The Tibetan Freedom Torch was launched in Olympia, Greece on March 10 and has been traveling the world since then. This Saturday several hundred Minnesotans are expected to turn out as the torch reaches the Twin Cities.More >>

Attention all M*A*S*H fanatics: Mike Farrell is in town this weekend. Fondly remembered as Dr. B.J. Hunnicutt, Farrell has spent decades as a political activist, writer, and producer as well. More >>

Though the band hasn't been very active in recent years (their last tour was in the early '90s and their last album was released in 1996), The Magnolias have resurfaced with a new compilation album and are about to embark on their first European tour. The tour, which will feature original Magnolias member Dave Freeman, along with Eric Kassel, Tom Cook and Johnny O'Halloran, kicks off Saturday night in Minneapolis with a send-off show at the Entry.

Since 1984 the Magnolias have refined their own style of garage punk that speaks to their upbringing alongside fellow Twin-Tone bands like the Replacements, Husker Du and Soul Asylum and their affinity for bands like the Suicide Commandos and the Buzzcocks. In their heyday, the Mags gained a sizeable following regionally but were never able to achieve the widespread success of their labelmates.

More >>

Local hip-hop collective Doomtree announced yesterday that... well, we don't really know yet. Which is part of the excitement. On their MySpace page and official website, the group has posted the following image:

My two guesses: July 29 will mark the release of a full-crew Doomtree album, or the release of their Doomtree Blowout DVD, the trailer of which has been screening on YouTube since January:

More >>

Maybe you're one of the 500,000-plus people who has downloaded the hilarious smooth-music spoof "Yacht Rock." Maybe you were overjoyed when a new episode appeared a year after the series effectively ended. Perhaps you long for 1976-1984, when Christopher Cross could sing about the joys of sailing devoid of irony or angst.

Or maybe you just like to laugh your ass off. Either way, Yacht Rock is going on tour, and you shouldn't miss it.

More >>

Talking Volumes with Michael Ondaatje
Fitzgerald Theater, May 27
By Dan Sinykin

I spent the evening with a roomful of cooing, mostly women-of-a-certain-age watching the charming blue-eyed old novelist Michael Ondaatje talk about his life’s work at the Fitzgerald Theater for MPR’s Talking Volumes Series. What strange behavior for all of us at the Fitz tonight, flitting and fluttering while Ondaatje answered canned questions from Midmorning’s slick Kerri Miller. Though I’m terrified that no one agrees with me. William Gaddis, a dead brilliant satirist, once said of book readings, “What is it they want from the man that they didn’t get from his work? What do they expect? What is there left when he’s done with his work, what’s any artist but the dregs of his work, the human shambles that follows it around?” As Gaddis knew and despised, the cooing women wanted a wink and a smile, the vain pleasure of the initiated. The aesthetic purist (i.e. asshole) in me wants to snicker with Gaddis, but my other (better?) half, the half who thinks of my mother, finds more than self-congratulation in the choral coos.

More >>

George Clinton & P-Funk
First Avenue, May 27
Review by Nate Patrin
Photos by Daniel Corrigan

The version of P-Funk that showed up at First Avenue on Tuesday wasn’t the most recognized and beloved incarnation. Bootsy Collins, who plays a James Brown tribute at the Minnesota Zoo in July, was absent. So was Bernie Worrell, who almost singlehandedly defined how synthesizers would sound in funk – and hip-hop – from the mid ‘70s onward. Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker – two reasons Prince’s 2004 Xcel Energy Center homestand was so spectacular – were also MIA, leaving out the backbone of maybe the finest horn section in funk history. Any chance of getting something as mindblowing as the kind of stuff they were doing in arenas circa 1976 was, at least from the outset, kinda slim.

George Clinton gives up the funk. More photos by Daniel Corrigan.

More >>

In researching the history of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" for this week's Gimme Noise column, I came across quite a few interesting articles and videos. Some of the videos were quite terrible, and I will spare you those, but if you are ever looking for a way to waste an entire day of work on the internet, simply go to YouTube and search "Hallelujah." You will be amazed at the results.

First and foremost, the money shot. Here's a video shot by Tony Nelson at the Molotov Lounge in Austin, Tex., featuring Romantica's "Hallelujah" cover. The intro is cut off and the camerawork is a bit shaky, but it gives you an idea of the power of Romantica's rendition. I still get chills every time I hear it:

More >>

Earl Root

The weekend started out on a sad note, with the passing of a local music champion. Musician and all-around metal scene staple Earl Root died Friday due to complications with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which he battled for 10 years. Root played guitar in local metal bands Disturbed, God-Awful and Aesma Daeva, hosted the KFAI radio show "Root of All Evil," was the owner of Root Cellar Records and founded the Root of All Evil label to promote independent bands.

To learn more about Root, check out Paul Demko's 2003 feature story, and Cecile Cloutier's 2004 story about the closing of Root's record store. Additionally, in this year's "Best Of" issue of City Pages, Root's KFAI show was awarded "Best Radio Program After Midnight."

More >>

Soundset Festival 2008
Metrodome parking lot
Review by David Hansen
Photos by B FRESH Photography

Too much of a good thing -- is it actually possible? 2008's Soundset festival, an 8-hour extravaganza of independent hip-hop presented by our own crown jewelers Rhymesayers Entertainment, tested the hypothesis Sunday afternoon, filling the Metrodome parking lot with dozens of MC's, scores of b-boys and b-girls, a handful of skaters, and thousands upon thousands of eager concert goers. Battered by unseasonable heat and threatened by a momentary squall of icy rain, energized by beats and rhymes ad infinitum and sweltered by four dollar waters and five dollar corn dogs, there was plenty to adore and abhor at Soundset 08.

Thousands of people braved weather conditions to check out Soundset. More photos by B FRESH Photography.

More >>