The new Minnesota Music Archive (MMA) is, in a word, ambitious. It is intended to honor and preserve all of Minnesota’s music — from “polka to hip-hop, metal to country, classical to Tejano, jazz to Indigenous traditions” — through a searchable, digital repository at www.minnesotamusicarchive.org.
Everything from Bob Dylan and The Andrews Sisters to Lizzo and Hippo Campus will be preserved in the online archive. Officially launched in April, the Minnesota Music Archive is a new project whose goal is to digitally preserve local music history by collecting recordings of every song ever produced in the state, from the Cities to the suburbs and the countryside.
Executive Director Mitch Thompson stopped by KARE 11 Saturday to share more about the Minnesota Music Archive and the upcoming events during the Art-A-Whirl weekend.
For every Prince, Bob Dylan, or The Replacements, there are hundreds of Minnesota musicians who never received the same radio airplay or arena-sized shows. A state nonprofit has launched a new initiative to preserve and celebrate the work of musicians here—whether their traditional “success” was big or small.
A local non-profit is taking on a massive project involving music made in Minnesota, and this isn’t about Prince or Bob Dylan because their legacies are well-preserved. The aim of the Minnesota Music Archive is to archive all available independent and small commercial recordings, so they’re preserved for the future. The non-profit working on this is called DEMO and they’re already actively archiving and accepting submissions.
Prince fans rejoice! The Vault has been opened and the first ever performance of the Diamonds and Pearls Tour is about to be unveiled. As fans in the Twin Cities know, back in the day Prince used to throw last-minute shows that were never forgotten–but few were captured on film. Shot on one sensational night in January, 1992 at Prince’s Minneapolis club, Prince & The New Power Generation: Live at Glam Slam features newly discovered performance footage of Prince and his brand new band in a sweaty, sold-out, last-minute show that captures the sheer joy and sense of endless possibility that came to define this era.
The three women behind Tumbling Rock are unburdened by the Boomer nostalgia they’re spoofing. Jann Wenner, Hunter S. Thompson, the Beatles—who gives a shit?
All in their mid 20s to early 30s, Dani Larson, Nicole Prestol, and Katy Kelly launched their winking nod to Rolling Stone last summer. The Tumbling Rock premise is much more DIY than MSM: covering the Twin Cities underground music scene they love via celebratory profiles, “EXCLUSIVE” interviews, album reviews, release spotlights, and concert photography.
Thank you to Mitch Thompson, Executive Director of DEMO (Diverse Emerging Music Organization) for stopping by The Current Morning Show to talk about the launch of Minnesota Music Archive, a statewide initiative to collect, digitize, preserve and curate Minnesota recorded and released musical history across all genres, generations, and communities.
The Minnesota Music Archive is a new project intended to digitize the “Minnesota music scene”. At the launch party at The Hennepin in Minneapolis, we heard about the project and had bands including Agnes Uncaged.