Though a game played by the country’s best baseball players wouldn’t seem to have any special significance to music fans, the 2014 Major League Baseball All-Star Game is inspiring a motley mix of famous musicians to perform in Minneapolis this month. First came the news that First Avenue had booked the Flaming Lips to play on…

Today, almost every moment of each big-name concert is captured by one or more fans with phones and posted online. Now, thousands more shows up to and including the digital era are getting the YouTube treatment. Music Vault—a recently-launched online offshoot of music memorabilia store Wolfgang’s Vault, described by Rolling Stone as a “bootleg haven”—has published 13,000 concert…

It’s hard to believe three decades have already passed, but on July 27, 2014, Prince’s iconic Minneapolis-based film Purple Rain will turn 30 years old. We’re celebrating the rock ‘n’ roll movie with an audio documentary that will air on the Current on Sunday night, July 27, at 6 p.m., and we need your help.…

An upcoming album-length tribute to Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. will feature Duluth acts Low and Trampled by Turtles, among others. The album, titled Dead Man’s Town, will be released by Lightning Rod Records on September 16, and will feature stripped-down takes on the album’s songs by country and “country-influenced” artists, according to Rolling…

Father You See Queen—a duo who are among a group of Minnesota artists making experimental but accessible music, wrote the Current’s Andrea Swensson in 2012—have joined with New York video artist Maria Juranic to create a new video for their song “Ocean” (from their 47 EP). We’re proud to premiere this 3D video, which was funded via…

We got our first glimpse at Outkast’s Andre 3000 as Jimi Hendrix in the new biopic Jimi: All Is By My Side—though we’re warned “this is not a movie about Hendrix and his relationship with music. If anything, it’s about Hendrix’s relationships with other people, specifically the women in his life.” The movie comes out on…

For the past several years, Davina and the Vagabonds have been shining rays of sunlight over the Twin Cities music scene with their mix of blues, jazz, and soulful pop. With a unique lineup including a small horn section of trumpet and trombone, and with Davina Sowers’s inimitable voice—which has earned comparisons to a long list of…

Have you always dreamed of being a drummer in a touring indie band? Especially one that has cultivated an especially intense and emotional connection with its fans and is beloved by environmentally conscious, tender souls from coast to coast? Then you may consider getting your application materials together quickly, because Cloud Cult have just announced an immediate opening (a…

You’ve read On The Road; I know you have. Well, I hated it. I think you may have, too. The one notable thing I took from that book was Kerouac’s regular usage of the word “Hipster,” capitalized here for effect. It was the first time I’d seen or heard it used outside of 21st century…

As we provide the A-Z soundtrack to your Fourth of July weekend, we know that another important part of this weekend’s soundtrack will be provided by rapidly heated metal salts detonating in the evening sky. (In other words, fireworks.) The Twin Cities metro area will have no shortage of festivities this Independence Day, so we’ve created…