News that the Esmond building in the Lincoln Park Craft District might soon be demolished leads Perfect Duluth Day to note that the structure once known as the Seaway Hotel in Duluth’s Friendly West End has at least twice been referenced in music.
Compact discs and cassettes of releases from Duluth record labels fill a plastic bin at the Perfect Duluth Day headquarters. (Photo by Paul Lundgren)
Mark Lindquist, the chief purveyor of local albums at the turn of the millennium, thinks he can succinctly describe the difference between the best-known Duluth record labels.
“Chair Kickers’ put out the most gorgeous records,” he said. “Spinout had the most professional. Chaperone had the coolest. And Shaky Ray had … the most.”
Submerged in urine once again, Duluth band Torment continues to fine tune for the day when rock shows resume in full force.
Duluth artist Kwe Perry, aka Kweluude, has three tracks on the new Mixtape Project 6.0 release from DanSan Creatives.
Duluth’s Homegrown Music Festival will be online again in 2021, due to COVID-19. In the clip above, festival director Melissa La Tour explains that musicians have submitted pre-recorded material that will be curated into daily releases on the festival’s YouTube channel.
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.
Duluth’s Gaelynn Lea was the Current‘s Minnesota Music Month featured artist of the day on April 23. This video is part of a series the singer-songwriter and violinist contributed as educational videos to YourClassical MPR.
Duluth band Low has released a visualizer marking the 20th anniversary of the 2001 album Things We Lost in the Fire. Artists Shane Donahue, Julie Casper Roth and Allen Killian-Moore provide the visuals.
Minneapolis-based actor/singer Rodolfo Nieto penned this new anthem for Minnesota beer, accompanied on piano by Jared Miller and backed by a chorus. The song references two breweries from northeast Minnesota — Bent Paddle Brewing and Castle Danger Brewing.
Nieto notes that he would “love it if others created their own pun-filled verses in the future, using the names of other Minnesota breweries.”
Low’s cover of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” is available on the Dylan Revisited CD, available with the June 2021 issue of Uncut magazine. The album features 14 recordings of Dylan songs alongside an unreleased Dylan track.
Duluth band Glitteratti has released the second video promoting its forthcoming album Rectify! Like the previous video, it is comprised entirely of footage from Marc Gartman’s bar mitzvah in 1987.
The Embassy wrapped up its first season of “plaguestreams” earlier this month, and now Robot Rickshaw has released this excerpt of a spring rite.
The 23rd annual Homegrown Music Festival is less than a month away. A 60-page Field Guide is off the presses and will be available at local bars, restaurants and other businesses over the course of the next few days.
