Though an established artist in New York, Doug Keith has roots that run deep in the Minnesota music scene. Born in Madison, Wisconsin, he moved to Lakeville when he was six. His late uncle Tom Keith worked for Minnesota Public Radio—best known for his sound work on A Prairie Home Companion—and Doug’s brother would bring…

Twin Cities funk star Herman Jones grew up in a house brimming with song and dance. While his parents weren’t professional musicians, they placed an emphasis on music. Jones’s childhood home was rarely silent, with 45s of Tina Turner, B.B. King, Bobby “Blue” Bland, and other R&B stars playing. At age 15, Jones bought his…

Regardless of your thoughts on Bruce Springsteen’s new album, High Hopes (which has been met with what can be described at best as a lukewarm reaction), a new interview has surfaced today that’s a must-read for even the most casual of fans of the Boss. Helmed by NPR Music’s Ann Powers, the deep-diving discussion uses…

It’s beginning to feel an awful lot like January 2013, when the 400 Bar hurriedly sold nearly everything inside the historic club before leaving its location once and for all. This time around the venue closing down and clearing out is the Artists’ Quarter, the downtown St. Paul jazz club whose owner announced that the…

VAYNS, VAYNS EP Collaborators Corey Lawson (Munqs) and Botzy (Culture Cry Wolf), the minds behind VAYNS, have put their talents together to create a smooth new sound. Fusing sultry R&B, hip-hop, and shoegaze-y synth effects with futuristic flair, VAYNS’ self-titled EP, available today, has already garnered attention thanks to the must-see video for “Say Why.” On VAYNS, Lawson and Botzy’s…

Did everyone survive the polar vortex? It wasn’t so bad, was it? We did get at least one positive thing out of it this week, in the form of a new collaboration between rapper Dem Atlas and singer Lydia Liza. Check out their frosty new video below, along with a handful of the other hottest…

Text by Andrea Swensson and Steve Cohen “Now” photos by Steve Cohen Now that every address is available with a quick Google search and every concert is Instagrammed from 100 angles, it can be hard to remember a time when things weren’t so heavily documented. Even massive concerts like the Beatles’ visit to Minneapolis in…

For the past three years the Cedar Cultural Center has been hosting and organizing a series of performances showcasing local Twin Cities musicians who compose new pieces that cross genre boundaries. The 416 Club is a program, funded by the Jerome Foundation, to support the production of new works by emerging artists. “Each year the Cedar has…

“Happy Friday y’all!” tweeted Maggie Morrison, the Minneapolis musician who was formerly half of the duo Lookbook. “Here is a long lost Lookbook track!” With that, Morrison shared a link to a Soundcloud stream of “Don’t Believe in Love,” one of the new tracks that Morrison and Grant Cutler were working on when they ended…

In this brave new world of music licensing, the idea of having a song placed in a commercial or film is no longer met with cries of “selling out”—rather, it’s increasingly embraced as both a validation of the artist’s talent and a necessary mechanism for how they will be compensated for their work. In some…