I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m willing to guess that maybe one third of the people who consider themselves rock musicians own a 4-track. It’s a rite of passage—first you get a guitar and learn to play it, maybe start a band, and then you show the world you’re getting serious about the songwriting thing by plunking down a few hundred bucks for a four-track recorder. Sadly, the vast majority of them either sit around gathering dust, or are used to create hours and hours of turgid, badly-mixed crimes against music (to drop a personal example, my own 4-track has been boxed up for the past year or so, ever since I realized just how catastrophically stupid my master plan to do a keyboards-and-acoustic-guitar recreation of Uncle Tupelo’s Anodyne was).

So three cheers for Eric Kalenze. While everyone else is using their home recording gear to add their own twist to “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” Kalenze is holing up in his basement and laying down, under the nom de rock Gawker Slowdown, some of the most accomplished, chilled-out rock in the Twin Cities.

I have a space in the basement that’s about as big as from here to the Heinz bottle on the next table,” Kalenze explained to me, gesturing around a booth in a south Minneapolis bar. “In the corner, I have my amp. I have just one electric amp sitting on a chair ... The 4-track sits right next to that, and then there are assorted guitars and a table with all kinds of shit on it. I’m a very messy worker.”

Some shockingly well-put-together music comes out of this claustrophobic space. Kalenze’s newest Gawker Slowdown record, Asterisk, is polished and confident, full of chilled-out songs with an uncanny sense of space. The songs flow wonderfully, with a delicate interweave of light guitar and keyboard parts. The overall feel is just a bit like the Jayhawks’ most recent album, Rainy Day Music; augmenting this, Kalenze’s singing voice is somewhat reminiscent of that of Jayhawks co-singer Tim O’Reagan.

The songs come together slowly, built up in snatches when Kalenze can squeeze out a few hours for musical work. As he explained, “everything that I’m doing, I do it on weekend nights, mostly. And whenever I have significant breaks from school, like a four-day weekend or more. After all the kids are asleep and my wife ... I’ll reserve nights where it’s like I’m going down, and I have no idea when I’m coming up. So midnight to four might be one session, and I’ll get one guitar part done. So every song might come together over the course of a month, working for a few hours at a time. And obsessing like crazy in between.”.

Kalenze hasn’t always been such a lone wolf. During the mid nineties, he was the primary songwriter for the band Third Wheel. The group made quite a bit of headway, edging into the upper strata of Twin Cities bar bands. But, while he loved working with the other members of Third Wheel, the grind of moving a band forward in the scene grated on Kalenze.

Honestly, as much as I love those guys, this works so much better for who I am now,” he said. “I couldn’t be in a band any more. It has nothing to do with them; it’s more the scene, you know? When you’re in a band and the four of you make a record, and pour money into it, you’ve got to get shows. And to get shows, you’ve got to be out, even when you’re not playing shows. And then you’ve got to rehearse ... and all that just would not work with who I am now. And all of those guys are married and starting families, too.”

After a band member took a job out of town, Third Wheel hung it up and Kalenze decided to record by himself, mainly for his own amusement. Bringing out songs that he’d always thought the other Third Wheelers would have found “too different, too soft, too wussy,” he put together the first Gawker Slowdown record. After getting positive feedback from friends who heard the album, he went back into the basement and worked up some more material. Wanting to play live but not wanting to go through the hassle of assembling a full band and grubbing for club shows, he started playing solo acoustic shows at coffee shops.
Doing all of this for his own gratification, instead of with the hopes of signing with a major and rocking for a living, Kalenze is free to enjoy the Gawker Slowdown ride as it happens. “I’m not shooting for anything,” he said. “I don’t get hurt if nobody shows up at the coffeehouse on Saturday night. I still have a jones to play live, but I’m not trying to amass a fan base or anything.”

In the end, we all win. Kalenze gets to satisfy his urge to create and perform music without a lot of pressure hanging over him. The rest of us get to enjoy thoughtful, melodic music. And the 4-track recorder industry gets to rest easy knowing that at least one guy in Minneapolis is using their product for something other than reinterpreting AC/DC.

Gawker Slowdown plays a CD release show for Asterisk on Sat., May 8, at the Acadia Theater with Dan Israel, Diedrich Weiss and James Coxxman. 8 p.m. All Ages. $5. 1931 Nicollet Ave. S., Mpls. 612-874-8702.

You can find out more about Gawker Slowdown on his official website.