Happy College Radio Day!
…You should probably tune in to your local U-M based student-run freeform community radio station this afternoon and get the skinny on the special celebratory events and programming today (here~ http://www.wcbn.org/wcbn-stage/content/college-radio-day~)
Now, WCBN FM and the EQMC (East Quad Music Co-Op)’s collaborative hosting of laid-back-yet-enriching/engaging live music events continues to satisfy, setting up another gig at the Work Gallery (306 S. State St.) for tomorrow night. ~ Extend your College-Radio-Day(s) celebration into Wednesday night (10/3) with two notable national indie/artsy acts coming in to join a line-up with the local indie-experimental-pop-puddle-splashed City Center: NY-based Woods brings their alluring unraveling of indie-rock aesthetics-by-way-of-heavily-hazed-pop-psyhedelia, while west-coast based ambient-synth-splotched dream-pop duo Lucky Dragons do their thing.
Swoon:
Ypsi Song Fest
You know, I used to work in a radio station… (In fact, for two brief and enjoyable months I even got to DJ once a week at WCBN, way-back-when…and that was after cataloging countless CD’s inside EMU’s jazz station studios), so I’m all for propping college radio! ~ But, my day job now, involves libraries, (a circulation specialist, as they call me, over in a public library just north of Detroit). So I’d like to prop libraries as well on this post – nodding towards the Ypsilanti District Library – hosting Ypsi Song Fest ’12 –
There’ll be a series of free programs at the library this week celebrating the tradition, techniques and beauties of songcraft. There’s a songwriting workshop for Teens scheduled, as well as a tribute to Motown.
(Find out more here: (http://ypsilibrary.org/events-classes/songwriting-festival)
Two local indie/experimental-pop bands are joining the song-sanctifying ceremonies: Our Brother The Native and Known Moons will perform on Friday night (Oct 5) for the “After Hours In The Garage” program. This should prove insightful, if not provocative, for anyone walking in expecting traditional-pop-esque breakdowns of verse-chorus-verse, considering both of these project’s exploratory inclinations; charting ambient/abstract-structures, sample-employing, unconventional approaches to composition.
Here’s a track from Known Moons (featured on a recent Mix-Tape: TEDxUofM’s “Music for Ideas, Vol. 2,” - that you should probably check-out)~
The music starts at 7pm on Friday. (While you’re here, dig into Our Brother The Native’s featured track from the GRL MTN Collective’s late-summer comp: AAURAL II 
Ypsi-Fest (Oct 11 – Oct 13 @ Woodruff’s) – Preface
Anthony… also known as Anthony Anonymous, properly Anthony Gentile and sometimes Ghost Dad…singer/songwriter/shouter/shredder…up front and fiery-furtive-freak-balladeer with a number of bands throughout the last decade and a half.
This guy can tell you some stories about this town, how it was and how it’s come to be what it currently is ~ And what it is, as a music community-now, is quite active: wide-ranging: enthusiastic, sometimes rampant but mostly supportive. It wasn’t like this back in the late 90’s, Gentile recalls, with the old Elbow Room and the swatch of cover-bands he had to put up with…
You can read more about Gentile and the little party he’s throwing soon in this month’s print edition of iSPY Magazine or online here. In the meantime, I thought I’d share a bit of unedited expounding from the Ghost Dad as he gets ready to host YpsiFest 8 at Woodruff’s – kicking off next Thursday night (Oct 11).
Basically, it sounds stupid, but I’m super excited for this YpsiFest- just as a fan of live music. It might as well be called Anthony fest, because this year the lineup is simply the bands i really wanted to see. Nothing more, Nothing less. And while there are easily 10 or more bands I wish I could have fit on the bill, this is seriously a dream weekend of live music for me.
I’ve heard some criticism because the lineup isn’t all Ypsi- bands, but it was never the point for YpsiFest to be all Ypsi bands. The point was to bring great bands TO YPSI in hopes of having them enjoy it and start coming back regularly to play. The intent was to grow the music scene, not just celebrate what was already happening in town. There is a place for all of that, but it’s not Ypsifest. YpsiFest, from the beginning and now again with refreshed vigor, is about me bringing in the bands I really want to see in our hometown bar. I can’t possibly try to represent everything that is happening in town. If so, I would have omitted more than I could have included, so it’s pointless.
And I can’t possibly have every single band I am friends with, because after all these years of playing music, lots of my friends are musicians in bands. So YpsiFest once again is me putting together the three nights of music that I most wanted to see. I promise it will be a blast every night…
Full Line Up Here~
http://www.woodruffsbar.com/music/79/Thursday-October-11th-2012
