Soul Asylum has been announced as the headlining act of the Skyline Music Festival, which will be at the Target Field on Friday, July 26.

That will be just two weeks after Kenny Chesney holds his second concert at the venue on July 12.

In addition to Soul Asylum, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Matthew Sweet and the Gear Daddies are also slated to perform at the concert.

The stage will be set up near third base. Seating will be limited to just the sections along the third-base side of the ballpark.

Fans will see the Minneapolis skyline in the background, hence the name “Skyline Music Festival.”

Tickets go on sale next Thursday.

STILLWATER, Minn. (WCCO) – A Stillwater High School student, whose song recently landed at the top of the list of the top-selling singles on iTunes, is being laid to rest Thursday.

Zach Sobiech died of bone cancer on Monday. He was 18 years old.

Sobiech’s funeral began at 11 a.m. Thursday at the Church of St. Michael in Stillwater.

“Clouds,” the song he wrote as a farewell, hit number one on iTunes on Wednesday, passing artists with million-dollar record deals. That’s a first for a musician with no support from a major label and no previous album.

Proceeds from the song will go to children’s cancer research and to Zach’s family. When all is said and done, Scott Herold — founder of Sobiech’s nonprofit record label Rock the Cause — thinks “Clouds” will raise tens of thousands of dollars for osteosarcoma and children’s cancer research.

(credit: iTunes)

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — It’s Thursday, and that means it’s time to start planning some weekend fun. This weekend, celebrate Memorial Day at Fort Snelling, Como Zoo, and — despite chilly weather — even the aquatic centers of St. Paul.

St. Paul Waterparks
Even with less than spring-like weather, St. Paul’s outdoor aquatic centers open for some pre-season swimming Saturday. Both the Como Pool and Highland Aquatic Center are award-winning water parks worth checking out. They will be open just weekends until June 8, when full summer hours start. Most Minneapolis pools don’t open until Saturday, June 1 or Wednesday, June 5.

Sparky The Sea Lion Shows
Have you ever wondered what a sea lion dreams about? Get a rare glimpse into Sparky’s dream world starting this Saturday at the Como Park Zoo. Visitors can see Sparky, meet walruses, and visit the rainforest. Sparky’s shows are at 11:30 a.m. daily with an additional show at 3:00 p.m. on weekends.

Fort Snelling
This Memorial Day, enjoy opening weekend at Historic Fort Snelling. Explore historic buildings, visit with costumed interpreters and learn about life in early Minnesota. Children can try out the History Hunt scavenger hunt, earn a special Fort Kid’s button and play games that were popular in the 1800s. And on Memorial Day, guests can travel through the past with a living timeline of military life.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The song written by a Twin Cities teenager who died of cancer earlier this week has landed at the top of the iTunes charts posthumously.

Zach Sobiech died at age 18 on Monday. He had been diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 2009 when he was just 13. He spent months in the hospital, underwent 10 surgeries and twice as many rounds of chemotherapy.

Last summer, when he was informed he had months to live, he responded by penning the hopeful song “Clouds,” which currently has more than 4 million YouTube hits. The tune earned him a songwriting contract, a tribute from Hollywood stars and concerts at First Avenue and the Varsity Theater.

He wrote the song as a thank you to everyone who stood by him during his battle with cancer.

“With my situation, it’s not like you can sit and be sad. It’s not fair to everybody else, and it’s not fair to yourself. Why not have some fun with the time you have left,” Zach said.

On Wednesday, the song “Clouds” reached #1 on iTunes’ chart of the most-downloaded songs, ranking above the likes of Justin Timberlake, Daft Punk, P!nk, and Macklemore featuring Ryan Lewis. (Click the picture to be taken to iTunes’ website for Sobiech’s single.)

(credit: iTunes)

“The kid is bigger than the Beatles right now,” said Scott Herold, the founder of Zach’s nonprofit record label, Rock the Cause.

With a home-based office and a public relations department run by interns, Herold helped Zach get “Clouds” on iTunes.

When Zach died, the downloads picked up. There were 28,000 on Tuesday. And on Wednesday, the senior from Stillwater passed artists with million-dollar record deals.

“I kind of had this image of Zach saying to Justin Timberlake, ‘Step aside, I’m coming through,’”  Herold said.

It costs 99 cents to download “Clouds” on iTunes, and most of that 99 cents will go towards children’s cancer research.

“He wanted to be able to find a cure for osteosarcoma, but also, knowing he was going to be leaving the world, he wanted to be able to take care of the people he loved,” Herold  said. ”It’s hard that Zach’s gone, but man this is really awesome. It’s beautiful.”

When all is said and done, Herold thinks “Clouds” will raise tens of thousands of dollars for osteosarcoma and children’s cancer research.

The record Zach had with friends Sammy Brown and Reed Redmond is currently #3 on iTunes.

The money from there will go to Zach’s family. It was a wish before he died that his family also be taken care of.

Zach’s funeral will be on Thursday in Stillwater.

CaringBridge said the Sobiech family wanted any memorial offerings to be directed to the Zach Sobiech Osteosarcoma Fund in lieu of flowers.

(credit: JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images)

Following two of the most acerbic films of his career, Frances Ha is like a breath of fresh air for director Noah Baumbach. The cool and breezy effect is in no small part due to Baumbach’s collaboration with actor-screenwriter Greta Gerwig, with whom Baumbach became involved with as the two were working on Baumbach’s previous film Greenberg.

Gerwig stars as Frances, an extremely genial representative for NYC’s teeming creative class who loses her boyfriend at the beginning of the film when she refuses to move in with him and screw over her best friend Sophie. But when Sophie turns around and moves in with her own boyfriend-cum-fiancé, Frances finds herself reeling in every respect, unmoored from her living situation, romantic prospects and career aspirations.

Despite the heaviness of the subject matter, Baumbach and Gerwig paint their creation with palpable affection, so much so that the movie everyone has compared to HBO’s Girls (thanks, in no small part, to the participation of Adam Driver) seems a lot closer to Woody Allen’s Annie Hall reborn as a neo-Manhattan.

Baumbach was in town last month when a screening of Frances Ha wrapped up a Walker Art Center retrospective of his work. (See the video at the bottom of this post for Baumbach’s dialogue at the WAC.) Here is a transcription of our conversation:

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Eric Henderson: I loved this movie in a way that reminded me of when Pauline Kael wrote about feeling almost protective over the movie Casualties of War.

Noah Baumbach: To use that word, I think I felt “protective” of the character. I felt like that the character and Greta’s influence on it, both in writing it and playing it, I felt like the movie had to take care of her in some way, and I had to take care of her. So I wanted her to be, to some degree, rewarded at the end of the movie. And I think that sort of feeling went into a lot of my decisions on the movie. (And with) the B&W, the music, I wanted to celebrate the character and the city. I think everything that you’re responding to, I was feeling too in making the movie. I think Greenberg has the movie that’s right for that character, I think Margot likewise. Not that I know that going in for sure, how the movie’s going to feel or feel for other people. But I did know that I wanted Frances to have a satisfying conclusion.

Henderson: Was that the ending Greta had in mind, in co-writing?

Baumbach: She (Frances) is, by design, an incomplete person.

Henderson: Right, the half last name.

Baumbach: The big success for her is that she takes a desk job. And that is a success for her. When she’s offered that job earlier in the movie, she can’t see that this is actually someone being generous. And I feel like I was that way in my 20s; a lot of people were. I think what I love about the way the movie ends is that it’s rewarding to her, but in a way that’s totally true to the material. It’s not a typical happy ending. It’s a victory for this person in particular.

Henderson: I wanted to congratulate you, also, for creating a movie that clearly passes the Bechdel test. Have you heard of that?

Baumbach: No, what is that?

Henderson: It is a theory that only very few films in American cinema have a scene, let alone nearly an entire movie, where two female characters are talking without a man present or are talking about a man.

Baumbach: Oh, that’s good.

Henderson: Also, as someone who is also “undateable,” to use Frances’s word, I appreciated the fact that the movie doesn’t resolve her love life. It feels like the movie’s building toward something with the character of Benji (Michael Zegen), but it doesn’t give you the satisfaction of seeing it reach the next level.

Baumbach: As we were writing it and figuring out what the storyline was, an early breakthrough in our writing was seeing that the movie would be broken into these chapters that were all different locations for her. Once we figured that out, it informed a lot of other things. And then the Sophie storyline kind of followed that, because that became the throughline. We realized retrospectively after we had the draft that there was no central male relationship. The love story was her and Sophie. We were proud of that, but I think that if a boyfriend or male love story had sort of found its way in, it’s not that we would have thrown it out on principle. It just never seemed right for this story.

Henderson: One of my favorite things about the film is the way people use their words. I know Greta just did Damsels in Distress with Whit Stillman. And I think both of you share a kinship in your delight with dialogue and, specifically to you, the way that words don’t what the characters think they mean. One of my favorite lines in Margot and the Wedding was when Jennifer Jason Leigh says, “If I could read your handwriting I’m sure I’d be furious.”

Baumbach: Dialogue is, for me, cinematic. I find it cinematic just watching people talk. (Dialogue) has always been something that helps me find the movie, the characters, the situations. I’m kind of transcribing it, in a way. When it’s going well, when I’m in the zone writing a scene, I think I’m writing down how I hear people talk. Whether it is or not, I don’t know, but it’s some simulacrum of that. It is the lynchpin for me in how I find a scene and how I find the character.

Henderson: You also have an ear for the way speech patterns change with the introduction of alcohol. Is that based on any particular observations?

Baumbach: (Laughs) Just getting drunk?

Henderson: You don’t record yourself drunk, do you?

Baumbach: When I was a kid, my friends and I used to tape ourselves and do little radio plays. And then we would do a thing where we would start taping each other secretly. I haven’t done this as an adult. I do record things in notebooks of things I hear people say. I am a stickler in shooting a movie in that often two words feel like they should go the other way around in a phrase, and an actor might invert them even unconsciously to how they think they should say them, and I’m clear that I want it back the other way. Those sort of awkward ways of talking are interesting to me.

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Dylan Days 2013 features music, poetry and a singer-songwriter contest.

The three-day festival opens on Friday, the day Dylan turns 72. On Saturday there will be a Dylan Days bus tour of Hibbing, where the folk-rock star grew up and graduated from high school.

