Right now we’re all making our best-of-2020 playlists and checking them twice (have you cast your votes in The Current’s Top 89 poll yet?). Do you ever go back and actually listen to the best-of playlists you made in prior years? Every time I do, I’m reminded of some amazing Minnesota songs from those years. […]
December is a time of reflection and celebration for people of many different backgrounds and traditions. For some, that means religious holidays like Hanukkah or Christmas. For others, it’s cultural celebrations like Kwanzaa. Some look to the winter solstice as a time of renewal, and everyone flips the calendar page on January 1. I’m going […]
This weekend, the world was saddened to learn of the death of a television icon: longtime Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek. Over the course of 36 years helming the popular quiz show, Trebek asked contestants (and, by extension, viewers) to display their knowledge on a vast range of topics. Among those topics, of course, was Minnesota music […]
City Pages, the alt-weekly that launched as Sweet Potato in 1979 and became an essential, unapologetically opinionated source of Minnesota music and arts coverage, is closing permanently after much of the live entertainment scene that supported it has been throttled for months by the COVID-19 pandemic. (Disclosure: In recent years, I have been a regular […]
There is this kind of joke in the Duluth music scene that if a musician is in one band, they are actually in five, with many of those bands crossing genres as musicians collaborate with each other. This week on the Duluth Local Show, I map out just some of the ways that Duluth music […]
Pat Boone’s “Tutti Frutti.” Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower.” Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love.” Little Eva’s “The Loco-Motion.” The Bangles’ “Manic Monday.” Neil Diamond’s “I’m a Believer.” Puff Daddy and Faith Evans’s “I’ll Be Missing You.” Which of those are cover songs? On Tuesday, Oct. 13 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on The Current, […]
One of the Twin Cities’ most influential rock bands, The Suburbs, will be releasing a new album this fall, entitled Tell Me All You Can About Your Broken Heart. This will be the third record the group has recorded since reuniting in 2013, having called it quits back in 1987. Chan Poling, the band’s jovial […]
In a summer that may have otherwise been filled with live music, musicians and audiences alike have been adjusting to socially distanced options. For most, this entails live streams and music videos made from home. For three Minnesota musicians, bassist Liz Draper, fiddler Clancy Ward, and multi-instrumentalist Kyle Ollah, it also involves a pontoon boat. […]
Yesterday, as protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police spread across the nation, the Prince estate released a 2015 live recording from a “Dance Rally 4 Peace” the artist played with 3RDEYEGIRL at Paisley Park. The concert was held to honor the late Freddie Gray and support Baltimore protesters […]
As a part of her Phone a Friend series, Jill Riley hopped on the phone recently to chat with Ben Lovett, who handles vocals, keys, piano, and accordion in Mumford & Sons. The two chatted about how the band are staying connected during this period of social distancing, Lovett’s venture into owning music venues, and […]
