Monthly Archive

My wife Jessica took a pregnancy test on Friday on found out she is pregnant with our first child!  The due date is October 26th.  We are excited beyond words!  I am actually still in a state of shock - it just doesn’t seem real.  I wonder when it will actually sink in?

We took our little one (who is the size of a grain of rice right now) to his/her first concert last night - we saw the Holmes Brothers play at the Ark in Ann Arbor.  It was an incredible performance.  Their style is a mixture of sanctified gospel, soul, funk, and country blues.  They ended the show with a song that repeated the phrase “God be with you” over and over, and at the end, inspired by the music, our little grain of rice, and the four Stella Artois I had in me, I yelled out “And with you Holmes Brothers!” the instant before the audience erupted in applause.  It was awesome.

Any suggestions on the name?

Ypsilanti’s own Iggy Pop and the Stooges are lined up to play a live gig at the Fox in downtown Detroit on April 13th.

Their self titled 1969 debut album is absolutely fantastic and worth investigating.  It was very influencial to modern punk and metal.   There is also a big blues influence that is very common amongst Detroit rock n roll.  I hung out one time with the founder of Big City Blues magazine, Robert Jr. Whitall and he said all the old Detroit rock groups like the Stooges, MC5, the Rationals, SRC, the Frost, ect, were all listening to the blues.  He said, “Back then, the MC5 and all those guys, we were all listening to the blues!  People don’t realize that punk music came from the blues.”  Well, the Stooges led the way and this show should be fantastic.

In another related story, Richard used to tell me stories about hanging out and partying out of his mind with Iggy and the boys in the late 60s. We have this poster print for sale in our store.  Pretty sweet, is for a show at Farmington High School back when they were just another local band.  Richard said that at this show Iggy ended up puking in the girls bathroom at some point in the night.

The wife and I made the trip downtown to go see the original group perform during Winter Blast last Friday. As with many people, I am a huge fan and looked forward to this show as soon as it was announced. When you are going to see an “oldies” act you sometimes worry that it will not be as electric as a more current act. This is defiantly not the case with the Mysterians. ? is as energetic a performer as any 16 year old. One of the highlights for me was them doing Sally Go Round the Roses. If you have not heard, ? had a devastating fire that destroyed his home and took the life of his dogs. Unfortunately he had no insurance and is living out of a camper. Due to the fire touring around to help ? out, so catch them if you can. This Video tells the sad story of the fire.

Cousin Justin

A while back Justin and I were going through a soul and funk collection we just bought when to my excitement we came across a yellow-labeled 45 on Mustache Records called “Back To Ypsilanti” by Lee Osler.

I live in good ol’ Ypsilanti (pronounced ip-sa-lan-tee), and have what we call “Ypsi-Pride”. It’s kind of a cool town, but a little rough around the edges. We have Eastern Michigan University, Historic Depot Town (where I live near), the famous watertower shaped like a giant you-know-what, a cool local music scene, a few good bars and restaurants, and the Huron river running straight through town. On the other hand, we have (in some areas of town) prostitution, drugs, shootings, and other such not-so-cool things. Overall, it doesn’t have the greatest reputation. Plus, it’s next to Ann Arbor, which gets all the attention and love.

Despite this, we Ypsilantians take some pride in our city. There’s something about it that has some charm, something that makes it somehow cool to live in. Which is why, to my delight, Lee Osler’s “Back To Ypsilanti” turned out to be arguably the sweetest song I had ever heard when I first put it on my turntable at full blast. It’s a upbeat dance-funk gem that hails Ypsi as the greatest city in the known universe. It has become the song that everyone who’s been to my house knows about. It is THE most prized record in my entire collection, no joke. Whenever we have people over, I always play it and everyone loves it and dances to it and sings along.

My good friend and fellow Ypsilanti native Van, who in addition to being a gym teacher and coach is also a soul and R&B singer, got to talking one day about music and I asked him if he remembered the song “Back To Ypsilanti”. It turns out that Van was good friends with Lee Osler and used to sing it with him back in the day. And Lee is alive and well and still lives on the south side.

