Eating Healthier with Tochi Foods Store

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Nishesh Sharma

A unique store

The Tochi Foods Store offers natural, health, organic and specialty gourmet foods and products. The store is located at 2^nd Ave in Fargo and carries bulk grains, flours, fruits, nuts, rice, beans lentils and herbs. Tochi products store has been in business for the last 38 years.

Long history in Fargo

The store first opened in September 7^th1971 with a mission to cater to people who are looking to eat a little healthier and those interested in whole green diets. The store was started in a small scale but today it deals with retail and wholesale operations in the region. The store supplies to local restaurants and sets up bulk orders for area businesses.

Family owned business

Will Hoglund who is the owner of the store was originally born in Fargo and went to school in Grand Forks. His two sons Gabe Hoglund and Joe Hoglund actively help him with the stores operations and management.

Joe Hoglund attended M State Tech College for Accounting and Business Management and works at the store full time. He has worked here for about 15 years. His parents Will Hoglund and Naomi Nagamoto initially started the Tochi Foods Store.

“ I have been involved with the store since I was very young and its nice to have a family owned business that contributes to society. This is enough to keep us busy and content with what we are doing here, just supplying the local community” says Hoglund.

There has been a trend among people to eat healthy and whole foods. More and more people are looking at alternatives and options to eat and buy health foods and whole foods. This is due to higher level of awareness of the harmful effects of Junk food and scientifically altered food products that we see in grocery stores today.

Debbie Carico, who has worked at the store for the last 11 years says, “The clients seem to grow day by day, in the beginning we had a lot of ethnically diverse clients who came for specific foods but now days there are a lot more people who want to eat healthier. I have also noticed that the younger generation now compared to a decade ago is more eager to eat healthy and also the folks from the baby boomer generation who are looking to get healthier.”

Eating Healthy

Recently there has been an increase in the trends to eat healthier and buy foods from local whole food stores and these choices are available to the people in the Fargo Moorhead area because of Tochi Foods Store.

Joe further said, “Eat what is grown in the ground, all this food out there is not raised from the earth but raised from what is put on it, organic is grown from mother earth and that’s the way it was meant but yeah we got to be happy with what you eat. I am glad that the general public is realizing that something has got to change and I am hoping that we can provide that for them and continue to do it and I am glad that there are a lot of options out there for people.”

Strong Customer Base

Matthew Hulsether, a student who was at the store said, “ This store has been around for a long time now and provides alternative means to eat healthier. I buy my groceries here just cause I know that things I buy here are a lot more healthier and will contain no additives or chemicals that are harmful to my body.”

The store is nothing but good news for people looking to buy organic and whole food products in the region. With the wholesomeness of the service that this family operated business provides and the uniqueness of the building it is undoubtedly a very prominent part of the downtown community in the area.

Picture Gallery from the store.

Pandora Internet radio and The Music Genome experience with Tim Westergren

Posted on November 23, 2010 by Nishesh Sharma

Tim Westergren, brainchild of the Music Genome Project and founder of Pandora Internet radio spoke at Babb’s Coffee House in Fargo, at a town hall style meeting on Nov 2.

Musical Background

Tim Westergren, a musician by background played in rock bands and traveled all over the western U.S. He is a native from Minnesota and he attended college at Stanford university. Traveling throughout the Colorado West as a pianist and playing with different bands, he was able to understand the challenges struggling musicians face in finding audiences and listeners.

Westergren said that traveling back and forth from small towns to big towns in search of music led him to seek technology as help. That gave birth to Pandora Internet radio and the Music Genome Project.

Town Hall-Style meetings

Westergren first started these meetups in Manhattan, N.Y. and admired the feedback that he got and he decided to keep doing it. Today the 250-some-town hall style meetings he has held keep growing with audiences.

Westergren informed the audience that the purpose of these events is to collect feedback to the company. He wants to speak for the listeners of Pandora.

Music Genome Project

The purpose of the Music Genome Project was to analyze music in a granular way. It was created 10 years ago and uses about 400 different attributes in the taxonomy of each song. Every detail of the song is manually scored by musicians and thus, there is a 400-string musical DNA of each song.

Using sequence based musical co-relations with thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons that have been used about 7 billion times already in the site, the genomes learn what the listener likes and each time his or her personal station is recurated.

Artists in the system are used as identifiers and once they are there in the system about 70 percent independent artists have an equal chance to be heard on the website. This way radio could support musicians.

Westergren further said, “the Music Genome Project built a critical mass of music which was a powerful music generator. Its goal was to have a huge range of genres, about 90 percent of the songs play every month.”

