Andrea Swensson is a host and writer at Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current, where she helms The Local Show, a weekly show dedicated to exploring the Minnesota music scene, and the O.K. Show podcast, which investigates the intersection between music and wellness.
Andrea has been covering Minnesota music actively since 2005. Prior to joining MPR she was the music editor of City Pages, where she founded the AAN AltWeekly Award-winning Gimme Noise music blog, and edited and contributed to online music sites Reveille Magazine and HowWasTheShow.com.
You can hear Andrea when she hosts The Current’s Local Show every Sunday night from 6 to 8 p.m.
This month, Dessa is preparing to release her new memoir, My Own Devices, in which she shares the very personal stories behind many of her best-known songs and offers poignant reflections on love, heartbreak, and her life on the road. In the first portion of this interview, Dessa and I discussed her long on-and-off relationship with the…
Have you ever been so hung up on an old flame that you’ve contemplated using experimental brainwave technology to extract your love for them from your thoughts, Eternal Sunshine-style? Or wondered what it would be like to tour, perform, and make art alongside someone who you know you can no longer be with but who nevertheless…
Musicians, writers, and hosts from the Current are taking over the Local Show this fall for a special run of 12 guest-hosted episodes, beginning Sunday, September 16.
To mark the release of their sophomore album 'Lightning Round,' Bad Bad Hats played their first headlining show at First Avenue - and stopped by The Current to record a session for the Local Show.
Bad Bad Hats return with their sophomore record 'Lightning Round,' out now on Afternoon Records.
Your Smith has been cocooned in the studio for a while now, writing music and metamorphosing from Caroline Smith to her new persona. She visited The Current in the midst of it all, performing a Caroline Smith favorite and some of her best new music as Your Smith.
Laura and Dave Hoenack could not have picked a more precarious time to buy a record store. The year was 2009, at the height of the real estate crisis and recession. Dave, a special ed teacher, and Laura, who worked in school administration, didn’t have any retail or business experience to speak of, and their…
Now, Now returns after six years with 'Saved' out now on Trans- Records.
Funky outfit Static Panic visit the Local Show to talk with host Andrea Swensson and perform songs from their EP 'Chrome.'
Thomas Abban, the beguiling guitar prodigy and boundary pushing songwriter who has been turning heads in the Twin Cities for the past year, has been signed to the iconic and nearly century-old RCA Records. The label announced the signing today with the national release of two of Abban’s songs, “Death Song” and “Sinner,” on all…
Over the past decade, she’s played to half-full rooms and slogged her way through opening sets in front of distracted crowds. She’s dreamed up ambitious, larger-than-life stage presentations and crammed them into the wings of tiny clubs. After years of paying her dues — and taking a hiatus from performing music to become a full-fledged…
Anyone who had the opportunity to see Maurice McKinnies perform back in the 1960s seems to get the same starry-eyed look in their eyes when they remember back to seeing him live. “Maurice was the one,” Wanda Davis told me once, reflecting on her days singing back-up vocals in his band. “As they say, he’s…
To quote the ever-quotable Toki Wright: when a door closes, a window opens. Just six months after finding out that he would lose his long-running position as Department Head of the Hip Hop Studies program at the now-shuttered McNally College of Music, Toki has announced that he’s relocating to Boston to take an Assistant Chair…
Sandwiched between the release of her new album, Chime, this spring and her first full-length book, My Own Devices, this fall, Dessa spent much of last month taking an eye-opening trip across China and Hong Kong with her bandmates Aby Wolf and Matthew Santos. Orchestrated by the Minneapolis-based nonprofit Arts Midwest, which provides tour funding and cultural exchange…
Dwynell Roland stopped by the Local Show to perform music from Young Roland.
In the two years since Prince passed, one of the biggest revelations that has surfaced about his personal life is just how much money he was quietly funneling toward the causes he believed in, especially those that worked closely with marginalized youth in urban communities and provided students with access to music education. On what…
BJ Burton likes to keep a low profile. He mentioned this several times while chatting over coffee on Wednesday, a sheepish grin creeping across his face as he squinted into the morning sun. That low profile is probably why, even after several years of co-writing, producing, engineering and mixing critically acclaimed albums by Bon Iver,…
He grew up in Austin, Minnesota, and he's been back for about seven years. Recently, synthesizer icon John Maus stopped by The Current to perform "Episode," "Touchdown," "Pure Rockets," and "Quantum Leap."
Although Janelle Monáe is most commonly associated with her birthplace of Kansas City, Kansas, and her current hometown of Atlanta, more information has come to light recently about the short time Janelle spent living in various locations in the Twin Cities — and specifically in Minneapolis, the same hometown as one of her biggest mentors…
Every Wednesday night this month, the Chicago-based punk poet Ike Reilly will hold court at Icehouse to celebrate the release of his new album, Crooked Love. The artist-in-residence concept has become increasingly common at Twin Cities venues this year, particularly in the colder and slower winter months. But for Ike, it’s an approach to playing…