I was walking through Manhattan recently, making my way up 5th Avenue to check out all the Christmas displays like a typical Midwestern tourist, when I looked up and realized something odd: I was standing at the foot of the Empire State Building, an instantly recognizable spire that I had been eyeing for blocks. But […]
Who is Prince? It’s a question that’s been on our minds for four decades now. Because for as long as the man born Prince Rogers Nelson has been making music, the world has been attempting to decode his motivations and cut through his mystique. But much like the murky waters of Lake Minnetonka in Purple […]
It’s taken me a long time to get here, so I’ll do my best to keep my voice from shaking as I say this: My name is Andrea, and I’m a gatekeeper. That’s right. I keep the gates. I make the tastes. Sometimes I lord over people, shoving my opinions down their unsuspecting gullets. Sometimes […]
Time has a funny way of providing us with perspectives we didn’t even know we needed, like a telephoto lens slowly zooming outward until the entire picture comes into view. Water droplets may look like tears when their big fat beads are streaking across our entire view, but if we take a step back we […]
On a snowy day in late 1978, just a week before Thanksgiving, jazz saxophonist Morris Wilson staged a rally for working musicians on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. Fed up with the dwindling opportunities for funk bands with horn sections in the Twin Cities and the rising popularity of dance music, he led a small […]
I’ve been a fan of Modest Mouse ever since I first heard their breakout single, “Float On,” on MTV in 2004. As if the riffs weren’t enough, the music video had me mesmerized. I remember standing in front of my tube TV before school, thinking, “Who is this?” I was only 13 years old when […]
I believe in rock ‘n’ roll and I think rock ‘n’ roll believes in me. These words were broadcast far and wide recently by my friend and colleague Mary Lucia, and they’ve also been echoed by countless rock ‘n’ roll believers over the past 50 years. While Mike Mictlan might spit that “rap won’t save […]
There is a Mars-like quality to the Mojave desert of Southern California, where an endless sea of copper earth is broken up by the crooked branches and green, spiky sprouts of blossoming Joshua trees. It’s a setting that’s proven alluring for countless wayward travelers and artists over the years, from Gram Parsons and Keith Richards […]
The snow was falling hard and fast in fat, sloppy flakes the night I pulled into Mankato, Minnesota, to see Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. It was the kind of storm that we’ve been getting a lot of this spring; one that starts suddenly and dangerously but then dissipates, leaving everyone confused and the streets […]
There are so many different ways to think about music and how we interact with it. We can enjoy it from a technical perspective, marveling at an artist’s proficiency at their instrument or the way they hit the notes just right. We can examine it intellectually, taking apart each lyric in an attempt to unpack its many meanings. We […]