Other events Saturday include the cancellation of a postal stamp featuring a limited edition Dylan Days image that can be used on memorabilia or mail.

Duluth, where Dylan was born, has been holding is annual Dylan Fest since last weekend. This year the two organizing groups are working together to provide the North Country Dylan Celebration, 10 days of coordinated activity in northern Minnesota.

(© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Hanson will perform on Aug. 26 and 27, as part of the Leinie Lodge Bandshell Tonight! concert series. Sheila E. is also set to take over the Leinie Lodge on Aug. 28 and 29.

The other acts scheduled to perform in the series are Sunny Sweeney, Blue Öyster Cult, Robert Randolph & The Family Band, and Larry Gatlin & The Gatlin Brothers.

In all, more than 900 free shows are slated for the Great Minnesota Get-Together, which runs from Aug. 22 through Sept. 2 this year.

Some other familiar names to perform for free: Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles, the Okee Dokee Brothers, Tonic Sol-fa, GB Leighton, Chastity Brown, the 34th Infantry Division “Red Bull” Band, Mountain Heart, Dale Watson, and many others.

A full lineup of free entertainment can be found here.

—

Take Little Miss Sunshine, swap American landscapes for English ones, add a few drops of dark humor, and sprinkle in some homicides. Then, perhaps, you’ll have something like Sightseers — a comedy that induces a lot of laughs as well as the occasional squirm.

Ben Wheatley, the movie’s director, says it’s ” about a couple who are in love, and, we should mention, on the road…There’s a small dog in it, and there’s loads of [sex] as well.”

Sightseers follows the couple as they vacation through the countryside, visiting campgrounds and museums dedicated to feats of English ingenuity, like tram cars and pencils. That might sound kind of ho-hum, but once first-blood is spilled, the two turn from lower-middle-class lovebirds to something like Bonnie and Clyde.

And their killing spree isn’t just a cold-blooded, weirdly lighthearted romp. Each of the couple’s victims has it coming, in a way. One might have littered in a museum (a big no no) and another might have been a bit too condescending to our protagonists. Either way, passion is involved. What’s more: the circumstances almost make you cheer for the killers, even though their actions are in no way morally acceptable.

This cheering sensation is what made the movie interesting, to me. It’s like watching a feature-length daydream in which the every slight inflicted on the couple is punished by death — being run over or brutally clubbed or pushed off a cliff. And because Sightseers has the right comic dressing and solid direction, it feels right, almost delightful, funny. It also reveals, in relief, that acting on your  Mount St. Helens temper will eventually make you into a villain, even if it’s just a cartoon of one.

The movie’s script was written, impressively, by its lead actors (Alice Lowe and Steve Oram).  Both of their performances are dead-on. You can relate to their characters, laugh at them, marvel at them, and even be surprised by them. I spoke with Wheatley, the movie’s director, about working with Lowe and Oram (and making movies in general); check it out…

(credit: IFC Films)

Jonathon Sharp: What was it like working with Alice Lowe and Steve Oram?

Ben Wheatley: It was great. I’d worked with them before, so I kind of new them…and in all the films I’ve done I’ve been lucky enough to personally know the people…before I did a movie with them. So, it’s been really helpful. Low budget, small films, I mean, not a lot of time to get to know people. And you don’t want to spend days when you’re filming trying to figure people out. You know? It’s good to hit the ground running.

Sharp: I suppose it’s a lot easier to hit the ground running when these people wrote their characters…Did they come to you with this story?

Wheatley:  I got asked to a meeting at Big Talk…and they offered me this script. I knew what [the story] was because I’d seen the sort film version…so I kind of understood what the project was going to be. And when I read it, it fit…the kind of interests I’ve had and the other movies that I’ve made. So it all kind of made sense — I just wanted to make a comedy after making a horror film. You know? I wanted to make something that was lighter and different than the movies I made before, as much as possible.

Sharp: A lot of movies mesh horror and comedy together. Why do you think that works?

Wheatley: I think it’s…uh…that’s something that’s as old as the hills, isn’t it? Horror and comedy. I mean that’s like the Abbott and Costello and, you know, those kinds of movies. I think it’s because they come together, the two flavors, because of…the release. The audience enjoys feeling scared, but they don’t want to be horrified. They want to…be released from feeling scared as well. So it’s a bit like a roller coaster ride, you know. They don’t want to always be terrified. Sometimes they want to laugh. So it’s a jump between those two positions of scary and making them happy again.

Sharp: With this mix of comedy and horror, are these the kind of movies you like to make? Or is there a certain genre you want to step into next?

Wheatley: I basically take it on a movie-by-movie basis. I kind of try not to repeat myself as much as I can. I mean I’m interested in all sorts of kinds of cinema, so I don’t have a list per se that I’m crossing off, but I do look at the films I’ve made and try to work out if I’m repeating myself. There’s definitely parallels between all the films I’ve done. I’m conscious of that, and Amy and I are trying to change that. I mean we just finished a film that is kind of a historical drama. So that’s a change of pace from the other films.

Sharp: You mentioned Amy, your wife. You guys are a team, in a way?

Wheatley: Ya.

Sharp: What’s that relationship like? Can you describe how you work together?

Wheatley: You know, it’s…we work well. (Laughs). It’s fine. We get to spend time together, which is nice. It can be quite a lonely thing, film making. You are far away from home for months on end, and then you come home and then you are in edit suites for six months, so working together means we can stop a lot of this from happening.

Sharp: I’m sure you guys are really honest with each other. You don’t have to hide too much.

Wheatley: Ya. I like working with her. It’s interesting. I find she gets better and better with every film we do.

(credit: IFC Films)

Sharp: Have you been camping in England before?

Wheatley: Ya. I’ve definitely been camping. I go to all those museums and things that are in the film, and, you know, I like it. I love it. You have to approach these things with an open heart, you know. I don’t think it’s necessarily funny…like the pencil museum is also quite interesting.

Sharp: Camping isn’t that treacherous in England, I expect.

Wheatley: I’d say that Sightseers is not a balanced representation of what you can expect if you go caravaning.

Sharp: I thought [Sightseers] did a really good job of jumping from tone to tone. You feel weird, you know? These people are killing people, but you can see where they are coming from. You still like them and want to see where they are going…I’m curious how you juggled all that.

Wheatley: Well, you know, there’s no such thing as monsters necessarily. Very rare for someone to be an all-out monster. It’s that they are normal people doing terrible things — that’s what normally happens, you know. If the characters are realistic in someway, or that the audience can understand, then they become more engaged in the comedy or the drama. You know, if you have a murderer with a big black cape and he laughs with a deep voice every time he kills somebody, you make it into a cliche, and, you know, it’s bull… It’s stuff that’s come out of dreadful magazines and it’s all made up, you know. The reality of a murderer is, you know, it’s either someone you’re married to or a neighbor or something. There’s nothing sinister about it, it’s just someone close by.

Sharp: Could you describe, for an American, who these characters are, where they fit into society, socially?

Wheatley:  They are kind of normal people, you know. People that have…they are like everybody else. They are just trying to find something. They’re not high-flying. Like a lot of people now, they’ve been dealt quite a bad hand. He (Steve Oram’s character) has done what everyone’s told him since school. You should get a job, keep your head down and do what you are told; and everything is going to be alright. And it’s just lies, you know. You hit 40, or whatever, and you’re looking around, going what the f— am I supposed to do now? And they are angry about it, and that’s kind of where Chris is coming from, I think.

Sharp: What do you like about film making?

Wheatley: I think it’s the collision of sound and picture. It’s being able to create an artificial dream world that you put people into a darkened room and you make them dream while they’re awake. And you can manipulate them and potentially make them cry, make them happy. That’s a great thing to be doing. It’s good fun. What am I trying to say in general? I don’t know. I’m just a human trying to reflect the world around me from my own point of view. I can’t speak for anyone else. That’s the way I approach it.

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Monday, May 20: Rope (Riverview Theater)

This year’s Alfred Hitchcock festival concludes with the movie I’m convinced is his most prominent stealth cult favorite. Maybe it’s Hitch’s gimmick, shooting the entire movie in what appears to be one single unbroken take (masked ingeniously at reel changes by zooms into clothing or sly pans) and simulating a New York sunset on a soundstage. Or maybe it’s the scarcely veiled gay-suggestive take on the Leopold-Loeb murder case that surprises modern audiences; Hitchcock’s necessarily coded but still unmistakable candor dealing with the subject extended to the collaborators he chose — John Dall and Farley Granger (playing the killer lovers) and screenwriter Arthur Laurents were all gay. Whatever the reason, Rope stands as one of the few Hitchcock movies under-heralded enough to truly surprise everyone who comes to it anew.

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Wednesday, May 22: Cleopatra (Landmark Edina)

The troubles that have reportedly been plaguing some of this summer’s releases like World War Z and The Lone Ranger? Mere child’s play. Among productions run amok, 20th Century Fox’s Cleopatra remains without peer. Costing the equivalent of the GNP of pretty much every country in the world for two full years, adjusted for inflation, Cleopatra was a money pit that sucked the studio’s coffers dry while Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s torrid affair kept every tabloid in the nation afloat. It ruined nearly everyone’s reputation, earned a slew of Oscar nominations that were no doubt achieved via Fox executives rounding up every employee’s ballot, and somehow narrowly managed not to bankrupt the state of California. Yes, I’m exaggerating a tad, but this is the sort of movie that sells nothing if not sheer, unadulterated embellishment.

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Friday, May 24 through Sunday, May 26: The Gang’s All Here (Trylon Microcinema)

Four words: You’ve gotta see this.

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Friday, May 17 through Sunday, May 19: Something in the Air (St. Anthony Main Theater)

Not many know this, but every French filmmaker is actually legally required to film their version of the youth uprisings late ’60s, specifically surrounding the Sorbonne. Oliver Assayas’s Something in the Air — in which an 18-year-old painter and his crew try to kickstart some of that spring fever to their own circle — is his fulfillment of that obligation.

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Sunday, May 26: The Headless Woman (Walker Art Center)

Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel secured her place among the foremost directors of this generation with her rapturously received 2008 film The Headless Woman, which is just now getting its Twin Cities premiere at the Walker. With touches of John Cassavetes’ Opening Night and a palpable feminist viewpoint, Headless Woman is a fascinating puzzle box.

