It's all about the music...except when it isn't. There's nothing like a good gimmick to lend a little pizzazz to an album release or a tour, and sometimes musical artists just toy with us because they can. Here are some of the most notorious games musical artists have played with their fans over the years.

Anderson East and his band are touring the country, road-testing some recent singles from a not-yet-announced album. Traveling up through the Twin Cities between gigs in Madison, Wis., and the Wisconsin Dells, Anderson East and his band spoke with Mac Wilson and played some of the songs they've been woodshedding.

TIIIIIIIIIIP talks with Sean McPherson about the initiative to curb sexual assault at clubs and music events.

If Sound Unseen were a human, this year would mark legal adulthood and responsibility and having to figure it all out, but the “films-on-music” festival has had everything figured out for quite a while now, and they’re proving it yet again with the first wave of selections for their 18th year, featuring over 20 films…

In their new single, Swedish sisters Klara and Johanna Soderberg serve up melancholy insights about searching for an identity amid fleeting romance.

Slug and Brother Ali appear in a new video released to help get out the vote in Minneapolis on Nov. 7. The video is a promotion for the new website thisismpls.com, which is a voter guide created as a collaboration among Rhymesayers, Ashley Fairbanks, Pollen Midwest, Voices for Racial Justice, and Parks and Power. The website…

The Twin Cities Marathon events are this weekend, so for today's 9:30 Coffee Break, what songs do you want to hear that say "run", "running", or "ran" somewhere prominently in the lyrics?

Meco's 'Star Wars Theme / Cantina Band' went No. 1; The Beatles mixed 'I Am the Walrus'; Grand Funk Railroad got their first of two No. 1 hits; Prince and the Revolution went to No. 1 with 'Let's Go Crazy'; Bruce Springsteen jammed with a house band in Arizona; and piano-rocker Jerry Lee Lewis accidentally shot his bass player, Today in Music History.

Velvet Negroni, “Spiceworld” Jeremy Nutzman, aka Velvet Negroni, goes rollerskating in this crisp, black-and-white video. “Spiceworld” belongs to Velvet Negroni’s Dadaist debut, TCOD, available via Totally Gross National Product. 26 BATS!, “Edge of Life” University of Minnesota alum Lisa Persson took on video production, direction, and make-up for this 26 BATS! video, one of the band’s…

Following the release of Actual Wolf's 'Faded Days,' the lupine semi-local stopped by The Current to record a session with host Sean McPherson.