Big Into – “Tiki Bar”

Marinate the pork butts, it’s time to hit the tiki bar with Iron Range natives Curtis Kraft Mattson and Jozef Conaway. Their band Big Into is releasing a music video every month for each new track off their upcoming EP.

PDD Shop Talk: Duluth’s Duluthiest website celebrates 21 years

On Saturday, June 29, Perfect Duluth Day will be 21 years old. Because the anniversary falls on a day loaded with events, we’ve decided to loosely piggyback on one of them and hold our little birthday party on Park Point Beach as the Park Point Art Fair wraps up. We hope you’ll join us.

PDD Geoguessr #20: Twin Ports Area Beaches

Park Point in the summer. (Photo by Matthew James)

With the official start of summer upon us, any upcoming day has at least the potential of becoming a beach day. But where to go? Park Point is always an option but are there more interesting alternatives?

Wisconsin dairy set to open specialty cheese shop at RiverWest

New Duluth store manager Jessy Peterson, left, and Vice President of Retail Operations Jamie Swan stand in front of the cheese cases at the Burnett Dairy Cooperative store in Alpha, Wisconsin. The new Duluth store will feature a similar layout. (Photos by Mark Nicklawske)

Duluth cheese lovers will have an extraordinary place to shop for their provolone, cheddar and curds next month when an award-winning Wisconsin dairy opens a large specialty store in a newly developed section of the Riverside neighborhood below Spirit Mountain.

Cherry Koch: Homebody

Minnesota Public Radio reports Duluth artist Cherry Koch is working on a new series of paintings called “Homebody,” is preparing for an Aug. 24 fashion show at The Main Club, will put the series “Rug on Fire,” back on view again for Duluth Superior Pride in August and September, and is co-curating the group show called “The Gayest Art Show Ever” at Prøve Gallery which opens Aug. 30.

Duluth Band Stickers

In the aftermath of the 2024 Homegrown Music Festival a few band stickers that got crammed into jacket pockets and tossed onto shelves have been assembled into a tiny pile at the Perfect Duluth Day World Headquarters. Which got us to wondering how many there are in total, either stuck to something or crammed into drawers. It turns out, maybe not that many. The initial search at PDDHQ turned up only ten, but there might be more hiding in forgotten spots. So consider this post a work in progress, and please share images of the local band stickers you’ve got on your bumpers, lockers or the paper-towel dispensers of your favorite drinking establishments.

Postcards from the “Three Spot”

Featured here are postcards of Duluth & Iron Range Railroad locomotive No. 3, known as “Three Spot.” It has been on display at the D&IR Depot in Two Harbors since 1923.

Austin Castle – “Creek Water”

Austin Castle, with Cole Mikel on guitar, performs “Creek Water” in the Board of Trade Lofts in Duluth. The video was shot by Holden Law and Andrew Mathews.

PDD Quiz: Superior Hiking Trail

A sign for the Superior Hiking Trail at Temperance River State Park on the North Shore of Lake Superior, Minnesota.

Lace up your boots and pack your GORP for this week’s PDD quiz about the Superior Hiking Trail!

The next PDD quiz, coming your way on June 30, will review the news that made headlines this month. Please submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by June 25.

Ripped at Ray’s Bar in 2004

[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a visit to Ray’s Bar in the Town of Superior and composed this article for the June 2004 issue of the Ripsaw magazine. The establishment was more recently known as the Shortstop Bar, but is presently not in operation.]

About a year ago, I took a little tour of South Superior where, after wiping his piss on my neck, the drunken bartender at the Rusty Nail advised me to head down the road to Ray’s Bar. “Ray will shit on you for sure,” he said, inadvertently describing South Superior hospitality to a tee.

Now I didn’t exactly just fall off the turnip truck. I know some people are into that sort of thing, and I’m sure a lot of them haunt the thickets of South Superior. But as for me, I’m not much for excrement. Nonetheless, when faced with the choice of dealing with the Paris Hilton wannabes and renegade security guards at the latest version of the NorShor Theatre or wrestling with a psychotic South Superiorite wielding his own crap, I’ll head out on the highway every time.

Cloud Cult – “As Beautiful as it Hurts”

The new video from Cloud Cult is for the second single from the band’s upcoming album Alchemy Creek, which is set for release Aug. 8. The album was written, recorded and produced by front man Craig Minowa in the solitude of a tiny cabin on wheels in the middle of the Wisconsin woods after a difficult divorce.

The video was directed by Lauren Josephine, Jeff D. Johnson and Chad Amour of Motion 117 Productions.

100 Years of Intercity Highway, or Highway 61 Revisited

Highway 1 monument at 66th Avenue West and Westgate Boulevard. (Photos by David James)

A monument a couple blocks north of I-35 in the front yard of a quiet residential neighborhood commemorates the upcoming opening of Minnesota Trunk Highway No. 1. It was erected on June 13, 1924, 100 years ago today. A recent post on this site featured a photo describing a campground along this Highway, which led to a brief discussion of just what this Highway 1 was and what became of it.

Perfect Duluth Day Outdoor Summer Concert Primer 2024

The Northwood’s Band performed an outdoor show last week at Eveleth’s Timber Edge Bar and Grill, bringing a large crowd out to enjoy a pre-summer concert. (Photo by Izabella Zadra)

Put on those short shorts and tank tops, the summer concert season is upon us. The Twin Ports area is always bumpin’ with outdoor shows featuring a vast array of music styles on a variety of mostly temporary or makeshift stages. Take a dive with us into some of the best, don’t-wanna-miss concerts happening in the area over the hot months ahead.

Duluth Brand Parodies: Derogatory Wordplay in Dull-youth

It probably happens everywhere just as much as it happens in Duluth. Someone intentionally replaces the name of a well-known person, place or thing with a similar sounding word or words, almost always in a belittling way, and other people think it’s funny and repeat it.

There should be a list of those, right? Well, here it is.

Mark’s Great Duluth Alley Rally Urban Mountain Biking Route

Duluth has become known for it’s mountain biking trails in recent years, and for decades the paved Munger Trail has been a favorite of those with road bikes. But what about the unofficial street routes created just for the sake of being weird? Well, Perfect Duluth Day’s own Mark Nicklawske has established a route through the Endion, Chester Park and Congdon Park area that “climbs and plummets more than 1,300 feet in about 10 miles” according to a review on Medium by Nicklawske’s friend Keith Uhlig of Wausaw.