The latest from Steve “Sisu” Solkela is an ode to tenacity, grit, resilience and old-fashioned stoicism and hardiness. The song is from the recently released album Jenkkihymy: Finnish Fun with Steve Solkela.
Grant Glad, host of the music podcast Glad You’re Here, is trying to highlight a particular tier of local artists.
“I’ve been trying to find the artists that some people know and other people might not know and try to shine a spotlight on them. And then not have that spotlight be useless because you’re shining it on everybody,” Glad said.
An upcoming venue on Alan Sparhawk’s tour. (Photo by Matthew James)
Alan Sparhawk is on tour again this week, and this post briefly discusses his new album, including Geoguessr challenges looking at the five locations where he is scheduled to play over the next seven days and another looking at the upcoming European leg of his tour.
The 2024 death of Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh reminded me: I discovered the Grateful Dead and the Velvet Underground at the same time. The bands still exist as a unity in my mind, even after I figured out they were polar opposites.
My 1980s high school girlfriend was from the Northeast around Connecticut and New York City. She fused goth, punk, and hippie vibes. When we were 18, we took acid in her Austin, Texas shack. That’s where she DJ’d for me, on vinyl, the Grateful Dead and the Velvet Underground.
I’d heard the bands but never listened. She played the 1970 Dead tune “Box of Rain,” written by Lesh about the death of his father. Then we listened to “Rock & Roll,” the 1970 VU tune by Lou Reed about music as refuge, with Sterling Morrison on lead guitar. It all sounded like sheer Americana to me.
In the 1990s I became more of a Velvet Underground guy, from the band’s proto-punk stuff. But then I dated a Deadhead in Berkeley, and she took me to some Dead shows. That’s when I really got what the Dead fuss was about. I enjoyed my first show plenty, just for the carnival atmosphere, not having a deep knowledge of their discography. But then they covered “Johnny B. Goode” and the top of my skull lifted off. The secret of Dead shows is they piled crescendo on crescendo until you hit peak bliss, then they kept climbing. Yes I was on mescaline.
The fifth video release from Cloud Cult‘s new album Alchemy Creek is for the song “Vision in a Field.” The concept, visuals and editing are the work of Patrick Riggle.
Duluth band Torment performs “I Am the Problem” on New Year’s Eve at Pizza Lucé. The song is from the band’s new EP, The Pain. The video was shot and edited by Kayden Emantsal and Lane Peterson.
Sugar on the Roof has a new self-titled album out on Philville Records. The track “Over the Great Saltless Sea” is highlighted here as the latest addition to Perfect Duluth Day’s list of more than 100 songs with “Duluth” in the lyrics or title.
Duluth’s Kyle Orla performs “Worried Blues” at the edge of Lake Superior on the last “warm” day in December 2024.
The third video release from Duluth band Boxcar‘s new album, Black Noon, is directed by Lance Lindahl and edited by Adam Jones, with photography directed by Austin Hilgenberg.
This installment of the WCCO radio program A Closer Look with Laura Oakes delves into Bob Dylan’s Minnesota roots. It aired Dec. 19. Duluth comes up.
As we reach the end of another year of rawk and/or roll, Perfect Duluth Day once again looks back at the posters that pimped the gigs.
Recorded in 2019 at the Duluth Armory, this previously unreleased PBS North interview with Bob Dylan’s lifelong friend Louis Kemp offers insights into the life of the famous musician born in Duluth.
JP Olsen of WDSE 103.3 FM “The North” interviews James Mangold, director of A Complete Unknown, a biographical drama exploring the early life of Bob Dylan. Mangold delves into the creative process, revealing how Timothée Chalamet embodied the spirit of Dylan, and discusses the enduring power of Dylan’s music and its affect on a new generation.
Duluth keeps getting mentioned in the publicity tour for the Bob Dylan movie A Complete Unknown. At the 6:53 mark in the clip above Timothée Chalamet says, regarding singing live-to-camera in the film, “The worst thing we could have done with a Bob Dylan biopic is sanitize it, to make it sound clean … This is a man from iron ore country, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Hibbing, Duluth.” Not that Minneapolis is so dirty, but OK.
