As many college students will tell you, being invited to a professor’s house is a unique and exciting experience. For a Carleton College student to be invited, therefore, to the house of philosophy professor Dan Groll—frontman of the Counterfactuals—was a special treat. After somewhat awkwardly letting myself in, I followed my ears down to his…

After a series of discussions with the hip-hop community at large, with the president and CEO of Minnesota Public Radio, and with the planning team behind the upcoming hip-hop show at the Fitzgerald Theater, a decision has been reached by all parties to postpone the event indefinitely while continuing a dialogue between the institution, the…

Before Craig Finn led the Hold Steady from Brooklyn to worldwide fame with appearances on arena stages and TV shows, he led Minneapolis-based quartet Lifter Puller on pretty much every stage in the Twin Cities—coffee shops, basements and house parties included. LFTRPLLR, as they were occasionally tattooed on fans’ hands, earned a rabid fan base and the adoration of…

The Dead Pigeons: Even if I Knew Tuesday night fixtures at Harriet Brewing, West Bank folk rockers the Dead Pigeons specialize in a back-to-basics breed of Americana. The group is led by Drew Peterson, formerly of 40WattBulb, who has historically been a supporter of big-time Minnesota folk and bluegrass acts like Charlie Parr and Trampled by…

After decades in dormancy, Johnny Rey is eager to reenter the Minnesota music scene with a bang. Rey’s previous bands Flamingo and Johnny Rey and the Reaction were standbys at Jay’s Longhorn Bar (1978-1980) in downtown Minneapolis. I recently sat down with Rey, his wife Sharon, and their spunky Maltese Murphy to discuss his reasons…

On Monday night at Intermedia Arts, 140 passionate representatives from the Twin Cities hip-hop community came out to discuss the upcoming event that MN Original and the Current are planning for May 10 at the Fitzgerald Theater. As is the nature of many open meetings, the conversation bounced around quite a bit and touched on everything…

In 2011, just after the release of their album Days, Real Estate played the (now defunct) 400 Bar with Big Troubles and a (now defunct) Macalester student band called the Muskies. Tickets were $5 and there were no more than 150 people in attendance. Last night, Real Estate played a sold-out show at the Fine Line…

From basement jam sessions to big theatre performances, Pert Near Sandstone live for the inspiration gained from other musicians. The band grew out of jam sessions at a house in St. Paul. “We didn’t get together as a band necessarily,” said mandolin and fiddle player Nate Sipe. Trying different instruments, and collaborating among themselves, led…

Howler: World of Joy From the sound of their second full-length album, you’d think that Howler spent the last two years—since their debut America Give Up—locked in a one-room apartment in England, subsisting on nothing but records by the Replacements and the Smiths. Appropriate, considering Howler’s Twin Cities roots (despite their ambiguous feelings about those roots) and the…

It’s hard to believe that six years have passed since indie rock band the Plastic Constellations released their final album, We Appreciate You, and went on an indefinite hiatus—it was long enough ago, in fact, that the term “indie rock band” could still be used to describe a particular style of music rather than a…