Not sure if anyone else is up on this, but Eau Claire native, and UW-Eau Claire alum Justin Vernon has taken the indie/alternative music world by storm over the last 12 months culminating with a gig on the David Letterman show last week.
Vernon's band is Bon Iver (French for Good Winter) and is part of the neo-folk movement, although they do manage to rock it out at times too. Vernon had been on my radar for years, since my early days at UW-Eau Claire, well before his current band has taken off so it has been a neat thing to see this guy I used to catch at shows as a freshman on national tv, and in national magazines like Rolling Stone, and in the New York Times, and generally anywhere you look online if the site is related to music.
The basic story behind Bon Iver's rise to international prominence follows. Vernon and fellow Chippewa Valleyians who had formed an immensly popular local band, Deyarmond Edison took their show on the road, moving to Raleigh N.C. To make a long story shorter, the band broke up, Vernon broke up with his girlfriend, and decided to recess to his father's hunting cabin in northern Wisconsin (not all that far from where I'm at currently) where he self-recorded an album and generally got his head right. Late last year, I caught one of his shows, bought a copy of the self-recorded/self-released CD and then things really took off. Things caught fire in the music blogosphere, Vernon's band toured the U.S. and Europe, played on Conan O'Brien and Letterman, and had their album named the 29th best CD of 2008 in Rolling Stone magazine.
Granted, it is not music that everyone can get it into, I'll be the first to concede that. But you have to admit that the story behind it all is pretty unique. And it's been pretty damn cool to see this guy I met early in my college career, drank down the bar from later in my college career, and saw release an album that he poured his aching soul into, achieve international fame in the music field.
Let me know if you dig it.
Giga-waabamin minawaa.
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