Trip Shakespeare was a local Minnesota band that landed a record contract with A&M Records. Twin/Tone Records has posted a brief history of the band here. Brothers Matt and Dan Wilson were both Harvard guys and members of the band, which also included bassist John Munson and drummer Elaine Harris. They recorded the wittily titled Are You Shakespearienced? (Twin/Tone, 1989) and the classic Lulu (A&M) before dissolving into Semisonic. Dan Wilson wrote “Closing Time” for Semisonic. Munson is now a member of the Twin Cities supergroup New Standards. They continue to make beautiful music.
Across the Universe (1990) was the first Trip Shakespeare album released on A&M. Matt Wilson’s “Snow Days” is the third track on the album. John Munson takes the lead vocal. Today is a snow day in the Twin Cities: “It’s coming down.” I woke up thinking about Trip Shakespeare and Mrs. Braintree this morning.
The New Standards cover “Snow Days” with John Munson again on the vocal. Chan Poling is on piano and Steve Roehm on vibes. The New Standards perform it live in the big band arrangement below for their 2008 winter holiday show.
JOHN adds: Snow days are fun when you are a kid, not so much as an adult. I have been in New York since Saturday, and had intended to return home yesterday. But the storm moving through the Midwest dropped a foot or so of snow on the Twin Cities, and our flight out yesterday was canceled. After spending an unexpected day in the city, we are now at Newark airport, hoping to catch a flight that will take off once MSP re-opens later in the day.
Nowhere near as much fun as the snow days of our youth. Actually, though, where I grew up in South Dakota snow days were unknown. School would go on regardless of how much snow fell. On the other hand, generally once each winter we would trudge to Mellette Grade School and our principal would be standing in front of the school, telling kids as they arrived to return home–the boiler had broken down and there would be no school that day. Nothing in adult life quite matches the elation that we felt at those moments!
Scott adds: What the heck. This is the view out my window to our picnic table in the back yard this morning.
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