Recent Random Remarks

Earlier in the year I got to see the sold out show at the Ark with The Civil Wars. I was already a fan from having heard their record a year ago, but still I was surprised that the show had sold out when 107one hadn’t even started playing their music yet.  My appreciation for the band increased at least tenfold after taking in the live performance. It was a bigger thrill to spend time with John Paul and Joy in Studio A2 and again have the chance to see them live, this time at the Michigan Theater.  That did nothing but increase my appreciation for their art (and incidentally make me realize Joy Williams is not just beautiful, she’s model beautiful without the airbrushing).  If you get the chance to see this band, do so. Charming, beautiful and talented.  I invested in a few of Joy’s pre-Civil Wars CDs recently and, well…not as good.  I’ll investigate others as I see them at a reasonable price.

In October I accompanied my wife to her Homecoming game at Michigan Stage.  The following weekend we were fortunate enough to go the U of M’s Homecoming game.  I’d never been to the Big House (despite having a U of M degree) so it was great to finally experience what hundreds of thousands of people already have.  I’m sad to report that, despite loving the look of the Big House and enjoying my tailgating experience, I found the U of M fans to be rude and relatively poor sports.  The Wisconsin fans at the Michigan State game were worse, but overall I felt uncomfortable cheering for my team when thousands of their fans acted in a way I that would not.

Sometimes I try to get a message across that I think a lot of people would like to hear and sometimes it falls on deaf ears.  Over the last few weeks, every time I played an Ingrid Michaelson song, I mentioned that Bess Rogers, a member of Ingrid’s touring band, would be in town for a small show. Ingrid draws hundreds of enthusiastic fans to her shows in the area and, since Bess’ style and sense of humor are similar, I thought it would result in a good turn out for her show.  There may have been 30 people at the Neutral Zone’s B-side the other night to see Bess’ show to my disappointment. Her material is quite good and she is deserving of more attention. I’ll give her some attention on an upcoming Acoustic Brunch as I sat down with her in Studio A2 to record something for future play back.  I hope you catch it on Nov 27th!