In the midst of the epic quarantine for COVID-19 the box of cassettes and DATs of  Trip Shakespeare live shows I'd been carrying around for years started to call out to me from its dusty corner. 

"If not now, when?" it asked. 

I could not defy this simple logic. I contacted our old sound man, the recordist of the bulk of these shows, Jay Perlman, and asked if he had access to a cassette player or DAT machine. “Both!” he answered. A jar of freshly bottled maple syrup sealed the deal, he sanitized and delivered the machines, and I began off-loading and uploading. 

Initially my plan was to use the brilliant LIVE MUSIC repository that archive.org provides. But I was dissuaded. Too arcane, they said. What if someone wants to go a little deeper, they insisted. Wants a picture with their music, they exclaimed. Or even wants to peruse old embarrassing videos in the best possible and most illuminating clarity, they chortled. And why not provide for all those wants and needs at a one stop shop? tripshakespeare.net was born. 

Many long-time fans will be aware that a website exists,  developed and maintained by the lovely and ingenious Kara. Kara's effort to carry on a digital legacy for Trip Shakespeare's music and erstwhile doings is singular, personal and profoundly appreciated by the members of the band. We considered trying to update her tripshakespeare.com site, but finally decided that it was better left completely intact. It is a remarkable document. Please visit it. 

But here you are now, inside this new archive project,  just as rich, but perhaps more conventional or at minimum more accessible. Our desire here flows from that initial encounter with the tapes I had. Wouldn't it be nice to provide a way for fans, many who have told us over the years, "I love those records, but the charm of the band was those amazing shows you did... there was just something about them that was so insanely great..." Wouldn't it be nice to present them with the actual recording of the show that inspired them to become a life-long fan of the band? 

And wouldn't it be nice, too, to have a few companion pieces in the form of best quality versions of old videos, in addition to some new, never before seen videos from the band’s heyday and before? Maybe a few choice merchandise items to signify your abiding love and affection through music? A tip jar to throw a little feel good to the gang for making these valuable things available, many for the first time ever? 

It's all here. It's bound to tickle those that were there, and perhaps to help show those that weren't just what they missed. Enjoy it! Share it! If you feel generous, we are accepting of that too. 

Thank you for your interest then, and now.

 John

 ~Now some thoughts from my wonderful collaborator on this undertaking, the guy who actually made this Archive into the shining edifice it is. Take it away, Morgan!

                                                                                                                 _____

Thank you, John.  Hi. Since I've proudly arrived as co-M.C. of this party I will explain how I ended up here. 

Dayton, Ohio - A very cold, final Thursday of October, 1988.  My high school band was slated as the local warm up act for this Minneapolis group called Trip Shakespeare who were passing through my hometown. After my group finished its earnest set I sat in the crowd with the forty or so other folks that night at Canal Street Tavern. Dear Heaven! Trip Shakespeare blew me and my crew away. I took in their performance as a sobering lesson in my own lack of coolness -  a fiery, inspiring slap in the face that I must up my own game.

In the months that followed I wore down my record stylus with "Are You Shakespearienced?" and my copy of  "Applehead Man" was  well-lodged in the cassette player of my Ford Fiesta. I started voice lessons and ripped the frets out of my Yamaha bass in tonal aspiration toward my new low-end hero, John Munson. Looking back now at those Shakespearicon fan club newsletters I realize only a few times in youth we are given the gift of a band that captures the imagination on such a deep level. 

So - over a year would pass before I’d get my next chance to see my favorite rock group. Trip Shakespeare were coming to Lounge Ax in Chicago for a two night stand on March 9th & 10th of 1990 - only a short six hour (!) drive from Dayton. Still underage, I had to make a fake I.D. to be sure to not miss this. Well... it worked! Skulls were melted and existing opinions were galvanized by long sets of our favorites and many, many great new songs. We became good pals with the members of their opening act, Beat The Clock, and for years after we housed each other on out-of-town gigs. My next band would also go on to open for another two Trip Shakespeare concerts at Bogart’s in Cincinnati on Novemeber 20th, 1991 and five days later at Minneapolis' First Avenue on November 25th.

