Homegrown Photo Banners
In an Instagram and TikTok world, it’s hard to ask anyone to edit and crop their photos during the hubbub of Homegrown. But now that things are winding down, if you’ve got any great shots that would fit that weird horizontal space at the top of PDD, send ’em our way, we’ll add them to the collection for next year. (more…)
Rollers win Homegrown kickball, knotting series at 11
The chant is heard sporadically throughout the annual Homegrown Music Festival Kickball Classic. “MVP. MVP. MVP.” (more…)
Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Rawk Night
Select Instagram images from day six of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)
Zeppelins Over Duluth
From the book The First Time Germany Invaded Duluth, Minnesota by Peter S. Svenson:
“July 1, 1917: The Weltanshauung, a German hydrogen war-zeppelin, lost power over Bavaria. Captured by the wind, for the next two weeks it blew north across Europe and then the Arctic Circle. The furious crew tried fixing the engines but never succeeded. Technically, they set the World Record for the first arctic crossing by air, a feat later repeated by Shackleton.”
From “Zeppelins Over Duluth!” Duluth Herald, July 16, 1917:
“The Weltanshauung contained an internal airplane hangar with six black tri-planes that emerged from the nose of the craft like hornets. A Canadian fighter squadron looked for the zeppelin over Lake Erie and almost collided with it in the dark. It was a cliff face hanging in the sky, dwarfing them with the black-cross-on-white symbol of the German Air Force. But the Canadians lost it in confusion and fear. Soon a lake steamer spotted it drifting within sight of the North Shore of Lake Superior, toward Duluth. The authorities mobilized the American helium zeppelin, the Federalist, from its floating hangar in the Duluth harbor. (more…)
MN Moder – “One Minute Murder”
New single by Duluth-based hip-hop artist Zachary Moder, aka MN Moder. Video by Montclair Media.
Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Soup Town Night
https://www.instagram.com/p/CdM3veisagE/
Select Instagram images from day five of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)
I love you Homegrown but I can’t do this anymore!
I played my first Homegrown when I was seventeen. My high school band opened for Coyote at Teatro Zuccone. It was the first sold out show of my music career. I got to share a green room with THE Jerree Small. I got an artist pass on a cool lanyard that let me into any all-ages show (and a few 21+ shows too). I felt like I was on the edge of something. I felt grown up and I felt seen. At the time, it seemed like that feeling was coming from my artist pass, free T-shirt, and (maybe) $50 cheque. Looking back, I understand that what I actually experienced was membership and pride in a community of practice for the first time in my young life. Homegrown gave me an invaluable jumping off point as an artist in this city. It made me proud to be from Duluth and proud of my peers and mentors for choosing to make music here. It opened Duluth to me and deepened my relationship to community and to music. That experience kept me coming back through the years and and through my development as an artist. I’m grateful for it and I always will be, but like many artists in this town my relationship to the festival has become a bit complicated. (more…)
Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Westside Wednesday
https://www.instagram.com/p/CdLebN4uTPO/
Select Instagram images from day four of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)
Postcard from Duluth’s Grand Opera House
Duluth’s Grand Opera House at 333 W. Superior St. was designed by George Wirth and opened in 1883. It was destroyed by fire on Jan. 28, 1889. (more…)
Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Canal Park Night
Select Instagram images from day three of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)
Minnesota Historia: The Legend of St. Urho
As the patron saint of Finland, St. Urho is famous for casting the grasshoppers out of the country and saving their grapes. Except, of course, none of that ever happened. St. Urho was invented out of thin air in the 1950s by the manager of a department store in Virginia, Minn.
Minnesota Historia is a six-part WDSE-TV web series dedicated to Minnesota’s quirky past. It is hosted by Hailey Eidenschink and produced/edited/written by Mike Scholtz.
Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Craft District Night
Select Instagram images from day two of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)
A look at the future Blacklist Brewing Company location
Blacklist Brewery‘s move to 206 E. Superior St., announced about a year ago, is nearing reality. An opening date announcement is expected soon.
Until then, à la Bryant Lake Bowl and Glensheen, a drone flythrough tour is available. The video is by Ethan Schultz of ShotxSchultz.
Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Opening Ceremonies
Select Instagram images from opening day of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)
Homegrown Music Festival 2022 Primer
The Homegrown Music Festival is back in person, May 1-8. There’s a 100-page Field Guide available as usual, with all the specifics about the 195ish bands performing at 45 venues in the Twin Ports, but what are the hot updates? Well, that’s why PDD always kicks out a primer. (more…)
Video Archive: Homegrown 2017 Movie
Sam Tuthill put together this documentary from select performances during the 2017 Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)
Homegrown on Almanac North
The Homegrown Music Festival returns to in-person concerts this year, running May 1-8. WDSE-TV‘s Almanac North program reports on what the Twin Ports has been missing the past two years. (more…)
New Season of Intersections on WDSE
These stories highlight community members from across northern Minnesota with inspiring and enriching stories about overcoming adversity. This celebration of the human spirit will showcase the amazing, and often untold, stories of our fellow community members.
Great Lakes Now episode “Mushrooms and Mobsters”
Regional news from Great Lakes Now, an initiative of Detroit Public Television. At 21:00 there is a blurb about a proposal in Congress for a Federal Great Lakes Authority, envisioned as a “one-stop shop” for Great Lakes promotion, education, and environmental restoration.
Postcard from Fifth Avenue West and Superior Street
One of the more common postcard views of Duluth in the early 1900s was the scene looking east down Superior Street from Fifth Avenue West, showing off the Spalding Hotel (right) and Lyceum Theatre (left).
The Spalding was demolished in 1963, and the Lyceum came down in 1966. The Ordean building now stands in the Spalding location; the Maurices headquarters in the Lyceum spot.
Ian Alexy – “Teardrops in the Rain”
Ian Alexy‘s new video is for a track from the album Troubadour 21st Century. The clip uses video footage and photos that go back to his childhood in New Jersey and also documents time touring with his band the Deserters and also Hobo Nephews of Uncle Frank.
Selective Focus: Joya by Hand
Photo by Menique Koos (@meniquekoosphoto)
Mari Doffin is a polymer clay artist from Duluth who loves to play with shapes, colors and themes. She primarily creates earrings, which are sold online and at a number of local boutiques. (more…)
Minnesota Historia: Duluth’s Doomed Olympics Bid
WDSE-TV presents the story of an Olympics that never happened in a city that never stopped dreaming.
Minnesota Historia is a six-part web series dedicated to Minnesota’s quirky past. It is hosted by Hailey Eidenschink and produced/edited/written by Mike Scholtz.
Wolves, Otter, Beaver and a Red Fox
This scene, recorded late in the fall from a beaver dam at Voyageurs National Park, features all four of the critters in the headline. Of particular note are the otters and their delightful belly slides across the ice.
The footage is from the Voyageurs Wolf Project, focused on understanding the summer ecology of wolves in the park. At the end of the clip, one of the wolves becomes interested in the trail camera and takes it down to chew on.
When Blossom went to Hibbing and got bad directions
Actress and Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik was a guest on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on April 4. At about the 4:50 mark in the clip above she tells the story of traveling with her father to the Iron Range to visit their “personal Mecca, which is Hibbing, Minn., the birthplace of Robert Zimmerman — also known as Bob Dylan.”
Of course, the Jeopardy! question that would lead one to the place where Robert Zimmerman was born is “What is Duluth?” The Zimmerman family moved to Hibbing when Robert was 6 years old. (more…)