What happens when your health issues take center stage, forcing you to reschedule tours, delay plans, rearrange your artistic desires? What happens when your mind races ahead but your body stays put? What happens when you start to feel like everyone knows you as “that rapper who got the kidney transplant”? What if you feel sick…

Comprised of high schoolers in the Minnesota small town Fulda, 1960s garage rock group the Continental Co-ets may have been the first all-girl rock and roll group in the country — or at least in the Upper Midwest. Claims to fame aside, the teenagers’ tenaciousness deserves recognition. With a DIY punk spirit, the girls started…

Morrissey says he’s “very seriously” considering running for mayor of London on a platform of animal rights. “Animal welfare groups cannot persist simply in order to continue to persist,” writes Morrissey on the True to You website. “There must be a governmental voice against the hellish and archaic social injustice allotted to animals in the…

Each week on the Local Show, we’ll meet a new person from the Minnesota music community who has some fresh discoveries to share in a feature called “Ask a Cool Person.” These people will come from all corners of the scene, including record store clerks, recording studio engineers and producers, artists, writers, bookers, photographers, and…

For the past three nights, Poliça have made the rounds at various venues in the Twin Cities to put their new album on blast to their local following. United Crushers celebrated its official release last night at First Avenue. Twin Citians will recognize the title’s allusion to a common local graffiti tag — most recognizable atop the oft-scaled…

It’s been a wild week for Duluth artist Gaelynn Lea, who has been selected as this year’s Tiny Desk contest champion and is on her way to Washington, D.C. to perform at Bob Boilen’s desk for the entire NPR Music crew. After years of making haunting, captivating folk music around Duluth with collaborators like Alan Sparhawk — who she performs…

Since last May, The Current has been inviting local musicians to take over our all-Minnesota music stream to talk about the local music scene and share tracks from their favorite local artists. So far, the roster for Local Current’s DJ in Residence has included Reina del Cid, Martin Devaney, Sophia Eris, Mark Mallman, Eric Mayson,…

This year marks the tenth anniversary of rapper and producer J Dilla’s death, as well as the release of his seminal album Donuts. This weekend, Twin Cities Dilla Day events will honor the legendary Detroit beatmaker, whose work continues to live on through his dedicated fanbase. “People were starting to do Dilla Days around the…

Relatives of the late music icon Nina Simone are deeply upset over the casting of actress Zoe Saldana as Simone in the forthcoming biopic Nina. A first trailer has been released for the film, which opens on April 22, and many fans were taken aback to see that makeup was applied to darken the skin of Saldana (a black…

Wednesday night at the Turf Club, Poliça opened a three-night series of shows celebrating the Friday release of their third album, United Crushers. Their set consisted almost exclusively of songs from the new album, making full use of the venue’s relatively new sound system. (Standing near the side of the stage, with his friend Har Mar Superstar,…