I have fond memories of watching Jes Durfee blow glass with Burning Spear rolling in the background, basketball games with tattooed bikers and drum circles in the old library. A magical little place....

well, there was the time that Rupert decided to go on the roof with a rifle. but i can't report much, because my cohort and i were maxed out on weirdness from dealing all day with the "interesting Duluth character" of Bossman Bob Carlson to do anything but shut our door, sighing, "Tell us tomorrow how it turns out."

Around '89 or '90, nation of ulysses (DC) and trenchmouth (chicago) played a show in the upstairs commons.  nation' was mindblowing - singer had a broken foot, but didn't let it stop him.  the drummer for trenchmouth was fred armissen, now of the current cast on SNL.  a few years later, i watched the benzene cloud float over duluth from the room mim and i were living in.  we wrote most of the first two low records there...  didn't someone have a half-pipe built in there at some point?

Not really stories... more like nice moments, and not necessarily in any order of importance: 

1. Watching the fireworks from the roof in 1994. 

2. Parties at Jules Hart & Tara's apartment (1991 or 1992?) where I met and remain friends with many of you older freaks. 

3. Accidentally overhearing Low practice (before their first album was released) while rescuing an abused cat from a friend's ex-boyfriend. Imagine trying to capture and calm a frightened, abused cat to Low's first album when you've never heard that kind of music before. Just a tad bit surreal of an experience.

It seemed like a few years ago when I lived at Emerson you couldn't go anywhere in the building without hearing some jamaican music.  Either dancehall records, or the Concious Party rehearsing.  ya mon.  that's what I think of when I think about Emerson.  Partying in the Torr and Adio Zone, and all of Adio's paintings everywhere.  Reading the paper with Mike Solon in the morning.  Picking Norby's brain about tube guitar amps, that was realy the best. I miss it!

Hey I lived in the half-pipe room in the basement too! THe half pipe was called "The Rat Rut". It eventually became a venerable feature in a skate park in Mpls.

Is JdB (xkabukislaybaler ) Bergie of Iron Youth?

Bergie is me. Hi, Red. Thanks for the compliment, Tim. I always just thought of myself as an big, drunken attenuator.

My guess was Charlie Sobsczak

http://www.indigopress.net/books.shtml

haha ... the foggy foggy past ... *cough* ... If you need me later for ball hockey, I'll be up in the doomlord's room playing D&D.

New Year's Eve partys, The chair stuck in Howard's wall. Tom Beaubaire. Colder By The Lake Rehearsals in the hallway. Pre-Wall stairwells for sax solos, Baci-in-the-middle.

I remember being the first person to actually sleep overnight there. Ringsred had purchased it and French Larry and Tom B. hadn't moved in yet. most rooms had some form of old classroom stuff in them like tiny wooden kitchen appliances or huge dominoes. All I had was a sleeping bag, four differently colored carpet squares and some really nice build-in cabinetry. I was REALLY friggan scared. Now I realize it wasn't about what HAD happened, it was about what WAS GOING to happen.

Rat Rut?  What does that mean?  When I was in high school the phrase "Rat Rut Lives!" was scrawled in many places in Duluth.  I have always wondered what it meant...

For the record:

 "Rat Rut" was the name of a band, but not the name of the half pipe that was in my room, it didn't really have a name, though there was graffiti on it and "Rat Rut" may have been on there. Howard Kempfer (sp?) lived in the room next door that Chris Laforge lived in eventually. Howard fronted Rat Rut a few times, so did I, and SO DID "Brad", a skater dude from the TC's who was going to UMD. I was the only "member" who lived at Emerson, others were Kurt Meyer, Chris Melby, and that useless little eunuch Tom Patterson on drums. We were all skaters and it was all about the banks at UMD or the awesome courtyard at St. Luke's until we built the ramp. Instrumentation was 2 crappy pawn shop guitars with only two strings on 'em plus drums. We maybe had originals but we were pretty improv, just thrashing and screaming, with "covers" of songs by Negative Approach, Circle Jerks,  SS Decontrol, Fang, and of course "Tooling for Anus" by the Meatmen. We played parties and that one all ages show with Iron Youth at the Odyssey and that was about it.

 At the time, there wasn't much indoors to skate in the twin cities so people would actually make the drive in the winter. I remember once having 4 guys up for the weekend, it was Friday night and we were sessioning pretty good, rockin' the Discharge and GBH loudly, when the dad of one of the kids from MPLS. showed up and dragged his son home 'cause he had skipped school (high school) to come skate! Must have been a quiet ride back...

 Low point (apologies to Sparhawk etc. - ha!) was probably when BMX'ers caught wind of it and wanted to ride, they'd just show up whenever and demand to get on it. Even lower was when someone stole (out of my unlocked room) my super-boss Foam and Kevlar Uncle Wiggly Tony Magnusson model with the extra choice yellow magnesium Trackers, one of my favorite boards ever, whoever took it I hope you rot (or have all ready rotted, or whatever).

 Fantastic memories for certain, I feel very lucky to have been part of the early days of Emerson. Glad I missed the Reggae and drum circle days, that would've driven me nuts. In a small melting pot like Duluth, I guess differing alternative-esque cultures need to get along, I wasn't very good at that so I left. Still, solid gold memories man...thanks (and sorry) to everyone who barely tolerated us, espescially Robin directly upstairs!

So many years there, wow, I moved into the aftermath of French Larry moving out.  I walked into my new room, all full of sunlight to find a man in a rainbow hat smoking a bong.

Hours chasing the pigeons around the attic...if you shine the light just to the side of them, they won't fly away as quick, so you can grab'em.

Are there apartments available now?