Arts, Entertainment, and Media

Lollapalooza 2013 lineup: Mumford & Sons, Phoenix, Vampire Weekend & more

What a difference a year makes when it comes to Lollapalooza, Chicago's destination music festival in Grant Park every summer. The first details of the lineup have emerged, and compared to the rockist-leaning 2012 bill it's looking very much like anything that can loosely fit within the antiquated " ... More >>

LL Cool J unveils Kings of the Mic U.S. tour dates -- Minneapolis in May

Four rap institutions are linking up for the Kings of the Mic tour later this year. Though LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Ice Cube, and De La Soul have wildly different pedigrees and styles (and levels of movie stardom), this is a lineup that just keeps giving. When one ponders the sheer number of hits th ... More >>

One Direction's 1D World at Mall of America is a nostalgia presale

This past Saturday, the boy band One Direction opened a pop-up store at the Mall of America, and Gimme Noise decided to observe what sort of youth-cultivated bedlam might result. Called 1D World, the store will occupy the northwest corner of the mall's rotunda for the next six weeks.Upon receiving t ... More >>

Michele Bachmann says bloggers are a "miracle" and "where it's at!" during CPAC speech

Earlier today, Michele Bachmann addressed an adoring throng at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland -- an event she no doubt falsely characterized as "the best party of the year!"At the conclusion of her speech, Bachmann presented the award for "Blogger of the Year." It disappoin ... More >>

SFJAZZ Collective

The Nashville Network premiered 30 years ago today... and now it's back

Thirty years ago today, something big happened in country music. On March 7, 1983, just two years after MTV and the Buggles ushered onto our television sets a consistent -- well, for a time -- rotation of pop music programming, The Nashville Network premiered. It revolutionized the country music vid ... More >>

Soundset 2013 lineup: Atmosphere, Snoop Dogg, Mac Miller & more

"If we keep outdoing ourselves, who am I going to be playing after next year? Kanye?" was what Atmosphere rapper Slug said about last year's impressive Soundset lineup. Well, Soundset 2013 didn't get Mr. West, but it did land the G-funk legend Snoop Dogg. (Although, isn't he going by Snoop Lion thes ... More >>

International Women's Poetry Slam Championship: Last Chance Slam and Opening Night Party

Meek Mill

International Women's Poetry Slam Championship: Preliminary Bouts

International Women's Poetry Slam Championship: Preliminary Bouts

International Women's Poetry Slam Championship: Championship Finals

Local Frames: New videos from Van Stee, Aby Wolf, Gramma's Boyfriend, and more

As the Twin Cities music scene grows, more and more artists are creating music that demands our attention. Combine the music with talented filmmakers locally and beyond, and you have a fruitful mix of distinct skills that generates more locally connected music videos than ever before. While it's im ... More >>

Murs: My creative work doesn't seem organized to me

One of the icons of independent hip-hop for over a decade, Murs returns to the Twin Cities this Saturday for a show at the Fine Line with fellow West Coast natives Fashawn, Kosha Dillz and Black Cloud Music. The fearless leader of the Road to Paid Dues Tour, Murs is traveling coast-to-coast to sprea ... More >>

The Coen brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis shines spotlight on '60s Greenwich Village folk scene

Locally bred Oscar-winning auteurs Joel and Ethan Coen have never shied away from drawing inspiration from their Minnesota upbringing to use in their films. Both Fargo and A Serious Man candidly reflect all-too-familiar aspects of life around these parts as well as lasting impressions that the creat ... More >>

The Pink Floyd Experience

Murs

Maroon 5

Too $hort: I've actually disappointed people by being polite

Gimme Noise got a rare, behind-the-scenes look at Bay Area rapper Too $hort this past weekend when he rolled through town with E-40. After a performance at Epic, B Fresh Photography's Rebecca McDonald got to hang backstage with the $hort Dog and ask some questions one-on-one. Watch her exclusive vid ... More >>

Joffrey Ballet

Rachael Kilgour: I can make an impact through my music

Rachael Kilgour doesn't immediately seem like the kind of girl who would take on the social injustices of the world in a song. She's sweet-faced, fast with a bright smile and sunshine energy. A few minutes into knowing her, though, and it's suddenly impossible to see her in a role besides activist. ... More >>

Jack McNally totally didn't know today is Jack McNally Day

When your name is also part of the moniker for one of the country's premier music schools, you have to be sure you're releasing an album on the right terms. For Jack McNally, co-founder of the McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul, the process took 28 years to make sure everything was done exac ... More >>

The best concerts in the Twin Cities this week: February 13-19

Valentines Day week has arrived! Whether you plan on celebrating Valentines Day with a special someone, alone, or with your multiple cats, be sure to check out Lucy Michelle & The Velvet Lapelles' Greatest Valentines Mixtape show at the Cedar Cultural Center. On Friday synth-pop band Usonia rele ... More >>

Black and White

Ta-coumba Aiken and Joseph Norman

Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" is the greatest simile in rock 'n' roll

Tyler Flory is a teacher at Main Street School of Performing Arts in Hopkins. His Music Class column ties together his job and his music fandom in a neat little package. "I believe [Bob Dylan's] 'Like a Rolling Stone' is the greatest rock and roll simile of all time," I state to my 4th block 9th G ... More >>