Pandora

“With about 850,000 songs in the collection and about 10,000 new songs being added every month, Pandora is very quick to get you to the right musical neighborhood” said Westergren.

He said he now sees an opportunity to reshape radio. He talked about millions of radio hours that are spent in radio online and the new change in business because of invention of smartphones.

Westergren said that he thinks that today Pandora competes with broadcast radio and is a very effective forum. Unlike radio Pandora pays royalty to both composers of the songs and the performers of the songs. With Pandora Tim sees an opportunity to reshape radio. He sees Pandora as the broad mass consumer opportunity now further scoping flat screen TVs, cars etc.

The future

Westergren said there might be a place for human DJs in Pandora. He acknowledges that Pandora can on one hand be a part of a listener’s social experience and on the other hand their very private one. There are also devices like Roku in the market and these kind of devices are an effective way to stream Pandora to the households.

There are also plans to catalog Asia and East Asia and their music markets. Westergren says that Internet radio companies are not competing with each other but with broadcast radio. On-demand streaming makes sense and in each context for any given song if people are thumbing down gradually a thumbed down song will play less often. Skipping a song would have a neutral effect on a song and thumbing up a song would mean it would play more frequently.

He said there are huge ambitions to impact musicians and to help audience in discovering bands. Westergren also said that the web is a wonderful medium to deliver targeted music and the web can also deliver geographically specific advertisements. Two percent of all radio listened which is one hour out of every 50 hours of radio listened is through Pandora.

Pandora is hoping to go global soon, said Westergren and remembered how Pandora grew from word-of-mouth and now it has about 70 million listeners. It is considering international markets and is willing to work locally.

The weblink to Tim Westergren’s personal blog.

A ride along with Bicycle Rodeo to Studio 222

Posted on October 31, 2010 by Nishesh Sharma

Studio 222 in downtown Fargo hosted a special show on Oct 2. Bicycle Rodeo, a folk rock band, gave their first live performance together after a year’s break from the local music scene.

The band was formed about a month ago when ex-members of the band Forgotten Voices decided to start playing shows together under a new name. “Forgotten Voices stopped playing in July of 2009 and we had not played since then and now we’ve decided to come back as Bicycle Rodeo” says Roy Haberstick, who plays upright bass for the band.

Lifelong friendship leads to a successful band

“As a band we like to play several genres but you can tag us to folk rock, bluegrass, and country” says Benjamin Mahowald, who sings in the band. The band consists of five members namely, Benjamin Mahowald (vocals, guitar and banjo), Roy Haberstick (bass), Dustin Matte (guitar, mandolin), Madison Karan (violin) and Ryan Worthley (percussion).

Mahowald, Haberstick and Mattke are originally from Huron, S.D. and grew up together. “Our parents were family friends and we were friends growing up, later Ryan saw us playing a show together and we didn’t have a drummer and he later decided to play drums for us” says Mattke, who also plays slide guitar and mandolin in some of their songs.

Karan originally from Alexandria, is an aspiring thespian who also sings and plays with several other bands. Worthley comes from White Bear Lake, Minn.

Creative instruments lead to a unique sound

The band incorporates different stringed instruments to create a wide variety of tones that go together with thoughtful lyrics. The members are multitalented and often include different instruments like banjo, slide guitar and mandolin in their songs.

The show at Studio 222, downtown Fargo was their first act together as Bicycle Rodeo. Dive 95.9, a local F-M radio station, sponsored the event. “This is our second time organizing a show at this venue but we are trying to do it more often” says Kelsey Hedman, a volunteer for the radio station. Del Barber a folk artist from Winnipeg was the headliner for the event.

Musical inspiration comes from everywhere.

The band members share a common love for soccer, riding bicycles and playing at shows in the venues in the region. Musical influences of Credence Clearwater Revival, Beatles, Simon and Garfunkle, Willie Nelson, Johny Cash and similar bands from the late ‘60s resonate in their beautiful compositions.

“We are often inspired by our friends and our community and we enjoy playing music together” says Haberstick. The band loves being around with their friends and fans and draws a lot of energy from the crowds that support them at the shows.

A promising future lies ahead

The band is working on a CD that has not been released yet but their songs are available online through Myspace. Mahowald, Haberstick and Mattke are all students from MSUM and Worthley is attending NDSU. This kind of an amalgamation of musicians from colleges around the region is nothing but good news to the thriving music scene in the area.

Sunrise Sunset of Fargo

Posted on October 8, 2010 by Nishesh Sharma

We all know how inactive and isolating our lives can get after getting snowed in during frigid winters in the region. In the winter of 2008 a group of nine individuals thought of a brilliant way to seek the warmth of sultry tones in their moldy basements, and the band Sunrise Sunset was born.

