Jill Reilly: We lock eyes at a Saturday morning vinyl record garage sale in South Minneapolis. She’s looking for limited issue Smiths. I’ve got my fingers on Jackson Browne that I quickly tell her is for my mother’s birthday. A few Hutchinson references later, maybe a Chanhassen-centric Prince joke, and she’s laughing hard while faux-coyishly showing me her cleavage. Then we’re drinking microbrews and playing Bocce Ball somewhere grungy but not filthy (maybe the Nomad World Pub). When we make love she demands I call her Janis the entire time. We nightcap by chugging Code Red Mountain Dew and watching Weeds.

Barb Abney: It’s a Current event somewhere outstate, like Duluth or Black Duck. Barb’s not from Minnesota, so she’s enamored by simple touristy charms most Minnesotans just now find gross/irrelevant: some Scandinavian eatery, the place where Bob Dylan got his teeth cleaned as a kid, etc…I’m a local guy who has come to watch some overhyped Minneapolis buzzband, and now she’s wondering why she ever left the Cities. I mention my love for 1980s goth-wave and suddenly, before I even realize what’s happening, she’s ripped off my pearl-button shirt and began working on my vintage Levi’s. She’s experienced, but it’s weird when she gives me an ear-bud and forces me to listen to the Cure. She then puts on her black hooded sweatshirt, asks that I never talk to her again, loads up the Current van, and drives 120 MPH down I-35 back to town. A week later I get a signed photograph of her in the mail.

Mary Lucia: We’re at the CC Club, and I put a quarter in the jukebox and play Hank Williams. She comes by and slaps me in the ass as she’s walking into the ladies room. I follow her in and with no pretense we have sex standing half-upright in a stall. She keeps whispering in my ears a catalog of names of bassists in 1990s alt-country bands from Austin, Texas before I tell her that I’m not any of them. She then punches me in the face, pulls up her jeans (commando), and leaves me with a bloody nose on the bathroom floor. When I walk out to apologize (I guess), she’s drinking Grain Belts with members of The4onthefloor doing an in-bar interview. I wave and she flashes me the bird with her left while holding the microphone with her right hand.

Jade Tittle: It’s like 2 AM, I’m driving to somewhere asinine like Fergus Falls, and The Current’s coming in and out of my radio. Suddenly Jade—who a moment ago was on my radio—is now sitting with her crackling-amber voice in my passenger seat talking about Tapes n’ Tapes. I pull over at a gas stop and she goes down on me in my car, then I return the favor. Then we’re having a cigarette laughing about last month’s Spin cover story on Mumford and Sons, when I realize Jade’s not really here. She’s still in my radio. That I’ve just pulled over by the side of the road in Punkassnowhere, Minnesota, and jacked off next to a cornfield and held a conversation with myself about the Temple Bar area in Dublin. While I’m wiping cum off the upholstery of my Subaru, I realize that I’m a lonely, horrible person, and I have this weird fascination that the people who work for the Current are real/my friends. I then donate $25 to MPR on my cell-phone and request an organic water bottle manufactured in Grand Marais or whatever.

David Campbell: Inside the Current’s studios. Inside the belly of the grand piano. Wearing only stocking caps. Jill Reilly’s watching. Afterwards we all chug Code Red Mountain Dew.

– Dunstan McGill