Mint Condition, Bon Iver up late with Jimmy Fallon this week

The next two nights of "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" will be dominated by bands from around these parts.

Mint Condition will take over Fallon's stage tonight on NBC (11:35 p.m.) to tout their new album, "7" -- yep, their seventh one, which was No. 1 on iTunes' R&B charts its first week.

Playing in front of cameras should be old hat by now for the St. Paul R&B vets, who were enlisted to be the Roots-style house band for BET's Black History Month series, "Way Black When." They also performed as Brother Ali's backup band on "Late Night" when Conan was still the host and have other TV appearances to their name going back to their "Breakin' My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes)" days. The Fallon gig comes just a couple weeks before Mint heads to New Orleans for the Essence Music Festival, performing along with Kanye West, Usher, Mary J. Blige and many more. The Roots won't be at the Essence fest because they have their own hometown festival to head up around the 4th of July. Hmm, maybe Mint should think about starting its own holiday fest now that St. Paul is Taste-less over the Fourth. Or at least the band should finally book some kind of local date behind the new album.

Then on Tuesday night, Eau Claire's most famous venison eater and Kanye's favorite Wisconsinite, Justin Vernon, and his Bon Iver band are Fallon's scheduled performers. Of course, tomorrow is also the day that the second Bon Iver album (self-titled) finally comes out. The disc just earned an orgasmic 9.5 rating out of 10 at www.Pitchfork.com and is still streaming online in its entirety today. Bon Iver also has another TV gig tonight on "The Colbert Report," airing 10:30 p.m. locally on Comedy Central. Should be a fun one.