How did you get into Soul Asylum?

[zany]

dells have you been to the 'his holeyness' thread lately

[sheryl]

Haha! Dells, it wasn't gross at all It was just inconvenient when the police wanted to charge Paula with drunk driving, because we both smelled all liquored up

Want to be truly disgusted? I didn't even shower when I got home. It was like....2am. I was tired! I started to just go to bed and Paula said "You want first shower?" I said I was going to wait till morning and she said "Eew! You had a guy spitting and sweating on you all night!"
I said
"Yeah, but it's Dave. He's not like....gross or anything."
And I went to bed!
She "eeew'd" at me for days

[CrazyLittleWoman]

I've definitely stood in the Dave splash zone and Dan splash zone at various shows. It's not exactly the most wonderful thing in the world, but I do like being up close during the shows.

Phil

O.K. As I've been reading all the posts in this thread to see if I ever got around to adding my own induction to the Asylum de la Soul, I have tried to keep my mind out of the gutter regarding these "Splash Zone" comments, but I can't resist any more, so I'll appologize first, but here goes...

Dave's saliva and sweat on your own skin? How could that possibly be gross? I haven't gotten splashed yet, but Dave is welcome to deposit his saliva and sweat on me any time he feels like it.

dells

This is too easy. It's almost cruel to tempt me to comment this way.

Oh, screw it. Meet me in the gutter over in the His Holeyness thread.

[Homesick]

Oh, screw it. Meet me in the gutter over in the His Holeyness thread.

You're right, CrazyLittleWoman: For the sake of collective board sanity, it's better if we redirect this particular discussion to the Holeyness thread or—save our souls—a thread of its own.

[sheryl]

create an "enter at own risk" or "abandon all hope ye who enter here" thread for just this kind of thing

[rick]

I saw them play at Gorilla Gardens with Husker Du in 1984, I believe, during my sophomore year in high school. It was my first punk rock show. There were holes in the ceiling where rain dripped through, and the only seats in the hall were recycled bus benches. Dave Pirner staggered around between songs, but as soon as the music kicked in he was mesmerizing, absolutely riveting, as was the rest of the band. My ears rang for days. It was also the first time I saw Husker Du. That show changed my life, and it continues to change it to this day.

[CULater]

Ya gotta love that!

Do you ever just stop and wonder how some people are missing this!??!

[pam e la]

i was 15 when i got into soul asylum in 1992, i remember i happened to see some like little mtv news thing about them after they had released somebody to shove and they made me laugh(and when i was 15 that was a hard sell ..for xmas that year all i really asked for was the soul asylum gdu..and i got it and then became absolutely obsessed with them bought all the old cassettes even times incinerator(which acc to what ive read was released on my 9th bday:) and i have to say runaway train was my favorite from the first time i listened to it, i loved it before they had a video and i have to defend that til this day....and they were my first official concert when i was 16(my sweet sixteen gift:)i saw them at hersheypark in pa which was cool cause you got into the amusement park for like 5 dollars(if you had a concert ticket) and we saw karl (r.i.p.)and somebody from the spin drs walking around..but i was too shy to say anything to him...but ive loved them ever since more than half my life now i have only ever gotten to see them live one other time that was in 2007 for free which was totally friggin awesome!!!!!esp their cover of rhinestone cowboy!!!!:):):)

[dells]

WARNING: long, rambling post to follow...

Well, it appears that I haven't mustered up the energy yet to 1-handedly hunt & peck out my story yet, so since I'm currently fueled with anticipation of my upcoming Soul Asylum fix in Dec., I'm going to force myself to hammer out my contribution to this topic.

Sorry I've waited this long but I'm always mentally exhausted due to severe sleep deprivation, and my posts tend to be long so I usually am not up to composing a novel.

