Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities
17 Unique Stations from Border to Border
17 Unique Stations from Border to Border
Laura Sellner started Superior Siren as a solo project, in time, adding three bandmates but still occasionally performing solo. The singer/songwriter has announced a new solo EP due out on May 7, 2021. She joined us in the studio for a Homegrown session on May 4, 2021. Her band performed a livestreamed show from Sacred Heart Music Center on the first night of Homegrown as part of the Minnesota Music Coalition’s 2021 Music Summit.
This Minneapolis Americana musician recorded his latest album, Make it Right, in Nashville shortly before the pandemic hit. After delaying the release due to COVID, Gay is finally released it digitally on June 18. 2021 (with a vinyl release to follow). We shared our virtual session with Gay that same day and find out more about this musician, who grew up in Rochester, Minnesota and studied history before turning his focus to songwriting and performing.
Michael Lyons is the creator of Boozhoo Nanaboozhoo, a puppet podcast focused on Ojibwe language and culture. He joined the morning show to discuss his family’s experiences with boarding schools. His grandmother and grandfather both attended the Flandreau Boarding School in South Dakota. They had very different memories of their time spent. He breaks down those differences and discusses the impact of being severed from their families and their heritage. He also discusses the important process of re-discovering culture and heritage.
The latest solo album from Ian Alexy (who also performs with his brother Teague in Hobo Nephews of Uncle Frank) features his Minneapolis-based backing band, The Deserters. The title, Troubadour 21st Century, is a rootsy rock homage to the life of a modern musician. Many of the cuts on the album were released as singles during the pandemic, including “Making it Shine,” which was also the title of a video series Alexy worked on during quarantine. He took the opportunity to go through 12 years of footage accumulated through his music career for the four-part series. We found out more when he joined us Live from Studio A on Wednesday, June 9th.
This year’s Duluth Homegrown Music Festival guide documents how this musician went from being an ensemble player in the six-piece band NorShore Summit to a solo artist at the beginning of last year. Abukhodair played multiple shows throughout 2020’s outdoor music season, and is currently preparing to release her first solo album. We’ll find out more when she joins Malachy for a Homegrown session on Monday, May 2 at 2pm. She’ll perform at Earthrider Brewery’s Starfire Unofficial Birthday Bash on Saturday, May 8.
Recent UMD graduate Hattie Peach and her sister Grace (a recent high school graduate) recently released an EP, also featuring their dad John on drums. The self-titled release has an alt-country sound that showcases the siblings’ harmonies. We got to hear those amazing harmonies in person and find out more about how the family started performing together when the Penny Peaches joined us in the studio on May 14, 2021.
This Americana singer/songwriter was known more for his work as a local environmental educator and activist before he decided to take his singing and guitar playing off the couch and on stage. He’s releasing his debut album, Smoky Gold, on May 14; it features contributions from members of The Infamous Stringdusters, Kind Country, Feeding Leroy, and others. He joined us for a session in honor of Duluth’s Homegrown Music Festival on May 3 , 2021.
This Cloquet native was on tour in Europe with his band The Social Animals when the pandemic shut everything down. Now based in Nashville, Clark has had the opportunity to work on new material with the band in the past year, and is preparing for a solo tour that kicks off in Minneapolis on June 4; he’ll perform in Duluth on Saturday, June 5 (listen to find out where!).