Sunrise Sunset performing in the cities.

“Around 2007 we first started talking about putting a band together and we first started to practice and initiated efforts to form the band seriously. In the beginning Ryan, our drummer, had the idea to start a big band, he is the one who assembled all the band members,” said Davis Bonk, who plays bass in the band.

Their performances are different than those of most other mainstream bands. They play one really long set with various parts rather than different shorter songs that stand individually on their own.

“Our gigs are unique as we play a bunch of different parts that go together and we play them without a break from start to end. Our shows don’t have several songs with breaks between them but rather just one long stretch of music that includes many musical changes” said Bonk, explaining the shows.

The band consists of nine band members, including Billy Chesvster (timpani and percussion), Davis Bonk (bass), Hanna Stevens (saxophones), Jared Winmill (trombone), Maren Tunseth (trumpet), Ross Hjelle (trumpet), Ryan Worthley (drums), Tara Baker (violin) and Troy Gion (guitar).

“Initially we had nine members but recently one of our members relocated to Vermont”, said Ryan Worthley, who brought all the band members together.

Sunrise Sunset also toured with the band Tiny Moving Parts where Bonk also plays synthesizers. The bands toured across North Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Idaho and Washington. Recalling their tour called ‘Toar’, Jared Winmill said, “We had a great time, we all paid for our own expenses but made just enough for gas and repairs to the van we toured on. We made new friends and played with different bands like Utopia Park and Mumfords. We also played at a art studio owned members of Loom, a local band from Salt Lake City, Utah.” With Worthley’s help, the band recorded an E.P. They made about 200 copies. The band members painted the covers themselves using stamps.

Their music is unique and stands out among all the pre-existing genres but when asked, Bonk said, “ I guess we are considered post rock, but our influences include bands like Xiu Xiu, Secret Machines, The Polyphonic Sphree, Explosions in the Sky and Tera Melos. We listen and appreciate a lot of self-produced music by artists who sign up with Indie labels.”

“We have often found ourselves practicing in moldy basements and we use our own PA system and mixers that practically gets the job done. Most of the band members now live at the same house which helps a lot when it comes to practicing or recording new ideas,” said Bonk.

The band members like riding bikes, hanging out with friends and fans, going to parties and other shows around downtown Fargo, and they have built a fan base that seems to increase with each event.

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Cruisin’ Broadway with National Muffler Store downtown

Posted on September 29, 2010 by Nishesh Sharma

Main Logo by Sam Olson

The finale of National Muffler’s “Cruisin’ Broadway” was held on Sept. 16, 2010. Cruisin’ Broadway, saw the most number of participants with 378 registered cars this year. The event was held on the first Thursdays of the each month this summer.

National Muffler Store, Downtown Fargo

The National Muffler and auto repair store is a manufacturing company, wholesaler and distributer for car mufflers in the region. The store has been organizing Crusin’ Broadway for last six years.

Terry Lindemoen, who is the owner of the store located in downtown Fargo said, “The National Muffler Store has been around for 30 years. I have owned it for the last eight years now. I used to work for the business as a CPA (certified public accountant) but I ended up buying it.”

The turnout

“This year we had at least about two thousand spectators. August was the month with the most number of spectators. We had about two to five hundred cars. Some car owners came all the way from New Mexico and Arizona” – Jed Pahan, Event Coordinator.

Pahan came on board about two and a half years ago and primarily works for Downtown Community Partnership. Car owners who want to participate could bring their cars and sign up to take part in the show.

Valued support from the Downtown Community

The National Muffler’s “Cruisin’ Broadway” had valued support from the downtown community including:

U.S. Bank
City of Fargo
City of Fargo Police Department
Parking Services
North Dakota Street Rod Association
Bergseth Brothers Co. Inc. : Schlitz Beer
Mojo 104.7 FM
Sam Olson and Fargo Downtowner
Antique Stores, Retailers and Restaurants

The Cars

The participants seemed excited to bring their cars to the show. The event fetched classic cars from all around the country to downtown Fargo. This attracted car enthusiasts and curious spectators to downtown fargo.

Darlene Myer, a participant, who owns a 1957 Chrysler Saratoga, said, “We’ve had the car in our family since back in the 1960s and so it’s always been with us, and now we are enjoying it.”

Forest Alder from Lake Park, Minnesota, who owns a 1950 MG-TD Model, said,” This is a car that brought road racing to the U.S., go to work during the week and raced them on the weekends that’s about it, this is a little race car here.”

Pahan says, “the planning for the event starts in advance around January or February.” The show was targeted towards kids, college students and families and turned out to be a great success.

Photo Gallery