PRE-SA
Rock music has meant a lot to me ever since the early 80s, but since I live in the hind end of nowhere (rural southwestern North Dakota) there are no decent radio stations to be had. Living in the country, I was also deprived of cable so no MTV and exposure to lots of music until I escaped to civilization for college. Friday Night Vidios on NBC was my primary high school exposure to current rock music so I cut my musical apreciation "teeth" on Def Leppard, Duran Duran, and U2, which were/are all great bands and set the bar for me on what a good band is.
Def Leppard fed my need to have fun with/to good rocking music,
Duran Duran's songwriter/lead singer Simon Le'Bon instilled a deep respect and appreciation for amazing, meaningful lyrics(I totally plagerized his "Lonely In Your Nightmare" song lyrics when my class
was forced to write a complete poem within classtime for a "poet" guest Lit teacher in high school - not only did he not have a clue I'd just plagerized song lyrics, he thought it was brilliant writing, which it was, of course, just not mine , and wanted permission to retain a copy - naturally I declined permission, ), and
U2 was the best of both rolled into one amazing, powerful package.The only rock radio station available played mostly old Classic Rock, but it did play Casey Casem's American Top 40s weekly countdown show. I made it my sacred duty to listen every week and record the weekly standings in a dedicated notebook, so between Friday Night Videos and the top 40s countdown, I managed to be aware of the biggest bands of the 80s and was the resident authority in HS on what rock music was hot at the moment, but of course I had no exposure to Soul Asylum yet with only those 2 sources available to me in the early 80s.

Our house burned down just after I graduated high school in 1985 so I lost my tiny music collection and stereo, which was devastating. Even with home insurance, it's never enough, so replacing my music and stereo was not located anywhere on my parent's "to do" list. They didn't even get us a radio to listen to the 1 rock station available, so I was deprived of music
completely for a few years.

I ended up having a baby before going to college, got married and had a 2nd baby, got divorced, finished college in 1991, and was a working single mom with a toddler and a pre-schooler by the time GDU came out. However, Those tough late 80s/early 90s years were blessed with finally having MTV, so I was enjoying music again via video only, but as a broke welfare mom, I couldn't afford to buy any CDs, let alone a stereo. All I had was MTV, so thank god it was actually really good then.

After college I got a high-stress job as a graphic/electronic layout artist at
a small print shop, so I was no longer on welfare, but actually even poorer
with a low-paying job and less state assistance, so acquiring music was still not an option for me.

Sorry I digressed, but a lil history seemed necessary (to me) to set up why SA had such an impact on me later.

Almost there....

My sister moved to Texas (to be close to her EX-inlaws... go figure) and her teenaged son wanted to stay here and finish his last year of high school with his friends, so I invited him to move in with me until he graduated. He had a lot of friends, so my place became a kind of
hangout for a crew of teens. MTV was on constantly of course, and occassionally as I passed the TV, I started seeing this video for this kick ass sounding song with a sexy lead singer and both really captivated me, but with 2 small kids to wrestle and trying to keep the influx of teens and their shinanigans under control, I never really got to sit down and pay full attention to the song to catch all the lyrics, so all I ever came away with was "I want somebody to shove, I need somebody to shove ...." so although I totally loved the sound and energy of the song (not to mention the sexy lead singer and his magic hips), I couldn't "allow" myself to really like it if it had violent lyrics . I also couldn't afford to splurge on extravagences like music, so I wouldn't have bought myself the CD anyway at that point, even if I'd been able to concentrate on the lryics and the song's true meaning. My nephew, however knew I liked it so he got the Grave Dancers Union CD for me because he appreciated being invited to stay there so he could finish high school with his friends. Since I now owned a CD, I did force myself to slurge on a small CD boombox. Thus I rediscovered my love of music and realized how necessary it was to have it back in my life. I soon decided that having a decent stereo system was actually required "survival gear", so I took out a loan and got an $800 Pioneer rack system with a 6 disc changer and nice speakers, and Def
Leppard's Hysteria CD, growing my CD "collection" to 2. I then proceded to crank my music a bit louder each day, which of course was just fine with the visiting teen hords who appreciated my taste in music and it's importance in life. they soon started bringing their own CDs over to fill up the disc changer, which was fine by me.

Having been confined to a farm without a driver's license all throughout high school, then becoming a young mother when I finally was independant, I never had the opportunity to really cut loose as a teen/young adult, so when I rediscovered music, I have to admit that I regressed in the responsibility department. this resulted in me not being very strict at all with my nephew and his friends. And I'm totally responsible for the volume level of the stereo, which often could be heard crystal clear all the way down the block
(damn I miss cranking my stereo, which I can't do here)

Surprisingly enough, I never got busted for disturbing the peace for the music's volume, but although my house was drug free, the constant stream of teens coming and going made my nosey neighbors call the cops which resulted in them searching my house twice for drugs. And since I had small children.... the neighbors also reported me to social services. Aside from being fed pizza or takeout far more often than home cooked, my kids were well taken care of, not to mention developing good taste in music ) A friendly watergunfight broke out once which had my favorite of the teen friends diving headfirst through the open screen door, where another teen outside sprayed him with the waterhose when he landed outside. One of the neighbors thought the hose was sprayed in through the door (it wasn't), so they called my landlord, who then of course insisted on coming over to inpect the place for damage - none found. My finances were also in the toilet with my credit card co.s and student loans lender calling all the time.

