A groovy fish tale

Inquiring minds wanted to know if Alabama Shakes singer Brittany Howard caught any fish on her day off in the Twin Cities. "A sunfish and a largemouth bass," she told an inquisitive fan when her group played a special concert Monday night at Paisley Park in Chanhassen. Yes, Prince jammed on guitar for about five minutes with the guests in his soundstage. It was quite a sight, he with the sizable Afro standing next to the much taller 6-foot-1 Howard with the wavy blond hairdo. Prince was not her fishing guide. It was 89.3 the Current program director Jim McGuinn who took her to Cedar Lake. "I thought Cedar was the closest lake to downtown [Minneapolis] with a somewhat secluded vibe compared to Calhoun or Harriet, where Brittany might be too easily recognized," McGuinn told I.W. "I spent much of the time helping bait hooks of the kids [his son and two friends] and some adults and ended up being the only person who didn't catch any fish." But he sure got a good fish tale out of it.

Jon Bream

Get Woody

Maybe they should rename Snowbate as Sunbate. This summer, Minnesota's film incentive fund will draw in a rare studio project, according to the Minnesota Film & TV Board. Woody Harrelson is reportedly in negotiations to star in "Wilson" as an aging suburban misanthrope lonely and dissatisfied following a long-ago divorce. Following his father's death, he seeks out his drug abuser ex-wife, a part offered to Laura Dern. When he learns of his teenaged daughter, born privately after the breakup, Wilson strains to pull them all together for his last attempt to create a family. The story is based on a graphic novel by writer/illustrator Daniel Clowes. "Wilson" is being directed by Craig Johnson, known for the pessimistic Sundance comedy hit "Skeleton Twins." "Wilson's" filming is expected to concentrate on metro locations. Minnesota hasn't hosted a significant studio project since the Coen brothers' Oscar-nominated "A Serious Man" in 2009. The producers of "Wilson" include Edina native Jim Burke (who also produced "Kumiko") and Sam Raimi (who directed the 1998 thriller "A Simple Plan" in and around Delano).

Colin Covert

Mick goes Minnie

Ever entrepreneurial, the Rolling Stones tailored their merchandise to Minnesota on Wednesday at TCF Bank Stadium. They offered a special line of T-shirts, jerseys, sweatshirts and even a rally towel fashioned after three Minnesota icons: gophers, loons and Walker Art Center's "Spoonbridge and Cherry" sculpture. One design showed the Stones' familiar tongue logo altered with a pair of big, buck gopher teeth and maroon and gold colors, à la the stadium's resident University of Minnesota football team. Another showed a loon spreading its wings with the tongue logo emblazoned on its back. The best might have been the one with the tongue logo poised to lick up the cherry in the Walker's sculpture. What, no Paul Bunyan swinging a tongue-shaped ax? Or the Twins' Minnie and Paul shaking hands over a tongue-shaped river? Or Garrison Keillor standing next to a tongue-shaped Lake Wobegon?

Chris Riemenschneider

What’s that spell? Paul Westerberg in a spray-painted tee.

Decoding Westerberg

As has been the case since they played their first comeback show in August 2013, the revamped Replacements are keeping mum about future plans after their final concert on the books Friday at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona. But the writing might be on the wall, or rather on Paul Westerberg's T-shirt. Fans, music journalists and even a Facebook page (Paul's Shirt) have been kept busy in recent weeks trying decipher the individual letters the 'Mats frontman has been spray-painting on both sides of his white T-shirts throughout the band's spring Back by Unpopular Demand Tour. The popular guess is, "I have always loved you. Now I must whore my past." A better clue that the Minneapolis rock hero and co-founding bassist Tommy Stinson might be calling it quits again (for now) was the fact that they did not reschedule two gigs postponed when Westerberg fell ill mid-tour. Inhaling a lot of spray paint will do that to you.

C.R.

'Night' on Broadway

Minnesota's own Jessica Lange, who might have been the model for Caitlyn Jenner's new face, will return to Broadway next spring in "Long Day's Journey Into Night," reprising the role she did 15 years ago in London. She will join Gabriel Byrne in the revival of Eugene O'Neill's play at American Airlines Theatre. Lange previously played the role of the morphine-addicted mother Mary Tyrone in a 2000 production of O'Neill's familial drama in the West End. She made her Broadway debut in a 1992 production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" and returned to the stage in the 2005 revival of "The Glass Menagerie." I.W. has been enjoying the Cloquet native's comeback since she joined the cast of FX's "American Horror Story" in 2011.

J.B.