After a year-long hiatus, the Pizza Luce Block Party is returning this year with a new location and a gigantic lineup. The free, outdoor festival got a bit too big for its britches in its old Uptown location, so they’re bringing the party downtown and taking over the block in front of the pizza chain’s…

These summer days are starting to slip by at an alarming rate. Make sure to get outside and see some shows this weekend, willya? And in the mean time, here’s a handful of fresh Minnesota-grown videos to help you whittle away those Friday hours… Speed’s the Name It’s been a quiet couple of years for…

Minneapolis-born, New York-based jazz and soul artist José James has been on the road constantly this year, having just released his Blue Note debut, No Beginning No End, to glowing reviews. But today, James announced that there is one place that won’t be seeing him anytime soon. As the country continues to discuss the sociopolitical…

It says a lot about Crankshaft and his Gear Grinders that his name was inspired by a gig he snagged at a car show. Over the past five years, the man known on his driver’s license as Alex Larson has played seemingly played every venue in the Twin Cities metro area, from country roadhouse bars…

In his novel Killing Yourself to Live, Chuck Klosterman once joked that Minneapolis is “where music critics come from.” It’s a statement that’s always made me chuckle, mostly because his assertion that the Twin Cities produces more music journalists per capita than any other city appears, on the surface anyway, to be true. So when…

  Tuesday, July 16 Brüder Amsterdam Bar and Hall, St. Paul 9 p.m., free, 21+ Like a younger sibling to Bloodnstuff, Brüder combine sludgy metal riffs with a pop sensibility to create fun, fiery rock music. With Myotis (featuring members of Total Trash) and L.A.’s Lakookala. MunQs, the Set 7th St. Entry, Minneapolis 8 p.m.,…

There’s a theme to this week’s Friday Five, and it has a lot to do with a talented local filmmaker named Adam J. Dunn (who we recently profiled here). Dunn is in the midst of a series of videos that he calls Lights and a Backdrop, a self-explanatory title for a simple concept that he’s been…

Partly because of his unparallelled hustle, and partly because of his work in genre-defying group Culture Cry Wolf, Botzy has become one of the most recognizable names in Twin Cities hip hop in recent years. So it’s hard to believe that he considers Buck Fotzy, the solo album that he’s releasing tomorrow night at the…

If you’ve read this Local Radar feature since it began, you’ve probably noticed my affinity for Food Pyramid, consistently one of the more under-appreciated bands by local music critics. And I get it: their brand of repetitive, fuzzed out, electro-space rock whatever-you-want-to-call-it is not everyone’s forte. And when most of your songs clock in anywhere…

With a train rolling behind the stage every 15 minutes and the pungent smell of oil and hot gravel clinging to the air, it was easy to see why Bob Dylan chose to return to St. Paul’s Midway Stadium for his AmericanaramA tour with Richard Thompson, My Morning Jacket and Wilco. The unique location and heavy-hitting…