Thus it was one stress after another and I was about THIS || close to having a mental breakdown at the time because my life was totally out of control at that point.

Thank god that my nephew had gotten me the Grave Dancer's CD, because although my rediscovered love of music was a direct contributer to my regression in responsibility levels which led in turn to the downward spiral of control over my life, the songs on GDU are what got me through this period.I finally figured out that in Shove, IMHO, Dave is basically saying he needs someone to give him a swift kick in the rear to get off the pity pot and do something about whatever it was that had him on that "runaway train" he mentions later in the album (something I desperately needed as well). Get On Out (all these worried, troubled thoughts gotta get on out of my head) and Keep It Up were the real "cheer up" therapy I needed at the time, along with the sheer fun energy and humerous lyrics of Trace. Runaway Train could have been written about my chaoitic life because it certainly felt like I was on a runaway train, about to derail at any moment, so it was comforting to know I wasn't the only one experiencing seemingly hopeless situations. RT was the theme song of that year of my life, although not my favorite song on GDU. So after many "therapy" sessions listening to GDU, I managed to 'shove' myself off my own pity pot, get all the worried thoughts out of my head, and figure out solutions to many causes of my stress, so I managed to get off my runaway train before it crashed.

Dave's lyrics were instrumental in helping me regain control of my life, so I
immediately obtained every one of Soul Asylum's pre-GDU material, (even though I was still poor, I felt owning it all was absolutely neccessary.) I found Hang Time, Horse, and even Clam Dip on CD but everything earlier was on cassette tape, but surprisingly, actually located locally.I wanted desperately to see them live, but living at the hind end of nowhere, far beyond any advertising of shows in Minneapolis or Denver, catching them on the GDU tour was impossible for me, even though I knew they'd play those cities.

A few years later came the internet revolution, granting access to the world beyond SW North Dakota, along with the ability to now find tour schedules online (I didn't own a computer yet though, so I had to go to the college to go online. then MTV started promoting the Alternative Nation tour with Soul Asylum, Spin Doctors and Screaming trees, and I managed to find the date for the Minneapolis show online. Hallelujah!!!!! Still broke, I nevertheless immediately ordered tickets for the Minneapolis show. At some point close to the date, I called Ticketmaster again for some other reason, and just happened to be in a chatty mood or something and mentioned how excited I was to be seeing Soul Asylum in Minneapolis soon on the Alternative Nation tour. After a few seconds of silence, the ticketmaster rep informed me that Soul Asylum wasn't playing that date of the AN tour. Holy mother of God!!! Why on earth would they NOT play their home town's stop on the AN tour!!????!! The rep did some checking and came back on to advise me that they were not playing

the Minneapolis stop of the tour because.... get this..., they had just
played 2 other shows in the area in the previous few weeks!!!!, so didn't think anyone in the area would be interested in seeing them again so soon....

There are no words to describe how upset I was that not only were they NOT playing the Minneapolis date of their only widely advertised tour, I had ALSO just missed out on two smaller, unpromoted (via internet, my only source of access to concert info) shows, which were both actually a little closer to me. One of those events was We Fest in Detroit Lakes, MN, just beyond the ND/MN border. I can't remember what the other one was.

Driven to desperation to find a source of information on any other possible
1-off shows they might be playing in Minnesota, and after not finding any official, specifally SA tour info online (no info laden fansites available yet at the time), I found myself at the public library pouring over Minneapolis phone books, thinking that If I could find a friendly local relative, perhaps they could advise me how best to get the info I needed. There were lots of Pirners listed, about 6 Murphys and only 2 Muellers (I couldn't remember Grant's name), so I photocopied all the listings I found, took them home, and nervously tried a listing for a Karl Mueller, hoping I might luck out and get Karl's wife (after all, who would be more knowledgable about the
band's schedule than a band member's wife?) I was shocked when a man answered, but after first appologising if I was bothering him, I tentatively asked if he might possibly be related to the Karl Mueller of Soul Asylum. Whether he was "our" Karl Mueller, or simply another Mueller named Karl, they must have gotten a lot of ppl calling them looking for "our" Karl, because he growled NO! and hung up abruptly on me.
Disheartened over the failure of my first try, I did not
continue in my quest, but did carefully store the photocopies of all the
listings I'd gotten from my library phone book search.
A couple weeks later I decided to screw up my courage and try it again. Of the Murphys listed, there were a few D Murphy's, Dan Murphy's and even a Daniel

