Duluth MN Music Scene News from Perfect Duluth Day

Duluthian Sadik Hakim featured on Jazz Profiles blog

Aug 21, 2017 1 Comment

“In 1982, the music world lost a legend with the death of Thelonious Monk. At Monk’s funeral, thousands gathered to pay their respects. One of Monk’s former colleagues sat at the piano and played, according to legendary jazz writer Ted Joans, “a sad but soulful” version of Monk’s own “’Round Midnight.” That pianist was Duluth-native Sadik Hakim, who played and recorded with jazz icons from the 1940s to the 1980s. Down Beat magazine described him as “one of the unsung veterans who helped forge the bebop revolution.”

Sadik Hakim: A Remembrance by David Ouse

History, Music

Iron Range to host inaugural craft beer festival

Aug 16, 2017 No Comments

The Iron Range’s first craft beer festival is on tap this Saturday in Virginia. In addition to a craft beer village, the Olcott Fountain Brew Fest will feature food, live music and kids’ activities.

The event is a fundraiser organized by the Olcott Park Fountain Restoration Committee, whose mission is to restore the park’s historic fountain to its former glory.

“It’s the first brew fest north of Duluth. We seem to have a lot of interest from all over the Iron Range, which is awesome,” says Carly Gobats, who curated the event’s brewery and music lineup and serves as the its volunteer coordinator.

Events, Music, News and Current Affairs Beer and Breweries, Iron Range, Virginia

Witness Relocation

Aug 12, 2017 2 Comments

When I moved to Duluth from San Francisco in July 2004, my fiancé Jeremy and I rented a first-floor apartment in a 100-year-old house on Third Street. The elegant flight of stairs inside our foyer was an egress for the upstairs apartment, so we had to keep the door between us unlocked. Jeremy didn’t seem worried; he had been living in Ely, where everyone leaves their keys in the ignition. Turned out our upstairs neighbors were a couple of women who rescued abandoned baby animals and nursed them with eye droppers. I stopped worrying about it, too.

From our back porch we grilled brats, drank Lake Superior Special Ale, and gazed at the brewing company’s namesake. I had never had a porch, a grill, or a view this pretty. As I looked across the blue water I felt my shoulders relax. I felt off the map, like a witness relocated: no one from my past life could find me here unless I wanted them to.

Then one morning in the window of Positively 3rd Street Bakery I saw someone from my past on a poster for the Bayfront Blues Festival: Koko Taylor. Now I was old enough to see her sing. The last time I was not, and that was a long time ago.

Music Saturday Essay

Girl from the North Country reviews are in

Jul 31, 2017 1 Comment

The Stage, a weekly British newspaper and website covering the entertainment industry, has compiled reviews of the new Bob Dylan-inspired play set in 1930’s Duluth. Girl from the North Country, written and directed by Conor McPherson, opened earlier this month at the Vic Theater in London.

Critic Fergus Morgan notes the show “boasts a large, diverse cast, and 20 Dylan songs from across his career, pared down and rearranged for the stage by Simon Hale and performed by a live, onstage band.” The setting is described as “a run-down Minnesota guesthouse during the Great Depression. We’re in Duluth, Dylan’s place of birth, seven years before the singer-songwriter entered the world.”

Art, Music Bob Dylan

Duluth Album Releases in 2007

Jul 31, 2017 No Comments

Trampled by Turtles
Trouble
(March 19)
Available on iTunes

Low
Drums and Guns
Sub Pop Records (March 20)
Available on Bandcamp

The Hotel Coral Essex
Glisten
(April 27)
Available on Bandcamp

History, Music Album Releases

Clare Means – “Duluth Song”

Jul 29, 2017 No Comments

Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Clare Means was in Duluth recently for a performance at Wade Stadium. While here she recorded a “Duluth Song” and released this video, set to images of the Western Duluth Little League Intermediate Division District Tournament Team, which defeated Lake Park 15-5 on July 11 to claim the 2017 Minnesota state championship.

Music, Sports Baseball, Clare Means

Glitteratti – “Ask the Mrs.”

Jul 28, 2017 No Comments

Here it is, the debut single from Duluth band Glitteratti‘s album In Pasadena, schedule for an Oct. 10 release.

