Tracks Harvey's Lens Last Known Address Arbor Oaks Park Eric Farrell's Derby Party North Star Lounge Veteran's Park Ice Arena

Artist's Introduction: 

Located about 18 miles south of where I grew up, Ann Arbor was the cool older sibling to my hometown. Just a short drive down US-23 there were used book and record shops, vintage boutiques, comic sellers, coffee houses, punks, students, hippies, and other college town fixtures less common in the suburbs. During summer festivals you could see scruffy Andean folk bands busking on street corners and Hare Krishnas drumming in the Diag. Brighton had its merits, of course, and my childhood there was near-idyllic, but my young mind really opened up whenever I got to come to Ann Arbor. 

In the late-'80s, my mom drove my brother and me into the city to take guitar lessons from Michael Lutz at Al Nalli Music. Mike was an affable guy with shaggy hard rock hair who correctly deduced that we didn't care about notation and just wanted to learn how to play songs by ear. His band, Brownsville Station, had a hit in the mid-'70s with "Smokin' in the Boys Room," and to us he was a legitimate guitar god. Being too young to get into clubs, I watched in-store acoustic shows at Schoolkids' Records by touring bands like Camper Van Beethoven and Chickasaw Mudd Puppies. When I was a little older I started volunteering at the Ark and eventually got a job as a clerk at Schoolkids'. I never attended the University. I always gravitated toward the townie side and still do. Every job I've held since the age of 18 has been in Ann Arbor and I've built my music career amid its various overlapping scenes. 

Last Known Address is a collection of six short songs related to my life in Ann Arbor. I'll be the first to admit it's a thematically disparate lot, but sometimes memories are like that. You shake your head and unexpected things fall out. Think of it as a little ragtag bouquet of wildflowers plucked from the city's greater ecosystem. I've accompanied each one with a photo and corresponding essay. The songs themselves are intentionally brief; fleeting musical snapshots from a relationship still in progress. The photos offer visual context and the essays add color. My partner throughout the arranging and recording of this project was singer and multi-instrumentalist Carol Catherine, an Ann Arbor native with a long history in the arts. Every June you can find her in Nichols Arboretum, co-directing Shakespeare in the Arb.

Song Essays, lyrics, and photos:

HARVEY'S LENS

"Diag 1994" - © 1994 Harvey Drouillard

LYRICS:
Nudes in the Diag
Nudes on State
Move through the Art Fair
Harvey's lens is an x-ray

Although I grew up in Brighton, Ann Arbor was where the interesting things happened. In the mid-'90s I was a teenager, driving into the city to play acoustic gigs at local coffee houses and shop at record stores like WhereHouse, Wazoo, and Schoolkids'. Ann Arbor also had its share of eccentric gift shops like Middle Earth and Peaceable Kingdom, which sold interesting curated objects that ranged from punk t-shirts and imported folk art to plastic toy bulldog guns that squeaked when you pulled the trigger. These shops also stocked postcards of every stripe. 

In 1994 I remember noticing a series of black and white postcards depicting local events like the Art Fair and Hash Bash. The curious thing about them was that they contained both nude and fully-clothed people in casual interaction, as if it were an everyday occurrence. Even then I recognized how artfully done they were. All I knew was that they were taken by a photographer known mononymously as Harvey.

Harvey Drouillard now lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, and still specializes in guerilla-style nude photo shoots. His models disrobe for less than a minute, mingling with the local flora and fauna while he quickly captures the scene. Usually before anyone is the wiser the models are already clad and moving on. Over the years he has staged nude shoots in dozens of North American cities, but the tradition was born in his hometown of Ann Arbor. 

LAST KNOWN ADDRESS

"Liberty Station" - © 2024 Timothy Monger

LYRICS:
Post office box 8036
Last known address,
Liberty Station
While he lived,
His ghost in town sublet

The downtown post office was moved to the federal building at 200 E. Liberty in 1977, the year I was born. In 1999, my band, the Original Brothers and Sisters of Love, was about to release our first album and required a common mailing address for legal purposes. My brother Jamie and I shared a house on West Ann, but our rented duplex was hardly permanent. So, using money earned from our monthly gig at Arbor Brewing Company, we rented a mailbox in the lobby of Liberty Station. Over the next couple decades it became the de facto mailing address for my various bands, record labels, and other ventures, providing me a consistent presence in town long after I'd moved away. Because of its location, I've always thought of it as ground zero, the dead center from which the rest of Ann Arbor radiates. Wherever my corporeal self roams, my ghost in town keeps residence at Liberty Station. It is my proxy, my last known address. 

Write to me at:
Timothy Monger
P.O. Box 8036
Ann Arbor, MI 48107

ARBOR OAKS PARK

"Arbor Oaks Park" - © 2024 Timothy Monger 

LYRICS:
Been having a hard time, too much on my mind
Got to get on my feet, get lost, just to get by
Hop across Stone School onto Champagne Drive
I found hope at Arbor Oaks Park

I learned to meditate at a picnic table
And a kid was shooting baskets
As the solar eclipse passed
And I wanted to share the moment
So I gave him my dark glasses

In the summer of 2017 I adopted Arbor Oaks Park as my personal refuge. My office building was maybe a half mile away on Varsity Drive and I'd taken to wandering around the suburban fringes of Pittsfield Township during my lunch breaks. It was a melancholy time, and I felt rather lost. One day my explorations carried me across Stone School Road and into a neighborhood I'd never been to. A few blocks in I discovered a quiet little park next to Bryant Elementary where for the rest of that summer I took up residency. To combat my anxiety, I'd begun experimenting with meditation via one of the guided apps that had recently become popular. Several lunchtimes per week, I could be found, eyes closed, focusing on my breath at a picnic table near the park's west entrance. On the afternoon of August 21, I walked over there to watch a total solar eclipse make its way across America. I was alone except for a young guy shooting baskets at one of the nearby courts. As the earth's shadow passed over the sun, he kept on playing through the darkness until I walked over and insisted he wear my eclipse glasses and look up to witness this astronomical wonder. 

