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Beekeeping (album)
''Beekeeping'' is a 2008 album by Minneapolis alternative rock band Polara, their fifth and final full-length release. It was released on bandleader Ed Ackerson's Susstones Records label and produced by Ackerson at his recording studio, Flowers. Released six years after the band's previous album ''Jetpack Blues'' and a few months after the more introspective solo album ''Ed Ackerson'', the lineup on ''Beekeeping'' included founding members Ackerson and guitarist Jennifer Jurgens, as well as drummer Peter Anderson. During this period, the band's live group included Jayhawks guitarist Marc Perlman, Tim Oesau, and Ackerson's wife Ashley Ackerson, who also led the group The Mood Swings. Reception ''Trouser Press'' writer Ira Robbins praised the album as "a straightforward guitar pop album with few digressions that drops Polara right back in action with all of its strengths not only intact but more smoothly integrated than ever." Chris Riemenschneider of the Minneapolis-St. Pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polara (band)
Polara is an American alternative rock band formed in 1994 by Ed Ackerson, a musician and producer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The band was considered one of the most prominent and creative groups to emerge from Minneapolis in the 1990s. ''Billboard'' writer Deborah Russell called Ackerson and Polara the front of "the emergence of a new local (Twin Cities) scene" more interested in pop music and postpunk than the punk rock of bands like Hüsker Dü and The Replacements. Formation Ackerson's previous band, the 27 Various, blended 1960s mod-rock influences with Syd Barrett-style psychedelia, and released five albums between 1987 and 1992—the first two limited releases on Ackerson's own Susstones label, and the others on the larger label Clean ( Twin/Tone). Despite an increasingly visible profile and critical praise over the course of its career, the band's prospects suffered when Twin/Tone's distributor, Rough Trade, went out of business. Nevertheless, Ackerson was seen as a r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flowers Studio
Flowers Studio is a recording studio in Minneapolis founded by Ed Ackerson, leader of the alternative rock bands Polara (band), Polara and the 27 Various, and co-founder of the Susstones Records label. Many notable musicians have recorded at the studio, including the The Jayhawks, Jayhawks, The Replacements (band), The Replacements, Motion City Soundtrack, Brian Setzer, Golden Smog, Mark Mallman, Soul Asylum, the Old 97's Rhett Miller, Clay Aiken, the Wallflowers, Pete Yorn, Juliana Hatfield, Free Energy (band), Free Energy, Lizzo, Jeremy Messersmith, and Joseph Arthur. History The Flowers building, in the Lowry Hill East neighborhood of Minneapolis, was formerly a greenhouse and floral shop before being used as a warehouse space for a guitar store. A self-described "gear freak," Ackerson had been a sound engineer at legendary Twin Cities club First Avenue (nightclub), First Avenue and had already collected a wide variety of recording equipment on his own before deciding to start ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alternative Rock
Alternative rock (also known as alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s with the likes of the grunge subgenre in the United States, and the Britpop and shoegaze subgenres in the United Kingdom and Ireland. During this period, many record labels were looking for "alternatives", as many Arena rock, corporate rock, hard rock, and glam metal acts from the 1980s were beginning to grow stale throughout the music industry. The emergence of Generation X as a Culture, cultural force in the 1990s also contributed greatly to the rise of alternative music. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or arena rock, commercial rock or pop. The term's original meaning was broader, referring to musicians influenced by the musical style or independent, DIY ethic, DIY ethos of late-1970s punk rock.di Perna, A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indie Rock
Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent record labels, by the 1990s it became more widely associated with the music such bands produced. The sound of indie rock has its origins in the New Zealand Dunedin sound of the Chills, Tall Dwarfs, the Clean and the Verlaines, and early 1980s college rock radio stations who would frequently play jangle pop bands like the Smiths and R.E.M. The genre solidified itself during the mid–1980s with ''NME''s ''C86'' cassette in the United Kingdom and the underground success of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. and Unrest (band), Unrest in the United States. During the 1990s, indie rock bands like Sonic Youth, the Pixies and Radiohead all released albums on major labels and subgenres like slowcore, Midwest emo, slacker rock and space rock began. By this time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ed Ackerson
Edwin C. Ackerson (July 18, 1965 – October 4, 2019) was an American musician and producer from Minneapolis. He produced or engineered dozens of records including works by prominent artists such as The Jayhawks, The Replacements (band), The Replacements, Motion City Soundtrack, Soul Asylum, Golden Smog, Dave Davies of The Kinks, Wesley Stace, Mason Jennings, Mark Mallman, John Strohm (musician), John Strohm, Brian Setzer, Lizzo, Pete Yorn, The Wallflowers, Rhett Miller of The Old 97s, Jeremy Messersmith, and Juliana Hatfield. He owned a recording studio in Minneapolis, Flowers Studio, Flowers, and co-founded the Susstones record label. Ackerson led several notable Twin Cities pop/rock bands including Polara (band), Polara and The 27 Various, and released several solo records under his own name. He was also a prolific producer of albums by Twin Cities bands, and was regarded as one of the linchpins of the Minnesota music scene. Early life Ackerson was born in Stillwater, Minnesota ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jetpack Blues
