Georgia Dentel and Grinnell Concerts History, 1960-2001 - Interviews

Beautiful. All right. So I'm going to get started with a brief introduction. This interview is conducted with Leif Larson on behalf of the Georgia Dentel Summer Mentor Advanced Project for Grinnell Concerts, Georgia Dentel, and Student Life in History and Memory Project. The interviewer is Faye Henn, and the note-taker for this interview is Miles Brown. It takes place on July 28th, 2025 on WebEx. So, could Leif, could you start by just introducing yourself?

Speaker 2: I'm Leif Larson, class of 1988 from Grinnell. I was concerts chair my senior year at Grinnell, nineteen eighty seven, nineteen eighty eight. I was also on the Films Committee a couple of years, which had some interaction with Georgia, although not extensively there. And first spoke with Georgia actually first year. My first year, I was on the concerts committee, and the chair was Fred Klatz, Dan Klatz. I'm not sure what he's going by these days. I assume you've spoken with him? Or someone has?

Speaker 1: Yes, I think last summer.

Speaker 2: Okay, and he wanted me to succeed him as concerts chair - was hoping I might succeed him as concerts chair. And so Georgia, being Georgia and not on campus, reached out and called me when I was a first year and started building a relationship with me, you know, asking me questions, and had heard about my record collection somehow through her, you know, eyes and ears on campus and things like that.

Speaker 1: That's very cool. Could you also fill me in a little bit about your hometown and your career path post Grinnell?

Speaker 2: Okay. So I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, went to Odina High School, Minnesota, before I went to Grinnell. After Grinnell, it's been kind of circuitous. Let's see. I moved to San Francisco after I graduated, worked in bookstores there. Moved back to Minneapolis because my then girlfriend and now wife was still a Grinnell student. Actually, I was in San Francisco, thought I was moving to New York, but then ended up friends, Grinnell friends had found a great apartment in Minneapolis and ended up staying in Minneapolis instead. Then stayed there, went to grad school in history. I wanted to be an architectural historian, but was persuaded that was not a prudent career path, so I went to law school instead. Went to William Mitchell College Law in St. Paul and got my degree there. Got out, worked as an attorney for a while, and then I went and worked for arts organization in St. Paul, the Schubert Club, that does classical presenting. Primarily recital music, but they also had art song festivals and a big education program. So I worked for them for a few years running their scholarship programs. They have a big competition for classical musicians. We also launched a competition for jazz musicians during that time. So I kind of ran that side of things for them and also did development work for them. And then while I was there, Minnesota Public Radio got in touch with me. And they were looking for someone to run a theater that they own, the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, where Garrison Keeler did a Program Companion, and they wanted to do other programming there since they owned the theater and Paraguayan Companion. And had a significant control, but there were plenty of open dates there. So eventually I decided to take that position and I went to Minnesota Public Radio. And was their senior producer for performing live events, excuse me, for a few years. So I did that. And then after that, I did various things in the arts and was an ad copywriter, but eventually went back to being an attorney, and that's what I do now. I do mostly intellectual property work, patents and copyright or excuse me, patent and trademark work primarily.

Speaker 1: Gotcha. And then could you tell me what initially led you to Grinnell when you were looking at colleges?

Speaker 2: You know, I was really, I did not have a lot of guidance for my family on colleges, but I did have an uncle who was in Grinnell. He had been a, I forget the name Grinnell used for it, but we had resident advisors were the students that lived on the floor and worked with students that way. So those were college students, but then they also had somewhat older people or couples that lived in the dorms, like one couple per couple dorms or something. And my aunt and uncle did that, and then he moved over into student affairs. So he was assistant dean for student affairs, so he invited me down. As a prospective student, when I was it was I guess I went down my junior year in high school. Was it sophomore sophomore or junior year in high school? Maybe it might have been sophomore year, it felt early in the process for me. So I went down with some friends who weren't really interested in Grinnell, but were just kind of along for the trip. So I went down. Had a good visit to everything, but didn't feel like Grinnell was the right choice for me at the time, like, felt a little granola, a little hippie for me and I was all about punk rock at the time. But something changed between that time and senior year. And I only ended up applying to a handful of colleges. Ended up, Grinnell was the choice. And it's hard to explain how it, you know, I really don't have a strong recollection of what... I didn't get into one of my other top choices. So I got into three or four schools I applied to and Grinnell was felt like the best choice.

Speaker 1: Gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. And then this is a little bit, I know you mentioned that your impression of Grinnell was a little more on the hippie side and you were on the punk rock side. I was wondering if you could elaborate more on that and what your first impressions were of Grinnell once you actually arrived there as well.

Speaker 2: I mean, it's pretty much what I said. I mean, it was very much long hairs and it felt like the sixties was very much alive at Grinnell and continued that way, I feel, in the eighties even. It was very much you know, which ultimately came to be feel as a positive, that it was free-spirited and people were independent-minded and all. But when I was looking at schools initially, it just wasn't the vibe I was looking for because it's silly now, but punk rock was all about. I didn't want to listen to any music recorded before 1977 kind of thing. I did, but, but that's really where my attention was. And music was a big thing for me. I was going out to a lot of shows in Minneapolis at the time. I don't know that I was necessarily looking for a music scene when I went to a college, but and I didn't know about Grinnell's concerts history when I applied or anything. But it it just didn't feel like the right vibe. We also had kind of a weird experience, and I don't know what Student Affairs was thinking, but we were housed in Gates Ross and Tower on the top floor with a bunch of football players. Were really into chewing tobacco, so they had like big, like five gallon buckets of chew spit and tips all around the wall. Probably not so big in college these days. So, and then they decided to throw a kegger since we were there, and then had people go up on the roof of snowing and go up on the roof. And in the middle of the night, some guy started kicking on the door in the room I was staying in at like three in the morning. It was it was very

Speaker 1: And this was your visit as a perspective?

Speaker 2: And it was so just you know, these football players I had no connection to. It's funny, I was at Reunion and told someone the story and they were able to identify who the person kicking on the door was based on the fact that he was kicking the door and that he had cowboy boots on. They knew exactly. And I think they were right in identifying him. So sorry, lost track of the initial question here.

Speaker 1: Totally fine. That sounds shockingly similar to how Grinnell is today almost.

Speaker 2: My uncle said that that was the last year that they allowed men to stay on the top floor. It was a single sex floor also.

Speaker 1: Really? It is not... I think I at least I have memories of that being like the football players area at least my second or first year. I'm not sure anymore.

Speaker 2: Single sex male floors cause significantly higher damage rates than coed floors.

Speaker 1: That is super interesting. And then since you didn't, you weren't super aware of the music scene when you were applying, or before you arrived, do you remember your first exposure to like a Grinnell concert and what that experience was like?

Speaker 2: I mean, I remember the first day I was there. I was wearing a t-shirt for Hooskerdoo, a Minneapolis band at the time, and another freshman coming up and being really excited because that was her favorite band. Someone that I went on to do a radio show with, at KDIC and everything. The first I mean, I remember a lot of concerts for my first year, and I remember being on the committee. I can't I'm not sure I can remember the first one that I actually attended. We didn't have anything right away that first weekend or when we were new students there. But I feel like I got on the committee fairly early and met really great people on the concerts committee. And then Fred was great and everything. I mean, the concerts were fantastic. So it immediately became kind of a focus of my life on campus and everything, working the concerts and everything.

