Events that simultaneously take place in First Avenue’s Mainroom and the 7th Street Entry become mini-festivals, all about the ebb and flow of fans placing bets on where the must-see action will be at any given moment. Last night at Vita.mn’s Are You Local? showcase, all streams were flowing towards Black Diet. The showcase featured…

The funny thing about an artist’s mystique is that it only works if everyone around them buys into it.  And Prince seems especially skilled at keeping up appearances and maintaining an aura of implausible oddness and secrecy. There are no “normal” Prince stories out there; even when he asks a friend to do something relatively…

It all started with Batman, in 1989. I was living in Jakarta, Indonesia; my father worked as a diplomat, so we always travelled around a lot. Tim Burton’s movie was huge that year. Toys, posters, music: I bought them all, including the soundtrack by Prince. I remember being seven and enjoying the “Batdance” video immensely. I thought it…

Over a casual conversation, longtime friends Tommy Dehler and Shaun Hagglund came to the same conclusion: their businesses cater to fans. Dehler runs the Rock N’ Roll Music Sale about three times a year. Hagglund owns Fan HQ, a sports apparel and collectibles store in Ridgedale Mall. Dehler and Hagglund decided to merge their operations…

For more than a year, Stefon Alexander, the Twin Cities rapper who performs as P.O.S., has been looking for a kidney. His musician pals, DoomTree, crowdfunded the cost, raising more than $47,000 for the procedure, well over the initial $25,000 goal. Most musicians don’t have health care. All he needed then was a kidney. The…

EMOT, EMOT A four-man indie band taking cues from slowcore and Americana, EMOT now present their third self-titled LP, loaded with breezy, heartfelt melody and subtle folk twang. The follow-up to their 2011 sophomore release Make You Electric, which earned praise from City Pages and landed on CMJ’s top 200 for the year, EMOT sees the…

In honor of Women’s History Month, we asked a few women who are legends-in-their-own-time on the Minnesota music scene to share their favorite local music memories. Laurie Lindeen, Zuzu’s Petals I have many great Minnesota women-specific music memories.  Playing with Babes in Toyland, L7, Smut, Dutch Oven, Tina & the B-side Movement, and the Lunachicks come…

As hinted at by Slug during this winter’s Welcome to Minnesota tour, Atmosphere will release their new album Southsiders via Rhymesayers on May 6. Anyone who follows @atmosphere on Twitter knows that Slug has been using the #Southsiders hashtag for a while now to talk about his life in south Minneapolis. The album was recorded…

Happy Friday! It’s been another trying week for us here in Minnesota, with questionable road conditions and subzero temperatures forcing us indoors again. Before you get too stir-crazy, check out the latest batch of videos to arise in the Minnesota scene—including one band who embraced the frigid weather and turned it into something quite beautiful.…

Haley Bonar is no stranger to local and national attention, having consistently earned praise for her solo and collaborative releases over the past several years. Buzz seems to be hitting new highs, though, for her long-awaited forthcoming album Last War, to be released May 20 on Graveface Records. Today, she stopped by the Current’s studio to…