Meet in the Middle | The Scoop

by Andrew Norman

Melinda and Helen are sitting in white, fiberglass chairs connected by metal bars — like those in bus stations. Behind them, a sign reads, “Unattended Children Will Be Sold to the Circus.” Ladies of a certain age, they're visiting while their laundry spins dry Sunday night at Super Suds laundromat in New Paltz, N.Y. They don't expect their peaceful setting to become a three-ring tent — as it does when a four-person crew of Nebraskans lugs in and sets up audio, video and lighting equipment while surveying, pointing and directing commands; dancers dressed in neon colors gyrate on and next to stainless steel machines loaded with rags; and in the spotlight, lit up like an angel in front of her keyboard, singer/DJ Erica Quitzow casts her soul into a pair of vocal mics.

Melinda and Helen don't expect this veritable circus — day 10 of the 2011 Love Drunk Tour — but they're not bothered by it, either. In fact, after being briefed on what's unfolding before them, they're eager to talk about their Nebraska connections.

“You know, it must be a thing about Nebraska,” Melinda says. There must be something about you traveling, she says. In the '80s, she responded to a classified ad for a pen pal. She was bored. “The guy I got was from Nebraska, she says.” This guy, he smoked about a carton of cigarettes and drank a flat of soda a day, she says. He would send her dozens of polaroids of this and that kind of grain — corn, wheat. They were pen pals for a long time, but never spoke on the phone. Then, one day, she got a call out of the blue from this man.

“How are you?,” he asked.

“I'm good,” she said. “How are you? How's the weather in Nebraska?”

“Well, I wouldn't know … because I'm in Connecticut,” he said. He told her he was on his way to New Paltz to visit her. He'd loaded a 50-gallon tank of gas into the back of his pickup truck, dozens of flats of soda and his cartons of cigarettes and took off on a journey east from Nebraska to visit each of his 50 pen pals.

“He smoked so many cigarettes, he's probably dead now,” she says.

Her friend, Helen? Her grandfather was born in Alma, Neb., and was an original homesteader. He became a populist leader in the state.

Taken individually, these loose Nebraska ties don't mean much. But after 10 days of taking the Love Drunk video shoots on the road, talking to and making friends with people in five states and 11 bands, we've compiled a handful of anecdotes that serve as unexpected postcards from home, and, if we were the kind of people (we are) who read into this stuff, as validation that what we're doing is important.

Here are some other connections we've encountered.

• In Kansas City, we shot Everyday/Everynight, which is on the same label — Golden Sound Records — as Omaha band Honey & Darling.

• In Indianapolis, the night before shooting the band Everything, Now!, we crashed at Maggie Gard's house. Maggie's in the Chicago band Bears of Blue River, which performed a song for Love Drunk at the site of the demolished 49'r (see below).

• In Philadelphia, we shot videos with Arrah and the Ferns and The Menzingers. The only time I had previously been through the City of Brotherly Love, I was tour managing Red City Radio, which played with The Flatliners, The Snips and The Riot Before at The Fire. Both Arrah Fisher (of Arrah and the Ferns) and Menzingers-roomy Tony Godino were working at the venue that night. That's strange. But even weirder is that The Menzingers are friends with Bryan Cohen, who took over covering news for The Reader when I left in 2008 to attend grad school.

Also in Philadelphia, we lost one member of the Love Drunk crew, but added another. Daniel Muller, who is a professional photographer and responsible for the incredible still images we've featured in all the Love Drunk Tour posts so far, flew out Thursday morning to attend the launch party of Esoteric Velvet, a new Omaha culture site to which he's lending his awesome talents. Check it out here.

There's no replacing Daniel, but we picked up a new member of our crew during the Arrah and the Ferns shoot who added his own unique personality and talent to the operation. Anthony “Ant” Zagarella helped us capture his roommates' band on that Philadelphia rooftop, and we all hit it off so well that he hopped into the van and helped us shoot three more videos in New York before taking a bus back to Philly. We're going to miss that guy, with his shoulder-mounted camera that looked like a missile launcher, side-cocked flat cap, accidental porn-editing experience and heart of pure gold.

• Before we left Nebraska, we posted a request on Hear Nebraska's Facebook page for band merchandise to serve as care package material for all the bands we're shooting. A handful of people gave us 17 (one for each band) pieces of merch, which we've been distributing after every shoot along with a message whose condensed version is “Nebraska is awesome, and we're excited for you to come perform there.”

Lincolnite Mitch Cady contributed 17 Heat Machine LPs and 17 Bandit Sound CDs to the cause. When we were in New York, we stayed with John Feuerbach, who played in both of those bands and recently moved to the city. It was really great to see him, and even better to see that he snuck a case of Yuengling into our van — proof that he's a first-rate Nebraska export.

On our second day in New York, we shot singer-songwriter Nick Jaina near a running trail in Central Park. Jaina became the subject of the first Love Drunk video when he stayed at Django G-S' house in Omaha almost a year ago. To see how Love Drunk has progressed in that time, watch the first Jaina video, then see the new one below.

• In Westerly, Rhode Island, we shot rapper B. Dolan performing at an impromptu house party. Wearing blonde beard extension glued to his chin especially for the shoot, Dolan told us that he mentions Omaha and Boise, Idaho, every time a reporter asks him his favorite markets in the country. The reason: The crowds come out with energy, instead of crossing their arms and acting as if they're unimpressed — something he finds in bigger markets like L.A. and New York.

Also in Providence, HN contributor and Love Drunkard Andrew Roger shot one of his Ingrained videos for Jared Paul's melodic hardcore band Prayers for Atheists, which opened for B. Dolan. Hear Nebraska is bringing the band to Mad Ave. on July 8. Look for the video to drop in advance.

Back in New Paltz — the scene of the laundromat-turned-circus — we realize that Conor Oberst's Team Love Records is just down the street. We walk over to find the doors closed (it was Mother's Day, after all), but inside we see photos from last summer's Concert for Equality in Benson. Nebraska is obviously well-represented in this town.

But the capper of 10-days of East Coast-Nebraska connections comes in Erica Quitzow and her partner Gary Levitt having put out the last Landing on the Moon record on their Young Love Records label collective. She said LOTM's Oliver Morgan contacted her on MySpace a couple years ago, before coming through New Paltz to play a show with fellow Omaha band Little Brazil (also featuring Morgan).

“We love Omaha,” she says.

The feeling's mutual. And as we ready for a long drive to Buffalo, N.Y., to film indie-folk artist Brian Wheat in the town's abandoned central train station, I hope our last five days on tour offer the same opportunities to spread and receive Nebraska love.

After that, we plan to stay in touch with all the fine people whom we've met during video shoots and at hosts' houses, encouraging them and every music and art lover in the country to come meet us in the middle.

Angie Norman contributed reporting to this story.

Andrew Norman is edits and directs Hear Nebraska. He recommends you download this free three-song comp for Red City Radio, Mixtapes and Captain, We're Sinking. Another connection: RCR has a member from Nebraska; Captain and the Menzingers both feature a Barnett brother. As always tell Norman what you think in the comments below at andrewn@hearnebraska.org.