Published: 8/25/2010
Sometimes in the wild and hairy world of rock 'n' roll, following rules pays off. Case in point: Ann Arbor-based quintet Drunken Barn Dance. The group was conceived initially as a solo vehicle by songwriter-by-night/attorney-by-day Scott Sellwood (who many will remember as the former keyboardist for...[MORE]
Published: 4/21/2010
The annals of stories surrounding records made by or about father and son relationships are full of the bittersweet, the coulda-been and after-the-fact recriminations and reconciliations. Rock 'n' roll musicians thrive on a culture where a rift between generations creates tension that results in art...[MORE]
Published: 3/3/2010
You can't mention Ann Arbor-area songwriter Tim Monger's name without also invoking the name of the band for which he's best-known, the acclaimed Northern folk-pop quintet, Great Lakes Myth Society. His plaintive, finely detailed, pop-leaning contributions to that band perfectly complement the work ...[MORE]
Published: 1/27/2010
You wouldn't know it to scan the room, but the four dudes gathered in the living room of a rented Woodbridge house on a recent Sunday evening are the core of one of the most productive, dynamic and vibrant gangs of sound and vision this city has birthed in the last few years. They operate under the ...[MORE]
Published: 12/23/2009
Types: Music, Local Music
A couple of years ago, a lanky mild-mannered Oak Park resident named Dan Miller duded up in an off-white seersucker suit with a cowboy hat and headed downtown around dawn to run in the annual Turkey Trot. A funny thing happened on the way to the finish line: People recognized him and started sho...[MORE]
Published: 11/11/2009
At the risk of under-complicating things, the music industry works like any other business: You create things that people want and then you let them buy them from you. In an era when the bloated infrastructure of the music industry as we have known it for the last 50 years is imploding — and a...[MORE]
Published: 10/7/2009
Types: Music, Local Music
It's a Friday night in Ferndale. The family is gathered around the table. There are glasses of wine, stacks of French fries, sandwiches being shared, coloring books and blankies at the ready, talk of pre-school and minivans. Except this night, the table happens to be at the Emory Bar. And the family...[MORE]
Published: 6/24/2009
The Gories were as much a gateway drug for would-be amateurs willing to strap on, sit-down or let rip as they were for music-hungry heads looking for fresh veins of inspiration. To that end, the Gories jams that connect with said crowd are purely subjective. But, dammit (!), if push came to shove an...[MORE]
Published: 6/24/2009
Types: Cover Story
This is how it ended the last time. The Bank, a club on Houston Street in Lower Manhattan, July 1, 1993. A 6-foot-3, slim, legally blind, black dude sporting shades, a blue iridescent suit and a beat-to-hell Fender Mustang six-string snarls the chorus of Suicide's "Ghostrider" and the word...[MORE]
Published: 5/6/2009
A straight haul from New York City to Los Angeles — according to the folks at MapQuest — takes 42 hours, 16 minutes. And that's a long-ass haul. Consider this: The drive from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Crazy Sarah's back yard in Anchorage, Alaska, is 43 hours and change. Now con...[MORE]
Published: 4/15/2009
Types: Culture, Tech, Internet
Seems like every week a new service claiming to revolutionize the online music space — or at least take another chunk of market share away from MySpace — appears. Whether it's RCRDLABL, Virb, SecretRemixes or one of the others on the Web, everyone's just one niche-play away from kicking some start-u...[MORE]
Published: 4/8/2009
Types: Music, Local Music
Quickly, before we run out of time — because you never really know when links are going to expire — some housecleaning. I had a bookmark all saved up for you before this column went on a brief page-count-and-special-issue-induced hiatus. And it's a goodie. If you're a fan of Detroi...[MORE]
Published: 3/11/2009
Types: Culture, Tech, Internet
Before the news blog sporting the adjectivally constructed URL version came online (and long before the current network of scene-adoring blogs), there was a site called, simply, motorcityrock.com. Dedicated to archiving the sights, sounds, ephemera and, yes, evidence of bad haircuts from Detroit roc...[MORE]
Published: 2/18/2009
Types: Arts, Literature, Books
It's a damn-near-balmy Thursday night (for February, in Detroit), and 50 or so folks have gathered at Oak Park's Book Beat. They're seated on folding chairs before a lanky, bespectacled, clean-headed, soft-spoken dude in an Army surplus jacket and jeans who's suddenly been transformed into an el...[MORE]
Published: 2/18/2009
Types: Music, Local Music
In case you're not one of the several dozen or so folks who read the local music blog circuit over your morning (or afternoon) cup of coffee — or over your late night fifth beer — there's some news springing forth from Detroit's fertile and circle-jerkulous blogosphere. Jay Carrol ...[MORE]
Published: 2/4/2009
Types: Culture, Tech, Internet
Lost amid all the rightful praise and hullabaloo surrounding Randy Chabot's Deastro project is the fact that dude's got two other monikers under which he lets his freak flag fly. The first, Our Brother the Megazord, shared a CD release with Deastro proper, and makes the occasional public appea...[MORE]
Published: 1/28/2009
Types: Culture, Tech, Internet
I've been bummed out that last year's Pas/Cal record, I Was Raised on Matthew, Mark, Luke and Laura, didn't get the full-court promotional press it deserved, especially in print, so I'll take any opportunity to recommend checking it out on the Web ... or other means that I can't legally recomm...[MORE]
Published: 1/21/2009
Types: Culture, Tech, Internet
So, flacks are always trying to get you to write about their crazy-ass clients' new half-baked projects. Such it was that I got an e-mail about just such a ka-razee new scheme the other day called secretremixes.com. It's a site where member DJs can post their mash-ups, mixes, breaks and snippe...[MORE]
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