On Sunday afternoon, a variety of part-time musicians strolled into the Icehouse in south Minneapolis with a few goals: Socialize, jam and hopefully collaborate.

Mike Michel, the organizer of the event, says he really just wants people to play music and meet each other, because it’s a difficult thing to do when you’re older.

“Basically, the event is pretty innocent. I found that people over 30 typically start having families, a day job, they’re traveling, etc., so it’s really hard to meet people. This is just a quick face-to-face fix of getting everybody in the room who has once played music and is rediscovering it or discovering it for the first time,” Michel said. “There really isn’t a whole lot of support for adults, or there isn’t enough in large quantities, so I’m trying to fill that void.”

In addition to mingling, attending musicians were encouraged to fill out “Musician Wanted” or “Musician Available” forms detailing their musical abilities and if they’d like to join a band or need a musician to complete a band.

(credit: CBS)

Guitarist Damon Frybarger, who’s looking to join or create a cover band, attended the event because he’s exhausted other avenues.

“I’ve checked Craigslist, BandMix, City Pages, flyers or posters at music stores and haven’t had a whole lot of luck. It’s really like finding a needle in a haystack. You’re looking for something that fits your personality and what you have a passion for … and it’s better to meet people face-to-face. Then, you can get a good sense of their direction and go from there,” Frybarger said.

If mingling wasn’t enough, musicians had the opportunity to showcase their skills at the “Acoustic Chill Corner” section, where organizers set up instruments, including guitars, bass, and drums.

(credit: CBS)

In the end, Michel’s expectations for the event are quite simple.

“Hopefully, everybody here gets at least gets one tip, one person, one lead to further their music passion. Whatever that may be,” Michel said.

So, if you are a musician who’d be interested in an event like this, there are more events are expected (keep tabs here), but there are things you can do in the meantime.

“The first thing I would do is to check out OpenMicMinneapolis.com. That’s actually a really good resource. I’ve found that there are open mics and open jams seven nights a week on all four corners of the Twin Cities.”

Keep jamming, Minnesota.

——

Local Music Tap is a new blog aimed at promoting Minnesota-based musicians, bands and shows. If you have music blog ideas, please email cepremo@wcco.com or leave a comment below. Also, follow the Local Music Tap on Twitter and on YouTube.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The term “Going Green” can be a little intimidating.

But Saturday at the Union Depot in St. Paul, MN Goes Green organizers hope to make it easy with everything from repurposing items in your house, to fashion and food.

“I think most people want to do the right thing,” said Scott Mayer of MN Goes Green. “They want to recycle and make the earth a friendly place.”

And MN Goes Green can help.

“We have over 35 vendors who are going to be there offering some really simple do it yourself ways to be environmentally friendly,” Mayer said.

Co-ops such as Mississippi Market get fresh food, grown locally, no matter the season.

“We have more co-ops in Minnesota than anywhere else in the country,” said Liz McMann of Mississippi Market

People will also be able to bring old garments from their closet to have them turned into something new — a dress was even made out of a shower curtain.

And knick knacks from around the house turn into treasures, like cigar boxes becoming bird houses.

Owners of electric cars will also be outside the Union Depot, and can answer questions about how the cars work and how much they cost to run.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — What’s 10,000 Minutes of Minnesota Craft Beer?

It’s a packed week with member events and 612 Brew is a good place to start, as a cold one could, in fact, be considered art.

“When you look at art, you want to appreciate it, you want to take it in — it’s the same thing with beer, a lot of work goes into it,” Robert Kasak said.

This isn’t the only taproom to taste.

“There’s 10,000 variations of beer when you look at the industry, the home brewers in the state of Minnesota,” said Clint Roberts, executive director of the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild.

And with 10,000 minutes in a week, the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild is hoping everyone fills their time with ales and lagers — like 612 Brew’s ginger beer.

“I literally grate 70 pounds of ginger and throw it into the boiler,” Kasak said.

The labor of love can be found in the 50 breweries across the state.

“When you buy a Minnesota craft beer, or a local item, it literally is brewed by the guy down the street in your town,” Roberts said. “It supports your friends and neighbors.”

If you don’t want to fight the crowds in northeast Minneapolis, there are events all over the state, from Duluth to Rochester.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — The 18th-annual Art-A-Whirl is underway in northeast Minneapolis this weekend.

It’s the largest weekend-long open studio tour in the country.

Check out the video to see what artists say they love about their craft, and what it means to them.

Organizers expect tens of thousands to visit artists at 70 locations.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – It’s not exactly grilling weather this weekend with the rain, but that won’t be stopping Minnesota Monthly’s Second-Annual Grill Fest on Saturday and Sunday.

The best lesson? Everything can go on a grill, from vegetables to meat, say the executive chefs at The Dakota.

Though the chefs prefer the taste that comes from charcoal, they don’t mind the ease of using gas.

Drooling a bit? Head on down to The Depot in Minneapolis and check it out.

It’s $35 and click here for more.

The theater will bring its production of “Beyond the Rainbow: Garland at Carnegie Hall” to three theaters. The show recreates singer Judy Garland’s famous 1961 Carnegie Hall concert.

Performances will be held at the Historic Holmes Theatre in Detroit Lakes on June 13, the Myles Reif Performing Arts Center in Grand Rapids on June 15 and the Dawson-Boyd Performing Arts Center in Dawson on June 18.

The performance in Grand Rapids will take place during the annual Judy Garland Festival in Garland’s hometown.

The History Theatre’s production of “Lombardi” about legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi will play in Alexandria July 9-14.

(© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Yes, ‘Rock Of Ages: The Musical” is a different kind of show. Not many musicals can encourage fans to dress up in 80s garb just to rock out in the audience. It’s that kind of show. You have to expect that, however, when you feature the classic larger-than-life themes, big-haired bands and mega-hits from the 80s.

Quick side note: For those of you who might be reluctant to see a musical in general, Rock Of Ages is unique in the fact that it has the ability to reach a wider audience — blending a classic musical with a fist-pumping rock concert atmosphere. I love rock concerts, and, at times, I felt like I was at one.

Anyways, I’m fairly ignorant when it comes to what constitutes a spoiler, so I’ll be subtle in my description of the overall show, and try to keep hidden what might be revealing.

First off, you might not want to bring your kids to this show. Among other mature themes, the show includes strippers, foul language and plenty of poop jokes.

But that’s what makes it fun for the rest of us.

The story features a music venue/bar, The Bourbon Room, and all the drama that occurs around it, including the classic love between two characters, Drew and Sherrie, who are struggling to make it in the big, wide, over-sparkled world.

Drew, a bar back/bathroom cleaner at the Bourbon Room, dreams of making it big as a rock musician, but can’t find the right inspiration to connect with listeners. That is, until Sherrie comes into the scene, providing exactly just what Drew needs — whether he realizes or not.

Then, there’s a major rift between the two … that being (cough) Stacy Jaxx, the front man of the fictional rock powerhouse, Arsenal.

While not giving away anything major, Drew receives some advice (by the amazing narrator) and is urged to “screw the writer” and write his own destiny. Whether or not that ends with him melting faces on the stage – or reconnecting with his beloved Sherrie – is for you to see.

Rock of Ages will be in Minneapolis until May 19 for five shows. Tickets ($34-$94) are still available. For ticket info. or more information, click here.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Once again, it’s time to head over to Northeast Minneapolis to check out local arts, enjoy a wealth of foods and the flavor of one of the Twin Cities’ most unique neighborhoods.

The Art-A-Whirl is one of the largest open studio tours in the country, and it takes place at more than 70 locations in Northeast Minneapolis.

“I think a lot of people are surprised when they step into a studio building and see these hundreds of artists that work here all year around,” said Alejandra Pelinka, the executive director at the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association.

More than 500 local artists participate in the event.

“Artists really try to show as much artwork as they can within their studio, so they cram it packed with artwork,” Pelinka said.

This year marks the 18th for the annual event, which runs from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, from noon to 8 p.m. on Saturday, and from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

Art-A-Whirl participants will get the unique opportunity to experience and purchase locally-produced works of art, as well as talk one-on-one with the artists behind them.

Participants can also enjoy the old Minneapolis buildings that have been converted into studio spaces. One studio, for instance, is in the old Grain Belt Bottling House. Another, which used to hold General Mills, now holds Foci Glass, home to some of the most talented glass artists in Minnesota. (To watch one artist make a glass horse in under 60 seconds, watch the video above.)

The event is organized by the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association. The organization, according to Pelinka, is trying to give the city’s northeast side the reputation as a hub for arts.

For more information, click here.

—

Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children came out in 1981, and today the epic has a reputation that could be described as Himalayan. I haven’t read it (full disclosure) but I imagine the work would fit nicely next to my mental fondness for Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years Of Solitude.

Both books fall into the genre of magic realism, which mixes the fantastic, the supernatural with the ordinariness of everyday life. The effects of such writing, if done well, are as pleasing as a paradox. If done poorly…then, well, I’m not quite sure what it’s like. I haven’t read a book in that style which I didn’t enjoy.

But I can’t say the same about movies adapted from such books. Midnight’s Children, the film that comes out this Friday, falters precisely where it needed to succeed — in its magic-making.  The switch from the page to the screen harms its multi-generational, twist-laden story, because (a) the performances are lackluster and (b) every utterance of abracadabra is followed by a lukewarm display of movie magic.

This tepid result could be because Deepa Mehta, the director, didn’t originally want to tackle this beast when she and Rushdie decided to collaborate. Mehta initially wanted to make, reports say, a film out of Shalimar the Clown, but the duo decided on Midnight’s Children instead.

Rushdie, who trimmed his massive novel into a relatively slim screenplay, is responsible for much of what makes the film work. For instance, he’s the perfect narrator. His voice and diction ease you lyrically into scenes as well as the historical context. Considering the movie clocks in at nearly three hours — with twist after twist after twist — Rushdie’s authorial guidance is a big plus. And how often do non-audiobook fiends get to hear a great author tell one of his greatest stories?

The story, in a nutshell, is about a group of children who are born  just after midnight on the day of India’s independence and partition (Aug. 15, 1947). Each of these children has a different magic power. One can fly, one can make things invisible, and one (our main man) can bring all of Midnight’s Children together via telepathy. His name is Saleem.

