Jake Rye lost his home and entire recording studio, Social Recording Company, in that same fire. He’s been vital to the Michigan music scene by crafting the sound of notable acts, including Michigander, Brother Elsey, Pretoria, and The Hacky Turtles.
If you’re unable to attend the show, you can donate via a GoFundMe campaign to help offset Rye’s loss and raise money for the other residents affected by the fire. Half of all donations will be split up and distributed to each apartment leaseholder.
Lee Vanderkolk, Tyler Mazurek, and Harry Dean perform at Butcher Block Social in 2024. Courtesy photo
Harry Dean understands the impulsive urge to hit the road.
The Grand Rapids, Michigan singer-songwriter explores the desire for wanderlust and adventure on “Feel Alive,” the title track from his debut EP with The Dusty Boys.
“There were these two open mic-ers I had gotten to know in town, and they really did that,” said Dean, the vocalist-guitarist for the country-rock trio, which includes lead guitarist Lee Vanderkolk and drummer Tyler Mazurek.
“They packed up everything and sold a bunch of their stuff, and they hit the road for four or five months. They went and did some busking, played open mics, and tried to pick up gigs. I thought, ‘If I were in that situation, I’d be so scared.’”
Dean channels that fear and courage alongside hopeful acoustic guitar and wistful electric guitar on “Feel Alive.” He sings, “The road’s callin’ and / We’re running steady / Dressed in all black / Jumpin’ in the back / Of that ’84 ole rusted Jimmy / Headed out west / Land we know the best.”
“I have never ditched everything and hit the road. I’ve been with my wife for 12 years now and I’ve lived in Michigan for my whole life,” Dean said.
“It gave me a sense when I put myself there, too, that it would be such a ‘Feel Alive’ moment. I pull things from my life and how I would feel in other people’s lives.”
“Feel Alive” also serves as the energetic opener from Harry Dean and The Dusty Boys’ EP, which features storied lyrics, fiery electric guitar, and driving country-rock instrumentation.
Claudia Hoyser features empathetic lyrics and earnest instrumentation on “Girl in Blue.” Photo – Justin Hammond
Claudia Hoyser wants people to feel seen and heard after a breakup.
The country singer-songwriter shares that sentiment while processing heartbreak on her single, “Girl in Blue.”
“There are so many people out there that are doing that every day and putting on a strong face for everyone else,” said Hoyser, who’s from Rochester, New York. “I wanted to give like a ‘Hey, hello, I see you’ to people that are feeling that way.”
Hoyser gives that sonic nod to listeners through empathetic lyrics and earnest instrumentation. Backed by atmospheric electric guitar and hopeful acoustic guitar, she sings, “Looks like a real good time / Laughing over her glass of white wine / Crazy how nobody can tell that she’s dying inside.”
“It’s saying, ‘Oh my god, I can’t even face people right now. I’m so heartbroken, I don’t want to go. I don’t want to get out there,’” Hoyser said. “But you have to put on your strong face and prove to yourself and everybody else that you can still keep going, even though what you actually feel is completely broken and alone.”
To learn more, I spoke with Hoyser about her music and background ahead of a March 14 show at Black Crystal Café in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Lilly MacPhee closes a difficult chapter and finds catharsis on “This Too Shall Pass.” Photo courtesy of the artist.
Lilly MacPhee knows moments of heartbreak and disappointment are fleeting.
The Detroit singer-songwriter acknowledges those emotions and their ephemeral impact on her latest indie-folk single, “This Too Shall Pass.”
“It was the first song I had written when I moved back from Nashville, and it was an accumulation of everything I had been through over the years. When I was living in Nashville, my best friend Jackie [Pappas] and I would talk on the phone several times a day,” said MacPhee, who briefly relocated to Nashville in 2023.
“I would vent to her, or she would vent to me about something. But when I would vent to her, she would always say, ‘Lilly, this too shall pass,’ and it [stayed] with me. And then I thought, ‘That sounds like a song. Thank you, Jackie.’”
On “This Too Shall Pass,” MacPhee closes that difficult chapter and finds catharsis in family and friends. Comforted by serene acoustic guitar, she sings, “I kissed lips that spoke lies / Met grief eye to eye / Cried to the ones who cared / When silence was too much to bear.”
“Songwriting itself is like therapy—it’s how I view it. You get everything out and it makes you feel better. A song like that is bittersweet,” she said.
“You hope people don’t relate to it, but you’re OK if they do because it’s a comforting feeling for them to know that they’re not the only ones experiencing heartbreak, grief, or whatever else they might be going through in life.”
