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#6 Ann Arbor Stories: Ghost in the Attic
For a town as old as Ann Arbor, it has surprisingly few ghost stories. But in the late 1950s, the congregation of the First Methodist Church in Ann Arbor was pretty convinced they had a spirit on their hands. Caretakers sometimes heard footsteps late at night, but never spotted anyone in the church. Until the early morning hours of August 30, 1959, when they made a chilling discovery.
Music by People Get Ready
Further reading from AADL's Old News:
Initial Story
Bill of Health
Lim Gets Aid
Going Back to School
Graduating Saturday
Hit by Car
10-year retrospective
Retrospective after Cheng's Death
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#5 Ann Arbor Stories: Ann Arbor's Oldest Gay Bar
It started on April 30, 1949, when Cupid Bar rebranded itself as The Flame Bar, turning a popular downtown student watering hole into a slightly more popular downtown student watering hole. Almost 50 years later, The Flame would close, shuttering an Ann Arbor institution. It wasn’t Ann Arbor’s first gay bar, and certainly not its last, but The Flame played a major role in the lives of many among Ann Arbor’s LGBT community - for good and ill.
Music by Lightning Love
Further reading from AADL's Old News:
The Flame bar review
Death of Harvey Blanchard
The Flame Bought
The Flame Reopens on Liberty
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#4 Ann Arbor Stories: The Birth of Iggy Pop
Muskegon claims him because he was born there. Ypsi claims him because, for most of his childhood, he lived in a trailer park on the outskirts of town. But it’s Ann Arbor - along with cocaine, meth, acid, booze, pills, AND ambition - that deserve the credit for turning James Newell Osterberg into Iggy Pop.
Music by FAWNN
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Nerd Nite #32 - Music and The Microphone
The invention of the microphone dramatically changed popular music, and allowed for the development of a more personal, intimate and emotional style of singing. We’ll look at, and listen to, this development.
About Andy Ross: Andy is a web and graphic designer, and a widely exhibited artist here in Ann Arbor. He’s also a dedicated amateur musician and singer, and he has taught courses in popular culture and its impact. Find more about him at andyrossdesign.com or follow him on Twitter @andyrossdesign.
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Martin Bandyke Under Covers: Martin interviews Peter Guralnick, author of Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll
Peter Guralnick, author of the critically acclaimed Elvis Presley biography Last Train to Memphis, brings us the life of Sam Phillips, the visionary genius who singlehandedly steered the revolutionary path of Sun Records.
The music that Sam Phillips shaped in his tiny Memphis studio with artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, Ike Turner, Howlin, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash, introduced a sound that had never been heard before. He brought forth a singular mix of black and white voices passionately proclaiming the vitality of the American vernacular tradition while at the same time declaring, once and for all, a new, integrated musical day. With extensive interviews and firsthand personal observations extending over a 25-year period with Phillips, along with wide-ranging interviews with nearly all the legendary Sun Records artists, Guralnick gives us an ardent, unrestrained portrait of an American original as compelling in his own right as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, or Thomas Edison.
The interview with Peter Guralnick was originally recorded on December 10, 2015.
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AAFF Expanding Frames-Making Movie Music
Ever wonder what goes into creating a film score? Participants in this hands-on workshop will work with local musician/electronica artist Jared Van Eck to explore the musical elements and cues that go into composing a film score. We will be making multitrack recordings using AADL’s music tools. No experience with music and recording necessary, but it could help. By the end, you will have co-produced a short score!
Jared Van Eck has been making music since childhood, focusing mostly on electronic music for the last 15 years. He was recognized by Current Magazine's Reader's Choice Awards as the local DJ/Electronica Artist of the year in 2014.
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Kids Read Comics 2015: The Shake Ups in Ponyville Concert
Put your magical horns and wings on for the greatest pony-themed power pop band in all of Equestria!
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Martin Bandyke Under Covers: Martin interviews Tony Barrell, author of Born to Drum: The Truth About the World’s Greatest Drummers
From John Bonham and Keith Moon to Sheila E. and Dave Grohl, the pulse of rock’n’roll—the drummer—finally gets its due in this unique, all-encompassing inside look at the history, artists, instruments, and culture of drumming. Playing a drum kit is hard, sweaty, demanding work. Yet instead of being showered with respect, drummers are often viewed with derision—stereotyped as crazy, borderline psychotic, or just plain dumb. But as every musician knows, to have a great band you need a great drummer: Ginger Baker. John Bonham. Chad Smith. Stewart Copeland. Mitch Mitchell, Bill Bruford. British journalist Tony Barrell shines a long overdue spotlight on these musicians, offering an exciting look into their world, their art, and their personalities. In Born to Drum, Barrell explores the extraordinary history of the world’s most primitive instrument and the musicians who have made it legend. He interviews some of the most famous and revered and well-known drummers of our time—including Chad Smith, Ginger Baker, Clem Burke, Sheila E, Phil Collins, Nick Mason, Butch Vig, and Omar Hakim—who share astonishing truths about their work and lives. He investigates the stories of late, great drummers such as Keith Moon and John Bonham, analyzes many of the greatest drum tracks ever recorded, and introduces us to the world’s fastest drummer, the world’s loudest drummer, and the first musician to pilot a “flying drum kit” on stage.
The interview with Tony Barrell was originally recorded on August 11, 2015.
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Martin Bandyke Under Covers: Martin interviews David Stubbs, author of Future Days: Krautrock and the Birth of a Revolutionary New Music
West Germany after World War II was a country in shock: estranged from its recent history, and adrift from the rest of Europe. But this orphaned landscape proved fertile ground for a generation of musicians who, from the 1960s onwards, would develop the strange and beautiful sounds that became known as Krautrock.
Eschewing the easy pleasures of rock and roll and the more substantive seductions of blues and jazz, they took their inspiration from elsewhere: the mysticism of the East; the fractured classicism of Stockhausen; the grinding repetition of industry; the dense forests of the Rhineland; the endless winding of Autobahns.
Kraftwerk, Neu!, Faust, Cluster, Ash Ra Tempel, Amon Düül II, Can—the influence of these groups’ music on Western popular music is incalculable. They were key to the development of movements ranging from post-punk to electronica and hip-hop and have directly inspired artists as diverse as David Bowie, Talking Heads, and LCD Soundsystem.
Future Days is the brilliantly reported, deeply researched story of the groups that created Krautrock, and a social and cultural history of the Germany that challenged, inspired, and repelled them.
David Stubbs is an author and music journalist whose work has appeared in the The Times (London), The Sunday Times, Spin, The Guardian and GQ, and his books include Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko but Don’t Get Stockhausen.
The interview with David Stubbs was originally recorded on October 8, 2015.
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Poets & Patriots: A Tuneful History of the United States Through The Tale of Francis Scott Key’s Most Famous Song
The story of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is the story of the United States itself. The melody was famously set to new words by amateur poet and lawyer Francis Scott Key after the Battle of Baltimore in 1814.
Since the “dawn’s early light” on that now emblematic day, the song has grown and changed in ways largely forgotten today. This lecture and discussion by U-M Associate Professor of Musicology and American Culture Mark Clague explores the history of the American national anthem as a witness to the story of the nation itself.
Mark Clague is a native of Ann Arbor and longtime fan of the Ann Arbor District Library. He serves as Associate Professor of Musicology and American Culture at the University of Michigan and is editor-in-chief of the George and Ira Gershwin Critical Edition and director of the University’s Gershwin Initiative.