South Dakota, 1st of May

2018 | Folk

— track 1: “South Dakota, 1st of May”

Eliza Blue: When I lived in Minneapolis, this is actually really funny, I went to go get my violin repaired at this repair shop, and the lady was filling out some paperwork, and I can't remember if this was actually a question she needed to ask to fill out a form or if she was just asking it to be polite, but she said, "What do you do? What's your job?" And I was like, "Oh, I, um, I, well, I play music in bands, and I tour, and I teach lessons." And she was like, "So you're a musician?" And I was like, "Uh, no. Yes?" [laughs] She was like, "I think that sounds like you're a musician." [laughs] But it was so hard to own that title. It felt like, "No, musicians are people that are in a symphony somewhere, right?" It always felt pretty cobbled together.

I started playing violin when I was five, so music had always been a really big part of my life, but I actually majored in English literature in college. Swarthmore College, it's right outside Philadelphia. So then I moved to New York City, and I kind of thought maybe I wanted to be an actor, but I also sort of knew that that was ridiculous [laughs], partly because I had really extreme stage fright, and partly because the best way to kill your dreams is going to New York City and see everyone else who's doing it. Plus, it was just really expensive to live there. So I lived there for a while, I went out and saw so much great music, got super inspired about music, and started writing all these songs. I'd written a few songs in college, and I'd learned to play guitar in college, but I just had nowhere near enough chutzpah to ever think I could get on stage and play my songs. I was really struggling in a lot of ways, really having a hard time figuring out what was going to become of me. And it was almost because, in some ways I was hitting rock bottom, but that gave me permission to be really brave. So I moved back to Minneapolis, which is where I'd gone to high school and where my mom still lived. I started teaching music because I had this background in it, and I started playing, going to open mics, and just trying it. Worked for a couple of years just to get over being so paralyzingly afraid on stage — like, my hands used to turn into claws because I was so nervous [laughs]. It was really bad. So yeah, I just kind of worked my way up from open mics, started playing dive bars where no one listened, or coffee shops where all you could hear was the sound of the “ERRRRR” espresso machine or whatever [laughs]. And then because I had this background in violin too, I started playing out in other people's bands.

Then I had this turning point — and it was partly related to the fact that I lost a really close friend, that just exacerbated the identity crisis or the feeling of like, "Why am I here?" I made this decision that if anyone ever asked me to do something, I just had to say yes. I could never say no. Because I was just so paralyzingly afraid, I just felt like I can't let that part of me be the part that is making decisions. So I just had to, doesn't matter what it is, I'll just say yes. So I played in all kinds of different bands, sang with all kinds of different people, got to slowly know more people in the Minneapolis music scene. There was a man, his name is Jim Walsh, and he had started this thing called The Hootenanny that was held in this basement of a coffee shop, and that was a big turning point as well, because he had just cultivated an audience, and curated these groups of musicians that would come through, this just expansiveness and openness. You couldn't do it wrong when you were doing it with Jim. Everybody was welcome. Whatever you did: mistakes, warts, it was all good. And so when I started playing with him, and playing at those Hootenannies, that also really helped me break through a lot of the fear I had around performing.