Saleem’s life runs parallel to that of India’s independence. The movie focuses on him, starting with events before Saleem’s birth – showing how his parents met, how he came to be their son (which is a subplot all its own) — and continues through his childhood and into his adult life, where things get real crazy and sad and so on….Pushed by fate into many of India’s early wars and political struggles, he tries to bring together his magical compatriots in an effort to unite the diverse subcontinent as it forges its way into history.

All sorts of trouble and tragedy occurs, and some Saleems handle it better than others. Let me explain: the child Saleem (Darsheel Safary) is solid. He carries the movie’s magic and the struggles of a difficult childhood, well. We feel for him, enjoy watching him, believe his astonishment over his new-found telepathy. The same can’t be said for the adult Saleem (Satya Sorab Bhabha), with whom we spend much more of the movie. I’m not sure what the issue is — Is he introduced too late? Is his acting just off? — but he’s much harder to connect with, to believe. His off-ness combined with the tired finale leave you with a flat taste, like Indian food without any real, sweat-inducing spice.

The best books don’t make the best films. We’ve seen that recently with The Great Gatsby, depending on who you walk to. One wonders if it’s not too bad an idea to leave the great novels to the bookshelves and stick to incarnating heroes from comic books…

Vincent Kartheiser, who plays the malcontent Pete Campbell on AMC’s “Mad Men,” will star this summer in a new Guthrie production of “Pride and Prejudice” as the brooding hero of Jane Austen’s most famous novel.

“It’s interesting playing a character that people have such strong feelings about before I’ve even begun playing him,” he said Friday by phone from Los Angeles. “I don’t have a lot of experience playing famous characters and it’s an interesting expectation that lays on my head.”

Kartheiser is a native of Minneapolis and first appeared at the Guthrie in 1986 at age 7 as Tiny Tim in “A Christmas Carol.” He returned to play small roles in the company’s 1990 productions of “Henry V” and “Henry IV.”

“I think my biggest scene I was being carried around dead,” he joked.

His film credits include “Untamed Heart” with Marisa Tomei, and “Little Big League,” ”The Indian in the Cupboard,” ”Crime and Punishment in Suburbia” and 2011′s thriller “In Time.”

Kartheiser has often dipped in and out of theater projects, most recently playing the lead in the world premiere of “The Death of the Novel” at the San Jose Repertory Theatre last year. In 2005, he was in New York at the Cherry Lane Theatre in “Slag Heap.”

“I started returning to the stage in my late 20s to get back in touch with my roots and to challenge myself,” he said. “It really is our medium.”

“Pride and Prejudice,” which will be directed by the Guthrie’s leader Joe Dowling, will play from July 6-Aug. 31. It will mark the 200th anniversary of the publication of Austen’s novel which has been adapted into films, miniseries and even a Broadway musical.

The Guthrie did “Pride and Prejudice” in the 2003-2004 season with an adaptation by James Maxwell which was revised by Alan Stanford. This new version has been adapted for the stage by Simon Reade.

Set in late 18th-century England, “Pride and Prejudice” concerns Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, who try to find wealthy husbands for their five daughters. At its heart, it is a love story between Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy, an aloof, unmarried wealthy landowner seen by many as having as excessive pride. Who will play Elizabeth has not been revealed.

In real life, Kartheiser is engaged to “Gilmore Girls” alum Alexis Bledel, who appeared on the show as the mentally unstable mistress of Kartheiser’s character. He wouldn’t reveal if a date for the wedding has been made.

“I wouldn’t tell you even if I could,” he said.

(© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

They may not be as ‘twisted’ in name as they used to be but one thing’s certainly for sure — this truck will put an end to your hunger.

The House of Hunger food truck has been around for a couple of years now but what they’re able to do with a tiny kitchen and a hefty menu continues to impress.

Whether it’s elevating Philly sandwiches with their special sauce or giving a twist to your typical hot dog, the staff inside this food truck will ensure you’re both fully fed and fully entertained.

Let’s find out more about this week’s feature.

(credit: CBS)

House Of Hunger
Find them at @houseofhunger and at houseofhunger.com

Owner: Wesley Kaake and Cody Allen

Date the food truck opened: Roughly July 4, 2011.

What kind of food do you serve? Urban comfort food.

Price range of menu: Anywhere from $5 to $12 per meal, depending on what you get.

Hours of operation: Usually on the streets from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., plus various special events.

What was your job before opening the food truck? I did tech support for Apple, for iPhones, iPhone Touch and iPads. The owner of the truck (Wesley) was an administrative assistant for Globe University, until he finished his business degree and then started looking into, originally, a doughnut shop. It evolved and now we have a food truck, not a doughnut shop.

What made you change paths from doughnuts to a food truck? The money. Quite honestly, it was the money. When we first went in for a loan for the doughnut shop, they told us 15 percent down, no problem, we could get the loan. And then we went back a couple months later all ready to go, with all the signatures and they wanted 50 percent, which, if we had that we wouldn’t have needed the loan in the first place. So we started talking about the food truck because the idea had been brought up in meetings with the city, just as an idea to keep in mind, and we did it. We worked on the doughnut shop for about five, five-and-a-half months and then within two weeks after that fell through, we were driving out to Ohio to pick up the truck. So, it went quick. (Laughs)

So from tech support to food trucks, what made you want to get into the culinary business? I’ve always enjoyed cooking and I loved people. I had actually just finished my IT degree the first year, a couple months into our season, so I was, and am still, managing the website, facebook, twitter, all the digital stuff. All the logo work that we’ve done, all of that stuff. So I still get the IT part of it, just not the “have you tried turning it off and back on yet?” We’ve gotten past that stage.

(credit: CBS)

How did you come up with the name? We actually bought it. It came with the truck, we found it. It was originally the Twisted Sister House of Hunger. Come the end of last year or beginning of this year, we’re no longer using the first half — it got censored by the 80s.

And the logo, too? Yep, she came with it. Her name was different. We have changed the name to Kathy, in honor of Wesley’s mom who passed away two weeks before we opened the truck. It was definitely a struggle to get going. He lost his mom and it was a six-month decline so it was very, very difficult but he kept it together. In our very first event, there was a live band playing and they actually sang a song dedicated to Wesley and his mom, in honor of our first day opening when she couldn’t be there. So that was awesome. We’ve had a couple special events where they’ve acknowledged us on stage and we’re like, “Wait, did they just say our name?” We always try to take care of the bands, as well as our customers. They can’t play good music unless they’re well fed.

How is the food prepared? We make it all fresh. If you order a Philly, it will be five minutes because we will be cooking the vegetables fresh. We’ll be toasting the bun as soon as you order it. The fries are obviously cooked to order, because we don’t have a warmer. Everything’s made fresh. We do have a little bit higher of ticket times than other trucks just because we’re pulling it right off the grill to give it to you. There’s only so much you can do with a 24-inch grill. So sometimes that can have a little bit of an effect but we pride ourselves with having a lot of fun with the customers, not only to distract them but to make sure they’re having fun since they’re standing out here with us for 15 minutes or so. We just want everybody to have fun, enjoy the food and kind of make it a thing, instead of “oh hey, let’s go get lunch.” It’s kind of a thing — we’ll walk out of the truck and give people hugs. We have our regulars. We definitely have fun with it.

(credit: CBS)

How did you decide on the menu? It actually has evolved. Our first year, we were doing beef brisket and pulled pork and we were doing it very differently. It was a big, long process. It was a headache. We were, on average, pulling 16-hour days every day, just to be out for lunch. Then early last season, we found a so-much-easier way to do everything and made the decision to eliminate the beef brisket and switch to Phillies, just because steak, cheese on a bun, you can do so many different things. And a lot of the stuff for the Phillies, we already had, so we just changed meat. So it has evolved a little bit.

We just wanted comfortable, urban food that everyone can find something on our menu they like. The hot dogs have been fun, because they’re just deep-fried hot dogs, simple as that. Our first year, people were like, ‘Wait, what? No cornbread, just a hot dog?’ and the second year, they moved on to ‘I don’t get it but it sounds good so I have to try.’ And now this year, we’ve already noticed we’re running out of hot dogs every other day. It’s awesome. I love it. They’re called Rippers, back east, which is where they started. It’s just a sliced up hot dog, we throw it in the deep frier for about a minute and a half and it gets very crispy on the outside and very juicy on the inside. So it’s definitely a bit distinctive. We don’t boil the dogs; they’re made fresh. But people are starting to catch on to them, which is great.

Another thing we’ve added on this year is chicken. We’ve never had chicken before. We brought that in, which we’re loving and our customers are loving. I don’t know why we didn’t do it earlier. It’s one of those, as soon as we tasted that first chicken taco, we thought, ‘Why didn’t we do this two years ago?’

What’s your favorite dish that you serve? I would have to say the Dirrty D, which is a deep-fried hot dog on a bun with pepperjack and cheddar cheese and then you’ve got spiced up pulled pork, bacon and rib-eye steak on top of the hot dog, with our signature polygamy sauce and blue cheese crumbles. It’s intense. It is spicy. It is good. It’s a $9 hot dog but you do get your $9 worth, for sure. Every time I try to eat it, I cannot do that last little bite. So it is a mouthful, especially if you get fries.

(credit: CBS)

Describe your truck in one word: Characteristic.

What’s your craziest story from working at a food truck? Do you have like a week? Because I have a lot of stories. (Laughs) Let’s see, Zombie Pub Crawl last year, my order taker got punched in the face. Just drunk people being stupid outside. We ran out of propane and had to run to Bobby and Steve’s and get their little temporary tanks. Because I wasn’t about to stop serving — there were too many zombies that day.

We did an incredible event our very first year with the Courage Center, which was hosted at the BMW Minnetonka. They actually had — I can’t remember the exact number — but it was 10-12 food trucks actually pulled into the service bay and parked indoors. It was a five-star cuisine event in recognition of Courage Center’s donations that year, all the benefactors, donors and all that. It was just a beautiful, beautiful event — you never would’ve thought it was a car dealership. It was gorgeous. It was incredible. We had so much fun. We still get approached about it. … That was just an incredible night that I will never forget.

We vended a three-day music festival last year. It was the first event that we had where we didn’t take the truck back to restock, to clean, all of that. We packed three days worth of food and could barely move around the truck. But it was incredible. We got to see Nas perform. It was an incredible event and I would totally do it again in a heartbeat.

