Hijinx and Hearsay ― Scenester Stories from Minnesota's Pop Life

In the summer of 1978, while disco was dying and new wave and punk were rising from the underground, two twenty-something guys were thrown together on a new music monthly ignobly called Sweet Potato. One had a Canon camera, the other a thirty-six-pound Royal typewriter. Over the next several years, the two chronicled the Minneapolis scene and the cultural landscape of the Twin Cities, covering some of the most influential artists, musicians, writers, comedians, and entertainers of the past forty years. They profiled legendary musicians from across the globe and across musical genres—Paul and Linda McCartney, Bob Marley, U2, James Brown, John Lee Hooker, Devo, and more—as well as homegrown talents ranging from Dylan and Prince to the Replacements and Hüsker Dü. They covered such disparate writers as William Burroughs and Dr. Seuss, and young, up-and-coming comedians like Jerry Seinfeld, Louie Anderson, and Lizz Winstead.
In Hijinx and Hearsay, writer Martin Keller and photographer Greg Helgeson are at it again, offering a delectable, fun, and fresh perspective through Helgeson's photography (much of it never seen before) and new stories and insights by Keller that shed fascinating light on a singular, influential era in popular culture in Minnesota.

Martin Keller is a professional journalist, author, screenwriter, pop culture critic, editor, and columnist. For the past 25 years, he has served as a veteran public relations specialist. Keller covered the arts, business, and cultural affairs for several Twin Cities publications, including Minnesota Monthly, the Star Tribune, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, City Pages, and Twin Cities Reader, and his worked has appeared in such national publications as Rolling Stone, Billboard, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe. He is the author of Music Legends: A Rewind on the Minnesota Music Scene and Storms: Tales of Extreme Weather Events in Minnesota.Expertly working with Canon and Leica cameras for more than 40 years, Greg Helgeson has fervently documented some of the most renowned artists and public figures in a variety of disciplines, from international superstars to local legends. His work has appeared in a range of periodicals, including Rolling Stone, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice, Du Monde (Paris), Mojo (England), the Star Tribune, City Pages, and Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, as well as in numerous books and on album covers.