Another really, really big turning point is Jim had invited me — this was maybe a year or two after I'd started playing with him regularly — the [2008] Republican National Convention was held in Minneapolis. So this is what's so crazy: He held this Hootenanny, it was at this theater, and it was supposed to be a little bit of the "Anti Republican Convention" Convention, because it was going to be all the weirdos and artists and everything else. So he got all these big name people: he got Billy Bragg to play and Ike Reilley. Tom Morello [from Rage Against the Machine] ended up coming and playing — that wasn't being broadcast, because then the theater would have been so packed we wouldn't have been able to get on the stage. But yeah, he was this top secret guest. So I got on stage with all these superstars, including Billy Bragg, who is definitely one of my songwriting idols. I just played the show — boy, I actually feel like I'm almost about to come to tears, because it was such a huge experience of just being on stage. It was so amazing because they were so kind. It was me, Jim, another local songwriter, and then all these famous people. And they were just so kind to us, to myself and the other local person, just like we deserved to be there the same as they did. Afterwards, Billy Bragg sat me down and gave me a piece of advice that I've been mulling over 15 years now, and I swear to you, in the past month I'm like, "I understand now, Billy." [laughs] But the advice was, "When you get on stage, and you're playing these songs for people, you are asking them to come with you on a journey. You need to know where you're taking them, if you're going to ask them to come along." And I was like, "Alright, since you said this, I know that this is important, but I don't know what that means. I have no idea what that means." So I would say the last 15 years have been me trying to figure out what the journey is that I am asking people to come on with me. And I feel like I've just very, very recently figured it out. So in the interim, in the past 15 years, there's been big periods of ambivalence where I wondered why I was asking people to listen to my songs, why I was getting up on stage, why I was saying I'm the one that deserves the microphone now. And I think that's informed a lot of the work I do outside of music, because there are times where I think I really don't deserve the microphone right now. Someone else should be singing. And I don't mean that in a self-effacing way — part of the battle with self-esteem or self-confidence has been like, "No, you do deserve it." But sometimes you don't, and I think it's important to know both: Both when it's your time to step into the spotlight and when it's your time to step out of it. I feel really grateful to have been doing this now for 20 years. As a result, I feel like I have a much better sense of when it's okay to be the one saying, "Okay, now listen to me," and when it's time to let somebody else have a turn.

//\\//\\//

So I stole myself away. And that was because, again, I just kept having this feeling like, “Why me? Why does anyone need to hear more sad songs?” Because I wrote a lot of very sad songs the first five years, I mean, that's pretty much exclusively — like, I'd get reviews, I'd be doing very successful at the local level, and then I'd start touring regionally, and then I get a bigger publication to write about me, and they would inevitably, just be like, "This is some dour music.” [laughs] “Don't go see this girl if you want to have fun. It's sad." [laughs] And that's where I was. I mean, I was speaking my truth, but that isn't exactly the truth I wanted to be sharing, I wanted to be maybe a little more uplifting. But that's where I was. The music, the career part seemed to be going pretty well, but I still felt like there was just so much that I needed to figure out.

So at any rate, the last album I had released in Minneapolis [2010’s The Road Home] was doing very well: I had a CD release party at this great venue, The Cedar Cultural Center. It had been this goal of mine to play at this venue, and I did. I always said, "I just want to gain the respect of people I respect." They curate these amazing shows, so I just really felt like, “Yeah, if they say I'm good enough, then it is official, right?” [laughs] But, as is often the case, you get what you want and then you realize, nope, the self-acceptance is not coming in [laughs]. The outer success is not being mirrored internally. So I was touring, I was opening for really cool people, and I just wasn't bringing my full self to these performances because I was too scared of not being good enough. So anyway, I hit this point where I was like, "Something different has to happen. I can't keep being this sad and tormented," or something like that.

So I played a show at the Minnesota State Fair to this huge crowd, and again it should have felt like a victory but it didn't. And then I went to the poultry barn after the show, saw all these chickens, and I just was like, "I just want chickens. I want to live in the country. I don't know why I want these things, but I do." So long story short, in 2011 I ended up in this very small town in western South Dakota teaching English. We live right outside Bison, so it's almost as far west as you can go in the state and almost as far north. I really didn't think I was going to stay here very long. I thought that there was something I needed to figure out about this and then I would go back to music. But back to the, "Just say yes, never saying no," I think I started doing that to myself. If there was a part of me that was saying, "This is what I really want," then I guess I get it. Like, if I want to be around chickens I get to do that [laughs].

