One of the biggest draws at this year’s Rock the Garden is Saturday’s headliner, Belle and Sebastian, who will be returning to Minneapolis for the first time in nine years. And it’s a fine time for the orchestral pop band to be playing a big outdoor show because they just released the danciest album of…

As the most popular baby names in Minnesota for 2014 were released, it got us thinking how many songs there are that have a name as the title or mention a name in the title. So for today's 9:30 Coffee Break, what songs do you want to hear that have a name in the title? Send us your requests.

Stephin Merritt covered the ABCs of his musical past Friday night at the Cedar Cultural Center; a stop on his solo acoustic U.S. tour. The multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer, and musician-of-all-trades was stripped down to just his voice and his ukulele, accompanied by long-time bandmate Sam Davol on cello. Merritt played a full 26-song set, one song for…

Hot Chip's sixth studio album is a timeless body of work with heart and soul, cast in a language the musicians developed over several years of being a band.

The Edge is fortunately unharmed after falling off (groan) the edge of the stage during U2‘s Vancouver tour opener on Thursday night, and Bono has a sense of humor about the mishap—as well as about the band’s controversial free-album stunt last year. “Somebody said that the Edge had downloaded himself into the audience without asking permission,” cracked Bono…

Bob Dylan will appear on Tuesday night’s episode of The Late Show with David Letterman—Letterman’s second-to-last show before retiring. The May 19 show will mark Dylan’s first Letterman appearance since 1993. As Jim Walsh notes in his comprehensive chronology of Minnesota musicians on Letterman, Dylan performed “Don’t Start Me Talkin'” on Letterman in 1983, followed by “Jokerman”…

Tomorrow is Minnesota Music Day, but let's get the party started early: For today's 9:30 Coffee Break, what songs do you want to hear by local bands who got their start by playing at the Longhorn? Send us your requests.

The Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association presents its 20th annual Art-A-Whirl this May 15-17. Throughout the decades, Art-A-Whirl has become the largest open studio tour in the country with more than 500 artists operating in over 20 different mediums. Aside from next weekend’s hundreds of gallery tours and interactive exhibits, local musicians will perform at concert…

Where does a music scene begin? How do we trace it all the way back to its beginning? The local rock community that we know and love today is so vast, so active, and so well connected that it’s impossible to contain it in just one of the two Twin Cities, much less in a single venue.…

B.B. King, one of the greatest bluesmen to ever live, has died at age 89. King had been suffering from health issues related to diabetes, and was in hospice care at his home in Las Vegas. King, wielding his signature instrument “Lucille,” was widely regarded as one of the most influential guitarists of all time. The distinctive style…