We catered for an independent movie shoot earlier this year for nine days. Got to meet an Academy Award-winning actress through that, which I can’t say names. (Look for details on their Facebook page in the coming months.) Every day is something. Every day something happens and if it doesn’t, we start to worry. If our generator doesn’t die, if we don’t run out of propane, if something doesn’t work, you know, every day we have to adapt to something new. But that’s fun. I love a challenge. And what better challenge than “oh no, it’s not going to work like that today. You’re going to have to find a different way to do it.” We have fixed things with duct tape and a twist tie. But pretty much we make do with what we have and then have a good story to tell afterwards.

What’s one thing you want people to know about your food truck? If you come to us, have fun. If you come to our truck, have fun. We sing. We dance. … We like to have fun. We like to know our customers have fun and we like to have fun together. So when you come to us, expect to have a little fun and some good food.

Catch the Food Truck Feature every week, in the Curiocity column. Know of a food truck you think should be featured? Let us know by leaving a comment below or tweeting your suggestion to @SaraPelissero!

Abrams’ neo-franchise, now two films deep, should have any fan of the classic Gene Roddenberry series feeling (or, if you’re a Vulcan, thinking) conflicted. On the one hand, the signposts of the beloved cult favorite are all in place — T. Kirk’s swashbuckling arrogance, Spock’s unalloyed constitutional pragmatism, Bones’ overreaching astonishment, Scotty’s accent, Chekov’s accent, Uhura’s Klingon accent — and bolstered by top-notch Hollywood F/X wizardry. On the other hand, so many reference points are only surface deep, like the trappings of a state of the art theme park ride for superfans.

Star Trek: Into Darkness kicks off with a disorienting surge of 3-D action, joining a risky mission in progress, Kirk running through a field as the inhabitants of a primitive alien planet chuck spears at him (looking like nothing so much as the Mayans in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto) while Spock sets off a device to freeze an impending volcano eruption that threatens the planet’s life. The effect of the cold open resembles nothing like Wagon Train, which Roddenberry cited as a primary influence on his creation, and something more on the order of Flash Gordon serials.

The Federation’s prime directive takes a beating from their botched mission, and Kirk gets handed a demotion that lasts a demoralizing 90 seconds, when former Starfleet officer turned terrorist John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) guns down a conclave of the highest-ranking members of the Federation, including Kirk’s mentor and ersatz father figure Christopher Pike.

Starfleet Admiral Alexander Marcus green lights retaliatory action, reinstating a newly vengeful Kirk as captain of the USS Enterprise and directing him to take his crew to Kronos, the Klingon planet to where Harrison has secretly beamed to take refuge. The biggest problem with the mission, as Spock notes, isn’t that their presence near Klingon territory will serve as the tipping point for intergalactic war to break out, but that detonating missiles at a man who has not been taken to stand trial for his actions runs counter to everything the Federation stands for. It’s not an exploratory mission; it’s a military operation.

This kind of ethical revisionism is what fuels the warp core at the center of Abrams’ Star Trek movies. It wasn’t nearly so obvious the first time around, but In Darkness is tactical enough in nature to close out with a tribute message to soldiers who fought after 9/11 and have it not seem like a huge non sequitur. (The sight of a rogue Starfleet super-ship hurtling toward the San Francisco skyline toward the film’s climax also seems calculated to trigger sense-memories of repressed trauma.) Since the Reagan era, Roddeberry’s Trek has always been the humanist, neo-liberal counterbalance to the combat-centric Star Wars universe. Both feature an array of extra-terrestrial figures, often working side-by-side in pursuit of peace. But Trek often attempted to live up to its own mantra “Live long and prosper.”

Abrams’ Star Trek films, for all the undeniably fun kinetic thrills and creamy lens flares they provide, are strictly “Live fast, die young,” and it’s becoming increasingly clear the Trek franchise is boldly going where basically every other action movie circa 2013 has already gone before. This is what it sounds like when Spocks cry.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — It’s Thursday, and that means it’s time to start planning some weekend fun.

This spring weekend offers beer, art and comic books.

American Craft Beer Week

Did you know that it is American Craft Beer Week? Did you know that there are 10,000 minutes in a week? Well, the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild is putting both together for 10,000 Minutes of Minnnesota Craft Beer through Sunday.

Festivals and beer samplings span the state, from Lake Superior to northeast Minneapolis.

State Fairgrounds Comic Book Show

Fans will converge on the Minnesota State Fairgrounds this week for the Midwest Comic Book Association’s SpringCon. More than 225 comic book creators are expected at this year’s event.

And SpringCon opens to the public on Saturday morning. The celebration will happen under the Grandstand big top.

Art-A-Whirl In Northeast Minneapolis

This weekend is also Art-A-Whir. It has become the largest weekend-long open studio tour in the country.

Approximately 30,000 visitors are expected at 70 locations throughout Northeast Minneapolis, including studio buildings, art galleries, homes and more.

The zoo is partnering with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resource to conserve the North American Plains bison. The calves are the first bison calves born at the Apple Valley zoo in 20 years.

Bison have been exhibited at the Minnesota Zoo since 1980. But this past year the zoo has been working with the DNR to cooperatively manage a bison herd at Minnesota state parks and at an exhibition at the zoo.

A herd of nearly 100 bison currently lives at Blue Mounds State Park in southwestern Minnesota. Testing has confirmed that herd is nearly genetically identical to bison that existed prior to European settlement.

Plans call for releasing the zoo’s two new calves into Minnesota state parks in fall 2014.

(© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Five new comedies and three new dramas will help build on the strength of America’s top-rated network. Five of the new series will premiere in the fall and three at mid-season.

For next fall, the Network is increasing its comedy lineup with four new comedies, expanding its comedy block on Thursdays from 8:00-10:00 PM and creating an encore hour for comedy broadcasts on Saturdays.

PHOTOS: CBS 2014 Prime Time Shows

The new comedies are “The Crazy Ones” from executive producer David E. Kelley starring Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar; “The Millers”, a multi-generational family comedy from executive producer Greg Garcia starring Will Arnett, Margo Martindale, Beau Bridges and JB Smoove; “Mom”, an edgy family comedy from executive producer Chuck Lorre starring Anna Faris and Allison Janney; and “We Are Men”, an ensemble comedy starring Tony Shalhoub, Kal Penn, Chris Smith and Jerry O’Connell.

Two new dramas have been scheduled for Mondays at 10:00 p.m. “Hostages”, the serialized suspense thriller from executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer starring Toni Collette and Dylan McDermott, premieres in the fall, building to a season finale in January. Soon after, “Intelligence”, a high-octane action drama starring Josh Holloway, Marg Helgenberger and Meghan Ory, moves into the time period for the remainder of the season.

The freshman series will be joined by 20 returning shows including “NCIS”, the season’s most watched show; “The Big Bang Theory”, the season’s #1 comedy in viewers and demos; “60 MINUTES”, the season’s #1 news magazine; and “Elementary”, the season’s #1 new drama.

The other returning series include: “How I Met Your Mother”, “2 Broke Girls”, “NCIS: Los Angeles”, “Person of Interest”, “Survivor”, “Criminal Minds”, “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”, “Two And A Half Men”, “Undercover Boss”, “Hawaii Five-O”, “Blue Bloods”, “48 HOURS”, “The Amazing Race”, “The Good Wife” and “The Mentalist”.

In addition, the proven hit returning comedy “Mike & Molly, starring Academy Award nominee Melissa McCarthy and Billy Gardell; the new steamy legal drama “Reckless”; and the new romantic comedy “Friends With Better Lives” are set for mid-season.

(credit: CBS)

We’ve scoured the map and narrowed down the choices for this year’s Goin’ To The Lake trip!

WCCO-TV will be hitting the lakes again from June 10-14 and we want your suggestions for where we should go.

Here’s the schedule:

June 10: Grand Rapids

June 11: Alexandria

June 12: Deerwood

June 13: Chetek, Wis.

June 14: Lanesboro

We need your input! Tell us where we should go at each stop — do you have a favorite restaurant in Chetek? Know of a great museum in Grand Rapids? Let us know!

Leave a suggestion in the comments section or e-mail us!

E-mail a suggestion for Grand Rapids

E-mail a suggestion for Alexandria

E-mail a suggestion for Deerwood

E-mail a suggestion for Chetek, Wis.

E-mail a suggestion for Lanesboro

• Watch 2013 ‘Goin’ To The Frozen Lake’ Segments

• Watch Summer 2012 ‘Goin’ To The Lake’ Segments

If there’s one person that’s critical about the work that Chef Isaac Becker has done over the years, it’s probably Isaac Becker.

The James Beard Award-winning owner of 112 Eatery, Bar La Grassa and Burch seems like he’d have plenty to gloat about but he said he’s a bit more “glass half empty” about his success.

And perhaps that’s what keeps the chef so focused. He’s not going to pull out every trick in the book to knock your socks off and he won’t take any time to pat himself on the back, but what he will do is one of the reasons he’s accomplished so much in this industry.

His focus has been and will continue to be on the customer — ensuring those that choose to dine with him and his staff have an experience they’ll enjoy.

It’s what made somewhat simple choices — late night dining, fun and comforting food — award-winning and highly desirable to Twin Cities diners.

As we learned in Part 1 of our chef’s profile, Becker started in this business at a young age and never really intended to make a lifelong career out of it. Three restaurants later, he and his wife (and co-owner) are enjoying the ride of a lifetime.

In Part 2, Chef Becker chats about that momentous moment when he won his James Beard Award and we find out about his love of ramen noodles, among other guilty pleasures.

——-

You’ve talked about staying inspired and getting ideas through an array of cookbooks and reading. Do you have any go-to cookbooks? What kinds of cookbooks do you gravitate towards?
A lot of times the book I dig through depends on what I’m looking for, like if I’m looking for vegetables. I’ve been pouring over “Vegetable Literacy” by Deborah Madison. It’s great. I don’t really have any books that I go to every time anymore. The ones I did have I’ve gone back to so many times I’ve worn them out.

