Austin (Texas)

The five biggest sellouts at SXSW

SXSW is not a music festival so much as it is an experiment in excess. If Coachella is a glass of water that keeps getting bigger until it more resembles a kiddie pool, then SXSW is a flood with a neglected cup somewhere in the middle. The natural result is rampant crowds and ever more rampant lame ... More >>

Dessa, Field Report, Solid Gold headline First Avenue's SXSW 2013 day party

Music fans heading down to Austin, Texas in March for this year's SXSW should mark the afternoon of Friday, March 15 on their schedule. Gimme Noise has partnered with the Current and Etix, as well as two of the Midwest's most revered music venues, our own First Avenue and Madison's Majestic Theater, ... More >>

Snowden's Jordan Jeffares: It's hard to reach young people with slow music

It's been over six years since Snowden released their debut full-length album, Anti-Anti, in 2006. In that time, frontman Jordan Jeffares has seen a lot of landscape changes. He moved from his native Atlanta to Chicago to Brooklyn and finally settled on Austin, Texas, where the newest reincarnation ... More >>

Are You Local? 2013 finalists announced

The fortunes of one of three burgeoning Twin Cities bands are about to change dramatically, as Vita.mn just announced the trio of groups that won this year's Are You Local? contest. Bad Bad Hats, Carroll, and one of our Picked to Click standouts, Audio Perm, have been selected out of hundreds of app ... More >>

Bike Score drops Mpls's ranking to second, maps most and least bikeable spots in the city [IMAGES]

Back in May, Walk Score, the website that assigns walkability grades to addresses across the country, branched out into Bike Score. For that first phase, Bike Score looked at just ten cities and rated them between 0 and 100. Minneapolis topped the list with a 79, nine points higher than runner-up Po ... More >>

Local Frames: New videos from Now, Now, Howler, Bloodnstuff, Astronautalis, and more

See Also: A Minnesota music golden age might be going on right now!Now, Now leave Minneapolis to record and the trio comes home with Threads 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 a ... More >>

The Portrait/Cig Harvey/Transitions

Polica's "Wandering Star" video spills paint on modern dance

Related:Polica debuts new video for "Lay Your Cards Out" on Jay-Z's Life Times sitePolica's "Amongster" video depicts sex in the woodsPolica has just unveiled another high-concept music video from Give You the Ghost. Much like the sexually charged "Amongster" clip, this is not a showcase of the memb ... More >>

The Munchies food awards include several local nominees

The recipe-swap, dinner-inspiration, and food-porn website Tablespoon, recently announced nominees for the Munchies, their first ever People's Choice-style food and restaurant awards. They're  judged by an expert panel that includes hometown star Andrew Zimmern, and the nominees include well-kn ... More >>

SXSW 2012's six worst moments, brought to you by #DEWeezy

​The last few days, Village Voice Media's indefatigable music staff has been regaling you with stories of the best from SXSW 2012. In the midst of these discoveries, we've been culling another list: the worst shit. The acts that ranged from huge bore-fests to downright lame. Below, you'll find our ... More >>

The Best of SXSW Music: Thursday 3/15/2012

If you're familiar with chaos theory, which in its basic form is the attempt to find patterns in the random acts of shit on Earth, then you may understand the difficulty that comes with describing a full day at SXSW. To break down the bright, scintillating chaos, Village Voice Media's roving music e ... More >>

SXSW: Polica as the road team

​Some of you may know that our recent cover darlings Polica, a local band of note filled with members of other local bands of note, is in Austin this week for South by Southwest. Billboard magazine knows it, because they're the ones who who hosted the group's showcase at ACL Live, aka the spot whe ... More >>

Howler's cranky America Give Up viral marketing guy debuts

​Our Year In Music cover stars Howler are back with a hilariously subversive marketing campaign for their raucous debut full-length, America Give Up, which was created by the Minneapolis-based ad agency Mono. Over at the fittingly titled site americagiveup.com, there is a curmudgeonly old man musi ... More >>

An Acoustic Café Evening: Carrie Rodriguez, Kelly Joe Phelps, Pieta Brown

Mark Chesnutt at Povlitzki's on 65, 12/16/11

Photos by Nikki Miller​Mark Chesnutt December 16, 2011 Povlitzki's on 65 Several songs into a hits-heavy and lengthy set at Spring Lake Park's Povlitzki's on 65 Friday night, Mark Chesnutt played a tune that pretty much summarized the night's show, and his own musical career: a lament that mi ... More >>

Red House Records plans new monthly series at the Landmark Center

​Fresh off last weekend's successful third annual Barnfest down in Red Wing, Red House Records is gearing up for another series of events that will showcase their stable of talented roots and folk acts. A monthly fall series called Red House Live will kick off next Friday, August 19 with Austin, T ... More >>

