Minneapolis / St. Paul Music Blog

Get free media from City Pages' favorite artists

We're happy to announce the release of our new Media Taster! The City Pages Media Taster lets you actually hear the great music you read about in City Pages—just launch, click, and listen. Simply download the Media Taster and you'll automatically receive a digital mixtape of music on a semi-regular basis (including free MP3s), legal and free of charge. If you discover artists you like, the player allows you to purchase their music directly, track their new content and even send an email to recommend them to your friends.

What your taster will look like...

Download the City Pages Media Taster to start hearing music from local artists (like Haley Bonar and Mark Mallman) and national acts (like the Flaming Lips and the Hives):

UPDATE: The InRadio servers are getting hit pretty hard, so you may find the download slower than usual.

Jus Rhyme, 27, was the first contestant to mention "white supremacy" on Ego Trip's The (White) Rapper Show, a satirical reality program in which 10 aspiring (white) MCs from around the country compete for $100,000 while living together in the South Bronx. A native of Austin, Minnesota, the real-life Jeb Middlebrook has yet to embarrass himself too badly on national TV, though he maintains the onscreen persona of an earnest camp counselor amid "challenges" from hip-hop legends such as Prince Paul, Sadat X, and (white) host MC Serch. After a stint with AmeriCorps in San Diego, Jus spent a few years in the Twin Cities attending college and rapping under the name Privilege as part of the activist Hip-Hop Co-Op. He's now studying for his Ph.D. in L.A. and can be reached via www.myspace.com/ar15hiphop.

Remember when Law & Order was good? Remember when Minneapolis bands wrote great dream-pop hooks? The writing on the original TV series tanked not long after the show decided to kill off actress Jill Hennessy's character in a traffic accident in 1996. The local band Mollycuddle broke up four years later, but Hennessy loved the group's 1998 song "The Ballad of Jill Hennessy" enough that she's still talking about the band on national television years later. Hosts on The Today Show asked her about the tune last Friday, and the State subsequently reported that the song was played on the soundtrack of Hennessy's final episode (though this can't be right, can it? unless we're talking a re-edited version of the show--Hennessy didn't hear the song until 1999). Listen to the track here at www.guiltriddenpop.com.

That headline sounds a lot like a spam email subject line, but it's actually a pretty cool (if long time comin') feature at CP.com. Music to Go aggregates all the local music (plus a few non-local artists) that City Pages covers, with links to the articles and one free MP3 for your downloading pleasure. Free local music, and no RIAA goons knocking down your door? Gotta love that.

Dear Prince from Minneapolis

Please represent

No moons over Miami

Or product-placed breasts

Just play your guitar

For your pests from the Midwest

Do it for Lovey and Dungy

And Obama and Oprah

The Rainbow Children

Of the now and

Not-distant future

We'll be rooting for the home team

The Purple and the Gold

T.C. and Jackie and Arnellia

Shout-outs to St. Paul

Northside and Southside

And everyone in between

Can't hardly wait to see you

Do your sex machine thing

Yes, my twin brother

We've all still got faith

That you'll get our tongues wagging

And send us to bed

Then at the water cooler on Monday

We'll talk about "Head"

Dear Prince from Minneapolis

Please represent

Please represent

Please represent

The Minnesota Daily gossip column Holla Backlash reports that "tiny 21-year-old Brit rapper Lady Sovereign, who put out a record on Jay-Z's Def Jam label last year, was spotted downtown at the Gay '90s on Sunday, Jan. 14." Without a concert to play, apparently: "The real reason Sov made the trip, according to several eyewitnesses who saw the pipsqueak out clubbin', was for a little face time with someone supposedly named Andrea--yes, as in a female, Andrea. And by face time, we mean more like sucking face (or snogging in Brit-speak)." Lady Sovereign's personal life is her own, and everybody hates a stalker; but we can't help wonder if she'd be interested in working with local hip-hop producers or rappers while she's in town. SOV, hit me up. (Hat tip Keri Carlson.)

Just in time to relieve your pre-Super Bowl football withdrawal, local artist David Rathman's new show at the Weinstein Gallery carries on his usual work of sending up the mythology of American masculinity. Having already trained his reverant but blackly humorous sights on cowboys and boxers, he now (ahem) tackles football players, specifically the high school team of his small-town Montana alma mater. Images from the show, "Home and Away," after the jump; the artist's reception is tonight at 6:30 p.m. Weinstein Gallery, 908 W. 46th St, Mpls.

