’t there.

Micah: I was screening all the calls, because I would get all of those bands, “Hey yeah we’re up in the suburbs, we wanna jam!”

Adam (laughing): Did you read my influences?

Micah: Yeah, exactly. So, Adam was actually the only person that I called back, and the only band that I auditioned for was So It Goes out of 20, 30 phone calls. And, Adam, over the phone, I didn’t actually picture Adam anything like he sounded. I pictured this skinny, short… (band laughter breaks out) I pictured like this like nerdy, indie rocker with like Buddy Holly glasses and some complicated haircut. But I was really impressed with his vision for the band and I was looking for a band that was gonna go somewhere and do something. And that was evident… (band playfully banters) …it was all Adam. Showed up for practice and the rest was history.

Mike: What are your guys’ inspiration and influences for your music and stage show? Basically, tell me about the “image” you project that makes So It Goes stand out.

Travis: My biggest influence is, I’d say, when we started the band, would have been when I heard Is This It? by The Strokes, it really floored me. And also at the same time I was listening to The Velvet Underground and a couple other bands. And that just immediately made me start writing, and I hadn’t done any original music in about 2 or 3 years since I had graduated art school. That’s how Adam and I really got together, is I told Adam that I was writing, and Adam was in a few bands back a few years prior to that as well, but we had never played together. So, once I told him that and I gave him the songs I was writing, it was a perfect fit. Adam and I have always listened to similar music, and a lot of the music—since I’m his younger brother—I got from him even back in the day and through the years. And then we kinda divided and went our own ways with music and then kinda came together with some of these new bands that came out in the early 2000s. Since then, or during our process with Adam and I, we got back into our influences that we listened to when we were growing up too. So, The Cure, Prince… getting into the 80′s music, for me, I’ve always loved vocalists who have great melodies that really flow really well as well as the lyrics. So David Bowie and Morrissey are two really big influences for me. And of course, I don’t wanna trump The Clash, but that’s definitely one of our big influences.

[audio=http://borangutan.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/03-Everyones-An-Addict.mp3,"Everyone's An Addict" by So It Goes,]

Micah: It’s funny that Travis mentions Is This It? because that’s the same thing for me, I heard that when I was in college and I was overseas for a study-abroad thing. And after I heard that album I was coming off like a Radiohead binge and I was like “Oh my God, thank you, I’m not gonna slit my wrists anymore!” (band laughter) So, at that time too, I had stopped playing drums for about 4 years I think, cause I was in a band from like junior high to mid-high school, and then stopped, and actually sold my drum set. The first thing I did when I got back home was I bought another drum set and I tried to get into a band. And I started listening to stuff that was similar to The Strokes and that brought me into a whole new realm of indie music which turned into my main influences.

Adam: It’s kind of a perfect storm at that time, because prior to Is This It?, which was really a watershed moment I think for music, much like Nirvana’s Nevermind was… it was all in a backlash to all the complicated music and more orchestrated music that preceded it at that time. So Is This It? came out, and then bands like The Vines and The Libertines, and we’re talking everything’s stripped-down, very analog-sounding, 3 [or] 4 chords, not complicated at all. In fact, the less complicated it was, the better. Which is what I’ve always liked, I think Travis has always liked. I mean, we appreciate singer-songwriters that write good melodies and just have great songs that don’t try to overwhelm people with how incredible musicians they individually are. In my opinion, the more complicated a song is, generally, the worse it is. Just as a general rule for me. And so bands like The Clash, The Cure, Depeche Mode, New Order; we are talking very simplistic songs with great bass lines, great beats, great melodies, fantastic lyrics that really move people. And so I think, the three of us [Adam, Travis, & Micah] when we got together, we were all really working on the same wavelength and inspired by The Strokes, The Libertines. So it was kind of a perfect marriage/perfect storm really. I think we were all kind of at a certain place in time where the three of us got together, and even though we come from different backgrounds—and even though Travis and I are brothers, and we were separated by several years, and Micah and I are separated by several years—we were all interested in doing the same thing, at the same time, which was brilliant.

