Event Reviews

Annie Capps

Singer-songwriter Annie Capps is heir to the long history of folk music as a medium for social commentary. At the same time, she is clearly a folksinger for the twenty-first century, using her art to explore the psychology of...

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Blithe Spirit

Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit is about as frothy as theater gets. It's 1930s baronial Scotland. People dress for dinner and drape themselves languidly over the furniture drawling things like "Anyone can write books,...

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Michael Cooney

Michael Cooney is well into his fifth decade playing music professionally, and he has appeared at the Ark — where he returns on Friday, August 1 — in every one of those decades. Along the way, he's also played at...

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Rubber duckies

"He drove around all day looking for a rubber ducky," art grad student Todd Cashbaugh tells me in the airy Robbins Gallery in North Campus's Art and Architecture Building. "It was so frustrating," agrees...

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Otis Taylor

Before I picked up on his amazingly haunting new CD, Truth Is Not Fiction, my only contact with blues artist Otis Taylor was a brief chorus or two I managed to catch on various WEMU blues shows. His voice reminded me in a way of...

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Marcia Ball 2003

Marcia Ball has been known for blues songs based on her sharp, precise piano playing — party music for those who enjoy watching the piano player as much as dancing. But her latest release, So Many Rivers, is something else...

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Deep Space Six

I must admit that I changed out of my jammies and drove to Leopold Bros. at 11:30 p.m. on a Saturday because I was broke. Not because I knew anything about the cult groove band Deep Space Six. Not because I wanted to have a beer...

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Horns and Halos

Codirected by Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky, the 2002 documentary Horns and Halos focuses on the struggle of biographer Jim Hatfield and publisher Sander Hicks to republish and market the first unauthorized biography of...

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Rolling Sculpture

A steady stream of vintage cars converged onto Main Street at William, the entrance to Rolling Sculpture. When you get a bunch of old cars idling in traffic, one thing almost always happens: engines overheat. One car burped out...

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The Dexter- Ann Arbor Run

It's the morning of the Dexter-Ann Arbor Run, and I wonder how I will do. Did I train enough? Will I run better than last year? How will I place in my new age group, women 60-64? At Dexter Middle School, hundreds of runners...

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The Gibson Brothers

Both pickers and lovers of good harmony singing will be satisfied when the Gibson Brothers open for Phillips, Grier, & Flinner at the Ark on Saturday, June 7. Brother duets have a long tradition in country music, and these...

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Steven Gillis

I sometimes worry that the professionalization of creative writing is going to kill the writing of books, making them all safe and expected and easy to categorize as something called "good writing." Luckily, the...

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Jeremy Kittel

Maybe you know that seemingly middle-of-the-road Saline has been a fertile place for fiddle music lately. Maybe you've noticed that there are Celtic musicians in the bars downtown several nights a week, and that a lot of...

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MOMIX

Like any respectable baseball dilettante, I can recite my favorite ballparks, classic and neoclassic (Dodger Stadium and Camden Yards, respectively); name the best World Series team (the 1984 Tigers, of course); and advance my...

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Ménage Á trois

It was an executive producer of Nonesuch records who suggested that violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Sergio and Odair Assad form a trio. And if his idea of joining the fiery violinist who wails on her instrument with...

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Pandora’s Box

There's only one thing you need to know about G. W. Pabst's 1928 film Pandora's Box: Louise Brooks. Brooks, who snatched the title role of Lulu from Marlene Dietrich, is astounding. Her androgynous appearance,...

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P. D. Q. Bach

P. D. Q. Bach, the unacknowledged last son of Johann Sebastian Bach, made his first appearance in 1965 in a concert by Peter Schickele — who billed himself as a professor from the University of Southern North Dakota at...

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Rodin at UMMA

The nearly claustrophobic exhibit of sixty-three Auguste Rodin sculptures crammed into two second-floor galleries at the U-M Museum of Art, swarming with visitors on the weekday I visited, left me with mixed feelings: awe at the...

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Urban Transport

Popular histories of jazz inevitably concentrate on the great individualists, but some of the greatest contributions to the music have been group efforts. Economic realities have made it difficult to keep large bands together,...

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