Craig Finn recording solo album, starting on new Hold Steady record in September

Photo by Stacy Schwartz​When Craig Finn performed solo at the Fitzgerald this April for the MPR interview series Wits, the Hold Steady frontman took a detour from his band's upbeat bar-rock sing-alongs to debut three songs with a decidedly slower, sadder feel. It was clear then that Finn was in th ... More >>

Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears

Secret Cities perform for City of Music at SXSW

​For the newest edition of City of Music, producer Dan Huiting and videographers Chris Hadland and Andre Durand caught up with Fargo quintet Secret Cities down in Austin, Texas during the SXSW music festival for a take-away performance... in a tree. Watch as the band hangs from tree branches, ... More >>

Minnesota SXSW 2011 invasion: Complete

Photo by Ben ClarkPhantom Tails at SXSW​It's a strange thing, going from the constant cacophony of thousands of bands playing at once down to nothing at all. But it's a process that is as much a part of attending SXSW as all of the incidentals of the festival: BBQ, suntan lotion, beer, beer, beer. ... More >>

Gimme Noise and First Avenue day party fills up Skinny's Ballroom

Photos by Erik Hess​We had an insanely fun time yesterday afternoon throwing the first ever Gimme Noise day party in Austin in partnership with First Avenue. The party was hopping from the get-go, thanks in part to the free beer offered up by Tiger, and we were thrilled to see a huge contingent of ... More >>

SXSW getting on your nerves? Some ephemera to stoke your ire fire

​If you're reading this it's almost guaranteed that you're sick of hearing about SXSW. Right? Maybe not. But probably. Unless you're in Austin, in which case you're not paying attention. Whatever your geographic situation: a less-than-musical exploration into Austin, TX.

Diamond Rings performs for City of Music

​When Diamond Rings, a.k.a. solo artist John O, was in town recently to open for Robyn at First Avenue, MPLS.TV jumped at the opportunity to film a special City of Music video with the rising musician. Like so many touring artists looking to break out, Diamond Rings will be heading down to Au ... More >>

Gayngs Affiliyated Showcase

Gayngs return to First Avenue for 'Affiliyated' showcase

Photo by Stacy Schwartz​Much ado has been made about the "supergroup" star power of Minneapolis-based collaboration Gayngs. It's no big secret that the band is a side project for scores of musicians who are involved in other projects -- and next month, Gayngs will return to the Twin Cities for the ... More >>

The Black Angels at the Varsity Theater, 10/26/10

​The Black AngelsOctober 26, 2010Varsity Theater, MinneapolisAs a wholly out of control storm raged outside, a tightly controlled one erupted from the stage at the Varsity Tuesday night. With the stage bathed in eerie red and blue lights--lights that on occasion turned white and shone into the cro ... More >>

Lilith Fair moves to Target Center here, oblivion elsewhere

​The Lilith Fair was born of an odd doldrum in popular, female-fore music; the bulk of headliners for their first three seasons - before they suspended the festival for eleven years - were cut from the cheesecloth of alternative radio-directed acoustic-type pop (think Joan Osbourne, Indigo Girls, ... More >>

Gayngs touring this fall, playing Austin City Limits

photo by: Leslie Plesser​You thought that was the last you'd hear or see of them - the outfit planning, the Prince sighting, the napkins. Gayngs is apparently far from over, which isn't surprising considering the invaluable press they've received and the warm critical reception to the record (Pitc ... More >>

Me & My Arrow

The xx, Surfer Blood, Superchunk playing Village Voice SXSW party

South by Southwest is about a month and a half away, which means that it's time to start getting inundated with showcase announcements.

Bob Schnieder

Ghostland Observatory

Twin Cities ranked 3rd best in U.S. for working moms

So says Forbes, which rated America's 50 biggest cities. The survey ranked us No. 1 in the quality of health care and schools.

Food blogger seeks funds for Midwestern cookbook

A food blogger is using a new online fundraising source to get support for her new cookbook.

Devo, Janelle Monáe, and Solid Gold wow music nerds at SXSW

South By Southwest brings together a country of insatiable indie kids

Me and My Arrow

Marcia Ball

More bang for your buck in the Twin Cities

Slammin' in Minnesota

'The Wendell Baker Story' Is a Dysfunctional Family Affair

Luke, Owen, and Andrew Wilson forgot to feed their pet project

8/16 Morning Communiqué

The Encyclopedist of the Grind House: Tarantino on Film

Flatlander: Q & A with Joe Ely

The Midnight Evils: Breakin' It Down

Let's Get Real, Real Gone For A Change

Rockabilly kingpin Dave Wolfe shuffles off to Texas

Don't Mess With Excess

Potty Mouth

Bringing Out the Dead

Trail of Dead revive pure punk energy with Madonna

Fresh Meat for Rotting Puppets

With a new lineup and reissued back catalog, the last great punk band of the '80s gets lost on the freeway again

Dance to the Music

While some fans can still be seduced into relationships with pop idols, others just want one-night stands with one-hit wonders.