Minnesota music notes: Winona and Duluth get festive

Road trip, anyone?

With its strongest lineup yet, Winona's great bar-hop-athon called the Midwest Music Fest takes over the riverside town this weekend. Communist Daughter, Toki Wright & Big Cats, Frankie Lee, Fort Wilson Riot, Farewell Milwaukee and Kevin Bowe are among Friday's two dozen performers. Saturday's schedule includes Lucy Michelle, Koo Koo Kanga Roo, Stereo Confession, Chris Koza and the inevitably named jug band Bones Jugs-N-Harmony (MidwestMusicFest.org).

Duluth's Homegrown Festival also kicks off Sunday and runs through May 3 in venues around town. As Charlie Parr recently said, "If you're from Duluth and you don't play Homegrown, you'd better have a good excuse." He has two gigs in the fest, which also features Trampled by Turtles, Alan Sparhawk's various bands, Hobo Nephews of Uncle Frank, Mary Bue (fresh off releasing a killer album), expats Al Church and Venus de Mars and dozens more (DuluthHomegrown.org).

Parr's exceptional new album for Red House Records, "Stumpjumper," lands Tuesday ahead of his May 1 release party at the Varsity Theater. Read our feature on it in Sunday's Variety section. … Actual Wolf, also part of the Homegrown fun, is issuing his/their second full-length album, "Itasca," as a cassette next week on Chaperone Records, which apparently is no reflection of its musical worth. I'll hear the songs first with the rest of you at Wednesday's Turf Club party (8 p.m., $10). …

Local rock vet Brian Drake (Idiot Savant, the Hard Left) has a new band called the April Fools, whose self-titled debut album will be unleashed with a release party Saturday at Loring Event Center topped off by sets by the Mighty Mofos, Curtiss A and Little Man (8 p.m., 1629 Hennepin Av. S., $20 with beer included). Drake's wry and weary, Warren Zevon-like singing and songwriting style is complemented nicely by the quartet's Heartbreakers-meets-Son Volt musical flavor. …

Grumpy's Northeast hosts a benefit Saturday from 2-10 p.m. for an orphanage school in Honduras with United Teachers of Music, Pink Mink, Eleganza, Mill City Devils and more ($10 donation). … Jim Walsh's Mad Ripple Hootennany returns next week to Harriet Brewing Co. and continues every Thursday (6:30-9:30 p.m., free). …

A movie version of Cloud Cult's beautiful acoustic concert album "Unplug" — filmed/recorded over three nights at the Southern Theater — will premiere on the big screen next Thursday at another Minneapolis theater, the Riverview, along with a band Q&A (7 p.m., $10). Tickets as well as DVD copies are being sold at CloudCult.com.

chrisr@startribune.com • 612-673-4658