Previously: Women’s History Month: Minnesota’s earliest pioneers Previously: Women’s History Month: Influential ’80s and ’90s rock bands from Minnesota For the third installment of this month’s ongoing Women’s History Month series on Local Current, I wanted to take a closer look at some of the pioneering women from Minnesota’s jazz, gospel, and soul communities. These […]
Few rock historians would call Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” the first rock and roll song. (Many would give that honor to Jackie Brenston’s 1951 “Rocket 88,” co-written by Ike Turner, produced by Sam Phillips, and later covered by Haley.) When asked to date the beginning of the rock and roll era in popular […]
Previously: Women’s History Month: Minnesota’s earliest pioneers We are making our way through Women’s History Month 2015, a month dedicated to documenting, preserving, and honoring the stories of influential women throughout our nation’s past. This year I’ve decided to zero in on all of the amazing women who blazed trails across the Minnesota music scene, […]
The year is 1984 and the Minneapolis music scene has officially exploded. I am a St. Paul girl going on 13 years old, growing up by Macalaster College listening to WMCN radio station kick out some serious Twin Cities talent and catching the 94B bus downtown to attend every all-ages show possible at First Avenue. The first […]
With a summer of big festival dates ahead of them—including a homecoming gig at Rock the Garden on June 21—the influential Minneapolis trio Babes in Toyland drove up into the hills of the California desert last month to play their first public show in 14 years. It was a small warm-up gig at an intimate and […]
March is Women’s History Month, and to celebrate we’re diving deep into the history of the influential women who helped build the Minnesota music scene with a series on Local Current and an all-female edition of The Local Show on Sunday, March 15. For the first hour-long installment on Local Current, I wanted to go back just […]
• Rhythm Nation 1814 was Janet Jackson’s fourth solo album, although she was just 23 years old when it came out. • One of the most commercially successful albums ever to come out of Minnesota, Rhythm Nation 1814 was produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and all of the tracks were recorded at their Flyte Tyme studio in Minneapolis. […]
In honor of the upcoming Replacements show at Midway Stadium, artist Kevin Cannon and writer Pat Ganley have created a remarkable hand-drawn map of ‘Mats landmarks in Minneapolis—from the CC Club to First Ave to the Bob Stinson Memorial Bench—based on Jim Walsh’s book All Over But the Shouting. Here’s a preview; see the full-size map, […]
No matter what your interests are, there is something for everyone at the Minnesota State Fair. That goes for music fans, as well. In addition to plenty of free shows that take place throughout the fairgrounds every year, high profile acts and entertainers have been performing at the Grandstand since 1962. Even though the Grandstand […]
Local legend has it that when the Cedar Cultural Center was converted from a movie theater to a music room, a guitar belonging to West Bank folk star Spider John Koerner was buried in the venue’s foundation. Is the legend true? In the first episode of a new series from the Current, David Campbell takes on the role of the Minnesota […]
