For the past four years, we’ve aligned Minnesota Music Day, (where we play nothing but local musicians on The Current) with the Saturday of Art-a-Whirl weekend. So what better way to synch things up than to pick some unseen videos of folks headlining (or just playing) the various stages around town. It’s called synergy, people.…

Jackson Browne taught us about “Lawyers in Love,” Belle and Sebastian know a good “Legal Man,” and George Harrison played the “Sue Me, Sue You Blues,” but now it’s time for some local lawyers to sing their own songs. On Friday, May 16, the Crooked Pint Ale House will play host to the 2014 Attractive…

The Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association’s annual art festival—Art-a-Whirl—is back for its 19th year this May 16-18. While you’re out browsing the famed neighborhood’s galleries, you also have plenty of opportunities to catch your favorite local acts live throughout the day. Plan your weekend with these music schedules from five Northeast venues. 331 club Friday, May…

Maintaining a healthy all-ages scene can be a challenge for any community, but over the past few years the Twin Cities’ ratio of talented high school bands to respectable all-ages performance spaces seems especially skewed. In just the last two years, some of our most celebrated young acts—Bomba de Luz, John Mark Nelson, Observer Drift,…

Haley Bonar: Last War Haley Bonar has always been an expert in blending sweetness and darkness, of finding that delicate balance between hard and soft. On Last War, this relationship is clearer and more developed than ever, as Bonar goes big and bold with production, but keeps her trademark vocals and gorgeously earnest lyrics. The…

This afternoon, a Minneapolis City Council panel approved the hiring of Sink Combs Dethlefs to renovate Target Center: a $97 million project to be co-funded by the City of Minneapolis ($48.5 million), the Timberwolves and the Lynx ($43 million), and AEG ($5.5 million). It will be a welcome facelift for a venue famously described by Martin…

Wisconsin’s dance-oriented music festival Summer Set has announced the complete lineup for its 2014 event. The annual festival, presented by the Current, will take place August 15-17. Headliners include the revolutionary hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan; Canadian electrofunk duo Chromeo with fresh new album White Women; Grammy-nominated DJ Kaskade; livetronica instrumentalists Big Gigantic; Pennsylvania jam band…

Still as full of surprises as his fellow Minnesotans Prince and Paul Westerberg, Bob Dylan has just released a new track, “Full Moon & Empty Arms,” streaming on his website. The song isn’t an original: it’s a 1945 song written by Buddy Kaye and Ted Mossman, best-known in the version performed that year by Frank…

If you went back in time and told the 15-year-old version of me that I would attend a sold-out Nickel Creek show in Minneapolis and sit nine rows from the stage, I would have thought you were lying. Firstly because I hadn’t quite experienced the joys of live (non-classical) music yet, and secondly because Nickel…

Update 6/25/14: Due to flooding on Harriet Island, A Taste of Minnesota is moving to the Carver County Fairgrounds in Waconia. After a four-year hiatus, A Taste of Minnesota—St. Paul’s popular 4th of July family festival—is back. The event, which brought good food and music to thousands every year for over 26 years, abruptly ended in 2010…