ERIC FARRELL'S DERBY PARTY

"Eric Farrell" - © 2008 Timothy Monger

 LYRICS:
Detroit Street, Derby Day
Midwestern fancy
Women in hats
Heels, no flats
Julep drunk in May

Up the stairs at Eric's house
Reckless joy just spilling out
On Derby Saturday

I first met Eric Farrell sometime in the mid-2000s. He was then employed by Zingerman's Mail Order and lived on Detroit Street, just north of the Deli and directly across from the fusty old antique shop Treasure Mart. Every year on the first Saturday in May he hosted a Kentucky Derby party. Formal wear was highly encouraged; women sought out elaborate hats, men were suited, it became a sort of raucous thrift store gala. Good food was always in abundance and Eric premixed a massive punch bowl of bourbon and simple syrup for a make-your-own-julep station with heaps of crushed ice, a bouquet of mint sprigs, and a few silver julep cups reserved for honored guests. 

Gambling was also encouraged, making the actual race-viewing, crammed into his tiny living room, a high-stakes affair. They were decadent and joyous daytime bangers that stretched into night. In 2011 Eric opened the Bar at 327 Braun Court, a beloved Kerrytown space which matured into one of Ann Arbor's legendary in-the-know hangs. The Derby parties eventually faded out and in the spring of 2024, the bar too closed its doors. Like his parties, Eric's bar was a cult classic, something not meant for the mainstream, but cherished and protected by those who found it. 

NORTH STAR LOUNGE

"North Star Lounge" - © 2024 Timothy Monger

LYRICS:
Late November
Cold drives the crowds
Home from market day in Kerrytown
Sun down, moon out
Friends constellate at the North Star Lounge

Phillis Engelbert opened the North Star Lounge in Kerrytown in 2022 as an extension of Detroit Street Filling Station, her popular vegan restaurant. Tucked into a historic two-story brick house on the corner of Catherine and Fifth, it immediately became a bustling micro-venue with a cozy upstairs listening room that could bear 35 patrons if they tucked in their elbows. It was billed as Michigan's first all-vegan bar, but the intimate performance space was the real draw. Carol Catherine and I first played there as a duo in November 2023, and to promote our show I wrote us a short 30-second jingle. We posted a video of us singing it online and then opened our show with it. I assumed it would be a single-use relic meant only for this gig, but a few weeks later I spontaneously wrote several more tiny Ann Arbor songs which became the genesis of this project. 

VETERANS PARK ICE ARENA

"Ice Skating at Vets Park, 1971" - © 1971 The Ann Arbor News

LYRICS:
Snow drifts, mid-July
A pale omen
Car seats on fire
Burning a hole down Huron

Vets Park has smooth ice
They've brought its skin outside

When I was in my early-20s and living on Ann Street, I remember driving up Huron past Veterans Memorial Park and noticing what looked like a pile of snow out front. It was either late spring or early summer. At the time I wrote it off as the stubborn remnants of a large snow plow berm, the kind that are ubiquitous in Michigan parking lots even well into the spring. It didn't make sense, though, and it unnerved me. Also, I saw it more than once. Years later I casually mentioned this phenomenon to someone and they offered me a great revelation. The building outside which this anomaly appeared was an ice rink, and the snowpile was in fact shavings from the ice resurfacer. I was never able to confirm this, but the idea of the Zamboni operator dumping his leftovers to melt outside seemed logical enough. Still, this strange Ann Arbor memory has stayed with me over the years and every time I drive by Vets Park in the warmer months, I find myself looking for a flash of white.

A note on the cover:   The photo on the album cover was taken during a snowstorm on January 16, 2002. It was my last year living on Ann Street and I wanted to document the neighborhood somehow. I climbed to the top of the nearby parking structure and snapped a handful of aerial shots on my cheap 35mm camera. This one looks out west toward Ashley Street with West Park in the distance behind it. In the foreground is my old house, 216 West Ann, partially obscured by a large pine tree. My brother and I lived in that house for five years and wrote most of the songs from our first three albums there. Originally built in the late-1800s, the house was recently demolished and rebuilt from the foundation.

Artist Biography:

Timothy Monger is a musician and writer living in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He has released four solo albums ranging in style from lush baroque pop to pastoral folk and harmony-driven indie rock. In addition to his work as solo singer/songwriter, he is the bandleader of Timothy Monger State Park, co-founder of folk-rock cult heroes Great Lakes Myth Society, and curator of the experimental multimedia project Log Variations. He is also a blogger, music writer, and longtime contributor to the AllMusic database. Monger's latest project is Last Known Address, a collection of short songs and essays commissioned by the Ann Arbor District Library.

Credits:

Recorded February - August 2024 in Ypsilanti, MI
Engineered by Timothy Monger and Elly Daftuar
Mixed by Rishi Daftuar
Mastered by Jim Kissling

Timothy Monger - vocals, guitars, bass, synths, chord organ, bongos, stylophone, drum programming
Carol Catherine - vocals, violin, windchimes, vibraslap, triangle, shaker, maracas, floor tom, tambourine
Elly Daftuar - additional harmonies
Chad Thompson - wurlitzer electric piano, drum set 

All songs written by Timothy Monger © 2024
Happy Maps Publishing Co. (BMI)

Commissioned by the Ann Arbor District Library for Ann Arbor 200

Released by Northern Detective in conjunction with the Ann Arbor District Library
Northern Detective - Case # ND-006
Ann Arbor 200 - #159