These days it’s known as Key’s, one of a chain of diners in the metro area that serves up tuna melts, omelets, and slices of pie for hungry crowds. But for a brief time in the late 1960s, the south-facing space in the first floor of Minneapolis’s iconic Foshay Tower was home to a sweaty, […]
You ever hear a song so good that it actually makes you kind of mad? That’s what happened to me the first time I heard the Amazers and their song “It’s You For Me,” released nationally in 1967 on Curtis Mayfield’s Thomas Records. For starters, I couldn’t believe that a 45 steeped in such incredible […]
In the mid-2000s, Prince had returned to the mainstream spotlight in a way he hadn’t since the 1980s. His battle with his longtime label, Warner Bros., was over. He had reclaimed his birth name, been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and was living out in Los Angeles, throwing star-studded purple parties […]
The Twin Cities music community was dealt a hard blow this weekend with the passing of Sonny Knight, an endlessly charismatic and powerful soul singer whose history on local stages dates all the way back to the early 1960s. From cutting his first 45 as Little Sonny Knight back in 1965 to recording his final […]
Jay’s Longhorn Bar was only open for a few years in downtown Minneapolis, but during that time it became the center of a booming punk and independent rock scene. “It was a little bit like CBGB with Cheers mixed into it,” remembered regular Sharon Samuels. Not only did local legends like Hüsker Dü and Curtiss A and […]
The Monks, a blistering and unapologetically bizarre punk band made up of a group of former GIs from the American Midwest, spent most of their short mid-1960s career gigging around the same clubs in Germany as the Beatles. They cut a record, spent some more time in the studio recording never-to-be-released material, and then returned home […]
“The last time I was in this building was 1984.” Owen Husney is standing in the doorway of 430 Oak Grove, a high-end apartment complex on the south edge of Loring Park in Minneapolis. As soon as the doors swing open and he steps into the marble atrium, you can see the memories pulling him […]
When Cost of Living, the debut album by Big Quarters, was released in 2007, Brandon Allday and Medium Zach created a Twin Cities hip-hop classic. To commemorate the anniversary, Big Quarters will reissue Cost of Living on 180-gram vinyl — complete with newly remastered audio — on Record Store Day, April 22. Brandon Bagaason and […]
When Prince lovers from around the world descend on Chanhassen next week to attend the four-day Celebration 2017, it will be at least the fourth time that such an event has been held at Paisley Park. Which may come as a surprise for those who were only passively following Prince’s career in his post-Warner Bros. […]
It was one year ago today that 236 people attending a sold-out tribute to Ray Charles at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres got the surprise of a lifetime: Midway through the song “Let the Good Times Roll,” the city’s most famous resident, Prince, stepped out of the wings and onto the side of the stage to […]