Lee: Well I was the last one to join, and I had actually heard these guys right as I was… it was kind of a strange phase in my life, because I was discovering the 80′s much later than most people did, because I grew up in a very sheltered, middle-of-nowhere environment [half-joking]. So I was getting into Devo and starting to learn about The Clash and bands like that. I was super-heavy into Devo, and the first time I saw So It Goes they didn’t have a keyboard player, but I remember Adam haphazardly playing guitar and keys at random. And a lot of the really simple, fun synth melodies I heard reminded me a lot of the stuff I really liked about Devo. So that drew me to them instantly and I saw them several times long before we ever connected as me being a part of the group itself, but I think my musical knowledge has expanded vastly because of these guys. I’ve definitely grown to love a lot of things from 80′s to current, and beyond.

Brian: Yeah, I dunno that my influences have ever really made it into the group. (band laughs) I’ve never really been a fan of The Clash… (band continues to banter) I’ve always been kind of heavily influenced by dance music. The Strokes, I remember a friend of mine gave me a copy of Is This It? before it came out and I was working for a music distributor for the time, and I listened to it and I’m just like “Wow, these guys blow.” (background laugh) At the same time though, I was really into like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the time, so that’s why that whole recommendation kind of makes sense. But I kind of come from a history of playing in three-piece bands where bass was a very vital instrument. One of my first bands, three pieces, it was just kind of 90′s sludge rock in a way, but the guitar player would make fun of me because I would always play faster than he did. Not that it was about speed, but just I’d play these melodic lines. And after that I played with an experimental group where it was just keyboards, drums, and bass. There was no guitar, so I’d have to cover a lot of that. So then, coming into a band like this, where I’ve got my dance influences and then being able to push the bass out front and have the confidence to kind of lead a song, it just kind of fit when I came in.

Adam: I wanna say something about Brian, because when we lost [former bassist] Mike, a lot of our songs, most of our songs are primarily written on bass, and the bass is the fundamental instrument in the song. I mean, it has very melodic, driving parts and it really is the lead. So when we lost Mike and we were thinking about bassists who could play for us… we were scratching our heads and thinking, “Who could actually do what we need our bassist to do?” And thank god that Brian saw us and responded to an ad, because we were really at our wit’s end. I mean, we didn’t know what we were going to do. And we had auditioned a few bassists… so anyway Brian answers our S.O.S. basically and he shows up, and again it was a perfect marriage. Because this guy’s got the skills, but he also has the “it” factor, which is what we’re looking for. If someone’s gonna play bass in our band [they] have to have “it”, they have to have the dance-rock sensibilities, which is a large part of our music. We are what I call a “new-punk-wave dance rock” band. (background laughter) I don’t know if that makes any sense to anybody other than me, but I mean, we are four-on-the-floor, dance-rock, heavy. And Brian has that, so thankfully he came into our lives.

Travis: For those who haven’t seen a So It Goes show, we pride ourselves on having a real high-energy show and wanna move around a lot. And Adam at the time, you know, he did not have to play keys, but to have a bassist who can move is really really important. And we got this article, I don’t know if it was after you [Brian] had joined or before, but in this previous band Brian was written up at The Uptown Bar for jumping off of the wall. For essentially doing like a Gene Kelly walk-up of a wall. And I can’t remember if it was before or after you had joined the band, but it was like “Alright, that’s the showmanship we’re looking for in a bassist.” So right away, with his style as well as his on-stage performance we knew we were going to kick ass with this guy.

Brian: I did that move out in LA when I was playing a show out there and almost took out the singer [in prior band]… she kinda got in my way and I misjudged how far I was gonna project myself off that wall, so… (background laughter) oops.

Adam: Beautiful.

Mike: Tell me about some of your favorite shows that you guys have played.

Adam: I think my favorite show, and it happened with the five of us, so it doesn’t pre-date the five of us, was the last show on our little mini-tour that we did across the midwest [in 2007], and we made it all the way out to Ohio and then we circled back. But we played our last show at The Elbo Room in Chicago, and by that time we had played several shows in a row, you know, it was a constant hangover every night [half-joking]. I loved being out on the road and I loved being out on the road with these four guys because it’s just a great time. And we saved the best show for last; The Elbo Room, we absolutely killed it that night. I think that was one of the tightest shows—if not the tightest show—we had ever played so it was just a great way to end a great time.

Travis: Yeah, on that tour too we did a show in Akron, Ohio in a basement. That show was great. [For] one, Akron, Ohio, people have a lot of music knowledge there, so there’s people who just love music in Akron. And some greats have come out of that city…

Adam: Akron, they love 25-cent beers too. (background laughter)

Travis: And Akron, maybe I’m getting shows mixed up, but it was a basement show, and there was no proscenium, there’s no boundary between the band and the fans. So we had people that were just about 6 inches to a foot away from us at times on the stage and it kind of meshed together. And sound was terrible, but man was it a real fun show, and really active from the crowd. I had a great time that night.