Music, Videos Glitteratti

Mike Watt at the NorShor Theater: “Eyegifts From Minnesota”

Jul 27, 2017 No Comments

This documentary by Bill Draheim follows Mike Watt and his band at the time, the Jom and Terry Show, as they drive into Duluth and load in for a performance at the NorShor Theater on May 28, 2002. They tour the old R. O. Carlson’s bookstore, do some sightseeing in Canal Park and spend the night at Shaky Ray Records before heading south for shows at the Turf Club in St. Paul and the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis.

Watt wrote extensively about the tour, and the Duluth stop, on his “Our Oars Became Wings” Tour 2002 Diary. He marvels in the diary and in the film about seeing Lake Superior for the first time. He also mentions in the diary getting a tour of “the secret tunnels” under the NorShor and how it “feels haunted down there.”

History, Music, Videos Documentary, NorShor Theatre, Video Archive

Sweat Equity – “Hot Shower”

Jul 20, 2017 1 Comment

Duluth’s Paul Broman and Kevin Craig started reviving the Minneapolis funk, soul and synth-pop sound with their band Sweat Equity in 2013. Finally, the video for their single “Hot Shower” has arrived. The duo opens for Har Mar Superstar at the Red Herring Lounge on Aug. 18.

Music, Videos Sweat Equity

Rooftop Fable – “It’s All So Complicated”

Jul 19, 2017 No Comments

Duluth band Rooftop Fable will be hosting a release party for their album “Nuanced” on Saturday, July 22 at Blacklist Brewing. The event will also feature Emily Jayne & The Blue Plate Fella’s, Honest Maude, The True Malarkey and cabaret performances by The Duluth Dolls.
The video above is from the album and features aerial acrobat and contortionist, Cheryl Birch, and was filmed at Ignite Studio in downtown Duluth by Brian Barber.

Music, Videos

Actual Wolf – “Baby Please”

Jul 18, 2017 No Comments

“Baby Please” is the first single off the Actual Wolf album Faded Days, available now digitally and on cassette. The record release is scheduled for Sept. 15.

Eric Pollard, aka Actual Wolf, splits time between Duluth, Grand Rapids, Nashville and so on.

The video is directed by Erik Nelson.

Music, Videos Actual Wolf

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts at Head of the Lakes Fair 1987

Jul 14, 2017 No Comments

With the Head of the Lakes Fair underway this week in Superior, it’s fitting to take a look back 30 years ago when Joan Jett and Blackhearts graced the fairgrounds stage. Fortunately, a bootleg recording exists of the Aug. 15, 1987 show.

Music Head of the Lakes Fair, Superior

Dylan musical set in Duluth

Jun 27, 2017 1 Comment

Perfect Duluth Day reported in early May that a new musical play written and directed by Conor McPherson with music and lyrics by Bob Dylan was scheduled to open at the Vic Theater in London in July. What wasn’t known at the time is the play is set in Duluth.

Audio clips of two tracks recorded as part of a workshop for Girl from the North Country can be heard in the PDD post from May. Three reports verifying the setting of the play are listed below.

From the BBC New story “Bob Dylan: Conor McPherson on writing the musical“:

Conor McPherson has set the play in a guesthouse in Dylan’s birthplace of Duluth in Minnesota. It is called Girl from the North Country, after a track Dylan wrote in 1963.

Art, Music Bob Dylan

Lyte Source: Todd Luffa

Jun 21, 2017 1 Comment

In the pilot episode of a new “musical series aiming to explore sources of inspiration and intrigue,” Minneapolis-based soft-noise artist Todd Luffa performs on the beach at Minnesota Point in Duluth.

The Lyte Source series was created by director Gordon Byrd and producer Aubree Miller of Minneapolis, who “aim to bring performances to settings too intimate or bizarre for audiences to normally inhabit. To capture a sensory experience and transform it into a unique collaboration.”

Music, Videos Park Point

Soul Brothers: Big Wave Dave and the Ripples

Jun 19, 2017 No Comments

WDSE-TV‘s The Playlist has released it’s 2016 documentary on Big Wave Dave and the Ripples for internet viewing. Here it is: 49 minutes and 34 seconds of funk, soul, rhythm and blues.

Music, Videos Big Wave Dave and the Ripples, The PlayList, WDSE-TV

Music Posts