The Painted Friends frontman embraced his fragility and uncovered hidden truths while penning tracks for the Detroit duo’s latest indie-rock album.
“Without getting too deep into my personal life, I took time to think honestly about the decisions I have made in the last eight months or so while putting the album together. I thought about how deep I got into some struggles and what I needed to do to get out,” said McWhorter, the band’s vocalist-guitarist-bassist about The Devil in the Deep State.
“I started to become more aware of when the natural vulnerability I have from just being a human is leading me somewhere I don’t actually want to go. The key is understanding how to use vulnerability for good instead of evil.”
Alongside drummer Mitch Crosby, McWhorter explores that emotional and spiritual journey and its ramifications through perceptive lyrics and cathartic instrumentation.
“The personal struggles I have in life have always been a big part of what I write about. It helps me process it all. In doing this, I am learning how similar we all are in regard to having personal struggles,” he said.
“I listen to music I can relate to because it sometimes can be that extra push I need to keep going. If I can be that extra push for others, I don’t think there is anything better than that.”
To learn more, I spoke with McWhorter about the thematic and sonic elements behind The Devil in the Deep State.
The folk-jazz singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist felt inspired to create one after seeing a revue with daughter Grace Hazlett at Meadow Brook Theatre in Rochester, Michigan.
“She was working at the theatre and would get us free tickets sometimes, and we went to a revue of ‘30s and ‘40s songs. There’s no dialogue, no plot—they’re just doing these songs—and I just had a great time,” said Hazlett, who’s from Waterford.
“I was thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun as a songwriter to try and write a revue of songs like this in that style?’ And that’s an oxymoron because it wouldn’t be a revue, but that idea was kicking around in my head.”
What resulted is Calling Winston, an original musical Hazlett co-wrote with Grace Hazlett, a theater professional. It revolves around Winston Coleman, a fictional Tin Pan Alley songwriter and jazz musician who spent most of his career trying to get his songs featured in Hollywood musicals.
At age 85, Coleman reflects on his life and career while spending time with J.P., his great-nephew. During their visits, J.P. learns about Coleman’s past and the nation’s history through several references to famous Hollywood musicals.
While Calling Winston takes place in 1990, the musical’s 20 songs span nearly three decades—from 1929 to 1956—with the final song being Coleman’s latest creation.
“I needed to come up with someone who wrote the songs because it couldn’t be me,” Hazlett said. “I had to come up with a fictional songwriter, and I came up with this guy, Winston Coleman, and started filling in his details.”
The show will feature Hazlett performing the musical’s songs in a concert format with narrator/singer-songwriter Marty Kohn and singer-songwriter Amy Petty.
“Grace is gonna come up here [from Cincinnati], and [she’s] gonna do some costumes and dress us,” Hazlett said. “I’m playing all the instruments and doing the male vocals, and Amy is doing the female vocals. We’re going to have a [visual presentation] by Wolf Tytschkowski and Margaret Hazlett to show credits, photos, and movie posters. It’s going to enhance the experience.”
To learn more, I spoke with Hazlett about Calling Winston ahead of the show.
From left: Randy Favot, George Jr., Anton Filyayev, Andrew Benjamin, and Danny VanZandt. Photo – Spencer Isberg
For Danny VanZandt, distinctive smells, tastes, and sounds trigger vivid memories.
The Detroit singer-songwriter explores those sensory experiences and the powerful recollections associated with them on his new album, Proust in the Kitchen With the Wooden Spoon!.
“It’s that concept of the Proustian memory that’s in one of his books where the character eats a cookie and has a flashback to a memory,” said VanZandt about his indie-rock release. “That—I think—is such a real thing and such a weird phenomenon that happens.”
As part of that phenomenon, he reflects on a gamut of emotions, ranging from gratitude to longing to anticipation, that arises when cooking and eating his late mother’s spaghetti and listening to music with friends.
“For me, my mom passing [away] was when I started thinking about that kind of stuff,” said VanZandt, who lost his mother in 2020.
“When she first passed away, the emotions wouldn’t come up on their own when just dealing with that, but then it would get reflected through a movie or a song. Then, I could process it and see the totality of it and that’s the way that I would deal with it.”
VanZandt processes everything through 11 emotive tracks on Proust in the Kitchen With the Wooden Spoon!. His sentimental lyrics and evocative instrumentation transport listeners to a special time, place, or feeling.
Each track feels like a magical short story soundtracked with elements of Americana, folk, rock ‘n’ roll, and alt-country.
