CONRAD
I'm going to set aside my shame at how long it's been in between newsletters lately. I haven't known what to write that I haven't written numerous times already. Shit is utterly off the rails.
And it's been damn near impossible to catch my breath in between, much less finding something not terrible to write about. I've tried.
But I got some terrible news this morning.
Conrad from First Ave died yesterday. If you don't live here in Minneapolis (or play in a band), chances are that name means nothing to you. And that's ok. It would take more than I've got in me to explain Conrad– who and what he was. In the simplest way, he was the stage manager at the legendary First Avenue (you know, Purple Rain and all that), here in Minneapolis . That was his job for a very, very long time.
But he was a lot more than that, and a couple thousand words of my writing about it wouldn't do the job, I think. As lame as it sounds, if you were lucky enough to know Conrad– either as a musician and playing First Ave, or just interacting with him as a local, you know.
It's so strange, thinking back over the decades– from getting hammered with him in the wild-ass early 90's (we both mellowed considerably; he took a real bad bike fall in...the early oughts maybe? And I ran all 6 volumes of the Tezuka Buddha comics to him while he was laid up recovering. Feel like he might've quit drinking somewhere around there?), to having him run the show when Low played the Main Room during my tenure (click on the very sweet link/ obit/ interview below to hear him discussing my old band, which is just fucking beautiful and heartbreaking); running into him on the street or at the coffee shop, checking in and saying hi whenever I end up at a show in the main room (or when he drove up to Duluth for Mimi Parker's memorial, totally wrecked by her loss).
I'm not going to characterize Conrad as a best bud, or someone I saw a lot. But he was a pal, and he was a constant. I cannot think of a time, in all those years, that running into Conrad didn't make my day better. Not once.
He was just a solid dude. And a light.
Calm but firm. Funny, quiet. Actually maybe not the kind of guy on the surface you'd think would wrangle a different flavor of crazy every evening (even THINKING about managing the parade of situations and...personalities from night to night on that stage makes me want to take a nap) but he absolutely did. With as little bullshit as possible. When I think of some of the unhinged antics I witnessed at First Ave shows over the years, and then consider the fact that those experiences were absolutely the tip of the iceberg, and a small sample size....whoo boy.
Conrad was cool, kind, and patient, but also I wouldn't fuck with him (despite his "zen" demeanor, I saw him almost mad a few times, and...yeah. You didn't want that. In the early days, he even seemed kind of scary. He wasn't mean, but if he told you to do something, you'd do it). For 35 years, people from all over the world came and played that stage--every imaginable kind of music, every conceivable kind of person (including, I am 100% certain, a sizable number of egotistical, unreasonable, unbearable and difficult humans) and Conrad just took care of business– whatever craziness was going on, a little or a lot, it was his job to get everyone on board and try his best to have it go as well as possible for everyone--the bands, his stage crew, the club, and the people who came there to see and listen to music. That's what people were there for, and he cared. He just got it done, made it work. Which is (among many other things) why people loved him.
I sure did.
Over the years I found out he was from the Iron Range up north (where all my people are from), and watched the giant red almost-afro (which was a huge set of dreads in the 90's) go mostly gray. He did me a ton of kindnesses; not the fancy kind, just the normal kind that you do if you're a good dude.
I didn't know he was sick (though the last couple times I saw him he didn't look...great; but we're all getting older). It's hard these days to not see through the lens of how fucking awful everything is.
And while I am in no way pleased to hear of his passing (it gets us all), I'm finding that rather than "yet another piece of terrible news in a world full of terrible news", it's hitting me as a sort of quiet proof of what a life of not being an asshole looks like. Assholes get all the juice these days; that's what feeds them. It's all we hear from and about, seems like.
If you didn't know Conrad or his name, that makes sense. That wasn't his thing (See obit below about his being opposed to having his name on a star. I didn't know that but it's not surprising to me at all).
Conrad was simply a sweet, solid human being. He gave a shit about people, his work, his community. He was, to my knowledge, universally loved (think about that). I got to know him, work with him, be his friend. And that part was the opposite of terrible, in every way. We could use more of what Conrad was; a lot more.
I'll miss you, man. I really, really will.