Frankie Lee may not be a familiar name to casual local music lovers, but his face sure is. For years, he has played with countless artists in the Twin Cities, most notably supporting Molly Maher, Erik Koskinen and Tom O'Reagan as a guitarist and bassist. Now Lee has stepped into the spotlight with his debut EP "Middle West."
Vampire Weekend are due to return with a third album in just a couple of weeks, and just in time, we've unearthed a long-lost and never-aired in-studio performance that the quartet recorded for us back in the spring of 2010!
Warmly received by the crowd, Dawes broke to talk to Mark Wheat a couple times during their five-song set, covering topics ranging from frontman Taylor Goldsmith's hesitance to try the Minnesota State Fair's trademark junk food and the mystery of how the band were chosen to open for Bob Dylan this summer.
Indie supergroup Divine Fits brings together members of Spoon, Wolf Parade, and more, so it's no wonder their debut full-length A Thing Called Divine Fits became an airplay staple at The Current and catapulted its way on to many of our staff's year-end lists. In town for a gig at Minneapolis' Varsity Theater, the band swung through our studios to play a session.
Low are minimalists in every sense of the word. Every note, every rise and fall in dynamic, every snippet of between-song banter is intentional, and measured. The Fitzgerald Theater was an ideal setting for the band's poignant show on Saturday, March 23. Enjoy audio from the event.
Peter Wolf Crier reignited the modern surge of Minnesota bands signing to indie labels. Back in 2010, their debut "Inter-Be" took the community by surprise, and Peter Pisano and Brian Moen were promptly scooped up by Jagjaguwar Records for a re-release.
The yearning harmonies and darkly allusive lyrics of singles like "Harper Lee" suggest that Little Green Cars possess a precocious wisdom that will serve them well as the attention and hype around their debut continues to build.
San Francisco's Thao & the Get Down Stay Down is the vehicle for the thoughtful indie folk-rock lyricism of singer-songwriter Thao Nguyen. Over the course of five albums and multiple singles (plus celebrated collaborations like her 2011 LP with indie-pop artist Mirah), she's developed a stripped-down, cerebral but deeply relatable voice that's earned her a sizable and devoted following.
It takes a long time for any band to leave a substantial mark on the music world, and for Minnesota, there's only a handful of artists for each decade that we can say measure up. It's safe to assume we can now add Low to that list as the band celebrates 20 years together, as well as the release of their most acclaimed album yet "The Invisible Way."
The Local Show 
In the Studio 
The Local Show