 by Andrea Myers
In high school, I had a huge crush on Jim Walsh. While most girls my age were busy pinning up stock photos of rock stars and molded-abdomen pretty boys, my locker was lined with clippings from Walsh’s weekly rock columns, carefully cut out of the entertainment section of the Pioneer Press. Though I had no idea what he looked like, save for the little blurry rectangular photo that could have been cut off the driver’s licenses of half the blond men in Minnesota, I was drawn to his style of writing and love for music, smitten with his passion for words and sounds.
For the past 20 years, Walsh has narrated the passing of time in the Minnesota music scene with his signature writing style—personal and passionate—and extensive, firsthand knowledge of local musicians and their creative endeavors. He has studied, listened to, and interviewed hundreds of musicians and artists, trying to figure out what makes them tick.
And now, taking the next step in his lifelong endeavor to understand the depths of creativity, he has crossed the threshold from music critic to musician. He has become one of them.
 Though
Walsh has been in a band before (most notably, he played guitar in Laughing
Stock with Slim Dunlap in the ’80s), it had been years since he had even
considered trying to sing again. At Laughing Stock’s last gig in 1986,
Walsh recalls telling Dunlap, “I’m done, man. I’m done. I’ve
had it.” With a playful glint in his eye, Walsh leans into the table at
our booth at the CC Club, speaking animatedly. “But Slim said to me that
night, ‘You’ll do it again. It’s in you.’ And I said,
‘No way.’ And I was positive.
“About three years ago, that single sentence, ‘It’s in you,’
started cropping up,” he continues. “And it’s like, yeah,
it’s in me. Singing and songwriting is in me.”
At the time, Walsh was living in California and studying at Stanford as a Knight
Fellow. “Twenty journalists a year from around the world get it, and you
get to go to Stanford and they pay your room and board, and you get to take
any and every class you want. It’s tremendous,” he explains. “In
addition to doing a lot of reading and studying, and seeing California and living
in California, I started writing songs. And I had to learn how to write songs,
because I had never done that.”
By the time he came back to Minnesota, Walsh had a handful of songs written
and he made the decision to leave his position at the Pioneer Press in search
of something more flexible. He took a job at the City Pages and set his sights
on his first musical goal in over two decades—his first solo album.
“I had read a quote from John Cage—I was in the Stanford Library,
on the third floor, in this big plush red leather chair,” he says, with
a look of wonderment in his eyes. “I’ll never forget sitting there,
reading this book on music theory, and John Cage said something to the effect
of, ‘Music is little more than organized sound.’ And I thought:
I can do that. I’ll take little sounds, be it my voice, or my guitar strings,
and I’ll put them together in a way that makes sense to me.”
One by one the songs piled up, and before long it was time to record. “Mason
Jennings turned me on to Chad Weis at the Devil’s Workshop,” Walsh
writes in his City Pages blog, “and I booked some studio time and started
recording it on Super Bowl Sunday and Monday. It was the classic Minnesota sessions,
with cold beers and a warm studio staving off the bitter winter. When it was
done I gave it to Martin Devaney … and he said he and his cool indie roots
label, Eclectone, would put it out.”
Walsh’s record, under the name The
Mad Ripple, hit stores on July 4, a day most record stores were closed,
which he says “is somehow fitting.” On his day of independence,
Walsh unleashed his collection of raw, vulnerable songs; songs full of delicate
vocal meanderings and resounding lyrics that are as deeply personal and sincere
as his old music columns. Though the music is mostly upbeat folk-rock, a good
portion of the songs reflect on heavier subjects, such as the emptiness of depression
and the loneliness of lost love. “A Question For Pat Dwyer at Grumpy’s
in NE Minneapolis” and “Obit Desk” are perfect snapshots from
the complicated mind of a fierce intellect, and lines like, “I can’t
get near / To what all they all talk of / About being here and now / Living
life like lemons / And dying for a cause” are simultaneously self-absorbed
and universally sympathetic.
Though the songwriting process was a solo effort, there are plenty of notable
local music scenesters and icons keeping him company on the record. Brothers
Jim and Dave Boquist of Son Volt were the first to jump on board, along with
Walsh brothers Terry and Jay, Jayhawks members Marc Perlman and Tim O’Reagan,
Rusty Jones, Jim Tollefsrud, Jeaneen Gauthier and members of rowdy local punk/country
band The Gleam. “Here Comes the catholic Boys” gathers up the masses
for a full-blown sing along, and Gauthier and Walsh join together in a duet
for the delightfully charming “Homebodies (Don’t Be Careful with
Your Love).”
In the end, Jim’s album is exactly what you would expect from his writing.
Though some of his sentiments could be seen as cheesy, Walsh carries it off
with an attitude that is sincere and brimming with real-world truth. “I’m
really in the moment these days,” he says. “And I’m very grateful
for that, I feel very blessed.” He speaks of his musical future in a relaxed
manner, displaying his newfound inner peace and an overall contentment with
his work.
“I would just hope that people would have a personal experience with it,”
he says. “The way I have had with so many great records.” And in
his blog, he writes, “To think that I may have written a song or two that
could communicate the incommunicable the way others have for me is nothing short
of a miracle.” ||
The Mad Ripple (aka Jim Walsh and co.) play the CD Release Party for
Sink and/or Swim on Tue., July 25 at the Bryant-Lake Bowl with Slim
Dunlap. 10 p.m. $8. All Ages. For more information check out TheMadRipple.com.
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