Van went on to tell me a little history of the song. Lee was an up and coming singer in Ypsi who was associated with another R&B group around that time. He had a woman that was backing him financially and was the owner of Mustache Records, named after Lee’s fantastic curled stache.

The lyrics are all about Ypsi, mentioning Depot Town, the water tower, EMU, street names, the fun times, the pretty girls, ect. The song was a local hit and in 1983 was even declared the official song of Ypsilanti by the Ypsilanti City Council. Van estimated that around 500 copies were pressed. The B Side is called “Tarnished Love Affair”.

It’s been sort of my mission to revive this song. I have plans to interview Lee and find more info about his career, so there will be a part 2 of this blog at a later date. I will also try to post the B side.

And no, this copy is not for sale!

If you have any more info please add…Gerard mentioned that he used to drive by the Mustache Lounge bar in Dearborn and thought that the label was related to this. And I think I remember Van telling me about this but I’m not sure.

I’m going back to Ypsilanti, back to Ypsilanti, that’s where I come from!

listen:

A non-music post here, but I had to inform the world of my latest excitement.

I woke up early on Saturday and despite the below O temperature, decided to take my dogs for a run.  I usually try to go at least 2-3 times a week, even in the winter.  While I was running through a snow covered field near our house I suddenly had the stongest urge in the world to be pulled by my dogs on skis or a sled while I ran with them.  My dogs, Sally (70 lb hound) and Zoe (50 lp terrier mutt), love to pull and love to run.

When I got home I throught more and more about this and decided that my life had new meaning with the possibility of being able to do this incredibly fun new sport with my dogs.  I thought about what would be the most practical way of going about it.  I’ve never been cross country skiing so I had to do a little research about what’s out there for this sort of thing.

I found out the sport is called skijoring, and I would just need some sort of a ski to do this, as I already have harnesses and a cord to connect my two dogs on one leash.  I wanted to get something short and wide for control like a snow shoe, but still be able to be to actually ski and climb hills.  I settled on the Karhu Meta ski, which is an all terrain ski-snowshoe hybrid that doesn’t require a special shoe.

The next day I took the dogs out to a trail and brought a plastic sled and they could pull it with ease!  I sort of surfed but then just sat down and it worked great.  It was incredibly fun - they already knew my commands from running with me so much.  The school district was closed (no work for me!) Monday and Tuesday and we went out both days and just had a blast.  My skis should be coming via UPS sometime next week, so I’ll let you know how it goes.

Also check this video out on Alaskan Skijoring: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsvdAwPeJxg

Joe Hunter, the very first musician hired by Berry Gordy to back up some of Motown’s finest singers on piano, passed away at his Detroit apartment Friday at age 79.  An article in the Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070203/ENT01/702030388

Standing In The Shadows Of Motown is a documentary about the Funk Brothers, the backing band for groups like the Miracles and the Temptations.  Often overlooked in their importance in music history, this movie does a great job shedding light on their accomplishments and gives an inside look at the Motown scene in the early to mid 60s. http://www.standingintheshadowsofmotown.com/index.htm 

Detroit News review of “Shadows”: http://www.detnews.com/2002/entertainment/0211/14/d01-8908.htm

I’m going to pay a tribute to Mr. Hunter today by digging up all the Motown records that I can that he contributed to and giving them a closer listening to. 

Respect and condolences goes out to Joe’s family and friends.

*More pictures of the Joe and other Funk Brothers members from the Detroit News: http://forums.detnews.com/pix/photogalleries/newsgallery/2002_funk/index.htm

Get ready on March 7th -10th for the annual Metro Times Blowout Festival.  The Muggs (playing above) will be there, along with all your other local favorites.  It might even be worth a trip to Michigan for you out-of-towners.  Check the schedule here: http://metrotimes.com/blowout/schedule.asp?day=Thursday