What else motivates you as a chef?
What’s interesting is that, we’re opening Burch so I have to be here a lot. Being in the restaurant all the time in a way is an inspiration because you’re just here so much that your world has become the food and what you’re doing. Whereas, when things get easier at your restaurant and you can move away from them, it becomes hard to create and inspire because you’re not there as much. I think that’s part of the reason I wanted to do this restaurant (Burch) because I kind of started feeling like, well, it’s getting too easy for me to not spend a lot of time at the restaurants. The guys that are running them are doing such a good job and are very talented and it’s tempting not to go home early if you can, or come in later if you can and no one’s going to tell you otherwise. So for here, being in this again, I mean the intensity of this is inspiring in and of itself.

(credit: CBS)

You met your wife at D’Amico Cucina when you were on the line and she was waiting tables. Do your kids have any interest in the restaurant business?
I don’t know. My oldest now, he’s 16, he’s like me. He loves music; he plays four different instruments and I think he’s kind of getting more curious to what’s going on. You know, we never made him work here or anything like that. So I don’t know. We’ll see. Maybe when he gets into college or gets a job. I’m not sure I want him to be in the restaurant business, you know. Late nights.

When you opened La Grassa, after successfully opening 112, were you more confident going into that venture that it’d be a success?
No, I never feel like I’ve got it figured out. I don’t ever think, “meh, check it off the list.” There’s always something that I’m freaking out about. It’s funny because I’m kind of a negative person by nature so I can dwell on negatives. If something good happens, it’s like “yay” but then I go right back to … I wish I could be as happy when something good happens that I am mad when something bad happens. But I never feel like “mission accomplished” ever. Never.

But what about the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest.
That was good. That was a happy day. That was great. That was a lot of fun.

What was that experience like?
It was great. It was one of the best things that’s ever happened in my life. I’ve never won anything. To win something like that, it was incredible. It’s like, it’s hard to describe the stress, I mean, I sound like I’m whining but I was nominated four years in a row. By the third year, I kind of wanted to win. I didn’t win the third year – Alex (Roberts) won and I love Alex but I didn’t win. The fourth year, there’s nothing that tells you “you’re the guy, you’re the winner,” there’s no reason why you’d think it’s yours.

They say, “OK, Midwest” and then they list off the names of the chefs and restaurants and there’s five or six of them. But you know, the one guy – I can’t remember his name – but they said his name and there’s this big roar in the crowd. Then they said my name and it was dead silence. No one knows who I am, you know. And I was like, “Uhhh, he’s going to win. Listen to that crowd.” And then they called my name and it was just like, I swear I thought I was in a dream. I grabbed Nancy and we walked across the stage and I remember thinking, “What if they change their mind?” (Laughs) Besides the joy of winning, it was like the biggest relief for me to just get that out of my system.

And to be recognized for a restaurant that you put so much hard work into and that’s flourishing …
Yeah, it’s great. I can’t pretend that it’s not. It’s been great for the restaurant. I feel like it legitimized me a little more in some people’s eyes. It’s for sure a highlight.

(credit: CBS)

So moving on to a lighter side. What would you say is your biggest guilty pleasure food?
Ooh, I got a couple. I really like ramen noodles. I like those. They’re really cheap. Also Kowalski’s has this chicken cashew wrap that I get every once in a while because I can eat it in my car. I can’t resist a couple of hot pizza rolls when my son and his friends are having them.

When you and your wife are at home, what do you like to cook for your family or friends?
I cook for my kids and my wife, we cook, but we don’t entertain very much. My wife is actually the better cook in the house. She makes great lasagna, great meatballs, tacos – she makes things the kids really love. Mine are so … I have a hard time because there’s only a few things that I make that they like and they barely like them at all.

When you’re out of the kitchen, what’s your favorite pastime?
Nothing. I used to like golfing but I don’t golf anymore.

I think I read this already but are sardines the one ingredient that you would prefer never to work with again? Or something else?
Well I haven’t had a fresh sardine that I’ve liked yet. I know that they’re … chefs like them and foodies like them but I haven’t had a good one. Maybe the ones I’ve had aren’t fresh but I don’t like them. I would try them again if I knew exactly when they got out of the water and got to me but I just haven’t had one that I’ve liked. I’d never say that I refuse to work with it but I’d want to know some specifics.

On the flip side, is there an ingredient you find yourself constantly drawn to?
I’ve really been focusing on vegetables lately. I really like the process of curing them with salts and eating them kind of raw but salted.

If you had to choose a “Last Meal,” what would it be?
Probably steak. Red wine and steak.

Where are some of your favorite places to dine?
We go to Quang probably once a week. It’s kind of embarrassing how much we go there. We have lunch at Lucia’s. I like Bachelor Farmer. We don’t go out a ton, we go to lunch a lot. That’s probably about it.

What are your thoughts on the Twin Cities restaurant scene? How have you seen it evolve?
I think more than anything, there’s just a lot more choices. There’s a larger quantity because the choices in the early 90s when I started working, there was maybe three or four restaurants that were big.

When you look back on your career, what do you hope to be known for, in the culinary world?
I guess an honest chef. Someone that’s cooking for the right reasons, cooking to make food that tastes good that customers will enjoy. Not trying to impress … I guess just honesty. Being an honest chef. I feel like there’s a tendency with some cooks who make things that aren’t concerned with the enjoyment of the customers. They’re just concerned with “look what I can do,” they’re thinking about them, not the customer. I think it should always be, the eating and dining experience should always be about the customer. This new thing with who’s the chef, what’s he doing, all that is … when I started cooking, no one could give a rip who the chef was. Within the industry, people knew who certain people were, who the chefs were but the diners and customers didn’t care what the guy cooking’s name was or where in New York he worked. I’m tired of that. I think that we should go back to that. We should care what the customer’s experience is. When I go out to dinner, I don’t care who the chef is. I’m not there for that. That’s not why I got into this. I guess I’d like to be known as someone who got into this because I wanted to be, because I wanted to cook and make good food and not because I wanted to be a famous chef.

Click here for Part 1 of our chef chat with Isaac Becker. For more information on his restaurants, click on the following links: 112 Eatery | Bar La Grassa | Burch

Here are my choices for the best Twin Cities screenings for cinephiles this week:

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Wednesday, May 15: Stories We Tell (Walker Art Center)

For one night only, the Walker presents Sarah Polley’s documentary inquisition into her own tangled family history. Polley talks with her father and four siblings to get the full story of what Polley’s mother was like. (She died when the actress was 11 years old.)

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Thursday, May 16: A Star Is Born (Heights Theater)

Her most famous role remains Dorothy Gale in the 1939 MGM musical The Wizard of Oz, but if you ask most Judy Garland fans for their pick as her movie peak, they’ll likely opt for her powerhouse performance from the 1954 version of A Star is Born. The movie was a remake of a Janet Gaynor-Frederic March vehicle from the ’30s. In the remake, Garland stars as Esther Blodgett, an up-and-coming singing sensation whose career takes off just as her superstar husband’s career nosedives into failure and alcoholism. Garland attacked the role of Blodgett with the force of the tornado that leveled the Gale farmstead. Whether the onslaught of acting came as a result of prescriptions or the fact that she was working simpatico with her then-husband Sid Luft (who was producing the film) and director George Cukor (who directed at least some portion of her performance in Oz), or because she was finally given material with some juicy dramatic gravitas, the fact remains that this performance represents Ground Zero for Garland’s legion of fans, one which retroactively resonates with faint allusions to Garland’s own life experience. The performance remains one of the most disappointing Oscar losses in history.

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Friday, May 17 through Sunday, May 19: Bigger Than Life (Trylon Microcinema)

James Mason’s bustin’ out all over. From A Star Is Born to this, Nicholas Ray’s excoriating examination of a family man giving himself over to prescription drugs. The script suggests the pills take control of Mason’s Ed Avery, but Ray’s direction and Mason’s typically austere performance indicate Bigger Than Life is tackling bigger demons than Big Pharma. Equal parts Father Knows Best and Requiem for a Dream, the blunt shock of the film boils down to three immortal words: “God was wrong.”

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Friday, May 17 & Saturday, May 18: Post Tenebras Lux (Walker Art Center)

Carlos Reygadas continues to stake out his place among the most discussed — and, in some cases, loathed — auteurs currently at the nexus of world cinema. His latest, 2012′s Post Tenebras Lux, was reportedly given the Cannes shoulder last spring. Of course, that puts it in extremely good company. More on this one a little later this week.

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Friday, May 17 through Thursday, May 23: Bert Stern: Original Madman & The Reluctant Fundamentalist (St. Anthony Main Theater)

A pair of extended plays for movies that have screened in the Twin Cities recently. OK, maybe not so recently in the case of Bert Stern, which ran at the 2012 MSPIFF. Here’s what I wrote back then: “Stern was one of the foremost image-makers of the jet-setting early 1960s, changed the direction of photography, and inched the two discrete worlds of art and commerce ever closer together. His campaign for Smirnoff turned Cold War America onto Russia’s dominant tippler of choice. His photo shoot of Marilyn Monroe — the star’s last, as it turned out, as she died mere weeks later — is the stuff of legend. His lollipop-sucking one-sheet for Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 masterpiece Lolita is as indelible an image as any Kubrick himself managed.” And Jonathon Sharp just reviewed The Reluctant Fundamentalist, saying “One theme that springs forth from the movie is that fundamentalism (of any religion or creed or business practice) leads to tragedy. Another, which goes hand-in-hand to the one just mentioned, is that people are more than what they seem. Every individual is a confluence of various forces and ideas, mashed-up, perhaps with parts in contradiction to others. Without understanding this, the movie shows, all sorts of inhuman stuff goes down in the name of businesses, nations and gods.”

More than 225 comic book creators are expected at this year’s comic book carnival.

The event opens to the public at 10 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Admission is $12 per adult, good for both days. Children 9 and under are free. A canned food donation knocks $1 off admission.

(© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

The “Love is Law” concert will start around 6 p.m., beginning with a procession from the Capitol lawn to downtown St. Paul – led by the Minnesota Freedom Band.

Other acts include the Jack Brass Band, DJ Jake Rudh, H$B, Zoo Animal, P.O.S., the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus, Chan Poling and Friends (The Suburbs) and other special guests.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman will be in attendance.

After Gov. Dayton signs the bill, Minnesota will be the 12th state in the nation to allow gay marriage.

Minneapolis native Danny McHugh will be among the rock concert cast otherwise known as “Rock of Ages,” which kicks off Friday at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis.