Speaker 1: Gotcha. So you mentioned you worked on the concert committee prior to becoming concert chair. Do you think you could elaborate on the difference between those roles and kind of your responsibilities as a member of the committee.

Speaker 2: I mean, as the committee, I think Dan was just looking for ideas, open to hearing things, and a big deal for me my first year was my favorite band in the world was The Replacements. And Jonathan Richmond was supposed to play concerts and had to cancel. And so we were able to get The Replacements as a fill in. Just grades and also infamous. So things like that. And then just helping on setup, you know, like most of the concerts, we had sound provided by Frank from River City Sound, who would bring a big semi-truck full of sound reinforcement equipment from, I believe, they were in, it was one of the quad cities, but I think Davenport. I don't suppose he's still around. Has he been part of this process? Or?

Speaker 1: I don't believe so. Off the top of my head, I don't. I've heard the name mentioned, but I don't think we've talked to him individually.

Speaker 2: Okay. He was he was a sweet guy, like old long hair, and it's kind of crazy to me to think of like you know the overhead of having this semi truck and hauling PA equipment to Grinnell for you know one night a week or something um but he was great to work with and had great sense of humor. So, anyway, so helping on setup and providing ideas for bands to come to the campus. Beyond the replacements, I don't know if any of my other ideas were pursued, but that was a special show.

Speaker 1: Yes, I've definitely read about that show a couple times, yeah, while doing research. But before we get to that, could you tell me about what other extracurriculars you were involved with in Grinnell? I know concerts, but anything else that stands out?

Speaker 2: So I played on the hockey team. We had a club hockey team back then, which started out as just us driving cars or school vans, since there's no rink in Grinnell, we would go to Des Moines and play after the Des Moines Buccaneers minor league team or go to Cedar Cedar F- uh, I can never keep Cedar Falls or Cedar Rapids and and other cities that had hockey rinks and play. So we played senior men's teams and other college teams. Even the University of Iowa at that time just had a club level team, so we played them, things like that. There was a guy, Kino Ruth, who ran it and a fun bunch of guys. So I played hockey. And then I, all four years I did the radio station because I loved KDIC. And sophomore year, I was music director there. So I did that. And then as I said before, I was on the films committee. I loved films at Grinnell was a great thing and something that Georgia was part of, obviously. My freshman year, there was I think there were two series that she had that were just kind of classic essential series. She did a Hitchcock survey and she did a John Ford series as well. So bringing films to campus was a big deal because in high school I was you know into film as well, going to the city and art houses in the Twin Cities. And then I did a little bit of writing for the S&B, some of it just writing up concerts that were coming. And some film previews for films that I had, you know, championed for the films committee. I think that's I think that's probably about it.

Speaker 1: Gotcha. That's a good lineup. And then could you elaborate a little bit more about your experience at KDIC? Can you talk about what it was like running a show there?

Speaker 2: I mean, it was a lot of fun. I've done some radio since then, both at a university and then also at KFAI in the Twin Cities. And Grinnell was very chaotic and free. There were basically no rules, you know, hold, there were no restrictions on language. We didn't have to worry about swears. When I worked for Minnesota Public Radio, you know, so I was booking concerts and we like we booked a band, The Goddamn Doo-Wop Band, and that goddamn was too offensive, so we had to call them The Gosh Darn Doo-Wop Band. Well, which was absurd because they were they played a show with John Waters. And it was like, we've got John Waters. And they were a great match with him, but it was just absurd. So at Grinnell, it was very free, play whatever you want. I think at times there were efforts to try and get people to follow some playlists, like on the hour you had to play two or three songs, but it was very much kind of at your prerogative. So we played what we wanted, said what we wanted, and people would visit you in the studio. Lots of you know, hosts got kidnapped from the station, so there was dead air. The guy who lived in the dorm room next to me in my freshman year, Dave Koppelman, did a show where he would create crazy stories and do voices and then get calls from campus in that he would air on the show and everything that were, again, any station that was worried about FCC regulations would not have let any of this happen. So this was before CDs, so vinyl. We had two turntables. A pretty good music library there, although it was my freshman year, it was my freshman year, that the station manager was concerned about people stealing records. So they tried to address this by drilling oversized spindle holes in the records. So larger than normal LP spindle holes, but smaller than forty five holes. But in doing this, the way they did it was they lined up the drill press with the circumference of the record rather than the original spindle hole for some reason. And which led to all these records, a lot of records being the grooves not being concentric with the circumference. So records are basically unplayable because they weren't spinning perfect. So I mean, I can't I'm sure some records were stolen. I don't think that many were being stolen. They probably ruined more records by doing this idea than actually was saved. And, yeah, it was a crazy idea. So, freshman year, I had the usual my roommate, Andy Houston and I had a midnight show. It was primarily punk rock. Named for a Stiff Little Finger song that we really loved. And then we do special shows like I did a show with my friend Chris Roth, all Velvet Underground songs, things like that. Yeah, just free and fun.

Speaker 1: Gotcha. That sounds amazing. And then what were your responsibilities as music director during your second year? So to the extent, sorry, to the extent that you remember it.

Speaker 2: Basically, I was responsible for label relations, which oversells it because it was very low key. Most of it was already labels were serving us, sending us records. So the records were mailed to me. I would maybe write a short review on the sleeve or something and then put it out. Since I wasn't a fan of playlists and everything, I did not pursue any sort of playlist where we were saying that you need to have, you know, my freshman year might have been like from these 20s, you should play one song per hour or something, you know, some loose playlist notion. I did not pursue anything like that because It just wasn't what I, you know, I didn't see utility. We weren't looking for uniformity of sound or consistency of sound. I mean, people were doing, you know, whatever their vision of their show was, their vision of their show, and that's what they would play. So, the best part of the job was going to the mail room every day and getting a pile of records and bringing it back to my room, getting to see all the new records. And I mean, I remember certain records coming in and being really excited and going to the forum. To show people what had arrived because it was a big deal, kind of so, not a stressful job. And then there were different kind of college radio-focused magazines like Boston Rocker. It was Boston Rocker. Um, that would like have surveys or something of Music directors. And so I would create a playlist, even though we didn't have a playlist per se, but just what's on station, which ends up, of course, being very much a cursed a list of what I liked at the time or survey questions like that. So that was a fun job, very low stress. Sadly, most of those records seem to be gone now, which maybe is good because there's some embarrassing things I wrote on some of those records and overenthusing.

Speaker 1: Oh, that sounds amazing. And would you would you characterize KDIC as pretty intertwined with like student social culture on campus? Did it affect a lot of like, student life, was it widely consumed, I guess.

Speaker 2: It felt like it to me. I mean, you never I mean, it's been hard now having a daughter, two daughters, that did college radio, and in the age of streaming, where if it's turned on, you can see exactly how many people are streaming at any given time. And in an age where kids didn't grow up listening to radio, it's not a big audience. But at the time, it felt like people really listened. People are excited to do shows. More people applied to do shows than were available slots with the station up twenty four seven. So, yeah, it felt to me like a big part of campus life, a good way of promoting upcoming concerts and everything. Like I said, people, since it was in Darby Gymnasium, which is where the dining hall is now and everything was kind of center of campus. So people, friends would just stop by and bring you food or beer or something or whatever depending on what was going on. Sometimes people did broadcast from the rooftop outs studio 'cause you could just climb out the windows there and do things between Darby and Yonkers. There was a field there. Some guys even did live broadcasts of intramural football games from up there, which was funny because the station didn't do actual varsity sports, but they did intramural sports instead. Yeah, I think it was a vital part of the campus. I'm kind of sad at kind of what the administration has allowed to happen to the station at this point.

Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's great to hear about what it once was. Aspirationally somewhat. And then circling back to your other positions, for the... Sorry, I'm forgetting the exact name you called it, but the position you worked in the film department or for the film?

Speaker 2: I was just on the committee. So like we had concerts director, we also had films directors that so my Junior Beno, he was a really good guy. And then my senior year was Jessica Metsikappa did that. And back then it was all film actual film based, so we would rent films from different houses and project them in South Lounge in an ARH. And then my senior year is when the unfortunate decision was made to go over to video cassette, which at the time, I resisted, but the student government kind of got sold on it by industry people, and it really was a way for the industry to get higher licensing fees. Like they they controlled it as as opposed to the independent rental houses that had owned the the film Prince before. And VHS. I mean, we we don't need to get into this, but VHS there was all sorts of pan and and changing of the film format to suit television, and so it was it was an inferior format with a higher cost. with a higher cost. And it just it was a it was an unfortunate move. And maybe we would have been forced into it anyway, but I was unhappy when it happened. So anyway, and that was just a committee. You'd have the chair that was in charge of kind of running the program and getting the projectionists to work and everything. And then for me, it was just fun because it's just like these are movies I love or I haven't seen that I've heard about that I want to see, and you'd get these great catalogs with paragraph descriptions or something.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And could you describe the extent to which you saw Georgia involved with the film committee and the decisions regarding the films?

Speaker 2: I mean, I maybe talked to her about it a bit, but I really didn't deal with her directly on it. I assume the chairs did. I just knew that there were things that were Georgia's series. Because we I mean, it was very busy. There would be two films a night on weeknights, you know, which as someone who maybe didn't take his academics entirely seriously, there was always a movie to go to on campus. Maybe not seven nights a week, but pretty close to it. There was always something to see. And at that age, there's so much you haven't seen. It was a great opportunity. So, and Georgia, I guess it was definitely the more programmatic, this is a series, a thematic series that she was behind. And I don't know if she generated that herself or whether she talked with other students or something. I'm not sure where that came from.

Speaker 1: But you didn't really interact with her in the position of being on the film committee.

Speaker 2: No, no.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Makes sense. And then do you remember how well attended the films were? I'm sure there was a range, but you could describe the range.

Speaker 2: I mean, films in ARH, it was a fun, rowdy place to see movies. I mean, it was because you had the balcony, which was kind of the, I believe smoking was permitted up there. People definitely did smoke up there. I mean, I remember being there once when the projectionist had left to go do something. Party or something, and the film wasn't didn't get taken up on the take-up spool and unspooled on the floor. It was a big mess. I mean, some of those films, like, I remember seeing Blue Velvet there, and it felt like a full house. So I don't know if it was 150, 200 people. I mean, it was a big auditorium. And then, you know, South Lounge for an art film or something, 20 people, 25 people, something like that. It's forever at this distance. Yeah, exactly. We were there. But people love going to movies. We didn't have the option now where you can stream, obviously. So if you want to see movies, and you want something to do, that was the thing. That was another thing that happened my senior year: is that some of the faculty were unhappy about ARH being used for events and films, and so they were taking it away. So I actually, staged an event there, a protest, kind of a final ARH event, and we had bands playing and projected things over the bands. Campus bands with some town towns people that were in the bands too and everything to kind of and and alcohol was involved in things and everything to kind of... it really was a great space to see things as opposed to we don't want to focus too on the negative, but Harris has always been a... I mean, architecturally, it's abysmal, and just functionally, it doesn't seem like a great space either. And then South Lounge, which maybe wasn't an ideal film venue. It was a nice concerts venue because the North Lounge was a good room for dances and things like that. I liked it. Acoustically, it was functional. So I hope someday the college can replace Harris Center, but I fear that that's going to be there a long time just 'cause it's there. Yeah, not a priority.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems difficult. I remember talking with the past Concert Chair Hayden, who I'm sure you've heard of at the very least.

Speaker 2: Hayden is I think he stayed with us even here.

Speaker 1: So lovely, yeah. But he was just saying how he thinks it's difficult to hold events in a space that's designed like a middle school gym and the acoustics change so much once the room is full of people, it makes it seems challenging.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, we had Darby, which was kind of the equivalent. It was a literal gymnasium, but it was cool. It had this beautiful wood ceiling and it was a fun place for the big concerts. Sorry I interrupted you there.

Speaker 1: No, I was basically just going to say I remember when I was researching for this interview, I found an article you wrote in the S&B. Discussing, I can't remember if you wrote it, if you were interviewed in it, but it was discussing kind of a lack of an adequate venue for larger size concerts, which we're probably referring to Darby Gym being difficult to recognize them. Yeah.

Speaker 2: And I don't, I mean, obviously. I don't think well, Liev has been my daughter Liev, who you know obviously has been the concerts chair the last couple of years. And I don't think she's done any outdoor concerts, or have there been any outdoor concerts?

Speaker 1: Um, not that I can recall, no.

Speaker 2: So, hopefully, that's something that can be revived because I mean there were we did get noise complaints with some concerts, but it was I mean, it's really fun to have those outdoor shows as well. So it'd be great if the school could bring back that tradition, you know, as it rebuilds the concerts program post-pandemic care.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I completely agree with that. But before we get too ahead of ourselves, could you just describe you're, like circling back to your position as concerts chair, could you describe what your day to day was as concerts chair? Like what your responsibilities would look like?

Speaker 2: So again, I worked with Georgia on the booking side. I would say the majority of the concerts were booked via Georgia because she had industry contacts. So starting my junior year, once I had been chosen as the concerts chair, I started talking to her and kind of went to her with a wish list I had put together of artists that I wanted to bring back to the campus or bring to the campus, excuse me. And then for some, so when I was booking in the 80s, Minneapolis, the Minneapolis scene was a very hot scene. There were a lot of good bands. For the Minneapolis bands, some of them I did directly just because I knew people. It was just easier for me to deal with them directly. Some of them didn't have they weren't through these larger agencies. So I did that, but Georgia definitely was a big part of the booking process. I would say 75% of the shows or something maybe went through her. So I went to with to her with my list and we kind of communicated, sorry, my junior year and through that summer and put together and she did a good job, I think, of getting a lot of the artists I wanted to get. You know, it's always availability and routing and things like that, and also coming to me with other possibilities, things that might be interesting. Once I got back to campus, it was difficult for Georgia because I decided not to have a telephone. And that's, of course, how she communicated since she didn't come onto campus. So I had roommates, we lived in a house together off campus, and other people in the house had phones. So in hindsight, maybe I should have gotten a phone, it would have been nicer to Georgia, but part of me didn't want to be tied down to the phone. And, cause she was they were long conversations when you were on the phone with her because she hears, and that was her world, and she would talk about what was going on in her life and um... So I would go to the Forum, and someone working at the forum desk would say, George is trying to get a hold of you, or something like that. So it was a bit, and at that time, it wasn't a paid position, as I know student positions are now. And I understand that totally makes sense, so that it's not just people that don't need a second job or whatever can work the jobs. But at that point, we received a small stipend. It might have been $125 a semester or something. It was nothing. And I worked the shows, but I did not pay myself for the shows, I guess, because I mean, to me, it was so much fun. I didn't feel like I needed to be paid. And we had I had a Concerts Committee of like six people that were kind of the same function that I had served when I had been on the committee. You've got people from all over the country at Grinnell bringing knowledge of their local music scene or whatever. And then those people, as they wanted to, work the events, set up. You know, whether it's helping the bands set up and break down, Sound Guy. I mean, a lot of shows at Grinnell are very simple. You know, it's just a dance floor or whatever, and a band on stage. But we also tried to do things that had a little more involve, like jazz shows in North Lounge, where we had tables, tried to kind of get a create a jazz club vibe with tables, with tablecloths and candles and things like that. So yet, day to day promoting it, which at that point was very simple, S&B basically getting notices in the S&B. For some shows doing a write-up, but not all of them. You know, Xeroxing flyers to post around campus. That could have been a more sophisticated operation. I know Liv's worked with some artists on campus to have and I wish we would have done more of that with poster art and everything, but that was not, it was very much Xerox things, go to the forum and have people with markers mark up the things and that. Post them on lots of floors or wherever to get people's attention and things like that. And then KDIC just posts something up there so people, hosts knew about it, but it was very much a word of mouth situation. So yep, communicating and then payment to bands was done. I would deal with the treasurer of the SGA. And get checks cut for the sound guy, for the band, and also pay we had people that would assist consistently that we would actually pay for working the concerts too. And then I went to SGA meetings and kind of reported on what was going on at the concerts program, which was kind of fun. Yeah, I maybe had a little different sensibility than student government officers.

