Cheers to mass transit
Let's just call light rail what it really is: the biggest sober cab around. Sure, the Hiawatha Line is great for getting to work (or a ballgame) but when the sun goes down, it's time to party. On Saturday, bargoers will jump aboard for the eighth annual LRT Bar Hop. This long train-running pub crawl never saw a dive bar it didn't like -- just take a look at the participating pubs. There's the Fort Snelling Club, Sunrise Inn and the Cardinal Bar. Those are your early evening stops (the Schooner Tavern might be included, too). The final stop is 10 p.m. at Whiskey Junction (with a costume contest and live music by the Belfast Cowboys, a Van Morrison tribute band). Check the LRT Bar Hop's Facebook event page for more details. Or, if you just want to show up, look for the biggest group of loud, obnoxious riders on Saturday night. --TOM HORGEN
Video (nearly) killed the rock star
Even though he claimed he was on psychedelic mushrooms back then, Ryan Adams gave Tuesday's sold-out crowd at the State Theatre some especially vivid memories of a defunct Minneapolis downtown video arcade -- either Game Works in Block E or Pops Arcade on Hennepin Avenue fit his description. "I remember there always being a possibility of violence in the air there," he said,. He especially misses the arcade's nachos. "I can still taste that Cheez-Wiz topping," he said. "I probably tried to snort it." In a sharp contrast to those days, the reportedly rehabilitated singer, 37, even prohibited alcohol sales at the theater Tuesday. At least he was clear-headed enough to pull off an excellent cover of Bob Mould's "Black Sheets of Rain," another nod to a lost part of Minneapolis history. --CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER
A toast to Coffee House
I.W. had a mild outbreak of hometown pride when perusing New York magazine's recent Year in Books feature. Writers from Claire Messud to Junot Diaz named their 2011 faves. Alongside all the big-press titles ("The Marriage Plot" by Jeffrey Eugenides, the big new Malcolm X bio by Manning Marable) were not one but two books published by little old Coffee House Press of Minneapolis. Lorin Stein, editor of the Paris Review, praised "Leaving the Atocha Station," the first novel by poet Ben Lerner. And Jessica Hagedorn picked "Leche," a picaresque fiction set in Manila by R. Zamora Linmark. Coffee House, which last year had a National Book Award finalist in "I Hotel," is on a roll, with "Atocha" garnering best-of-year buzz in the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the New Yorker and elsewhere. Congrats to new Coffee House publisher Christopher Fischbach, who picked up Lerner's novel when he first read the manuscript in 2010. --CLAUDE PECK
Zellar ready to 'Crow' Tracing the geographic meanderings of Martin Zellar is about to get even more confusing. The beloved Americana singer/songwriter from Austin, Minn., is still living with his family in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and he still plays most of his gigs around the Twin Cities. However, he spent a good chunk of this year in Austin, Texas, finishing his first new album with his band, the Hardways, in 10 years. Titled "Roosters Crow," the disc is set to arrive Feb. 7 with an all-star list of Austin guests, including Dixie Chicks producer/dad Lloyd Maines, alt-country starlet Kelly Willis and many more. Zellar moved the Gear Daddies' usual holiday-week gig out to the Medina Entertainment Center this year (Dec. 30), but he and the Hardways will take over the Fine Line for the "Roosters Crow" release party on Feb. 10. --CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER
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