But years pass, lives go on, bands break up, AND - life has thrilling circles. I ended up reconnecting with the Beat The Clock guys 15 years later after getting traction with my Gustafer Yellowgold art-and-music project. During a press chat with a Minneapolis newspaper I learned that the interviewer, Paul Scott,  was the brother of the Beat The Clock drummer, Tom Scott. I was headed to Minneapolis in a few weeks and the idea was presented to me of getting Tom and Ken of Beat the Clock to be my backing band. Wow. Would they want to?

Obviously my fondness for Trip Shakespeare had come up and he said, “Well, I can also ask John Munson if he’d be into in playing bass for you.”  Wait. What?  You can just do that? I was both flushed and puzzled, wondering if John would dig my music enough to play it with me. Well...he did. THEY did - and I guess you could say my next era was upon me. We rehearsed, played many gigs, flew in airplanes to places with beaches, bunked in log cabins at high altitudes, and even recorded a song - then a whole album together. 

So, in this odd 2020 my Fanself-eyebrow raised at John's uploading of digitized Trip Shakespeare concert recordings onto that impersonal internet archive thing. I'm pretty sure I said something profound like, “Dude!” And that was was how I came to be here.

So... with John, I make this site as an ambassador of the Still Adoring, representing the fan's view of those who want to revel in a bit of  blissful history and maybe learn something new along the way - because it feels good. And, man - the music lasts.

Morgan

UPDATE AUTUMN 2023…

Hello everyone.  So, a year ago or so, we lost Morgan and I wrote a note expressing uncertainty about things.  It was an uncertain time.  Now someone has offered to take up the challenge of being Trip Shakespeare dot Net’s caretaker and guide.  Gratitude.

I told our new webmaster that it has seemed to me that many of the most passionate fans have some initiation story about the band.  Some baptism in the music, where they find that they can no longer escape the spell that the band cast and they are officially lifers.  Many times, in the past at least, this would have happened at some show where they saw the band preening and thundering forth.  It was this way with Morgan, and so it seems it is also with Paul.  I suggested that Paul share the moment that cemented his fandom and has now led to his taking over the site.

Take it away Paul.

John

….

“GREETINGS, TRUE SHAKESPEARIENCERS…” So said the late, great “Webmaster of Brainerd,” Morgan Taylor.  Since Morgan’s tragic passing, I offered to lend my skills and help keep TripShakespeare.net alive and thriving.  Emails were dispatched over the InterWebs….  Lo and behold, I have been deemed worthy to carry the torch and continue maintaining this glorious website with the love, care, and attention that Morgan brought to it from its formation to today.  Please check out Morgan’s amazing work here:  https://gustaferyellowgold.com

(Paul, circa 1990-1993, with Trip Shakespeare t-shirt)

My name is Paul Humphrey (Aries, Year of the Rat), and I have been a Trip Shakespeare fan since I heard “The Lake,” “Spirit,” and the incredible songs from the Are You Shakespearienced? album back in the late 80’s.  I grew up in Fargo, ND, so I was deep in the heart of Trip’s stomping grounds.  I was lucky enough to witness several gigs, albeit all-ages shows (thank goodness for those First Avenue all-ages shows!), at various college auditoriums and Minneapolis area venues.  They always delivered, as the live audio and video on the site attest to.  I have unearthed a few more shows and have added them to the site.  More will follow…

The first gig I loaded up is one I was in the front row for, October 20, 1990, at a small Minnesota University that I attended while studying English Literature, Theater, and Film.  The other gig referred to, from Gustavus Adolphus College, featuring a similar setlist, was previously uploaded but was a big one for me and plays into the story below.  As the new “Webmaster of Brainerd (from Fargo),” I offer you these tales of my first Trip Shakespeare shows…. Please feel free to send your comments and contribute to the forum here: https://tripshakespeare.net/forum
[Keep it clean people!!] BUT, ENJOY!

October 20, 1990… It was a cold night, naturally, since this was Moorhead, Minnesota, the beating heart of the frozen north, home to sugar beets, wheat fields, Viking descendants, strikingly bland Norwegian foods, and on this night, shivering college kids, hungry for wisdom and light in the darkness.  Moorhead State University, in Moorhead, MN (just across the “Red River of the North” from Fargo, ND) had been rocked the year before by the mighty force known as Trip Shakespeare.  