“I remember listening to Spotify on shuffle and ‘Freak Scene’ by Dinosaur Jr. came on, and I had forgotten that song existed. I also had forgotten that Bug as an album existed and it reminded me of a CD a friend had burned for me in high school,” he said.
“It was such a faraway memory that I had not thought of in years, and I could see the color of the CD. When that stuff happens, that’s so crazy to me and so is the idea of how music can be a vessel that holds memories.”
I recently spoke with VanZandt about the album and the inspiration behind it.
From left: Isaac Berkowitz, Chris Bota, George Falk, John Nowak, and Taylor Watson of Desmond Jones.
Ten years ago, Isaac Berkowitz and George Falk developed a fascination with squids.
The Desmond Jones bandmates sought inspiration from the mollusks after Berkowitz watched a documentary on them.
“When we lived in East Lansing, Isaac watched a six-hour-long Nova special on squids and called me to start writing something on that subject,” said Falk, who performs with Berkowitz in the Grand Rapids, Michigan jam band.
“We started with the title, mashed District 9 together with The Abyss, mixed in all the PBS [shows] that I watched as a child, and started writing guitar parts.”
Not long after that, Falk (saxophone, vocals) and Berkowitz (guitar, drums, vocals) penned several squid-themed songs with Desmond Jones’ Christ Bota (guitar, vocals). The trio then shared the songs with bassist Taylor Watson and drummer-vocalist-guitarist John Nowak.
“Once we started writing and playing the first song, we started adding to it pretty quickly,” Falk said. “We have a strong tendency to link our songs together anyhow … and we enjoy the idea of a concept album—the sillier, the better.”
What resulted is a fun, quirky concept album called Squids, which features a sci-fi storyline about alien squids wanting to leave Earth and return home to space.
The otherworldly creatures spend eons living in the oceans and question their purpose while adapting to life on Earth. Over time, the alien squids become weary of terrestrial life and prefer a more peaceful existence in the stars.
“Seeing super-sophisticated behavior out of something that bears so little resemblance to ourselves is fun to think about, especially with some of the bigger octopus species,” Falk said. “They’re up there with the most intelligent species on the planet, but their bodies and lives are very strange to our eyes.”
The album’s five tracks explore the alien squids’ journey through storied lyrics and spirited instrumentation. Infectious elements of prog rock, experimental pop, ambient music, and jazz sonically shift listeners from one track to the next.
To learn more, I spoke with Falk and Nowak about Squids ahead of a February 7 show at The Blind Pig in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The Ypsilanti, Michigan indie-rocker embraces that mindset while exploring the need for connection and community on their debut album.
“That has been the journey of my life because I’ve always been a very independent person and a person who’s not good at asking for help,” said Mer Rey, who performs as Premium Rat, about Stranded on Land.
“This album tells the story of me learning that lesson—that no person is an island—and I can’t do it all myself.”
Premium Rat follows that story arc throughout Stranded on Land’s 12 tracks, which were curated against a backdrop of multi-genre sounds.
“The idea of Stranded on Land is starting the album feeling very disconnected from the world and people around me, feeling like I didn’t understand or belong in the world, and feeling very isolated and alone with that feeling,” said Rey, who features elements of pop punk, indie rock, dance-pop, indie folk, and Broadway music on the album.
“As the album goes on, it tells the story of me finding community, finding other people who also felt that way, and realizing, ‘Oh, I’m stranded on land, but so are a bunch of other people, and we’re actually stranded together.’ And that is how we [find] our way out and claim our freedom—by doing that together.”
The Metro Detroit singer-songwriter follows his instincts and keeps the detractors at bay on “Don’t Let Them In.”
“For me, last year was so nuts with the election and everything. It’s easy to get swept up in all of that. In some ways, it connects back to us,” said Trager about his latest indie-folk single.
“I was thinking about the single and the meaning behind it and staying true to your own beliefs and behaviors. It’s easy to get swept up in the media, and we have so much access to things. You can lose yourself and lose the things that matter to you.”
In response, Trager pledges to keep himself grounded and focused on “Don’t Let Them In.”
Backed by earnest acoustic guitar, cello, and Mellotron, he sings, “They will give you a thousand reasons / And you’ll be tempted to believe them / But all their conviction is just a fiction / Oh please, don’t let them in.”
“I had had enough distance from the song that I needed to hear the message,” said Trager, who recorded the single in 2021. “It’s not letting anything stop you from doing whatever you want to do.”
To learn more, I spoke with Trager ahead of a February 8 show at Trixie’s Bar in Hamtramck, Michigan.
The Stratton Setlist 