They’re in their mid-70s now, but two founding members of Podipto, the hugely popular band from northern Minnesota, are still making music 50 years later.
Dan Lund, 76, and John Calder, 75, recently released Sea, a four-song EP (extended play) that combines Lund’s guitar playing with Calder’s percussion. All four songs are instrumental. They were recorded in Calder’s home studio in Minneapolis, and the EP is available as a digital download by searching for Dan & John at bandcamp.com.
“It’s really fun to see what we come up with,” Lund said. “These songs aren’t like Podipto, but maybe some of the endings will remind people of Podipto. I’ve always wanted to play with John again. He has a creative mind.”
Calder added: “It was great to rediscover the friendship with Dan, because that was Podipto. It was five friends.”
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Lund and Calder were two of the founding members of Podipto in 1969. The band was known throughout the Midwest for its original music that mixed rock, blues and country, as well as its live shows and lively personalities. During the early 1970s, Podipto performed with artists such as Elton John, James Taylor, The Carpenters, Kenny Rogers, The Guess Who, Poco and John Sebastian. Podipto disbanded in 1974.
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The five founding members were Calder on drums, Lund and John Collins on guitar, Jack Sundrud on bass and Karen Lund on keyboards. Dan and Karen were married at the time but later divorced. Collins died of a heart attack in 1995. In 2017, Karen and her husband Brian Regnier were shot dead by their 27-year-old son, who then took his own life.
Sundrud moved to Nashville in 1981, where he became bassist and vocalist for some of Music City’s most successful touring artists, including Vince Gill, Kathy Mattea and Poco.
After Podipto, Dan Lund joined Becky Riemer and the Sky Blue Water Boys. In 2005, he and the rest of the Sky Blue Water Boys were inducted into the Minnesota Rock and Country Hall of Fame, now called the Mid-America Music Hall of Fame.
Lund later joined other notable bands: Minnesota Flats, Sweetwater, and a country-punk band called Tall Corn. He has released two CDs under his own name on the Kitty Hawk label and played a long-running show at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts called “Always Patsy Cline.”
Calder became a sound engineer and worked in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Milan and Montreal. He has received a platinum record, a gold record, a Gold Reel, a Monitor Award, a Muse Award and an AZA Top Honors Award. He has worked with Neil Diamond, The Band and Joe Cocker and has been a composer and sound designer for music scores for commercials, exhibitions and videos. He has also released two CDs, “Eleven Scenes” and “Thirteen Scenes”, on Bandcamp, with “Twelve Scenes” due out soon.
Podipto was based in Bemidji and held many of its early rehearsals in a heated garage owned by JD Saunders, located a few miles north of downtown on Birchmont Drive. One of the early band photos was taken outside of this garage.
“When we first got together, everyone looked at each other and said, ‘Man, this is really something,'” Calder said. “We started with some John Collins songs, and Jack slowly started writing for the band. It was a really fertile creative environment because everyone was a good musician and people worked really well together. And we had such great vocals between John, Jack and Karen, with Dan on lead guitar. It really was a great sounding band.”
Podipto recorded two albums, the first in 1970 on GRT Records in Canada, the second on their own. Although the band became known across the country, they appreciated working out of Bemidji, Calder said.
“I think we enjoyed developing our skills in a relatively small town,” he said. “Because we were able to play in front of college crowds, I think the town and the people there were supportive and musically interested. They were open to new things. We had a lot of support from the people who lived up there. Bemidji was really a great launching pad.”
Calder met Lund again last year at Dan’s 75th birthday party.
“We chatted a lot and said we should get back together,” Calder said. “I said to Dan, ‘I’m kind of tired of writing these songs myself. Wouldn’t it be cool to get together and just do some songs ourselves?'”
Lund agreed and they started working on the first four instrumentals. They have also put the finishing touches on two more songs and are almost finished with a third.
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“Dan is such a great guitar player and has so many ideas that it’s just a great experience to sit down with him and compose stuff,” said Calder.
Lund added: “John granted me two wishes in life. One was to join the band that became Podipto. And then to be able to sit in his house and play in the studio. It’s really a pleasure.”
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