Adam: So did Micah, do tell. (background laughter/banter) What happens in Akron, stays in Akron… we fucking rocked that town. We said that after every show! (laughter) So every morning we’d get in the bus and…

Micah: “We rocked the fuck, and I mean the fuck…”

Adam: “…out of, where were we? Where are we?” (more laughter) How about other favorite shows? Hasn’t happened, but how about this one coming up? [Final show on Friday]

Lee: Yeah, I think this one will probably be my favorite, although it comes at a point where I’m going to have a hard time not crying through the show [half-joking].

Adam (joking): We’re buying extra kleenexes for it.

Lee: …I think my very first show was probably the most nerve-wrecking thing I’ve ever done in my entire life, but it was the most fun I’ve had with people on stage. (band banters) I played England Swings [2007] with these guys as what is now sort of the “tryout” for the band that none of us knew that I was gonna be in. But we played my first show at The Uptown (laughs), and it was sort of a disaster. I was sweating like mad, and completely nervous, and had spent hours and hours and hours and hours in our practice space with Adam and Travis trying to learn key parts for every song that had ever been written or write the ones that weren’t written yet. And everyone from the moment out had been in the band and have otherwise been absolutely amazing. So it was good to get that first show done and feel accomplished, and there was an instant chemistry I think amongst the five of us that has never ceased to exist from the time that I’ve been around. And I know that it had existed prior to me as well, but I would say that was the point where I started to feel extremely lucky and fortunate to be a part of this.

Adam: Having Lee join the band really I think brought us to a whole ‘nother level, because prior to that we had this massive Korg Triton keyboard cause it’s all we had in front of the stage. And I would try to play it at the same time [as] playing guitar. And Lee not only liberated me, I think she liberated all of us. It brought anxiety to me during every fucking show, where, you know, if you have to switch between instruments, and it sucked because you’re behind this massive thing and you can’t move. And then this thing is next to Brian and he can’t move.

Brian: I always felt like I was the guy playing off the side of the stage, because the keyboard was between Adam and I, and so the whole band’s over here, and then there’s me in like this little cordoned-off section of the stage. And I was like, “Are you guys trying to pin me off over here?” [sarcastic]

Adam: We were, we definitely were, cause he was out of control [also sarcastic]. But thank god for Lee, because I think we would have killed each other (background laughter) if it wasn’t for Lee, really. The thing about Lee which was immediately apparent during all of our shows, was, so there’s Lee on stage. Okay, we’ve never had more guys more interested in our band before Lee joined. (background laughter) When Lee joined, it was like “Holy shit, now we’ve got guys like right at the front of the stage… this is cool, but they’re all fixated on Lee.” (Lee laughs) And then, she seemed to have a way after shows, [it] became like this routine. She’d be chased all over the bar, she was stalked (more laughs), she had more drinks paid for than all of us and we’d end up getting her drinks [originally intended for Lee]…

Micah (joking): Yeah, especially when there are roofies in them, that was awesome… (more laughter) “I’m pretty sure this one’s roofied, ah I call that one!”

Travis: …We never wanted to put out something on copy that we couldn’t, you know, recreate on stage. So It Goes is a live band first, so it was always difficult to write synth lines that wouldn’t compromise our sound on stage, like, “Oh fuck, we can’t do that.” And backing tracks were an option, but we just didn’t want to do it that way. So when Lee came in, finally we were able to really bring out all of the sound and music that we wanted to do. So it was great to add a fifth member.

Adam: …Some other favorite shows… how about Tapes N’ Tapes opening up for us at the Triple Rock? That was awesome. And then New Year’s Eve [2005] at The Varsity, and Solid Gold opened the show…

Travis: That New Year’s Eve show was great, because we actually had a great slot, we had the 11 o’clock slot, so we were able to play up until a quarter-to-twelve or something like that. And the place was packed, it was so much fun.

Adam (joking): All [the crowd was there] to see us.

