Mayor Snively welcomes Blackfeet chiefs to Duluth in 1921

On May 4, 1921 — one hundred years ago today — newly elected Duluth Mayor Samuel Snively welcomed to the city five chiefs from the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana.

Video Archive: Movie “White Palace” too racy for Duluth

This clip from The Tonight Show features guest host Jay Leno showing the evolution of an ad in the Duluth News Tribune for the 1990 film White Palace at Superior’s Mariner 4 Theatres. Watch as Susan Sarandon’s dress expands up her torso.

Dave Simonett – “Central Hillside Blues”

Dave Simonette has a new EP out titled Orion. The first single, “Central Hillside Blues,” of course references the neighborhood in the middle of Duluth.

The EP is available via multiple internet platforms.

Videos: Homegrown 2021 Day One

The Homegrown Music Festival is underway, with video releases and livestreams throughout the week.

Elliot Silberman: Duluth’s Five-minute Sketch Artist

He’s a one-man band and a five-minute sketch artist. Presenting Elliot Silberman.

Homegrown Music Festival 2021 Primer

The Homegrown Music Festival is pretty much all online again this year, but things are a bit more organized this time around, with planned video releases and livestreams every day, May 2-9.

Your Team!

My aunt Meda died and I felt nothing. I was completely numb. Probably shell shocked, to be honest. I flew to New Jersey to be with her widow — aunt Maren — and my grandma, who lived with them at the time. I tried to help around the house, feeling nothing more than a dull ache that seemed wrong for the situation. I thought I was a sociopath, the pain not substantial enough for the tragedy.

The hurt hit me like a tidal wave when I stood in the TGI Fridays bar where Meda worked. I was helping to prepare the celebration of life when the realization set in that I would never see my fun, erratic, loving aunt again. The woman who welcomed her wife’s weird niece into her home for the summer months. The woman who loved pugs more than anything. The woman who was called “sir” at drive-throughs on multiple occasions when lowering her voice to try to sound cooler.

I cried when I heard Adele’s 21 for the first time after she died, knowing Meda had cultivated my love for the album.

Grief is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad time.

Seaway in Song

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.

Demolition, apartments is new plan for Esmond building

The Esmond Building – formerly the Seaway Hotel – at 2001 W. Superior St. in Lincoln Park. The now vacant, city-owned building would be demolished and replaced with a mixed use housing project under a new redevelopment proposal. (Photo by Mark Nicklawske)

A historic but blighted building in the heart of the Lincoln Park craft district could be headed for demolition after plans to renovate the city-owned property fell through and officials started working with a new developer.

Duluth record labels boosted the scene, but are going extinct

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.”

Torment – “Drown in Piss” (Instrumental Playthrough)

Submerged in urine once again, Duluth band Torment continues to fine tune for the day when rock shows resume in full force.

West Duluth kids rarely strayed from neighborhood in 1920s

An article in the Duluth Herald of April 28, 1921 — one hundred years ago today — calls attention to how western Duluth kids seldom ventured to the center of town, much less to the eastern side.

Blueprints of Paul Baby

Found the blueprints on the internet and this anonymous cartoon in an old notebook.

Paul Baby

Kweluude – “Bases,” “My Life” and “The Message”

Duluth artist Kwe Perry, aka Kweluude, has three tracks on the new Mixtape Project 6.0 release from DanSan Creatives.

The Slice: Homegrown Music Festival 2021

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.