Minnesota Mondays totally reinvented my Monday evenings a few months ago. Four hours (5-9 PM) of half price Minnesota brews (from Surly to Crispin Cider to Grian Belt Premo and Nordeast) combined with two hours (7-9 PM) of Minnesota music DJ’d by well travelled members of the Minnesota music community? Yep. I’m so there. This week, however, I was behind the wheels of Macbook steel sharing my own two hour mix of Minnesota-orignated tunes.

Tracklisting and brief commentary are down there after the break.

This playlist was roughly organized around a somewhat chronological history of my travels through the Minnesota music community and loosely grouped around genre, relative tempo and loudness. Loosely. With late notice on DJing the show I didn’t have much time to spend cooking it up and, frankly, I was amazed that only about 30-40% of the bands I’ve seen and have a great appreciation for are represented in my MP3 library. So this is but a small slice of the Minnesota music that’s influenced me over the last year or two.

I’ve photographed all but a handfull of these bands and I strongly encourage you to look them up and check out their music. Some aren’t around anymore, some are on the verge of dissolution and others are just forming. Others are long-standing critically acclaimed Twin Cities standards and others have been slogging it out in local rock bars for over a decade without much recognition in the greater press. All of them have had an impact on me with one song or another. I hope you can make some time to check them out and see what the far corners of the Minnesota music community have to offer. :)

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