Wanna stage your own music festival?
You've already got a venue, which is more than Wayne and Garth started with
Since sifting through dull newspapers, hyperbolic blogs, and overflowing RSS feeds for meaningful news can be an arduous process, News Net catches and compiles both the amusing and the significant reports that were overlooked throughout the workweek. Here are some things to think about as the weekend begins.
• Have you always dreamed of running a July 4th festival on Harriet Island? Well, you’re weird. But you’re also in luck. The City of St. Paul, which booted Taste of Minnesota over the festival’s $100,000 in unpaid debt, is looking for a replacement. You provide the food, music, fireworks, and approximately 45,000 daily customers, and the gig is yours.
• A lot has changed at City Pages over the past two decades (let’s leave it at that), but for 20 years now the annual Picked To Click issue has polled the Cities’ musical tastemakers and anointed the best new local band. (And then the rest of us have argued over what they meant by “best” and “new”—and sometimes “local” and “band.”) This year, the nod goes to Pink Mink, a melodic punk band made up of battle-scarred scene veterans: Ouija Radio’s Christy Hunt and Charles Gehr, one-time Selby Tiger Arzu Gokcen, and go-to recording engineer Jacques Wait. The Picked To Click package also contains essays that explain why former CP music editor Jim Walsh still goes out to bars to hear bands, and why former CP music writer Jim Meyer needs a great big hug.
• At the beginning of the 20th century, the IWW, a.k.a. the Wobblies, was the most feared militant labor union in America. Now they want to make your sandwiches. Today, 200 Twin Cities-area employees of Jimmy John’s will vote on whether to join the IWW. If the yeas have it, it’d be the first victory for unionized labor in the fast-food industry, where median hourly wages have stalled at a mere $8.28. And being the sole union sandwich shop in town could make for a potentially great advertising gimmick: After all, who wants to eat scab subs?
• And finally, a nice, warm little community story to soften your hard, cynical hipster heart. The City of Minneapolis has launched the “Hello Neighbor” program to welcome recent immigrants to town. Volunteers will visit their new neighbors at home, welcoming them with gift bags (prepaid calling cards, coupons, a refillable water bottle) and information about city services. See, now don’t you feel better knowing about that?
