By the power of grainy 20-year-old VHS, embedded above are performances by Charlie Parr and Haley from the short-lived WDSE-TV program Coffee House. The premiere episode featured three songs by each artist and aired March 12, 2003; the segment here contains just one each, and is from a sampler of the show that aired a week earlier. The footage was shot in 2002.
Duluth’s Gaelynn Lea provided the opening keynote yesterday to Microsoft’s 2023 Ability Summit. Her video included a performance of the song “Watch the World Unfold.”
Duluth native Al Church has a new album, Party Sounds (From Another Room), due out March 18. The record is about post-pandemic socializing. “Into the Willows” is the first single.
The band features Mike Gunvalson on drums, Ryan “The Ripper” Rupprecht on keys, Izzy Cruz on vocals and percussion, Pete “The Boy” Lavoie on sax, and Evan Foxphace on bass.
Legendary sound designer Dave Hill passed away recently. Driving by his humble-looking shop/studio in the East End of Superior, few would guess that an electronics genius was in there designing high-end audio equipment and selling it to the stars. More at fohonline.com.
Former Duluthian James Geisler, aka hip-hop artist JamesG, breaks out the plastic wrap and heads to the beach in his new music video.
I picked up a box of LPs at a local estate sale a couple years ago. I was just going through them more closely and thought I would share this one. It’s a concert recording of the Central High School Jazz Ensemble with jazz great Clark Terry, recorded at Central High Auditorium on March 13, 1975.
Last April the Current released the eighth edition of its Sounds Like Home virtual festival series, which featured artists from greater Minnesota. Duluth band the Slamming Doors performed a Duluth Song during its set, embedded above.
Duluth band Torment performed a sold out show at Pizza Luce with By the Thousands and three other acts on Saturday. Above, the band performs the title track from its recently released album Swallow Your Teeth.
Duluth-based folk rockers the Repairmen released their contribution to ever-growing collection of “Duluth Songs” in 2019 on the album Garage.
The fourth video release from Blake Shippee’s new solo album, It All Started from a Whisper, was produced by Laura Jean.
Steve Solkela keeps the hits coming. Here’s a prime cut from his recent album release Sauna Knight, available on Spotify, Apple Music, etc.
Free on Bandcamp.
I’m surprised I didn’t know about this yet, but the Star Trib just posted a story about the difficulties Low and other mostly indie bands are having with re-releasing and/or getting the rights back for their older recordings. What a goofy system to deal with art! Art belongs to the artist(s)!
