The three women behind Tumbling Rock are unburdened by the Boomer nostalgia they're spoofing. Jann Wenner, Hunter S. Thompson, the Beatles—who gives a shit?
All in their mid 20s to early 30s, Dani Larson, Nicole Prestol, and Katy Kelly launched their winking nod to Rolling Stone last summer. The Tumbling Rock premise is much more DIY than MSM: covering the Twin Cities underground music scene they love via celebratory profiles, "EXCLUSIVE" interviews, album reviews, release spotlights, and concert photography.
"I kind of birthed the magazine, if you will," Larson says. "I was in a band, and part of our merch was like, 'What if we were on Pokémon cards, what if we were on Yu Gi Oh cards… what if we were on the cover of Rolling Stone?' At first it was a tiny, four-page zine just kinda making fun of us, but we loved doing it."
After Larson and Prestol's pop-punk band the Toss Ups broke up, they decided to keep churning out the zine. Remarkably, as print media continues its death spiral, Tumbling Rock arrives as an honest-to-god physical magazine that's available at Caydence Records & Coffee, Underground Music Cafe, Pilllar Forum, Klash Coffee, and Duck Duck Coffee.
"It's more of a celebration than it is criticism, right?" Prestol says, adding that many young readers aren't even aware of the Rolling Stone homage. "There's so much raw, natural talent to explore in the Twin Cities and Minnesota, but physical media is almost a dead art. Filling a void might be the best way to describe how we got to where we are."
Larson's day job at White Bear Lake's Trade Press, Inc. helps make the print product possible. Her boss at the commercial printing facility "very graciously" allows the Tumbling Rock crew to print at cost, which comes in handy as demand rises—the first issue spawned just 12 copies, while the 11th hit 100 this week.
"I just want to relive the excitement of live shows, recapture that energy," says Kelly, who joined the staff as a photographer a few months ago. "And having physical copies of photos that I can, like, hang on my fridge and keep with me? That rocks, and it's so lost these days."
The Tumbling Rock team is fairly new to rock writing, and in true DIY fashion, that hasn't slowed 'em down a bit. Kelly says working on features about groups they're fans of, say, emo band Sonic Sea Turtles or Racket fav Anita Velveeta, has humanized their subjects; the Turtles are "chill dudes who have a lot to say about Star Wars," while Velveeta is "the nicest, most grounded" person you could ever meet. Around six to 10 acts receive coverage per issue, and all three staffers agree that barely scratches the surface of our "goated" music scene. "Every scene is so subpar to the Twin Cities scene—there's always new bands happening," Kelly says.
The mag doesn't restrict the genres it covers, though subgenres under the broader punk/indie umbrella—lo-fi, synth-pop, hardcore, noise, garage—have received the most ink so far. For those who've aged out of the scene, a great deal of amusement can be derived from just reading the band names of today: Gunk Lung, Dingus, Toilet Rats, Cap'N Seabeard, Couch Potato Massacre, "slut-style hardcore" act Slut Intent, et. al.
Is Tumbling Rock quivering in constant fear of hearing from Rolling Stone's legal department? (As we've witnessed locally, mainstream music power players aren't known for their senses of humor.)
"No," Prestol says without hesitation. "In fact, if they did come at us, we'd probably put that as the cover. If they have a problem with the name, they should go after all the geologists who are tumbling rocks."