This just in: Ice-Rod, the absurdist, rat-tailed battle MC famous for rapping paper airplane instructions, instigating food fights, brushing his teeth onstage (then chugging orange juice), and battling to a tie with odds-on favorite Sage Francis, will make a rare appearance tonight at the 331 Club in Northeast Minneapolis.

The man behind Ice-Rod's mustache, Michael Gaughan (a.k.a. Brother of Brother and Sister), is marginally famous for subverting the "serious" art of rock 'n' roll, rap, and even sculpture with witty charisma and balls-out goofiness. Ice-Rod is no exception, as evidenced by the legend his short career has become. Go here for a more complete history, then show up to the 331 and become a part of it.

Thursday, Jan. 25. 9:30 p.m. Free. 331 13th Ave. NE.

On January 6, we received a disturbing email from Michael Yonkers (one of City Pages' artists of the year, and a double honoree, whose '60s music I wrote about here last week). Yonkers gave permission to reprint the message, and sent along a link about "Pantopaque- (Myodil-) induced adhesive arachnoiditis": "I cannot even tell you how much misery this [disease] has caused to me," he writes, "and many others around the world. The link is from Australia, where they are pissed as hell. Geraldo Rivera did a story on it years ago, but the makers of the chemical have spent huge sums of money in America for a dis-information campaign. Most people in America that are suffering with it do not even know what is causing their problems, as almost no doctors are qualified to diagnose it correctly. It is a huge hidden story that no one wants to touch." Here's his email, with more about the controversy below*:

Post Secret, a website that encourages people to send their anonymous secret admissions via postcard, originally started as a community art project and gallery show. In the years that followed, it has rapidly spawned one of the most-read blogs on the internet, as well as two books. Frank Warren, the man behind the project, receives between 100 to 200 confessions a day. Recent cards included: "My Husband can't find his car keys because I hide them," "Sometimes I go shopping at Wal*Mart just so I'm not alone," and "My nightmares involve exploding showers and toilets."

The Godfather of Hip Hop, the Master of Records, Afrika Bambaataa gave hip hop its name, reframing graffiti, DJing, breakdancing, and rapping as "four elements" of a single culture. (The "fifth element": knowledge.) A former member of the Black Spades, Bam founded the Universal Zulu Nation in the 1970s, using his influence among black and Latino youth gangs to integrate a South Bronx scene as it was taking shape. He later brought hip hop downtown, to Europe, and beyond, collaborating wildly as an MC (with James Brown, John Lydon, Uberzone--visit www.zulunation.com for the full list). His DJ sets are legendary for their eclecticism, mixing Latin rock with electro--a genre he helped create, with 1982's Kraftwerk-sampling "Planet Rock." Bam recently answered questions over the phone in anticipation of his first Minneapolis appearance in years.

City Pages: Name your first show in Lower Manhattan.

Afrika Bambaataa: I'd been playing parties down there, but the first show playing a concert was with Bow Wow Wow at the Ritz. I got to give the punk rockers a lot of credit. They were the first whites that really embraced hip hop. They embraced it so hard, they even started coming to parties Uptown, where people thought there would be racial incidents and all that. When that music hit, you didn't see nothing but get-down and get-your-groove-on.

CP: You've been crossing barriers your whole life, right?

AB: I've even sat among people who are strict racists and stuff, can't stand to see black and white together. Had conversations when I was writing little stories in high school about certain things. We'd sit down and start talking, and they'd start spacing out when I know certain music that they know, or certain artists. The whole conversation start changing.

We had a lot of problems in New York. I played in this place where a black guy got killed in Brooklyn, and I had to go play in a skating rink. I got on the Italians' asses. I said, "Listen, you can't tell me nothing about Italy, 'cause I been to Italy. You forgot that you all mixed with the black Moors, so let's stop the foolishness."

CP: Where do you see hip hop going in the future?

AB: I see it going through another change as it starts traveling from different planets. When we meet extraterrestrial beings, things will start happening. We are not alone.

Africa Bambaata performs Saturday at Foundation. 21+. $10. 10:00 p.m. 10 S. Fifth St., Minneapolis; 612.332.3931.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! "Prairie Home" kingpin takes cheap shot at MySpace nation! "Why don't you try the search engine?," suggests one MySpacer to the former editor of The Ivory Tower, the long-gone arts and literature section of the Minnesota Daily. Read more here.

