Muppets and Gong Show and Puppets and Wrong Show
If you feel like you’ve seen all Woodruff’s has to offer: acoustic open mic, Hairy Karaoke, Elbow Deep …rinse…repeat, you aren’t alone. But if you look closer you’ll notice a familiar face with a new reason to pop in to our favorite local watering hole. The Dave LaFave Variety Hour is but a few hours old and she’s already hanging out at bars! Her daddy Dave LaFave answered a few burning questions for me about his little monster.
LaFave beams when asked of his Variety Hour that, “the management at Woodruff’s have kindly given me the keys to the castle, as it were. Allowing me to treat the stage and interior of the bar as a blank canvas!” When asked to describe his inspiration, he waxes poetic: “I wanted to give Depot Town a fun mix of Muppets and Gong Show and Puppets and Wrong Show to expose the truly unique attributes of Ypsilanti’s Art Culture, performance and otherwise.” How can “the wrong show” feel so very, very right?! The answer to that question may be that TDLFVH is at its heart a charity event, with 100% of the “door” going to organizations that benefit the homeless, gay teens or the hungry.
The mélange of acts you’ll find on the bill are perplexingly and enticingly disparate, and that’s the way LaFave likes it. He makes it a point to highlight new talent – delightfully abundant here in our fair city. Everyone from The White Ravens to Jaycob Sayraf and Narooz Soliman, Alexis Ford to Devil Elvis. They are all a part of LaFave’s savory “salad niçoise of punk, folk, noize and musical, under the increasingly thin veneer of ‘Art.’” But the acts aren’t the only draw – LaFave taps a different MC each month to keep this mad parade moving. Some of his favorite ringmasters include local celebrities like robo-master and consummate blouseman Cre Fuller, and DJ Dickslap (Phil Attee). LaFave’s fave (see what I did there?) is DJ Humanfly; who is not only responsible for creating the soundtrack to all of his sightscapes for years but is also La Fave’s life partner and “taste arbiter.” We all need one.
With an event that values novelty above most other things, it is an unending task to keep things fresh over at DLFVH HQ. So what does La Fave have up his sleeve? Well, it seems that he has quite a few acts that would be a great addition, a veritable cavalcade really. Jeremy Wheeler tops the list, designated by La Fave as a “true variety specialist.” MC B. Wiard, Lawless Carver and “S.N.A.F.U. which rocks the house as not only the sweetest punk ensemble in Washtenaw County currently, but also the handsomest boys in Southeastern Michigan” are also hopeful “gets.” He dreamily concludes with a sighing wish: “I would LOVE to snag Bradley Bovver, whom I chase as a wolf on a young buck, to perform sans Ironclad.” May all your wishes come true, Dave. Stay tuned for the next Dave LaFave variety hour on Sunday, December 16 at Woodruff’s in Ypsilanti.
