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On an ordinary night last year in the middle of a freezing Twin Cities winter, I had the pleasure of being unexpectedly blown away by an amazing live performance from Reckless Ones. Hailing from “right down the block” as the singer put it, the group proceeded to play on of the most solid and entertaining sets I’d seen all year, complete with upright bass twirls, behind …
MaLLy’s the kind of guy you can’t help but like right off the bat. He’s a charismatic, loquacious young dude that’s just as comfortable shooting the shit about the trials of having a day job as he is at talking about his music and message. We got into contact with the up and coming Southside rapper after seeing his name on the bill for Soundset 2011, and over a slice and a brownie at Reds …
Photo by Neza S.G.
The first time I saw Wizards are Real perform was on the tiny stage in the now-defunct Eclipse Records space, and I distinctly remember my mind being very thoroughly blown. No band in the Twin Cities has a sound quite like this one. Melanie Bergstrom’s Jazzy Sax and Ted Held’s funk-inflected basslines might be familiar to fans of Morphine, but …
Dum Dum Girls don’t have it as easy as you think they do. Sure, there seems to be a real demand for their sunny, garage-tinged take on the girl-group template lately. Sure, they’re something of an overnight sensation thanks to frontwoman Dee Dee’s status on the bleeding edge of hip. But with the spotlight firmly planted on them after 2010’s buzz-garnering debut I Will Be, Dum Dum Girls are put in the somewhat unfair position …
Nice Purse might be one of the younger bands in the Twin Cities music scene, but they’ve already managed to garner a healthy buzz. Singer/guitarist France Camp has a knack for penning catchy folk-pop with a whimsical twist (sample song title: “Ice Cream Handjob”) and the band brings a nice mix of humor and sincerity to the stage. After a stellar CD release show for their debut album Black Medal which featured some big local …
Best Holdout From 2009: The Dumphone
Owners of all clam-shell phones, bricks, slide-keyboards and pay-as-you-go burners, lend me your ear! 2010 was not a good year for we, the disconnected masses. It seemed like every week a new touch-screen enabled, 4g wonder-machine landed on shelves and tried to muscle us into irrelevancy. But we stood strong! For we are the dumbphone users, and like cockroaches, we shall be the last creatures texting on this earth. The …
It’s 2010 people. Slug’s pushing 40 and most of Doomtree’s away on tour so much they’re starting to stretch the meaning of “local rap crew.” Heiruspecs are seemingly on that “we play shows when we feel like it” type of hiatus and the Twin Cities recently lost one of its strongest rappers to a tragic and untimely death. Is it any wonder there seems to be …
At this point in his career our venerable Mr. Costello has traversed through so many musical styles that recent albums have felt like more of a pretense for genre exploration than anything. National Ransom ups the ante this outing with sprawling ambition and a dose of that old Elvis magic.
The record kicks off with a bass-heavy roots rocker that sounds like a leftover Attractions b-side, thanks to the man himself Steve Nieve being called back …
With the afro-funk revival in full swing and Daptone Records holding court over all things east-coast Soul, it’s refreshing to see another contender throw their hat into the blue-eyed Soul revival ring (after all, Mayer Hawthorne gets awfully lonely). Led by Los Angeles songwriter Micheal Fitzpatrick, the Tantrums are a crack team of musicians that manage to buck the common criticism of neo-soul (namely, that it’s neo-soul and apparently incapable of originality) with an …
The Roma di Luna work ethic is certainly not one to be questioned. The recording process for their most recent effort was reportedly a tumultuous one, with four newborns between the group members. Far from mellowing out into parenthood however, Then the Morning Came showcases a fiery soulful side never before seen from the beloved local act. With an ever-expanding full band lineup complimenting the original duo, Roma di Luna sounds more ready for the …
There’s a long line of cars stretching all the way down and around the brownstones on University and Tenth. Many of these cars have been festooned with a variety of streamers, banners, glitter, paper mache animals, or swaying college students. Two blocks behind me is what appears to be a giant model of a mouse is heading up a flatbed truck packed to the brim with dancing coeds. Top 40 radio blares somewhere in the …
As a lifetime city rat, I’ve never had much interest in the way my food was produced. As a “foodie” (although I do hate that word), however, I’m supposed to know my locally sourced free-range organic grass-fed cow’s milking cycle like clockwork, lest my hard-earned street cred be revoked. So I, as broke college student, must balance my lofty ideals with the cold reality of my checking account when going for weekly groceries. So when …
During the last thirty seconds of the “Dream City,” the second track on the Philadelphia-by-way-of-Minneapolis band’s debut album, a beautiful soft tenor sax emerges to play a quiet, lonesome little figure as the song fades away with such a heartfelt lack of irony that we know immediately how much disdain the hipster set will have for this band. Free Energy is unapologetically dinosaur-ific, wearing their love for seventies hard rock like a banner for all …
Whenever a natural, or not so natural, disaster happens within the city limits, there is usually an outpouring of support for whomever has been affected. But this large amount of support does not always guarantee that the affected people will remain in the same place. As the recent fire in South Minneapolis shows, no area of Minneapolis …
By this point in the year most U of M students are probably so full of information from their various classes and the deluge of prior “Awareness Weeks” that the thought of attending any of the events in the Al-Madinah Cultural Center’s Islam Awareness Week probably seems like a chore, which is an utter shame considering that if there’s one culture the average American is woefully ignorant about, it would probably be Islam.
“The idea …