RacketCast

A fresh RacketCast ep, out one day early due to Wolves Fever gripping the state.

Is it unwise to keep calling our listeners "dummies"? Perhaps, but that's what we did with our Twins preview pod, and we're doing it again for this Timberwolves explainer featuring the great podcaster Dane Moore.

Dane joined us Wednesday afternoon from L.A., where hours later your T-Wolves trounced the Los Angeles Lakers to advance to the Western Conference Semifinals round of the NBA playoffs. As fans hop aboard the hoops bandwagon, the host of The Dane Moore NBA Podcast equips us with the requisite knowledge to root deep into the postseason, including a long-view look at the franchise, a roster breakdown, and also details about his own self-made Wolves podcasting empire. Awoooooooo!

Here are the stories we gabbed about during What I Learned In Racket...

• Life After HUGE: How the Twin Cities Improv Scene Is Evolving (and Even Expanding) Following HUGE Improv Theater’s Closure
• We Taste Tested the New Frozen Jucy Lucy Brand
• ‘The Park Is Vibrating’: How DJ Sound Systems Redefined Powderhorn’s MayDay Celebration
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And would you like to know the exact make/model of chest freezer Jay drones on and on about? Take a look. (Best Buy... please sponsor the pod!)

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. 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.

We're still figuring out what types of conversations y'all wanna hear on RacketCast, and our first experiment with a newsier, shorter installment was a certified hit.

So here's another bonus ep along those lines: our chat with veteran state Sen. John Marty (DFL-Roseville) about whether Minnesota should ban billboards. Marty's eye-catching new bill would establish a moratorium on new billboard construction, and eventually phase out existing ones as they age. If the bill becomes law, Minnesota would join Maine, Alaska, Vermont, and Hawaii as the only states who've declared war on the visual pollution that lines our roadways.

Of modest consequence? Sure, but the legislation aims to improve the state in a tangible way, which is more than we can say about two recent bad-faith trolling bills authored by Republicans in the House. (We asked Marty about both of those.)

Oh, yeah! If you don't have plans Saturday head to Insight Brewing for Smash Fest, where Racket's Jay Boller will be judging a smashburger competition featuring two recent RacketCast guests.

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Music, Pocket Casts, etc. 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.

Twin Cities burger freaks: This is the episode for you.

The proprietors of two elite food trucks—Angry Line Cook (Jesse Hedman and Mona Negasi) and Burger Daddies (Nikki and Brian Podgorski)—dropped by our studio for a long conversation about cheeseburgers, building your business from scratch, and life in the trenches of the food industry. (FYI: Whenever "the burger group" gets mentioned, we're referring to the fantastic Facebook group MSP Burgers.) On April 26, Jay from Racket will actually be judging a blind taste test at Insight Brewing's Smash Fest (details here), which'll feature battling burger joints Angry Line Cook, Burger Daddies, Private Sector Provisions, and Garillers.

This episode of RacketCast is brought to you by...

TPT's award-winning music series Stage, which returns on April 7 with an electrifying new season, featuring never-before-seen collaborations filmed at the legendary 7th St Entry. This season brings fresh energy with standout pairings like Kiss the Tiger with Diane, Your Smith with Raffaella, and Cory Wong with Misty Boyce. Experience intimate performances and powerful storytelling from Minnesota’s top talent. Watch on TPT 2 and the PBS App, or catch exclusive previews on The Current’s The Local Show. Learn more here.

And also by...

Lodestone Coffee and Games is a friendly local game store and cafe, specializing in Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons and board games of all kinds. You can find tournaments, meetups or open play events every single day of the week. Lodestone also carries a massive selection of over 500,000 Magic the Gathering singles at lodestonegames.com, with same day pickup available, and free domestic shipping for orders over thirty dollars. If you are looking for an inclusive space with delightful milkshakes, check out Lodestone on Cedar Lake Road in Minnetonka, or at lodestonegames.com.

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Music, Pocket Casts, etc. 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.

What's going on up there in Duluth?

Plenty of stuff worth trying out ahead of your demise, that's for sure. Duluth News Tribune reporter Jay Gabler chronicled the exact number in his new book, 100 Things to Do In Duluth Before You Die. Jay, who you might remember from his time at 89.3 the Current, hopped on the pod to discuss the Zenith City's must-do activities, and he also gave us a nice rundown of the big talkers coming out of the Twin Ports; check out his book-release party dates here.

And here are the stories we gabbed about during What I Learned In Racket…

• An Educated Guesser’s Guide to the 2025 Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival
• Grading the 2025 Additions to Target Field’s New Food Lineup
• I Came to Minnesota From Venezuela 2 Years Ago. Now I Have to Go Back.

•••

This episode of RacketCast is brought to you by TPT's award-winning music series Stage, which returns on April 7 with an electrifying new season, featuring never-before-seen collaborations filmed at the legendary 7th St Entry. This season brings fresh energy with standout pairings like Kiss the Tiger with Diane, Your Smith with Raffaella, and Cory Wong with Misty Boyce. Experience intimate performances and powerful storytelling from Minnesota’s top talent. Watch on TPT 2 and the PBS App, or catch exclusive previews on The Current’s The Local Show. Learn more here.

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Music, Pocket Casts, etc. 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.

Late Tuesday, Gov. Tim Walz surprised around 40,000 state workers by announcing a mandatory 50% return-to-office policy for employees who live within 75 miles of their main work location.

“This policy change supports the economic vitality of office districts like downtown St. Paul, bringing foot traffic back to businesses and public spaces,” the governor's office says of the directive, which is set to take effect June 1. The move set off waves of online anger, with the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees union threatening legal action and even a strike.

