Wild Belle
For a band that still hasn’t even released its debut album, Wild Belle has accumulated a remarkable amount of public adoration. The band has been highlighted in gushing features in Rolling Stone, T: The New York Times...
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Ann Arbor ReSkilling Festival
ReSkilling Festivals tap into Ann Arbor’s vast pool of qualified experts, who volunteer to share their knowledge, mostly on things that aren’t taught in college. So far, our town has hosted five free and...
Read MoreDo You Ever Wish?
“Do you find you’re alone most of the time?” “Do you understand your rightful place in the world?” “Do you love your siblings?” “Do you wish that you could be somebody else?”...
Read MoreGeri Allen
The University of Michigan’s annual veneration of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King takes on a local tone when the University Musical Society presents “From Cass Corridor to the World: A Tribute to...
Read MoreJeff Epton
A few readers will remember Jeff Epton from his years on the Ann Arbor City Council in the 1980s. Epton was probably a true socialist, yet he got along rather well with moderate Republicans (yes, there really were such...
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Homegrown Symphony
The community concert band is something of a two-headed animal: concert bands perform the marches and popular songs that are central to community celebrations, but there’s also a rarer strain of the tradition that treats...
Read MoreMaura O’Connell
I still vividly remember the first time I heard Maura O’Connell sing. It was at the Wheatland Music Festival in 1981. I was walking through the woods behind the main stage, from the workshop lane to the dance stage, when I...
Read MoreThe Detroit Symphony’s Return
The University Musical Society is always looking for a reason to celebrate. Last season it celebrated American mavericks, climaxing in three concerts with the San Francisco Symphony performing pieces few folks had heard before....
Read MoreNatural Habitat
The Habitat at Weber’s Inn has been a townie bar for many years, and when they have live music, it’s often reflective of roots in this area. Al Hill and his Love Butlers band, long gone to Nashville, used to play for...
Read MoreElimination Games
London had its summer Olympics. Ann Arbor has a more regular match. It isn’t necessarily seasonal, and it certainly isn’t sport. It’s the hide-and-seek chasing down of spray-can-wielding outlaws.Tag,...
Read MoreBlack Jake & the Carnies
Black Jake stands at the front of the stage, dressed like a ringmaster, his banjo adorned with Christmas lights. He stands resolute, barely moving amid the chaos that surrounds him, yet he cranks out lyrics like an auctioneer....
Read MoreStreet Language
Overheard at west-side polling places in November were pronunciations that infuriate Old West Siders: Lutz pronounced “lutts,” Bach pronounced “bock,” Revena pronounced “ravenna”–and all...
Read MoreThe Klezmatics
As a Jew I have a problem around Christmastime. No, it’s none of the things you probably think it is. I don’t have a problem with the focus on consumerism and materialism–not any more than many Christians do,...
Read MoreAmitav Ghosh
Amitav Ghosh writes big, sprawling novels that encompass gigantic swaths of history. Characters in his books are fictional, but he is also comfortable inventing moments for historical figures; for instance, in River of Smoke,...
Read MoreThe Art Forger
Inspired by the 1990 robbery at the Gardner Museum in Boston that claimed three of Degas’ drawings, still at large, B.A. Shapiro’s new novel The Art Forger plunges into the seedy underworld of high art. The story...
Read MoreTim O’Brien 2012
Born in 1954 in Wheeling, West Virginia, Tim O’Brien grew up with bluegrass, the folk revival, and rock and roll–and Lawrence Welk to boot. In the late 1970s he joined a bluegrass band called Hot Rize that landed...
Read MoreLate-life Artists
Gallery 55+ celebrates art mostly made by people who never went to art school. What its exhibitors all have in common, beyond loving to make art, is that they are at least fifty-five years old.The gallery lines three corridors...
Read MoreSchool for songwriting
Dick Siegel, long a mainstay of the local music scene and the creator of such well-loved songs as “Angelo’s,” “What Would Brando Do?” and “When the Sumac is on Fire,” sees a trend....
Read MoreSuperior Donuts
From the moment actor Randolph Mantooth steps on stage in the Purple Rose’s superlative production of Superior Donuts, he takes total control of both the stage and the material of this extraordinary play by Tracy Letts...
Read MoreKhalid Hanifi 2012
Both liberals and conservatives will find something to like about Khalid Hanifi’s new album, A Brief Respite from Shooting Fish in a Barrel, described by the Ann Arbor singer-songwriter as a collection of “resolutely...
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