Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
Inspired by T-Rock, Cloudland Opens on E. Lake
Racket first brought you news of Cloudland Theater, the new 150-capacity Minneapolis music venue at 3533 E. Lake St., back in August. "As showgoers and artists, we wanted to participate in rebuilding what felt missing: small venues geared towards both the local scene as well as independent artists from out of town," co-owners/music scene vets Maren Macosko (Soviettes) and Brad Lokkesmoe (Gateway District) told us. "East Lake Street was certainly in our search radius and when this spot came up, it immediately felt right. The neighbors are the best and the size is just perfect."
Tonight? It's opening night! Australian rockers Vintage Crop will christen the stage alongside locals Dummy and Kapital beginning at 7 p.m. ($15 tickets are available via Cloudland's website.) The Strib's Chris Riemenschneider published a chat with Macosko and Lokkesmoe yesterday, in which we learn that Cloudland will serve beer/wine (no booze) as well as pizzas, and that the floor was industrially reinforced by a previous tenant who specialized in machinery. And today the co-owners announced their first star booking: The great Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! will headline the tiny club on January 3. Consider us pumped.
If You Like Driving, You’ll Love the New Nicollet
What do the proposed designs for a reconnected Nicollet Avenue. all have in common? None include a bike lane. Bring Me the News has collected the city’s renderings for possible revamps of the area between Lake Street and West 29th, where the doomed Kmart now stands. (The store is slated for demolition next year.) That includes three possible options for public space design and four possible street designs. To our eyes, the amount of land set aside for public space in each of the proposals seems relatively small, if not stingy, with most of the area reserved for a development zone that will contain a mix of affordable housing and retail units. As for the street designs, they aren’t all car-forward—one is a transit-only option—and all contain paths connecting bike lanes on Blaisdell and First Avenue North. If you have feedback for the city, you can complete this survey before Nov. 14, or you can attend an open house in the Kmart lot next Tuesday, October 10, between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. There will be free tacos. Construction on the redevelopment starts in 2025.
Well, It's a Lot Longer Than the Typical Baseball Walk
Lotta ways out there to get to Target Field. You can bike, and lock up in this year's new monitored theft-prevention corral. You can take the Metro Blue or Green Line and get dropped off right at the ballpark. Or you can drive, parking in any number of ramps nearby in downtown. But Josh Campbell of Mayer, Minnesota, didn't do any of the above. KSTP caught up with the 25-year-old this morning because he was making the roughly 36-mile trek from Meyer by foot. It's a trek that'll take him a little over 12 hours. "Many may wonder, why walk all that way?" muses KSTP's Bailey Hurley, correctly. It seems the tradition started with Campbell's father, Peter, who in 2010 undertook the same journey from Mayer to Target Field when it opened. As for what inspired Peter's Gumpian journey to downtown Minneapolis? We never find out. What a world.
It's Good That Mayor Frey Is Talking About Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce
Just hear us out. In the times before our current Strong Mayor Era, Minneapolis mayors acted as cheerleading figureheads. Sharon Sayles Belton would cut the ribbon of the downtown Target; R. T. Rybak would crowd-surf at a Trampled by Turtles show; Betsy Hodges would appear as Santa Claus in A Very Die Hard Christmas at the Bryant-Lake Bowl; and Jacob Frey would pull shit like this. Simpler times! Yet today's tabloidy headlines about the Strong Mayor weighing in on the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce romance predictably spurred annoyed cries of, "Fix homelessness! Reform policing! Stand up against literally any corporate interest!"
Now, is it ideal that the mayor is spending his time saying stuff like, "If Taylor chooses to come back to Minneapolis [sometimes known as Swiftieapolis] this weekend, we’ll be Ready For It. It’s possible she will have to console Travis Kelce after the Vikings beat the Chiefs, but there are plenty of great spots across town for them to go on a date and lift their spirits!" No. Good god, no. But! Is it harmless boosterism that distracts Frey from, say, propping up the wrong-minded, left-punching views of his cronies because he's secretly agonized by Twitter taunting? If that's the case, he's all yours TMZ!
