It’s graduation season, which means that we’re saying thanks and good luck to some of the college students who have been writing for our Local Current blog. As a salute to these talented young writers, we wanted to tell you a little more about this relatively new program at the Current. For the past several…

There’s an especially wide range of Minnesota music in this week’s Friday Five, from a couple of bumping hip-hop tracks that will require earmuffs for the little ones to a gorgeous Magnetic Fields cover and a touching tribute to the late Zach Sobiech. BdotCroc featuring Rocky Diamonds: “Grind Don’t Stop” If Northside up-and-comer BdotCroc isn’t…

Dessa is no stranger to interviews. Now, though, she’s asking the questions instead of answering them—as the host of The Lowertown Line. Each half-hour episode of The Lowertown Line—a Twin Cities Public Television show that launched late in 2012—features one artist, mixing live performance footage with these intimate interviews. “The show really centers around diverse…

The return to the stage of Steve Perry—frontman of Journey during the band’s years as 80s rock gods—would have been headline-worthy under any circumstances, given that Perry hadn’t given a public performance in two decades. The manner in which it happened, though, has made Perry’s re-emergence a topic of water-cooler conversation all week. The story…

Down in the basement of Minneapolis’s Twin Town Guitars, a scientist named KJ has been at work for 14 years. When I visited Kris Johnson, 38, in his basement office last week, the first thing I noticed were the instruments on his back wall. Johnson named them off for me: multimeter, oscilloscope (“the most gratifying…

The Current is proud to announce the lineup of its third annual MN Music-on-a-Stick showcase at the Minnesota State Fair: Cloud Cult, Bob Mould, Doomtree, Brother Ali, Har Mar Superstar, and the Cactus Blossoms will take the Grandstand stage on Saturday, August 30. The MN Music-on-a-Stick series, presented by the Current, gives fans a chance…

Mayda: Busy Signals Part 1 As a pre-teen, Mayda confined herself to a cabin in northern Minnesota and taught herself how to play songs by Nirvana and the Beatles. Rather than the soft woodsy indie rock of fellow cabin-dwellers Bon Iver, however, Mayda developed a ferocious, urban, and multidimensional sound that packs punch after punch.…

In this day and age, it takes a lot to surprise and delight a concert audience. But Mark Oliver Everett, AKA the man behind the moody indie rock band Eels, managed to charm the heck out of a whole lot of people at the Fitzgerald Theater Sunday night, when he brought former Journey frontman Steve…

Fort Wilson Riot will be celebrating the release of their new record trIllIun with a show Saturday, May 24 at the Triple Rock Social Club along with La Liberte (a project that features Doomtree member Cecil Otter and Lookbook/Votel vocalist Maggie Morrison) and also C.Kostra (a bedroom pop project by Ryan Olcott, who you know from…

Every Friday we pick five great new local videos to share with you, and this week we have a bumper crop. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll drop it low. Har Mar Superstar: “Restless Leg” The fact that Har Mar Superstar‘s new video for “Restless Leg” debuted on Funny or Die might have been a hint…