Weekend video: Low's "Breaker"

From Youtube via MNSpeak, the bizarre new Low video, "Breaker," and an animated version. From the band's new Sub Pop album Drums and Guns.

Catwalk Confessional p. IV is posted in our gallery section

Categories: Fashion
catwalk4thumb.jpg
Part four of Catwalk Confessional, Mary O'Regan's online diary about her experiences modeling for next month's Voltage fashion show, is now posted in our gallery section. In this episode, Mary takes part in the the Voltage LookBook, a catalogue of band bios and designers' photo spreads. An excerpt: "I try to hold my head still as [Kelsy] spritzes me down with water, divides my scalp into sections, and secures chunks of hair with tiny rubber bands. This will be Kelsy's first year doing hair for Voltage, and her fifth big show. She describes working with makeup artists and models as 'little jam sessions' in which 'more and more people are added to our family.'" Check out the series here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.

KMOJ moves to Uptown, fires Spike Moss

Categories: Local Music
KMOJ Moss.jpg
(Update below.) Homeless since December, black community radio station KMOJ-FM (89.9) announced Tuesday that it has found a new location--in Uptown. Headquartered in North Minneapolis, the heart of black Minnesota, since launching in 1978, "the People's Station" will now be moving at least temporarily to the pricey whitebread Minneapolis neighborhood mythologized by Prince and Atmosphere, in the Rainbow Building at 1422 West Lake Street. KMOJ has been broadcasting pre-recorded content from its transmitter since it was evicted from the now-demolished site at 555 Girard Avenue North in December, after the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (the station's longtime landlord) determined that the building was structurally unsafe. (More here.)More >>

Catwalk Confessional p. III is posted

Categories: Fashion
part3post.jpg
Part three of Mary O'Regan's online diary of her experiences modeling for the Voltage show next month has been posted. In this segment, Mary visits local designer Kerry Riley, founder of Red Shoe Clothing Co., at her home studio to discuss preparations for the April 11 fashion blowout: "Going national is typically the next step once a designer finds local success. Some, like Riley's pal, designer Katherine Gerdes, turn to reality TV. 'Since Project Runway's been on, my friends have been bugging me to go do [it]. I've always said no' Riley says, flattening down a seam. 'I think the challenges sound really fun, and I think that'd be a great thing to do, but I'm not interested in doing that on camera in front of millions of people.'" Click here to check out part three.

Marshall Rogers R.I.P.

Categories: Cartoons/Comics
Detective Comics Austin Rogers.JPG
DC has announced that one of the great superhero comic book artists, Marshall Rogers, has died at age 57. Rogers drew Detective Comics #472 in 1976, the first comic this fan ever bought. That run came to be called "the definitive Batman," and laid the template for the Batman movies, the "dark deco" animated series, and Frank Miller's revisions. Here's the email from DC Comics: 'Marshall was one of the radical young stylists bringing new looks to DC in the '70s, especially with his memorable collaboration with Steve Englehart on Batman," says DC Comics President & Publisher Paul Levitz. "His debonair smile and charm were every bit as endearing as his art was energetic, and his colleagues at DC are all shocked to have a great artist pass so young."More >>

DUNation.com sold to Vital Vinyl

Categories: Local Music
DUNation Larson.JPG
Last Friday, DUNation.com owner Lars Larson announced he'd sold his local hip-hop message board/website to the Minneapolis dance records store and online retailer Vital Vinyl, one of the few surviving local indie shops specializing in 12-inch records, which also powers MNVibe.com--sort of the techno equivalent of either DU or TCPunk.com. In its first six years, DUNation did more than put out a time-capsule local CD and throw some historic parties: It brought together every corner of the Minneapolis/St. Paul rap scene for the first time (check out this recent dialogue with ever-lurking Slug for a good example). The site has been up for sale before. And earlier this month, Larson publicly asked whether it was "worth it" for him to keep running DU. "When people are walking into the basement of my home, fucking with my car, fucking with my friends and girlfriends, prank calling my cell and home line and today someone showing up to my job," he wrote, "I am forced to take a step back and reflect on all this and wonder if this website is worth having this extra stress in my life." A thread about the board's future is already up.

