The Ordway has been running at a fever pitch to celebrate their newly opened Concert Hall, hitting every genere for their 22 Days of Opening Nights—from opera to dance to youth symphonies, and for fans of The Current, on Wednesday there was a night with Haley Bonar. Before Bonar took the stage, she invited her…

Sinéad O’Connor has announced that she will no longer perform “Nothing Compares 2 U,” her chart-topping hit from 1990. “After 25 years of singing it, nine months or so ago I finally ran out of anything I could use in order to bring some emotion to it,” the Irish singer wrote on Facebook. (Billboard) Though O’Connor didn’t…

I woke up in a new Bugatti (and by “Bugatti,” I mean a hotel room in southeast Austin) without a plan. I headed downtown, and I hoped that I would cross paths with something interesting. Once downtown, a friend and I made our way to the Floodfest day party—I’m not sure why, because the show’s artists…

Few rock historians would call Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” the first rock and roll song. (Many would give that honor to Jackie Brenston’s 1951 “Rocket 88,” co-written by Ike Turner, produced by Sam Phillips, and later covered by Haley.) When asked to date the beginning of the rock and roll era in popular…

Modest Mouse have created a “linguistic remix generator” for their new album Strangers to Ourselves: it creates an audiovisual experience pairing text you provide with images and music from the album. Meanwhile, frontman Isaac Brock posted a track-by-track album commentary on Spotify. (Pitchfork) Read Leah Garaas’s review of Strangers to Ourselves, and grab tickets to see Modest Mouse…

Photographer Bridget Bennett is sharing photos and stories from her first-ever SXSW experience. Watch for more updates from Bridget this week and weekend, and listen to The Current on Friday from noon to 6:00 p.m. for a live broadcast of the Public Radio Day Stage concert at SXSW. It’s a festival of standing in lines,…

As the last weeks of March approach, all eyes are on Austin’s South by Southwest Festival. For Jim Anderson, a dedicated music fan from the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis, the conference itself isn’t even the real draw. Instead, he seeks the music on the periphery of the festival—the artists in little-known clubs and dive bars…

On Saturday’s sunny afternoon I met Kelsey, a Milwaukeean who’s been on The Current’s staff since August, and asked whether she could have guessed a year ago that she’d be standing on a street corner in South Minneapolis, waiting to go to an attic-bedroom ratpop show. Kelsey shrugged, and we walked up to a house with TVs in…

In one of the most epic goofs made in recent memory by a major news organization, the Associated Press initially identified Robert Durst—the millionaire who’s been arrested on murder charges after being featured in the HBO documentary series The Jinx—as “the former Limp Bizkit frontman.” The following day the AP issued a correction: “The Associated Press reported…

Frankie Lee: American Dreamer Frankie Lee will be celebrating the release of his American Dreamer video at the Turf Club on Saturday. This will be sort of a visual EP, a la Beyoncé: five new songs, five new videos. Above, Frankie Lee performs a song from his 2013 release Middle West. Har-di-Har: Har-di-Har Har-di-Har are husband…