The Mad Ripple Hootenanny has been on the run the past few weeks after zoning issues forced it off its perch on the tiny stage in the basement of Java Jacks. Though many Hooters have felt displaced since that time, the Hoot – which is as much the people who make it up, as it is the location where it happens – has bopped from the main floor of Java Jacks, to a Hooter’s living room, to – this past week – Grumpy’s Northeast.
It was the first amplified Hoot in Minneapolis. It was unquestionably different, but sitting on the floor of Grumpy’s right in front of the stage surrounded by friends and fellow Hooters, drinking red wine out of a tiny Guinness glass emblazoned with a shamrock, I still had the experience I have come to love. Ben Kyle from Romantica; Ike Reilly; and RuDeGIRL, an all female Clash Cover band, performed to an audience that was attentive up front but filled in by ever noisier non-hooters at the back of the crowd as the evening wore on.
Alexa Jones borrowed my camera to snap this photo of Ike Reilly and Hootmeister Jim Walsh in repose while listening to Ben Kyle. (See the whole Hoot set here.)
Sadly, the Hoot season is ending yet again this Friday, November 23rd with a performance in St. Paul at the House of Mercy Church featuring The Falls, Martin Devaney, Slim Dunlap, and Terry Walsh. Friday’s post-Hoot will take place at Rob Rule’s Bar Chord Music Club in Knapp, Wisconsin.
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