Music

Have you ever heard of Stromae ? I hadn't until last year when I heard his most recent album Racine Carrée. I immediately fell in love with it, although I don't know French at all, and that's how the entire album is performed. His sound has a very dance-able aesthetic with a polished hip-hop styling. The Belgian had scheduled a stop at Mill City Nights and I figured it was safe to wait on buying tickets since I never heard him on the radio or mentioned locally. Imagine my surprise when this spring I saw a recommendation on Twitter that the show was...

The War on Drugs played two sold out shows at First Avenue, and I had the pleasure of attending the first night. Not typically the type of music that I gravitate towards, but the Philadelphia band's third album, Lost in the Dream, from this year was difficult to not get behind. If you enjoy great guitar music, the live show would not disappoint you. The show opened with Adam Granduciel under a single spot light, with just his guitar, singing the intro to "In Reverse," then the rest of the lights came up and the rest of the band (David...

"It's my church too" declared Seth Haley, aka Com Truise, Sunday night at the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis for his Fall Tour. The 80 minute set weighed heavily on 2011's Galatic Melt, and very little on the more recent Wave 1 from earlier this year, but that didn't seem to matter those in the somewhat full crowd. Haley played almost the entire set shrouded in darkness behind the blinking pentagon that was the center of his stage rig as well as doubling as his instrumental cock pit. Flanked by a couple of...

If you haven’t already heard of The Black Keys you should probably get out from the rock you have been living under. Just kidding, but they are really good. The Black Keys are currently on a 50 city US tour and have rotating openers: Cage the Elephant, Jake Bugg & St. Vincent. The Black Keys happen to be my boyfriend’s favorite band so I picked up some tickets for his birthday. It was on October 24th at the Target Center. Not only...

Alison Scott has done a lot in the short time she's been pounding the pavement of the Minneapolis music scene. She tours the country, sells out the Dakota Jazz Club on a regular basis, teaches private voice lessons, and is currently the experiencing the newfound experiences of motherhood as she raises her daughter Grace with husband Andy. Somehow through all of that she has found time to release five studio albums which includes two albums of songs that cover the musical spectrum, and her first holiday album. She's now in the process of recording her sixth still-untitled album which will be her third album of originals. Her last album of mostly originals was...

Two weeks ago millions flocked to their televisions to get lost in the first episode of the final season of FX's smash-hit, Sons of Anarchy. If they had been on the Internet at all before the season start, they might have also come across one of the cast members, Mark Boone Junior, singing his own version of "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)." If you look at the single's cover art on iTunes you can see a very familiar name if you follow the Minneapolis music scene: Kevin Bowe. Last March, cast members Kim Coates (who plays...

When the first song a group performs, has the lines "DJ Hi-Tek will f*** you in the a**" it sets a very distinctive tone for the rest of the show. The DJ of course wears a grotesquely deformed costume face mask the entire show. That is of course following the opening visuals of someone with progeria under the cloak of some gloomy chanting. Of course if you at a Die Antwoord show, you're likely very aware of what to expect. And if you somehow stumbled into the Myth last night on a whim, on a Sunday even, I hope you find get the resources you need to heal. ...

There are light shows, and then there is Teeth. Teeth is the face (really just teeth) of DJ Jonathan Gooch, otherwise known as Feed Me. Feed Me with Teeth is a show to be watched just as much as it is to hear. The music is bass heavy, dubstep, and electro, but all round dance-able.

Feed Me’s Psychedelic Journey tour stopped by First Ave in support of the new EP of the same name.

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Did you hear The Replacements played at Midway Stadium on Saturday night? If you didn't, I'm not sure how you avoided the news. Just in case you missed it though, one of Minneapolis's most celebrated local bands recently regrouped to play their first hometown gig in 23 years.

Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson, the two original members, along with Josh Freese and David Minehan pulled together a very memorable and polished show for the sold out Midway Stadium crowd.

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