Travis: We’ve had a few New Year’s Eve shows that were a lot of fun… but I would say as far as us, me personally, 7th Street [Entry] is so much fun to play, I love the venue. I’ve always had a blast playing the 7th Street. And that’s why, since we’re coming to an end here, it was nice to be able to play that 7th Street show a couple weeks back before The Fineline. The sound is so good there, and it really is a place where you feel “the ghosts of the past of Minneapolis music.” [spookily] So I really dug that place.

Micah: I’d have to say playing First Ave main stage [2005] is an obvious choice. Also, that same week we played on KARE 11 to promote the show. (Lee laughs)

Adam: Yeah baby!

Micah: …Somewhere out there, there’s a clip of it, and if you can get your hands on it you can see Adam make eye contact with every mid-30s single mom at home watching.

Travis: That was good.

Micah: …We reached a new demographic that day. (more laughs)

Adam: You gotta work it. Even if they’re in menopause you gotta work it. You can quote me on that one. (continued laughs)

Travis: Even during the TV show broadcast I think I managed to break a string or two stage, which was great.

Brian: I have a couple favorites. One of them would be our most-recent visit to The Entry, it’s just always such a fun room and it’s great because the audience is, it almost feels like they’re on top of you when you’re on the stage. I mean granted, they give you what, a whole like foot of stage elevation as compared to the audience, but when you’re about my height that doesn’t really matter. (background laughs) So there’s that, and there’s the first time that I played the Triple Rock with these guys. I don’t think they had seen me move around yet, cause I think our previous show—my first show—was at Club Underground. And the stage there was such that I don’t think anybody had the room to…

Adam: That was your first show, Club Underground?

Brian: …I think so, yeah. So my second show was at the Triple Rock, and I just remember surprising these guys, cause I really don’t think they expected me to move at all, or at least just a little bit, and then here I was kinda jumping around having just a blast over on my side of the stage. And then also we did, I think it was a Halloween show at the Kitty Cat Klub that was great. (Lee laughs) Getting the five of us…

Adam: I think it was only four. (band banters trying to remember)

Lee: …There was only… I watched from the… I saw you guys at The Varsity for New Year’s, from the outside.

Adam (joking): …maybe fucking “Team America: World Police” Halloween? (Lee laughs)

Brian: I think I’m letting all my Kitty Cat Klub experiences run together here, but I know the three of us were up front, so Lee was in the band. And I’m basically straddling the bass drum, which was awesome because every once in a while the bass drum would slip a little bit and the microphone would pivot away from the kick drum so I’d always have to kick it back in…

Adam (laughing): Oh, yeah yeah yeah!

Brian: …and all I had to do was just kinda bounce my knee back. But that was just a really fun show where it was all about adapting to our environment and, you know, doing the best we could with something like that. I’ve always appreciated challenges playing live, and those are the kind of things that stick with me.

Micah: Can I say one more quick one?

Adam (sarcastic): No! (band laughs)

Micah: We were coming back from our first out-of-town show, I think it was in Milwaukee, no Madison. And on our way back, it was a big deal, and when everybody heard they were “Oh they’re playing out-of-town shows,” it gave us a different level of credibility or something. But anyways, we’re on our way back and we get a call from Michael Grey from Mercurial Rage asking us to play at Clubhouse Jager. And he said, “I realize it’s short notice,” it was like the following weekend or something and we were free, and he’s like, “Don’t worry about promoting it, just come out and have a good time.” And it was like, every show up to that was a big deal and we were really serious about it, and we had to use every opportunity we had. So I was really excited about it, because it’s like “We can just go and hang out, not have to worry about playing well or drawing well,” that was a big thing too. And it was awesome. We played on a tiny stage, probably sounded like garbage, but I had a blast, it was awesome.

Travis: That was a good show.

Adam: That was after we played Madison?

Micah: Yeah, remember well we were coming back from some…

Adam: …Micah’s memory is amazing (Lee laughs), like seriously.

Micah: Maybe not accurate, but amazing. (more laughs)

Adam: Nah, that’s very accurate. I mean, this wall behind us, we have flyers of shows we’ve played. Now it stops probably around about 2006, so these are just some shows that Micah, Travis, and our other bass player played. And Micah remembers like, the most incredible arcane details of every single fucking show. It’s amazing what he remembers…

Micah (sarcastic): …They’re very traumatic for me.

Mike: Talk a little bit about the influence of the Minneapolis music scene; bands, friends, etc. Who has impacted you as musicians?