Speaker 1: So yes.

Speaker 2: So speak out.

Speaker 1: Yes, we will get to that.

I have a bunch of things I want to follow up on before I lose track of everything. So you mentioned that you basically brought a list to Georgia and she was almost able to completely like match what you'd put on there.

Speaker 2: She was able to get a significant number of artists that I wanted. And I mean, some of them were high in the, for English artists that if they're not in the US, they couldn't get it. A couple shows that we didn't get that I you know, I tried to bring The Replacements back. And I'm not sure that Georgia tried that hard to make that happen because of what happened the first time they came. And I had spoken to their manager, and he, he was totally up for it, Peter Jesperson. It didn't happen. I was, Billy Bragg was an artist in the eighties who was big and very political. And '87, '88 was, of course, a presidential election cycle, and he was doing a limited US tour of seven dates, I believe. And they offered I he was on my list and they offered us a date and I was going to have him. He played solo with guitar, very left politically. And I was going to put him in Herrick Chapel because I thought it would be cool to have him there because we had a lot of the presidential candidates speak there, and because effectively he was very much in the kind of Woody Guthrie, preaching politics mode. But it was the same day that Bill Bradley, US senator from New Jersey, former NBA, New York Knicks player. And a presidential candidate at the time was speaking, but he was speaking that afternoon. I wanted the concert that night, and someone in the administration, basically, threw a roadblock and said we don't want to have these two events on the same day. And so we didn't get them, which is a big frustration. But generally, I felt like she did a great job of helping get artists that I wanted.

Speaker 1: That sounds very cool. Do you think it was common for kind of politics to seep into concerts like you were discussing? In eighty seven, eighty eight, or was that something that sorry?

Speaker 2: For me, no, that was that was unusual. But I mean, he was specifically doing a tour keyed to the election. Forget what he called it, but it was specifically to come and speak to the election, so that was a special thing. But otherwise, it was music as music was what was going on.

Speaker 1: And were there any other instances where sort of you and maybe with the support of Georgia, maybe not, had some sort of idea for a concert, but there was a pushback from administration? In terms of like booking artists or hosting an event?

Speaker 2: No, I really felt like we had control of the process. Georgia would give me feedback if she heard something from kind of industry people of like this person isn't reliable, don't book this person, or this person maybe isn't what they once were. So I remember getting that feedback, whether or not that was entirely the best information. I can't say at this distance, but I didn't feel like other than The Replacements, I feel like she maybe didn't pursue it and just said, "No, they can't do it." And I should have, since I knew Pete Jesperson before he managed replacements, worked at my favorite record store in Minneapolis, so I knew him through that. And I talked to him before a show in Minneapolis, and I probably shouldn't, that's a show I probably should have just done myself. But at that point, they were starting to blow up, and so we went through official channels. And I suspect that Georgia just said "This was a nightmare last time, so we're not going to do it again." But otherwise, you know, no, it was free. I mean, we like for Alice Wonderland Party, which have they had that at all while you've been there?

Speaker 1: Yeah, that's I don't know if I would call it a party as much as sort of like an event. It's very like, it's like a known event, but it's not really something that people will like plan for in terms of like hosting or like, organizing.

Speaker 2: I read that there was used to be music at those, but yeah, so my senior year. We had it, and the date that worked also happened to be Parents' Weekend, which some people, probably for good reason, thought wasn't a great idea given what went on at Alice in Wonderland. We went ahead and had it Parents' Weekend, which if the administration was going to interfere with something, the campus psychedelic party happening Parents' Weekend would be something you'd think. They would probably say, and they let us have it. And we brought, and I brought up Minneapolis Down for that. For it was, it was a fantastic day, a very cool day.

Speaker 1: That sounds super cool. I would love, I know I've I've heard you talk about The Replacements concert researching for this interview, but just for the sake of the oral history record, do you think you could describe the concert? Do you remember it?

