Dissonance Shaped My Voice

Editor’s Note: Jen Gilhoi has been an incredible board member, friend and inspiration to all of those associated with Dissonance. She has helped shape our voice even as we have shaped hers, and we are so proud of the work she is doing today as the co-founder of Zero Proof Collective and Sauna and Sobriety, among many other purposeful pursuits. As she sunsets her service on the Dissonance board, we share this blog—originally posted to JenGilhoi.com—with deep love and gratitude.

By Jen Gilhoi

When I started observing Dissonance – its mission, the brand, the community – seven years ago in 2017, I was three years sober from alcohol. The rooms of AA had conditioned me to share vulnerably and to let whatever voice I gave to my story to just be, in its own right. It’s actually a beautiful thing that feedback or fixing in the moment is simply not a thing in AA. My shares often came out disjointed, messy, imperfect, emotional… but ultimately voicing something among witnesses helped me process my thoughts, create accountability, and move me into positive action.

Receiving a medallion with the Roman numeral III on July 28, 2017, at my Monday regular AA group carried weight and a freedom for me. I now understand it to be a defining moment at three years in my sobriety, one where I felt compelled to be more open about my journey outside of the AA rooms. Let Go Out Loud was the first blog I wrote for Dissonance, prior to me even joining the board in November 2018. Dissonance was that safe space to share my story, because where else would it have fit? LinkedIn? An email share with friends and family? No. I wanted to talk to others struggling with sobriety, provide a lifeline that a celebrated sober life was possible. 

Journey to Just Be

Maintaining sobriety in modern society can be a hard-fought journey. It’s a heavy lift. After doing so much of that diligent work with the 12 Steps for years, I wanted to just be. Be in community. Be at ease. Be comfortable in social settings where alcohol was present. In Dissonance, I joined a small, but mighty board of individuals, who seemed to already know that taking in concerts, experiencing art and performances, was a pathway to the connection and belonging I craved but couldn’t find in adult settings in 2018. 

Over my five years as a board member, I had the pleasure of being in community with people who shared a passion for creating healthy community and openly talking about mental health and addiction challenges and triumphs. In this environment, I took cues on weathering life’s ups and downs and how to ask for support, and be supported. It all co-existed and it was incredibly positive, forever changing my boundaries and expectations of how I want to show up in community and create my own communities. 

Highlights and Sunsetting

Conversations within this community helped me navigate relationships in sobriety. They prompted me to forge new gathering formats including Story Well, along with fellow board member, Katy Vernon. Story Well started pre-Covid at The Warming House in Minneapolis, and continued through social distancing, creating space for people to share their story and find their way to well. Conversations also led me to discover how deeply I disconnected from my love of music and dance in early sobriety because my enjoyment of live music and expressing myself through movement was so linked to alcohol. Time to reclaim those connections! … which I most definitely did through Dissonance and our work to uplift artists and musicians.

Some of my favorite memories are St. Pat’s Day coffee hours at Five Watt and Claddagh Coffee, Unhappy Holidays at SpringBox and The Music Lab, Resolution 2020 at The Parkway Theater, Story Well at the Warming House, our five-year anniversary party at Royal Foundry Craft Spirits, supporting Morningside After Dark performances, being behind-the-scenes at the recording of Dissonance Sessions productions, and Ghost Notes on the SW Mpls neighborhood block and at Bauhaus. 

Signing off in early 2024 as I end over five years with Dissonance is bittersweet. It was an absolute joy to be on this healthy non-profit board with Sarah Souder Johnson at the helm. The experiences and events in community with the expression of music and art holds so much meaning for me. The opportunity to be on stage, connect with others, and write and communicate on behalf of the Dissonance mission undoubtedly shaped my voice. I’ll be taking that forward into new ventures and communities that shatter stigmas and create healthier paths to wellness and purpose. Gratitude and love to Dissonance and all the journeys, heart and soul, I encountered along the way. 

Letting go out loud with each of you was an incredible ride!

---

JEN IN THE NEWS

• Opinion Exchange: Could we embrace the nonalcoholic option? (Star Tribune—June 30, 2024)

• There's one area that we need to rethink when it comes to 4th of July celebrations (WCCO Morning News—July 3, 2024)

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Blood Will Tell: Family secrets revealed, for good – once and for all

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the backstory of a show called Blood Will Tell, coming up on April 27 at the Center for Performing Arts in Minneapolis (37th and Pleasant). Get tickets.

By Scott Zosel

When my wife and I set out to create a show featuring songs I’d written about my family, I did it primarily for self-promotion—to continue publishing work. And what artist wouldn’t, right? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Publish, promote, repeat?

The songs I’d written over the years for family funerals for my mother, father and brother were damn good. The song I wrote and performed for my daughter’s wedding got rave reviews. And there were others – some of my best material that I would seldom, if ever, play live because I never felt I had the right context to express them. Singing these personal songs just felt weird to me. 

The songs revealed too much about me – my deep feelings of sadness, joy, confusion and much more. It was much too hard to sing some lines without tearing up. If you’ve delivered a eulogy, or one of those awkward wedding toasts to a close friend, you know what I mean.

So as Nan and I pondered this show that she would later entitle Blood Will Tell, it seemed to make sense that the subject matter might be compelling to a wider audience. Blood Will Tell was a playful poem she penned, not necessarily for the show, but what would eventually become the title. It seemed to fit. After we made some of the preparations and I started rehearsing the songs with a band, it became clear to me that this was a journey I didn’t expect. 

