These dog days of summer are all about knocking off of work early, enjoying the fleeting warm weather, and generally taking a more leisurely pace to life. Can someone please tell the Minnesota music scene about this? Because as we head into August the onslaught of show announcements, album leaks, and music video debuts only seems to…

This weekend, the clean-and-sober music festival HazelFest returns to the Hazelden treatment center in Center City, Minn., for its third year. And fans of the Current will notice a familiar face on the lineup: the host of the Current’s Local Show and Radio Free Current, David Campbell, will emcee the day’s festivities. Our DJs host a lot…

The second annual HazelFest, a clean-and-sober music festival put on by the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, will take place this Saturday, August 2, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. The show is sponsored by Healthy States and the Current. This year’s lineup features Davina and the Vagabonds, Communist Daughter, and Trapper Schoepp and the Shades,…

In a massively crowd-sourced list, Reddit users have decided that the best albums of the 21st century so far are Arcade Fire‘s Funeral (2004), Radiohead‘s Kid A (2000), the Strokes‘ Is This It (2001), and Kanye West‘s The College Dropout (2004). Lorde will “curate” the soundtrack to the new Hunger Games movie, as well as contribute a song herself. The music is expected to…

Downtown Records’ Downtown Festival will bring a promising lineup to the Skyway Theatre in Minneapolis on September 26 and 27. The festival will include Future Islands, Deafheaven, Nosaj Thing, and Minneapolis’s own summer sensations Hippo Campus, among others. The event’s schedule spreads its lineup into several separate bills in each room of the Skyway Theatre: performances…

Getting Target Field ready for Paul McCartney’s Saturday concert has been a multi-day process—building a giant stage in the outfield is just one of many steps being taken to welcome thousands of music fans to the home field of the Minnesota Twins. This morning, I was able to visit the field to take a look…

Jimmy Page has been fueling rumors of a Led Zeppelin reunion, blaming Robert Plant for standing in the way. “He’s just playing games,” Plant told the New York Times in May, “and I’m fed up with it, to be honest with you.” Now, Plant says he feels “disappointed and baffled” by Page’s seemingly futile attempts…

For the Beatles’ original fans, their first experience with the band’s music was probably hearing a chart-busting hit on the radio or lowering a needle onto a freshly-released album—or, for those few lucky fans, hearing them live at the Cavern. I didn’t hear my first Beatles song, though, until nearly 44 years after it was released. In fact, I…

In what could become the most anticipated comeback album since Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience, Missy Elliott has “the hollow-tip bullet in the gun” to release a new album, says her longtime producer Timbaland—who also worked with Timberlake, for those who are following along at home. It’s been almost ten years since Elliott’s last release, 2005’s The…

Tickle Torture: “Would I Love You” Minneapolis provocateur Tickle Torture described his sound to Noisey as “like Prince and Justin Timberlake [copulating] in a dumpster.” He’s readying a sophomore EP, Spectrophilia, for release this fall; in the meantime, he’s released “Would I Love You,” a single and video that capture the late-summer heat that’s been missing…