RacketCast

There's no disputing it: This is the spookiest episode in RacketCast history.

First up, we've got Dan Suitor, winner of last year's skyway-themed flash-fiction horror contest, doing a bone-chilling reading of his spooktacular winning story, Skyway Hungers.

Then Em and Jay chitchat about their gun bingo and bigfoot conference stories (what a website!) before our seasonally appropriate guest arrives: Dawn McClain, leader of and investigator with the Twin Cities Paranormal Society.

Happy Halloween!

Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

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Exactly 20 years ago, Twin Cities hip-hop greats Heiruspecs got their shot at the big time with A Tiger Dancer. On this episode of RacketCast, MC Chris "Felix" Wilbourn and bassist Sean "Twinkie Jiggles" McPherson reflect with us about the highs (giant shows, Harold & Kumar soundtrack) and lows (label expectations, snubbed Euro tour) that coincided with the release of their breakout 2004 LP.

This isn't the group's first reflection on that pivotal era—McPherson wrote with great candor about it in 2016 for City Pages—but it is the first via the audio format, the favored medium of such luminaries as Abbott & Costello, Terry Gross, and Bubba the Love Sponge. Our conversation is part Behind the Music, a whole lotta remember-some-guys, and a fitting anniversary victory lap for one of the best hip-hop acts to ever come outta Minnesota. (Cheap Trick emerges as a surprising/amusing enemy.)

"This record is a really proud document for me and that moment. Only one of us was even 25 when we started meeting folks from [record label] Razor & Tie in their office in New York, and it was an amazing feeling," McPherson wrote in '16. "Probably the hardest part was that, on the level of folks we considered our competitors, we were doing pretty good. I don't have SoundScan access, but I believe Tiger [sold] about 13,000 by 2007 and over 10,000 in 2005. In the indie-rap world you were desperate to hit 10K, that was a big sign."

Ultimately, Heiruspecs never broke into the mainstream. Instead, they've settled into the enviable role of local music institution, rallying together each year for an annual concert that expanded in 2023 to the outdoor Heiruspecs Summer Classic mini-fest. The St. Paul crew is still doing pretty good, as you'll hear on this episode.

"It did feel like we had lightning in a bottle," Felix told us last week. "Maybe not the giant lightning strike that makes you as big as, fucking Journey or something, I don't know... But it really did feel like we had something that needed to get out, and we got it out there."

Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the first-ever episode of RacketCast, the new podcast experiment from Twin Cities news/arts/culture website Racket.

In this installment, we recap the week that was at our reader-funded publication, debate whether failing restaurants should seek crowdfunding life support, tease what we're working on next, and ask you, the gracious reader-turned-listener, for pointers about... what RacketCast should sound like in the future!

Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our intro/transition/outro music!

Want to advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected].

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this edition of RacketCast, get to know Racket’s first-ever Picked to Click winner: Papa Mbye!

A terrific new album, Parcelles 16, helped vault the Senegal-born, Minneapolis-based musician to the top of the poll, and deservedly so. The music he makes—drawing from rap, electronic music, and indie rock—would have been unthinkable when the original P2C launched in 1991, and he’s only getting started. But now, as a Picked to Click winner, 25-year-old Mbye is already an indelible part of Minnesota music history.

Speaking of that history, Keith and Jay begin the episode with a "Remember Some Guys?" speed round of past Picked to Click winners, spanning back to when the best-new-band poll first appeared in City Pages.

And, at the very end of the pod, enjoy the Parcelles track "SENEGAMBIA."

Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Depending on who ask, St. Paul educator/social media star Mandi Jung is either "the fun teacher" who cares deeply for her middle school students (that's according to HBO's John Oliver). Or she's the "anti-capitalist teacher [who] promotes anarchy" (that's according to Fox News).

We absolutely loved chatting with Jung, who regularly shares her funny and heartfelt insights into education, politics, and culture with her 158K TikTok followers.

"I'm like the queen of freak teacher TikTok," Jung says with her infectious laugh.

Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.