Duluth Band Profile: Attom

Kyle Stern’s first show wasn’t at a VFW or an empty coffeehouse. It just happened to be Bonnaroo Music Festival. Under the moniker Attom, Kyle explains how he fits into the changing world of electronic music. Click on the image above to hear the podcast.

Upcoming gig: 
May 3 at Rex Bar at Fitger’s during Homegrown Music Festival 

MusicAttom, Band Profiles

Postcards from Duluth Motel

According to this postcard, Duluth Motel sat in some mysterious forest, perhaps offering the only toilet available for miles and miles. In reality, “Northwest’s Most Luxurious Motel” was near Denfeld High School and surrounded by West Duluth homes and businesses. A lush, undeveloped hillside was indeed in the distance, though not very similar looking to the illustration on the postcard. (more…)

HistoryDuluth Motel, Elton H. Gujor Company, Hotels / Motels / Resorts / Hostels / Lodging, Postcards, West Duluth
Ashwabay Alliance / Big Top Chautauqua
Vision Pro: Year End 2026

2019 Duluth Homegrown Mix Tape

2019 Duluth Homegrown Mix Tape Curated By: Gaelynn Lea by Duluth Homegrown Music Festival

Random

Duluth’s Lodging & Dining … circa 1979-’82

This promotional pamphlet is from roughly 1980. Within the text might be clues that narrow down a specific year. (more…)

History, RestaurantsCollections and Memorabilia, Hotels / Motels / Resorts / Hostels / Lodging
Ashwabay Alliance / Big Top Chautauqua

Duluth Band Profile: Prone

Prone dabbles in the realms of hip-hop and electro-funk. Chris LeBlanc explains how the group started out of necessity. Click on the image above to hear the podcast.

Upcoming gig: 
May 4 at R.T. Quinlan’s Saloon during the Homegrown Music Festival

MusicBand Profiles, Prone

Joan Osborne to perform Dylan tribute in his native Duluth

Grammy-nominated singer Joan Osborne will perform a special Bob Dylan tribute concert on the eve of his 78th birthday at Sacred Heart Music Center, just blocks from where the legendary songwriter was born in Duluth. (more…)

MusicBob Dylan, Duluth Dylan Fest, Sacred Heart Music Center
Glensheen Lantern Tours 2026

Aurora Borealis of March 30, 2019

Ben Sullivan captures the northern lights north of Duluth.

VideosNorthern Lights

Iceberg Ride


 

Robot Rickshaw and I sailed into our imagination on an iceberg, a doomed expedition worthy of Shackleton. Do not attempt. We selected a vessel and set sail from the Lakewalk around the Va Bene area. The wind was at our backs as we navigated down the shore past Fitger’s, where we disembarked just as our vessel began losing seaworthiness. We had sailed approximately 500 feet. However the real journey was into the depths of the human heart. Do we in fact have missing time as we suppose? Did we sail into a mist and live on the Isle of Avalon for untold years, before charting a course back to our day-to-day lives?

Outdoors, PhotosLake Superior, Lake Superior Aquaman
Pier B Resort: Rise and Dine

PDD Quiz: March 2019 in Review

Time to test your current events acumen with this week’s PDD quiz!

In a nod to Homegrown Music Festival, the next PDD quiz (scheduled for April 14) will feature other things that were “homegrown” in the Northland. Please email question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by April 11. (more…)

News and Current AffairsPDD Quiz

With Apologies to Carl Rogers and His Work

Carl Rogers was a significant psychologist and teacher. He was 85 when he died in 1987. The humanistic approach he’s known for gets applied across a variety of fields including therapy and politics. In education the approach is the basis of a process often called “learner-centered” teaching. Rogers describes its basics in five hypotheses that start with, “A person cannot teach another person directly; a person can only facilitate another’s learning.” He wrote a bunch of books including Freedom to Learn: A View of What Education Might Become, which spends 300 or so pages discussing learner-centered teaching. I have two hardcover copies of the 1969 edition. I revere what they say to a probably unwise degree. I also cherish them as objects, partially because they smell exactly as books of their vintage ought to smell. They also contain a version of the short essay “Personal Thoughts on Teaching and Learning,” which has been published in various forms in a lot of venues since the 1950s. (more…)

RandomSaturday Essay
Weis Eye Center
Glensheen Lantern Tours 2026

Five years after it opened, Red Herring Lounge slated to close

Red Herring Lounge owner Bob Monahan posted on Facebook today that “barring some sort of wildly unforeseen circumstance” his music club in Downtown Duluth “will close its doors permanently on June 10.” (more…)

Music, News and Current AffairsBob Monahan, Red Herring Lounge

Homegrown Music Festival Field Guide 2019 has arrived

The 21st annual Homegrown Music Festival is just a month away. The 100-page Field Guide, with all the who/what/when/where/why was trucked in from the printer this morning and will be available at local bars, restaurants and other businesses over the course of the next few days.

This year’s Homegrown will feature about 190 musical acts at more than 40 venues in Duluth and Superior. The festival runs April 28 to May 5. An updated schedule is on the Homegrown website at duluthhomegrown.org/schedule. (more…)

MusicHomegrown Music Festival
Vision Pro: Year End 2026

DM&N Railway Ore Docks in West Duluth, early 1900s

This photo of the Duluth, Missabe and Northern Railway ore docks in West Duluth is from Detroit Publishing Company. The Library of Congress dates the image as “between 1900 and 1915” and notes it shows “probably Dock No. 1 at left” and lists the three freighters in the foreground as George H. Russell, Sultan and James E. Davidson. (more…)

History, PhotosDetroit Publishing Company, Ore Docks

Perfect Fish Fry: The Breeze Inn

Competition to name the Perfect Duluth fish fry was fierce but the The Breeze Inn managed to angle ahead of the others to claim the title with 36 percent of the vote among the final three.

