When Luke Heiken, the mastermind behind Drone Not Drones, says that there will be a solid 28 hours of drone, he means it. Beginning Jan. 30 at 7 p.m. and wrapping up 28 hours later on Jan. 31 at 11 p.m., an estimated 55 bands are set to perform at the Cedar Cultural Center as…

From behind an Oz-like curtain, a booming voice created ground-shaking cheers from the crowd. A dramatic fabric drop revealed a musical deity, towering over the crowd on a 30-foot pedestal. Despite the superstar special effects at his sold-out Roy Wilkins show on Saturday night, British soul singer Sam Smith proved to be as down-to-earth as they…

When “Only One,” the Kanye West song featuring Paul McCartney on keyboards, was released, West’s reps promised that more collaborations between the two were forthcoming. Sure enough, Saturday saw the release of a new single from Rihanna featuring both West and McCartney. The song, “FourFiveSeconds,” is an acoustic ballad with Rihanna taking lead while West chimes in on verses and…

Working the independent, underground rap game as tirelessly as Doomtree does requires constant effort and constant output, and you can hardly knock the crew for stepping up to the plate to smack another album into the outfield. All Hands is a fine album, and plenty of these songs are sure to endure in the live setting.

For the grand finale of #Current10, which came at the end of an action-packed 10-day run of events, hometown heroes Atmosphere, Virginia blues-rockers J. Roddy Walston and the Business, legendary surf quartet the Trashmen, and burgeoning soul artist PaviElle pulled out all the stops to give the First Avenue crowd an unforgettable evening. PaviElle and…

For the first of two back-to-back nights at First Avenue, a young and enthusiastic crowd arrived early and screamed and sang along all night to sets by locals Allan Kingdom, Hippo Campus, and Dead Man Winter, and the Current’s first national birthday party headliner, Cold War Kids. Both of the Twin Cities were well represented…

The Current has always been about getting close to the music, and for our tenth anniversary, we thought we’d take that a step further: we’re inviting musicians to incorporate our hosts’ voices into new compositions. If you’re a musician who’s interested in sampling and remixing, we’d love to hear your take on remixing The Current! For…

The Current launched 10 years ago this morning, with the first song playing at 9 a.m. on January 24, 2005. If you’ve been following the station since the beginning, you already know that a lot has happened since then. Thousands of things—or tens of thousands, if you want to talk about how many songs have…

So here’s something I don’t talk about very often. When the Current launched in the beginning of 2005, I was living a dramatically different life. I was a college drop-out, floundering around trying to figure out where I had left all my ambitions and dreams, and I spent my days pinning tiny paper numbers to…

What songs from this year's artists do you want to hear for today's 9:30 Coffee Break?