It's true. There's a bash for the head Hypstr and Mofo at the Turf on Saturday night, and everybody's invited. See ya there, and share your Billy stories here.

Former Rake and Spin editor Hans Eisenbeis is being joined at the Current Music Blog by former City Pages staffer and continuing contributor Molly Priesmeyer. Eisenbeis restarted the Minnesota Public Radio blog back in August of 2006 after it whithered on the ethereal vine last spring. The two former Request magazine co-workers have also conspired to create Pinch, a blog and daily e-mail blast with tidbits on local art, culture, fashion, sales, and music. The blog is currently in a beta version, with a slick new site on the horizon. Can a morning zoo show or an afternoon chat program on Fox 9 be far behind?

Premiering tonight on VH1 at 9:30 p.m. Central Time, Ego Trip's The (White) Rapper Show is the kind of reality program that would sound terrible if it weren't created by Ego Trip, the defunct and genius hip-hop mag whose editors are responsible for two classic books and a couple previous VH1-aired bursts of radicalism and satire: TV's Illest Minority Moments (re-airing Wednesday) and Race-o-Rama. Upping the suspense, a native Minnesotan is in the mix: L.A.'s Jus Rhyme from Austin. Hosted by MC Serch of 3rd Bass, the series is described as follows by VH1: "Ten eager (white) rappers from across the country arrive in the South Bronx with nothing except their skills, heart, and dreams of winning $100,000. As they meet their new neighbors, will they be accused of infiltrating a 'hood that has been doing just fine without them? Meanwhile, back at Tha White House, the show's funky headquarters, John Brown finds himself in a heated encounter with Sullee, Persia... and Persia's dildo. After the dust settles (and, trust us, it's dusty in that crazy-ass crib), Serch enlightens one rapper by teaching a very heavy lesson." (Hat tip to Afroteck at DUNation.) Update: Here's an interview with Jus Rhyme in yesterday's Pi Press (thanks Amy!).

For the first time, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has announced that it will induct a hip-hop artist: Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Here's a complete list of the 2007 inductees announced today:

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (Kid Creole, Cowboy, Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, Mr. Ness, Raheim)
R.E.M. (Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe)
The Ronettes (Estelle Bennett, Ronnie Spector, Nedra Talley)
Patti Smith
Van Halen (Michael Anthony, Sammy Hagar, Alex Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen, David Lee Roth)

Anyone interested in rock criticism should pick up the 2006 year-in-review Rolling Stone and read its heartbreaking investigation into the life and tragic death of Minnesota native Paul Nelson, probably the first real popular music critic, whom City Pages paid tribute to here in July (more here and here). "The Man Who Disappeared" by Neil Strauss is a portrait of the isolation nobody should face as they get old, and the solitude that creative types invite when they care more about culture than people.

On Thanksgiving night, 1976, the Band gathered all their famous friends together for one last hurrah before calling it quits. The show was billed as the end of the Woodstock era, but 30 years later the reverberations of that star-studded jam still haven't faded away. The concert, dubbed "The Last Waltz," became legend; then it became a Martin Scorsese documentary (re-released on super hi-def Blu-ray earlier this year—all the better to see that coke rock in Neil Young's nose during "Helpless"); then it became fodder for tribute shows all over the country. Reenactment fever hit the Twin Cities last year, when more than a dozen local roots-rockers entreated a sea of Caboozers to dry their eyes, take a load off Fanny, and otherwise remain forever young. This year the party spills over to Saturday and features Dan Israel as Bob Dylan, Paul Metsa as Eric Clapton, Tim Mahoney as Van Morrison, plus many others. City Pages caught up with Rob Hilstrom, normally of the Melissa Moser Band and LRO but tonight playing the role of the Band's keyboardist Richard Manuel, for his thoughts on the festivities.

Actually, he is.

The Walker Art Center blog, one of the better arts blogs in town, recently opened a lot of eyes ('round here, anyhow) to an even better one: Alec Soth. The local fine art photographer is already a superstar in New York and beyond for his beautiful, sad, and often quirky large-format work, but just four months into his new online writing venture, Soth is already being hailed as one of the best arts bloggers on the Internet.