Speaker 2: So, yeah, again, they were my favorite band in the world. So, it was very exciting. So another Minneapolis band came that I was not so excited about The Wallettes, who fashioned themselves as kind of polka punk. And they had a guy, Steve Kramer, was the head of the band. He's a guy who had been kind of in the New York scene in the late 70s, early 80s, but then at a party had fallen out a window and injured himself and moved back to Minneapolis. And so he was a artist as well as a musician. They had accordion, and the band had a red ambulance that they toured in. Like an old Cadillac red ambulance with tail fins and everything. It's very, anyway so, they had played the night before in the quad cities, and for whatever reason the sound guy had been the sound guy for them the night before came with them. And my recollection is, and this does again, it's one of these memories that's like, is that really how it was? But was that they came and basically said, sound guy's with us, we're going to play second, you know. And then that's what happened, you know. And so I was doing setup because, of course, I wanted to be there for everything. And then so they got there, sound guy was there, they set up, then The Replacements showed up late, pulled up in a van that they had rented for it, and like. Literally opened the van door and beer can spilled out. They made some pretty off-color remarks about what had gone on on the way down on the trip and everything. Maybe we don't need to get into that. Anyway, but I was young and excited and didn't really know. And so three of them, Paul Westerberg, the singer, songwriter, guitarist, Tommy Stinson, the bass player, and Chris Mars, the drummer, went to do an interview with David De Young, who was the station manager at KDIC, and Gene Silverberg, who was the music director, which we have the recording of, by the way. I think Hayden has it, I believe, too. So they went off to do an interview already intoxicated because they basically spent all the money they had for the trip on their way down. And this is what I mean. I don't know if they, at that point, whether people they even had credit cards or anything to get themselves back. They really needed to get paid for the show to get back. And then Bobby, who was Tommy's older brother and the guitar player, did not do the interview. So I ran off to get him more beer, which, in hindsight, it was maybe not the best idea because he had some issues there. Anyway, so they did that and then they came out to play after doing the interview and everything, and they were the first band, and it was outside north of Darby where we would set up bands. There was a little parking lot there we would set up the stage there for bands. And then the little platform stage, and it was because they were playing first, it was so early, hardly anyone was there, and it was mostly North Campus students, which again, the classic, however seriously you want to take North-South campus divide, it was more North Campus jocks and everything. So, very few people were there. And they started playing. And my roommate and I were kind of like wound up, and the crowd was kind of like a little bit, I don't know. The band was messed up. It was clear from the beginning. They didn't finish a song during the show. People were calling out requests, like Andy Poland, who was a campus musician and fan, calling out requests, and Paul Westberg was, you know, on the stage whispering, basically, if you can score us some coke, we'll play that for you. Or they're saying, like, we don't know that song, things like that. And these kind of football players, to generalize, were like kind of like not into it. So we were slam dancing as much as we could to songs that ended after a minute or whatever. Very messy, and I don't even remember how many songs they did at one point. Tommy, like I said, I shouldn't have gotten beer to at one point. He was wearing a Boo and a Betty Boo poltertop. And at one point he went and urinated off the end of the east end of the stage, and they were like, people sitting on a blanket like twenty-five feet feet away. So, um, so, like, like that. Um, and at one point, then Bobby threw up his guitar in the air. And it came down and broke one of the monitor speakers that the sound guy had brought. And after he did that, Chris Mars kicked over his drum kit and they kind of just, made a mess and the speaker had been broken. The sound guy was like pissed off. He's basically like, F this. What, you know, what are these guys, these clowns doing? So he cut the sound, and went up and started to get ready to break down the stage. And so the band realized that, sort of, you know, and were kind of staggering around and sort of like put the drum kit back up and act as if they were going to put things back together. But the sound guy was not having it. And so at that point, when they realized that, then Bobby smashed his guitar for real, like broke it, the neck went flying into the crowd. Tommy went and got it. He was playing, I think he always played this Rickenbacher bass, and he went and got another bass from the van and smashed the other bass. So, not his favorite bass, apparently. I don't think he totally broke it, but he smashed that. Anyway, and that was the end of their set. Like, it was over. The sound guy called the police because he wanted to get paid for a speaker, which I mean it was it was it was dumb. Um so the Grinhell police came out. And that was The Replacement's performance, basically. They ended up getting cut a check less than the amount than their you know their agreed fee, which was a tiny fee anyway, I think, and maybe heard in every memory was that they ended up receiving a little over a hundred dollars, you know, like one hundred and twenty dollars or something as their payment for the gig after backing out the cost of this this monitor speaker. But again, at this point, memories get a little foggy. So, and it was funny because the next day, walking around campus and the word on campus was that they were in jail and they had been arrested since the police came out, which they were not arrested. They left. Of course, they didn't have a driver, so that's a whole nother question. I'm not even sure who was how they, you know, they got back. So and then The Wallets played. Which I don't have many memories of the Wallets.

Speaker 1: Slightly overshadowed.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Great, because one of the guys on the concerts committee was a jazz musician, played in campus bands, and afterwards he's like, that's the greatest rock and roll show I've ever seen. So it was a mess, but it was also very memorable. And the band gave me the guitar they smashed. So we have the guitar Andy Poland, who I mentioned before, has the neck, which last time I saw him he offered to me, but I said it's kind of cool that the two of us have pieces of the guitar.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that's super cool.

Speaker 2: And sorry for the nostalgia trip here.

Speaker 1: No, no, this is great stuff. I'm so excited about this. If you would be interested in maybe like sending a photo of the guitar, I think that could be a really cool thing too for us to have.

Speaker 2: But yeah, it's been in a couple books now. A guitar collecting book. And then a friend wrote a chapter on smashing guitars in the picture. I guess it's also it's also in an oral history of The Replacements, too. So but we have pictures, yeah, so I can send that. That would be sadly, there's no soundboard recording the show, which I would love to be able to hear that.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be crazy to hear.

Speaker 2: Other shows shows that Frank did, he recorded them and some of them have leaked out over the years. So you can, and Hayden has been good in tracking down some of these shows that have shown up on YouTube and things like that.

Speaker 1: Yeah, he has a very cool archive of the shows that are somewhat legally ambiguous.

Speaker 2: I don't think. But there was the I mean, where there were contracts, I mean, I wrote some of the contracts, which is another thing that in this day and age, the college would never allow to happen, but I would just write some simple agreement, you know. And yeah, broadcast rights and and think recording rights, anything even vaguely thought of.

Speaker 1: That's so interesting. What would you put in the contracts that you wrote? Do you remember?

Speaker 2: I mean, it was basic terms. They might have had some, you know, set length, you know, because coming to the college frequently we didn't have an opening band, so bands were playing longer than their standard club shows typically. Um, one band that came, maybe my sophomore year, the Del Fuegos, people made fun of them because they came and they had such a short set that they ended up repeating most of their set. And people kind of, they kind of got, I mean, the two Zane brothers in the band have gone on to do interesting stuff then, writing and also. Dan Zanes did children's music. Maybe when you were a kid you might even have heard his stuff. It was popular kids' music. But at the time people kind of scorned them because it wasn't very punk rock to repeat their set, or maybe it was. So it's just simple terms of when and how long they're playing and everything. We ran into problems with one band that we had play outside of Darby, Soul Asylum. I don't know if you've heard about this show.

Speaker 1: I read about it in the S&B, I think, but I would love to hear it in your words.

Speaker 2: So Soul Asylum came down from Minneapolis, and they were there's a long story there with their kind of history. At the time, they were a very highly thought of, they got called in American Music Press, some people said, even the best live band in America at that time. But they came and during their sound check outside of Darby, the police, Grinnell police, showed up during the sound check saying that they had. Received nor noise complaints from a farmer that was like four miles north of town. Um, and asked them to turn it down, but then Soul Asylum and their sound guy said, Well, actually, contractual language, we have a clause that says literally, Soul Asylum reserves the right to be loud, which they took it to mean that we could not tell them what level to play at. They could define their sound. So anyway, the police came out, gave us a warning. Show started started out with the volume somewhat attenuated but still loud. And then after maybe forty minutes, forty-five minutes, the police came out, and felt like every squad car in Grinnell came. It was multiple squad cars in the Darby parking lot. And I, I, I kind of feel like they if they got the complaint during the sound check, they probably got complaints again immediately when they started playing again, so maybe they held off and let us. So, so I, I mean, I think the show couldn't have been more than fifty minutes long before the police shut it down. And that day, because I've been talking a lot and excess my voice, and so the police were people were pissed off and yelling things and maybe throwing some beer cans and stuff. And I asked a fellow student to go up, and kind of, you know, but I asked the wrong student to get up there because it was a student who was kind of a rabble-rouser, and he got up there. And my memory of what he said was basically: if they don't want us making noise on campus, let's go into town and wreck the place. Which then got the police very mad at him. I think the police already knew him a bit. He worked at the funeral home in town and probably had a bit of a reputation already. So, but that was exciting because Grinnell students getting agitated enough to have a near riot is is kind of an exceptional circumstance. So that was pretty exciting, and it was a great show and it was short, but I think memorable and people had a great time, although one friend who lives in New York City here, so I see her. And she hosted two of the band members stayed on the floor in her, her apartment at the brand apartments, and she somehow got lice from them. I will say that she was it was it's not a sexual thing. She did not sleep with the band members, just for her, but somehow got and so. She was mad at me and said that somehow she got lice from this, which if you have you ever seen Soul Asylum or do you know them at all?

