It was great to see First Ave packed with their fans. Openers White Light Riot sounded great as well, and had a pretty decent crowd for an opening band themselves. I am most enthused with the general state of the local music scene here, which by my eyes is thriving in quite a well and alive state. I realize that we may have had periods where bigger things came up and out, especially in the 80s and 90s. But still, you can’t argue with an entirely local music show that sells out First Ave on a Friday night. You just can’t. I am so thrilled by all of this, in part because I’ve seen these guys all in bars with far fewer people. And to play the Ave. like that, well, that’s a seriously huge musical accomplishment. Best wishes to all of the bands that played tonight.

Rockers White Light Riot will take the stage tonight in what is sure to be a great show. Full disclosure: two of the members of the band are my cousins. I’ve been to many of their shows, and these guys rock. I’m not just saying that because they are family, either.

The Mill City Live series has some great artists playing every first and third Thursday through September and all the shows are free.

I caught WLR at their recent CD release show at the Fine Line, and it was fantastic.

And if nothing else, this is a warmup for the mainroom show at First Ave on Friday, which is the CD release party for fellow rockers the Alarmists. WLR will open for them at that show. It’s worth catching as well!

The Mill City show starts at 6 pm tonight at the Mill City Museum, 704 South Second St, right near downtown Minneapolis.

Well, it’s up as of yesterday. Not much to see yet, but the cam is up high and should provide a nice view of the site as the ballpark takes shape. The site looks really small down on the ground, and looks really small from this cam too. It will be interesting to see how they shoehorn a ballpark in there.

The official groundbreaking is on Thursday August 2nd following the Twins/Royals afternoon game. The site will be open to the public around 5pm and there will be live music.

Link

One thing curiously missing is any sort of “Best Local Blog” category. The Arts and Entertainment section is surprisingly devoid of anything technology oriented. It’s decidedly more old-school media oriented.

I guess I shouldn’t expect anything else from what is still primarily a printed newspaper. Though CP has ventured online more in recent years, so I was thinking they might finally get around to it.

Some of the Minnesota stuff on our sidebar deserves some consideration.

In other news, the City Pages readers are still decidedly very mainstream and chain oriented. At least the ones that take the readers poll are.

Edit: I totally missed the left and right wing blogs and best local website in the City Gritty section. Even still, my argument holds. There could be more.

More coverage from the Star Tribune.

Looks like the University was swift and through in their actions. A good thing in light of what occured earlier this week at Virginia Tech.

Some of these bars are legendary, others less well-known, but they all have one thing in common - good times.

My first hole in the wall review is for Liquor Lyles. Throughout the spring and summer, I’ll share some of my other favorites.

Liquor Lyle’s
2021 Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis

The location can’t really be beat, right at the cusp of downtown. If you ask anyone that frequents Lyle’s what the best part of it is, you’ll probably hear the same answer - the happy hours. This legendary Twin Cities watering hole probably has more happy hour time during the day and night than just about any other. From 10am - 1pm, 3pm - 6pm and 9pm - 11pm, Lyle’s features 2 for 1’s on anything in the bar. Hard to beat that. If you show up after 9pm any night of the week, it becomes more difficult to find a place to sit - regulars know to get there a little early. The other trick is that the bar clock in Lyle’s is typically at least 10 minutes faster, so sneaking in a little before 9 can often score you 2 for 1’s right away.
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I, for one, am excited that they are opening more ventures. I love the food at the Town Talk, and look forward to more culinary options.

Lately on the weekends, the Town Talk has been packed house full, to the point where you almost couldn’t even get in the door. The popularity of the place has surged even more in recent months. Awesome that owners Tim, Aaron and David are leveraging their success with Town Talk into other ventures.

And those of you that still haven’t been to the Town Talk yet, what are you waiting for?

Carneal was a huge part of Twins baseball for me. I remember spending a lot of time in the summer of ‘91 listening to him on ‘CCO with my dad while in the garage doing work. That was such a magical season, and having Carneal call it just made it that much more special.

In recent years, Carneal had only called home games, and was scheduled to only call around 30 games this year.

An interesting, and somewhat unique idea. It looks like the Twin Cities are the first to get one of these unique vehicles, and there will be expansion to other cities.