Before Lizz Wright took the stage at the Dakota Jazz Club, her show was introduced as “like being in church.” Wright brought the church vibes and more last night, blending worship, funk, sex, love and more into an apt tribute to the man whose absence colored every note. Wright’s show was crafted for and to…

For this year’s Record Store Day, two legendary names in the Twin Cities music industry, Amphetamine Reptile Records and Treehouse Records, have teamed up to release an exclusive reissue of Taint Pluribus, Taint Unum, the debut album of iconic Minneapolis noise-rock band the Cows. This special release not only marks the 30th anniversary of the original…

You know how the internet encouraged people to wear safety pins for a hot second, so anyone who met a pin-wearer in real life would know they had a safe person to talk to? That’s how I feel when I see Prince’s love symbol. I didn’t chat with anyone wearing the symbol on Wednesday, but I…

Prince has been called one of the greatest guitar players of all time — even the greatest. Yet, oddly enough, it seems like he’s been on fewer guitar magazine covers than Dave Mustaine, Billie Joe Armstrong, and Mark Tremonti (no disrespect). So much of what people focused on was the mystique of Prince as a performer, singer,…

U.S. District Court Judge Wilhelmina M. Wright has granted a request to halt the release of a planned Prince EP titled Deliverance. With a temporary restraining order issued Wednesday after a court hearing in St. Paul, the court required sound engineer George Ian Boxill to cease dissemination of six Prince recordings created from 2006 to 2008. Boxill…

With the release date of the Purple Rain deluxe reissue approaching, an artist who records as the Violet Reality realized that the album’s tracks might be found in a database of registered recordings. Indeed they were, and the reissue’s tracklist has been making its way across fan sites like Prince.org. We’ve been able to obtain additional…

Bob Wootton, who played with Johnny Cash for 30 years and toured with Minnesota band Six Mile Grove for 10 years, died on April 9. He was 75. From 2004-2014, Wootton did three to four extended tours each year with Six Mile Grove. At shows across the country, the band opened with original music and…

Minneapolis was always home for Prince, but another Midwestern city loomed large in his heart from the very beginning of his career. One need only look at the Purple Rain Tour dates to understand how much Detroit meant to him. The tour kicked off with seven straight sold-out shows at the Joe Louis Arena in…

On Tuesday night, media lit up with the news that a six-track EP of previously unreleased Prince material would be released on Friday, the one-year anniversary of Prince’s death. It immediately became apparent, though, that the release was not authorized by Prince’s estate. In fact, KSTP reports the estate is joining with Paisley Park Enterprises to…

We all know Purple Rain is godhead, right? And yet, I’d argue that the two best Prince songs of 1984 aren’t even on it. Instead, they were released on the B-sides of that album’s pair of number one hits. In fact, the first released, on the flip side of “When Doves Cry,” the lustrous “17…