Speaker 1: I have not, but I think we will look into them after this.

Speaker 2: Very much unwashed. The singer Dave Perner had blonde dreadlocks. And after this, he dated Winona Ryder for a few years after this. But they were kind of grubby. It was a very boys, boys band. So that life maybe isn't totally surprising. So they did that. Then at the end of the year, we had money left over in the concert's budget. So and since they a short show, I booked them a second time and brought them down, and then they played inside Derby this time on the other show. Which had a whole other other range of issues, but not with the band this time. But we don't need to get into all that happened there. With this was kind of when the alcohol policy was changing and everything. And so there were issues there because when I got to Grinnell, you would go to concerts and there would just be keg beer out and, no concern really about IDs or anything, and that very much changed by the time I graduated. Anyway, so they came back, and then people enjoyed them so much that they actually ended up coming back at least two more times. A student, Jamie, was younger, really liked them, and had used personal money to bring them back to campus at least two more times after that.

Speaker 1: Wow.

Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway.

Speaker 1: Circling back to their first concert, that was when you were concert chair, is that right?

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, fall of 87.

Speaker 1: Do you remember what the reaction, like what you kind of dealt with after that concert just went? It had all these interactions with the place. Do you remember what?

Speaker 2: You know, I again, I mean, I mean, it's kind of amazing how hands off the administration was because like it wasn't like I didn't I mean, we had a, the Dean of Student Affairs was a very controlling power person, which gets into the Georgia Dentel territory. But no, I don't recall any repercussions from the campus. And I brought them back in the spring and didn't clear it with anybody. That was a show that I just, called them directly and said, Hey, you want to come back? Paid them more for the second time because in the meantime their star had risen a little bit and everything, but no, I mean, it yeah, it's kind of amazing that the police come to campus and Council Chair doesn't have get called on the carpet by anybody. And it was it was very laissez-faire, which is great.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds incredible. But you did have some sort of guidance with Georgia and her knowledge of, as you said, with The Replacements.

Speaker 2: I mean again, she in our conversations, my memory, she expressed reluctance, but I was you know, I wanted them back and asked her to look into it despite her reluctance based on. And just in hindsight, I'm sure she just probably did not pursue it very avidly. So, but I think that's Georgia and not I don't think the administration, I don't think Georgia was talking to the Dean of Student Affairs and saying, oh, they want to bring back that band that got in all the trouble that time before. I mean, we had very strange notions of like, I remember being a freshman in this English funk band, Prince Charles and the City Beat Band, playing. And we're standing around with them and they're smoking pot. And there was a car accident on sixth. So right there, like so like 150 feet away from we're reassuring them, "Oh, don't worry, the police can't come on campus" So they're just which you know, I'm not sure how apocryphal that was, whether that was just a student understanding or whether there was really an agreement between the college that the college would police what happened on the campus and only invite the town police in as absolutely needed. But that was our understanding, and we're like, hey, go ahead and smoke here. They're not going to, fortunately, the police did not arrest them.

Speaker 1: That's very interesting. I feel like those same kind of mythologies, or I guess maybe not mythologies, about the police department, kind of still exist on campus today, which are interesting to hear. And then diving more into kind of Georgia's role with concerts. Do you think you could, so you talked with her on the phone a lot. Do you think you could kind of characterize those conversations for me? What was it like talking with her?

Speaker 2: Like I said, I mean, it was a mixture of her definitely asking questions because she was in her house and never came to campus while I was there. I mean, I've heard stories about her visiting campus after. I mean, when she first had the job, she did come on campus. I was just looking. I just. Bought a 1965 Grinnell yearbook because I collect Grinnell yearbooks, and it was really exciting. I got a '64 and '65, which was excited because the 1966 yearbook are you familiar with? So in 1966, Grinnell's yearbook, Henry Wilhelm, was the yearbook editor and did this just amazing yearbook. Just the photography is fabulous. But it had a lot of editorial content about sex and drugs and things on campus life. Because that was back when women lived on South Campus, men lived on North Campus. So there were photos showing how people would sneak into the dorms after hours. Pictures of people smoking pot where you couldn't see the people, but you could see them sitting in a circle. Editorializing '65 was the last year that Grinnell had cheerleaders. So it was a real transitional time for the college. So the college, because of its editorial content, decided not to publish the yearbook in 1966. So then, but then, when I was at Grinnell, they published it twenty years later. The college published it, made a big deal of it. And it's you sh- you really have to look at it because it's, the campus has changed a lot, but it's still the same Grinnell in a lot of ways. And in '86, especially, because we still had the four on the same chairs and everything. Anyway, and so Henry Williehelm lives in Grinnell and he became kind of the go-to expert in the US or not just the US on photographic materials. It's like testing print paper for its durability and exposure to light and everything. So I had a big career after that, but it's just a beautiful yearbook. So to get anyway. Long digression here, but to get the '64 and '65 year books to kind of see that free in post. I don't know if you've heard this story. So Jefferson Airplane, if you're familiar, you're from California, right? So maybe you know Bay Area, right? Okay. So Jefferson Airplane were one of the big San Francisco groups in the mid sixties. And Grace Slick was their vocalist before.

Speaker 1: She actually went to my high school. She's like the coolest one for my high school.

Speaker 2: So before she was in the Jefferson Airplanes, she wasn't on their first record. She was in a band called The Great Society with her brother. And there's a compilation album of the Great Society where there's liner notes, and in the liner notes they talk about, I guess this isn't a digression because it's one of these famous Georgia shows where I first I believe the first time the Jefferson airplane played outside of California was at Grinnell, is my understanding at least. And in the liner notes for that Great Society album, they talk about coming two years in a row to Grinnell. So, if you've seen this or read this then, or I think I've heard this quote. Yeah. So, the first time they come, and everybody's in khakis and madras. And then the next year, everybody's doing acid and rolling in the mud, basically.

Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 2: So yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1: So it sounds like a very transformative era.

Speaker 2: And so Georgia, again, I assume that's something that I assume she gets credit for that Jefferson Airplane show.

Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2: Oh, and the reason I mention it is because in the 65-year book, there are photos of Georgia. If you I don't know if, if you've got those, or if that's part of the archive you're building, both like an official portrait and then also a group photo with other people involved in the campus arts.

Speaker 1: I think we have those too, but I will double-check that because that sounds like a really cool primary source.

Speaker 2: So I mean, so Georgia, I mean, sh she I think she was a lonely person. So I think there was, you know, these conversations, they were long conversations and she would talk about things going on. And I don't, some of it I don't even want to talk about just because it was like personal stuff that I don't think is, you know. But she was very interested in campus life and asking questions about what's going on. She would have a student assistant that would work with her, and I think in part was just her eyes and ears just helping her understand what's going on and everything. Yeah, I never so I never met her. I did bike by her house just to kind of see where she lived and everything.

Speaker 1: But she was very interested in kind of hearing from you and other presumably other students she worked with about campus culture and student interest. Do you think that's accurate?

