She performed from high up on a third-story rooftop. She played on top of a moving van. She even delivered a virtual (and electric!) set from her bathtub.
Monica LaPlante quite literally risked her life to put on some of the Twin Cities' most memorable rock shows during quarantine. But she wasn't about to take the risk performing for real crowds without a vaccine.
"Just think of how many people get in your face and yell in your ear at a typical rock show," she said with a shiver.
You can thus imagine how excited the 30-year-old Minneapolis rocker is to finally perform again on a real stage with live audience members, as opposed to bath tiles. Her first gig back is on Friday, headlining the Hook & Ladder's outdoor music series.
The timing of our interview three weeks ago added to her anticipation tenfold: She had just gotten her second Moderna vaccine shot a couple of hours earlier.
It also happened to be the day Gov. Tim Walz rolled back restrictions on audience limits for indoor venues in Minnesota. Mid-interview, a text arrived from a First Avenue booker asking about setting up a show this summer.
"It's really happening!" LaPlante cheered, raising her hands and revealing the vaccine Band-Aid under the sleeve of her black "No Men" T-shirt.
Big things were starting to happen for LaPlante before the COVID-19 lockdown.
The Rochester native landed in heavy rotation on 89.3 the Current in 2017 with her darkly obsessive single "Hope You're Alone," equal parts Joy Division and "Fatal Attraction." From there, she got some viral traction and tour dates. Then recording sessions in Detroit with Bill Skibbe, who does engineering/mastering work for Jack White and Third Man Records.
With a couple of older club vets throwing their weight behind her in her backing band — guitarist Orion Trion (Phantom Tails, Extraterrestrials) and bassist Christy Costello (Pink Mink, Butcher's Union) — LaPlante was due to play a sold-out show with Solid Gold at the Turf Club on the weekend that everything got shut down by COVID-19 in March 2020.
"We were texting constantly in the days leading up to the show, saying things like, 'Well, maybe if we all take daily shots of apple vinegar cider we'll be safe,' " she said. "We soon found out there was a lot more to it."
And that's when LaPlante's followers really found out just how determinedly creative and hardworking she is.
For starters, she kept her Bandcamp merch page going early on in quarantine by selling face masks she sewed herself: "I just wanted to make some for myself and friends," she said, "but it caught on."
She also started learning how to operate a vintage electronic drum machine and home recording equipment — gear that she and her sound-engineer/manager boyfriend Noah Hollander had assembled over the years.
The result of her experimentation was her "Quarantine EP," one of the bright spots among local pandemic releases. Alongside coolly reinvented covers of songs by Echo & the Bunnymen and Linda McCartney — "fun songs to take my mind off everything," she explained — the EP featured another would-be radio hit in "Compression," an electro-punk jam riddled with the anxiety and boredom of lockdown.
"Now I'm scrubbing the floors / Wiping down every door / I wanna hide and stay inside until I can't take no more," LaPlante sings over a looped drum part.
Another verse in the song — "Yeah I'm doing OK / Plenty of art to make / Got my wish but it seems sick to have it happen this way" — was truly how she felt mid-quarantine, she said.
"I felt like: 'This is what I've always wanted, to have all this time on my hands to be creative and make music,' " she said. "There were so many things and people to worry about, though, it wasn't so easy being creative."
Shaming the shredders
LaPlante started learning guitar and Nirvana songs "as a pretty predictable way to rebel" against her Catholic school upbringing, she said.
She showed a rebellious side again later while attending McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul, where she earned two degrees and put out her first album, "Jour," a 2013 release that was heavily influenced by Phil Spector-produced girl groups such as the Shirelles and Ronettes.
"That was my way of sticking it to all the 'shredder' dudes at the school, like: 'Oh, you play a mean guitar, but can you do this?' " she recalled.
A friend since those McNally Smith days, Hollander said her music theory studies have paid off.
"Monica gets so nitty-gritty deep into writing songs and figuring out what makes them go, even if it's the simplest-sounding pop hook," he said, raving about what's to come: "She's written so many great songs during quarantine. Wait and see."
At the moment, though, LaPlante seems more interested in simply getting back to the songs she's already put out.
"We have to relearn a lot of them, it's been so long since we played," she said, "but just getting to play them at all is going to feel great.
"One thing I learned from doing our own random shows [during quarantine] — like the rooftop thing — is how much goes into organizing a gig. Things like getting a soundboard, lining up all the logistics. Stuff we won't have to think about as much now when we're playing real venues again with real professionals."
Thus, it's no surprise she's lining up many other gigs for the summer, including fun outdoor sets at St. Anthony's Silverwood Park on June 30 and Lake Harriet Band Shell on Aug. 6 — plus that TBA gig with the First Ave team.
"We can just plug in and play again for real," LaPlante enthused. "What a thrill."
Chris Riemenschneider • 612-673-4658
@ChrisRstrib
Monica LaPlante
In concert: 7 p.m. Fri., Hook & Ladder, Mpls., sold out.
Also: June 30, Silverwood Park, St. Anthony; Aug. 6, Music + Movies at Lake Harriet, Mpls.
Online: MonicaLaPlante.com or Bandcamp.com.
