When My Brightest Diamond - aka Shara Nova - recently stopped at The Current studio, she had just received a brand-new Jaguar guitar direct from Fender. 'I'm super pleased to have my new, shiny blue Jag to drive around today!' Nova says.

The Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association (NEMAA) is getting ready to host its 24th annual Art-A-Whirl festival. As the largest open studio tour in the country, Art-A-Whirl will showcase over 800 visual artists this year at more than 60 locations across Northeast Minneapolis. Although the event’s focus is on visual art, many of the area’s bars…

Cage's strength has always been their signature dirty bluesy guitars that sound radio ready yet always with a touch of friendly menace.

“This is a really bad idea,” said Stephen King, “especially considering that the band that first had a hit with this song came from Minnesota. Anyone remember the Trashmen?” Some of us remembered the Trashmen playing “Surfin’ Bird” on that very stage in First Avenue’s Mainroom. King dropped his guitar and stepped forward for that…

This Sunday is Mother's Day, and in honor of the occasion I talked with maybe the most famous rock star mom out there: Virginia Hanlon Grohl, mother of Dave Grohl. She's the author of the fascinating book 'From Cradle to Stage,' in which she profiles other moms of famous musicians. We talked about what she's learned over the course of the project.

Julia Jacklin doesn’t ease her listeners into the emotional turbulence of her songwriting. Instead, she jolts them out of their seats with startling opening lines. “It might make for good TV/ the grieving process for all to see/ but I don’t want my father’s ashes/ scattered over strangers’ couches,” Jacklin sings on the beginning of…

Friday Five is a little later than expected today, due to a project I jumped on this morning with fellow blogger Jay Gabler. He interviewed Stephen King, Amy Tan, and a half-dozen other members of Rock Bottom Remainders, the author-comprised cover band who sold out their show tonight at First Avenue. We’ll get you that…

My Brightest Diamond has released five albums and played hundreds of shows, but each one is a novel experience. Two of their only constants: Shara Nova’s classically trained voice and her bent toward artsy surprise. In Nov. 2018, she released the My Brightest Diamond album A Million and One, a more electronic, dancey project than…

May 6-12 is National Nurses Week. So for today's 9:30 Coffee Break, what songs do you want to hear for nurses? Think healthcare, healing, medicine, care, etc.

Taylor Jenkins Reid's 'Daisy Jones & the Six' is a novel in the form of an oral history about a fictional '70s rock band. It will soon be a TV series, but in the meantime it makes juicy beach reading for fans of 'A Star is Born.'