DULUTH NEWS TRIBUNE ARTICLE by CHRIS CASEY

Chris Casey covers arts and entertainment. He can be reached weekdays at (218) 720-4109 or by e-mail at ccasey@duluthnews.com

Described as a techno-troubadour and an eco-folkie, Michael Monroe is one thing for certain: He's an artist riding a career crest that offers a view of music-making as far as he can see.

It doesn't hurt that Monroe lives in the northern tip of Minnesota where the vistas are both spectacular and inspiring.

``I love being out in the woods. And when I was little I wanted to be Tarzan, so now I get to be,'' Monroe said. ``My place is kind of like a huge treehouse ... the way the land slopes it feels like we're in amongst the trees.''

His place is a solar-powered log cabin in Hovland, 15 miles from Canada, which he shares with his partner Deb Mueller. The home also houses his solar-powered MisTree Studio, where Monroe recorded his third CD, ``As Far As I Can See,'' in 1996.

Monroe, 47, just released ``ABANDIN My Own Mind,'' a live CD recorded at several venues, including at Grand Marais' Gunflint Tavern on the Lake on New Year's Day.

Monroe returns to the Gunflint Tavern Saturday night as part of a busy weekend sweep of the North Shore. He also performs at 9 p.m. Friday at Fitger's Brewhouse in Duluth, followed by a pair of Saturday afternoon gigs on the Village Green in Beaver Bay.

The outdoor shows will give him a chance to use the solar-powered sound system that has helped earn him those ``techno-troubadour'' and ``eco-folkie'' tags.

``When I do the solar show it's kind of like reminding people that we can do things high-tech without destroying the planet -- that there are alternatives to nuclear and coal and kind of the basic ways we've been drawing power,'' Monroe said.

Ecological -- and cultural -- alternatives imbue Monroe's work. He twice found himself traveling to far-off places -- once by happenstance, once by choice -- and those experiences live on in his music.

In the early '80s, after recording his first album, ``Summer Rain,'' in the Twin Cities, Monroe was seeking an alternative to the commercial-music vacuum that was sucking him in. When an agent suggested Monroe's trio play St. Thomas, Monroe thought she was talking about St. Thomas University in Minneapolis.

``I hadn't even looked at the Virgin Islands before but we went down there for a two-month gig and I stayed for two years,'' Monroe said.

He put together a four-track studio there and wrote songs. To make money, he worked as clown and balloon delivery man. ``That was really a good thing for me because it just helped me to lift out of my shell quite a bit.''

It was in the Caribbean that Monroe picked up the reggae flair that colors tunes such as ``Twice In One Day'' and ``Spring.''

After returning to the Twin Cities, where he grew up, Monroe formed a five-piece band. In 1988, he decided it was time for another change in perspective. He spent seven months in India ``just to kind of clear my head out and look at some other things that I wanted to write about.''

In India he became enamored with a new instrument -- a bamboo flute, which he plays to this day.

Monroe found the measured breathing required of flute-playing to be a ``meditative thing ... It's a really rich sound. I like the sound of metal flutes, but there's something about that bamboo that has more of a hollow, haunting kind of flavor to it.''

The India trip also fueled his resolve to return to the intimacy of solo performing. Monroe found that through digital technology he could seamlessly incorporate both guitar and flute into his live shows.

``I can create a loop with the guitar and that keeps going, and then I can play the flute over that. So I kind of get the background stuff happening without it being prerecorded at all.''

Thus comes the name of his live CD, ``ABANDIN My Own Mind.''

Meanwhile, the woman in his heart, Mueller, has helped guide Monroe to national exposure by booking some 200 shows a year, which in turn help fund his recordings.

Mueller, 45, is a former Duluth nurse and former professional figure skater. When not managing Monroe's career, she is a certified coach for professionals seeking help in achieving life goals. Many of her clients are musicians, whom she speaks with weekly to discuss their objectives.

``I think it's helped Michael and myself stay focused, where you're actually practicing (goal-setting), where you're living by example,'' Mueller said.

Twenty years after their first meeting, Monroe and Mueller met again in the early '90s and struck up a relationship.

``She is very sold on my music, so she was able to really sell me and get me out there. And she was able to make it possible for me to make three more albums,'' Monroe said of his partner.

Besides intimate venues and outdoor solar-powered shows, Monroe has gigged for corporate trainers' workshops and Youth Frontiers, a Twin Cities-based group that offers student retreats.

Monroe enjoys writing tunes at home. But on one occasion, in the wee hours after a gig, he composed a song while roller-skating along a Lake of the Isles path in Minneapolis.

``I just got into a rhythm with my skates that turned into a song (`Follow Your Happiness') and I was looking at following what made me happy, which is music and having fun,'' he said.

Rhythm certainly comes through in Monroe's music, which is self-assured and seems fully at peace with its subtle, yet expressively powerful, delivery.

The patient, hypnotic ``Time Out of Mind,'' for instance, is exactly what the title indicates. The song relaxes the listener with each gentle strum of Monroe's guitar, with the easy melody of his velvety-smooth voice. If you listen closely, you might even hear the song of the whippoorwill.

Monroe plans to experiment with more natural sounds on his upcoming album, for which he received a $4,500 grant from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council to produce. He said the recording, his fifth, will have an ``experimental'' sound.

``This is a chance for me to use some of the sounds that I can record locally in nature and also some of the other flutes that I have,'' Monroe said. He also plans to write more instrumentals and go in ``a little more acoustic direction.''

After 30 years in the music business, he said, ``it feels like a really nice reward to be enjoying it more than ever now, and getting gigs that are better than ever."