McHugh is no stranger to the Minnesota theater scene — he’s been in everything from CATS to Jesus Christ Superstar at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre.

Now, he’s living in the 80s, covered in acid wash and ready to rock the Minneapolis stage.

McHugh chatted with us about the tour, coming home and what it’s like starring in a show — and touring — with his sister.

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Tell us a little about Rock of Ages – and the character you play.

Its a jukebox musical featuring the best rock songs of the 1980s. These are the songs that everyone knows all the words to when they come on at a bar or at karaoke. I play a character named Joey Primo, who becomes the lead singer of a made-up monster rock band called Arsenal. He’s an exaggerated amalgamation of the lead singers of all the best 80s rock bands.

You’re originally from Minneapolis, what’s the best part of coming home to perform?

Being on tour can be tough because you’re away from your friends and family for months at a time. On our time off from the show, I’ll come home and tell people about what I’m doing and what show I’m in. This will be the first time that the people I care about will get to actually experience it for themselves and I’m very excited to share it with them.

You had experiences on local stages before making it big, what were some of your favorite memories from working in the local theater community?

When I was 19, I took a year off from college when I booked my first professional gig at Chanhassen Dinner Theater. The show was “Cats” and it was a huge eight-month contract. I took the gig because I wanted to know if I really wanted/could be a performer for a living. I was so happy to find that the Twin Cities theater community is full of talented, hard working and dedicated actors that really inspired me. With a lot of great real world experience, I was very excited to go back to school for more training and get back out in the professional world as soon as possible.

(credit: Scott Suchman)

With a show like this, which is basically a big rock concert, how difficult is it to approach each night, each city with the same level of energy?

Our on-stage band is so incredible, all I need is to hear the opening guitar riff and my energy level is all set for the show. It really helps pump me up. Also, the energy from the audience is a major help on those two-show days at the end of the week.

You star alongside your sister in this show. What’s it like to tour together? Do you enjoy having a sibling along for the ride?

It’s been really great! Fortunately, both of us have been working since we each graduated college, but our jobs have taken us all over the world and away from each other. This is a rare opportunity to be able to be employed and be in the same place.

Since the “Rock of Ages” movie came out, have the audiences changed or grown at all? Have you noticed a larger interest?

I think the movie and the stage show are two separate entities. The tie that binds is the great music, but for me, you can’t quite beat the energy of a live show where audience interaction is paramount. Our audiences have remained pretty much the same throughout because I think if you’d be a fan of the movie, (and at its heart, the music), then you’d love the stage show.

What is the best part of being in this cast?

Getting paid to see the country while doing something I love, and sharing the stage with my little sister!

You’ll have a short run when you’’re home in Minneapolis, what pitch would you give to get audiences to come see the show?

It’s rock concert with comedy, dancing and a big heart.

Rock of Ages will be in Minneapolis from May 17-19 for five shows. Tickets ($34-$94) are still available. For ticket info. or more information, click here.

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Years and years ago, the novelist Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita, Pale Fire)  published bits of his autobiography Speak, Memory as fiction in the New Yorker. By thus messing with the magazine’s editors and audience, the beloved butterfly expert likely had more than a little fun passing off his childhood memories as the stuff of fantasy.

In the House, the latest movie written and directed by François Ozon, plays with this same idea: that of obscuring the line between what’s fiction and what’s real.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not a “docudrama” like Caesar Must Die (which is incredible and, by the way, playing at St. Anthony Main). Ozon’s movie is, on the other hand, a fiction about fictions, a story about stories, which also touches on the issues of family life, class, control and voyeurism. It’s playful in its telling,  and the constant twists (re-writes on the film’s reality) lend the film something of a thriller quality. It’s also kind of funny.

So here’s the story. Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is a high school composition teacher generally underwhelmed with his school and his students. But one boy, Claude (Ernst Umhauer), gets his attention when he hands in his first homework assignment. In it, the blonde, cat-faced boy writes about befriending a popular kid so as to gain entry into his big, mysterious, middle-class house.

Germain and his wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) become entranced by the story. Immediately, they start analyzing it, questioning whether parts  – like Claude sneaking through the house, admiring his friend’s mother — are true or made up; and they also discuss if it’s moral of him to write  about his “friend” in a such a chastising, discreet way.

And Claude’s next assignment (on adjectives) picks up where the first left off. Germain, unable to resist the writing, which has become spicier, gobbles it up and becomes something of a writing coach to the kid. He helps him shape his work — create drama, build tension, make characters believable, real, human. What the teacher doesn’t control is the story’s direction — that’s all under Claude’s command.

This is where Claude comes to resemble Humbert Humbert, the narrator of Lolita whom the reader can’t trust. The teen becomes aware of the grip his talent has on his teacher, and he uses that to somewhat sinister, self-indulgent and weirdly creative means. I won’t spoil any twists, but I will say that they hit story beats with a pleasing, unusual timing. The result is mesmerizing.

Problems one might find with the movie is that its premise is unbelievable. No kid, no total rookie could write like that. Moreover, no teacher would go so crazy about it. There were times when I thought such things while watching In the House, but the actors’ performances combined with Ozon’s smart pacing dissolved such thoughts almost as soon as they bubbled up.

And thus Ozon pulls off the movie’s most admirable feat: that of artfully telling on screen a story about telling stories. He shows that composition is key as he confuses you one moment and then fills you in the next…and then does it all over again. He’s such a master that when I recently saw a list of the films at Cannes, I couldn’t help feeling enthusiasm when I saw — and tried to pronounce — the loud, blunt vowels of his short surname. In other words: This guy knows how to tell a story, see his movies.

In the House is playing at the Edina Cinema.

Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! was a potent but artistically irresponsible shot of absinthe. For every person that couldn’t stand the too-eager mess, there was another who fell into deep intoxication at every Looney Tunes, theater geek flourish.

Luhrmann’s entire “red curtain” aesthetic — silent-film mugging juxtaposed flagrantly against sonically hyperactive pop music tapestries, po-faced disposal of irony even as every 20th century signpost gets chucked into the blender, densely layered production design rendered into nothing more than abstract textures from hyperactive editing, like a Sam Peckinpah adaptation of Hello, Dolly! — offers viewers no other option but to presume they’re either being slapped or tickled. Those who have an affection for both find themselves thrown into a deep purple ambivalence, respecting the affront but relatively certain everyone exhibiting more enthusiasm is submitting to an unhealthful life plan.

In short, Moulin Rouge‘s fans were an annoying lot, but the movie itself was at least 160 proof Luhrmann, the real stuff. His long overdue follow-up (which, as the world seems ready to do with regard to Daft Punk’s Human After All in anticipation of Random Access Memories, presumes everyone is just going to pretend Australia didn’t happen) is burned gin, literature from the rail.

Nearly everyone has read The Great Gatsby, Minnesota-native F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most obvious candidate for The Great American Novel, and most of them who have likely read it too early, odds being that most students who made it to high school without flunking or dropping out have only a limited grasp on the novel’s theme of retrospective failure and the inability to turn back the clock. (In contrast, rage against the machine classics One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Catcher in the Rye always play particularly well among teens.)

Luhrmann’s $120 million adaptation of the story of a self-made mogul who amassed, adjusted for inflation, approximately $120 billion can’t make up its mind whether to revere the novel or to desecrate it, so it half-heartedly tries to do both. Fan of barnstorming, unfaithful literary adaptations that I am (two words: The Shining), I wish Luhrmann had given it up and just admitted that he was drawn to the material’s potential for candy corny flapper frippery. Yes, there’s a lot of screen time devoted to gold lame, pearls to twirl, CGI shots of an obsessively low-rise Manhattan skyline, exactingly choreographed servants, lumpy flappers jutting their gams out in all sorts of passé angles. And true, Luhrmann still hasn’t met a grotesque reaction shot he didn’t feel like slamming into the fold.

But Luhrmann doesn’t seem to comprehend that the entire novel was filtered through the first-person descriptions of an observer who, on page one, claims to haven’t a judgmental bone in his body … and then spends the next 180 pages or so bringing prodigious superficiality to vivid life. The tension between new and old money is crucial, and instead Luhrmann turns the tale of Nick Carraway into one big flashback about a mopey wallflower battling depression and, on the advice of his psychologist, turning it into typewriter art.

Would that Luhrmann have given into his own indulgences with greater abandon. I’ve already seen a few reviewers compare The Great Gatsby to the great Gatsby, the man who had all the ambition in the world, so long as it served his own image of himself. The only thing preventing that assessment from being devastatingly accurate is that at least Jay Gatsby had a Daisy to chase. Luhrmann’s green light in making Gatsby is nothing more than the reflection in a shallow mirror. And with now a dozen years separating his last signature film from this hollow mess, he indeed knows that time waits for no one.

Wine Fest is an annual tradition that’s been going on for 17 years, and it’s a fundraiser for the University of Minnesota’s Amplatz Children’s Hospital. Since 1995, this food and wine sampling event has raised more than $10 million to advance pediatric research.

Tickets are $100, and they’ll be trying to set a Guinness world record for the most people uncorking wine simultaneously. The previous record was set in 2012 by a hotel management school, with 362 people.

Wine Fest organizers are hoping to break that record with 500 people involved. They’re asking tonight’s attendees to come prepared to uncork a bottle of wine in 30 seconds. The event starts at 5:15 p.m. at the Depot in Minneapolis.

(Note: My review of the film, which opens this weekend in Minneapolis, can be found here.)

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Henderson: You have a longstanding working relationship with director Ken Loach. A lot of your earlier films are of a more serious nature than this film and maybe Looking for Eric. Is there a conscious turn toward a more humorous approach to making films?

Laverty: The last film we did before this one was a very tough one, and uncompromising tragedy with mercenaries returning from Iraq. That was a very dark, difficult story. So we wanted to try a different tone. We did a couple of films in Glasgow — My Name is Joe and Sweet Sixteen — that had comic moments in them but were also tragic. And this one has a lot of comic moments in it but could easily have been tragic, if you know what I mean.

Henderson: How do you find yourself balancing the comic aspects of the film with what’s still a pretty serious social situation?