Do country-bar fish fries fare better? It’s notable that the three top-ranked fish fries are all just outside of Duluth city limits. Breeze Inn is in Rice Lake Township while Billy’s in Lakewood Township was the runner up with 33 percent of the vote. Wabegon in Superior Township came in third with a respectable 31 percent. Among establishments within Duluth city limits, Bridgeman’s had the most votes. (more…)

RestaurantsFish and Fishing, PDD Awards
Weis Eye Center
Pier B Resort: Rise and Dine

Storming the Radisson

… with Emily Rose Olson and Emily Hayes.

Art, Photos, RestaurantsBars / Drinking Establishments, Lake Superior Aquaman, Radisson Hotel

Duluth Children’s Museum latest to buy into Lincoln Park

The Lincoln Park Cafe building, former home to Randy’s Cafe, was recently sold to the Duluth Children’s Museum. Long range plans call for the museum to relocate into the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

Add a museum to the list of new attractions and amenities planned for Duluth’s booming Lincoln Park neighborhood. Duluth Children’s Museum purchased the former Randy’s Café building at 2125 W. Superior St. in Lincoln Park March 18. Minnesota Department of Revenue records show longtime building owners Michael and Rochelle Delich of Superior sold the property for $345,000. (more…)

News and Current AffairsDuluth Children's Museum, Lincoln Park Neighborhood / The Friendly West End
Pier B Resort: Rise and Dine
Pizza Luce: Butternut Squash

Selective Focus: Spring Ice Breaking

Photojournalist Derek Montgomery and MPR News bring amazing images of the annual breaking of the ice on the Duluth Harbor.

Click here for the full MPR Story and more photos.

VideosDerek Montgomery, Minnesota Public Radio, Selective Focus, Spring

Don’t Tell Mom

Frank Hoolihan sent this postcard to Mrs. Galivan in Buffalo, NY imploring her to tell Sarah not to let anyone know that he’s in Duluth. He doesn’t want his mom to find out. I suspect he sailed up the Great Lakes to Duluth to get away for some reason. Or maybe he was just on a lark. It does raise a few questions. I can’t make out the year in the postmark but I’m guessing around 1909 or so. (more…)

HistoryAerial Lift Bridge, Postcards, V. O. Hammon Publishing Company
Ashwabay Alliance / Big Top Chautauqua
Pier B Resort: Rise and Dine

Frankie Yankovic and His Yanks – “Duluth Polka”

Frankie Yankovic and His Yanks released “Duluth Polka” in 1954 as a 7-inch 45-RPM single and as a 10-inch 78-RPM “promotion record” on the Columbia label (as seen in the video above). (more…)

MusicDuluth Songs

More video from the best thing that ever happened

In its series The Slice, WDSE-TV presents short “slices of life” that capture the events and experiences that bring people together and speak to what it means to live up north.

VideosIce Skating, Lake Superior, The Slice, WDSE-TV - PBS North, Winter
Pier B Resort: Rise and Dine
Pizza Luce: Butternut Squash

Underwater views of ice sheet breaking up

 

Outdoors, PhotosLake Superior, Lake Superior Aquaman

New Study Indicates Science Wrong about ‘Pretty Much Everything Health-Related’

A recently published study in Scientific Facts Daily has scientists around the world shaking their heads in befuddlement and dismay. Marshaling the combined data from more than 50 years and 73,000 scientific papers summarizing more than 100,000 scientific studies, the work concludes that scientific studies on the efficacy of consuming more or less of certain food types, adding nutrients or nutritional supplements to one’s diet, or using certain medicines to treat disease are all “pretty much wrong.”

“Like, almost completely wrong, every time,” chief researcher Dr. Martina Ferkes-Boothe, an international expert on hypertension, indicated. “Seriously,” Ferkes-Booth continued, “If I wasn’t a scientist myself, I’d think someone was making this shit up. First, we tell everyone not to eat fat or cholesterol, or they’ll have a heart attack and die. People were choking down those cardboard Lean Cuisine low-fat pizzas for like a decade. Totally wrong. Could have been eating real cheese, instead of that weird soy snot, the whole time. And don’t even start in on butter made out of yogurt. So many fucked up mashed potatoes. I feel just awful about it now.” (more…)

RandomHealth, Saturday Essay
Ashwabay Alliance / Big Top Chautauqua

Taqueria El Oasis Del Norte open in Superior pub

Eduardo Sandoval - Photo by Lissa maki

Eduardo Sandoval – Photo by Lissa Maki

Everyday options for authentic Mexican food in the Twin Ports have vastly improved. Earlier this month, El Oasis Del Norte food truck started serving up items like tacos, burritos and tortas at Average Joe’s Pub in Superior. (more…)

News and Current Affairs, RestaurantsAverage Joe's Pub, Food Trucks, Oasis del Norte, Superior

What makes Lake Superior ice look blue?

In this edition of WDSE-TV‘s The Slice, Jay Austin from the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Large Lakes Observatory explains why Lake Superior ice has a blue hue.

VideosLake Superior, The Slice, WDSE-TV - PBS North
Vision Pro: Year End 2026
Casey Carbert

Saturday Essays in Book Form

I have self-published a small book containing 15 essays. They comprise the lion’s share of the 17 essays which Perfect Duluth Day so kindly ran as part of the Saturday Essay series. It is available at Zenith Bookstore on Central Avenue in West Duluth next to Beaner’s Central.

ArtBooks, Literature