Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities
17 Unique Stations from Border to Border
17 Unique Stations from Border to Border
Minneapolis ‘shwag pop’ band Mister Submissive joined us in Studio K on February 24th. Featured above is the live performance of their song “Future Shoes”.
Check ’em out on Facebook!
https://www.facebook.com/Mr-submissive
Bandcamp: https://mistersubmissive.bandcamp.com
Radio K is the award-winning student-run radio station of the University of Minnesota, playing an eclectic variety of independent music both old and new.
Listen to Radio K at 770 AM, 100.7 FM and 104.5 FM, as well as online at radiok.org.
Video shot by Helen Teague, Ryan Gilman, and Chandler Elsbecker.
Edited by Helen Teague.
Audio recorded and mastered by Jaak Jensen.
Ben Kyle of Romantica by Charlie Pulkrabek
Ben Kyle has a lot going on these days. His band Romantica is set to release their highly anticipated third full-length record. And an album of duets with Carrie Rodriguez called We Still Love Our Country just hit the shelves in the states this month.
Why all the fuss over the new record? Well, all Romantica’s 2007 release titled America did was land at fifty-eight in Paste Magazine’s Top 100 Records of 2007. For a band that, at that point, had gained limited national and international exposure, it is a mammoth accomplishment. Hoopla aside, that just doesn’t happen unless the music is more than exceptional.
Who gives a record a gigantic name like America anyway? Someone with the talent, confidence, and humility possessed by Minneapolis musician Ben Kyle, that’s who. Ben Kyle has a giant stance, one that crosses the Atlantic Ocean. He grew up in Belfast, Ireland, and has lived in Minneapolis since his high school days. And such a unique and broad perspective bears out in the music of Romantica and Ben Kyle.
Ben Kyle is a true poet who really knows how to style his poetry to fit into the musical realm. His precise blending of the highly personal with the universal seems to allow him to embody any perspective that he wants to in an immediately convincing fashion.
The expectations for Romantica’s upcoming release, scheduled for April, are sky high. Ben Kyle’s personal expectations seem to be even higher. How do you follow up a great record like America? For Ben Kyle, the answer seems to be simply one step at a time.
Lake Superior State University recently released their 38th annual Banished Words list. WTIP’s Buck Benson chatted with John Shibley of the university’s PR department about what overused words are on this year’s list. Spoiler alert! You can read the list at www.lssu.edu/banished.
This week on Centerstage MN we’ll be featuring music from “Eyes on the Water,” the latest EP from the very talented Mayda – she is a singer/songwriter from Minneapolis.
And this week we’ll hear music from Trampled By Turtles, the Darbuki Kings and Paul Metsa with Sonny Earl.
Centerstage MN with Doug MacRostie showcases the talents of MN musicians every [day and time]
“The West Bank” has historically been a hotbed for music in Minnesota. Part of the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in Minneapolis, it’s bordered by the Mississippi River to the north and east. This creative community is fueled by the close proximity of various cultures; there are urban poor of diverse ethnic backgrounds, college students, and middle-class urbanites. Back in the 60’s, when some kid named Bob Zimmerman was learning folk music and some young chick named Bonnie Raitt recorded her debut CD, one of the most influential blues and folk trios formed: Koerner, Ray and Glover. The two surviving members, Spider John Koerner and Tony Glover performed in early July at Mill City Museum on the West Bank and we’ll hear that performance this week on Centerstage MN, with a big thanks to our sister-station KFAI for capturing the concert for us, made possible by the MN Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
To set up that concert, we’ll hear a new CD from Darryl Holter called “West Bank Gone,” which takes us back to the West Bank in the 60’s. We’ll hear the title track which chronicles some of the West Bank personalities that are no longer with us.
We’ll also hear some modern music coming of the Minneapolis music scene: Brother Ali and More Than Lights – we’ll hear songs relating to the life, struggle and power of women. I am working on getting both of them on Centerstage MN sometime… it WILL happen, I just don’t know when 🙂
By Doug MacRostie. Lonnie Knight was there for the first digital recording. Yes, I’m serious. He was working as Staff Guitarist at Sound 80 when 3M built the first digital machine and he was on the very first recording sessions to test it. That’s just one of the numerous examples why this Minneapolis singer-songwriter with mutliple MN Music Awards rightly is a legend in MN music. Picking up his first guitar back in the 60’s, when he was 12, Lonnie started out as a folkie, then played in some of the Midwest’s seminal bands like Jokers Wild,. Neilson-White Band and The Hoopsnakes. His professional career went beyond being a studio musician – he was also a producer for a while in Nashville. His most recent work has gone back to his acoustic roots, and Lonnie Knight will be joining me on Centerstage MN to talk about his new album, “So We Jump,” which is an excellent release of clever acoustic music bringing together many of the best aspects of Lonnie’s music.
There is a lot of great new music just released/about to come out – and we’re also going to hear from Matt Ray and Those Damn Horses from the Iron Range, The Marc Gartband from Duluth – that’s one of the projects by Marc Gartman of Two Many Banjos; when Marc puts down the banjo then it’s the Gartband, and lately he has been picking up the Irish Bouzouki. Which comes out of the new Wise-Magraw album “How the Light Gets In” perfectley. Wise-Magraw is Marcus Wise on tabla and Dean Magraw (of Boilded in Lead) on guitar.