Mod Sun: Look Up Self-described “hippie hop” rapper Mod Sun released his newest effort today, Look Up. Mod Sun brings those feel-good vibes you know him for on the song “Never Quit,” joined by Travis Barker on the upbeat track that oozes a summertime feel. Mod Sun is in the midst of his tour and…

The soundtrack to Montage of Heck, the authorized Kurt Cobain documentary premiering May 4 on HBO, will feature a previously unreleased 12-minute Cobain song recorded alone with an acoustic guitar. The film’s director describes the track as “mind-blowing,” but the album’s release date has not yet been announced. (Rolling Stone) Franz Ferdinand and Sparks will join forces to form a new…

First Avenue hosted a sold-out family reunion of sorts on Sunday night, with guitarist Jeff Tweedy and his drummer son Spencer in their namesake band. Throughout the course of the multi-set, two-hour performance, the father-son duo dished out a hearty Tweedy buffet of Wilco, Uncle Tupelo, Golden Smog, and more. Though barely on the cusp…

Yesterday, an estimated 70,000 people -- including The Current's Derrick Stevens -- marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery march. For today's 9:30 Coffee Break, what songs that capture the spirit of civil rights and equality do you want to hear?

Brother Ali was the headliner—delivering a relaxed, confident, and supremely enjoyable concluding set—but on Friday night, the Mainroom at First Avenue belonged to a relatively little-known rapper from the Red Lake reservation in northern Minnesota. Baby Shel, who won Vita.mn’s Are You Local? contest for a cash prize of $1,000 and a slot performing at SXSW, was…

I bought Become What You Are in an underground (like, literally underground) Boston record shop in 1993. As a freshman at Boston University, the first thing I learned about Massachusetts music was that Juliana Hatfield was…well, everything. Indie darling, coveted collaborator, star on the rise. Everyone had a crush on her; including me, though I hardly even knew…

City Pages is reporting that the Lyn-Lake Street Festival will not happen in 2015, after returning last year from a previous hiatus. According to a statement from the event’s bookers Joe Winterer and Matt Johnson, as published in City Pages, “We regret to inform you that 2015 will not feature an installment of the Lyn-Lake…

The boundary-busting "prog-grass" quintet have put together a timeless collection of songs that not only show off their musical chops, but comprise a concept album with something to say about our times.

Author Nick Hornby doesn’t plan to write a sequel to his 1995 novel High Fidelity (made into a 2000 movie, above), but he speculates that if he did catch up with the novel’s lead characters 20 years later, they’d be raising kids—but separately, having ultimately broken up. Hornby says that one sticking point for him in conceiving a…

Minnesota is known for its collaborative arts scene, in which hip-hop and folk bands can share the same bill and play a sold-out show. Musicians don’t just collaborate with each other, though, as evidenced by two upcoming shows at local art galleries. This spring, visual artists and musicians are joining forces to create multimedia presentations. In Minneapolis, Public Functionary…