Like a punk-poet beacon shining a bright light for all of us on this particularly kinetic International Women’s Day, Patti Smith spoke, sung, spat, screamed, swore, swooned, and swayed through two hours of fiery performance that kept the Northrop Auditorium in a nearly continuous state of standing ovation. For a show that began with the…

It’s International Women’s Day and the artist formerly known as Haley Bonar is celebrating with a name change. From now on, she will be known simply as HALEY. The artist announced her decision through a post on Facebook today, revealing that not only will her stage name be changing, but her legal one as well. In…

Sometimes, your favorites get to work together. Case in point: Dessa and the team behind Hamilton, the musical that’s made theater a current event. Dessa is a rapper who brings poetry to everything she does; Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda is a playwright, actor, and professional nerd. When Miranda started putting together companion project The Hamilton Mixtape,…

Tomorrow, March 9, Kill Kancer  and Very Inc. will host the opening night of “Art Kills Kancer” at the Soo Visual Arts Center. Lori Barbero of Babes in Toyland will DJ a free opening party. The show focuses on a poster campaign that educates audiences on cancer prevention and early detection. According to the event page, the “posters…

Atmosphere. Phantogram. The xx. Ryan Adams, Bryan Ferry, At the Drive-In, and now, Belle and Sebastian. It’s not an eclectic new festival line-up or the contents of a mixtape; it’s a sampling of the bands booked at the Twin Cities’s newest venue. The Palace Theatre, which is soon to reopen in St. Paul after decades of…

Tomorrow, March 8, the Hook & Ladder will be hosting a special benefit concert for Libby Johnson, a beloved friend of many in the Minnesota music community. The benefit is a labor of love by those close to Johnson, in an attempt to make life for her and her family easier as she undergoes cancer…

Friends and family packed the Turf Club on Saturday night, eager to see an all-local bill comprising jazz/neo-soul band Ayvah, singer/songwriter J.E. Sunde, and rock group Tabah. Tabah, who performed at the Local Show’s Artists to Watch showcase last August, played their new album Symmetry Somewhere in full. The new music sounded best when it let Cecelia…

After the Grammys last month, metalheads around the world were shaking their heads in bemusement at the fact that to celebrate Megadeth’s first-ever Grammy, the house band played “Master of Puppets,” a song by their rivals Metallica. That was just one of several strange musical choices, though, at the Premiere Ceremony — the live-streamed ceremony…

J. Plaza with Nazeem & Spencer Joles, “Surprise MF’er” Both J. Plaza and Nazeem & Spencer Joles made the Soundset line-up this year. To celebrate, they dropped a hard-hitting yet graceful new song. All three MCs deliver top-of-the-line verses; all three get directing credits; Liban Mahamoud shot the video, and Topper Atwood produced the song. Graveyard…

SXSW has announced two free outdoor shows, one of which will be a Prince tribute featuring Wyclef Jean and two of Prince’s closest musical collaborators: André Cymone and Dez Dickerson. On Friday, March 17, the three will be joined by guitarist Micki Free (formerly of “Second Time Around” hitmakers Shalamar) and “more special guests TBA”…