This Saturday, First Avenue will host “the Main Event,” an evening packed to the gills with rising local R&B and hip-hop acts. The show was organized by Blayr Alexander, drummer for headliners Audiyo Element. “The [aim of the] Main Event is to bring some of the most reputable groups in Minneapolis under one roof to…

Taking the concept of a parody song to a new level, the group Local Business Comedy have remade Kanye West‘s entire Yeezus album as a Christmas album. That’s right, the entire album. Listen below—but heads-up, despite the seasonal subject matter, the language is just as NSFW as the original. After a long, strange, sad odyssey, the remains of Casey Kasem…

Minnesota alt-rock lifers Run Westy Run were formed around 1985 by the three brothers Johnson: Kirk, Kyle, and Kraig. Over the next decade-plus, the group did stints signed to legendary independent labels SST and Twin/Tone, garnering production credits on their albums from R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Hüsker Dü’s Grant Hart. They never gained the popularity enjoyed…

When you’re planning to shoot a coffee commercial featuring a pair of trapeze artists, who’s the first vocalist you think of to sing the jingle? Of course the answer must be Paul Stanley, the guitarist/”Starchild” of KISS. The commercial, which was shot in 2000 but never aired, has long been sought by KISS fans. The ad has now…

You never know quite what to expect from the Replacements, and sometimes that thing you get without expecting it is a 25-minute improvised jazz jam called “Poke Me In My Cage.” The 24-minute-and-22-second track—recorded at Woolly Mammoth Sound in Waltham, Mass., reports Pitchfork—was uploaded to the band’s Soundcloud, complete with porcupine artwork. Scroll down to…

English rock singer Joe Cocker, best known for his iconic covers of the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends” and Billy Preston, Bruce Fisher, and Dennis Wilson’s “You Are So Beautiful,” passed away today following a battle with lung cancer. Born on May 20, 1944, in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, he was 70 years…

As a special treat this Christmas week, Tim Mahoney and Robert Robinson have shared their new cover of “Put a Little Love in Your Heart.” The song was first released in 1969 by Jackie DeShannon, and became closely associated with the holiday season two decades later when a cover by Annie Lennox and Al Green…

According to Hip Hop Hall of Fame chairman JT Thompson, $50 million has been raised towards an $80 million goal to open two museum sites in New York City: a central site in Midtown and a “satellite museum” in Harlem. Thompson, producer of BET’s Hip Hop Hall of Fame Awards Show from 1992-97, has been trying…

As a live music enthusiast who’s also a high school senior trying to figure out how to pay for college, I have become very good at finding affordable shows. This is a list of eight great places to hear live music on the University of Minnesota—Twin Cities campus. This list includes a wide variety of venues, prices, and…

It’s that most wonderful time of the year, when sleigh bells are ringing and in-laws are descending and everyone’s making one last mad dash toward the malls to finish up their shopping in time for the holidays. If you’re like me, you’ve probably waited until right about now to start seriously thinking about what you’re…