Local

by Matthew A. Everett

“It’s been a really great year,” Dark Dark Dark banjoist Marshall LaCount announced towards the beginning of their set at the Cedar Cultural Center Saturday night. LaCount went on to say that it was also great to be home, an understandable sentiment considering the band had been on tour in Europe and the U.S. since before Halloween and spent a good chunk of 2008 on the road. MORE »

When Stanley Kipper, Chico Perez, and Joel “Family Man” Arpin got together as the nucleus of One World—a 1991 fusion of R&B, soul, and Latin rock culled straight from the old San Francisco sound—they couldn’t’ve had the first idea what they’d wind up doing for Twin Cities music. Surely, they thought they were just starting a band, not forming the genesis of five outstanding acts. MORE »

To be honest, I’ve never been an avid reader of poetry. I have nothing against poems, but for some reason my mind wants words on a page to present themselves as prose, and balks at taking them seriously when they’re organized in rhymed couplets, sonnet form, or—God forbid—free verse. When verse is set to music, I can generally handle it better. One reason I found Minneapolis poet Dobby Gibson’s new collection, Skirmish, so enjoyable is that his combination of mordant wit and bittersweet longing so recalls the lyrics of my favorite songwriter, Bob Dylan. MORE »

by Matthew A.

Several Minnesota nonprofits are feeling the pain in the aftermath of alleged investor fraud case — the largest such case in history — perpetrated by Bernie Madoff. All of the grants received by Minnesota organizations were from the New York–based JEHT Foundation, which gets its name from its four areas of commitment: Justice, Equality, Human dignity and Tolerance. The organization and its benefactors invested heavily in operations by Madoff that bilked investors out of $50 billion. More than $1.1 million dollars in JEHT Foundation grants benefited voter engagement, human rights, care for terminally ill patient and criminal justice programs in Minnesota over the last two years. MORE »

by Matthew A. Everett • Seen all the holiday shows already? All set to start seeing a new year of theater?

It’s been quite a year in the Twin Cities, and the Daily Planet has been on the scene. With the help of our media partners and our tireless citizen journalists, in 2008 we published over 10,000 articles, blog entries, photos, and event listings. When we saw that the Minnesota Independent had tallied their top ten most-read articles for the year, we were inspired to check the stats and see what articles Daily Planet readers found most fascinating in 2008. MORE »