MN Moder – “One Minute Murder”

New single by Duluth-based hip-hop artist Zachary Moder, aka MN Moder. Video by Montclair Media.

Music, VideosMN Moder, 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…)

MusicHomegrown Music Festival, Instagram, Selective Focus
Glensheen Christmas tours 2026
Casey Carbert

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…)

Art, Events, MusicHomegrown Music Festival, Nat Harvie

Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Westside Wednesday

https://www.instagram.com/p/CdLebN4uTPO/

Select Instagram images from day four of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)

Music, PhotosHomegrown Music Festival, Instagram, Selective Focus
Weis Eye Center
Matinee Musicale: Chicago Symphony Orchestra Brass Quartet

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…)

HistoryAmerican Architect and Building News, Postcards

Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Canal Park Night

Select Instagram images from day three of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)

Music, PhotosHomegrown Music Festival, Instagram, Selective Focus
Pizza Luce: White Rabbit
Ashwabay Alliance / Big Top Chautauqua

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.

History, VideosMike Scholtz, Minnesota Historia, WDSE-TV - PBS North

Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Craft District Night

Select Instagram images from day two of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)

Music, PhotosHomegrown Music Festival, Instagram, Selective Focus
Vision Pro: Year End 2026
Weis Eye Center

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.

VideosBeer and Breweries, Blacklist Brewing Company, Drone Videos

Selective Focus: Homegrown 2022 Opening Ceremonies

Select Instagram images from opening day of the Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)

Music, PhotosHomegrown Music Festival, Instagram, Selective Focus
Ashwabay Alliance / Big Top Chautauqua
Glensheen Christmas tours 2026

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…)

MusicHomegrown Music Festival

Video Archive: Homegrown 2017 Movie

Sam Tuthill put together this documentary from select performances during the 2017 Homegrown Music Festival. (more…)

History, Music, VideosHomegrown Music Festival, Sam Tuthill, Video Archive
Glensheen Christmas tours 2026
Pier B Resort: Rise and Dine

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…)

Events, Music, VideosAlmanac North, Dance Attic, Homegrown Music Festival, WDSE-TV - PBS North

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.

VideosWDSE-TV - PBS North
Pizza Luce: White Rabbit
Pier B Resort: Rise and Dine

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.

News and Current Affairs, OutdoorsGreat Lakes

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.

HistoryLyceum Theatre, Postcards, Spalding Hotel
Pizza Luce: White Rabbit

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.

Music, VideosIan Alexy

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…)

ArtJewelry, Selective Focus
Glensheen Christmas tours 2026

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.

History, Sports, VideosMike Scholtz, Minnesota Historia, Olympics, WDSE-TV - PBS North

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.

Outdoors, VideosBeaver, Fox, Otter, Voyageurs National Park, Wolves
Matinee Musicale: Chicago Symphony Orchestra Brass Quartet
Pizza Luce: White Rabbit

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…)

VideosBob Dylan, Hibbing, Iron Range

PDD Quiz: April 2022

Review this month’s happenings and headlines in this current events quiz!

The next PDD quiz will be the third installment in the series on Duluth parks. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by May 11. (more…)

News and Current AffairsPDD Quiz
Pier B Resort: Rise and Dine
Matinee Musicale: Chicago Symphony Orchestra Brass Quartet

Postcard from Arch Street in Cloquet, 1912

Sidney Dahl of St. Cloud was the recipient of this postcard mailed 110 years ago today — April 23, 1912. The sender’s name was Ingga. (more…)

HistoryCloquet, Postcards

LineCheck: Nat Harvie

Duluth native Nat Harvie recently performed for the Current’s video series LineCheck. Above is “Waiting Song” and below is “No Ash.” Both tracks are from Harvie’s new EP, Married in Song. (more…)

Music, VideosNat Harvie, The Current
Glensheen Christmas tours 2026
Pizza Luce: White Rabbit

Trampled by Turtles and Elizabeth Cook – “Old Shoes”

Trampled by Turtles were joined by country singer Elizabeth Cook for a cover of Tom Waits‘ “Old Shoes (& Picture Postcards)” on March 26 during a concert at GLC Live at 20 Monroe, a concert hall in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The video was shot by Justin Razmus, Heather Kanig and Cooper Baumgartner, and edited by 616 Media. The sound was mixed by Adam Krinsky.

Music, VideosTrampled by Turtles