T-Bone Burnett received a gift from Bob Dylan, out of the blue: a scrapbook of lyrics written forty-something years ago but never set to music. Burnett assembled a supergroup of artists and recorded the tunes at Capitol Records in Hollywood, and the resulting album largely succeeds. Even Bob Dylan's cast-off ideas make really good songs.

A Mac DeMarco concert Friday night at the University of California—Santa Barbara ended with the “Salad Days” singer detained by police after he climbed into the ceiling beams of a campus venue called The Hub. Earlier, campus police had interrupted the show to arrest two concertgoers for “moshing and resisting police officers,” reports the Santa Barbara…

Mark Kozelek of Sun Kil Moon performed in Duluth last night. It was his second of two nights performing in the port town (the night prior he played an unannounced set at Fitger’s Brewhouse along with Alan Sparhawk—these things just seem to happen in Duluth). Given the controversy Kozelek has courted in recent weeks with…

Bae Tigre: Memoir of a Happy Drifting Chemical One of the most pleasant surprises coming out of the Twin Cities this year is Bae Tigre, a self-described “electro-Indie-gurl” with a fresh sound. Her debut full-length, Memoir of a Happy Drifting Chemical, is Polkadot Mayhem‘s newest release. The track “Now or Never” has a hook like…

So here’s a conundrum I’ve been mulling over lately: With so much hype all around us, and with the internet shoving one item after another down our throats with the promise that they are each the craziest, all-time best things that we absolutely must click on right now, what are we supposed to do when we actually really,…

Bob Dylan is playing three hometown gigs at the Orpheum Theatre on Nov. 4, 5 and 6 to coincide with the release of his Basement Tapes recordings and we're counting down the top 25 Bob Dylan songs as voted by listeners of The Current from 5 to 7 p.m. on Nov. 4 to celebrate!

Bob Dylan: The Basement Tapes Complete The Bootleg Series filling in the gaps of Bob Dylan’s career is back with volume 11. Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings released The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11 today. The six-disc set of restored recordings comes from sessions Dylan did with the Band in 1967. Robbie Robertson,…

With an international release this month, Duluth’s Wolf Blood is a band on the verge of making some major noise both home and abroad. Here’s the story of how a doom/psych/stoner metal band from Northern Minnesota found its audience. Sometimes, as they say, timing is everything. The flood that ravaged Duluth, Minnesota in the spring…

This morning, Low confirmed via Twitter that they would be opening for Mark Kozelek’s solo performance at the Karpeles Museum in Duluth on Nov. 13. Kozelek is better known under the moniker Sun Kil Moon, a name he’s released most of his music under for the past several years. The Karpeles Museum holds the largest…

On Monday, local singer-songwriter Haley Bonar visited the BBC Radio 6 Music studios to promote the UK release of her album Last War. In an intimate conversation with Lauren Laverne, Bonar discussed a number of things including her beginnings as a musician, the making of Last War, Justin Vernon’s contribution to the record, the empowering…