Index of University Press Releases

April 7, 2008

Local musician, filmmaker hopes his work speaks to others
Mari Olson - The Daily Republic

Creation should have a message.

Whether hidden within repeating chords, rapidly rising through a crescendo or in words bluntly sang out loud, music is meant to say something.

At least that is how local songwriter and filmmaker Andrew Bakken feels. His work, whether it is his new CD or his recently released documentary, should speak for itself.

“I feel like sometimes I have this story going on in my head and I want the music to tell the story,” said Bakken, 22, of Mitchell, whose newly released CD is called “ist Street.”

“At first, I was trying to force words. … I decided to let people make up their (own) minds about it,” he said about his CD’s opening song, “The Coldest Winter,” which is entirely instrumental.

There isn’t a specific audience in mind for any of his songs, and he doesn’t want there to be. “I don’t have any preconceived notions of what the music is supposed to be,” he said.

So, listeners will find sad love songs, coming-of-age songs, funny songs and one quasi-religious one. The fact that Bakken threw “Please Give Me the Words” onto a CD full of non-specific tracks just follows his decision not to fit into a category or genre.

“Since I started playing music, I wanted a semi-religious song,” he said. The lyrics speak of the things people ask for in prayer, and ask people when was the last time they prayed just to say thank you for what they do have.

“I feel completely confident putting it on the album … because it’s not saying ‘I think you should do this and this.’ … If you believe in God, don’t always be asking (for things).”

He grew up in Platte with a fascination in music. He’s a self-taught guitarist since he was 16, when he picked up a guitar and a teach-yourself booklet. “Everyone told me I wasn’t going to play it if I got one, so I had to keep playing it,” he said.

He was also in a few bands in Platte and two in Mitchell before starting his own. Now, as the only permanent member of his “project band” Sidelines and Streetsigns, he writes and composes and records all his own music with some friends and guest musicians joining in on a few tracks.

He put out “ist Street” this year and is already working on tracks for his next CD, which he hopes to finish this summer.

Putting a whole new meaning to the term “studio apartment” he has collected recording equipment throughout the years and now has enough to record his own songs in a spare room. Though some are a little less clear than others, he’s also not charging a regular CD price — $6 a piece at Paulson’s Music Center in Mitchell.

“ist Street” is possibly the most vaguely titled song on the album, but it’s no typo. “I had a dream where me and my best friends are here … and we are all living on the same street,” he said.

“We’re kind of experiencing change because some of our great friends left last year,” he added. This has made some of them have to work harder to keep in touch and remain a part of each other’s ever-changing lives.

The name of the street they were all living on in his dream? “ist Street.” Maybe it doesn’t make perfect sense, but conventionality is not Bakken’s main motivation, which is apparent in his documentary, “Starving in Suburbia.”

He had to choose a topic for film class and after researching world hunger, he decided to not only make a film about hunger, but experience it himself.

Right after Thanksgiving he began a 14-day documentary where he lived off of one dollar a day.

“I researched hunger,” he said. “Over two billion people in the world are living off of a dollar a day or less. I wanted to eat the same amount of calories that they would eat, but it was impossible to find their food.”

So he improvised. He took $7 grocery shopping for a week’s worth of food. He lived off of rice, onions, a few eggs, a little bit of bread, a can of green beans and noodles. He also bought an eight-pack of mini Snickers bars as snacks.

He exercised every day to simulate manual labor, but about five days into the project he came home from a dodgeball tournament and his hands were shaking, his stomach queasy and he was feeling really sick, so he broke into his “emergency food” and ate a Jello cup and SlimJim.

On day six, he says in the documentary, “My whole perspective is already started to change. At the beginning of this film, I thought maybe things would be simple, but now I am seeing that it’s getting a lot harder than I could have imagined it being on one dollar per day.”

This was the point he realized he was really losing weight. In all, at the end of the two weeks, he lost about 10 pounds and became extremely ill.

“I edited it really sick,” he said about putting the finished documentary together. “Because I wanted to get it done, all the voice-overs (were done when) I had like a 102 temperature.”

He caught the flu and it lasted for more than two weeks. Bakken could have stopped his “diet” routine at any time, but said he never considered it an option. “It turned into more than a film,” he said.

After a fault-filled premiere at DWU with DVD and DVD player mishaps, his film was also shown in a classroom and picked up momentum with the students. KSFY and South Dakota Public Radio spotlighted his documentary and he is now on the Bread for the World mailing list. “It’s exceeded my expectations,” he said.

He’s glad the documentary has picked up press because the point of the documentary was to enlighten others on the vastness that is world hunger. “If they watch the film, they’ll understand what people are going through.”

People can purchase a copy of the documentary for $10 on his Web site www.darkbannerfilms.com. Half the profits will be donated to the hungersite.com.

Bakken is a junior multimedia major at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, and aside from his production company Dark Banner Films, he also designed the CD jacket and label for “ist Street.” But his passion has always been music. “I love doing films and I love doing design, but my real dream has always been to have something more happen with (my music),” he said. “It’s my lifelong dream.”