Nan and Scott Zosel

Blood Will Tell quickly became something bigger than me. Managing the details of a show – the promotion, rehearsals, content – was the easy part. Reaching deep inside to find some emotional availability to deliver these songs was the bigger challenge. And of course, my ongoing vulnerability: dealing with all of my usual self-doubt surrounding the idea of performing family stuff. So many questions swirling inside me, 24-7.

‘Who will care about this? How dare you exploit your family for personal gain? Who do you think you are anyway?’

Yeah, the usual stuff. I’m still working through some of it, but self-doubt be damned, the show will go on. But now for some full disclosure. 

Truth to tell, I come from a great family of five children; strong supportive relationships with both parents and fun, collaborative camaraderie with most of my siblings. But even the best of families have their dark sides, their deep issues. Mine is no outlier, to be sure. 

When my father passed away in late 2016, he left behind my mother all alone in a big house on Fremont Avenue in the south Minneapolis Uptown neighborhood. Mom had dementia that had been developing for years. She was unable to care for herself. A week after my father died, my beloved older brother Tom was diagnosed with colon cancer and died four months later. 

Mom’s care was a bone of contention among siblings. Tom’s death did nothing to quell the family turmoil, and seemed to tear it even further apart. Mom’s care eventually devolved into a custody battle, and ugly legal proceedings. The toll on the family was devastating. The once seemingly close-knit family unraveled quickly. 

For me, the turmoil led to debilitating anxiety and bouts of deep depression. I’d wake up in the night pondering possible solutions to this horrible problem, going around and around, like a dog chasing its tail. As the oldest living sibling, I felt a deep sense of responsibility to make this right and pull the family together like Mom and Dad would have wanted. But it was not to be. 

To this day, the family is estranged unfortunately. But I’ve made my peace with it. I did everything I felt was right at the time, and to be honest, I feel my siblings think they did as well. And that’s fine with me. I still love them somehow, but having a real adult relationship with them would be tricky. I still keep the door open a crack, just in case. 

Blood Will Tell is 10 songs about my family members, but not necessarily tributes. They are stories about my relationships with them. The writing of the songs themselves speaks to how I experience family and talk candidly about it. Blood Will Tell is not just the story of my family, but of all families who love each other, in their own tender and imperfect ways. 

At my show on April 27, I'll put my deepest emotions into the crosshairs to be examined for this one night, to tell these stories once and for all, about the people I love most, so they leave their mark and maybe I’ll never sing them again.

Blood Will Tell liner notes: songs about family in the words of Scott Zosel

Coal Black Curls - Jim Zosel was my whole world, my best friend who emerged from a wilderness, a whirlwind of internal battles, sometimes a conflicted man. He always spoke the truth of Love's potential. And, demonstrated it to me, in real terms how to be emotionally available, and taught me how to have true emotional intelligence. Dedicated to my Father. 

Tuck Me In - Nan Zosel never really loved herself the way she should, like many women of her generation, bound by thankless matrimonial duty and a dysfunctional family of origin. Yet she had an endearing, enduring capacity to express love so that we all felt loved, and whole. She never failed in that regard. Dedicated to my Mother.

Irish Twins - The way brothers love each other, protect each other, learn from each other; the deep bond of two lucky enough to be born a year apart, sharing the same room, their dreams, their thoughts, and their whole lives for eternity. Dedicated to my brother Tom who passed in 2017.

Tucson Calling - How far do we have to travel to prove our love, when we’re not sure what we’re getting ourselves into? Sometimes thousands of miles over the steepest mountains, to barren deserts of Arizona. Dedicated to my daughter Aurora on her wedding day, who followed her eventual husband Colin on a journey to pursue his doctorate at the University of Arizona. 

Build You a House - As parents, we go to great lengths to protect those we love, especially our children—to nurture, to make the world right and safe, so love comes to life. Dedicated to my daughter Terra.

Come Out and Play - The anticipation of a new generation springing forth, but only comes once. This is the imagining of a new stage of life, and a treasure that comes with it—our first grandson! Dedicated to James, born after a tumultuous 36-hour labor. 

Disappeared -  When someone discovers their sweet spot, a place for expression that feels safe and sublime; a place they can share with the whole world, commune with others and find love - we disappear! Dedicated to my wife Anne (Nan Marie) the dancer who inspires hoards of folks to dance freely with earbuds in public settings.

Brighter Sun - When we die, we don't know where we'll go, but it's comforting to know, to see the spot where we'll join hands someday and be together for eternity, in the brighter sun. Inspired by the experience of purchasing grave plots at Lakewood cemetery. 

Death Made a Friend - Love mysteriously connects us to tragedy, whether we like it or not, because we value virtue, concede to its charm, over all else. We're sucked into the destructive cycles, because love leaves us no choice to embrace all that is good, and the hope we so desperately need. Dedicated to Brother-in-law Tom Uldrich who passed away in late 2023.

Blood - When love, affection and connection get upended by acrimony’s stiff breeze, we still have blood—hardwired memories of the best of times we once shared. And sometimes it's enough. Love is so much stronger than we know.

Dedicated to the Zosel family. 

Scott Zosel is a solo songwriter who has also been making music with bands in the Twin Cities since the 1980s. Scott’s upcoming performance entitled Blood Will Tell will take place on April 27, 2024 at the Center for Performing Arts in Minneapolis. Get tickets.