Murphy, but after the obviously bad outcome of trying to contact a member's

wife, I decided to avoid any listings that just might be the band member's own home, and for some reason, I chose to start with the long list of Pirner's instead of the much shorter list of Murphy's. Every Pirner I called was polite, and not upset by my call at all. Although still unsuccessful in my quest for info, I nonetheless was encouraged by the Pirners' response to me, so on I went down my list.... I didn't get very far down my list before a very nice woman admitted that yes, she was, in fact, related to Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner! So after thanking her for giving me a few min of her time, I explained that I lived too far away to see/hear of any local advertising so I missed those 2 local shows and they weren't playing the nationally advertised date that I'd bought tickets to, thus I was desperately trying to find a close relative who could tell me the best way of accessing the band's tour info. She said, well, let me check the schedule he gave me... (so I knew at that point that she was a VERY CLOSE relative) and proceeded to tell me the remaining dates of the Alternative Nation tour, but that unfortunatly she didn't have

any information about any more shows in the twin cities area at that time, but.... SHE GAVE ME PERMISSION TO CALL HER OCCASSIONALLY IN THE FUTURE!!!! What an awesome lady!!!! We talked for a while, One topic was how nervous Dave seemed to be on camera, to which she told me he was, indeed, rather shy and uncomfortable in front of the camera. I told her that Dave's insecurity on

camera added a great deal to the impact of the powerfully emotional songs like

RT. It was obvious that she was very proud to "be related" to such a

successful, talented performing artist. So we talked about Dave and his music

specifically for a majority of the conversation (good thing I managed to keep

it PG, because at one point she said, "but what do I know, I'm just a Mom...)

OMG!!! After a very shocked second of silence on my end I needed confermation

of what I'd just heard... "You're Dave's MOM?!? "Yes " After another second

of shock, I properly introduced myself "Well, HELLO Mrs. Pirner, I'm Clydella, from SW North Dakota, and Dave's music means the world to me." We ended up talking for about 20 minutes.

Until the internet became a goldmine of Soul Asylum info (thanks to Caged Rat's fansite), I probably called her 3-4 times over the next few years and she's always been very gracious and actually seemed happy to hear from me, and even invited me to stop in and say hello when I finally managed to get to town for a show! I chickened out on taking

her up on that invite, because I certainly didn't want to come across as a
stalker. But I did give her a Soul Asylum T-shirt I'd designed to wear to the

St. Paul Midway Stadium show on the Dim Light tour (my first SA show). but again, I chickened out on pestering her in person, so I just put it in her mailbox by

her front door, with a short thank you note, and called her from my hotel to let her know I'd left a gift in her mailbox. I finally got to meet both of
Dave's parents at the Gluck's show, and she was just as gracious in person as she was over the phone. After the show, I was patiently waiting for my turn

to get Dave's attention to get my Faces & Names CD signed (a guy cut in front

of me and esentially kept Dave blocked into the tiny sidestage area) and when Dave's mom saw me waiting while this guy monopolized Dave's
attention,, she came over and basically Ordered Dave to sign my CD, to which he immediately jumped up from his side-stage chair and said "of course!" His voice and expression seemed like he'd just gotten caught being naughty and was just reprimanded by his mom"

I asked him to sign his artwork in the CD packaging, specically, which seemed to please him.

So there you go.... The story of how I got into Soul Asylum, and "how I ended up talking to Dave's Mom on the phone" all in 1 long novel...

So Benny, if you've managed to stumble across this post, and actually read the whole novel, you see how important it is to make sure that every single show is posted on an official online location. Because there are fans who live too far away to see any local advertising, but are still within "pilgrammage" distance.

dells

[Sometime to Return]

Clydella;

With all do respect to "Missfit's" story; this is absolutely the best/ most heartfelt/ awesome post on this website. I read every word; many paragraphs and lines twice. Safe travels to the December show.