The Cloud Cult experience can be called many names. It is captivating. It is overwhelming. It is bone-chillingly pure. It is beautiful. And it is raw in a way that exposes many facets of emotion.
It must be the string section.
There is something about a lush cello and violin washing over a room that cuts right to the core. It strips away any posturings and pulls at those feelings hidden deep inside.
Or maybe it's Craig Minowa's painfully delicate tenor.
Hidden in that warble is a heart ache that hurts the whole way through. As it stretches thinly across his tales of losing and getting lost, it breaks through the band and turns itself into a victory chant. It sings a theme song for that moment when you've figured out that everything is going to be all right.
Triumph is Minowa's story.
But first there was sadness. The sadness in his song is often about
his son, Kaidin, who died mysteriously in his sleep in 2002. Kaidin's
memories shock through Cloud Cult's music. The triumph, however, shows
in his life — in how Minowa overcame grief and has become a conduit
to reflect and heal all the dark patches in listeners' lives. Minowa
is a shaman, a medicine man and a troubadour all in one.
Minowa wrote Cloud Cult's first nationally released album, They Live on the Sun, shortly after his son died.
"What came out of that was because it was so personal. A lot of fans came out of the woodwork that had gone through similar losses, and I had felt like the loss of Kaidin could have a positive aspect," he says. "If there was a silver lining at all — that by being open and honest about the grieving process we could perpetuate his legacy in a way — it's something positive to do with the music."
Cloud Cult tours with two artists who slap paint onto huge canvasses while the band plays. One of the two is Minowa's wife, Connie. Kaidin is a theme within her art, as well. Tonight a packed crowd at First Avenue looks on through the course of the set as Connie's image comes to life. It's a family bathed in an earthy green hue. But there is a distance in their eyes. They are looking at the ground, or maybe to the past.
Yet there is so much life in
this band. As much as Minowa eyes the past, he is ever focused on the
future and works to make it a healthy place for everyone.
Another theme in Minowa's
life is roots. He's got roots that wrap around the planet. Minowa
is a never tiring campaigner of eco-consciousness.
"We have a responsibility to live like that," he says about his green lifestyle. "You choose to recycle at home. You choose to buy green products for your personal life. It's the same thing [as a band.] The t-shirts are organic cotton. For posters we do 100% post-recycled. Touring is tough to really truly green."
The band tours in a bio-diesel van. But with earth-friendly fuels becoming big business, Minowa says he feels some of the business practices are becoming at odds with the ethics he holds. But he has other plans.
"We're going to put big
sails on the van and sail across the street," he jokes.
Tonight he and Connie are ecstatic
because they get to spend the night on their farm.
"I miss our front porch where
we sit and enjoy the stars at night, and I miss the peace and quiet,"
Connie says. "The scenery is wonderful, especially in the spring and
fall. It's just gorgeous. I miss our garden a lot, too."
Minowa agrees.
"It's getting to be the
season to start growing things," he says. "It's really nice to
walk out to the garden and make your own food for the day."
Touring, though, has become
a barrier to their goal of being self-sustaining.
"Last spring we did our seedlings and those died while we were out on the road," he says. "You can't achieve those sustainability goals if you're not there to take care of the farm."
The future of Cloud Cult will
likely be a lot different when the band finishes this tour. Minowa
says he wants to focus on the farm and only play in cities near enough
that he and Connie can quickly trek back to tend the garden.
I've never heard of them, but as a former musician who traded his guitars, amplifiers, nights rehearsing, clubbing and dreams of rock stardom for a family life with a healthy son, large backyard garden and new dreams of a family organic farm with cattle, poultry and everything else, I feel some connetion to their dreams. Thanks for writing about them, I will check them out.
The balance between music and life is difficult. Music should not be an escape from the daily grind, but rather something that you carry around with you at all times. It can't be the latest song or band, but should (must) be rooted in time, community and place. I don't think music is information that can be downloaded from the internet or moved accross country in small vans or large semi-trucks carrying a large contingent of road crew jobs. Music is within and should be shared with those who share similar experience not sold or marketed for broad appeal. Music should be played by all and accessible enough that the separation of musicians and audience is sometimes hard to distinguish. Music comes and goes and the best of it is heard once and lasts only in the memory of the singer and the listener to be passed on again the next time people come together. The next time a little different.
Music is inspired by the hardship of life and gives meaning to our hardship. Life on the road is hard, but the meaning we get from it confuses more than clarifies. The great genres that were born in America and shared around the world were born in the South amongst hard lives and extreme prejudice. Great music was born to cope with this hardship and the gift of the blues, Jazz, Rock, and country handed to us by those who suffered this hardship is the means for expressing our own hardship in life. The challenge is to make it our own and share it with others who suffer a similar fate so they can transcend their own hardship.
That is the gift of music, not the life on the stage but the sharing of similar experience. Sharing with others the life on the road and the pits and glories associated with nights on stage and days traveling between cities gives back little and probably takes away even more in the values it shares lacking any sense of community and eco-friendliness. That is why I rarely find myself either on a stage or in front of them anymore. Nor do I very often reach for a CD to play on the stereo. Yet, I am more full of music than I have ever been before and when I get together and play with those of like mind, the magic in the beans always finds a way to grow and express itself for those in the room to experience and only those in the room.