Event Reviews

Bug Fest

The older kids complain on the drive over about how unfair it is that they all have to go to Leslie Science & Nature Center simply because Little Brother has to go to Bug Fest. They insist they’re too old (and too...

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The Barra MacNeils

Celtic music, especially of the Scots variety, has a mass following in Canada, with musicians covering a whole spectrum of styles from the purest tradition to rock slightly inflected with harps and whistles. The Barra MacNeils...

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The Doyle & Debbie Show

How easy it would be to notice “The Doyle & Debbie Show” on the Ark’s November schedule, quickly dismiss it as some weird Nashville country music/comedy duo you’ve never heard of, and not go.And what...

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The Ultrasounds

As I was skimming through the Ultrasounds' press release, a refreshingly frank quote caught my eye. "People don't want to hear songs about how bad things suck all the time," says lead guitarist Patrick Betzold....

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Sebastian and RMcGuinn

Roger McGuinn and John Sebastian are playing back-to-back solo sets at the Michigan Theater on Friday, August 8. It’s the hottest double bill of the summer: this is Roger McGuinn of the Byrds — “Mr. Tambourine...

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Panhandle Slim

Jeff Daniels, that restless playwriting mill, keeps shoving the raw grist of Americana into the hopper and spitting out scripts. His most sustained look at American life and myth is the Escanaba soon-to-be-trilogy of North Woods...

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A Place at the Table

There's nothing so blatantly vaginal as Judy Chicago's work in the current exhibition at the Ann Arbor Art Center, although it obviously refers to her controversial feminist masterpiece, The Dinner Party. Sponsored by...

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Dana Cooper

Music is a young person's art, so I'm always fascinated by musicians who keep commanding attention with fresh material after several decades in the business. Singer-songwriter Dana Cooper, who'll be featured at the...

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Madcat & Kane at the Ark

Madcat & Kane have been performing together for eighteen years, but in any poll of blues fans, they long ago were candidates — and voted in and elected — as one of the finest duos working in that genre. That’s not...

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Steep Canyon Rangers

Bluegrass music is conservative in the best sense of the word, refining traditions into clearer, deeper forms. Players start out by learning the standards and continue to play them while adding slowly to that core repertory....

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Natalie MacMaster

Onstage, Natalie MacMaster is a one-woman Riverdance, constantly step-dancing, prancing, whirling, twirling, stamping, stomping, all the while playing horsehair-sizzling tunes that most fiddlers can't manage even while...

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Jen Sygit

I can't remember when or where I first heard Jen Sygit sing. We were sharing a stage somewhere, I think. But I remember, quite clearly, my response the second she opened her mouth. It was one word — "whoa"...

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Demetrius Nicodemus

The first time I interviewed a comedian after a show, I was surprised when he dropped his stage persona and morphed into a businessman. In time, I came to expect it. Still, I kept looking for what my naive idea of a comedian is...

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Janet Kauffman

Confined animal feeding operations. Factory farms. For those of us who don't or no longer live in the country, these are the places we drive by on Sunday jaunts or pass on the freeway: acres and acres of buildings often...

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The OffRamps

Several days after hearing the OffRamps play at the Elbow Room in Ypsilanti, I couldn't get the refrain of one of their songs out of my head: "You said you were sorry, but that really doesn't make it all...

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Madame XD

I first encountered the music of Xiao Dong Wei two years ago, on a beautiful June morning. I'd ridden my bike down to the end of Maple Road to find Huron River Drive all blocked off with traffic cones. I stopped. No cars, no...

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Miles Harvey

A few years ago Miles Harvey hit it big with his nonfiction book The Island of Lost Maps, which not only told a fascinating story about a thief who cut maps from rare old books housed in North America's best libraries, but...

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Lizz Wright

Lizz Wright grew up singing gospel music in the church of her minister father in south Georgia's Lowndes County. She studied voice at Georgia State University in Atlanta, at the New School in New York, and in Vancouver,...

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Mandy Patinkin

Who is Mandy Patinkin? The answer depends on whom you talk to. For those who watch television, he's Jeffrey Geiger in Chicago Hope and Jason Gideon in Criminal Minds. For those who go to the movies, he's Iñigo...

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