Laverty: It’s always a question of judgement and trying to be true to the premise. We started the story off with a bunch of young lads who were petty criminals. Robbie, the main character, has been involved in a series of assault and escaped prison by the skin of his teeth. We spent time with these kids, who come from tough backgrounds, and they’re actually full of mischief and fun. They’re angry and frustrated, but it’s pretty fun to be with them. I wanted to try and capture that in a script, and then also mix in a little bit of whiskey. In many ways, (whiskey) is one of Scotland’s biggest exports, apart from oil. It’s the so-called drink of the sophisticated business class. I was just reading in the Los Angeles Times a bottle recently sold for $465,000. It’s just absolutely bonkers. Many of these kids from Scotland have never tasted their own “national drink.” They’ve never been to the places where it’s distilled. I love the contradiction in that. And then Harry teaches Robbie some of the finer things in life; he develops (Robbie’s) palate. From a screenwriter’s point of view, there were a lot of levels there.

Henderson: There’s definitely an interesting dichotomy within the whiskey itself.

Laverty: Many of the kids have never tried whiskey in their lives. It’s always cheap vodka or cheap wines. They get pissed really quickly.

Henderson: So, what gets your vote for the finest whiskey?

Laverty: (Laughing) Oh, it was a great sacrifice to go into these distilleries, Eric. Somebody’s got to make the sacrifice. There’s lots of terrific whiskeys, really. One which is very, very nice is from the island of Islay, which is peaty but not lumpy. There’s one called Bowmore, which is very, very nice. On the other side of the coast, there’s a little one called Glenmorangie. In the south of Scotland there’s only one distillery, but I’d like to mention it: Bladnoch. It’s a little-known one, but it’s a lovely distillery. Half the fun of this was seeing these little distilleries in the countryside.

Jake Dilley – The Color Pharmacy

With music, most people have a differing and constantly evolving mindset on what makes a certain artist/band interesting. That part’s pretty obvious, I know. For me, besides a gripping melody, what interests me is an overarching message that stands out among the crowd. I like a “hook,” so to speak, but one that shares an honest, profound message — or experience — with the listener.

The Color Pharmacy’s hook, described by front man Jake Dilley, is to “create a different environment for the listener and viewer where they are momentarily taken out of their element” and create a “loss of control without feeling out of control.”

That’s quite … rad.

The trio accomplishes that hook in their newly released self-title album, The Color Pharmacy, by weaving a rich variety of sounds/colors utilizing energetic vocals, rich (and near-perfect) harmonies, dreamy guitar parts and a driving, solid rhythm section.

Where the road leads now for the emerging band is anyone’s guess. Dilley believes the band has “turned a corner” and just the fact that people are coming out and enjoying their music, well, “that’s about as good as we can hope for,” Dilley said.

So, take a few minutes and check out the our very first “Local Music Tap” video feature, as well as the “4 Questions, 4 Answers” segment with Dilley, below!

Video Feature

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4 Questions, 4 Answers

Q: Howdy dudes! Let’s get right into it. What do you like most about the Minneapolis music scene?

A: Honestly, we’ve been all over the Midwest and certain other parts of the country and I have yet to find one that’s this great. We also really like Austin, Texas as well. It’s a great music scene. Here, there’s healthy competition but it’s not, for the most part, bad blood. There’s a lot of really great bands here and seems that every bill we get to play on, at least one or all of the bands are really solid. That’s more than we can say for a lot of other places in the country – you’re lucky to find really great acts.

We’ve watched certain bands get really good here and there are other really new bands springing up, these brand new bands with really young people – it’s really scary.

Q: I see that you guys apparently tracked your new album at The Pearl Studios in only four days. That’s pretty impressive … what kind of preparation goes into that condensed work?

A: There was extensive pre-production for that. We worked with our producer Mark Schwandt, who used to play in White Light Riot with Dan (Larsen – the bassist). We got together a number of months before we started recording. We did a lot of demos going into it so we could go into the Pearl and give it to Zach Hollander and show them what we’re trying to do and show them that these are the songs the way we like them, you know, expand on them … from there, it was really just a calibration thing, because we all knew what it should sound like, so getting it to sound like that was something that we just had to work together on.

It was a really fun process … it was really hot, too! It was last August and they didn’t have air conditioning up there (laughs).

Q: Your new “Aperture” video, featuring a woman w/ a blue umbrella walking/interactive with Minneapolis landmark, is pretty great … How did that all come together? Where’d the idea come from?

A: We had seen some “tilt/shift” footage before and we were all big fans of that miniature world it creates. So, our good friend, Jimmy Morrison, and I got together to try to figure out how to actually do it. As soon as we figured out the logistics of it, it was just a matter of, “OK, now how do we create a loose narrative without being too overt. A lot of music videos that made in Minneapolis really exploit it and I didn’t want to exploit Minneapolis. There were a lot of places that we were able to find that people didn’t even know were here. We tried to stay away from the major places, even though we definitely went to the Mall of America (laughs), but that was because it was just too good to pass up. Seeing that roller coaster looking like it’s miniature was pretty cool.

But the idea of the girl with the red coat and blue umbrella, we wanted something that was going to be colorful and visually striking that could kind of be like a “Where’s Waldo?” for somebody that’s watching it. We wanted that to occur in every shot and we didn’t realize until later that there was a way to string it together to make it actually make sense for people that live here and see that, wow, that actually could have been the day in the life of someone in Minneapolis.

Q: You describe your band’s music as representing “synesthesia,” which is when the brain mixes senses, i.e. hearing sounds elicits a color response. Could you describe that further and also describe what your lyrics represent?

A:Our newest album is a lot more positive, lyrically, than things we’ve done in the past. I think that is due, in large part, to me being in a more positive head space than ever before and writing from that standpoint. A good portion of the lyrics of our latest record center around the theme of hope and what it is to anticipate something exciting and new around the corner, even if the only proof you have is instinctual.

Specifically, songs like Cast of Characters, Airplane Song, May, and Phosphorescent are about sensing a certain kind of energy in the air. Sometimes, this energy comes from other people or outside forces, but for the most part it is the recognition of an energy inside ourselves that emits through everything we do.

This is a somewhat synesthetic experience as well, in that non-physical phenomena are being received and understood by a sort of “sixth sense” and that a great deal of information is being communicated and exchanged between separate entities in nontraditional ways.

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Check out their website, Facebook, Bandcamp and YouTube.

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Local Music Tap is a new blog aimed at promoting Minnesota-based musicians, bands and shows. If you have music blog ideas, please email cepremo@wcco.com or leave a comment below. Also, follow the Local Music Tap on Twitter and on YouTube.

This will be Harris’ fourth time hosting the Tonys. Previously, Harris served as the host of the 63rd, 65th and 66th Annual Tony Awards. As he did in 2012, Harris will also act as a producer, along with executive producers Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss of White Cherry Entertainment.

Of course, the Emmy Award winner excitingly announced his returning role at the awards with a joke.

“[The show will] be more impressive than ever – if my math is correct, it will be 267 times bigger than last year,” said Harris. “Oh, wait. No, that can’t…hold on…carry the one…I’m awful at math. But rest assured, the show will rock!”

“We are thrilled that Neil will be joining us, once again, at Radio City Music Hall to host THE 67TH ANNUAL TONY AWARDS,” said Charlotte St. Martin, Executive Director of The Broadway League and Heather Hitchens, Executive Director of the American Theatre Wing. “Neil’s creativity and passion for Broadway shines through when he is on the stage and off – and we cannot wait to see what surprises Neil will have up his sleeves!”

The 67th Annual Tony Awards will be broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 9 at 8:00 p.m. on CBS. For full coverage of the Awards, check out CBSNewYork’s web exclusive coverage.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – It’s Thursday, and that means it’s time to start planning some weekend fun! It will be a busy few days, too. Saturday is the fishing opener and Sunday is Mother’s Day. Here are your best bets for the weekend.

Omnifest
The Science Museum’s popular giant screen film festival is back and starts Saturday. Omnifest will feature classics like “Tornado Alley” and Jane Goodall’s “Wild Chimpanzees.” All films air on a 90-foot domed screen through June 20.

Valleyfair
Valleyfair also opens this weekend. The season starts Saturday with more than 75 rides, a water park, Planet Snoopy and the new Dinosaurs Alive. You can experience the sights and sounds of more than 30 life-sized animated dinosaurs.

Como Conservatory: Mother’s Day Bonsai Show
Still looking for Mother’s Day plans? Head to the Como Zoo conservatory Saturday and Sunday for the Mother’s Day Weekend Bonsai Show. It’s an opportunity to see privately-owned bonsai in the Conservatory’s brand new bonsai home, The Ordway Gardens.

The 69-day race schedule is the longest for the Shakopee track since 2006. The meet runs until Sept. 14.

This year, weeknight racing begins at 6:30 p.m., a half-hour earlier than past seasons. Racing on weekends and holidays begins at 1:30 p.m.

Canterbury’s season opens May 17 with a three-day racing weekend. The Friday opening will feature the $50,000 Lady Slipper Stakes, followed by Saturday’s $50,000 10,000 Lakes Stakes, as well as a simulcast of the Preakness Stakes.

The track will unveil a new infield tote board on opening night. The new tote board offers 200 feet of digital information and an 800-square-foot video screen — nearly twice the size of what it replaced. A video board also has been installed in the paddock area.

(© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

The Orchestra canceled the final two weeks of the 2012-2013 season Wednesday, because of its continuing labor dispute.

But it also proposed new bargaining dates — May 20 to 22 — saying that if the negotiations succeeded, they could have a three-concert summer season.

The musicians union will respond to that request in the next couple days.

“Saturday Night Live’s” Hans and Franz creators Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon will be joined by fellow “SNL” alum Dennis Miller for a triple bill show on August 22.

The State Fair also announced two other concerts had been added to this summer’s slate.

“The Happy Together Tour” will feature The Turtles with Flo & Eddie, Chuck Negron (of Three Dog Night), Gary Puckett & the Union Gap, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, and Mark Lindsay (ex-lead singer of Paul Revere & the Raiders). That show will be at the Grandstand Monday, August 26.

On Friday, August 30, the “Minnesota Music-on-a-Stick” concert will present Trampled by Turtles, Mason Jennings and The Chalice.

Tickets for all three of these shows go on sale Saturday, May 18.

Other concerts that have already been announced include shows from Depeche Mode, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Tim McGraw, and the Walker Art Center’s Internet Cat Video Festival.