“Eleventh Confession”(How a crawl space, a joint, and a half-remembered song fragment began my music career

(Personal Narrative)

Video still: Jim Hershleder

In the winter of 1985, a few months after my dad died, my band Sussman Lawrence and I began making plans to move from our hometown of Saint Louis Park, Minnesota, to New York City in a wild-eyed gambit to further our rock and roll career.

I had a little Tascam four-track cassette recorder set up in the basement of my parents’ h…