RacketCast has never waded into breaking news territory, but considering the scope of this order and its abrupt timeliness, we asked MAPE President Megan Dayton to hop on the pod to discuss how her union's 18,000ish workers are processing the news. Spoiler: They've not been this pissed off in recent memory. Let us know if you enjoy this type of bonus episode, and we'll keep 'em coming.

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Music, Pocket Casts, etc. 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.

In the early '00s Aaron Gleeman's U of M journalism professors suspected he was chronically hungover. In reality, the young blogger was chronically exhausted from writing about baseball literally all night long. That set Gleeman on a path that includes Aaron's Baseball Blog (cute!), NBC Sports, Baseball Prospectus, and, since 2019, the Athletic, which is now the de facto sports desk of the New York Times. In our view? He's the state's ace hardball writer.

Gleeman joined Racket in our brand-new office/podcast studio to breakdown the state of the in-flux Twins franchise, the team's roster heading into 2025, and his own journey through the blogger-to-professional-sportswriter pipeline. (Apologies for any echoey sound—our audio paneling efforts are also in-flux.) You can—and should!—subscribe to and support his Gleeman & the Geek Twins podcast, featuring co-host John Bonnes, here; you can read all of his writing via the Athletic here.

But first: We debut a hit new segment known as Birthday Break Down. And here are the stories Em and Jay gabbed about during our regular segment, This Week in Racket:

• Let's Taco 'Bout Politics mayoral candidate Q&A series
• How Alive or Dead is Dinkytown in 2025? Depends on Who You Ask.

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Music, Pocket Casts, etc. 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.

Voters elected Mary Moriarty as Hennepin County's top prosecutor in 2022, which, given the sweeping sociopolitical changes since, feels like 1,000 years ago. Just over two full years into the job, how has Moriarty's progressive vision of restorative justice unfolded while Minneapolis remains under a national microscope? We asked the first openly LGBTQ+ Hennepin County attorney about her successes, challenges, and surprisingly elusive favorite restaurants. You can check out Moriarty's brand-new podcast, We Don't Have to Choose, right here.

And here are the stories we gabbed about during This Week In Racket. (P.S. Jay misidentified Todd Haug's post-Surly gig as War Pigs outta Iowa; in reality, he's at Indiana's 3 Floyds Brewing Co.)

• Shoegaze is Having a Moment and Twin Cities Bands Are Here For It.
• How Did Minneapolis Metal Band Powermad End up in David Lynch’s ‘Wild at Heart’?
• Meet the One-Woman Team Overseeing MN’s Online Encyclopedia 

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Music, Pocket Casts, etc. 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.

A terrestrial radio DJ... on a podcast?! Believe it: We've got Dave Ryan, the 101.3 KDWB morning show host since 1993, on the pod to talk pranks, legacy, the evolving nature of Top 40 radio, and the ill-fated Booty Cruises. (Our conversation cold-opens with him dealing with a Colorado exterminator—how can you cut tape that good?) Be sure read Rachel Hutton's longform 2018 Star Tribune profile of Ryan right here.

And here are the three stories we yakked about during What I Learned in Racket:

• How Red Wing—Yes, Red Wing—Became a Minnesota Music Hotbed
• Why Do So Many of Minneapolis’s Best Sandwiches Come From Liquor Stores?
• ‘I Can’t Let It Go’: Inside the 74-Year Search for the Klein Brothers, MN’s Oldest Missing Persons Cold Case

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Music, Pocket Casts, etc. 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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We've got a double-header for ya, folks.

In the leadoff spot: Keith and Jay discuss Poised to Pop, Racket's annual predictions for the year's most exciting new local music acts. (It is very different from Picked to Click, thank you very much!) Hear Keith's scouting reports, then dive into some of the best rock, jazz, techno, rap, etc. sounds currently coming from the Twin Cities music scene.

On deck: Em and Jay chat with Chris Steadman, who's launching a new podcast studio called Good Judy Productions, and Celisia Stanton, whose Truer Crime podcast is about to enter its second season. Among the topics addressed: the challenges and rewards of pursuing ambitious, narrative-driven podcasts; the state of the local podcasting scene; and the philosophical approach of "podcasting from below."

Play... ball? Play... podcast? Whatever, you get the idea.

And here's our P2P playlist if you're scorekeeping at home.

• “Love Bomb” by Crush Scene
• “Bugz Bunny” by EssJay TheAfrocentricRatchet
• “Attaboy” by In Leiu
• “Smoke of the Midnight Lamp” by Kavyesh Kaviraj
• “Power Cord” by Lonefront 
• “Pink Puma” by Products Band
• “I Feel Perfect” by Rosie
• “Oil Light” by Yonder

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Music, Pocket Casts, etc. 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.

Did you know the Star Tribune recently launched its very first episodic, narratively driven podcast series, Ghost of a Chance?

Over six episodes, reporter Eric Roper and producer Melissa Townsend explore the lives Harry and Clementine Robinson, a Black Minneapolis family who owned Roper's south Minneapolis home in the early 20th century. "The Robinsons' lives are a window into the ambition, discrimination, and resistance that shaped the city that would become ground zero for an unprecedented global racial reckoning," the pod creators promise. It's a big ol' ambitious project that took almost five years to assemble, so we figured we'd get Roper on our less ambitious podcast to talk about it.

You can listen to Ghost of a Chance here. And you can listen to what, it turns out, is Roper's favorite podcast, Wood Talk, here.

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Music, Pocket Casts, etc. 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.