Travis (sarcastic): Nobody’s impacted us. (band breaks out in laughter)

Lee (also sarcastic): We’re lone wolves.

Micah (also sarcastic): Let’s talk about who we’ve impacted!

Adam (laughing): …I like that! Let’s talk about who we’ve impacted!

Mike (laughing but getting band back on track): It’s a two-way street as far as I’m concerned. I mean, you guys have played a lot of fun shows with a lot of cool bands, I know that for a fact. Honest to god truth, the first time I ever saw you [8/10/07 at The Uptown, also Lee's first official show], you blew The Alarmists off the stage.

Travis: Eric [from The Alarmists] actually engineered our last album, so you know how it is in [the] Minneapolis scene, you meet and play with these bands. And now actually, Brian, through that meeting and recording with Eric, Brian now plays with The Alarmists. And so it has been this kind of thing where, you know, it’s a big community here, and we all kind of get together and jumble up and have a great time. And then great things come out of it, such as having a great engineer like [Eric] Lovold do our last EP. So, and actually, another one, when we did our Historionics CD, Ed Ackerson actually introduced us to The Melismatics and said, “This is a great band that you guys would mix well with, they’re high energy, blah blah blah,” and great friendships have come as a result of that meeting as well. We’ve played a few shows with them as well. So through meeting people on the scene and through the shows, I’d say the most important thing is that we’ve come out with really great friendships. And then they can take all of our music and use it how they want. (band laughs)

Micah: I’ve been influenced by a lot of local genres, because I primarily go to local shows to see music. And for me, watching drummers has always been a big learning experience for me. Watching how somebody attacks a snare or hovers over the hi-hat, stuff like that. And I have to say that Mark Schwandt [White Light Riot], over the last few years of going to their shows and being friends with him has been a real big influence on me. And I’ve even caught myself in practice kinda mimicking some of his faces that he makes? (band laughs) So, sorry about that Mark.

Adam (joking): I just thought you were in pain.

Travis: There’s two guitarists in town that blow me away, and when I first heard them, really I loved them. One of them is Brandon Dalida from Blue Sky Blackout as well as Mercurial Rage. Brandon’s been in the scene for a long time and now does some great production work, and has remixed a couple of our songs as well. Brandon Dalida’s guitar styling just blows me away, and also Cristos from The Invincible Kids, a great guitarist who I enjoy listening to a lot.

Adam: I would say, being a songwriter in a band, in this town, is unbelievable because there’s so many talented bands and on any given night you can go to a half-dozen venues and see great bands. And we’ve been lucky enough to play with a lot of them, and they’ve all become very good friends of ours. We do our best to take care of our friendships. And even though this band is coming to an end, all the friendships we’ve made over the years, I mean those are not gonna die. We’re always going to be touched and inspired by what our friends have meant to us and what their music has done—not only for us, but for this music scene—and the bands that are playing with us on Friday, I mean, it’s no coincidence. I mean, White Light Riot, I’ll never forget the first time we saw them—or I saw them—was at the Mainroom. And prior to that, we were gonna beat the shit out of them (laughter breaks out) after they played a show at The Varsity! This is a true story, they know it: Micah, and I, and Travis, we’re sitting up here [in our rehearsal space] and we decided we needed a rival band. Micah said, “I fucking hate the name White Light Riot,” (laughter again) and we decided, okay, well, let’s go kick the shit out of them as they’re loading out their gear at The Varsity! (more laughs from the band) We ended up getting too drunk to kick the shit out of them, but when I saw them play, you know, they just blew me away. And the hair just stood up on the back of my neck watching those guys, and they’re just amazing. We’re so honored and excited to play with them on Friday and that they’ll do that show with us, and we wish them nothing but the best. But yeah, I mean there’s just so many great bands out there. You know what’s gonna suck? [It's] not going out as a band—the five of us, even though we will go out; I mean, we’re still gonna be friends, we’re still going out together—but still, just not having that; I mean like we’re a gang. It’s like, bands are like gangs. And they all hang out together, and you go to parties, you go to after-parties, and gangs are hanging out. And there are rival gangs. (starting to get amusingly sarcastic as band laughter starts up again) And there are gangs that size each other up. And there are gangs that steal your booze. And there are gangs that steal your money. There are gangs that steal your girlfriends! There are gangs that steal your music!

Brian: I think we need a drumroll.

Travis: Yeah!