Die Hard, Die Alone

When John McClane lost his family, the movies lost much of John McClane

George Strait

The 2013 Grammy Awards played it safe and got it wrong

If the Grammy Awards are indeed 'Music's Biggest Night,' then it's no wonder that the industry itself is in so much trouble. Despite the Academy's best efforts in recent years to draw the "alternative" music fan into the mainstream self-congratulatory love fest that is the Grammys -- even going so f ... More >>

Get Cryphy turns five

The DJ crew that taught local hip-hop heads to love club bangers celebrates half a decade

Yo La Tengo biographer Jesse Jarnow shares the band's not-so-lurid secrets

Just a few weeks since its release, critics have already hailed Yo La Tengo's 13th full-length album Fade as one of the band's best in years, harkening back to epic cult favorites such as I Can Feel the Heart Beating as One and And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out. In anticipation of the band ... More >>

The best concerts in the Twin Cities this week: 1/30-2/5

The Twin Cities is starting to thaw out as January comes to an end. Friday night is especially busy. Retribution Gospel Choir plays the Turf Club while Minneapolis pays tribute to Joe Strummer in the First Avenue Mainroom. Semisonic songwriter Dan Wilson and brother Matt Wilson play a set at Pantage ... More >>

Cam'ron

Paul Mecurio

Mother Banjo's Ellen Stanley: I hit the hell out of that banjo

The name Mother Banjo conjures up an image of a woman passing along wisdom and stories via her music, mainly her banjo, and Minneapolis artist Ellen Stanley does just that. Along with her band, Stanley has created a new album prime for listening. The Devil Hasn't Won owns its string-led riffs that e ... More >>

Emeli Sandé at the Varsity, 1/23/13

Emeli Sandé with Emily King Varsity Theater, Minneapolis Wednesday, January 23, 2013 What is it, like, a rule that every female singer to come out of the U.K. has to take over the pop music world? As if Adele wasn't enough, there is now a new force in the game: Emeli Sandé, a powerhouse vocalist ... More >>

Jose James channels his idols

Switching from jazz to soul, James evokes Al Green and Marvin Gaye on No Beginning No End

Grace Potter: I imagine a crowd of 60,000 -- even if there's only fifteen

Blues-rock singer Grace Potter is not just a pretty face. Grace and her band the Nocturnals tour constantly, as much as 200 shows a year. She's hard-working, but when given the opportunity to tour with different artists, she also shows her business finesse. The singer was invited to open for Kenny C ... More >>

Greycoats: If our last album was molasses, this one's San Pellegrino

In early summer of 2012, Minneapolis band Greycoats released a five song EP Helicline that was a teaser to their full-length album, World of Tomorrow. The new album is four years in the making, four years when the band took to grow into a new, more-complete sound. What grew was a heart-stoppingly ca ... More >>

Jennifer Lawrence and SNL remind us Minnesota radio still lacks hip hop

Saturday Night Live still thinks the state of hip hop radio in the Twin Cities is laughable. Over the weekend, we returned to the fictional studios of B-108 in Shakopee, "Minnesota's home for blazing hip hop," for another early morning joke at our scene's expense. This time, guest The Hunger Games s ... More >>

John Mark Nelson seeks support for new album on Kickstarter

John Mark Nelson, the latest darling of the local music scene, has been churning out new music with a furor ever since the 2011 release of his debut album Still Here. Since then, the 19-year-old singer-songwriter has released a second album, Waiting and Waiting, and is currently in the process of re ... More >>

Jawaahir Dance Company's 20th Annual Henna Party

Transmission announces '90s-themed 12th birthday party at First Avenue

The long-standing dance tradition in the Twin Cities known as Transmission is about to reach a dozen years in existence. Jake Rudh's new wave and goth party known for its delicious combing of '80s delights in that vein is celebrating its 12th birthday with a First Avenue Mainroom party in March!Rudh ... More >>

Patti Page, pop-country crossover sensation, passes away at 85

Country crossovers didn't begin with Taylor Swift; the genre's embraced its pop side for almost as long as folks have been laying bow to fiddle. And for that reason, today we eulogize Patti Page, the pop/country/R&B singer and onetime Benny Goodman band singer who passed away Tuesday.

Out There celebrates 25 years

Walker Art Center's annual avant-garde festival defies definition

Les Misérables doesn't dream daringly

The latest screen adaptation mostly plays it safe while trying to be gritty and realistic

Our 15 best live music GIFs of 2012

Yeah! It's time to run down the year in live music GIFs. This Black Sabbath fan from Lollapalooza this summer embodies how psyched we are to share these with you.With help from photographers Erik Hess, Anna Gulbrandsen, and Stacy Schwartz, this was a year for the already excellent visual representat ... More >>

The Ten Best Country Albums of 2012

By Alan Scherstuhl This list of the year's best country albums is assembled with two important premises in mind: First: If the people who record and listen to these records consider them country, than they're damn well country. Purists who argue that country should still sound like '68, '76, '84 or ... More >>

2012 Film Critics' Poll

The critics' picks from best film to best performers

Kenny Kane