2 Human

Keith Anderson and Raymond White met at the age of 14.  A friend common to both their social circles, Scott Anderson (no relation), was a pretty decent singer who had just convinced Keith’s band, Canticle, to add him to the roster.  The drummer had recently quit, and Scott put in a good word for Raymond’s ability to pound out a rhythm.  Scott did not stay with it more than a few months, and other members came and went.  But Keith, Raymond, and Richard Baillargeon stuck with it for about five years.  They played school and church dances, night clubs, and a few fairly large old armory halls in Minneapolis and the surrounding communities.   But since they were underage, Raymond’s mother had to sign the contracts with the booking agency until someone in the band was 18 years old.  A few years back Keith found one of the contracts in a pile of papers that were stuffed in a box that kept moving with him to a variety of different homes across the USA.

There was a colorful list of other talented friend’s that was often inspiring to the band’s social circle.  This soup of art minded people set the course for all involved to a highly philosophical and inquisitive search for the mysteries of life.  There were perhaps only fleeting moments when some answer to a mystery was believed to be found and discussed, but most found the search itself was goal enough.   A few stand-out’s in this group included Scott Joseph and Rodney Wolfgram. Scott was a virtuoso photographer that was very adept at getting into all the best national concerts and photographing the top talent “at-work” on and off stage.   He captured on-film a very exciting time in the progression of rock music.  Scott’s photography skills helped with band promotion as well.  Rodney was a distinctive artist.  He could draw anything from portraits to landscapes with uncanny realism. He’d serve it up with a sense of humor and character voices that kept everyone rolling to the side in laughter.  He drew band posters with extraordinary creativity and insight.

The call of practicality finally ended the band.  Members went off to pursue the world of academia that promised more reliable income and opportunities than the music business.  Raymond started another band, Ravana, as a part time endeavor, while going to college.  Group members were Kirk Landskov, Peter Masters, Mike Russel, and Dan Redding.  This group played local Minneapolis clubs and a few outlying towns stretching all the way to places like Duluth (Bob Dylan’s home town) and Virginia on the Minnesota Iron Range.

Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, the arts prevailed for Keith and Raymond!  Keith landed in philosophy and architecture.  It seemed to fit his broad sense of the connection of spirit and the physical world.  He took up painting and writing volumes of poetry and music as a release from the confinements of the limited thinking that surrounds us all. 

Raymond pursued jewelry design.  He found that the creation of these three dimensional objects d’art were satisfying in ways far different than the fleeting sound waves of music passing through the air.  Not more satisfying-- just a different creative expression.  However, music kept calling, and it remained central in the daily thoughts and works of both of these individuals as the distractions of family and monetary reality fought to dominate their time.

 Today the pursuit of music continues to be driven mostly by the shear love of the journey.  Some thought has been put into driving for a song-set and live performing, but in many ways that would leave less time for writing and recording new music.  Right now this song writing duo is working on the final touches of about 20 new recordings. So if you are reading this, you are in for a treat in the next couple of months when all this new music will hit iTunes, CD Baby and just about every internet outlet in the world!  Stay tuned.