​An unlikely rumor, but an exciting one nonetheless: The OMG/LOL gossip blog is reporting that "a little birdie" told them Prince might show up at the Current's fifth birthday show tonight at First Avenue. While we were skeptical at first, this little update they just posted has us curious: "One of our tipsters just got word from a 'Radio DJ who will remain nameless' that the MPR crew just got a call from Prince's handler asking about set times for tonight!!!"

The show is sold out, but Gimme Noise will be on the scene tonight to see if this little rumor comes to life. Follow us on Twitter to receive updates from tonight's show.

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Two opening films get raves this week: The White Ribbon, voted by City Pages' critics as one of the 10 best films of 2009, and La Danse, a remarkable backstage documentary on the Paris Opera Ballet. Mel Gibson and/or action fans might take a chance on Edge of Darkness, though it gets a big "meh" from critics. Details below.

OPENING

SEE: The White Ribbon
Critics have routinely called it a great film, and one of last year's best. But it's also severe and demanding. Set on the eve of World War I in a Protestant, still-feudal German village, it's a dark fable that presages the rise of Nazism--a story of the town's sullen children and an escalating series of inexplicable accidents recounted by the village schoolteacher 40 or 50 years later. (Uptown Theatre)
City Pages: "Director Michael Haneke's best film ever. It's as cold and creepy and as secretly cheesy as any of his earlier films, if not quite as lofty."
Star Tribune: 4 stars Pioneer Press: 4 stars RottenTomatoes.com: 88% positive

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​(Photo by fast eddie 42)

It's another strong weekend for free events. We have awesome outdoor activities including a baseball game with the St. Paul Saints, an Art Sled Rally, and tons of stuff on ice. There's also hot dance parties, art shows, and car races (of the pine wood derby kind). Also, somewhere along the way in Freeloader you will meet a nice tattooed lady. Come take a look at our list.
 
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I've watched this video from We Are the Willow's in-studio performance on the Current's Local Show about 100 times. That sounds like an exaggerated number, 100. But something about this song hit me really hard the first time I heard it, and next thing you know I'm hitting play over and over and over again on this YouTube video, making it the soundtrack to my workday, pausing between blog posts and emails to watch Peter Miller contort his face, smirk, and squint as he sings.



And now, a week later, I've watched this video a creepy number of times.

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​The funk movement was pretty ridiculous in general: ridiculous costumes, ridiculous jewelry, and ridiculously smooth grooves. You can read the evidence in this week's feature. But not enough is said of the totally off-the-wall lyrical content of these danceable numbers, so here's a sampling of the silliest writing in funk.

The Ohio Players, "Fopp"

"Fopp me right, don't you fopp me wrong/We'll be here foppin' all night long/I'm too short, baby, and you're too tall/But when we're foppin that don't mean a thing at all"

It's the mid '70s, so how do you get raunchy while still staying radio-friendly? One good way is to take a word that sounds like an expletive, recast it as the name of a (nonexistent) dance craze, and let the double-entendres fly. Sure, you can get down to this, but odds are they've got more in mind than getting on the good foot.



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​Since the modest inaugural Grammy Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in 1959, the Grammy's have blossomed into a major media production, with an estimated 19.1 million people watching last year. "Music's Biggest Night" has blossomed into a who's who of major record label poster children, and is a far cry from reality in terms of an objective look into music. While a few categories feature some underdog artists, it's no stretch to say that the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences has a taste for the redundant.

Just look at the nominees for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration:

"I'm On A Boat" - The Lonely Island & T-Pain
"Knock You Down" - Keri Lilson, Kanye West & Ne-Yo
"Run This Town" - Jay-Z, Rihanna & Kanye West
"Ego" - Beyoncé & Kanye West
"Dead And Gone" - T.I. & Justin Timberlake

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​Interviews with musicians that are set up in a Q&A format can get a little tedious sometimes -- reporters tend to stick too close to the same sets of questions, and the musicians reply in turn with rote, rehearsed responses. But occasionally a music Q&A breaks the routine and brings us something fresh, as with this week's interview with Coolio conducted by the Minnesota Daily music editor Jay Boller.

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​Tickets for the Current's fifth birthday party tonight went lightening fast -- the first wave of pre-sale crashed First Ave's servers, and an estimated 8,000 people tried to buy tickets, causing Mark Wheat to joke that they'll have to book the Target Center for their next anniversary show. But if you happen to be one of the lucky ticket holders, it might help your planning to know the set times for tonight's performances. Here's the rundown:

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​Several albums into a young, post-Royal Trux solo career, Neil Michael Hagerty bashed out an indigent mess of a solo album entitled -- wait for it -- Neil Michael Hagerty & The Howling Hex. The disc is a long, winding road along a sheer cliff face, stuffed so full of raw firecracker live takes and crooked fake Stones and downer laments and blues-y vamps and oddly bent, nerve-probing ditties that its 21 tracks can be hard to stomach in a single sitting. Unless you're a twisted Baby Boomer or a Drag City-fellating nerd, the album won't strike you as especially, well, commercial, which means that whoever decided that "Car Commercial" was fair game for inclusion in the most recent series of Ford car commercials is either a twisted Baby Boomer or a Drag City-fellating nerd. More >>

Twilight Foxdie

​In case you missed it, there is an ad in this week's City Pages promoting a love letter contest.

The premise is pretty simple: write a love letter, email to mischke@citypages.com and you could win a $1,000 gift certificate to RF Moeller Jewelers. The ad goes on to say that letters must be 200 words or less, and that they will be judged on originality, creativity and romanticism. Yep, the ad pretty much said it all. Except for one small detail.

The ad failed to include any fine print stating that City Pages employees are ineligible to win the contest.

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