''Jetpack Blues'' is a 2002 album by Minneapolis alternative rock band Polara, their fourth full-length record, and first after breaking with Interscope Records and going independent. It was released on bandleader Ed Ackerson's Susstones Records label, and produced by Ackerson at his recording studio, Flowers, which he founded by reinvesting the money from the band's Interscope deal as well as an otherwise unsuccessful deal with Chris Blackwell's Palm Pictures. The lineup on ''Jetpack Blues'' included founding members Ackerson and guitarist Jennifer Jurgens, as well as bassist Dan Boen. Rather than a single drummer, the album featured three percussionists and a drum machine. Gary Louris of The Jayhawks plays lead guitar on "Obsolete," and Blake Babies and Antenna frontman John Strohm arranged the horn section on the song "Is This It?" Reception ''Trouser Press'' writer Ira Robbins named ''Jetpack Blues'' the best of Polara's career, calling it "a modern Anglo-American powe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trouser Press
''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who, Dave Schulps, and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference to a song by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and an acronymic play on the British TV show ''Top of the Pops)''. Publication of the magazine ceased in 1984. The unexpired portion of mail subscriptions was completed by ''Rolling Stone'' sister publication ''Record'', which itself folded in 1985. ''Trouser Press'' has continued to exist in various formats. History The magazine's original scope was British bands and artists (early issues featured the slogan "America's Only British Rock Magazine"). Initial issues contained occasional interviews with major artists like Brian Eno and Robert Fripp and extensive record reviews. After 14 issues, the title was shortened to simply ''Trouser Press'', and it gradually transformed into a professional magazin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
City Pages
''City Pages'' was an alternative newspaper serving the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area. It featured news, film, theatre and restaurant reviews and music criticism, available free every Wednesday. It ceased publication in 2020 due to a decline in ads and revenue related to the COVID-19 pandemic. History On August 1, 1979, publishers Tom Bartel and Kristin Henning debuted ''Sweet Potato'', a monthly newspaper focused on the Twin Cities music scene. The first issue featured pop band The Cars on the cover. In October 1980, ''Sweet Potato'' went biweekly. On December 3, 1981, the newspaper went weekly and was renamed ''City Pages''. ''City Pages'' competed for readership with the ''Twin Cities Reader'' until 1997, when Stern Publishing purchased ''City Pages'' in March and the ''Twin Cities Reader'' the following day, shuttering it immediately. Bartel and Henning left ''City Pages'' in the fall of 1997. Tom Bartel's brother Mark was named publisher after Bartel and Henning ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star Tribune
''The Minnesota Star Tribune'', formerly the ''Minneapolis Star Tribune'', is an American daily newspaper based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As of 2023, it is Minnesota's largest newspaper and the List of newspapers in the United States, seventh-largest in the United States by circulation, and is distributed throughout the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, the state, and the Upper Midwest. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, the two papers consolidated, with the ''Tribune'' published in the morning and the ''Star'' in the evening. They merged in 1982, creating the ''Minneapolis Star and Tribune'', renamed the ''Star Tribune'' in 1987. After a tumultuous period in which the newspaper was sold and resold and filed for Bankruptcy in the United States, bankruptcy protection in 2009, it was purchased by local billionaire and former Minnesota State Senator Glen Taylor in 2014. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minneapolis
Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Located in the state's center near the eastern border, it occupies both banks of the Upper Mississippi River and adjoins Saint Paul, Minnesota, Saint Paul, the state capital of Minnesota. Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and the surrounding area are collectively known as the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities, a metropolitan area with 3.69 million residents. Minneapolis is built on an artesian aquifer on flat terrain and is known for cold, snowy winters and hot, humid summers. Nicknamed the "City of Lakes", Minneapolis is abundant in water, with list of lakes in Minneapolis, thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks, and waterfalls. The city's public park system is connected by the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway. Dakota people orig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Jayhawks
The Jayhawks are an American alternative country and country rock band that emerged from the Twin Cities music scene in the mid-1980s. Led by vocalists/guitarists/songwriters Gary Louris and Mark Olson, their country rock sound was influential on many bands who played the Twin Cities circuit during the 1980s and 1990s, such as Uncle Tupelo, the Gear Daddies and the Honeydogs. They have released eleven studio albums, with and without Olson (who left the band for the first time in 1995), including five on the American Recordings label. After going on hiatus from 2005 to 2009, the 1995 lineup of the band reunited and released the album ''Mockingbird Time'' in September 2011; Olson left the band for the second time after the tour to promote the album. After another hiatus in 2013, the 1997 lineup led by Louris reunited to play shows in 2014 to support the reissue of three albums originally released between 1997 and 2003. Since then, the band has continued to tour and record, r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