Speaker 2: Yeah. And did she did it seem like she had any personal interest in either film or music that she was bringing or trying to bring into I mean, she had knowledge of artists that had played on the campus before, and then also kind of I mean, just like she talked to us, I'm sure she talked to these agents and kind of, engaged in more than just the business of whatever was being booked, you know, like hearing what's good. So she passed along what she heard about people, or so-and-so is like, like I said, The Replacements built in for Jonathan Richmond. And then I wanted Jonathan Richmond because I love Jonathan Richmond. Leave he's actually been offered for next fall or something, I think. Someone contacted Leave about him coming, which I don't know at this point whether students need him. But he he does have a history. He's played the college several times and he is still an amazing performer. Anyway, I talked to George about it and she was like, Oh, he's just touring with Tommy Larkin as drummer now. I don't think it's as good a show as you know it once was. So she had kind of some sensibility of it, but of course it was all hearsay from that she talked to or passed Grinnell concerts that she she had booked with him. So he was several at Grinnell several times, but not during the four years I was there. So, and I don't know if he came he probably came after me because Councillor's program continued to be strong despite losing Georgia.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And so, yeah, getting to that kind of aspect of your time on the concerts committee and as concerts chair. There are a lot of S&B articles on the archive about kind of this. Disagreement between Jim Tederman and, or I guess maybe not disagreement, but Jim Tederman was a very vocal opponent of Georgia's position. Did you ever interact with him, or what was your impression? Of his opinions regarding concerts in Georgia.

Speaker 2: I don't, I don't, it's not someone I have a lot of positive to say about. I mean, is this all? I mean, can I go off the record and on the record?

Speaker 1: I think it might be more simple.

Speaker 2: He was not a good fit for Grinnell College to me. He was very much about power and like promoted people around him that weren't really qualified, but people that would kind of do his bidding. He had people that were very, there were some questionable people in student affairs that were working for him that really shouldn't have been in their positions. I believe this is just speaking from my own personal opinion. And he really did not like Georgia, had it in for her and lobbied student government hard. That we were better off without her, and students really should control the program for themselves. And I'm, you know, we've talked about laissez-faire and you know, the Grinnell self-governance is great and everything, and I'm a big believer in that. But I also think that really right now in 2025, after the pandemic, we also see the shortcomings with self government in that as Liev has tried to you know, build the concerts program with Hayden. I also should I mean, Hayden has done amazing stuff with both the radio station and concerts and other things on campus. That with the pandemic, you lost this institutional knowledge, you know, where students pass on relationships with agents, how the program runs, the tradition and everything. People don't get that this was you know, so like when I booked campus at concerts, there was a con- at least one concert every week of the school year. Some weeks we had multiple concerts. I mean we went from relays, which I'm sure you've talked to about people, to my year was the first year of Peace Day, which was short-lived and maybe not the greatest idea. But we had, Friday we had two artists. We had anyway a reggae artist, Pablo Moses and then Skid Roper and Mojo Nixon played outside of Derby. And then the next day we had five people play outside of Derby, you know. So we had seven acts over a weekend. And so, to me, always an important part of the Grinnell tradition was we're not colleges that do like spring bash and spend all your money bringing one act in or something. It's like, no. Grinnell gets bands and in large part or significant part due to Georgia Dentel having connections, we got people on their way. But we're in the middle of Iowa, you know, and if the college wants to keep kids on campus and not going to Iowa City or Des Moines or Chicago or Minneapolis over the weekend. I think the concerts is a great way to keep things going on. So you have the pandemic, you lose that institutional knowledge, you don't have strong advocates in the administration, and then it becomes really hard to rebuild that and kind of recreate that. And the pandemic's a unique thing, but I do think some balance is needed there. You need some, some advocate. And I feel like my knowledge of what's going on now is that the administration actually actively hinders the process and makes it harder to have a good concerts program. I hope things can keep building and students can rebuild it. I mean, I have faith in Grinnell students and everything. But losing someone like Georgia Dentel that had that knowledge and then replacing them who has no passion or background. It's a huge downgrade. So I think Jim Tederman was all about power again, having assistants that weren't qualified. Didn't like Georgia Dentel that she didn't come into the office and all this, whatever his deal was. And so selling people in student government that we'd be better off without her I mean, in this day and age, the college couldn't do it because this was before the Americans with Disability Act. And I mean, clearly, what the college did to her, I feel like I don't know what the terms of her leaving the college were, but I think clearly the motivations and the way they acted violated what would now fall under the ADA. So it was bad. Yeah. And to treat someone who had done so much for the college like that is...

Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like now there's almost I mean, up until this project started two years ago, a year and a half ago, it felt like Georgia Dentel wasn't super, I mean, she was remembered, but not in not to the level that she should have been for all the work that she did for the college. I guess I'm wondering if while you were at Grinnell, there was kind of like a general knowledge of who Georgia was and what she was doing? Or was what she was doing very much on the like on the back end, not super acknowledged by students?

Speaker 2: I mean, I think there was awareness of concerts' history and great shows, and you know, it was just kind of this rolling tradition that people would like, what was, I mean, and I mean, you know, there's a lot of this institutional memory now at Grinnell is people like Ron Cooper and Chris Sutliff, if you know them at all. Not Grinnell students, but town people that have been

Speaker 1: Yes.

Speaker 2: Involved Ron Cooper worked at the PEC and retired from the PEC and is a huge music fan. Chris Sutliff played in bands with college students, and they've always had friendships with the college students. And I was just there for a union and saw both of them, so they tell amazing stories and would be good, you know, if you want to. I don't know how much knowledge of Georgia Dentel they would have, but just as knowledge of the concerts, they, you know, these, they're town guys that started going to shows when they were just kids. So like The Police played Grinnell with with Ultravox. So like, two amazing bands on one bill. And I forget, I think it was Ron was telling me about going to a house party with Sting at the house party. And this is before The Police had broken and he had no money and he was basically panhandling students at the party asking for money. And then fun finally someone gave him twenty bucks and he he left the party 'cause he had money. Anyway, so awareness of Georgia, there was awareness of these concerts, and I mean, some people I think knew about her, but since she didn't come on campus, definitely the music people. And like I think in every generation, you have people that are more into it than others that worked at the radio station or at the concerts, everything newer, but the general student body probably not so much. And she wasn't like I mean, I think I think those movies did have her name on them when they were in the S&B. Did, is that what you've seen when you've looked at the archives?

Speaker 1: Yeah, she would write like articles in the SMB about the things being screened.

Speaker 2: So some awareness there, but how much people actually track that and then said, oh, this is someone who works for the college, I'm not sure.

Speaker 1: And then do you remember any I guess what do you remember of kind of the student response? Both like the general public and then like the concerts, students who were involved with concerts when Jim Tederman was kind of making this push to face Georgia.

Speaker 2: I mean, I think this council's chairs that preceded me were very much on Georgia's side. And you've probably seen I'm kind of embarrassed 'cause I so I was living in San Francisco then when this all went down and wrote a very messy letter to the editor of the S&B because I was just because I was, you know, people were telling me what was going on or sending me S&B articles, and I felt like things were being misrepresented in how in the discussion of it. So I, so I'm kind of embarrassed that stuff like that is I think it's even online. I haven't even looked because I have such bad memories of that it was just something that I'd like hand wrote overnight. I don't even remember how I sent it. It just was all came together very quickly. It was not an edited document kind of thing. So I know other concerts chairs were on Georgia's side, and it was very contentious between myself and student government people at the time, because I felt there was some dishonesty in the discussion of what was going on. That was unfair to Georgia and misrepresented what went on with concerts. And so, as I said before, going to the SGA things, I think I brought a different sensibility. And so, I actually enjoyed going to SGA and kind of calling bullshit where I saw it in student government at the time. But unfortunately, Tedemann was able to win some people over to his view on Georgia and force her out ultimately.

