Introduction
In this blog we will explore the music of the group Rockthrow. We have the good fortune of having one of the band members, Teedmn, here to provide backstories for the songs. Kevin Brixius was the leader of the group and composer of most of the songs. He passed away in 2015 effectively taking the band with him.
Brief Bios of the band members
Rockthrow had three members, Kevin Brixius, Jamie Farnum and Theresa Horan.
Kevin
Kevin was the leader and sadly passed away in 2015 just shy of his 60th birthday effectively bringing Rockthrow to an end. He was raised on a 160-acre corn and soybean farm in Wells, Minnesota where the rent each year was half the crop but but the animals belonged to his family. He got a $20 classical style guitar for Christmas when he was 16 and taught himself how to play. He soon realized that he was more interested in writing his own songs than learning how to play someone else's. Most of the music performed by Rockthrow was written by Kevin.
He was initially shy about performing but around 1995 he began playing sporadically in the Twin Cities area, at the Turf Club, the New French Café, Kieran’s Pub, Café Royalle, the Rogue Buddha and the Riverside Cafe, among others. Dusty's in NE Minneapolis was a pretty regular gig and also the home of the Bosso Poetry Company.
Kevin got a degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota but preferred writing songs to reporting. He held many jobs which have provided material for his songs. Some of his jobs included working in warehouses and factories, working on a barge on the Yukon River and a summer camp in the Italian Alps. Between jobs, he once drove a school bus from Minneapolis to Guatemala. He was traveling down the Pan-American highway to visit his brother, a Catholic priest, who was stationed for a time in South America. The bus was loaded with used appliances, all of which were sold upon arrival, including the bus.
Jamie
Jamie was born in 1948. He grew up in Maquoketa, IA, and attended college both at Luther College, where he played football and baseball, and the University of Kansas, Lawrence. He never got his degree - he claims he's about 10 credits from having it. He had a double major of American History and Psych with a minor in Sociology. Jamie grew up in a musical family - his mother was the high school vocal music director and she plays piano beautifully. Both Jamie and his brother tune pianos among other things. Jamie plays drums, keyboards and is a pretty good guitarist, and is completely self-taught except for a few pointers here and there. He barely reads music, just the bass line, but doesn't seem to need to. He played in his first band, a folk music group, when he was 13, which morphed into Grandma's Rockers. They cut an album which is now worth some money on Ebay!
After kicking around California a bit after college, he came back to the Midwest. While visiting his brother in Minneapolis, he decided to move here and start a business, Piano Docs, which he ran with his brother for a number of years. One time he even tuned a piano for Prince, twice in one day, out at Paisley Park, and still does tunings around the Twin Cities. He has always played in a band since his early beginnings. In addition to Rockthrow, he played the drums with Cazadores, a latin-influenced rock band that Kevin played bass guitar in. Currently he plays drums and keyboards nearly every weekend with the Bird Dogs, a cover band which plays all over the Twin Cities' suburbs, as far north as Big Lake, MN and as far south as Rochester and Morristown, MN.
Theresa
Like Kevin, Theresa grew up in Wells, MN in the 60s and 70s but her family lived in town. She attended the University of Minnesota where she earned BChEn degree, though she never had a career in engineering. She started working for various small companies in positions like Purchasing and Accounting. At her current job, she is the controller of a small, 10 employee firm where she has worked since 1990.
Theresa's love of music was developed after she begged her parents to let her take piano lessons when she was 10 years old. One of her friends had just started and she found it very compelling. She took lessons all through high school. When she was 30, she started taking guitar lessons from a wonderful guitar player, Nate Bucklin, who was interested in teaching left-handers to play left-handed. She had to have her new guitar revamped so it could be played left-handed. The lessons lasted about 9 months, which gives her a working knowledge of the instrument.
In 2000 Kevin asked her if she was interested in working on some songs he was recording. He gave her a demo of what he had already recorded and she came up with a few ideas. She found working in a recording studio exhilarating. Eventually Kevin, Jamie and Theresa started playing together as Rockthrow, along with numerous other people who performed with them or added parts to their music. Jamie often played on a cardboard box, which lent an eclectic air to the group. Theresa was on keyboards and Kevin did most of the singing and guitar playing. The group strove to add harmonies whenever possible, which became a trademark of their sound.
Featured song
Today we look at the back story of Hungry and High a song that eerily anticipates the current political environment.
From Theresa
My back story on this one is sketchy. Kevin was kind of reaching into "magical realism" and describing the arrival of the Europeans in South America and also the white people to North America, and imagining a better (?) outcome, or different, at least. And kind of comparing it to the rise of the 1% and the rest of us are hungry and high. Kevin would have hated everything Donald Trump represented and he would have seen the irony of the middle and lower class voters supporting one of the rich as an agent of change, but he definitely would have understood, and perhaps even related to, the anger and restlessness engendered by the current economic disparity. And this song depicts that, even though it was written long before this election season.
Lyrics
I was in the garden since I was born
I worked beside my father til he died
I was in the fields the day the gods in armor came
And I’ll be in the hills until they’re gone
They told us that they had brought democracy
Every one would cast a simple vote
Those who are for gods to be the masters, vote with silence
Those who are opposed simply rise and be recognized
Now that we’ve agreed we mean to serve our time in office
Terms shall last 1000 years
Now it’s the end of that millennium, Last chances floating by
You're never catching onto them, You live the same dead life
And the rich get richer and the rest get hungry and high
Raise your walls around me, conquistador
Fling your smoky noise across the sky
But I can hear the grinding of the world alive behind you
And I can feel the sunset rainfall blow
And I was in the fields the day the god was thrown and killed
Writhing in the dust he looked so small
We stripped away his armor and our eyes were filled with wonder
This is not a god, it’s just a man
Now it's a whole new millennium
Last chances floating by
You're never catching onto them, You live the same dead life
And the rich get richer and the rest get hungry and high
I'm getting hungry and high
