2015: The Year in Duluth Gig Posters
Here it is, PDD’s annual gallery of gig posters. It’s not comprehensive, just a smattering of promo images that grabbed attention in 2015.
Here it is, PDD’s annual gallery of gig posters. It’s not comprehensive, just a smattering of promo images that grabbed attention in 2015.
Christopher Halverson performs “Rockcreek/Grantsville” at R.T. Quinlan’s Saloon during an open mic on Sept. 16, 1995. The video closes with a clip of Frank Nichols blowing his jaw blues harp.
Noon, a band from Munich, Germany, has a song called “Duluth.” Anyone who can translate the lyrics from Italian to English or explain the existence or meaning of this song in any way is encouraged to do so in the comments to this post.
There were a lot of potential nominees, so we used a runoff ballot. The options with the fewest votes slowly dropped out of the poll as the days went by, until it got down to the final four.
What was the best local album of 2015?
Loading ...This poll is now closed. The results were:
Low’s Ones and Sixes – 34 percent
The Social Disaster’s Dark Side of the Roller Rink – 31 percent
Charlie Parr’s Stumpjumper – 19 percent
Mary Bue’s Holy Bones – 16 percent
Here’s a bit of what you’ll find in this week’s PDD Calendar:
Learn why resolutions don’t work at Tycoons, bring the kids to see the Monkey Mind Pirates, Marc Gartman plays his Ween, the DSSO tackles Sinatra, Beaner’s Central throws a daylong New Year’s bash and the Red Herring has bands and DJs.
Zeitgeist Arts is throwing a laid-back New Year’s party, the Barrel Room has DJs, masked revelers converge on Barker’s Island, pianos are set to duel at Dubh Linn, Superior Ballroom Dance Studio holds a dance-floor party and the first day of 2016 is marked with a nine-location hike.
Ten years ago Duluth landed in the New York Times over a controversial sign in a campaign office window. Scott Cameron, a combat-wounded Vietnam War vet, made a sign tallying the dead and wounded in the Iraq war. While volunteering for Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Steve Kelley, Cameron placed the sign in the campaign office window, next to a U.S. Army recruiting office. The seven recruiters working there, six of whom had served in Iraq, found the sign disheartening and wanted it removed. Cameron said he did not wish to prevent recruits from signing up for the Army, but only wanted to honor those who made sacrifices.
Duluth’s mega Christmas-light spectacular closes for the season tonight. Video by Above U Productions.
Over the past 12.5 years of Perfect Duluth Day’s existence, there haven’t been many posts that would be considered “essays.” The term is a little vague, but it’s probably understood by most that an essay is something more artistically crafted and of more substantial length than the average PDD post. Examples that come to mind from the past that would be considered essays are Laurie Viets’ “Last Place on Earth — 1983” and my own “Trespassing at UMD’s Old Main in 1992.” There are probably a dozen other examples eluding my memory, but the point in general is that there have been some essays on PDD, but not enough.
To encourage more, we’re launching a new feature called the “Saturday Essay” next week. In each installment, a local writer will share an anecdote, go on a political rant, dissect some event in popular culture or for whatever other purpose string together a healthy amount of words on some subject. Basically the hope is to do for essay writing what “Selective Focus” has done in the past year for photography on PDD.
Paul McIntyre, untitled
As I have little to add to the vast literature surrounding this holiday, I can only recommend one of my favorites: Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory.” His own reading of this short story used to be a staple this time of year on Minnesota Public Radio. I have no idea why they’ve departed from playing it, but here is a link to a 2006 This American Life episode that includes a tear-defying excerpt: Episode 255
From the Glensheen Facebook page:
This Saturday we will reach over 100,000 visitors for the first time since the 1980s.
To put this in perspective, we had only 56,000 visitors in recent history. Many thought this resurgence would not be possible. We are very thankful to all who have helped us turn the curve, especially you our guests.
Another audio-less home movie from the Emil Praslowicz archives. Pick your soundtrack below.
From Duluth Police Chief Gordon Ramsay’s Facebook page:
When I heard about a man in a mental health crisis looking for a bobcat in downtown skywalks and in the convention center I knew it wasn’t true. Then I saw these pictures. You can’t make this stuff up … nobody knows how this wild animal made it into the convention center. It was trapped by the DNR and Wildwoods inside the convention center.
A multirotor drone crashed on live TV behind skier Marcel Hirscher in a slalom event on Tuesday. It shattered on the icy slope a few seconds after the Olympic silver medalist started his second run.