Micah (joking): White Light Riot has done all of those things. (laughter breaks out)

Adam (after band settles down, getting serious again): I mean, it’s sad that this gang of five is like, not gonna be, producing stuff anymore together. I mean, it sucks. Yeah.

Brian: I guess I’ll hit the influence thing… There’s really only like one local bass line I’ve ever heard that’s influenced me. And that was a Polara track, it was “Sort It Out”. So I just heard the bass on there, it’s like this melodic, just kind of almost like a bass loop that just kinda keeps going. The chords and like the rest of the song kinda swirl around but this bass line just stays constant the whole time. And for me, that was just kind of like an awakening of the hypnotic power of the bass guitar, and just, “How cool of a groove you can establish?” Hell, you don’t really need to care what anybody else is doing, you can just stand in the center of chaos basically.

Lee: I would say if I had to say any local musicians that are influences, I think the first time I ever saw The Melismatics was the first time that I’d ever seen a girl [Pony] that I knew kick some serious ass on stage…

Adam (joking): Mark is pretty good. (band laughs)

Lee: …I was a classically-trained musician, so I’m not used to having “performance” as a portion of performance, if that makes any sense. So it was definitely the visual aspect of Pony really being amazing live, and that has molded a portion of what I do on stage. Although I don’t think that it’s anything specific and there’s no formulaic approach to what I do while I’m up there (chuckles). But, she’s definitely been an influence and an inspiration in that she’s an amazing, female, rock, woman.

Adam: You know, we’ve got a lot of people to thank on Friday… one thing that’s also come from playing out is we’ve been able to play some amazing shows to benefit some amazing causes. And we love doing that… You know, this band really, we could play a fucking toilet and have a great time… we could play anywhere and have a great time. I really think that. Not many bands can say that. Not many bands can say, “We rocked out, we’re gonna give it our all!” I really think we do that.

Lee: This has not ever been about money… (band laughs and banters) …it’s always been about the music, and it’s about the friendship and love we have as five people. And I think a lot of bands are friends because they have to be, but we’re friends because we want to be.

Travis: This is what we want to do, being a musician and playing in a band is something bigger than “cool licks and hot chicks”. For us, there’s a message there, and it’s doing something good and using music to do good things out there. So we always love playing benefit shows, I mean, if it helps a good cause, music is just a great avenue to help people.

Adam (talking to bandmates initially): You know, I don’t know if you guys saw on the Facebook event, but Jake Rudh wrote up an amazing little comment. He told me at Sauce the other night, but he put it in writing—which is really cool, and made it public—he basically said, “This band will mean more to me and [Jake's wife] Mercedes than anyone will ever know.” Which is awesome, because we love that guy, and the love that our band knows for him as a DJ and as a person, and what he does for this local scene. Because there’s no DJ, locally, that I know that pimps the local indie music scene like Jake. I mean, Jake does CD listening shows, he does it for everybody! He’s got this magneticism [sic] to him, where people go down to Transmission to hear the new cool thing or whatever. And Jake has just done great things for our band, so just to give anything back to him was an honor really. And then for him to publicly say what he said, was just… you can’t get any better than that. Seriously, to touch people like that. There’s nothing better than that. Except five hundred dollars… (band laughs)

Adam also E-mailed me after interview with the following epilogue:

We didn’t get to discuss all subjects, but we would like to thank many who have given so much over the course of several years in support of the band and our music, including our families and friends, Ed Ackerson, Flowers Studio and Susstones; Scotty Herold and Rock the Cause; Clint Lugert of They Design; Zech and Ezra at Gaardhouse; David Daydodge; Dirty McKenzie (a.k.a. Dory Kahale), Vanessa Meade; David Ferris at Chilibean Productions; Kim King at the Fine Line and all of the venues we have played, as well as all of the bands with whom we’ve played, and of course, Mike Minehart (indie photographer extraordinaire, and budding superstar interviewer)!

Well there you have it. I hope that everyone who can will make it out to the final So It Goes show on Friday, as this band has been an amazing, inspiring, and integral part of the Twin Cities music scene for quite some time. And as many others will also tell you, they have been incredibly kind and charitable in helping out numerous causes through their music and performances. And I will never forget them. But, as one of their greatest inspirations would likely tell you, “So it goes…”

Links

So It Goes – Website / MySpace

posted December 2nd, 2009 at 6:12 pm MN Rock So It Goes