NEW DAY RISING: One POSER’S ATTEMPT TO SOLVE MN PUNK

Hello, non-existent readers! At this point, this project is still in its infancy, and is still non-public so I’m just talking to myself at this point. But I figured now is a good time to give the lowdown on the project!

So, my name is Nate Nelson, and I’ve been working in the MN indie music scene for roughly 8 years. I’ve shot dozens of music videos and live sessions, booked hundreds of shows, worked on festivals, ran a couple venues and drank my fair share of “one mores” after the gigs.

This project, tentatively title NEW DAY RISING after Hüsker Dü’s 1985 record, is an ongoing documentary foray that I’ve been prepping for a while. The goal for this project, however long it takes, is to figure out one thing: Why the f*** does Minnesota go so hard?

I didn’t actually get into punk until way late into my music career. In high school, I was into the 2000s indie scene with bands like Animal Collective, Neutral Milk Hotel, Radiohead, and the chillwave/surf scene with bands like Washed Out, Wavves, Neon Indian and Toro Y Moi. It wasn’t until college that I started getting into punk, starting with modern punk-fusion outfits and out crust punk comps.

From there, we get into my early years in the scene, working with local bands in Winona and Rochester, and slowly getting acclimated to scenes like Minneapolis and Mankato. I started to realize some major history, particularly in the punk scene, going back to the late 70s through till today. It’s taken on so many forms, from the Mats and early hardcore, to the McPunks, to the pop-punk years of Motion City Soundtrack, into today with the Riot Girl revival, new basement scene, a hardcore resurgence and an explosive number of new bands.

My goal here, as a dude who loves punk but is also aggressively non-punk, is to try and piece together the history of Minnesota punk. And notably, not just the Minneapolis scene, but the impact of smaller cities like Winona, Bemidji, Mankato, Duluth and Rochester to creating the culture and history of Minnesota’s punk community.

At this point, I’m still deep in the pre-production phase: Digging up old footage, building out contacts and plans, buying equipment and figuring out how the f*** to make an actual long-form work instead a bunch of goofy shorts.

I’ll be using this blog, sparingly at first and more after the project actually goes public, to chat with you, my non-existent readers, about the scene and the process of building this project out, with summaries of interviews, notes about production, and - eventually - special clips and stories from the road.

Till then, I’ll see you out there!