May 16, 2005 - MPR’s Chris Roberts reports on a new instrument, called a cleophone. Minneapolis inventor, Dave Krejci, talks about design of his new creation and the unique sounds it emits.
March 15, 2005 - MPR’s Chris Roberts profiles Minnesota music veteran Barry Thomas Goldberg. Roberts interviews Goldberg about his album “American Grotesque” and his anti-war stance on the Iraq conflict.
September 30, 2004 - MPR’s Chris Roberts profiles St. Paul rap act Heiruspecs. MC Felix and Sean McPherson, members of the Midway neighborhood group, talk with Roberts about their CD “A Tiger Dancing” and structure and meaning of the songs on album.
August 27, 2004 - Digital technology has allowed artists to go much, much further in drawing inspiration from nature. One Minneapolis artist uses digitally generated sound designs to create a kind of hypnosis on headphones. The source of the sound?…Water. MPR’s Chris Roberts dives in.
August 20, 2004 - MPR’s Chris Roberts talks with Minneapolis singer-songwriter Mark Edwards about his CD "Rewind Tomorrow." Formally of The Domo Sound, Edwards now goes by the moniker The Original Mark Edwards.
July 15, 2004 - In 1998, the Minneapolis rock band Semisonic soared to international stardom on the wings of its smash single, "Closing Time." Three years later, the band was dropped from its record contract and left contemplating an uncertain future. Semisonic drummer Jacob Slichter has written a memoir retracing the band's beginnings, its meteoric rise to fame and fall from major label grace. The book is called "So You Wana Be a Rock and Roll Star: How I Machine-Gunned a Roomful of Record Executives and Other True Tales From a Drummer's Life."
July 9, 2004 - MPR’s Chris Roberts profiles St. Paul musician Greg Paulus. In interview, Paulus discusses his music influences, his current jazz work, and goal of playing with the best musicians.
June 10, 2004 - MPR’s Chris Roberts talks with champion air guitarist Jonathan Maki, who shares a few ‘tricks of the trade’ in the art form. Maki is one of the seven finer practitioners in the area to gather at the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis for the U.S. Air Guitar Regional Championships.
June 2, 2004 - Chris Roberts profiles Venus, a transgender musician and visual artist from Duluth. Roberts interviews the artist, spouse, and Twin Cities filmmaker who follows the band All the Pretty Horses in documentary “Venus of Mars.”
May 13, 2004 - Flyte Tyme, the hit producing Edina-based recording studio run by Jimmy Jam Harris and Terry Lewis, is relocating to Los Angeles. Roberts reports on how the news is being received in the Twin Cities, and the legacy Harris and Lewis are leaving.