It was a night I’ll never forget. It was a random weeknight in September 2012, and I was making my way over to the corner of Lake and Lyndale to visit the offices of Secret Stash Records, then an up-and-coming new reissue label in town. I’d gotten to know some of the staff of the…

Today, Netflix released the much-anticipated Mystery Science Theater 3000 reboot season, with Jonah Ray stepping in as the unsuspecting Gizmonics Insitute employee who’s captured and forced to watch cheesy movies against his will. Original host and creator Joel Hodgson is executive-producing the crowdfunded revival of the cult-classic show, which premiered on the station then known as KTMA in…

When Cost of Living, the debut album by Big Quarters, was released in 2007, Brandon Allday and Medium Zach created a Twin Cities hip-hop classic. To commemorate the anniversary, Big Quarters will reissue Cost of Living on 180-gram vinyl — complete with newly remastered audio — on Record Store Day, April 22. Brandon Bagaason and…

“Digitally, we’ve tried to mimic the album for years,” Drew Christopherson told me in an interview leading up to Poliça’s fifth anniversary. We’d been discussing music discovery, saying that we rarely dove into full LPs anymore because it was so easy to stream the next single. “I think people have now [decided], ‘Why? What’s the…

Molly Kate Kestner, “Prom Queen” Since she moved to L.A. from Minnesota, 21-year-old Molly Kate Kestner has been writing music with the likes of Kelly Clarkson. It shows in “Prom Queen,” a mighty, brooding pop song. For a triple dose of teen girl glamour politics, watch “Prom Queen” next to HALEY’s “Kismet Kill” and Marina and the Diamonds’ “Teen Idle.” Christopher…

April 13 is National Scrabble Day, but instead of focusing on impressive Scrabble words today, let's focus on words that would never fly on the Scrabble board. So for today's 9:30 Coffee Break, what songs with made up words do you want to hear?

Earlier this month, singer-songwriter jeremy messersmith released some new music — but with a twist. Instead of releasing recordings, messersmith created a songbook, titled 11 Obscenely Optimistic Songs For Ukulele: A Micro-Folk Record For the 21st Century and Beyond. As the title suggests, the songs are more reminiscent of sing-along nursery rhymes, and are a departure…

When Prince lovers from around the world descend on Chanhassen next week to attend the four-day Celebration 2017, it will be at least the fourth time that such an event has been held at Paisley Park. Which may come as a surprise for those who were only passively following Prince’s career in his post-Warner Bros.…

Lindsey Troy of the band Deap Vally describes the guitar that helps define the band's sound. 'It's super old, and it has a lot of character,' Troy says about her Fender Mustang.

An archive full of personal effects from Bob Dylan’s life has been sold to the University of Tulsa and the Kaiser Family Foundation — and is now accessible to approved scholars. Though much remains to be cataloged, a 39-page document details some of the archive’s interesting contents. If we were able to see the archive for ourselves, here…