Winter Carnival

By Matt White-Lunar
Contributing Writer

When I moved to Fargo a little over a year ago I heard one thing over and over again from the people I encountered: There’s nothing to do in Fargo. For the first few months in Fargo while my sister, brother-in-law, nephew, niece and I all found stuff to do, people we met echoed the same sentiment, “There’s nothing to do here.”

My response to that is, sure there is; you just have to look and if you don’t like what you see, start something. One thing I have learned from my time in this area is that that the kids here inherited their parents sense of work ethic and innovation and frequently apply it to the vibrant and unfortunately largely undiscovered local music and art scene. Case in point; this year’s Winter Carnival.

Now how can I, a kid in his (lets say) late 20’s who’s family is from NYC say that with absolute certainty? Because over a decade ago my family lived here for a period during my teenage years.

While interviewing Sabrina Hornung (who will be performing at this years Winter Carnival as part of the Bad-Weather Burlesque troop) we swapped stories about our experiences as teens and young adults in the “Punk” scene during the late nineteen nineties-early two thousands and it occurred to me that for as long as I can remember, Fargo-Moorhead has been a secret and oft overlooked hotbed of creativity, especially among those whom adults call, “young people.”

When I was about 15 I attended, what I felt, was one of the hellishly depressing and homogenized local high schools. Being the weird kid with a sharp mind and even sharper tongue it wasn’t long before I was “adopted” by a few of the senior “Punk” kids.

I should explain “Punk” can be described largely as disaffected, Caucasian, suburban middle class youth who conform to non-conformity via clothes and fashion, but who’s chosen taste in music echos the fabric of their hearts; unwillingness to be what is perceived at any given time to be “normal” and (for some, at least a half-hearted effort) to be politically aware, socially conscious and not to be bigoted, while at the same time trying to be as offensive to the status quo as possible. It’s a teenage way of seeking attention but trying to maintain a heart free from the bland, idle and seemingly soulless normalcy of an existence they are just beginning to realize for themselves.
In our local high schools, sports are the peak of social visibility and accolade. For decades now in Fargo Moorhead, music and Punk music in particular has been a way for the kids who feel abnormal or strange in their social sea to differentiate themselves. Punk is also an attitude that may seem abrasive for people unfamiliar with it, but is actually well intentioned.

My late mother was fond of telling people about a high school teacher of mine who informed the class during our chapter on civil rights, that we were going to do a sit-in. The teacher marched us all into the commons of the high school, had us sit on the large polished stone benches and then after about five pointless minutes she told us we were done and we could walk back to class. I stayed seated and proceeded to berate her about the insulting meaninglessness of her exercise and further stated that if this were to be a sit in that I was staying on the bench and skipping the rest of the class in protest. Some of my class mates saw the irony and stayed seated with me even when she threatened detention, which we eventually got. With my punk rock attitude in full throttle, I refused to stay for the dention as well. Luckily my mother, a clergy-woman who lived through the ‘60’s civil rights movement, called the teacher and complained that the exercise was an insult to the movement.

After school most days I would either catch a ride with my friends or take the bus, with bands like Screeching Weasel or the Fargo based Krebscouts blasting in my ears. I’d go home and call up my friend Jesse and we’d play guitar and write teenage songs until my parents would get home or tell us to shut up, whichever came first.

There’s a chorus in the Screeching Weasel song Teenage Freakshow that goes, “There ain’t nothing to do.” Creating music seemed to be a reaction to that idea and dozends of kids I knew started bands. Some of them also painted, or wrote or had other outlets but music was our common thread during those unsteady and often quietly painful years. A few months ago I got to know a kid named Jared who attends the same high school I did. He’s part of the next generation of kids who won’t take boredom as some kind of answer. He proudly displayed his punk rock attitude and frozen north determination. He’s passing forward the message that all of us hear, sometimes too quietly in our heads and hearts: get up and do something.

You see, the Winter Carnival and our local music scene could not even be were it not for the countless unnamed and mostly unknown kids who did something beyond just complain that there was “nothing to do.”

This year’s Winter Carnival is proof that despite being Fargo-Moorhead’s little secret for at least the past decade and a half, that kids have made our collective communities glimmer among the countless Middle American cities where youth are largely pacified by the endless television and city distractions that keep them from getting up and doing something.

I’ve traveled to most of the 50 states and can say with no irony or sarcasm that the Fargo-Moorhead community has one of the most earnest and beautifully brave music and art scenes in the entire country.

From the late 90’s punk band the Krebscouts to Baltic to Boardwalk, O’fosho and The Babysitters Club, the latter three of whom will be performing at this years Winter Carnival, our two states have earned an indie and underground scene reputation as a place to find talented and hardworking touring bands. Watching local punk bands hold their own alongside bands from out of state is no small thing. Our local reputation for good music spread, and now we have The Winter Carnival to showcase the outcome of the passion that starts in, comes from and still exists in countless kids’ suburban basements in this area.

This year, in addition to local acts like Baltic to Boardwalk and Bad Weather Burlesque, which the lovely Sabrina Hornung is a part of, there are also bands from Pennsylvania, Free Energy and even from my home New York City, The Postelles.
Why is any of that important? Because good touring bands choose where they stop and we should be really bloody proud that we can showcase our music, art and film alongside theirs.

Being fair, not everyone is a fan of the same kind of music, but I’m willing to bet if you go and listen you’ll be more than pleasantly surprised. If you have doubt then you owe yourself an informed opinion; check out this year’s Winter Carnival.

Seriously, come in from the cold of our isolating winter and warm yourself in the heat our musicians create; and listen, because like the people that settled this region a small time ago they are pioneers and like the bands from far away that inspired them they sing an anthem for a new tomorrow. A tomorrow where “nothing” becomes something.

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[Writer’s Note: This Article is dedicated to Matthew & Brandon Snare and to their family with sincerity and gratefulness for your friendship and kindness in years past. This is also for Cory and Jesse my punk rock brothers in arms.]