Sandwiched between the release of her new album, Chime, this spring and her first full-length book, My Own Devices, this fall, Dessa spent much of last month taking an eye-opening trip across China and Hong Kong with her bandmates Aby Wolf and Matthew Santos. Orchestrated by the Minneapolis-based nonprofit Arts Midwest, which provides tour funding and cultural exchange…

When you think of Prince and Minnesota, the cities of Minneapolis and Chanhassen probably spring to mind, but the small town of Henderson (pop. 900) also occupies a crucial niche in purple lore. Henderson, an hour’s drive southwest of First Avenue, is the site where Prince and Apollonia filmed their iconic outdoor romp for Purple Rain.…

Like any other Minnesotan, I enjoy hopping a plane to somewhere warmer for a week or so in the winter, but summer is the perfect time to enjoy local offerings out on the open road. Some vacation for leisure; others for adventure. I always find myself drawn to the nightlife of my various destinations —…

In the two years since Prince passed, one of the biggest revelations that has surfaced about his personal life is just how much money he was quietly funneling toward the causes he believed in, especially those that worked closely with marginalized youth in urban communities and provided students with access to music education. On what…

Swamp Dogg – “I’ll Pretend (feat. Guitar Shorty & Justin Vernon)” “You might not know, Marijuana Deathsquads is also in the movie business,” the group tweeted on Thursday. Ryan Olson and Isaac Gale directed this music video for Swamp Dogg, a soul singer who has announced his next album: Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune. Justin Vernon…

This spring, Prince’s estate announced that an album of previously unreleased recordings would be released in the fall. Today, marking the 60th anniversary of the icon’s birth, Warner Bros. made it official: on Sept. 21, they’ll release a nine-track, 35-minute album recorded at his Chanhassen home studio in 1983. The songs on Piano & a Microphone…

“Did you know Prince was born in your office?” Saul Selby was joking with a colleague — but his estimate probably wasn’t more than a few dozen feet off. We were standing in the east wing of the third floor of a South Minneapolis building that used to be Mount Sinai Hospital. The best available…

Justin Vernon hates giving interviews, but the voice memos he shares on the new PEOPLE streaming service are a good stand-in. Driving around Lowry Hill in Minneapolis, Vernon explains that the music industry and celebrity culture have made him both shy and angry, off and on, since For Emma, Forever Ago. “Granted, I was on…

You might be aware that Francis and the Lights (aka producer/songwriter/Eaux Claires vet Francis Starlite) will be in Minneapolis next week to play First Avenue. But you probably didn’t know that he and producer BJ Burton recorded his last album, Just For Us, in Northeast Minneapolis at the Terrarium. After working with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver)…

Liz Phair played one of the year’s most-anticipated shows at the Turf Club last night as part of her Girly-Sound to Guyville tour. Advance tickets for the show had sold out in just a few minutes. Those who were lucky enough to get in were excited to be there for her first show in the…