PAUL METSA

Media Notice

Contact: IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Martin Keller, Media Savant Communications Co.

612-729-8585, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Minnesota Musician marks 30^th anniversary with friends, stories, video, new and old tunes

PAUL METSA’S “SKYWAY TO HELL” NOV. 27 AT THE PARKWAY THEATER LOOKS AT HIS LIFE’S WORK WITH WILLIE MURPHY, CURTISS A, CATS UNDER THE STARS, SONNY EARL, SHERWIN LINTON, MARY CUTRUFELLO AND A CASCADE OF SCENES FROM SPRINGSTEEN TO DYLAN, WOODY GUTHRIE AND…

TWIN CITIES — November 5, 2009 — You could never pack Virginia, Minnesota native, Paul Metsa, into a convenient music slot. For 30 years he’s rambled through the rock, blues, folk, jam band and singer-songwriter scenes with an uncanny literary sensibility and a rock ‘n’ roll heart nearly as big — and torn — as an open pit mine up on the Range. Now with 30 years and more than 6,000 gigs in the rear view mirror, Metsa will explore his life’s work — and some of its back alleys — November 27 at the Parkway Theater at 9:00 p.m. The retrospective, seen through the eye of the unwavering rock raconteur and heard in the musical prowess of invited musicians and special surprise guests, is aptly titled “Skyway to Hell” (the site of his very first gig in town at the Skyway Lounge as the opening act for a gaggle of strippers. See video, notes and other info at www.skywaytohell.com).

“It’s been a long and winding road for sure,” cracks Metsa. “But the beauty of obscurity is you never go out of style.” Tickets are $12 in advance @ www.brownpapertickets.com, $15 at the door (with $3 off for food shelf donation) and $25 VIP seating at The Parkway (48^th & Chicago, Mpls; 612-822-3030, www.theparkwaytheater.com).

The golden gig also marks the re-release of Metsa’s first album, Paper Tigers, issued to critical acclaim 25 years ago in October of 1984. It was recorded on the same mixing board that was used at Sound 80 for Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks (“I know, ghosts in the machine!”). And the night will also see the CD release of “No Money Down” an EP-CD/DVD recorded with Sonny Earl, including the premieres of the videos “Whiskey or the Rain” and “No Money Down” -- both done in collaboration with Howard M. Christopherson and Margo Cavis.

Part rock theater and part oral history, the evening promises to readily transcend the barstool reminisce with ample doses of music from the formidable music making of the godfather of the West Bank music scene, Willie Murphy, Curtiss A (“the greatest rock singer in the USA”), country legend Sherwin Linton, bluesman Sonny Earl, Texas guitar player Mary Cutrufello and the reunited Cats Under the Stars, his early late 70s band. “Skyway to Hell” looks and sounds like one of the year’s can’t-miss occasions. The show will most likely be produced in a different vein and at another venue in the new year.

About Paul Metsa

No news release could ever capture the sweet twists and disquieting travails of Metsa’s three decades. But factual highlights, personal anecdotes and professional appraisals can shine a light on his accomplishments and his chameleon-like ability to morph into an astute musician-chronicler of his life and times and those of others no matter if he’s on a picket line with the late Senator Paul Wellstone, at Farm Aid, or backstage with Pete Seeger rehearsing “Hobo’s Lullaby” with Seeger and John Wesley Harding (which Metsa will play during the show from a tape), or backing up the celebrated writer Ken Kesey at a book reading.

• Winner of 7 Minnesota Music Awards (latest 2005 Americana Artist of the Year)

• Recorded 3 singles, 2 cassettes, 1 EP, 1 LP, 6 full length CDs all on his own label, originally Raven Records, now MaximumFolk.com, while producing 4 other albums for other musicians.

• Performances at Farm Aid V in Dallas, Texas, 1992

• 1996 Tribute to Woody Guthrie at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland

• Million Mom March Wash, DC 1999

• Trip/gig to Iceland for the MN Dept. of Tourism 1999

• 7-day nightclub residency in Novosibirsk, Siberia 2000

• 6,000-plus gigs in Twin Cities

• Participated, and helped produce hundreds of benefits for community causes

In his own Words:

• “Sept. 1996, I was invited by Nora Guthrie as a ‘link in the Woody chain’ along with Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, Ani DiFranco, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, and others to perform in concert and do seminars at Case Western University in Cleveland. I told Nora that Dave Pirner from Soul Asylum was a huge Woody fan, and she ended up inviting him as well. The entire weekend was ‘barrels of monkey fun’ — but giving Springsteen a guitar lesson was particularly memorable.”

From Minnesota Law and Politics magazine, Oct. ’97:

• “Like the Iron Range itself, and Dylan for that matter, Metsa is a hodge-podge of people, a melting pot of different characters and performers. He’s a folk singer, a blues singer, a guitarist, a social activist, a Finn, a storyteller, a comedian, a philosopher, a conspiracy theorist, and a lounge lizard.”

An Appreciation (in part) by writer Lou Santacroce:

Paul’s talents had begun to outstrip his influences; the proof was in the songs contained on Paper Tigers…Fans of literary bent heard “Virginia,” a song about the singer’s return to a hometown where they “don’t even know my name,” distill Thomas Wolfe’s “You Can’t Go Home Again” into four minutes of exquisite regret with lyrics like “They burned down all the trees on 5^th Avenue, shot out the five ball lights…Last chance wind blows cold sometimes from four ways, no one’s gonna sing you to sleep at night.”

Garrison Keillor once observed that “The urge to perform is not a reflection of talent,” and some of those less talented local artists soon learned how useful some leftover boxes of LP’s could be when an extra doorstop was needed. A few, however, produced work of such high quality and lasting value that we have to wonder if the entire recording industry was sick with a head cold on the day those artists knocked on those corporate doors with demos in hand. Paul Metsa belongs in the latter group.

But, it took “Stars Over the Prairie,” Paul’s bittersweet glance back at childhood and childhood’s end to make everyone realize that something more than an above-average talent was at work. Night after night, conversations died away, dancers stopped in their tracks, drinks were cast aside…everything stopped at the first chords of “Stars,” as everyone gathered around the stage to sing the song together. These were not groups of rowdy drunks bellowing the words to some cruddy tune designed to give them the false impression that they were “one” with the band… and wishing, with all their hearts, that they could really go back to a place where everything was good and simple. I remember feeling of all these things while shouting out — “And I wish I could see stars over the prairie, stars over the prairie tonight” with three or four hundred others. I still shiver at the memory.”

For more information — or to interview Paul Metsa and/or have him play live — please contact Martin Keller at Media Savant Communications Co., 612-729-8585, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .