No heart for Purple
Prince landed at No. 2 on Rolling Stone's list of "The Best Live Acts Now" but the magazine showed him no love on the cover of its current issue. Bruce Springsteen is pictured on the cover because he's No. 1. But under the cover headline "The Greats and What Makes Them Great," the Purple One isn't even mentioned. However, Taylor Swift, who landed at No. 49 out of 50, is, along with Mumford & Sons (No. 43), Paul McCartney (No. 15) and Kendrick Lamar, who didn't even make the list. As for how the Top 50 live acts were compiled, that's a different conundrum. The 24 voters included talent managers Irving Azoff (Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Christina Aguilera), Cliff Burnstein (Muse, Josh Groban, Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Jon Landau (Springsteen); two critics; the music booker for "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon"; two promoters from the same New York company; a booking agent; a VH1 VP, and members of Metallica, Phish, Jane's Addiction, Alabama Shakes, Rage Against the Machine, Fall Out Boy (two members) and both Tegan & Sara. I.W. is going to take Rolling Stone off our subscription list.
Jon Bream
Life imitates art
Two items of note from the current 20th annual Minnesota Fringe Festival: 1. A man and a woman got engaged at Tuesday night's performance of "One Night on Hole 6," which is about romance and comedy on the golf course. 2. A real-life-meets-theater moment occurred Sunday when lame-duck Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak attended a performance of "RT + MPLS: The Legend of R.T. Rybak." After the show, Hizzoner posed for a photo with the puppet modeled after him.
Rohan Preston
On 'Thunder Road'
Matt Dallas, former star of the ABC Family series "Kyle XY," will be traveling through Minnesota next week to drum up support for "Thunder Road," a movie about postwar life for Iraq and Afghanistan vets that he wants to produce with two other young actors-turned-filmmakers, Charlie Bewley (Demetri from the "Twilight Saga" trilogy) and screenwriter Steven Grayhm. Taking crowd-funding cues from Zach Braff and the "Veronica Mars" team, the trio launched a Kickstarter campaign with a goal of $750,000. They'll be part of several events including a Twin Cities Film Festival fundraiser on Wednesday at Cooper Irish Pub in St. Louis Park and three more — in Marshall, Willmar and Granite Falls. It's towns like these, they say, where they're getting at least verbal support from veterans who want their stories told. Word of advice on getting Minnesota money: Switch your filming location from Detroit to Minneapolis.
kristin tillotson
National anthems
First, Ben Gibbard made a backhanded shout-out to Paul Westerberg & Co. during the Postal Service's Roy Wilkins Auditorium gig last weekend, when introducing a cover of a Beat Happening tune by calling them "the greatest band west of the Replacements." Then Matt Berninger of the National also paid homage to the local legends Tuesday during an interview on 89.3 the Current before his band's own Wilkins show. Host Mary Lucia asked if Berninger was thinking about the 'Mats or the Beatles when he wrote the line — "If you want to see me cry, play 'Let It Be' or 'Nevermind' " — in "Don't Swallow the Cap." He didn't exactly answer the question — "I was looking for album titles that worked rhythmically," he said — but he admitted the Replacements meant more to him. "And they're reuniting soon," he cheerily noted. All three of those albums, including Nirvana's, "have a sadness to them [because] there were deaths in the bands," he added. It always comes back around to something depressing with the National, doesn't it?
CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER
Part-time brewery
Last week, Lino Lakes got its first brewery when HammerHeart Brewing Co. opened its taproom doors (7785 Lake Dr., Lino Lakes, www.hammerheartbrewing.com). The Nordic-branded brewery looks poised to rival Surly as the metro's most metal beer-maker. Initially, the taproom will be serving only on Fridays and Saturdays, but a four-day schedule is forthcoming, as are growlers.
MICHAEL RIETMULDER
Dressing down
After a bevy of male models with six-pack abs strutted around onstage in their Diesel briefs at Macy's Glamorama fashion show last Friday, Sheryl Crow and her band closed the program at the State Theatre. She was very in the moment. "I usually have these guys open for me in underwear," she joked. "Actually, I want my band to incorporate that into their outfits." I.W. assumes that request won't apply to keyboardist Jennifer Gunderman.
Jon Bream
A way with words
They say that Ireland has more writers per capita than any other country, right? And that St. Paul has more Irish people than any other ethnicity? So it makes sense that this weekend's Irish Fair on Harriet Island will add a Literary Corner to its schedule of dancing, music and sheepherding. Each of the writers at this year's Literary Corner has some connection to Ireland, and each will do a reading and brief chat. The lineup includes poets Richard Broderick, Carol Connolly and Mike Finley, fiction writers Mike Faricy, Erin Hart and Sarah Stonich and memoirist Paddy O'Brien.
Laurie Hertzel
This retired journalist changed professional wrestling from Mankato
All-Metro Sports Awards: Here are the 2023 winners