So then suddenly I have these lambs, and I just was like, "This is it. I want to do this." But I felt like I was choosing between music and having sheep and living this lifestyle that really felt like was the right fit for me in so many different ways. It felt like I also had to give up on music, which at that point I was like, "Okay, fine. Well, I guess that's what has to happen." And then — man, it's so cool and weird to have your own story… to have gotten to live through enough of your own story to see it and have some distance between you and the story — but anyway, Billy Talbot, who is the bass player for Crazy Horse [of Neil Young and Crazy Horse], I find out from this neighbor that he has moved to a ranch not that far from here — 40 miles, but that's not far. It was one of those things where I was like, "I don't think that's true. I don't think he actually lives here. It doesn't sound right. Maybe he bought land here." So I ended up meeting him at somebody else's barbecue. He was very nice, and classic me, I didn't want to make a big deal, but luckily somebody else there was like, "Oh, she's a musician, too. You guys should get together and jam," because that's what all musicians always want to do, right? [laughs] And so he invited me over, we played some songs. Then he invited me to help him make an album in his Music Barn [2014’s Unkindness of Ravens], and then he invited me make another one [2015’s Dakota]. So after that, I got the courage up to ask him to help me make another album. And again, at that point, I really was like, "This is just more for me to have a creative outlet, because I can't tour. I won't tour." By then I had my son and I was already pregnant again, because I had two babies in a-year-and-a-half. So I won’t be touring or anything like that.

I had met Jami Lynn in there as well, I'm such a huge fan — I mean I love her as a person, but I loved her music before I ever knew her. And anyway, we start playing together as The Nesters and I went on tour with these two little kids, I would wear my baby in the backpack [laughs], so funny. I realized, "Oh, I guess I can do both of these things. We can make this work." So yeah, I've been cobbling it together ever since. I mean, obviously I don't tour like I did, but I just feel so lucky that sometimes I have to pinch myself, because it is like getting to have your cake and eat it too: I get to play with people I love, and I get to make music I'm so proud of, and I get to share it, and I have chickens and lambs and my sweet babies and my wonderful husband. It's just amazing. I can't even believe it worked out, because I know how dark it was when it was dark.

//\\//\\//

But [Billy Talbot and I] made this album together [South Dakota, 1st of May]. The album came out in 2018. I booked him in 2016, maybe '17. I was just like, "I've got this handful of songs I just want to do something with.” I had a nine-month-old at that point so I was like, "I can't do a studio. Would you just set up your recording equipment and press play? I know this is a big ask, but it's just a take-a-weekend-and-do-it kind of thing — Would you be up for that?" And he was like, "If I'm going to do this, I really want to make an album. I don't want to just throw some stuff down to throw it down. I want to help you make a real album."

So then he brought on Jack Hughes, who's the sound engineer at the Matthews Opera House in Spearfish. Jack's amazing, a great audio engineer. So because of Jack’s schedule — and again, because I had this little guy — Billy was like, "Alright, here's what we're gonna do: We're gonna meet once a month on Saturdays, and we'll record one song every time, and that's how we'll record the whole album." And I was like, "Okay." Well then I found out I was pregnant again [laughs]. So we did that, and it was funny because the album is 9 or 10 songs, and basically we recorded the last song the week before my daughter was born. So literally the last song we were recording, I was sitting with my giant belly, they were messing around and Jack all of a sudden through the headphones was like, "Eliza, are you having contractions right now?" [laughs] "Yes, as a matter of fact I am," because I had a lot of Braxton Hicks with her. Anyway, and he's like, "I can tell because your breathing's getting super weird." [laughs] Isn't that crazy? So then it took maybe another six months. I had gotten a grant from the South Dakota Arts Council then to hire some other musicians to come on board. We got Andrew Reinartz to play bass, Chuck Suchy came and played accordion, Jami [Lynn] came and sang on it, we had a drummer [Stephan Junco] throw some beats on, which was hard because I am terrible at playing with click tracks. Like, so, so, so bad. Any drummer that wants to try to add percussion to my stuff has an uphill battle [laughs].

