Richard Medek is one of our favorite drummers in the Twin Cities scene. It was fun to talk about his experience thoughts about musicianship.
Richard had played with a wide range of musicians: Erik Koskinen, Mary Bue, The Twilight Hours, Teddy Morgan and Too Fast for the Devil to name a few. He also produces music and creates video under the umbrella of Bones & Wire. We got to hear about life as a drummer joining different groups and learning to feel the vibes of the band to lift up their music, to know when a lot of improv is a good idea and when it makes sense to leave your music mark in different ways.
Richard spoke about the selfishness of playing music but how the playing of the music creates a bond between the player and the listener and how valuable that connection is – especially these days. We have spent much of last the two years doing anything to build connection or distract in a way that was respectful of social distance and music really is one (rare) healthy answer.
We talked about great and bad music. Great is the best – Richard compared striving for best as swinging for the homerun every time. Bad can be fun too because it can leave you with as much emotion and experience as great. It’s the inoffensive that we rarely want to experience, especially in a live show. It’s always more fun to see someone go down swinging that putter out.
We also heard about an optimistic project that Richard has to create space for musicians that need to be heard by a wider audience or in a different way. This is more dream project but I wanted to put in down in “ink” to help the ether make this happen.
Tech note: Richard’s camera froze a couple of times – or he’s an amazing ventriloquist. I’ll let you decide!
Mostly Minnesota 