Minnesota bill targets 'impostor' bands

Categories: Local Music
Bowzer imposter law.JPG
Last week, Jon "Bowzer" Bauman of '70s greasers Sha Na Na testified before the Minnesota House Commerce and Labor Committee in favor of the Truth in Music Advertising Act (House File 1314, or hf1314; Senate File 1936, or sf1936), a bill calling "for imposter bands to disclose that they are impersonating original artists," according to the press release from sponsoring State Representative Joe Atkins. Similar laws, backed by Bauman's Pennsylvania-based Truth in Music Committee, have been proposed around the country, singling out "in-name-only" groups such as the Platters, the Drifters (more here), and the Coasters--the various versions of which contain zero original members. (Bauman, who's also pushing Congress to pass a federal law, was in '50s revivalists Sha Na Na from the '60s through the '80s, appearing with them at Woodstock, and in the 1978 movie Grease. Today, the band continues without him, with only three original members.)

Locals might recall that two different groups calling themselves the L.A. Guns confusingly played at different Twin Cities venues within weeks of each other last year. But the new legislation requires only that "at least one member of the performing group was a member of the recording group"--which would allow for both L.A. Guns to continue. (Can't they just pass a law against the L.A. Guns?) Otherwise, the proposed law allows for "legacy" or "tribute bands," so long as they advertise themselves as such. The Commerce Committee has passed the bill, which awaits introduction to the State House and Senate floors.

"Guy from Minnesota new king of New York street art?"

Categories: Art/Museums
Deuce Seven Village Voice.jpg
Give us the late pass for this, but check out last week's Village Voice cover story, in which a Minnesota train-hopper takes New York graffiti by storm: "Gothamist's Jake Dobkin, who also runs an online street-art collection called Streetsy, declared, 'New King in Town: Deuce Seven.' But there was one strange hitch. Turns out that New York's New King lives in Minneapolis." More here and here.

New hip-hop record store on the North Side

Categories: Local Music
Classics Studio Classic Studios Minneapolis.jpg
Reversing the recent trend of record store closings in North Minneapolis (Low Cost and Soul Survivor R.I.P.), the hip-hop-centered Classic's Studio (MySpace page) opened last month across the street from El-Amin's Fish House (best fast food in the neighborhood) and down the block from Bean Scene (best coffee), at 2124 W. Broadway Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55411; 612.588.0414. With a small stage perfect for the mic battles (which have been discontinued at Digital City), and a wall of CDs (including a section of local and mixtapes), the store will "focus in on the community," says owner LeMarco Bell, whose studio in back provides production services for aspiring rappers. "Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis brought the city to the suburbs," he says, referring to the departed Flyte Tyme Studios in Edina. "We want to make this neighborhood a suburb."

Vincent Wyckoff: Tales of a Letter Carrier

Categories: Books
Wycoffphoto.jpg
A letter carrier in south Minneapolis for 15 years, Vincent Wyckoff sees the full range of humanity on a daily basis. In Beware of the Cat: And Other Encounters of a Letter Carrier, he recounts some of his more memorable moments--from heartwarming elderly birthday parties, to violent attack cats, to delivering a lost letter mailed from Saigon in 1976.

City Pages: What drove you to write this book?

Vincent Wyckoff: For years I told these stories around the dinner table when our children were younger. It was an attempt to get them to talk about their day. How was school today? Fine. What did you do? Nothing. My stories were an attempt to create a dialogue. A couple years ago, my wife asked about a story I’d related years earlier. It took a while for me to remember, so I decided to write them all down before they were lost for good.

More >>
Sign up for free stuff, news info & more!

Tools

Find A Coupon

Popular Coupons