Sonny Knight and the Lakers: I’m Still Here In 1965, Sonny Knight cut a single in a studio on the corner of 2nd and West Lake Street. Nearly 50 years later, he returned to a new studio, the basement studio of Secret Stash Records, just a few blocks away, to record I’m Still Here, his new album…

This weekend’s Mid West Music Fest, in Winona, was an epic event. The weekend started early with Wednesday night shows by Dessa at Broken World Records and Apollo Cobra at Ed’s No Name Bar in celebration of the festival’s fifth anniversary; festival organizers actually kicked Dessa’s show off by singing “Happy Birthday” with the crowd.…

Today the annual Twin Cities Pride festival released its 2014 music lineup—and there will be a lot of music to hear over the weekend of June 28-29. Pop star Betty Who, country singer Steve Grand, pop/Motown/disco legend Thelma Houston, and R&B icon Thea Austin will hit Loring Park for the Pride in Concert show at 5:00…

It’s Prince’s house of pain, but it can be your new dream home: a 13-room villa on the coast of the Alboran Sea in southern Spain. “Music Star Prince’s Villa IN Marbella West For Sale!” enthuses the listing on LuxuryEstate.com. “Love Your Dreams…and Live Your Dreams!” Don’t expect to find any 3RDEYEGIRL merch or Super…

How does the Twin Cities’ NHL hockey team celebrate after a big win? With a 90s R&B hit, of course. The Minnesota Wild—currently in a tight playoff series against the Colorado Avalanche—have declared “This is How We Do It” to be their official victory anthem, even going so far as to distribute a press release with…

Now that we’ve gotten to that time of year when every single new show that’s booked seems to be happening outdoors (case in point: this week’s big gig announcements werethe Replacements show at Midway Stadium and Trampled by Turtles and Doomtree at Bayfront Park), I thought it’d be fun to round up a handful of…

Ali Jaafar, the engineer and owner of Uptown’s Ecstattic Studio, has been making and recording music since the eighth grade, when he plugged a microphone into his boom box to record a song he played on guitar onto a cassette. Jaafar is a self-taught musician who spent much of his early life practicing music with his…

To many he was known simply as “the Pictureman,” an avid showgoer, observer, and photographer who never left the house without a camera in hand. Charles Chamblis spent much of his life documenting the simple moments—kids gathering at Lake Calhoun on a hot summer day, a woman and her child pausing for a quiet moment…

Sally Hedberg and Dana Raidt met last year when Hedberg was writing a story about the Girls Got Rhythm Fest, an event Raidt organized in 2012 and 2013 to spotlight female musicians. The two hit it off and soon launched a site for their project Girl Germs—named after Raidt’s former podcast and Radio K show—to honor and…

Thursday, April 24 Mid West Music Fest 2014 Various venues, Winona 5 p.m., $20/day, age restrictions vary Winona kicks off its fifth annual Mid West Music Fest (read recaps of 2012 and 2013) with shows in venues throughout the city. Highlights from the first night include folk-bluesmen Charlie Parr and Mike Munson at the Historic…