Happy Christmas Eve! Yesterday, we played all new holiday music for the Coffee Break. Today, let’s focus on classic holiday songs. See if you can only suggest songs that came out 40+ years ago, so prior to 1980. For today’s 9:30 Coffee Break, what classic holiday songs do you want to hear? Respond with your…

Over nine months since the last regular concert at First Avenue (Chelsea Cutler on March 12), Congress is set to pass a long-awaited relief bill that includes $15 billion in support for live entertainment venues. The Save Our Stages Act was championed by the newly-formed National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), led by First Avenue owner…

The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder called her our state’s “First Lady of Song.” The Star Tribune called her a “pre-eminent” vocalist in the local jazz scene. She called herself “ridiculously picky” when it comes to material, but, she told Local Current blogger Simone Cazares in 2018, “I know a tune when I hear one.” So did the…

The Friday Five inbox (submit by shooting a message to fridayfive [at] mpr.org) fills up with an eclectic mix of music videos each week. Sometimes longstanding local favorites, sometimes brand new DIY projects, and this week, a particularly mysterious artist performing under the moniker 85918 who shared an energetic, psychedelic experience for his latest single…

As The Current’s local music team, we used to find a lot of new music out at late-night shows, but this year, we’ve mostly been exploring releases through Bandcamp and SoundCloud (and our inboxes). Is it ideal? No, but it’s still rewarding. This year, Minnesota music has made us cry, dance, and cheer. Below, we’ve…

“I got tired of signing ‘Save Our Stages’ petitions and decided to do something,” said Mary Beth Mueller. “Many of us simply cannot imagine this city or the national music landscape without First Avenue. We started emailing bands, and every single one of them responded, ‘yes.’” The statement by Mueller – founder of Kill Kancer…

It’s no secret that 2020 has been a rough year, and one that’s been particularly hard on the music industry. But while we get ready to bid 2020 adieu, there are still plenty of opportunities to support local music. We’ve put together a list of ten holiday gifts for music lovers that give back to…

Somewhere around 1990, when I was a teenager, I picked up a used copy of Bruce Springsteen’s classic five-LP set Live/1975-85. I knew the Born in the U.S.A. hits, and I was ready to take a deeper dive into the Boss’s oeuvre. I put on side one track one (“Thunder Road”), turned off the lights in my bedroom,…

“Hey man,” Steve Brantseg remembers saying to Curtiss A in the mid-1980s. “I know all those Beatles songs. If you’ve got space for another guitar player, I’d love to do it.” Three and a half decades later, and 40 years since Curtiss A’s spontaneous original tribute concert on the day John Lennon died, Brantseg (also…

Bob Dylan, the boy born in Duluth who went on to create what the New York Times calls “one of the music world’s ultimate jewels” and the Associated Press calls “rock ‘n’ roll’s holy grail” has sold that jewel, that grail, for an estimated $300 million. In what the music world is calling a “blockbuster…