Letting Off the Happiness is the second studio album released by the indie rock band Bright Eyes. The album was released on November 2, 1998. It was the first release by Bright Eyes to feature and be produced by Mike Mogis, now a permanent member of the band. A vinyl re-release of the album was included in the Bright Eyes Vinyl Box Set in 2012. Guest musicians include members of Cursive, Tilly and the Wall, and Elephant 6 collective's Neutral Milk Hotel and of Montreal.
Daniel Roland Lanois is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter.
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, 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, releasing the albums Live at The Belly Up in 2015; Paging Mr. Proust, co-produced by Peter Buck, in 2016; Back Roads and Abandoned Motels in 2018; and XOXO in 2020.
David Anthony Pirner is an American songwriter, singer, and producer best known as the lead vocalist and frontman for the alternative rock band Soul Asylum.
Steve Tibbetts is an American guitarist and composer. He views the recording studio as a tool for creating sounds. Most of his albums include percussionist Marc Anderson.
Auburn "Pat" Hare was a Memphis electric blues guitarist and singer. His heavily distorted, power chord–driven electric guitar performances in the early 1950s is considered an important precursor of heavy metal music. His guitar work with Little Junior's Blue Flames had a major influence on the rockabilly style, and his guitar playing on blues records by artists such as Muddy Waters was influential among 1960s British Invasion blues rock bands such as the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds.
PFR is a Christian rock group from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Although the group initially disbanded in 1997, they periodically reunited from 2001 to 2013 and recorded two albums in that time. Their name was originally "Pray for Rain", but was changed to "PFR" to avoid a conflict with another musical group.
The Suburbs are an alternative punk rock/funk/new wave band from Minneapolis, Minnesota that was popular in the late 1970s and 1980s. The band frequently headlined at Minneapolis's most influential music clubs, including Jay's Longhorn Bar and First Avenue.
Matt Fink, better known as Dr. Fink, is a keyboardist, producer, and songwriter best-known for playing keyboards in Prince's band, The Revolution. At Prince concerts, he was distinguished onstage for performing dressed in a surgical mask and scrubs. He has also worked with artists, songwriters and producers, including The Time, Lipps Inc., The Jets, Vanity 6, David Z., Bobby Z., P. Diddy, The Rembrandts, Phil Solem, PC Munoz, 7 Aurelius, Steve Nathan, Shock G, Kris Vanderheyden Bray, Criss Starr, and Marc Mozart.
Healing Rain is Michael W. Smith's nineteenth album, released in 2004 and debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 chart. It is a departure from his previous two albums which are live worship albums. Healing Rain is a pop CCM album, in a similar vein to his 1999 album This Is Your Time. The album was reissued as a DualDisc in 2005. Some of the album's tracks were recorded at George Lucas' Skywalker Sound, located in Marin County, California.
Tapes 'n Tapes is an indie rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Spectral Mornings is the third studio album by English guitarist and songwriter Steve Hackett, released in May 1979 on Charisma Records. It is his first to feature members of his touring band, which many Hackett fans consider as the "classic line-up". The musicians are his brother John Hackett, Nick Magnus, Dik Cadbury, John Shearer, and Pete Hicks.
Haley McCallum, professionally known as Haley and formerly Haley Bonar, is a Canadian-born American singer and songwriter who was raised in Rapid City, South Dakota. She has lived in Duluth and currently St. Paul, Minnesota. In 2009, she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she spent a year writing songs for her album Golder, which was released April 19, 2011. She plays acoustic guitar, baritone electric guitar, electric guitar, and Rhodes or Wurlitzer electric piano, either solo or with her Twin Cities-based band, including Jeremy Ylvisaker, Robert Skoro, and Jacob Hanson.
Matt Ellis is an Americana genre singer-songwriter from Sydney, Australia. Based in the U.S. since 2005, Ellis just released a new single, "Desert Gold".
Greycoats are an indie rock group from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.
William Alexander Chilton was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer best known as the lead singer of the Box Tops and Big Star. Chilton's early commercial success in the 1960s as a teen vocalist for the Box Tops was never repeated in later years with Big Star and in his subsequent indie music solo career on small labels, but he drew an intense following among indie and alternative rock musicians. He is frequently cited as a seminal influence by influential rock artists and bands, some of whose testimonials appeared in the 2012 documentary Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me.
John Mark Nelson (born November 23, 1993) is an American songwriter and producer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. John Mark Nelson released his debut album Still Here in 2011. His second release, Waiting and Waiting, was released in August 2012. In June 2014, Nelson released his third album, Sings The Moon, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign that helped him fund the project. His fourth full-length album, I'm Not Afraid, was released in September 2015 on GRNDWIRE Records.
Josh Kaufman is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer, composer, arranger and engineer based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a member of the supergroups Muzz and Bonny Light Horseman.
Donna Grantis is a Canadian guitarist, best known for performing and recording with Prince & 3rdeyegirl. On September 30, 2014, Prince and 3rdeyegirl released their debut album, Plectrumelectrum, which reached #1 on the Billboard Rock chart. The album's title track, "Plectrumelectrum", was originally written by Grantis and later arranged by Prince. Since 2013, Grantis has been a member of Prince's funk supergroup, The New Power Generation. On November 16th, 2018, Grantis released two new songs, “Trashformer” and “Violetta,” featuring Hall of Fame Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, as a limited edition 7” via his vinyl label HockeyTalkter Records. The tracks appear on Grantis’ debut album, Diamonds & Dynamite, released March 22nd, 2019, via eOne Music. The album and lead track reached #1 on iTunes Canada for top jazz album and top jazz song.
Ed Ackerson 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, Motion City Soundtrack, Soul Asylum, Golden Smog, Dave Davies of The Kinks, Wesley Stace, Mason Jennings, Mark Mallman, 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, and co-founded the Susstones record label. Ackerson led several notable Twin Cities pop/rock bands including 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.