Alas, your narrator was not yet in college and had missed the 1989 performance, of which bootlegs were circulating.  I played guitar in some local bands and through the musical grapevine was able to secure a copy of the 1989 MSU show.  Whoa.  What a beast!  The songs, the vocals, the exquisite bass work of John, the dual guitar frenzy from brothers Matt and Dan, Elaine’s infectious, perfect grooves on the standing drum kit…. I listened to it endlessly, the capstans on my tape decks begging for mercy.  My friends and I were then captivated by Trip’s albums…. 1988’s Are You Shakespearienced? filled our imagined warehouse with the sound of coiling “Vines,” impeding our work involving “two wheelers” and “four wheelers.”  1990’s Across The Universe followed, as our technology leapt forward to Compact Discs. Lasers arced across “Turtledove” and “The Nail” to our ears’ delights.  And then back to find the gems hidden in 1986’s Applehead Man spinning out on cassette, warning with the menacing “Fangs” and how Rose’s childbearing would “rip your pretty looks.”  The band, the records, and the songs described an ominous time, filled with mystery through their enigmatic creativity.  

About a week prior to the show…

A good friend was attending college at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN, and saw that Trip was playing at Gustavus Adolphus College.  We made the trek to the sleepy college town of St. Peter, MN, and scoped out the scene.  The gear was on the stage, Elaine was outside the college gymnasium auditorium in the hallway passing by me in her glorious, glittering attire.  Being too timid and a bit awe-inspired to say “hi,” I let her pass by and we instead went up to the front of the stage to wait for the show to begin.  The college crowd sauntered in, the frat boys were pushing, crushing us in the front row.  Matt and the mighty SG guitar emerged to literally rock the house.  Somehow, Matt Wilson always managed to remain upright whilst performing an almost Iggy Pop-ish backward fold towards the floor, all while welding the diabolical Gibson machine.  Sweat poured, silk shirts were soaked, and the show thundered to a raucous conclusion.  I knew, simply, that I must see this band again, and tooth sweet.

About a week later…

The Comstock Memorial Union Ballroom at Moorhead State University was packed to the gills. Myself and a few Fargo area friends were huddled in the front row, controlling both our excitement and our bladders, gleeful with anticipation for the show to come.  Having been thoroughly rocked at Gustavus Adolphus the week prior, I knew the juggernaut that was about to emerge to blow my pal’s uninitiated minds. The band stepped from the wings, strapped on their guitars, and I braced for the onslaught.  Instead fretless bass and three-part harmonies hushed us into reverential bliss and a golden bird came alive as we stood transfixed, bewitched beneath the “Honey Tree,” conjured forth in the lyric from Across The Universe.  

Next, Dan’s voice rang forth with the opening lines to his “Turtledove.” “I come back to town today!” ushering in a groove that reminded all of us that we were safe and warm in the bosom of Rock and Roll.  Several new songs punctuated this show…. “Graveyard” with John’s haunting vocal and Dan’s whammy bar eeriness… “Checkout Girl” featured a fast country feel, Elaine’s brushy beat, and Matt’s sweet wit…. “Day Off Tomorrow” reminded us of the inevitable post-show “reality” of earning a living, just as Dan had mentioned playing at Kirby’s (a local Moorhead bar, a haven for college kids, pitchers of beer, marketing of cured meats, and local rock) in prior years (my own band, The Lemmings, would play Kirby’s a few times in the years to come, our career culminating with an opening slot for Trip Shakespeare at 1993’s “Cornstock” musical festival at Moorhead’s Concordia College, home of “The Cobbers”).

(Paul on the left at the 1993 gig…)

The show rambled on…. Late in the set “The Slacks” were argued over, and the lament of “Reception” was shared with Matt’s inspired “rap” during the mid-section featuring a rhyme from yours truly (the word “juice”).  At the show’s finish, we clapped and roared for Trip to return, perhaps bringing us some news of the Toolmaster.  Instead, we were once again hushed into silence listening with love to the beautiful strains of the new song, “If You Miss Me.”  With that, the epic show came to a close.  Tempered by the band’s flights and fire, we had become Shakespearienced.

Thus I remain and here I am.

Paul

(Paul, circa 1990, swinging down to the world hanging down on a string…)

-VERY SPECIAL THANKS to our audio & video CONTRIBUTORS

Jay Perlman

Brad Kern

Rick Fuller

John Robinson

Bill Brehm

Justin Leigh Leiter

Jeremy Andreson

Erica Roewade

Sean McVeigh

Trent Blomquist

Tom Dispanet

James Leslie

Todd Bertsch

Eric Ricks

Dave Segasture