Trip Shakespeare

Trip Shakespeare was an American rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota and active from the mid 1980s to early 1990s.

They performed as a quartet for several months before Rowe left the band during the recording of Applehead Man to join The Nietzsches with the former guitarist for E. Brown, Jimmy Harry.

"[8] With its lineup complete, the band released a follow-up album, Are You Shakespearienced?, on the Minneapolis-based independent label Gark Records in 1988.

Recorded live in the studio without headsets,[9] the album featured "Toolmaster of Brainerd," a song that "insanely links dairyland folklore with the enduring rock myth of guitar-hero supremacy.

"[7] Hailing from "Brainerd where the children go to milking school," the Toolmaster "Toolmaster," according to the Twin Cities alternative new weekly paper City Pages, "perfectly captured the tension between Minneapolis ambition and outstate resignation that pretty much informs life in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

Matt Wilson later explained: TrouserPress.com called Across the Universe a "too-rare example of an indie act benefiting musically from major-label treatment"—citing an "increased rock edge that doesn't detract from the gentle charm" of tracks like "Snow Days," "Gone, Gone, Gone" and "The Crane"—the latter being the closest thing the album had to a hit.

Trip Shakespeare's commercial failure has been attributed to the band's poor timing: "1991 was the great embrasure of the grunge movement when Nirvana's Nevermind set the decade-long trend for the popular music charts," wrote AllMusic.com.

"The release of a melodically complex and romantic pop masterpiece with lush vocals was entertained by neither the critics nor the masses.

[18] Dan Wilson and John Munson joined Jacob Slichter to form Pleasure, which was later named Semisonic, Elaine Harris returned to the Boston area and had not been involved in any post-Trip Shakespeare events until The New Standards' December 7, 2013 holiday show, when she joined John, Matt, and Dan for two songs, "Susannah", and "Snow Days."

Near the end of the band's run, Matt Wilson said that the band's goal was "to be a part of that one or two nights that everybody has in their life when the music is ridiculously good and the people around you are laughing their heads off and losing their minds.... We don't get it every night because you can't carry that kind of ecstasy around with you in a bucket.

[19] The band has been honored with a star on the outside mural of the Minneapolis nightclub First Avenue,[20] recognizing performers that have played sold-out shows or have otherwise demonstrated a major contribution to the culture at the iconic venue.