We thought we knew something about Minnesota music, until we met Matt Caflisch. His music is fun and he is a font of Minnesota music lore as you can hear on his album Runaway.
It was really fun to hear the stories behind the stories that inspire his songs. Sometimes there’s a memory of something happened (She’s Not Here For You), sometimes it starts with a review of Warren Zevon that leads you to a music critic that’s originally from Minnesota (Paul Nelson) and sometimes it starts, or at least includes, home videos (Simple Wide Trailer). The details in the songs may or may not ring as full-story-truth but they rang a bell of familiarity for me. I love the specificity of the place names in I’m in the City Now, which sounds like a love letter or at least map of St Paul. I also love She’s Not Here for You, which is the band version of when a girl comes into the gig and maybe likes one band but not the other. Having been that girl, who likes one band and maybe not the other or maybe just pretends not to like the other, it brought me back – probably to 20 years ago and maybe two weeks ago.
Matt is quick to give credit to the people around him, his band and engineer Mike Wisti who encourage him to bring a song from “worst to first” with a few tiny rewrites and River Fish, a fellow musician originally from Western Wisconsin who shared some lyrics. Be sure to check out the album. Or see Matt play at the Mouse Trap in Eau Claire (WI) on September 11.
Mostly Minnesota 