It was pretty funny. So my dad, he passed away now, but his father was Italian, and had emigrated to the US from Italy when he was young, and then had lived in New York state before moving to the Detroit area. And Billy, his mom was also Italian, and he had grown up in the New York area. Anyway, so he's got this this Italian ancestry that was similar to my father, so I just had fights with him like I've never fought with anyone [laughs]. It was it was so funny. We'd have creative differences, but also he had this like, "This is the way we've got to do it," and I'd like, "But it's my album!" [laughs] And Jack was much more like the peacemaker. So it was a really good process for me in so many ways. One way was just having to stick up for myself, when I was like, "No, I'm really serious. I can't wiggle on this." But then other things, like I had a very acoustic folk sensibility going into it, and that's still what I prefer, I like a really raw sound, I like it to sound how it really sounds, but it was cool to go through the process — Well, again, like using a click track. I was like, "I don't want to use that. I like the music to breathe." And he was like. "No, we have to because we want to add this other stuff." And I think that was right, because I was really excited to hear these songs do something different than I would have ever come up with on my own. So that being said, the next album I'm going to record, I'm totally not using a click track [laughs]. Sometimes you have to try it out to know if that's the aesthetic direction you want to go in going forward. So it was great, and it was super intense. And plus I'm sure I had all these pregnancy hormones too [laughs].

That collection of songs, I always think — I don't know if other songwriters feel this way, but it takes a while for whatever's happened in my life, whatever I'm processing, to come out in the songs. So, like I said, I'd come to this place where it was like, "Oh, I'm still getting to make music. I have this wonderful family. I have this wonderful life on the ranch.” But South Dakota, First of May, that collection of songs were really the songs that came out of the period of time just before, where it was like, I knew things were going to get better, but they weren't better yet. And that's why that one became the title track: it was literally the 1st of May and it snowed. But it also was that waiting for Spring: a thaw is going to happen, things are going to start growing, things are going to get better, but they haven't yet. A few of the songs on there kind of break through to Spring actually coming, but a lot of that songwriting came out of the waiting period. Back to Billy Bragg, when I'm performing now I feel like I can honestly say, "It's going to get better. Don't give up." I wanted to say that when I was younger, but I didn't know if that was right.

//\\//\\//

This TV show [Wish You Were Here] started during the pandemic. [At the start of 2020] I had just released this book, Accidental Rancher, and I was going to be doing a book tour, and playing music, and reading passages from the book, and traveling around. Lucky me, ranching didn't shut down so we could keep making our living doing this, but I just missed performing. And everybody I knew who wasn't getting to have a creative outlet, we all felt like we were going crazy. So the idea was basically, "Okay, what can we possibly do?” By the time we started making the show, things had loosened up a little bit, but you really didn't want to be getting together with a big group of people. So then I was like, "Well, since we shouldn't have a concert with a group of people, a traveling TV show would allow the opportunity to have a concert-like experience, and if we did it at places that no one would ever travel to anyway, because they're too out of the way or just not appropriate — Jami [Lynn]'s backyard, for example, you're not going to have a concert back there. There's not infrastructure to have a bunch of people. So that was kind of the idea behind it: Let's create a show that gives people a concert experience, and a little bit of a backstage experience too, because that's always fun. And then take them to these hidden gems.

So [videographer Christian Begeman] and I just pitched it to SDPB. And again, this was in the wake of Covid, where nobody really knew what to do. And SDPB had some money from the CARES Act, so they were like, "Okay, yeah, go for it. Make four episodes and we'll just see what happens." [laughs] It was kind of dumb luck in a way. So they signed us up for another eight. And I have to say, there was definitely a period of time in the middle of last year where I was like, "This is the worst idea I've ever had." [laughs] There's all this hidden work that you don't think about. And then the emails, oh my gosh. Coordinating schedules with people, coordinating schedules with the crew, there's just a lot more emailing. And that's, I swear to god, that's the same thing with being a touring musician, where you're just like, "It feels like most of my job is sending and receiving emails." [laughs] If I got to practice as much as I spend time emailing I'd be so good. So that is the downside of it, but once it's all said and done, I am really proud of the work we're doing and the people I've gotten to meet and work with, I mean, it's just been awesome. So totally worth it. We've just been flying by the seat of our pants all along. And I ordered this new microphone, because that has felt like one of the bigger barriers: we just haven't been able to get great sound. So I get this nice mic, and I set it up last week, and I was like, "Oh my gosh. Game changer. That's it, we're recording another album.” I'm going to do it this summer. I'm a little scared to say that out loud because that's the kiss of creative death [laughs], but that's the goal. I don't know if it's going to be a super formal. I already have a title, I already have a framework for it, but if I've learned anything, it's that you have to expect the unexpected in the creative process. And that's part of the fun.