Speaker 1: So yeah, I definitely read a lot of articles written by students that were anti-Georgia, talking about how she didn't host office hours. Is that something that you remember?

Speaker 2: Kind of like this criticism of that. And what office hour? I mean, what what exactly would she have you know done? You know, I mean not sure what responsibilities she would have done beyond the arts programming that we're talking about, that she worked with the students within the self-governance system. So so so to me, she did her job and did it well. Like I said, I feel like she was I was satisfied very satisfied with the success rate she had on pursuing artists that I wanted to book. And I certainly none of the other concert chairs, and I'm good friends with all the concerts chairs that were during my time at Grinnell, they're all people that are friends of mine, and not one of them has ever said anything negative about their experience with Georgia. So I'm not sure. I think it was all manufacturerd. I'm unfortunate, so not to speak ill because some of those student government people are friends of mine now, but I think they were ill-used.

Speaker 1: But there was this kind of narrative push that Georgia was inaccessible to students? And do you think that was like generally a successful that wasn't a perception of the student body?

Speaker 2: That was a handful of people on student government and and fed by Jim Tederman, I believe. I don't I don't think there was any organic, I mean, you know in my speaking to student government and them asking me what's going on with concerts and everything, I don't remember a single time before this whole push came up to get rid of her that anyone said, why isn't Georgia, why, student government wasn't complaining until this organized push came. It was not an active issue. So I don't think it was a real thing. I mean, if the college had a job description for her, yeah, she was doing her job in my perception.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, anyone, or at least anyone that I've talked to about working with Georgia, they describe her as extraordinarily hardworking, like we'd call them anywhere from 8 am to like 11 pm to talk about concerts. Yeah. Yeah. Um and then, sorry, I had one question that Miles sent me. Let me just pull that up. I think we covered a lot of what I wanted to say. I was wondering if, if you could describe just a little more about the actual mechanics of your job. So how often you discussed with Georgia, how influenced or and how influenced you were by like the overall wants of the student body in terms of concerts versus bringing your own personal opinion.

Speaker 2: So, I mean, I I would say I spoke with Georgia not every day, but several times a week. And calls tended to be longer, like more than half hour calls. I'm not a big phone person personally. So I would say a shortcoming as my as concert's chair was that I had pretty strong ideas about what I wanted, and so definitely I had a committee and I listened to them. But I didn't view it as a democratic process. And that was one of the things that was getting raised there was, you know, we need more student input. And then my argument was this is problematic because student bodies' awareness is of more successful acts. That don't work within kind of this budget definition. They work again if you're doing a big campus party once or twice a year and paying paying, you know, your whole budget there. But if you're booking, you know, I haven't done a tally to see how many artists that you know, but if you're bringing thirty-five, forty artists in during the school year, must have been at least forty artists. Then the number of acts that the general students know is limited. I'd say maybe today with digital communication, maybe there'll be a way of doing more of, but it's but to me it would be tricky because if you create the expectation that you're going to the student body and saying, who do you want here? And then it's like, well it'd be great to bring them, but that would be our whole budget for the year kind of situation. So, and I I mean, my sense is that that was the way concerts chairs did it at the time. And how they would you know, I mean, they would talk to other people and say, Hey, who's good? Who should we bring? Who would be a good relays band? You know, because for relays you want a certain thing, The Replacements was a relay show, obviously. But it was not like. And student government wasn't providing input because those people are generally weren't music people so much. So not discode with them.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and then I think I've made it through most of my questions. If there's anything that you want to make sure. Like that you don't want left out of this interview, now would be the time to raise it. Any sort of great memories, standout performances, anything like that.

Speaker 2: I mean, there were just so many great shows and so many I just I mean a lot of focus again since talking with Liev about what she's dealing with is my feeling that the college needs a better understanding of how important concerts are, because to me it's important both for the current student body to make Grinnell a vibrant place. And I love what the college does with like music lessons and all that stuff, I think, is fantastic. And I I love the um the various student concert programs that are going on. Um I don't know how much like the tiny dorm room concerts was a thing. And then what's the other name for the student concerts, student band concerts?

Speaker 1: I am so horrible with names. This is a bad question to ask me. Miles might be more likely to remember.

Speaker 2: So I think that stuff is great, but I think

Speaker 1: Oh, free sound is the sound something sound, yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah, um, yeah, free sound.

Speaker 1: Sorry.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so that stuff's great and very important, cultivating that. But I think the college needs to understand that it's important both for that, but then it's also a tie for students like students or alums, excuse me, have both as fond memories of their time there and also, you know, you know, it's something that maybe if good bands are playing at Grinnell and communication communic it's been problematic over the years 'cause like I was living in Minneapolis for a long time, and thought about going down for concerts, but communication was always, you know, inconsistent. Like someone would have an Instagram account or something and then that would go dormant and things like that. But the college wants to sustain relationships with alums, and I think concerts program is part of that, both memories of their experiences as students and, okay, go to Grinnell when it's even when it's not reunion and see a band or something, if this book something, see what student life is now. So I'm frustrated that the college isn't doing enough to cultivate that. Like the budget they have now is, I believe, less than what I had for a full year budget in '87, '88. And obviously, dollars have changed a lot since then and booking prices, especially since the pandemic have changed. So I think the college needs to invest more in that and make it happen. And, and I don't know if you can have a Georgia Dentel, but as close as possible to a Georgia Dentel, someone that can help students. So allow self governance, but inform them and bring some real knowledge of the industry to it. So so to me, the yeah, the focus would just be on the future of the program. Making sure it's vital going forwards. Yeah. But I think I talked about I don't, yeah.

Speaker 1: As a closing question, I was just wondering if you believe that your time working on concerts or with Georgia or even on the film committee or KDIC has had, like, what influence that has had on your future career and your time posing now?

Speaker 2: I mean, like I said, so I did work in music and the arts. And when I applied to law school, I wrote my essay about working with musicians and kind of from a perspective of helping artists that have been wronged by the industry and everything. So I think that it was formative in some sense in that. In my day-to-day work now, I'm not working with our I guess I do still work with some musicians and a friend who has a record label, I do his legal work for him. So I do that on essentially a pro bono basis for some people. So I do it on a limited basis now. But I think it was formative and just comp the confidence that I can do this, run this, which enabled me to though go and then run the Fitzgerald Theater and program arts there and kind of have confidence in my ability to put together a balanced and interesting program of performances in that sense. In some ways, I'd still like to be doing that. But also when I look at I mean, I go to concerts a lot now, and it's a really a difficult time because touring expenses have gone up, venues, alcohol revenues are people don't drink as much as they do anymore. So the economics are really difficult because I see, especially for bands on the kind of the not established end of the scale. You're seeing I still see tickets for fifteen, twenty five dollars. And it's like, how does a touring band get paid out of this if the venue since everybody's since marijuana's legal and people are doing other things and not drinking at shows, make the economics work. Got merch and things like that. But anyway, it's a tough, tough place to be right now. So I'm not sure I at the end want to be in that business right now. Yeah.

Speaker 1: All right. Well, thank you so much for your participation. Yeah, I think we should be good to end this recording.